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Reviews
The Wrong Man (1993)
Mini-masterpiece
Stand by for a remarkable movie, film noirish in its way, especially because John Lithgow's acting is uniformly superb. By way of counterpoint, Rosanna Arquette, his ditsy partner or traveling companion with benefits, it doesn't matter which, throws herself around with such abandon in the hot Mexican locations that Lithgow and she make a delightful study in opposites. Lithgow is a small time crook trying to make dollars without attracting too much attention as the pair motor around. The necessary conflict soon emerges after the pair take on board a much younger American male (played by Kevin Anderson) who's on the lam because he's wanted for questioning in a murder case. The bubbly Rosanna character having become somewhat tired of her older lover, it's not long before she's rocking the springs with the new man who by day is confined to the back seat of the car. Arquette has never been shy about disporting herself, and here her bed-worthy bazongers are frequently on the bounce. Black comedy turns to drama towards the end, with surprising outcomes. The Wrong Man has been the title of several movies, so it's worth quoting the lead actors' names at your local DVD shop. If you understand how and when over-acting can raise the level of professionalism, then make sure you don't miss this one.
Up Close & Personal (1996)
Sophorific and without substance or warmth
It goes on, and on, and on, the same thread repeated ad nauseum: will he (Robert Redford) get her (Michelle Pfeiffer)? Does Santa's lady still darn socks? Mr Redford seems to have run out of gas. He's the one who mentors the pretty news girl, but where's their personal situation going,up or down? Before long, this viewer didn't care--their characters weren't strong enough to build or deserve any empathy with the audience. Ms Pfeiffer, as all know,rose to prominence as a model, and it has been her stronger suite; she reached modest heights as an actress, and now in her 50s, still has a very busy movie schedule. Mr Redford plays much the same role in each of his (fewer and fewer) movies, that of the movie actor Robert Redford. This viewer went from disinterested to bored and then sleep before exiting. It's the worst response you can give any film, save burning down the cinema or local DVD outlet.
Hostage (2005)
Dreadful
I thought it would never end, so painful was the remorseless progression of violence, child abuse, threatened annihilation, squabbling between the various instruments of the law---the clichés roll on and on and on. Amid this sludge, Bruce Willis's ardent fans could not be denied his trademark scene, tomato sauce liberally spread over white singlet while the star's brow is furrowed with thought lines and the grime that goes with the job. There is only one redeeming feature in a movie playing tricks with children's emotions, but the overwhelming conclusion must be that the picture goes too far in every direction. It's time Bruce packed his bags. This is a movie that should not have been made.
The Fugitive (1993)
It doesn't come much better than this
The Fugitive (1993) 9 User reviews are instructive in their often uniform dissection of what makes this such a fine movie drama. That, and IMDb contributors' high level of excitement and firm conviction of The Fugitive as being in the top 100 movies. It all adds up to rare praise. This reviewer thoroughly agrees. Director Andrew Davis must take much of the credit, because even though by now most audiences are familiar with the basic plot, the movie loses nothing when seen again. It is intelligent. The action scenes are spectacular yet believable, the pace constant and even. Harrison Ford, he of the permanent expression of dismay, is ideal as Dr Richard Kimble, convicted of murdering his beautiful wife for the insurance money. His defense team wasn't up to much: Richard is slated for a lethal injection, but fate frees him and he winds up on the run. This is enough to draw Marshal Samuel Gerard into the equation, in the person of Tommy Lee Jones. He has a blank expression akin to "you don't say?", and we see it lots as doctor and cop try to out-think each other. The doctor must avoid capture long enough to prove his innocence. The marshal, an assertive hunter, just wants to bring his quarry in. In the process, the audience is swept away with these two, and no wonder. It's not a matter of picking sides. Both men are smart and well-intentioned. Sit back and enjoy the magic.
Australia (2008)
Give it a go!
Turns out that Baz Luhrmann's Outback extravaganza, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, which copped a lot of criticism from the critics, isn't such a bad movie after all. At a distance of several years we can see now that the public took to it mightily---though it cost $130m to make, it has grossed more than $211m. That's way better than all but a very few Australian productions. How, then, to explain why the critics and viewers are at such loggerheads? Simple: the learned reviewers expected an outback opus. What they got was a colorful, noisy, somewhat clichéd saga set in the red heart and pretty close to standard Hollywood practice. That is: entertain large numbers of people in countless cinemas. Movie-goers don't rely on critics' exalted examinations, they go by word of mouth. I won't go into a detailed appraisal of the film's strengths and weaknesses, already described by numerous other contributors. Rather I essay the following. First, Luhrmann should never have entitled it Australia. Aussies (I'm one) are so sensitive about their local feature film industry which is still small and, judged on results, often still fledgling. Local audiences know this, even if they don't say it to one another. But to title a production Australia raises too many expectations. Add a huge budget by local standards, a filmmaker of Baz's stature, and a fair list of stars who can act and actors who are stars, and the average Australian is already on the edge of his seat. Australia should have had a working title of Lady Ashley Refines the Outback, or The Drover Piddles on the Cattle King, or somesuch. That would have pre-empted any criticism of historical inaccuracy, including the minor matter of the Japanese Army marching into Darwin in 1942. You know when the pedants have escaped from their asylum when Germaine Greer writes a lengthy critique in The Guardian (London) based on living conditions of Aborigines in central Australia 70 years ago. Is Ms Greer's critique minutely researched? Yes. Faintly relevant or interesting? Certainly not. Germaine: this isn't a TV documentary, much less a post-graduate text book. It's a feature film. I thought the Kidman character, Lady Ashley, too tidily turned out for the Outback dust and insects. She is tall and thin, so the lens over-compensated with more than enough peeps at her trousered and well-shaped derriere. Jackman as Drover, ever happy to get his shirt off for the female audience, was too gym-muscle perfect in the pecs to be wholly suited to his role as Drove. Beyond the black stump they have more scars and less muscle definition, trust me. Australia is amusing, never lags, and has been put together by real movie makers.
La fille coupée en deux (2007)
Juvenile in every way
The plot is plain dumb, and we are dealing, in the main, with characters who are living their private fantasies of what they perceive modern, sophisticated French urban lifestyle is all about. There is always a glass of something close to hand, much of the "action" takes place at meal tables, and too much discourse centers on who bonked whom and how long ago. Female lead Ludivine Sagnier, playing a vivacious TV weather girl,can't make up her mind whether she's in love with a very self-important author older than her mother, or disgusted by him. Simultaneously she's dealing half-heartedly with the close attentions of a very wealthy and very smitten young man whose immaturity and emotional imbalance grated on this viewer. How will it all turn out?With characters like these, does anybody care?
Firefox (1982)
Spoiled by inadequate effects
Firefox strains credibility---or does it? Tim Dare, Sydney, Australia
The storyline has elements of truth in the ultra-expensive Cold War struggle for air supremacy, and the movie's fighter plane dogfight if nothing else raises awareness of how this developed. Thought-control missiles might have tested the bounds of fiction 30 years ago when the film was made, but voice control is now reality and many other advances have moved from the fiction folder to feasible or fact. Let's begin however by squelching those excuses for the aerial effects in the film. The Right Stuff, contemporaneous, was far more convincing in its action sequences. Firefox producer (and director, and sole star) Squint Eastwood, notoriously budget conscious, should have gone first class on effects and cut the repetitive anti-Soviet propaganda from the first half of the script. Long shots of the Firefox zooming off to the West in particular are not only unconvincing, but downright amateurish. Likewise some of the footage shot in a canyon. Military aviation buffs can live with the 1980s Hollywood concept of what the future prototype would look like (today's top planes look far lighter). The cognoscenti would never accept that a Vietnam War fighter pilot suffering debilitating flashbacks of an F-4 bomb attack that killed a small girl would be dragooned from voluntary isolation in outback Alaska to steal a Russian prototype. Nothing less than an experienced test pilot would be suitable, able to fly beyond the edge of the envelope and still pull back in time before he became a piece of hurtling scrap metal. Better still for a Soviet pilot to deliver the goods. This can happen. Long ago, the early '60s to be exact, Soviet air force chiefs were in a lather about a new American bomber, the XB-70 Valkyrie, that could fly at Mach 3---three times the speed of sound, and much faster than any interceptor. Necessity being the mother of invention, the MiG designers thought very hard, and came up with a remarkable plane that could fly faster and higher than anything in mass production in the Western arsenal at the time. Its revolutionary radar was code-named Foxfire: the West knew the interceptor as the MiG-25 Foxbat. All its secrets were revealed in 1976, after a Russian pilot, Lieutenant Viktor Belenko, defected with a brand-new example, landing in Japan. A long-range derivative, the MiG-31, was given the NATO code name Foxhound. It, too, still flies. But the American Valkyrie experimental bomber, which caused this flurry of Cold War ingenuity, was abandoned by the Kennedy Administration as too expensive. Such was the Cold War, when reality was stranger than fiction. I rate the film Firefox 4 out of 10.
Derailed (2005)
A movie that fails to convince
Beyond doubt, one of the least believable plots in a modern movie drama with a strong cast. We are asked to accept that a professionally-qualified, logical fellow (Clive Owen) will allow himself to be played for a complete fool by a tough gang of extortionists who keep returning for an extra bite of his top-quality wallet. There is nothing amiss with the acting, in particular the alluring bait dangled before Chicago rail commuter Owen's eager eyes. But the story line is simply not acceptable and it doesn't get any better when the Owen character --- last in the cinema to guess the truth --- takes matters into his own hands. This motion picture should never have been made, it's as simple as that.
Unforgiven (1992)
Flawed masterpiece
The wonder is that once again Mr Clint Eastwood has gotten away with a gratuitously violent movie that some viewers rank among the best westerns made. Why do we permit Squint to do these things to us: dish out extremes that belong in a 1950s comic book rather than in a serious film? We can accept that a good woman has diverted her man from drunken shoot-outs, theft and killings of women and children (though how or in what circumstances the latter occurred, audiences are not told). We conveniently overlook the fact that he leaves his young children, both sub-teens, to feed and look after themselves while he rides from Missouri to Wyoming for one last job. Can anybody seriously imagine those kids would survive by themselves, far from civilization, with no adult supervision? Or that the Eastwood character, Will Munny, and his sidekick in crime, Morgan Freeman as Ned, would not soon discern that their gang member, the Schofield Kid, had never racked up a reputation as a gunslinger? In Big Whiskey, where most of the action occurs, there is far more actual kicking of men when they are down than in any western I can recall. Co-star Gene Hackman is known to have lamented the violence after the movie was released. His character, Little Bill Daggett, the sheriff, was the principal offender. The last shot in the movie is Munny's shotgun blast at an injured man lying moaning on the darkened floor of the hotel. It is aimed straight at the groin, and elicits a shriek of pain. By now, the audience is well used to this kind of thing. How much longer can it go on?
Armageddon (1998)
For clodhoppers only. A complete waste of time.
The only atoning feature is a better than average performance by Bruce Willis playing, yet again, Bruce Willis. They held back on his trademark white singlet smeared with sweat, grime and tomato sauce this time round. Bruce never plays a high IQ dood, so, like the rest of the grunge blue collar group he leads, would never have made any astronaut team, but what the heck, it's only another gross Bruckheimer extravaganza, why not sit back, relax and enjoy? Because it's so phony, is why. The dialog is corny, the plot oh-so-predictable, the name players acting by numbers as if they were on remote or auto pilot. Surprised to see Ben Affleck there, he can act a bit, even if he looks the same as Matt Damon and Ken Wahl; he must have needed the money. I wonder if ordinary Americans have any idea how much this category of Hollywood slop impacts on America's reputation abroad. It leaves a dent the size of Texas, know what I mean? No other nation does it all quite so badly.
The Right Stuff (1983)
Heroes who put America on top in space race
The American transition from top dog in high-speed flight tests to second and last in manned space missions was complex, protracted, gut wrenching and heroic. This 1983 movie of that story (and how the US gained the upper hand in "outer space") is a classic. Because it's virtually two stories, interconnected, and is so complicated, it runs three hours. Although it won four Academy Awards, we might as well declare at the outset that the subject isn't popular with everybody. For each roomful of aerospace nuts (I'm one) an unknown number of citizens out there never thought much about the space race, except perhaps that it would be a good one to win. Director/writer Philip Kaufman, working from Tom Wolfe's eponymous bestseller, itself brilliantly evocative, would none the less have faced daunting decisions before shooting a foot of film. Covering the tale adequately, convincingly and entertainingly was always going to be a big ask. Yet Kaufman sails over all three hurdles. Adequately, by stripping down an enormous body of detail to its nuts and bolts, like a jet or rocket engine, and presenting the rudiments in readily digestible form. Convincingly includes giving characterization to astronauts previously regarded by the public as fearless, dedicated and supremely capable, but lacking personality. Entertainingly is much easier done when their characters have been highlighted, and the remainder attained through much witty dialog and the trail of gung ho experiences the astronauts lived through. The bridging character between the early jet and rocket plane test pilots and the original Mercury 7 astronauts is Chuck Yeager, ex-combat fighter ace, first man to break the sound barrier, and also to exceed Mach 2. To the uninitiated, the latter is about 650 yards a second at 40,000 feet. Kaufman doesn't even bother telling viewers that the Bell X1 designed for these tasks was a rocket plane, but the aerial shots should satisfy the cognoscenti and bring ordinary souls to the tip of their living room sofas. Intones an off-screen voice, in the opening seconds, "There was a demon that lived in the air," and it was an invisible barrier at the speed of sound that would make planes buffet wildly before crunching them to earth. The fatal crash was known in test pilot argot as "buying the farm" or "auguring in", euphemisms for what happened when a spin became an irreversible shortcut to the cemetery. Every production team faced with masses of data has to sift it through ever-finer sieves, and Kaufman and co. took on the difficult task of showing audiences a three-way spin. This is known to pilots and engineers as inertia coupling, when a supersonic test plane loses all purchase on the thin air around it at high altitude and simply turns into hurtling metal. That happens to Yeager, reportedly the first test pilot to experience and survive when an aircraft spins wildly on all three axes---pitch, yaw and roll. The film's special effects are tremendous. Those who have viewed actual footage of Yeager recovering aerodynamic stability close to earth after descending from on high like an autumn leaf battered in the breeze will applaud The Right Stuff. Likewise Yeager's subsequently controversial altitude record attempt in an NF-104, a special version of the Starfighter, which Lockheed's esign genius Clarence (Kelly) Johnson fitted with a tail-mounted rocket to help carry the bird 20 miles above sea level. The hydrogen peroxide thrusters at 104,000 feet weren't strong enough to point the nose down again. The one-oh-four, credited in a stall with the aerodynamics of a set of keys, fell out of the sky. Yeager eventually ejected, but was seriously injured. Interlaced with all this for most of the picture is the selection, training and some of the missions of America's first astronauts, wonderfully told. Dennis Quaid stars here as Gordon Cooper, Ed Harris as John Glenn, Fred Ward as Gus Grissom, Scott Glenn as Alan Shepard. Actor Sam Shepard (no relation to the astronaut) plays up the sometimes unconventional side of the Yeager personality to good effect, and Barbara Hershey as wife Glennis evinces an in-tune empathy. Never more so than on a wild night ride on horses, with viewers in little wonder about the prize if he, self-proclaimed half jack rabbit, can catch up to her, his attractive spouse. The other side, of course, was the possibility of early, sudden, violent death and the effect on the wives of that ever-present prospect. As Gen. Yeager said quietly to me, in an interview years ago, it was tough on them, because they never knew when their husband's remains were going to come home in a box. The astronauts and test pilots were, of course, some of America's finest: men of enormous skills, fast brains, lightning reflexes, and unfailing courage. And another quality,succinctly alluded to several times by Quaid as astronaut Cooper. "Who's the greatest pilot you ever saw? Who's the greatest pilot you ever saw? You're looking at him!"
Sex Traffic (2004)
Important message, too long in the telling
Very important story, adequately conveyed, and the acting was good enough. The content could and should have been compressed, and the final relationship is predictable. Director had a hard time convincing this viewer that the main male character, a nerd and not very bright one at that, could get the job done. Perhaps that is why the presentation takes so long, and I felt obliged to fast-forward during the slower passages in the second half in particular. The plot suffered from the heavy-handed treatment of the American company trying to rebuild war-torn infrastructure and thus, people's lives. Some of the best acting came from the character of the betrayed American wife, and the female lead was consistently good throughout. A minor problem (by no means unique to this production) was a brief London traffic scene with vehicles traveling on the right side of the road.
Bend of the River (1952)
Memorable and Remarkable
The movie holds audience attention throughout, and is more thoughtful than most large-scale full color westerns. It is well-paced, muscular, has Arthur Kennedy acting strongly as a counterbalance to James Stewart, and answers the prime question of whether a man with violent crime in his past can change for the good, and permanently. Or rather, in this instance, two men can both change... Achieving all this might seem a tall order for director Anthony Mann, but it doesn't mean he needs acting depth in a large cast in order to succeed. The thespian qualities on display are pretty much confined to Stewart and Kennedy. The other characters neither demand much ability in front of the camera nor are developed as the viewing moves on. Rock Hudson, as a professional gambler, is a case in point. It was, however, very early in his serviceable career. Julie Adams (appearing on posters as Julia), is the number one love interest, and contributes her wonderfully fresh prettiness and soft, clear voice. Lori Nelson is also engaging near the start of her career. This picture show is engaging and satisfying enough to rate well above average fare.
Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
One of the Best...
"That" bathing costume worn by the movie's only female cast member, Julie Adams, is not the only reason for the film's success, but it ranks highly. Avid film buffs will also note how cleverly it was filmed, with peekaboo sightings centered on the sexiest spots even before pretty Ms Adams takes to the water in it. CFTBL is a reminder that if the film makers are thoughtful and clever enough, a low budget need not prevent box office success or critical acclaim. That this picture has survived strongly restores faith in Hollywood to some extent. Most of the acting was at least adequate, but it is the production values that make this one of the best horror movies of them all. Southern Fan