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Reviews
Guy X (2005)
The trailer promises a comedy... well, don't be fooled.
One of the perks of renting films on DVD is that you get to see a lot of small films that have either had small big screen exposure or have been released straight to DVD. For some months now I kept seeing trailers on other rented DVDs advertising "Guy X", and the trailers looked promising. The trailer sold this quirky Indy film as a black comedy - a Beckett-like theatre of the absurd meets "Buffalo Soldiers". So, naturally, when it was finally released I snatched it off the shelf, eager to watch the charming Jason Biggs breaking off from his teen comedy comfort zone... and the first twenty minutes of the film looked promising. Assuming at this point that our hero, a corporal mistakenly shipped to a remote US Army outpost in Greenland instead of Hawaii, is actually the "Guy X" of the title, I ticked the boxes as each of the jokes shown in the trailer came rushing by one by one: jokes about eating puffin pies, about guarding an ammo dump against polar bears and penguins, and about a guy desperately trying to go AWOL in the wastes of Greenland... and then what? Suddenly the film becomes all serious and preachy. Suddenly it's a darker conspiracy theory thriller. Suddenly the guy you thought was "Guy X" is not "Guy X" - Guy X is some mutilated Vietnam vet being kept alive in a secret hospital underneath the base... Now all of a sudden our hero becomes all serious and noble and devotes the rest of the film to uncovering the truth... At least that's what I think was happening before I fell asleep. I feel cheated. The makers of this film have suckered in unsuspecting viewers to watch their incoherent, badly scripted conspiracy movie-with-a-message by promising a black comedy with Jason Biggs. So what do they do? They cram the few funny bits from this miserable bore into a trailer and hope for the best. I hope the losers who made this film will never be allowed to make another movie for as long as they live.
Man on Fire (2004)
A revenge tragedy for modern time - breathtaking
Wow! Wow, wow, wow, WOW! When a good director, honing his skills in a particular genre over many years, suddenly brings it all together in one film the result is almost always breathtaking. Tony Scott's "Man on Fire" is such a film and is guaranteed to stand out as Scott's ultimate masterpiece for many years to come. "True Romance", Scott's super cool breakthrough crime thriller which used a typically brilliant screenplay by Tarantino was fun, funny and dripping with coolness, but "Man of Fire" shows that Scott can do heavy drama as well as cool, slick action. Denzel Washington digs deep in this film to some of his darkest demons and pulls out a performance that is inspirational in its complexity and depth. The key to the film's success is in the relationship between Denzel's character, a washed up black-ops mercenary now working as a bodyguard, and his ward, the wonderfully mature yet very vulnerable Dakota Fanning. Once you believe the relationship between the two characters and the degree to which the young girl helps the old bodyguard to find new meaning in his life, the rest of the tragic film just falls into place, and boy, do you believe it! The first half of the film is one of the best character development sequences I have ever seen on screen - perfectly written and inspirationally acted. Scott uses his trademark style to bring the two characters together while continually suggesting in the background the menacing danger of Mexico City's crime-ridden streets and the inevitable tragic turn of events looming over the characters' blossoming friendship. A classic revenge tragedy, "Man on Fire" is not easy to watch. The second half of the film, to some no doubt gratuitously violent and at times even self-indulgently so, only works because of the first half of the film and because your sense of sympathy for Denzel's tortured vigilante is overwhelming. If the ancient definition of tragedy is that it raises in the viewer emotions of pity and fear then "Man on Fire" is Scott's hardboiled answer to Shakespeare's Hamlet. I doubt Scott will ever repeat this level of intensity, where his trademark erratic visual style is for once justified and where all the elements come together to deliver what is to my mind the most powerful cinematic experience of the last year, if not of the last decade.
Bewitched (2005)
Oh dear... There is a smell of turkey in the air
Oh dear... There is a smell of turkey in the air. Now, I'm not a guy to say no to chick films, but even my wife wiggled her nose at this confused and bemused nonsense. Why was this film made? To showcase Kidman's comedy credentials? Kidman, a magnificent actress, does't need any favours. Her breakthrough comic performance in "To Die For" proved all there is to prove. Was the film meant then to make money by milking the proverbial cow of comedy genius Will Ferrell who has recently (and justly) broke into the mainstream? Clearly it hasn't - the filmed tanked and with good reason. Like all great comic actors Ferrell has been seduced by the Hollywood machine into taking his audience for granted. Eddie Murphy still managed to pull off a string of very cool and very funny movies before he sold out to the family matinée movie industry, but Ferrell is taking the express route. Watch out for Ferrell soon in "Daddy Daycare 3". I know, Nora Ephron, saccharine romantic comedy guru, wanted to reinvent herself - what? Meg Ryan was not available? Oh no, that's right, Ryan is into making serious "adult" films now. But even suppose for a minute that all of the above reasons were valid in themselves - who had the bright idea of remaking that dated, silly sitcom Bewitched into a film? My guess is that this was the brainchild of yet another money-grabbing, pointless, untalented studio exec. Hollywood has run out of ideas, so when there are no more films to be remade, TV shows will do. From Shaft, through Starsky & Hutch, to the Dukes of Hazzard - the plague is raging. What's next, Different Strokes the movie??? GIVE US A BREAK! But even so, Miss Ephron probably thought she was smart - I won't do a simple remake, I'll be really clever and make a remake ABOUT a remake with a real witch in it pretending to be a fake witch from an old TV show, and so on and on and on until you are so confused you don't know who is a witch, who is bewitched, and who has been suckered into parting with his hard earned cash to see this pointless fluff. The wit of it! The brilliant insight! The inspiration!! I take my hat off to you Miss Ephron, how cleverly you mock the industry in which you thrive - what a sophisticated and wry comment on Hollywood vacuity, vain actors, and dumb LA blonds. I'm afraid the joke is on you - this film is as transparent as it is lame. I didn't laugh. Not once. I mostly cringed. What a terrible, terrible film.
The Amityville Horror (2005)
Lost potential in what is a waste of a good story
Oh no... It's one of those 'based on the true story' films AND a remake! So in this case, it's a "true" story based on someone else's script, which was based on a book, which was based on what two people -George and Kathy Lutz - claim is a true story (disporved as a hoax). Well, anyone familiar either with the book or with George Lutz' account of the supposed haunting at the Amityville house can tell that the film stretches even the fabricated "truth", to put it mildly. Not that there is anything wrong with dramatic or creative license, but in this case none was needed. Mr. Lutz' original account of what transpired during those spooky 28 days in the old house where DeFoe Jr. murdered his entire family is creepy enough without embellishments. The problem is that Mr.Andrew Douglas - the remake's hapless director - took the Amityville story and the original equally bad film as an excuse to aflcit us with yet another clichéd tribute movie to various horror classics. Instead of adapting and remaking the Amityville story in a subtle and original way which would have driven home the spooky reality of its "real-life" resonance, Mr. Douglas bores the audience with one 'movie' reference after another - from blatant homage scenes to "The Shining" and "The Exorcist" to more annoying and less obvious tributes to "Poltergeist", "The Ring" and others. The result is a messy, predictable, yet-another imitation horror movie that goes nowhere. To be fair, some sections of the film work OK here and there. Ryan Reynolds who stank to high heaven in the stinker "Blade 3" delivers a good performance for what it's worth, and some of the horror set pieces are well paced and effective in themselves. But the overall result is disappointing, and it is a shame that such good material was allowed yet again to go to waste in such a way.
Red Eye (2005)
Wes Craven is no Hitchcock, but he's still a funny guy
Red Eye is harmless entertainment. I have had two hours of my life wasted on worse things before. I'm a Wes Craven fan - not a big Wes Craven fan mind you - but still a fan. I admire the way the guy reinvented the thriller-horror genre for the X Generation, and hey, who can forget the immortal (quite literally immortal) Freddy Krueger! But hey, I guess old lions lose their teeth and Red Eye is indeed one tooth too short. The first half of the film is rather promising. Craven builds up the sense of suspense and menace masterfully. Even though the trailer of the film gave the entire plot away, Rachel McAdams, who showed her comedy credentials in the surprisingly funny "The Hot Chick", does a good maiden is distress routine, and Cillian Murphy, the next best thing, is genuinely creepy... That is until Hot Chick McAdams turns the tables and sticks a pen in his windpipe! Hard to know if sheepish Craven was deliberately going against the grain to mock the genre - he's done this before - but the film loses credibility so quickly towards the end that a Hitchcock-like thriller soon turns into a strange mixture of predictable narrow-escapes thriller and slapstick comedy. The sinister conspiracy to assassinate some government dude and his family is easily foiled by one phone call, and then our heroine spends the rest of the film kicking Cillian Murphy's butt - and I mean a real asswhooping! She goes at him with chairs, knives, a fire extinguisher and even a hockey stick, while the best he can do (a woman's silk scarf wrapped around his wheezing pierced neck) is to wave at her desperately with a knife. Funny stuff. So which is it Craven? Thriller or comedy? I guess he couldn't decide his mind in the end, which is a shame, because the film works very well as either one, but not as both.
The Island (2005)
Good effects can't save such an absurd film
Well, what can you say about Michael Bay? You would think that after the laughable, and offencive disaster of Pearl Harbor and Bad Boys II no studio exec in his right mind would let Bay get within five miles of a film set. Well, not really, since in Hollywood money is the bottom line and both of the aforementioned stinkers raked in tons of cash for Bay and his all-powerful buddy, producer mogul Jerry Bruckheimer. The Island had potential to be more than just a silly Hollywood blockbuster most people will forget in less than one year. But a good sci-fi plot has been thrown to some of the worst hack script writers in tinsel town and the result is a ridiculous film which leaps and bounds in degrees of absurdity with each passing moment, and this film is so long that by the time you get to the end the nonsense parade really gets out of hand. There are so many 'give me a break' moments and continuity holes in this turkey it might as well be Swiss cheese! Yeah, sure, the special effects look great, and the action chases are sort of cool; and yeah, everyone loves looking at Scarlett Johansson in a tight outfit, and yeah Ewan McGregor does a fair job of a terrible script with no help from a terrible director... BUT the rest is a disaster. This film insults the intelligence and deserves to be inducted into Hollywood's ever growing Hall of Shame.
Collateral (2004)
Mann's stylish tour de force is highly recommended
Michael Mann has been developing his style for a while now with films like Heat, The Insider, and Ali, but whereas previous Mann films always had major flaws in them, Collateral stands out as a cut above the rest. Cinematically, it is nearly flawless. The cinematography, editing, cool metallic lighting, and terrific score (always a given in a Mann film) complement a solid, gripping script. Without giving away too much of the plot, Collateral is an outstanding study of urban alienation, loneliness, and what connects people who live parallel and yet separate lives, all beautifully wrapped up in a gripping action-thriller format. Foxx and Cruise feed off one another very well and the chemistry between them lifts the film even when the script stumbles into the occasional cliché or becomes too theatrical. On one occasion there is a rather lame attempt to get one of the criminal types in the film to deliver a Tarrantino-like monologue which is rather tiresome (only Tarrantino can write Tarrantino), and Jada Pinkett Smith's acting is flat as a pancake. There are also one or two really nagging continuity problems in the film, but then which film doesn't? On the whole these minor problems are negligible in the great scheme of things. 9/10 for this tour de force from one time video-clip director Michael Mann. Go see the film and get the superb soundtrack.
Der Untergang (2004)
Don't be fooled by the cinematic excellence - Downfall is dangerous
As far as films go, Downfall is excellent. The acting by all concerned, particularly of Bruno Ganz as Hitler, is inspired. The reconstruction of Hitler's bunker and of the atmosphere within and without it in the last days of the war, so far as anyone can judge, is very realistic and convincing. The script, which draws on two separate historical documents recording Hitler's final days, is well constructed, and the directing of the entire film is on the whole is immaculate.
However, some films are more than mere vehicles for entertainment. Downfall is arguably one of the most important World War II films ever made for one simple reason it is a German film. That a German director should finally decide to tackle this subject is itself commendable but the resulting film, though excellent in itself, leaves much to be desired. In fact, it is potentially dangerous. Downfall has won world wide acclaim, and audiences around the world were moved by the portrayal of the Nazi high command as vulnerable human beings and not dehumanised monsters. Unfortunately, by allowing the film to do so, audiences around the world are being duped into believing one of the most spectacular myths post war Germany has concocted about the relationship between the German people, its army, and the Nazi party led by Hitler. While not excusing the Germans' support of Hitler, the film is meant to make the German people feel better about themselves by spreading the myth that Hitler was mad, the army and its generals heroic, and most of Hitler's staff either ignorant of Germany's inhuman war crimes, or somehow conflicted about their role in the War. This utter nonsense shies away from taking responsibility for the true horrors of WWII. A German film focusing on the war could have focused on any part of it. Did the director choose to depict the rise of the Nazi party to power? Did he choose to portray the horrors of Crystal Nacht and the rise of institutionalised anti-Semitism? Did he choose to focus on the unprovoked invasion of Poland, or the Final Solution for the 'problem' of European Jews? No. The director chose to focus on the final days of the war when the Nazis may be portrayed as vulnerable and as a confused band of misguided dreamers who put their faith is a madman who led them to destruction. This view of historical events is not only disturbing but frighteningly worrying coming from a German director, even though it is predictable. The only way most young Germans today can cope with their past is to convince themselves of this myth; to convince themselves that their grandparents were all young Traudl Junges swept into the Nazi mania out of ignorance, fear, poverty, and a sense of national shame after the surrender of World War I, which, incidentally, the Germans also started. But just because the Germans need to believe in this to get on with their lives in modern-day Europe doesn't mean the rest of the world has to buy into it. Just like the memoirs of Miss Junge on which this film is based, the resulting film is just that - a subjective impression coloured by guilt, denial, and self-loathing. To hail it as historically accurate, objective, and self-examining is reckless and foolish.
A case in point is the portrayal of Speer. Speer was one of Hitler's closest confidants, and a key architect of the Final Solution. He was a rabid fascist, anti-Semite, who laid the architectural plans for all of the Third Reich's future centers of powers. During the Nuremberg Trials Speers pleaded ignorance of the Nazi Death Camps and claimed he was only an 'architect' of buildings. While the other caught Nazis were executed, Speer received a light prison sentence. He was eventually released and died of old age in the comfort of his home. Historians for a long time since then have exposed Speer's lies. It is a well established fact that he hoodwinked his captors and got away with what very few of the Nazis did. But the film embraces Speer's benign and false self portrayal as a mild-mannered, sympathetic man who attempts to convince Hitler to surrender and is really little more than an over zealous designer of buildings.
Downfall is a very good film. But audiences should not be fooled by its oblique propaganda. Moving on and allowing modern day Germans to cope with their past is one thing but to promote the idea that the entire war was the fault of one very unstable man is dangerously absurd. One of the film's tag lines, spoken by the real life Traudl Junge, is that 'being young is not an excuse'; well that's just not good enough. It is only when the Germans look themselves in the mirror and confront the harsh reality of their history that the rest of the world could maybe one day move on and forgive while never forgetting.
South of Heaven, West of Hell (2000)
Some films just should never be made
Picking up the jacket of this DVD in the video store I was intrigued. Having watched this sorry excuse for a western I think director Dwight should give a medal for the guy who designed the jacket and has lured to their doom other unsuspecting viewers. The script of the film is potentially interesting... and I bet that's what the impressive members of this film's cast thought when they signed up for this project. But, Dwight, buddy... stick to singing and acting. This must be the worst directed film I have ever had the displeasure of seeing. Badly paced, wooden performances, awkwardly shot, weird music, and even terrible costumes - my God, what is Billy Bob Thornton's wig all about??? I could go on for another ten lines, but this film just isn't worth the bother. Anyone who hates wasting money should stay well away from this stinker.