Film Review: BAD LIEUTENANT (2009)

[Original Title: THE BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL - NEW ORLEANS]

Director: Werner Herzog
Writer (screenplay): William M. Finkelstein
Writers (earlier film “Bad Lieutenant”): Victor Argo, Paul Calderon, Abel Ferrara, Zoë Lund
Running time: 117 mins (approx)
Certification (UK): 18

Genre: Crime/Drama
UK Release date: 21^st May 2010

Watched on DVD Saturday 30^th June 2012.

PLEASE NOTE: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW.

This is a film I’ve been meaning to catch for quite a while now and with Wimbledon being on it afforded me a window of opportunity. A very entertaining and interesting film that I very much enjoyed. I can’t say I’ve seen much of Werner Herzog’s work, but, on the strength of this, I’d like to see more. Here’s a brief summary before I give you my thoughts.

When New Orleans cop, Terence McDonagh, injures his back rescuing a prisoner in the wake of Katrina, his life is changed. He starts with prescription drugs but when they fail to do it for him he resorts to something a little stronger. He has no problem with shaking down offenders and stealing drugs from the evidence locker to feed his habit. His girlfriend, Frankie Donnenfield, a hooker, also helps him with these ‘shake-downs’. Of course, he makes some enemies along the way and this, combined with some gambling debts tends to make Terence a bit of an unstable character. Even his partner, Stevie Pruit, turns his back on him. Is there any redemption for Terence? Well, I’ll leave you with that question… Don’t want to give too much away now do we.

Very well made with a few quirky effects… I loved ‘Iguana-cam’ particularly (you’ll know what I mean if you’ve seen it). But the thing that stands out most about this picture is the performance of Nicolas Cage as Terence McDonagh; they say for every three duds there’s one outstanding one… and believe me, this is well worth a look! He’s really great in this. I also thought Eva Mendes did an excellent job as Frankie Donnenfield. Honourable mentions go to; Val Kilmer, who I thought was underused as Stevie Pruit, Xzibit as gangster, Big Fate and Jennifer Coolidge as Genevieve.

The combination of Cage’s excellent performance and the direction of Herzog works a treat (for me). I know the film failed to impress that much at the American box office and I think it may be because it perhaps went a little far in showing McDonah’s decline. I did feel the events leading up to the ending seemed a little rushed; having spent so much time showing him reach that point. Over all though, I thought it was rather good and deserved a better reception than it got… (For me), RECOMMENDED.

My score: 8.3/10

IMDb Score: 6.8/10 (based on 39,833 votes at the time of going to press).
http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt1095217/

MetaScore: 69/100: (Based on 32 critic reviews provided by Metacritic.com at the time of going to press).

Rotten Tomatoes ‘Tomatometer’ Score: 87/100 (based on 135 reviews counted at the time of going to press).

Rotten Tomatoes ‘Audience’ Score: 52/100 ‘Liked it’ (based on 50,683 user ratings counted at the time of going to press).
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bad_lieutenant_port_of_call_new_orleans/

If you’re crazy enough… You can find me on Facebook at:
http://facebook.com/andy.steel3

FAVOURITE QUOTES:
Terence McDonagh: Shoot him again.
Deshaun 'Midget' Hackett: What for?
Terence McDonagh: His soul is still dancing.
[laughs hysterically]

Terence McDonagh: You know we got your boy, G, right?
Deshaun 'Midget' Hackett: Man, I don't know no G.
Terence McDonagh: He knows you. It's amazing how much you can get done when you've got a simple purpose guiding you through life. My purpose is to find out who shot up this apartment on Josephine. I know the guy that was living there was from Senegal. I know he was selling heroin. I know whose territory he was stepping on. And I know who went over to the apartment to straighten him out. I found out all that in the past few days. Where's Big Fate, son?
Deshaun 'Midget' Hackett: I don't know no Big Fate.
Terence McDonagh: Now, see, I know that's not true, because everybody who comes from where you come from knows who Big Fate is. The fact that you're lying to me about it tells me you're hiding something. Since you know my only reason for being here is to find out who shot up the apartment, I know that's what you're hiding. See? It all comes back to that same simple purpose.

Terence McDonagh: You don't have a lucky crack pipe?

Terence McDonagh: You think fish have dreams?

LINKS:
(Note: All were working at the time of going to press)
Official Site: http://www.badlt.com/
Trailer:

Film Review: THE OTHER GUYS (2010)

Director: Adam McKay
Writers: Adam McKay, Chris Henchy
Running time: 107 mins (approx)
Certification (UK): 12

Genre: Action/Comedy/Crime
UK Release date: 17^th September 2010

Watched on Sky+ Sunday 6^th May 2012.

PLEASE NOTE: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW.

You know how sometimes you’re not too sure if you’ll like a particular film, but then you listen to all the talk about it and decide to watch it anyway. About twenty minutes in you realise you were right to have doubts in the first place… but now you’re committed. Well that’s just how it occurred with this extremely disappointing pile of fetid dingo’s kidneys of a movie. They say there’s a ‘six laugh rule’ with comedies; i.e. if you don’t laugh six times or more whilst watching it, it’s not funny. Well, one brief smile is all this got from me and that was a sight gag involving a kid sliding about on the back seat of a police car… not a good omen. Well, I think I’ve held you in suspense long enough, here’s a brief summary before I really rip into it.

When hero New York cops P.K. Highsmith and Christopher Danson are accidently killed in the line of duty by jumping off a 20 storey building (yes, it IS THAT stupid), the other cops in the department are immediately in competition to take up the mantle. Amongst them are Allen Gamble, a forensic accountant, and Terry Hoitz, a regular cop who feels he has to prove himself. Terry makes no secret of the fact that he doesn’t like his partner and has to go to the extreme of kidnapping him just to get him out of the office. By some contrivance they latch on to the case of a British businessman, David Ershon, who is planning on defrauding a lot of people to cover up an even bigger loss. As you can imagine, from here on its all car chases and the usual buddy movie stuff (I won’t bore you with the details).

Quite well made with some nice stunt work in the car chase scenes and some decent cinematography in the outdoor scenes. Performance-wise, the pick of the bunch (for me) were; Mark Wahlberg as Terry Hoitz, Michael Keaton, underused (IMO) as Captain Gene Mauch and Steve Coogan as David Ershon. Also worthy of note were; Will Ferrell as Allen Gamble, Eva Mendes as Dr. Sheila Gamble and nice cameo’s from Samuel L. Jackson as P.K. Highsmith and Dwayne Johnson as Christopher Danson.

There are many things that let this movie down, not least is the dialogue, it’s terrible! I can’t remember when I’ve watched a film where a joke is performed and then explained afterwards! It has a 12 certificate here in the UK and (I guess) if I was twelve I might have found it funny(ish), but I’m not and it most certainly wasn’t. If you want a decent cop based comedy/drama then I can recommend any of the ‘Lethal Weapon’ films, they are SO much better than this, which most definitely does not get my vote!... NOT Recommended.

My score: 4.3/10

IMDb Score: 6.6/10 (based on 76,191 votes at the time of going to press).
http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt1386588/

MetaScore: 64/100: (Based on 35 critic reviews provided by Metacritic.com at the time of going to press).

Rotten Tomatoes ‘Tomatometer’ Score: 79/100 (based on 191 reviews counted at the time of going to press).

Rotten Tomatoes ‘Audience’ Score: 57/100 (based on 137,002 user ratings counted at the time of going to press).
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/other_guys/

If you’re crazy enough… You can find me on Facebook at:
http://facebook.com/andy.steel3

FAVOURITE QUOTES:
Captain Gene Mauch: You know what, I'm going to hang onto the wooden gun.
Allen Gamble: To give me back my real gun?
Captain Gene Mauch: No. I'm going to give you this... It's a rape whistle. You blow that if you're in any trouble, and someone with an actual gun will come and help you out.
[Quietly blows the whistle]

Terry Hoitz: What is this?
Allen Gamble: It’s my car, it’s a Prius.
Terry Hoitz: I feel like we're literally driving around in a vagina.

Dirty Mike: How you fellas doin'? We about to have us a little screw party in this red Prius over here if you wanna join us.
Allen Gamble: Hey, are you Dirty Mike and the Boys?
Dirty Mike: How you know who we are?
Allen Gamble: You left a note in that car!
Terry Hoitz: [shows his badge] Police, shithead.
Dirty Mike: He's a copper, we gotta go. C'mon! Hey, grease it, boys! They're cops!
[He and the Boys run off]
Allen Gamble: You turned my beautiful Prius into a nightmare!
Dirty Mike: We are gonna have sex in your car! It will happen again!

Fosse: Hope you like prison food... and penis.

LINKS:
(Note: All were working at the time of going to press)
Official Site: http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/catalog/catalogDetail_DVD043396365346.html
Official Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/otherguysmovie
Trailer:

Film Review: CLEANER (2007)

Director: Renny Harlin
Running time: 88 mins (approx)
Certification (UK): 15

USA release date: 27th May 2008 (DVD Premiere)

Watched on Sky+ Sunday 23rd January 2011.

PLEASE NOTE: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW.

I watched this on the recommendation of a friend and, to be honest, he owes me 88 minutes of my life back. It’s a crime drama set against the backdrop of the world of forensic clean-up. The guys that clean up what’s left after the body has been removed. I’ll give you my thoughts after this brief summary (summary haters please stay behind the tape while I clean up the next paragraph).

Tom Cutler is a retired cop who is now making a career out of cleaning up crime scenes. His wife was killed some years ago and he lives with his teenage daughter, Rose. He turns up to the scene of a murder to find nobody at home but a key has been left for him. Having completed the job he returns home only to find he still has the key. Going back the next day he’s surprised to find the wife, Ann Norcut, at home holding a children’s birthday party. He asks if he can speak to her husband, but she says he is out. At this point he tries to cover his tracks, realising that it might be a set-up. He hides the evidence he collected but things are about to turn bad for the former cop. His ex-partner, Eddie Lorenzo, gets in touch and Tom takes the opportunity to ask him about the case. He denies all knowledge, but the investigating officer, another former colleague, Jim Vargas, is slightly more forthcoming. The press have, by now, got hold of the story that Ann Norcut’s husband is missing and Tom is between a rock and a hard place. Not everyone is telling the truth and this can only mean trouble.

A very complicated plot does not help this film. It strikes me the filmmakers are trying a little too hard to be clever and failing to hit the mark. The performances were OK, but nothing to write home about; Samuel L. Jackson wasn’t really stretched as Tom Cutler, Ed Harris had a stroll in the park as Eddie Lorenzo and Eva Mendes was nothing particularly special as Ann Norcut. Honourable mentions should go to Luis Guzmán as Det. Jim Vargas, Keke Palmer who I thought was actually pretty good as Rose Cutler and it was also nice to see Robert Forster as Arlo Grange.

It was almost like watching one of those old Philip Marlowe movies where Marlowe was a crime scene clean-up guy instead of a Private Eye. It certainly has that feel, but with nothing like the style it needed to carry it off. Over all I found this one pretty disappointing and I can see why it went straight to DVD… NOT recommended.

My score: 5.2/10

LINKS:
(RT = Rotten Tomatoes)
IMDb Page: http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0896798/
RT Page: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/cleaner/
Trailer: http://uk.imdb.com/rg/VIDEO_PLAY/LINK/video/screenplay/vi3049128217/

Film Review: THE SPIRIT (2008)

Director: Frank Miller
Running time: 103 mins (approx)
Certificate (UK): 15

Watched on Sky+ Sunday 7th February 2010.

PLEASE NOTE: POSSIBLE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW.

Based on a comic book series by Will Eisner this film plots the efforts of a once dead cop who has come back to avenge his killer. Exactly how he was able to come back from the dead is explained later in the plot, and no, I’m not going to tell you here. Made in the comic book style the director used to good effect in Sin City (2005) it has the same look and feel as that well known classic.

Denny Colt has come back from the dead and, to protect his identity, he now wears a mask and calls himself ‘The Spirit’. He is trying to capture and bring to justice, the criminal who killed him, ‘The Octopus’. To complicate matters, his old flame, Sand Saref is back in town, having been away for many years where she has turned to the criminal side of the law. Whenever ‘The Sprit’ and ‘The Octopus’ meet and fight, they are strangely unable to kill each other. It’s known that ‘The Octopus, along with his associate, Silken Floss, has been dabbling in genetics. This is shown by the gang of identical, but rather dim, henchmen they always have in tow. To cut a long story short, Sand Saref has committed a robbery and stolen two items, one she personally wants, and one she intends to sell. ‘The Octopus’ manages to steal the one she wants to keep and eventually they agree to swap. ‘The Spirit’ gets wind of this meeting and plans to take his final revenge on the Octopus. There’s a lot more, but it’s getting late and I’m sure you don’t want the entire plot anyway!

As I said at the beginning, this film was made in a similar style to Sin City (2005), which is also like, 300 (2006), which I enjoyed immensely. Anyhow, it seems that in this one they forgot to put in a coherent plot. From ‘The Spirit’ and ‘The Octopus’ beating each other up, to a love scene, to comic scenes with the henchmen, I found it quite hard to follow. Admittedly, it did all tie together at the end, but it took a long time, it seemed, to get there. Gabriel Macht was adequate as The Spirit / Denny Colt, whereas, Samuel L. Jackson was so over the top as The Octopus that I really thought he was going to bust a blood vessel! Honourable mentions go to, Eva Mendes as Sand Saref, Louis Lombardi as Pathos / Ethos / Logos & many other henchmen, Scarlett Johansson as Silken Floss, Sarah Paulson as Ellen Dolan and Dan Lauria as Dolan.

Over all, I found it a little too over the top for my taste. I guess they tried to make it bit too much like a comic book and it just didn’t work. As I was watching it, I was thinking it may work better as, say, a TV show, split into five or six 20 minute shows. I can’t really recommend it, and not having read the comic books, I can’t really say that a fan would really like it either.

My score: 4.9/10

LINKS:
IMDb Site: http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0831887/
Official Site: http://www.mycityscreams.com/
Trailer: http://uk.imdb.com/rg/VIDEO_PLAY/LINK/video/imdb/vi1246822425/

Film Review: LIVE! (2007)

Writer and Director: Bill Guttentag
Running time: 96 mins (approx)
Certificate (UK): 15

Watched on Sky+ Saturday 6th February 2010.

PLEASE NOTE: POSSIBLE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW.

This film is a satire about reality TV shows. Set in Los Angeles at a fictional TV station, ABN, it shows just how far one executive will go in order to get that all important audience share. It was filmed, for the most part, in a documentary style which, I felt, made for more interesting viewing.

An ambitious TV executive, Katy, is looking for the next ratings grabbing show. Somebody jokingly mentions the idea of Russian roulette and Katy likes the idea so much she gets straight on with developing the show. She is being followed by a young filmmaker, Rex, who is making a documentary about her. Katy goes to see the Network President and somehow persuades him to allow her to go ahead. She now turns her attention to the advertisers, who, at first are against the idea, but soon come around when they see some of the footage of the contestants that Rex has made. The legal issue also has to be considered, and Katy cajoles the networks legal representative, Don to deal with this issue. Eventually, it’s all go and the show begins with six contestants, Byron, Jewel, Pablo, Brad, Abalone and Rick at one AM, supposedly to minimise the number of children watching. They are all playing for the chance to leave with Five Million Dollars, but nothing if you lose. I won’t tell you any more, don’t want to give too much away!

I found this film strangely compelling to watch, which, I guess, was the whole point of the TV show. It did fall a bit flat towards the middle, but really picked up towards the end when we saw the show as it went out. Eva Mendes was excellent as Katy, really driven and at times quite devious. David Krumholtz also put in a fine performance as the young filmmaker Rex. Honourable mentions go to Rob Brown as Byron, Katie Cassidy as Jewel, Jay Hernandez as Pablo, Eric Lively as Brad, Monet Mazur as Abalone, Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Rick, Paul Michael Glaser as the Network President and Andre Braugher as Don.

I find a lot of satires don’t work because they are indicative of the time they were made and, although it was only made a few years ago, I feel the world has moved on. So this is maybe not the greatest satire of the TV industry; I felt it didn’t quite hit the mark in several areas. However, I found it quite compelling viewing and, for me, the documentary style adopted worked quite well. Some very good performances and a really good ending that I found unexpected.

My score: 6.2/10

LINKS:
IMDb Site: http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0810945/