In The Electric Mist

Tommy Lee Jones stars as Dave Robicheaux, small-town Louisiana sheriff investigating a murdered prostitute named Cherry Leblanc. On top of that, he has to deal with drunk film star Elrod Sykes (Peter Sarsgaard) and his more-responsible girlfriend (Kelly McDonald) roaring around the backwaters, who stumbled upon a chain-encrusted corpse on their set. Said corpse belongs to Dewitt Prejean, a young black man who “escaped” jail into the bayou, where he was shot by two men—a scene that’s etched into the memory of Dave, who happened to see the event as a tween.

As Dave continues his investigations—digging up a troubled past to find Prejean’s history, and finding that Leblanc is just the start to a chain of serial killings—he finds that they’re not as disparate as he thought they were. Instead, the crimes are linked. And that investigation will unearth the twisted and diverse history of this small backwater of Louisiana swamp… ranging from ghosts of Confederate generals to the 1960s racial tensions.

The cast does an admirable job. Tommy Lee Jones hands in a solid performance, better than some of his phoning-it-in roles (Captain America) even though you’ve seen him play this character before. Peter Saarsgard is great, but woefully underused; Kelly MacDonald does just as well in her small role. John Goodman is hamming it up in fine form. Very good performances, and the use of local talent is excellent—legendary guitarist Buddy Guy is the weak role in the acting department, but makes up for it with atmosphere and local flavor.

The film has plenty of interesting bits to play with. There’s some post-Katrina allegory here, with the local Mafia (run by John Goodman) buying up property, and commentary on the relief efforts; some social consciousness using the Jim Crow-era’s racial tensions as a touchstone; and a healthy dose of Southern Gothic and magical realism revolving around the Civil War, to go with its neo-noir mystery-thriller parts. Plus the big-city/rural divide, with the Robicheaux family and their neighbors contrasted with the hot-rodding actors and snide film crew. Safe to say, there’s a lot of great stuff going on.

If only the film knew how to use it. As a Franco-American production, the film has more of a European subtlety to it, eschewing the big-bang Hollywood techno-wizardry and action in favor of moody setting. After using all those pieces, crafting that fine plot, and layering that thick atmosphere, the film leads slowly to an underwhelming finale and a twist ending that wouldn’t have made it into a bad Twilight Zone episode. (We’re talking Outer Limits mediocrity with the ending.)

The use of long, slow shots is beautiful for atmosphere, and that subtle touch is masterful. It’s a soft, delicate, but deliberate pacing—the film knows where it’s going, and moves with ambient grace. But instead of bringing it home for a satisfying conclusion, the plot blows away with the wind, and the film’s beauty fades away in lost possibility. In The Electric Mist starts out with an excellent noirish miasma, looking like a clear-cut winner. But when it comes time to seal the deal, it slipped on its own lack of initiative. It’s not a bad film, but the blase ending failed to deliver on the buildup’s promises.

I wonder if the original novel is more satisfying, or if the longer director’s cut was improved—it saw theatrical release oversees; the shorter US version went straight to DVD. Which is what it feels like: an artsy European film that went straight-to-DVD in the States. And I wonder how its production woes, which delayed its release to 2009 after a 2007 shoot, affected the film.

Death Rides a Horse – 1967

Continuing on from earlier, the second half of a spaghetti western double feature.

I’ve come to the opinion that you can’t have a spaghetti western without a score by Ennio Morricone. Just can’t do it. I remember watching Hang ‘Em High right after seeing the Dollars Trilogy, and y’know, its music stood out too much—pure Hollywood bombast. Morricone’s music has its own epic bombast, but a unique vibe all of its own: twangy guitars, warbled animal howls, mournful choral interludes. Without Morricone’s score, it’s just another western. Of course, it helps if you have a hardboiled anti-hero, minimalism in design and dialogue, gritty noir tropes, and a strong kinetic energy that was otherwise lacking in the flagging western genre in the ’60s. And you hit the pure spaghetti western definition when it involved American actors filming overseas for Italian cinemas.

“Vengeance is a dish that must be eaten cold.”

As a child, Bill Meceita (John Phillip Law) saw his family murdered—the women raped—before his eyes. Growing up with vengeance in his heart and his hand quick to his gun, he vowed to track down the men involved. Things begin to heat up when gunman Ryan (Lee Van Cleef) is released from a chain gang, and returns to the town where he was betrayed. I think you can see where this is going. The two rivals eventually form an uneasy friendship: the old gunfighter and the young gun, a complex relationship between mentor and pupil, with bad blood between them.

Lee Van Cleef was born to chew scenery; I’m at a loss to think of a point where he didn’t deliver a great performance. I’m less impressed with John Phillip Law, who has the demanding presence of Van Cleef or Eastwood, but not the voice or acting chops. I wouldn’t say he’s bad in this role, but that he didn’t convince me. He’s kind of like a stolid, monotone John Wayne Lite, which I guess has some appeal. On the bright side, there’s not as much dialogue in the film, relying more on action and visuals.

The movie’s pacing starts off slow, with an air of looming dread beginning with the gothic horror-style murder in a pouring rainstorm. The two main characters start off beset by rivalry, each trying to get to their quarry first—Ryan wants to extort them before killing them, to get the fat stacks of cash they took from Bill’s father, and Bill just wants to shoot all of them. But patience will be rewarded, first with the two characters’ relationship building in interesting ways, and then with the suitable explosive finale, with the two gunslingers taking on the old posse and their mob of mooks. Outmanned, outgunned, but not out for the count, it’s a great shootout set-piece to end things once and for all.

There are a few parts that fly over the top, even for a B-movie. Early on, there’s a scene of Bill shooting, to show off his prowess, and it’s little more than unabashed gun-porn. I didn’t count the shots, but I’m pretty sure he’s got Hollywood specials, since he’s blazing away at eight or ten shots per pistol—and hitting with incredible accuracy. Recurring flashbacks recall the murder sequence when Bill sees some telltale mark that points out a killer, one of the few instances where John Phillip Law shows a sliver of emotion. The coolest is near the finale; after walking through a graveyard of half-buried mummified heads in the middle of a dessicated Mexican town, John Phillip Law’s Bill himself is buried alive by the bandits. (No, that doesn’t count as a spoiler since it’s in the trailer.)

The Morricone main theme is a lot rougher; a jaunty guitar track strumming along like a wild pony, overlapped by the screeching flute, which bleeds into a vocal chant that makes a lot more sense when you know the lyrics. Overall pretty good, but I’m not a huge fan of the screechy flutes—it’s unnerving, which fits with the theme at least.

This was one of Quentin Tarantino’s favorite spaghetti westerns, making his top-20 list and getting referenced in Kill Bill a lot. I thought it was good; maybe not that good, but a contender nonetheless. It’s an excellent film with a lot of unique twists, such as the impromptu father-son relationship between the two main stars, and the perfect epic showdown. Death Rides a Horse is a fine spaghetti western, something that fans of the genre will love, but not a requirement for those outside that group.

Two Mules for Sister Sara – 1970

I’ve come to the opinion that you can’t have a spaghetti western without a score by Ennio Morricone. Just can’t do it. I remember watching Hang ‘Em High right after seeing the Dollars Trilogy, and y’know, its music stood out too much—pure Hollywood bombast. Morricone’s music has its own epic bombast, but a unique vibe all of its own: twangy guitars, warbled animal howls, mournful choral interludes. Without Morricone’s score, it’s just another western. Of course, it helps if you have a hardboiled anti-hero, minimalism in design and dialogue, gritty noir tropes, and a strong kinetic energy that was otherwise lacking in the flagging western genre in the ’60s. And you hit the pure spaghetti western definition when it involved American actors filming overseas for Italian cinemas.

That’s my benchmark for a spaghetti western, and I’m sticking to it… because that way I can include the first film below, which was filmed by an American in Mexico, rather than an Italian in Spain. But it’s close enough to a spaghetti western, alright? It has a Morricone score. (And a bunch of familiar faces from Sergio Leone’s flicks.)

“Dear Mary, Mother of God, help this no-good atheist to shoot straight.”

A drifter named Hogan (Clint Eastwood) saves a woman from being gang-raped out in the desert; surprise of surprises, it turns out she’s a traveling nun named Sara (Shirley MacLaine) on the run from the law. She’s working for some Mexican revolutionaries trying to overthrow their French colonial overlords, which gets Hogan’s interest—he agreed to help the same revolutionaries assault a French fort, in return for a portion of the treasure in the garrison’s strongbox. They only have a few weeks to get to the cash, but Sister Sara lived in the church overlooking the fort, so she knows how the garrison operates. Of course, Hogan and Sara’s working relationship is strained, and there are plenty of complications that arise from French patrols and Sara’s devout pre-Vatican II Catholicism.

What I really liked about this one? Besides the stunning vistas, excellent action, and a return to Eastwood’s “Man With No Name”-style grim antihero, was its snippet of history. As you might recall, France under Napoleon III tried to invade Mexico and turn it into a French client-state under Maximilian I, something that’s oft forgotten because the United States had split in twain and was fighting a civil war at the time. (You’d have known this if you’d been listening to your teacher explain Cinco de Mayo all those years ago.) And as far as I can tell, this is one of the few films to even touch on the subject. Since the film was shot on location in Mexico, covering an important time in Mexican history made the film feel more unique.

That’s not to forget the film’s other high points. Such as the excellent acting, with Eastwood at the top of his lone-gun game, and MacLaine keeping up with him, if not outdoing him at times; the snazzy dialogue matches their ace performances. Their character relationships and character development is classic, making for some complex and interesting situations. Such as the film’s awesome set-pieces, such as blowing up a train—right after Hogan lost the use of his shooting arm, relying on Sister Sara to aid in the demolition job. The blazing finale is impressive—a brutal combat sequence depicting the assault on the garrison.

There are, of course, a few complaints. The movie has its slow-burn character-driven moments, and its rapid-fire action sequences, so balancing and transitioning between them doesn’t always work—some on both sides feel drawn out and a bit too long. While the film’s money shots are golden, the parts linking them aren’t as captivating. And the dialogue is either excellent or awkward, there’s no middle ground there. The ending wasn’t what I expected, but then again, proving this is a different character than the Man with No Name.

Morricone’s in fine form here, with an amazing main theme that’s evocative of his unique style: twangy guitars leading into a soaring, mournful choral dirge, broken with strings akin to the braying of mules. Another fine score from the master, and one of my favorite Morricone main themes.

A very pleasing film, Two Mules for Sister Sara is choice spaghetti western. Vintage Eastwood, backed and paced by Shirley MacLaine—the last time the actor would receive second-billing behind a woman before The Bridges of Madison County. Excellent action sequences, some great character development, and picturesque scenery round out a stellar flick. It’s not perfect, but it remains an impressive and enjoyable film. A definite must for spaghetti western aficionados and Clint Eastwood fans.

The Hunger Games

Maybe it’s just me, maybe it’s something built into my jaded generation, but I end up assuming everything will be a steaming plate of shit and chips unless it first provides certification of its not-shit nature. In triplicate. Such was my assumption about The Hunger Games; when I first heard about it, my reaction was Didn’t I already read/watch this when it was called Battle Royale? An attempt to reformat the Japanese original’s totalitarian state and teenage gladiatorial death arena for the palate of Western audiences, namely the post-Potter Twilight generation?

Yeah. I should stop assuming things.

The setup is pretty straightforward. Generations after a failed uprising/civil war, the post-apocalyptic remains of North America have restitched themselves under the control of the victorious state of Panem. As punishment for their attempted rebellion, the outlying areas have been divvied up into districts, operating as combination collective farms and industrial plants and kept in a state of suppressed poverty. Once per year, two teenagers—a boy and a girl—are chosen from each district to compete in the Hunger Games: a futuristic deathmatch where these Tributes fight to the death, with the Panem and District citizens watching the ordeal in a rapt fervor. Twenty-four teenagers enter, one teenager leaves.

Katniss Everdeen lives in District 12; when her younger sister is chosen, she volunteers in her stead. A talented archer, she manages to overcome the prejudices weighted against her district through unconventional tactics. See, well-to-do viewers may sponsor the participants with air-dropped gifts, such as medicine or food, and the Games are equal part survival course, combat mission, and showboating for fans. District 12′s other Tribute, a strapping young lad named Peeta, manages to showboat a little too far when he reveals he has a secret crush on Katniss—snap! I wonder what her boyfriend back home thinks about this?

Their drunken advisor—Woody Harrelson, since Woody Harrelson is in freaking everything—urges them to play up this star-crossed lovers angle. Even as they get into the meat of the film—the third act is the Games themselves, after some long and bloated setup—their relationship develops onward, despite the foregone outcome that one of the two will die. The hope is that Katniss will get more sponsors this way… because they’re all guessing Katniss is the only one with a chance, and needs all the help she can get. Their strained relationship ebbs and flows during the game, but by the end, it becomes both the foundation and moving force of the film.

On the one hand, this is a grim futuristic dystopia with a Young Adult love-story that can appeal equally to girls and boys. On a deeper level, this film a scathing satire of our glorious technological future. Contrast the pastoral, 1950s-drab outlying Districts with the glitz and glamor of the Capital City, an amalgam of the stereotypical worst excesses of D.C. insiders and the Hollywood elite, the One Percent turned to eleven—it’s a modern-day Metropolis gone Lord of the Flies.

And note the connection between the Hunger Games and modern society, with their sponsors and mass-media appeal, the vicarious viewers whose emotions are played by this reality TV show gone Thunderdome. It’s in the same vein as Battle Royale, yes, but also treks back through the history of the totalitarian dystopia through Logan’s Run (check out those jumpsuits!), Orwell, and Huxley; it emerged with many similarities, but still has something new and interesting to say.

As the first installment of a trilogy, it has that problem where unique and interesting concepts are introduced but left undeveloped. For example, the Games take place in an artificial, controlled environment, and Gamesmasters are shown to have the ability to drop in new threats to herd, or weed out, the participants… something that’s used about twice. I’ll bet that comes back in the sequels, since it’s a concept that shouldn’t be so woefully underused. There are a number of blatantly obvious questions, many about the setting, that are never answered, and any social criticism is left in the allegorical stage, buried under the surface-level narrative.

An actual film complaint—pretty much my only one—is that is uses the bane of today’s moviegoer… the shaky-cam. Imagine dropping a half-dozen teenagers,  a camcorder set to record at full zoom, and some pit bulls into a cement mixer, and you have The Hunger Games‘ fight sequences. The first time it’s used, it can follow its purpose: that would be the initial slaughter when the Tributes are released into the Games, the scrimmage over the supplies left before them. Reflecting the stress and chaos of the moment, with distanced sounds and nervous breathing, it works, without obscuring the action too greatly. And the scenes in the Games have these hand-held, documentary look, which could reflect Katniss’ unsteady nerves or whatever, so there’s already some unsteady-cam action going on.

After that, it does pretty much what shaky-cam cinematography always does: acts as a crutch for inept/lazy directors and/or actors, obscuring the lack of choreography. “You actors, just sprawl around on the ground slapping each other while Bob films from inside a tumble dryer; don’t worry, we’ll fix it in post.” The fight sequences are a muddled mess of close-ups and jerky handheld cameras and bad lighting; as either consolation or an addendum, they’re also way damn short.

The teenage actors all did admirable performances. Josh Hutcherson stumbles occasionally as Peeta, but he gives an all-around solid performance that I can’t complain about. Supporting cast such as Lenny Cravitz, Woody Harrelson and Donald Sutherland are excellent, and Stanley Tucci hams things up as the Games’ newscaster/reporter. But it’s Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss who steals the show; her ability to emote is sublime, which is in high demand in The Hunger Games, with some emotionally powerful scenes. She also manages to pull off a strong, independent Tomboy who’s still sexy—and since the traditional genre stereotypes are thrown on their heads, with Katniss caretaking an injured Peeta, we have yet another solid female rolemodel from a science-fiction-tinged action movie.

Within The Hunger Games we have an entertaining action film, a Young Adult love story, a dystopia, a cunning social satire, a modern parable for the 99% generation, and probably two or three other things I left out. It’s one of those few films that appeals to teens and adults without compromising—the thematic allegories are vague, not dense or bludgeoning; the action is frenetic, but not the focus; the love story is engaging, not sappy. The effects are slick, and the film’s vision is sweeping and uncompromising, if under-detailed. Its pre-Game half grew long, and the shaky-cam sequences are shit, flaws marring an otherwise solid movie.

I don’t think it’ll go down in history as a landmark film—save for making bank at the box-office—and it might not be the one 2012 movie you remember ten years from now. But The Hunger Games is certainly worth watching.

The Italian Job (1969)

When I say “The Seventies was the best decade for crime films,” your answer should be “No shit, Sherlock.” The French Connection, Dirty Harry, The Godfather, The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three, Night Moves, The Gauntlet, pretty much anything with Michael Caine… speaking of whom, was in a classic of crime cinematography on the border year of 1969. That would be The Italian Job, a heist flick known for its classic car chases.

So, The Italian Job. After an intro scene where the Mob bumps off some guy in Italy, dapper gentleman gangster Charlie Croker (Michael Caine) is released from prison, and immediately sets off on a new job. This time, a heist in Italy, finishing the job planned by the guy killed in the opening sequence: making off with $4 million in gold bars the Chinese are delivering. With the aid of Mr. Bridger (Noël Coward), still living in a luxuriant prison cell, and his girlfriend Lorna (Margaret Blye), Croker assembles a team to pull off this heist. It includes a number of screwballs, such as Professor Peach (Benny Hill), a computer whiz with a thing for large ladies. They’re walking a fine line, avoiding both the police and the Mafia; with the roaring of engines and crashing of the Italian transit system’s mainframe, they’re off.

What strikes me most is how you can’t make a movie like this any more. Never mind the costumes and so-very-’60s music, I’m talking about the plot and setup: the entire movie is so-very-’60s. Everything is set up, through perfect planning and careful legwork, so that the heist goes in the Brits’ favor. And while there are some surprises for them, it ends up with madcap chase sequences going in favor of Caine’s crew, the Italians stumbling around confusedly, crashing into walls, wrecking their cars, and so on.

There’s no sense that the robbers are in any kind of trouble; the Mafia thread purports to some trick ending, something related to Caine’s girlfriend, but that never appears; and up until the literal cliffhanger, there’s no sense that these guys aren’t going to make off with four million in gold bricks. Part of the problem is that a proposed sequel never appeared, but I was struck by how short the film was—making it shallow in both plot and character development, and its lack of emotion detracts from its attempts to build tension or drama.

Of course, that’s not why you’re watching this movie. You’re watching to see a well-coordinated planning sequence turn into Mini Coopers driving up, through, and over buildings—down into a subterranean mall, into a church, through a sewer system, on a roof, etc. And it’s a fine chase sequence, even if it’s pure Mini glorification, something that the remake latched onto to the point where it was the best two-hour ad for Minis ever made.

For some reason, this confused poster didn't entice American audiences.

And because of that well-executed heist—and chase—the film is deservedly a classic. It’s nice to see an old-fashioned heist go well for the heroes, and the chase scenes are entertaining for their madcap nature, blazing through every kind of location imaginable. But I guess the dark old film noir and gritter late ’60s/early ’70s flicks are more my cup of tea; while I liked The Italian Job as an enjoyable lighthearted romp, with good characterization and fantastic car chases, I thought it was too straightforward, with a feeble plot lacking in suspense or depth. To each their own.

Crime Double Feature – The Mugger (1958)

To reiterate (and copy/paste), I’ve been reading Ed McBain’s (really Evan Hunter’s) 87th Precinct novels lately (more reviews on the way). And I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only did several of them become feature films, but two are also on Netflix streaming. Yay for me! Movie execs weren’t ones to let grass grow on their feet, and bought up the licenses to McBain’s first few novels in 1958, McBain having published the first 8-7 novel in 1956. So, here they are, in all their glory: Cop Hater and The Mugger. I already dealt with Cop Hater, so next up:

The Mugger (1958)

There’s a new mugger in town preying on women within the 87th Squad’s jurisdiction, and he doesn’t seem to be letting up. Having stumped the detectives, psychiatrist and former detective Dr. Pete Graham (Kent Smith) comes out of pseudo-retirement to try and crack this nut. Graham is also contacted by an old friend, who wants him to look into his troubled young sister-in-law; she’s acting like something’s wrong, but tells Graham she doesn’t have any problems. Then she’s found stabbed to death in a city park, with the mugger’s trademark sunglasses crushed in her hands, and Graham has a personal motivation to catch this killer.

Whereas the book and Cop Hater were more character-driven police procedurals, The Mugger is more of a low-key psycho-detective analy-gation. It doesn’t break down into psycho-analyzing witnesses or anything—that’s just a fringe thing—but it doesn’t go as heavy into the detecting, either. In fact, the film just sort of muddles around without any sense of character or depth. Graham looks into several potential suspects and works around the mystery of the girl’s death while he keeps up his relationship with his wife Claire; meanwhile the 87th is continually stymied, and eventually tries luring the mugger out using a female detective as bait.

Now, I have read this novel, and it’s one of the best books in the 87th series, which is nothing like the film. And the changes are for the worse. The protagonist was originally a young cop—Bert Kling, see the first movie—and he met his on-off college-student girlfriend Claire Townsend during the course of the investigation, where in the film they’re married and working out of the same building. Note cop, not criminal psychiatrist; that sounds like a horrible change made to play up the contemporary growth of psychiatrists. And I should emphasize young, because I think the changes didn’t work, because the film then proceeds to point out how every loose woman in the world thinks this middle-aged, psychologist Kling is the sexiest man on Earth.

The film lacks any kind of detective/investigation work until near the end, which then results in a very unconvincing car chase (perhaps at speeds up to forty miles an hour!), and while the villain’s ending is suitably gory, there’s no real reason or lead-up to it. (In the book, it ends with the perp nailed and arrested and jailed, not brutally slain.) And the mugger himself was amped up from socking women to cutting them, probably to inflate the drama/tension needlessly. All in all, a tight, taut fraternal order of detectives with a strong sense of character was lost into a banal, featureless film. The things that were kept from the novel include the mugger, the general plot about the younger sister, a beatnik informant, a few of the set-pieces (like the female detective bait sequence), and some of the character names.

Again, McBain’s 87th was strong because it had a large, rotating cast of characters, and each subsequent novel made them feel more fleshed-out and developed. Losing that humanist approach makes the film feel shallow and lifeless, and gives it a strong emotional distance: we don’t even see the murder victim long enough to make her death anything more than a plot device, which I’m pretty sure would have irked McBain. It’s hard to incorporate that developing texture in film; Cop Hater gave it a good try, while The Mugger avoids it completely. You can tell it had a shoestring budget from its lack of characters and cheap-o sets.

When the lobby cards have such fascinating scenes as this...

Unlike Cop Hater, which wasn’t bad, The Mugger was nowhere close to good. The film is sluggish, listing, and banal, lacking any sense of character or plot depth to result in monotonous and shallow tripe. That also means it’s short—74 minutes—so there’s a reason for its lack of anything; that brevity is something of a plus. The change in character could have worked great, but instead we’re left with a rather bland psychiatrist-detective with a rather bland wife and some uninspired coworkers; the most interesting characters are the bit-players and suspects. Kent Smith was no newcomer to crime/detective cinema, and while he doesn’t phone his role in, he doesn’t seem very enthusiastic either. The film as a whole just didn’t do anything for me.

I’m unsure this film will please hardcore McBain readers given all the alterations that were made, nor did it blow me away as a standalone police mystery, so I’m unconvinced this film has enough of an audience to give it some rediscovery comeback: it’s just not that good.

Crime Double Feature – Cop Hater (1958)

I’m blazing through Ed McBain’s (really Evan Hunter’s) 87th Precinct novels of late, and was pleasantly surprised to find that not only did several of them become feature films, but two are also on Netflix streaming. Score! Movie execs weren’t ones to let grass grow on their feet, and bought up the licenses to McBain’s first few novels in 1958, McBain having published the first 8-7 novel in 1956. So, here they are, in all their glory: Cop Hater and The Mugger. First up:

Cop Bait! I wonder what this poster's selling the film on?

Cop Hater (1958) – MGM

On the hottest, steamiest summer in the City’s recent memory, somebody is out killing cops. Detectives of the 87th Precinct are getting gunned down while off duty. One murder is problematic and depressing; two is an endemic. The rest of the 8-7 cops are uneasy, on edge, unsure how or when this cop hater will strike again. Detectives Steve Carelli (Robert Loggia) and Mike Maguire (Gerald O’Loughlin) are put on the case, and are racing against the clock before another cop dies. Meanwhile, a nosy reporter is trying to uncover dirt to blow this story wide open, and rookie detective Bert Kling has a rough few days on the job.

McBain’s novels have a strong character-driven, humanist approach as their centerpiece: these are average, everyday guys, blue-collar-workers with guns kind of thing. They’re not the super-exaggerated detectives of most noir fiction; combined with McBain’s inclusion of real technique, procedures, and documents, it gives his 87th a very realistic feel.

That’s important to realize since the film follows the same approach. We see Maguire and Carelli hanging out and drinking, going for a night on the town with their wives; we see their two respective home lives, which have a major impact later on the plot. They’re also an interesting parallel. Carelli’s engaged to Teddy, a deaf-mute; two young lovers kind of thing. Maguire is the older cop, with a slightly burnt-out home life; you get the feeling his wife Alice (Shirley Ballard) really wants something more in her marriage now that the spark is flickering out.

The film deals with some very heavy adult themes for the ’50s; the deaths have a lot of weight and grit—murder, after all, of the protagonists’ figurative brothers—and we see a lot of sexual tension and implications without any real detail. Alice dresses quite provocatively—at one point she models her new swimsuit—and Teddy’s later caught in nothing more than a bath towel. Meanwhile, we have a trip to a brothel, and a large subplot about a youth gang who might include suspects, and who are antagonized by the reporter’s grilling. (Juvie gangs are so nostalgically ’50s, when the corruption of our youths’ innocence to violence and drugs was the second greatest threat to our civilization, behind Communism.)

I haven’t read the novel yet, but from what I can tell most of the pieces are there. Aside from Carella becoming Carelli, all the big-name characters still here; “Carelli’s” wife Teddy is still a deaf-mute; the City is no longer McBain’s nameless amalgam but is more clearly New York. Many of the huge cast of detectives with bit-parts in the series are rolled into faceless characters here; that’s understandable, given the difference between the two forms of media, and there’s a large cast of nameless actors in the Precinct’s offices to create the illusion of a large, overworked police squad. Everything I see is accurate enough, though I don’t remember seeing Maguire in any of the book reviews or synopsis I’ve read, so there’s that.

So what we end up with is a good, well-rounded film, yet one that’s overall unexceptional, not much more than drive-in fare; it’s a little too short, and it feels rushed when its credits are rolling over the action to save time—seriously, people are talking and running around while names, and later The End, fill up the screen. It looks like a B-movie, and feels like a B-movie, even as it sticks to the rigorous authenticity of life as a detective. That said, I thought it was very enjoyable for what it was, and is worth checking out for the noir/crime/detective movie fan. I liked it well enough.

John Carter – less a review and more an analysis

I’m not really sure if I should bother reviewing the film, considering everyone seems to have made up their minds before it even hit theaters.

John Carter’s fared poorly with critics, even though most of them gave mixed but somewhat positive reviews. Leonard Maltin gave a very balanced review before encouraging anyone interested to see it. Richard Corliss at Time ended with “I’m glad Stanton made John Carter; I just don’t know why he did,” after dishing out both praise and complaints (also stealing my “transcend or subvert the genre” line). There’s a legion of uninspired and unimpressed reviews, though, and a bunch of negative  ones—the most critical being the one at Slant magazine, which was half review and half lengthy ad-hominum, calling the movie “a dollop of oatmealy, sick person’s poop.” (For balancing reasons, I’ll put Mark Holcomb’s glowing review for the Village Voice here.)

No, the film is not Casablanca, nor Citizen Kane. Nor is it on par with SF greats like 2001 or Blade Runner, or Avatar, a movie relative to John Carter in aesthetics, theme, and time. But oatmealy, watery poop? That’s the kind of derision I’d heap on a Star Wars prequel, or a direct-to-DVD release from some shithouse production company like Asylum—who happened to release Princess of Mars a few years ago, with the production values of the most insipid of SyFy TV movies and porn star/Juno Reactor eye-candy Traci Lords as Princess Dejah.

John Carter’s apparent sin is that its overinflated budget—$250 million, or more—only resulted in an above average, retroactively derivative, but most of all fun, blockbuster that’s failing to bust blocks. While it looks good, it doesn’t look as good as Avatar. And it’s got a long, long history of defying filmmakers, from Loony Tunes producer Bob Clampett, to Ray Harryhausen, to Robert Rodriguez and John Favreau and a half-dozen others, as a bad legacy to overcome. Add in that director Andrew Stanton worked magic on Pixar’s Finding Nemo and Wall-E, which translates to high expectations on behalf of viewers.

But the film feels like it was destined to fail. Disney’s lead-up marketing was half-hearted, starting with the decision to cut “of Mars” from the title, leaving us with the listless “John Carter” which tells the viewer nothing. Some too-little, too-late ads couldn’t make up for the lack of hype, the best of which being the ones for a Comedy Central special preview, proclaiming “John Carter / The Original Badass.” Plus, it was released well in advance of summer blockbuster season. And with its hyperinflated budget, the film needed to open to $100 million in order to spawn the franchise Disney was hoping for—a longshot given how badly the film was mis-marketed. Most of these relate back to the film’s director being brand new to live-action, and its executives being new on the job. The numbers are back in, and it broke $30.6 million in the US, charting second after The Lorax, plus $77 million overseas, leaving it the bomb critics proclaimed it as well before its release.

On the flipside. It’s been tracking very well with viewers, what few actually went to see it, and it has 70% user approval ratings at every site I’ve glanced at (Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes, a B+ on CinemaScore, et al.). And that vocal minority is getting active, not just on the review aggregates but in the Blogosphere and on Twitter. With very few exceptions, the changes to the novel’s plot, and addition of elements from the second book, Gods of Mars, went over well with fans—good, because for the most part, the movie needed most of them. They leave John Carter capable but not superhuman enough to plow through each challenge undeterred (as he does a little too often in the first book), with Dejah Thoris more of a competent individual and not a lost romantic macguffin.

Two white apes of Barsoom show the SFX is pretty good.

As for the movie itself? It’s fun, it’s enjoyable, it’s nowhere near an outhouse joke. But it’s not the cure for cancer that its price-tag might indicate. (Of course, this is Disney; they can afford to banter around with budgets in the triple-digit millions. Why should the film’s budget matter?) The effects are fantastic, with some amazing computer wizardry powering the machine-city of Zodanga and a variety of flying contraptions, plus all sorts of motion-capture Barsoom natives. The set and equipment design is spot-on amazing, giving a strong feel of the alien world, yet staying accurate to its source material (in essence when not in literal presence). I do wish there’d been more details to differentiate the Tharks, since there’s less feeling of individualization among them compared to Avatar’s Na’vi; the motion-capture work is good, but they’re like carbon copies. It’s easier to tell the humans—err, Red Martians—apart, even under their intricate costumes, henna-like tattoos, and British accents.

Taylor Kitsch, as Carter, does an admirable job, but it’s Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris who really pulls things off. A strong supporting cast, including William Dafoe, Thomas Hayden Church, Dominic West, and Mark Strong, round things out: all told, there’s no complaints about the acting. Kitsch isn’t my first choice for Carter, and I’m not sure he’s the perfect actor for the job, but he gave a good show of things. His chemistry with Collins is lacking, but passable; I think her performance was strong enough to make it work.

My big complaints would be that the movie has a surfeit of introductions, some of which should have been tossed to get Carter on Mars faster—the Arizona sequences are somewhat true to the book, but more a failed attempt to generate early-film action than a useful intro; they add nothing, except a woefully underused Bryan Cranston. Second, many of the action scenes are just too short: one of the longer ones is the vaunted gladiatorial sequence shown in the trailers, which tops out around 12-15 minutes. Including some setup. That gives the film a very disjointed feel, with lengthy sections of exposition that lead to overly terse action scenes. And as a PG-13 blockbuster, it needs those action scenes long and involved for the male teen audience. Third, see my aforementioned complaints about the generalized CGI Tharks. I can also see how the film would be confusing, throwing plenty of Martian terminology and history at the viewer; it made me giddy as a fanboy, but not everyone’s familiar with the source.

Taking Burroughs' 8th Ray-powered airships and making them into solar-paneled dragonflies was a fine idea.

I did really like the film; it’s accurate to its source material, it’s entertaining, it’s got a good sense of humor and solid enough characters backing up cool visuals and an eclectic, action-filled plot. But it just didn’t give me that mind-blown sense of wonder that I got from seeing Star Wars as a kid, or Avatar just a few years ago. (To be fair, I went into both of those with no set expectations at all, knowing nothing about them, while I’ve read Burroughs’ first novel two or three times in the past fifteen years, most recently just before the film released.) This is the kind of slightly-campy, fun adventure movie I’d shelve next to The Mummy or Pirates of the Caribbean.

What we’re left with is an entertaining, fun film that doesn’t push the boundaries of cinema: it’s an enjoyable SF romp that isn’t as memorable or spectacular as it should be, but isn’t the motion picture equivalent of having your teeth pulled like everyone says it is. It’s less Howard the Duck and more Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, or whatever your preferential fan-favorite box-office-flop is. (I also thought John Carter was a stronger film, and truer to its source, than Disney’s previous franchise-killing flop, Prince of Persia.) It’s a niche genre film that cost too much and has a hard time appealing to those outside the SF nerd demograph. If you like no-nonsense, pulpy SF adventure, suspending your disbelief for some implausible thrills, go see it while you still can: it is worth seeing as a SF fan.

Action Movie Review – The Shadow (1994)

“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?”

"THE SHADOW KNOWS!"

Let’s take a trip back to 1994. Alec Baldwin was on the fast-track to action-movie stardom, following his role as Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October. Penelope Ann Miller was a rising starlet, popping up in a growing number of films, the most famous probably being Awakenings and Carlito’s Way, though she was also the titular actor’s daughter in Chaplin. And some movie exec at Universal decided to cast them in leading roles for the expected blockbuster of summer 1994, a revamp of the old pulp hero The Shadow, certain to start an extended franchise of films and toy promotions and tie-in novels and etc.

How about a synopsis?

Like far too many action movies, this one starts with a lightning-fast pre-title-sequence rehash to get the audience up to speed. Alec Baldwin is ornery badass Yin-Ko, Mongolian opium dealer. He’s abducted by the Tulku, stock Tibetan mystic, who’s decided to make Yin-Ko redeem himself and return once more to the light. He apparently succeeds and teaches him psychic powers, because the next thing we know, Baldwin is The Shadow, dishing out vigilante justice to Mugsy and Joey Noodles in the  New York City of the Stock Movie ’30s. (And by vigilante justice, I mean he screws with a guy’s head and sends him go confess his crimes.)

The Shadow’s alter-ego is Lamont Cranston, millionaire playboy orphan, nephew to the unsuspecting New York City police chief tasked with going after The Shadow. (Yeah, guess who Batman was ripping off? That’s right. The Spider. Er, I mean, The Phantom Detective. Er. Pulps in general.) Anyways, Uncle Policechief grousing about The Shadow gives Cranston a chance to show off his “clouding men’s minds” psychic powers—the lighting dims, shadows creep across Baldwin’s face, and he pulls the old Jedi mind trick on his own uncle. As their conversation continues, Cranston sees our female leading role: Margo Lane (Penelope Ann Miller), eccentric society girl whose beauty stuns him into taking her on a date. Whereupon she stuns him again by revealing she has telepathic powers, responding to questions he never asked.

Margo Lane also happens to be the daughter to Professor Reinhardt Lane, played by Ian McKellen back before he had attained nerddom cult status. He’s the typical absent-minded professor, too engrossed in his devices (he’s an atomic scientist, see) to pay attention to his daughter’s relationship woes. His atomic work for the government is designed to be the peaceful generation of cheap power, but he’s worried it’ll be used it to make weapons. Also, he’s colorblind; that’s an important fact that the film beautifully shows without telling. His assistant is a lecherous Tim Curry, which should say all there is about this assistant character.

This film needs a villain, doesn’t it? Cut to the Museum of Natural History, which has just received a Tibetan mummy sarcophagus. The two head scientists wander off to investigate this strange shipment, leaving behind a bumbling security guard, who happens to be there when… it cracks open! To reveal Shiwan Khan (John Lone), descendant of Genghis Khan and fellow student of the Tulku. Though, he failed at redemption and killed the mystic. Khan sets out to conquer the world, using his own telekinetic powers, and a special metal called “bronzium”… which could act as the explosive core for a theoretical atomic bomb. And guess which absent-minded atomic professor just went missing?

Under the hood

You can start to see why Universal thought this was the perfect film to make. Its main competitors of the time were the Batman movies, and The Shadow has a lot of similarities there with its exaggerated hero and villain, psychic powers, and retro-noir setting. Though, its Big Apple is a lot more stock realism than the over-the-top, retro-noir cartoon zaniness of Gotham City. Instead, Shadow can’t seem to figure out if it’s going for seriousness or comic. All of the people Shiwan Khan uses his mind-control on are dumber than sacks of rocks. Take the security guard, for example: they banter back and forth, with the security guard doing his best “Barney Fife post-lobotomy” impression, before Khan has him blow his brains out. Wait, what? You jumped from cheap kiddie laughs to brutal murder? Well then.

Oh, and speaking of zany: Tim Curry’s character has his own Bond-villain death building, some kind of airtight dome down by the bridge which is, again, airtight, has one exit, can fill to the ceiling with water, and has one of those circular-handled hatch doors (like you see on submarines or vaults) which are easily jammed shut with a simple lead pipe. Why? Who knows. Maybe it’s related to his work with beryllium spheres. (“Honey, I have to run down to my airtight death building to do some science!”)

To be fair, this was the kind of stuff The Shadow had to deal with back in the pulps; for vigilante superheroes the ’30s was full of random doofs just waiting to throw their lasers, murder-machines, and airtight death buildings into play. Heck, this film’s villain is trying to take over the world by blowing up New York; I’ll cut some slack for over-the-top villainy.

As for the acting…

Alec Baldwin does a damn fine job as both action hero and millionaire playboy, but I just can’t shake my preconceptions of him as Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock. Worse, I never got a real sense that he’d changed from the pre-title sequence; he spends the film “fighting off” his darker nature, but I never got a sense that a.) he’d lost said darkness, or b.) that this version of the character had it in the first place. Penelope Ann Miller, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to fit. There are some scenes she really shines in. Most of the time, her performance and characterization is annoying.

John Lone chews plenty of scenery with his erudite villain persona, which he does a good job at. I’m not sure if it’s the makeup or if he’s wearing contacts or something, but he has huge eyes, like anime-huge, which was just weird. Ian McKellan is underused, considering he’s made a bigger name for himself than anyone else (arguably excepting Baldwin) in the following decades. Tim Curry is, much as you’d expect, Tim Curry; I’m convinced the man is made of nothing but ham and cheese. Peter Boyle also shows up as The Shadow’s driver, “Moe” Shrevnitz; again, underused, though he gets a few killer one-liners.

And for the pulp fan?

For the most part, the film follows The Shadow’s history and attire well; he’s got his trademark trenchcoat, slouch hat, red scarf, fake nose, and chromed .45′s. And he’s got his trademark driver, and an army of minions working away to keep him informed. The big changes are slight; Margo is telepathic, for one. And “Lamont Cranston” was a real millionaire playboy that The Shadow, really Kent Allard, was using the name of; this complexity was smoothed over. On the downside: the movie kept the old pulps’ “yellow peril” vibes in the form of bad, almost racist Asian stereotypes. Gah.

What about the SFX?

The effects are all over the place. Expect bad early-’90s green-screens butting shoulders with some great matte-paintings, decent backdrops, and other physical effects. And there’s some okay to pretty good early-’90s SFX, namely fight scenes between Yin-Ko/Cranston and a psychic flying knife. (I have to keep reminding myself that Jurassic Park came out the year before.)

The sets can feel noticeably fake—namely the cardboard building backdrops—but in the same way movie sets in the ’30s feel fake. (To try again: things look like ’30s film sets, not ultra-realistic film studio sets of recent years.) To add to the noir feel, the film uses a lot of cheap lighting effects, putting Baldwin in shadow or darkening the area he’s in, to signify the use of his psychic powers. Which I think works pretty well, though it’s admittedly cheap.

The Bottom Line:

That’s the rub of the film: it’s admittedly cheap, it’s corny, it’s got a dated “yellow peril” vibe, it doesn’t know whether to take itself as a serious action film or a Saturday morning matinée. It tries to straddle both lines, and become the action-packed summer blockbuster to launch a franchise to boot. And it failed, bad enough to (reportedly) wrack the careers of its leading stars. It only made $48 million, making it a flop with its $40 million budget.

The Shadow isn’t that bad; it’s good, if you’re willing to let some things slide and take others into account later. It’s a flawed fun movie, a kind of gem of lost action franchises that could have been, plagued with problems and too under-defined to make it any more complex than “mindless entertainment.” Certainly underrated, though it falls short of “great;” there’s a reason its expected franchise didn’t take. But if you’re in the mood for a fun action movie, give it a spin; it won’t disappoint on that front.

Also, take note, Sam Raimi is rumored to head a new Shadow film sometime in the near future.