Review #816: 'Sin City: A Dame to Kill for' (2014)

Taking an alarming nine years to reach the screen following it's successful predecessor, Sin City (2005), Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller bring back the filth-ridden, black-and-white mean streets of Basin City. The first film was a modest success both critically and commercially, but A Dame to Kill For underwhelmed at the box-office, and despite boasting another stellar cast, it's not difficult to see why. The likes of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Josh Brolin, and, most notably, Eva Green, have been brought in to freshen things up, but the film treads very similar grounds to what came years earlier, and the drama seems emptier now than it did before.

Like last time, the film tells various intertwining stories. Marv (Mickey Rourke) wakes up in a car wreck surrounded by the dead bodies of frat boys. Unable to remember how he got there, he begins to re-trace his steps. A cocky young gambler, Johnny (Gordon-Levitt) arrives in town and immediately starts fleecing a joint of all it's money. Insisting that he is allowed into the high stakes game with his good luck charm Marcie (Julia Garner), Johnny finds himself pitted against the corrupt Senator Rourke (Powers Boothe), who he wipes the floor with. He is warned to leave town quickly lest he feel the Senator's wrath, but the arrogant young man decides to treat Marcie to a night on the town instead.

Years before he had his face operated on to become Clive Owen in the first film, Dwight (now played by Josh Brolin) is a private investigator who we first meet spying on businessman Joey (Ray Liotta) and his young lover Sally (Juno Temple). He is called on by his old flame Ava Lord (Green) who claims she is being abused by her husband (Marton Csokas) and his bodyguard Manute (Dennis Haysbert, replacing the late Michael Clarke Duncan). Dwight cannot get her out of his head and employs Marv to help him on his rescue mission. Meanwhile, distraught at the suicide of John Hartigan (Bruce Willis), stripper Nancy (Jessica Alba) is drinking heavily and seeks revenge on the man who drove her former lover to kill himself, Senator Rourke.

Nine years ago, Sin City was, visually, a jaw-dropping exercise in using real actors against a green screen background. Nowadays, this effect is used commonly, even in TV shows, so it's a testament to Rodriguez (working as cinematographer) that the film still looks absolutely splendid. Beneath the beauty of it's exterior lies something all the more hollow, as the actors - the men and women - compete for the crown of being the hardest bastard with the graveliest voice. With such deliberately blunt dialogue, the film is basically made up of scenes of people acting tough to one another, usually resulting in machine-gun fire or somebody being punched through a window.

The cast all deliver though, and although it's nice to see Powers Booth get the screen-time he deserves (his Cy Tolliver in HBO's Deadwood is still one of the my all-time favourite TV villains), Eva Green walks away with the movie. Embodying all the traits of the great screen femme fatales, she is allowed to go further than the stars that came before for her and be that more sexier, revealing all to Rodriguez's obviously admiring camera. She seduces every man she comes across, including Christopher Meloni's lovestruck cop, who fall at her knees, and it's not hard to see why. Green single-handedly saves this film from becoming a nihilistic and empty exercise in violence, which was fun and fresh the first time around, but with nine years of preparation, you would expect more.


Directed by: Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez
Starring: Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Josh Brolin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Eva Green, Powers Boothe, Dennis Haysbert, Rosario Dawson, Bruce Willis
Country: Cyprus/USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #815: '2 Fast 2 Furious' (2003)

With Vin Diesel establishing himself as a star following roles in the excellent Pitch Black (2000) and the first The Fast and the Furious (2001) movie, Diesel chose not to star in 2 Fast 2 Furious, a sequel that amps up the action and car-porn but notably lacks the charisma and easy-going goofiness that made the first entry such an easy watch. Diesel bailed to make that hugely-memorable action film A Man Apart (anyone?), and is replaced by Tyrese Gibson, who certainly has the energy but lacks the star quality of the man whose void he is charged with filling. The amusingly-titled 2 Fast 2 Furious has no brains at all, and barely enough balls or originality to back it up.

After allowing wanted criminal Dominic Toretto (Diesel) to evade capture at the climax of the first film, Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker) has been discharged from the L.A.P.D. and finds himself on the run. With no income, he pays his way by participating in high-speed drag races, organised and refereed by Tej (Ludacris). After winning a race and fleeing the scene with the arrival of the cops, Brian is captured when his car is disabled by a ESD grappling hook. His former boss, FBI agent Bilkins (Thom Barry) throws him an offer - if he assists with a joint FBI-Customs sting to bring down violent drug-lord Carter Verone (Cole Hauser), his record will be wiped clean. Brian accepts on one condition - he chooses his own partner. Enter old friend and ex-jailbird Roman Pearce (Gibson).

For fans of the franchise, the first sequel in a series that has now reached seven offers everything you would expect - bromance, pimped-out auto-mobiles, mild violence, and Eva Mendes in a white bikini. What it doesn't offer is a plot, credibility or anything remotely resembling a decent script. Walker, who commands top bill for a second time, is perfectly likeable but lacks charisma or star quality. He and Gibson share a little chemistry, but they say little to each other apart from calling each other 'brah' a lot and talking to each other in their separate cars when they cannot hear each other. Hauser is unconvincing as a Colombian drug lord and his character is wafer-thin, and the way he goes about his business borders on the plain stupid. Hardly a trial to watch, but is offensively brainless at times.


Directed by: John Singleton
Starring: Paul Walker, Tyrese Gibson, Eva Mendes, Cole Hauser, Ludacris, Thom Barry
Country: USA/Germany

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #814: 'Nebraska' (2013)

After 2011's slow-moving but well-acted The Descendants, writer/director Alexander Payne (here only on directorial duties) returns to the road-movie formula that served him so well in his greatest film, 2004's Sideways. When we first meet Nebraska's grizzled and hunched hero, Woody Grant (Bruce Dern), he is plodding along a snow-laden road, wandering without any sense of direction. He is picked up by the police and taken back to his iron-fisted wife Kate (June Squibb), who longs to put this 80-plus year old man, teetering dangerously on the cusp of dementia, in a home.

His son, David (Will Forte), is a passive young man who is unhappy in his salesman job and has recently separated from his girlfriend. He learns from his mother that his father was on his way to Lincoln, Nebraska (Woody lives in Montana) to pick up a million dollars he believes he has won in a junk mail sales scam. Where most people would throw it away without thinking twice, this grey-haired old coot believes that they can't say it if it isn't true. In his stubbornness, Woody convinces David to drive him to Lincoln, and David, having lived most of his life in the shadow of his small-town news anchor brother Ross (Bob Odenkirk), sees a chance to spend some time with the father he doesn't really know.

Like most Payne efforts, Nebraska is low on plot but high on humanity. After a long career playing eccentrics and loons, Dern gives a highly understated performance, which is without a doubt the best work he has ever done. More than just a poor old man to feel sorry for, Dern brings a history to the eyes of his character, a man who has seen his life come and go without really realising it. In one extremely touching scene, David questions his father about why he and his mother got married. Woody says "I figured, what the hell," and when David asks him if he was ever sorry he married her, he replies "all the time." It's a desperately sad and honest portrayal of a man helpless in his regret.

Yet, like most of Payne's films, Nebraska is also very funny. As Woody becomes a local celebrity in Lincoln, his home town, when knowledge of his 'wealth' spreads, Woody finds old friends (such as Stacy Keach's Ed) and half-forgotten family coming out of the woodwork looking for a handout or what they believe is owed to them. This is when Kate turns up, a small but feisty woman, prone to telling her sons about how she was the subject of many a groping hand in her youth, much to David and Ross's disgust. Squibb is magnificent, and injects energy into the film when it starts to need it. Nebraska is Payne's most mature film to date, gorgeously filmed, expertly performed, and surely now one of the definitive films about reaching the end of your path.


Directed by: Alexander Payne
Starring: Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb, Bob Odenkirk, Stacy Keach
Country: USA

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #813: 'The Fast and the Furious' (2001)

Never in a million years would I, sitting in the cinema (with my mum and stepfather, oddly enough) back in 2001, think that the auto-porn I had just witnessed would kick-start a hugely successful franchise due it's seventh instalment next year in 2015. Not that I didn't enjoy the 90 minutes of homoerotic machismo, endless gear-stick changes, scantily-clad gyrators and a cameo by Ja Rule - I actually found it highly entertaining in a Point Break (1991) sort-of-way - it's just that how much of an audience can a film about cars draw? Lots, it would seem.

Undercover L.A.P.D. officer Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker) is assigned to infiltrate a gang of street-racers led by the notorious Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) after a series of high-speed truck hijackings using pimped-out Honda Civics. A highly competent driver himself, Brian uses his skills to befriend Dominic, while falling for his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster). After saving Dominic from the police, Brian earns his respect but not that of his crew, and when Dominic proves himself generous and loyal to those who offer him the same, Brian must choose between protecting his new friend and arresting the criminal he has been assigned to bring down.

The Fast and the Furious' script is often bad enough to make your ears bleed. This is a film where words of wisdom are offered in the form of "it's not how you stand by your car, it's how you race your car,". But it's delivers on what the title promises, and the action scenes are well-staged and it's nice to see real metal bend and break in an increasingly CGI-reliant marketplace. It's loud and often crude, but the two leads of obvious limited acting range prove likeable and actually generate some chemistry. It's difficult to say where the franchise will go after the sad death of Paul Walker last year, but this first instalment was a fun, if brainless, start.


Directed by: Rob Cohen
Starring: Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Ted Levine
Country: USA/Germany

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #812: 'The Curse of Frankenstein' (1957)

26 years after Universal Studios and James Whale hit gold with both critics and audiences alike with their interpretation of Mary Shelley's classic novel Frankenstein, another production studio was about to reinvigorate the horror genre with a vastly different take on the same book. Hammer Studios seemed to know something no-one else did - that audiences had a thirst for blood. The critics may not have appreciated it at the time (though they certainly do now), but the paying audiences lapped up The Curse of Frankenstein's amped-up levels of gore and gothic atmosphere.

The film begins with Victor Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) in a jail cell awaiting his execution for an unknown crime. He calls for a priest who he tells his story to. Victor was only a child where he became a baron and inherited his family's estate, and employed his teacher, Paul Krempe (Robert Urquhart), to teach him everything there is to know about the science of anatomy. Years later, Victor and Paul manage to bring a puppy back to life, much to their delight. While Paul is thrilled with their achievement, Victor is unsatisfied and longs to create a human life of his own.

Anyone hoping for a faithful re-telling of Mary Shelley's novel will be sorely disappointed. Director Terence Fisher and writer Jimmy Sangster (director of Hammer's Fear in the Night (1972)) makes the film more about Frankenstein than his creation. While the novel focused more on the tragic nature of the Creature's creation and treatment, the film portrays Victor not only as a flawed and arguably misguided visionary, but a stone-cold murderer, pushing a scientific genius to his death in order to have his superior brain for his creation. The brain is damaged in an alteration between Victor and Paul, so the creature is of low intelligence anyway.

For all the 're-imaginings' of Frankenstein, this is certainly the best I've seen. The diversions from the source material make it a different experience entirely, and one simply to be enjoyed rather than to ponder it's deeper meanings. Cushing's performance is incredible, adding a gravitas to his character even when the movie dips into camp. Christopher Lee, playing the Creature and in his first of many appearances for Hammer, puts in an impressive physical performance and manages to invite sympathy with no dialogue at all. Hazel Court also appears as Victor's cousin Elizabeth, in what is little more than the obligatory female role. A fantastic kick-start to what would be one of the greatest movements in horror.


Directed by: Terence Fisher
Starring: Peter Cushing, Robert Urquhart, Hazel Court, Christopher Lee
Country: UK

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #811: 'An Education' (2009)

An Education's protagonist Jenny, expertly played by an Oscar-nominated Carey Mulligan, is the best reason to the see the film. Set in 1961, Jenny is one half middle-class good girl, the other half a rebellious and potentially wild 16 year old child with a thirst for all things French. Studying hard to be accepted into Oxford, Jenny really longs for the wonders of Paris, and in her spare time indulges in the free-spiritedness of the music and the New Wave movies of the time. Her parents, played by Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour, are proud but pushy. Her father especially longs to see his daughter succeed and his own social standing bumped up a couple of notches. That is until she meets the much-older David (Peter Sarsgaard).

David is a smooth-talking charmer who seduces Jenny by taking her out to opera's and expensive dinners with his flash friend Danny (Dominic Cooper) and his girlfriend Helen (Rosamund Pike). He charms her parents too, and convinces them to allow him to take Jenny to see his friends in Oxford, where she will stay with famous author C.S. Lewis. He also takes her to Paris and asks for her hand in marriage, and Jenny laps it up with a naive curiosity. But David is a philandering con-man, and when the truth is uncovered, Jenny is faced with important decisions about her own fate.

An Education is a perfectly nice and dainty British production that ultimately fails in it's attempts to tackle the big themes. The build-up is well paced, as Mulligan is exquisite, competently backed-up by a Colin Firth-channelling Sarsgaard. It looks and feels like 1961, and Nick Hornby's Oscar-nominated script sensitively handles the topic of a young girl and a much older man. But it's in the second half, when David is unravelled, that things become predictable and plodding, and Cooper and Pike's talents are wasted. The final moments try and wrap up every single aspect of Jenny's life and character in a few sentences, betraying the careful approach to Jenny's complex nature which came before. Nice enough, but hardly memorable.


Directed by: Lone Scherfig
Starring: Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina, Cara Seymour, Olivia Williams, Dominic Cooper, Rosamund Pike, Emma Thompson
Country: UK/USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #810: 'Maniac Cop' (1988)

William Lustig's Maniac Cop plays like a B-movie fan's wet dream. It has Lustig - director of the wonderfully grim Maniac (1980) - at the helm, and Larry Cohen, legendary writer/director of such gems as It's Alive (1974), Q: The Winged Serpent (1982) and The Stuff (1985), on scriptwriting duties. In front of the camera it has Tom Atkins, Bruce Campbell, William Smith, Richard Roundtree and Robert Z'Dar - all together in the same movie! I almost feel like I should complain that Michael Moriarty wasn't invited to join the cast. Due to the stellar talent involved, I feel like Maniac Cop is almost a let-down. Contrivances and bad writing can usually be forgiven in movies like this, but it's difficult not to expect that little bit more. Still, this doesn't stop the film from being a great deal of fun.

When a man dressed as a police officer breaks the neck of a woman fleeing from rapists, investigating police lieutenant McCrae (Atkins) is told to keep eye-witness accounts of a cop committing the act hush-hush. This prompts McCrae to leak the information to a journalist, only for a media frenzy to cause the public to turn on genuine police officers trying to uphold the law. A woman suspects her husband Jack Forrest (Campbell) to be the killer, and when she is murdered moments after witnessing him in bed with another woman, Jack is arrested as the prime suspect. McCrae, however, believes Jack to be innocent and digs deeper into the story of a hero cop long believed to be dead.

Too much just doesn't add up in Maniac Cop. Like Jason in the Friday the 13th franchise, the Maniac Cop has superhuman strength and a sense of invincibility. Where Jason can be chalked down to some sort of supernatural influence, no explanation is giving here, failing to fit in with the back-story provided for the killer. The scenes of police procedural - something Cohen is normally very accomplished at writing - are muddled, with Jack still being held even after McCrae and Jack's lover and fellow cop Theresa (Laurene Landon) are attacked by the Maniac Cop while Jack is held in custody, and any real female police officers will no doubt be offended to Theresa's wailing reaction while being threatened.

I could carry on bashing the film, but I won't, as I actually had a pretty good time watching it. Like most movies with Cohen involved, Maniac Cop is very funny. Campbell is effortlessly hilarious, even in a relatively straight role, and the script is witty when it's not taking liberties with the plot. Lustig, who went on to direct two sequels, also provides some decently staged action scenes. The film is also surprisingly brutal in it's violence and gore, so gore-hounds will not doubt finish the film feeling satisfied. And it's due to these positives that I cannot be too harsh on Maniac Cop, as even though it's little more than a decent slasher flick, I certainly kept me entertained.


Directed by: William Lustig
Starring: Tom Atkins, Bruce Campbell, Laurene Landon, Richard Roundtree, William Smith, Robert Z'Dar
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #809: 'Collateral' (2004)

With Collateral, Michael Mann - a director who was still working at the top of his game back in 2004 - combines his favourite and familiar traits - an ice-cool soundtrack, buckets of visual style, and a conversational showdown as important as the physical one that inevitably follows. It follows one night in the life of Los Angeles cab driver Max (Jamie Foxx), who after accepting a multi-stop fare from the slick-looking Vincent (Tom Cruise), has his life turned upside down. Vincent looks and sounds like a businessman looking to close multiple deals in the course of a few hours, but when a dead body lands on the top of his cab at the first stop, it becomes clear to Max that Vincent is a hired killer.

The two verbally poke and prod each other - Max at Vincent's complete detachment from real-life and the emotional abuse and/or neglect he must have surely suffered to lead him on such a dark path; and Vincent at Max's tendency to procrastinate at every aspect of his life. Max frequently flicks down his sun-visor and stairs at a picture of a desert island, waxing lyrical about his grand plan to set up his own limousine company. At the start of the film, Max drives Justice Department prosecutor Annie (Jada Pinkett Smith) and the two share a spark. He should ask her for her number but he doesn't. Luckily she takes the initiative and gives it to him anyway. Vincent may be a remorseless psychopath, but at least he grabs life by the balls.

Such an engaging character study and a film so packed with marvellously shot set-pieces should lead to an equally great climax, but like Heat (1995), Mann's other L.A.-based crime noir, the film ends on a weak note. Vincent just may be the worst hit-man in cinema history. He's physically capable of taking down multiple foes with fists and weaponry, but his decision-making is laughable at times, and in the end he is forced into a rather bland chase after his prey through a subway. But for the most part, Collateral is thrilling and fun; at it's best when its two leads are simply sitting in the cab and conversing, wonderfully performed by Foxx and Cruise.


Directed by: Michael Mann
Starring: Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith, Mark Ruffalo
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie