A more apt title for this nautical non-actioner might be ESCAPE PLAN: RUN STAGNANT, RUN DULL, as cult action heroes Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren reunite once again, though this is really a JCVD vehicle with a glorified cameo from Dolph. Van Damme is Scott Wheeler, an off-the-grid CIA agent who wakes up on a sub that doubles as a secret black-ops detention facility, located in deep waters off the southern coast of the US. He has no memory of how he got there, but he stands accused of traitorous actions against the US, specifically trying to sell classified intel on a drive that's gone missing. He repeatedly professes his innocence, even under the threat of gruesome eyeball injection torture by rogue agent Ferris (JCVD's old DEATH WARRANT nemesis Patrick Kilpatrick). Of course, Wheeler's being set up by former boss Rhodes (Al Sapienza), whose goons (the inevitable Kris Van Damme among them) take over the sub in search of Wheeler after he escapes from his holding cell and finds an unlikely ally in rookie agent Taylor (Jasmine Waltz), who doesn't buy what her bosses are selling her. Lundgren appears briefly in the beginning, as a German detainee named Marco, offering sage advice to Wheeler from an adjacent cell, but he then vanishes for most of the next hour and change before Wheeler springs him and then he finds a way to completely sit out the climax, ample evidence that Lundgren didn't spend more than a day working on this. If you're expecting an enjoyably old-school, throwback Van Damme/Lundgren actioner from the glory days of 1992, then you're better off rewatching UNIVERSAL SOLDIER. Murky and slow-moving, BLACK WATER is an inauspicious directing debut for cinematographer Pasha Patriki (GRIDLOCKED), not helped in the slightest by the fact that passing this tedious submarine thriller off as a JCVD/Dolph teaming is some straight-up Das Bullshit. (R, 105 mins)
BLEEDING STEEL (China - 2017; US release 2018)
When his Liam Neeson-esque revenge thriller THE FOREIGNER hit US theaters last year, many moviegoers probably assumed it was a comeback of sorts for Jackie Chan, who, other than voice work in the KUNG-FU PANDA movies, hadn't been seen onscreen in American multiplexes since the 2010 remake of THE KARATE KID. Quite the contrary, as the 64-year-old action icon remains as busy as ever, averaging three to four movies a year for the Asian market, most of which get no publicity whatsoever on their way to domestic VOD and Redbox kiosks. Chan's most recent Chinese film to stealthily drop in the US is BLEEDING STEEL, and it's one of his worst, an incoherent hodgepodge of ideas and styles that tries to be everything and succeeds at nothing. It's mostly dour and serious but has slapstick moments that come out of nowhere, and it might make a good kids or at least YA movie, but it's R-rated and far too bloody and violent for younger audiences. Even worse, it's no fun at all, and Chan is uncharacteristically boring as Lin Dong, a Hong Kong special agent whose young daughter XiXi (Elena Cai) is dying of leukemia in a hospital. He's unable to make it to her deathbed when he's called upon by his government superiors to deal with securing Dr. James (veteran Australian character actor Kim Gyngell), a recently defected geneticist whose witness protection has been compromised. Lin and his fellow officers protecting Jones are attacked by a "bioroid" creation of James' called Andrew (Callan Mulvey) and his group of pale, leather-trenchcoated bald dudes who look like they wandered in from a DARK CITY cosplay convention.
Jump ahead 13 years, and Lin ends up in Sydney, Australia when sci-fi author Rick Rogers (Damien Garvey) is killed by the Woman in Black (Tess Haubrich), a ruthless, bloodthirsty underling of a now-ailing Andrew. Rogers' latest book Bleeding Steel shares an alarming number of details that go into specifics on James' experimental work on Andrew, and it turns out the writer was buying the session notes of a witch (Gillian Jones) who's been serving as a quack therapist to confused orphaned teenager Nancy (Nanan Ou-Yang), who feels like her memories aren't her own and she isn't who she thinks she is. That's because she's really XiXi, who didn't die, and was instead treated with a regenerative drug by Dr. Jones. Lin figures this out and teams with younger sidekick Leeson (Show Lo) to protect his daughter from a sickly Andrew, who wants to transfuse her blood to give himself unlimited biomechanical powers. Or something. Chan (one of 50 credited producers) and director/co-writer Leo Zhang take this nonsense a lot more seriously than they should, so much so that it doesn't really gel when the star takes a few lengthy sabbaticals so the film can focus on Show's puerile antics, which include some asinine kung-fu moves while his pants fall down, accompanied by what sounds like someone trying to do the SEINFELD bass line. There's also a wacky food court brawl where an undercover Lin is working at a fast-food joint and wearing a nametag that reads "Jackie Chan." Only Haubrich seems to find the right tone in playing her role, and BLEEDING STEEL comes alive whenever she's onscreen, especially in the one standout sequence, a fight with Chan atop one of the shells of the Sydney Opera House. The film does earn some points for pulling arguably the most shameless deus ex machina in recent memory out of its ass in the climactic battle on Andrew's spacecraft (!) hovering over Sydney (!!), but this is far and away the dumbest movie Jackie Chan has ever made, and not in a good way. (R, 109 mins) DAMASCUS COVER (Singapore/UK - 2018)
Based on a 1977 novel by Howard Kaplan but with its setting updated to 1989 just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, DAMASCUS COVER is a spy thriller that wants to be both a BOURNE actioner and a methodical TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY-style espionage saga from the John Le Carre school, and definitely landing more in the latter camp with its low-key presentation and slow pacing that's frequently too plodding for its own good. The notion of showing the evolution of the spy game from the Cold War to the eventual War on Terror shows that director/co-writer Daniel Zelik Berk (a veteran producer whose most high-profile directing credit is the 1998 TV-movie SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK...FOR MORE) has put some thought into the project, but DAMASCUS COVER never really catches fire. Jonathan Rhys Meyers is Ari Ben-Sion, an undercover Mossad agent based in Berlin and posing as a German businessman named "Hans Hoffman." After he botches an extraction of an asset who blew his cover, he tries to redeem himself with his cantankerous boss Miki (the late John Hurt in his final role before his death in January 2017) by volunteering for a dangerous assignment that involves smuggling a chemical weapons scientist and his family out of Syria. He also crosses paths with an intrepid USA Today photojournalist (Olivia Thirlby) while trying to keep her at a distance, and ingratiates himself into the Damascus business world by glad-handing with a wealthy ex-Nazi (Jurgen Prochnow) in a time-consuming subplot that doesn't really go anywhere.
Sir John Hurt (1940-2017)
As expected, the story does some globetrotting, jumping between Berlin, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Damascus, with some attractive areas of Morocco portraying Israel and Syria, and there's the usual double-crosses and people not being who they claim to be, but DAMASCUS COVER just sort of putters along with no real sense of urgency and very little suspense. Igal Naor has a few good moments as a Syrian general, but Rhys Meyers is a bland hero and Prochnow has nothing to do (and I'm pretty sure that's a publicity shot of Prochnow from 1983's THE KEEP serving as the file photo in his character's Mossad dossier). It's competently made and looks nice, but DAMASCUS COVER is a footnote to the careers of everyone involved and it's notable only as Hurt's last film (he was cast as Neville Chamberlain in DARKEST HOUR but his battle with cancer forced him to back out just before shooting began, and he was replaced by Ronald Pickup). He's the old pro he always was in his sporadic appearances as Miki (who isn't too far removed from his Control in TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY) and by the end, one gets the feeling that a more intriguing film could've been made about his and Naor's characters. Hurt's final shot near the end, hanging up a pay phone after somberly sighing "Goodbye, my friend," serves as a perfect farewell to a wonderful actor. (R, 94 mins)
A mostly routine but diverting Netflix Original film that's a fine showcase for the growing cult of veteran tough guy character actor Frank Grillo. Grillo also produced and his character fits in perfectly with the persona he's crafted in the second and third PURGE movies (and it's infinitely better than THE CRASH, the dismal Libertarian polemic he produced and starred in earlier this year, which was so bad that the last name of its Wall Street financial titan villain was actually "Del Banco"). As the titular wheelman, Grillo is a stoical, no-nonsense getaway driver for an early evening bank robbery that goes typically awry when he's contacted by "the handler," who tells him to ditch the robbers and drive away. He can't get a hold of the contact (Garret Dillahunt) who arranged the job, and when a second handler calls and reveals that the other handler was an impostor, the wheelman has no idea who to trust and things get really hairy when the fake handler kidnaps his ex-wife (Grillo's wife Wendy Moniz). The wheelman ends up reluctantly teaming with his 13-year-old daughter Katie (Caitlin Carmichael) in an unpredictable and surprisingly engaging plot development, as Katie turns out to be smart, resourceful, and wise beyond her years and not the spoiled, "can't even" brat we're led to expect from the periodic phone calls to her dad throughout. The introduction of Carmichael's character could've easily been the film's death knell, but she and Grillo make an unexpectedly solid team. Writer/director Jeremy Rush, a protege of co-producer Joe Carnahan, wisely keeps 99% of the action in the car and focused on Grillo, who's in every scene and onscreen from start to finish. It sort-of ends with a whimper, but for the most part, WHEELMAN, a cross between DRIVE and LOCKE, is an entertaining, uncomplicated B-movie that's ideal for streaming and doesn't overstay its welcome at just 82 minutes. Also with Shea Whigham, perfectly cast as "Motherfucker." (Unrated, 82 mins, on Netflix) SHOT CALLER (US - 2017)
Following a pair of straight-to-video thrillers (1996's EXIT and 2001's IN THE SHADOWS), stuntman-turned-director Ric Roman Waugh has carved a niche for himself as a maker of gritty prison dramas. SHOT CALLER shares a lot of themes as his 2008 film FELON, which was a bit better than you'd expect from a 2008 movie with Stephen Dorff and Val Kilmer. Waugh continued on this trajectory with the slightly more improbable Dwayne Johnson vehicle SNITCH, but the barely-released SHOT CALLER really should've been his breakthrough. Opening with the parole of hardened, gang-affiliated convict "Money" (GAME OF THRONES Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), the film follows his post-prison activities that include taking part in a deal for a shipment of Russian military weapons stolen from Afghanistan, intercut with flashbacks to his old life and how he ended up where he is. Ten years earlier, "Money" was Jacob Harlin, a successful stockbroker with a wife (Lake Bell) and young son. After a dinner out with another couple, Frank is distracted by conversation and runs a red light. His friend in the backseat is killed and since he had a couple too many glasses of wine, he's charged with DUI with vehicular manslaughter. He makes a plea deal and is sentenced to two years and eight months, but life on the inside means ensuring your safety. He pragmatically aligns himself with a gang of white supremacists for protection, and is soon smuggling drugs in his ass and shivving a guy at their command. After he's involved in a riot, his sentence is extended and he builds a wall around himself, cutting off contact with his wife and son. Now that he's out, he still beholden to the powers that be on the inside, specifically The Beast (Holt McCallany), a gang lord who's so powerful that the guards in solitary answer to him.
It sounds like a standard-issue prison melodrama, but Waugh constructs SHOT CALLER in a way that it becomes a character study of a man using his intelligence to stay alive in a horrible situation. In a typical scenario like this, the story would be about what the prison system does to convicts. Everything that happens to Jacob in his transformation into Money is of his own volition. The pieces don't all fit until much later--indeed, there are moments here with the storytelling seems muddled, especially with exactly what Money's parole officer (Omari Hardwick) is really up to, but it all becomes clear by the end (though I'm still not quite sure what happened to Jeffrey Donovan's "Bottles," a key gang figure who vanishes from the film with no explanation). The main reason SHOT CALLER works so well is Coster-Waldau. Money is a quiet man who can only be pushed so far, and Coster-Waldau, in one of 2017's best performances that no one will see, never goes over the top and rarely raises his voice, internalizing Money's rage, always playing it smart and reading the room before making a decision that shows he's several steps ahead of everyone else. SHOT CALLER premiered on DirecTV before going straight to VOD after two years on the shelf. This deserved a much better release strategy than it got. (R, 121 mins, on Blu-ray/DVD) THE BABYSITTER (US - 2017)
It dispenses with any and all logic by the end, but the Netflix Original film THE BABYSITTER is a fun, fast, blood-splattered horror-comedy that's perfect for streaming. Bullied, overprotected 13-year-old Cole (Judah Lewis) is the only kid his age who still has a babysitter, but he doesn't mind because it's hot and hip Bee (Samara Weaving), who's so cool that she can quote BILLY JACK with him (there's the first tip-off that this doesn't exist on any level of reality). When his parents (Ken Marino, Leslie Bibb) go for a romantic getaway for the weekend, Cole and Bee party it up, and she even gives him encouraging big sister talks about how things will get better and how he should just be himself and stand up for who he is. Curious about what she does after he goes to bed, he spies on her when he hears the doorbell ring and she lets some friends in. One of these kids is a nerdy type who clearly isn't like the others (cheerleader, football star, etc), and when Bee puts two daggers through the nerd's skull and they all drink the blood pouring out of his head while reciting passages from an ancient book of Bee's, it's pretty clear that Cole might not make it through the weekend.
Basically HOME ALONE with Satan worshipers instead of bumbling burglars, THE BABYSITTER has Cole evading Bee and her accomplices, setting traps for them, and using his wits to take them out one by one. Considering it's after midnight and they're in a neighborhood, it's surprising no one calls the cops with all the mayhem going on, but hey, whatever. The kills are goofy and gory and the set-ups for some of the splattery gags are surprisingly smart in some foreshadowing and joke construction that's far more clever than it has any reason to be. It's a little more small-scale than you 'd normally expect from brainless blockbuster purveyor McG (CHARLIE'S ANGELS, TERMINATOR: SALVATION), who really goes for a sort-of Joe Dante vibe here. It's a guilty pleasure and I'm probably way past the target demographic, but it was funny and surprisingly enjoyable and just the right length at 85 minutes. Look for this to become a big cult movie with teenagers. (Unrated, 85 mins, on Netflix) THE FOREIGNER (China/UK - 2017)
A formulaic (villain says to hero "We're a lot alike, you and I") but still-riveting revenge/political thriller that's probably not quite as action-packed as the trailers make it out to be. Chinese immigrant Jackie Chan, trained by US Special Forces during Vietnam and now a British citizen, is obsessed with vengeance after his teenage daughter is killed in a London bomb blast. A group calling itself "Authentic IRA" claims responsibility, which doesn't sit well with Pierce Brosnan, a former IRA and Sinn Fein legend in his youth, now a Belfast-based bureaucrat working for the British government. Chan demands answers from Brosnan and won't leave him alone, setting off a small bomb in his office, following him, texting him photos he's taken of him with his mistress. Tensions escalate and it becomes clear Brosnan has something to hide, and it's quite fun watching him grow increasingly agitated that this "60-year-old Chinaman" is outwitting all the bodyguards and flunkies he sends after him. At first it appears the film when be Jackie Chan's entry into Liam Neeson/TAKEN mode, but THE FOREIGNER is equally focused on political intrigue and the past haunting the present, whether it's Chan and his family's tragic backstory or Brosnan's former associates and even his wife (Orla Brady) thinking he's a sellout. The story gets surprisingly twisty and complex, with one really sleazy plot reveal midway through that produced audible gasps from the audience. One problem is that the second half is so focused on Brosnan (who's really great here, chewing the scenery with rage and gusto) that there's a long stretch where Chan vanishes and seems like a guest star in his own movie, and Chan purists may lament the trickery used to help him with his stunt work (the dude's 63--give him a break), but THE FOREIGNER allows the beloved action star a chance to show his dark side in an English-language role, and the film proves to be a solid thriller from director Martin Campbell (GOLDENEYE, CASINO ROYALE) with a terrific score by the always-reliable Cliff Martinez. (R, 114 mins, in theaters) CULT OF CHUCKY (US - 2017)
The seventh entry in the now-29-year-old CHILD'S PLAY franchise, written all these years by Don Mancini (who took over directing with the fifth installment, 2004's SEED OF CHUCKY), returns to the more comedic approach largely abandoned by 2013's surprisingly straightforward CURSE OF CHUCKY. CULT brings back paraplegic Nica (Fiona Dourif) from the previous film, and it makes Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent, a little kid in the first film back in 1988) a key supporting character. Mancini's storyline is muddled for the most part, but eventually things make sense--at least on their own terms--and you'll just roll with the insanity that develops. Mancini seems to be making it up as he goes along, but like CURSE, there's some surprisingly well-done shout-outs to the horror genre in general, with one SUSPIRIA-inspired death being a real standout. There's other genre staples like De Palma split screen, a lecherous doctor, and a mental hospital whose chilly, antiseptic layout has a vaguely Canadian horror vibe to it. Plus having Chucky possess the patients at a mental hospital one by one is a sly nod to THE EXORCIST III with that film's Brad Dourif also being the voice of Chucky. It's actually almost adorable watching Nica get possessed by Chucky and cackling along with him, Fiona Dourif perfectly replicating her dad's Chucky laugh. There's some impressively over-the-top gore, a lot of it old-school and practical. This has turned into one of the more durable horror franchises, very unusual in that it's been going nearly 30 years with Mancini and Dourif, as well as the returning Vincent and Jennifer Tilly, who's been a part of the party since 1998's BRIDE OF CHUCKY, and has yet to be rebooted. CULT OF CHUCKY is what it is--it's no masterpiece, but in the world of DTV and being a horror franchise that's several decades old, it's more entertaining than it has any reason to be. (R, 91 mins, on Blu-ray/DVD)
Since he first appeared on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE in 1980, Eddie Murphy's career has been filled with so many ups and downs that he's tallied about as many comebacks as John Travolta. His meteoric success in the '80s is probably unknown to a certain age group that probably just thinks of him first and foremost as the voice of Donkey in the SHREK movies. For every box office success like THE NUTTY PROFESSOR, DR. DOLITTLE, or BOWFINGER, there's three or four VAMPIRE IN BROOKLYNs, HOLY MANs, and THE ADVENTURES OF PLUTO NASHs. He seemed to reinvent himself as a family-friendly comedy star in the early 2000s, and his Oscar-nominated turn in 2006's DREAMGIRLS failed to reignite his career, with the combined two-fer of ditching the ceremony after he lost to Alan Arkin in LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE and following DREAMGIRLS with NORBIT not doing him any favors. 2011's TOWER HEIST was the first glimpse of vintage Eddie Murphy that moviegoers saw in quite some time, but again, it just led to an extended sabbatical (2012's A THOUSAND WORDS was released after TOWER HEIST, but was completed in 2008). MR. CHURCH finds Murphy in a rare dramatic role, but even its distributor didn't care: Lionsgate released it on just 354 screens for a gross of $685,000, relegating it to their "CodeBlack" niche division that markets titles to African-American audiences, like Kevin Hart's earlier concert films, WOMAN, THOU ART LOOSED, and ADDICTED. It's also the lowest-budgeted film Murphy's ever starred in, one that can't even afford to license the original recordings of The Bellamy Brothers' "Let Your Love Flow," or Jefferson Starship's "With Your Love," instead going with distractingly inferior cover versions for a high school prom taking place in 1977.
MR. CHURCH isn't a very good movie, but Murphy, in a role originally intended for Samuel L. Jackson, is absolutely terrific in it. In an understated performance, Murphy is the title character, a cook who ends up working for single mom Marie (Natascha McElhone) and her young daughter Charlie (Natalie Coughlin) in 1971 Los Angeles. Marie was the mistress of Mr. Church's recently-deceased and very wealthy boss, who made a deal with Church that he'd be granted a salary for life if he took care of Marie and Charlie for six months. Why six months? Because Marie has breast cancer and has been given six months to live, and Charlie doesn't know it. Mr. Church bonds with Marie and Charlie, preparing their meals and getting young Charlie enthused about literary classics, but he's intensely private and is adamant about his personal time being his own. Marie beats the odds and lives for another six years, during which time Mr. Church dutifully remains their cook and caregiver, though they still don't even know his first name (the only thing Charlie can coax out of him other than his love of literature is that THE MALTESE FALCON is his favorite movie). Marie dies, and Charlie (now played by Britt Robertson) goes off to college in Boston after having her heart broken by high school boyfriend Owen (Xavier Samuel). She returns to L.A. a few years later, pregnant and a college dropout, and Mr. Church takes her in, becoming a father figure to her own child, Izzy (McKenna Grace).
It's a maudlin tearjerker that works on occasion, thanks to the poignant moments provided by Murphy. But as good as he is (there would be some Oscar buzz for him if this was a better movie), he's no match for the woefully predictable story arcs in the script by Susan McMartin, whose writing credits include the TV series TWO AND A HALF MEN and MOM. As the story goes from 1971 to 1986, it seems Charlie can't leave the house without running into someone she knew years ago: troubled high-school kid Landon (Christian Madsen) happens to be right there when she nearly miscarries after a collision with a skateboarder. Why? Because he was on his way to kill himself. See? She thinks Landon saved her and unborn Izzy, but they saved him! And when an aging Mr. Church finally goes to see a doctor about a persistent cough, the doctor just happens to be...a grown-up Owen! And dialogue doesn't get much worse than when Charlie has a disastrous reunion with her now rich and materialistic childhood best friend Poppy (Lucy Fry), culminating in an argument that actually requires Robertson to utter the line "Izzy's my diamond, Poppy...I'm sorry if she doesn't sparkle enough for you!" Through it all, Murphy brings a stoical dignity that commands respect (Charlie expects to be judged over her pregnancy, and when she asks if he wants to know what happened, Mr. Church simply replies "I know how girls get pregnant, Charlie," and leaves it at that), even in Mr. Church's weaker moments when Charlie hears him coming home drunk after a night at the bar, a secret neither of them ever mention. Director Bruce Beresford is mining similar territory as his Oscar-winning DRIVING MISS DAISY, with Mr. Church not that far removed from Morgan Freeman's dutiful Hoke Colburn, and Murphy is so good here that you really want MR. CHURCH to work better than it does. It's shamelessly sappy and manipulative in a way that will probably work with easy weepers, but there's an unspoken darkness to Mr. Church that a stronger, edgier film would've explored, and one that Murphy likely would've been willing to pursue. (PG-13, 105 mins)
SKIPTRACE
(China - 2016)
Boasting some of the biggest names 2002 had to offer, the Chinese-made buddy-action-comedy SKIPTRACE manages to go nearly two hours with zero laughs, no chemistry between its stars, bland action, and embarrassingly bad CGI and crummy greenscreen before ending with a reaction shot from several alpacas. Understandably less inclined to do the insane stunt work of his past, 62-year-old Jackie Chan is Bennie Chan, a Hong Kong cop who's spent the last decade trying to avenge the death of his partner Yung (Eric Tsang) at the hands of a nefarious underworld crime figure known as "The Matador." Bennie believes The Matador is actually prominent businessman Victor Wong (Winston Chao), and when a botched raid goes south, his uptight captain Tang (Michael Wong) threatens to suspend him if he doesn't back off Wong. Bennie has become a father figure to Yung's now-grown orphaned daughter Samantha (Fan Bingbing), who works at a Macau casino owned by Wong and is duped out of a huge chunk of cash by on-the-run American con artist Connor Watts (Johnny Knoxville). Watts has witnessed a murder committed by Wong and is about to make himself disappear when he's abducted by the goons of Russian mobster Dima (Mikhail Gorevoy), who's furious that Watts has gotten his daughter pregnant. Bennie tracks Watts down in Russia and the two are forced to work together to get back to Hong Kong, get Samantha out of trouble, and take down The Matador once and for all...if they don't kill each other first!
A bargain-basement De Niro and Grodin on a midnight stumble, Chan and Knoxville are more grating than funny, and the film tries to tug the heartstrings and score emotional points it never earns after a climax set--to no one's surprise--at an abandoned shipyard. And when they aren't ripping off MIDNIGHT RUN, they borrow some PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES for a scene where Bennie and Watts wake up spooning to the delight of shocked tourists snapping photos ("My hands are kinda warm," Watts says in lieu of "Those aren't pillows!"). Much of the action is given an unconvincing digital assist, with an aging, slower Chan doubled pretty frequently. Again, the guy's got nothing to prove to anyone when it comes to action movies, but it just makes SKIPTRACE all the more depressing to see him fumbling through one dull set piece after another and leading a group of Mongolian villagers in a rendition of Adele's "Rolling in the Deep." You'd think you'd get better given the experience that DIE HARD 2, CLIFFHANGER, and THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT director Renny Harlin (yes, that Renny Harlin) brings to the table, but honestly, he hasn't made a good movie since 1999's DEEP BLUE SEA and even that hasn't aged well. Casting a dark cloud over the whole misbegotten endeavor is the knowledge that veteran camera operator Chan Kwok Hung drowned when a motorized sampan capsized while shooting a sequence on some rough waters. The only winner in this Lionsgate VOD dumpjob is Seann William Scott, who was originally cast as Watts before bailing during pre-production. Is it a bad omen when even a 40-year-old Stifler has better things to do? (PG-13, 108 mins)
CARNAGE PARK (US - 2016)
In the last couple of years, the prolific, 26-year-old Mickey Keating has become the indie horror hipster scene's new auteur du jour for those who think 36-year-old Ti West is an emeritus elder statesman. Since 2015, Keating has directed POD, an homage to the 1978 version of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS; DARLING, an homage to Roman Polanski's 1965 classic REPULSION; and now CARNAGE PARK, where he seems to throw everything against the wall to see what sticks, like spaghetti western-inspired opening credits for a movie that has nothing to do with spaghetti westerns. He may as well have done fake 007 credits. The problem with Keating is that he's all homage. In theory, it's not much different from how Quentin Tarantino established himself, but where Tarantino is a great writer, Keating is content to make his CARNAGE PARK characters sound like they're in a Tarantino movie. He even takes a FROM DUSK TILL DAWN approach by switching gears part way through the movie, opening as a RESERVOIR DOGS knockoff set in a desolate California desert county (and in 1978, for no reason at all other than pandering for grindhouse cred), with escaped cons Scorpion Joe (James Landry Hebert) and Lenny (Michael Villar) botching a bank robbery and fleeing the scene. Lenny's been shot in the gut and is in the backseat bleeding out as Scorpion Joe tries to keep him calm, just like the first scene of RESERVOIR DOGS. But Lenny dies and Scorpion Joe turns down a dirt road and gets his hostage, Vivian (THE LAST EXORCISM's Ashley Bell) out of the trunk. Then he's shot in the head from a distance. The shooter is Wyatt Moss (COMPLIANCE's Pat Healy), a deranged, Bible-quoting Vietnam vet who owns a huge swath of land in the desert and has it surrounded by an electric fence. He lures hitchhikers and back roads travelers into this MOST DANGEROUS GAME-esque amusement park and hunts them, often taunting them unseen over a loudspeaker system. Moss' estranged brother is the sheriff (Alan Ruck), who's been looking the other way regarding his brother's homicidal hobbies but is forced to intervene when it's reported that Vivian, the daughter of a prominent regional farming family, is missing. Vivian fights to survive as Moss pursues her, across the land and down into an abandoned mine shaft, sporting a miner's helmet to make sure you catch that he's referencing 1981's MY BLOODY VALENTINE.
The shift from a getaway thriller into a TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE/Rob Zombie-type hicksploitation horror outing comes pretty early, and while Bell is a convincing heroine, CARNAGE PARK (the title likely a play on Peter Watkins' 1971 faux docudrama PUNISHMENT PARK, also a variant of the MOST DANGEROUS GAME scenario revamped as a Vietnam protest film) has very little to offer. Keating spends so much time emulating the movies in his VHS collection that he never establishes his own voice or his own style. Every few minutes, he's ripping off another movie and the recognition of such is supposed to be the reward in and of itself for the audience, along with the required-by-law cameo by Larry Fessenden, the Zelig of indie horror movies. Like so many of today's alleged "Masters of Horror," Keating is probably a lot of fun to hang out with and watching horror movies with him would be a blast, but didn't we hold our genre trailblazers to a higher standard once upon a time? Nearly a quarter century after the game-changing arrival of Tarantino, filmmakers still don't understand why he was a game-changer. They get the homage part, but that's all they get. Keating obviously has talent and knows how to direct a movie. The dusty, desert setting is effective and, until he starts using it too much, Moss' hectoring and cackling over the loudspeaker is unnerving. Keating doesn't really make a bad directorial decision until he sets the climax in the total darkness of the mine shaft, making it impossible to tell what's going on. But just on a creative level in his screenplay, there's about as much here as a Friedberg/Seltzer spoof movie. He doesn't even really take advantage of the 1978 setting other than to repeatedly include a joke 1978 copyright date in the credits. CARNAGE PARK doesn't overstay its welcome. It moves fast and it's not boring. It isn't terrible. But it sure isn't good. It just is. It makes references and says "Hey, did you get that reference?" C'mon. Try harder. (Unrated, 81 mins, also streaming on Netflix)
DRAGON BLADE (China - 2015) Written and directed by Daniel Lee. Cast: Jackie Chan, John Cusack, Adrien Brody, Sharni Vinson, William Feng, Lin Peng, Mika Wang, Lorie Pester, Siwon Choi, Xiao Yang, Sammy Hung, Jozef Liu Waite. (R, 104 mins)
When the $65 million IMAX 3-D Chinese epic DRAGON BLADE became a blockbuster hit throughout Asia in February 2015, it didn't take long for a badly photo-shopped trade poster to explode on the internet thanks to the presence of John Cusack as a Roman centurion and Adrien Brody as a villainous nobleman in 50 B.C. Many even questioned if the poster was some kind of prank. No, it's a real movie, primarily a vehicle for star/producer Jackie Chan who, aside from his KUNG FU PANDA voice work, hasn't headlined an American film since the 2010 remake of THE KARATE KID. The 61-year-old action legend has instead settled into a series of generally serious Asian films like the period epic 1911 (2011) and typical--albeit with less death-defying stuntwork--Chan outings like CHINESE ZODIAC and the recently-released POLICE STORY: LOCKDOWN. DRAGON BLADE was a pet project for Chan, a story of disgraced warriors who team with an outcast faction of the Roman Army to defeat a power-crazed despot intent on taking control of the famed Silk Road.
The end result is a mess, at least in Lionsgate's re-edited, 104-minute American cut that's just arrived in a handful of theaters and on VOD (memo to Lionsgate's trailer team: you can't call something "a worldwide phenomenon" while dumping it on VOD). They cut nearly 25 minutes out of the film, among other things jettisoning an entire present-day prologue and epilogue involving archaeologists studying the Silk Road battle site. The Mandarin-language opening section is whiplash-inducing in its choppiness, making it impossible to figure out who's who except for the most familiar faces and a select few of the main supporting characters (YOU'RE NEXT's Sharni Vinson is prominently billed but has a role so small that it's literally blink-and-you'll-miss-her, so perhaps she was among the cuts made by Lionsgate). Chan is Huo An, a captain of the Silk Road Protection Squad, a close-knit group of warriors assigned by the government to keep peace among the many peoples who live in the Silk Road region. When the group is set up by one of their own and accused of gold smuggling, the entire squad is sentenced to the prison outpost Wild Geese Gate. It's here that they live in banishment until they're raided by a Roman army headed by General Lucius (Cusack). English-speaking Lucius instigates a one-on-one battle with English-speaking Huo An until a sandstorm approaches and the peace-seeking Huo An offers the soldiers food and shelter. Lucius is leading an army of rebel officers who have absconded with Publius (Jozef Liu Waite), a child prince chosen by his father to be the next heir, skipping over Publius' scheming, treacherous older brother Tiberius (Brody). Like most passed-over royals, Tiberius didn't take the news well and reacted by killing his father and poisoning his baby brother's eye medication, causing him to go blind. Tiberius is leading a 100,000-man army along the Silk Road in hot pursuit of Lucius, who is determined to keep Publius alive.
It's not a bad story, and at times, some of the visuals and battle scenes are pretty good, even if the CGI and greenscreen gets a little wonky-looking (boy, I get tired of writing that). But in the attempt to please the Chan faithful, the tone is all over the place. You get everything from slapstick comedy to blood-splattered battle with arterial spray and eye gougings. There's an absurd amount of over-emotional male bonding as Chan and writer/director Daniel Lee (BLACK MASK) try to turn this into a BRAVEHEART-level man-weepie (interestingly, Chan offered Cusack the gig after Mel Gibson turned it down). But nowhere is DRAGON BLADE sillier than in a long early sequence when Huo An is informed that Chinese officials will be arriving at Wild Geese Gate in 15 days to ensure that they've completed their assignment of rebuilding the fortress and the surrounding area. If it's not done, they'll all be executed and it's a job that would take six months of round-the-clock work. Fear not, Huo An's new bro Lucius says. With Roman ingenuity and good old-fashioned teamwork, the Romans and the Chinese can work together to rebuild this city with nothing less than an energetically plucky display of "Let's put on a show!" verve and moxie that would've made Mickey Rooney proud. They even have time to take a break where each army shows off its pageantry and formations in what amounts to a sort-of 50 B.C. Far East version of BRING IT ON. Then they sing war songs, drink, and bond and cry some more, as Publius declares Huo An an official Roman centurion. These kinds of radical tonal shifts play better with Asian moviegoers than they do with their western counterparts--the first half of DRAGON BLADE is so earnest and corny that it's honestly hard to dislike, but then it decides to get relatively serious when Tiberius takes center stage, and the shift just feels like too much after all the slapstick and shameless sentimentality that came before it. I say "relatively serious" since Brody, no doubt still basking in the glow of his INAPPROPRIATE COMEDY triumph, seems to be inspired by Nicolas Cage at his most Cagey. With a ridiculous wig, preening mannerisms and an inconsistent fey British accent that comes and goes without warning, Brody is obviously opting for the hammy route in his silliest performance since groping himself as the anagrammed "Byron Deidra" in Dario Argento's GIALLO. Cusack is ludicrously miscast but fares better than in most of his recent Cusackalypse Now trifles. Sure, the idea of him playing a Roman centurion is amusing--and he's more or less admitted he did it as a lark--but it's hardly any worse than most of his other recent jobs, with the exception of his acclaimed performance as Brian Wilson in LOVE & MERCY.
Asian audiences flocked to DRAGON BLADE and made it a huge hit, but they'll flock to anything and make it a huge hit. All the movies that go straight to VOD in the US are box office smashes in Asia. Make no mistake--this is strictly VOD material here, ready-made for Redbox. It might've had some potential as a word-of-mouth, sleeper crowdpleaser once it hit Netflix Instant, but well over half of the film is in Mandarin with English subtitles, so that's out, though I respect Lionsgate's decision to leave it Mandarin and not dub the Chinese cast members in English. At the end of the day, DRAGON BLADE's only notoriety is the unlikely sight of Cusack and Brody playing Ancient Roman dress-up on a Chinese vacation, but once the snickering dies down and the novelty wears off, you're left with a fairly middling, forgettable adventure.
With their Roger Corman line and their endless parade of classic TV shows among other offerings, it's been a busy couple of years for Shout! Factory, who have quietly emerged as the top genre Blu-ray/DVD label for serious cult movie fans and only look to get bigger with their "Scream Factory" offshoot and an MGM licensing deal. Here's a look at several of their releases from the last couple of months.
CRIME STORY (Hong Kong - 1993)/ THE PROTECTOR (US/Hong Kong - 1985)
Two atypical Jackie Chan films are paired on a single disc, starting with 1993's CRIME STORY, which was released in a dubbed version in the US by Dimension Films in 1996 to capitalize Chan's RUMBLE IN THE BRONX breakthrough (this offers the English dub and the original Cantonese with English subtitles). It's a different kind of Chan film in that it's a dark and very violent kidnapping thriller that's completely lacking his usual comedic flair. In a role originally intended for Jet Li, Chan is Detective Eddie Chan, an honest cop trying to get to the bottom of the abduction of a millionaire construction magnate. CRIME STORY reveals early on that the culprit is actually Chan's partner Hung (Kent Cheng) and there's a nice pre-INFERNAL AFFAIRS vibe to their game of cat & mouse as Hung gets increasingly nervous about Chan's incessant digging. Chan found the film too dark and insisted, against the wishes of director Kirk Wong (who's interviewed on the Blu-ray) on dumping a subplot about Det. Chan's psychological issues and adding some typically acrobatic martial-arts action sequences. These scenes don't really gel with the gritty vibe Wong was going for, and because we know in the very beginning that Hung is responsible, there isn't a whole lot of suspense in the film. The spectacular action scenes then, are really the highpoints, so perhaps Chan was right to overrule Wong. CRIME STORY suffers from inconsistent pacing, Chan's need to present his character as selflessly heroic as possible (not one, but two scenes where he puts his job aside to rescue someone in distress--you're the hero, we get it) and a very intrusive score, but the memorable action scenes, including one incredible car chase, make it worthwhile. Wong came to Hollywood a few years later for the 1998 Mark Wahlberg actioner THE BIG HIT, but hasn't directed a film since 2000's THE DISCIPLES, which is credited to "Alan Smithee."
Coming a decade before Chan finally found success in the US with RUMBLE IN THE BRONX, 1985's much-maligned THE PROTECTOR was the second attempt by Golden Harvest to make Jackie Chan a star in the US. 1980's THE BIG BRAWL bombed and Chan's co-starring roles in both CANNONBALL RUN films did little to endear him to American fans. Chan was never happy with THE PROTECTOR and reportedly clashed with writer/director James Glickenhaus (THE EXTERMINATOR) throughout the shoot and eventually ended up preparing his own version of the film for the Asian market, adding fight scenes and reshooting others, dumping the nudity and the profanity to make it a more traditional Chan film. THE PROTECTOR tanked in the US, grossing less than $1 million, but time has been pretty kind to it. If one approaches it as a Glickenhaus film first and a Chan film second, they'll have a better time with it. The first 20 minutes contain some vintage Glickenhaus fused with Chan's incredible stuntwork. Chan is NYC cop Billy Wong, who's sent to Hong Kong with crass partner Garoni (Danny Aiello) to take down the crime lord who's kidnapped the daughter of a Manhattan business partner. THE PROTECTOR drags a bit in the middle, but Glickenhaus, one of the action genre's most underrated craftsman, is really at the top of his game here and the film is immensely enjoyable if you're into the whole trashy B-movie thing. It's nonstop F-bombs (even one from Chan!), gratuitous nudity, insane violence, Aiello dialing his Noo Yawk schtick to 11, and every cop movie cliche known to man. Shout's 1.85:1 Blu-ray features some nice extras, including an interview with a diplomatic Glickenhaus, who says the disagreements came after the film was finished and insists he and Chan were always amicable and professional, a great featurette showing the NYC locations then and now, and the 88-minute Chan-supervised Asian cut, dubbed in Cantonese with English subtitles. It follows the same basic plot structure, but adds a subplot with actress Sally Yeh and has enough major differences that it qualifies as a completely different film. (CRIME STORY: Unrated, 107 mins./THE PROTECTOR: R, 95 mins; THE PROTECTOR, Chan cut: Unrated, 88 mins)
DEADLY BLESSING (US - 1981)
Low-key Wes Craven horror film takes its time getting revved up, but offers a few decent scares and one memorable bathtub encounter with a snake that's endeared itself to devout followers of '80s horror cinema. After her husband dies mysteriously, pregnant Maren Jensen (the original BATTLESTAR GALACTICA) and her two visiting friends (GREASE's Susan Buckner and Sharon Stone in one of her earliest roles) are terrorized and persecuted by the husband's estranged family, a community of Hittites from which he was banished. Craven does some clever misdirection and we're of course led to believe that Jensen's irate father-in-law (Ernest Borgnine) is behind all the mayhem, but that's too easy and always be wary of prominently billed actors who don't appear to have much to do with the plot. DEADLY BLESSING almost feels like the kind of slow-burner that a lot of indie horror filmmakers are going for today (I'm surprised it hasn't been remade with some kind of Westboro Baptist Church-type extremist group in place of the Hittites), and it subverts expectations time and again. The plot twist in the finale is genuinely unexpected in the way it changes your views of the perceived crazies and who the real antagonists of the story were. An interesting and unusual film that's marred only by a last shot that feels like it doesn't belong, only in the sense that it takes a frightening premise essentially grounded in reality and turns it otherworldly and supernatural in a way that provides a cool shock to go out on, but also cheapens the film to some degree. Also with Lois Nettleton, Michael Berryman (as the Hittite village idiot...or is he?), Jeff East, and "introducing" Lisa Hartman, even though she'd been in several TV movies and starred in a TV series years before doing this film. Shout's 1.78:1 Blu-ray features a commentary with Craven and Horror's Hallowed Ground's Sean Clark (where Craven admits he hasn't seen the film in many years and is "foggy" on a lot of details but says he's always been "embarrassed" by the last shot), and interviews with Buckner and Berryman. (R, 102 mins)
DEATH VALLEY (US - 1982)
This desert-set thriller wasn't a success in theaters, coming along at the height of the slasher craze, but it's bit more restrained than most (there's some brief nudity and a couple of gory throat slicings) and feels a lot like a made-for-TV movie. Heavy cable rotation in the mid-1980s has earned it some sentimental affection and a devoted cult following. For the most part, it's sluggishly-paced and rather average, with an overbearing score by Dana Kaproff that really goes out of its way to mimic Bernard Herrmann at his stringiest, but it has its moments and Stephen McHattie is a memorably effective killer, pursuing young Peter Billingsley (a year before A CHRISTMAS STORY), who's vacationing in Arizona with his divorced mom (Catherine Hicks) and her new boyfriend (Paul Le Mat). Director Dick Richards and screenwriter Richard Rothstein give us a lot of repetitious character-building scenes of young Billingsley sullenly giving Le Mat the cold shoulder before forming a tentative bond, but things pick up considerably once Le Mat and Hicks go out to dinner, leaving Billingsley alone with one of horror cinema's most useless babysitters as McHattie shows up ready to kill. Shout's 1.78:1 Blu-ray transfer looks good and there's a commentary track with Richards, best known as the producer of 1982's TOOTSIE and as the guy who got into an on-set brawl with Burt Reynolds during the making of 1987's ill-fated HEAT. DEATH VALLEY isn't bad--it was nice to revisit it after 30 years but it's nothing special, and a good example of something whose status may be elevated somewhat because it was seen at such an impressionable age. (R, 88 mins)
THE DUELLISTS (UK - 1977)
Ridley Scott's debut feature wasn't a big box office hit but it became a major cult film and established him as enough of a visual stylist that it led to his breakthrough blockbuster ALIEN two years later. Based on Joseph Conrad's short story "The Duel," THE DUELLISTS finds two French army officers in the Napoleonic era, D'Hubert (Keith Carradine) and Feraud (Harvey Keitel), engaged in a nearly 20-year battle over a perceived insult that neither of them even remember by the end of the film. In 1800, the easy-going D'Hubert was assigned to find hot-tempered, bullying Feraud and place him under house arrest at the base camp after the dueling-obsessed Feraud nearly killed the local mayor's son. An offended Feraud instead takes his frustrations out on D'Hubert and so begins a grudge match that consumes their lives over the next two decades. Their battle is a metaphor for the madness of war, a recurrent Conrad theme that was being explored at the same time by Francis Ford Coppola's APOCALYPSE NOW (1979), of course based on Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness. Working with fencing choreographer William Hobbs (whose expertise also helped make 1973's THE THREE MUSKETEERS, 1974's THE FOUR MUSKETEERS, and 1981's EXCALIBUR, among others, so memorable) and debuting cinematographer Frank Tidy (who never again shot a film this beautiful), Scott makes his mark with THE DUELLISTS, showcasing intense, brutal, bloody duels (how did this manage to get a PG rating?), and utilizing the natural lighting style that made Stanley Kubrick's BARRY LYNDON (1975) so visually stunning. Shout's Blu-ray looks very good, easily the best it's ever looked since it was in theaters, but shows some wear at times, and it's likely just inherent in the 1970s film stock. Some of the exterior shots (particularly in the closing scene) and ornate interiors are absolutely breathtaking. Carradine and Keitel do good work, despite both being miscast as officers in Napoleon's army. Scott gathered a fine supporting cast: Edward Fox, Robert Stephens, Cristina Raines, Tom Conti, Diana Quick, Alan Webb, Jenny Runacre, Alun Armstrong, Maurice Colbourne, W. Morgan Sheppard, a young Pete Postlethwaite, and Albert Finney. Narrated by Stacy Keach. Carradine and Keitel would reunite a decade later in Damiano Damiani's ancient Rome-set religious mystery THE INQUIRY (1986). (PG, 100 mins)
THE SEVEN-PER-CENT SOLUTION (US - 1976)
The 1970s saw numerous revisionist Sherlock Holmes films, such as Billy Wilder's THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1970) and THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS (1971), with George C. Scott as a mental patient who thinks he's Holmes. THE SEVEN-PER-CENT SOLUTION, adapted by Nicholas Meyer (TIME AFTER TIME, STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN) from his own novel, opens with the dark, rarely-depicted-on-screen drug-addicted side of Holmes, showing the great detective (Nicol Williamson) in the midst of a crazed cocaine binge as his brother Mycroft (Charles Gray) and Dr. Watson (Robert Duvall) conspire to trick him into going to Vienna to rehab with none other than the renowned Dr. Sigmund Freud (Alan Arkin). While in Vienna, a cleaned-up, clear-thinking Holmes finds himself with Watson and Freud in pursuit of one of Freud's kidnapped patients (Vanessa Redgrave). All of this leads to a thrilling train chase and Holmes and the villain squaring off for a swashbuckling showdown atop a speeding train. Meyer and director Herbert Ross find the perfect balance between drama, humor, and spectacular action throughout, and while such shifts in tone might have come off as jarringly uneven, they make it a very natural and organic progression. Williamson's Holmes ranks among the best, and while Duvall initially feels miscast as Watson, he eventually settles into the role and captures the spirit of Watson even if is his strange accent is a bit distracting. The film is mainly played straight, especially in the early going, but has a lot of humor, such as Holmes and Watson investigating a bordello where Holmes tries to shield the proper Watson's eyes from some of the more lascivious sights on display (it plays like a moment that Williamson might have ad-libbed). This was a big-budget release from Universal, and Meyer's script got an Oscar nomination, but these days, THE SEVEN-PER-CENT SOLUTION is generally well-regarded but remains little known outside of cult movie circles and hardcore Holmes enthusiasts, which is a shame. It's a rousing adventure, brilliantly acted, and prefigures Guy Ritchie's SHERLOCK HOLMES in a number of ways, and Robert Downey, Jr.'s portrayal of Holmes owes much to Williamson's often manic interpretation of the character. Also with Laurence Olivier as an innocent, falsely-accused Moriarty, Joel Grey, Samantha Eggar, and Jeremy Kemp, THE SEVEN-PER-CENT SOLUTION is a richly entertaining film that's aged beautifully. Shout's 1.85:1 transfer spotlights Ken Adam's stunning production design, and the Blu-ray/DVD combo set also offers an interview with Meyer. (PG, 114 mins)
