Gary Oldman really should have better things to do after his DARKEST HOUR Oscar triumph than dropping in for Bruce Willis duty on a straight-to-VOD Lionsgate/Grindstone clunker like KILLERS ANONYMOUS. So should Jessica Alba, who has even less to do here than Oldman, yet both are prominently displayed on the cut-and-paste poster art for this utterly dreadful dark comedy that squanders them and an interesting premise and crosses its fingers hoping that frantically piling on one nonsensical twist after another in the final act will gaslight you into thinking you're watching a more clever movie than you are (and just take a moment and look at that poster--it looks like the graphic design team had a 5:00 pm deadline and started working on it at 4:57). KILLERS ANONYMOUS opens with a prologue where Oldman's unnamed character (a mystery man known only as "The Man") is summoned from Los Angeles to London by underling Jade (Alba) to assess a botched assassination attempt on a popular US senator (Sam Hazeldine) who's a rising star with presidential aspirations. Jade is killed during the opening credits (and that's it for Alba, who couldn't have worked on this for more than a day) by Krystal (co-writer Elizabeth Morris), who heads straight to a meeting of Killers Anonymous, a support group for assassins dealing with job-related stress and burnout. It's a potentially amusing idea, but once everyone arrives--there's also group leader Jo (MyAnna Buring); player Leandro (Michael Socha); mild-mannered Calvin (Tim McInnerny); sensitive Ben (Elliot James Langridge); 'fookin' 'ell, mate!" LOCK STOCK knockoff rage case Markus (top-billed Tommy Flanagan); and new member Alice (EMPIRE's Rhyon Nicole Brown), a mysterious American who's hesitant to say much--the film stops dead in its tracks as director/co-writer Martin Owen (LET'S BE EVIL) gives each of the characters their own long monologue about who they are and what brought them to KA.
This goes on for about an hour, intermittently broken up by frequent bitching about quiet Alice by resident loudmouths Markus and Krystal, and while it might be a nice acting class exercise for the cast, it doesn't make for a very engaging film. Owen occasionally cuts away to Morgan (Isabelle Allen), a teenage runaway who's hiding in a crawlspace and eavesdropping on everything, and to a grimacing Oldman, whose enigmatic "The Man" is positioned on a nearby rooftop listening in on the bugged session while on the phone counseling a troubled killer (Suki Waterhouse) back in L.A. Not unlike a deadening mash-up of early Guy Ritchie, SMOKIN' ACES, and THE ICEMAN COMETH, the pointless and self-indulgent KILLERS ANONYMOUS is an absolute endurance test that doesn't have a single clever or even remotely amusing moment in its 96 excruciating minutes, which is pretty tough to accomplish considering the offbeat black comedy potential of a support group for assassins. Your first inclination would be to think that this must be some unreleasable dud that was shot four or five years ago and is only now being dusted off because of Oldman's DARKEST HOUR awards run. Nope...production began in July 2018, a good three months after the Oscars. Gary Oldman showed up on the set of KILLERS ANONYMOUS a newly-anointed Academy Award-winner. Did he lose a bet? Was his family being held hostage? Was he choking in a restaurant and Owen was there to successfully administer the Heimlich, making Oldman feel obligated to do him a solid in return? What is Gary Oldman doing in this movie? What is Jessica Alba doing in this movie? Hell, I don't even know what Tommy Flanagan is doing in this movie. (R, 96 mins)
ASTRONAUT (Canada - 2019)
It's hard to watch ASTRONAUT and not think that it might exist in some alternate post-CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND where an elderly Roy Neary is still watching the skies. That's because Richard Dreyfuss stars in this slight but sincere Canadian drama from debuting writer/director Shelagh McLeod. Dreyfuss is Angus Stewart, a 75-year-old retired civil engineer, astronomy enthusiast, and recent widower who's been forced to sell his home and move in with his daughter Molly (Krista Bridges), son-in-law Jim (Lyriq Bent), and adoring young grandson Barney (Richie Lawrence) after recurring TIAs and a diagnosis of atrial fibrillation and angina. Though Barney loves having him around and learning about space, his presence causes tension between between Molly and Jim, so he reluctantly agrees to move into a nursing home after Molly finds him in the midst of another mini-stroke. Though he befriends other residents--including a flamboyant Art Hindle and Graham Greene as a partially paralyzed stroke survivor--the irascible Angus quickly grows bored with the rigidity of the facility's director (Mimi Kuzyk), and at Barney's suggestion, enters himself in an online lottery created by Elon Musk-like multi-billionaire Marcus Brown (Colm Feore), where the winner gets a seat on Brown's ultimate dream project: the first commercial space flight. The age cut-off is 65, so Angus simply shaves off a decade and divulges nothing about his worsening health situation. And of course, he makes the cut.
A film aimed at senior audiences who might balk at all the R-rated talk and geriatric threesomes in Clint Eastwood's THE MULE, ASTRONAUT is corny, maudlin and shamelessly manipulative. But Dreyfuss admirably resists his innately hammy impulses and turns in a heartfelt performance as a man who knows the end is near and just wants one shot at his lifelong dream. There's certainly a strong argument to be made that everything that unfolds is just a fantasy of dying man, and an attempt at suspense in the third act where Angus' expertise in engineering helps avert a potential disaster for Brown is a little too hokey, but this is really all about Dreyfuss. He shows a genuine camaraderie with young Lawrence and his scenes with Bridges have a realism to them that will resonate with anyone who's lost a parent and knows the other doesn't have much time left. ASTRONAUT loses its way a little in the home stretch, but it's the kind of film that probably would've been a minor sleeper hit of the STRAIGHT STORY sort in the late '90s. And it gives Dreyfuss--last seen embarrassing himself by playing a deranged criminal mountain man like the love child of Walter Brennan and Strother Martin in the dismal Gina Carano actioner DAUGHTER OF THE WOLF--a worthy late-career dramatic lead. Call it MR. HOLLAND GOES TO SPACE. (Unrated, 97 mins)
MECHANIC: RESURRECTION (US - 2016) Directed by Dennis Gansel. Written by Philip Shelby and Tony Mosher. Cast: Jason Statham, Jessica Alba, Tommy Lee Jones, Michelle Yeoh, Sam Hazeldine, John Cenatiempo, Toby Eddington, Femi Elufowoju Jr, Anteo Quintavalle, Yayaying Rhatha Phongam. (R, 98 mins)
The 2011 Jason Statham remake of THE MECHANIC was close enough to the 1972 Charles Bronson original that the older film's screenwriter Lewis John Carlino still retained a WGA-mandated co-writing credit despite retiring from movies in the late '80s. Five years later, Statham is back with MECHANIC: RESURRECTION, a film so ludicrous that it makes his own MECHANIC look like a PBS documentary on professional assassins. Right from the opening "Summit Premiere" logo, it's pretty clear that VOD was the original destination for this woefully cheap-looking sequel that's probably only getting a shot in wide release because of Statham's resurgence as a supporting actor in hits like the Melissa McCarthy comedy SPY and as the villain in last year's FURIOUS 7. MECHANIC: RESURRECTION has a lot of location footage shot around the world, but closeups of the actors are against an obvious greenscreen at Avi Lerner's Nu Boyana Studios in Bulgaria, with blurry and hazy CGI carelessly added in post. Background shots of bodies of water seem curiously still and there's always a halo-like outline around the actors, who sometimes look composited into the shot. Explosions look like pre-2000 CGI and the carelessness extends to typos throughout, whether an official document describes a sex offender as "extremly" dangerous or a character named Max Adams is mentioned in a newspaper headline reading "Max Adam's Financial Records..." All that silliness aside, MECHANIC: RESURRECTION is harmless fun and the kind of entertaining junk food that's hard for Statham fans to resist. As far as Statham sequels go, it's better than the anything-goes obnoxiousness of the unwatchable CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE, recognizing its own silliness and more or less approaching it with a DEATH WISH 3 mentality that's right in line with Cannon-like ethos of Avi Lerner's Golan-Globus cover band Millennium Films.
Picking up a few years after faking his death at the end of the first film, professional killer-for-hire Arthur Bishop (Statham) is in hiding in Rio (cue establishing aerial shot of Christ the Redeemer statue accompanied by the caption "Rio de Janeiro, Brazil") when he has to dispose of a team of goons in the employ of former associate-turned-international criminal Crain (Sam Hazeldine as Almost Hugo Weaving). Fleeing to a Thai beach resort owned by his friend Mei (Michelle Yeoh), Bishop accidentally kills a guy attacking Gina (Jessica Alba). Of course, it was all a set-up: Gina is an American humanitarian aid worker based in Cambodia, and Crain threatened to kill all of the kids at an orphanage if she didn't lure Bishop into his trap. Crain wants Bishop to kill three men and he's holding Gina hostage to ensure his cooperation. The targets are Sudanese warlord Krill (Femi Elufowoji Jr), currently residing in an impenetrable island prison 70 miles off the coast of Malaysia; Adrian Cook (Toby Eddington), a billionaire Australian businessman (cue establishing aerial shot of the Sydney Opera House with a caption reading "Sydney, Australia") running a lucrative human trafficking operation; and Max Adams (a slumming Tommy Lee Jones), an eccentric American arms dealer based in Bulgaria. All of the hits have to look like accidents, and when Bishop loses all faith in Crain keeping his word, he decides to take matters into his own hands and turn the tables on his employer, who wants the three targets gone because they're his competition.
Co-written by Philip Shelby, who scripted the absurd SURVIVOR, with Milla Jovovich vs. Pierce Brosnan, the latter a deadly assassin known as "The Watchmaker," MECHANIC: RESURRECTION marks the English-language debut of German director Dennis Gansel, who made the 2010 female vampire import WE ARE THE NIGHT. Gansel relies on standard quick-cut/shaky-cam action scenes that do little to distinguish himself as anything other than a hired gun who saw the project as a foot in the door to the American movie industry. It doesn't help that it looks as chintzy and corner-cutting as any late-period, circa 1990 Cannon production. The only thing really distinctive about MECHANIC: RESURRECTION is Arthur Bishop's newfound superhuman abilities. He can hold his breath underwater for incredible amounts of time. He can apparently delete himself from recorded footage, as when he orchestrates a killing involving a man falling out of a glass-bottom swimming pool at the top of skyscraper, and it's caught by onlookers with the footage going viral, and yet Bishop rappelling out of the way mere seconds earlier somehow doesn't appear. He can tally up an astronomical body count with nary a scratch on himself. He's also incredibly prepared: he can arrive anywhere in the world in a middle-of-nowhere location and already have a case filled with cash, phones, and passports under a floorboard of a shack or buried in the sand, waiting for him. He can arrive in these places with nothing on him and spontaneously set up an impromptu laboratory with chemicals, beakers, protractors, and other engineering accoutrements to create the gadgets he needs to pull off his jobs.
It also helps that the bad guys in the film employ the world's least-attentive henchmen, all of whom make it easy by conveniently looking the other way when Bishop approaches them for the kill. That is, when they aren't doing things like standing next to two awkwardly-placed red gas cans on a landing pad that are just waiting to be shot at for another CGI explosion courtesy of the Bulgarian clown crew at Worldwide FX. Visual effects have always been the Achilles' heel of Millennium/Nu Image, who can corral enough money to lure big name talent but never could get special effects to advance beyond the level of a straight-to-VHS Frank Zagarino vehicle from 1996. Worldwide FX seemed to be stepping up their game with their convincing work in recent Millennium fare like STONEHEARST ASYLUM and CRIMINAL, but they apparently farmed the work on this one out to the unpaid interns. The effects here are embarrassingly bad, even if the film cost a relatively low-budget--by today's standards--$40 million, most of which probably went to Statham, Alba, a barely-utilized Yeoh, and a visibly inconvenienced Jones, who doesn't even appear until 70 minutes in and lets a couple of clip-on earrings do most of his acting for him. Turning Arthur Bishop into a hybrid of James Bond and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE's Ethan Hunt isn't a bad idea, and after a clunky and needlessly convoluted opening 20 minutes, MECHANIC: RESURRECTION--obviously a comedy--finds its footing and becomes stupidly likable thanks to an engaged Statham doing what he does best.
Blumhouse, the Jason Blum-led production company behind the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, INSIDIOUS, and PURGE films, has a serious backlog of delayed and shelved titles through various distributors. One such distributor is Universal, who released several Blumhouse titles directly to Netflix with no fanfare in late 2014. This week, the studio quietly released to Netflix another batch of Blumhouse product that's been sitting around for anywhere from one to three years. The best of the bunch is THE VEIL, written by Robert Ben Garant (JESSABELLE) and directed by the long-absent Phil Joanou (THREE O'CLOCK HIGH, STATE OF GRACE), helming his first feature film since 2006's GRIDIRON GANG. THE VEIL takes its cue from Ti West's relatively recent THE SACRAMENT in that it obviously references the 1978 Jonestown tragedy in Guyana, but goes in a different and more supernatural direction. In 1985, 47 members of the Heaven's Veil religious cult committed mass suicide by poisoning, including the cult's crazed leader, the shaggy-haired and shades-wearing Jim Jacobs (Thomas Jane). 30 years later, lone survivor Sarah Hope (Lily Rabe), who was only five years old at the time of the mass suicide, is contacted by a team of documentary filmmakers headed by Maggie Price (Jessica Alba). Maggie and her cameraman brother Chris (Jack De Sena) have also had their lives affected by the Heaven's Veil incident--their father was the lead FBI agent investigating Jacobs and the man who led the raid on the compound. It had a profound effect on him and he committed suicide three years later, his body found by young Maggie. Maggie has scoured her father's personal files on Heaven's Veil and in some photos never released to the public, there are visible movie cameras, though any film that was shot was never recovered. As desperate to confront her past as Maggie is to see what truths are to be uncovered on any lost films, Sarah accompanies the group to the ruins of the Heaven's Veil compound where they indeed discover reels of film that show Jacobs experimenting with a brain-death-inducing drug and an antidote that pulls one back from the edge of death with what he claims are newfound, otherworldly, spiritual abilities. It doesn't take long before some unlucky members of the group discover the hard way that Jacobs' spirit haunts the Heaven's Veil grounds, with the intent of procuring new vessels for his and his followers' spirits to carry on their work in the present day.
Admittedly, the early going isn't promising, starting with Jane's character being named "Jim Jacobs" (not a far leap from the real Rev. Jim Jones or Stuart Whitman's "Rev. Jim Johnson" in 1980's GUYANA: CULT OF THE DAMNED) and wearing the signature dark sunglasses (do all suicide cult leaders go to the same Sunglass Hut kiosk at the mall?). But rather than go through the pointless, found-footage Jonestown re-enactment that West did with THE SACRAMENT, Joanou and Garant at least try to do something different with the idea, even if it seems a little reminiscent of EXORCIST III or PRINCE OF DARKNESS at times. Joanou also admirably avoids going full found-footage and instead shows Maggie and the others start watching the grainy, damaged films that seamlessly become flashback sequences. It's a rudimentary technique but it at least avoids the stale, shaky-cam, tilted-angle nonsense that permeates the found-footage subgenre. There's a tremendous sense of atmosphere and chilling imagery throughout, using old-school standbys like shadows, fog, and trees with ominous branches. Dead characters revived and inhabited by the spirits of long-gone Heaven's Veil members walk together and approach their next victims in scenes where Joanou invokes Mario Bava films like the "Wurdalak" segment of BLACK SABBATH and PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES. THE VEIL doesn't break any new ground, but it's a good mix of predictable Blumhouse jump scares and a welcome throwback to horror tropes of old, with a legitimately dramatic climactic twist that leads to a downer ending that pulls no punches. The experienced Joanou (other credits include U2: RATTLE AND HUM and FINAL ANALYSIS) may seem like he's slumming in low-budget horror, but he's done his homework and knows what works, and in the end, it's really just a catchily repetitious synth score away from being a mid-level John Carpenter film. We're not talking about a new cult classic or anyone's new favorite horror flick by any stretch of the imagination, but for a movie buried by its studio and dumped straight to Netflix, THE VEIL is better than anyone would expect it to be. (R, 94 mins)
VISIONS
(US - 2016)
Completed in 2014 and hopefully the world's first and last oenosploitation horror film, VISIONS is a relentlessly dumb paranormal activity potboiler whose sole saving grace is that it isn't found-footage. A year after surviving a freak car accident that killed a baby in the other vehicle, Eveleigh Maddox (Isla Fisher) and her husband David (Anson Mount) have purchased a vineyard in Paso Robles where they plan to rebuild their lives now that Eveleigh is expecting. It's not long before she's plagued by (spoiler alert) visions, such as a bloody hand print on the wall, exploding wine bottles, an attack by a mannequin, and being stalked by a robed figure with an unseen face. A preoccupied David doesn't take Eveleigh's claims seriously and pushes hard to get her back on antidepressants with the help of her doctor (Jim Parsons--yes, that Jim Parsons), but against the advice of her new prenatal yoga pal Sadie (Gillian Jacobs). Eveleigh does some investigating and discovers that the house's previous owners abandoned it due to ghostly occurrences, and that the paranormal poppycock dates back to the late 1800s, when the home was owned by the great-grandparents of local vintner Napoli (John De Lancie), who conveniently said nothing about this early in the film when he hosted a housewarming party for the Maddoxes.
Written by Lucas Sussman, whose last screenplay credit was collaborating with Darren Aronofsky on David Twohy's impressive 2002 WWII submarine horror film BELOW with , and directed by SAW series vet Kevin Greutert, VISIONS can't decide what it wants to be and is ultimately all red herrings and no payoff. There's an entire subplot about Eveleigh thinking the neighbors are running a meth lab and it serves no purpose whatsoever. The supernatural silliness makes no sense once the twists and turns are abruptly laid out in the climax, which seems headed in a ROSEMARY'S BABY direction before it suddenly shifts gears and turns into a ripoff of the French "extreme horror" outing INSIDE, which may have been a better idea all along. It's never made clear why the paranormal activity is confined to the house or why it's doing what its doing (is it the ghost of Paul Masson, avenging the sale of a wine before its time?) and its ultimately all smoke and mirrors to cover up a really weak script that wastes an overqualified cast of TV vets and others who should have better things to do. Joanna Cassidy turns up as a wine distributor who also--gosh, wouldn't ya know it?--happens to be a medium when the plot requires one, and in easily the most frivolous role of her career, Eva Longoria in a pointless, two-scene bit part as Eveleigh's unattached and on-the-prowl friend. Being stuck on NBC's TELENOVELA is one thing, but what did the former DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES star do to get busted down to minor supporting roles in crummy horror movies where she plays the second best friend to the lead actress? Did she lose a bet with Jason Blum? (R, 83 mins)
CURVE
(US - 2016)
Shot back in 2013, CURVE is essentially a two-character piece that starts out as a HITCHER ripoff that morphs into a survivalist thriller version of 127 HOURS before wrapping up as a grisly revenge outing. It gives singer and DANCING WITH THE STARS vet Julianne Hough a chance to get gritty as Mallory, a bride-to-be taking the deserted highway route from San Francisco to Denver, where her fiance is currently working. Of course she has engine trouble but that's remedied by a convenient hiker named Christian (Teddy Sears) who happens to stroll by. She offers him a ride to the next town and things go pleasantly enough until he openly ponders if she'd be able to "deep throat his cock," which Mallory correctly interprets as a major red flag that Christian is a depraved psycho. Unable to get him out of the vehicle, Mallory instead crashes through a guard rail on a road, sending them sailing into the woods below. Christian is thrown from the passenger seat but Mallory's leg is trapped and she's unable to move, so after taunting her a little, Christian leaves. Days go by, with Christian periodically returning to the scene of the accident to hector her some more, because if he killed her, then there'd be no third act where she manages to free herself and track him down at a lodge where he's killed several other people and has a girl (Madalyn Horcher) strapped face-down on a bed.
It doesn't really score any points for intelligence or originality, but CURVE is never dull and Hough is surprisingly credible in the lead. Her fans might be surprised to hear her dropping vulgarities, eating a rat, and drinking her own urine as she's trapped in her car for days on end, but director Iain Softley (HACKERS, THE SKELETON KEY) and first-time screenwriters Kimberly Lofstrom Johnson and Lee Patterson don't offer much in the way of logic or consistency. Why would Christian leave Mallory alive in the car? And why is the highway completely deserted early on, but when Mallory gets in a position to expose Christian, you can suddenly see several cars whizzing by, including a cop (Drew Rausch) who, right on cue, becomes Christian's next victim? Sears doesn't do much as the dull antagonist besides widen his eyes and smirk. It's nice that he doesn't overplay it, but since we know nothing about the character, and what little we do know is unreliable info, it's hard for both Sears and the audience to get a handle on the hows and whys of Christian. Has he left a trail of dead bodies in his wake? Is he from the area? Is anyone after him? Who knows? For the most part, CURVE is a forgettable retread of other, better movies, but Hough does a surprisingly convincing job of stretching outside her comfort zone and really gives it everything she's got. (R, 85 mins)
STRETCH (US - 2014) Written and directed by Joe Carnahan. Cast: Patrick Wilson, Ed Helms, James Badge Dale, Brooklyn Decker, Jessica Alba, Chris Pine, Ray Liotta, David Hasselhoff, Norman Reedus, Randy Couture, Shaun Toub, Ben Bray, Jason Mantzoukas, Kevin Bigley. (R, 94 mins)
VOD has proven to be a viable distribution channel in our post-SNOWPIERCER world, and Universal is hoping to replicate The Weinstein Company's unintended phenomenon with Joe Carnahan's STRETCH. Abruptly yanked from the schedule just a few weeks before its planned March 2014 release, STRETCH was one of several titles produced by Jason Blum's Blumhouse Productions (INSIDIOUS, SINISTER) that distributor Universal decided to leave languishing in limbo on the shelf, along with PARANORMAL ACTIVITY creator Oren Peli's AREA 51 (completed in 2009) and Joe Johnston's thriller NOT SAFE FOR WORK (completed in 2012), among others (STRETCH's time gathering dust was relatively brief, having wrapped in 2013). Universal hasn't said much about the shelving of these films, but it's mainly that the typical Blumhouse production costs $5 million or less, and that Universal balked at spending "$25 to $30 million" to market and distribute the films. It's now the major studio mindset that anything less than a $150 million take at the box office is a flop and movies grossing $30 million domestically simply aren't worth releasing in theaters anymore. There's no such thing as a moderate hit. Something's either a blockbuster or it's a bomb and in that climate, there's no in-between. Outspoken NARC and SMOKIN' ACES director Carnahan wasn't happy with Universal's decision, especially since he had a proven track record after he helmed a blockbuster with 2010's THE A-TEAM and had a decent-sized hit with the critically-acclaimed 2012 Liam Neeson vehicle THE GREY, which "only" grossed $51 million. When Universal shelved STRETCH earlier this year, they allowed Blum the chance to shop it around to other distributors, and when no one bit, the rights reverted back to Universal, and seeing the success of SNOWPIERCER, they opted to release it on VOD rather than dumping it straight-to-DVD. In interviews leading up to STRETCH's VOD debut, Carnahan has more or less taken an "It is what it is" approach to the release, expressing his disappointment that Universal abandoned what he considers his best film thus far. Carnahan is so sure that moviegoers will dig STRETCH that he posted messages on Facebook and Twitter promising that if you didn't enjoy STRETCH and can send him a pic proving you paid to watch it, he'll personally refund your money.
Like the word-of-mouth buzz with SNOWPIERCER and it being The Little Movie That Could, all of Carnahan's incessant yapping only serves to publicize STRETCH, though you have to applaud him for standing by his work and his in-your-face enthusiasm in making sure people know about it. It's too bad STRETCH isn't going to be another SNOWPIERCER, nor is it Carnahan's best film (that would be NARC). But then, the filmmaker has always straddled the line between maverick and loudmouth, better known for the films he didn't make--walking off of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III during pre-production, the collapsed DEATH WISH remake with Liam Neeson, and his dream project, an adaptation of James Ellroy's 1992 noir novel White Jazz--than the ones he's made. Carnahan's an enthusiastic filmmaker with a terrific sense of humor in his writing, and one of the few people making generally smart, no-nonsense, manly movies for men in the old-school tradition of Walter Hill. Sometimes he just talks too much.
STRETCH is entertaining if a bit slight, definitely in the over-the-top style of SMOKIN' ACES, but set in a typically excessive vision of L.A. Failed actor Kevin Bryzkowski (Patrick Wilson), who unsuccessfully tried to market himself as "Kai Bruno" before giving up after losing a guest role on CSI: MIAMI and taking a job as a limo driver, has kicked his coke, booze, and gambling habit and gotten over his ex-girlfriend (Brooklyn Decker) dumping him for the quarterback for the Cleveland Browns. He's been paying off a $12K debt to his bookie Iggy (Ben Bray), who's been bought out by some Cantonese gangsters who want the remaining $6000 he owes by midnight. Kevin, or "Stretch" as he's known to his friends, is on thin ice with his boss (Shaun Toub), who's paid guys to hack into the computer system of rival limo company Cossack, run by a hair-metal-coiffed hulk known as "The Jovi" (Randy Couture) so they can steal their gigs. Stretch gets one-upped by the Jovi when he's late picking up David Hasselhoff ("You don't have any respect for the Hoff!" he scolds Stretch), so he gets revenge by jacking the Jovi's next client, Carnahan regular Ray Liotta, from a movie set. Liotta leaves a prop gun and a fake badge from the movie behind, and Stretch doesn't get it back to the set before stealing the Jovi's next pickup: insane, cokehead billionaire Roger Karos (an unrecognizable Chris Pine). Karos has Stretch drop him off at an EYES WIDE SHUT-type sex party while he sends him off on a series of dangerous errands throughout L.A., involving a money pickup, a drug deal, and an undercover FBI agent (James Badge Dale), in exchange for a $6000 tip to clear his debt, and all the while Stretch is pursued by Iggy's goons, forced to pose as hard-assed LAPD cop "Raymond Liotta," and is harangued by the taunting ghost of his mentor, legendary limo driver Karl With a K (Ed Helms), who got so fed up with the business that he blew his brains out in mid-job, "marking the first time in 20 years that someone else had to clean his limo."
Carnahan packs a lot of plot into STRETCH's 94 minutes, and most of it works. Wilson has rarely been this loose onscreen before, but that's nothing compared to the way Pine (uncredited, but arguably the second lead) dives headfirst into his role with no concern for his image or any modicum of good taste. It's a literally balls-out performance, as he's first seen skydiving in nothing but a vest and a jockstrap, landing on top of Stretch's limo as Carnahan introduces him via a taint shot as his exposed scrotum slides down the front windshield. Yeah, STRETCH is that kind of a movie. Pine's overtly demonic Karos (often shot in reddish Italian horror lighting) seduces the desperate Stretch with the promise of $6000, with the resulting AFTER HOURS-inspired parade of grotesqueries an obvious metaphor for the way the power players of L.A. use, abuse, chew up, and spit out generally decent people like Stretch (or, if you expand on it, Hollywood dicking over well-meaning filmmakers like, oh I dunno, Joe Carnahan). Elsewhere, Karos snorts mountains of blow and cavorts with an array of high-class prostitutes, to whom he's also known as "Captain Fisty." Liotta, who also had a memorable cameo as himself in WANDERLUST, is very funny as an alternate universe, asshole version of "Ray Liotta," getting an assistant's name wrong and flat-out admitting "I don't give a fuck" when he's corrected, and being furiously indignant over the Jovi picking up "a TV actor" instead of him, even though he has no idea who Hasselhoff is ("Don't know him...should I?") or what KNIGHT RIDER and BAYWATCH are ("A talking car? What the fuck?"). Norman Reedus also has an inspired bit as himself, in a flashback where Karl With a K helps him cover up a motel room bloodbath ("Is that a severed penis?" Karl With a K asks). As funny as it can be, we've seen this sort-of "L.A. as immoral, hedonistic hellscape" motif a thousand times before, and despite some enthusiastic work by Wilson and Pine, some genuinely funny bits of offensive humor, and some periodic respites from the obnoxiousness courtesy of Jessica Alba as a limo dispatcher and Stretch's dependable Girl Friday, it frequently comes off as a Carnahan tantrum, and a louder, more aggressively garish version of John Landis' underrated 1985 gem INTO THE NIGHT. The actors are obviously having a good time, and it's worth a look on a slow night once it hits Redbox or Netflix Instant. Enough of it works that only a shameless asshole would ask Carnahan for their money back, but let's cut through the shit here: it's an offbeat little film that will find a minor cult following and probably enjoy a long future as the kind of movie you stop at while channel-surfing, but it wasn't going to be a hit in theaters.
UPDATE (10/21/2014)
As of 10/21/2014, STRETCH and three other shelved Blumhouse productions--NOT SAFE FOR WORK, the Stephen King adaptation MERCY, and the horror film MOCKINGBIRD (directed by THE STRANGERS' Bryan Bertino)--were released on DVD by Universal as Walmart exclusives.
Directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller. Written by Frank Miller. Cast: Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Josh Brolin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rosario Dawson, Bruce Willis, Eva Green, Powers Boothe, Dennis Haysbert, Ray Liotta, Stacy Keach, Jaime King, Christopher Lloyd, Jamie Chung, Jeremy Piven, Christopher Meloni, Juno Temple, Lady Gaga, Marton Csokas, Julia Garner, Alexa PenaVega, Jude Ciccolella, Johnny Reno. (R, 102 mins)
When the Robert Rodriguez/Frank Miller collaboration SIN CITY was released in 2005, it was hailed as a groundbreaking visual triumph and a trendsetting example of how to adapt a graphic novel--in this case, Miller's legendary series--to the big screen. Nine years later, it holds up beautifully in terms of visuals and its very effective use of CGI, as well as with its loving tribute to the gutsy, hard-boiled prose of a bygone era. While the success of SIN CITY paved the way for other successful graphic novel adaptations like Zack Snyder's 300 (2007), its style is the kind of thing that can't really be repeated without feeling like a tired retread. Look no further than Miller's own disastrous solo directorial outing THE SPIRIT (2008), an excruciatingly awful adaptation of Will Eisner's graphic novel series that came off like a cheap, amateurish ripoff of SIN CITY and was rejected by even the most ardent Miller fanboys. Shot in 2012 and bumped nearly a year from its original October 2013 release date, the belated prequel/sequel combo SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR wasn't really warranted or demanded, and, this far removed from the first film, can't help but pale in comparison to what was so fresh and innovative nearly a decade ago. Rodriguez and Miller seem to recognize that and try to counter it by using 3-D. It makes for some occasionally striking imagery, but remove that superfluous cosmetic addition and you've got a perfectly watchable but thoroughly disposable revamp that plays like a SIN CITY knockoff rather than a follow-up by the same filmmakers. It's almost like a rock band that knocked it out of the park with one instant classic album and followed it with a cash-in comprised of leftover songs that weren't strong enough to make the cut the first time around.
SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR has four segments, only one of which, "A Dame to Kill For," is based on a published Miller work, while the others were written specifically for the film. The time element can be a bit confusing--sometimes it's set in the film's present, other times in the past, which explains the return of some characters killed off in the first film. Ex-boxer and 300-lb killing machine Marv (Mickey Rourke, whose character makeup combined with his own plastic surgery in the years since SIN CITY now have Marv looking like a roid-raging Lionel Stander) disposes of some douchebag college kids who get their kicks by setting bums on fire. Wiseass card sharp Johnny (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) wins a bundle from evil Sen. Roark (Powers Boothe reprises his role) in a backroom card game and lives to regret it. In the longest section, based on "A Dame to Kill For," photographer Dwight (Josh Brolin, replacing Clive Owen), is duped by his femme fatale ex Ava (Eva Green) when she kills her husband (Marton Csokas) and tries to frame him. After being beaten to a pulp by Ava's bodyguard Manute (Dennis Haysbert, replacing the late Michael Clarke Duncan), Dwight teams up with Marv, old flame Gail (a returning Rosario Dawson) and silent assassin Miho (Jamie Chung, replacing Devon Aoki) to exact his revenge. Ava, meanwhile, seduces and manipulates honest cop Mort (Christopher Meloni), despite the warnings of his cynical partner Bob (Jeremy Piven, replacing Michael Madsen). Finally, stripper Nancy (Jessica Alba also returns) is watched over at the sleazy dive bar Kadie's by the ever-present Marv, but she's really waiting for the perfect opportunity to kill Roark, the father of the first film's vicious serial killer The Yellow Bastard. Roark made sure his son's heinous crimes were pinned on pushing-60-with-a-bum-ticker cop Hartigan (Bruce Willis reappears, barely), who was Nancy's guardian angel father figure and was driven to suicide after killing the Yellow Bastard and ensuring her safety.
While SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR has its reasonably entertaining moments and it's never dull, it can't help but feel stale and tired most of the time. Much like the slo-mo and the speed-ramping of 300 have made that the most tired cliche going, the SIN CITY look is something that can only blaze a trail once before everything that comes after is simply following in its path. Miller's writing isn't nearly as good this time around, with the tough-guy narration sounding like cheesy posturing, and there's an almost-total absence of great hard-boiled one-liners that filled the first film, like Hartigan's "When it comes to reassuring a traumatized 19-year-old, I'm as expert as a palsy victim doing brain surgery with a pipe wrench," or Marv, strapped in the electric chair bellowing "Would you get a move on? I ain't got all night!" to a prison chaplain issuing the last rites.
The film does feature some strong performances by a snarling Boothe and a vamping, typically crazy-eyed and frequently nude Green, who almost single-handedly made a must-see film out of 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE, another unnecessary sequel from earlier this year. There's a large cast of familiar faces here, but very few of them are put to any substantive use. Rourke and Willis were terrific back in 2005, but they're just clocking in for this one (it's easy to forget that, three years before THE WRESTLER, it was his performance in SIN CITY that started the now-squandered Rourkeassaince). Willis' Hartigan only appears fleetingly as a ghost. He has maybe two minutes of screen time and I'd be surprised if he was on the set for more than a day. An unrecognizable Stacy Keach, sporting some Jabba the Hutt-inspired makeup, gets about a minute as big shot mobster Wallenquist. Ray Liotta briefly appears as a philandering businessman in love with a young hooker (Juno Temple). Blink and you'll miss Christopher Lloyd as a drug-addicted, back-alley doc who helps reset Johnny's broken fingers. And Lady Gaga cruises through as a hash-slinging waitress at a skeezy all-night diner. With SIN CITY, even those actors in the smallest roles made an impression (remember Nicky Katt's hapless Stuka and his "Heeeey!" reaction to an arrow through the chest?) because that was a film made with care and precision, but here, they're just distractions (Lady Gaga?) popping into Rodriguez's Troublemaker Studios in Austin for a cameo and a quick run by the craft services table, with their driver presumably leaving the limo running outside. Rodriguez, Miller, and the returning actors don't seem very engaged with the second-rate material that consequently fails to provide much in the way of inspiration for the new cast members. SIN CITY was budgeted at $40 million in 2005, still looks terrific and has aged beautifully. SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR cost $70 million and, factoring out the use of 3-D, more often than not looks and feels like a slipshod, straight-to-DVD knockoff. I didn't hate SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR but unlike its predecessor, it's nothing I'll feel the need to watch again. If nothing else, I guess the best praise to bestow upon it is that it's a masterpiece compared to THE SPIRIT.
Directed by Robert Rodriguez. Written by Kyle Ward. Cast: Danny Trejo, Michelle Rodriguez, Mel Gibson, Demian Bichir, Sofia Vergara, Amber Heard, Antonio Banderas, Lady Gaga, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Walton Goggins, Vanessa Hudgens, Jessica Alba, Alexa Vega, William Sadler, Tom Savini, Julio Oscar Mechoso, Marko Zaror, Electra Avellan, Elise Avellan, Marci Madison, and introducing Carlos Estevez. (R, 107 mins)
Originating as one of the fake trailers in Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's GRINDHOUSE (2007), MACHETE was spun off into its own film in 2010, finally giving the great Danny Trejo the spotlight in his own project. The resulting film, parodying the same grindhouse aura of GRINDHOUSE, was gleefully over-the-top trash with everyone from Steven Seagal, Jeff Fahey, Lindsay Lohan, and Robert De Niro on hand to make fun of themselves. MACHETE KILLS is more of the same, only sillier, if that's even possible. Rodriguez isn't so much emulating '70s grindhouse trash anymore as much as he's just making a ludicrous parody of action movies. There's a good amount of laughs and some even more self-deprecating casting, but it's all just too much. Running a gaseous 107 minutes, Rodriguez gets pretty self-indulgent with MACHETE KILLS, and it probably would've been better if it had been 20-30 minutes shorter, making it more in line with what it's supposed to be riffing.
After seeing his partner and lover Sartana (Jessica Alba) killed while on a covert government mission, Machete is summoned to the White House and assigned by President Rathcock ("introducing Carlos Estevez") to go into Mexico and kill Mendez (Demian Bichir), a revolutionary with a split personality who has a nuclear missle aimed at Washington, DC that's wired to his heart and will launch if his heart stops beating. During their confrontation, Mendez's evil personality pulls the pin on the heart device, giving Machete 24 hours to dismantle it, which requires the two of them crossing the border into the US (as the film briefly turns into an "...if they don't kill each other first! mismatched-buddy movie) to find the only man who can do it: megalomaniacal multi-billionaire weapons manufacturer and global terrorist Luther Voz (Mel Gibson). Voz designed the detonator and has even bigger plans beyond nuking Washington: he's got a space station hovering above the planet and will be populating it with the richest of the rich after starting a series of global catastrophes. With crazed, gun-barrel-breasted madam Desdemona (a scenery-chewing Sofia Vergara) and elusive assassin La Chamaleon (alternately played by Walton Goggins, Cuba Gooding Jr, Lady Gaga, and Antonio Banderas) in hot pursuit, Machete gets help from sexy undercover agent Miss San Antonio (Amber Heard), and his old cohort Luz (Michelle Rodriguez) to thwart Voz's nefarious plan of taking over the galaxy.
Filled with intentionally dubious-looking CGI and ridiculous levels of violence and gore, MACHETE KILLS is dumb fun, which is the whole point. But there's no denying that it starts to drag after a while and you wonder if maybe this should've been left as a trailer. A lot of it is repetitious and could've been trimmed down, like the whole subplot with William Sadler as a racist sheriff on the Arizona border, who keeps calling Machete "Taco." The character of "La Chamaleon" is funny, but Rodriguez and screenwriter Kyle Ward don't do much with it other than put increasingly unlikely actors in the role for a scene before they disappear. Only Trejo appears throughout the film, and it's obvious that everyone else dropped by as their schedule allowed ("Carlos Estevez" never interacts with any other cast members--he and Trejo are never in the same shot together--and he actually looks CGI'd in his final scene). Stone-faced Trejo is still a badass Machete and his emotionless delivery of lines like "Machete don't Tweet" are never not funny. Between this and his role as the main villain in the upcoming THE EXPENDABLES 3, it's clear that the far-beyond-damage control Gibson is throwing in the towel and diving right into the self-parody phase of his career, probably because there's no other offers coming his way, but still, it's amusing seeing him on a huge set straight out of MOONRAKER and wearing a Darth Vader-like space cape. Thanks to Trejo and some stars checking their egos at the door, MACHETE KILLS is enjoyable and the actors are having a blast, but there's just too much of it. It overstays its welcome and simply doesn't know when to quit. Hopefully, Rodriguez can rein it in a little and keep it to more sensible 85-90 minutes if and when he gets around to the promised third entry whose trailer is featured at the beginning of the film: MACHETE KILLS AGAIN...IN SPACE!
