RUN ALL NIGHT (US - 2015) Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. Written by Brad Inglesby. Cast: Liam Neeson, Ed Harris, Joel Kinnaman, Common, Vincent D'Onofrio, Nick Nolte, Bruce McGill, Genesis Rodriguez, Boyd Holbrook, Holt McCallany, Rasha Bukvic, Patricia Kalember, Beau Knapp, Lois Smith, Aubrey Joseph, Daniel Stewart Sherman, James Martinez. (R, 115 mins)
Jimmy Conlan (Liam Neeson) is introduced as a booze-soaked butt of jokes among the other Irish mobsters in the neighborhood bar. He's a nickel-and-dimer, a flunky for Danny Maguire (Boyd Holbrook), the spoiled, coke-snorting, Joffrey-like son of NYC Irish mob kingpin Shawn Maguire (Ed Harris). It's Shawn's sense of loyalty and friendship that keep Jimmy around, with the boss regularly reminding the drunk Jimmy of all their glory days and how at the end, they'll cross that final line together. Jimmy was once Shawn's right-hand man and most ruthless enforcer, and now Jimmy can't sleep at night, haunted by the faces and the memories of those he's killed. While Shawn's affection for Jimmy is sincere, it's telling that he keeps him at a distance when it comes to business, instead opting to pawn him off as a gofer for perpetual fuck-up Danny, the kind of insufferable, sociopathic brat who expects to be given everything because of who his father happens to be. A disrespected sad sack reduced to dressing up as Santa for a Maguire Christmas party so Danny will loan him $800 to get his furnace fixed, Jimmy has seen better days.
NEESON!
He gets his obligatory One Last Shot at Redemption when a domino effect of plot conveniences force him to step up and take action to protect his estranged son Michael (Joel Kinnaman), his pregnant wife (Genesis Rodriguez) and the two granddaughters he's never met. Michael, an honest family man who wants nothing to do with his father or his criminal legacy, witnesses childhood friend Danny kill a powerful Albanian heroin dealer (Rasha Bukvic) over a deal that went south. Word gets out that Danny is after Michael, so Shawn sends Jimmy to make sure Michael doesn't talk to the cops. Danny tracks down Michael and is about to kill him when Jimmy walks in and shoots him dead. He immediately informs Shawn what happened ("He was about to kill Michael...I had to do it"), but no matter how justified it was, Shawn has lost his only son and will not rest until Jimmy loses his. Mobsters and corrupt cops conspire to frame Michael for the Albanian's murder, and as the media attention grows, Shawn's inner circle of gangsters, unstoppable freelance hitman Price (Common), and the last honest cop in NYC (Vincent D'Onofrio) close in on Jimmy and Michael, putting them in a position where they must set aside their differences and survive the night...if they don't kill each other first!
NEESON!
A major improvement over January's lackluster TAKEN 3, RUN ALL NIGHT is the busy Neeson's third teaming with director Jaume Collet-Serra (UNKNOWN, NON-STOP). Collet-Serra's key to success with Neeson seems to be that the stories are frequently as ludicrous as something Luc Besson would cook up for TAKEN, but he gives Neeson enough breathing room to flex his acting muscles. Whether he's presenting Neeson as an amnesia victim in UNKNOWN or a paranoid, alcoholic air marshal in NON-STOP, Collet-Serra understands that Neeson is a real actor and works some moderately challenging characterization into the actor's now-standard action-movie badass routine. There's actually a lot of similarities between Jimmy Conlan and Neeson's Ottway in THE GREY, and like THE GREY, Neeson is surrounded by a top-notch supporting cast--there's also Holt McCallany and Bruce McGill as Maguire mob guys, and a one-scene bit by a more-grizzled-than-usual Nick Nolte as Jimmy's older brother--but the most pleasure comes from watching him play off a steely-as-ever Harris. While he can bellow and rage like the best of them, Harris has always been one of those actors who can also speak volumes with just a look, and he does a terrific job of conveying that sense of friendship just with the way he looks at Jimmy with a combination of fond memories for days gone by and pitying sympathy for what Jimmy is today. They're both outstanding in their later scene together, where they have what's essentially their own version of the HEAT diner meet in a swanky restaurant, each vowing to do what they have to do regardless of the respect and love they have for one another.
HARRIS!
RUN ALL NIGHT's strengths lie with Neeson and Harris, and it's too bad they don't have more scenes together. The father-son issues and bickering between Jimmy and Michael are played well enough by Neeson and Kinnaman (THE KILLING, ROBOCOP), but you've seen it all before. The only major misstep with the casting is Common's high-tech hitman seemingly wandering in from the nearest TERMINATOR audition. He doesn't appear until over an hour into the film, but he never quite gels with his surroundings, and we don't learn enough about him for his showdown with Jimmy to have much resonance beyond the visceral thrill of watching Neeson do his Neeson thing. The script by Brad Inglesby (OUT OF THE FURNACE) errs in the way it abruptly makes Common's Price the chief adversary when the emotional impact lies with the broken bond between Jimmy and Shawn. One other major stumble is a badly-edited car chase early on, assembled in the now-standard way of entirely too much CGI augmentation in a quick-cutting blur with frequent close-ups of a grimacing Neeson clutching the wheel, making constipated faces like he's driving a car at high speed through Times Square. Nitpicking asdie, RUN ALL NIGHT is slick and satisfying entertainment for Neeson's base, the kind of undemanding but compelling actioner that you'll happen upon and end up watching several times as it finds its permanent home in constant rotation on the various HBO channels for the next two decades.
Directed by Jose Padilha. Written by Joshua Zetumer, Edward Neumeier, and Michael Miner. Cast: Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson, Abbie Cornish, Jackie Earle Haley, Michael K. Williams, Jennifer Ehle, Jay Baruchel, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Patrick Garrow, John Paul Ruttan, Aimee Garcia, Zach Grenier, K.C. Collins, Daniel Kash, Douglas Urbanski. (PG-13, 117 mins)
With its perfect mix of action, over-the-top violence and sly, subversive wit, Paul Verhoeven's 1987 classic ROBOCOP still stands as one of the most inspired and original commercial sci-fi films of its decade. The only surprise with the 2014 remake is that it took this long to happen. Like the original film, ROBOCOP '14 has an acclaimed foreign filmmaker trying to make his mark in mainstream Hollywood. In this case, it's Brazilian director Jose Padilha, whose intense, nail-biting, politically-charged thrillers ELITE SQUAD (2007) and ELITE SQUAD: THE ENEMY WITHIN (2011) have earned him significant accolades worldwide. Padilha is an interesting choice to helm a ROBOCOP remake with the obvious idea of spawning a new franchise, but ultimately, starting with its PG-13 rating, ROBOCOP '14 is only as good as it has to be, and even with Padilha's usual concerns of politics and corruption, it stands as yet another cautionary tale of a promising foreign director seduced by Hollywood and likely forced to compromise and acquiesce until the resulting film effectively eliminates all traces of the innovation, vision, and personality that got him the job in the first place.
Having just revisited ROBOCOP '87 in its pristine new Blu-ray edition a couple of nights before seeing the remake, it's fascinating to note how prophetic many of its satirical elements became. From the Halliburton-like OCP Corporation ("Who cares if it worked?") with its profits-before-people priorities ("I'm very disappointed" says the CEO when the demo ED-209 kills a staffer but also threatens to delay the rollout) and the privatization of the police to the Greek chorus of bubbleheaded newscasters Casey Wong and Jessie Perkins--whose utter vacuousness was even funnier considering they were played by actual media personalities Mario Machado and Leeza Gibbons--Verhoeven and writers Edward Neumeier (who would collaborate again on STARSHIP TROOPERS) and Michael Miner created what may stand today as the NETWORK of 1980s sci-fi action movies. Much like the news-as-entertainment doomsday scenario of the 1976 Sidney Lumet/Paddy Chayefsky classic, the satirical elements of Verhoeven's film are the commonplace norm today. With that in mind, there's really no angle for ROBOCOP '14 to tackle from than one of dour, thudding seriousness. When it tries to be funny, all it's doing is pointing out obvious references to our current world, from US military occupation in the Middle East to the bloviating Pat Novak (Samuel L. Jackson), the right-wing, Bill O'Reilly/Glenn Beck-like host of THE NOVAK ELEMENT, a guy prone to cutting off guests who disagree with him. That might've been hilarious 30 years ago, but not so much now when it happens daily on cable news. Padilha and screenwriter Joshua Zetumer (Neumeier and Miner retain presumably WGA-mandated co-writing credits) follow the basic template of Verhoeven's film but to what end? With the possible exception of the 2014 ED-209s moving a little more smoothly than their stop-motion 1987 counterparts, what improvements are made? What insightful reflections are to be found? None. I'm not against remakes if they have something new to bring to the table. Is it a bad movie? No, not at all. But with Verhoeven's film aging like fine wine, there's no reason for Padilha's film to exist. If Verhoeven's film was a satirical reflection of the Reagan era, then what is Padilha's other than a reflection of 2014 mainstream Hollywood as obvious, coasting, and completely out of fresh ideas? It's not "Gus Van Sant's PSYCHO" bad, but it's easily "CARRIE 2013" pointless.
The kind of film that shows an aerial shot of the Capitol Building and the Washington Monument yet still feels the need to include the caption "Washington, D.C.," ROBOCOP '14 presents Alex Murphy (THE KILLING's Joel Kinnaman) as an impulsive Detroit detective after Motor City crime lord Antoine Vallon (Patrick Garrow), who consistently manages to operate unencumbered thanks to numerous Detroit cops on his payroll. When Murphy and partner Lewis (BOARDWALK EMPIRE's Michael K. Williams) go after Vallon on their own, Lewis is shot and a fed-up Vallon has a bomb planted under Murphy's car. Of course it blows up, burning over 80% of his body, shattering his spine, blinding him in one eye, and costing him an arm and a leg. As Murphy barely clings to life, OmniCorp CEO Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton), who's made billions putting peacekeeping robots and drones in war-ravaged Middle East, finally sees a loophole for his ambition to put mechanized drones on the streets to replace law enforcement. America has a ban on drone officers because they lack the "human" element, but with Murphy's brain still functioning, Sellars sees a way to keep the human element inside the robotic shell, thus skirting the "robophobic" federal ban. Overseeing Murphy's transformation into RoboCop is sympathetic Dr. Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman), who insists that the human element can't be completely eliminated, at least until Sellars orders him to make it happen as Norton essentially rewires Murphy's brain to diminish the emotional receptors. While this makes him a fearless killing machine who's able to apprehend any Detroit bad guy thanks to the entire department database downloaded into his brain, it also makes him unable to relate to or eventually acknowledge his wife (Abbie Cornish) and young son (John Paul Ruttan) as he pursues his single-minded goal of nabbing Vallon and any corrupt cops on the take who had a hand in his attempted murder.
A lot of ROBOCOP '14 focuses on elements that were glossed over by Verhoeven. It's over an hour before Murphy/RoboCop is even out of the lab and on the streets. Verhoeven had Peter Weller's Murphy killed and simply waking up as RoboCop. Padilha gives us all that time in between--the shock of waking up with most of his body gone, the adjustment, the training, etc.--with more of a focus on Murphy's family. Sure, it's a different approach, but was anyone clamoring for that in 1987? Is anyone clamoring for it now? Kinnaman is fine as the sleeker, black-suited RoboCop, with a helmet that makes him look like a third member of Daft Punk, an excellent Oldman is trying much harder than he needs to, and while Keaton's "Michael Keaton" persona is always welcome, he seems a little bored here. And Jackson just registers zero in his scenes as Novak, which of course culminates in him letting loose with a bleeped "motherfucker" on the air, not because he's doing an astute satirical interpretation of a cable news host with an agenda, but because he's Samuel L. Jackson in a movie. Nobody says "motherfucker" like Jackson, but it's a joke that lost its novelty around the time SNAKES ON A PLANE took a 60% drop in its second weekend. As far as villains go, Keaton's Sellars is no Ronny Cox-as-Dick Jones, and Garrow's Vallon isn't given much of a chance to match Kurtwood Smith's Clarence Boddiker, though Sellars hatchet man Mattox (Jackie Earle Haley) arguably shares that function. Padilha and Zetumer spend so much time on Murphy's Robo-angst that they have to rush through the action part of the story, which frequently and predictably resembles a video game with Murphy leaping around and inevitably landing in the three-point, bent-knee hero stance, and the heavily CGI'd scenes of Murphy out of the Robo-suit--essentially reduced to a head, a set of lungs, and a right arm, are unconvincing and a little silly in a BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE way. Nothing about ROBOCOP '14 is terrible, but there's nothing in it to get excited about, either. Verhoeven's film is now 27 years old and people are still talking about it. Will people even be talking about Padilha's version 27 days from now?
DAY OF THE FALCON (France/Italy - 2011; 2013 US release)
It's nice to see a grand, majestic 1960s-style desert epic that looks like it could've been made in the wake of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, but Jean-Jacques Annaud's DAY OF THE FALCON is a rather tedious affair despite some outstanding cinematography and location shooting in Tunisia and Qatar. The initially intriguing story gradually becomes laborious, drawn out, and overly contrived, and after a while, it just starts to feel like this thing is never going to end, especially when the hero gets shot in the head, chunks of skull flying in several directions, instantly presumed dead and carried to his immediate funeral service...and he somehow survives and is just fine in the next scene. In the Arabian desert land of Hobeika in the 1920s, Emir Nesib (Antonio Banderas) and Sultan Amar (Mark Strong) have been fighting over a vast area known as the Yellow Belt. As part of a peace agreement, both men agree that the land is to be left alone and is owned by neither, but Amar is forced to hand over his two young sons to be raised by Nesib. 15 years later, the boys have grown into the outgoing, arrogant Saleh (Akin Gazi) and the sensitive, bookish Auda (Tahar Rahim), who has loved his adoptive sister Leyla (Freida Pinto) since childhood. In the ensuing years, a Texas oil company has informed Nesib that the Yellow Belt is rich in oil, and the formerly financially-strapped Emir has become the richest man in the region, albeit a benevolent one who shares the wealth by building a hospital, a school, and a library for his people. Amar views this as a violation of their agreement to leave the land alone and, sticking to his convictions, even turns down a share of the profits. Saleh, still devoted to his father, rebels against Nesib and is killed by his men, prompting a never-ending shifting of alliances as the withdrawn Auda, who has been granted marriage to Leyla in exchange for his continued loyalty to Nesib, finds his voice and becomes a leader, determined to do what's best for his people--something neither Nesib (blinded by money and power) nor Amar (blinded by religion and revenge) are now capable of doing.
Scripted by Annaud and former Steven Spielberg associate Menno Meyjes (THE COLOR PURPLE, INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE), DAY OF THE FALCON gets off to a decent start but ultimately just meanders and spins its wheels before a climax that grows more hackneyed and cliched by the minute. And Rahim, so terrific in 2009's riveting A PROPHET, is just a bland bore here. The desert locations look beautiful, even with some CGI augmentation, and it's nice to see relentlessly busy supporting actor Strong in a starring role, but despite all the right ingredients, DAY OF THE FALCON just never catches fire. (R, 130 mins)
EASY MONEY (Sweden/Denmark/France/Germany - 2010; 2012 US release)
SNABBA CASH was Sweden's biggest box office hit in 2010 and has already led to 2012's SNABBA CASH II and a third installment due to be released there later this year. Martin Scorsese saw it and helped broker a US distribution deal (earning a cosmetic "Martin Scorsese Presents" credit in the process) with the Weinstein Company, who rechristened it with the English-translated title EASY MONEY and released it on seven screens last summer. Joel Kinnaman (the scene-stealing Det. Holder on the AMC series THE KILLING, and star of next year's ROBOCOP remake) stars as broke economics student JW, who struggles to get by with a meager income provided by driving a cab part-time and doing term papers for other students. JW has ingratiated himself into a clique of jet-set rich kids in his obsessive climb up the social ladder. It's this ambition to abandon his lower-class roots that drives him into a life of crime, though he tries to pretend that he's not an active participant and seems legitimately shocked when his decisions and actions have consequences. As JW works his way into the inner circle with his financial smarts, his life intersects in various ways with escaped convict Jorge (Matias Padin Varela) and Serbian mob enforcer Mrado (Dragomir Mrcic), as both use the otherwise naive JW for their own purposes, though JW is just as quick to sell either of them out if it means a higher social/economic standing to impress his comes-from-an-insanely-rich-family girlfriend (Lisa Henni). She genuinely loves him and looks the other way when his lies collapse (at various points, he claims his blue-collar father is a diplomat to both India and South Africa), though it's hard to see what she sees in a vacuous, superficial poseur like JW in the first place.
Based on a novel by Jens Lapidus, EASY MONEY attracted enough international attention prior to its belated US release that it got director Daniel Espinosa a major Hollywood break with the 2012 Denzel Washington thriller SAFE HOUSE, but it's ultimately a bit on the disappointing side. Though you eventually figure it out, the film doesn't do a very coherent job of introducing many of the characters and establishing who they are in relation to everyone else. Also, at over two hours, it's at least 20 minutes too long and really drags in spots, and despite some interesting character touches (tough guy Mrado is forced to take custody of his impossibly cute eight-year-old daughter and drag her on jobs with him when his junkie ex-wife gets arrested), there's really no surprises in how these characters progress through the film. Though it doesn't involve cops, a lot of the situations seem a bit like a retread of INFERNAL AFFAIRS and its remake THE DEPARTED, so maybe that's why Scorsese was so enamored of it, but there's very little in the way of innovation or surprises here. Solid performances by the three leads do a lot to carry EASY MONEY through its many ponderous stretches, and it's strange seeing and hearing the Swedish Kinnaman, who's so good at playing a fast-talking, street-smart American cop on THE KILLING, speaking in his native tongue. The overrated EASY MONEY has its moments, but I honestly can't imagine it needing two sequels. (R, 125 mins)
