There's a good movie to be made of the so-called "Satanic Panic" of the mid-1980s. It was a time when horror movies and heavy metal were blamed when impressionable kids did horrible things and a Satanic cult was believed to be emerging after dark throughout small-town America, practicing all manner of Satanic ritual abuse. Written and directed by the once-promising Alejandro Amenabar, who made his name with 1997's OPEN YOUR EYES and the revered 2001 ghost story THE OTHERS, REGRESSION could almost describe the filmmaker's career momentum over the last decade. This is just Amenabar's second feature since helming 2004's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar-winner THE SEA INSIDE: nobody saw his 2009 historical epic AGORA and REGRESSION received only a scant US release two years after it was shot. By tackling the subject of Satanic ritual abuse, Amenabar is working at cross purposes: he spends 90 minutes trying to fashion a creepy, supernatural horror film but anyone old enough to remember the Satanic Panic knows how it became a big nothing, and those who weren't around for it are bound to be disappointed by the historically accurate but cinematically empty resolution.
"Inspired by true events," REGRESSION takes place in a small Minnesota town in 1990, even though the height of Satanic Panic was more 1985-86). Hard-nosed, obsessive detective Kenner (Ethan Hawke) catches what seems to be a open-and-shut child molestation case involving mechanic John Gray (David Dencik). Gray confesses to molesting his teenage daughter Angela (Emma Watson), even though he has no memory of doing so. With Angela seeking refuge at the local church under the protection of the parish priest (Lothaire Bluteau), Gray undergoes regressive hypnotherapy with psychologist Dr. Raines (David Thewlis), during which he recalls another person present while the molestation took place: local cop Nesbitt (Aaron Ashmore). Kenner impulsively throws Nesbitt in jail and Angela reveals that her father, grandmother (Dale Dickey, once again cast as the second-string Melissa Leo), and numerous other town residents are part of a Satanic cult that engaged in everything from sex rituals to murdering and eating newborn babies. It isn't long before Kenner's paranoia takes over and he believes himself the next target of the cult. Considering that the Satanic Panic was little more than irrational hype from worried parents, reactionary law enforcement, and an overzealous media latching on to an alleged phenomenon guaranteed to get attention and scare the public into a frenzy, fashioning REGRESSION as a straight-up horror movie for most of its duration probably wasn't the way to approach this if Amenabar was making a serious examination of the topic. By the end, especially after a really dumb revelation that undermines everything about the Satanic Panic for the sake of a stupid twist, Amenabar has backed himself into a corner and debunked his own movie. This really should've been something more, but I can't really say what. And neither can Amenabar. (R, 106 mins)
SYNCHRONICITY
(US - 2016)
A frustratingly empty time travel sci-fi saga, SYNCHRONICITY goes for the trendy retro '80s look and feel, but doesn't accomplish much else. If it had a story worth telling, all of the fetishizing with the synths and the cold, blue cityscapes would provide effective accompaniment, but in the end, that's all SYNCHRONICITY has and it just comes off as PRIMER remade as BLADE RUNNER fan fiction. Scientist Jim Beale (Chad McKnight) is working on a top-secret project to open a traversable wormhole in the space-time continuum. His benefactor, the sinister and obscenely wealthy Klaus Meisner (a nicely-cast Michael Ironside), a guy we instantly know is sinister because he's named "Klaus Meisner," naturally wants to use it for power and financial gain, but after admitting that the ramifications of the project could have globally apocalyptic ramifications, Beale uses it for something far more altruistic: chasing a girl. The girl is Abby, who may or may not have come from a time jump and is played by Brianne Davis, who looks like Jennifer Lawrence and sounds like Joey Lauren Adams, but plays the part as if she's Aubrey Plaza playing Sean Young's Rachael in BLADE RUNNER. SYNCHRONICITY is very beholden to the 1982 Ridley Scott classic, almost annoyingly so, from its blatantly Vangelis-like score to the Syd Mead-inspired visual futurism on a budget. Writer-director Jacob Gentry, who was also one of three directors of 2008's inexplicably acclaimed THE SIGNAL, fills SYNCHRONICITY with unsubtle references to other movies, whether it's Beale's colleague (AJ Bowen) shouting "We are messing with the primal forces of nature here!" or the constant film noir shout-outs, with lighting through Venetian blinds or constantly spinning window fans. The exposition and dialogue are cloddish as well, like Beale proclaiming "We are precious moments from a topological anomaly!" or dropping some clumsy exposition like "Then I will have proof of the findings to show our venture capitalist, Klaus Meisner." From the get-go, SYNCHRONICITY just rubbed me the wrong way, and the glacially slow pace, the shameless BLADE RUNNER worship, the bland performance by McKnight, who's not unlike a sedated Casey Affleck, and Gentry giving the great Ironside almost nothing to do but sneer (which he does beautifully) did little to win me over. These retro homages really only work if there's a engaging story to tell, like in THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW, or TURBO KID (which also co-starred Ironside). All Gentry does here is pilfer from other, infinitely better movies while bringing nothing of his own to the table. He should've just saved time and money and filmed himself watching a double feature of BLADE RUNNER and PRIMER. You'd be better off doing exactly that. Cool poster, though. (R, 100 mins)
SUBMERGED
(US - 2015)
A limo careens into a river and sinks, the people inside unable to get out, the water rising and the air in short supply. Seems like a can't-miss premise for an intense nail-biter of a thriller, but writer Scott Milam (the 2012 remake of MOTHER'S DAY) and director Steven C. Miller (SILENT NIGHT, the 2012 remake of SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT) do everything they can to screw it up. Insisting on telling the story in a fractured timeline is the biggest mistake, as it completely eliminates any sense of escalating tension to cut away to flashbacks every few minutes. The key to pulling something like this off is staying in the limo, but by the eight-minute mark, Miller, fresh off his EXTRACTION triumph with former actor Bruce Willis, is already out of the limo, filling us on in the backstories of the characters and how they arrived at their current predicament. Who gives a shit? Limo driver Matt (Jonathan Bennett, who played Bo Duke in the DTV DUKES OF HAZZARD sequel and replaced Ryan Reynolds in a DTV VAN WILDER sequel) is a bodyguard for Jessie (Talulah Riley), the spoiled daughter of billionaire business CEO Hank Searles (a slumming Tim Daly), who recently laid off a ton of workers. Turns out the party limo filled with several of Jessie's friends was targeted by disgruntled ex-employees looking to abduct Jessie for a fat ransom from Searles (or Sayles--in an apparent homage to OVER THE TOP's Lincoln Hawk/Hawks, the movie can't seem to decide).
Instead of letting the suspense build in the limo--where everybody starts arguing ("Every time you kiss her, you're tasting my dick!")--Miller and Milam spend entirely too much screen time on flashbacks involving Matt's troubled, drug-dealing younger brother Dylan (Cody Christian), which ultimately does nothing other than pad the running time. You'll be able to spot the puppet masters behind all the mayhem long before Matt does, mainly because of one character who acts weird for no reason (and later talks in the kind of condescending, sing-songy tone that only one-dimensional villains in bad movies and TV shows use), and another who's played by a prominently-billed, well-known, veteran actor who's barely in the first 90% of the movie. Also featuring Mario Van Peebles, SUBMERGED sinks in almost record time, with Miller demonstrating absolutely no ability to stage any kind of suspense or action sequence (the climax has one of the most ineptly-shot fight scenes in recent memory), with only a couple of surprisingly gory splatter scenes and a competent, if slightly bland performance by Bennett (who looks like the guy you get when Karl Urban doesn't return your calls and Brandon Routh lies and says he's busy) to save it from total uselessness. Even by the standards of the VOD scrapyard SUBMERGED, is at the bottom of the heap. (Unrated, 98 mins, also streaming on Netflix)
With its unbearably intense torture scenes supplanted by lofty spiritual and philosophical ambitions, Pascal Laugier's often-brilliant MARTYRS (2008) took France's "extreme horror" movement of the mid-2000s as far as it could go. It seemed inevitable that it would get a pointless, watered-down US remake, and eight years later, here it is, thanks in part to Blumhouse, the company behind PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and INSIDIOUS. Directed by the sibling team of Kevin and Michael Goetz (sons of veteran character actor Peter Michael Goetz) and written by Mark L. Smith (VACANCY, THE REVENANT), the English-language MARTYRS shares the same essential foundation--for a while at, least--while offering flashbacks and more backstory as far as the friendship of its two principal characters are concerned. As a child, Lucie (Troian Bellisario of PRETTY LITTLE LIARS) was kidnapped and forced to endure extreme torture at the hands of her captors. She managed to escape, though other than the scarring, no perpetrators or other evidence were ever found to support her story. Left at an orphanage, she reluctantly befriended the kind-hearted Anna and the film jumps forward ten years. Lucie shows up at the front door of a house in the middle of nowhere and shotguns a family of four to death, determined to show Anna (played as an adult by Bailey Noble) that the seemingly normal mom and dad were the people who tortured her ten years ago. Anna is incredulous but goes along with her friend by helping her bury the bodies, but they aren't able to get away once a group of mysterious people raid the house, determined to finish what they started with Lucie.
You'd probably have to go back to Rod Lurie's underrated STRAW DOGS for a remake that was met with such venomous rage before it even began shooting. Serious horror fans were ready to pounce on the new MARTYRS the moment it was announced, and while it's not an overall success and has little if any reason to exist, it's by no means terrible. Bellisario and Noble turn in a pair of surprisingly strong performances, and the childhood flashbacks with sympathetic Anna reaching out to the anguished and withdrawn Lucie are very nicely handled by the actresses (Elyse Cole and Ever Prishkulnik) who play the younger versions of Noble and Bellisario. But the changes that Smith and the Goetz brothers make undermine the effectiveness of what made Laugier's original film so powerful. MARTYRS '16 loses the sense of hopelessness and despair felt by Anna once she's utterly alone after Lucie is unexpectedly taken out of MARTYRS '08, along with another girl they find being held captive in the house. In MARTYRS '16, Lucie doesn't commit suicide midway through, the girl they find (now a child played by Caitlin Carmichael) isn't killed by the mysterious people who arrive at the house, and instead of becoming the "martyr" for the group's twisted plan, Anna becomes a badass, shotgun-toting angel of vengeance, presumed dead but coming back to rescue Lucie and the girl while blowing everyone away. The last thing any version of MARTYRS needs is a misguided willingness to be a crowd-pleaser, and while it doesn't end in an exactly uplifting fashion, it just completely lacks the devastating impact of Laugier's film. MARTYRS '16 has some positive aspects and is marginally better than it has any business being, but it can't overcome its primary stumbling block: it's completely unnecessary and even its positives don't improve on anything in the original in any way. That is, unless you thought MARTYRS '08 really could've used some of those patented Blumhouse jump scares. (Unrated, 86 mins)
HOME INVASION
(Canada - 2016)
A listless DTV thriller as generically self-explanatory as its title, HOME INVASION occasionally rises to the level of laughable and stupid but is mostly just boring, headed by a pair of slumming actors whose careers were in much better shape 20 years ago. A trio of killers in EYES WIDE SHUT orgy masks led by Heflin (B-movie action fixture Scott Adkins) commandeer the isolated peninsula mansion of wealthy Chloe (Natasha Henstridge of SPECIES) and her sullen teenage stepson Jake (Liam Dickinson) while his father, her estranged husband, is out of the country on business. They're looking for a safe that's hidden somewhere in the house, and while the local cops are unable to get to the house thanks to a deliberate bridge malfunction caused by a fourth member of Heflin's gang, Chloe and Jake are on the line with their alarm company contact Mike (Jason Patric), who uses the many surveillance cameras--hidden and otherwise--throughout the home to guide them around and let them know when the killers are in close proximity. A lot of screen time is spent with nothing happening but Chloe and Jake tiptoeing around the house and Heflin seething as he paces around the kitchen. The house is huge but there aren't that many places to hide, and it's ridiculous that there's no way the cops can get around the bridge, either by boat or chopper. The idiotic script by Peter Sullivan (ABSOLUTE DECEPTION) relies on clumsy exposition, leaves plot strands dangling, and tosses in one contrivance after another (you'll already be laughing at the stupidity of one character less than a minute into the movie) and manages to be a ripoff of both PANIC ROOM and THE CALL, minus Halle Berry's wig. The end result is a tame PG-13 thriller that could've easily been given a PG, almost like it went straight-to-DVD but had the ultimate goal of being a Saturday night Lifetime movie. Henstridge--who's done some made-for-TV movies and TV guest spots recently, but I haven't seen her in anything she's done in years--does what she can with a stock "woman in peril" role, while Patric looks bored out of his mind, with almost all of his screen time spent seated at a row of monitors watching what's going on in Chloe's house. The one positive of HOME INVASION is a solid performance by Adkins, playing a straight bad guy role without going into his action repertoire. An engaging cult actor who should be the world's biggest action star, Adkins gives it all he's got near the finale--almost like he thought this would be playing on 3000 screens and would be the #1 movie at the box office over its opening weekend--but he gets nothing in return. That also goes for any viewer who opts to spend a long hour and a half watching HOME INVASION, a film recommended only for the most fanatical Adkins completists or rubberneckers morbidly curious about the ongoing autopsy of Patric's career. Co-produced by veteran Canadian schlock king Damian Lee and directed by David Tennant...not that David Tennant. (PG-13, 88 mins)
TURBO KID
(Canada/New Zealand - 2015)
The perfect film for cult-movie nerds who can own up to experiencing a certain degree of arousal at the sight and sound of the old-school Vestron Video logo, TURBO KID is a sincere and affectionate example of homage done right. Set in the post-nuke apocalyptic future of 1997, the film finds lone warrior The Kid (Canadian DEGRASSI heartthrob Munro Chambers) barely getting by scavenging for scraps when he meets up with a perky robot named Apple (Laurence Leboeuf) and has to fight off the mostly incompetent minions of the eye-patched Zeus (Michael Ironside), the despotic overlord of the desert wasteland. Like most post-nukes, this deals with water being the prime commodity, and Zeus has designed a machine that can harvest the water from ground-up human bodies. The Kid periodically crosses paths with a cigarillo-chomping, Indiana Jones-like cowboy named Frederic (Aaron Jeffrey) and eventually, the heroes join forces to take on Zeus and his army. The story is pretty standard issue, but the writing and directing team of Anouk Whissell, Francois Simard, and Yoann-Karl Whissell have fashioned TURBO KID as an infectiously fun throwback, complete with a constant, catchy synth score by Le Matos, and an impeccable eye for period genre detail. While a cursory glance at the advertising may make this seem like a kids movie, it's definitely not--there's a plethora of profanity and the splatter and carnage are non-stop, almost on an early Peter Jackson level of gonzo, which is mostly hilarious but it does seem at times like the one concession the film makes to the snarky hipster crowd. Other than that, TURBO KID gets everything right--it's no wonder there's been such a developing buzz about this from cult scenesters. From the opening scenes, you'll go through the movie with a big, goofy smile on your face at every amusing detail and wry one-liner. The filmmakers avoid the pitfalls into which most films of this type plunge--it doesn't have a condescending, mocking tone toward its subject. It's obviously a labor of love by fans, for fans, right down to the smallest detail. Chambers and Jeffrey are likable heroes, and Ironside has never had more fun onscreen than he does here as Zeus, but the show-stealer is the extremely appealing Leboeuf, in what should be a breakout performance if anyone in Hollywood sees this. Jason Eisener has an executive producer credit--his HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN being a case study of the kind of pre-assembled cult movie that makes every mistake TURBO KID almost completely manages to avoid. (Unrated, 93 mins, no US Blu-ray/DVD date announced but currently streaming on Netflix Instant)
TWO MEN IN TOWN (US/France/Algeria/Belgium - 2014; US release 2015)
A low-key, deliberately-paced character piece, TWO MEN IN TOWN is a remake of a 1973 French film by Jose Giovanni, with Alain Delon as an ex-con trying to stay straight with the help of an elderly social worker (the legendary Jean Gabin in one of his last films) and a new girlfriend (Mimsy Farmer). He finds this difficult thanks to a variety of obstacles, chief among them an angry cop (Michel Bouquet) with a serious grudge against him, and a former criminal associate (a young Gerard Depardieu) who keeps trying to pull him back into his old life. This new version, directed and co-written by French filmmaker Rachid Bouchareb (DAYS OF GLORY, OUTSIDE THE LAW), moves the story from France to the sparsely-populated southern-most area of New Mexico, right along the US/Mexico border. Paroled after serving 18 years of a 21-year sentence for killing a deputy sheriff, William Garnett (Forest Whitaker) has a dark past as a vicious criminal and a drug dealer, but has found peace while incarcerated. He's converted to Islam, is devoutly religious, he's taught himself to read and earned his GED, and worked as a tutor and counselor to his fellow inmates. A model prisoner who has fought his demons and wants nothing more than to start his life over and get it right, Garnett gets some support from his sympathetic parole officer Emily Smith (Brenda Blethyn), gets a minimum wage job at a cattle farm, and starts dating nice bank teller Teresa (Dolores Heredia). But flashes of the old Garnett occasionally pop up, whether he arrives home from work to find Emily inspecting his room at a local halfway house, or smashing his neighbor's TV when he won't turn the volume down. His temper is egged on by big-shot, five-term sheriff Bill Agati (Harvey Keitel), who shows legitimate concern over a local vigilante group's unlawful treatment of illegals crossing the border, but extends no such goodwill toward Garnett. It was Agati's deputy that Garnett murdered, and he has no intention of letting him off the hook. Agati follows Garnett, harasses him while he's having dinner at a restaurant, shows up at Teresa's house to embarrass him, has him held overnight for a speeding violation, and even goes so far as to bully Garnett's boss into firing him. On top of that, Garnett's old criminal cohort Terrance (Luis Guzman) keeps turning up, endlessly hounding and threatening him about picking up where they left off and, like Ben Kingsley in SEXY BEAST, refuses to take no for an answer. With no one but Teresa and his parole officer allowing him to lead the quiet life he wants to lead, it's only a matter of time before Garnett explodes.
Anchored by a Ry Cooder-esque score by Eric Neveux, TWO MEN IN TOWN often has a PARIS, TEXAS-era Wim Wenders feel to it. Like Wenders, Bouchareb is a European filmmaker who manages to convey a unique view of the American Southwest. The cinematography by Yves Cape (HOLY MOTORS) effectively captures the sun-drenched surroundings and the desert highways that Europeans seem to have a special knack for achieving, because as outsiders, Bouchareb and Cape see the unique things that Americans in their positions might miss. This environment is nothing new to Bouchareb, who has an affinity for the region, having shot 2012's JUST LIKE A WOMAN in New Mexico as well, plus he produced Bruno Dumont's 2003 cult film TWENTYNINE PALMS, a desert road trip slow-burner shot in the title city and in Joshua Tree. A lean and intense Whitaker, who's been dismayingly terrible in pretty much everything he's done for the last several years, turns in his best performance in a long while as the tightly-wound Garnett. Keitel does some fine work as Agati, who, despite his early concern for some illegals before turning them over to the border patrol, is every bit the asshole that you expect an apparent sheriff-for-life in a small town in the middle of nowhere to be. Ellen Burstyn turns up for one very well-played scene as Garnett's adoptive mother, who couldn't bring herself to visit him even once while he was in prison. Blethyn seems miscast, and her performance is uneven, as the folksy tone of her line delivery seems more to mask her British accent than to convey the down-home, tell-it-like-is sass of her character. The conclusion leaves a little to be desired, and Bouchareb has no idea what to do with Keitel's character, instead turning the primary antagonist role over to Guzman while Keitel basically disappears from the film. Still, it's an interesting drama that flopped in Europe and only managed a VOD and scant US theatrical release here over a year after it played the Berlin Film Festival. It's flawed, but worth seeing for fans of Keitel and Whitaker, who hasn't been this good since his Oscar-winning turn in 2006's THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND. (R, 117 mins)
EXTRATERRESTRIAL (Canada - 2014)
Though the generically-titled EXTRATERRESTRIAL is not intended to be a remake of the 2011 Spanish film by Nacho Vigalondo, they do share the idea of a couple's relationship issues being put on the backburner by a sudden alien invasion. That wouldn't be the only derivative element of the latest film from the GRAVE ENCOUNTERS team of Colin Minihan and Stuart Ortiz, who work under the name The Vicious Brothers. Their EXTRATERRESTRIAL is more concerned with being a blatant ripoff of THE CABIN IN THE WOODS, with five archetypes--brain, nice guy, dude-bro, stoner, and blonde ditz--only here, they encounter UFOs and not-very-friendly aliens. April (Brittany Allen) is planning on a weekend at her parents' cabin with boyfriend Kyle (Freddie Stroma), but it turns into a blowout party when he invites their friends Seth (Jesse Moss as the dude-bro), Melanie (Melanie Papalia as the stoner), and Lex (Anja Savcic as the blonde ditz). April's rejection of Kyle's sudden proposal sours the weekend, but things go from bad to worse when a UFO crash-lands in the woods. Grabbing her dad's shotgun, April blasts one of the E.T.s, which doesn't bode well with its alien friends.
Diverting but not nearly as clever as it thinks it is, EXTRATERRESTRIAL doesn't really get the whole "meta" thing down like CABIN IN THE WOODS did. Like CABIN, it also has unseen puppet masters secretly calling the shots, in this case it's exposition supplied by Travis (Michael Ironside), a pot-growing, conspiracy-theorist Vietnam vet who lives in a nearby cabin. He knows what's the alien visitors have been up to in the woods and tells April and the others of a secret treaty between the US government and the aliens that dates back to Roswell: the government agrees to leave the aliens to go about their business of abducting yokels if they do so quietly and in limited numbers so as not to draw attention. In exchange, as Travis puts it, "We get to keep acting like we're running things down here." It's an interesting concept that gets a lot of mileage out of a terrific performance by Ironside, but the Vicious Brothers err in taking him out of the film far too early. Gil Bellows is also very well cast in a haggard, beaten-down-by-life way as the beer-gutted sheriff who hasn't been able to get past his wife's disappearance a decade earlier, and when these kids start talking about UFOs and aliens, coupled with a shell-shocked local mom (GINGER SNAPS' Emily Perkins) telling the same story where her husband and son were taken away, he starts seeing an explanation for what happened to her. EXTRATERRESTRIAL opens strong and for a while, it has the feel of an old-school '80s crowd-pleaser, but with its two major assets--Ironside and Bellows--not getting enough screen time, we're left with mostly uninteresting leads (Allen is a strong, appealing heroine, but the rest range from forgettable to, in Moss' case, excruciating). Connoisseurs of alien invasion films may enjoy what's easily cinema's nastiest anal probe scene, but there's little consistency: if the aliens can establish a psychic link strong enough to force one character to blow his own head off, then why can't they find Perkins' character, who's hiding in plain sight? And if the aliens are supposed to be keeping things on the down-low, why are they spending so much time and abducting so many people in this neck of the woods? The film really stumbles with an overdone, maudlin finale that leads to a downbeat NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD ending that it doesn't earn, instead coming off as unnecessarily mean-spirited. Though it's rather unrestrained in its CABIN IN THE WOODS worship, there's a good film desperately trying to break out of the merely average EXTRATERRESTRIAL. As far as recent alien invasion pics go, it's at least preferable to the Milla Jovovich con job THE FOURTH KIND and the unwatchable SKYLINE, one of the worst major-studio releases in years. (Unrated, 101 mins)
MORTDECAI (US - 2015)
After a string of misfires that saw former actor Johnny Depp's stock plummet with fans (THE RUM DIARY, DARK SHADOWS, THE LONE RANGER, TRANSCENDENCE, and his incognito supporting role in Kevin Smith's pathetic TUSK), it seems as if the world put its foot down with MORTDECAI. After at least two months of the most relentlessly pushy ad campaign in recent memory, moviegoers actively revolted and let it bomb hard in theaters. On its own terms, it could've been an amusing throwback to double entendre-filled '60s comedies, like something Peter Sellers might've made around the time of THE PINK PANTHER, WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT? or AFTER THE FOX. But the world made it known that it's clearly sick of Depp's constant crutches of pancake makeup and whimsical vocal affectations, and seeing him in the MORTDECAI trailers with a waxed mustache and a forced British accent trading randy and sassy quips with Goop publisher and vagina-steaming advocate Gwyneth Paltrow was where everyone drew the line, took a stand, and emphatically declared "No more!" The $60 million MORTDECAI, based on a series of 1970s comic adventure novels by Kyril Bonfiglioli, grossed just $8 million in the US and took a beating from critics, making it a safe bet that this won't become another PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN franchise for Depp. The wasteful budgets of today's movies often border on criminal, but it seems especially offensive here. Other than paying a bunch of big names to jerk themselves off (Depp got paid $10 million), nothing here warrants pissing away $60 million. Think what $60 million could've done for people in need. Who the fuck needed MORTDECAI?
An appalling, obnoxious vanity project for star/producer Depp, MORTDECAI is every bit as awful as you've heard, which is tragic because there's a surplus of squandered talent. This is a film with an alarming contempt for its audience. It's obvious the actors are having a much better time than the viewer and you soon realize you're paying to attend a party where you're deliberately being excluded from the fun. Eccentric, jet-setting--and broke--British art dealer Lord Charlie Mortdecai (Depp) gets roped into a plot by his friend and M.I.5 agent Martland (Ewan McGregor) to recover a rare stolen Goya painting. So begins a globetrotting adventure that finds Mortdecai and his faithful, hulking manservant Jock (Paul Bettany) tangling with Russian mobsters, vacuous Californians, and the nympho daughter (Olivia Munn) of a shady L.A. art figure (Jeff Goldblum, cast radically against type as "Jeff Goldblum"). Meanwhile, Mortdecai's wife Johanna (Paltrow) also gets pulled into the pursuit of the Goya, providing Martland with an opportunity to steal her away from Mortdecai, which he's been trying to do since their college days. There's very little in the way of comedy in the script by Eric Aronson, whose lone previous writing credit is the 2001 Lance Bass/Joey Fatone vehicle ON THE LINE. It's too bad director David Koepp, a veteran screenwriter whose credits include JURASSIC PARK, CARLITO'S WAY, and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, didn't write it as well--perhaps he could've brought something to the table other than Aronson, whose approach seems to have been scribbling "Johnny Depp, British accent, mustache" on a piece of scrap paper, crossing his fingers, and hoping everything would work itself out. As it is, MORTDECAI's idea of comedy is Depp's overdone accent and the fact that he has a mustache and his character is a pompous dolt who still calls America "The Colonies." That's it. Every joke is based on one or a combination of those things. There's one legitimate AUSTIN POWERS-style laugh--Mortdecai at a men's room urinal as a Russian gangster grabs him from behind, injecting a sedative into his neck as Mortdecai quips "Oh! I've read about this!"--and that's it. There's nothing here. One of the emptiest films of the year, MORTDECAI is what happens when a movie star is too rich and out of touch for anyone to tell him no. Depp hasn't tried in years because he doesn't have to, so he enjoys another fat payday, amusing himself by mugging shamelessly with a wacky accent and a fake mustache. Well, I guess that means at least one person found MORTDECAI amusing. (R, 107 mins)
Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and once in a while, a combination of forces that, under any normal circumstances, would portend certain doom actually turns out to have unexpected merit. Consider the case of A FIGHTING MAN, a low-budget, straight-to-DVD Canadian-made drama that would appear to be the epitome of every melodramatic boxing cliche you've ever seen going back to the 1930s Warner Bros. programmers. Consider that it stars Dominic Purcell, the once-promising PRISON BREAK star-turned-lumbering charisma-vacuum whose constant employment is one of the great mysteries of the modern DTV era. Consider that it's written and directed by veteran Canadian hack Damian Lee, who's somehow managed to be in the business of making movies for 30 years without ever making a good one (yes, Purcell and Lee also teamed on last year's abysmal BREAKOUT). There's absolutely no reason for A FIGHTING MAN to be anything but a steaming shit sandwich, but...this is actually...pretty good? Lee's script piles on a checklist of tropes and contrivances. Purcell is Sailor O'Connor, an aging ex-boxer with a record somewhat south of mediocre. He's not even worthy of being called a has-been. He's a never-was. If Sailor O'Connor was an actor, his stage name would be "Dominic Purcell." Sailor's only claim to fame is that, while he's lost almost all of his fights, he's never been knocked down. He hasn't been in the ring in four years, but wants to fight the proverbial One Last Fight. And it's not for the obligatory One Last Shot at Redemption: it's because he needs the money to give his fiery, cancer-stricken Irish mom Rose (Sheila McCarthy, thickly laying on the feisty Maureen O'Hara sass) one last trip to the old country since she's got six months to live. He's too proud to accept a handout from his trainers Brother Albright (James Caan) and Max (Michael Ironside), and he won't be talked out of fighting by his mom or by concerned Father Brennan (co-producer Kim Coates), who seems to spend more time fretting over Sailor than he spends in church. Sailor's opponent is King Solomon (Izaak Smith), a cocky and ambitious young fighter who's trying to escape his hellish life in the projects with his crack-addict mother (Emma Campbell). King needs a fight because he's been reduced to appearing in porn flicks to make ends meet and all he wants is to marry his pregnant girlfriend Peg (Jenessa Grant).
There's also Louis Gossett, Jr. hamming it up with a ridiculous Jamaican accent as King's irascible trainer Cubby, Adam Beach as reptilian promoter Fast Eddie, who's as big a conniving, untrustworthy piece of shit as his name would imply, famed trainer Freddie Roach as himself, and Famke Janssen as Diane, a recovering alcoholic linked to Sailor through a past tragedy that haunts both of them to this day. Lee also manages to cram in some mid-fight contractions for Peg, a visit to a bar for Diane where she almost falls off the wagon, and a traumatic backstory from Sailor's childhood about his abusive, drunken father that explains why he's the bullheaded fighter he is and how nothing can knock him down. Lee's structure of the film is interesting in the way that the fight is already underway at the very beginning, and between rounds, we're given the fragmented flashbacks detailing the events that led up to the fight we're seeing, and the timelines converge by the end. I never would've guessed a straight-to-DVD Damian Lee joint starring Dominic Purcell would have an ambitious Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu structure combined with the profound sense of melancholy and grief you'd find in the EXOTICA/THE SWEET HEREAFTER heyday of Atom Egoyan, where all the pieces of the puzzle are slowly put in place and you see how everything fits together in the end. Yes, it's hokey and manipulative, but its straight-faced sincerity sucks you in. And for all the cheap shots I've taken at Purcell, he may have found his perfect role with Sailor O'Connor, whose terrible boxing record, dead-eyed stare, monotone mumble, and the shuffling, tired gait of a defeated man with nothing left to lose and who's had nothing but shitty cards dealt to him for his whole life allow the actor to use his lackluster screen presence to his utmost advantage. To quote the poet laureate Harry Callahan, "A man's got to know his limitations," and while Purcell looks comatose when he has to do action movies, here, he's perfect. Look, I'm not saying this is some undiscovered classic or anything. We're not talking ROCKY or THE SET-UP or THE HARDER THEY FALL here--it's a maudlin and overly earnest B-movie for sure, but it somehow works, even as it plows head-first into shameless man-weepie territory by the end. Maybe it's Purcell finally finding a role that suits his somber persona, maybe it's the better-than-expected supporting cast (Caan is very good, and really, you had me at "Caan and Ironside as his trainers"), but against all odds, A FIGHTING MAN is an unexpectedly not terrible surprise. Purcell and Lee...who knew? Eye of the tiger, guys. Eye of the tiger. (R, 88 mins)
THE OUTSIDER (US - 2014)
Caan also turns up as the villain in THE OUTSIDER, which marks veteran British actor Craig Fairbrass' first attempt at becoming a headlining action star in America. Fairbrass starred in a couple of British horror films that became mid '90s video store staples (NIGHTSCARE and PROTEUS), and frequently turns up in various D-grade fare like Uwe Boll's FAR CRY, the Randy Couture actioner HIJACKED, and the Dominic Purcell dud VIKINGDOM, but he's best-known for TV's EASTENDERS and for his voice work in various CALL OF DUTY video games. He's got an imposing, square-jawed presence with a Vinnie Jones "fookin' 'ell, mate!" demeanor that could make him an acceptable fourth-string Liam Neeson with the right vehicle, but THE OUTSIDER, which surrounds Fairbrass with the best supporting cast that 2002 had to offer, isn't it. Utterly generic in every way, THE OUTSIDER, conceived by Fairbrass and writer/director Brian A. Miller (a repeat purveyor of completely forgettable Wal-Mart bargain-bin clutter like the 50 Cent-produced CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE and the Stephen Dorff cop thriller OFFICER DOWN), is patched together from elements of THE LIMEY and TAKEN (Fairbrass is even referred to as "the Limey" at one point). Fairbrass is tough-as-nails British mercenary Lex Walker, called away from a contract gig in the Middle East when his daughter Samantha turns up dead from an apparent drug overdose in Los Angeles. When he arrives at the morgue to identify the body, it's not his daughter, who went missing from her job at tech giant Most Industries a week earlier. Walker doesn't get anywhere with evasive Most CEO Karl Schuuster (Caan, who couldn't have put in more than two, maybe three days on the set), who obviously knows something he's not telling. Walker teams up with Samantha's waitress friend Margo (Shannon Elizabeth), and her sometime boyfriend Ricky (Johnny Messner), who leads him right to Samantha (Melissa Ordway). She had to fake her death because Schuuster's goons were coming for her after she uncovered a massive identity theft scam he was masterminding from the Most headquarters. Meanwhile, Walker forms an uneasy alliance with cynical detective Klein (Jason Patric) to bring down Schuuster and expose his shady dealings.
Lethargically paced and drably shot, THE OUTSIDER offers no surprises or suspense, with Patric and Caan sleepwalking through their performances, everyone else unconvincingly spouting vague techno-jargon, and Fairbrass proving to be a dull action hero. Sequence after sequence follows the same formula: Walker blusters and bulldogs his way into somewhere, wants ta ask someone some queestions 'bout 'is daw 'er, gets some guff, and promptly smashes the person's head into a wall or through a door until they staaht tawkin'! The kind of movie that provides an adequate level of white noise while you peruse your Netflix queue for something else to watch, THE OUTSIDER is as bland and paint-by-numbers as it gets. Nothing overtly terrible about it, but there's really nothing to see here. (R, 94 mins)
If you can imagine SHOCK WAVES caught in the Polar Vortex and paired with UNIVERSAL SOLDIER, but brought down by sluggish pacing and lackluster greenscreen and CGI, then you've got a pretty good idea of how ICE SOLDIERS plays out. During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, while America is focused on Cuba, the Russians have deployed three genetically-engineered super soldiers to launch a terrorist attack on NYC. But their plane crashes in the barren tundra of northernmost Canada and they're discovered by some scientists at a nearby military base, who are promptly killed as the "Ice Soldiers" vanish in the endless, frozen wilderness. 50 years later, scientists Malraux (Dominic Purcell) and Lobokoff (Nicu Branzea) get funding from an oil company to ostensibly drill for crude but really to search for the Ice Soldiers, who Malraux believes are still at large. Also along are micro-managing oil company ballbuster Frazer (Camille Sullivan), who hired a crew of money-hungry crew of mercenaries led by Col. Trump (the great Michael Ironside). With a blizzard on the way, Frazer and Trump call an early end to the expedition until Malraux discovers the frozen bodies of the three Ice Soldiers who, miraculously, still show faint signs of life. Frazer and Trump see endless riches but Malraux has a change of heart and tries to terminate the life support for the Ice Soldiers, who proceed to kill everyone but Malraux and again escape. On his own in the middle of nowhere, Malraux encounters Native American TC Cardinal (Adam Beach) and hires him to help track the Ice Soldiers, who have retained their intelligence and still plan to go forth with their half-century-old plan of attacking NYC.
There's a sharp satirical bite to the concept behind this faux-documentary from NYC-based British indie filmmaker Ashley Cahill. Filmed in 2010 under the title CHARM and shown on the festival circuit under that title as well as MALCOLM before its current rechristening, RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE stars writer/director/producer/editor Cahill as Malcolm, a seemingly affable Manhattan doorman who moonlights as a serial killer whose exploits are being chronicled by documentary filmmaker Bob (Dominic Ciccodicola). Citing Kubrick's A CLOCKWORK ORANGE and Scorsese's MEAN STREETS and TAXI DRIVER as influences (and dedicating the film to Samuel Fuller), Cahill's biggest debt is probably owed to Remy Belvaux's MAN BITES DOG as Malcolm sets out to avenge the gentrification of NYC and return it to its sleazy and dangerous glory days of the '70s and '80s. AMERICAN PSYCHO-as-a-mockumentary wears a little thin after a while and Cahill falls victim to intermittent self-indulgence, but there's a lot of genuinely sick laughs throughout, whether Malcolm is confronted with such offenses as homeless people asking for his pizza but complaining because it's not vegetarian ("You're a bum, you're begging for food and you won't eat meat? What happened to this city?"), vacuous poseurs who wear homemade Truffaut and Godard tees but don't appreciate Clint Eastwood and HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER ("Is that the one with the monkey?" someone asks), vegans, thumb rings, movie theater texters ("Do you know how difficult it is to get a film released? Have some respect for the cinema!"), and trendy bands ("If I could kill any band in the world, it would be Kings of Leon"). There's also some hints at sly meta commentary on battles between producers and directors when Malcolm starts clashing with Bob over the goals of the documentary and the direction in which it's heading. Cahill doesn't really explore the ramifications of his actions until an admittedly inspired finale that feels like TAXI DRIVER if rewritten by Larry David. Not everything in RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE works and it ultimately feels like a drawn-out MAN BITES DOG tribute as seen through the lens of a trust-fund Abel Ferrara, but when it works--which is more often than not--it works well, and I liked the vibe that Cahill captures amidst the jarring mix of laugh-out-loud humor and shocking violence. As an actor, he comes off as an odd and funny combination of Stephen Merchant and William Fichtner. Also with Dustin Hoffman's dead ringer son Jake as a gun dealer and a cameo by Cahill pal Kirsten Dunst as herself. Co-produced by Wes Craven's son Jon. (Unrated, 87 mins, also streaming on Netflix Instant)
Note: though in English, this is the French trailer for the film, hence the "Un Film de Ashley Cahill," which is not some pretentiously douchey stab at humor on his part.
Directed by Len Wiseman. Written by Kurt Wimmer and Mark Bomback. Cast: Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Bryan Cranston, Bill Nighy, Bokeem Woodbine, John Cho. (PG-13, 121 mins)
Is there really any need for a PG-13 remake of TOTAL RECALL? Len Wiseman's (UNDERWORLD) take on the Paul Verhoeven/Arnold Schwarzenegger action/sci-fi classic from 1990 is even less faithful to its source, Philip K. Dick's short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale," and ultimately won't supplant anyone's fond memories of the original, but for a good chunk of its duration, TOTAL RECALL 2012 is surprisingly good. The script by Kurt Wimmer and Mark Bomback completely jettisons the Mars element, and instead focuses on a post-chemical warfare 2084 Earth where the only inhabitable regions are (for some reason) "The United Federation of Britain," and Australia, now referred to as "The Colony." I wouldn't be surprised if Wimmer, a veteran journeyman screenwriter (STREET KINGS, LAW ABIDING CITIZEN, SALT) best known to genre fans for writing and directing the excellent 2002 sci-fi cult classic EQUILIBRIUM, had a hand in shaping, or at least influencing, the very effective dystopian look of the futuristic Colony, which resembles a sort-of high-tech, Shanghai shanty town that's one big Red Light District.
Colin Farrell as Quaid
Doug Quaid (Colin Farrell, in his second summer remake in a row after last year's dismal FRIGHT NIGHT redux) is a factory worker who commutes daily from The Colony to the UFB on "The Fall," a seven-minute ride through the center of the Earth. He assembles "Synthetics" (robotic police officers) for the UFB by day, and at night, is plagued by vague dreams where he's some kind of secret agent. Other than feeling like he's stuck in a dead-end job, Quaid is happy with Lori (Kate Beckinsale), his wife of seven years, and despite warnings from his friend and co-worker Harry (Bokeem Woodbine), he visits the memory-implant company Rekall, thinking the implantation of a spy-type adventure will lift his spirits. During the procedure, the Rekall staff realizes that Quaid already is a secret agent, though he has no memory of it.
Farrell and Kate Beckinsale: "Conseedah
dat a deevawrse!"
Anyone who's seen the Verhoeven film is obviously familiar with the story so far. In one respect, it's a detriment because those of us who have seen TOTAL RECALL 1990 many times know about the characters Quaid (and his other identity, Hauser), Lori, Harry, Melina (played here by Jessica Biel) and the villain Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston), and that inevitably takes the element of surprise away from the plot twists (though the filmmakers do have some fun playing with the malfunctioning fat-lady disguise that Quaid used to sneak through Mars security in the 1990 film, and Farrell's Quaid is seen reading Ian Fleming's The Spy Who Loved Me at one point). TR 2012 keeps the characters familiar but changes their surrounding story significantly. Cohaagen is now the Chancellor of the UFB, intent on wiping out The Colony and "terrorist" Resistance leader Matthias (Bill Nighy) so as to eliminate the lower class--the factory workers, who he intends to replace with Synthetics--in order accommodate the burgeoning overpopulation issue in the upper-class UFB. The remake eliminates Cohaagen's right-hand man Richter (memorably played by Michael Ironside in the 1990 film) and instead combines that character with Lori, thereby allowing Beckinsale to do her action heroine routine. There's definitely the potential for seeing a political subtext here, but it's largely unexplored, instead focusing on action and some truly stunning visual effects. As familiar as the story may seem despite the many changes, TR 2012 really excels with some astonishing production design and CGI wizardry to create one of the most dazzling future dystopias that's been seen on the screen in quite some time. The budget for this was allegedly in the neighborhood of a ludicrous $200 million, but it shows (is it going to make that back? Probably globally). It's not just CGI greenscreen backgrounds. There's some innovative set design and some extremely well-choreographed action sequences throughout. Wiseman, directing his first film since the atrocious LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD (2007), does a commendable job throughout, which I believe is the first time anyone has said such a thing about Len Wiseman.
Jessica Biel as "Meh-leeeee-naaaaah!"
Is TR 2012 as good as TR 1990? No. But for a good hour or more, it seems like it might be. Only in the home stretch, when it starts getting louder and sillier and more illogical (would an evil, megalomaniacal supervillain like Chancellor Cohaagen really suit up and take part in a raid on Matthias' stronghold in the inhabitable No Zone?), and more derivative (utilizing elements of BLADE RUNNER, THE FIFTH ELEMENT, and even STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES), does it stumble somewhat. There was really no reason for a TOTAL RECALL remake, and while it's not a complete success across the board, Wiseman, the screenwriters, and the production design and effects team really brought their A-game to it. Perhaps it's a depressing sign of the times to resort to applauding filmmakers for not phoning it in and instead actually investing themselves in a project, but for the most part, TOTAL RECALL 2012 surpasses admittedly diminished expectations and is much more enjoyable and entertaining than it has any reason to be.
Farrell drops into this outtake from THE FIFTH ELEMENT
Earlier this week, to coincide with the remake, Lionsgate released a new Blu-ray edition of the 1990 original. Their previous Blu-ray was a shoddy HD transfer, while the new "Mind-Bending Edition" was supervised and approved by director Paul Verhoeven. The Verhoeven/Schwarzenegger commentary and the rest of the extras are carried over from the prior edition, along with a new "Restoration Comparison" detailing the process of restoring and remastering the film and doing a side-by-side comparison of the old vs. new transfers. It's quite an upgrade.
Released Memorial Day weekend 1982, the highly-anticipated ROCKY III ended the two-week box office reign of CONAN THE BARBARIAN, grossing a then-very impressive $16 million on 939 screens. Sold-out showings and a whopping $17,000/screen average would cause the film to expand to just over 1300 screens at its widest release. By way of comparison, CONAN was playing on 1600 at this same time; there were none of today's 4000 screen rollouts back then, so things actually stayed in first-run theaters for a long time, because it sometimes took people weeks to be able to see them (as an example, PORKY'S was still in the top five after Memorial Day, in its 11th week of release). ROCKY III was a durable hit, staying in the top five until late July and going on to earn $125 million, making it the fourth-highest grossing film of 1982.
Written and directed by Sylvester Stallone, ROCKY III is thoroughly predictable at every turn, but few people know how to work their base like Stallone in his prime. After two immensely crowd-pleasing films, audiences had grown to care about Rocky, his wife Adrian (Talia Shire), his dumb brother-in-law Paulie (Burt Young), and his tough-as-nails trainer Mickey (Burgess Meredith). As ROCKY III opens, the Champ finds himself under fire from all directions: Paulie's still jealous and feeling left out and Mickey doesn't want to fight anymore, but biggest (and loudest) of all is upstart heavyweight Clubber Lang (an iconic performance by Mr. T), making a name for himself and calling out Rocky as a "paper champion." But the thing is, Clubber's right. Rocky seems to be everywhere but the ring: TV commercials, magazine covers, THE MUPPET SHOW, and even charity wrestling matches with Thunderlips (Hulk Hogan!). He's more celebrity than fighter, and after Mickey confesses that he's only lined up chump challengers to keep Rocky at the top ("Ya ain't been hungry since ya won that belt!" Mick growls), Rocky starts to question his legitimacy as a champ and, despite announcing his retirement, agrees to fight Clubber to prove his ability to himself. Rocky not only gets his ass kicked, but Mickey dies of a heart attack in the Madison Square Garden dressing room. Enter Rocky's old opponent Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) who sees that Rocky's gotten lazy and complacent with his title and his fame and he needs to regain the "eye of the tiger." Apollo takes over as Rocky's manager and trains him for a rematch with Clubber, who's become an even more insufferable dick now that he's the champ.
Few actors embody the underdog as well as Stallone, and as a writer, he needed to find a way to once again make Rocky fit that mold. But was it necessary to have Rocky and company move into a fleabag Skid Row flophouse so the Italian Stallion could regain his edge? But as hokey as it is, ROCKY III looks like RAGING BULL compared to 1985's on-leave-from-reality ROCKY IV, made the same year as RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II, in the midst of the Stallone-as-American-hero mania.
One major reason that ROCKY III had such staying power with audiences--it actually had an increase in box office in early July, over a month after it was released--was the soundtrack. And no, I don't mean the three Frank Stallone songs featured on it, but rather, Survivor's chart-topping, Oscar-nominated monster anthem "Eye of the Tiger." It's said that every summer has its song, and you couldn't go anywhere in the summer of 1982 without hearing "Eye of the Tiger." And even today, it's an impossible song to dislike. If you listen to "Eye of the Tiger" and don't feel even a little bit of an adrenaline rush, then there's something wrong with you.
The other major release this same weekend (on 237 more screens than ROCKY III?!) was the Canadian slasher film VISITING HOURS, directed by Jean Claude Lord. Expectedly trashed by critics, VISITING HOURS isn't the best of its kind, but it gets a lot of mileage out of a truly repulsive, disturbing perfomance by Michael Ironside as Colt Hawker, a deranged, sadistic killer obsessed with a TV newscaster (Lee Grant). When an attempt on her life fails and she ends up in the hospital, he just goes to the hospital to try and finish the job. Ironside had been at the center of an instantly-legendary scene a year earlier in David Cronenberg's SCANNERS, and with VISITING HOURS, it seemed like he was poised to become a new horror icon. Instead, he's stayed busy to this day as an in-demand character actor, in films ranging from A-list to D-grade DTV garbage, plus frequent TV guest spots. But his reputation as a go-to bad guy was built on his turns in SCANNERS and VISITING HOURS. Aided by a creepily effective TV spot and similar poster art, VISITING HOURS managed to open in second place--a distant second at $5 million, but second nonetheless. I watched VISITING HOURS again about a year ago, and it holds up fairly well, getting a touch of class from the participation of veteran pros like Grant and William Shatner as her TV station boss.
VISITING HOURS trailer/TV spot
And speaking of Shatner, VISITING HOURS would not be the last time he'd be seen on the big screen in the summer of 1982. In fact, he had another film that was scheduled to open the next weekend...
