THE LAST DAYS OF AMERICAN CRIME (US - 2020) Directed by Olivier Megaton. Written by Karl Gajdusek. Cast: Edgar Ramirez, Michael Carmen Pitt, Anna Brewster, Sharlto Copley, Patrick Bergin, Brandon Auret, Tamer Burjaq, James Richard Marshall, Terence Maynard, Sean Cameron Michael, Nathan Lynn, Neels Clasen, Leandie Du Randt Bosch, Johann Vermaak, Tiyler Kriel, Johnny Pienaar, Robert Hobbs, Daniel Fox. (Unrated, 148 mins) Despite having the most bomb-ass name in action movies, French director Olivier Megaton can't quite back it up. After helming a passable Luc Besson ripoff with 2002's RED SIREN, he was recruited by Besson himself, but most of Megaton's products that rolled off the EuropaCorp assembly line were among its least memorable, including TRANSPORTER 3 and TAKEN 3, the worst films in their respective franchises. Megaton split from his mentor and has been MIA for the six years since TAKEN 3, but he's back with the Netflix Original film THE LAST DAYS OF AMERICAN CRIME, written by Karl Gajdusek (OBLIVION, THE NOVEMBER MAN) and based on a 2009 graphic novel by Rick Remender and Greg Tocchini. Megaton appears to have abandoned his shaky-cam/quick-cut style that made some of his Besson films so difficult to watch, but unfortunately, LAST DAYS is boring, derivative, hopelessly muddled, and punishingly overlong at a thoroughly unjustified 148 (!) minutes. There's absolutely no credible reason on God's Green Earth for this to be two minutes longer than GOODFELLAS and still somehow feel like huge chunks of it are missing, plus it even has to rely on early (and quickly-abandoned) narration to help clear up loose ends and move things along and it can't even do that. The kind of film that thinks simply acknowledging its plot holes and narrative inconsistencies is sufficient enough to excuse them, THE LAST DAYS OF AMERICAN CRIME is a pointlessly bloated fiasco that can't decide what it is, what it's doing, or who it's even for.
Set in 2025 Detroit (the Motor City played--quite unconvincingly--by Johannesburg, South Africa), THE LAST DAYS OF AMERICAN CRIME deals with just that: America has become a dystopian, crime-infested hellhole, with jackbooted cops patrolling the streets with military hardware and shooting criminals on sight. It's five days until the government unveils, through its so-called American Peace Initiative, the "API signal," which alerts a synaptic blocker in the human brain that produces a high-pitched signal designed to incapacitate people and prevent them from committing acts they know to be unlawful. Crime will be instantly wiped out and unnecessary police departments will fall under government control, and advocates of civil liberties are making a run for the Canadian border, where the US military stands guard and shoots those trying to cross. Career criminal Graham Bricke (Edgar Ramirez) is recruited by scuzzy Kevin Cash (Michael Pitt, billed as "Michael Carmen Pitt," and doing a feature-length Jason Mewes impression) and his seductive fiancee Shelby Dupree (Anna Brewster, straight out of a Besson film) to become a partner in a planned heist of $1 billion from the US government's "Money Factory" currency facility (stationed right by the Canadian border, for some reason). The idea is to get in and have ace hacker Shelby jam the ATI signal just as it goes live at midnight, thus giving them several minutes free of the piercing "brain rape" and allow them time to get out and get to the border. Cash manipulates Bricke into taking part because he's knows he's got an ax to grind with the government: he was in prison with Bricke's younger brother, who allegedly committed suicide but Cash reveals that the inmates were being used in ATI signal test runs (which happened to Bricke on a bank robbery a year earlier) that eventually caused his brother's death. Cash has his own reasons for the heist--he's the black sheep son of powerful Detroit crime boss Rossi Dumois (Patrick Bergin sighting!), and he wants to create his own legacy by pulling off the last crime in American history. And Shelby may not be who she claims to be, as she's periodically hassled by a pair of corrupt FBI agents (James Richard Marshall, Terence Maynard) who have kidnapped her little sister (Tiyler Kriel) to ensure her cooperation with whatever it is they need her to do.
GHOST IN THE SHELL (US/China - 2017) Directed by Rupert Sanders. Written by Jamie Moss, William Wheeler and Ehren Kruger. Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Juliette Binoche, "Beat" Takeshi Kitano, Michael Carmen Pitt, Pilou Asbaek, Peter Ferdinando, Chin Han, Michael Wincott, Danusia Samal, Kaori Mamoi, Lasarus Ratuere, Yutaka Izumihara, Anamaria Marinca, Daniel Henshall. (PG-13, 107 mins) Based on Masamune Shirow's legendary manga and previously filmed as a classic 1995 anime directed by Mamuro Oshii, the live-action--relatively speaking--Hollywood version of GHOST IN THE SHELL was a long time coming, being in development as far back as 2008. The end result feels like it could've been made in 2000 on the heels of THE MATRIX, and it might've seemed dated even then. Director Rupert Sanders (SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN) hits all the dystopia/cyberpunk tropes: the dark BLADE RUNNER cityscapes with images projected on skyscrapers mixed with the garishness of THE FIFTH ELEMENT; the action choreography of THE MATRIX and RESIDENT EVIL; and a badass hero in Scarlett Johansson, playing the kind of role that's been owned by Milla Jovovich for at least the last 15 years. The ideas and the look of Shirow's influential manga have been co-opted by so many other pop culture offerings over the years that this fashionably late big-studio take on the subject can't help but come off like the JOHNNY MNEMONIC or AEON FLUX of its decade. That's ultimately a much bigger problem for it than any SJW "whitewashing" outrage over Johansson being cast in the lead.
In the aforementioned dystopian future, almost all humans are cybernetically enhanced to a certain degree thanks to the groundbreaking technological work done by Hanka Robotics, run by unscrupulous CEO Cutter (Peter Ferdinando). Under Cutter's direction, Hanka scientists led by Dr. Ouelet (Juliette Binoche) have successfully accomplished the first transplant of a human brain, taken from a survivor of a terrorist attack, into a synthetically created being, christened Mira Killian (Johansson). A year later, under Ouelet's objections, Killian is a major with a government-run anti-terrorism bureau overseen by Chief Daisuke Aramaki (the great "Beat" Takeshi), partnered with enhanced human military vet Batou (Pilou Asbaek). A number of Hanka scientists, including Dr. Osmund (Michael Wincott) and Dr. Dahlin (Anamaria Marinca) have been killed in intricately planned terrorist assaults, with Ouelet presumed to be the next target. Cutter orders Aramaki's team to find and kill the leader of the cell, who turns out to be Kuze (Michael Pitt, now going by "Michael Carmen Pitt" for some reason), a discarded Hanka project from years earlier who informs Mira that she's not the first of her kind and that Cutter and the Hanka scientists have been experimenting with brain transplants into synthetic bodies for years, all for the purpose of engineering the perfect military killing machine. When Mira rebels against Hanka and Aramaki takes her side ("I answer to the Prime Minister, not to you," Aramaki tells Cutter), Cutter orders Mira's termination.
TAKESHI!
GHOST IN THE SHELL makes for nice eye candy, even if the imagery is something you've seen hundreds of times before. Johansson is well-cast, looks terrific in a flesh-colored body suit, and she has a nice rapport with Asbaek, but there's just nothing new, fresh, or innovative here, with the third act feeling more like a cyberpunk Jason Bourne outing once Mira dives into her past as she discovers her brain belonged to a woman named Motoko Kusanagi, even going so far as meet Motoko's mother (Kaori Mamoi), who's still grieving over her daughter running away from home and allegedly committing suicide. Ultimately, the film can't overcome its stagnant familiarity (note how much Johansson looks like Alicia Vikander in EX MACHINA in the scenes where she's A.I. natural) and some occasionally rushed-looking CGI, with Johansson looking a lot like a FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN character in some shots. The best moment in GHOST IN THE SHELL is when Sanders finally gives Takeshi something to do other than sit behind a desk looking solemn and concerned. When Aramaki is ambushed by three Cutter goons and immediately turns the tables on them, quipping "Don't send a rabbit to hunt a fox," blowing all of them away as Takeshi gets his signature twitch going on the right side of his face (a partial facial paralysis resulting from a 1994 motorcycle accident), it's practically a stand-up-and-cheer moment for fans of the Japanese cult icon.
CRIMINAL (US - 2016) Directed by Ariel Vroman. Written by Douglas Cook and David Weisberg. Cast: Kevin Costner, Gary Oldman, Tommy Lee Jones, Alice Eve, Gal Gadot, Ryan Reynolds, Michael Pitt, Jordi Molla, Antje Troue, Scott Adkins, Amaury Nolasco, Colin Salmon, Natalie Burn, Lara Decaro. (R, 113 mins) Your tolerance for the high-concept sci-fi espionage actioner CRIMINAL is dependent upon a number of things: how much you can suspend your disbelief, how much you can stomach graphically brutal and gleefully over-the-top violence, and how perversely fascinating you find serious, award-caliber actors slumming it in a trashy genre offering from Cannon cover band Millennium (I'd recommend running the Cannon intro on your own as the movie starts to get the maximum effect). To Millennium's credit, they brought their A-game to this, opting to actually shoot a London-set story in London instead of their usual unconvincing Bulgarian backlot. Even their go-to CGI clown crew at Worldwide FX seems to have admirably stepped up to the challenge and produced possibly the best splatter and explosions they've ever done. At a cursory glance, CRIMINAL has "straight-to-VOD" written all over it, but with a wild script by the late Douglas Cook (he died in July 2015) and David Weisberg, the same duo who wrote THE ROCK (Michael Bay's one legitimately awesome movie), assured direction by the promising Ariel Vroman (the little-seen 2013 mob movie THE ICEMAN), and an absurdly overqualified cast, CRIMINAL ultimately transcends its dubious first impression and if you're approaching it in the right mood, ends up a hell of a lot more enjoyable than it has any business being.
When London-based CIA agent Bill Pope (Ryan Reynolds, who's all over the trailers but not in the print ads or the poster) is tortured and killed by international terrorist Xavier Heimdahl (Jordi Molla--was Rade Serbedzija busy?), his London CIA bureau chief Quaker Wells (a ranting Gary Oldman) needs vital info Pope had but has no way of obtaining it. Enter Dr. Micah Franks (Tommy Lee Jones), who's spent 18 years working on the transplanting of memories but is still five years away from human trials. Wells decides that time is now when the dead Pope's brain is kept alive and Franks--short for Frankenstein?--springs Jerico Stewart (Kevin Costner) from a maximum security hellhole to be their guinea pig. Stewart, a psychotic, sociopathic, zero-remorse killing machine who feels no emotion and no pain thanks to a broken home and a childhood abuse incident where he suffered a traumatic brain injury at the hands of his enraged dad that caused his frontal lobe to stop forming at the age of ten, is flown to London and has Pope's memories injected into his brain. The experiment doesn't initially take, and despite the sympathetic Franks insisting Stewart needs more recovery time, an impatient Wells orders him terminated. Of course, Stewart ends up escaping custody and heading on a rampage across London when Pope's memories start materializing in his head. Stewart is alarmed to find that he can suddenly speak French (though he thinks it's Spanish) and has tastes for the finer things in life like lattes, but he's still Jerico Stewart and can't stop himself from killing innocent people in cold blood or beating the shit out of a pompous asshole in a coffee shop ("Who punches someone in a patisserie?" the outraged victim yells, in one of the many intentionally funny bits). With Wells and the CIA as well as Heimdahl's ruthless hit woman Elsa Mueller (Antje Troue) in hot pursuit for the information that is becoming clearer by the minute, Stewart eventually hides out with Pope's widow Jill (Gal Gadot), and feels genuine emotion for the first time when Pope's perceptive and impossibly cute daughter Emma (Lara Decaro) is nice to him. Stewart finally grows a conscience and decides to act on Pope's memories, which involved negotiating a CIA deal with hacker Jan Strook, aka "The Dutchman" (Michael Pitt), who has the ability to override all US military launch codes and intends to sell that info to the megalomaniacal Heimdahl, a crazed anarchist hell-bent on bringing down all of the world's governments.
Costner, introduced in chains with long hair and a madman beard like Sean Connery in THE ROCK and speaking in a guttural, Nick Nolte grumble, has never cut this loose onscreen before, whether he's hamming it up as the insane Stewart or bopping his head Roxbury-style as he steals a van and cruises around London looking for trouble. But when Stewart grows more human thanks to the gradual clarification of Pope's memories that trigger actual feeling within him, Costner gives Liam Neeson some serious competition in the "60-and-over asskicker" club by demonstrating acting chops that a Van Damme or a Dolph Lundgren wouldn't had this been a typical Millennium/NuImage offering. Jones remains low-key and somber and doesn't have much to do after the initial surgical procedure, and the same goes for Alice Eve, prominently billed in a thankless supporting role that gives her nothing to do. Likewise for DTV action hero Scott Adkins, who's in the whole movie as one of Wells' flunkies but is tragically underused, only getting a few "Yes, sir, whatever you say!"s to Oldman and no action scenes of his own (speaking of Adkins--while Vroman does a fine job, here's another larger-scale Millennium/NuImage project that would've been perfect for Isaac Florentine). With his hair flopping all over the place and froth forming in the corners of his mouth, Oldman works at two speeds here: irritable and apoplectic. He paces around what looks like a vacant BOURNE crisis suite as everyone watches monitors, waiting for just the right time to bellow "Find Jerico Stewart!" and "It's him! Let's go!" or, in his more introspective moments, "FUCK!" like a bloviating jackass who seems blithely unaware that he's got a ridiculous name like "Quaker Wells" (Adkins' character is listed as "Pete Greensleeves" in the credits, but I don't recall any of the agents working under Wells ever being referred to by name). CRIMINAL is total empty calorie junk food, but it's junk food of the highest caliber. Like sweets and snacks that really do nothing good for you, you just need them once in a while, and CRIMINAL scratches that '80s/'90s throwback itch not just with its ridiculous premise and hooky electronic score by Brian Tyler and Keith Power (yes, like nearly everything else these days, it's "Carpenter-esque"), but with the casting of real actors--I wonder if Costner, Oldman, and Jones did any JFK reminiscing between takes--to seal the deal.
CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES (US - 2015) Directed by Jackie Earle Haley. Written by Robert Lowell. Cast: Michael Pitt, Dan Stevens, John Travolta, Jackie Earle Haley, Christopher Abbott, Rob Brown, Edi Gathegi, Travis Aaron Wade, Alan B. Jones, Tyrone Jenkins, Chris Haley, Morgan Wolk. (Unrated, 93 mins)
Or, GET SHORTY III: THINGS FOR SUICIDE KINGS TO DO IN DENVER WHEN YOU'RE KEYSER SOZE FOR 2 DAYS IN THE VALLEY. As generic as its title, the Cleveland-shot straight-to-VOD dumpjob CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES plays like any number of post-Tarantino/post-USUAL SUSPECTS-meets-Elmore Leonard knockoffs that cluttered the new release shelves of video stores in the latter half of the 1990s. Former Bad News Bear Kelly Leak-turned-LITTLE CHILDREN Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominee Jackie Earle Haley, whose unexpected late '00s renaissance led to his being cast as Rorschach in WATCHMEN and as Freddy Krueger in the awful NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET reboot, makes his directorial debut here, and it's mostly by-the-numbers and undistinguished. The script is credited to Robert Lowell, who may or may not be the poet who died in 1977 (IMDb and several reviews seem to think it is, and that Haley extensively rewrote it) and has familiar situations and even more familiar dialogue from several noir thrillers of two decades ago. Less than five minutes in, and one of David Della Rocco's more memorable lines in THE BOONDOCK SAINTS is repeated almost word-for-word, and much later, a traumatized character proclaims "I'm pretty fuckin' far from OK," just like Ving Rhames' Marcellus Wallace did in PULP FICTION. But in CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES (shouldn't that be the title of a bad CBS police procedural?), it doesn't come off as a winking homage. It comes off as stale and lazy. Haley is a terrific character actor, but he doesn't come close to capturing the style and the flow of Tarantino. The script sounds like Haley cobbled it together after binge-watching a bunch of '90s Tarantino imitators and like most of those films (it really plays like a ripoff of a ripoff), CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES makes a lot of noise but it's all pretend and posturing, and seems a little too pleased with itself.
Getting drinks after the funeral of their buddy Matthew (Chris Haley, the director's son), who was run over by a bus, longtime friends Zach (Michael Pitt)--now a douchebag, coke-snorting investment broker with a trophy fiancee (Morgan Wolk) he suspects is cheating on him (foreshadowing alert!)--Bryce (Rob Brown), and recovering alcoholic Warren (Christopher Abbott) are joined by outcast and frequent bullying target Noah (Dan Stevens of THE GUEST). Noah is now a filthy rich real estate mogul, and in the course of their conversation, Bryce mentions he has a buddy who's got a hot tip on investing in a lucrative new pharmaceutical startup. After a month, the stock in the company is worthless following an SEC bust, and the four guys are out the $200,000 Noah borrowed from a benefactor who turns out to be Cleveland mob kingpin Eddie Lovato (John Travolta, wearing a shiny, helmet-like Big Boy wig). Lovato's got all of them on the hook for the investment plus interest, demanding $400,000 but offering them a clean slate if they kidnap Marques Flemmings (Edi Gathegi), whose brother is holding Lovato's niece for ransom and whose uncle is Demetrius Flemmings (Tyrone Jenkins), a top rival of Lovato's. Of course, putting four bickering incompetents in charge of an abduction never works out well, and of course the pragmatic Marques (Gathegi is the best thing in the movie) senses their weaknesses, manipulates them and attempts to turn them against one another, leading to twists, turns, buried secrets being revealed, and lots of dialogue that goes as follows:
Marques: "Shut the fuck up!"
Warren: "No, you shut the fuck up!"
Noah: "SHUT. THE FUCK. UP!"
Zach and Bryce: "SHUT THE FUCK UP!"
The major plot twists are telegraphed pretty hard throughout, to the point where it becomes painfully obvious who's not who he says is, though the big reveal of why this person has gone to the lengths he's gone has a surprising degree of chutzpah and an admirable "Whoa...what?" factor to it. The finale and Gathegi's performance give CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES a big boost, and Travolta and Haley (who plays Lovato's chief flunky) seem to be having a good time. Travolta coasts through in a supporting role, probably as a favor for his buddy Haley, and gets to resurrect some of his Vincent Vega and Chili Palmer schtick, holding court with long-winded speeches (everybody in this movie has multiple long-winded speeches) on everything from economics to Macbeth to how much he hates drinking kale shakes. It's all cut from the same cloth as "Royale with Cheese," and like most of its '90s influences, there's some unexpected, darkly-comedic accidental death (like Marvin getting shot in the face because of a bump in the road in PULP FICTION). CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES is shamelessly derivative at times, and you really don't care at all about the four main characters, especially Pitt's obnoxious Zach, who seems like nearly every other obnoxious Michael Pitt character (if you want to see Pitt in a better mob movie, check out the little-seen and much more entertaining ROB THE MOB) but Stevens' portrayal of nebbishy dweeb Noah seems to be channeling a young Woody Allen at times. Except for the finale where it tries far too late to find its own voice, CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES is a minor and mostly forgettable film for Travolta completists and people who can't get enough of dated Tarantino ripoffs that instantly play like relics found frozen in ice after 20 years and just now thawed for viewing.
The terrific YOU'RE NEXT (2013) earned some significant critical acclaim even outside the usual insulated and self-congratulatory horror circles and showed that indie filmmaker Adam Wingard and screenwriting partner Simon Barrett were ready to take things to the next level. The film didn't do very well commercially as mainstream audiences were perhaps a bit fatigued with home-invasion thrillers, but it's found a major cult following on DVD and Netflix streaming. Wingard and Barrett are part of the horror hipster collective that also includes their buddies and V/H/S franchise collaborators Joe Swanberg and Ti West (Wingard and Barrett starred in the horribly self-indulgent 24 EXPOSURES, a recent film by the prolific Swanberg. who also co-starred in YOU'RE NEXT), but as with YOU'RE NEXT, THE GUEST demonstrates that Wingard and Barrett are just as skillfully adept at making smart and entertaining thriller as they are the would-be auteurist circle-jerk home movies they get roped into by their friends. THE GUEST had an even tougher time in theaters than YOU'RE NEXT when distributor Picturehouse--a relaunch of the short-lived '00s indie distributor--cancelled their plans to roll it out nationwide (it was their only 2014 release) and instead halted THE GUEST's run on a mere 53 screens at its widest release for a gross of just $330,000. It deserved better and it's another one of those films that, had it been released ten years ago, would've easily become a huge word-of-mouth sleeper hit and likely launched the big-screen career of former DOWNTON ABBEY co-star Dan Stevens.
Sporting a flawless American accent, the British Stevens (also seen recently opposite Liam Neeson in the underrated A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES) is David, recently discharged from the military and paying a visit to the mourning family of his fallen friend Caleb. Caleb's family--mom Laura (Sheila Kelley), dad Spencer (Leland Orser), 20-year-old sister Anna (Maika Monroe), and teenage brother Luke (Brendan Meyer)--are dealing with his death in their own ways when David arrives to grant Caleb's final wish to tell each of them that he loved them very much. Touched by the extent of David's respect for their son by following through on his promise to honor Caleb's request, Laura and Spencer invite him to stay with them as long as he needs. David repays their kindness by helping out with some problems, whether it's handling some bullies making Luke's life hell, kicking some troublemakers out of a party thrown by Anna's friends, or just being a calming, comforting presence in a home fraught with tension. But something seems off about David, even with his story seemingly checking out and his being clearly visible in one of Laura's photos of Caleb's Special Forces unit in Iraq. To say any more about where the story heads would spoil the surprises THE GUEST has to offer (I haven't even mentioned the involvement of character actor Lance Reddick and an almost unrecognizable Ethan Embry), but with its twisty plot that expertly balances dark comedy and odd bits of humor (note the GENERAL HOSPITAL references in the family names) with grim and shocking dramatic turns, its unexpected character development (Brittany Murphy lookalike Monroe is quite good at playing Anna's very believable maturation from one who is disaffected and can't even to being the first to see through David's ruse and attempt to do something about it), and its killer John Carpenter-esque score by Steve Moore (one half of American synth-rock duo Zombi), it's one of the most giddily entertaining genre pieces in ages, and with the exception of THE IMMIGRANT, perhaps the best film of 2014 that nobody saw. Best of all is Stevens, whose brilliant performance brings to mind the smiling sincerity masking the tightly-coiled, ticking time-bomb menace that Terry O'Quinn brought to the 1987 classic THE STEPFATHER. Wingard admirably wastes absolutely no time in getting THE GUEST off and running, and it rapidly unfolds with all the appeal of a catchy song that's immediately got you hooked. This one should've been big, but like YOU'RE NEXT, it had to wait to be discovered. (R, 100 mins)
FALCON RISING (US/Germany - 2014)
The busy Michael Jai White divides his time between DTV actioners and the Tyler Perry universe, starring in the Perry-produced WHY DID I GET MARRIED? TV spinoff FOR BETTER OR WORSE, a show that started on TBS but is now about to air its sixth season on OWN. For many years, White was best known for the title roles in the HBO movie TYSON (1995) and the big-screen SPAWN (1997), but his place in pop culture history would eventually be cemented by the 2009 cult classic BLACK DYNAMITE, a dead-on, labor-of-love spoof of blaxploitation films that White also wrote and shepherded every step of the way to its completion. BLACK DYNAMITE only received a limited theatrical release, but it's gone on to become one of the most revered and quotable comedies--at least with hardcore movie nerds--of the last several years, and in that sense, it's surprising that White, who's absolutely perfect as Black Dynamite, hasn't gone on to bigger things. White's no stranger to the world of DTV action, and his films have generally been a cut above the norm, whether he's working for Isaac Florentine in UNDISPUTED II: LAST MAN STANDING (2006), headlining the bone-crushing and bloody BLOOD AND BONE (2009), or directing himself in NEVER BACK DOWN 2: THE BEATDOWN (2011). Like Florentine--another DTV action figure who should theoretically be getting better mainstream offers--it may just be that White prefers the relative freedom that the world of low-budget action allows. Florentine is one of the producers of White's latest, FALCON RISING, which actually made it into a few theaters in September courtesy of Freestyle Releasing. It's the tentative beginning to what producers Shahar & Etchie Stroh of Moonstone Entertainment have christened the "Codename: Falcon" franchise, with White as former Marine-turned-government Black Ops agent John "Falcon" Chapman.
As FALCON RISING opens, a suicidal Chapman, haunted by his Iraq War memories, is playing Russian Roulette before heading to the liquor store, where he of course thwarts a robbery. When his humanitarian aid worker sister Cindy (Laila Ali, Muhammad's youngest daughter) is brutally beaten and left for dead in the "Favela" slums of Rio, Chapman heads to the Rio de Janeiro capital where his old war buddy Manny (Neal McDonough) conveniently runs the US Consulate. It seems Cindy was working to stop a human trafficking and child prostitution ring and got the attention of Rio's most corrupt cops and an evil crew of yakuza planning to ship underage girls to Japan. When an yakuza hit woman disguised as a nurse tries to kill a comatose Cindy, Chapman goes full One Man Wrecking Crew to take out the trash in the Favela. Director Ernie Barbarash is a DTV action veteran (CUBE ZERO, ASSASSINATION GAMES), not on the level of a Florentine or a John Hyams, but FALCON RISING (shot under the far less catchy title FAVELA) shows he's getting a little better. There's an enjoyable Cannon vibe to much of FALCON RISING, right down to its 101-minute run time, and it's really just one action movie cliche after another: PTSD-stricken Chapman's death wish, the Rio cop in charge of the case (Jimmy Navarro, looking and acting like his character should be named "Brazilem Dafoe") obviously being a villain, and the inevitable climactic shootout/MMA throwdown at a shipyard warehouse. There's nothing here you haven't seen before: the villains are complete cardboard cutouts; a sequence where Chapman issues a beatdown on a suspicious-looking guy who turns out to be a complete red herring who never bothers to introduce or explain himself until he and five of his buddies have been decked senseless is unbelievably dumb; a subplot about cleaning up the Favela owes a bit too much to THE RAID; and former boxer Ali has nothing to do but lie motionless in a hospital bed (and she gets an "introducing" credit despite IMDb showing 12 prior acting credits dating back to 2000), but FALCON RISING works as brainlessly diverting action fare. White is an engaging and stoical hero, there's some nice bantering with McDonough (shockingly not cast as a smug prick), who quips "I see you stopped working out" when he first sees the hulking Chapman at the Consulate, the fight choreography by Larnell Stovall is top-notch, and Barbarash and cinematographer Yaron Levy do a fine job of passing Puerto Rico off as Rio and making FALCON RISING look a bit bigger-budgeted than it really is (though you could make a drinking game out of how many times Barbarash cuts to swirling, second-unit aerial shots of the Christ the Redeemer statue). It's hard telling if FALCON RISING will actually lead to a franchise, but it's got plenty of action and no shortage of a perpetually scowling White beating the shit out of people, so what more do you need? (R, 101 mins, also streaming on Netflix Instant) I ORIGINS (US - 2014)
(Some SPOILERS ahead). The 2011 Sundance hit ANOTHER EARTH, directed by Mike Cahill and written by star Brit Marling, was one of the most intelligent and thought-provoking indie sci-fi films to come down the pike since PRIMER introduced the world to Shane Carruth. While Marling wrote and starred in the interesting SOUND OF MY VOICE and the disastrous THE EAST for their director pal Zal Batmanglij, Cahill was busy writing his follow-up film I ORIGINS. Marling is just an actress in this one, but it has that distinct feel that she usually brings to her projects. However, the film is ultimately a disappoint that never recovers from the glacially-paced mumblecore moping of its first half and it eventually succumbs to silliness despite an interesting premise once the narrative finally starts advancing. Opening in 2006, molecular biology Ph.D. candidate Ian Gray (Michael Pitt), his roommate Kenny (THE WALKING DEAD's Steven Yeun), and their frumpy research assistant Karen (Marling) are studying the evolution of the human eye in an effort to dismantle the notion of intelligent design and creationism. Ian meets Sofi (Astrid Berges-Frisbey) at a party and the two begin a whirlwind romance that comes to an abrupt end when Sofi is killed in an elevator accident. Cut to 2013, as the now-Dr. Gray and his research partner/wife Karen are told their infant son displays signs of autism. They're suspicious of the tests given to the baby and, through some plot advancement that the audience is just forced to roll with, discover that their son's iris pattern is identical to that of a man who died two years earlier, and the photos which provoked an emotional response from the baby during the test were images from that dead man's past. Making this their new mission--apparently with the plan of cutting the autism specialist (Cara Seymour) out entirely--Ian jets off to New Delhi when an eye-scan database indicates that a child with Sofi's iris pattern was there as recently as three months earlier.
Cahill tries to go for some heady ideas involving reincarnation, religion, and scientific theory, but too much of I ORIGINS is a laborious, pretentious bore. The courtship scenes between Ian and Sofi go on forever, with the two demonstrating the kind of odd, eccentric behavior that only goes over well at film festivals (their meet-cute is particularly absurd), and the performances of Pitt and Berges-Frisbey respectively channeling the most grating aspects of circa-2000 Jeremy Davies and circa-anytime Paz de la Huerta. The first 50 minutes are a slog, but if you can hang with it, it gets marginally better--for a while, at least--as Cahill gets a decent Shane Carruth forward momentum going and actually takes the concept somewhere. But it's ultimately a lot of talk on the way to nowhere special and not really worth the effort. There's still a lot of lingering questions, William Mapother's one-scene appearance as an American minister in Ian's New Delhi hotel seems to be what's left of a larger role that got hacked down in post, and a post-credits stinger tries to go for a big surprise but is just hokey and laughable. There's some nice cinematography, particularly in the New Delhi sequences, but Cahill's follow-up to the far-superior ANOTHER EARTH is, for the most part, a dull, draggy misfire, and though Marling is only in front of the camera, it's a good indication along with THE EAST that maybe the Marling/Cahill/Batmanglij team have said everything they've had to say. (R, 107 mins)
Loosely based on Jose Saramago's novel The Double, but not to be confused with the recent Jesse Eisenberg film THE DOUBLE, Denis Villeneuve's ENEMY is one of those frustrating cinematic puzzles where the set up and the placement of the initial pieces prove much more challenging and engaging than the actual solution. ENEMY excels in its early stages in its depiction of the ennui-drenched L'AVVENTURA, RED DESERT, and THE PASSENGER alienation of vintage Antonioni fused with the cold Cronenbergian chill of Toronto high-rises that recalls everything from SHIVERS to CRASH and even Fernando Mereilles' underappreciated BLINDNESS, itself an adaptation of another Saramago novel. There's also an overt DEAD RINGERS vibe that begins with quiet, withdrawn history professor Adam Bell (Jake Gyllenhaal) suffering through small talk with a colleague, who recommends a movie called WHERE THERE'S A WILL, THERE'S A WAY. Adam rents the movie and it's a run-of-the-mill romantic comedy, but something catches his attention: cast as "Bellhop #3" is one Daniel Saint Claire, who happens to look exactly like Adam. Adam researches the doppelganger's other roles, which are limited similar bit parts in two other forgettable films from a decade earlier, and eventually goes to the office of the agency representing Saint Claire and is mistaken for him, which gets him Saint Claire's phone number and address. Adam calls the actor, whose real name is Anthony Claire, and though Anthony is initially hesitant, they meet. Their features are identical and they even have the same scar. Adam freaks out and regrets meeting, but Anthony, who has a history of cheating on his now-pregnant wife Helen (Sarah Gadon), forces Adam to go along with a swap so he can spend some time with Adam's girlfriend Mary (Melanie Laurent).
There's such an eerie, unsettling, Hitchcockian, De Palma-esque by way of Antonioni and Cronenberg feel to the first hour of ENEMY (at times, you might think it's a horror film) that it's almost enraging when you realize it's gone to such intriguing and fascinating lengths to tell such an ultimately banal story. And I haven't even gotten into the ham-fisted symbolism of spiders and webs, which wasn't part of Saramago's novel. ENEMY is borderline brilliant for 2/3 of its running time, but the back end of the script by Javier Gullon (who also co-wrote the intriguing 2007 thriller KING OF THE HILL) has all the depth and insight of someone's first and quickly-discarded draft in an Intro to Creative Writing course. The film is very well-directed by Villeneuve, who also teamed with Gyllenhaal on last year's more commercial PRISONERS (ENEMY was shot first, but released after). Villeneuve is a director who brings out the best in the actor, who was riveting in PRISONERS in a performance that deserved more attention than it got. Gyllenhaal delivers two strong performances here, even as the film starts collapsing around him in the closing sequences as--you guessed it--the lines between real and fantasy become impossibly blurred, not to mention hopelessly hackneyed. Still worth seeing for that opening hour and the powerfully dread-filled slow build...at least until it starts sabotaging itself. (R, 91 mins)
ROB THE MOB (US - 2014)
There's a slight sense of TRUE ROMANCE redux in this somewhat fictionalized account of Tommy and Rosemarie Uva, a Queens couple trying to stay on the right path after jail stints for armed robbery. Struggling in their 9-5 jobs, they started robbing mob-owned bars and social clubs. In one of their jobs, they managed to obtain a list that thoroughly detailed the Gambino and Bonnano family hierarchy, and as they got increasingly cocky and overconfident, they used it to guarantee their safety which, of course, backfired and the couple were whacked on Christmas Eve 1992. In ROB THE MOB, directed by Raymond De Felitta and written by Jonathan Fernandez, Tommy (Michael Pitt) and Rosie (Nina Arianda) aren't married, for some reason (they're planning to get married on Christmas Day, so perhaps it was a dramatic decision), and some of the names are changed, but otherwise, it mostly sticks to the story. The none-too-bright Tommy has a lifelong grudge against the local gangsters, who strong-armed, shook down, and eventually killed his florist father, so once they get desperate and he starts toying with the idea of ripping them off, Rosie can't talk him out of it, and when the money starts rolling in, she's OK with it as well. During one robbery, they get "the list" from inside the wallet of aged and slightly feeble mobster Joey D (Burt Young), and all hell breaks loose in the family, run by the reclusive Big Al Fiorello (Andy Garcia), a composite of Bonnano boss Joseph Massino and underboss Sal Vitale.
ROB THE MOB does a good job of mixing lighthearted and serious moments, as Tommy's early, haplessly clumsy attempts at pulling a social club stick-up get a reaction from the mobsters that's not unlike Richard Pryor's famous "Mafia Club" bit. But as things get serious and the stakes get higher, the shift to drama is smooth and organic. De Felitta (who previously worked with Garcia on 2009's enjoyable CITY ISLAND) does a superb job with period detail and other than some CGI effects in the closing scene, the whole film has a vivid sense of time and place and feels like it could've been made 20 years ago. The film takes place during the trial of John Gotti, whose 1992 conviction was essentially the beginning of the end for the old-school glory days of the American Mafia, and it deftly ties in an elegiac feeling for that era, though only Big Al seems aware that things are about to change. Most of the goodfellas in ROB THE MOB have seen better days but there's a comfortable complacency that's set in for them. It's a period of Mafia history that isn't glorious and hasn't been covered much in popular culture and ROB THE MOB offers a unique perspective in the "working-stiff gangster" subgenre with films like DONNIE BRASCO (1997) and KILLING THEM SOFTLY (2012). Fine performances all around from Pitt, Garcia, and Ray Romano as NYC crime reporter "Jerry Cardozo," presumably based on Gotti biographer and Mafia historian Jerry Capeci, in addition to colorful supporting turns by familiar faces like Michael Rispoli, Griffin Dunne, Cathy Moriarty, Yul Vazquez, John Tormey, Joseph R. Gannascoli, and Frank Whaley (Aida Turturro is prominently-billed but her role was cut from the film). The standout however, is Tony-winning Broadway actress Arianda in what would be a star-making big-screen breakout had Millennium released ROB THE MOB on more than 30 screens. Arianda is a ball of fire throughout, in her interaction with Tommy ("You bought me flowers!"), chewing people out on the phone at her collection agency job, or overcome with visions of fame and talking way too much when Cardozo wants to interview her. She handles the "tough moll" role in classic fashion and has a very natural, streetwise 1970s presence (these small-time Queens would-be gangsters always seem a little behind the times) that sets her apart from a lot of young actresses today, who probably would've appeared mannered and playing dress-up. It's the kind of showy role that could've easily been turned into a caricature, but Arianda keeps it under control and nails it, and if this movie had gotten any exposure at all, there's a good chance she'd be getting some legitimate Oscar buzz. On the whole, ROB THE MOB wanders a bit and isn't as ambitious or as focused as it should be, but it's a solid little film, and Arianda's performance is a big reason why. (R, 104 mins)
WOLF CREEK 2 (Australia - 2014)
In the horror genre, nine years is an unusually lengthy wait for a sequel, and after that amount of time, you might wonder why writer/director Greg McLean took so long to get to the follow-up to 2005's WOLF CREEK. And after you watch the absurdly tardy WOLF CREEK 2, you'll wonder why he even bothered. When it was released, WOLF CREEK got the attention of hardcore horror fans with its mercilessly bleak vision and its instantly iconic performance by veteran Australian character actor John Jarratt as gregarious Outback serial killer Mick Taylor. As Mick, Jarratt came across as the terrifying doppelganger of Crocodile Dundee, and the grueling film wasn't for horror amateurs. Indeed, it didn't go over with mainstream audiences (earning a rare F from the ludicrous CinemaScore), and was lumped in with the then in-vogue torture porn craze (which, to be fair, it shared some aspects), but horror scenesters embraced it and McLean was hailed as a major new talent in the genre. He returned with 2008's surprisingly good killer crocodile flick ROGUE, buried by Dimension Films after the similar and inferior PRIMEVAL beat it to theaters and bombed. McLean's been off the radar since ROGUE, and the pointless WOLF CREEK 2 isn't likely to re-establish his career momentum.
Jarratt is back, and rather than play Mick in the sinister, unsettling way he did nearly a decade ago, McLean instead has him crank it up to 11 and beyond, turning the character into a relentless killing machine with his endlessly-quipping Freddy Krueger zingers and asides ("Welcome to Australia, cocksucker!"). WOLF CREEK 2 eschews the nightmarish qualities of WOLF CREEK to go for broad horror comedy augmented by over-the-top splatter effects. Shifts in tone in a sequel are nothing new: Sam Raimi did it with 1987's EVIL DEAD 2 and it's the same approach Tobe Hooper took for 1986's THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE PART 2. It doesn't work here, nor does McLean's decision to attempt a "shifting of the protagonists" move from the PSYCHO playbook. The first hour is essentially one long chase as we spend a bunch of time with two likable German backpackers, Rutger (Philippe Klaus) and Katarina (Shannyn Ashlyn), only to have them exit as Mick's focus turns to British tourist Paul (Ryan Corr). Mick plays road and head games with Paul, eventually getting him back to his vast HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES torture dungeon. It's hard to pinpoint exactly where WOLF CREEK 2 implodes beyond repair, but Mick plowing over kangaroos to the tune of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" is as good a location as any. It doesn't really matter in the end, because this only exists to be THE JOHN JARRATT SHOW, with the actor's overbearing histrionics turning his second interpretation of Mick into an extended tribute to the career of Bill Moseley, whether he's screaming at the top of lungs, shouting Aussie jingles and limericks, or mowing down a friendly old couple to "The Blue Danube Waltz." Some nice cinematography and a tense opening sequence aside, the ill-advised and badly-executed WOLF CREEK 2 is just uninspired, stupid, and lazy. Here's to hoping McLean gets his mojo back before he has to shit out a WOLF CREEK 3 in desperation seven or eight years from now. (Unrated, 106 mins, also available on Netflix Instant)
