Category Archives: Crime

Catch Me If You Can (2002).

An inconsequential bore, pointless in its totality, and I didn’t buy a word of it. It smelled of a fake movie about a fake man with fake stories, and the stories have been proven to be just that. This is riddled with unfunny jokes, facile attempts at characterisation, and it’s way too long.

A surfeit of irritating bimbos permeate this pathetic farce, and it’s embarrassing to see them swoon over Leo’s facepalm-inducing pick-up lines straight out of the depths of cringe.

What annoyed me the most was Spielberg’s attempts to inject a fake story with a fake father-and-son melodrama, with surrogate dad Hanks and real dad Walken. The latter is fine, the former is not as nauseating as usual but he is still a pain.

The movie was there so I watched it. I won’t be doing so again.

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Snake Eyes (1998).

After a grand opening sequence shot that showcases all of Brian De Palma’s predilection/fetish for needless aesthetics with an absence of characterisation or an acknowledgement of any world outside his own wee wanky technical exercises, this descends into a non-movie student project.

Apologies for the length of that sentence.

The most intriguing aspect of this legit pile of crap is that the excellent character actor Kevin Dunn is in it and interacts with a character named ‘Kevin Dunne’ played by Gary Sinise. But once again this is De Palma being all clever and self-referential instead of crafting a story.

Avoid.

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Lester Diamond.

James Woods as the odious pimp Lester Diamond in Casino (1995).

The lad features for a mere 10 minutes but in those precious scenes cements his acting legacy by effortlessly creating one of the the sleaziest, slimiest characters ever put on celluloid.

James Woods is a treat and we should be grateful to him.

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The Wire was funny once.

Jimmy McNulty pretending to be a serial killer and phoning a perplexed Scott Templeton really shouldn’t be at all funny. But it is:

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The General (1998).

Brendan Gleeson is one of the finest out there and even in a stinker he’s never the one doing the stinking.

Jon Voight, best known these days as an outspoken MAGA acolyte, has his considerable talents on display as our protagonist’s Gardaí nemesis, the Nineties his thesp Indian summer. This and his barking turn in Anaconda (1997) is a mighty double bill I would recommend to anyone.

The black and white works, it’s frequently thrilling, and he’s a very funny character who maintains your interest.

Superb movie.

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Monkey Man (2024).

What a title for a movie and this is what caught my flagging attention when sieving through the shambolic content we have for streaming. The crap littering the landscape is rather outrageous and this needs to stop.

I was dubious Monkey Man (2024) would be any good – but then one, that is I, never approaches a movie with an open mind and I refuse to watch a film if the poster insults me.

A rags-to-relative-riches yarn, our resourceful hero surmounts the shackles of social stratification (accidental alliteration) by using his primary skill: the fact that he’s lethal, a Jason Bourne type … donning a monkey mask. The action is hair-raising stuff; seldom has brutal hand-to-hand scrappage looked so soothing, if you’re into that kind of thing. The movie has a heart, though. Our lad loses the mask – the beatings he takes imbued with elements of latent masochism – and becomes all he can be.

Recommended.

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Patriot Games (1992).

Sean Bean is the villain. And he dies. This isn’t even a spoiler as it’s a given, for we are in the ’90s and this Mr. Bean was the go-to bad boy when a thriller needed a bit of Sheffield rough.

He’s actually okay in this, despite his wandering accent.

But Harrison Ford looks bored as hell. Everyone else looks bored. The Irish Peace Process looks bored.

I was also bored.

Boring movie.

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Blank Check (1994).

I watched this abomination of a movie because someone (British) said “blank cheque” on the bus, but that’s by the by.

The viewing was a major mistake, for this was definitely one of the worst nostalgia trips I’ve subjected myself to. 

Horrible little film. 

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The Player (1992).

The master of the slow zoom and the overlapping conversation, frequently several happening at once, Robert Altman’s very amusing, freewheeling thriller is half satire, a director taking the absolute piss and slandering his own environment. 

It’s peerless entertainment and one of his most enduring works. 

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