An intriguing first scene that takes place in Berlin promised a good thriller; anything featuring Berlin is promising.
Nice font on the opening title, and the once omniscient James Rebhorn is briefly in it. Good job.
It’s so boring, though, and anything germane it had to say about amoral bankers was lost in the relentless, mind-crushing tedium. I was hoping for Jason Bourne meets Interpol. What I got was the urge to jettison The International (2009).
I lasted 46 minutes.
Terence Stamp as ‘Wilson’ in the sublime crime thriller The Limey (1999), a true gem from the tail-end of a decade littered with far too many guns and crooks.
“You tell him … you tell him I’m coming. Tell him I’m fucking coming!”
His best role, without question.
Another remake of Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961), this neo-western is rubbish and not even in a curious way.
I did have high expectations for the flick as Walter Hill is a top filmmaker and this was peak Bruce Willis, that post Pulp Fiction (1994) era when he would veer seamlessly between actioner and risky movies with a bit more depth to them. This is atrocious, though, from the stupid voice-over to the stupid things every character does, to the stupid framing and the sheer stupidity of the premise, and I felt stupid for sticking with it rather than just watching A Fistful of Dollars (1964).
Stupidity is the theme.
Nothing here makes much sense but it’s at least notable as a primary source, an artefact.
She’s a welder in a Pittsburgh steel mill, an exotic dancer and aspiring ballerina, and quite the beauty. That’s how I imagine the pitch went. But with the thrown-in goodies of a music video aesthetic, Giorgio Moroder on soundtrack duties.
Trends mostly do not emerge by design, and Flashdance (1983) is the accidental genesis of the high-concept archetype that would come to define the ’80s for today’s moviegoer – all surface sheen, the iconic glossy image, negligible characterisation, but with all the requisite ingredients that comprise the popcorn experience.
It’s rubbish but it’s historical.
And this scene is ridiculous beyond belief:
The opening credits reminded me of Big Wednesday (1978). This is no mere surfer gig, though, but a psychological thriller with style, visuals which have purpose. The director understands the primacy of the image, the importance of framing and when to hold a shot.
This narrative engrossed me from the start as I was thoroughly vexed from the first exchange our lad has with the macho beach posse. I wanted him to fuck them up and hated seeing Cage disrespected, manipulated, losing his shit.
An unhinged work, and another belter for the Annals of Cage.
It’s funnier than all its considerable attributes as an action movie. For the carnage, it’s top tier, but it’s definitely more of a comedy than any other description.
Maybe it’s because so much of this ilk is a slew of totally witless dirge, Die Hard (1988) appears smart and a bit of an outlier.
And you see a character sparking up a fag in a limo.
This was inordinately entertaining and galling and frankly nuts and by the last 30 minutes unwatchable, so draining I had to turn it off. There’s only so much of this lad you can take.
The Roy Cohn Playbook seems to work in this lopsided political sphere. And it’s been appropriated by thousands of pygmy politicians.
I’m sure that was the point of this riotous slog of a movie.
Even a funny Anthony Hopkins can’t salvage this bombastic, pompous shitter that is by far the most boring film I’ve seen this year. Hopkins, playing a demented King Herod with an insatiable lust for life, knows it’s a joke of a film so decides to deliver some hammy lolz in exchange for his no doubt sizeable cheque.
And why not? Keep ’em coming, Mr. Hopkins.
Watching this again was a fatalistic regret because it’s absolute rubbish and bloody tedium defined. It’s another one of those movies that I convinced myself was good.
It isn’t and takes so long to get going I thought I was viewing one of those indulgent director’s cuts.
This funny flick (for the most part) revels in its own silly wee world and knows how ridiculous it is.
Several chuckles along the way, even if the last 20 minutes are unbearable in their noisy-as-hell mindlessness, as if all the self-aware comedy was building to a doll on a dull rampage.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 