It’s like it never existed, a forgotten flick, a secret wee thing that few know of. But it’s very good.
A standard horror premise mixed with office politics, James Spader chomping on the Yuppie remnants of his late ’80s heyday, and Jack just loving his life. If I think of a black comedy/thriller done well, Wolf (1994) is sinking its fangs into my mind. Jack could do any role and be great; he’s not capable of ever being uninteresting.
And Ross Geller is in this. Jack steals his handcuffs.
This was way better than I expected – the bar is low these days.
It got so good at one point, I was awaiting a Predator and protagonist temporary collaboration against a truculent tribe. But it lost the momentum, as most movies do.
We also have the worst ever acting job (ever) from a bear, and a highly irritating and needless appropriation of a classic line (“If it bleeds ….”).
And a most unsubtle score rip-off from The Last of the Mohicans (1992).
However, the film has its moments for 55 minutes so it gets a 3/5 on my wee scale.
Definitely better than taking a shit.
Ray Liotta was for so long the go-to menacing nutjob. Even when he’s not trying to be creepy, it doesn’t work. Henry Hill, for example, never seems quite right despite being one of the more normal Goodfellas. Liotta is a right maniac in this one, and it works perfectly.
The crime-ridden early ’90s Los Angeles, corrupt cops, home invasion paranoia, and a creepy Ray Liotta – talk about capturing the zeitgeist. After watching this I looked up Rodney King just to reacquaint myself with the period.
This is a thoroughly unsettling movie, not just because of the era it’s from and depicts, but the downright creepiness of Liotta in a police uniform.
The word of the day is: creepy.
It works.
Formulaic but brilliant, this demonstrates Adam Sandler’s considerable acting chops even better than Punch Drunk Love (2002) or Uncut Gems (2019), because this character is more complex, and dare I say it, multi-layered.
I know fuck all about basketball. I don’t get it. I find it dull. This made the sport interesting.
It’s the central relationship which is the heart, an initial association of convenience which ultimately goes beyond the professional. It wasn’t Mickey and Rocky but it aped that well.
Nothing special here but good enough, a proper movie with no pretensions; it knows what it is.
And it comes with obligatory mental training montage.
This movie is more interested in visual trickery than the characters or plot, of which there are none. I didn’t see the point of any of it, and it took an age to get going. It was also needlessly violent, the worst cartoon kind, Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn whacking each other with shovels particularly daft. Some of the reviews from the time describe the film as cruel and heartless, which is entirely accurate. It’s meant to be a comedy. I only laughed at myself for not turning the thing off.
An uncredited cameo from Sydney Pollack aside, I hated it.
Next.
What is the point of this terrible movie? Allegedly, it has something to do with Orson Welles, but I see nothing of the master in this (I’m convinced he was taking the piss).
A wee knock-off Godardian thing, it has the pleasure of existing as the only Welles movie I have extinguished after 26 minutes. It felt like the makers behind Medium Cool (1969) had decided to ridicule their own aesthetic. It’s unwatchable, so carelessly shot and put together. Stick to Charlie Kane and Hank Quinlan.
Avoid this shite.
I have nothing else to say.
Even operatic in moments, this is beyond the ridiculous and enters into the realm of the post-surreal. I suppose one could call it a treatise on acting. Or just a Cage-Fest.
It’s simply … the most Cage that Cage has ever been.
Which is a good thing.
The acting from the leads wasn’t bad but the supporting cast – the usual stock array of minimally talented British actors – were just grating as hell every time they appeared, mostly at these ‘dinner parties’, blurting out the kind of dialogue that nobody in reality ever says. If it’s not a convincing milieu then I’m not taking the movie seriously, which wouldn’t be an issue aside from the fact it takes itself very seriously.
It all feels like a wasted opportunity given the striking opening scene, which is pretty much the premise and the poster. With a half-decent script and director, it could have been a contender (sorry). The thriller elements just weren’t necessary, and it would have been an infinitely better film if it dispensed with them by the 40-minute mark or completely, focusing instead on the trauma and survivor guilt.
Another pointless excursion into mediocrity.
The definite article annoys me. I don’t like it. At all. Anyway, the movie:
It’s all very well designed and shot. The music choices, from Nirvana to what sounds like a variation of ‘The Imperial March’ from The Empire Strikes Back (1980), are inspired, and a car chase respectfully lifted/stolen from To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) works as well as anything in the Batman canon.
You get to see the lad actually doing detective work, and the role of that nefarious news media we all know, think we need, and varyingly hate is given proper weight in the narrative. It drags a wee bit towards the end, but that’s to be expected with this fare. It’s … interesting. Not bad at all.
And Andy Serkis is a fabulous actor. He’ll most likely be canonised for Gollum and a raging gorilla, but he’s just as good as a human. Most actors are garbage yet succeed because of market forces. The bloke with the Gollum voice needs a leading role.
If Seagal can make it, Gollum can.
What a cracker this is!
Bill Pullman just disappeared for a decade and a half, but here he is in his prime, a remnant from the James Stewart acting school of nonchalance. He really should have graduated to the role of troubled leading man, a jaded cop or something.
One would deem this an archetypal neo-noir, but your femme fatale here is the protagonist for once. The multi-faceted, polymathic, boozing, smoking, shagging, utterly obscenely ridiculous Linda Fiorentino running rings around every idiot she meets.
Marry me?
We also have J.T. Walsh and his sleazy voice.
And a jazz soundtrack that doesn’t feel like a desperate bolt-on feature.
Riot of a film.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 