If you’re going to watch ‘companion piece’ movies then these two barking mad features are the ones for you.
The only thing really connecting them is the title, the film from 2009 the most loose ‘remake’ ever. Harvey Keitel goes Full-Harvey and Nicolas Cage goes Full-Cage. You can’t choose a winner. The films aren’t about plotting or themes; they are just an opportunity for the actor to do a Brando, go a wee bit nuts. And it’s a joy to watch. Stay off the drugs, people!
Somehow, Kietel and Cage both wound up in an appalling feature named National Treasure (2004), phoning it in in the worst way. They look bored shitless. As was I. But one has to pay the bills so I forgive them.
The movie is a masterpiece that would not get made today; can you imagine what the hysterics would do to Twitter? I will write all about this some other time.
The soundtrack, though. Oh my. It’s quite possibly the best compendium of ‘tunage’ ever. 1994 was a grand year for all involved, even if Jeff Daniels got blown up by Dennis Hopper.
An hour in and you’re thinking that if the movie can keep it together the experience could quite possibly be up there with the best of them, a thought-provoking sci-fi masterpiece for the ages. But then it descends into sub-slasher ridiculousness, a third act that feels like the team behind Event Horizon (1997) rejected it. This happens quite a lot with these movies, and even more so when it comes to TV shows. There’s so much expertly paced build-up that goes … nowhere. Why try and turn it into a horror? The makers simply didn’t know how to fulfill all the promise or how to end it so resorted to cheap genre ‘thrills’, frenzied cutting and pointless bombast.
But for 70 minutes this is great. I highly recommend turning it off once it gets silly. And then proceed to stick 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) on.
Once again, Tom Hanks is a flawless, completely morally incorruptible hero who never puts a foot wrong, never makes a mistake, and is not really affected by anything that goes on. Someone needs to just stop the lad from pulling this act. As silly as this sounds, I’ve never rated him as an actor nor his pathetic bargain basket Jimmy Stewart shtick. He’s a vacuum. There is nothing there. He is so dull.
I did expect more from Paul Greengrass, though, given the immense quality of his CV. But this film was a disaster, a procession of one generic snooze-scene after another. I wasn’t just bored out of my mind; it got to the stage around 40 minutes in where I started to predict what would happen next and how the flick would end. I passed with flying colours.
What an absolute waste of time this movie was. I burst out laughing at one bit when Hanks went Full-Mark Antony and somehow managed to start a mob riot through his oratorical mastery of reading a newspaper. I’ve been more inspired by a three-day-old sweetcorn in one of my dumps.
Avoid (the movie) like … anything which vexes you, really.
Lee Marvin had a bonkers year in 1967, this thriller and The Dirty Dozen representing the peak of his cult, not that your random audience member knew it at the time. They are a curious twosome as Point Blank appears a blueprint for a future style of film aesthetics and the Robert Aldrich ripper a throwback or definition of the classical form, if not in its then-graphic onscreen violence. It’s a watershed 52 weeks. I wasn’t alive back then, and thank fuck. But it looks eventful (just watch The Graduate).
What a seductive picture, and even the jarring time jumps work to reinforce the dreamy atmosphere of the film. The precise framing and use of colour, it LOOKS AMAZING (CAPS LOCK ALERT). The overlapping sound is pre-Robert Altman but betters those seminal works because it’s more than a silly afterthought or accident. There are scenes in this which require so little dialogue they may as well be Godard in a traffic jam. It’s an exercise in stylistics. You get this with first-time filmmakers or those in the early throes of the game – the bold choices, the going with the instinct. Peckinpah retained it almost to the end. Scorsese – the last man standing – still has it.
This is peak Tarantinto three decades before peak Tarantino. But without the feet obsession.
It’s also hilarious. Marvin has to be the coolest bloke to ever be off his tits. He retains throughout a semi-plastered hangdog expression and even in his quietest rage barely looks interested in proceedings. It’s all too easy for Marvin. All he wants is his cash but not even the corporate pyramid semi-responsible for his fate are even capable of doing the basics. Almost everyone in this movie is useless. It’s a life lesson.
Point Blank is a relic and a template.
P.S. There is no relation between this and Point Break (1991), which I watched a few weeks ago.
It’s so unnecessarily long-winded and frankly pointless.
I’m struggling to think of a more eclectic display of moronic and wholly unsympathetic characters in a motion picture. Everything about them is annoying; they are smug, boring, stupid, and generally just excruciating. It’s universally described in the reviews of the time as being “epic”. This consists of a few wide-angle shots of mountain landscapes in order to paper over thin characterisation; mountains act as filler.
Yet despite occasional David Lean pretensions it’s so inept from a framing perspective. Every scene is astonishingly horrible to look at, an ugly beast shot with all the artistry of a severely undisciplined student movie; there is no syntax to scenes or reason behind shot decisions. It’s a fucking mess. Vietnam has never looked so anonymous. What else? The score pissed me off. It screams of folk feeling sorry for themselves. Which is the essence of the film.
As for the famous Russian Roulette scene – who cares?
It’s hilarious satire, and so smartly done. It’s also damn entertaining. And it hasn’t aged a bit.
It’s in fact way ahead of its time. The lunacy of some of the reviews of 1997. These idiotic ‘critics’ didn’t seem to grasp that everything about the movie is a joke, a piss-take, a borderline comedy. The characters are straight out of a Nazi propaganda piece, and they have legit no redeeming features. But you still watch it for their complete lack of self-awareness.
I had to slap myself by the end of this because I once, for reasons beyond any understanding of my own psyche, thought it was brilliant. It’s not. It’s fucking dire. It’s SO boring. Everything about it is boring. The characters are boring. The story is boring. It even makes WWII boring. Nothing in it is even worth telling. Almost everyone on display is an imbecile; Juliette Binoche is the only one with a personality.
I don’t get the central romance on display. The Katharine character (if you can call her that) is just so … BORING. There is literally nothing about her worth bothering with because she is a cure for insomnia. And I lost track of how many times the director had to pull out a plane crash or a plane being shot in order to advance the plot. It infuriated me. Is this nonsense in the book? It swept the awards in 1996. The voters must have all been on drugs.
I must have been on drugs when I watched this a decade ago and thought it a cracker. There’s no other explanation.
This admittedly amusing movie is not about a single thing aside from how the narrative strands collide, and they are loose connections at most. It is merely highly entertaining, brimming with energy and giggles, though we mainly laugh at how stupid and un-self-aware most of the characters are. It’s a lot of fun until Vinnie Jones turns up and sinks the joys. He’s just awful in everything, but especially this.
For some reason he transitioned from being a dreadful footballer to a dreadful actor. I blame that whole late ’90s ‘lad culture’ … thing, the heyday of Loaded magazine and the milder second renaissance of the beer-swigging hooligan. Only back then could someone so talentless be glorified for thuggery. He’s a former football hardman turned hardman ‘actor’ and this is meant to be hilarious. Sigh.
I’ve read a few sneering reviews from snooty film critics taking umbrage at the movie’s existential pretensions. I don’t get where they’re coming from; if you’re being stalked and mauled by a pack of sociopathic wolves I think you’d start to think about your existence. Anyway, it’s a thrilling movie. There’s no comedy or irony or a memorable quote; what it does is action and does it with aplomb. It’s about willpower and survival. And Liam fighting wolves. That’s it.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 