Month: September 2023

Released: September 2023

Director: Scott Waugh

Rated R

Run Time: 103 Minutes

Distributor: Lionsgate Studios

Genre: Action

Cast:
Sylvester Stallone: Barney
Jason Statham: Christmas
Megan Fox: Gina
50 Cent: Easy Day
Dolph Lundgren: Gunner
Tony Jaa: Decha
Iko Uwais: Rahmat
Andy Garcia: Marsh
Randy Couture: Toll Road
Levy Tran: Lash

When it comes to action franchises, there’s usually a matter of timing involved when you want to do a sequel.  The saying goes, you want to strike while the iron’s hot.  You want to take advantage of an action film’s popularity to try and get a sequel made.  There’s usually a 3-5 time limit when you can do that and still be relevant.  Sometimes it’s usually best to put a franchise to bed for the final time than try and squeeze more blood from a stone.  Hyperbole aside, you need to read the room and understand when and when NOT to try and revive a franchise that’s been dormant for years.  Sylvester Stallone tried that with Rambo: Last Blood back in 2019.  Ten years had passed since the previous film, and while I enjoyed the 5th movie, there was no reason for it to exist as a sequel.  Rambo 4 had tightened up loose ends and brought the character full circle.  Last Blood was excessive.  That’s the feeling that I’m getting from the Expendables franchise.  First two movies were outstanding, but the third was a considerable step down in terms of visual effects, violence, and narrative.  It was weak.  Well, Mr. Stallone wanted to try again with a new film.  Let’s just say that the franchise should’ve been left behind a decade ago.

The fourth film in the franchise opens as a mercenary, Rahmat, and his group of terrorists invade a weapons depot in Libya.  Word gets to Barnet, the head of the merc group, the Expendables, and they are tasked with hunting down Rahmat and recovering stolen nuclear detonators.  Things go sideways and the Expendables lose their leader in a plane crash.  CIA Agent Marsh blames Christmas for this and kicks him off the team, putting Christmas’ girlfriend Gina in charge.  Narrative was never the strongest point of these moves, let’s be honest here.  No, the reason people come to see these movies is because of the outrageous action and the chemistry between the characters.  Honestly, this is the kind of movie that should’ve delivered in spades on both counts.  It kind of doesn’t, really and that’s a HUGE problem here.

It’s clear from the outset that Stallone had intended for Jason Statham to take over the franchise.  I think he could, but the problem is that the writing in this movie is dogshit.  The dialogue is awful, and some of the characters are just lame card-board cut-outs.  The relationship between Jason Statham’s Christmas and Stallone’s Barney is one of the biggest highlights of the entire series.  They work so well off each other, it’s hard to see one without the other.  Yet, Stallone is missing for most of the movie, leaving Statham in a lurch, having to deal with an ex-girlfriend and other irritating new faces.  The only ones returning from previous adventures are Randy Couture as Toll Road and Dolph Lundgren as Gunner.  If I’m being truthful, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I really like Megan Fox as Gina.  Her character absolutely fits in with the boys.  She gives as good as she gets, and Megan handles the physicality pretty well, so she’s not just another pretty face.  I’ve never liked 50 Cent as an actor.  He just doesn’t have a lot of charisma.  Lundgren is under-utilized, which is a shame.  Tony Jaa, who is a newcomer to the series, isn’t given a whole lot to do either with the exception of some action scenes.  Iku Uwais plays the main villain…and he’s just there.  It seems to me that most Western film-makers don’t know how to utilize Asian martial arts actors properly.  Jaa and Uwais were both real strong breakouts in they first appeared on the scene.

I could forgive the lame narrative and weak characterizations if the action was up to snuff.  It’s not.  In fact, Expendables 4 falls back on real tired mid-2000s kind of action with severe shaky-cam and extreme close-ups.  It’s ridiculous how far we’ve come with action movies lately, that something like Expendables 4 could exist.  Look at John Wick 4.  THAT’S how you do action.  To be fair, the action in this film isn’t awful, and when you can see it, it’s actually pretty good.  The fight between Iko Uwais and Jason Statham is a real highlight of the film and shows us what could’ve been.  Also, the movie’s a hard R, which is a good thing as the previous film was PG-13, and suffered from it.  The violence is brutal, but not as visceral as the original film.  Aside from that, it’s your standard run-and-gun affair that doesn’t offer anything creative or new.

Thankfully, the movie’s not boring.  It’s not original in any capacity, but the movie does hit the ground running and it rarely slows down, which is a HUGE plus for me.  Also, it doesn’t overstay its welcome at barely over 100 minutes.  It’s one of those “get in, get out” deals that I think COULD appeal to a lot of people.  But here’s the problem:  People really don’t care anymore.  When the franchise began, it started with a movie that gave us some of the greatest action stars a vehicle to create havoc, and it was glorious.  I love the first two movies.  I think they are amazing and Expendables 2 is an example of how you craft an action sequel.  That is a hill I will die on.  Even Expendables 3 had a certain degree of fun with it, bringing in Mel Gibson as the villain.  With movies like John Wick out there, there really isn’t a place for movies like Expendables anymore, at least not like this.  I don’t hate this new movie, but it just doesn’t do enough to really stand out from the crowd, nor justify its own existence.  It’s time to let this franchise go.  Sorry, Sly: It’s time to move on, man.

Released: June 2023

Director: Nick Cassavetes

Unrated

Run Time: 156 Minutes

Distributor: XYZ Films

Genre: Thriller

Cast:
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau: Bob Hightower
Maika Monroe: Case Hardin
Karl Glusman: Cyrus
January Jones: Maureen Bacon
Jamie Foxx: The Ferryman
Paul Johansson: John Lee

Usually, when I review a movie, I tend to get on this here blog and just type, type, and type away.  But every so often, I come across a movie that gives me pause, and I have to sit and think about what I saw.  Sometimes it takes a day or two, others it takes a week.  I think it took me a while to review Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List.  That was a pretty heavy movie to tackle.  But that was a historical drama, so there was some baggage that automatically came with it, for better or worse.  Excellent film, but I won’t be seeing it again anytime soon.  Historical drama’s aside, I also have an affinity with dark and gritty crime thrillers.  I’ve seen some shit that’s super nihilistic and downbeat.  The Korean thriller I Saw The Devil is a perfect example.  Last weekend, I bought director Nick Cassavetes’ God Is A Bullet on Blu-Ray.  Boy, I thought I’ve seen my fair share of nihilistic movies.  This one might take the cake, but is it good?  Let’s find out.

The story begins with police officer Bob Hightower coming home to find his ex-wife brutally murdered and his daughter missing.  He learns that a Satanic cult called the Left-Handed Path may have been involved, and learns that a young woman had escaped 11 years after being kidnapped herself.  Case decides to help Bob track down this cult and find his daughter if she’s still alive.  He goes down a rabbit hole that will leave him shaken to his core.  I love a good kidnap thriller, and the story in this film had the potential to be one of the better ones.  But director Nick Cassavetes takes a real heavy-handed approach to the narrative.  The story gets pretty mean at times, and it goes to some really dark territory.  It’s not going to be for everyone.  When I said the film is nihilistic, I’m not kidding.  But I don’t necessarily think that it serves the story that well.  I wasn’t expecting everything to be wrapped up in a neat little bow, but good lord, this movie leaves you wanting to take multiple showers.

Let’s talk about the acting first.  Nic Cassavetes gets really strong performances out of his actors, even if they don’t have a whole lot to chew on.  Karl Glusman is nuts as the insane Cyrus who is a totally unhinged psychopath.  Karl’s great, but the character is so over-the-top, he comes across as almost cartoonish, and you don’t want that from villains that are supposed to be really threatening.  In fact, a lot of the cult members come across as cartoonish, and that doesn’t serve the film very well at all.  I get that Nick doesn’t want to hold back, but the scenery chewing from the bad guys is near legendary levels.  Jamie Foxx is completely wasted as The Ferryman, a one-armed tattoo artist that works with the cult.  He was in the film for maybe a total of 10 minutes.  It was nothing more than a glorified cameo.  He was great, but very under-used.  No, the real stars of the show are Nicolaj Coster-Waldau and Maika Monroe as Bob and Case, respectively.  Nicolaj is a wonderful actor.  Most people recognize him as Jamie Lannister from Game of Thrones.  Brilliant actor.  His character is very naive about the world he’s entering and Nicolaj just embodies the character’s change from a naive police officer to an avenging angel over the course of the film.  Maika’s Case on the other hand, is a tough-as-nails survivor who is trying to get Bob to understand what he’s up against, because Case knows first hand what these people are capable of.  Essentially, the film is a road trip movie about these two characters that start to understand where each one is coming from and how they navigate the world.  It’s one of the best-acted dynamics I’ve seen this year.

There have been a lot of reviews about this movie complaining about its pacing and length.  It’s a long movie.  2.5 hours long for a kidnap thriller?  That’s pushing it.  Denis Villenueve’s Prisoners was also 2.5 hours long, but there was a purpose to it.  He wanted the audience to feel the desperation that the characters were feeling.  Here?  It’s unnecessarily long.  A huge part of the problem was the unnecessary subplot involving January Jones’ character.  It didn’t need to be there whatsoever, especially since the film’s focus was on Bob, Case, and Bob’s daughter.  When the movie shifts its focus from those characters and the cult, the movie grinds to a halt.  It really does.  You could take 20 minutes out of the film by making certain cuts here and there, and eliminating January Jones entirely, and you would have a much tighter run time at around 2 hours.  This is an example of a director engaging in excess and it hurts the story and movie.

When you have a revenge thriller like this, a level of violence is necessary to truly understand both the antagonist and protagonist.  The violence in this film is brutal and it comes fast.  But that’s also where I have some issues.  While there is definitely some CG used with guys getting shot, the practical stuff is fantastic.  But my biggest issue with the violence in this movie is the stuff that’s levied against women.  Oh, my god.  The women in this movie are put through the ringer.  It certainly doesn’t help that the movie practically opens with Bob’s wife being brutally raped and murdered, but I guess that was supposed to set the tone for the rest of the movie.  It’s one thing to show how vicious this cult is, but it’s taken to extreme levels here and it didn’t need to.  The audience didn’t need to have their faces rubbed in it.  We get it: These bad guys are evil incarnate, but you didn’t need to take the opportunity to beat the shit of women on a regular basis.  I understand what the director was trying to go for, but there’s something to be said for subtlety.  I just don’t think Nick Cassavetes is capable of it, and God Is A Bullet is prime example.  The final 30 minutes of the film are Rambo 4-levels of savagery.  It’s absolutely nuts.  Is it satisfying, though?  It kind of is.  Seeing the cult get what’s coming to them is one of the most satisfying things I’ve seen in a long time.  But that tends to be par for the course for revenge thrillers.

As I said earlier, I usually go right out and review a movie after I’ve seen it, but in the case of God Is A Bullet, I had to take a step back and fully grasp what I saw.  Is it a movie that I can easily recommend?  No  There’s a lot of issues with this movie, both structurally and narratively.  Even if you could look past the film’s run time and the violence against women, it doesn’t really do enough to stand out among its peers in the genre.  If you’re going to watch this movie, watch it for the two leads in Nicolaj and Maika.  They keep the movie going.  If it wasn’t for those two, this would end up being just another too-long generic kidnap thriller that wants to shock it’s audience.  Also, there’s NO humor to be found in this movie.  No laughs.  It’s dead-serious all the time, and that can be a real issue.  I’m not saying the film should’ve devolved into gallows humor, but this movie is dark as it gets.  Usually, I’m all for that, but it’s a bit too much, even for me.  I don’t think it’s a bad movie.  There’s a really good movie underneath all of this.  It just needed better editing.  It’s way too long.  It’s a rental at best.

Here we are again, ladies and gentlemen.  ANOTHER glorious post of Recent Blu-Ray Hauls.  Now, in case you haven’t noticed, not everything that I’ve been picking up lately has been strictly Blu-Ray.  There’s definitely some standard DVDs in there.  As much as I love watching movies in high-def, sometimes paying upwards of 30 bucks for a single movie, especially if it has no special features, doesn’t make a lot of fiscal sense.  DVD has been around for nearly a quarter of a century.  Yet, when it comes to physical media, DVD are still the largest chunk of that market, whilst UHD 4K discs are the smallest.  There are collectors out there who prefer to collect movies on the best-looking format possible, but those folks are not the majority.  They are a specific kind of collector.  Nothing wrong with that, but these guys tend to have the best possible home theater setup to show off their movies.  Me?  I’m more concerned about preservation regardless of picture/sound quality.  But enough waffling.  Y’all are here to see what I got this time around.  It’s not as big of a haul as the last two, but there’s some decent stuff here.

Hardcore – Kino Lorber

This one’s my most recent buy.  Hardcore is about a religious midwestern businessman who goes in search of his missing daughter, who disappeared on a church trip in Los Angeles.  Played by the legendary George C. Scott, Jake VanDorn enters the seedy underworld of pornography and prostitution thinking that his daughter was kidnapped and forced into the industry.  What he discovers will shake him to his core.  I’m usually one for going in for the sleazy movies, but this one is surprisingly tame compared to the other 70s thrillers that I’ve seen.  Still, it’s a gritty film.  Scott puts in one of his best performances of his career, but the real highlight is his relationship to a part-time sex worker named Niki.  It’s a pretty heavy-hitting movie about a man who gets in WAY over his head in a world that he really knows nothing about.  They actually shot in real sex shops and porn theaters, and you can definitely tell that Scott himself was very uncomfortable in these places, so that made it all the more real.  Only two commentaries and trailers on this disc.  I was kind of expecting a little bit more.

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 – Paramount Pictures

If I’m being perfectly honest, and there’s no reason to suspect that I’m not, the first two seasons of Star Trek: Picard were completely forgettable.  The idea of bringing back Patrick Steward as Jean-Luc Picard was a good one.  The final adventure of the Next Generation crew was…less than stellar, shall we say, even though I enjoyed Nemesis.  The problem was that the first two seasons of this new show was that it was far too violent and mean-spirited towards the main character, and they just didn’t work for me.  Enter Terry Matalas for Season 3.  This final season of Picard is one of the best seasons of Star Trek that I’ve ever seen.  The entire crew of The Next Generation returns for this one final epic adventure and it knocks it out of the park.  The acting is the best I’ve seen from some of these actors, specifically Gates McFadden as Dr. Crusher and Jonathan Frakes as Captain Riker.  Legacy characters like Seven of Nine(Jeri Ryan) are given their moments to shine.  Todd Stashwick nearly steals the show as Captain Shaw of the USS Titan.  Amanda Plummer is amazing as Vadic, this season’s villain.  She’s scary.  But the overall story of this season is amazing and emotional.  It’s also incredibly satisfying.  I think if you’re a huge fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation, this is a perfect send-off for that crew.  There’s some really outstanding special features on these discs.  Really good stuff.

The Last House on the Left(2009) – Universal Pictures

The Last House on the Left is one of those movies that’s definitely not for the faint of heart.  This version is superior to the 1972 movie in nearly every way, but that doesn’t make it easier to sit through.  I recently reviewed this film, so if you want more of my thoughts on the film, you can check it out here.  This disc from Arrow Video comes with all new interviews with Sara Paxton, Garret Dillahunt, Wes Craven’s son Jonathan, and other cast and crew members.  It’s also got a commentary and brand new introduction by the film’s director, Dennis Iliadis.  The set also comes with the unrated version of the film.  I prefer the theatrical cut, though.  Still, it’s nice having options.  It’s a fantastic horror thriller, but again, it’s not for the average fan.

The Flash – Warner Bros.

I realize that my opinion on The Flash was not overly favorable.  There was a lot of stuff that I liked about it, but the way it was put together didn’t quite work.  Well, having seen the film for a second time, and knowing where to set my expectations, it’s actually a really fun movie.  I still wouldn’t put it in the pantheon of great comic book movies, but I’ll still watch this over Morbius any day of the week and twice on Sunday.  Ignoring all the legal issues with Ezra Miller, they do a fantastic job in this movie, even as annoying alternate-Barry.  But really, what most people are going to remember from this movie is Michael Keaton’s return as Batman and he’s fantastic.  Also, Sasha Calle as Supergirl is AMAZING.  I really hope she gets her own movie at some point.  She deserves it.  It’s been said that you only get one chance to make a good impression.  The Flash didn’t make a good first impression, but I believe in second chances, and the second viewing of the film, I enjoyed it a lot more.

Holy smokes!  I actually kept my haul to about four movies this time!  It’s been a while since I’ve done that.  Don’t worry, I won’t let it go to my head.  Or maybe it already has.  You’ll never know.  Anyway, I hope y’all found it interesting and found something worth taking a look at.  Until next time!

HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD!  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Released: March 2009

Director: Dennis Iliadis

Run Time: 110 Minutes

Rated R

Distributor: Universal Pictures

Genre: Horror/Thriller

Cast:
Garret Dillahunt: Krug
Monica Potter: Emma
Tony Goldwyn: John
Sara Paxton: Mari
Riki Lindhome: Sadi
Aaron Paul: Francis
Spencer Treat Clark: Justin

I’ve gone on ad nauseum about remakes and their value to audiences and the film industry.  A great many remakes often fail to recapture what made the original film so impactful.  This happens quite a bit with horror movies.  More often than not, the film-makers take a drastically different approach, often trading atmosphere and tension for gore and shock value.  It’s not to say that I don’t appreciate some of them, as some are pretty decent, but more often than not, there’s a great deal that’s lost in translation.  When it comes to the late Wes Craven and HIS movies, some of the remakes are better than the original film: The Hills Have Eyes is a perfect example.  I enjoyed the 1976 movie a great deal, but the remake packs more of a visceral punch.  The other remake that I feel outdid the original film was The Last House on The Left.

The story of The Last House of the Left follows two girls, Mari and Paige, who end up being kidnapped by a group of vile criminals led by the vicious Krug.  The girls are brutally assaulted and left for dead, while Krug, Francis, Krug’s son Justin, and Sadi find themselves at the vacation home of John and Emma, Mari’s parents, who let them stay the night not realizing that Krug and company did something terrible to their daughter.  When they find out, Emma and John unleash hell on their unsuspecting guests.  This kind of story has been told multiple times in different ways since Ingrid Bergman’s The Virgin Spring, the film that inspired Wes Craven’s 1972 shocker.  It’s a brutal and unrelenting tale of revenge.  The difference here is that the original House was also a reaction to the Vietnam War.  It was a very political and social condemnation of a war that never needed to happen and cost many lives.  This 2009 version doesn’t really have a lot to say politically, but socially it still maintains that veneer of not hanging around the wrong crowd and trusting the wrong people.

There a number of changes to the story that I feel DO elevate this film above the original.  First of all, the tone is far more consistent than the 1972 movie.  Don’t get me wrong, the original film was intense in its own way, but it was definitely a product of its time, especially when it came to the music.  The tone was all over the place.  It jumped from being goofy at times to outright horrifying at others.  This movie takes a more consistent approach in building up tension.  I want to get the assault out of the way.  The assault on Mari and Paige is nothing short of harrowing brutality.  Unlike the original film, the assault doesn’t last very long, but it’s brutal.  At the end of the assault in the original film, both girls end up dead.  Here, Mari manages to survive being shot in the back and makes her way home where her parents find her.  Having one of the victims actually survive brings a different level of tension and makes for a more emotional confrontation with Krug.  In the original film, the parents are simply out for revenge, while in this film, they’re trying to save their daughter’s life, and that’s far more compelling.  Also, having Justin subtly alert the parents to what happened to their daughter is a pretty smart move as it shows that children aren’t necessarily their parents.

The acting in this movie is really good and a huge step up from the original film.  First of all, you’ve got Garett Dillahunt as Krug, Aaron Paul as Francis, and Riki Lindhome as Sadi, our group of scumbags.  The late David Hess was incredible as Krug, but Dillahunt brings a whole new kind of menace to the character.  These characters are pure evil, and the actors do a phenomenal job of making the audience wanting them to die horribly.  Tony Goldwyn and Monica Potter are amazing as Mari’s parents.  Tony’s always been a fantastic, yet underrated actor.  The opening moments show a much lighter side to the family that allows the audience to connect.  When things go wrong and the parents find out what happened, it’s intense.  Sara Paxton is pretty good as Mari.  Her character gets put through the wringer, and Sara was all in on that.  In recent interviews on the Arrow Blu-Ray, Sara had to convince Dillahunt to be even rougher with her, even though he wasn’t comfortable with it.  The result is a far more harrowing sequence.

Now, for a movie like this, people want the revenge to come swiftly and violently.  Director Dennis Iliadis brings the violence and then some.  One of the biggest complaints about the original film when it was released back in 1972 was not necessarily the rape sequence, but the revenge part of the film.  It’s always bugged me why people were more concerned about the degree of violence unleashed on evil-doers than the horrific acts that were inflicted on innocent victims.  What I feel makes this movie different, and subsequently better than the first film, is that the violence is not just about revenge.  Now that Mari managed to survive, they need to protect their little girl, which means bringing the fucking pain.  The most brutal death of the film has to be Aaron Paul’s Francis.  This particular kill was SAVAGE.  But each subsequent kill was satisfying in its own way.  Even the way that Krug meets his end was satisfying, if a bit comical.  The pacing of the movie was pretty quick for a film that runs 110 minutes.

When all is said and done, I don’t think the 2009 version of The Last House on the Left has the same impact that Craven’s original film did.  That movie came out during a time of major division and social upheaval.  People were not ready for it, yet the 70s gave us The Exorcist, The Hills Have Eyes, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Alien.  All of which were pretty brutal for their time.  The tagline for the original film was: To avoid fainting, keep repeating “it’s only a movie.  It’s only a movie.  It’s only a movie.”  It was a movie that upset a lot of people, which is what Wes Craven had intended.  The 2009 movie has been viewed by some as to be another “torture-porn” kind of movie.  It really isn’t.  Is it a horror movie or a dark thriller?  Yes.  It definitely walks that line, but arguments could be made for whatever genre this movie falls under.  The original film has its followers and fans, and I’m one of them, but I feel that the 2009 remake does it better in nearly every way.