Reviews

Mario Van Peeles further tarnishes his already uneven career with this irritating movie about a group of outlaws (a "posse" of them, if you will) out to steal some gold so they can fund a communist village run by Cedric the Entertainer. There's a lot of discussion over the endlessly interesting topic of reparations and almost every white character has to go on some kind of tirade in which they berate minorities and women. You know the drill. There's even a few lines about Columbus being a mass murderer and a female character has to go out of her way to randomly announce her (historically inaccurate) sexual proclivities.

That's right! Mario van Peebles has decided that it's more important to brow-beat his audience with both cultural and economic Marxism that he's forgotten to tell a good story. Wait, didn't he already make a Posse movie anyway, like 30 years prior? I'm baffled that, in this day and age of 2024 that a fairly low budget movie like this with such a messy script can attract so many big actors, though many of course like BLADE RUNNER costars M. Emmet Walsh and Edward James Olmos far past their prime. In fact I was pleasantly surprised to see that they both are (at least at the time of filming) still alive.

Van Peebles unfortunately splits himself as star and director again with both his performance and directorial prowess veering all over the place. At times he plays his character huge and ostentatious like a bargain bin copy of Samuel L. Jackson while other times like a far more subtle sensitive "man of few words" for no other reason than to suit tone of the scene. Each scene has a completely different tone than the last. There's a thousand unexplored themes like why his character was such a bad father and how the group has endless amounts of cash when all their robbery attempts constantly end in failure, but the movie is not as interested in that. It's really more about hopping from one political point to another plus there's just too many characters to flesh any one of them out.

The silliest part of the movie has to do with the party coming across a Mexican man with his family just hanging around a burnt-out house. As to why a family would still be sitting in a house after it had burned down, it's anyone's guess, but they aren't fixing the damage or even attempting to build some other kind of stop-gap shelter. They're all just standing around waiting for the scene to start. The posse then decides to avenge the family's house by riding into town and bamboozling the mayor into signing the deed to the property away by handing him cash (which the previous scene implied they didn't have). Did I miss something? They then murder the mayor and his men anyway and give the deed to the family. So, how binding is that deed going to be when the state's law enforcement find the mayor and all witnesses dead? Also, why is the family still just sitting around that burnt-out house at their exact same marks when the party comes back from this side-quest? I have a feeling none of this even occurred to anyone on set or else they just thought it was funny.

A couple scenes do stand out as fairly technically well-done however, and the musical score consistently evokes the best of Spaghetti Westerns of yesteryear. The score is so bombastic at times that you'll think you're watching a BLAZING SADDLES style sendup but the film otherwise takes itself deadly seriously. For the most part, the film looks pretty good though a lot of key lines get lost with mumbling delivery by Cedric and Mario. Overall it's a baffling experience in that the movie presents itself as an old fashioned revisionist Western from the 70's but the core of it is as brimming with current-year agenda and philosophy as it gets. It would be far more aggravating if the film weren't so amusingly sloppy.

This fairly slow and predictable fantasy movie opens with a lot of vista and impressive set and costume design, showcasing a medieval Russian settlement just as cool as any of the Middle Earth we saw in Lord of the Rings. The film sets up some interesting lore with women being sacrificed to dragons in order to protect the town. Sounds like an interesting concept.

Unfortunately, all the interesting stuff in this film is relegated to the first and last 10 minutes. In between, it's just a pretty dry tale of two attractive people washed up on an island together with a cute furry critter to keep them company, and no shortage of washed ashore treasure chests containing everything they'd ever need. It's ultimately a love story, but it starts losing luster once you realize it's basically the same as Beauty and the Beast.

The film takes so much time to build an intriguing world but doesn't really do much with it. There's one antagonistic character, but he gets into only two lousy scenes. One of his lieutenants has his own love story with another princess, but this subplot goes so sadly undeveloped that it may as well not even exist. The climax is surprising only in how unsurprising it is, though I expected it to go for some sort of last minute cheap shock which never happened. In the end, it's a film that'll appeal to undiscriminating women and girls and may wake a few of the boys up during the nudity and dragon scenes.

That said, the film is a visual delight with excellent cinematography and well-integrated computer graphics. The Russians certainly excel in the technical departments. Now if only they were able to put all these resources into more compelling films.

While the large assortment of name actors may have been one of the film's main attractors, I did find it pretty important in order to keep the overabundance of characters on display straight. They really needed to focus things down to just 3-4 main characters, but the film covers such a wide array of people that it's easy to forget who's who and where during the pivotal events on Mount Everest. Problems identifying characters are inherent in films of this genre (also see any movie with a lot of scuba diving) because the characters' masks obscure their faces unless they keep removing them for dramatic effect. Another big issue with most any mountaineering movie is that, at the back of my mind, I am well aware how completely optional this whole adventure is for all the characters involved. If the story involved some desperate Sherpa who had to escort a dangerous expedition to the top and back in order to feed his family or pay for his kid's medical bills, I would have felt much more invested than with watching a bunch of guys just climbing "because it's there".

All that said, I found the film to contain a lot of breathtaking and exhilarating moments, and was surprised by how realistically it portrayed mountain climbing without injecting a lot of fake-feeling conflict and obstacles that many similar movies will do. Also refreshing is the fact that this is one of the few historically based films to not significantly alter the events, combine characters, or add in more action like IN THE HEART OF THE SEA did. It sticks to the facts, which I've found to be extremely rare in films set in the real world and covering true events.

I was a bit put off by frequent scenes which were obviously filmed against a blue screen or on a studio set, but a lot of scenes were put together well enough where it's difficult to tell what was fake and what was shot on an actual mountain climb, if not on Everest itself.

All in all it's a fine effort though not the most enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. I have a feeling that the entire reason this film was funded was to dissuade people from climbing Mount Everest, as the mountain gets increasingly crowded every season. If that was the film's mission, it absolutely succeeded with me.

Cool futuristic spaceship sets, effects, cinematography, and engaging mystery plot around a strange alien entity on Mars become heavily undermined by how aggressively smug and unlikeable the main hero comes off right from the start of the film. Even more unfortunately, things don't get any better for him as he insults his way through the rest of the film, making lewd comments to his superiors even while on his multi-billion dollar Mars walk. This would be more forgivable if he demonstrates some kind of clever ingenuity to display why everyone else must tolerate his behavior, but he seldom really exhibits any competence whatsoever. His saving grace lies in the fact that he is surrounded by a similarly dismal group of self-centered numbskulls who don't even seem to care that much about the mission, their own lives, or the lives of their coworkers once they start getting bumped off. At least things never get predictable.

I did find the over-the-top lack of professionalism among the crew of an experimental United States Government funded spaceship to be an amusing commentary though on the current state of our top agencies. It may or may not have been the agenda that this film was going for, but it's the satirical bend of this movie that makes it the most worthwhile. I'm going to go ahead and give it a higher rating keeping this in mind, plus how impressive the movie looks when taking its tiny indie budget into consideration. It could easily have devolved into a silly Asylum type "sharks in space" sort of movie but never stoops to that level.

Keep an eye out for some eye-popping visuals and a couple cute aliens who pop by to liven things up. The overall story reminds me a lot of the two "Naked" Star Trek episodes (once the alien object starts to infect the crew in a way that causes them to lose inhibition and... you guessed it... behave even less-professionally), but even more so of the Doctor Who episode "Planet of Evil" in that the object seems to bring an evil corrupting alien presence with it which proceeds to pare the crew down to such a degree that one wonders how the ship remains space-worthy. I was a bit disappointed that it doesn't quite come together as handily as the Doctor Who episode or even delve too deeply into alien intelligence, life, or past civilizations, only to focus on the petty internal squabbling.

Also watch out for some random nudity late in the film that comes absolutely out of nowhere. Also keep in mind that there's a few over-the-top gory moments sprinkled in which may preclude younger viewers from jumping right in, unless their parents are into this sort of thing.

I'm fairly shocked that, being as much a fan of Michael Mann as I am, that I had never even heard of this innocuous little gem he produced while directing his far-superior, though less action-packed MANHUNTER the same year. My eyes must have always glided right past it before owing to how corny the title is, making it sound like some kind of music-themed movie akin to an Electric Booglaoo or whatnot. I would imagine that is why this movie remains very little-discussed even today in this era of 80's nostalgia and reappraisal.

With a mostly great cast, this film at least keeps things elevated in the performance department and never gets too predictable. It doesn't make the plot line or theme too apparent for the first hour or so, seeming to split its attention on a group of juvenile criminals getting whipped into shape by Steven Lang (unconvincingly made up to look Native American!!!) while the girlfriend of one of them begs a local drug lord (who may also be into voodoo!!!) to help spring him. How she expects the drug lord to do this is anyone's guess, especially as the boys are being rehabilitated completely off-grid somewhere in the swamp. Eventually this movie settles down on the main conflict, as well as on a main character, and that would be in the form of Danny Quinn, who looks handsome but doesn't exactly give the most electric of a performance.

Whatever small sense of realism the film maintained in its first hour gets lost quickly when the boys get their hands on some guns and become a vigilante squad just as deadly as a squad of navy seals after what seems like just a couple weeks of training. Also James Remar, though an excellent actor (especially at playing scum bags) feels laughably young to be some well-connected drug baron. Lang comes off better though we never really get to know his personal life or how he's able to get the system to cooperate with his schemes to bring delinquents back into society.

As far-fetched as this movie is (and as dumb as the title sounds), it actually moves at a good clip and has enough 80's nostalgia and music to bring a tear to the eye of anyone who witnessed the decade. It also provides an interesting window to what life was like in Miami prior to the modern era of heavy gentrification and channels a lot of what the show "Miami Vice" brought us on a weekly basis, only lacking in the show's style or sense of humor. Supposedly this was originally meant to be a pilot for a TV show of teenage vigilantes but I doubt such a show would have been too good. We already had "The A-Team" and RED DAWN and watching a bunch of kids wipe out heavily armed soldiers and mercenaries was already getting a bit stale. At least it manages to keep you guessing with its fun unpredictability, but only up to a certain point.

It's true that these days to have a good old fashioned time at the movies, you basically have to go Indie. That generally means delving into something with a budget too low for big stars or action sequences, but this film certainly delivers the goods on the latter. There are at least two major shootout sequences that dip into JOHN WICK territory, with all kinds of crazy stunt and squib work way beyond what non-studio movies are generally capable of.

That said, this movie does get off to a rocky start with the main character just sort of hob-nobbing around various European cities not interacting with anyone except for a disembodied voice on the phone. It works for a minute or two but quickly grows tiresome, especially in that he's chasing a suspect but we never get any kind of pay-off shot of who he's following and if there is any kind of near-miss. After this wobbly start, the film redeems itself with a comically over the top gunfight at an airport that keeps going and goes, delivering all sorts of over-the-top violent ends for a seemingly endless array of FBI agents.

There's a few effective scenes of destruction and terrorism scattered throughout, like a shockingly convincing immolation of a pair of helpless women. Just when you think the film won't go that far, it does. Most impressively of all would be the car chase through the Italian countryside featuring a couple bystander (by-driver?) vehicles getting blown to smithereens, followed by a nightclub massacre rocking out to EDM music in an experience rivaling the climax to COLLATERAL. Through all this excitement, the film carries a humorous streak of cruelty similar to the horror films of Lucio Fulci, where we have to stop for a moment and focus on an innocent bystander losing his or her life senselessly, only for the movie to breeze on as though what we just saw didn't really matter.

Considering the director has made 55 (!!!!) low budget movies over the past 15 years, I was a bit skeptical going into this one, but surprisingly it does manage to avoid the weak acting which has weighed down a lot of his other movies. It's amazing what's technologically possible these days with the right talent, a determined crew and the right technology.

This shockingly obscure film, especially when considering the talent behind the camera, and the lavish production design, stands as an average fantasy adventure without any of the magic of EXCALIBUR. It oddly borrows a few of the same cast members, namely Nicholas Clay and Gabriel Byrne playing very similar character. Byrne, no surprise, snarls his way through the film while our star Eric Stoltz isn't exactly the most engaging or charismatic, but does a fine job with his character of a cowardly knight who finds his true calling protecting children after fleeing the battlefield.

The overall themes track much more closely to the lower-budget EXCALIBUR knockoff that was HEART AND ARMOR in that it focuses heavily on the battles between Moors and Christians. There's even some vague history involving the real-life Children's Crusade and the rampant child slavery of the day thrown in for good measure, though don't expect this film to enlighten you too much as it never goes beyond the surface level. The battle scenes never get too bloody, though it's a violent enough of a film to not seem aimed squarely at young viewers. There are plenty of goofy scenes sprinkled in, like the little flags on a fortress roboticly raising and lowering depending on who's in charge.

I can see why this film failed to find the legacy audience of FLESH + BLOOD or LADYHAWKE (made around the same time) as it's not as gritty and realistic as the former nor romantic and anachronistic as the latter. However I had to say I enjoyed it far more than either of those. At least there's not any sexual assault or Matthew Broderick gumming up the works.

This was one of the very few films to shoot in my old home town of Fairbanks, Alaska and I even slightly assisted with the film being in local video production at the time. Many years later, I managed to track down a rare copy and have to say that, even having previously read the script, I was heartily underwhelmed. For one, most of the characters feel awfully hollow and unexplored. We get that the central character is a deeply lonely and disturbed abuse survivor who turns to abuse himself with alcohol while working a miserable job driving taxis, but things never really break the surface level. Disappointingly, they don't even broadly cover the film's potentially colorful environment.

While I cracked up seeing the actual "Eagle Cab" taxi company cooperate so fully with the production and supply a couple of their signature GMC Taxi vans, as well as see a few familiar Fairbanks landmarks (though not even to the same level INTO THE WILD did), I couldn't help but feel that this film barely scratched the surface. Fairbanks is one of the most surreal cities in America, subjected to the harshest climate you can imagine (at least in the winter, anyway), it's the nearest civilization to the vast North Slope oil and home to two major military bases and a university. It seems to me you could easily dig into the dreamlike desolation and depict the strange atmosphere of rugged frontier life, the massive imbalance of men-to-women, the hopelessness of the arctic winter, the isolation, and the loneliness of young men who live there. However this film gets sidetracked into a few dysfunctional relationships heavily weighted down by banalities and many scenes with no advancement to the plot (which is pretty thin).

While it's neat that they filmed a lot of interiors at a real Fairbanks bar, The Boatel, the film seldom leaves its environs. There's a section where the main character gets whisked away to a mental asylum but this section clearly wasn't filmed in Fairbanks and also happens to be where we see most of the film's bigger stars. Afterward, the film sadly doesn't really get out and do much exploration of Fairbanks or the local culture. It's a lot more focused on drama between a few characters which never really rises beyond the level of cliche and never feels authentic.

A pretty clear flaw is that the leading lady, a stripper, was written in the script as being overweight. They didn't seem to find a willing overweight actress for the part, but the one they did cast was a little too old to believably be a successful stripper, even in Alaska. Therefore, it would have been an easy rewrite to change her struggle from being overweight to being past her prime, but the filmmakers strangely stuck to their guns, I assume to be kinder to the actress. It unfortunately shreds whatever authenticity that they were trying to build. It doesn't help that none of the characters are that likable or relatable either.

Overall this film will likely get forgotten due to its very limited appeal and significant shortcomings. It does however hint at a much better film that someday really could explore what life is like in Fairbanks, Alaska bar culture, which had more than its share of drama and chaos from what I observed in my short time living there.

Strangely enough I did sit right next to star Richard Johnson at a dinner back in 2009 when he was a guest at a convention in New Jersey. At one point the subject of this movie came up and he leaned in and said wryly as though it was an inside Hollywood secret, that the movie was more about lesbianism than it was about any ghosts or anything of the sort. I didn't have the heart to tell him I hadn't seen the movie, but put it on my list. 14.5 years later (and long after his passing) I finally got around to watching it and can say I felt a bit underwhelmed. Also any kind of lesbian overtones to the film flew right over my head, even though I had long been explicitly informed of them. If anything, this film feels strangely asexual, especially mind-boggling when Johnson's wife Miss Moneypeney shows up.

Robert Wise comes from the early days of Val Lawton horror films and though he was making big musicals at the time like WEST SIDE STORY and SOUND OF MUSIC, was really sharpening up his craft. All that considered, especially with the added technology of sharper film stock, crazy camera rigs, and wider lenses, that he would have done something a little more involving and effective than this finished film. There are some impressive sequences and sound design, boasting some excellent use of lighting and camera angles, but the movie didn't really generate much in the way of tension or scares for me.

One's enjoyment of the movie will largely hinge on whether or not you enjoy the Julie Harris character of a neurotic spinster who has devoted her life to her sick mother and narrates much of the proceedings. While this technique does help communicate some creepy things like the invisible hand etc. It swiftly grated on me and made me feel more like I was reading a book than watching a movie. This is a movie that tells us a lot of things but shows us nothing, and what it tells us has unfortunately been told many other times at this point.

I must add though that the small cast acts their little hearts out, with Claire Bloom and Johnson himself as particularly welcome presences. Russ Tamblyn as the playboy disbeliever of the group gets a bit uneven and his character transitions a little too abruptly. A lot of the character decisions made around the end don't make a lot of sense, especially the decisions made by the married couple when unexpectedly brought together.

I can quibble all night but Wise and the cast acquit themselves well. Techinically, this film stands as an achievement of its day. It's sad to me that the script feels underbaked, especially as all the well-crafted buildup to its climax doesn't get a little more of a payoff. I can understand why Hollywood saw it fit to remake, though I haven't seen that film yet either. Rest in peace, Mr. Johnson, one of the kindest celebrities I've had the fortune to interact with.

If you're looking for a movie with a lot of diversity, a couple gory kills, an attractive supporting cast, generally sharp cinematography, lots of poor CGI, a cute idea that never gets explored, poor comedy reliant on outdated stoner humor, an utterly unlikable protagonist, diversity, several sanctimonious jabs at the patriarchy and uncensored language, and diversity (did I mention the diversity?), then you'll absolutely love this movie.

If you actually want a clever movie about someone going back in time to stop a murder spree, a tense horror movie, or a hilarious self-conscious send-up, then you'll have to look elsewhere. This lazy and aggravating horror-comedy has a few great ideas sprinkled in (setting a trap for the killer in a fun house, a killing on a water bed sending plumes of water into the air, and the general premise) but unfortunately drops the ball every time.

It is unfortunate that films (and film-reviewing) has become so intensely politicized. You're essentially either for "woke" horror movies like this or against them, and the people in love with this kind of movie are either too young to know better or do not seem to care about the qualities beyond the social messaging. I suppose it's a good thing that overt political messaging finds its way into poor films though because it associates 'the message' with poor quality. I guess that's the one bit of optimism to draw from a film such as this. Eventually people will tire of it and movies like this will seem as tired and outdated to regular people as they long have to me.

Good cast, strong sound editing, and Walter Hill's usual steady hand can't save this strangely dull action-oriented Western. I suppose that isn't too surprising since Walter Hill, after a strong string of hits in the 70's and 80's largely delivered a lot of okay-but-not-great films in the 90's. In this regard, his career perfectly mirrored John Milius, John Carpenter, George A. Romero, David Cronenberg, and Larry Cohen. I wonder why it seemed to hit so many directors around the same time, but their firebrand sensibilities that lit the 70's cinema on fire seemed to just get tired and fade away by the 1990's.

WILD BILL is a perplexing piece as it boasts an impressive cast and production design. However, the script and many of the characterizations fall flat. Bridges feels a touch too old to play Wild Bill Hickock but he does fully commit himself to the character (as though "The Dude" were a Western lawman). Sadly much of his characterization gets lost among the many, many red herrings such as his advanced syphilis and loss of eyesight playing no role in the film's last half.

The real unfortunate side of the film is that its focus seems to be aimed mainly at his last week of life while zipping through all the more interesting episodes in its first half hour. As soon as he shoots the man in the wheelchair dead and we meet our incoming antagonist, the film slows down tremendously with Arquette coming off as the wimpiest and least threatening villain I've seen since Mario Van Peebles in EXTERMINATOR 2.

Walter Hill did the Western so much better years earlier with THE LONG RIDERS and even his pseudo westerns like EXTREME PREJUDICE and LAST MAN STANDING, disappointing as they may be, come off far more watchable that this film. For those interested in Wild Bill Hickock's adventures, watch the TV show "Deadwood" for something mildly more historical, or see THE WHITE BUFFALO if you're in the mood for something far less historical but much more stylized and fun.

This film opens laughably with a blurb that says "wherever possible, stock footage was used to show the battles to keep this film an authentic portrayal" when we all know that was done to keep things cheap. The battle footage even more heavily relies on other war movies like TORA TORA TORA, THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN, and a Japanese movie STORM OVER THE PACIFIC.

Though this constant use of stock footage wasn't too obvious when this film endlessly reran on TBS (often in its elongated form which depicted the Coral Sea Battle), I remember thinking that I was really cultured and smart when I found out about a lot of the source footage. This film unfortunately opened the flood gates for Umberto Lenzi to turn around and make two other World War 2 duds the next couple years following the same formula.

However, this film is not completely worthless by any stretch, as it covers the battle in an interesting way that'll be informative and captivating for children (like I was at the time I first saw this). It also includes a shockingly good (for the time) split-screen effect where they put the shot down pilot in the water with 16 year old footage of STORM IN THE PACIFIC playing in front of him. I've seen this movie dozens of times and analyzed the shot closely, and I can't find the seam anywhere. It's one of the best visual effects before the digital age made accomplishing that fairly easy, and helps actually sell that the Japanese carrier destruction footage was actually filmed for this movie.

An interesting curio, to say the least.

This is a particular dangerous movie for teenage boys to watch as it'll likely result in them squandering whatever industrial potential in favor of pursuing a lifetime in the arts. Jim Van Bebber somehow, with 80's technology, was able to write, direct, make special effects, choreograph the martial arts, and star-in this mini-masterpiece shot on a micro-budget.

Heavily inspired by a handful of films including THE WARRIORS and CLOCKWORK ORANGE, the film doesn't star anyone you would recognize and is set in a decaying rustbelt city Dayton, Ohio where you'll probably never go. It lacks the familiarity of Hollywood productions, or even of B-movies, and has an unrelenting ugly crudeness to it (including the acting and sound quality). It makes up for these numerous shortcomings though by being so insanely energetic and outrageous. Van Bebber's performance never wavers and his cinematographer Mike King does an excellent job capturing the fight scenes and urban blight.

This film has a lot of goofy scenes and nonsequiters but gives you the impression of some kind of underlying genius behind the whole affair. I think it's kind of a shame that Van Bebber never was able to make a big, mainstream film but then again I'm sure he would not have done well in the studio system. He comes off as something of an obsessive Orson Welles-type cinema savant who unfortunately peaked early, though his short films are even more expertly crafted.

The handmade, rough-around-the-edges quality of the film, coupled with its high entertainment value could easily inspire anyone watching the film to want to get their friends together and make a similar film. It makes the process look both fun and accessible, and personally I can say it heavily impacted my decision to get into the business (for better or worse).

This film may as well have been AI-generated as it doesn't have an ounce of creativity. I don't understand how Mark Damon, the producer responsible for THE NEVER ENDING STORY and the UNIVERSAL SOLDIER franchise got conned into financing this. I also don't understand how such a cheap-looking film was able to afford Nicholas Cage, unless of course his fee is far lower than I imagined, the film spent all its financing on securing Cage, or they all just came to a deal over how awesome the basic concept was. The story of how this movie got made and why it ended up falling so flat would be a far more interesting movie than this actual film.

Let's see what's good. Well there's a some well done killer robot designs from Kenneth J. Hall, there's some decent synthwave style music in the soundtrack, the lighting really captures the atmosphere they were going for (something of a hyper-80's aesthetic), and there's a pretty girl in the cast. That's pretty much it.

If you were to make a movie about a haunted Chuck-E-Cheese, it'd be far more effective to focus on a group of character utterly terrified by what is happening around them. Instead, the film doesn't make the killer animatronic robots threatening at all as the hero doesn't even seem to care about them from the start. He just nonchalantly kills the first robot that attacks him and then just goes about his day like nothing happened. I know this is to give Cage's character a "badass" appearance, along with his character never speaking, but at the same time it denies the audience any character to emotionally connect with. I also don't understand why they thought it was a good idea to never have Cage speak, has his ability to overact to an extreme level not seen since Klaus Kinski gets totally wasted. It probably came down to Cage just not wanting to memorize any lines.

A lazy and frustrating effort all around.

The opening 20 minutes or so of this film stand as some of the most mesmerizing cinema I have witnessed in the theater since SICARIO. It covers a lot of the same territory as TAKEN but done in a far more immediate and believable way, delving deep into the many facets of the underground world of child slavery. There's section of the film dedicated to just following the unfortunate children around as they get kidnapped and distributed, and had it gone on another few minutes I probably would have broken down crying. It's heartbreaking on a level few films manage to touch.

The film doesn't stay dismal and depressing forever though. We get a hopeful message in the form of the lion-hearted federal agent Caviezel who takes it upon himself to rescue a particular child. Once his purpose turns personal and he hatches a fantastic plan involving an island, the film then takes on a more adventurous attitude at the expense of emotional impact. While it would have been more powerful had it ended earlier, viscerally I'm glad it didn't as it would have left me with a hollow hole in my gut after punching it so many times.

I've stayed out of the politics on this film and think the issues it covers chronically get mis-represented and exploited by both sides of the aisle as a political football. There's a lot of telling books on the subject including "Sex in Sin City" which really dispelled a lot of the legends while also providing a lot of critical insight from the law enforcement perspective into this under-reported phenomena. I am glad that this film exists as it'll raise a lot of awareness and it did shock me into changing my outlook on certain taboo subjects. It is not perfect but an important film which will hopefully find a way of altering history.

Not the biggest or best of the 60's epics, and largely forgotten today despite the presence of two powerhouse actors as its hero and antagonist, this morally complex movie futzes with history a little in order to paint the Mahdist rebellion as a genocidal bloodlust intending to conquer as far as Europe. While it's impossible to read the Mahdi's mind almost a century and a half after his death, I feel that Olivier's performance of him veers somewhat into the cartoonish. However it is fun to watch. Heston fares less well as Chinese Gordon, who would have been better performed by co-star Nigel Green or another British actor of similar caliber. Even someone like Nigel Davenport would have done well with it too, though he certainly lacked the star power at the tome to carry an epic film. Same goes for the other Nigel. What's with all these Nigels?

At least Heston attempts the accent for about 60% of the film, though it can be somewhat explained away that he spent a lot of time outside of England. The rest of the cast is all-round excellent, with Richard Johnson in his dashing youth bringing charm as his conflicted lieutenant sent on a few too many away missions.

This film gets note of all the big historical epics as having one of the biggest downer endings. Anyone who knows their history won't be surprised, though you never know if a film like this will find a way to spin it into something positive. The narrator makes a few bold political statements and the film takes a clear side in the necessity of British expeditionary militaristic intervention which may make modern audiences on both sides of the aisle squirm. On one hand, the British are Christian "white saviors" who show up and impose their values, but those values here include saving the lives of several Egyptian Muslims, many of whom (as well as the Sudanese) appear to welcome their presence. On the other hand, they aren't committed enough or fast enough, leading to several potential massacres and misery the country. Makes you think, don't it? Perhaps history isn't something easy to paint with a giant broad brush?

As for the film, technically it delivers a few great action sequences such as the riverboat breakthrough and the climactic siege. There's also some excellent dramatic moments like Heston's staring down at his attacker and (surprisingly enough) the more talky diplomatic scenes. Unfortunately this film is just a tad too talky and slow where it could have used a little more emotional punch. An easy opportunity would have been to expand the character of the little girl Heston has a couple run-ins with and show her or her family get savagely butchered by the enemy in order to communicate why he needs to stay and protect the people despite the great risks. As is, his character comes off as foolish and aloof, which I doubt the real Gordon would appreciate.

Fits in well with the slightly later, slightly better film YOUNG WINSTON as well as the several versions of THE FOUR FEATHERS which cover similar historical territory.

It really takes a while for this film to get going but once it does, it's a lot of fun. Most of the first half gets weighed down by dialog that doesn't really matter and most of these dialog scenes go on for way too long with flat staging. Matt Monaco distinguishes himself as the best performer of the film and the closest thing it has to an antagonist, but his character spins way too many Dickensian yarns through the film in tedious fashion. When he just out and says "I'm a werewolf in cast I need to spell it out for you", I was refreshingly amused. I only wished he'd done so 20 minutes earlier, especially as it had been so telegraphed to us in the audience.

Once people start getting murdered, we get treated to all kinds of creepy night photography and over-the-top gore. One poor homeless man gets graphically rendered and his body parts flung every which way in a grisly fashion that would have sickened Lucio Fulci or Olaf Ittenbach. There's a couple impressive false scares and jumps, especially at the expense of a nervous girlfriend out on a date.

I find the concept of a gay man and his lover both intentionally becoming werewolves so they can prowl together as very promising. There could have been a lot of scenes between the two sampling the various sexual underground subcultures of San Francisco to accrue new victims. We also could have had the police investigate the mutilations but write it off as "some kind of bondage thing gone bad" etc. And ignored things before it got too late. This film could have taken all kinds of depraved and lurid turns there, but by then it's unfortunately far too late in the movie to do anything with.

I also thought that the idea of a brother and sister teaming up to track down werewolves held a lot of promise and could have had its own movie. Unfortunately the film doesn't really introduce them until it's on its final third, leaving them under developed. As they converge over the household of their dead parents, I would have loved to have seen them emotionally react to the parents' deaths or even to blame the creepy goings-on as resultant of some kind of haunting. The sister is also way too quick to believe that the dead man on their floor is actually a werewolf and that her brother didn't just shoot an innocent naked man.

As with many Wild Dogs movies, it's an impressive feat considering the low budget, but frustrating knowing that it doesn't seem to quite know what to do with its groundbreaking potential.

While the general idea of the movie (that of a grizzled undercover cop teamed up with a crusader attorney to take down corruption in the legal system) sounds great, the movie totally fumbles the ball by trying to do too many things at once. We get a movie about the undercover guy working the streets to take down some evil kingpin played by Antonio Fargas. Simultaneously he's suspicious of his peers and trying to get the dirt on them. At the same time, Peter Weller is in a court case to save some young guy who is wrongly accused of murdering an undercover cop (something the superior film NARC explored later in much greater detail) while he also goes after the corrupt cops, the kingpin, AND juggles his two relationships with his fiance and enemy attorney. Any one of these storylines would have made for a decent movie (as NARC proved), but they just don't belong together in the same movie. The results get so muddled and the tone so inconsistent that it just gets baffling, silly and boring by the end.

Things completely jump the shark when the bad guys try to get away, so one of the heroes does a reverse-COMMANDO and jumps onto their plane, rides outside as it flies around, sabotages it, and then leaps out into the ocean. Was it really planned or just a spur of the moment decision? The movie doesn't ever really tell you. I believe it was played for humor but to get so ridiculous so late in the movie clashes heavily with the somewhat more serious tone 99% of the rest of the film seemed to be going for. What makes it all more frustrating is how well James Glickenhaus directed his previous films and how well he handles a few select scenes here. There's plenty of opportunities for him to go further and make this film darker, more disturbing, or at least more engaging, but he drops the ball several times in favor of a lighter and more brisk pace.

All in all this film falls victim to the same general air of absurdity that hurt many other late 80's police movies. The cycle was certainly nearing its end and veering into comedy, perhaps as an overcorrection from the extremely grim cop dramas of just a few years prior such as CRUISING and TRIPWIRE.

Sort of a mixture between 12 STRONG and LONE SURVIVOR, this movie benefits from strong performances, good action sequences, and a surprisingly gripping narrative. Guy Ritchie's typical snazzy directorial touches feel largely absent here as he directs it in a more standard less-distracting way, for better or worse. Personally I enjoyed the movie much more than I have any movie in years and I recognize that, outside of historical films, Hollywood has been in a terrible nadir the past very years.

It takes a while for this film to finally decide what it's about, but once it zeroes in on a main story it's hard to pull your eyes away. I was afraid things were going to get extremely depressing or political but it never goes too far, maintaining a pretty impressive balance all throughout. There's a fair bit of criticism of United States hypocrisy and bureaucratic red tape, a stance that feels notable to me in this era of constant "trust the government" messaging in films. However we do need to keep in mind that, within the film, it's to further the message of making immigration easier for certain people, which may rile up some audiences. But then again, the visa system as presented in this movie acts as a sort of carrot with which to draw in people to help the United States fight terrorism in a foreign country and only granted after putting themselves in danger, so one could argue it is something of a merit-based system.

Dar Salim, an actor who I had never noticed before, gives an incredible amount of heart in what may be the performance of the year (and it's only May). While he looks like a combination of Dave Bautista and Joe Rogan, he brings an incredible amount of depth to his character and delivery. My sympathy for him grew over the course of the film, so the film managed the manipulation well. The woman who they got to play his wife, in my opinion, is just a little too beautiful to be believable as a refugee mother in a wartorn country. In every shot she has perfect hair, perfect teeth, and perfect makeup, even while the two are fleeing from the Taliban with explosions going off all around them.

Gyllenhall the star gets in a few of his now characteristic monologues but he's not as much of a focus in the film as I would have expected. While the film is probably 5-10 minutes overlong and a touch unrealistic in terms of the action scenes, it never made me personally feel alienated or bored, and I'm pretty picky when it comes to such things. So far, this is the biggest positive surprise of the year.

At the age of 42 and as a self-professed life-long film buff and movie critic, I am a little embarrassed to admit that I only this week got around to watching the ROCKY films in order from the start. Unexpectedly, this one stood out to me as the most enjoyable, though I did appreciate the heart of the first movie and the catharsis of the second.

There's plenty to love in this film but I'll get a few of the problems out of the way first. For one, Stallone seems to have shed much of the character he'd so carefully crafted in the first two movies. Now that it was the 1980's, Stallone had a whole different look and persona to him, and Rocky here feels a lot less like the fictional character and more like Stallone himself. It's a bit off-putting but eventually the story overcomes this shortcoming.

The first third of the film drags in places, with Paulie and Adrian getting sidelined and simplified into caricatures. Paulie has started to morph into the unrefined comedy-relief sidekick kind of like John Santucci's character on "Crime Story". A few of his lines come off as so bizarre, idiotic, and off-character that they would briefly pull me out of the movie.

That said, the film really excites like no other boxing movie I have seen, and that includes RAGING BULL. Right out of the gate, the movie hits hard with some well-edited montages set to "Eye of the Tiger", an extremely catchy 80's jingle whose lyrics stand as the heart of this movie. Sure there's a couple annoying title-drops from Apollo later in the film and it's a bit-heavy handed, but this is a movie about boxing, right? The way Mr. T hungrily eyes Rocky's boxing success while the theme plays fits like a glove.

Stallone's charm (which is substantial) gets eclipsed by newcomer Mr. T as the villain Clubber Lang. I remember Mr. T being a big deal when I was a kid in the early 80's between "The A-Team" and his cartoon show where he goes around fighting crime with a van full of plucky kids. It's easy to see how this movie put him on the map as his rough, unfiltered, improvisational demeanor and ogre-like facial contortion make him hard to take your eyes off of.

Narratively, I love that things are not so straight-forward as the first two movies and I was made to feel sympathy both for Rocky and Clubber. Both trade places being underdogs and high on their own victorious ego at various places in the movie. It wouldn't work as well without the acting talent, the streamlined story structure, and Stallone's own direction which exemplifies a surprisingly perfect command of how to emotionally connect with the audience.

A triumph of boxing movies and sports-related films in general.

A former police officer who is now a best-selling author (though of oddly modest means) gets pulled into a scheme by a corporate hit man out for revenge against a corrupt politician.

While I love the idea of a super-fan dragging his favorite author into the world of crime, I feel this movie fails to deliver on its potential in some key scripting areas. For one, it's way too quick and easy for Woods to pull Dennehy in and to make him a willing and trustworthy participant in his criminal doings. Also, the film relies heavily on stupid coincidences and some not-too-surprising plot twists that come too early and only get revealed because characters suddenly decide to act in a reckless manner.

James Woods and Brian Dennehy turn in powerhouse performances. It's too bad that the movie they devote their talents to is otherwise unworthy of their efforts. I do give the musical score some major credit as well, sounding like a cross between Vangelis and Tangerine Dream. It gives this film a serious tone largely undone by the goofy script. Overall this film stands as a product of its time, the 1980's, a decade with lots of promising films (such as TO LIVE AND DIE IN L. A. and YEAR OF THE DRAGON) dragged down by strange virulent recurrences of silliness and unrealism.

For anyone expecting something shocking and outrageous, this film will somewhat disappoint. I had heard a lot about activist groups trying to block this film from screening in certain countries but such a reputation only makes the film more intriguing than it actually turns out to be.

I did learn a lot here though as this well-produced documentary fills in the gaps on what the difference is between Bosnian Serbs, Bosniaks, and Serbians in the country of Serbia. Having grown up in America in the 90's with only mainstream news filling me in on the details, I had never been all too clear on the conflict other than it being some sort of ethnic tension over the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Is the documentary biased in favor of the Bosnian Serbs just as American media was biased against them? Certainly, however the documentary does maintain some surprisingly balanced objectivity in its discussion of the war crimes committed by both sides.

This film invests heavily in two areas; the lengthy history of how the Bosnian Serbs got to where they are today and some travelogue style celebration of their current culture and historical sites. We see the host take us skiing, sample cuisine, dance with a basement band, and leap off a historic bridge into the Neretva. However, the film does not really tie things into the current geopolitical environment at all. It seems to avoid discussing the relationship between the Bosnian Serbs and the country of Serbia at all. Do the Bosnian Serbs actually enjoy the status quo, or do they want to be absorbed into the Greater Serbia? What would happen then? Would we get another situation similar to the Donbas situation of 2014, or is the current situation a result of fatigue over so many years of war already? These questions may be obvious to Serbian viewers, but would need to be answered to help persuade an outsider like myself in one way or another. I was left confused over what the thrust was, other than to make us think a little differently about the 90's Balkan Wars from what was presented by the mainstream media.

It did give me a new impression of why Serbs may be considered so "dangerous" by so many invading powers in that they have a strong tradition of liberty for hundreds of years. It makes a few broad, disputable historical claims to the point but makes no mention of the Yugoslavian Monarchy or the Chetnik Royalists (which significantly would muddy the waters), but overall stands as a valuable piece to balance out what we've heard elsewhere.

Reasonably well directed film by David Schmoeller (probably one of his more personal, less commercial horror movies) about a creep spying on people and murdering them for... reasons. The film throws in a lot of horrific elements but unfortunately falls short because the disparate ideas never quite gel together.

It could have been a gory exploitation movie about the inventive traps and gizmos Kinski uses to murder people. Unfortunately, even though it opens with some promise with a decent scene featuring Sherry Buchanan, the rest of the movie goes relatively bloodlessly. Even the funny chair bit would have benefitted enormously by tossing in an insert or two of blood spraying down on the floor or the spear exiting, but instead relied on imagination and limited acting ability in the reaction shots to sell it.

The movie also could have been a creepy movie about a voyeur spying on beautiful women. This potentially tension filled premise unfortunately never pans out into anything interesting either as Kinski constantly gives away his presence and toys with people for no clear (or even semi-clear) reason. Also he practically never allows any sex or nudity to occur, detracting from a lot of potential edge this movie might have had.

The film could also have been about the poor mute woman held prisoner in his office. This doesn't amount to much either as we don't see him interact with her at all aside from talking to her and feeding her.

Lastly, and least-inventively, this movie could have been about a former Nazi doctor on the run and having to kill people to cover his tracks. The film leans heavily into this direction toward the end but of all these elements, it's the least "scary" so doesn't really do much to add to the thrills and tension at the end.

So we get a film that dabbles in several different categories but doesn't go deeply enough into any of them to satisfy. Judging from a lot of Donaggio's score and Schmoeller's directorial choices, it was taking itself a bit too seriously as an art film while weighed down by the overall cheapness inherent in an Empire production. It would have benefited highly from either upping the sleaze factor by a significant degree or branding itself as some sort of prestige picture. As a mixture, it's an interesting film but simultaneously a frustrating failure.