OPERATION: ENDGAME -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 7/21/10

 

A fast-moving cloak-and-dagger action flick that's smart and funny, OPERATION: ENDGAME is adrenaline-fueled fun from start to finish.

The whole thing takes place in the secret subterranean headquarters of a hush-hush black ops group known as The Factory, where two teams, Alpha and Omega, keep each other tenuously in check while performing dirty deeds for the government.  Each member is code-named for a tarot card, and it's The Fool's (Joe Anderson, THE CRAZIES) first day on the job.  The nervous new guy is given a tour of the facility by a drunken, foulmouthed burnout named Chariot (Rob Corddry, BLADES OF GLORY) and the hot but deadly High Priestess (Maggie Q, LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD), finding it to be like a cross between "Get Smart" and "Office Space."

But The Fool soon discovers that his first day will be anything but typical when their mentally-unbalanced, suicidal leader, The Devil (Jeffrey Tambor), unexpectedly sets "Operation: Endgame" into motion.  This means that the complex is sealed off and will explode in about two hours, and that the two teams will now try to kill each other while searching for a hidden exit known only by their late boss and a spooky lone agent named The Hermit (Zach Galifianakis).  Things become even more complicated when The Fool encounters an opposing team member named Temperance (Odette Yustman) who happens to be an old girlfriend.

What follows is an exciting, often amusing series of surprisingly bloody death matches between various agents.  We never know who's going to be paired off against each other next since there are so many unknown agendas involved in "Operation: Endgame" and some of the more psychotic participants, such as sweet-looking Bible thumper Heirophant (Emilie de Ravin), have a survival instinct that is matched only by their bloodlust.  (When we first see Heirophant, she's sitting in her cubicle scribbling "I love killing" repeatedly on a notepad.) 

Some of the fight scenes are reminscent of the Bond vs. Grant train sequence in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE while others are just a bloody mess with the unarmed agents flailing away with whatever office supplies or other sundry items they can creatively use as weapons.  Meanwhile, Michael Hitchcock and Tim Bagley play Neal and Carl, two mild-mannered, befuddled office drones who man the surveillance center and watch what's happening as though it were a reality TV show. 

One-liners and droll character gags abound--Jeffrey Tambor ("Arrested Development", "The Larry Sanders Show") is especially good as he wearily trades snide insults with his uppity underlings.  As the sardonic "Empress", Ellen Barkin continues in the "Rosa Klebb" mode she displayed in BROOKLYN'S FINEST but with more sex appeal and a wicked sadistic streak.  Clearly having fun without straining himself too much, Ving Rhames plays "Judgement", a bomb expert who never passes up a pun on his codename ("It's judgement time, baby").  The rest of the cast is fine, with Bob Odenkirk ("Mr. Show") his usual wonderful self as "Emperor" and Joe Anderson's semi-heroic rookie agent convincingly clueless about the whole thing.
 

Exposition flies by early on so you might want to keep your finger on the rewind button until you get all the details straight, although they don't really matter that much.  It all has something to do with the transition of power from Bush to Obama, with the evil Bushies scrambling to cover up their covert misdeeds before the honest and open Obama administration sheds its heavenly light upon them and cleans up Washington.  (As Michael Corleone once said:  "Now who's being naive?")  Anyway, the "Bush bad, Obama good" campaign-commercial vibe gets old pretty quick, but unless this appeals to you, just ignore it and you should be okay.

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen and Dolby Digital 5.1 with English and Spanish subtitles.  Extras include a behind-the-scenes featurette plus alternate opening and ending scenes.

OPERATION: ENDGAME is an imaginative blend of laughs and thrills that takes itself just seriously enough to maintain genuine suspense. Watching this colorful array of deadly eccentrics going at each other tooth and nail as the countdown to obliteration ticks away makes for a pretty entertaining action-comedy flick.  

OPERATION: ENDGAME -- DVD Review by Porfle

CATCH .44 -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 12/9/11

 

Ever since PULP FICTION came out, various talky, quirky crime flicks have been described as Tarantino rip-offs.  Or, more generously put, "Tarantino-esque."  Despite all the bad things I've heard about it, I feel generous toward the talky, quirky--and fairly entertaining--crime flick CATCH .44 (2011) so I'll use the latter term.  Besides, people were making movies sorta like this before QT came along, but there just wasn't as convenient a way of describing them.

Not surprisingly, the movie takes the timeline of its not-all-that-complicated story and reshuffles it all over the place just for fun.  Most of the action occurs in an out-of-the-way Louisiana diner at 3:00 a.m., where three girls--Tes (Malik Akerman, WATCHMEN), Dawn (Deborah Ann Woll), and Kara (Nikki Reed, CHAIN LETTER, TWILIGHT)--are on an assignment for local drug kingpin Mel (Bruce Willis) and waiting for something to happen.  When it does, people start getting blown away, including one of the girls. 



We'll keep returning to the diner, with intermittent flashbacks bringing us up to speed a little at a time (a la RESERVOIR DOGS), until everything and everyone comes together at the end.  Meanwhile, we rewind to the dead girl and her two cohorts getting stopped by this really weird highway cop.  Only he isn't really a cop, because we just saw him shoot the real cop in the head during a routine pull-over.  Ronny (Forest Whitaker in another interesting performance) is a scary and enigmatic guy whose intentions are as yet unknown, but we're pretty sure he's going to end up at that diner, too.

Writer-director Aaron Harvey manages to keep things zipping along even when he's imitating Tarantino's chatty dialogue style with long, talky scenes that have their own modest rewards while never quite bagging the elusive Royale With Cheese.  A three-way Mexican standoff inside the diner (also a la RESERVOIR DOGS) after the initial shootout is nicely handled, prolonging the tension with various revelations and teasing us as to what certain characters' motivations are.  Whitaker is especially good here, with Shea Whigham doing a nice turn as a twitchy fry cook with a pump shotgun.  (Lovable oddball Brad Dourif also shows up for a couple of scenes as, of all things, a cop.)

Harvey's directorial style is a pleasing amalgam of lesser you-know-who mixed with a little Robert Rodriguez, making CATCH .44 easy to look at.  It amazed me to discover that Harvey's only other directing credit is the absolutely wretched 2007 slasher flick THE EVIL WOODS, which is without question one of the worst pieces of dreck ever made.  The difference between the two films is stunning--if nothing else, Harvey deserves some kind of an award for "most improved filmmaker."



Lurking in the background, getting talked about a lot, and popping into view for a few key scenes is Bruce Willis' "Mel" character.  The PULP FICTION co-star lends his formidable presence to the film without really breaking a sweat, but by now just being Bruce Willis is enough to elevate a small film such as this to another level.  We see him being a rich, cool drug lord manipulating his unsuspecting employees (such as Tes, Dawn, and Kara) like pawns, and finally emerging for a long, talky final scene with Whitaker that manages a faint hint of the Bill and Beatrix exchange at the end of KILL BILL VOL. 2.  Barely a whiff of that Royale With Cheese, though. 

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby 5.1 sound.  Subtitles are in English and Spanish.  A long, talky commentary track with Harvey and editor Richard Byard is the sole extra.

CATCH .44 doles out tantalizing scraps of story to us until the pieces fall into place, and once that's done, the final scene plays out in a way that resolves all the pent-up suspense in rather predictable ways.  There's no ironic twist or "gotcha" to fully justify so much story fiddling, and we realize that it was all done just to tell a very simple tale in a more interesting way.  Which is okay, since it does.  

CATCH .44 -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE KEEPER -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 1/28/10

 

 

You have to hand it to Steven Seagal--he's managed to maintain a fairly popular action-hero persona that barely requires him to either move or speak intelligibly. These days, his movies don't even have to be very good at all as long as he's in them. His latest, THE KEEPER (2009), dog-paddles in the DTV end of the pool with the rest of his recent output, neither sinking all the way to the bottom nor demonstrating any fancy strokes to speak of.

The first ten minutes are a mini-movie in which Steven, as L.A. cop Roland Sallinger, is shot by his two-timing partner during a drug bust. He survives, then manages to kill the rat from his hospital bed when he comes to finish the job. Forced to retire due to his injuries, Roland then accepts an offer from his old friend Connor Wells, an ex-cop who's now a Texas oil millionaire, to play bodyguard for his daughter Nikita. She's in danger because a rival millionaire named Jason Cross wants to kidnap her in order to force Wells to sign over some land on which uranium has been discovered. Complicating things is the fact that Nikita's weaselly boyfriend Mason, a two-bit boxer, is in league with Cross.

I'm sure you'd like for me to skip the preliminaries and get to the action scenes, because we don't watch Steven Seagal movies for the acting and dialogue, right? Well, he hasn't been in town for five minutes before he sees a young Mexican woman in distress and has his limo driver pull over so he can whoop a few bad-guy butts. As most of us are aware by now, his fighting style now consists mainly of standing in one spot while flailing his arms wildly, disarming his opponents and bending their arms the wrong way until the bones crack.

Occasionally, he'll let loose with a low kick--his days of planting a flying foot in somebody's face are long past. And even with this limited mobility, a stand-in is often used for the shots in which his character is required to move with some semblance of agility. These fight scenes consist of many short shots and rapid-fire editing to give the illusion that our hero is a lightning-fast flurry of movement.

That said, it's still Steven Seagal, and somehow that's enough. I like the way he strolls into a heated situation and makes the bad guys suffer for being stupid enough to take him on. I'd love to be able to do that myself. And he's so damn sure of himself, mixing it up with multiple opponents with a supreme confidence that's bracing. It's especially fun when he screws around with them a little first, pretending to be intimidated, before giving them that patented Steven Seagal scowl and laying into them. And on the plus side, he seems to have shed some weight since the last time I saw him, so he no longer resembles a giant burrito or appears to be wearing his car instead of just driving it.

Later, there's a kidnapping attempt involving a car chase, and a couple of minor shoot-em-ups on the streets. A few more quick hand-to-hand battles lead up to the final confrontation between Steve and the kidnappers, with Nikita's life in the balance. It's all passable stuff, but none of it is in any way memorable or outstanding. The big guy does put his hand through somebody's throat at one point, which fulfills the requirement that he do something really overtly violent at least once per movie to whatever bad guy wins the honor of deserving it.

Technically, THE KEEPER is your basic meat-and-potatoes job with some irritating stylistic touches thrown in. There's the speed-up-slow-down effect, the appeal of which I never understood, mixed with quick camera moves that make a whooshing noise. Even a brief pan of some trophies Steve has amassed during his cop career does the speed-up-slow-down thing and makes a whooshing noise. Oh yeah, and some of the transitions are accompanied by a flashing white light that also makes a whooshing noise. I guess it's all meant to make the movie look more hip and contemporary, but that kind of stuff just has DTV written all over it. Seagal's 2007 film URBAN JUSTICE eschewed all of that crap for a leaner and more old-school, Don Siegel-type visual style and is all the better for it. To his credit, though, director Keoni Waxman spares us the usual Shaky-Cam overload.

As for the cast, most are capable performers. Steph DuVall as Wells and Luce Rains as Cross are a couple of old pros who know their stuff (although DuVall slips up and calls Seagal's character "Ballinger" at one point), while Arron Shiver does a good job as the slimeball Mason. As Nikita, Liezl Carstens handles the screaming and being scared parts well. When paired with Seagal for a dialogue scene, however, it's as though they're competing in a slow race to see who can underplay the other, and they may have you wondering which one will simply keel over unconscious first.

Seagal, as usual, emotes as though his meds just kicked in and his lines are being fed to him through an earpiece. This time around, he doesn't have any good lines such as "I'm gunna kill the muhfuh that killed mah son", nor the kind of vengeance-driven motivation that a dead wife or family member can provide, both of which are missed. And also unlike URBAN JUSTICE, which had a fadeout that was just cool as hell, this movie just ends when it runs out of stuff to do.

The DVD from 20-Century Fox is in 1.78:1 widescreen with English 5.1 Dolby Digital and Spanish Dolby Surround, subtitled in English and Spanish. There are no extras.

With THE KEEPER, you get pretty much what you might expect by now--standard latter-day Seagal with just enough of the old magic to keep it from being totally dispensible, yet little to make it of any interest to anyone but his most loyal fans. If you're among that number, check it out. Otherwise, why bother?

THE KEEPER -- DVD Review by Porfle

PREDATORS -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 10/23/10
 

 

Not the adrenaline-charged action blowout I was expecting, PREDATORS (2010) is still a reasonably exciting and, for the most part, absorbing monster flick.

Things get off to a dynamic start as mercenary soldier Royce (Adrien Brody) wakes up to find himself in the middle of a harrowing freefall through the clouds.  His chute opens just in time but he still goes crashing perilously through the ceiling of a dense jungle below before finally thudding into the turf.  Before long he discovers he's not the only one, as more confused people keep popping up and wondering where the hell they are and how they got there.

Curiously, they all seem to be adept at killing, either for business or pleasure.  Along with soldiers Isabelle (Alice Braga), Nikolai (Oleg Taktarov), and Mombasa (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali), there's drug cartel executioner Cuchillo (Danny Trejo), a Yakuza named Hanzo (Louis Ozawa Changchien), and a flaky rapist-murderer from Death Row named Stans (Walter Goggins).  The odd man out is seemingly mild-mannered doctor Edwin (Topher Grace), who, like the others, was abducted in a flash of white light.

They may be in the dark as to what's going on, but most of us viewers are well aware that these hapless individuals are the latest prey for big, vicious aliens known as Predators, who hunt and kill for sport.  As we wait for them to appear, the humans, with Royce taking the lead, trudge through the jungle toward higher ground and eventually realize that they're on another planet.  The game now afoot, they're soon tracked down by a pack of doglike creatures in a lively attack sequence that's pretty nicely CGI-rendered.
 

 

Some of the characters start dying off before we get to know them at all, while the rest remain sketchy and enigmatic.  Royce, who cultivates a cold ruthlessness in order to survive, gives Adrien Brody a welcome chance to not be a wuss for a change.  Isabelle (played by Sonia Braga's niece Alice) and Nikolai are patriots who kill efficiently for their country yet retain their humanity--Nikolai proudly displays a photo of his kids at one point, while Isabelle refuses to leave a wounded Edwin behind. 

Cowardly blowhard Stans reminds me a little of Bill Paxton's "Hudson" from ALIENS, until he starts fantasizing about getting coked up and going on a raping spree when he gets back to Earth.  A surprising new character introduced late in the film (I won't go into any details) provides the story with its strangest and most interesting interlude.  The dialogue is serviceable but nobody is given anything very memorable to say, including the sort of pithy one-liners Arnold spouted in the first film. 

KNB EFX Group, Inc. provide the excellent makeup effects which we get to see in loving close-up.  The "original" Predator, we discover, was a little feller compared to the bigger, badder species introduced here, and it turns out there's a blood feud between them which becomes important to the plot later on.  I still prefer the original-style Predator to the jazzed-up new version, and it's a little disconcerting to see him diminished in comparison.
 

 

Highlights include a clash of swords between Predator and Yakuza, an inter-species Predator showdown, and a final clash between the baddest Predator and the most resourceful human.  But while there are several action setpieces and some thrilling stunts here and there, viewers expecting a monsters-versus-humans free-for-all along the lines of ALIENS will probably be disappointed.  The breakneck pace of that film is also missing here, as the story moves rather leisurely between action scenes and never really maintains much momentum.  Still, PREDATORS remains fairly absorbing throughout. 

The DVD from 20th-Century Fox is in 2.35:1 widescreen with soundtracks in English Dolby 5.1 and Spanish and French Dolby 2.0.  Subtitles are in English, Spanish, and French.  Extras include a chummy commentary track with director Nimrod Antal and producer Robert Rodriguez, a look at the film's location shooting in Hawaii and Texas, three short motion comics, the theatrical trailer, and several trailers from other 20th-Century Fox releases. 

Good performances, top-notch makeup effects, and high-gloss production values keep this somewhat lackluster screenplay moving along well enough.  But Nimrod Antal, while certainly a capable director, doesn't have that Robert Rodriguez touch, and PREDATORS comes off as an entertaining but unremarkable sci-fi/monster flick with a direct-to-video vibe.

PREDATORS -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS -- Movie Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 11/22/09

(Caution: lotsa spoilers)

I saw the 2001 Vin Diesel remake of this when it first hit home video, and now I can't remember a friggin' thing about it. Except it had some hinky CGI car-driving shots in it. They gotta use CGI just to show people driving cars now? They can't get actual stunt drivers to do actual cool car stunts? Anyway, I do remember one single zoopy-doopy CGI shot of Vin Diesel driving a car. Real memorable flick there.

 

Of course, it wasn't really a remake--it just used the same cool title. The original THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS (1955) was the historic first film released by American International Pictures, the undisputed kings of the low-budget exploitation flick during the 50s and 60s, and one of the first films produced (and co-written) by the legendary Roger Corman. 

 

It was co-directed by Edwards Sampson (MONSTER FROM THE OCEAN FLOOR) and the film's star, John Ireland (RED RIVER), and probably didn't cost very much to make, since most of the running time consists of people driving around, walking around, having picnics, and reacting to some ragged stock footage of auto races. 

 

Ireland plays Frank Webster, an independent trucker falsely accused of running another trucker off the road and killing him, when this was actually the other trucker's intention--(hmm, "other trucker" sounds kinda dirty somehow)--since lone wolf Frank was cutting in on a big trucking company's business. Well, Frank breaks out of jail and takes it on the lam with half the cops in the state hot on his trail. 

 

 

 

When he meets free-spirited racing enthusiast Connie Adair (Dorothy Malone) on her way to participate in a big race, he kidnaps her and heads for the border in her souped-up Jaguar with her as his beard. It turns out that the cross-country race will end in Mexico, so he enters it. Along the way, he and Connie fall in love (awwww) when she realizes he's really a nice guy who only acts mean and tough when he's kidnapping people and threatening to kill them.

 

Bruno VeSota, who played living-doll Yvette Vickers' cuckolded husband in ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES and popped up in about half a million other things later on, turns up in an early diner scene in which innocent fugitive Frank practically puts him into a coma. Another familiar face, Iris Adrian (BLUE HAWAII, THAT DARN CAT!), plays Wilma the gabby waitress. And during Frank and Connie's picnic interlude, who should turn up as the park caretaker but silent-film star Snub Pollard, whose movie career began in 1915. Pretty interesting cast, if you're warped like me.

 

The first half of the movie consists of Frank and Connie driving around and arguing a lot while evading the police, often while sitting in front of a screen with highway footage projected on it. The best thing about this is getting to look at the gorgeous Dorothy Malone. Holy schnikes, was she ever hot. You may remember her as Bob Cummings' girlfriend in the original beach party movie, BEACH PARTY. Or not. Anyway, she was definitely easy on the eyes, and she gives a lively performance as Connie, constantly griping about being hungry and tired, and throwing the keys out of the moving car and trying to get away every time Frank turns around, and generally getting on his nerves as much as possible. Which he deserves, since he's pretty much of a horse's ass, actually. 

 

 

When they get to the place where the big race is being held, Connie runs into an old acquaintance, Faber (Bruce Carlisle, who was only ever in one other movie, FEMALE JUNGLE, thank god), who has the hots for her and starts trying to squeeze ol' Frank out of the driver's seat. Faber is a huge, irritating turdhead who is so creepy that he even makes Frank look like a barrel of laughs in comparison. When the race starts, Faber and Frank go at each other like characters out of the old "Wacky Races" cartoon all the way to Mexico. 

 

And just as you're thinking "Die, Faber, die!" he crashes, setting up the startling ending that is dripping with irony. Well, maybe not dripping. More like a faint irony condensation around the rim. So when this happened I checked the running time to see how much time was left for the wrap-up, and it said forty seconds. Forty seconds? Yikes--when this movie decides to end, it doesn't let the screen door bang its sprockety ass on the way out. 

 

One more thing I feel compelled to mention: right before the race, Frank decides to lock Connie in a secluded shack so she can't call the police and turn him in for his own good (she's convinced he'll get a square deal since he's really innocent, ha ha). So what's the first thing she does? She sets it on fire. I don't know about you, but setting the old wooden shack that I'm locked up in on fire wouldn't be my first idea. It would be around #11 or #12 on the list, tops. 

 

Fortunately, a passing motorist sees the smoke and gets her out, and he's played by none other than an unbilled Jonathan Haze of LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS. Heck, Roger Corman himself even turns up early on as a state trooper. But, please--if you ever find yourself locked in a wooden shack, don't set it on fire right off the bat just because Dorothy Malone does it in this movie, because chances are that in real life, the guy who played Seymour Krelboin isn't going to toodle by and let you out.

 

So, while THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS isn't exactly an edge-of-your-seat nailbiter, it's fun to watch if you're into low-budget exploitation flicks from the 50s, and especially if you're a Roger Corman fan. And it actually has real people driving real cars. You even get to see Dorothy Malone tearing ass down the highway in one scene, which is cool in some weird sexual way that I can't even begin to explain. Plus, it was made twelve years before Vin Diesel was even born, so there's absolutely no danger of him being in it.

 

 

THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS -- Movie Review by Porfle

THE DARK KNIGHT -- DVD Review by Porfle

(First posted Dec. 17, 2008)

How dark should a "Batman" movie be? Some fans despise the Frank Miller-influenced take on the character that's become popular in recent years, especially after Tim Burton exorcised all of that jolly Adam West campiness once and for all back in '89. Others, like me, loved the Michael Keaton version of the caped crusader and were even happier to see director Christopher Nolan's BATMAN BEGINS take the subject to still greater heights of realism. Now, with Nolan's 2008 sequel THE DARK KNIGHT, Batman gets his darkest and most adult screen adventure yet, and--unless you prefer your Batman scurrying around on giant pennies with Robin and Bat-Mite--it's a complex and magnificent achievement.

The story opens with a Gotham City beseiged by a hornet's nest of gangland criminals stirred up by the Batman's tireless efforts to thwart their underworld enterprises. Desperate to stop him, they turn to the only person who seems crazy enough to take him on--The Joker, a mysterious, seemingly fearless psycho in clown makeup who lives to create as much chaos as possible. He also aims to prove that anyone is corruptible by taking on Gotham's dauntless new D.A., Harvey Dent, who rivals Batman as a crusader against crime. To do this, Joker plans to murder Dent's one true love, assistant D.A. Rachel Dawes, and place the blame on Batman and newly-appointed police commissioner James Gordon, thus twisting Dent himself into a vengeful agent of terror.

There's a lot of story packed into this film's 152-minute running time, perhaps even too much--it took me two or three viewings to get everything straight and fully appreciate all the twists and turns--but it's riveting. More than just a superhero flick, THE DARK KNIGHT is a top-notch crime drama that takes itself seriously in every respect, while also fully exploring the dimensions of each character. Mix all that with a series of breathtaking action sequences featuring Batman in some of his most dazzlingly audacious exploits ever, and the effect is nothing less than exhilarating.

The best thing about the action scenes in this movie is how much of it is done without CGI, using good old-fashioned stuntwork and practical effects instead of digital cartoon figures slugging it out. This is especially true of the film's central setpiece, in which Harvey Dent is being transferred to the county lock-up after publicly confessing that he is Batman. It's all a ruse, of course, to draw the Joker into the open, and it results in a no-holds-barred chase scene involving police and SWAT vans, a tractor-trailer rig, a garbage truck, and the Batmobile. At one point, Batman emerges from the wreckage of the Batmobile riding his new Batcycle (officially it's called the "Batpod", but I like Batcycle better), which you gotta see to believe. The Joker takes one look at this contraption careening out of an alleyway and remarks appreciatively, "Now THERE'S a Batman."

It's this admiration and respect for Batman that helps make the Joker character interesting. Heath Ledger doesn't act stereotypically evil as much as gleefully, insanely prankish, almost childlike at times, as though the Joker simply gets a thrill from messing things up and causing trouble, and rather than try to kill Batman, he finds him a delightfully fun playmate with whom to engage in deadly games. With little regard for self-preservation and a pronounced suicidal streak ("HIT ME!" he shrieks as the Batpod bears down upon him), he hurls himself into each harrowing situation with utter abandon. But he's incredibly dangerous, too, as evidenced by his explosive escape from police custody and his lethal dealings with Gotham's mob underworld.

Ledger's Oscar-worthy performance is amazing from start to finish, consistently fascinating and endlessly surprising. Some have said that the script gives him too many speeches explaining his behavior, as in his "I'm an agent of chaos" scene with a bedridden Harvey Dent, but I could listen to him all day. He's just plain fun to watch. People have mentioned detecting elements of Richard Dreyfuss or Jack Lemmon in his portrayal, while I thought I heard a little of Al Franken's "Stuart Smalley" in there as well. He's got that insane laugh down pat, too, but it isn't an affectation--he really comes off as a total loon.

The rest of the cast is awesome as well. There's Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Gary Oldman from the first film (that's a kickass lineup right there), with the addition of Aaron Eckhart (THE CORE) as Harvey Dent, who later morphs into the hideous Two-Face. Maggie Gyllenhaal takes over the role of Rachel Dawes and is effective in a non-glamorous, down-to-earth way. Cillian Murphy makes a brief return as the Scarecrow early on, and Anthony Michael Hall appears as Gotham's leading television newsman. A really pleasant surprise for me was the appearance of one of my all-time favorite actors, Eric Roberts, as the head of Gotham's criminal element, and it's great to see him in a high-profile role such as this. Likewise, I enjoyed seeing Tommy "Tiny" Lister, who appeared with Roberts in the classic RUNAWAY TRAIN, in a brief but pivotal role, as well as Melinda McGraw as Gordon's wife Barbara and William Fictner as a shotgun-wielding bank manager during the film's exciting opening sequence.

As you might expect, the movie looks and sounds great on DVD. The standard two-disc edition is a little light on extras, though. There are two brief featurettes, one covering the creation of the new Batsuit and Batpod, the other describing Hans Zimmer's musical themes for the Joker. Six sequences from the movie are presented in their IMAX aspect ratios. My favorite is the six-episode series of segments from a fictional news show, "Gotham Tonight", with Anthony Michael Hall's character interviewing various Gotham notables. Rounding out the selection are production stills, poster art, trailers, and a digital copy of the film.

In addition to these, the Blu-Ray edition includes the following:
Movie with Focus Points (picture in picture)
Batman Tech: The incredible gadgets and tools (in HD)
Batman Unmasked: The Psychology of The Dark Knight--Delve into the psyche of Bruce Wayne and the world of Batman through real-world psychotherapy (in HD)
Galleries: The Joker cards, concept art, poster art, production stills, trailers and TV spots.

THE DARK KNIGHT ends on a suitably dark note with the Batman on the run from the law, now a suspect in several murders and a pariah in Gotham City. Is this the traditionally downbeat middle chapter of a trilogy? In any case, the untimely death of Heath Ledger makes it a memorably unique cinematic experience that, regrettably, can never be reprised. But with just about everyone else on board for the following sequel--and not a trace of giant pennies or Robin in sight--I can't wait to see what Christopher Nolan has in store for us next.

THE DARK KNIGHT -- DVD Review by Porfle

VENICE UNDERGROUND -- Movie Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 11/20/11

 

The first thing I thought after watching VENICE UNDERGROUND (2005) for a couple of minutes was, "This looks like an episode of a TV series."  But after awhile I began to realize that if this were indeed the pilot for a series, no network executive in his right mind would pick it up.  In fact, if your dad had followed you around with a movie camera when you were a kid and filmed you and your friends playing cops and robbers, he would probably accidentally make a better movie than this one.

A prologue takes us to the office of police captain John Sullivan (veteran character actor Ed Lauter) as the mayor chews him out over the phone because of the ongoing carnage caused by two Venice Beach gangs, the Northside Surf Crew and the Southside Crips, who are waging an ongoing battle to control the local drug trade.  It seems like a hopeless situation until one of his underlings, an ambitious young sergeant named Frank Mills (Randall Batinkoff), waltzes in with a peach of a idea -- they will pluck a group of raw but attractive cadets out of the police academy, set them up in a beach house, and have them go undercover! 

That, of course, will be a lot better than putting experienced cops on the case, because, as Mills explains:  "The kids are all instinct and street smarts.  They know no boundaries."  Visions of "The Mod Squad" and "21 Jump Street" begin to dance around in Capt. Sullivan's head, with a little "Charlie's Angels" and "Baywatch Nights" thrown in for good measure.  What a great idea!

With their origin story out of the way even before the day-glo main titles have hippity-hopped their way across the screen, we are thrust right into the non-action as we join the J.N.F. (Junior Narc Force) keeping tabs on various gang members and trying to fathom their nefarious activities.  But they must deal with their own raging hormones as well, as Agent Tyler (Jodi Lyn O'Keefe) jealously observes her heartthrob, Agent Gary (a not-looking-too-good-these-days Edward Furlong), cavorting with a bikini babe.  It's all part of his cover, of course, but darn it, he just seems to be enjoying it a little too much.



Meanwhile, Agent Samantha (Nichole Hiltz) just failed her home pregnancy test, and isn't quite sure whether the father is Agent Danny (Eric Mabius), who wants to marry her, or good ol' Sergeant Mills, who just can't seem to keep his own member away from certain other members of the task force. 

These romantic entanglements play like a bad script from "Beverly Hills, 90210" performed by a grade school theater group, and the scenes of actual detective work that we witness from time to time seem to have been inspired by random episodes of "Scooby-Doo."  They even have their own mystery-mobile, a candy-apple red, mid-60s Mustang convertible, in which they all sit in broad daylight brandishing their guns as if to announce to any passing bad guys, "Yes, we are undercover narcs." 

Amazingly, though, no one ever figures this out, except for a mysterious figure who seems to anticipate their every move as he secretly watches them through blurry POV-shots like a stalker in a slasher flick, and, early in the story, actually kills one of them with his gold-plated revolver.  Who is this unknown enemy?  You're not supposed to know until the end, so try to act surprised.  Here's a hint:  it isn't the old caretaker at the haunted amusement park.

Director Eric DelaBarre is your basic point-and-shoot man but tries to "hip" things up with shaky camerawork, scattershot editing, and various other effects cribbed from music videos.  The acting, except from old pro Ed Lauter and Robert Rodriguez stock player Danny Trejo, is hopelessly amateurish, and the dialogue they're forced to recite is frequently laughable. 

This film resembles the kind of cheap exploitation flick they used to show on USA's "Up All Night" -- you know, the ones with all the good R-rated nudity and violence cut out and just the boring junk left in, although a few bare boobies make a cameo appearance about halfway through.  Soon after that we see a brief fistfight, and then later there's a small shootout, and at the end the mystery bad guy gets shot and a car blows up.  Actionwise, that's about it. 

I kept thinking about what Andy Sidaris, the guy responsible for all those great low-budget sex-and-violence thrillers like PICASSO TRIGGER and SAVAGE BEACH, could've done with a premise like this.  He wasn't a great filmmaker, but at least he gave us something fun to look at. VENICE UNDERGROUND barely even makes an effort.

 

VENICE UNDERGROUND -- Movie Review by Porfle

HARD REVENGE MILLY -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

 Originally posted on 5/13/10

 

(This double-feature DVD contains HARD REVENGE MILLY and HARD REVENGE MILLY: BLOODY BATTLE.) 

 

Milly wears a black leather trenchcoat to conceal the patchwork ruin of her ravaged body, and walks stiffly due to all of its robotic enhancements--including a shotgun embedded in her right leg that loads at the hip and fires at the knee, and a horrendous razor-edged rig that sprouts from her torso which, thank goodness, we never quite get a good look at. 

She moves quickly and purposefully, preparing a bloody revenge against the thugs who massacred her family and left her for dead two years before. And when the blood-drenched hyper-action of HARD REVENGE MILLY (2008) kicks into high gear, it's a clear case of love at first sight for this giddy viewer. 

After the repeal of all gun and sword laws, Yokohama, Japan 20XX A.D. is a wasteland of crime and violence where murder is sport and only the strong survive. Milly (Miki Mizuno, CARVED: THE SLIT-MOUTHED WOMAN) gets by on nothing more than the desire for revenge against the loathesome Jack Brothers, whose sadistic thrill-murder of her husband and baby grows more horrific with each flashback. 

We never get a good look when she opens her jacket but it must be pretty messed-up, especially after we see her being brutally stabbed 20 or 30 times, and the extent of her surgical body modification is suggested rather shockingly during the finale. 

Milly is an interesting character who's fun to watch, even if she's just preparing for her next duel or sitting somewhere reflecting on the past. Her meeting with former blade-sharpener Jubei in his dingy coffee bar, whom she asks to sharpen her retractable elbow-sword although he's retired from the death business, echoes Beatrix' meeting with Hattori Hanzo in KILL BILL. 

All of the performances are fine, with Miki Mizuno and Mitsuki Koga as Jack being the stand-outs. In a cool opening sequence, Milly makes short work of Jack's drug-dealing brother Kyoshiro (splitting his torso with a bloody flash of her elbow sword), uses his body to create a grotesque welcoming display, and gives Jack a call inviting him to drop by. 

When the surviving Jack Brothers arrive and encounter her in an abandoned building, it's one thrilling action-packed death duel after another. The dialogue leading up to this is funny as male and female Jack Brothers Tetsu and Yuma discuss how hungry they are after getting a whiff of Kyoshiro's roasting corpse on their way in. After that comes what is now one of my favorite death scenes ever--it's so cool that I found it wonderfully hilarious in its offhand audacity. 

Milly's fight with Jack himself is an extended setpiece that yields a wealth of pleasures--their climactic clash of swords, guns, fists, and other arcane weaponry is dazzling. Takanori Tsujimoto's direction and editing are exquisite, and like the rest of the sublimely-staged action in this film it's executed with such imagination and style that watching it made me giddy. The furious choreography is first-rate considering that no doubles are used, and even the wirework is convincingly handled. 

This is low-budget filmmaking driven by skill, creativity, and imagination to exceed its limitations and become a unique and scintillating entertainment that's every bit as satisfying as any multi-million-dollar production. Short and sweet (only 44 minutes long), it left me keen with anticipation for the feature-length follow-up. 

HARD REVENGE MILLY: BLOODY BATTLE (2009) takes up where the previous film left off, with Milly now being hunted by Jack's bombastic gay lover Ikki (Kazuki Tsujimoto) and his accomplice Hyuma (Ray Fujita). "Jack was the craziest, sexiest man in the world!" Ikki declares as they plot their revenge. 

Meanwhile, a timid young woman named Haru (Nao Nagasawa) has sought out Milly for a different purpose--to help her get revenge against the person who killed her lover. When they're both attacked in Milly's warehouse hideout (in the film's first bloody action scene), Milly takes the injured Haru to a fortified outpost called LAND to be treated by the same crazy doctor who delights in keeping Milly's mechanically-enhanced body in working order ("Don't let any other doctor touch that thing in your chest," he urges). Milly empathizes with Haru and agrees to help her, but this must be postponed when Ikki and his gang of killers invade LAND and launch a blazing attack. 

With more time to develop the story and characters, writer-director Takanori Tsujimoto gives us more to contemplate while ratcheting up the action factor. The quiet moments are effective, such as Milly's melancholy reflections to Haru on the futility of revenge. Often the film looks and feels the way BLADE RUNNER might've been if Ridley Scott had done it as a no-budget indie feature. (Like certain characters in Scott's film, part-machine Milly begins to doubt the validity of her own memories; she won't let the doctor X-ray her head for fear of what he might find.) There are also welcome hints of such films as MAD MAX and THE CROW. 

The script is brimming with interesting dialogue and the performances are outstanding. Again, the stunning and intricately choreographed (not to mention delightfully gory) fight sequences are bristling with imagination and the execution is often breathtaking. Takanori Tsujimoto keeps coming up with interesting ways to shoot and edit these scenes and introduces some thrilling variations on traditional weapons--I was on the verge of cheering when Milly went up against a horde of bad guys with her laser-sighted, bullet-spewing nunchaku. 

As in the first film, there's a climactic battle with the baddest bad guy that's a free-for-all of frenetic fun, ending with another of my new all-time favorite multi-rewindable death scenes. (This one's a real doozy, folks.) There's even a surprising story twist that (hopefully) sets up the next sequel. 

The double-feature DVD from Well Go USA, Inc. is in 16:9 widescreen with Dolby 5.1 stereo. Soundtrack is Japanese with English subtitles. Extras include trailers and "making of" featurettes for both films. 

Visually interesting throughout, with an involving story and vivid characters, HARD REVENGE MILLY: BLOODY BATTLE is compelling sci-fi on a limited budget. It definitely gets a permanent spot in my DVD collection, in that special place where nobody can walk off with it and the dog won't eat it. I love this movie. 

 

HARD REVENGE MILLY -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE KILLER -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 3/24/10

 

I wasn't that impressed with THE KILLER (1989) the first time I saw it back in the 90s. Then again, I was watching a choppy pan-and-scan VHS copy that was badly-dubbed and looked awful. Plus, I'd just been blown away by HARD BOILED (still my favorite John Woo film), and THE KILLER seemed rather tame in comparison with that insanely action-packed epic. But with the new 2-disc Ultimate Edition of THE KILLER on the Dragon Dynasty label, I'm finally getting to see it in all its uncut pictorial glory and appreciate it as one of the finest action films ever made.

I think it was an episode of the great TV series "The Incredibly Strange Film Show" that first got me interested in the films of John Woo, Tsui Hark, and other hot Hong Kong directors. I found the innovative and extremely rapid-fire editing in the film clips to be a new and exhilarating visual experience. Just as the Beatles interpreted American rock 'n' roll and rhythm and blues and played it back to us in exciting new ways, Hong Kong cinema was assimilating the methods of Sam Peckinpah and others and using this as a starting point for creating a super-charged cinematic style that would, in turn, have an overwhelming effect on the future of American action cinema.

Woo himself credits many influences, among them French director Jean-Pierre Melville, certain Japanese films, and classical American cinema. Unsurprisingly, Sam Peckinpah and Martin Scorcese are key figures in the development of his film style, in addition to the old Hollywood musicals. Woo calls THE KILLER an "action-musical", and it's easy to see how his shoot-em-up sequences are often inspired by the spirit of that genre's more dazzling and dynamic production numbers. (I'm guessing Woo is an admirer of Gene Kelly and films such as SINGIN' IN THE RAIN and ON THE TOWN.)


There's even a little bit of Charlie Chaplin's CITY LIGHTS, I think, in the relationship between ace hitman Ah Jong (the great Chow Yun-Fat) and Jennie (Sally Yeh), the pretty young cabaret singer who was blinded during one of his hits. The guilt-ridden Ah Jong befriends Jennie with the hope of helping her regain her eyesight with a cornea transplant, but to pay for the operation he will have to postpone his plans to retire and perform one last hit. Complicating matters is the fact that the evil Triad boss for whom he works has just put out the order for Ah Jong himself to be eliminated.

Meanwhile, Inspector Li Ying (Danny Lee), a renegade cop who has the same "hate-hate" relationship with his boss as countless other renegade cops before him, is hot on Ah Jong's trail and has traced him to Jennie. In a strange turn of events, cop and hitman become grudging allies as Li Ying sympathizes with Ah Jong's desire to help Jennie and decides to back him up when the Triad kill squad comes a-callin'. This leads to a blazing shoot-out in a church with the fate of our unlikely heroes in the balance.

Unlike the usual stoic, repressed action figure, Chow Yun Fat's character is a man of deep feelings whose code of killing only bad guys is compromised not only by Jennie's injury but by the shooting of a little girl during an exciting escape from the police. Ah Jong risks his freedom to race the girl to a hospital, where he and Li Ying have one of many Mexican standoffs (Woo really loves these) just a few feet away from where doctors are struggling to save the girl's life.

Here, and in Ah Jong's scenes with Jennie, Woo's penchant for melodrama and sentimentality come to the fore. Such unrestrained romanticism may be off-putting to more hardcore action fans who prefer their mayhem untainted by mush. Although it gets a little thick at times, I think this gives an interesting added dimension to Woo's passages of gun-blazing carnage, as does the underlying religious tone (Woo describes himself as a Christian) which makes Ah Jong such a conflicted character seeking redemption.


Also interesting is the fact that Li Ying begins to identify with and even admire him for his honorable qualities--Woo points out their similarities in a nice parallel-image sequence--as their mutual concern for Jennie has them pretending to be and eventually becoming friends. Woo's humor comes to the fore when they initially hold each other at gunpoint while assuring the blind Jenny that all is well, even giving each other affectionate nicknames "Small B" and "Shrimp Head" (or "Mickey Mouse" and "Dumbo" in the English dub). By the end of the movie, they're as close as brothers and willing to die for each other.

More than anything else, however, THE KILLER is a feast for action connoisseurs as Woo stages one astounding shoot-out after another. His trademarks are all here, from the rapid-fire two-gun approach (his heroes never seem to run out of bullets) which has since been adopted by, well, everybody, to the sliding-backward-on-the-floor-while firing method, to everything else in-between. Innovations abound, with Woo's distinctive use of slow-motion and freeze-frames mixed with the regular action as his artistic sensibility sees fit, all creatively edited into a barrage of explosive images that bombard the viewer in waves of kinetic visual sensation.

Some of the action borders on the surreal, with scores of bad guys swarming non-stop into the line of fire only to be mowed down in twisting, jerking, blood-spewing (yet strangely balletic) death throes. Echoes of the famous shoot-outs from Peckinpah's THE WILD BUNCH pervade the climactic battle in the church, while the melodrama of the story weaves its way through the hail of bullets and fiery explosions toward a starkly emotional conclusion. It bears noting that Woo improvised much of the story and dialogue on-set, shooting from a treatment rather than a finished script, yet considers this to be one of his most "complete" films.


The Dragon Dynasty DVD is in the original widescreen with Dolby Digital sound. Languages are Cantonese and dubbed English, both mono, with English and Spanish subtitles. The second disc includes an intimate interview with John Woo, two audience Q & A's with Woo which accompanied screenings of THE KILLER and HARD BOILED, a look at the locations of THE KILLER then and now, and a John Woo trailer gallery. Missing in action is a commentary track.

Whether you're a long-time fan or just seeing it for the first time, Dragon Dynasty's Ultimate Edition of THE KILLER is a great way to experience this dazzling Hong Kong action classic.

THE KILLER -- DVD Review by Porfle

STREETS OF BLOOD -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 6/30/09

 

"Are we even cops anymore?"
"We're past that, brother."

Val Kilmer's character, Det. Andy Devereaux, is referring to the fact that he and his fellow cops in STREETS OF BLOOD (2009) have ventured far beyond the bounds of acceptable police procedure in their quest to stem the rising tide of drug-related crime in the hurricane-ravaged Big Easy. 

 But seeing that Kilmer, Sharon Stone, and Michael Biehn are appearing in this tacky, low-grade potboiler, the question he's answering might as well have been "Are we even movie stars anymore?"

Somehow, though, once I got past the possibility that this was going to be a classy, top-notch movie and lowered my expectations accordingly, I actually started to enjoy it. It's fast-moving, action-packed, and rather colorful in its depiction of the dark underbelly of New Orleans, with plenty of sleazy sex and violence to give it that neo-grindhouse appeal. Big names aside, it's not all that different from the cheap, direct-to-video action flicks I used to rent from hole-in-the-wall video stores back in the 80s.

Val Kilmer is an actor I like in just about anything, so I cut him some slack here even though he isn't all that successful at making me think he's from anywhere near Louisiana. As Andy Devereaux, a hardboiled narc trying to live up to his hero-cop father's legacy, he's a true blue cop even though he'll bend the hell out of the rules to make a bust.  

Curtis "Fifty Cent" Jackson plays his partner, Stan, a family man having trouble making ends meet and feeling the temptation to pocket some of the stacks of drug money they come across. Jackson seems more comfortable playing gangstas than cops, but he does a pretty good job here even though he could still use a few more acting lessons.

Andy and Stan often butt heads with Pepe (Jose Pablo Cantillo) and Barney (Brian Presley), two really out-of-control cops who like to kill bad guys, take their cash, do their drugs, and screw their girlfriends. But the two disparate duos find themselves working together when FBI agent Brown (Michael Biehn) launches an investigation that threatens to bring them all down just as they're starting to close in on the biggest drug gang in the city, the Latin Kings, run by a stone cold killer named Chamorro (Luis Rolon).

While all this is going on, a police psychologist named Nina (Sharon Stone) is conducting interviews with the main cops in order to find out why they have such a penchant for extreme violence, including Andy's four lethal shootings in three years ("I'm a good shot," he tells her). Stone comes off like a cross between Daisy Duke on 'ludes and a slow-drawlin' Mae West, with one of the worst southern accents in film history--I live about sixty miles from where this was filmed, and I don't think I've ever met anyone who talks like her. What, did she base her entire performance on a "Deputy Dawg" cartoon she saw when she was a kid? Anyway, she's just plain awful here, but it's kinda funny so that might actually be a plus.

The action scenes are somewhat artlessly staged, the photography looks like the cameramen were hopping around barefoot on a hot sidewalk, and the editing is less than exquisite. Those minor quibbles aside, however, the movie still manages to be exciting and fun to watch. Some scenes even generate a certain raw power, such as Kilmer's blow-up during an interrogation scene with Biehn and a trigger-happy exchange between Pepe and Barney and a pimpin' lowlife named Ray Delacroix (Davi Jay) who turns out to be working with the DEA. Several of the snappy dialogue scenes crackle with tension. Jose Pablo Cantillo is a standout as Pepe, and Biehn, as usual, turns in a solid performance. The post-Katrina flood sequence is atmospheric, while good use is made of locations in and around the city of Shreveport.

The DVD from Anchor Bay is bonus-less except for the film's trailer and English subtitles for the hard-of-hearing. The 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen image and Dolby Surround 5.1 are good.

Technically, STREETS OF BLOOD is a pretty slapdash affair, but that didn't keep me from enjoying it. I even watched it again and liked it better the second time because I knew what to expect and what not to expect. Even when the surprise ending was entirely unbelievable, I just accepted it as part of the film's cheapo charm. And when it was over, I almost felt like I needed to rewind the tape, pop it out of the VCR, and get it back to the mom-and-pop video store where I rented it in time to avoid a late fee. After dubbing a copy, of course.

STREETS OF BLOOD -- DVD Review by Porfle

URBAN JUSTICE -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 1/2/11

 

Steven Seagal...a generic action-movie title...you pretty much know what to expect going into URBAN JUSTICE (2007).  But the big surprise for me is that it delivers it so well. 

The plot is simple: a young cop is murdered for getting too close to some shady dealings between his crooked boss, Det. Frank Shaw (Kirk B.R. Woller) and the East Side Gangstas, headed by Tony Montana wannabe Armand Tucker (well-played by Eddie Griffin).  The dead cop's dad happens to be Steven Seagal, who blows into town looking for--you guessed it--revenge. 

And you know what you're in for with this set-up: a lot of cocky, smart-mouthed gangbangers and other sleazy characters getting the ever-livin' crap beaten out of them or shot to pieces for the rest of the movie.  In other words--it's popcorn time!

Now, Steve's hair-and-makeup job in this movie is a bit startling at first.  After his initial closeup, I thought, "Omigod, Dracula just gained 50 pounds, fell asleep in a tanning booth, and joined the Mafia."  But I got used to it after awhile.  His acting, as usual, consists mainly of mumbling while maintaining a steely-eyed glare, but his dialogue isn't all that important as long as you can make out key phrases like "I'm gonna kill the muh-fuggah that killed my son."


We all know that, by now, Steven Seagal is past his physical prime, so most of the time he hides his somewhat substantial spare tire under big, thick jackets--he often appears to have been cocooned.  And when he drives his sports car, it almost looks like he's wearing it, too.  The fight scenes are edited so that all he has to do is stand in one spot waving his hands around in a series of quick closeups, and the stunt guys go flying. 

Thing is, though, the hits look and sound bone-crushingly hard, and when people get shot, squibs spew like geysers.  This movie is filled with several intense scenes that pay off in a big way, even if the main character isn't quite as dynamic as he used to be.

But heck, he's Steven Seagal.  If you're making a Steven Seagal movie, you don't hire a good actor who can leap and twirl like Baryshnikov, you hire Steven Seagal.  He may not be able to move very fast anymore, or display "ooh-ahh" acting skills, but when he goes into kickass mode, he's still da man.

There's a cool car chase that's filmed the old fashioned way--no zippity-doo-dah camerawork or fancy editing, just a couple of cars zooming through various locations at high speed with the occupants blasting away at each other, and ending with a satisfying crash.
 

This goes for the rest of the film too, which is refreshingly free of the pointless, distracting visual nonsense that many current films are stuffed with.  I have to hand it to director Don E. Fauntleroy for being a straight-ahead action director who isn't interested in stringing a bunch of half-assed MTV videos together and calling it a movie.

Besides Eddie Griffin, the capable supporting cast includes Danny Trejo as Chivo, the leader of a Latino gang that Steve initially suspects may have offed his son, and Carmen Serano as a liquor store owner who rents Steve the crummy apartment out back.  It looks as though she may be a romantic interest too, but this doesn't go anywhere.  At one point, though, her character does get to give Steve the old revenge-never-solved-anything routine with the line "You're just as bad as they are", to which he coolly replies: "No, I'm a lot...fuggin'...worse."

There's a rousingly good shoot-out between Steve and a whole bunch of East Siders that could serve as the finale for a lot of straight-to-video action flicks.  But this is topped by the climactic battle, in which Steve goes it alone against the rest of the gangstas and the crooked LA cops, too.  Lots of bad guys get killed real bad, and the fake blood goes flying in all directions.  I won't give away the outcome, but one thing's for sure--you don't want to be the guy who gunned down Steven Seagal's son.  You don't want to work for him, either.  Hell, you don't even want to know the muh-fuggah.

URBAN JUSTICE is a kickass action movie.  The ending's cool as hell.  And, for now anyway, I'm a Steven Seagal fan again.

URBAN JUSTICE -- Movie Review by Porfle

HELL HUNTERS -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 7/7/16

 

Interesting Brazilian locations, including Rio de Janeiro's fabled carnival, and some venerable actors doing a little slumming highlight the cheap-but-fun action thriller HELL HUNTERS (1986), now on DVD from Film Chest. 

An aging but lively Stewart Granger seems to be having a good time playing mad scientist Martin Hoffmann, an escaped Nazi (loosely based on Joseph Mengele) living in South America and performing experiments he hopes will result in a serum that will turn people into Hitler-heiling zombies.

Meanwhile, a rag-tag group of armed Nazi hunters headed by Amanda (Maud Adams, THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN, OCTOPUSSY) keep pursuing Hoffman through the Brazilian jungles.  An early gunfight between the two factions helps kickstart the film.

Amanda even goes so far as to marry Hoffman's nephew so that he'll take her to the ex-Nazi's secret jungle compound, the route to which she records in her diary before she's assassinated by Hoffman's lethal toady El Pasado (Eduardo Conde) in a suspenseful scene that takes place in an airport bathroom.

When Amanda's estranged daughter Ally (Candice Daly) comes to Brazil to attend her mother's funeral, she gets caught up in the search for Hoffman and gets a taste for revenge in which her training in self-defense and target shooting comes in handy.

What follows is a rather lighthearted--as well as lightweight--action flick with some touchy romantic interplay between the skittish Ally and an amorous young Nazi hunter named Tonio (Rômulo Arantes) that yields much amusingly bad dialogue and a softcore sex scene or two. 

Tonio's female partner Nelia (Nelia J. Cozza) is a dark, sassy beauty who likes to leap into the fray right alongside the guys even when the bullets are flying fast and furious. 

During the group's foray up the river toward Hoffman's elusive hideout (one of the production companies mentioned in the credits is called "Heart of Darkness") they pick up a man-mountain named Kong (Russ McCubbin) who adds to the film's comedy-relief quotient as well as ramping up the amount of physical mayhem whenever they confront the bad guys.

The inevitable bullet-riddled climax pays off pretty well for such a modest production, reminding me a bit of the finale of Ted V. Mikels' THE DOLL SQUAD (1973).  Nothing really amazing happens, but like the rest of the film it's well-paced and competently handled by director Ernst R. von Theumer, who also manages a nifty chase scene in and around Rio de Janeiro earlier in the film.

 

Acting is all over the place among the lesser members of the cast although they all seem to be having a good time.  Aside from the jovial Granger, Maud Adams is more appealing to me here than in both her previous Bond appearances.  And speaking of Bond, one-time 007 George Lazenby (ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE) makes a brief but welcome appearance as one of Hoffman's associates. 

The DVD from Film Chest is in 16x9 widescreen and is "restored in HD from the original 35mm print."  Meaning that the visual quality won't knock your socks off but it looks pretty good for a film of its age and low budget.  No extras. 

There are those, of course, to whom HELL HUNTERS will be well out of their tolerance range for low-budget and hopelessly hokey action flicks.  For me, however, it was a nice bit of good, clean, nostalgic fun. 

HELL HUNTERS -- DVD Review by Porfle

SHAW BROTHERS COLLECTION II -- DVD Review by Porfle

(Brothers Five/ Holy Flame of the Martial World/ Journey of the Doomed/ Brave Archer and His Mate)

Originally posted in 2010

More lightning fists, flying feet, and clanging blades collide in SHAW BROTHERS COLLECTION II, a four-disc DVD set containing further fantastic adventures in the "Sword Masters" series. 


BROTHERS FIVE (1970), a raucous frenzy of clashing swords and impossible feats of derring-do, has just enough story to string together one blade brawl after another. We're back in ancient China again, where evil Long Zhen Feng (Feng Tien) and the villainous cutthroats of Flying Dragon villa keep the countryside in a state of terror.  Young swordsman Gao Wei (Yueh Hua) travels there to settle an old score with Long Zhen Feng, who murdered his father and took over the villa from him. 

On his way there, he meets beautiful Miss Yan (Cheng Pei Pei), who informs him that he has four brothers and that it was his father's dying wish that they someday reunite and avenge him.  Eventually the five brothers--Gao Wei, burly blacksmith Gao Hao, scholar Gao Zhi (Kao Yuan), dashing bandit Gao Xia (Lo Leih), and Security Bureau chief Gao Yong (Chang I)--join forces to take on the bad guys.

Once the exposition is taken care of, the story barely gets in the way of a succession of battle scenes that seem to crop up every few minutes or so.  Blacksmith Gao Hao settles an altercation in the street with the Flying Dragons by swinging his mighty hammer with deadly effect, while Shaolin-trained bookworm Gao Zhi has a nifty battle against two of them in a restaurant.  Gao Yong's Security Bureau men are ambushed and wiped out on an isolated road, and his assistant Chu, played by a very young Sammo Hung, is killed. 

Most of the fighting takes place in and around the Flying Dragon villa, with the brothers going up against impossible odds time after time.  The group choreography is excellent, with foreground fighters surrounded by several other fairly realistic battles going on all around them.  There's plenty of sword-clanging action and some pleasingly fake wirework, including one astounding shot in which kung fu mistress Miss Yan makes her escape by suddenly and inexplicably flying away like Superman.  The drawback here is that a monotonous sameness begins to set in after awhile, with one drawn-out clash beginning to pretty much resemble the next.  But it's all solidly directed by Wei Lo and expertly performed.

The topper comes after Miss Yan introduces the brothers to the special Five Tigers kung fu technique ("Five tigers, one heart") which requires five men with different skills to pull it off.  During their climactic free-for-all against a seemingly invincible Long Zhen Feng, they go into their rotating Five Tigers formation, which resembles one of those razzle-dazzle cheerleader formations and is pretty funny to look at.  The five brothers whirl around in this position for awhile, which seems to confuse Long Zhen Feng and leave him open to attack, so they start leaping at him.  I won't give away the exciting conclusion.

With nice period atmosphere, furious swordplay and martial arts mayhem, and likable characters (Miss Yan is particularly captivating and the brothers are a robust bunch), BROTHERS FIVE overcomes a tendency toward occasional monotony and is ultimately a pretty colorful and entertaining adventure. 

Making just about every other movie in the world seem slow-moving and mundane in comparison, HOLY FLAME OF THE MARTIAL WORLD (1983) is about as close to a total cinematic freak-out as you could imagine. 

Wan Ching Chung and his wife are killed by white-haired, bushy-eyebrowed Grand Master Jing Yin (Leanne Lau) and her associate Monster Yu (Jason Pai Piao) after they're forced to reveal the location of the Creed of the Holy Flame.  The Phantom (Philip Kwok) swoops in and rescues the dead couple's baby boy Wan Tien Sau, pledging that in 18 years the boy will return to get revenge.  Jing Yin takes their baby girl Dan Fung and raises her as a warrior in the all-female Er Mei clan, telling her that the Phantom killed her parents. 

Eighteen years later, Wan Tien Sau (Max Mok) is sent off to seek the Holy Flame.  Along the way, he rescues the beautiful Juan Er (Mary Jean Reimer) from the evil Blood Sucking Clan and she inadvertently gains great power in her index finger after touching an enchanted snake's bladder.  Meanwhile, Jing Yin, who possesses a Yin version of the Holy Flame, sends Dan Fung to avenge herself against the Phantom and retrieve the Holy Flame's Yang counterpart, which will give Jing Yin great power.  This sets the stage for a series of battles like you wouldn't believe between Wan Tien Sau, Dan Fung, Jing Yin and Monster Yu, Monster Yu's impetuous young apprentice Duan, Golden Snake Boy, the wacky Eight Righteous Clans, and Juan Er's Mighty Finger.

I just don't know what to think about this movie.  It's like taking an acid trip on a rollercoaster.  I'd call it cartoonish, but I doubt if even Tex Avery ever made a cartoon with such a breakneck pace and rapid-fire editing, nor such a dizzying, non-stop bombardment of bizarre images.  Director Tony Liu Jun-guk couldn't be less concerned with how realistic the wirework is, which doesn't matter anyway because characters continuously zip around all over the place in fast-motion like a bunch of flying speed freaks.  In addition to this is the precision fight choreography that is quite impressive, and lots of colorful FX animation.

The characters also display a wonderful variety of super-powers.  The Phantom's main weapon is his "Ghostly Laugh"--he sits crosslegged and convulses with broad, forced laughter, creating a deadly cyclone all around him which terrifies Jing Yin and Monster Yu until they learn how to make their ears close up by themselves.  In return, they attack with the horrific Bone Incineration By Fire and Merry-Go-Round techniques.  Wan Tien Sau is able to make his Devil Sword fly around as though he were operating it with an invisible remote control. 

Blaring music and an endless cacophony of sound effects bombard the viewer along with the freakish visuals.  One of the best sequences is when a 1,000-year-old corpse, which Lam May Heung brought home from a trip out West, comes to life spouting English phrases such as "I KILL YOU!" and, sure enough, decides to kill him.  Another is Wan Tien Sau's search for the Holy Flame inside the Moon Cavern, where he's attacked by cool cartoon ghosts and giant Chinese text that pops off the floor and flies around trying to do him in. 

From the moment this utterly kooky film bursts out of the gate it just doesn't stop, plunging headlong through a rapid-fire succession of breathtakingly off-the-wall scenes until the hilarious conclusion.  Possibly the downright nuttiest movie I've ever seen, ever, HOLY FLAME OF THE MARTIAL WORLD is funny, exciting, stupefying, and wonderfully endearing.

After HOLY FLAME, 1985's JOURNEY OF THE DOOMED seems positively sedate.  Despite some comedy here and there, it's mainly a tale of tragic romance with intermittent swordplay and some surprisingly adult elements.

The madame of a classy brothel, Big Sister, gets in hot water with an evil client named Mr. Duan after he cruelly breaks in a new girl whose best friend, Shui-erh, an orphan whom Big Sister has raised since childhood, throws a snake at him.  Shui-erh is actually the illegitimate daughter of a prince who's next in line to become Emperor, and Big Sister figures that this scandalous information will be valuable to the second-in-line prince so she reveals it to him in return for squaring things with Duan.  Second Prince sends the Three Knights--Fei-hsia, Xi Ma Cross, and Swallow 13--to capture Shui-erh so he can show her to Dad, while First Brother sends bad warrior Shan and two murderous Black Dragon Order swordswomen, Spicy Double Wind Eel and Monkey Lin, to kill everyone in the brothel.

Shui-erh escapes into the woods and is helped by a handsome young fisherman whom she calls "Knight."  It turns out that he is the younger brother of Spicy Double Wind Eel, which complicates things a bit.  Shui-erh and Knight fall in love while living in the secluded beach shack of a kindly mute girl, but Shui-erh becomes jealous of her and runs away, falling into the hands of the Three Knights.  Fei-hsia, who is in love with Shan and under his hypnotic spell, makes off with Shui-erh before she can be taken to the palace and delivers her to Shan at the Mysterious Fire Village, where a fierce battle between Shan and the Knights takes place over the fate of the future princess.

Director Chuen-Yee Cha's JOURNEY OF THE DOOMED has few major action setpieces compared to most Shaw Brothers films, and there isn't a lot of effort put into making the characters' fighting skills look all that convincing.  The main emphasis is on the love story, which is less than riveting.  Much of the middle part of the film resembles one of those BLUE LAGOON-type flicks about young lovers cavorting in the wild, with Shui-erh's spoiled brattiness getting a bit trying after awhile.  The lack of chemistry between the two actors is obvious when they kiss--she keeps her lips pressed firmly together as though being forced to eat spinach, while he practically tries to suck her entire face into his mouth.

Still, leather-clad babe Monkey Lin is entertaining whether taking on a bunch of inept guys just for fun or having it out with Spicy Double Wind Eel when she tries to kill her brother.  Most startling is the sequence in which Monkey and Spicy slaughter the prostitutes of Big Sister's brothel, and the final battle at Mysterious Fire Village is impressively staged.  There isn't much wirework here and fantasy elements are kept to such a minimum that when animated light beams eminate from Shan's eyes as he hypnotizes Fei-hsia, it seems almost out of place.

What sets this film apart is the nudity and softcore sex.  An early scene with Big Sister and her brothel partner gettin' it on is totally gratuitous, but the fact that she's so gorgeous makes it my favorite part of the movie.  Mr. Duan's session with the virgin Xio Cai is considerably less romantic, as he whips and even brands her while roughly availing himself of her supple body.  Later, things get sappy during Shui-erh and Knight's idyllic wilderness interlude, which even includes one of those cutesy montages set to the tune of a bad 80s power ballad.  This entire sequence slows the movie down and it doesn't pick up again until we get to the Mysterious Fire Village.

After recently watching several Shaw Brothers films which are loaded with wall-to-wall action and fantasy, JOURNEY OF THE DOOMED comes as a letdown.  It does have its charming moments and a certain amount of excitement, but it isn't a film I'll feel compelled to revisit any time soon.

Probably the most frustrating movie in the collection is Chang Cheh's BRAVE ARCHER AND HIS MATE (1982), because while it features a generous amount of impressive hand-to-hand combat, acrobatics, and swordplay, the story is a cluttered patchwork that makes little sense.

I won't even begin to try and unravel the knotty plot with all of its superflous and dead-end elements except to say that it begins with hero Kuo Tsing (Philip Kwok) and his beloved wife Huang Yung (Gigi Wong) becoming the guardians of an orphaned baby boy named Yang Guo after a deadly encounter with the evil Ouyang Fung (Wong Lik) in Iron Spear Temple.  The baby grows up to become a flakey slacker (Alexander Fu Sheng) who gets picked on by his foster parents' other kung fu pupils until he discovers Ouyang Fung still living in the abandoned temple.  The crazed old man, who has lost his memory, desires a son and offers to teach Yang Guo his invincible Frog Skill kung fu if he'll call him "father." 

Still a goofball but now armed with the power of the Frog technique, Yang Guo is tricked into thinking that his real father, Yang Kang, was a hero who was murdered by Kuo Tsing and Huang Yung.  His ill-fated alliance with Ouyang Fung seems to set up the rest of the plot until the movie takes a sudden left turn and ends up in a monastery where Kuo Tsing takes Yang Guo and fellow pupil Wu Sau Man (Chin Siu-Ho) to be mentored by his former teachers.  There's a whole other subplot about suitors coming to the monastery in order to duel for the hand of a mysterious woman who lives in a tomb (it's a long story).  Between the ardent suitors and the hostile apprentices of the monks, Kuo Tsing and his two charges find themselves in one furious battle after another until the movie simply screeches to a halt as though the DVD had gotten stuck.

I haven't seen any of the other "Brave Archer" films (this is the fourth) but I assume that they must have some archery in them since this one doesn't.  There is, however, a lot of carefully-staged action that is worth wading through the muddled plot for.  The melodramatic early scenes in the Iron Spear Temple are overly laden with exposition but feature some good fights, while the climactic sequence in and around the Quanzhen Sect's monastery is non-stop sword-clanging and kung fu fun.  In between, the business with crazy old Ouyang Fung returning to make trouble leads to some good clashes as well.  What weighs the film down, however, is the fact that all of this action is unsupported by a coherent story.

Philip Kwok is always a welcome presence in these films and Gigi Wong is beautiful and appealing as Huang Yung, while Wen Hsueh-erh is cute as a button as their daughter, Guo Fu.  Unfortunately, her character disappears halfway through the movie.  Wong Lik is a lot of fun as Ouyang Fung but he also drops out long before the extended end sequence. 

Worst of all is Alexander Fu Sheng's supposedly funny Yang Guo, who would be more at home in a "Bill and Ted" movie than in this one.  The relentlessly unamusing Yang Guo gets harder to take as the story progresses, ultimately becoming rather repellent.  The film ends with a freeze-frame closeup of him mugging like an idiot while the story remains frustratingly unresolved.

It would be nice if BRAVE ARCHER AND HIS MATE had been about Brave Archer and his mate, instead of devoting so much of its running time to the painfully uninteresting and pointless Yang Guo character.  As it is, the film fails to weave a compelling story out of its various plot threads and is watchable mainly for its furious action scenes. 

As with the first Shaw Brothers collection, each of the four DVDs in this set from Well Go USA, Inc. and Celestial Pictures is widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound.  Soundtrack is in Mandarin with English and Chinese subtitles.  The theatrical trailer for each film is included.  SHAW BROTHERS COLLECTION II is a mixed bag, containing two rousing and highly-entertaining adventures along with a couple of somewhat less successful efforts.  As with most SB films, all are worth watching, but you may not find them all worth re-watching.

SHAW BROTHERS COLLECTION II -- DVD Review by Porfle