Category: Action

Skyfall

Bill I’s Review – 4 out of 5

Roger Ebert called this a film that reinvigorates Bond, and I totally agree. From the beginning scene it made me smile, with a fresh car/motorcycle chase scene – on top of Istanbul roofs, through the markets, on top of a train! I would think after all these years, and the Bourne movies, that chase scenes could not be new, but Sam Mendes, the director, out does all expectations. Judi Dench has a big role as M, and she knocks it out of the park. Daniel Craig is perfect, starting out as a burnout, and then coming back to save the day. Most Bond movies are known for the distinctiveness and quirks of their villains, and here Javier Bardem comes up with a doozy. I won’t explain what he’s obsessed with, but it’s believable with a cool back story (I have a bone to pick with that, mainly the fact that he’s clearly not English-born, wondering how he could have gained the position he once had). And there’s fresh blood with a young computer geek as Q and Ralph Feinnes as M’s beaurocratic boss, Mallory. The female counterparts are great as well, with Berenice Marlohe as the femme fatale

and Naomie Harris as Bond’s sharpshooting colleague Eve

The story slows down towards the end, before building up to a fiery and in my mind perfect ending.

Bill C’s Review – 2.5 out of 5

I didn’t like Skyfall as much as Bill.   The opening set piece was great.  Delving into Bond’s backstory a little was good.  The Bond girls were good (although they seem to play less of a role than in old Bond movies).  I thought Daniel Craig and Javier  Bardem were good.  Although while I liked Bardem’s acting I thought this was one of the weaker Bond super villains since his goal was not world domination.

I did have problems with parts of the plot and script.    While I happily suspend disbelief (as required for these types of moves) about their ability to survive the action sequences (including riding motorcycles at full speed on roofs, jumping on to a moving train, driving the wrong way at full speed through traffic, not getting hit when automatic weapons are being fired at you, somehow picking out the door the master criminal went through, etc.  I cannot silently sit by when they  imply that MI6 is as  incompetent as this move makes them out to be.  I’ve seen too many Bond movies for that! (See spoiler alert section for one example).

As for the script, at one point  M gave a speech about how the threats the world faces today are different and we need to be vigilant.  Doe anyone not know this?

Ah, I just figured out the other thing that was gnawing at me.  The plot of the old grizzled crimefighter being burned out, shirking his duties and dropping off the grid for a while before coming back  to action seemed like something I had just seen.  Batman!!

Despite the major  bitching and moaning it is still a Bond movie and the action is good so if you’re into this type of movie you should think about going.

SPOILER ALERT ON: Do not read anymore if yo have not seen the movie! Clearly, I’ve been working for IBM too long.  When MI6 recovers the computer of a master computer hacker  who has already hacked the MI6 computers  you would expect them to  treat that computer with extreme care.  Instead I watch in disbelief as  the new young whipper snapper Q  connects it to the MI6 computer network without a care in the world!! With what appears to be multiple ethernet cables!!  I’ll take the experienced old Q any day (if he hadn’t died) over the new  arrogant, know it all one.
SPOILER ALERT OFF.

 IMDB

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Seven Psychopaths

Bill I’s Review – 3 out of 5

Is this a nutty, inconsistent, bloody, misogynistic movie? Yes it is! Is it also great fun, with classic moments and lines from Christopher Walken and Woody Harrelson, and an unpredictable plot that makes this the ultimate meta-movie? Yes! The main character, played as an alcoholic straight man Colin Farrell, is struggling to write a movie script and all he has to start with is a great title (same as this movie), and his BFF (nutcase Sam Rockwell) does all he can to help him out, including identifying real-life psychopaths he can fit into the script, while he goes about his dog-napping sideline to help his other buddy, Walken, pay for his wife’s cancer surgery. Need I mention this is a comedy? The cast is terrific, including I have to mention again the ultimate Christopher Walken, Tom Waits (I recognized him, after not seeing seen him since 1976 when I approached him back stage at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre), Harry Dean Stanton (not too many lines of dialogue for Harry, in fact, maybe none) and Gabourey Sidibe (also not many lines, but stuck in an unforgettable scene with ultra-gangster Woody). And fans of Boardwalk Empire will enjoy seeing two stars from that series in the opening sequence (the dude who plays Rothstein and the young Jimmy Darmody). I don’t think they needed much time on the set given the short screen time they are given. It’s a meta movie because the psychopaths in the movie become the psychopaths in Colin Farrell’s script. Be sure to sit through the ending credits (the first minute) to see the perfect ending. If you are squeamish about bullets and knife play, or don’t get the humor in the over the top misogynism (it’s tongue in cheek!), then go see Here Comes the Boom), but if you are true fan of Bill and Bill, check this out!

Bill C’s Review – 3.5 out of 5

I finally saw this movie and just wanted to add a few quick thoughts:

– I want to complement Bill on a really excellent review.  Not only is the review insightful, but I learned the meaning of a new word, misogynistic!

– While all the actors were great, I thought Sam Rockwell stole the show.

– If you like this movie, go rent In Bruges by the same director.  I liked Seven Psychopaths and recommend it, but I liked In Bruges even better.

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Looper

Bill C’s Review – 4 out of 5

Looper is a smart sci-fi thriller that starts with the interesting premise of future mobsters  sending their murder victims back in time to get hit and then be disposed of. Sometimes the loop is closed by sending an old hit man to be hit by his younger self. Parts of this film are reminiscent of the Terminator and one character’s mother, played by Bill and Bill movie favorite Emily Blunt, is even named Sara.

Looper has some good plot twists, is well-written and deals with themes of loss, love, regret and redemption. All the main performances were good including Joseph Gordon-Levitt (despite some prosthetic on his face to make him look like the younger version of himself as played by Bruce Willis), Blunt, Willis, Jeff Daniels (very entertaining as a mob boss), and Pierce Gagno as a freaky kid.

Definitely go see it.

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End of Watch

Bill I’s Review – 4 out of 5

It starts out as a cop buddy movie, like we’ve seen hundreds of times on film and on tv, but there’s a realism here that differentiates End of Watch, infused by the ultra realism, by the hand held camera (a technique that was irritating to me at times) and especially by the fine acting of Jake Gyllenhall and Michael Pena, as the aforementioned buddy cops. They have developed a closeness after years as partners that’s like a married couple, a comedy duo insulting each other non-stop and at the end, the core of an extended family that encompasses each other’s wives and families. The plot is not about much more than the day-to-day routine and unpredictable violence and risk they encounter and face head-on like soldiers on the front, reminding me of patrolling Taliban infested villages not knowing when a civilian is your deadly enemy or a victim that needs to be rescued. The tension builds into a climax and then an anti-climax that I both liked and wondered about, from a film making perspective, which I won’t explain here to avoid giving a spoiler. Overall, a terrific film, but not for the faint hearted. And Jake proves he’s one of our greatest actors, which I have believed since he starred in Brothers.

 Bill C’s Review – 3.5 out of 5

I thought this was a pretty good movie that with a few changes could have been a very good movie. This easily could have been a film adaptation of a Joseph Wambaugh novel–it has all the same elements–although it wasn’t (check out The Choirboys if you want to read one of Wambaugh’s best). A large part of the movie is just everyday police life. End of Watch initially focuses on two partners and daily police life, showing how they deal with other members of the precinct, how they bond with each other, and how they often spend more time and, at times, are more dependent on their partner than their significant other.  Much of their day is spent just cruising in their patrol car but that is punctuated by times of great personal danger or witnessing some truly horrific acts. This movie does a good job of showing that dichotamy and how they deal with it. At the end of this part of the movie you really care about these guys. The last part of the movie deals with the ramifications of of them having unwittingly ticked off the drug cartel.

The partners are played by Michael Pena and Jake Gyllenhaal. They both give terrific nuanced performances showing the ups and downs of their personal and professional lives.

I did have three quibbles with the film:

1) In an early scene, the cops are in a car chase. When they stop the car, the bad guys get out and start shooting. Instead of shooting back from behind their cruiser, the partners jump out from their car and charge at the bad guys with guns a-blazing. No way! But I will say that most other parts of the movie seemed realistic.

2) Bill mentioned the hand held camera. If it had just been Jake Gyllenhaal using a camera, I probably would have been ok with it. But one of the bad guys was doing this too, and not just filming them hanging out, but also planning their crimes. Too much.

3) Bill also mentioned a part at the end. I won’t go into detail either but I thought the director manipulated the move audience unnecessarily.

Despite these things, I still thought the movie was definitely worth watching.

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Lawless

Bill I’s Review – 3.5 out of 5

I had no expectations going into this film, and loved being immersed in the time period (1930), the place (rural Virginia), and mileu (band of brothers running a profitable bootlegging business during prohibition). Into this “lawless” county, the wettest in the country supposedly, where the local sheriff and his boys buy the hootch along with everyone else, steps an over the top villain as new law in town, a sadistic dandy played by Guy Pearce, here:

I was thinking of the recent spate of villians, including Michael Shannon in Hit and Run and Bane in Dark Knight Rises (played I realized by Tom Hardy, who here plays the lead brother – I guess a good guy… sort of, at least you root for him), that Pearce out does them all. There’s plenty of blood spilled, guns shot, and even some young courting (Shia LaBeouf as the younger, and wannabe gangster brother out to prove himself, spies the innocent daughter of local Amish-like preacher, Mia Wasikowka, here

Mia Wasikowska Picture

The plot is pretty simple: brothers want to keep selling hooch, Pearce wants to shut them down and ideally kill them, and lots of bad things happen, seemingly without much forethought. The brothers wait around to get attacked, then they fight back brutally. The wonderful Jessica Chastain supplies the female perspective, as a hardened but somehow vulnerable city girl from Chicago looking for a quiet place to live, and becomes the brothers’ bartender/manager/girlfriend in waiting. Jessica, seen here

can convey her thoughts and emotions without saying anything like almost no other actor I know, and look great while doing it. She inhabits a character, usually 180 degrees different from her prior role, that just amazes me. If you want to escape the current 2012 US, and enter another world for a couple of hours, that seems realistic and historical (movie is based on real life brothers, written by one of their gransons), then check this out.

Hit and Run

Bill I’s Review – 3 out of 5

I saw this back-to-back (Katie style for those who know my daughter) with Premium Rush and it doesn’t quite measure up to that film, both of which are based on bad guys chasing “good” guys. The reason behind the pursuit in this film is somewhat contrived (former partner in crime, played with glee by Bradley Cooper – or is it Paul Rudd?

Bradley Cooper Hit and Run

– who wants revenge and money owed), and the urgency is forced (Dax Shepherd must deliver his girlfriend, Kristen Bell, to LA for a job interview by a certain time). The surprising highpoint is any scene that Tom Arnold is in. I never realized what a good comic actor he is. Overall, a fun movie if you have nothing better to do, but see Premium Rush first.

 

Premium Rush

Bill I’s Review – 3.5 out of 5

I was pleasantly surprised that a film that tracks pretty much in real time a bike messenger through New York City would keep my interest, but it did so and was a lot of fun. Joseph Gordon Levitt plays the three time winner of the bike messenger of the year, as a reckless, aggressive, no-brake, one gear rider who cuts in and out of traffic to deliver whatever mail package has been given to him. He’s got a rocky relationship with another rider, the beautiful Dania Ramiriz, (see below)

Dania Ramirez Picture

who I remember as Turtle’s assistant turned girlfriend on Entourage. They are both terrific and believable as riders. Michael Shannon is perfect as the bad guy, continuing his typecasting from HBO’s  Boardwalk Empire. Shannon gives the film urgency and logic for the pursuit, as Gordon-Levitt and his pals swerve in midtown traffic. One of the coolest aspects is when he comes to a packed intersection, and the camera freeze frames while you see him working out visually which path will leave him untouched and not have to stop, reminding me of an NFL running back looking for daylight through the tacklers. I don’t see how this movie could have been better. From now I will look at those wrong-way bike riders a little more symathetically, for sure I won’t mess with them. I highly recommend this for all ages (well, over the age of 12 I guess).

The Bourne Legacy

Bill I’s Review – 4 out of 5

Awesome movie, just like it’s predecessors! I guess Matt Damon is not essential, as Jeremy Renner does an admirable job as the new “rogue agent” being tracked down by the evil US spy agency black ops. I don’t think Jeremy can punch as fast as Matt, but he certainly can jump from rooftops as well, and ride a motorbike like a champ (incredible chase scene in Manila traffic – remind me never to drive in Manila). Rachel Weisz is perfect as the “innocent” scientist; her character makes you think about true guilt and innocence. The film’s opening 15 minutes is great because it immerses you in a couple of scenarios where you have no idea what’s going on, or how these people figure in the plot, or even what the plot is. So, a thought provoking thriller, that ends up as a more typical chase movie, but it will keep you on the edge of your seat throughout. The ending (no spoiler here) seems abrupt; I was hoping for more, but I guess two hours is long enough. Can’t wait for next Bourne.

Bll C’s Review – 3 out of 5

I agree with most of Bill’s review.  This is a good, quick paced action movie that is never boring.  I also like the opening sequence (the parts with the wolves made me think Liam Neeson could have used Jeremy Renner’s help in The Grey!)  Both Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz were good (Renner’s fighting looked pretty good to me).  I also liked Edward Norton as the person directing the chase for Aaron Cross (Renner).  The movie did end too abruptly and could easily come back with a fifth Bourne movie if they desire

For the most part I found the plot interesting and challenging although not all made sense to me (BEGIN SPOILER ALERT: they decided to eliminate all of the Bourne like agents but when they have trouble killing Aaron Cross they whip out another, later edition one that they had kept in reserve!  END SPOILER ALERT).  I liked part of the action sequences but parts went overboard.  BEGIN SPOILER ALERT!:  The motorcycle chase is good but there were a couple of parts that were ridiculous (ok – i know the whole thing was ridiculous) but when Aaron Cross is barely squeezing between things on a motorcycle in totally chaotic Manila traffic there’s no way the guy in the car should be able to keep up and there’s no way Rachel Weisz would not have fallen off, etc.! END SPOILER ALERT

While I did have my quibbles I did enjoy the movie.

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The Dark Knight Rises

Bill C’s Review – 3.5 out of 5

The final entry in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy is a good but not great finale. Set eight years after 2008’s The Dark Knight, this is a satisfying ending to the trilogy and ties up loose ends nicely. After the events at the end of The Dark Knight, The Batman has retired and Bruce Wayne has become a Howard Hughes-like recluse. However a new menace faces Gotham City and The Batman is lured out of retirement.

The new menace, Bane, is good but not nearly as entertaining as The Joker in the last movie. Bane has a contraption over his face to help him avoid pain. With it, my son thought he sounded like Winnie the Pooh, while I thought it made him sound more like Darth Vader. The two characters who I thought really stole the show were Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a young, idealistic police officer and Anne Hathaway as Catwoman/Selina Kyle.  The Catwoman storyline was as interesting as the Batman one.

While they did tie up loose ends, I had forgotten most of the plot points about The League of Shadows and Liam Neeson’s character from the first film, Batman Begins.  Remembering that would have helped in following some of the plot. It was interesting how Nolan has weaved in some themes here about things like the Patriot Act and wealth inequality, but that should not wreck the movie for anyone, no matter where you stand on these issues.

The movie begins with a good action set piece aboard an airplane and there is some good action throughout.  There is also some that is just chaotic. The movie is long – 2 hours and 44 minutes – but went pretty quickly and was worth seeing.

Bill I’s Review – 3.5 out of 5

I agree with Bill C, good but not great film. It’s great in some respects: special effects, acting (also agree, Anne Hathaway is tremendous, and some other smaller characters also excellent, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine as always, Gordon-Levitt, e.g.). And Bane’s voice did sound like Darth Vader. His character is evil incarnate combined with an MMA fighter’s sensibility (what, no need for guns when you’re jacked like that?). Now let me outline where I was bothered, and it wasn’t in minor ways (some of these may be considered spoilers, but I will try to minimize what I give away): 1) Gotham is clearly NY City in this film, and I have no stomach to watch my city get terrorized and bombed once again. The Muslim jihadists will love this aspect, and after the Colorado movie theatre real-life massacre as well as innumerable accounts of innocents being slaughtered, I have no desire to see this dramatized in fiction for our entertainment. I felt the same way about Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards which has the Nazi social elite being burned to death trapped in a movie theatre while the “good guys” enjoyed their triumph. And this film takes a NY Giants-like football stadium and shows off it’s fantastic special effects while bombs go off and the players get swallowed up, we are supposed to be enjoying this vicariously. This was enough to sour me on this film. 2) I do not buy into its portrayal of New Yorkers, or any Americans actually, being subjected to a madman dictator/terrorist so easily. I bet this is what Osama Bin Laden dreamed about, tearing down Wall Street and major infrastructure, unleashing the masses of lower class poor people, and seeing our society turned into chaos and the rich people being thrown out on the streets. Maybe when the Nazis marched into Poland, but not here. Whoever wrote this crap and thinks we will think it believable is just patronizing us by assuming the movie going public will believe this scenario. 3) Hold NYC hostage and have the federal government reduced to delivering relief packages? Come on, where’s the effort to communicate with the captive New Yorkers, to infiltrate the city? There’s no way you can isolate the city like this. And the fact that Bruce Wayne, Robin and Commissioner Gordon all are aware of exactly when the ticking clock will expire is not also known by our army? What is this, Gerald Ford again telling NY to “drop dead”? That’s enough of my blowing off steam, but you can tell I was seriously bothered by these aspects of this otherwise great film.

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Savages

Bill I’s Review – 3 out of 5

Reminiscent of the movie Traffic, this is a tale of surfer dude/drug kingpins having their Laguna paradise bubble burst by a dose of Mexico cartel reality. Shades of Tarantino when you see the great Travolta as a corrupt, scheming, sleazy DEA agent, and the wonderful Salma Hayek as the ruthless, but motherly, cartel leader. Blake Lively is excellent as the muse and key to the menage a trois with the surfer/dealers, who are  very believable and fun to watch. Benecio del Toro is Salma’s captain gone wild, and kills the role; he should get a best supporting actor nomination. Some brutal scenes of violence but it moves fast and holds your interest. Nothing groundbreaking here, but a good summer action movie.

Bill C’s Review – 3 out of 5

Overall I agree with  Bill’s review and assessment of the performances.  In addition to the good performances there were some good plot twists and it kept you guessing to the very end.  I was disappointed with the ending as Oliver Stone manipulated the audience down the stretch and the final ending seemed to be a bit of a cop out.

For those looking for additional drug related movies in addition to Traffic (Benicio Del Toro was in that one too!) and Breaking Bad (TV) here’s a list of some guys top 10 drug related movies.

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