Let me call this one: De Niro will be the cop who is single and involved with a woman at least twenty years his junior and their relationship is rocky at best. He is also the "cop on the edge". Pacino will be more stable but broken down after years of labor. He may be a family man but will most certainly be divorced. His family life will most likely be represented by a relationship with his estranged daughter. Pacino will be the one who gets killed by the serial killer who will most likely be a former cop from their past who's just sick of seeing the bad guys get away.

This is obviously targeted towards the older audience set, given the presence of De Niro and Pacino and the inclusion of the Stones' tune in the trailer, but I have to imagine that anyone old enough to be lured by these things is probably old enough to feel like they've seen this movie a thousand times before.

Short Review: Deathwish with lip gloss.

I've been putting off reviewing this film for a while now. This is for no other reason than I really didn't have anything to say about it. Since I've put up two posts about Uwe Boll this week, I figured I could finally get to this misfire.

The reason I don't have anything to say about this movie is because this movie doesn't have anything to say either. Jodie Foster plays Erica, a public radio personality (one of those who has an insufferably calm voices and blathers about nothing with sincere self-importance) who transforms into a gun toting Bernie Getz wannabe after her half-man, boyfriend gets bludgeoned to death by bad guys. Erica is shadowed by the investigating cop Detective Mercer (Terrence Howard) who suspects the mopey chick is responsible for shooting a bunch of people who, quite frankly, have it coming.

The problem with the movie is twofold. First, it doesn't want to commit to anything. Erica begins her vigilante streak by killing bad guys in self defense by luring villains into harassing her but eventually makes the descent into flat out murder. The film never fully and plainly condemns nor applauds her actions. Erica suffers with the moral balancing act revenge brings but she never comes down on either side. The people she kills have it coming and their deaths don't come with any sympathetic treatment. The fact is that a guy molesting riders on a subway who pulls a knife on a woman is begging for a gun wound. By the end of the movie there is very little actually said about revenge, society or good film making.

The other problem is that this movie, for all of its inability to be up-front with its point, is painfully self aware. Look at the character names - Erica Bain - "Bane" get it? The old word for Killer, death or a curse. Detective Mercer - Mercy. Ain't we clever. The script by television writers Roderick and Bruce A. Taylor stinks of cheesy and easy bits meant to give the illusion of meaning and depth but actually provides very little.


Related Reviews:
Jodie Foster movies
Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Inside Man (2001)


Other Critic's Reviews:
It's Movie Time
Decent Films Guide

Short Review: I wish they owned a better story.

This film opens with one of the more gratuitous sex scenes in recent memory. Joaquin Phoenix and Eva Mendes grope on a couch immediately following the opening credits. One expects that with such vivid content being thrust (pun intended) at the audience in the beginning of a film there will be context to follow. Nope. No such context is provided. The two actors are asked by director James Gray to suffer the indignity and embarrassment of a sex scene for nothing other than to satisfy his bad film making impulses. Any time you see a sex scene in a film, it may seem like its fun and exciting. Now, of course, some actors will claim this is the case. If you've ever seen one of these things being shot, its a miserable thing, in particular for many actors. You have to lay there with another person who you may or may not know all that well and if you know them you may or may not even like them all that much. The actors then have to portray two people making "the beast with two backs" while taking direction, reshooting moves and waiting for lighting to get corrected. All of this while being half naked as the crew look on, bored, waiting to get a chance to sneak out for a smoke. When I see a sex scene like the one that opens this movie, its offensive when it is so clearly unneeded not only because the audience is asked to sit and watch but also because the cast and crew had to endure creating it. Perhaps Ms. Mendez and Mr. Phoenix wouldn't complain about having to do the scene but the audience should.

This whole movie is one long bad choice. The story follows Bobby (Phoenix) a successful nightclub owner who gets involved with drug dealers. Bobby's has a secret, his brother (Mark Wahlberg) and father (Robert Duvall) are both cops who are hunting down the aforementioned drug dealers. Following the shooting of his brother, Bobby turns on the dealers and works with the cops. People get shot, there's plenty of yelling and double crossing - all leading to the inevitable big shoot out at the end. Yawn. There is nothing about this story that is compelling, fresh or worthy of an audience's time. The script, also by Gray, is a tone deaf ramble written by someone who not only doesn't understand how to manage dialog but also scene progression. Combined with his timid directing style, this piece whimpers through its nearly two-hour run time.

There is a single sequence which works well in this film and that is a car chase scene. I thought it was well handled and shot. This sequence sticks out however since it is the solitary item of good film making in this whole production. The talents of the cast, all of whom are top-notch, are completely wasted on the listless dialog they're forced to spew. Any personal sacrifices made by anyone in the making of this film are wasted and those who were talked into financing the film should have put their money elsewhere.

I get many complaints that I'm too harsh on movies I don't like. Maybe I can be at times. But a poorly made film that is intended to be serious, like this one wants to be, are wasteful things. They gobble up resources and the efforts of the cast and crew who more often than not are asked to put in long hours and hard work to get a film like this made. Bad movies also consume time from the audience that could have otherwise been spent doing something worthwhile. How would you like it if I were to stop you on the street and tell you a long story only to find out I didn't have a point, I just stopped you to ramble - this is what bad movies do to us each time we sit through them. They put our lives on hold and give us nothing back for the investment. Life is short and bad movies make our precious time here just that less enjoyable. This is why I loathe bad movies and attack them. They are offensive.


Related Reviews:
Joaquin Phoenix movies
The Village (2004)
Walk the Line (2005)


Other Critic's Reviews:
The Critical Critics
eFilmCritic.com