The Killer

1989

Media Asia

Written and Directed by John Woo

Produced by Tsui Hark

Set the WayBack Machine for 1989, Sherman. We’ve got to go back a bit before I get into the meat of this review because it’s important. Trust me.

Even back in 1989 I had a reputation among my friends and family as a movie guy. That’s because I went to the movies two or even three times a week. This is 1989, remember. There is no Netflix, no Hulu, no Internet, no DirecTV, no 500 HD movie channels, no DVD, no Blu-Ray. VHS is king. So I would frequently take in a movie during the week with my buddies after work, maybe go to one by myself and then take Patricia (we’d been married five years by now) on the weekend. Got the picture so far? Good.

In the spring/summer of ’89 I was besieged by friends of mine who constantly asked me had I seen this Hong Kong action movie that was like nothing they had ever seen before and I absolutely had to see this thing as it would change my movie going life forever. Matter of fact, friends were telling me that this movie topped “Die Hard” and I really couldn’t believe that as I thought “Die Hard” was just about the best action movie I’d ever seen in my life up to that point. So I finally decide to go see this movie. Problem is that it’s playing only at one theater; an arthouse cinema on the East Side around 23erd St somewhere and the movie is only showing three times a day. And all those showing are during the early part of the day while I’m working. The first showing was around 11AM or something like that.

Hey, no problem. It’s the warm weather season and I don’t need much of an excuse to play hooky anyway. So I call in sick and determine I’m gonna check out this movie that everything insists I just have to SEE to believe!

I get to the theater, pay for my ticket, go in and I’m surprised to see that at this time of day the theater is packed. I get one of the very few seats remaining, sit back and wait to see what everybody has been telling me is so mollyfoggin’ amazing.

One hour and ten minutes later I stumble out of the theater with the rest of the audience as if I’m Moses who’s just seen The Burning Bush. Some of the audience members have seen this movie three, four or even five times already and soon I am engaged in a discussion those other people about the movie. In fact, about a dozen of us become fast friends due to our mutual admiration of movies in general and this movie in particular so we go out to get something to eat and then come back to catch the third and last showing of the day which is even more packed than the first showing to the point that people are standing in the back of the theater or sitting on the floor.

That movie was John Woo’s action masterpiece THE KILLER.

I only relate all this because I know how much time has passed between then and now and for most of you reading this, you’ve seen so many action movies that you have absolutely no idea of the impact that THE KILLER made when it first came to American theaters. Trust me. THE KILLER was like nothing else we had ever seen. For me, it was my first exposure to John Woo and yes, my movie going life was never the same again.

Master assassin Ah Jong (Chow Yun-Fat) wants out of The Triad and agrees to take one last job in return for his freedom. During the job he accidentally blinds the nightclub singer Jenny (Sally Yeh) while trying to protect her from getting shot. Ironically it’s the muzzle flash from his own gun that blinds her.

Filled with remorse, Ah Jong visits Jennie at the club every night after he blinds her to listen to her sing and they fall in love. She has no idea he’s the reason for her being blind and Ah Jong determines to get enough money to take Jenny to America so that she can have a corneal transplant. In order to get that much money, Ah Jong has to take a high-risk hit. The hit goes bad and during his escape, Ah Jong is identified by a police detective, Li Ying (Danny Lee) who becomes obsessed with capturing Ah Jong. Li Ying is the perfect guy to catch Ah Jong since he’s on thin ice with his bosses who consider him pretty much a wild bull on thin ice anyway. But he has a gift of putting himself in the mindset of criminals and he finds it pretty easy (maybe too easy ) to get into Ah Jong’s head.

Ah Jong has to not only stay out of the gunsights of the police but also his Tong boss Wong Hoi (Shing Fui-On) who has ordered a hit on Ah Jong since his identity has been compromised. What makes THE KILLER so unique is in that Ah Jong’s pursuer Li Ying becomes his closest friend and ally as the both of them discover that they’re mirrors of each other, bound together by similar personal codes of honor and loyalty.

Even today when I watch THE KILLER I am astounded by the action sequences. The final shootout in the church is the second best shootout I’ve ever seen on film and it’s earned by the fact that when it comes, we’re totally invested in the characters so we care who lives and who dies. THE KILLER has a great story that is both tremendously simple and yet overwhelming complex at the same time. It’s pretty simple why Ah Jong takes on the responsibility of restoring Jenny’s sight. It’s pretty simple why Li Ying comes to admire Ah Jong. What’s not so simple is how these characters have their own agendas that come into play and have to resolved in blood.

This is the movie that made Chow Yun-Fat a star in this country. He’s got the same kind of badassery cool that made Sean Connery, Steve McQueen and James Coburn stars and it’s all there on the screen in this one. I also like Danny Lee a lot because of his character and his acting talent we to see a lot of the Ah Jong character through his eyes as he gets inside the head of his quarry.

And the gunfights…good googlymoogly…us provincials here in America had never seen gunfights like this until John Woo said “Here…let me show you how it should be done.” And he did. Each and every gunfight in THE KILLER is epic. And this is the one that begins the classic. quintessential John Woo standoff with two guys pointing guns in each other’s faces. This one has Ah Jong and Li Ying maintaining the pose that they’re having a nice, quiet and friendly conversation in Jenny’s apartment while she serves them tea. But all the while they’ve got guns on each other. Being blind she can’t see the guns. It’s a scene that’s both hilarious and suspenseful to the max.
So should you see THE KILLER? Without a doubt, YES.

Dredd

2012

Entertainment Film Distributors/Lionsgate

Directed by Pete Travis

Produced by Alex Garland and Andrew MacDonald

Written by Alex Garland

Based on the character “Judge Dredd” created by John Wagner and Carols Ezquerra

I miss the huge eagle shoulder emblem and that honkin’ huge chain. Really. I can understand why that shoulder emblem is impractical for police work but I still miss it. It’s the only thing I miss from 1995’s “Judge Dredd.” Well, I miss Diane Lane. And as good as he is (and he is very good) Karl Urban can’t say “I am the law!” like Sylvester Stallone. But outside of that, fifteen minutes into DREDD I couldn’t remember anything else about that earlier movie. That’s how good a job DREDD does of giving us a version of the classic British comic book character that is far closer in spirit to the Judge Dredd we know and love.

Mega-City One is an impossibly huge city covering the East Coast of what used to be the United States with over 800 million citizens living in it. The number of violent crimes is staggering. In order to combat the crime wave, Mega-City One is policed by The Judges who fulfill the functions of both police officers and judges. Having caught a criminal, Judges are authorized to try and sentence criminals right on the spot. Cuts down on the paperwork.

It’s new Judge recruit Cassandra Anderson’s (Olivia Thirlby) first day on the job. Even though she failed several of her aptitude tests to become a Judge, she’s given a chance to prove herself due to her being an extremely powerful psychic. If she can pass her Assessment, she’ll get her badge. That’s the good news. The bad news is that she’s partnered with Judge Dredd, the toughest and most feared Judge in Mega-City One and it’s him who will have the final say if she becomes a Judge or not.

And then comes the worst news. While investigating three murders in Peach Trees, a 200 story slum tower, Dredd and Anderson arrest Kay (Wood Harris) one of the lieutenants of The Ma-Ma Clan. Run by former prostitute and now drug kingpin, Ma-Ma (Lena Headey) takes control of the tower’s control room and seals off the building from the outside, trapping Dredd and Anderson inside. Ma-Ma can’t afford to let Dredd and Anderson escape as since during their investigation they found out that Peach Tree is the center of production and distribution for Slo-Mo, a highly addictive drug that slows down the user’s perception of time. On their own and cut off from back-up, Dredd and Anderson fight their way up, floor by floor to get to Ma-Ma.

DREDD is just about a perfect B-Movie. If this had been made back during the heyday of grindhouses in the 70’s and 80’s it would have run on 42end Street for a solid year. It’s gloriously violent and wallows in the violence because it’s a movie that knows full well what it is: it’s a grindhouse/exploitation B-Action Movie  and it has no desire or aspirations to be anything but the best grindhouse/exploitation B-Action Movie it can be.

But there are plenty of touches here that elevate it to the top rung of B-Movies. First off, it’s a lot smarter than it has to be. It doesn’t have the satirical edge the comic strip does but it makes up for it with sharp characterization and plausible motivation. None of the characters are dumbed down so that they’ll play by the numbers. These are smart, dangerous people on both sides and they behave like it. The production is also highly unique looking. Mega-City One and Peach Tree has a look both realistic and functionally futuristic at the same time. It’s a good movie to look at just for the production design.

The movie doesn’t flinch away when it comes to the violence. Especially during gunfights which are shown from the point of view of those who have inhaled the Slo-Mo drug. Everything is then shown in slow motion. The idea is to capture the hallucinogenic feel of the drug user and the movie pulls it off in a way that I’ve really never seen before. People are getting taken out with head shots or having their guts blown into hamburger and the way it’s filmed is actually beautiful in a way.

The acting is wonderful with Karl Urban leading the way. He’s become one of my favorite actors in recent years and he gets another gold star from me for his commitment to the role. Just like the comic book character, Karl Urban’s Dredd never removes his helmet and we never see his face. Urban does all his work with his chin and his voice. He talks in a terrific pseudo-Clint Eastwood voice that isn’t exactly an imitation or impersonation but is just short of that. Urban manages to get in quite a bit of humor in a character that is essentially humorless. It cracked me up how no matter what Ma-Ma throws at them or how dire the situation got, Dredd never forgets that he’s supposed to be training Anderson and from time to time will ask her questions as if they’re in a classroom and not standing knee deep in dead bodies.

Since by his very nature we can’t get into Dredd’s head as he has no friends, no family and lives only to uphold the law we have to turn to Anderson for the movie’s emotional center and Olivia Thrilby does a better than average job of that. Anderson doesn’t wear a helmet because it would interfere with her psychic abilities so we get to see her face and the emotions at play in her as she tries her best to survive this hellish day. I really liked the adversarial relationship that develops between her and Kay as they play mind games with each other, trying to get the upper hand. Since Anderson is a psychic and can tell what others are thinking and feeling, she has to reconcile that gift with the duties a Judge must perform. Thrilby does a great job at portraying and balancing that conflict

And as one of the best bad guys I’ve seen in recent movies, Lena Headey doesn’t just take the cake. She steals the entire damn bakery. Ma-Ma is smarter, tougher and more sadistic than any man that works for her and Headey dives into the role with manic glee. Out of everybody in the wonderful cast she looks like she’s having the most fun.

So should you see DREDD? If you haven’t yet then you absolutely should set aside time for DREDD. It’s a perfect Saturday afternoon movie, perfectly cast and told in a direct, straightforward, pedal-to-the-metal manner. I had a great time watching it and I think you will as well. Just one little warning: the language in this movie is not for those of you with soft ears or gentle sensibilities and the violence is not for kids or those of you who don’t like violent movies. It grinds my grits when people watch R rated movies and spend the whole time complaining about the language, sex and/or violence. The movie rating is there for a reason and DREDD more than earns it’s R rating so don’t say you weren’t told.

Rated R

95 minutes

The Killer Elite

 

 

1975

United Artists

Directed by Sam Peckinpah

Produced by Martin Baum

Screenplay by Marc Norman and Stirling Silliphant

Based on the novel “Monkey In The Middle” by Robert Rostand

 

THE KILLER ELITE is most definitely a lesser Peckinpah entertainment. But lesser Sam Peckinpah is still better than most other directors on their best days. It hasn’t got the wild, chaotic and yet balletic violence of some of his earlier movies. It’s not as energetic as his other, earlier movies. And the story doesn’t deal with the themes Peckinpah is known for such as men searching for redemption and justification in a violent and dishonorable world. The two reasons for this could be because Sam Peckinpah wasn’t allowed to rewrite the screenplay and this was when Peckinpah began using cocaine. (allegedly it was the star of this movie, James Caan who introduced him to the stuff) and adding the yayo to Peckinpah’s already legendary intake of alcohol didn’t make for the best of working conditions.

In any case, whatever the reasons for the way it turned out, THE KILLER ELITE is essentially a straight-up cloak-and-dagger action flick. We got double crosses, gun fights, car chases, ninjas, martial arts…it all adds up to a satisfying package.

Mike Locken (James Caan) and George Hansen (Robert Duvall) are mercenaries working for a company called Communications Integrity. It’s a private intelligence/military/espionage corporation that contracts itself out to official government intelligence agencies to do the jobs that for one reason or another they can’t do. Locken and Hansen have been friends and partners for years and that’s the only thing that saves Locken on their last assignment together. Hansen has sold out to a rival corporation. He kills their latest client, an East European defector and goes against orders to kill Locken as well. Instead he shoots out Locken’s knee and elbow, crippling him.

As far as Locken’s bosses, Weybourne (Gig Young) and Cap Collis (Arthur Hill) are concerned, his career is over. But Locken undergoes an intensive period of rehabilitation that includes studying martial arts and actually becomes pretty damn fearsome at using his cane as a weapon. And the rehab pays off when Cap Collis comes to him with a job. An Asian client , Yuen Chung (Mako) needs protection from assassins while he’s in the United States. While the C.I.A. are supposedly in charge of his security they pass the job along to ComTeg because of who’s leading the assassination team: George Hansen.

Locken recruits two former ComTeg operatives as his backup for the assignment. Mac (Burt Young) is an expert driver who now owns his own garage where he builds custom made vehicles for security work. Jerome Miller (Bo Hopkins) is a weapons expert who doesn’t have all the spots on his dice. But what none of them are aware of is that they’re all pieces on a bloody chessboard and the game is an internal power struggle between Cap Collis and Weybourne.

You have to sit through a lot of plot exposition before getting to the good stuff but it’s worth it. I like the scenes of Locken regaining the use of his leg and arm and I appreciate that the story doesn’t turn him into a Jim Kelly level martial arts master. He’s good but he’s not that good. I enjoyed the humor in the scenes of him recruiting Mac and Miller. Burt Young and Bo Hopkins obviously are having a lot of fun in their scenes together and I wish they had had more. Burt Young gets a lot of mileage out of his character Mac who is an unashamed slob. Unkempt is a polite word for his appearance. But put him behind the wheel of a car or a .45 automatic in his hand and he’s pure dynamite. And quite unexpectedly he takes on the job of being Locken’s conscience, forcing Locken to re-evaluate his own worth in this shadow word of death and deceit.

There’s a couple of terrific action sequences such as a Chinatown shoot-out and a battle between Locken, Mac and a hoard of katana wielding ninja. There’s a really goofy scene involving Mac’s wife Josephine (Sondra Blake) who calls everybody ‘Mr. Davis’ when Locken is around. The funniest scene is probably the one where Mac is trying to defuse a bomb attached to the underside of their getaway car while a cop is standing over him, kicking his legs, demanding he come out from under there while Locken is calmly explaining to the cop why that isn’t such a hot idea.

So should you see THE KILLER ELITE? Yes. I will be the first to say it’s not one of Sam Peckinpah’s best but it’s a solid action flick that has good performances from everybody and more than enough story to hold your interest until the ass-kicking commences. Highly recommended.

 

122 minutes

Rated PG

Shoot ‘Em Up

2007

New Line Cinema

Written and Directed by Michael Davis

Produced by Susan Montford and Don Murphy

I’m going to give you the best recommendation I can give you for SHOOT ‘EM UP and it comes from my wife Patricia.  We went to see this movie and I was fully prepared for her to hate it.  86 minutes later the credits are rolling and I asked her what she thought of it.

“I loved it.” Says she, taking me totally by surprise and yet again reminding me that I should never be so arrogant as to presume to predict what a woman will think.

“What did you like about it?” I ask.

Patricia smiles at me and says quite seriously: “I like a movie that gives you exactly what the title says it will give you.”

And she’s right on the money: SHOOT ‘EM UP is exactly that and nothing more: a series of gloriously over the top, spectacularly inventive and violent shootouts that is hung on a plot so bizarre and outrageous that it leaves you with only two options: sit back and have a good time or just eject the DVD and watch  another movie.  Really.  SHOOT ‘EM UP is just that kind of movie.  It makes no apologies for what it is.  You either just have to go along or go home.

Mr. Smith (Clive Owen) is sitting on a bench waiting for a bus, eating raw carrots when a bleeding pregnant woman runs past him.  Five seconds later a bunch of guys with guns in a car screech past him, waving guns out of the windows and following the pregnant woman.  On an impulse, Mr. Smith follows and in a devastating gun battle wipes out the guys in the car and delivers the baby, severing the umbilical cord by firing a bullet through it.  The mother catches a round through the forehead and Mr. Smith goes on the run with the child.  He’s being pursued by Mr. Hertz (Paul Giamatti) a former FBI forensic profiler gone bad who now leads a team of badass gunslingers whose only job is to recover the child Mr. Smith is now caring for.

Mr. Smith enlists the aid of Donna Quintano (Monica Belluci) a prostitute whose specialty really comes in handy: you see, she fulfills men who have breast feeding fantasies.  So Mr. Smith offers her $5000 dollars to breast feed the baby while he goes about the business of annihilating the army of killers Mr. Hertz sends after him and maybe while he’s doing that he can find out why everybody seems intent on killing this baby.

If I told you that Mr. Smith eventually learns that the baby is tied into a dying Presidential candidate whose life can be saved only by the bone marrow of infants and his campaign is being bankrolled by a arms merchant you’d call me crazy. But it is what it is.  SHOOT ‘EM UP is the kind of movie that John Woo used to make before Hollywood destroyed his talent.  It’s a ‘movie’ movie if you know what I mean.  It makes no pretensions at being realistic.  It throws the most improbable characters, situations and plot twists at you and you either say; “What the hell, I’m having fun” or you say ‘Screw it.”  You kinda get what writer/director Michael Davis is going for in the first confrontation between Mr. Smith and Mr. Hertz when they’re pointing guns at each other while Mr. Smith, who is chewing a carrot says; “What’s up, Doc?” and Mr. Hertz responds with: “You wascilly wabbit, you” Clive Owen and Paul Giamatti are playing live action versions of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd who are really trying to kill each other with no bullshit.

Clive Owen is one of my favorite actors and he is obviously having a fun time playing the stone-faced hero who can escape from any situation and who handles a pair of 9mm Berettas almost as good as Chow Yun Fat.  He and Monica Belluci make a great team as the dysfunctional surrogate parents of the child that they have inherited and there is something honestly redeeming about the way they determine to protect this child.  Paul Giamatti is the one actor who is having the best time in this movie.  It’s so unlike anything he’s ever played before and you can see it in his eyes how much he’s enjoying himself.  And yeah, Giamatti makes for one great bad guy.

And how about those gunfights?  Take it from me: every single gunfight in SHOOT ‘EM UP is good enough that any other director would have ended his movie with any of them.  But here, they come one right after another.  Just when I thought the one I just saw was so outrageous that it couldn’t be topped here comes another one that  not only thrilled me with the sheer energy and audacity of the choreography but made me giggle like a schoolgirl as well. The daddy of ‘em all has to be the gunfight that takes place between Mr. Smith and a dozen assassins who have all jumped out of a plane and are plummeting to the ground while blasting away at each other. It’s a sequence that absolutely has to be seen to be believed.

So should you see SHOOT ‘EM UP?  If you’re an action movie junkie like me, you probably already have.  SHOOT ‘EM UP doesn’t have a single realistic moment in the movie.  But I enjoyed the hell out of the fact that the actors and filmmakers were willing to throw everything out the window and just have a good time telling a really out there story and do it with incredible action and their collective tongues firmly in their cheeks.  SHOOT ‘EM UP gives you exactly what the title says it’ll give you and if you expect any more than that then you paid your money for the wrong movie.

86 minutes

Rated R for graphic violence and language.  And I mean it.  There’s an extraordinary amount of violence here as well as a pretty graphic torture scene near the end.  And don’t even get me started on the scene where Clive Owen and Monica Belluci are having sex and he has to fight off half a dozen guys trying to kill them and continue having sex with her. They tried to copy this scene in “Drive Angry” but trust me, SHOOT ‘EM UP does it way better.

Bucktown

1975

MGM/UA Home Entertainment

Directed by Arthur Marks

Written by Bob Ellison

Produced by Bernard Schwartz

Whenever Blaxplotation fans get together and start discussing their favorite movies of the genre, I guarantee that BUCKTOWN is in the top ten, if not the top five. And with good reason. It stars three icons of the Blaxploitation genre who were able to move on when Blaxplotation died and find careers in the mainstream. And it’s an early film of Carl Weathers who went to find his own success in the “Rocky” movies as well as in “Action Jackson” and “Predator” as well television shows such as “In The Heat of The Night” and the cut down well before it’s time “Fortune Dane”.  And it’s a good story professionally acted and directed.

Duke Johnson (Fred Williamson) returns home to the small town of Buchanan, Alabama which is nicknamed ‘Bucktown’.  He only intends to stay in town long enough to bury his brother and then leave. But right from the moment he hits Bucktown, things ain’t right. The police force is openly racist and hostile. Duke finds out his brother died under seriously shady circumstances. And to make matters worse, it’ll take two months before the paperwork is done so that Duke can settle his brother’s estate.

He’s offered a solution by Harley (Bernie Hamilton) the amiable town drunk who worked for Duke’s brother.  Harley suggests that Duke re-open his brother’s bar/nightclub. After all, Duke’s got to stay in Bucktown anyway, right? What’s the harm?  The idea is met with no enthusiasm by Aretha (Pam Grier) who was in love with Duke’s brother.  Matter of fact, she doesn’t like Duke very much, period and sums up her feelings about him in one well-put sentence: “he ain’t nothin’ but a big city, jive ass spook!”

Duke re-opens the nightclub and quickly discovers that Harley left out one important detail: Police Chief Patterson (Art Lund) and his police force are shaking down everybody in Bucktown since its main businesses appear to be gambling, prostitution and drug dealing. Duke tries fighting back but it’s clear that he’s going to need help to clean up the town.

One phone call later and help diddy-bops into Bucktown in the form of Roy (Thalmus Rasulala) Duke’s oldest friend who grew up with him and served with him in the military. Roy comes with his crew: Hambone (Carl Weathers) T.J. (Tony King) and Josh (Gene Simms) and once these guys get started, there simply isn’t any stopping them.

In short order, Roy and his crew brutally and viciously slaughters the corrupt cops and I do mean slaughter. These guys do not believe in taking prisoners and once the smoke clears, there’s nobody left standing but them.  Now quite naturally everybody thinks Roy and his crew are going to go back where they came from but such is not the case.  Because after checking out the action in Bucktown, Roy sees no reason why he shouldn’t step into the vacuum he created and run Bucktown himself.  And it becomes quickly obvious that Roy and his crew are far worse than Patterson and his corrupt cops ever were.  Even though Roy orders his men to steer clear of Duke, T.J and Hambone don’t think that’s fair and they initiate their own plan to drive a wedge into the friendship of the two men and turn them against each other.  It takes Harley being beaten nearly to death and Aretha almost being raped to make Duke realize that it’s his responsibility to put things to right in Bucktown or die trying…

BUCKTOWN has got a bit more meat on the plot than most Blaxplotation movies and I suppose that’s why it’s still remembered to this day. It’s also a different movie for Fred Williamson and Pam Grier in a lot of ways.  Fred Williamson doesn’t play his usual ultra-hip superdude with a quick quip and easy smile for every situation.  He’s actually pretty reserved through much of the movie until the end when he finally gets sick of Roy’s shit and decides that no, he ain’t gonna take it anymore.

Pam Grier herself isn’t the Filmic Goddess of War she usually plays.  She acts as Duke’s conscience, pointing out to him the necessity of his doing the right thing and taking responsibility for dealing with Roy.  Thalmus Rasulala is marvelous as usual.  He was one of those actors who never seemed to turn in a bad performance no matter what role he played or what movie he’s in. Besides his many roles in Blaxplotation movies he also played the father of Kunta Kinte in ‘Roots’.  If you only know Bernie Hamilton from “Starsky and Hutch” you’ll be surprised at seeing him here as a washed up ex-pro football player who likes pulling a cork way too much.  Carl Weathers makes the most of his supporting role here and it’s interesting seeing him play a bad guy.  The only actor in the movie I can’t stand is Tierre Turner who was one of the most annoying child actors of the 70’s.  He’s since gone on to become one of the best and most respected stunt coordinators in the business and I’m happy for him since acting plainly wasn’t for him.

So should you see BUCKTOWN?  If you’re a fan of Blaxplotation, you probably already have.  If you haven’t then this movie is an excellent place to start, especially since it stars Fred Williamson, Pam Grier and Thalmus Rasulala.  Your education in Blaxplotation isn’t complete until you’ve seen them at work.

As usual, whenever I review a movie from the 70’s and 80’s I feel I should inform you that these movies were made in a time before Political Correctness and as so, racism and sexism is all over the place. And the violence isn’t played for laughs. It’s downright brutal and messy. If you have a thin skin and are easily offended then by all means, stay away from BUCKTOWN.  But if you’re made of sterner stuff and want to dip into film history and spend some time with a true classic of the genre, by all means, enjoy.

And here’s a P.S. for you: BUCKTOWN was remade in 2004 as “Full Clip” which starred Busta Rhymes in the Fred Williamson role and Xzibit in the Thalmus Rasulala role.

94 minutes

Rated R

The Warriors

1979

Paramount

Directed by Walter Hill

Produced by Lawrence Gordon, Frank Marshall and Joel Silver

Written by David Shaber and Walter Hill

Based on the novel by Sol Yurick

The one Walter Hill movie that everybody can agree on that they love without reservation whatsoever is his 1979 masterpiece THE WARRIORS.  Walter Hill took equal parts of the western, comic books and Greek literature, threw them in a blender and poured this movie out onto the screen.  It’s a tribute to his skill as a director that the movie is still as well known today as when it first had its original theatrical.  Just mention THE WARRIORS to most people, even if they aren’t movie fans and they know it.  Practically everybody I know has seen THE WARRIORS  at least two or three times and if you mention it as a favorite of yours they  will either throw their arms open like Cyrus and howl: “Can You Dig IT?” or imitate David Patrick Kelly: “Warrrriors….come out to playyyyy-aayyyyyy….”

THE WARRIORS takes place in a New York that is overrun by gangs.  Originally, Walter Hill wanted to have a subtitle saying: “Sometime In The Future” but I think he should have set the movie in the alternate world urban jungle of “Streets Of Fire” since this New York has little in common with the New York of our world.  It seems almost entirely populated by gangs and cops and we see almost no regular Joe or Jane Punchclocks in the film.

A charismatic gang leader, Cyrus (Roger Hill) of The Gramercy Riffs has summoned representatives of every gang in the city to come to a meeting in The Bronx.  During a massive rally where Cyrus comes across as a Malcolm X of gangdom, he outlines his plan: collectively, the gangs outnumber the cops nearly five to one.  If they all stop fighting over each other’s  little piece of turf and join forces, the entire city of New York can be theirs   The gangs are behind Cyrus and his plan but he is shot and killed by the psychotic Luther (David Patrick Kelly) of The Rogues.  The gang rally is raided by the NYPD and using the confusion to his advantage, Luther places the blame the killing of Cyrus on The Warriors.  The Warrior leader Cleon (Dorsey Wright) is jumped and killed by The Gramercy Riffs while the remaining Warriors have no choice to run for their lives with every gang in New York as well as the cops after them.  This means they have to battle every mile of the way from The Bronx back to their home turf of Coney Island in Brooklyn using the subway for transportation.

Now take it from somebody who has lived in New York all their life and this is no lie: You can take an airplane from New York to Florida in a shorter amount of time than you can take a train from The Bronx to Brooklyn and that’s without a horde of gangs trying to kill you or cops trying to arrest you.  The Warriors have to do it in one night and it’s one hell of a night indeed.

Like most great stories, it’s a simple and time-tested one.  Indeed, the supposed inspiration for THE WARRIORS is based on the Greek story of ‘Anabasis’, which is about a band of Greek mercenaries betrayed and stranded far from home and their desperate march to safety.  But I’ve seen any number of westerns where Army patrols or wagon trains are lost and stranded in Indian territory and have to fight their way to safety and Walter Hill himself would use this theme again in his “Streets Of Fire” where his small band of heroes have to once again fight their way out of a dangerous, hostile land and get back to the safety of familiar home ground.   All of these genres have echoes in THE WARRIORS as well as comic books, which is what Walter Hill himself has said THE WARRIORS is: a live action comic book.

And I can see where he’s coming from.  Certainly there have never been real life gangs in New York like The Gramercy Riffs who dress in tailor-fitted karate outfits or The Boppers who wear purple vests, neatly pressed shirts, ties, applejacks and have spats on their shoes or The High-Hats who look like mimes wearing Abraham Lincoln stovepipe hats and let’s not forget The Baseball Furies who look like The New York Mets in Kiss makeup.

And take the racial makeup of The Warriors, for instance.  While every other gang in the movie is shown as having racial/ethnic roots, The Warriors are plainly multi-cultural with three blacks, two guys who look as if they could be Italian, one guy who looks as if he might be Polish, two possible Hispanics and one guy who could conceivably be anything you like.

Originally, Walter Hill wanted The Warriors to be an all-black gang but the producers put their foot down on that right quick and said no.  I notice they didn’t have any problem with The Gramercy Riffs, who are the nominal bad guys orchestrating the nightlong hunt for The Warriors be all black, though.  And as I said earlier, we hardly see anybody else in the movie besides the gangs and the cops and that lends to the alternate world feel of the movie.  This is a strangely depopulated New York; unusual for a city that is active 24/7/365.

I’d like to be able to say that the movie has outstanding performances but I honestly can’t.  Most of the actors in the movie were just starting out and went onto other films where their acting abilities could really shine but here, the main thing is the atmosphere, the style, the action and the suspense of us wondering if The Warriors are going to make it back to Brooklyn.  Michael Beck plays Swan who leads The Warriors after Cleon is killed and he goes through the movie with clenched jaw and single minded determination to get his men home.  A baby-faced James Remar is Ajax, the chief ass-kicker of the gang who is taken out of the movie much too soon.  Deborah Van Valkenberg is Mercy who is originally part of The Orphans but switches to The Warriors and she probably turns in the best acting job of the movie as she does a great job of showing Mercy’s thirst for the sex and violence gang life brings.  There’s a scene where a Warrior is fighting with a cop and she’s standing there watching, eyes shining brightly, breathing heavily and obviously sexually excited by the violence.  And there’s a fight in a subway men’s bathroom where she gleefully throws herself into the middle of the fight and again it’s obvious she’s getting a sexual charge out of big sweaty guys beating the hell outta each other.  And we won’t even talk about what she does on Friday or Saturday nights except to say that when you watch the movie, look at the expression on her face when she talks about what she does on Friday and Saturday nights and how Saturday nights are better than Friday.

I’d like to also mention the late Lynn Thigpen who plays The DJ who during the night is giving out information to the gangs hunting The Warriors and plays records to taunt them as her character puts an interesting spin on the action we’re watching.  Listening to her and her constant sports references, I realized that the action of THE WARRIORS was a metaphor for…and don’t laugh…a baseball game.  Her character acts as a commentator of the action.  The Warriors are the home team who start out with nine men and the NYPD act as referees who remove any Warrior who deviates from their goal of trying to get back home (yer out!).  The subways are the base lines and each stop where The Warriors have a fight are all bases.  The  first one is in the park with The Baseball Furies.   The second one is in the lair of the Lizzies, a lesbian gang.  And the third one is in the Union Station Bathroom with The Punks.  Or maybe I’m reading more into it than is really there.  You tell me.

And no review of THE WARRIORS can be complete with mentioning David Patrick Kelly who plays Luther.  Most of the best moments in the movie come from him and his really loopy performance, especially the classic scene where he has three empty Budweiser bottles on his fingers and he’s clinking them together, exhorting The Warriors to “come out and playyyyyy-ayyyyyy”.  But I really like the scene where Michael Beck asks him why did he kill Cyrus and throw the city’s gangs into a frenzy?  Kelly replies simply: “I like doing stuff like that…it’s fun.”  No high-minded motives for this cat.

So should you see THE WARRIORS?  Most of you reading this have probably seen it already and more than one time so I’m preaching to the choir when I say it’s an absolute action masterpiece that is necessary viewing.  For those of you who haven’t seen it, I strongly advise you to Netflix THE WARRIORS the next time you’re sitting at home on the weekend wondering what to rent.  It’s a perfect Saturday night movie and despite the acting and somewhat silly dialog at times, the movie overcomes those shortcomings with a solid story and some really cool action/fight scenes. THE WARRIORS has well deserved its reputation.  It’s simply and truly one hell of a good movie and should be seen on nothing more than that basis.

93 minutes

Rated R: I can’t believe that viewers today would actually be offended by the violence in THE WARRIORS.  It’s not even comic book violence as comic books nowadays are far more violent than this movie.  Even the language isn’t all that bad.  I don’t know if that’s a reflection on us as a society today or what but hey, I just review movies, not society.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hanna

2011

Focus Features

Directed by Joe Wright

Produced by Marty Adelstein

Screenplay by David Farr

 

HANNA is a movie that I fear I may be doing a disservice to as I wasn’t in the mood for the type of movie it is.  It’s an espionage/revenge film with some nifty fight scenes (Eric Bana has the best ones) a straightforward plot and some good performances with enough characters bits and quirks that had me chuckling a couple of times.  Which usually is enough to satisfy me in this genre.  But there are plot holes large enough to throw bowling balls through.  And it’s an action movie told and filmed as though it were an art house movie.  But then again, what can you expect from the director of 2005’s “Pride and Prejudice” and “Atonement”?  I’ve not got a thing at all against a director attempting to tell an old story in a new way but this way wasn’t my huckleberry.  But again, I say that could be because I was more in the mood for some good ol’ fashioned shoot-em-up-punchy-punchy-run-run and HANNA isn’t that.

Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) is a sixteen-year old girl who has spent her entire life raised in isolation.  Her whole world has been a cabin in Finland and the icy wasteland surrounding it.  Her father, rogue CIA agent Eric Heller (Eric Bana) has unrelentingly trained her to be a killer, pure and simple.  Hanna has extraordinary hand-to-hand combat skills, can live off the land and speak half a dozen languages fluently.  Her drawback is that Eric has taught her nothing of the outside world.  But she knows it’s out there and she wants to go and see what it’s like for herself.

Eric pulls out a transmitter he’s kept hidden all these years and tells Hanna if she’s truly ready to go, flip the switch to turn it on.  He warns her that if she does, their enemies will come for them.  Hanna turns it on.  The transmitter sends out a signal that alerts CIA agent Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett) that Eric is still alive.  She deploys a team to dispatch him but most of them end up getting dispatched themselves.  The survivors come back with Hanna, while Eric goes on the run, hiding out in Berlin.  Surprisingly enough, Hanna demands to speak with Marissa who is too smart to meet with Hanna herself.  She sends an agent in her place who is murdered by Hanna in an amazingly cold-blooded scene.   Hanna escapes from the high tech holding facility she’s been locked in, discovering to her amazement that she’s now in Morocco.  While wandering around, Hanna meets up with Sophie (Jessica Barden) who befriends her and persuades her parents (Jason Flemyng and Olivia Williams) to give Hanna a lift to Berlin.  Hanna’s dad has had her memorize a number of fake back stories which she uses to convince Sophie’s parents she’s simply a very independent young lady traveling on her own (they seem to completely overlook the fact she has no money, no passport and no luggage) and she hitches a ride with them.  So while Hanna gets a crash course in the ways of the world from her new surrogate family, Eric Heller and Marissa Wiegler continue to play out a deadly game of cat-and-mouse, bound by a dark and deadly secret they are actually eager to kill each other over in order to keep it buried.

When we stick with the espionage stuff, we’ve got us a pretty good movie.  Cate Blanchett appears to be having a good time being bad.  The only thing off about her performance is that she loses her American southern accent right in mid-sentence in some scenes and I’m wondering if she did it on purpose, especially given what we learn about her and her relationship to Eric Heller and Hanna.  And no, it’s not what you’re thinking.

I always enjoy spy/espionage movies set in Europe as they seem to be darker and less frivolous than American-set movies of the genre and HANNA takes advantage of great locations such as Germany, Morocco and Finland.  I only wish the story didn’t have such obvious holes.  Eric Heller has raised Hanna in a totally technological free environment for sixteen years yet she can work a computer to Google information about DNA research.  Sophie’s hippie family is embarrassingly ignorant.  And there are way too many fairy tales references thrown into the movie to try and give it that feel.  Especially near the end when Marissa’s role as The Wicked Witch/Evil Stepmother is practically spelled out in neon.

So should you see HANNA?  It’s an interesting movie; I’m not going to deny that.  I can’t think of the last time I saw an art house espionage movie and HANNA is well made, I’ll give it that.  It just didn’t engage me on an emotional level or make me care about its characters or what happened to them.  I say wait until it comes to Netflix.

PG-13

111 minutes

260 Movies You Really Oughta See

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Tropic Thunder

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EPIC DRAMAS

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A Raisin in The Sun

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Imitation of Life

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Lolita

Nothing But A Man

On The Beach

Raging Bull

Rocky

Schindler’s List

Seven Samurai

Shawshank Redemption

Spartacus

Taxi Driver

The Bad and The Beautiful

The Lion In Winter

The Ten Commandments

The Third Man

To Have and Have Not

Twelve Angry Men (both versions)

Vertigo

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Cape Fear (both versions)

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FANTASY

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Jason And The Argonauts

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SPORTS

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CHICK FLICKS

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Pretty Woman

Sense and Sensibility

Steel Magnolias

Terms of Endearment

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Waiting to Exhale

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SCIENCE FICTION

2001: A Space Odyssey

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence

Alien

Back To The Future

Blade Runner

Dark City

Dr. Cyclops

Enemy Mine

eXistenZ

Forbidden Planet

Gattaca

Planet of The Apes

Robocop

Soylent Green

The Blob (both versions)

The Bride of Frankenstein

Westworld

 

ACTION/ADVENTURE

48 Hours

Aliens

All Through The Night

Big Trouble In Little China

Die Hard

Dr. No

Enter The Dragon

Equilibrium

Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom

Jurassic Park

King Kong (Original & Peter Jackson remake)

Mad Max

North by Northwest

Predator

Raiders of The Lost Ark

Silver Streak

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

The 13th Warrior

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The Road Warrior

The Terminator

 

WESTERNS

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Hidalgo

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Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid

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The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

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The Professionals

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MUSICALS

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Dreamgirls

Grease

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How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying

Jesus Christ, Superstar

Little Shop of Horrors

Singin’ In the Rain

South Pacific

The Blues Brothers

The Music Man

The Sound of Music

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

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WAR MOVIES

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Full Metal Jacket

Kelly’s Heroes

Letters From Iwo Jima

M*A*S*H

Paths of Glory

Platoon

Saving Private Ryan

The Bridge Over The River Kwai

The Dirty Dozen

Where Eagles Dare

 

HORROR

American Werewolf in London

Angel Heart

Halloween

House on Haunted Hill (1959)

Night of The Hunter

Night of The Living Dead

Nightmare on Elm Street

Poltergeist

Psycho

Stir of Echoes

The Abominable Dr. Phibes

The Black Cat

The Changeling

The Exorcist

The Haunting (1963)

The Last Man on Earth

The Thing (both versions)

 

ODDITIES

Barton Fink

Blue Velvet

Crash

Dogma

Donnie Darko

Edward Scissorhands

Eraserhead

Ghostbusters

Heathers

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Miracle Mile

Naked Lunch

Videodrome

Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

 

CRIME

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Ghost Dog: Way of The Samurai

Goodfellas

Heat

Jackie Brown

L.A. Confidential

Miller’s Crossing

Pulp Fiction

Scarface

Shadow of a Doubt

Shaft(1971)

Sin City

The Conversation

The Departed

The Godfather Trilogy

The Maltese Falcon

The Thin Man

 

SUPERHERO

Batman (1969)

Batman (1989)

Batman Begins

Danger: Diabolik

Hellboy

Hulk

Iron Man

Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins

Sky High

Spider-Man

Superman

The Phantom

Dick Tracy

The Rocketeer

The Shadow

Unbreakable

 

ANIMATION

A Boy Named Charlie Brown

American Pop

Antz

Chicken Run

Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs

Despicable Me

Fantasia

Finding Nemo

Happy Feet

Heavy Metal

Laputa: Castle In The Sky

Lilo And Stitch

Streetfight

The Aristocats

The Castle of Cagliostro

The Incredibles

The Lion King

The Tune

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