Driven (2001)

There have been a number of very enjoyable movies based in the world of Formula One racing (not least of which is the excellent F1). Driven is not one of them. It's a star vehicle for Sylvester Stallone, an empty slice of dullness from director Renny Harlin, and a film you can easily point to as an example of the worst of mainstream "blockbuster" entertainment.

Kip Pardue plays Jimmy Bly, a young racing car driver struggling to achieve his full potential. His big main rival is Beau Brandenburg (Til Schweiger). He needs to gain an edge though, and that's not going to come from his brother (Robert Sean Leonard), who is also thinking in terms of branding and profits. Never fear, because here comes Joe Tanto (Sylvester Stallone), an older legend who may be able to help Jimmy get the victories that he needs to end the season on top.

As well as starring, Stallone is the one responsible for the screenplay here (fleshing out what I can only presume is a slim story concept from Jan Skrentny and Neal Tabachnick). Although he's written some great films in the past, Stallone now often seems most concerned with writing tales that add to the legend that is Stallone. This is one of his weakest efforts, absolutely not helped by the fact that most viewers may struggle, as I did, to figure out just who is supposed to be our lead. 

Harlin helps when he can, actually delivering a couple of driving sequences that are fun and visceral, but he also settles far too easily into sticking with material that is flawed, at best, and absolutely preposterous. There's an excitement during the race scenes, yes, but it's not enough to make up for the flat and one-dimensional characters, and I don't have the time or space to lay out all of my complaints about the mistreatment of the characters portrayed by Stacy Edwards, Estella Warren, and Gina Gershon.  

Pardue doesn't have the charisma or presence to carry a movie like this. In fact, he has NO charisma or presence. Schweiger at least has something to him, but he's stuck playing someone that viewers aren't sure whether they're supposed to like or hate. Stallone is Stallone, and he does Stallone stuff (being the wise old man who the young whippersnappers underestimate). Burt Reynolds gets to add nothing, Leonard is almost consistently annoying throughout, and the aforementioned ladies must have started every day on set hoping for a major script change that would allow them to be more than just reflectors for the glow of the leading men.

There's a pretty good soundtrack, although it's also a very "of the time" soundtrack, and some of the CGI works well (although some really doesn't). That's about all of the positives though. I could tolerate this while it was on, but I don't ever want to see it again. Even in comparison to other trashy "treats" from the past few decades, this is painful stuff. And nobody should even consider it when you have the likes of F1, Gran Turismo, Rush, and a few other superior racing features to choose from nowadays. 

4/10

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Thanksgiving (2023)

Whether directly or indirectly, the Grindhouse movie is arguably one of the more influential "failures" of the past couple of decades. So many other films have taken a cue from it, and some of the fun fake trailers have now been made into full features. We've had TWO Machete movies by now, one Hobo With A Shotgun, and now Thanksgiving, a film that fans were wanting to see made as soon as they started laughing at the entertaining ridiculousness of Eli Roth's trailer. 

Things start off with some Black Friday carnage, and I do mean carnage. As openers go, Thanksgiving has a corker. It's gory, it presents a varied group of people who could all then have a motivation to kill, and it's memorable. If the rest of the film was then a much more subdued piece, saving major kills for the final act, then it would still be worth your time. It's certainly not subdued though, and the kills are well-spaced throughout, as well as being nicely constructed (from the playful camerawork to the gore gags). The killer is someone wearing a John Carver mask, and, as the tagline says, there will be no leftovers.

Written by Jeff Rendell, who worked on developing the original concept with Roth and making the most of the premise (ensuring enough space for all of the trimmings, shall we say), Thanksgiving is an absolute blast from start to finish. The younger cast members, including Nell Verlaque, Addison Rae, Jalen Thomas Brooks, Milo Manheim, Thomas Sanelli, Gabriel Davenport, and Jenna Warren, all do a decent job of trying to unmask a killer before he or she takes them all out of the picture, and the likes of Patrick Dempsey, Gina Gershon, Tim Dillon, Rick Hoffman, and Karen Cliche do well as the adults who may find themselves in just as much danger as the youngsters. Joe Delfin is right in the middle of those two main groups, which gives me a chance to single him out here as an extra treat in a film full of them.

Roth is a divisive figure, although you could say that about almost any horror movie director to have emerged in the 21st century. I certainly see why some would take such a dislike to him though, with his worryingly easy way of channeling the voice of at least one typical douchebro into most of his movies. He certainly knows what slasher movie fans want to see though, and delivers it in spades. Maintaining just the right tone throughout, no easy feat when it comes to a couple of the more memorable set-pieces, Roth and Rendell present a fine selection of red herrings, some imaginative kills, and the expected reveal and explanation during the grand finale. The humour works well, especially when it's underlining the holiday theme of the murders, and the survivors do just enough to keep you rooting for them at the end, even if they aren't exactly the most immediately likeable individuals.

I tend to like Roth movies, although I have often had to rewatch them to fully make my mind up. He may be abrasive, he may be over-exposed, and he may sometimes let his mouth write cheques that his film-making body can't cash, but he certainly knows the specific horror movies that he likes to reference and be influenced by. Thanksgiving is impressive because it not only manages to deliver the slasher movie goodies, but it does so without making use of the self-aware and meta layering that almost every other big American slasher movie has contained since Wes Craven helped that style become hugely popular. 

That's not cranberry sauce being sprayed around the place, and this is definitely no turkey.

8/10

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Netflix And Chill: Emily The Criminal (2022)

Although I like her onscreen presence, and although she tends to pick a variety of interesting projects, Aubrey Plaza being in a movie isn't ever a guarantee that I will enjoy it. That seems to be changing though, especially in the movies that also have her serving in some kind of producer role, and Emily The Criminal is one of her best roles yet.

A feature debut from writer-director John Patton Ford, this is the tale of a young woman who struggles to get a decent break in life. She is weighed down by mistakes in her past, including a felony charge and a whole lot of student loan debt, but she knows that the current system is making things much harder than they need to be. Eventually offered the chance to make a quick $200 in a credit card scam, Emily sees a way to massively improve her life. The scam is overseen by Youcef (Theo Rossi), who ends up teaching Emily more and more ways to improve her profit-making opportunities. But with greater reward comes greater risks, of course.

While I went into this expecting a decent little character study, from the title and the marketing of the movie, I soon realised that it was interested in offering a bit more than that. Emily The Criminal IS all about Emily, and her new-found talent for some criminal activities, but it's also a reminder of just how badly the system works against people who struggle and sweat through years to make up for the ongoing repercussions of past mistakes. Although it won't happen to everyone, many people will have made one or two mistakes in their youth that lands them in trouble with the police, and even more people will end up in some kind of debt (planned or unplanned) at least once. Emily The Criminal shows how hard it is to move away from those things, especially in a society that has now seemingly stacked the odds in favour of employers who want to make use of unpaid interns, employees trapped by the need to keep working all hours of the day to make the most of their low wage, and the apparently blissful move towards a "gig economy". That last part was meant to be completely sarcastic, by the way.

Ford packs a lot of great little moments into the 97-minute runtime, whether it's showing us Emily attending a job interview being conducted by someone trying to blindside her with information about her past, the tense transactions where Emily wants her fraud to go undetected until she is away from the shop/seller/buyer, or a fantastic exchange between our lead and a powerful employer (Gina Gershon) who thinks she is doing someone a huge favour by offering them, well, something that isn't a huge favour.

Plaza is excellent in her role, adding a tooughness and determination to her usual constant eye-rolling at the awfulness of the world and people around her. It's arguably the best role she's had in a long time, and she sinks her teeth into it with vigour. Rossi is also great in the role of Youcef, a young man who ends up running a successful crime scene without having to be the typically brutal and unfeeling crime boss. The real sense of menace comes from Youcef's partner/cousin, Khalil, and Jonathan Avigdori does very well with that character. Gershon tries hard to steal her one scene, and it's a great back and forth with Plaza there, and there is also excellent support from Megalyn Echikunwoke (a friend, arguably), Bernardo Badillo (a colleague who leads Emily to her new "career opportunity"), as well as Craig Stark, Sarah Allyn Bauer, and everyone else helping to make the onscreen world feel busier and more realistic than it actually is.

I'm not sure if this will win over anyone yet to come around to Plaza, she's an acquired taste and some just won't ever take to the various shades of her standard onscreen persona, but it's certainly a film that I recommend everyone makes time for. Some will view it as a justification of criminals committing crimes. I view it as a condemnation of a society that doesn't do anything more than give lip service to the ideas of rehabilitation, self-care, and self-improvement.

9/10

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Mubi Monday: Demonlover (2002)

On the one hand, Demonlover is a superficially-dull film about corporate espionage that takes a turn for the dark and twisted in the second half (although there is one crime committed very early on that should clue viewers in to where this particular journey is going). On the other hand, Demonlover is intriguingly transgressive and focused on the main thesis from writer-director Olivier Assayas.

Connie Nielsen plays Diane, a woman who arranges to take over from her superior, Karen (Dominique Reymond), as the company she works for prepares to acquire rights  from a Japanese anime company that will given them ownership of a hell of a lot of hentai. And when they have the product, they need to sort out distribution. Which leads them to delve deeper into the murky depths of the internet.

Whether you like his films or not, and I often like them (with the exception of Boarding Gate), Assayas is a director who always seems to take on projects that allow him to explore something he feels genuinely invested in. That may be the blurred lines between fiction and non-fiction, the power of grief, a turbulent part of history, or the difficulty of ageing within a movie industry that almost always values youth and image above everything else. This time around, his focus is on how we consume media, and how easy it is to feel free to do anything while enjoying anonymity.

What could have so easily been a “do you know where your kids are?” scare piece about the perils of the internet, and we have a number of those already (some of which remain mind-bogglingly highly praised), instead becomes a look at how things can be amplified, online and on screens, for people who have already been acclimatized to more extreme content, resulting in an unending, and unsatisfying, search for the next thing that can seize the attention of consumers. Although less feverish, this feels like an interesting step along from Videodrome, the two covering some similar ground, albeit with different formats at the heart of things.

Nielsen is very good in her role, surprisingly effective at being thoroughly nasty and easy to dislike. There’s also a strong supporting turn from Chloë Sevigny, and Gina Gershon steals a couple of scenes when she appears about a third of the way into the runtime. Charles Berling is the least known (to me) of the main players, but he does a good job in the role of Hervé, the boss who doesn’t realise the real agendas of a number of people working for him.

There’s an excellent soundtrack to help things along, particularly in the first half when things seem happier and less grimy, and a third act that skirts very close to outright horror. Overall, this is a pretty great film that only suffers from the fact that Assayas didn’t dive fully into genre. But, then again, Assayas has rarely let himself be confined by typical genre parameters.

8/10

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Prime Time: Cocktail (1988)

Everyone knows that it can be a great life when you make some money working in a bar. Get hired in the right place and you can get great tips, be paid for having fun, and try to boost your sex life. There was also a time, throughout the 1980s, when everyone was encouraged to grab the American dream by the throat, make millions in some comfortable job that allowed you to go full yuppie, and generally have much more money than taste (or manners). Cocktail, one of a number of classic Tom Cruise films that helped him solidify his superstar status, comes up with what seems to be a perfect combination of these life dreams, focusing on a cocky young man who wants to have the fun, wants to have the money, and wants to have a level of respect afforded to him that is rarely given to anyone who is “just a bartender”.

Written by Heywood Gould, and based on his own book, this is a film that somehow ends up being even worse than you remember. I may be wrong, but I don’t THINK many people genuinely loved this when it was released. It was a hit, there were things to enjoy (the soundtrack being a big plus), and it had Cruise being at his most desperately alpha male (can pick up any woman he wants, will make his dreams a reality by sheer force of will, happy to start fighting people when he feels wronged, etc), but even those who enjoyed seeing this when it was first released surely had a number of better films they would always revisit ahead of it. 

I should try to sketch out the plot, and I will put more words here than necessary. Cruise is Brian Flanagan, a young man who has just left the military and wants to make his fortune. He ends up working in a bar alongside Doug Coughlin (Bryan Brown), being taught both bar skills and valuable life lessons. One thing leads to another, which leads to Brian working at a bar on a sun-drenched beach, where he meets the lovely Jordan Mooney (Elisabeth Shue), but Brian seems unlikely to be able to ever commit to a full and honest relationship. Can he overcome the big obstacle of his own making by the time the end credits roll? Does a Bloody Mary have tomato juice in it?

Director Roger Donaldson knows the movie he is making here. It isn’t a dark drama. It isn’t an unpredictable journey through the heart of American maleness. It isn’t a “How To” guide for those wanting to segue from bartending to the world of big business. It’s a Tom Cruise movie. And Tom Cruise needs to be Tom Cruise, but at a stage where he can still be taught a thing or two by his elders. 

Cruise aside, and I guess he does fine here (although this is arguably his most obnoxious onscreen role), the real treat of Cocktail is listening to the ridiculous wisdom imparted by Brown, who serves as both a mentor and a grave warning to our “hero”. Brown matches Cruise in terms of attitude and presence, but also shows how quickly someone can become tiresome and laughable when trying to retain an air of cool superiority. Shue is also a welcome presence, even if she is treated as poorly by the script as you might expect. She’s not EXACTLY a trapped princess waiting to be rescued by a brave prince, but it’s pretty damn close. Gina Gershon, Kelly Lynch, and Lisa Barnes all turn up to play three very different women who cross paths with one, or both, of our drink movers and shakers, but it’s only Gershon who is allowed to have a bit of resistance to the charms of Tom, and Roger Dean is good fun in a small role, playing Uncle Pat, who also delivers wisdom while tending his own small bar.

Much like the flair bartending tricks and flourishes at the heart of this, Cocktail is ultimately impractical, pointless, and superficial. It is a showy distraction, but it’s also moderately entertaining while you watch it. And you can always practice those moves at home, in private, with the soundtrack blasting from your speakers. 

5/10

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My Dead Boyfriend (2016)

Directed by Anthony Edwards (yes, THAT Anthony Edwards), My Dead Boyfriend is the kind of film that thinks it is being quirky and cool and fun. And it's the kind of film that fails miserably at being all of those things.

Heather Graham plays Mary, a young woman who finds her day going from bad to worse when she gets home to discover that her boyfriend is, as you may have already guessed from the title, an ex-boyfriend, in the shuffled off the mortal coil sense. This isn't the worst thing in the world really, mainly because he was a lazy loser. Or was he? As Mary tries to make arrangements for the deceased, she starts to discover that he was quite a talented and well-known figure. He just didn't seem to make the same effort for her.

Did you know that Heather Graham is now 48 years old? 48??? I was going to replace a standard review of this movie with many paragraphs of me simply verbalising my incredulity at how Ms Graham looks almost exactly the same nowadays as she did two decades ago but then I realised that people would think me a tad shallow, and maybe obsessed with Heather Graham (whom I first fell a little bit in love with when she starred in Licence To Drive). But, come on, can we all just admit that she must have spent at least the past few years bathing in the blood of virgins? No? Okay, sorry, I'll move on.

Anywayyyyy . . . Graham is always someone I like seeing in films, which isn't the same as saying she is always right for the role. Her quality of work can vary wildly, and many would say she misses more than she hits, but I will always watch a film with her involved. This performance is a miss. She doesn't exude the right appeal that the character needs to make up for her many lousy decisions, she doesn't do well with any of the potential comedy, and she doesn't handle the dramatic moments any better.

The script, by Billy Morrissette (based on a novel by Arthur Nersesian), doesn't help, and nor does the direction from Edwards. As I said in the first paragraph, this is trying to be cool and quirky and fun and ends up not being any of those things. The characters never feel like more than paper-thin figures only moving around to make things inconvenient for one another, and the visuals and soundtrack both fail to liven up the proceedings, somehow sapping the energy from every scene rather than adding to it.

Katherine Moennig is good, but not onscreen enough, as Zoe, Mary's best friend, Scott Michael Foster is okay as a decent guy who ends up in the right place at an odd time, Griffin Dunne can't do enough to make his mishandled character seem any better, Gina Gershon gets to do an accent, and Martha Millan gets to have a chip on her shoulder, which she does well.

My Dead Boyfriend is one of the least memorable films I have watched in recent years, certainly in terms of films with one or two familiar names involved. And this is coming from someone who loves Heather Graham. If you don't like her (because some people are weird like that) then feel free to deduct another point from my rating.

3/10

You can stream the film here.
Americans can buy it on disc here.

Bound (1996)

Written and directed by the hugely talented Wachowski siblings, Bound is a sleek and sexy neo-noir, perfectly cast and paced, and shot with the same eye for visuals that would develop further in their future hits.

Jennifer Tilly plays Violet, a frustrated and unhappy woman living with Caesar (Joe Pantoliano). Caesar is a small cog in the big machine that is the mob. He launders money, as well as doing some other odd jobs. It's enough to give them a decent life, but Violet wants out. She sees a chance to do that when she falls for Corky (Gina Gershon), an ex-con who has just moved into the apartment next door. As Violet and Corky spend some time developing a relationship, Violet discusses a plan that could leave them with everything they want. Caesar is holging just over $2M in the apartment in a suitcase. If that money was stolen, in a way that was made to look like it was done by Johnnie Marzzone (Christopher Meloni), then Caesar would just have to run. He hates Johnnie, but the man is the son of the big boss, Gino Marzzone (Richard C. Sarafian). But it's never quite that easy to get everything you want.

Although the script is decent enough, this is a movie that's all about the style and the characters onscreen. The plot isn't as twisty and turny as other neo-noirs, but there are enough moments of added tension to keep viewers interested until they get to the conclusion.

Tilly and Gershon are both excellent in their roles, very believable in their attraction to one another and both smart enough to deal with the many potential obstacles that may thwart their plan. Joe Pantoliano is his usual greatness, clearly enjoying how he gets to play Caesar, as a small fish pretending he's not in such a big pond. Meloni is an enjoyable asshole, and John P. Ryan easily commands respect as Micky Malnato, a fellow mobster who thinks highly of Violet.

The other big plus point for Bound is that it's damn sexy. Don't get me wrong, I'm not the type of guy to think any time two women kiss is a big turn on, but this movie starts to turn up the heat from the very first scene and keeps things at boiling point until about the halfway mark, where it goes down to a steady simmer.

Definitely one to watch if you haven't already, Bound is a great blend of elements that shows the potential that the Wachowskis would achieve just a few years later.

8/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bound-Business-Blu-Ray-Jennifer-Tilly/dp/B003VIH27C/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1384855089&sr=8-3&keywords=bound

Out For Justice (1991)

Steven Seagal stretches himself yet again as a tough, New York cop out to kick ass to avenge the death of his colleague in this bloody, brutal action thriller that benefits immensely from a smattering of familiar faces in the supporting cast and pacing that never lets things slow down for too long.

Seagal plays Gino Felino (no, that really is the name that they’ve given him), a man who gets very, very upset when his partner is gunned down in the street in broad daylight by drug-addled and power-hungry maniac Richie Madano. Gino will do whatever it takes to get to Richie, even if it means upsetting the gangsters that he’s always maintained cordial relations with, arresting Richie’s family members and generally busting up shady areas that he knows Richie has been known to frequent. As Gino gets closer to Richie, the risks get higher and higher.

Director John Flynn has produced a few decent movies during his career and this is one of them, as long as you’re a fan of Seagal’s fighting style. David Lee Henry’s script isn’t bad either, managing to balance a little mystery and a little soul-searching for our leading man in between the nose-breaking and ass-kicking.

Seagal is, as ever, as appealing or unappealing as you’ve already decided to find him. He knows his target audience and delivers accordingly. Thankfully, he’s surrounded by some great acting this time from the likes of Jerry Orbach, Dominic Chianese (probably best known nowadays to people as “Junior” from The Sopranos) and a magnificent William Forsythe being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . magnificent in the role of Richie Madano. The ladies onscreen include Gina Gershon, Julianne Margulies and Shannon Whirry in a small role. 

 

The action scenes are enjoyable, a mix of style and harsh straightforward moves that are Seagal’s trademark. Out For Justice would, arguably, be the last Seagal film to really have that slight edge, that coating of old-school revenge thriller over the martial arts polish, and it’s all the better for it, boasting a finale as satisfying as it is bone-crunchingly painful. 
 

7/10.  

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