Prime Time: The Protege (2021)

It always happens. Great success leads to others looking to emulate that success. Which is why we have recently had so many movies lately trying to rework the reluctant/retired/betrayed assassin schtick that worked so well in the John Wick movies. Not that those movies started this particular sub-genre, but they certainly made it more of an action movie staple over the past few years. And The Protege is another one trying to recreate the success of that movie. Unlike many others, however, it fails.

Maggie Q plays Anna, a dangerous young woman who works with the equally dangerous Moody (Samuel L. Jackson). Together, they specialise in finding people who don’t want to be found. Those people often then end up dead. The latest target is perhaps their hardest yet, someone who has managed to practically disappear off the face of the planet. One of his main men is Rembrandt (Michael Keaton), a charming and cultured individual who you can suspect is a villain due to him being . . . Michael Keaton. Bullets and fists fly, and Anna grows more and more determined to complete the job she was assigned.

There’s a good pedigree behind the camera here. Martin Campbell, who successfully reinvigorated the Bond franchise twice, is the director. He delivered some great swashbuckling with the most recent blockbuster Zorro movies. He also directed The Foreigner, which was a very good action thriller. And I am one of the few people who didn’t hate Green Lantern.

Then we have the writer. Richard Wenk. Wenk has written a number of top-notch action movies throughout the last decade, but he is also the writer-director of Vamp. So Richard Wenk is a firm favourite of mine. This isn’t his best work though. It’s a silly script aiming to be lifted by the main stars, but one seriously lets everyone down.

The disappointment here comes from Maggie Q. She just isn’t good here in the lead role, never convincing in the action sequences and never even able to get her line delivery just right. This is movie dialogue, not dialogue attempting to be realistic, but Q fails to invest the words with any energy or charisma. Jackson is better, playing a character he has played a version of in numerous other films, and Michael Keaton continues to be the magnetic star that he has been for decades. Q has the starring role, yet the film would be pretty worthless without the presence of her main co-stars. 

There is enough here to save this from being an awful viewing experience. It’s technically fine, the pacing is good, and I may have already mentioned Keaton making it better with his presence. But there’s too much here also dragging things down. No other characters stand out, none of the fights hit that sweet spot where they feel both grounded and cinematically satisfying, and I defy anyone to actually care about how things turn out in the grand finale.

The end result is ultimately a bit below average, which feels much more disappointing when the ingredients were mixed in for what should have been an easy success.

4/10

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The Equalizer (2014)

I'm pretty sure that if Denzel Washington and Liam Neeson ever starred in a movie together then every criminal on the planet would either be dead, dying or fleeing to outer space to escape their fate. These two men have kicked more ass in the latter portion of their careers than most younger stars do in their entire filmographies. And I, for one, am happy to see it.

Anyway, forget about Liam Neeson now. He's not in this film. This is a vehicle for Denzel, and what a great vehicle it is. Updating a popular TV show from the 1980s, director Antoine Fuqua reunites with his Training Day star to deliver an immensely entertaining tale of vigilante justice.

Washington plays Robert McCall, a quiet, kind man with a secret past. He works in a DIY store, he likes to read books, and he often heads out to a local diner for a cup of tea when he can't settle down for the evening. This diner also has a regular patron in the shape of a young prostitute named Teri (Chloe Grace Moretz). Teri dreams of becoming a singer one day, and McCall encourages her to keep striving to make that dream a reality. That becomes a lot harder to do when Teri is hospitalised after being beaten by her boss. Which is when McCall realises that he needs to step up and try to make things right. He's civil at first, but when that civility is thrown back in his face he replies in the only language that these people seem to understand. Violence and death.

Although it runs for a little over two hours, The Equalizer is not a film that feels bloated. The few main characters are set up nicely, the action set-pieces deliver plenty of impressive pain and bloodshed, and there's a lot of fun to be had in watching McCall resign himself to the fact that what he does best involves punishing criminals who have managed to evade the long arm of the law.

Denzel is excellent in the lead role. Some may feel that he's simply repeating the performance he gave in Man On Fire, but I prefer his work here. It's more fun to watch him move between two different personas, and the editing and other technical aspects are much better, complementing rather than obfuscating the acting on display. Moretz does just fine in her role, even if it is the pretty standard "young innocent in trouble/hooker with a good heart" that we've seen many times before. Marton Csokas is an entertaining, ruthless villain, and David Harbour does well as his temporary right hand man. Johnny Skourtis should win over most viewers as Ralphie, a man being helped by McCall to lose weight and pass the fitness test required for a security guard job that he's keen to land. There are also a couple of good cameos that I won't spoil here, although I am still sorry that we never heard an updated version of the classic TV show theme tune.

The script by Richard Wenk is well put together - having McCall work in a DIY store is a stroke of genius (okay, I might be overstating it, but it's a very good move) - and it's nice to see the film take the time to properly establish all of the main characters, even if some of their moments are cliched and slightly cheesy.

Fuqua manages to keep everything tense and visceral, handling the material with ease. Those with weak stomachs may find some of the violence a bit strong, but I think Fuqua knows his audience well and pitches the nastier moments at just the right level. The action is shot in a way that makes it cool, admittedly, yet it also constantly reminds viewers of just how quickly McCall gets himself into situations that are very, VERY dangerous.

The film covers a lot of familiar ground, yet it doesn't feel lazy or stale. And it has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to fan-pleasing Denzel moments. Not quite as good as the TV show I was so fond of (and, yes, I have my rose-tinted nostalgia glasses on), this does end up being a surprisingly close contender. Dare I say that it's . . . . . . . . . . . almost its equal.

8/10

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Vamp (1986)

Written and directed by Richard Wenk (who was helped by Donald P. Borchers in coming up with the story), Vamp is one of those movies that I know isn't for everyone . . . . . . . . . yet I recommend to everyone anyway. It's a favourite of mine and the more people who come around to my way of thinking, at least in this matter, the better.

After almost being bored to death while pledging to a fraternity, Keith (Chris Makepeace) and AJ (Robert Rusler) offer to get the guys anything they want instead of being made to go through the usual humiliations. The frat guys, somewhat predictably, want strippers. So our two young men borrow a car from Duncan (Gedde Watanabe), and also allow him to join them, before setting off to procure some dancing girls. After a few wrong turns, a fair bit of lost time and a run in with an albino punk (Billy Drago), they get inside the After Dark club. At last. The After Dark club is quite a place. There's the guy who looks after the place but dreams of Vegas (a superb turn from the ever-brilliant Sandy Baron), a waitress who keeps trying to get Keith to remember her (played by the lovely Dedee Pfeiffer) and a star turn from the mysterious and animalistic Katrina (Grace Jones). Unfortunately, there is a side to the club that people only see if they're not getting out again. A vampiric side.

Yes, as you may have guessed, years before the enjoyable From Dusk Till Dawn used the strip club setting for some monster mashing, Vamp had already paved the way. Was Vamp the first? No, but it remains one of the best (especially when compared to, for example, The Monster Club, which I think contains a few similiar elements).

The performances from everyone involved really help lift this above numerous other vampire movies of the decade. Robert Rusler and Chris Makepeace play off each other superbly, Gedde Watanabe is great comic relief and Dedee Pfeiffer is adorable - like an '80s Meg Ryan but a Meg Ryan that I'd actually contemplate trying to hit on. The villains are just as good, if not better. Billy Drago is his usual intimidating presence, Grace Jones is her . . . . . . usual intimidating presence and Sandy Baron steals pretty much every scene that he's in.

The special effects don't overwhelm the movie but they're very well done and the same can be said for the score from Jonathan Elias. Wenk may do a great job as director but he's helped no end by a very talented team, including Alan Roderick-Jones in the role of art director and cinematographers Elliot Davis and Douglas F. O'Neons. I don't usually mention art directors and cinematographers in my movie reviews for a number of reasons. First of all, I usually KNOW more about the cast, writer and director. Secondly, a movie is always a collaborative effort and I worry that if I start to single out too many people I end up having to go down the list of credits to include absolutely everyone (which, in an ideal world, is as it should be). But Vamp has such a unique and wonderful visual style that I have to mention the guys who helped to get that onscreen.

At times it's a surreal, off-kilter world. It's very much a cinematic horror landscape - nobody helpful is around when the sun goes down, the sets are full of deep shadows and often lit with pink and green colouring, there's a lot of dry ice around - but it's one that just uses the artificiality of everything to make things more interesting and entertaining throughout. There is always the risk that these elements can pull a viewer out of the experience but it's a worthwhile risk when the viewers that go along with the whole thing can take so much away from it.

I can still recall, even to this day, looking at that garish VHS box and being both impressed and curious. Those feelings stayed with me as I watched the film for the first time and by the time the end credits rolled I wasn't curious any more but I was still impressed, mightily so. It's a horror movie that's easy to dismiss and forget about, it's a horror comedy with some teen elements that I'm sure will annoy quite a few fans who like their horror adult and serious, it's a film that will even have some viewers switching off by the halfway mark. But it's also a film that really delivers some great vampire moments, it somehow made Grace Jones even scarier than she already was at that time (and, by god, she was already terrifying) and it made such a great impression on me that I will always step up to defend it in front of those who don't appreciate its magnificence.

9/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vamp-Blu-ray-Grace-Jones/dp/B0041H9N4W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1353981297&sr=8-1