Prime Time: The Usual Suspects (1995)

An astonishingly accomplished second film from director Bryan Singer and writer Christopher McQuarrie, who had previously worked together on their debut, Public Access, The Usual Suspects holds up as well today as it did when it was first released. Almost.

The story concerns five criminals who end up brought together by the police during an investigation. They are Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), Hockney (Kevin Pollak), McManus (Stephen Baldwin), Fenster (Benicio Del Toro), and Verbal (Kevin Spacey), and all five end up working together on a job that seems quite simple and profitable. Things soon become more complicated, however, when they are all informed that they have unwittingly crossed paths with a major criminal figure known as Keyser Söze. They now owe Söze, and he has a big job planned for them. This is all told to the viewer through flashbacks, with us hearing the tale as Verbal tells it to a tenacious cop named Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri). What starts off as the investigation of a heist gone wrong soon turns into a determined quest to uncover the real identity of Keyser Söze.

There's still a LOT here to enjoy, if you're a film fan or a noir fan, but rewatching The Usual Suspects is a way to savour many little details (mainly the nuances in the great performances from the ensemble cast) and pick apart a number of threads that don't seem to make sense. McQuarrie's script puts the emphasis on cool ahead of believability, but that's not a terrible thing when the dialogue is as crackling with energy as this is.

Singer directs with an assured hand, but he has such great source material to work with. The script is matched by the cast, and everything is lifted up by the editing and score from John Ottman. As much as I have enjoyed many films from Singer, he helps himself a lot by often combining the best cast with a good script (and we've subsequently seen the messy result when one of those elements isn't as strong as it could be).

Spacey is excellent as the figure at the centre of the spiderwebbing plot, a man forced into telling a tale to authorities that he hopes to use to avoid major jail time. Keaton lends weight to the central motley crew, the most serious figure forced to work alongside a group of skilled crooks who are more likely to land themselves in hot water than a big payday, and Pollak, Baldwin, and Del Toro are all excellent, with the latter having particular fun as he delivers his lines as unintelligibly as possible. Palminteri is enjoyably stern and tenacious, the cop probing even further as he feels himself getting increasingly closer to the full truth of the situation, and there are fun turns from Dan Hedaya, Peter Greene, Giancarlo Esposito, and Pete Postlethwaite, as well as one or two others (Suzy Amis is one of the few female characters, but she's given very little to work with).

Very rewatchable, and a lot of fun from start to finish, this remains a pretty great film. It just loses some power when you know what's coming, and when you can some time mulling over some of the more improbable plotting. Still highly recommended though, and certainly one that you need to watch if you've somehow not yet got around to it.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share

Noirvember: Jade (1995)

If you only see one William Friedkin movie in your lifetime then I think you know the one you should opt for (clue = it is a horror movie, and the title rhymes with Schmexorcist), but there are one or two other strong contenders. If you only see one erotic thriller penned by Joe Eszterhas then I would always make a strong case for Basic Instinct. Want to see Linda Fiorentino being sexy and dangerous? The Last Seduction is for you. Fancy taking a chance on the film work of David Caruso? Session 9 will scratch that itch. Basically, what I am trying to say is that there is no reason to ever prioritise a viewing of Jade.

The plot revolves around a murder, of course, and David Caruso is the main investigating officer, David Corelli. It isn’t too long until some potentially embarrassing footage is discovered, requiring the investigation team to be much more sensitive. That is the plan anyway, but Corelli gets distracted when he has to question an old flame, Katrina Gavin (Linda Fiorentino), who is married to his good friend/defense attorney, Matt Gavin (Chazz Palminteri). There’s also an elusive woman to be found, Jade, who is said to be the best of the many sexual partners that the murder victim would spend his time with.

What Jade gets wrong, in terms of it being an erotic thriller, is, well, everything. The few sexy moments aren’t sexy, the cast have no chemistry, and absolutely none of the murder mystery elements matter, because viewers don’t ever care about the deaths onscreen or the main characters. It’s almost as if Eszterhas started writing a parody of his own work, with everything shown up for the dumb it is, and then forgot about it, having left it in a drawer for some time until he was asked to write another slick erotic thriller trying to recapture his career-best form.

It doesn’t help that Friedkin doesn’t seem interested in the expected tropes and story beats. Aside from one or two decent flourishes, he seems to blindly stumble from one scene to the next, only seeming to become energised when he gets to shoot a car chase that suffers from a) feeling shoehorned in to a film that is otherwise completely sluggish, and b) not being half as good as the other famous car chase sequences that he has delivered onscreen. It’s almost as if he felt that the script and cast would be assembled by people who cared about everything more than he ever could, and that would be enough to make it all work well. 

The perceived antipathy from Friedkin filters throughout his cast, which is a real shame as the leads struggle through the movie as if they are wading through a treacherous bog. Florentino should be superb in this role, but her character  isn’t convincingly built up in any way, and the less said about the horrible dialogue she had to deliver the better. Caruso does his usual schtick, which doesn’t fit for this kind of film, and Palminteri feels underused (as if there’s a whole sub-plot that was excised at the last minute). There are some treats in the supporting cast, which includes Michael Biehn, Donna Murphy, Richard Crenna, and Angie Everhart, as well as very small roles for Holt McCallany and a few other familiar faces.

Beyond a basic level of film-making competence on the technical side of things, there is nothing here to make it worth your time. The relatively brief runtime is a plus (it clocks in at about 90 minutes from the opening to the start of the end credits), but I would easily recommend 100 erotic thrillers ahead of this, including a multitude of films that didn’t get anywhere near a cinema screen.

3/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Dead By Dawn 2018: Innocent Blood (1992)

A horror comedy about a vampire from the director of An American Werewolf In London? It's fair to say that I had some pretty high expectations when I first watched Innocent Blood. Those expectations weren't met, and I didn't ever revisit the film over the next couple of decades. I'm not sure whether that is a good or bad thing, because this long overdue rewatch has made me realise that there's a lot here to enjoy.

Anne Parillaud plays a vampire named Marie who heads out into the night to feed. She feels like Italian, leading to her feeding on one of the many mobsters who populate the city. Once done with her meal, Marie usually takes care of the body to stop anyone returning as a vampire, but she is interrupted when she starts to feed on a boss man named Sallie (Robert Loggia). That leads to Sal rising up again, hungry and out of sorts, which leads to bewilderment from his crew and problems for an undercover cop named Joe (Anthony LaPaglia).

Written by Michael Wolk, Innocent Blood is a fun vampire movie that uses the supermatural powers associated with the beasts to play around with the buddy cop film template and provide some fun set-pieces. There's a decent amount of bloody moments, and the script has a lot of fun lines as the vampire threat and mobster activity builds.

John Landis directs competently enough, working within his means to deliver a vision that requres some enjoyable practical effects and stunt work to fully show the deveoping situation. There are some surprisingly solid action beats, some playing around with vampire tropes, the usual selection of cameos,and one main sequence in which Frank Oz plays a coroner bemused by the liveliness of the corpse wheeled in for him is a highlight.

Cast-wise, Parillaud is decent enough in the main role. She doesn't always convince when in full vamp-predator mode, but does much better in the scenes that have her fooling people with her attempts to look innocent. LaPaglia is also decent, stuck with the more straightfoward role - the cop on the case who is seeing things that nobody else will believe. But it's the cast of criminals that make the film more fun than it otherwise would be. Loggia is a blast as the powerful criminal who starts to realise just how much more power he has gained, Don Rickles is wonderful as his legal counsel, Chazz Palminteri has a small role (but is always good to see), and Tony Sirico, Kim Coates, and some other familiar faces are a lot of fun as they watch Loggia evolving. Angela Bassett and Luis Guzman also appear in small roles, both on the side of the police.

Despite some issues, such as a few dated effects and the pacing issues, Innocent Blood is a fun time. The biggest thing working against it when it was released back in 1992 was that it wasn't another An American Werewolf In London. But what is?

7/10

This LOOKS like a decent disc for those wanting the film, but maybe another release could be on the horizon?

Down To Earth (2001)

Chris Rock stars in this remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan, a film already revisited a couple of times before this outing, with sadly underwhelming results. The material has some added jokes about race, and creates potential for some bigger laughs by making the main character a struggling stand-up comic, but it ends up falling flat far more often than it succeeds.

Rock is Lance Barton, a young, funny guy who just can't seem to transfer that humour to his stage act. Yet he keeps trying. His main venue is going to be closing soon, which makes him desperate for one last shot to win over the audience there. Unfortunately, his plans are thrown into disarray when he's hit by a truck. It's all a big mistake, which an angel named Keyes (Eugene Levy) only realises when Lance is already in heaven. While they try to resolve the situation, Lance is offered a "loaner" body by King (Chazz Palminteri), another heavenly being who seems to be in charge. That body ends up being one that belonged to a wealthy, white businessman named Charles Wellington, III (Brian Rhodes). Lance has to use the body to pursue his quest for a spot at the upcoming stand-up event, while avoiding the dangerous scheming of Wellington's wife (Jennifer Coolidge), and his assistant (Greg Germann). And things become more complicated when he falls in love with Sontee Jenkins (Regina King), who hates him.

Down To Earth is a very frustrating film to watch. You can see moments when it might be able to step up a notch or two, when it could let Chris Rock rant and make the most of his power as a comedian. Sadly, those moments do nothing more than get close to something good before sinking back down to mediocrity.

The cast includes some great performers, especially in the supporting roles. Levy and Palminteri are both great fun as the angels trying to correct a terrible mistake, Coolidge does well with her usual mix of ditzy and wannabe-sexy, and Germann works very well alongside her. Mark Addy does okay as a perplexed butler, while Wanda Sykes steals a couple of scenes as a housekeeper who does very little to hide her disdain for her employer. Even John Cho raises a smile or two, despite his role amounting to little more than a cameo. Regina King is easy to like, and Frankie Faison is very likable as the manager who continues to see the best in Lance. The weakest link, unfortunately, is Rock. He seems neutered, at best, and just stilted and awkward, for the most part.

Directors Chris and Paul Weitz don't seem to put in any effort at all, while the script (co-written by about four people, including Rock and Louis C.K.) reeks of similar laziness during the many moments that aren't comedic. The love story angle just never feels real, despite the efforts that everyone goes to in order to make viewers forget that Regina King is supposed to be enjoying time with an elderly, white businessman.

It's actually a shame that this was such a missed opportunity, a star vehicle created around someone who never seemed comfortable as a leading man. I love Chris Rock, but I don't think his style and energy work when being forced into a package like this. Thankfully, we can always revisit him in the greatness that is Osmosis Jones.

5/10

http://www.amazon.com/Down-Earth-Chris-Rock/dp/B00005JH9O/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1406542627&sr=1-2&keywords=down+to+earth

Noel (2004)

I was hoping to like Noel. Why? It was a Christmas movie with a good cast, and it was directed by the fantastic Chazz Palminteri. I like Christmas movies, in case anyone somehow hadn't noticed that yet, and I like Chazz Palminteri. I also like Susan Sarandon, Paul Walker, Penelope Cruz, Robin Williams and Alan Arkin, all of whom star in the movie. Sadly, the film just isn't that good. It does for Christmas what the likes of Valentine's Day and New Year's Eve did for their respective occasions. Which is to drain it of all magic and instead fill it up with cheap manipulation and saccharin sweetness.

What's the storyline? It's a selection of criss-crossing story strands. Susan Sarandon plays a lonely woman who devotes most of her attention to her hospitalised mother. She eventually meets a man (Robin Williams) who seems to know just where she is at in her life at that exact moment. She also meets a young woman (Penelope Cruz) who is being driven away from her boyfriend (a cop, played by Paul Walker), due to his explosive temper. Walker, while trying to win back the woman he loves, is approached by Alan Arkin, playing a man who seems to see the reincarnation of his ex-wife in the young man. Oh, and there's also a man (Marcus Thomas) who wants to spend the evening in hospital, because his happiest memory was when he was hospitalised, as a young boy, and got to enjoy the Christmas party thrown for the patients.

Written by David Hubbard, Noel features a handful of good performances that are wasted in a pile of schmaltz. Schmaltz is a hard thing to avoid in any Christmas movie, but this one is especially bad. The musical cues, the journeys of self-discovery, the warm, Christmassy glow suffusing every scene, it all works to remind you that you must feel the joy of the holiday season. You must sense the magic, despite all of it being very basic stuff executed with very little style.

Palminteri, who also gives himself a fleeting cameo, doesn't direct with any confidence. Thankfully, he gains a few bonus points by assembling a good cast, but that's about the only thing that the movie has going for it. Sarandon, Walker, Arkin and Cruz are all very good, Thomas is okay, although he just has to keep repeating the same idea over and over again, and Robin Williams does the quietly contemplative act he's been doing in his serious roles for years now (the regret, the wry grin, the soft and quiet manner).

It's a shame that I've ended up rating this even lower than many of the TV movies created at this time of year, but this one had the chance to be much better. It feels more like a wasted opportunity, which isn't the feeling I want from my Christmas movies as the end credits roll.

4/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Noel-DVD-Pen%C3%A9lope-Cruz/dp/B000BY9CWM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386192829&sr=8-1&keywords=noel

Mulholland Falls (1995)

A decent thriller written by Peter Dexter and directed by Lee Tamahori, Mulholland Falls is one of the best films I've seen recently without having heard any praise for it beforehand. It has some nice period detail, decent plotting and one or two good set-pieces, but the whole thing is made well above average by the superb ensemble cast.

Nick Nolte is the main character, a man investigating the death of a beautiful young woman (Jennifer Connelly). Unfortunately, that young woman was caught on film having sexual relations with one or two men, one of them being a very important General (John Malkovich). And the other being Nolte, which puts him in a bit of a compromised position, especially as he tries to keep his infidelity hidden from his wife (Melanie Griffith). As the investigation continues, moments of violence punctuate the proceedings while Nolte heads on a path that may not end well for him.

As I have done before, let me just sell this movie to people by reeling off the names from the cast list. Nolte, Connelly, Griffith, Malkovich, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Chazz Palminteri, Treat Williams, Bruce Dern, Daniel Baldwin, William Petersen, Rob Lowe, Louise Fletcher and Andrew McCarthy. A few of those people only appear for a moment or two, in an uncredited cameo role, but that's still a mighty fine selection of talent.

Everything is in place, with the look and feel of the movie perfectly capturing a bygone era, but it's also not spectacular in any way, with the exception of the cast. The script sadly leaves a couple of the main characters just lingering in the background of many scenes, while Tamahori deals with the material in a clean, unshowy manner, relying on the story and the characters to hold the interest of viewers. Well, although I know that many others will feel differently, that worked for me.

Not one to easily recommend to people, I will still take the plunge and . . . . . . . . . . recommend it to people. It oozes quality from start to finish, and I hope that more people like it as much as I do if/when they give it some time.

8/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mulholland-Falls-DVD-Nick-Nolte/dp/B00004W4H6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385375171&sr=8-1&keywords=mulholland+falls

Hoodwinked! (2005)

The classic tale of Little Red Riding Hood gets twisted to good comedic effect in this animated movie, written and directed by Cory and Todd Edwards (with some assistance from Tony Leech in the writing department).

The film begins with 'Red' (Anne Hathaway) visiting her granny (Glenn Close), only to find that it's a wolf (Patrick Warburton) trying to pass himself off as the grey-haired relative. Then a screaming woodsman (James Belushi) smashes his way into the cottage. The whole situation is one big mess. Although it would seem that the wolf is the main baddie, Nicky Flippers (David Ogden Stiers) is determined to unravel the whole thing and hear the different tales from everyone in order to get to the truth.

Despite the rather crude animation style (well, it's not awful but it's no PIXAR), Hoodwinked does enough to make for an entertaining viewing. The twisted fairy tale may have been played out over the past decade or so, but it can still be fun, especially when made into the form of a whodunnit.

The voice cast all do a good job (I could listen to Patrick Warburton read a phone book and I'd be laughing my ass off), and as well as the main players already mentioned there are roles for Andy Dick, Anthony Anderson, Xzibit and Chazz Palminteri, but the script never feels quite sharp or funny enough to make the most of them.

Of course, Hoodwinked! is aimed at kids and it does a lot right for the target demographic. The bright colours and larger than life characters all appeal (especially a mountain goat cursed to sing constantly instead of talk), everything is cute without being too sickly and there are plenty of easy laughs.

It's not that Hoodwinked! is bad, it's just not great. It's not that clever, it's not hilarious and it's not as technically polished as twenty other animated movies I could name off the top of my head. But stick the DVD on and the little ones will be happy from start to finish, which means that it has succeeded in its main aim.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hoodwinked-DVD-Glenn-Close-Voice/dp/B000JCET3S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368052139&sr=8-1&keywords=hoodwinked