Netflix And Chill: Perfect Stranger (2007)

While I picked Perfect Stranger as a viewing choice because I believed it would fit alongside the many noir movies I have been watching this month, I knew that I shouldn't go getting my hopes up. Released in 2007, meaning it could have good or bad performances from the two main leads (Halle Berry and Bruce Willis), and appearing to be skirting the erotic thriller sub-genre without being either erotic or thrilling enough to have been involved in any conversations I have had over the years about those movies, it's safe to say that I set the bar low when I pressed play on this. And it still let me down.

Berry plays Rowena Price, an investigative journalist who finds herself at a low point when her latest story, one she has been working on for month, is nixed by her boss. Eager to sink her teeth into something else, Rowena is delighted to discover some rumours about Harrison Hill (Willis). He seems to spend a lot of his time guided by his libido, and may also be a killer. Helped with the tech side of things by her colleague and friend, Miles (Giovanni Ribisi), Rowena sets about getting as close as she can to Harrison. She could even be putting herself in serious danger. Although . . . is Harrison the one that she needs to be most wary of?

Director James Foley had an interesting career, and he was behind the camera for at least one classic. This is nowhere close to his best work, and I'd say that it's not even jostling for a place alongside his more average works. Perfect Stranger feels like a film that is all out of sorts. It's almost a decade too late, considering when it could have felt a bit ahead of the curve, it has a clumsy and unengaging screenplay from Todd Komarnicki, and none of the stars are able to grin and wallow in the potential sexiness and sleaze of the plot. 

I didn't expect Willis to be very good here (it's after his peak acting period, and he was never at his best in other films I would place close to this . . . e.g. Color Of Night), but it's a shame that Berry is also unable to do anything with the material. While I have often argued that Berry stopped being sexy when film-makers started pushing her as "SEXY", she still has the huge advantage of being Halle bloody Berry. You wouldn't think that here though, which may be due to her being hobbled by both the screenplay and her co-stars. As for Ribisi . . . he just doesn't feel like he belongs anywhere within this film, let alone being the third main name in the cast. Gary Dourdan is welcome for a couple of brief scenes, but the only other person I want to mention is Nicki Aycox, playing the friend who sets everything in motion before mysteriously disappearing.

I pressed play on Perfect Stranger while wondering why I couldn't recall anyone ever mentioning it. I watched the end credits roll by with a very good understanding of why it wasn't mentioned. It's just bad. Not laughably awful. Not painful (not to me anyway, although that might just say something about my pain threshold). Just bad, and subsequently very easy to forget about. Some may think that the very end of the film saves it. I would argue that the very end just adds insult to injury.

3/10

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Mubi Monday: Results (2015)

It is easy to view gym life as quite a cult. Those who work there tend to be positive and full of motivational mantras, and those who end up responding well to the lifestyle end up acting like someone who has been recently converted to some kind of new religion. I don’t say this with malice. I speak from experience, and that experience is ongoing as I try to remain committed to my own gym and fitness schedule. Results is a movie that has fun with this idea, especially in the way it presents two fitness instructors with two very different ways of viewing life.

Kevin Corrigan plays Danny, a man who wants to get into shape. He wanders into a gym and chats to Trevor (Guy Pearce), who ends up pairing him up with a trainer named Kat (Cobie Smulders). It turns out that Danny is quite rich. It also turns out that he finds Kat attractive. Furthermore, Trevor also has a thing for Kat. What follows is a constant clash of differing attitudes as every one of these three main protagonists is somehow helped by the others to correct their path through life.

Both Pearce and Smulders are great fun here, butting heads in a way that you know is just distracting them from a chance to see their relationship potential. Pearce has to be almost constantly optimistic and positive throughout, while Smulders enjoys being a bit more confrontational and carefree. Corrigan is an actor I have loved seeing in supporting roles for years, and his excellent turn here makes me wish he had many more people willing to give him this amount of screentime. Giovanni Ribisi is good fun in a small role, a partying lawyer, and Anthony Michael Hall feels as if he is channeling Dolph Lundgren whenever he appears onscreen as a kettlebell guru named Grigory.

Written and directed by Andrew Bujalski, who has helmed at least three gems in the last decade or so, Results is a well-constructed comedy drama that stays enjoyable throughout, even in the scenes that hint at darker or more cringe-inducing options. This is as much to do with the performances as it is to do with the script, but Bujalski clearly has a talent for dialogue and characterization that attracts some great actors to his projects. It is also worth noting that this isn’t a film making fun of those who enjoy fitness or gym life. It is saying that there is no one easy “fix” for any of us, whether in the gym or just in life, but nobody is mocked here for trying to better themselves, even while they struggle. As anyone who has been trying to get fit for a decent amount of time can tell you, you can learn just as much from failures as you can learn from success.

There might be some people who would have preferred this to be a sharper film, a meaner one, but I think Bujalski has judged it perfectly. It’s a typical look at some characters trying to sort out their problems and create a decent future for themselves. They just all happen to be connected by their ongoing attempts to develop healthy bodies and healthy minds.

8/10

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Prime Time: Gangster Squad (2013)

When one or two good cops are fed up of gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) basically turning Los Angeles into his own personal playground it soon becomes clear that the best way to beat him is to act outside the law. And the Gangster Squad is created, a group of tough cops who operate without a badge while setting about systematically destroying the operations that keep Cohen in wealth and power.

Based on a non-fiction book by Paul Lieberman (which isn’t to say this is an accurate retelling of anything that comes close to the truth), Gangster Squad is very much style over substance, with the script from Will Beall happy to fit in as many tropes and recycled classic noir movie moments as possible. That doesn’t mean it’s unenjoyable. It’s just an inferior copy of numerous outright classics (including one or two modern classics, with The Untouchables casting as big a shadow over this as the classic WB gangster movies of the ‘30s and ‘40s. 

Director Ruben Fleischer can do fun films. I like one of his films more than the rest of his filmography (the one that involves zombies and a man on the hunt for Twinkies), but I have enjoyed most of his directorial efforts so far, to varying degrees. Even the mis-cast Uncharted. I didn’t enjoy this film though, and it feels as if Fleischer couldn’t get a handle on the material, but was hoping a few cool moments stitched together would help distract people from it being such a messy dollop of weak sauce. He has done well with casting, and managed to do equally well with the team of people working behind the camera to bring the Los Angeles of this time period to life, but there’s no feeling of a steady hand at the wheel.

Josh Brolin ends up as the head of the titular squad, and he gives another strong and gruff performance that matches a lot of his other work. If you need someone in authority to roll up their sleeves and do some dirty work then Brolin is your man, and he also looks damn sharp in the 1940s style. Alongside him are characters played by Anthony Mackie, Robert Patrick, Michael Peña, Giovanni Ribisi, and Ryan Gosling. All of them do pretty decent work, with the exception of Gosling, who has decided to give his character a slightly higher-pitched way of speaking that doesn’t work. I can guess why he decided to give it a try, but someone should have stopped him. Emma Stone is dazzling as a woman caught up in Cohen’s world, Nick Nolte has a couple of great scenes as he assembles, and checks in on, the squad (off the record), and Penn gets to play his bad guy like he’s just walked off the pages of a Dick Tracy comic strip. Holt McCallany adds another henchman role to his long list of henchman roles, something he excels at, and the rest of the cast is stacked with familiar faces you will recognise, although may not be able to name.

If Fleischer wanted to make something violent and gripping then he failed. If he wanted to make something that felt like an important portrayal of a true story then he failed there too (none of this rings true, sadly, even if it is based on some real events). There are times when it almost gets the right balance, an attempted jailbreak being a highlight until the lights go out, but it’s mostly some pretty, but unengaging, visuals accompanied by a very nice score from Steve Jablonksy. There’s just about enough here to keep me moderately happy for the runtime, but I am VERY easily pleased.

4/10

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Netflix And Chill: The Bad Batch (2016)

The second feature film from writer-director Ana Lily Amirpour (after getting plenty of rave reviews for the excellent A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night), The Bad Batch couldn't be much further removed from that fairly quiet, subtle, and black and white, work. This is bright, brash, and happy to pilfer scenes and ideas from a whole litany of films that wander through similar "post-apocalyptic" terrain. Seeing what Amirpour has done throughout her career, however, it becomes clear that this is a woman who doesn't want to be hemmed in by any expectations or genre boundaries.

Let me begin by saying that I put the words "post-apocalyptic" in quotation marks here because, well, that's not really the case. All we know, as the film begins, is that the USA has created a huge area in a desert outside Texas that it uses to house people it deems undesirable. There are no laws there, and no citizenship. Suki Waterhouse plays Arlen, the latest person to be sent into this dangerous place, and it's not long until she ends up on the wrong end of hungry cannibals. A few meals later, requiring one of her legs and arms as prime ingredients, Arlen plots her escape, and ends up in a much safer, and better, location. A few months go by, and Arlen can't stop thinking about revenge against those who disfigured her for the sake of a sick recipe. Revenge doesn't always pan out the way you expect it to though, and Arlen ends up in the company of the dangerous Miami Man (Jason Momoa), an individual who states that he cares about nothing and nobody, save for a little girl named Honey (Jayda Fink). Arlen might be safe again if she can help the man and child be reunited, but helping one person usually means upsetting one or two others. And that's not advisable in such a dangerous place.

The fact that Amirpour went for this as her sophomore feature is admirable and incredible. While A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night enjoyed playing around with the tropes of the vampire movie, The Bad Batch plays within the sandbox of a specific sub-genre without ever being ironic or winking at the audience. This would only take a few tweaks to turn it into a full-blooded Mad Max movie, and there are moments of grisly violence and nastiness that will test even those with very strong stomachs. One scene in particular made me fear for what would happen, and what had happened, to one character, all thanks to the strength of one performance from a woman brilliantly conveying desperation, pain, and fear in her one minute of screentime. It's a real shame that the lead couldn't show even a quarter of that talent.

Having dismissed her before, but also having tried to keep giving her the benefit of the doubt, I am sorry to say that this lacklustre turn from Suki Waterhouse has proven me right in my readiness to avoid any of her acting. This is a film that deserves someone much better in the lead role, and I'm sorry that Amirpour has to see her vision weakened by such major miscasting. One or two moments aside, Waterhouse is dire in this. If you disagree with me, I'd love to hear you nominate one person onscreen who gives a worse performance than her. Momoa is hampered by the accent chosen for his character, but he still manages to do well, thanks largely to the fact that he has the physique and presence to intimidate anyone within a half-mile radius. Fink does well with her relatively small amount of screentime, and it's interesting to see both Jim Carrey and Keanu Reeves in very atypical roles. Giovanni Ribisi is arguably the other main recognisable cast member, but he generally wanders about without much to do, apart from feeling like an alternate-dimension version of his character from Friends.

There are a number of sights here that you're unlikely to forget any time soon. There are also some great tunes scattered throughout the soundtrack. This is a film that comes close to being great on a number of occasions. What holds it back is the mismatch between the more standard genre moments and the really grisly stuff. And Waterhouse. Waterhouse also holds it back, sitting in the middle of everything like an understudy who didn't expect to ever be called up for her big moment in the spotlight. 

6/10

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Gone In 60 Seconds (2000)

A slick Bruckheimer-produced action movie from the year 2000, Gone In 60 Seconds is an easy film to dismiss when you think of some of the other bombastic vehicles he has put his name to (two of those, Con Air and The Rock, also starring Nicolas Cage). But it holds up really well for what it is, which is a fun 2-hour film with lots of nice cars being stolen.

Giovanni Ribisi is Kip Raines, a young man trying to steal a load of cars for a major criminal, Raymond Calitri AKA The Carpenter (Christopher Eccleston). He fails, which enrages The Carpenter. With a ticking clock, he arranges to get Kip's older brother, Memphis Raines (Cage), on the case. Memphis left that life behind a long time ago, but, as the life of his younger brother is on the line, he reluctantly puts a team together. That team includes 'Sway' (Angelina Jolie), Otto (Robert Duvall), and The Sphinx (Vinnie Jones, in a largely non-speaking role). The plan is to scope out the cars and grab all fifty in one night. That's a tough order, made even tougher by the two cops (Delroy Lindo and Timothy Olyphant) who sense something big about to go down.

Based on the 1974 movie by H. B. Halicki (I've not seen it, no idea how closely the two match up), Gone In 60 Seconds has a decent script by Scott Rosenberg and solid direction from Dominic Sena. They know the right level of passable implausibility to go for, and keep things moving in between nice car moments with some great exchanges of dialogue between characters (particularly any scene involving Lindo and Olyphant). And then, despite taking such a long time to get there, the cars get to shine when they're onscreen. Especially in the finale, involving a Shelby Mustang GT500 given the name "Eleanor". 

There are some good montage moments, a soundtrack that has some fantastic choices to accompany the visuals (The Chemical Brothers are on there, as are Apollo Four Forty, Moby, and War), and enough great stunt sequences to please most action movie fans, although they are sparingly spaced out throughout the third act.

Now let’s get to that cast. Cage has fallen out of favour in recent years. I am still a big fan, no matter where on the Cage spectrum of craziness his performance falls, and he became a surprisingly good action movie star once given a shot. The same, more or less, could be said of Jolie, who works very well here as the cool female really into her cars. Duvall, Jones, Scott Caan, Chi Mcbride, Scott Caan and all of the other crew members fit their roles perfectly, Ribisi gets to be slightly bratty, and Will Patton once again delivers some fine Will Patton-ness. Eccleston is the weak link, not as charismatic and intimidating a villain as he could be, but he’s okay. The bigger threat comes from the “heroes” being caught by the cops, headed up by Lindo and Olyphant, who complement one another brilliantly, making a very entertaining double act. 

Maybe not as rewatchable as some other movies in this vein, Gone In 60 Seconds is still a very fun ride, using a great ensemble cast to keep everything ticking over nicely before it finally puts the pedal to the metal.

7/10

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A Million Ways To Die In The West (2014)

I quite like Seth MacFarlane, despite the fact that he often sets off my Spidey-sense when he delivers gags that feel more mean-spirited than actually funny. Ted was a lot of fun, but a lot of good work,and goodwill, was undone by MacFarlane's stint hosting the 2013 Academy Awards. He just didn't seem as funny when not hidden behind a character.

The premise is standard stuff. MacFarlane plays Albert, a peace-loving sheep farmer living in the wild west. He doesn't really fit in there, due to his lack of courage and the fact that he's never fired a gun, but he's happy enough with his lady, Louise (Amanda Seyfried). Until Louise ditches him, claiming that she needs time to herself before quickly latching on to the dapper Foy (Neil Patrick Harris). Just when he's at a real low point, Albert meets the lovely Anna (Charlize Theron), a woman who decides to help him grow a spine and perhaps even win back the love of his life. Unfortunately, Albert and Anna grow close, which causes some serious friction when her husband, the outlaw known as Clinch Leatherwood (Liam Neeson), arrives in town.

Let's get straight to the point here, the biggest problem with A Million Ways To Die In The West is Seth MacFarlane. He directed the film, he co-wrote the script (with Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild), and he stars in the lead role. Despite weakness in all three areas, it's probably his attempt to be a leading man that drags the film down the most. He's just not a likable enough onscreen presence to hold together a movie. When not delivered from behind an animated curtain,  the gags and dialogue just come across as smug and obvious.

The rest of the cast try their best, with Theron particularly enjoyable for every moment that she's onscreen. Seyfried and Harris are fun, and Neeson does okay, but isn't given enough screentime to make a better villain. Giovanni Ribisi and Sarah Silverman are a loving couple, despite the fact that the latter works every day as a prostitute while convincing her man that they should both save their own sexual activity for when they get married. There are also some great cameos, with one being SO good that it almost made me want to give the movie a bonus point, but to name names would spoil the surprises.

But the cast can only take you so far. At just under two hours, A Million Ways To Die In The West is far too long and far too misguided in attempts to wring humour from the scenario. Oh, if people think that seeing a sheep's penis in detail before it urinates on someone is funny then they will enjoy themselves. Similarly, anyone wanting to see a hat pretending to be filled with liquid excrement might chuckle, but someone hoping to see the unnecessary shot of the hat being knocked so that the liquid excrement starts to spill out onto the ground will find that this is their dream movie. Oh yes, those "gags" are in the movie. Thankfully, a lot of the other gags are better, but not by much.

There's some nice cinematography, and the kind of rousing score that you'd expect from a Western, but those are the only two elements that MacFarlane gets right. There's no love here for the movies, and certainly little attempt to twist the tropes of the genre (other than the obvious High Noon stuff). And, worst of all, the whole thing constantly feels just like a movie. It's self-conscious at almost every turn, but also self-satisfied, which makes it feel lazy and irritating.

Feel free to disbelieve me and check it out for yourself, but this is yet another film that packs most of the best bits into the trailer (and at least one gag that wasn't present, which I'm sure will be shoehorned into the "unrated, even ruder, even more dangerous" extended version that will hit shiny disc). It's not really worth your time or money.

3/10

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