Prime Time: The Negotiator (1998)

An absolute comfort viewing of the highest order, The Negotiator is a slick and enjoyable thriller, even if it is pretty predictable how things are going to pan out by the final act. The script by James DeMonaco and Kevin Fox mixes in wit and some real tension, and director F. Gary Gray is a dependable pair of hands for the material, leading to what I view as a personal highlight from his filmography.

Samuel L. Jackson plays Danny Roman, a skilled hostage negotiator who finds himself set up on charges of financial wrongdoing and the murder of a colleague. With no other way to get to the truth, Danny takes a number of hostages. This leads to a stand-off in which the hostage-taker can easily stay one step ahead of those trying to resolve the situation. Danny requests to speak to Chris Sabian (Kevin Spacey), another skilled negotiator, famous for de-escalating situations to give him a record free of fatalities. Not knowing which of his friends has betrayed him, Danny decides to put his trust in a stranger. The evidence certainly seems stacked against him though, but we know he's innocent . . . because he's Samuel L. Jackson.

Although this runs for just over two hours (the runtime on PAL format is about 134 minutes) it doesn't feel as if it outstays its welcome. Freidnships and tensions are set up from a smart opening sequence that shows our hero at work, getting the best result while infuriating those who want to barge in and end the situation quicker. Beck (David Morse) is one of those put out, keen to send in the men with guns, which makes him a potential suspect when the conspiracy to frame Danny starts to become clear. There are plenty of others to suspect, however, thanks to the cast being so loaded with great actors.

As well as the leads, both doing brilliant work, you have enjoyable performances from Ron Rifkin, John Spencer, the inimitable J. T. Walsh, Michael Cudlitz, Tim Kelleher, Nestor Serrano, Dean Norris, Regina Taylor, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, and Paul Giamatti. And Morse, of course. By the standards of most people, that is a cast absolutely packed with quality actors, and none of them are just sleepwalking through the film.

More about the brainpower than firepower, those seeking a thriller with some big action moments may be disappointed by this. It's quite removed from the kind of thrillers that were churned out with the names Simpson and/or Bruckheimer attached (not that there's anything wrong with those, especially when you have enough popcorn to hand). This is fairly restrained throughout, with only a couple of important deaths helping to propel the plot forward, but the sparks fly as Jackson gets to outwit and shout down those around him, particularly when he shares the screen with Spacey. It holds up well, and I will happily revisit it any time.

8/10

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The Rock (1996)

Despite being directed by Michael Bay, The Rock comes oh so close to being a perfect modern action movie. SO close. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that it's only a horribly-edited car chase sequence that drags it down. Everything else, from the predictable moments of cheese to the interplay between the leads, is absolutely spot on.

A group of soldiers, led by General Francis Hummel (Ed Harris), steal some very nasty chemical weapons and take over Alcatraz. They have a number of citizens held hostage and are threatening to send some guided missiles to give many of the people of San Francisco an instant death sentence. The people in charge need to send in some Navy SEALS, led by Commander Anderson (Michael Biehn), but that team needs to be accompanied by a chemical weapons expert, Stanley Goodspeed (Nicolas Cage), and John Mason (Sean Connery). Mason is the only person to have ever escaped from Alcatraz. In fact, he is pretty good at escape, which is why the main government representative is wary of getting him to help out. Mason was alleged to have stolen a microfilm just chock full of many dark and dirty secrets decades ago, and he's been held without trial ever since. Maybe revisiting Alcatraz will help him to become a free man once more.

You may not have thought so from the first sentence, but I tend to enjoy the movies of Michael Bay. They're absolutely fine when you're in the mood for some slick, bombastic, action. But they are rarely truly great. The Rock is truly great, and that is often despite the usual style of Bay being stamped all over it. It’s great because of the characters scattered throughout the groups of heroes and villains, and great because of a script, by David Weisner, Douglas Cook, and Mark Rosner, that makes things more morally shaded and complex than most of these action blockbusters. Ed Harris gets to play arguably the most interesting and ambiguous “villain” of the nineties, and he is just one essential part of the puzzle.

Cage is fun in his role, playing someone who steps up to do what needs done, despite being way out of his depth. Connery is perfect, an old survivor who has retained skills that make him a great ally or dangerous enemy. And Harris holds your attention completely every time he’s onscreen. The supporting cast also includes fantastic performances from John Spencer, William Forsythe, Michael Biehn, Tony Todd, David Morse, and many other familiar faces, all making the most of their screentime. Vanessa Marcil isn’t given much to do, she is “the girlfriend” who helps Cage to explain his personal investment in stopping those rockets being launched.

There’s a superb score, mainly from Hans Zimmer, some great fights that mix fun choreography and moments of brutality, and every interaction between Cage and Connery is gold. You cannot do much better than this if you want a fun action movie to fill a couple of hours during a Saturday evening. Almost an outright modern classic.

9/10

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Noir November: Sea Of Love (1989)

Sex sells. Everyone knows that. So adding eroticism to thrillers was always a way to spice things up, grab the attention of viewers, and make a moderate film into a moderate success. Add one or two big names (in this case, Al Pacino and Ellen Barkin) and you had a winning formula. Until, of course, it started to lose. Because there's not really any such thing as a winning formula in the movie business, unless you count the two main ways to make profit: either spend so little that profit is guaranteed or spend so much that the movie gets to eventually make profit by the sheer inescapability of the brand.

Harold Becker directs this slick slice of hokum, and the premise is as fun as it is silly. There's a killer on the loose, someone targeting men who have advertised in a lonely hearts column. Al Pacino teams up with John Goodman to catch the killer, and they decide that the best way to get their perp is to, yep, put an ad in the same lonely hearts column. A number of women reply to the ad, with Ellen Barkin being one of them. Pacino starts to warm to Barkin, even as it becomes more and more obvious that she's the best suspect they've had since starting the investigation.

Writer Richard Price really just goes through the motions here, as does director Harold Becker, but viewers are lucky enough to have the material lifted, ever so slightly, by the great cast. Pacino and Barkin may not be the top two people on your list of folks you wanted to see make out with one another, but they don't do too bad in the sexual chemistry department. In fact, the two central characters really make a good couple, with all of the baggage and cynicism that they have. The rest is all as you'd expect it to be. There's the kind of soundtrack that you'd expect, with the title song making frequent appearances, and one or two decent red herrings on the way to the relatively tense finale. Well, when I say "relatively tense" I actually mean "not tense at all, but still entertaining enough nonetheless".

As for the rest of the cast, Goodman puts in the kind of solid supporting turn that he's been doing for most of his career. He doesn't really steal all of his scenes, but he certainly leaves an impression. John Spencer and Richard Jenkins are both fellow members of the police force, with the latter involved in a couple of great run-ins with Pacino, due to the tension caused by him now living with Al's ex-wife. William Hickey and Michael Rooker do well with fairly small roles, and Christine Estabrook and Patricia Barry also make the most of their screentime, both playing different women putting themselves out there in the world of dating.

Certainly not as good as more delightfully sleazy entries in the subgenre, Sea Of Love is passable enough, mainly thanks to the cast, and I'm sure Pacino completists will be able to stomach it on their way through his filmography.

6/10

http://www.amazon.com/Sea-Love-Collectors-Al-Pacino/dp/B00008CMRK/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1415133173&sr=1-1&keywords=sea+of+love