Narrow Margin (1990)

An enjoyable remake of the 1952 film, Narrow Margin is a well-made neo-noir that benefits from having Gene Hackman being his usual brilliant self in the lead role that makes good use of his formidable talent. He is L.A. District Attorney Robert Caulfield, a man who ends up escorting a woman named Hunnicut (Anne Archer) on a dangerous cross-country train ride to get her to stand as a witness against the powerful Leo Watts (Harris Yulin).

Directed by the dependable Peter Hyams, who also wrote the script adapting the earlier movie into this updated take, this is a film full of shifting surroundings and constant momentum, not just due to most of it taking place on a train. Caulfield only knows one or two people he can fully trust, while Hunnicut isn’t always entirely sure about why she should place her faith in him. Anyone around our two leads could be a killer, and Watts may not be onscreen for much of the runtime, but there’s a large shadow cast over everything as we see how seemingly infinite his reach and resources are.

Although this follows the template of the original film fairly closely, there are some tweaks that help to make it a slightly more enjoyable experience. The various identity reveals are well-placed, whether they are proving someone is bad or ultimately good, and there are a few decent action moments that allow Hackman to back up his promise of doing whatever it takes to get the woman in his care safely to a more secure environment.

Hackman is the reason this works as well as it does, and Hyams was surely thankful to bag him for the lead role. He may not be the typical choice for this kind of role, but he’s undeniably trustworthy, determined, and charismatic. I wish I could say the same for Archer, who feels sadly all-too-replaceable in her key role. Susan Hogan does much better though, playing a train passenger who takes more than a passing interest in Hackman’s character. Yulin does well with his minutes of screentime, there are small roles for both M. Emmet Walsh and J. T. Walsh, and James Sikking, Nigel Bennett, B. A. “Smitty” Smith, and J. A. Preston help to round out a supporting cast of surprisingly compelling characters.

Although it has a layer of polish that lessens the feeling of real danger and darkness, Narrow Margin still manages to ratchet up the tension on the way to a final act that proves to be enormously satisfying. If you like even some of the names I have listed here, and especially if you like Hackman, then this is a fun film to give your time to on an evening when you want something comfortingly assured.

8/10

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The Relic (1997)

One of those films I tend to revisit every ten years or so, mainly because my memory of it is slightly better than the reality, The Relic is a creature feature that is as enjoyable as it is silly. It’s a mess, both visually and in terms of the stupid plotting, but it’s an enjoyable mess.

Set in the Field Museum Of Natural History, in Chicago, this is your standard template. People start dying, police investigate the deaths, evidence eventually leads to some creature being to blame, the finale relies on a plucky cop and plucky scientist saving the day. Oh, but some VIPs need the museum to stay “safe” and usable for a bit charity gala do that is set to go ahead - giving the film an obvious “the beaches are open” riff - and there is a bit more work to be done before the scientist figures out EXACTLY what the creature is before it can be destroyed.

Based on a popular novel, co-written by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (sadly, no, I haven’t read it), The Relic may suffer from a number of failings, but a dearth of writers isn’t one of them. Four other people worked to adapt the source material into a screenplay, which is pretty astonishing when you think of how laughable and formulaic it is in places. I don’t want to spoil the ending for anyone, but there are one or two “revelations” that prove to be completely unsurprising, and the ultimate solution to the big beastie problem is something that would have worked on almost every other creature on the planet.

Director Peter Hyams doesn’t distract from the simple pleasures of the main story structure, although the scene in which a SWAT team tries to enter the building remains a glorious highlight, but he is slightly hampered by the fact that he has to blend practical effects and  mid-‘90s CGI. Everything holds up a bit better than expected, but that’s down to the low lighting levels used in many scenes and plenty of canny editing keeping things only partially-seen until the outrageous third act.

Stuck in the midst of the madness are Penelope Ann Miller (plucky scientist) and Tom Sizemore (plucky cop), who both try their best with the cheesy dialogue. Sizemore fares a bit better, his natural air of pessimism and slight grumpiness offset by the determination and strength of his character (helped by a fun little conversational thread about him losing custody of his dog in divorce proceedings). Miller gets more exposition, and she is easy to root for when she is uncomfortably backed into a dangerous space as “the relic” looks set to defeat everyone around it. Linda Hunt and James Whitmore are enjoyable in supporting roles, as are one or two others, but things would have been helped enormously if we had been given a much larger ensemble cast of great character actors to watch being placed in peril.

If you remember enjoying The Relic many years ago then you will still enjoy The Relic now. Unlike the mutation at the heart of it, it is pleasingly constant and unevolved. Neither the best film of this kind, nor the worst, it’s still a great choice for whenever you are having a lazy evening in and after some undemanding entertainment. The 110-minute runtime goes by quickly enough, the setting is used well, the John Debney score is another plus point, and it’s just a shame that Hyams and co. didn’t decide to throw some more blood and guts around. 

6/10

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June-Claude Van Damme: Enemies Closer (2013)

If you're after a film in which Jean-Claude Van Damme plays a blonde villain killing off people who are in between him and a downed plane that has a cargo of drugs on board then this is the movie for you. And if you're not sure about seeing Van Damme in that kind of role then I am going to say that this is still quite possibly the movie for you, because he's a lot of fun in the role.

Elsewhere, Tom Everett Scott plays Henry, a forest ranger who looks after a small, isolated location near the US/Canada border. His day starts off well when he meets a young woman (Kayla, played by Linzey Cocker) who needs some assistance. They part after agreeing to meet again later, but then Henry finds things getting a lot worse when a man named Clay (Orlando Jones) gets into his home and threatens to kill him because he believes Henry was responsible, in his previous military role, for the death of his younger brother. Meanwhile, Van Damme and his henchmen are starting to kill people in the area and head towards the downed cargo.

Directed by Peter Hyams (responsible for previous Van Damme hits, Sudden Death and Timecop), Enemies Closer is another winner for the director-star team. Van Damme may be the villain this time around but he's definitely the star, despite Scott and Jones being the nominal heroic leads.

Eric Bromberg and James Bromberg are responsible for the script, the only one they have written (at this time), and they bring things together with a fun sensibility. The pacing is perfect, with the dynamics between the various characters helping a lot there, the dialogue contains a number of good lines, and there's just enough done to distract viewers from the implausibility of the whole scenario.

Scott and Jones are decent enough in their roles, whether they're fighting one another or grudgingly working together to avoid being killed, Cocker is very good in one of the best female roles I can think of from Van Damme's filmography (although that's not saying much, considering how most actresses in his movies are just there to be saved or be sexy, or both), and JCVD is the absolute highlight, giving a funny, charismatic turn as the baddie. You also get a decent selection of supporting players as both villains and possible helpers.

There are more decent Van Damme films than you might first realise from the 21st century, a fact that's easy to forget if you've had to endure some of the major stinkers, but Enemies Closer is one of his very best, allowing him to cut loose and have an infectiously good time.

8/10

You can pick up the blu ray here.
Americans can pick it up here.

June-Claude Van Damme: Sudden Death (1995)

AKA Die Hard at an ice hockey match.
AAKA the one in which Van Damme fights someone in a big penguin mascot outfit.

Jean-Claude Van Damme is a traumatised fireman who now works as a fire marshall at an ice hockey stadium. He's also the father of two kids that live with his ex-wife, and she isn't impressed when he just stops by to announce that he has tickets for a big game happening that very evening. Relenting, but with a warning not to do it again, the mother allows the kids to go with their father, who takes them along, settles them in for the match, and then starts his standard work duties. The timing is unfortunate, because a very nasty man (Powers Boothe) has chosen that evening to take a number of hostages, including the Vice President (Raymond J. Barry), and make himself a very rich man with the help of some armed accomplices and a number of bombs.

Directed by Peter Hyams, responsible for a number of entertaining Van Damme vehicles, Sudden Death is much more interested in fun and thrills than any kind of tension or believability. The script by Gene Quintano, based on a story/idea from Karen Elise Baldwin, does what is needed to get everything in place (the people involved, the bombs, the police on the outside) and then concentrates on either creating enjoyable set-pieces or letting Powers Boothe be as mean as possible, even if he's talking to a small child. Think about everything for more than a few seceonds and the silliness means that it falls apart but Hyams keeps things moving along briskly enough to distract you from minor details like logic.

Despite a decent smattering of supporting players, including Barry, this film really belongs to Van Damme and Boothe. It would be easy to call it a battle of braun vs brains but our hero also gets to show moments of ingenuity as he desperately tries to save a building full of people who are blissfully unaware of the danger they are in. He also manages to keep an admirably straight face while taking part in that aforementioned fight against someone in a big penguin mascot outfit. Boothe gives a performance that deserves to sit right up there alongside the better action movie villain turns from the '80s and '90s. He's calm, cocky, and without any hint of redeemable qualities.

I'm not sure if this remains an underseen film, it certainly feels as if it came along at the very end of Van Damme's initial wave of popularity (his filmography starts to get pretty spotty from now on, to say the least), but I highly recommend it to action movie fans, especially if you don't mind something with a bit of polish and some humour in the mix.

7/10

The blu is here.
Americans can buy it here.

Stay Tuned (1992)

John Ritter and Pam Dawber play Roy and Helen Knable, a married couple who end up sucked into a world of TV programmes all designed to kill them off, allowing their souls to be added to a valuable total. If they can somehow survive for 24 hours then they can return to their normal lives. But that doesn't usually happen. Running through a variety of twisted shows (with pun-tastic names such as I Love Lucifer, Golden Ghouls, Northern Overexposure and Fresh Prince Of Darkness), Roy and Helen are sometimes helped and sometimes hindered by Crowley (Eugene Levy) while the evil Spike (Jeffrey Jones) keeps an eye on the proceedings.

Directed by Peter Hyams, there are a lot of pop culture references packed into Stay Tuned that made it feel dated not too long after it was first released, in the early '90s. But for people who watched most of their TV in the late '80s and early '90s there's plenty of fun to be had. The script by Tom S. Parker and Jim Jennewein doesn't try to be too clever, concentrating instead on keeping the gags and the references flying thick and fast (and who can fail to love an advert for a movie entitled Three Men And Rosemary's Baby?) and developing the main characters into people who might just survive their experience and learn to be better people, don'tchaknow.

Ritter and Dawber are both good enough in the lead roles. The former tends to be good in almost everything that he does, while Dawber is interesting to watch in movies, purely because she's done relatively few throughout her career. Jones is enjoyably evil as Spike, and Levy puts in another enjoyable comedy turn. David Tom and Heather McComb are perfectly fine as the teenage kids, and Don Calfa gets to join in with the fun for a little while, as do . . . . . . . . . . . Salt 'n' Pepa.

There's not a lot else that needs to be said about Stay Tuned. It's fun, it tries to use the budget effectively at all times (especially considering how many gags and references are packed into the runtime), and it holds up as an enjoyably anarchic comedy. There's even a sequence that has Ritter and Dawber turned into animated characters, and that's far from the most far-fetched moment.

Many people won't recognise all of the comedic targets, but this is a blast for anyone born in the late '70s or early '80s. Give it a try if you haven't seen it already.

7/10

http://www.amazon.com/Stay-Tuned-John-Ritter/dp/B00004RF88/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1380228961&sr=8-1&keywords=stay+tuned

Timecop (1994)

Back in the late '80s and early '90s, Jean-Claude Van Damme was one of the top action movie stars. He'd done his time (there was the early role in a porn movie and then the film in which most of us saw him as the villain - No Retreat, No Surrender) and then low budget action flicks like Kickboxer and, a movie that remains one of his very best, Bloodsport set him on a fast track to superstardom that may not have remained at full strength but has certainly kept him in a career of high kicks and any excuse to do the splits. Watched nowadays, the better movies featuring JCVD in a leading role remain slick and enjoyable slices of entertainment. With plenty of high kicks and excuses for him to do the splits. But it's his adventures mixing sci-fi in with the action that seem to have stood the test of time the best. Universal Soldier is absolutely superb (thanks, in no small part, to an absolutely brilliant performance from Dolph Lundgren) but Timecop remains a very fun watch, despite its many flaws.

The story is based on the Dark Horse comic series and Van Damme plays Walker, a man who we see at the start of the movie having his life pretty much torn apart. We then skip forward a number of years to see that Walker is, funnily enough, a "timecop". Time travel has been invented but it needs to be closely monitored at all times and nothing should be done to change the past. Those who engage in such deeds (making themselves rich or trying to kill figures from the past, etc) are tracked down and severely punished. Bruce McGill plays the abrupt captain of the division who is also a friend to Walker, Gloria Reubens plays an agent ordered to tag along with our hero after his partner gets a bit too greedy and Ron Silver gives another entertaining performance as McComb, a Senator who has the Presidency in his sights and might just break the laws to get it. There's also Mia Sara looking a bit doe-eyed and being an extra motivational factor for our hero. And did I mention that Van Damme does some high kicks and even the splits?

Peter Hyams directs things with his usual skill. He's no major artist, in my opinion, but I've always found him to be a very dependable craftsman who often makes solid entertainment. The performances are better than average for a JCVD movie, with special mentions going to the great McGill and the fun Silver, but it's the script that really helps this one stay surprisingly sharp and fresh. Information is interspersed throughout the action in a way that never feels too forced or obtrusive, the premise may be full of paradox potential but also does a great job of blending in the smart stuff without making anything too difficult to follow.

The action scenes are well done and will please action fans while the sci-fi stuff is handled competently enough to please those after a bit of time travel fun. There's no doubt that it will have the more eagle-eyed viewers tutting in disapproval as the end credits roll and the plot holes stand out but the film never claims to be a serious look at the nature of time travel. It's an action-packed sci-fi thriller in which JCVD does some high kicks and has a few excuses to do the splits. Though I might have mentioned that already.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Timecop-Blu-ray-Region-Free/dp/B003IHVKSI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340140214&sr=8-1