Anyway these three are old friends, they hang out on a roof together, this is where I go to think, you can see the whole city from here, etc. Then they go do the heist but one of them (SPOILER: Phillippe) shoots the other two and takes the loot. In other words he set them up. It was a SETUP! Or even a SET UP depending on your interpretation of the coloration of the letters on the logo, whether it represents two separate words or just an emphasis of certain letters in one compound word.

So the movie is about 50 going after Phillippe to get revenge. He doesn’t know where he is so he robs a mob poker game to get the attention of the underworld. They’re like Are you crazy, do you know whose money this is, etc.? and he says something like “Tell him an old friend is looking for him!” He’s bold, he’s confident… he’s fucking stupid, this money belongs to Bruce Willis who has nothing to fucking do with Ryan Phillippe. So if you as a crime outsider thought that sounded like a terrible plan for going after the guy then yes, you were correct. Beginner’s luck maybe but good guess everybody.

So mob boss Bruce should probly have some guys break all of 50’s fingers and toes while making him watch them melt down all his jewelry and remold it into the shape of a giant crossed out dollar sign or two guys holding hands or whatever would upset 50 the most. Instead he’s charitable, he sends 50 on a mission to retrieve $2 million that some Russians are about to dig up from a graveyard. If he brings back the money he’s free and clear. Good deal, he gets to live, although he’ll be no closer to getting revenge on his white friend from high school because, I cannot stress this enough, he had just a really, really terrible plan that has completely sidetracked him. He’s lucky it’s even turned out as well as it has. Then things go wrong between the graveyard and Bruce so now he has even more shit to dig his way out of.

Obviously I rented this for Bruce, and I’m happy to say that as far as his supporting player roles go this isn’t bad. Since he’s playing a crime boss it’s fair to expect Cold Bruce, the Bruce we usually see these days where he doesn’t talk much, mostly grimaces and stares people down. He’s great at it but it’s kind of a waste of his charisma that he used to be known for. To my surprise though it’s Wiseass Bruce that we get here. Not full on David Addison mode – there’s no sunglasses or singing of oldies – but he laughs and jokes around while dunking a guy in a tank of water to get information. There’s a pretty good moment where we hear Bruce’s muffled small talk about sports from the POV of the guy underwater. I mean he’s not the protagonist so he’s not in here enough to make the movie worthwhile but he does a good job, better than expected.

Since I didn’t expect much there I was actually a little more excited about UFC Hall-of-Famer/lightly used Expendable Randy Couture’s name on the credits. He plays Bruce’s henchman. Don’t get excited. He’s kind of funny and gets to inject a little personality, but let’s just say he doesn’t last long. No real action scenes either, if that matters to you.

I actually thought 50 had some appeal in this. Some stiff line deliveries (and check out that thumbnail above – he still can’t act even in a still photo) but I can see how he’s kind of likable when he’s smiling and stuff. It made me understand the 50nomenon a little more, I think. Still don’t understand his mumbly style of rap or his open boasting about being a business man who doesn’t care at all about hip hop as a culture or even as a craft, but I can see some charisma here. A little. And I like that he survives getting shot because the bullet hits one of those blinged out crosses he wears. It actually stays under his shirt the whole movie but I like that they worked that piece of his persona into the story, making it a true 50 Cent vehicle. It’s like in DOUBLE TEAM how Dennis Rodman has a basketball themed parachute or in DISORDERLIES they eat a bunch of cakes.

Even better, I like that the bullet still goes into him – the cross just slows it down, it doesn’t deflect it like in most movies. And who would Fiddy have to remove bullets from him? Why, his tattoo artist, of course.

(And yes, he does give him alcohol and then pulls the slug out and dumps it into a metal container with a dramatic clink. Alot of people don’t know that the dramatic clink is actually the main thing that allows a wound to heal, that’s why they have to do that.)

Weirdly it doesn’t really try that hard to make 50 look tough except in a scene where he goes to visit Phillippe’s dad (James Remar) in prison and tells him “I didn’t come to ask for your help. I came to ask if there’s anything you want me to tell your son before I kill him.” Remar flips out but later gushes to his son about how 50 looked him in the eye when he said that.

So I liked that, but now I’m about all out of nice things to say, because SETUP is a bad movie. I say that as somebody who can appreciate this type of movie. I don’t necessarily mind that it’s not original at all, but the execution has to be better than this. It doesn’t feel real at all. Putting an ugly tattoo on Ryan Phillipe’s hand and having him sometimes slip into a Channing Tatum “I’m from the streets” accent off and on doesn’t make me believe him as a threat (even if the real Channing Tatum’s wife, the girl from STEP UP part 1, plays his sister). He’s lucky though because all the other criminals are so bad at what they do he’s able to last longer. 50 gets sidetracked with that indirect way of going after him. Then Couture fucks that up by convincing him to “celebrate” between getting the $2 million and delivering it, then fucks around with 50’s friend’s guns and misfires his own head off. Even if he hadn’t had the gun accident I think The Natural would’ve probly met some other unpleasant end. He actually said out loud, “Who’s gonna know I have $2 million in my car?” while leaving it parked at the apartment of some weed dealer he doesn’t even know. It’s almost like the character didn’t want to be in the movie long and was trying to create opportunities to get out of it.

So 50 and Couture’s characters are stupid, but so are these Russians. You’d think it would be hard to steal $2 million from Russian gangsters, but all 50 does is park in plain sight, not even a block’s distance away, and watch them dig up the money. Then he gets out and points guns at them. Doesn’t even have to be sneaky about it. How did they let him get the drop on them? They really had no plan, they thought they could just dig it up and not watch their backs? It boggles the mind.

He does the same thing following the STEP UP girl, just drives right behind her, parks and watches her go into a place, and come back out, and she never spots him. She must have some condition where she can’t see over her shoulder. Or maybe it was supposed to be he’s a ghost and Bruce can talk to him but everybody else that talks to him is also a ghost. I don’t know, but it goes so well you have to wonder why he even waits for her to leave, he probly should’ve just walked in the front door and took a look around while she was there, I’m sure she wouldn’t notice him or would figure he’s supposed to be there.

What 50 should’ve done in my opinion, and hear me out on this, he should’ve brought Bruce the $2 million and said “here is your $2 million, I’m sorry that Randy Couture got shot.” Instead he disappears for a couple days and then comes to Bruce and lies and claims that he didn’t get the money. This is part of his master plan to play Bruce and his gang against Ryan Phillippe, but what I’m saying is that it is not necessary. It’s Ryan Phillippe. I think you can handle him, even if the hand-tattoo is intimidating, and get your share of the diamond money.

Instead 50 plays Bruce and gets away with it because Bruce’s character is just as dumb as everybody else. One mistake he makes is he just lets 50 disappear for like 3 days and thinks “Huh, wonder what happened to my money? Oh well.” Another mistake is that when 50 does show up he believes what he tells him. He’s weirdly trusting and loyal and he will live to regret it. Well, he will regret it.

Even the dead guy’s widow is dumb, she doesn’t slap 50 at the funeral when he says “I’ll make it better.” She should know that means “I’ll give you a bunch of stolen mob money which is of equal value to the life of your husband.” This creepily detached materialism also fits the 50 Cent persona, but I’m not sure that was a conscious artistic choice. It’s supposed to be normal I think.

Movies have a way of making you root for someone who in reality wouldn’t deserve your support. We root for bank robbers all the time. Just recently I rooted for the driver in DRIVE even though he’s a total psychopath. So it’s embarrassing for this movie to let me turn on the protagonist. By the end I disagreed with what he was doing. Sure, kill Phillippe, get back your money from the diamond heist. I get that. But he drags Bruce into it. He lies to Bruce and steals his money. Bruce’s only crime – well, his only crime against 50 – is to trust 50 and be good to his word. He is clearly the more honorable of the two crooks, and of course the most likable, but you’re supposed to be okay with him getting fucked over by this asshole.

I want to like scenes with Bruce making conversation about random things like his prayer habits or his feelings about the death of newspapers, but when you drop one of those into such a lazy, amateur hour crime story it doesn’t have much power. I already don’t believe in the characters or the situations, so why am I gonna give a shit what one character has to say about his ritual of reading the box scores with breakfast? It seems at best self-conscious, at worst pathetically fake Tarantino.

So the battle was probly lost from the script stage, but some of the crappier elements of the movie reek of postproduction producer suggestions. There’s alot of awkward first person narration, like a scene where he watches Randy Couture’s dead body get ground into hamburger while explaining to us that it made him think about such and such. It’s all supposed to bring the story together but mostly seems useless. Filmatically the movie is pretty restrained, not a bunch of Avid farts or anything, but there are some annoying digital zoom-ins, a dead giveaway that somebody in the editing room felt the movie was boring as shit and that nothing they’d actually shot was gonna change that but hey maybe the idiots who would watch this garbage would be hypnotized by me pushing this button here that makes it zoom in. Let’s try that.

But way worse than that is the freeze frames and text as each of the characters is introduced, with generic terms like “THE MOB BOSS” or “THE MUSCLE” or whatever. You see, it’s playing with archetypes. It seems like these are just empty cliche characters without much substance or personality, but that’s because it’s a tribute to the literary tradition of the– you know, it’s like the, I don’t know. Film noir or– you know… what’s that, ‘meta,’ do they say? You know what I’m saying.

In every single case I pictured the movie without those titles, with just the characters showing up and you gotta figure out from their conversations who they are, like in a movie. In every single case it would clearly work better that way. Man, you guys gotta stop doing that. I don’t know what makes you think that’s gonna add style to your movie.

Not that it was gonna work without that shit though. I’m just guessing here but this seems like 50 Cent (who is one of the producers) came up with the basic idea of it and the screenwriter had to halfway flesh it out and everybody was more like “Is this what you want, 50?” and trying to make him happy than trying to figure out the actual good  way to make it into a professional movie for people to watch. So competence and paychecks are about all anybody’s getting out of this, except for Bruce. He does pretty good, so good job Bruce.

1. Bruce, Sylvester, Arnold

Deadline is now reporting the number one EXPENDABLES 2 assumption as official: Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger have “closed deals” to take “substantial” roles in the movie.

My guess is “substantial” means more than a cameo but less than a starring role. Bruce has DIE HARD 5 and RED 2 (this generation’s THE WHOLE 10 YARDS) lined up, Arnold has the more promising LAST STAND. They’ll probly get hustled along pretty quick but hopefully get a good scene or two each like Mickey Rourke did.

2. They’re trying to get Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Scott Adkins

It’s been rumored for months that Van Damme would be the villain, and he’s talked about it in interviews. The Norris rumor is a more recent but persistent one. Since neither have been officially announced we can assume they haven’t completely worked it out yet. But a few days ago commenter Felix pointed me to this link on the official Millennium Films websight. When you click on it as of today it says “Cast: TBA”. But at the time Felix first gave me that link it said:

“Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Jet Li, Chuck Norris, Jean Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Scott Adkins.”

Since those names hadn’t been officially announced and I hadn’t even heard about Adkins before that I wondered if it was official. Since they have since removed it I think we can assume that means that’s what they want but it’s not set in stone yet.

The attempted addition of Adkins is kind of a victory for people like us. Back when Stallone was in the Ain’t It Cool talkbacks asking for EXPENDadvice I know some of us were talking up Adkins. At that time he was not very well known, but his legend has grown since then.

(Then again I heard somewhere that Stallone had tried to get him the first time around, probly for the role that went to Gary Daniels.)

3. Mickey Rourke is not getting a bigger part this time. Or ever.

I thought he was the best part of the first one, adding his eccentricities and delivering that tearful monologue like he actually gave a shit. So I was disappointed a while back when I first read this official Millennium Films plot summary:

“The Expendables are back and this time it’s personal! After Tool (Mickey Rourke), the heart and soul of the Expendables, is brutally murdered on a mission, his comrades swear to avenge him. They’re not the only ones who want blood. Tool’s beautiful young and wild daughter Fiona embarks on her own revenge mission, complicating matters when she is captured and ransomed by a ruthless dictator plotting to destroy a resistance movement. Now Barney and the Expendables must risk everything to save her and humanity.”

4. Donnie Yen was offered a role but has not accepted yet

Some scenes will take place in China, which in my opinion is the same exact country where Donnie Yen lives. So they wrote a part for him, but if he turns it down I’m sure they have plenty of people on their backup list.

Didn’t we come up with this idea in the comments before, that the Expendables could go to Hong Kong, they could bring in Chow Yun Fat and various other all-stars and do it in a late ’80s early ’90s John Woo homage type of style? We’re always ahead of the curve on this shit.

5. The action is for sure gonna suck

Even if Stallone figures out that everybody hates the style that he used for the last movie because he thought it was the style that everybody loves, he still has Simon West directing. I personally believe that Mr. West is improving and that THE MECHANIC was watchable, but by far the most competent action scenes he has directed in a movie were in TOMB RAIDER, that was ten years ago and those were not exactly classics or in a style applicable to this material. So it would simply be unrealistic to expect for Stallone to want to change the style drastically from the one he chose for ruining part 1 and for West to suddenly pick up skills he never cared about in 14 years of action filmmaking.

(although I did hear that the Human Target TV show had some good action… can anybody verify that?)

other topics of note:

A. There is currently no wrestler in the cast.

One thing I thought was cool about part 1 was the way he tried to cast badasses of multiple generations and disciplines. He had ’80s action movie icons, Jason Statham, a wusha master, an MMA legend, a guy from WWE. Most of those guys are returning, but Stone Cold Steve Austin’s character was killed. Will Stallone bring in a new wrestling legend, and if so who would/should he get?

You guys would know this one better than me, ’cause all the wrestlers I know best are old and broken down now. I mean I think we’d all be happy to get Roddy Piper in there but I’m thinking Stallone would want more of a physical menace in the Stone Cold mode.

B. What about this “Fiona” lady?

If “Tool’s beautiful young and wild daughter Fiona” is such an important character hopefully they’ll cast somebody as formidable as the men in the movie. But is there anybody young, tough and known enough to fit the bill? I doubt Gina Carano or Jeeja Yanin are available. Who should they get?

My vote is for Maggie Q. Other possible applicants: Zoe Bell, Rhona Mitra, Lena Headey. Then of course you got your Michelle Rodriguez and your go to pretty-girls-who-play-tough like Jessica Biel and Milla Jovovich. Or they could go the “good looking unknown actress with little screen presence” route, that’s a popular one.

The alleged candidates:

1. Joe Cornish. This is the guy that directed ATTACK THE BLOCK. I haven’t gotten to see it yet, but everybody tells me I should. He also wrote THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN with friend of the internet Edgar Wright. I have no opinion yet but I plan to see ATTACK THE BLOCK.

2. Justin Lin – FAST AND THE FURIOUS 3-5, plus that BETTER LUCK TOMORROW movie and FINISHING THE GAME. He has shown a penchant for good practical action and stuntwork, charismatic and manly characters, nice visuals and a good sense of humor. I would hope his DIE HARD would be a little more grounded than his FAST FIVE, but I think he would be a good choice. Possible drawback: could delay FURIOUS SIX. Possible bonus: could delay TERMINATOR 5: TERMINATION OF THE TERMINATRIX.

3. Nicolas Winding Refn. This kind of seems like the most interesting choice on the list, but I gotta admit I’ve only seen BRONSON and I honestly didn’t love it as much as you’re supposed to. I’ll have to check out the PUSHER trilogy and VALHALLA RISING, which I’ve heard good things about, and of course his new one DRIVE everybody is excited about. Plus I think there’s one more action movie lined up after that one.

And then it’s John Moore, who did BEHIND ENEMY LINES, FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX, THE OMEN REMAKE and MAX PAYNE. I don’t know, did anybody see FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX? I think I might’ve heard it was pretty good. I saw MAX PAYNE and it did have a couple good parts, but not enough to imply that he could handle a DIE HARD. He did all his movies at Fox and apparently they like hanging out with him or whatever so they look at him for every big movie that comes up, like THE WOLVERINE and everything. (Then again they didn’t choose him for that one, so maybe we’ll get lucky here.)

Anyway, they’re saying this one will take place in Russia, will have McClane teamed with his son (not seen or mentioned in the series since he was a little kid), and is still unfortunately written by Skip Woods, whose best movie I’m sorry to say has gotta be THE A-TEAM. He wrote and directed the painful Tarantino ripoff THURSDAY and wrote SWORDFISH (aka Halle’s Berries), HITMAN and X-MEN’S ORIGINS PRESENTS WOLVERINE. So you see, there are alot of obstacles for McClane to deal with on this one.

I’m Bruce Willis from wreckandsalvage on Vimeo.

By the way, a friend has promised me some Bruce Willis cologne, so you guys don’t have to worry about my hygiene anymore.

(thanks to The Establish Shot for sending me the link.)

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I’ll start by laying out the three basic schools of thought about why HUDSON HAWK crashed and burned.

1. The McClane Factor. Audiences had originally loved Bruce as David Addison on MOONLIGHTING. Nobody expected DIE HARD to be so good. But it re-invented action and it re-invented Bruce. Sure, they still had a taste for David Addison, but they hungered for John McClane, especially right here in 1991. Moonlighting was over, DIE HARD 2 had just happened, Comedy Bruce had been shed to reveal Action Bruce fully grown beneath… then all the sudden he comes out with this. It’s like, all due respect to the black eye mask, but right after you see THE BIG BOSS or FIST OF FURY for the first time you’re not anxious for Bruce Lee to go back to playing Kato.

HUDSON HAWK is way more MOONLIGHTING than DIE HARD. His character is the opposite of John McClane in many ways. McClane is a cop, Hawk is a cat burglar. McClane is a working stiff, Hawk loves cappucino. McClane wears an undershirt and no shoes, Hawk a fancy black overcoat and hat. McClane makes smartass comments to leaven his seemingly doomed situation, when Hawk makes them it emphasizes his fearlessnes. McClane is having trouble keeping his marriage together, Hawk is so smooth he scores a hot nun. If you went into this movie hoping to see a character kind of like John McClane you would feel a little like Karl hanging from a chain.

2. The media was out to get Bruce. This seems to be Bruce’s theory. Some of the critics and other media establishment individuals weren’t onboard the Nakatomi Express yet. They looked down their noses at DIE HARD, especially after there was a sequel. They thought it was low culture, dumb violence for dumb people. So they wanted Bruce to fall on his ass, and this obviously self-indulgent pet project with a cocky attitude and shameless silliness was too juicy a target to pass up. It was panned viciously and that may have contributed to its financial failure.

3. It wasn’t very good.

Which of these is the real reason? I have always believed it was a Neopolitan ice cream style striped-combo of the three. But after my latest viewing I put less emphasis on the third one. I think I’ve seen it three times now, and each time liked it better than before. Admittedly it started at a pretty low level of liking, but this time was the best so far. It doesn’t all work, but if you’re in the right mood it’s funny and unusual.

Bruce plays Eddie something, aka the Hudson Hawk, or I thought that’s what they said but at some point they seem to switch to Hudson Hawk being his actual name. Anyway he’s a very talented cat burglar just out of the joint, relaxing and discussing a straight career path with his brother and co-bar owner Tommy Five-Tone (Danny Aiello) when some crooks called the Mario Brothers (no relation) force them to do a museum heist. This turns out to be a setup by nefarious CIA man James Coburn and a team of younger agents (he calls them “the MTV-IA”) code-named after candy bars.

In the movie’s most perfectly surreal moment he’s just survived a harrowing high speed gurney-roll through freeway traffic when David Caruso rappels down from who knows where and holds out a card that says, “MY NAME IS KIT KAT. THIS IS NOT A DREAM.” Next thing you know the Hawk is poisoned, packed in styrofoam shipping peanuts and flown to Rome where he’s forced to steal Leonardo Da Vinci’s codex from the Vatican. In the process he falls for a pretty girl (Andie McDowell) who’s trying to keep the Vatican’s artifacts safe, and he turns out to be embroiled in an evil plot to rebuild a hidden Da Vinci invention that creates gold (not because they want to be rich but because they want to destroy the world economy).

Jesus, I gotta add theory #4, that the movie failed because these were the fucking movie posters they made:

That stupid one on the left I remember as the poster but also I found this one on the right, which says:

Shy.
Sensitive.
Law-abiding.
Polite.
Respectful.
–I don’t think so.

For Christ’s sake, man. I know somebody probly worked hard at least on the typography there on one of them, and everybody has bills to pay. Don’t want to make anybody feel bad, but come on. Let’s have some pride in our work, fellas. I personally believe you could’ve done better. just my 2 cents.

The screenplay was credited to two writers, Steven E. de Souza (the E is for Excellence [nah, just kidding, it's so he doesn't get confused with all the other Steven de Souzas]) and Daniel Waters. De Souza is famous for being one of the writers of DIE HARD, and his credits also include 48 HOURS, COMMANDO and RICOCHET. But also THE FLINSTONES, BEVERLY HILLS COP 2-3, STREET FIGHTER (also director), JUDGE DREDD, and as much as I love it I gotta say KNOCK OFF. Waters meanwhile is known as the visionary writer of HEATHERS, but also had a streak of big studio movies: THE ADVENTURES OF FORD FAIRLANE, then this, BATMAN RETURNS and DEMOLITION MAN. My guess is that de Souza wrote the thing up based on Bruce and his friend Robert Kraft’s story notes, then Waters probly went in and rewrote all the dialogue.

The weak side of it is the summer event movie side of it. It has that early ’90s mediocre studio fantasy adventure feel, with effects by ILM (for a Da Vinci flying machine and exploding gold machine) and a score working itself up too much trying to sound epic and thrilling no matter what’s on screen. If this was supposed to work on multiple levels I don’t think the fantasy adventure level quite succeeded. Bruce does too much swinging around and falling with comical looks on his face for the action to have any weight to it, and Richard E. Grant and Sandra Bernhard are too campy and over the top as the villains to be taken seriously at all.

I mean I’m just saying I doubt anybody’s watching this thing excited to get to the flying machine sequence.

But as a comedy it’s much more successful because it’s jam-packed with goofy little touches (a bomb shooting onto a thug’s head, Caruso painted silver and disguised as a statue) and a Shane Blackian amount of quips. Everybody always has a smartass comment to rattle off to everybody else’s smartass comment. They’re even making clever quips when they claim that they can’t make clever quips. At one point Coburn says, “I wish I could come up with this glib repartee the way you guys can. But I can’t, so I’ll just paralyze you.”

And glib is just the right word for it. Everybody jokes to cover any fear of death they may have. When they’ve been paralyzed and shown a shocking USA Today cover story Hawk and Tommy try to get them to turn to section B to check the Mets score.

I’m sure some of you will quote your favorite lines in the comments. Here’s a couple of mine:

Asked how much time he did Hawk says, “Put it this way. I never saw E.T.”

Richard E. Grant The butler guy slashes the mobster and says, “So much for his cut.” Then, “Forgive my dry British humor.”

The moronic Butterfinger thinks he’s in France (he’s in Italy) and announces, “Ah, to be in Par-ee and in love!”

Also, one of the most ridiculous one-liners ever, after somebody gets beheaded: “I guess you won’t be going to that hat  convention in July!”

(why July? Hudson Hawk really has a detailed idea of this imaginary hat convention. I’m surprised he didn’t say where it happens and how much it costs for a VIP badge.)

I like the candy bar agents, a colorful bunch of characters. The standout is Butterfinger, a huge, dumb oaf with a Boz-like haircut. When part of a plan is going awry he asks, “You want me to rape him?” so they distract him with his copy of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. When he’s shot he calls Coburn “coach.” Then there’s the mute Kit Kat. As he falls over dead thankfully he has a card prepared that says, “I ALWAYS LIKED YOU.”

If you’re like me, the main thing you remember about this movie is the heist sequence at the beginning, where Hawk and Tommy sing “Would You Like To Swing On a Star” to themselves while sneaking around the museum, because they have the lengths of songs memorized and use them to time their movements. Of course this makes no sense at all, and Tommy even points it out (”You know they invented something while you were inside – it’s called ‘the watch’”). But if you just go with it it makes for a fun little musical number. Aiello actually isn’t a bad singer and Bruce does better than on RETURN OF BRUNO.

This actually has a bit of that Bruno in it, because it’s Bruce indulging his white bluesman sensibilities, showing off what songs he loves and thinking he looks real fuckin cool adjusting that hat all the time.

What I didn’t know until I watched the DVD extra “The Story of Hudson Hawk” is that this movie comes entirely out of Bruce’s music-playing. It’s actually a really good half hour featurette of Bruce and co-story writer/music supervisor Robert Kraft. Kraft is at the piano for the whole interview and plays and sings the theme song much more appealingly than Dr. John did on the end credits. They explain that they met in 1979 when Kraft’s band was performing in a club. Bruce was in the audience and was presumptuous enough to pull out a harmonica and start playing with them. You’d think this would get Bruce beat up, but instead they became friends. Later Kraft wrote the song, Bruce vowed it would be a movie some day, many years passed and then somehow he turned out to be right.

So for Bruce fans this is a must-see, because it shows you so much of Bruce’s personality. It captures his wiseass side, his musical persona, a little bit of his action side, his Jersey pride and his friendship with Kraft. It shows that as much as we love Action Bruce it’s not a bad idea to invite Comedy Bruce out every once in a while. This movie has really grown on me over the years, from “not very good” to “actually has some funny parts” to “for the most part I like this!”

a couple notes:

1. I don’t know why they’re making such a big deal about Willis and Stallone working together on THE EXPENDABLES, because they already worked together on this one. Well, Frank Stallone, anyway.

2. This was not the first time Bruce collaborated with Kraft on a movie. Kraft wrote a song for LOOK WHO’S TALKING TOO.

3. IMDb’s database recommends that if I like HUDSON HAWK I may also like Jodorowsky’s HOLY MOUNTAIN and BLUE STREAK starring Martin Lawrence.

[ratings]

The director is Antoine Fuqua (REPLACEMENT KILLERS and TRAINING DAY), trying for the admirable goal of an action movie that’s Important. He means well, but I don’t think he quite pulls it off. For his part, on the other hand, Bruce does pull it off. He’s a grim, no nonsense professional, not trying to be an asshole, but doesn’t waste time being friendly. At first this seems like a waste of Bruce because he never gets to use his wiseass powers. He shows a sense of humor exactly 1 (one) time in the movie when he wakes up in the jungle and asks, “Are we there yet?”

(SPOILER: they are not there yet. That’s why it’s funny.)

He’s mostly the lieutenant party pooper. No, we can’t rescue everybody. No, you can’t bring all your stuff. I know you just sat down but we gotta keep moving. You gotta shut that baby up or we will all be executed by rebels, etc. Just generally heroically bumming everybody out all the time.

But it’s okay because Brooding Bruce gives a real good performance that elevates the movie a couple notches and somewhat won me over as the tension started to mount in the last section.

For a while it diddles around, though. Bruce and his team are only assigned to rescue the doctor lady, and they tell her they cannot and will not rescue anyone else. But when she refuses to go without her people Bruce says fine and brings everybody along.

When they get to the rendezvous point with the choppers it’s obvious that there’s not room for everybody. Sorry lady, you been Punk’d, they drag her onto the copter and leave everybody behind.

But then, like a minute later, they fly over the burning, body-strewn mission (like Luke Skywalker returning to his aunt and uncle’s in Star Wars Part 1: Star Wars Episode 4), and Bruce makes the decision to turn it back around, put children and elderly on the copters and lead everybody else to safety on foot. It’s a major character turning point, but it doesn’t have that much wallop because I thought he already made that change back at the beginning when he pretended to agree to save everyone. See, I think they shortchanged the drama there because there’s only a brief period where it’s “just kidding, I didn’t change the mission, actually I’m sticking with the original mission” before a quick turnaround to “okay, I will change the mission after all, this time for serious guys trust me.”

Then, after they’ve turned the copters around, flown back, put some refugees on board and started marching the others toward Cameroon, only then does one of his guys ask him what he’s doing. Like he couldn’t have put context clues together to solve that mystery. Or asked him back on the helicopter.

I like his team, though. They have minimal development even though they got Cole PITCH BLACK Hauser, Nick CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK Chinlund, Johnny SPARTAN Messner and Eamonn BLOOD AND BONE Walker among them. But they look very credible and Predator-ready. In the best and most tense action sequence they demonstrate their elite-teamwork when they come across a rebel massacre of civilians from a distance. At first it seems like they’re just gonna watch, it’s not their fight. But they decide to engage, the snipers start taking out the rebels and Bruce and others move in close to finish the rest of them.

The most enjoyable thing about the movie is the team’s sense of loyalty to Bruce. There’s no whining or arguing to force dramatic conflict. If they disagree with him they still do what he says, not just out of a soldier’s duty I think, but out of respect for him. My favorite scene is when Bruce decides he’s gonna violate Tom Skerritt’s order and try to save the people. He goes around and has each soldier say what he thinks. A real nice bonding moment where everybody’s on the same page and willing to risk their lives and then instead of being all macho about it Bruce quietly says, “Thanks fellas.”

Unfortunately, most of the 90 minutes before that don’t have the same kind of momentum. I suspect a huge part of that is the score by Hans Zimmer, an uncharacteristically mellow lament that pretty much stays at the same pitch no matter what’s happening, occasionally exotic-ing shit up with African vocals, like that style they made fun of a little in TROPIC THUNDER. I’m not saying bang us over the head, but this movie never acts like there’s any suspense to be had, it’s just like “hey everybody, isn’t this sad? donate now.” I mean in retrospect maybe Fuqua isn’t trying to make an action movie that’s Important, maybe he’s just going for straight Important, no action. I honestly think a bombastic score like INVASION USA would make the movie work alot better. But maybe it would give away that this ain’t Oscar bait.

Here’s how to prove that it’s actually some unholy combination of action movie and Oscar bait. If it was the first one, it would take place in some fictional African country called like Togeria or Ghanobo or Zambibwe. If it was the second it would be a fictionalized story based on an actual historical incident, a massacre or at least a coup d’etat that really happened. Instead it takes place in the actual country of Nigeria but with a made up civil war.

Apparently some critics were bothered by the unhistoricalness of it, but one complaint they probly let slide was the traditional “this is racist because it’s about Africans but focuses almost entirely on the handful of white people who are also there.” That’s a pretty common and frustrating Hollywood approach, but the one reason this is different is because Fuqua is black. I think that’s kind of interesting actually because it says that maybe these types of stories are not so much a racial tendency as a cultural one. He’s African American but that doesn’t mean he relates to the Africans as much as the Americans, even though he tries. I guess it’s kind of like Walker in the movie – some of the Africans try to talk to him about his ancestry, and he has no idea. It’s just not a part of most people’s lives.

I’m not sure what the title means, if anything. I don’t think it’s the same as Tears of a Clown. I believe it was originally the title of some jungle action movie that John Woo was gonna direct. Then that script I think got re-written into what they then thought was gonna be DIE HARD 4. But they couldn’t figure out how McClane would get through the jungle barefooted so they scrapped that and Bruce said, “Hey, do you mind if I take a few things that were left over, such as the title?” and they were like “Yeah sure, it’s just gonna sit in storage collecting dust anyway, and also who knows what the fuck it means, I would never use that title” and he said “It probly means diamonds or something, I don’t know” and they said “I don’t care, just take the fuckin thing.”

The movie ends with the famous quote “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”. So you know it’s supposed to be a plea for American military intervention in these types of conflicts. I don’t know, man. In a situation like this made up Hollywood one, where a small team of elite soldiers can save the lives of a whole bunch of innocents, of course I would be for it. Unfortunately, even Bruce’s fictional team are not able to stop the made up civil war, they can only help maintain hope for democracy and freedom and what not in the future. Which actually means the dictator will keep fighting the prince and more people will die.

I wish there was as easy of an answer as “We have to do something!” but unfortunately nobody really knows what the something is that’s gonna definitely make shit better and not make it worse.

But I guess if you take it in more general terms and not just as a story about the military, then it’s a little easier to take. It just says that you should follow your conscience, even if your training and your occupation tells you to do otherwise. You should have sympathy for people and if there’s something you can do to help them, even if it’s at a sacrifice to yourself, you should think about doing it. That’s what Bruce would do.

[ratings]

That’s not true. I made up everything after the word “principal.” Bruce does play the principal and he does always talk about Iraq. He could almost be the same character from PLANET TERROR. He’s a hostile disciplinarian who’s driven into a fury when students chew gum. He also leads the school in a singalong of a patriotic song he wrote. But it’s not an action movie and he’s not the star.

This is one of those movies like BRICK where they take a typical adult story and recreate it in a teenage world. Isn’t it cute what teens do? They’re just like people only little. Technically this one’s probly not as good as BRICK, but personally I found it a little easier to swallow because the hero is kind of a friendly dork and the tone is lighter, so I didn’t feel pushed to take it all seriously.

Instead of a film noir tribute this one’s based on conspiracy thrillers and ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN. Bobby Funke (Reece Thompson) is a wannabe writer for the school paper obsessed with Woodward and Bernstein but all he can get is a fluffy assignment to write a profile of the super-popular and athletic student body president. Meanwhile, the SATs are stolen from Bruce’s office. Funke is a suspect (because he was chewing gum) so he tries to figure out who did it, and ends up fingering the president. But was it a set up?

(See, that’s the assassination. It’s a metaphor. I wasn’t sure going in but I in retrospect it would be weird if the school president actually got his head blown off and some kid had to figure out who did it. Because that seems like more of a police matter. I guess in that movie the debate team would be the Warren Commission.)

They have a detention room that’s treated like a prison or an insane asylum, and he even gets to go in to question an inmate – it’s that kind of stuff. He follows somebody and spies on them for clues while taking his driver’s license test. I thought that was pretty clever.

Thompson is a likable protagonist, Mischa Barton (from a television program that the youths watch, I imagine) fits in well as the unobtainable (but somehow obtained) girlfriend of the president, sort of the femme fatale even though I said this wasn’t a noir. Bruce is good of course, though obviously I prefer roles where he gets to use his humor and charisma. He’s got those on the shelf lately I guess, recharging.

THE ASSASSINATION OF A HIGH SCHOOL PRESIDENT was directed by some guy and written by two production assistants from SOUTH PARK. It’s a perfectly decent sold-at-a-film-festival type of indie movie – you know the type. You read about it on the internet and some people who saw it first act like it’s one of the best movies ever, and then everybody forgets about it the next day. A year later you catch it on DVD or cable and it’s fine. I wouldn’t necessarily tell you to watch it, but from a Bruce completist perspective it’s pretty decent.

[ratings]

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The movie takes place in a future where 98% of the world’s population sit lazily in chairs (with things over their eyes – looks just like the cover of THE 6TH DAY) operating beautiful looking robot duplicates that go out into the world for them. So it’s kind of like THE MATRIX, if everybody knew they were plugged in and did it willingly, and instead of being a computer simulation it was robots. Which if this were real would be kind of better. Everybody knows the old rides at Disneyland with the animatronics are better than the new ones with computer animation projected on stuff. But this is not real and this is no THE MATRIX.

Bruce Willis plays Greer, a cop. When he’s a robot he has hair, when he’s not a robot it must be said that he looks kind of like Billy Joel. Fortunately he doesn’t sing any Billy Joel songs, or I would’ve walked out. Greer is one of the cops on the scene for an incident at a night club where a couple surrogates (surries for short) were destroyed and their eyes exploded. It would be pretty much like some cars got trashed or something except that when he goes to talk to the operators it turns out they’re dead in their chairs, their brains turned to mush. Until now having a surrogate has not been like being in THE MATRIX or in a Freddy dream – the whole point was that you could put your robot into danger and not have to worry about it. Except I guess you sort of would because who can afford to buy a new one, and what with insurance rates and all that, I’m sure.

Basically he has to solve this mystery about a weapon that can kill people through their surrogates, which may be connected to a movement on “the reservation” where the last remaining people who don’t use robots live. The movie seems to agree with those people about the technology, but it still portrays them as ignorant fundamentalist nuts.

There’s plenty of cool stuff in this movie. It’s not the breathless TOTAL RECALL sci-fi actionfest I was hoping for (or even TERMINATOR 3), but there’s a pretty good human vs. robot chase or two. Nothing as good as the bathroom fight or the truck chase from TERMINATOR 3, but fun. There’s a whole world of people with doll hair and digitally airbrushed complexions moving around stiffly and not emoting quite enough. There are little details to the world like how robots get high, that the people on the reservation string up dead robots to make an example out of them like pirates, a joke about what you look like when your surrogate is in the shop. And I like the image of organic Bruce Willis, his face covered in cuts and stubble, limping around this artificial world, getting used to what it’s like to get up off your ass and leave the fuckin house.

Obviously there’s a subtext here about this here internet and how much of our lives these days takes place from a distance through electronics instead of just a couple of people standing in the same place having a conversation. You’re definitely supposed to think about all these headsets and handheld devices and newfangled gizmos that me – and I gotta admit, most likely Andy Rooney – are suspicious of. And it has pretty good logic about what would happen after living through these things, that you could become very vain and begin to hate your actual physical form and not want people to see what you really look like.

But the movie is pretty underwhelming. The mystery feels both too convoluted and yet not complex enough. It gets a little hard to follow since different people are controlling other people’s robots (there must be something in the Bible against that) but at the same time it comes unraveled too quickly, there doesn’t seem to be much to it. And maybe this isn’t fair to Mostow, but the advertising kind of fucks the movie, because the trailer shows the ending. In the context of the trailer I thought “whoah, then what happens?” but the answer in context is “the end credits with a cheesy rock song.” So it feels anticlimactic.

It also has that same problem from so many sci-fi movies where it always has to be about the most monumental thing that ever happened, something that affects the whole world and changes everything. Why couldn’t it just be a mystery that takes place in this world? I think that would be more meaningful. I’m sick of people having to save the fucking world. I mean that’s not exactly what this is, but it’s close. How ’bout we scale it down a little bit there, fellas?

And come to think of it I don’t think they even establish the world of the surrogates as well as they could. They go through a bunch of the history but they don’t really show you much of why people wanted to use these in the first place. The idea is that the world is too dangerous for a human to go into, but the robots don’t really take advantage of their safety. A guy jumps off a platform in a night club, that’s about it. Mostly they just go about their business. I mean you can’t tell me people wouldn’t be parkouring all over the place. They’d be doing whatever crazy shit they normally couldn’t. I guess it’s implied that the robots just go out and fuck stranger robots, but being PG-13 there’s not much elaboration. And there’s only a couple shots of weirdos on the subway to show that robots can have inhuman physical appearance if they want to.

This is not a criticism of the movie, but there are obviously lots of questions about what goes on here. They mention surrogates for kids, but you only see one and it’s controlled by an adult, so who the fuck knows where the kids are or who takes care of them or if they have to buy a new surry every six months. And you have to wonder what the protocol is with these things, where do you draw the line with using them? Do you sit in your chair to control your robot sitting in a chair to watch TV or something? Do surrogates jerk off, or does their perfect looks and flawless safe sex make porn obsolete? Do any humans like to fuck surrogates and vice versa? There’s gotta be some new fetishes developing in this world. Do some pervs have websites with spy photos of real women in their chairs? Are there even websites? Do surrogates sit down at a keyboard looking at a screen? If so do they recognize the irony? Do they have different outfits or just the one they sleep in? Does anybody have to iron those suits? If so is it through a surrogate or just some poor working class dude in that 2%? Are there aborigines using these things? Because 98% is alot of the world population. You have to wonder how it works in different cultures, how their histories and beliefs affect their use.

Also, how do you take a shit.

As for Bruce, of course he’s good, but this is not one of his better characters. He doesn’t get to use the charm and sense of humor much, but it’s not one of his deeper gloomy roles either. I like that it’s kind of about his relationship with his wife (Elizabeth Banks Rosamund Pike) and trying to reconnect without robots, but he doesn’t get a chance to mine the emotions of that too much.

Not bad. But not good. Not even as good as I, ROBOT, as far as flawed robot movies go. Better than DISNEY’S THE KID I bet, as far as Bruce movies. I haven’t seen that one though.

[ratings]

I also got a review of SEXY BEAST for you.

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“YIPPEE KI YAY, MOVIE FANS!” That’s what some dipshit wrote on the back of the new LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD dvd. But in the new unrated cut of the movie itself John McClane is allowed to live free and say the whole legendary, maybe-shouldn’t-have-become-part-of-the-DIE-HARD-formula catch phrase. Say goodbye to “Yippee ki yay mother(gunshot).” It’s out the window like Hans Gruber.

The new cut is not drastically, hugely or monumentally different. If you hated the theatrical version you’ll still hate this one. The story is the same, I didn’t notice any scenes removed or added, there’s no new narration or a corny shot of a unicorn that’s supposed to make you see the whole movie in a new light. McClane still doesn’t make good on his threat to beat Kevin Smith’s character to death – not even in a deleted scene, unless it’s one a them “easter eggs” and I just didn’t find it. I’ll keep looking.

But what it does have is a whole bunch of little touches they never should’ve had to cut in the first place. Things most people wouldn’t notice but that add up to more of a DIE HARD tone overall. Like, for example, the hemoglobin. It sprays sometimes when people get shot. It squirts when the guy from DISTRICT B13 gets shredded (but it’s subtle, it’s not the Johnny Depp in NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET geyser I imagined). After Maggie Q shoots the technician at the power plant she squeakily wipes blood off his screen with her hand. That was my favorite little addition. After McClane throws this character Russo down the stairs and then steals his walkie talkie they show his whole bloody face instead of the tamer profile of the PG-13. When McClane finally takes out Gabriel there is a bloodspray this time, so it’s a little more clear what’s going on, although I still think they should’ve shown it from the side so you see both parties getting shot (the one part where I thought Len Wiseman blew it with his staging).

More important than the blood, though, is the fuck. The fuck word. The fuck bomb. The most important four letter word in the English language. You know how they say Eskimos have 100 words for snow? Well, McClane has twice that many ways to use the word fuck, and he exercises a couple of them here. Which is all we asked for, 20th Century Fox. Would it really have skinned your balls so bad for us to have heard him say motherfucker a couple times in a theater with our fellow world citizens? Of course not. I think we have all learned a lesson here. Mostly you. Just don’t do it again, fuckers.

The unrated cut also uses some alternate takes, so like in the DVDs of those Judd Apatow comedies you might be missing your favorite line. I was disappointed that he now tells Russo to take a nap. He used to sarcastically tell him he was going to get him a doctor. They even changed one of the movie’s more quotable lines, where he says he killed the helicopter with a car because he was out of bullets. I won’t spoil the new line but I thought it was a pretty good one.

Speaking of that scene, there’s a little added that improves it I think. He’s in the car, taking fire from the helicopter, and the car goes up in flames. That happened before but now it’s made more clear in a longer shot and McClane says, “Car’s on fire. That can’t be good.” I like that because it shows he has no choice but to jump out of the car. So it seems a little more sensible when he does it.

The extras on the DVD are pretty decent. There’s a commentary with Bruce, Wiseman, and the editor. It’s not fascinating or anything but they tell some good stories here and there and you find out things like that Wiseman was against McClane flying a helicopter. (I agree.) There’s a really long making of documentary, so in-depth that even I got bored. But at least they’re not skimping. I do wish they talked to the writers and had more on the DISTRICT B13 guy. The stunt supervisor mentions that his jump to the fire escape was really done in one shot, but that’s about all they say about him.

My favorite extra is actually Kevin Smith’s interview with Bruce. I think this was the one that was online when the movie came out, but I never watched it. Although I hate Smith in the movie, he does do a good interview. They also specifically discuss the legendary Walter B talkback, which I’d like to think I had a little something to do with. (please hold applause until end.) When Smith tries to say that we talkbackers “care too much” about DIE HARD Bruce disagrees with him. But still does not beat him to death. Unless it happened later that day.

Also I was glad that they included that awesome DIE HARD music video that about a hundred people sent me the link to. There’s even a goofy featurette on “Guyz Nite,” the band that made it. The video now includes a verse about LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD but otherwise is the same badass collection of clips you saw on Youtube.

And there’s other extras I haven’t gotten around to yet, like some special from the Fox Movie Channel that’s hosted by Moriarty’s friend Tom Rothman. And for some reason they made it so you can burn a digital copy of the movie to your computer. Whoah, HIGH TECH! So it’s not a bad 2-disc set.

Despite my fears about the rating, I enjoyed LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD when I saw it last summer. So does it hold up? I still think it’s a fun movie, and I love seeing McClane in action again. But I’ve seen it 3 times now and that might be too much too soon. I don’t agree with Bruce and Kevin Smith that it’s better than the other sequels. But I can’t necessarily say it has less re-watch value, because I usually wait a year or two between viewings on the other ones. I do know that without the surprise factor the action in this one has a little less impact, and the scene with Kevin Smith gets more grating every time. It’s such an obvious joke, and they already covered that territory earlier when McClane made fun of Matt for having dolls in his apartment.

Therefore, I would like to take this opportunity to change my stance on that. I originally said that I didn’t blame Kevin Smith for saying yes, because how could you turn down being in a DIE HARD movie? But now I see that one must sometimes sacrifice for the greater good. If you are a wacky guy and they ask you to play a wacky guy in the sequel to a movie you love, you gotta say no. That’s the rule from now on. Or “the code of the streets” you could call it if you want to feel cool. Whatever you call it, the point is this: just because you got lucky doesn’t mean you should ruin it for everybody else. This includes but is not limited to sequels or spinoffs of:

ALIEN
DIRTY HARRY
TERMINATOR
the zombie films of George Romero
TEXAS CHAIN SAW obviously
THE GODFATHER
2001
WHEN WE WERE KINGS

or any other movie you can picture being ruined when Kevin Smith shows up (i.e. most)

I don’t mind you being wacky in private, just don’t go rubbing my face in it in public.

anyway, that’s it.

Originally published at Aint-It-Cool-News: http://www.aintitcool.com/?q=node/34837