Steven Soderbergh’s take on an action/spy thriller – built around “The Face of Women’s MMA” Gina Carano after he saw her on Strikeforce while flipping channels around – lives up to my high expectations. It’s written by Lem Dobbs and it’s like the kid sister of THE LIMEY, mixing the style of that Soderbergh classic with kind of a more upbeat ex-Marine-badass-operative-betrayed-and-on-the-run type of story. It has THE LIMEY’s sense of quiet, deliberate pace and dread and also its dry you-just-fucked-with-the-wrong-person type of humor. Of course, professional fighter Carano has different strengths as a performer than Terence Stamp does, so her movie has less emotion and more punching, kicking, choking, armbars, heads broken through furniture, foot chases, etc. Gina’s not gonna mourn the loss of the daughter she never knew, and Terence isn’t gonna climb up onto a roof. In my opinion. And it’s great to have both of them. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘Antonio Banderas’
Haywire
Sunday, January 22nd, 2012
Assassins
Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009
ASSASSINS: the word with two asses
Stallone, Banderas, Julianne Moore, Richard Donner. Not a bad roster, but I never heard anything good about this 1995 studio action picture. I’ve had it on my list for a while anyway because the script is credited to Andy & Larry Wachowski and Brian Helgeland. How do you go too wrong with that? Whoever’s script got ditched they were rewritten by somebody good. Either the MATRIX guys or the PAYBACK guy.
Well, overall the movie’s only okay, decent, watchable. Some nice touches, but fairly forgettable. But I gotta say, the first half hour or so approaches greatness. My favorite scene is actually right at the beginning. Stallone is leading another guy out into the woods at gunpoint, obviously to put him down like Old Yeller. Their faces are glum, like this is an inevitable conclusion they’ve dreaded for a long time. Both are wearing nice suits and ties, Stallone is wearing knee-high rubber boots.
Suddenly they get to a marsh. The guy’s shoe sticks in the mud. He laughs. “You know, when I saw you I wasn’t scared, but I did wonder why you were wearing those. Now I know.” (more…)
The Legend of Zorro
Thursday, October 27th, 2005Legend of Zorro is an old fashioned cornball type of movie, just like the first one. It’s all about sword fights and horse chases and the need for California statehood. You got your swashbuckling, your derring-do, your flips, etc. Zorro is the type of guy who will add a flip into any plan whether it’s needed or not. In the opening scene he is chasing an ugly bad guy with wooden teeth, and at one point he does a flip that is actually counter-productive, it causes him to lag behind. But he still catches up. He’s fuckin Zorro, man, what did you think was gonna happen?
This time around Zorro is in a John McClane circa DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE stage of his life. He’s drunk, his wife left him, and he got suspended. Actually I made that last part up, I don’t think you can get suspended from being Zorro. But the point is everything’s not strawberries and cream after part 1. You still got some underdog there even after the big happy ending each and every one of us remember so well from 10 years ago or however long it’s been.
Also his happy ending baby is now a grown child so he has to juggle masked heroism with regular fatherhood type business. He’s in almost a Jet Li in MY FATHER IS A HERO situation where his son idolizes Zorro but thinks his dad is a pansy nobleman who goes away too much and doesn’t have the balls to fight for what’s right, which in this place and time is California statehood. Seriously, everybody is really excited about it.
Another thing that sucks for Zorro, his horse is still kind of a dick. Or at least they don’t get along very well. The horse is always fuckin around, drinking beer and burping and stuff. Trying to get cheap laughs. But he takes directions well and he doesn’t mind Zorro jumping onto him from high elevations and I guess it’s hard to replace a horse like that. (more…)
Four Rooms
Saturday, January 1st, 2005
In this movie Bruce plays Leo, a drunk rich dude calling his wife on a cell phone. It’s a small part but this is Bruce we’re talking about and he makes it fucking SOAR. He’s hanging out in a hotel room with this spoiled celebrity jerry lewis fan and they decide to re-enact a bet from an alfred hitchcock episode and if they lose the bet a man loses his finger which is kind of a dumbass bet to make in my opinion but hey man, free country.
Well Bruce doesn’t have a whole lot to do with all that, he mainly has this conversation with his wife he’s going to be home late and it’s funny. But this is only the last of four “rooms,” little stories about what goes on in this hotel even when Bruce is not there. (more…)
Femme Fatale
Saturday, January 1st, 2005Brian De Palma has gotta be one of the most controversial directors there is. Not because of the content of his movies but because of the reactions to them. It seems like anybody who knows who he is either hates him or loves him. Mostly hates. But they’re wrong.
The reasons for hating him: the movies are too good. I’m sick of seeing movies that are so clever and well made. Why does every Brian De Palma movie have to be a masterpiece or an interesting failure? Why are his movies so stylish? It gets old after a while. De Palma has a recognizable style, I’d rather not be able to tell the difference between one movie and any other movie. His style is too fetishistic, thrillers aren’t supposed to be personal. It’s too hard to tell where the movie is going, it makes me uncomfortable. How DARE he surprise the audience with the beginning and ending of a Mission Impossible movie? I wanted to get exactly what I expected and nothing else. His camerawork and editing is distracting because it is too inventive. If he’s such a great director, why hasn’t he done a movie about world war 2 or retards? Also why is he so into Hitchcock. It’s almost like he admires Hitchcock, he does so many homages to him. I noticed part that was like a Hitchcock movie. Since I spotted it I have every right to be angry. I hope I get a ribbon.
Well if you hate De Palma then you hate him, this movie is not for you. (It is directed by Brian De Palma.) But otherwise you’re gonna love this movie because this is him back at full strength. I never saw that Martian movie. To be safe, I’ll assume it really is bad. I did see SNAKE EYES which is great until the end when the big ending it’s all carefully leading up to suddenly doesn’t happen, because the studio made him change whatever it was. I’m still waiting for a director’s cut. (more…)
Once Upon a Time in Mexico
Friday, September 12th, 2003When last we saw the Mariachi, he had killed his drug dealer brother to avenge his lover’s death and the career-ending injury of his hand. He had found a new love (Carolina) and had indirectly caused the shooting of a little boy he had given guitar lessons to. He decided to give up violence, but only a little bit, so he kept his guitar case full of weapons “just in case.”
When we see him again in ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO he has become even more mythical than before. Instead of having to send Steve Buscemi to bars to make up stories about him, the bartenders themselves tell the stories. His hand has healed so he can play guitar better than ever, in fact he likes to just walk around playing guitar even when people are trying to kill him. Robert Rodriguez knows how to make a hand made guitar look like the most beautiful thing in the world, so it’s good that the Mariachi is hiding out in a town of guitar makers who like him to test their creations.
In DESPERADO, Mr. Rodriguez really fucked around with the conventions of sequels and action storytelling. He put a large gap between DESPERADO and EL MARIACHI where we the viewers had to imagine how this guy went from a regular dude to Antonio fucking Banderas, how Steve Buscemi became like a brother to him, and how he picked up these other badass mariachi friends who will give their lives for him and fire rockets out of their guitar cases.
And remember how Rodriguez made a subplot about one of the villain’s henchmen? You see this babyfaced guy’s initiation into the family, where he proves himself by spinkicking a guy AFTER having his leg broken. You feel a connection to this guy and you know that you’re following him for a reason… but you’re wrong! He just gets an unspectacular death by bullet like any nameless, faceless thug. You never know what to expect. (more…)
