But you know what, it only adds to Clint’s mystique that he so humbly shares the movie with this rookie and even allows the spotlight to shift over to him for a while while the old man is tied up in a warehouse getting raped by Sonia Braga (SPOILER). This is also the most DIRTY HARRY of Clint’s non-DIRTY HARRY pictures. In fact, it probly feels a little more DIRTY HARRY than SUDDEN IMPACT, the one actual DIRTY HARRY that he directed.

But in this one he’s not some supercop. He’s Pulovski, a failed race car driver turned detective in the auto theft division. Nothing big ever happened to him his whole life until this movie. Then by dumb luck some stolen cars he’s chasing lead him to a big time criminal running chop shops and planning to rob a mob casino (long story). The villain is played by Raul Julia, sporting one of the all time most befuddling cinematic accents. I was so happy when Clint referred to him as a “kraut” because then that earlier scene where he was criticizing German beer to Julia seemed less random. And if you think Julia makes an unconvincing German just wait ’til you meet his girlfriend (Braga).

Anyway, like all police officers Pulovski is forced to become partners with a by-the-book rookie (that’s Sheen as David Ackerman). Here’s where the script is subtly clever. Usually a story like that is a device for explaining everything to the viewer. The veteran has to show the rookie the ropes, so the audience also gets to see those same ropes. But here Clint just leaves his partner completely in the dark, doesn’t tell him what case he’s on or that when he stops for lunch at a hotel it’s just because Raul Julia’s there and he wants to give him a bunch of shit for having killed his partner, etc. Ackerman returns the favor and refuses to tell Pulovski jack shit about himself, so it’s a while before we find out he’s from a super rich family and drives a fancy Porsche. But he’s trying to prove himself to his dad and himself and all that.

Most of the entertainment comes from Clint. He’s his usual wry self, using ethically questionable law enforcement tactics and smartass comments. I liked when Sheen’s dad (Tom Skerritt) tried to pay him to guarantee the kid’s safety and Clint says with contempt, “You want a guarantee? Buy a toaster.” It’s so obvious to have Clint as the old guy who gives the young guy a hard time but begrudgingly starts to like him. But who gives a shit? It’s always enjoyable. I’m not gonna complain about having another one of these. I’ll take all of them I can get. There’s only gonna be a finite amount of old Clint action movies.

It has some of those little Eastwood directorial touches that nobody else does. Like for example the jazz score by Lennie Niehaus. This was in a time when mullets and whammy bars still existed. Other action movies were slathered in keyboards, guitar wails and drum machines. There were better action movies playing in theaters that year: HARD TO KILL, MARKED FOR DEATH, DIE HARD 2, TOTAL RECALL, arguably PREDATOR 2 and ANOTHER 48 HOURS. But none of those tried to cool you out with jazz as you left the theater. That’s not something you see in alot of action movies and especially not in 1990. That’s an Eastwood exclusive.

But it has some of the usual excess of the era too. I can hang with the impossible car jump out of the fourth story of an exploding building, but I struggle with the blue screen mid-air “fasten your seatbelt” quip. You see that and you can believe it was the same years as DIE HARD 2, it’s just like the most questionable moments in that one. The funny lines don’t seem so spontaneous when they’re looped over a special effects shot.

There are some cliches in this. I mean, you know how it is. You got a bunch of motorcycles and one of them you really like but you gave up on getting it running years ago. And then Charlie Sheen sits on it, reaches underneath and just twists something with his hand and whaddyaknow, the fuckin thing starts up instantly. This is how most men become friends, through the one-twist engine repair.

I don’t mind that one, but it does have one of my pet peeve cliches, the ol’ leads-repeat-each-other’s-dialogue-later-in-different-contexts move. And it has the even harder to take version of that phenomenon: the entire scene that repeats itself at the end with the roles switched around. It made me actually wish for the depressing ending hinted at earlier.

A more serious problem is that about 85% of the movie takes place at night, so the action scenes are harder to make out than they should be. This must’ve looked like shit on pan and scan VHS. Maybe that’s part of why this movie has a bad reputation. Also because it was the one he did before UNFORGIVEN, so he was at that aging action star stage where people enjoy snidely assuming everything you do is trash. Anyway the constant darkness is one big stylistic difference from the sun-drenched DIRTY HARRY movies.

And this is no DIRTY HARRY. It’s not one of Clint’s better ones, but I enjoyed the hell out of it. It’s got alot of impressive car stunts and funny moments like the bad guys’ bemused “this fuckin guy” reaction to Clint driving right into the back of their car carrier during a chase. It’s some kind of unholy union of cheesy ’80s cop movie and something more distinctive. It gets real weird and I gotta say I did not expect the Sonia Braga assault. And I was really impressed that Clint and his screenwriters were able to give Sheen a shocking shift to badassness. Definitely the most badass scene in the movie is all him, Clint’s not even there.

(Careful, I’m about to spoil the best part)

When Ackerman really needs to take it up a notch to save Pulovski he goes into this bar and nobody’s giving him the information he wants. I expected him to go Dirty and rough some people up. I did not expect him to abruptly blow flames in the bartender’s face, shoot a whole bunch of people, throw one fighting dog and fill another one with lead, and burn the entire building to the ground. Not only is it hilariously overboard but it’s all masterfully set up in earlier scenes: the geography of the bar, the prior humiliation by the people there, the dog fights in the back room, even the possession of the lighter (to light Pulovski’s cigars). I love this type of carefully constructed action scene. They build the foundation before they put up the building. Not everybody bothers with the foundation, so I respect that.

Therefore let me be the first person in history to tip somebody’s hat to the writers of this one, Scott Spiegel and Boaz Yakin. Those are the guys who wrote FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 2. Spiegel helped write EVIL DEAD 2 and Yakin directed this movie called FRESH that I’ll be reviewing next. He also wrote the Lundgren version of THE PUNISHER but says the producer just kept the plot and rewrote everything else. Maybe the bar scene was some of the leftover punishment that didn’t make it into that movie.

[ratings]

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If the cast was just nobodies it might not work, instead we got Ed Harris (also director) as Virgil Cole, Viggo Mortensen (not director) as trusty sidekick Everett Hitch. Virgil has aspirations to become a legitimate lawman, Hitch has an 8-gauge shotgun. They come into the town of Appaloosa to work for the elected officials who’ve been shoved aside by Jeremy Irons, a tyrant whose big shot status comes from claims he’s friends with Chester A. Arthur (come on, everybody uses that one). Him and his gang run the town, everybody’s afraid of them, the usual. So our boys become marshals and to everybody’s shock they have the balls to start arresting people, and the shit and fan quickly become intimates.

Now here’s the problem: Renee Zelweger. I don’t get it. I know she must’ve done some good performances at one time, but she’s usually not appealing. She has a pinched little face and an evil vibe, but tends to play characters who are supposed to be lovable beneath their cold, bitchy shells. To me this is not believable. I thought it was just me since she keeps getting cast in movie after movie and winning all kinds of awards, but an informal poll found that 100% of males hate Renee Zelweger in their movies. Because of this you lose respect for Virgil when he immediately becomes smitten with supposedly-innocent-seeming piano player Allison French.

But never fear! This is not like LEATHERHEADS, which made the unfortunate assumption that the audience too would be charmed by Zelweger. She quickly makes a pass at Everett, among other activities that mark her as a despicable ho, and threatens to become the less talented Yoko Ono of the old west. I would have to say the movie is sexist (the only other female character actually is a whore) but as a story it works. The best part is that the trailer, the DVD cover and your experience as a person who watches movies all lead you to think this will be a love triangle. Everett will fall for the girl too, or Virgil will think he has, and this will break up the team. All signs point to that as the last act, but the movie has other plans.

And that brings me to the political part. I don’t know what the author of the book (Robert B. Parker, creator of Spenser For Hire) intended, but this story definitely plays to me like a commentary on the Bush era approach to homeland security. Cole and Hitch come into town with a set of laws already written up and tell the officials they either have to sign it now or forget it. That’s gotta be the USA-PATRIOT ACT, right? Maybe it could be called the APPALOOSA-COWBOY ACT. The town officials are uncomfortable with the idea but sign without reading it.

So the marshals pretty much run the town, they can do whatever they want. In a way this is good, because they’re the good guys, and can use this to stop Jeremy Irons. But on the other hand, Virgil’s judgment is not always the best (for example, he’s building a house with Renee Zelweger) and at times he could be seen as abusing his power. And even worse, the guilty Jeremy Irons (SPOILER) gets set free because his trial was unfair. It’s Guantanamo Bay or Freddy Krueger all over again.

I really liked that about the movie and I figure that’s part of the reason why Viggo would want to take the role (another part being that Ed Harris asked him to). But it’s not even the best part of the story – the best part is the camaraderie between these two gunmen. Viggo is the rare superstar leading man humble enough to play the quiet sidekick without it seeming like a stunt. He’s smart enough to know this can be a great character and talented enough to make sure it turns out that way. He communicates more with his face than with words – the “oh geez, maybe I should’ve told him his girlfriend was a ho” squint as Virgil trades their prisoner for Zelweger, the uncomfortable stare at the dirt after passing the binoculars so Virgil can see his girl frolicking naked in a river with Lance Henriksen (long story).

If you would enjoy a quiet, simple western with Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen, then you would enjoy this movie. Otherwise forget it.

[ratings]

I think probaly most people want Clint to keep doing those Oscar bait movies. I liked MILLION DOLLAR BABY (another best picture, not even the one I referred to before) and I get why people like MYSTIC RIVER, and I thought LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA was great. But as good of a director as he is I think Clint Eastwood the movie star is an even more valuable treasure to the world, so I’m happy he’s still willing to throw us one of these. The older and gruffer he gets the cooler he gets, so he should stay on camera.

It’s amazing to think that Clint’s old-man-looking-back phase has been able to last 15 years already, starting with UNFORGIVEN and including IN THE LINE OF FIRE and BLOODWORK. And this one might be his most direct old man statement. This movie is entirely about him being a grumpy old bastard grimacing at the state of the world and trying to write the last chapter of his life, possibly with twist ending. He actually says “Get off my lawn” in this movie, and not to be funny.

Clint plays Walt Kowalski, an old grouch who we first meet at his wife’s funeral. He and everyone in attendance seem casual and accepting of the death, but Walt is pretty disgusted by his sons and the way they let their kids dress and behave. He makes no attempt to hide the loathing on his face as he sees his granddaughter’s bellybutton ring or watches her text somebody during the service. There’s alot of humor in just watching how he reacts to the world around him, especially since he literally growls like a bulldog when he sees things he doesn’t like. He can be so negative he even causes a priest to say “Jesus Christ!” This is a guy I can relate to.

But I must acknowledge that Walt is a huge asshole. He’s a total racist and not just because he was in Korea. He never says the N word but pretty much makes derogatory comments about all races and nationalities throughout the movie. And although the main story is about him bonding with his Hmong neighbors he never does learn to stop saying “gook.” Even when he’s trying to be nice he talks about their “good gook food.”

This movie is not for everybody, and it’s not quite what I expected. But man, I loved it. I don’t want to say too many details, because it’s a small story you just need to watch unfold. But basically it’s about circumstances causing him to spend time with the two teenage kids in the immigrant family next door. Although “racist Korean vet bonds with immigrant neighbor” sounds pretty high concept, the whole thing feels very believable to me. He’s in this period of change where his wife is gone, he’s alone for the first time, he’s pretty much the only white person left living in the old neighborhood, and he’s pissed off at his family. He’s basically alone drinking beer on his porch when this teenage girl invites him to a barbecue. Of course he doesn’t want to but then on a whim does it anyway. It makes sense that at this point in his life he might say “Shit, why not try something I never would’ve done before?” And it changes everything.

Also it leads to strange situations such as 78 year old Clint Eastwood in a basement full of Asian teenagers, drinking a beer and trying not to be awkward. Then he notices the dryer is wobbly and fixes it.

It’s a weird take on racism that’s sort of reminiscent of DIRTY HARRY. Like in that one he’s an equal opportunity hater. And we start to see that his hateful words don’t mean that much to him when we learn he has friends that he communicates with purely through insults. The neighbor kids, Thao and Sue, gain his respect by talking shit to his face. That’s another reason to take a grain of salt with all those drummed up quotes of Clint and Spike Lee insulting each other back and forth.

Thao’s family thinks he’s a sissy and makes fun of him for doing women’s work (gardening), and Walt definitely agrees. But he teaches him to be manly not through violence, but through fixing things. He even loans him tools. He tries to mold Thao into the useful person he thinks his grandchildren are not.
That’s how it avoids being some kind of BOYZ N THE HOOD “hey kids, stay out of gangs” type of movie even while the threat looms of Thao’s gangster cousin trying to influence him. The movie handles it just right, introducing the gang so you root for them at first because they save Thao from some other assholes. They affectionately call him “dog” and beg for his company and you can see how it would be tempting. He’s smart enough to turn them down, but it’s the relationship he has with Walt later on that gives him a better path to go down. They learn from each other.

But trust me, this is not CRASH. You could definitely say that Walt learns a lesson about racism judging by the crazy/noble choices he makes to help these people he still calls “swamp rats,” but I don’t think it’s really specifically about that. It’s just about him finding a little redemption as a human being by finding somebody he can do a good deed for. He’s still an asshole but he could’ve spent his last years by himself hating everybody, instead he broadened his horizons a little, made some friends and (thankfully, for our sake) got to kick in a few faces for the greater good.

Some people might think it condones a little racism, since it treats his ranting as almost a cute character quirk. Other people might think it’s great because he’s “politically incorrect” which is automatically worthwhile and what about the first amendment, why won’t you liberals let me watch Song of the South, etc.

But I think either of those views would be too simplistic. Walt is a good character because he’s not quite either one of those. I think the BAD SANTA theory is in effect here – not having him completely cured of his assholeness makes the gesture seem much more sincere. I would like if he stopped calling Asians names, but if the choice was between that and making a deep connection with an Asian family and helping them out, I think he chose the better one. Besides, like I said this is not CRASH, you can’t be magically cured of racism by falling on your ass. It would not be believable for him to be cured without some serious retraining by Paul Winfield’s character from WHITE DOG.

The one and only thing holding the movie back for me is some stiff acting on the part of the first-time actors playing the neighbor kids, Thao and Sue. Mostly I don’t mind, but there are a couple scenes that could’ve been much more powerful if they were more natural – one where Sue tells off some dudes who are harassing her (it doesn’t seem like the quips are really coming from her) and at least one really emotional yelling scene with Thao. I would honestly take these weak performances over having slick Hollywood actors in the parts, but of course the best would be more natural performances by rookies. The gang members and thugs in the movie are all non-actors too but they do a much better job.

Maybe the weirdest choice in the movie is to end with a song actually sung by Clint… in character. Can’t say I’ve seen that before, or that I understand why, but it works for me.

I read that GRAN TORINO was a script by an unknown writer. He shopped it around and all the studios rejected it, but when Clint read it he liked it and shot it as-is. Apparently other than changing the setting to Detroit Clint “didn’t change a word.” That’s weird because it seems so much like a script tailored just for him. You can almost imagine it rewritten as a last Dirty Harry movie (except Harry wouldn’t have grandkids). It has some great tough guy moments, it has his sense of humor and most of all it has his deceptive simplicity. It seems so minimalistic but there’s complexity hidden beneath the surface. There’s alot going on with his character that he doesn’t come out and say, or if he does he says it in very few words.

In a way it was a relief to read that Clint didn’t develop the script himself, because the story has such a preparing-for-death theme to it that it makes me worry about how many more Clint Eastwood movies we will be able to get. We don’t want to be too greedy. But if it’s okay with you God I think a 300 year old Clint Eastwood would be worth considering. Whatever happens I am thankful for all the great movies Clint has been able to do, and I hope other people will enjoy this one as much as I did.

[ratings]

By the way I would like to take a moment to welcome A.B. King to the talkback. Welcome, A.B.

The ragtag team of the title are a group of elite mercenary badasses – at one point described as “totally prepared to die in a blaze of glory” – hired to take out a dictator in the South American country of Corza. I do not have an opinion on what’s going on in Corza because I believe it is a fictional country, but if in fact they’re real I’m against them. They got all kinds of human rights violations and shit. No good.

Of course, the mission is not necessarily what it seems, there may or may not be some doublecrosses and deceits, etc.

The Expendables never come out and refer to themselves as The Expendables, but they do sport tattoos with an Expendables logo. Their lifestyle is rough but they have a dark sense of humor about it. The leader of the Expendables, Barney (played by Stallone I assume) has a good way of describing their purpose: “We remove those hard to get at stains.” They try to do the right thing, but the movie itself seems sort of uncomfortable with the idea of soldiers of fortune and with puppet dictators and CIA tampering in other countries. It’s a fun action movie but not some jingoistic imperialist deal like I think some people assume.

While I’m sure Stallone did some research about how these things work in the War On Terror era, happily this is not one of these Greengrassian modern action movies that tries to seem completely reality based. This is a movie where a team of 5 can take on an army of 100, where armed men still sometimes engage in martial arts and fisticuffs, where many, many things blow up, where occasionally a character might have something sarcastic to say during combat. In other words, a good old fashioned action movie. An endangered species.

Barney is a very different character from Rambo. For one thing, his name is Barney. For another he talks in more than one sentence sometimes. He’s almost a father figure to the team and finds himself always listening to other people’s problems and trying to be supportive. The other character who gets the most screen time is the lovelorn Lee Christmas. He’s supposed to be American but calls a guy “mate” at one point, which means he’s played by Jason Statham. There’s also Kong Kao, who will be played by Jet Li. He does alot of kicking, but is much more of a supporting character than Li usually plays. I do think it’s a pretty good character for Li, though, because he gets some funny lines. He’s an unhappy smartass, not the usual Li type of character.

(Of course for all I know Stallone is playing the Chinese martial arts expert Kong Kao and Li is playing the weathered veteran mercenary Barney Ross. I don’t want to make any assumptions here.)

Those are the marquee names, but the actor I was happiest to see cast was Dolph Lundgren. Obviously it’s cool to see the Balboa/Drago rematch (or reteam), but I’m excited more because I think Lundgren deserves to be on the big screen again. The DTV pictures he’s been directing and starring in are surprisingly watchable, and physically he’s held up better than almost any of the ’80s and ’90s action stars. He still has a super hero physique with his towering height and square jaw, but looks more interesting with some wrinkles on his face.

Unfortunately, if Dolph is playing who I think he is then he’s only in a couple scenes. It’s a small but crucial role as an Expendable named Gunnar who comes into conflict with Kong. Harry has already reported that Lundgren will be fighting Li in the movie, so I will reveal that they get to fight twice. Let’s be honest, Li has alot to prove after being defeated onscreen by god damn Brendan Fraser in THE MUMMY TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR A FILM BY ROB COHEN. I mean, how the fuck does that work? That is unacceptable. So for him to face a guy who’s actually a martial arts champion and nearly a foot taller than he is will be good for Li’s rep. Also Dolph has a degree in chemical engineering, not sure if that is relevant.

We also know that Forest Ghost Dog Whitaker is in the movie. He plays Sands, a CIA agent tracking the Expendables. The Hollywood Reporter described the character as “devious” but in this draft at least he seems well-meaning. The same can’t be said for the CIA character they’re allegedly trying to get Sandra Bullock to play – she would be more like the bitch she plays at the beginning of CRASH and less like at the end when she’s cured of racism because she fell down and broke her ass. Harry also reported that UFC fighter Randy Couture (seen in SCORPION KING 2 and more importantly REDBELT) would be in the movie – I’m guessing he’s Paine, an American operative working for the dictator. If so it’s a generic henchman role that will require little acting ability, but at least he’ll get to fight Stallone.

There are also Expendables whose casting has not been revealed as far as I know. There’s Richard, who is the gay Expendable. It’s a plot point that he’s gay, but they don’t make any dumb jokes about it, he’s just a member of the team. I’m proud of Stallone for that one. On the other hand, the black Expendable isn’t much more than a benign Black Dude stereotype. He doesn’t get enough characterization, but on the positive side he owns a restaurant, is zealous about tacos and has a name even more cartoonish than Lee Christmas: his name is Hale Caesar. I approve of that.

(Have you ever met anybody with the last names Christmas or Caesar? I don’t think I have yet.)

The story is pretty standard, but if the movie works it will be partly because of the odd little touches here and there. I like that Barney is kind of a goofy old dude and doesn’t try to be up to date at all. We’re used to seeing Statham drive around in fancy brand new cars in his movies, in this one he’ll be in the passenger seat of Barney’s ‘56 Ford F-100 pickup truck. I don’t think it specifies if the thing is restored or not, but I like to picture it as a real junker. You can’t say Barney’s poor though, because he owns a plane. When the guy hiring them asks if he has children Barney says, “I have a seaplane.” He’s pretty proud of that thing.

I have no idea if this is the final draft, but most of the characters are pretty lightly sketched. On the page I wouldn’t say they seem like iconic action movie characters that we’re all gonna remember, but hopefully the cast can bring something more to them. Like I said, it’s a recipe. You’d hope Forest Whitaker could put a little spice on his role, for example.

Stallone does a good job of mixing up the location – they travel between the US, Mexico and Corza, which should keep it visually interesting. The action scenes, as written, are pretty good. There is variety, with action at sea, in a plane, in trucks, with guns, knives, feet, forearms, one-on-one and in a mob. My biggest hope for the movie is that the second Dolph vs. Jet fight will be much longer than what Stallone wrote down. As written it’s way too brief. Please Stallone, don’t skimp on that one. (Dolph gotta eat? I never did understand that “gotta eat” thing you guys like to write.)

Fortunately an action scene is often gonna be shot totally different than scripted. For the climactic “extraordinary battle scene” Stallone doesn’t even bother to script it, he just writes:

“THE BATTLE IS ON!! WHAT ENSUES IS A REMARKABLY SAVAGE EBB AND FLOW BATTLE. TO DESCRIBE THE ACTION DESIGNED FOR THIS SCENE WOULD TAKE MANY PAGES, SO TRUST ME, IT’LL BE LIKE NOTHING SEEN BEFORE.”

Maybe you can take Stallone at his word on that, or maybe he just wanted to figure it out later. In the screenplay Barney turns out to have a few tricks up his sleeve that I didn’t expect, so maybe Stallone does too. We’ll see.

I wouldn’t say THE EXPENDABLES is a great script necessarily, but it definitely has potential. He’s got a good backbone that now needs some charismatic performances and well-executed action sequences on top. We know it has a good cast and that the action in RAMBO was pretty good. So I think this has a good shot. I’m still excited.

In other words, “THE EXPENDABLES is a keeper!” –The Ain’t It Cool News

p.s. Seriously, could somebody explain that “gotta eat” joke to me? Stallone’s character says it in the script and I feel left out

p.p.s. Did you know there’s a band called Balboa who only play covers of songs from ROCKY movies? BalboaBand.Com

Originally published at Aint-It-Cool-News: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/39600

For one thing it’s a story that you never quite know where it’s going. Supposedly it’s designed so you think Little Bill (Gene Hackman) is the good guy, since he’s the sheriff. I didn’t get that though because the first time you see him he comes in to settle this dispute in the brothel where some assholes cut up a prostitute because she gave a giggle at his “teeny pecker”. Little Bill isn’t evil but he obviously makes a poor decision by not punishing these guys but just fining them a couple ponies. No even horses, he specifically says ponies.

At best Little Bill seems like a Dirty Harry sub–villain, an ineffectual bureaucrat in the police department who is not tough enough on crime in the movie’s opinion. But that turns out to be just in this one scenario, because he happens to not be too enlightened when it comes to gender issues. In fact he is very tough on crime (Eastwood apparently asked Hackman to base his performance on notorious LAPD Chief Darryl Gates) and beats one of the protagonists to death during an interrogation.

That isn’t surprising. What is surprising is that he’s not entirely a bad guy either. There’s a long section of the movie where we actually do side with him. He knows the prostitutes have put out a bounty on the creeps who slashed them, and that killers may be headed into the town. So each time a stranger comes into town he and his deputies confront them and take their weapons away. This doesn’t come across like some anti-gun control message – it seems like a smart way to do his job. (And a challenge for Clint as hired killer William Munny to overcome.)

One of the many classic scenes in the movie is when Little Bill has English Bob (Richard Harris) in jail and has a long conversation with his “biographer” W.W. Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek, the cokehead producer in TRUE ROMANCE). This scene is part of why the movie is known as a revisionist western. Beauchamp has written up all these tall tales that English Bob told him, believing them to be true. But Little Bill joyfully pisses on his parade. He was there when one of the stories took place and says that actually Bob was just drunk and shot an innocent man.

It kind of blows Beauchamp’s mind, you can see him lose respect for Bob and you can see Bob getting sad, knowing that his fan club is switching sides. But he does have some loyalty, so it really fucks with his head when Little Bill hands him the keys to the cell and a loaded gun and dares him to shoot.

It’s a test and a lesson. He doesn’t think W.W. will shoot him and is trying to show him that murder is not the fun he makes it out to be in his books. Rubinek is great in this scene. He goes through shock, terror, fascination, temptation and deviousness. The second before he could escape the uncomfortable situation unscathed he pulls back and challenges Little Bill, asking what would’ve happened if he had just given the gun to Little Bill. Then he could help him escape without having to pull the trigger himself. He thinks he’s outsmarted Little Bill by suggesting this, but then Bill dares him to go through with the plan. W.W. can’t figure out what this maniac cop wants him to do. He doesn’t really want me to do that, does he?

During all this English Bob is in the cell watching, wondering what the fuck is gonna happen here. He’s the audience. He’s as tense as we are.

It’s a funny scene too though, the way Bill taunts Bob, pretending to misread the book title “Duke of Death” as “Duck of Death.” And Bill is the subject of taunting himself in a scene where his deputies make fun of the house he built. That’s one thing I forgot about the movie – it’s pretty fuckin funny. The overall tone is dark and sad but there’s alot of humor mixed in there too. There’s a big scene where Munny gets his first target and instead of being glamorous it’s a slow and awkward death, and everybody clearly feels awful about it. But even in this scene there’s some good laughs when Munny is so bothered by his dying victim’s cries for water that he yells at his friends to bring it to him and promises not to shoot at them.

And oh yeah, I haven’t even gotten to Clint yet. This was a groundbreaking role because he is the greatest icon of westerns and here he is turning that persona on its head. William Munny could be the future of some character like The Man With No Name or Josie Wales. Years later he fell in love, his wife got him to stop drinking and killing, he has kids and a humble pig farm. But his wife dies and without that positive influence he’s tormented by memories of his murderous past. When the young, tough-talking Schofield Kid (James Woolvet) tries to get him to come kill the whore-slashers you know he’ll accept the offer but you don’t know if it really is for the money or if he’s jonesing to kill again. He’s definitely ashamed of that past, but who knows what’s going on in that head?

It seems like the main reason he’s doing it is to try to provide a future for his kids. He’s falling in hog shit and that’s yet another way he doesn’t want his kids to follow in his footsteps. He seems like a good father the way he talks to them, demanding hard work but not expecting the impossible, telling them to do the best they can with separating the hogs and then clean up. On the other hand when he tells them to kill a chicken if they get hungry and he’ll be back in a week or two, that doesn’t seem like that good of a father. But things were probaly different back then. Kids were tougher. Now days kids gotta have cell phones so their parents can check with them all day and make sure they’re not watching R-rated movies, back then you just left them on a pig farm for weeks to fend for themselves while you went to kill a couple guys. “Kill a chicken if you get hungry” is the equivalent of “there are chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs in the freezer.” And he didn’t have to worry about them looking at porn on the internet.

But as usual I digress. We know from what people say that Munny was this badass killer, but we see with our own eyes that now he’s old and washed up. He can’t shoot a pistol straight so he has to use a rifle. Whenever he tries to get on his horse it tries not to let him, making him look like a jackass. He tells his kids it’s because he used to be cruel to animals before he met their mother and they’re getting back at him. The first time he’s confronted by Little Bill’s deputies he’s in a saloon, hunched over like the sick old man he is, staring at the drink he knows he can’t have. You almost believe he’s gonna lose.

But you also know there’s this bad motherfucker in there somewhere. English Bob exaggerates his stories, so does the Schofield Kid, but Munny actually underplays his. His old friend Ned (Morgan Freeman) reminds him that in a story where he supposedly killed 2 people he actually killed 3. This is one of the few movie badasses who’s embarrassed by what a badass he is. He keeps saying “I’m not like that anymore,” as if trying to convince himself, and Ned keeps agreeing with him, like a friend reassuring a friend that the new hair cut looks fine.

The ugliness of violence is always a theme. Munny is haunted by it to the point of breaking down and crying about it, FIRST BLOOD style. The Schofield Kid idolizes killers and thinks it would be cool to be one, but quickly learns otherwise. I think the genius of the movie is the balance between being honest about the ugliness of violence and satisfying the audience’s need for it. I mean, if he knew it was gonna be best picture maybe he would’ve known to get all high and mighty and not make it a satisfying western. But this is Clint we’re talking about here. That’s not in his nature. So even in a best picture he has one of the all time great OH SHIT IT’S ON moments.

For the whole movie Munny has been avoiding alcohol and associating it with his wicked past. When Schofield kills a guy for the first time and is obviously upset about it Munny tells him to take a drink, like that’s the only way to numb the pain. Then, as the prostitute tells him the story of Little Bill beating Ned to death for what he did, Munny starts to swig off a bottle. It’s so casual it took me a second to even realize it. And as you’re seeing him switch back into cold-blooded killer mode, it just so happens that the story she tells is also the all important “just how badass is he?” monologue, because she’s recounting what Little Bill said about Munny, that he’s a killer of women and children and police and etc.

And he gets his revenge and has multiple classic lines (”Well he should arm himself if he’s gonna decorate his saloon with my friend,” “Deservin’s got nothin to do with it,” etc.) but when he storms out of there threatening to kill and burn the family of anyone who shoots at him or who doesn’t properly bury his friend or who cuts up or otherwise harms a whore he’s like a vengeful demon. This man who’s been quiet and hunched over for the whole movie is now yelling like a madman as the rain pours down on him. And he’s finally commanding the respect of his horse. He’s a fuckin maniac. The evil twin of the old Clint Eastwood movie persona. He does not ride off into the sunset.

But, you know, if a guy goes on a rampage when he drinks, and you call your town “Big Whiskey,” you gotta expect problems when he shows up. Put two and two together, people.

Man, what a great set of characters, and what a great story. I’m not sure why they never made the sequel about him prospering in dry goods in San Francisco. That sounds pretty exciting.

I’m sure most of you have seen UNFORGIVEN, but I know I have a younger generation of readers that maybe was not of age when this came out, or were abandoned on a pig farm to fend for themselves and did not have access to it. If for some reason you haven’t seen this one I say put it on the top of your list.

Believe me, I know what you’re thinking. Just because it was best picture doesn’t mean jack shit. So was CRASH. DANCES WITH WOLVES won over GOODFELLAS. DRIVING MISS DAISY won and DO THE RIGHT THING wasn’t even nominated. I think one of the LOOK WHO’S TALKING movies won one year, and it was the same year that 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and TAXI DRIVER came out. I might be remembering that last one wrong but the point is these people are fucking lunatics.

Okay, well played, young readers. But how about I point you to an award with a little more meat behind it, one that I can personally vouch for the integrity of? Well my young friends, it just so happens that UNFORGIVEN is #4 on the Badass 100. Number four, man! You can’t beat that, other than to be numbers one, two or three. It’s behind only Clint’s own Man With No Name trilogy, the LONE WOLF AND CUB series, and YOJIMBO.

Forget about how “important” it is or any of that shit. Even if it wasn’t saying anything it would still be some top shelf hollywood movie making. THE GODFATHER is important too but you don’t give a shit about that while you’re watching it because the thing is so fucking entertaining, that’s all that matters. This movie is much smaller and more intimate but it’s the same way.

I can practically guarantee you will love this movie. If not, kill a chicken. I’ll be back in a couple weeks.

[ratings]

Poor John Rambo. Drafted into ‘Nam, transformed into a killing machine, trained to eat things that would make a billygoat puke. He came home, butted heads with an asshole sherriff, fought a bunch of cops, got a pardon so he could rescue some POWs and “win this time,” lived at a monastery I believe, real good stickfighter, made some allegiances in Afghanistan that in retrospect were not so hot but you know what they say about hindsight. Now he lives in a shack in Thailand where he catches deadly snakes for a living. His first line in the movie is telling a guy to go fuck himself. He’s real cynical about the state of the world and the inevitability of bloodshed, but some Christian missionaries convince him against his better judgment to take them in his boat and drop them off in a war zone in Burma. You guys run along now, don’t get raped or blown up. Then when they don’t come back on time he has to go back and drop off the team of mercenaries the church hires to rescue them. I wish the team had a cool name like The Holy Rollers and had pictures of Jesus, Joseph and Mary airbrushed on their weapons, but no, they’re just regular guns for hire, they don’t give a shit about that stuff. They don’t even care about the money that much, so they’re gonna turn around when things look bad. But Rambo (to them “the boatman”) changes their minds. Using a bow and arrow.

Rambo’s changed over the years, at least physically. He no longer looks like he’s chiseled out of stone. Now he’s chopped out of wood. He’s a fuckin tree trunk wearing a headband. Wide and thick and definitely not pretty anymore.

I like the character of Rambo, and I always like seeing him, but the mentally ill can make some bad choices. In his case that includes going on a rampage as well as making three ridiculous sequels to his classic original. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy that crap too, to a certain point, but FIRST BLOOD is a legitimately great movie that towers above them and tries to be polite about it but most likely would not want to hang out with the other ones if at all possible. The idea of the original book and movie was to “bring the Vietnam War home,” but the idea of the sequels is just to send Rambo off to different wars.

FIRST BLOOD is great because you can get behind this poor bastard, even if he’s crazy, because he’s a vet and people shouldn’t be treating him like that. But him and the sherriff are just so stubborn that their dislike of each other escalates into a fucking war! In the first one he’s Travis Bickle, you’re disturbed by what he’s doing. In the sequels he’s Michael Jordan, you’re supposed to clap for him. The sequels are a bunch of gun battles, the original is an epic personality conflict that builds until the classic scene where Rambo breaks down and blubbers about what happened to his buddies. It’s a better story and a better character and it offers you all that violence you ordered but still in the end is about emotions. It assumes you’re a human and not just a sadist.

After the first blood though, what are you supposed to do for second blood? Is he gonna go on another rampage until he breaks down and cries about how guilty he feels for the first rampage? No, all they could really figure out to do is some more UNCOMMON VALOR type war and rescue movies that aren’t as original or as meaningful as FIRST BLOOD.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed RAMBO. By which I mean the new one which is titled RAMBO and not the first sequel which is subtitled RAMBO. I’m talking about RAMBO: RAMBO FIRST BLOOD PART 2 PART 3. Even while being confused by the title it’s nice to see a serious old fashioned action movie in this day and age. Except for some gratuitous skipped frames (and digital touchups on the violence) it’s pretty old school. No attempt to seem modern or hip or make jokes or even point out that it’s old school. There’s not some young wiseass character making comments about Rambo, serving as the voice for the younger viewers. Fuck the younger viewers. If they need a babysitter they shouldn’t be here. The movie is very sincere so I had to kind of like it.

The action is very good and gruesome. Lots of limbs flying, people flying, blood flying. Rambo tears a guy’s throat out. He shoots people into goo. He shoots alot of arrows. He turns an unexploded WWII bomb into a PREDATOR bomb. He’s a little more down to earth than in part 2 and part 3. He has help from other badasses, he uses powerful guns as a crutch, his arrows do not have explosive tips, he runs around but he’s not being a ninja or anything. The guy’s in his 60s. The villains are hatable, though less than one-dimensional (and why does the main guy have to be gay?) The mercenaries are pretty tough, but not memorable characters.

And to be honest you gotta kind of wonder why Rambo hasn’t learned more over the years. Maybe he doesn’t have a TV out there in that shack but I’m betting somebody told him what became of his buddies in Afghanistan. He was fighting for the underdog there but it turns out the world is more complicated than just pick which side you think is the good guys and then kill and maim 500 people on the other side. Maybe he does understand that and that’s why he tried to stay out of Burma, but the way he talks about not changing things if you don’t have weapons, I think maybe he really thinks one of these wars he fights some day will actually work. He used to seem more aware, even kind of enlightened about his violence, he just didn’t know how to turn it off. Your classic asskicking pacifist.

And it’s kind of a problem that the movie is all about how bad this genocide is, and yet the high points of the movie all involve Rambo horribly murdering person after person after person after person after a whole bunch of other people that he just shot and blew up and arrowed and tore a throat out and knocked onto a landmine and blew up and etc. This is a movie that opens with a montage of real dead bodies and mutilated people in a real war and yet the audience is laughing excitedly at all the carnage that happens later. And you can’t really blame them that much. They want fun even if the movie is sitting there moping.

If you ask me ROCKY BALBOA was a way better revisiting because it was all about a character. The boxing match is thrilling, but most of the movie is about what’s left of Rocky’s life and what he makes of it. I like watching the different ways Rambo can kill people, but I’d rather know about what else is going on in there. Will he ever get his humanity back? At the end of the movie he takes the advice of one of the missionaries and finally comes home. It’s great to see him back in the U.S., walking down a road wearing the same clothes as in FIRST BLOOD. It’s like a second chance at coming home, hopefully not going on a rampage this time. If some cop gives you a hard time just turn the other cheek, Rambo. Seriously.

Anyway it’s a nice ending, probaly my favorite part of the movie, but to be honest I’m not sure how he got to that point. I’m not sure what lesson he learned or how he changed as a person. He just killed alot of people for what he thought was right. Again.

If they’re not going to do a more involved character study then I hope if there’s a part 5 they go huge. They gotta have Rambo at war in a city. What if in DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE Simon had said he wanted to talk to John McClane and they said McClane? He’s suspended and he has a hangover. I’m gonna have you talk to this other guy, John Rambo, is that okay? If Rambo had to deal with some guys like that it might be new, but no more of these rescuing prisoners in the jungle stories, okay guys?

Also I was disappointed that he never ate anything that would make a billygoat puke, or even gag a little bit. Nice to see Rambo back though

[ratings]

Now I know what you’re thinkin. Cop and a Half. Three Men and a Baby. The one where Chuck Norris is a cop and his partner is a dog. All this type of garbage. And it’s true, that is the type of basic storyline we’re talking about here.

But that is what is so important about this work, is that it shows you can take the tough guy and little kid formula, and do it Takeshi style, and it comes out as a great comedy. Not as crap.

Takeshi is, like our own Mr. Clint Eastwood, one of the great Badass Laureates. He has a stoic type personality and he is a master of the deadpan expression. He plays characters who go way overboard and convinces you with his eyes that he doesn’t see anything wrong with it. And what brings him into the Laureate category is that he directs his own pictures, and that his directifying style happens to be exactly the best one to showcase his Badass persona.

In a typical tough guy and kid picture, there might be a similar scene to the one where Takeshi goes back and beats the living shit out of a trucker for not giving him and the kid a ride. MAYBE. But there would be wacky music playing or “Bad to the Bone” or some shit like that. The trucker would start screaming like a baby and wiggling around goin “Oh no!” and eventually “Mommy!” and maybe he’d piss his pants and you’d think, “He’s not gonna be hurt that bad but boy is it fun to watch this fella squirm! Ha ha!”

Not here. Takeshi does it in one uninterupted shot, no music, from across the street. Like a police video or something. And he just starts beating on the dude with a stick. The sheer brutality of it is where the laffs come in.

But the movie’s not all that violent. Takeshi’s character is basically a juvenile delinquent in an adult body. His wife convinces him to take her friend’s grand kid on a trip to see his mother. So he takes the kid to bet on bicycle races. This doesn’t work out so instead of trying to come up with a legitimate plan for traveling, he comes up with a bunch of dumb schemes. Like, what if we pop somebody’s tire, then we could help them change their tire, and they would offer us a ride.

The key to Takeshi is that he’ll do stupid shit like this, or blatantly stealing right in front of somebody, or assfucking some dude out of the blue in Boiling Point, and then you’ll look at him and he just sits there with this blank expression on his face that says, “What?”

The Takeshi approach could pump some new blood into any number of dumb comedy premises. Think of any one of these comedies that Arnold Schwarzenegger does every couple of years. Like he is pregnant or he has a short twin brother or he has to train an ostrich to defuse a bomb and etc. etc. Arnold has no fucking clue how to make that funny. Takeshi can do it in his sleep. And then wake up with a new idea for a gangster movie that came to him in a dream.

Please my young friends out there who have not yet seen the pictures of Beat Takeshi. I promise you. You will fall in love with the Takeshi style if you give it a chance. It is a very understated style, very slow and quiet. And that’s why it works so well. It’s not flashy or action packed and there’s not alot of talking. It’s all in the air. His persona never gets old and his directation is only getting better. There is no one else like Takeshi. But let’s leave this guy in Japan, all right americans. He’s doin good over there.

[ratings]

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Dear Harry and the boys,

My name is Vern and I am a scholar of the Badass Cinema. I take my job very seriously and I would stake my entire academic reputation on this here claim: Takeshi Kitano is a Badass Laureate.

For those of you who are not familiar with Badass theory, the Badass Laureate is the highest category of Badass. There are many Badass individuals who have proven themselves through their works. I’m talking about gentlemen like Jet Li, Dolemite and Chow Yun Fat. Like Lee Marvin and James Coburn and Toshiro Mifune.

I’m a fan of the Bruces (Willis, Campbell and Lee). I enjoy asskickers of all types and nationalities. But none of these guys are Badass Laureates.

Because to enter this category, you must be more than a great screen Badass. You must also be a powerful filmmaker in your own right. To both kick ass and to express the kicking of ass through the language of Cinematics.

That doesn’t mean you are an action star who directs a movie or two. I love On Deadly Ground as much as the next guy – hell, even more – but Seagal doesn’t qualify. Van Damme definitely doesn’t (his only truly great work, from an artistic standpoint anyway, was during his surrealist period with Tsui Hark). I’m not sure about Vin Diesel because I haven’t seen the short films he did, but I doubt it. It is even debatable whether Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan qualify, although arguments could be made.

But let me tell you, Clint Eastwood is a Badass Laureate. He has a strong directorial style and in pictures like Unforgiven he speaks powerfully to the Badass condition. That is probaly the first and last academy award winner for best picture about that classic Badass dilemma of not wanting to kill a motherfucker, but god damn it I really want to kill a motherfucker. Billy Jack, for example, did not win best picture (although if he had a longer filmography, perhaps Tom Laughlin would qualify for Laureate status. PERHAPS.)

Clint Eastwood has proven himself both a great Badass and a great artist. And so has my man Beat Takeshi, the writer/director/editor/star of the great new crime thriller Brother.

I’m not sure how they’re gonna advertise this picture. It’s a Japanese picture but it co-stars Omar Epps, the guy from Dracula 2000. It mostly takes place in the US and at least half of it’s in English. There’s alot of subtitled japanese but there’s also alot that has no dialogue, it’s just images. I think it crosses most cultural type boundaries, but if you come in looking for a mainstream “from the producer of The Matrix” type action picture you will probaly be disappointed. Not as bored as you were in Ghost Dog (last year’s best movie, and don’t you forget it) because there’s alot of good jokes and murders but please understand, this is not a shootemup or a karate flick.

If you don’t know Beat Takeshi let me explain. He’s a different type of Badass. He doesn’t do karate or run around hanging from helicopters and jumping away from explosions in slow motion and what not. Even without a language barrier hedoesn’t talk much, so he doesn’t really talk tough. And he definitely doesn’t spend alot of time trying to look tough. He mostly sits there in sunglasses with an indecipherable type look on his face, like he’s probaly smiling at something but you’re not sure. When he takes off his glasses his eyes don’t help at all, they are a total blank. He is mostly a friendly, jokey kind of guy, like a friendly old neighbor, but he’s also really good at stabbing people all the sudden, or hiding guns in places so he can pop them out and shoot a room full of people before they can think what to do.

What this one is about is the similarities and differences between american and japanese criminal underworlds. After his yakuza boss is killed, Takeshi decides to leave for america to live with his little brother. The brother turns out to be dealing drugs with some small time hoods. Takeshi hangs out with them and quickly finds himself beating up their supplier, then killing his whole gang. He
uses his brutal yakuza methods to eliminate the rivals and build this little gang up until they are in competition with the mafia.

And this is all very funny. Little brother and his friends are so wet behind the ears, they just follow Kitano around and look uncomfortable while he kills people.

If you like Takeshi don’t worry. This is a Kitano picture all the way. He doesn’t make a single compromise to our pathetic american culture. In fact he not only doesn’t tone down his style, he tones it UP. This is just as quiet and deadpan as his other pictures, it is even funnier, and it is WAY more violent. At first that seems to be his way of reaching out to americans – look fellas,
guns, like in your culture. But eventually the violence gets so sadistic and horrible that people started walking out of the screening I went to. The yakuzas and the mafia mean business, and they prove it in many different ways. It is touching to see how people are disemboweled and dismembered in all different cultures. It’s a small world after all.

Was that really you in monkeybone harry, christ that was just about the worst movie I ever seen. You could probaly make a movie about a guy possessed by a cartoon farting monkey and it would be better than– whoops, Monkeybone IS a movie about a guy possessed by a cartoon farting monkey. Who is also a penis. Everyone give a moment of silence for the poor sap Paul Berry who was the top animator guy on that one. He died way too young last month and word is he was one of the best.

Anyway you may have heard that Kitano’s movies are violent. One of his trademarks is to lull you with a slowly flowing narrative and then suddenly kick you in the metaphoric nuts with a burst of quick, brutal violence. Out of the blue somebody is just getting their ass beat, or worse. (In Boiling Point, Takeshi just starts assfucking a guy all the sudden. But that’s a different movie, it doesn’t happen in this one.)

There’s alot of that violence in Brother but there’s alot of his comedy too, which is why this works so well for americans. He’s like one of them silent comedians. Most of his jokes are not in what he says, but in the dumb look on his face after he does something. And there are some real funny physical type scenes that don’t take words at all. Like the scene where his henchmen play football on the beach. There’s no way I could explain how funny it is, you just have to see it. Takeshi edits his movies, and that is very important. His stye
is all in the timing. He knows exactly how long something needs to be shown. Sometimes it’s just for a second. Usually, it’s for a long, long time.

Brother is the best movie I’ve seen in a while. Now okay, that’s not saying much because the last movies I saw were Jurassic Park part 3 and Final Fantasy. I got one question about Final Fantasy: what in fuck’s name is it about? I missed the part where they explained that, ’cause I was so distracted by Steve Buscemi’s voice coming out of Jason Priestley’s character.

Oh yeah, but about Brother though. Unlike his supporting role in Johnny Mnemonic, I think Brother will help build a bigger american audience for our great Badass Laureate Mr. Takeshi Kitano. You get a strong taste of his humor, his poetic cinematism, his admiration and revulsion at the fanatic/sadistic/masochistic yakuza ethic. Omar Epps is real good too – funny and vulnerable. this is not a buddy movie. Even if you’ve seen all of Kitanos other movies, you’ve never seen anything quite like this. I hope you like it.

If not, well, fuck you then. I still love you but fer crying out loud, agree with me for once why don’t you.

Your friend,

Vern

[ratings]

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