Posts Tagged ‘Denzel Washington’

Unstoppable (2010)

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

tn_unstoppableAfter the one-two Avid fart punch of MAN ON FIRE and DOMINO, I swore off Tony Scott for life. Or, it turns out, for five years. Those two movies sounded up my alley but they were brutally murdered by Scott’s reckless disregard for visual storytelling. I just couldn’t trust him anymore, even if the movie sounded good, which his last couple have not, even if everybody said he calmed down a little.

Now, through the combined magic of blu-ray technology, boredom and Christian forgiveness, I have given Tony Scott another shot with the Denzel Washington-Chris Pine-speeding train motion picture UNSTOPPABLE. The bad news: I didn’t like the movie enough to justify ending my boycott. The good news: at least he’s curbed his instincts to mark his territory by stylistically peeing all over every frame of film.
(more…)

12 people like this post.
Unlike

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Action, Reviews, Thriller | 54 Comments »

Book of Eli

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

tn_bookofeliEverybody loves Denzel Washington, including me, but I’m not 100% sure why. I mean, he’s a real good actor. Shoulda got an Oscar for MALCOLM X. Was good at chewing it up in TRAINING DAY when he did get the Oscar. He’s just so great at playing intelligent, strong, capable. But the weird part for someone as popular as him is that he’s not so big on playing likable heroes. His usual character is intense but mostly humorless. Kind of self righteous. Kind of a dick, if you think about it.

So it was pretty brilliant to cast him as a lone samurai walking through a post-apocalyptic wasteland on a mission of faith. The Denzel persona is much more endearing when he doesn’t just give verbal beatdowns, but full-on swordsman massacres. Actually he’s a little different in this one too – quiet and kind of crazy from being alone. (more…)

2 people like this post.
Unlike

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 99 Comments »

Malcolm X

Friday, November 28th, 2008

The first actor you see in MALCOLM X is not Denzel Washington, or even a kid playing a young Denzel Washington. It’s Spike Lee getting his shoes shined, then strutting across the street in a zoot suit. As if to say, “Yep, after a long fight to be hired by the producers, struggling to shoot the movie, fighting the studio for the 3 hour running time, gathering donations from black celebrities for completion funds, here I am. Playing Malcolm X’s best friend Shorty. Welcome to my movie.” The audacity makes me laugh, but oh well, it works.

This is by far Lee’s most Serious and Important film, but there’s some fun to be had early on. In his youth Malcolm went to dances, tried to look good and pick up women, and Lee couldn’t resist an epic lindy hop sequence that’s incredible to watch. Hard to believe people used to know how to dance like that. I wonder how many people landed on their heads?

But Malcolm is headed toward an inner struggle and that’s symbolized in that first scene with Spike in the zoot suit. He’s actually strutting across the street to the barber shop where he’s about to put lye on Malcolm’s red hair to straighten it out. Malcolm loves the look (”looks white, don’t it?”) but it burns his head and he tries to rinse it off before it’s ready. Later in the movie he’ll be straightening his hair and discover the sink’s not working and be forced to dunk his head in the toilet. This was in the book so it apparently really happened to Malcolm but it’s the perfect poetic way of making the point about trying to be someone he’s not.

He has a black girlfriend, but prefers the white one, uses her as his moll and accomplice when he falls in with criminals, becomes a numbers runner, has a falling out, and starts robbing houses. When he goes to prison he says it’s not as much for robbing houses as for having sex with a white woman. (more…)

Unlike

Tags: ,
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 2 Comments »

Ricochet

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008

I think I saw this movie back when it came out and I remember it just being ridiculous, but seeing it again I thought it was a good ridiculous. The movie begins with a melodramatic Hitchcock style credit sequence, but then cuts straight to Denzel Washington, Ice-T and Kevin Pollack playing very aggressive basketball on a playground. As far as I know this one is one of only a handful of movies in all of cinematic history that begin with those three guys playing street ball.

I like this scene because it very quickly sets up most of the major players in the movie while also establishing just why the movie is cool. For one thing, the director is Russell RAZORBACK Mulcahy, video director turned movie director who is fond of fancy hotshot camerawork. But this is 1991, still firmly in the naive days when a director followed a code of honor that they were expected to provide visual clues to the audience to understand what the fuck is going on. For some of you younger individuals it’s probaly hard to imagine, but the camera is flying around in such a way that it enhances your enjoyment of the movie, instead of pissing you off. This starts in the basketball scene with the camera somehow following right behind Denzel as he weaves through the other players and slam dunks.

In this one scene we learn that Denzel is a cop and law school student, Pollack is his partner, Ice-T is a childhood friend who he is distancing himself from because he’s a criminal, and Victoria Dillard is a girl Denzel has his eye on (who will become his wife). More importantly though what this scene establishes is that this is young, arrogant, show-offy, charming Denzel. It’s after MO’ BETTER BLUES but before MALCOLM X, so he’s got the chops but not the expectations. And he’s applying that talent to a character in an over-the-top b-movie thriller. His character is named Nick Styles, if that gives you an idea. (more…)

2 people like this post.
Unlike

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Reviews, Thriller | No Comments »

American Gangster

Monday, February 18th, 2008

I haven’t been big on Ridley Scott post-ALIEN, but when I saw he was doing the real-life gangster epic starring Denzel Washington – the one I already wanted to see when it was Antoine Fuqua that was supposed to direct it – man, I was excited. And the trailer looked great. And then it came out and without exception everybody I knew who saw it said “yeah, it was… pretty good.” Suddenly there was less urgency to see it, and I watched other movies, wrote some stuff, maybe took some naps, ate some food, and then it was gone.

Well, maybe it was for the best. Now I watched it with lower expectations, in its 20-minutes-longer UNRATED EXTENDED CUT (4 minutes shy of 3 hours) and I have to say I really enjoyed it. I see your “yeah, it was… pretty good” and raise you a “it was… pretty fuckin good.” I am proud to review it alongside such other great American films as AMERICAN PIMP, AMERICAN PSYCHO and AMERICAN NINJA.

In the opening, Harlem’s top gangster and folk hero Bumpy Johnson dies. Frank Lucas (Denzel) has been Bumpy’s driver for years, and takes over his operations, but nobody expects much from him. So nobody really knows what’s going on when he has this brilliant idea: hearing about all the soldiers strung out on heroin in Vietnam, he decides to go there to get dope straight from the source. He uses his connections within the army to use military planes to smuggle it in completely pure. Back home he has an operation to cut it up but makes sure his is twice as strong as the competition, for half the price. And he stamps a name on it: Blue Magic. “That’s a brand name, like Pepsi.”

Meanwhile, there’s this other story about a cop, Richie Roberts, played by Russell Crowe. He’s a tough guy, but a small timer, his life a mess. He’s in the middle of a divorce, he’s trying to get a law degree but having a hard time of it, he gets bit by Kevin Corrigan (a character actor who pops up in everything from GOODFELLAS to THE DEPARTED to SUPERBAD). Him and his partner are trying to bust a bookie, they open his trunk to try to get his slips, and they find a million unmarked dollars in grocery bags. So they turn it in. (more…)

2 people like this post.
Unlike

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Crime, Drama, Reviews | 3 Comments »

Inside Man

Sunday, March 26th, 2006

INSIDE MAN has gotta be Spike Lee’s most mainstream joint ever. It’s a gimmicky bank robber thriller, not the type of story and characters he as a jointmaker is known for. You can go down his entire jointography and he’s never done this type of movie – it’s not as gritty and realistic as CLOCKERS, it’s not as meandering and novelistic as THE 25TH HOUR or SUMMER OF SAM, it’s not something he seems to be as passionate about as say MALCOLM X or the Jackie Robinson movie he’s been talking about doing for about 500 years that now is gonna be a Robert Redford Joint. (Yeah right Robert Redford, you had no idea Spike Lee wanted to do a Jackie Robinson movie. Who would’ve ever known Spike was interested in that sort of thing?)

So it’s not pure 100% grade A Spike Lee Joint which accounts for its lack of greatness, but I think it’s also kind of a good thing for Spike. He’s never made a movie completely lacking in merit (well, I haven’t seen SHE HATE ME yet) but he seems to get less and less focused as he gets older. Maybe doing one mainstream thriller will get him back in the mode of telling a somewhat concise story. I don’t know.

It’s one of them casts that Entertainment Weekly or somebody would call “high wattage”: Clive Owen is the leader of the bank robbers who storm in in painter’s outfits and take everybody hostage, Denzel (no last name required) is the lead detective, Willem Dafoe is the tactical cop dude that detective Denzel mildly clashes with, and Jodi “this and Flight Plan will probaly be the only times you see me in the next five years” Foster comes out of her bunker for a supporting role as a scary corporate somebody or other who does some sleazy, non-official negotiating between the robbers and the owner of the bank (Christopher Plummer).

Even the style of the movie is kind of watered down by Spike standards. You don’t get the in your face colors of a DO THE RIGHT THING or the crisp, vivid photography of a HE GOT GAME. And he doesn’t even go for his more realistic style. If you look at CLOCKERS and GET ON THE BUS today you can see that Spike was an early adopter of the handheld/changing film stocks/documentaryish/reality style that pretty much everybody does now. INSIDE MAN is not that, it looks more like your usual New York drama that has existed since the ’70s. (more…)

6 people like this post.
Unlike

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Crime, Drama, Reviews | 1 Comment »

Man on Fire

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

I gotta question I was wondering about. If you had to choose one Scott brother that was better (or not as bad), which would it be, Ridley or Tony? On one hand, Tony has never made a truly great movie like ALIEN or, you know, BLADE RUNNER is a good one too in my opinion. Both by Ridley. Tony’s got nothing on that level. But on the other hand, Tony has a couple okay movies: TRUE ROMANCE and CRIMSON TIDE are both pretty okay. I’m looking on IMDB here and– okay wait a minute, Tony Scott did TOP GUN? I forgot about that one. Never mind. I guess I choose Ridley. Congratulations on this great achievement, Ridley. I remember you seemed pretty pissed off that you didn’t get the best director Oscar for that corny gladiator movie you made. Maybe this great honor will cheer you up. Way to go, champ.

So I guess that makes Tony the underdog here, and he had one this year called MAN ON FIRE that seemed to show some promise as a film of Badass Cinema. Academy Award Winner Denzel Washington (”You shot me in the ass!”) plays an alcoholic ex-CIA killer guy who’s hard up for work so he becomes a bodyguard for a little girl in South America. People get kidnapped there more often than they don’t get kidnapped, so next thing you know she gets stolen and this motherfucker stops at nothing to get her back and/or torture, maim and murder the people responsible. And I don’t know if you ever saw the poster for this one but it was real good. No collage or nothing, just one giant picture of Denzel wearing a suit and sunglasses, looking real tough. Behind him you see nothing but fire and smoke, and he’s standing half way in front of this little girl, holding out one hand in front of her, and she’s wearing a private school uniform and hugging a teddy bear. (You know, for emphasis.) It’s like Chow Yun Fat with the baby on the HARD BOILED poster, only 9 years later. (more…)

2 people like this post.
Unlike

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | No Comments »