-
Perfect Witness (1989, Robert Mandel)
Perfect Witness is a standard TV movie, even if it was on HBO (I’m not sure what got it on HBO even… language, maybe?), even if it does have a great cast. During the opening credits, it’s names like Brian Dennehy, Stockard Channing, Delroy Lindo, Joe Grifasi, and Aidan Quinn. Robert Mandel directed it. It should have been better, instead of just the standard TV movie (lengthy–four to five month–present action and more complicated plot, though I don’t know why legal TV movies have always had complicated plots… it’s not like TiVo has been around forever).
Mandel does a so-so job. He disguises Toronto quite well for New York, but the TV movie is not something he’s suited for. He’s only got one really nice moment in the whole thing, which is disappointing, especially since Brad Fiedel does the score and Fiedel can always deliver good moments. The score’s nice, better than the movie deserves, but there just isn’t the material for Fiedel to strengthen.
Quinn’s fantastic. The movie works because of his performance, nothing else. Dennehy is okay, good in parts, but his character is practically a villain, which Dennehy isn’t playing. Channing is okay too, but unimpressive in the emotional female role. Lindo and Grifasi both have small, nice parts. The only important lousy performance is Laura Harrington as Quinn’s wife. She’s real bad.
I suppose there have to be other TV movies like Perfect Witness out there, completely competent time wasters with better-than-they-deserve casts, but I was really expecting something from Mandel and Dennehy, who’d worked together just a few years before on F/X. And not having a Grifasi and Dennehy reunion (they played Mutt and Jeff cops together in F/X) is just tragic.
Posted on
Posted in
Tagged
-
Death Proof (2007, Quentin Tarantino), the extended version
The funny thing about Death Proof is the first half is excellent. With the exception of Sydney Poitier, who is awful, it’s a fantastic hour. Tarantino’s got great editing, great shots, great mood, great conversations, great everything. I had planned on going on and on about it–like, for example, how charming and scary Kurt Russell’s performance is–it’s kind of like he’s playing Elvis again. Or Vanessa Ferlito, who’s excellent. Even how Tarantino really made the retro concept work, with the music and the sound design. When he uses the love theme from Blow Out–even if it’s on a scene with Poitier–it’s real movie magic….
But then there’s the second half of the film, which doesn’t have the retro feel to it. I imagine it’s supposed to mimic Vanishing Point or some other car movie Tarantino really likes, but it’s a piece of unimaginable crap. The conversations are idiotic–the new characters are all in Hollywood and, wow, can stuntwoman Zoe Bell not act. Even forgetting some of the glaring problems–like Russell’s villain is stupid now instead of smart (and he doesn’t reinforce his car as well in the second half)–Tarantino’s casting of Zoe Bell in a speaking, significant role is the biggest flare the film fires. He does not care about making a good film. I mean, Poitier’s bad and all, but she’s at least acting. Bell isn’t. The problem with Death Proof is Tarantino gets to do whatever he wants, which obviously isn’t a situation he works well in. Thinking about it, suffering through the second half, I should have realized the second set of girls wasn’t going to die (except Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who’s left by her friends to be raped and murdered), because it’s all the Tarantino standards, with Tracie Thoms doing a bad job of impersonating Samuel L. Jackson. No way Tarantino is going to kill off Rosario Dawson because to his target audience, Dawson is gold.
Tarantino’s level of disrespect to a thinking viewer is truly amazing and quite surprising. But more so, he fails to do what he set out to do, which was make a retro film with all the film grain, missing frames, bad looping and wear and tear. He flushed the idea once it became his neo-Tarantino movie… and I say neo, because it’s not something he would have done ten years ago. It’s obviously Robert Rodriguez’s influence (Rodriguez, who had so much love for the “Grindhouse” concept, he slapped his CG Troublemaker Studios logo on the front of it, killing the retro feel before the movie even started).
If the film weren’t two hours, I think I’d be more upset… but after suffering through the pathetic second half, I’m just glad it’s over.
Dawson and Winstead are both okay in the second half at the beginning, until Bell shows up and Dawson gets obnoxious (becoming the type of person–knowing full well what’s going to occur–to leave her friend to be raped and murdered) and Winstead becomes a half-wit.
Death Proof is such an insult, I’m so agitated I didn’t even end on that great “I’m glad it’s over” line. Seriously, the person I feel worst for is Russell. The first half is career resurgence, amazing performance, yada yada yada–the second half… he should have not shown up for work and just let Tarantino call Michael Madsen.
ⓏⒺⓇⓄCREDITS
Written, directed and photographed by Quentin Tarantino; edited by Sally Menke; production designer, Steve Joyner; produced by Elizabeth Avellan, Robert Rodriguez, Erica Steinberg and Tarantino; released by Dimension Films.
Starring Kurt Russell (Stuntman Mike), Zoe Bell (Zoë Bell), Rosario Dawson (Abernathy), Vanessa Ferlito (Arlene), Sydney Tamiia Poitier (Jungle Julia), Tracie Thoms (Kim), Rose McGowan (Pam), Jordan Ladd (Shanna) and Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Lee).
RELATED
Posted on
Posted in
Tagged
-
Quicksand (2003, John Mackenzie)
Most of Quicksand plays like a multi-national mystery from the 1970s, filled with familiar faces (or a few familiar faces anyway). About three-quarters of it, approximately. There’s good and bad stuff in those seventy minutes. Michael Keaton’s excellent, which isn’t surprising. Michael Caine shows up for what appears to be a small role (it gets bigger later) and has a fun time. He’s playing a washed up action star who’s too busy drinking and gambling to realize his career’s over. Kathleen Wilhoite and Xander Berkeley also have small roles–the plot moves Keaton from New York to the south of France for the dramatics and, presumably, cheaper location shooting–and both are great. There’s also Rade Serbedzija, in an unfortunately mediocre role. He’s fine, but it’s just a lame character. Unfortunately, the female lead–Judith Godrèche–cannot emote while speaking English. It’s obvious the first time she tries and, after that scene, she always has tears (Visine?) to show she’s upset.
But something happens once Caine becomes more integral to the plot. Quicksand all of a sudden gets neat. The script is very standard thriller fare and, in most ways, the resolution isn’t Archimedes hopping out of the tub, but it’s well-constructed and works.
In the last fourth (maybe third, I didn’t time the end credits), Berkeley gets a much bigger role–Quicksand might be one of his best performances and, given what a solid actor he is, it’s saying something. It’s a simple role–the friend–and he does it perfectly. Godrèche doesn’t really get any better, but the plot requires different things from her and she becomes more appealing.
When the film closes, it’s on a strange uptick, like it took a short cut to an ending it didn’t quite “earn,” but maybe getting to those places and getting a pass on the question means it did.
It’s not a particularly compelling mystery and Mackenzie somehow makes the south of France boring, so I spent a lot of time bemoaning the lack of more Keaton films. (Someone thought, at some point in production, the film was going to get a theatrical release, because they spent money on the casting agency). And then it gradually improves after a point, going from a standard thriller (which seem consigned to direct-to-DVD these days) to a moderately pleasant surprise.
★★½CREDITS
Directed by John Mackenzie; screenplay and screen story by Timothy Prager, based on a novel by Desmond Lowden; director of photography, Walter McGill; edited by Graham Walker; music by Hal Lindes and Anthony Marinelli; production designer, Jon Bunker; produced by Jim Reeve; released by First Look International.
Starring Michael Keaton (Martin Raikes), Michael Caine (Jake Mellows), Judith Godrèche (Lela Forin), Rade Serbedzija (Oleg Butraskaya), Matthew Marsh (Michel Cote), Xander Berkeley (Joey Patterson), Kathleen Wilhoite (Beth Ann), Rachel Ferjani (Rachel), Elina Löwensohn (Vannessa), Clare Thomas (Emma) and Hermione Norris (Sarah).
RELATED
Posted on
Posted in
Tagged
-
Medicine Man (1992, John McTiernan)
Whoever–studio executive, director, producer, whatever–gave Lorraine Bracco another job after Medicine Man is a couple things. One of the bravest persons in Hollywood and, additionally, a film criminal. Bracco’s performance is astoundingly bad. I mean, the character is terribly written too–a scientist smart enough to run a foundation, but she doesn’t know a thing about, you know, science. Given Connery’s rather vocal public statements about women working… nope, even with them, it’s a real surprise. I mean, the film’s thesis reads women with degrees, awards and jobs of consequence are actually quite stupid.
I rented the film on my post-Thomas Crown McTiernan high, but besides a Die Hard homage at the opening (the film opens with the same plane landing sound Die Hard does), there’s no visible sign of McTiernan doing any good work. Most of his shots are composed for pan and scanning on video (a Hollywood Pictures edict?) and the ones he wasn’t cropping in his head aren’t any good either.
Connery seemed fine, but since Bracco’s the protagonist (and the narrator), it’d be hard for him not to seem fine.
Jerry Goldsmith’s score is awful too, annoyingly so. I think the filmmakers were trying for Romancing the Stone, only with really boring medical jargon.
The writers have, thankfully, either gone on to little or to really embarrassing films….
But, as I frequently lament the state of film in the twenty-first century, it’s occasionally nice to be reminded there have been lots of bad stretches and Medicine Man‘s got a firm place in one of them.
ⓏⒺⓇⓄCREDITS
Directed by John McTiernan; screenplay by Tom Schulman and Sally Robinson, based on a story by Schulman; director of photography, Donald McAlpine; edited by Michael R. Miller, Mary Jo Markey and John W. Stuart; music by Jerry Goldsmith; production designer, John Krenz Reinhart Jr.; produced by Andrew G. Vajna and Donna Dubrow; released by Hollywood Pictures.
Starring Sean Connery (Dr. Robert Campbell), Lorraine Bracco (Dr. Rae Crane), José Wilker (Dr. Miguel Ornega), Rodolfo De Alexandre (Tanaki), Francisco Tsiren Tsere Rereme (Jahausa) and Elias Monteiro Da Silva (Palala).
RELATED
Posted on
Posted in
Tagged
-
All Night Long (1981, Jean-Claude Tramont)
There’s a certain tragedy about All Night Long. Not the film’s story or anything, but the film itself. It’s a debacle–Barbara Streisand is unbelievably terrible and the cuts made to the film (twenty minutes) significantly damage it–a painful to watch debacle. It’s such a chore to get through, I can’t imagine trying to watch it in the theater. IMDb’s trivia section is no help–Lisa Eichhorn, who’s excellent, was originally in Streisand’s role.
The tragedy aspect is Gene Hackman. It’s an amazing performance. Hackman’s performance is so good, it conquers the bad plotting, uninspired direction and annoying score. It just can’t beat Streisand. The funniest scenes–unintentionally–are the ones with Hackman acting well and Streisand acting horribly. One half of the screen is a good movie, the other half is All Night Long.
Further problems stem from the screenplay’s lack of emphasis on Hackman’s relationship with son Dennis Quaid. The two are fantastic together, something apparently the director didn’t realize when shooting the film. Diane Ladd’s also good (as the wife Hackman leaves for Streisand), but Kevin Dobson (as Streisand’s husband) leaves a lot to be desired once the plot requires anything from him.
Richter sets the film up as a comedy–it’s a real precursor to American Beauty–with Hackman managing an all-night pharmacy after losing his office job. Way too little time is spent in the pharmacy though, even though the film populates with odd-ball characters and appealing ones too. Once Hackman leaves, around halfway through, the rest of the film becomes the back and forth of pursuing Streisand.
Something about the script suggests a real lack of maturity (though Richter was thirty-six), particularly in the way all the good guys get a happy ending. The real problems the characters experience are never addressed. Hackman walks out on his wife of seventeen years immediately, though the film never shows any particular problems with their marriage, except her wanting him to apologize to his old boss and he doesn’t want to do it. It’s sloppy writing, sloppy editing and so forth. Director Tramont did very little else–maybe theatrical audiences couldn’t sit through it, no shock–and, as the film ended, I thought about who would have done a better job of directing it. Practically anyone is the obvious and glib answer… but also maybe the right one. Still, it sounds like (from the IMDb trivia page) the producers really wanted Streisand and she’s the overriding problem with the film.
★CREDITS
Directed by Jean-Claude Tramont; written by W.D. Richter; director of photography, Philip H. Lathrop; edited by Rachel Igel and Marion Rothman; music by Richard Hazard, Ira Newborn and José Padilla; production designer, Peter Jamison; produced by Leonard Goldberg and Jerry Weintraub; released by Universal Pictures.
Starring Gene Hackman (George Dupler), Barbra Streisand (Cheryl Gibbons), Diane Ladd (Helen Dupler), Dennis Quaid (Freddie Dupler), Kevin Dobson (Bobby Gibbons) and William Daniels (Richard H. Copleston).
RELATED
Posted on
Posted in
Tagged