Tag: Robert Davi

Swamp Shark (2011, Griff Furst)

It’s hard to explain why Swamp Shark is watchable. The primary reason–besides seeing what weathered professionals D.B. Sweeney and Kristy Swanson–is the Louisiana location shooting. Cinematographer Lorenzo Senatore really brings out the greens. Besides the terrible, digitally aided day for night scene, Swamp Shark looks better than it should. Even though the casting director forgot black people live in Louisiana too.

Furst isn’t much of a director, but he knows what to mimic and he rips off a couple memorable moments from Jaws and, in particular, Jaws 2. He also seems to understand the only way to make Swamp Shark palatable is to pace it like a traditional TV movie (it plays like an abbreviated miniseries) and not a film. The abbreviating works a lot better because the supporting cast is so terrible. There are a bunch of college kids in danger and they’re all awful. Well, mostly just Dylan Ramsey.

In the main cast, Jeff Chase and especially Richard Tanne are bad. Furst can’t direct actors, but it’s okay, because his editor, Matt Taylor, can’t cut dialogue scenes together.

Sweeney holds it together admirably, as does Robert Davi–even though Davi loses his accent after a while. Swanson never attempts an accent; she’s agreeable without being believable. She comes off way too smart.

Jason Rogel is amusing in a smaller role. Sophie Sinise leaves no impression.

Wade Boggs is awful; he doesn’t seem to get the movie’s laughing at him.

Swamp Shark is garbage, but surprisingly digestible.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Griff Furst; written by Jennifer Iwen; director of photography, Lorenzo Senatore; edited by Matt Taylor; music by Andrew Morgan Smith; production designer, Jayme Bohn; produced by Kenneth M. Badish and Daniel Lewis; aired by the Syfy Channel.

Starring Kristy Swanson (Rachel Bouchard), D.B. Sweeney (Tommy Breysler), Robert Davi (Sheriff Watson), Jeff Chase (Jason Bouchard), Sophie Sinise (Krystal Bouchard), Jason Rogel (Martin), Richard Tanne (Tyler), Charles Harrelson (Noah), Natacha Itzel (Sarah), Dylan Ramsey (Scott), Lauren Graham (Laura), Thomas Tah Hyde III (Marcus), Ashton Leigh (Amber) and Wade Boggs (Deputy Stanley).

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Predator 2 (1990, Stephen Hopkins)

Predator 2 is a great looking movie all because of director Hopkins. Early in the movie, right after a heavily Robocop influenced shoot-out (the whole first hour is nothing but a Robocop rip), Danny Glover’s up on a roof with the LA skyline behind him. Hopkins and cinematographer Peter Levy turn the shot sequence–it probably lasts thirty-five seconds–into a beautifully simple cinematic moment. It just looks perfect. There are quiet a few of these perfect moments in the film, which is probably why Predator 2 gets away with being so lame.

The first hour is wasted with supercop Glover and his team of bad actors (Rubén Blades is actually just mediocre, but Maria Conchita Alonso and Bill Paxton are terrible) chasing the Predator. While I can understand the reasoning behind hiding the Predator for the first hour–for those unfamiliar with the first film–it’s absurdly unnecessary. Killer aliens are a sci-fi standard. Actually, it was probably budgetary. Anyway, Hopkins compensates with some good angry cops fighting against oblivious superiors shots and giving the whole first hour a horror feel. It’s cheap and deceptive, but he makes up for it in the end.

Predator 2 ends with a lengthy–around twenty minute–chase scene. Thirty minutes if you disregard a six minute break for Glover to find out all about the first movie (you’d think he would have seen it).

While Glover’s good in the leading role, the script’s so bad–he’s constantly making heated, macho movie man observations–there’s little he can do with it. His best scenes are the ones where some subtext is implied (given the movie has none). Producer Joel Silver opened his regular acting stable out for Predator 2–Gary Busey, Robert Davi and Steve Kahan–and, along with Glover, it feels like an attempt to remind people of Lethal Weapon.

Busey’s awful, no surprise, but the terrible supporting cast is a little bewildering. They should have been able to hire some decent character actors–Kent McCord is particularly bad and Adam Baldwin is laughable. Any movie where Morton Downey Jr. gives one of the better performances is trouble.

But those last twenty minutes make up for everything. It’s a chase scene across rooftops, beautifully directed. Hopkins really doesn’t get enough credit. The conclusion–with the various money shots (a dozen additional Predators)–is idiotic (what were all these other Predators doing while the main one was out hunting, watching Maury Povich?), but it looks kind of cool and Predator 2 doesn’t encourage any thoughtful consideration. In fact, it strives not to encourage that sort of thing.

License to Kill (1989, John Glen)

Occasionally, I feel like the English language doesn’t allow for–without a lot of adjectives–a reasonable description of something. In this case, I can’t possibly describe the heights of stupidity License to Kill’s screenplay reaches. I mean, for a film to feature a South American drug kingpin with a base more appropriate for Dr. No, it has to be pretty stupid. But for it to feature a chemistry-free, love-at-first-sight romance (between Dalton and Carey Lowell, whose character is terribly written and whose performance is nowhere near as bad as Talisa Soto’s) after a bar fight… it’s simply incredible. The “modernizing” of the Bond villain to the drug kingpin is ludicrous, even if Robert Davi has some good moments, really good ones, but to throw people to leftover sharks from Jaws: The Revenge….

License to Kill is so dumb, I forgot to open this post with the line I’ve been waiting to use–my friend refers to License to Kill as James Bond’s Lethal Weapon. Between Michael Kamen doing the music and Grand L. Bush having a thankless, minuscule role, it really is an attempt to Americanize James Bond and it’s a failure. John Glen doesn’t get how to do action scenes or fight scenes. He gets how to do great special effects scenes–or the second unit director does–but otherwise, Glen is a liability to a ultra-violent Bond film. I mean, Bond’s not just killing people in this one, he’s torturing them.

The setup with Bond in Florida for Felix Leiter’s wedding, not to mention giving him friends, really does work. It works so well, I forgot it was Priscilla Barnes (she’s okay–her character is apparently a complete drunk–but a “Three’s Company” connection is a little distracting). But everything falls apart when, instead of killing all the bad guys, Bond makes off in a hydroplane in a well-executed special effects and stunts sequence. The writers don’t get it, the director doesn’t get it… Dalton barely gets it.

Dalton’s performance as Bond is quite good, creating a character who can believably have friends as well as everything else (though he does not come off as irresistible, something the script requires of him). Desmond Llewelyn has a lot to do as Q becomes a field agent and he’s a lot of fun–even if he is a little odd in the otherwise dark story. Wayne Newton’s fantastic as a televangelist in an overblown cameo.

As a tonal shift, License to Kill is a mistake (the script belongs in a direct-to-video movie from the early 1990s, starring a soap star who thought it’d be his breakout role), as is setting the film in the United States. It’s over two hours, but it’s boring… it’s nice Dalton can pull off a boring James Bond and it’s too bad he didn’t make more… but what’s the point? It doesn’t work as action adventure and it doesn’t work as revenge action.

1/4★

CREDITS

Directed by John Glen; written by Michael G. Wilson and Richard Maibaum, based on characters created by Ian Fleming; director of photography, Alec Mills; edited by John Grover; music by Michael Kamen; production designer, Peter Lamont; produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Wilson; released by United Artists.

Starring Timothy Dalton (James Bond), Carey Lowell (Pam Bouvier), Robert Davi (Franz Sanchez), Talisa Soto (Lupe Lamora), Anthony Zerbe (Milton Krest), Frank McRae (Sharkey), David Hedison (Felix Leiter), Wayne Newton (Professor Joe Butcher), Benicio Del Toro (Dario), Anthony Starke (Truman-Lodge), Everett McGill (Ed Killifer), Desmond Llewelyn (Q), Pedro Armendáriz Jr. (President Hector Lopez), Robert Brown (M), Priscilla Barnes (Della Churchill), Don Stroud (Heller), Caroline Bliss (Miss Moneypenny), Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Kwang) and Grand L. Bush (Hawkins).

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