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August 31, 2007
Death Sentence
(out of four)
Death Sentence would be right at home as one half of Grindhouse's B-movie double bill — not that anyone reading this actually watched that movie, judging from its miserable box-office performance. But if you did, then Death Sentence is the movie for you. It's an old-school exploitation picture, polished off with a modern sensibility by Saw director James Wan: A father (Kevin Bacon) watches a gang of hoodlums murder his son for kicks, then, disgusted by the dead-end legal system, sets out to even the score himself.
If the plot sounds like another Death Wish movie, it's no coincidence. Both films were adapted from novels by Brian Garfield, suggesting that the author, like horse-crazy Dick Francis or the woman who writes all those The Cat Who... mysteries, built his literary reputation around a single idea (in truth, Garfield's books were far-ranging, but these two were his most popular — go figure).
Continue reading "Death Sentence"
Posted by Peter Debruge at 06:46 PM | Comments (0)
August 24, 2007
Illegal Tender
(out of four)
For a straight-A college kid, Wilson DeLeon Jr. isn't all that smart. Somehow, he managed to go 21 years without asking how his single stay-at-home mom could afford the mansions they lived in, or why the family had to relocate every few years like refugees in a witness protection program. But as soon as two assassins show up at the front door, he's suddenly full of questions.
Illegal Tender is the sort of crime movie in which nothing, not one detail, has been observed from real life; it's composed entirely of fantasies and falsehoods lifted from bad movies and hip-hop videos. It wants to be Scarface but makes The Pacifier look plausible by comparison. (Do real bodyguards ever aim their guns sideways?)
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Posted by Peter Debruge at 10:41 AM | Comments (0)
August 22, 2007
The Nanny Diaries - Reelz Review
Posted by Peter Debruge at 11:25 AM | Comments (0)
August 21, 2007
Shoot Em Up - Reelz Review
Posted by Peter Debruge at 11:47 AM | Comments (0)
August 17, 2007
Marigold
(out of four)
It should come as no surprise that a Western attempt to tap into the Bollywood craze would require a white leading lady, but Marigold delivers an uneven yet charming approximation of the form without too many other compromises. Upbeat musical melodrama preserves all the song-and-dance flair one might expect from a star-crossed Hindi-language romance, with a radiant Ali Larter serving as a point of identification for U.S. auds. Prospects look limited to a low-profile specialty run, though the story's American slant could broaden pic's appeal beyond that of even the best-reviewed Bollywood imports.
Continue reading "Marigold" at Variety.com
Posted by Peter Debruge at 12:35 PM | Comments (0)
Molière
(out of four)
Molière made us laugh like no other playwright before or since, so it would seem fair to expect that a biopic about the undisputed master of 17th-century French farce might be filled with hilarious situations and witty one-liners. However, by suggesting that the man's life was as riotously funny as his plays, writer-director Laurent Tirard leaves us wishing he'd opted to do a straightforward adaptation instead.
Posted by Peter Debruge at 10:55 AM | Comments (0)
The Ten
(out of four)
When it comes down to it, almost all movies deal with transgression in one form or another. The Ten is a comedy about breaking all 10 of the Commandments, one at a time.
The movie serves as The State comedians David Wain and Ken Marino's response to The Decalogue, a 10-hour collection of very serious Polish films about sin and salvation by director Krzysztof Kieslowski. As Wain and Marino rightly point out, there weren't a lot of laughs in The Decalogue — but then, there are even fewer in The Ten.
Posted by Peter Debruge at 10:54 AM | Comments (0)
August 10, 2007
Stardust
(out of four)
Fans of The Princess Bride have been waiting 20 years for another movie to come along that approximates the charm, romance and magic of William Goldman's true-love fantasy classic. Stardust is more than happy to oblige.
Based on the novel by Neil Gaiman, the movie features wishes and unicorns and all manner of magic, which director Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake) presents in such a way that every outlandish twist seems perfectly plausible. It's like a Terry Gilliam movie without the headaches.
Posted by Peter Debruge at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)
Rush Hour 3
(out of four)
Rush Hour 2 opened one month before America was attacked by terrorists, and like all pre-9/11 Hollywood franchises, it suggests more innocent times. The sequel is no different. Rush Hour 3 is downright oblivious to everything that's happened since. For audiences in search of escapist entertainment, that probably comes as a relief.
There's something old-fashioned about both the story and the sense of humor on display here. It's as if the script were freeze-dried in the mid-'80s and thawed out only now to leaven the mood at megaplexes (at a time when even Larry the Cable Guy's latest romp, Delta Farce, comments on U.S. foreign policy).
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Posted by Peter Debruge at 10:51 AM | Comments (0)
August 07, 2007
Stardust - Reelz Review
Posted by Peter Debruge at 10:27 AM | Comments (0)
August 03, 2007
Hot Rod
(out of four)
It worked for Will Ferrell in Anchorman and Talladega Nights: Devise a cocktail-napkin sketch of a character and hope the movie falls in place around it. But by the time Hot Rod reached the screen, Ferrell had stepped aside, leaving Saturday Night Live's Andy Samberg to play amateur stuntman and accident magnet Rod Kimble. Those hoping for feature-length doses of Samberg's "Lazy Sunday" wit will have to settle for just plain lazy, as Hot Rod aims low and still manages to miss its target. Even if pic crashes and burns at the box office, it should emerge unscathed on DVD.
Continue reading "Hot Rod" at Variety.com
Posted by Peter Debruge at 10:11 AM | Comments (0)