***1/2 out *****
The second Mesrine film is a step down from the original. The first one crammed about 10-12 years into two hours, this once only has to cram about 6 or 7, but still manages to feel slow and chuggy.
Mesrine, fresh from his criminal adventures in Canada, has returned to France and begun robbing banks with gusto. Although, if you're looking for action, you're in the wrong place. We see maybe one bank robbery in this one. Mesrine's ego has grown with his legend, and he now thinks of himself as someone who robs from the rich and gives to himself. It's like crossing Gordon Gekko with Robin Hood. He sees himself as a revolutionary, bringing down the French establishment.
But the French establishment has something for him…bullets! Hey, it worked for Bonnie and Clyde… This film is filled with more French character actors (well, that I recognized anyway). Samuel LiBehan (Brotherhood of the Wolf, He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not), Mathieu Almaric (Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Quantum of Solace) and Ludivine Sagnier (Swimming Pool, Paris, je t'aime) all show up at varying times as partners of Mesrine. There's also a cameo by Georges Wilson, who I don't particularly know, but is a big deal in France I'm told. They're not given a whole lot to do, though, and tend to disappear unceremoniously when the movie is through with them.
We never really delve into Mesrine's ego, just see him flaunt it (although there is an interesting scene where a real revolutionary shoots down his fight-the-power dreams). There's also a fun scene where Wilson manages to beat Mesrine at his own game. Cassell is still great, and carries the movie almost single-handedly, but here Mesrine is static. He's still charming and psychotic, but he's not as interesting.
The protracted climax basically replays the entire opening credits of the first film. It's a bad choice…they could've built some real suspense here, but it's deadened by us already knowing what the end result is. We also don't get much in the way of the controversy surrounding the French police ruthlessly gunning Mesrine down in broad daylight (no, I'm not giving away the end…we know this happens from the credits of the first film). It also more unfocused, sometimes making Mesrine the focal point, sometimes focusing on the cops hunting him. But there's never a sense of the cat-and-mouse game between the two.
It doesn't ruin the first one, and it's not a bad movie, but like Soderbergh's Che, the second half doesn't quite equal up to the first. Still, I'd recommend seeing Mesrine's saga.
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
movie review by brandon, the movie nerd! mesrine: killer instinct
**** out of *****
Jacques Mesrine (pronounced May-reen, or May-reign, or even sometimes, May-reign-uh) was a real-life French criminal who was sort of a cross between John Dillinger and Goodfellas. His sordid life was made into two movies in 2008 (or 07 and 08, depending on your online sources). The first film details his rise to becoming France's public enemy number one.
It starts with his release from the army, where he discovered a taste for brutality while torturing the rebellious Algerians (pretty ironic/hypocritical, considering how he fancied himself a rebel later on). He returns to France, and quickly hooks up with gangster Gerard Depardieu, rising through the ranks of Depardieu's small mob and eventually striking out on his own as a kidnapper and bank robber in both France, Canada, and even escaping to the U.S. once (although he was apparently apprehended in Arkansas, not Arizona as the movie depicts).
As Mesrine, Vincent Cassell is simply brilliant. He's got the perfect amount of charm and violence needed to show why this character is both magnetic and horrifying. The film remains neutral on Mesrine, showing us his life instead of making a judgment. We see the fun, party aspect of his life with girls and money, and we also see his sense of honor and loyalty (like when he tries to go straight...he accepts being laid off, and doesn't blame his boss).
But we also see the horrific violence he inflicts, and the crazy anger hiding just beneath his eyes. This is a guy who one minutes loves his wife and the next minute shoves a gun in her mouth. But we also can see why…the boss was not disrespecting him, just doing what needed to be done. A wife trying to hold him back from his own desires…to him, that's disrespect.
Director Jean-Francois Richet has a good grasp of American crime sagas, and does this in the grand seventies tradition of something like The Godfather, Serpico, or GoodFellas (yes, I know GoodFellas isn't from the seventies, but it's also in that same style). It bounces along, giving us glimpses into his life at different times. This can sometimes work against the film, as we sometimes don't really get to know the people orbiting him. But Richet does a good job with the passing of time. He shows us things that we know take a certain amount of time: babies being born, jail sentences, etc. And even though he sometimes skips action we think we'd like to see, he spares us one more bank robbery in order to prime us for the stunning (and amazingly off-the-cuff) jailbreak scene toward the end.
It can be choppy sometimes, but it works in that 70s way, and gives us a full portrait of one man's slow descent into crime. Definitely worth seeing, especially for fans of crime movies.
Monday, May 10, 2010
movie review by brandon, the movie nerd: fando y lis
**1/2 out of *****
Alejandro Jodorowsky's first film nearly got him killed…literally.
When it premiered at the Alcupulco Film Festival, it's grotesque sexual/religious imagery caused a full-scale riot. As the crowd went after him, Jodorowsky had to sneak out to a waiting limo. The crowd discovered it as it was driving him away and pelted it with rocks. A week later it opened in Mexico City to sold-out crowds…but again, riots ensued. Mexico banned the film and very nearly deported Jodorowsky back to his native Chile.
Amidst all of this nonsense, people also began thinking Jodorowsky was a vampire. Filmmaker Sergio Klainer began spreading the rumor, and it didn't help that the movie has a blood-drinking scene, or that actress Diana Mariscal (Lis) was anorexic, so she was abnormally thin in public appearances. The American release didn't do much better…15 minutes were cut from the film, and it was derided as a rip-off of Fellini or Bunuel. How Jodorowsky went from this to celebrated director of El Topo and The Holy Mountain is almost as amazing as how fast he fell in the mid 70s.
But enough history, how is the actual movie? Unfortunately, not great. Jodorowsky based it on memories of a play he once saw, and the entire script was apparently one page long. Like his later films, it tells the story of a surreal journey…this time Fando and Lis. Fando is an immature, selfish prick with a drum made of his dad's skin (!) and Lis is a paraplegic doormat with a phonograph player. They travel through a desolate, mountainous landscape looking for the lost city of Tar, where apparently all dreams can come true. They come across a motley of surreal, grotesque characters who seem more interested in debauchery than anything.
Then, every twenty minutes or so, Fando decides to mentally and physically abuse Lis, before ditching her to go off on his own (he usually comes crawling back). While it does have the weird, sometimes beautiful, imagery that Jodorowsky would become known for, it seems to be missing the depth of his later work. I liked a few scenes, like when Fando and Lis stumble upon a bunch of people waking up and floundering around in a mud pit. But none of the scenes added up to much of anything. I never got any sort of impression or introspection from what was onscreen.
And it's really hard to spend any time with the annoying main characters. Lis is at least an attractive lady, and loses her top here and there, but Fando is just a complete prick. There are several scenes of Fando doing things like dragging Lis across the stony ground by her dead legs while she screams in pain. It's unpleasant to watch, and the longer it goes, the more it focuses on the cruelty. I guess maybe that's the point, and maybe it's my own fault for not knowing what it's supposed to mean. But it's hard to watch something that seems to be cruel for cruelty's sake.
In the end, it's just a pretentious mess. Stick with his later work.
Alejandro Jodorowsky's first film nearly got him killed…literally.
When it premiered at the Alcupulco Film Festival, it's grotesque sexual/religious imagery caused a full-scale riot. As the crowd went after him, Jodorowsky had to sneak out to a waiting limo. The crowd discovered it as it was driving him away and pelted it with rocks. A week later it opened in Mexico City to sold-out crowds…but again, riots ensued. Mexico banned the film and very nearly deported Jodorowsky back to his native Chile.
Amidst all of this nonsense, people also began thinking Jodorowsky was a vampire. Filmmaker Sergio Klainer began spreading the rumor, and it didn't help that the movie has a blood-drinking scene, or that actress Diana Mariscal (Lis) was anorexic, so she was abnormally thin in public appearances. The American release didn't do much better…15 minutes were cut from the film, and it was derided as a rip-off of Fellini or Bunuel. How Jodorowsky went from this to celebrated director of El Topo and The Holy Mountain is almost as amazing as how fast he fell in the mid 70s.
But enough history, how is the actual movie? Unfortunately, not great. Jodorowsky based it on memories of a play he once saw, and the entire script was apparently one page long. Like his later films, it tells the story of a surreal journey…this time Fando and Lis. Fando is an immature, selfish prick with a drum made of his dad's skin (!) and Lis is a paraplegic doormat with a phonograph player. They travel through a desolate, mountainous landscape looking for the lost city of Tar, where apparently all dreams can come true. They come across a motley of surreal, grotesque characters who seem more interested in debauchery than anything.
Then, every twenty minutes or so, Fando decides to mentally and physically abuse Lis, before ditching her to go off on his own (he usually comes crawling back). While it does have the weird, sometimes beautiful, imagery that Jodorowsky would become known for, it seems to be missing the depth of his later work. I liked a few scenes, like when Fando and Lis stumble upon a bunch of people waking up and floundering around in a mud pit. But none of the scenes added up to much of anything. I never got any sort of impression or introspection from what was onscreen.
And it's really hard to spend any time with the annoying main characters. Lis is at least an attractive lady, and loses her top here and there, but Fando is just a complete prick. There are several scenes of Fando doing things like dragging Lis across the stony ground by her dead legs while she screams in pain. It's unpleasant to watch, and the longer it goes, the more it focuses on the cruelty. I guess maybe that's the point, and maybe it's my own fault for not knowing what it's supposed to mean. But it's hard to watch something that seems to be cruel for cruelty's sake.
In the end, it's just a pretentious mess. Stick with his later work.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
movie review by brandon: knowing
Knowing- ***
Nicolas Cage has recently become that go-to guy when you need a famous name for your crappy movie. And I fall for it every time, thinking THIS is going to be the one where Cage delivers one of his patented nutjob performances and I laugh and laugh at all the silliness onscreen.
So I've sat through garbage like The Wicker Man, Ghost Rider, Next, and Bangkok Dangerous just waiting for Cage to raise all holy hell. I've always been disappointed since Cage seems to be sleepwalking through all his recent films (although The Wicker Man came closest).
Now comes Knowing, which seems to promise more of the same. And it does…but at the same time, it doesn't. Like all movies nowadays, the preview gives away most of the special effects scenes, including the climax. Thanks guys!
So you know the story…a fifty year old time capsule is opened and Cage's son gets a sheet of numbers. Cage winds up, in record time, deciphering that the sequence gives the date, number of dead, and location of every major disaster. There are three left (all within convenient driving distance for Cage), and it appears time is running out.
Again, I don't get my Cage freak-out, but I have to say it's the closest he's come to acting in a while. He's still pretty sputtery and vacant, but not as bad as usual. The rest of the cast falls right in line, including Rose Byrne as the never-consummated love interest, and their kids. They say their lines okay enough, but you never get the impression they really care.
And oh man, those lines. There are some real clunkers here. Especially when it tries build on the strained relationship between Cage and his son. And the plot progression is awkward at best. Cage will struggle over some minor mystery, only to have it solved the next scene so we can have some cool CGI. And that end…Jesus, it's like someone pushed you off your life raft into a sea of cheese.
But what's surprising is the amount of good here. Director Alex Proyas, who seems to be relegated to doing crap like I, Robot now, isn't quite ready to churn out studio crud yet. He stages some scenes that are WAY better than they have any right to be. The big CGI plane crash from the preview? The scene in the film is stunning...my mouth literally fell open and I immediately rewound it to watch again.
In fact, all of the effects scenes are well done (well, maybe not the Michael Bayish climax), and even some of the quieter ones fare better than they should. A few more passes at the screenplay may have developed this into a lean, intelligent thriller. Instead we've got a fast food movie that surprises…like you head to Wendy's instead of McDonalds for dinner.
And who knows, maybe I was only surprised because I expected a giant armload of greasy shit movie. But a little good is better than none at all...
click here to view the trailer:
Nicolas Cage has recently become that go-to guy when you need a famous name for your crappy movie. And I fall for it every time, thinking THIS is going to be the one where Cage delivers one of his patented nutjob performances and I laugh and laugh at all the silliness onscreen.
So I've sat through garbage like The Wicker Man, Ghost Rider, Next, and Bangkok Dangerous just waiting for Cage to raise all holy hell. I've always been disappointed since Cage seems to be sleepwalking through all his recent films (although The Wicker Man came closest).
Now comes Knowing, which seems to promise more of the same. And it does…but at the same time, it doesn't. Like all movies nowadays, the preview gives away most of the special effects scenes, including the climax. Thanks guys!
So you know the story…a fifty year old time capsule is opened and Cage's son gets a sheet of numbers. Cage winds up, in record time, deciphering that the sequence gives the date, number of dead, and location of every major disaster. There are three left (all within convenient driving distance for Cage), and it appears time is running out.
Again, I don't get my Cage freak-out, but I have to say it's the closest he's come to acting in a while. He's still pretty sputtery and vacant, but not as bad as usual. The rest of the cast falls right in line, including Rose Byrne as the never-consummated love interest, and their kids. They say their lines okay enough, but you never get the impression they really care.
And oh man, those lines. There are some real clunkers here. Especially when it tries build on the strained relationship between Cage and his son. And the plot progression is awkward at best. Cage will struggle over some minor mystery, only to have it solved the next scene so we can have some cool CGI. And that end…Jesus, it's like someone pushed you off your life raft into a sea of cheese.
But what's surprising is the amount of good here. Director Alex Proyas, who seems to be relegated to doing crap like I, Robot now, isn't quite ready to churn out studio crud yet. He stages some scenes that are WAY better than they have any right to be. The big CGI plane crash from the preview? The scene in the film is stunning...my mouth literally fell open and I immediately rewound it to watch again.
In fact, all of the effects scenes are well done (well, maybe not the Michael Bayish climax), and even some of the quieter ones fare better than they should. A few more passes at the screenplay may have developed this into a lean, intelligent thriller. Instead we've got a fast food movie that surprises…like you head to Wendy's instead of McDonalds for dinner.
And who knows, maybe I was only surprised because I expected a giant armload of greasy shit movie. But a little good is better than none at all...
click here to view the trailer:
Thursday, April 2, 2009
a movie review by brandon: blindness
Blindness- **
I read about half of this book just outside of college and, well, I was about done with books. It was good, but it was too dark, heady, and allegorical for me at the time. I put it down, promising to pick it back up later, and so time passed to 2008, when I first heard about the film.
Blindness is about what happens when civilization breaks down and people start following their baser instincts (the actual blindness is really just a MacGuffin). His prose is light and quick, bringing the horror of the situation home without immersing you in squalor (he's one of those authors who writes for the joy of prose itself, as opposed to plot or character).
Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t believe in the same things the author does.
An epidemic of blindness begins to attack the population, including a doctor (Mark Ruffalo) and his wife (Julianne Moore). Moore pretends blindness in order to be quarantined with her husband in an abandoned mental hospital. Things are fine at first, but as the epidemic grows, the hospital becomes less and less civilized, with people wandering naked, crapping in the halls, and gnashing their teeth. Enter The King of Ward 3 (Gael Garcia Bernal), a sadistic man who ruthlessly takes control of the hospital, and then enters into all kinds of rape and murder. Yay!
The problem with adapting a book like this is that you can't just film the plot. The book is about prose and allegory, so you need to tweak the film in order to get it to convey meaning through style, the way the novel did. But the screenwriter just writes the plot, and director Fernando Mierelles just immerses you into squalor. This worked in his brilliant City of God, but less so in the way overrated Constant Gardener, and even less here.
Maybe the rumors that he wasn't fully behind City of God are true, since he's been lacking ever since. There are ways to convey horror other than people squishing liquid shit between their toes, or being beaten to death during a rape. But Mierelles doesn't seem to know them.
The movie also doesn't seem to know what it is. It's an extremely unpleasant story, and just being as unpleasant as possible doesn’t engage an audience. And since there's no character development, there's no one to care about. The actors do their best, but it ain't much. By the underwhelming ending, you just feel dirty and abused, and you don't know what the point was.
Yeah. People are assholes, we all know that. I don't need two hours of awful to slam it home.
click to view the trailer:
I read about half of this book just outside of college and, well, I was about done with books. It was good, but it was too dark, heady, and allegorical for me at the time. I put it down, promising to pick it back up later, and so time passed to 2008, when I first heard about the film.
Blindness is about what happens when civilization breaks down and people start following their baser instincts (the actual blindness is really just a MacGuffin). His prose is light and quick, bringing the horror of the situation home without immersing you in squalor (he's one of those authors who writes for the joy of prose itself, as opposed to plot or character).
Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t believe in the same things the author does.
An epidemic of blindness begins to attack the population, including a doctor (Mark Ruffalo) and his wife (Julianne Moore). Moore pretends blindness in order to be quarantined with her husband in an abandoned mental hospital. Things are fine at first, but as the epidemic grows, the hospital becomes less and less civilized, with people wandering naked, crapping in the halls, and gnashing their teeth. Enter The King of Ward 3 (Gael Garcia Bernal), a sadistic man who ruthlessly takes control of the hospital, and then enters into all kinds of rape and murder. Yay!
The problem with adapting a book like this is that you can't just film the plot. The book is about prose and allegory, so you need to tweak the film in order to get it to convey meaning through style, the way the novel did. But the screenwriter just writes the plot, and director Fernando Mierelles just immerses you into squalor. This worked in his brilliant City of God, but less so in the way overrated Constant Gardener, and even less here.
Maybe the rumors that he wasn't fully behind City of God are true, since he's been lacking ever since. There are ways to convey horror other than people squishing liquid shit between their toes, or being beaten to death during a rape. But Mierelles doesn't seem to know them.
The movie also doesn't seem to know what it is. It's an extremely unpleasant story, and just being as unpleasant as possible doesn’t engage an audience. And since there's no character development, there's no one to care about. The actors do their best, but it ain't much. By the underwhelming ending, you just feel dirty and abused, and you don't know what the point was.
Yeah. People are assholes, we all know that. I don't need two hours of awful to slam it home.
click to view the trailer:
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
a movie review by brandon: dear zachary
my blog partner, brandon, really, really, REALLY likes movies. (that's him at karoake acting like a fool through the window while we partook in cancer sticks.)
his movie collection is enormous and includes classics, contemporary and cult films like the seventh seal, rififi, run ronnie run, buttcrack and turkish star wars, to name just a few out of the thousands of titles he's accumulated at this point.
brandon has a well cultivated film palette and understands more about film than most people i know. when brandon tells me he saw a film and what what his opinion was, i pay attention and rarely do i disagree. there aren't many people whose opinions on film i value but he has the dubious honour of being one of those very few people.
which is why he will be our resident movie reviewer. here is his first review:
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father- *****
Dear Zachary was a movie that came out independently and disappeared faster than I could blink. But the reviews were nothing but heady, full-bodied praise, so I tucked the title back in my mind and went on with my life. LITTLE DID I KNOW.
The movie begins as an homage to director Kurt Kuenne's best friend, Andrew Bagby. Bagby was well-liked by everyone (as we see in interview after interview), and was living a great life until his fiancé dumped him. He fell into depression, and soon into the arms of Shirley, an unpleasant woman half his age. When he moved to Latrobe, PA (beer!), he dumped Shirley and started a new life as a doctor. Until he was discovered murdered in a parking lot.
All evidence pointed to Shirley, who fled back to her native Canada, announcing that she was pregnant with Andrew's son. Andrew's parents followed, quitting their jobs and pooling their savings in an attempt to bring Shirley to justice and raise their grandson.
The saga that follows is perhaps the most heartbreaking movie I have ever seen in my life. It's even more resonant because it's all true. Kuenne knows enough about film to let his footage of Andrew, and his interviews, speak for themselves. These are regular people who had a chance to meet someone special, and the range of emotions you see is all too real. So much so that it took me four days to get through a 90 minute movie.
The most heartbreaking are Andrew's parents, truly good people forced into a completely alien situation. There were times I wanted to beg Kuenne to cut away from them. You see EXACTLY what a child's death can do to their parents, and it's heartbreaking.
But Kuenne is also smart enough not to linger on the saddest aspects of the story. The majority of the film is devoted to how Andrew touched the lives of those he knew, and watching these people reminisce about their friend carries more weight and emotion than the more tragic aspects of the story.
I know that watching something so emotionally wrenching probably doesn’t seem like the best way to spend your precious free time, but it manages to speak volumes about life and why it's worth living, even at the worst of times. And sometimes we need reminding.
Click to view the trailer:
Sunday, March 29, 2009
where did spring go?!
after a wonderful evening of earth hour, watching the hilarious documentary by jaime kennedy titled Heckler which michael and i had to pause the DVD to laugh hysterically for 10 minutes when Paris Hilton was read some of her reviews (seriously, i laughed so hard, i almost hyper-ventilated!), and enjoying a wonderful indian inspired dinner of baked chicken tikka with a fantastically spicy cholay and peas pulao, i woke up to the land covered in white.
what?! i thought we had made it through the dark times of winter! please, not this again? my psychic request to the universe is, "please don't let this last long!" seriously, i am so ready for sunny, warm days to go walking to the beach and do yoga on the waterfront, bbq garden parties in my friends' backyards and spending the afternoon wandering and exploring this great and big city! c'mon spring/summer, you can do it! you can come out of hiding because we're ready to welcome you with open arms, my friend!
by the way, i highly recommend seeing the documentary Heckler. while jaime's movies seem to bomb, it can't be denied that he is a very funny man. the same can be said for his friends and colleagues. plus some of the comedy club footage is fantastic, like a female heckler who comes on stage to cold cock the comedian for taunting her for taunting him. wow. never saw that coming!
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