The team that created SHAUN OF THE DEAD returns for some cop comedy with HOTT FUZZ. Writer/director Edgar Wright, and co-writer and star Simon Pegg, center their comedy on Nicholas Angel, a brilliant London police officer. After a successful stretch of patrolling London’s streets, Angel is reassigned to an outlying community where crime is nearly nonexistent. His by-the-book antics served him well in the big city, but seem out of place in the quiet, quaint town of Sandford. After a tragic traffic collision claims two Sanford residents’ lives, Angel believes that the collision wasn’t an accident, but murder. No one believes Angel, including his bumbling partner, Danny Butterman.
HOT FUZZ is everything that Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez had hoped GRINDHOUSE would be, and more. This satire and homage to cop action flicks provides plenty of oft-beat and silly British humor, thrilling and action-packed gunplay and hand-to-hand combat and several comic-book style deaths. With Wright as writer-director, and Pegg as writer-actor, the two have carved out quite a cinematic niche, by both mocking and honoring certain genres. They’ve essentially found a way to have their cake and eat it to. The comedic timing works in HOT FUZZ thanks to Wright’s patience and willingness to let the jokes and plot unravel, and Pegg is terrific in yet another dead-pan role, allowing the manic nature of the film to run its course. As in SHAUN OF THE DEAD, HOT FUZZ greatly benefits from a strong supporting cast. Whether its in a supporting role or a cameo, Timothy Dalton, Paddy Considine, Steve Coogan, Bill Nighly and Jim Broadbent leave their marks in wonderfully humorous ways. Whether your looking for a hysterical comedy, an exciting action movie or a silly mystery, HOT FUZZ delivers all three. It’s the most fun I’ve had in the movie theater this year.
Grade: A-
Friday, June 29, 2007
SHOOTER
Mark Wahlberg is a fugitive on the run in the action picture SHOOTER. Wahlberg is former marine marksman Bob Lee Swagger. Swagger lost his spotter, and best friend, during a failed mission overseas and has since retired away to the mountains in the western United States. Enter U.S. Colonel Isaac Johnson, played by Danny Glover. Johnson has discovered a plot to assassinate the president and asks Swagger to assist him in catching the would-be assassin. Swagger’s better judgment gives way to his sense of patriotism, but little does he know he’s being set up. Swagger becomes Johnson’s fall guy, in an apparent assassination attempt, leaving Swagger on the run with no where to hide.
If you’re a cynic of the United States government, and a believer that one man’s innocence is worth the lives of tens of innocent men, SHOOTER might just be the movie for you. This overly contemptuous action thriller views our country through tainted glasses and serves up a collection of preposterous, G.I. Joe moments. Director Antoine Fuqua, an adept action director, requires one to suspend their disbelief one to many times in order for SHOOTER to hit the mark. This extremely poor man’s THE FUGITIVE fails by not keeping the back story straightforward. The premise is simple, the performances standard, but the screenplay, written by Jonathan Lemkin and based on the novel by Stephen Hunter, feels compelled to provide puzzling explanations for the governments actions. These reasons are lame and detached, providing little depth or understanding. After a lengthy and incoherent explanation in the film’s final moments, SHOOTER ends with a bloody and unsatisfying taste of vengeance.
Grade: D+
If you’re a cynic of the United States government, and a believer that one man’s innocence is worth the lives of tens of innocent men, SHOOTER might just be the movie for you. This overly contemptuous action thriller views our country through tainted glasses and serves up a collection of preposterous, G.I. Joe moments. Director Antoine Fuqua, an adept action director, requires one to suspend their disbelief one to many times in order for SHOOTER to hit the mark. This extremely poor man’s THE FUGITIVE fails by not keeping the back story straightforward. The premise is simple, the performances standard, but the screenplay, written by Jonathan Lemkin and based on the novel by Stephen Hunter, feels compelled to provide puzzling explanations for the governments actions. These reasons are lame and detached, providing little depth or understanding. After a lengthy and incoherent explanation in the film’s final moments, SHOOTER ends with a bloody and unsatisfying taste of vengeance.
Grade: D+
IN THE LAND OF WOMEN
Adam Brody learns a thing or two from the opposite sex in IN THE LAND OF WOMEN. Brody is Carter Webb, a second-rate screenwriter from Los Angeles who leaves California after his gorgeous, actor girlfriend dumps him. He heads to Michigan to watch over his ailing grandmother, but more importantly, to leave the pains of the break-up behind him. While staying with his grandmother, Carter meets the mother and daughter tandem of Sarah and Lucy Hardwicke. Soon Carter finds himself in the middle of a family squabble between the two.
IN THE LAND OF WOMEN was written and directed by first-time director Jonathan Kasdan, the son of writer-director Lawrence Kasdan. I mention the relation, because Jonathan treads over some of the same emotional territory that his father has with his films. IN THE LAND OF WOMEN doesn’t have a conventional beginning or end but briefly ventures into three individuals’ tangled lives. Brody’s Webb is trying to rebound from a love lost, Sarah, played by Meg Ryan, is trying to rediscover life and a relationship with her eldest daughter, and Lucy is just beginning to learn life’s lessons. Kasdan’s calming touch behind the camera, and careful nature with his characters, enables us to feel for these troubled suburbanites in spite of the writer-director’s accelerated emotional connection between Carter, Sarah and Lucy. The three actors, Brody, Ryan and Kristen Stewart, provide compelling and unique individuals, ones easy to connect with. Their close interaction seems natural, despite the short duration of their relationships. IN THE LAND OF WOMEN is a slice of life drama that tackles emotional recovery from a different angle.
Grade: B-
IN THE LAND OF WOMEN was written and directed by first-time director Jonathan Kasdan, the son of writer-director Lawrence Kasdan. I mention the relation, because Jonathan treads over some of the same emotional territory that his father has with his films. IN THE LAND OF WOMEN doesn’t have a conventional beginning or end but briefly ventures into three individuals’ tangled lives. Brody’s Webb is trying to rebound from a love lost, Sarah, played by Meg Ryan, is trying to rediscover life and a relationship with her eldest daughter, and Lucy is just beginning to learn life’s lessons. Kasdan’s calming touch behind the camera, and careful nature with his characters, enables us to feel for these troubled suburbanites in spite of the writer-director’s accelerated emotional connection between Carter, Sarah and Lucy. The three actors, Brody, Ryan and Kristen Stewart, provide compelling and unique individuals, ones easy to connect with. Their close interaction seems natural, despite the short duration of their relationships. IN THE LAND OF WOMEN is a slice of life drama that tackles emotional recovery from a different angle.
Grade: B-
BLACK SNAKE MOAN
A former Southern blues-man tries to tame a wild-at-heart woman in director Craig Brewer’s BLACK SNAKE MOAN. The HUSTLE AND FLOW director pits Samuel Jackson as Lazarus, an Old Testament Christian, against Christina Ricci’s promiscuous vixen Rae. Rae’s army boyfriend Ronnie, played by Justin Timberlake, has just left for the war in Iraq, and Rae begins to fall into her old, wild ways. After Rae is beaten and dumped on the side of the road, Lazarus discovers her and decides some strict rehabilitation is in order.
Mixing both sexuality and spirituality, BLACK SNAKE MOAN is a strange film, one which may have a hard time appeasing audiences seeking the spiritual or the sexual content. Oddly enough, on its own terms, the film succeeds. The film’s blend of the Bible and bare-breasted Ricci, is in many ways the same trick and treat that THE LEGEND OF BETTIE PAGE pulled. Both baited in viewers with an alluring beauty, only to sell a religious tale of forgiveness and redemption. Ricci’s performance is good, but is upstaged by a terrific turn by Jackson. Jackson’s familiar intensity is on display again, but he also brings a rare peacefulness to Lazarus. His performance should be remembered come awards season. Just as he did with HUSTLE AND FLOW, Brewer establishes the community as a character. The Deep South blues gives BLACK SNAKE MOAN its personality, and the church folk give the film its soul. In spite of BLACK SNAKE MOAN’S peculiar nature, it works.
Grade: B
Mixing both sexuality and spirituality, BLACK SNAKE MOAN is a strange film, one which may have a hard time appeasing audiences seeking the spiritual or the sexual content. Oddly enough, on its own terms, the film succeeds. The film’s blend of the Bible and bare-breasted Ricci, is in many ways the same trick and treat that THE LEGEND OF BETTIE PAGE pulled. Both baited in viewers with an alluring beauty, only to sell a religious tale of forgiveness and redemption. Ricci’s performance is good, but is upstaged by a terrific turn by Jackson. Jackson’s familiar intensity is on display again, but he also brings a rare peacefulness to Lazarus. His performance should be remembered come awards season. Just as he did with HUSTLE AND FLOW, Brewer establishes the community as a character. The Deep South blues gives BLACK SNAKE MOAN its personality, and the church folk give the film its soul. In spite of BLACK SNAKE MOAN’S peculiar nature, it works.
Grade: B
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