12 Rounds is a by the numbers action film, only the director Renny Harlin can't count too well. He previously directed far superior films of this genre, including Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger, but of course he had much better scripts for those films, and proven action stars in Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone. In this film John Cena stars as New Orleans cop Danny Fisher, who has just managed to capture Miles Jackson, one of those sadistic, sophisticated and erudite international criminals who usually manage to show up in films like this. In the process though, Miles' girlfriend is accidentally killed and one year later, after escaping from prison and kidnapping Danny's live-in girlfriend, he devices a series of impossible tasks for Danny to complete. The failure to do so of course, will result in the unlucky girlfriend's death. John Cena is trying to follow in the footsteps of other athletes turned film stars such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Steven Seagal and Jean Claude Van Damme. Unfortunately, Mr. Cena lacks the charisma and acting talent of all of these, and in the case of Mr. Seagal that's no mean feat. You'll be wishing for a knockout after the first round.
Rating - 1 1/2 Stars
Duplicity has all the elements of a successful film, great story, direction and characters, and, great chemistry between its two main stars, namely Julia Roberts and Clive Owen. The two play former American and British spies who quit their jobs in order to work in the much more lucrative field of corporate spying. Their main goal though, is to work a scam involving two rival companies, whose respective CEOs hate each other, and to walk away with millions. We know how much the two CEOs hate each other because they engage in a heated fight/wrestling match on an airport tarmac. The two, played by Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson are so angry you'd think their bonuses were just taken away. Meanwhile Julia and Clive must work their scam despite their complete lack of trust in each other, which of course doesn't prevent them from enjoying each other in the bedroom. The two stars project just the right amount of cynicism and world weariness that you would expect of people who do what they do for a living, and they create electricity whenever they're together onscreen. A solid piece of entertainment.
Rating 3 1/2 Stars
Sunshine Cleaning deals with the relationship between two sisters with a troubled past, and uncertain future. Amy Adams plays Rose, who cleans houses for a living, and Emily Blunt plays Norah, who emotionally, seems barely competent to do anything. When they learn that cleaning up after crime scenes, suicides and other such messes can be quite lucrative, they decide to go into this business for themselves, with some success. Ms. Adams plays the older more responsible sister who needs to be successful not only to support herself and young son, but to also impress her former high school friends, who've obviously achieved a much greater degree of success than she has, either in marriage or career. The film is certainly enjoyable, but I could have used a little more on the relationship between the two sisters. Also there's a storyline concerning Norah and the daughter of a dead woman whose house they had to clean/detoxify that's kind of pointless and does nothing to advance the story. Mary Lynn Rajskub plays the daughter, and too bad Jack Bauer couldn't haven't swooped in to pull her out. Alan Arkin plays the two girl's weary, yet devoted father, and is the highlight of the film in this supporting role. Sunshine Cleaning, while worth seeing, is certainly not a must see. If you particularly enjoy watching a real pro like Mr. Arkin, then I would definitely see it.Rating - 3 (Light)
This film is in a very limited release after having won a few film festival awards. I'm not sure why, and with any luck the release will not get any less limited. The film concerns Max, a deservedly unsuccessful writer, who on a whim robs the local bank. He finds that he has a special skill for this sort of thing, while at the same time the thrill of it becomes addicting. After the bank he hits a few stores and a fast food restaurant, not even caring about the money, just the excitement. When the teller who gave him the stolen money recognizes him in a bar they begin a relationship. I guess she's caught up in the whole thrill thing too. Max has two good friends, Dave and Tommy, office drone and goofball slacker respectively, and they play their characters with all the subtlety of pie in your face. This film doesn't have one main character that's even close to being believable and frankly I'm surprised that this film didn't go straight to cable. If you happen to see it there, change the channel.
Rating - 1 1/2 Stars
In The Great Buck Howard, John Malkovich plays the title character as a once hugely popular mentalist now reduced to playing small venues in the hinterlands. Of course, he still thinks of himself, and acts like the huge star he once was, a star big enough to have appeared on The Tonight Show 61 times, with Johnny Carson of course. Colin Hanks plays Troy Gable, a law school dropout and aspiring writer who signs on as Buck's road manager, and somehow manages to deal with Buck's abuse while making a little money at the same time. Mr. Malkovich plays Buck as a guy whose cultural references stopped somewhere around 1985, and he still brags that he co-hosted the Dinah Shore show for a week. He longs to get back on top, and it's also obvious that he loves what he does, in spite of his occasional bursts of anger directed at Troy. His plan is to stage a big event in Cincinnati, which he confidently expects will re-launch him into the big-time once again. In spite of the abuse Buck heaps upon Troy, and others, it's also obvious that Troy admires and respects Buck, and their relationship is a key reason for the success of this film. Buck may be completely self-centered and obnoxious, but he does have a certain sweetness and innocence about him, and he only reinforces to Troy the importance of loving what you do. Mr. Malkovich, whose character is based on The Amazing Kreskin, does a wonderful job in capturing Buck, although I could have done without the goofy and exaggerated handshake they gave him. We get the point without it. Colin Hanks, yes, Tom's son, takes Buck's abuse with just the right amount of respect and understanding. Tom has a few brief scenes as Troy's disappointed dad, and he uses his time with him to try to push him back into law school. By that time Troy has spent too much time with a man who genuinely loves his work to ever consider that. This film has just the right mixture of comedy and pathos, with a few lessons thrown in. The film is in a very limited release as of this writing, and if it does come to "a theater near you" you might be amazed at how much you enjoy it.
Rating - 3 Stars
Knowing is a film that borrows liberally from a number of other films or genres. It takes a little from the National Treasure series in that Nicolas Cage is back deciphering codes, with some Close Encounters thrown in for good measure. Take some religion and add some environmental concern and Knowing is what you get. It sounds like a mess, but actually it works, at least at the "popcorn" film level. The film begins in 1959 where troubled elementary school student Lucinda Embry is working on her class assignment to draw a vision of the future as she thinks it might be 50 years later. Instead of a drawing, she furiously writes down a series of numbers, with no apparent meaning. Obviously she wasn't invited to many birthday parties. Fifty years later young Caleb Koestler, son of MIT professor John Koestler, is selected to open Lucinda's envelope. John Koestler, played by Mr. Cage, takes a closer look at the numbers and quickly realizes that the series has accurately predicted numerous natural disasters, with possibly some more to come. He seeks out Lucinda's grown daughter at a local museum to learn more about her mom, chats her up, and with minutes is sharing a table with her. The daughter, played by Rose Byrne is obviously a lot more trusting than most big city single moms with a young daughter in tow. Mr. Cage eventually learns more, as we do, and at least for me, it was worth it.
Rating - 3 Stars
In I Love You, Man, director and co-writer John Hamburg proves that you don't have to be Judd Apatow to make an hysterical R rated comedy. The film stars two veterans from Judd Apatow productions, namely Paul Rudd and Jason Segel. Rudd plays Peter Klaven, a sweet and idealistic real estate broker who, on the verge of his wedding, realizes that he has no real male friends. Segel plays Sydney Fife, a "guy"s guy, who lives in Venice Beach and basically lives a carefree life. He has even turned his garage into a "mancave", complete with a fully stocked "masturbation station". Peter meets Sydney at an open house and these two guys click for some reason, and the "bromance" begins. Watching these two guys bond was quite funny, as Peter displays his total awkwardness, and neediness in the process. One ongoing funny bit in the film shows Peter trying to come up with a "cool" nickname for Sydney, something that he never quite gets right. This film is filled with funny stuff, and Sydney's toast at Peter's engagement party is certainly a highlight. The film also has some excellent supporting performances from Rashida Jones as Peter's encouraging fiance Zooey, and from Jon Favreau as the obnoxious husband of Zooey's best friend. All this, and Lou Ferrigno getting angry as well. I didn't want to say it, but I will anyway, I loved this film, man.
Rating - 3 1/2 Stars
This film is a remake of the low budget 1972 revenge fest of the same name, and it certainly delivers everything you'd expect from a movie with such a pedigree. The film begins with Krug being rescued from a police car by his brother and girlfriend, as they gleefully kill two cops in the process. These guys have sociopath written all over them. Meanwhile the Collingwood family, including their seventeen year old daughter Mari, is headed up to their lakehouse for a vacation. Eventually Mari and her friend Paige end up in the motel room where the gang is holed up, having been invited by Krug's teenage son Justin to join him in some pot smoking. When Krug and his cohorts show up earlier than expected back at the motel the girls quickly realize that they should have "just said no". Eventually the gang ends up at the Collingwood home where they find out that the Latte sipping crowd can be as tough as anyone. In all seriousness, I enjoyed this film a lot. I was tense throughout, even though I pretty much knew how things were going to go. I also liked the fact that the makers of this film didn't cop out and try to go for a PG-13 rating, which would have been a great disservice to it. The film needed all the graphic violence that it had in order to bring the audience from one point to the next. The actors, for the most part did their jobs well in portraying their respective characters, although the two girls in peril didn't do much more than generic screaming. An enjoyable and, cathartic film.
Rating - 3 Stars (Solid)
Watchmen, as I'm sure you all know, is based on the comic series published in the mid 80's. I'm going to say from the start that I've never read the original comic series, although I will remedy that situation soon enough. Of course this means that I didn't come to the film with any preconceived notions of how the film was "supposed" to be, and am only judging it based on its merits as a piece of cinema. These merits are many as I found the film quite enjoyable. Watchmen paints a alternate history of the United States where Richard Nixon is in his fifth term as President and America was victorious in Vietnam, due to the efforts of the all powerful Dr. Manhattan, the only one of the Watchmen with super powers. The other Watchmen, although they're sometimes referred to as Super heroes are actually simply costumed and masked crimefighters, who posses superior fighting skills, and have a nifty flying machine at their disposal. At one point these people were admired but now they've been outlawed as vigilantes. At the beginning of the film an older Watchmen, The Comedian, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, is murdered and Rorschach is determined to find out why. Rorschach, played by Jackie Earle Haley is one of the highlights of the film as he plays his character as basically a sociopath with a conscience. He's also convinced that someone is targeting all of the Watchmen for death and he's determined to warn the rest. There's also a looming threat of Nuclear war between the Russians and the United States, so it's obvious that this Richard Nixon never heard of detente. This film has an engrossing story and a few excellent performances, as Patrick Wilson also shines as Nite Owl II. It also has a great soundtrack which helps drive the film. Too bad some of these guys weren't "watching" over our financial gods a few years ago.Rating - 3 1/2 Stars
