Kim Gentes

Spike Lee goes mainstream with Homerun

V: for Vilified- FILM HITS MARK

Willis & Mos Def scrape grit into good film

Bruce Willis has been the perrenial scruffy tough guy, usually a cop. But never have you seen him in such a human, broken role as 16 Blocks Jack Mosley. Not a good cop with quirk or even a single lapse of moral failure, instead, Mosley is an entrenched cop with moral decay leading him to drink himself into the grave. On-the-job drunk, overweight, and depressed, Mosley is simply medicating himself into retirement or suicide, whichever comes first. But before he can get there he has to take a lowlife criminal (Dante Smith/Mos Def) to a court appointment. From there, the story erupts into its plot without looking back to fill in the details for those who were eating their popcorn when the clues are being dropped.

In the style of 24, but with much less glitsy Hollywood techno-gadgetry, 16 Blocks is a relatively simple tale of police corruption laced with good old fashion action and gun play. Interwoven are some poignant camera and effects, especially in the opening shooting scene, where time lapse and perspective/camera rotation, grab you into the film. But all of this is downplayed and not hyped to have you forget the plot, or the two main characters.

There are some weaknesses in the film, but none of them are backdoor, unbelieveable rescues or problem solving. It's smart, it's fast, and it's good cop action. Towards the end, there is good real tension in a situation where Willis and Smith's characters have their last scene together. You really aren't sure what Willis will do, and you feel like the film could go either way. This makes the movie seem much more real because you realize, like real life, it could go either way. You feel like what happens does so because of the thinking of the characters, not because the script writer demands a dark or feel-good movie.

Even more satisfying is that the main character has to pay for his moral failures. This film is not gratuitious in the filming of violence, though it is a action flick. Is it realistic? It depends. The action itself is still pretty Hollywood-esque, but the characters are smart, human and worthwhile learning about.

This is a film you will like, especially if you are tired of the same old garbage plots that seem to accompany action films, but also don't want to miss out on some shoot em' up police drama. Lave the kids home for this one, as the rating means it - 13 and under should not watch this. Not gory, but definitely strong language. Turns out to be actually a decent film for a date night, if its the guys turn to pick. The gals won't mind the violence (since it isn't constant), but they will like the humor interspersed and the moral dealings of Jack Mosley.

More human but techie Harrison Ford..

Since his breakout role as Han Solo in Star Wars, to his starring in the Indiana Jones series, Harrison Ford has always had a great ability to exemplify whatever character sketch the screenwriter was reaching for. Always witty, often with charming quirks, Ford always gave a reason to pause and chuckle, usually amidst tension, action and plot climax. Movies like Witness, Air Force One, Frantic and others brought us a serious, action driven Ford, who was bent on whiteknuckling his way to some of the most memorable moments in action film with a human twist.

This newest film, Firewall, takes an older Harrison Ford and updates him for our times. He is now Jack Stanfield, executive in charge of systems security for a bank in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest region. He isn't a policeman, detective or adventurer. He is a family man with a high powered desk job. But all this changes when his family is abducted and held in leui of his cooperation and use of his excellent computer skills with which he is forced to break into and steal from the bank he works for. With the plot set, you get to take the ride with Jack and his family, trying to overcome the obstacles to recapturing his family and freedom.

While the action is still quite rivetting, it is not based on heroic dexterity or strength, instead Ford has to restrain his physical abilities as an actor to properly represent a normal white collar worker, but with intense determination. This was evident to anyone familiar with Harrison Ford's career as an action star, but made clear in a comment in the Firewall production notes-- 'Regarding Ford's innate aptitude, the stunt coordinator admits, "his ability to fight actually surpasses what's likely for his character so we had to dial it down in deference to the fact that he's playing a banking executive with a desk job."

The film is solid, but not spectacular, and this seems to be the understated goal of the director and the technical crew who put together the movie. They held back to good background research on how a techno thief would go about breaking into a bank system, instead of the over-the-top tech "thrillers" that shoot into science fiction so quickly.

The story is good, the acting memorable and the direction is right on track. Very nicely filmed in Vancouver Canada, its easily a beautiful representation of its US neighbor city, Seattle.

Not the best Harrison Ford movie, but much more honest than so much of the trite themed films hitting the screen these days. Firewall is a good effort worth seeing, and will likely be a rental favorite long after the theatre run. The movie has some mildly disturbing language and breif intense scenes of violence, including a crisp, startling (but not gratuituous) ending. I wouldn't bring a child under 13 to this film, which goes pretty much right in line with the PG 13 rating.

The nice thing about the movie is that it is centralized around the family of the protagonist, who's intense love for his family forces him to take escalating risks to save them. It's a good movie, and worth the effort to see.

A good action flick worthy of TV

I liked the premise of this story and the acting was reasonable enough, but the direction here was dime-store sci-fi with comic book cliche's filling up the scenes and script. The evil menacing and predictable nemisis appears. The standard love interest arises. The heroic effort is brought forth. All reasonable and predictable. The visuals and special effects were mediocre at best and disappointing if one is trying to make a truly top notch sci-fi. But it was clear to me that this movie was meant to live off of the character recognition from comic book and video game, and the possible hype drawn from its star, Charlize Theron.

It would have been nice if they gave her a bit more to do with the role, added some more capable supporting cast and generated some genuinely empathetic scenes and dialog. The director here handed in a poor effort, while everyone else was left in "Flux" as it were. In fact, they were more like left holding the bag, since the director obviously didn't want to take charge or take credit for anything in this film. Because of this, almost every aspect of it flails about looking for purpose. Without a strong hero/anti-hero, dark/evil, genuine plot interpretation by the director, tragic story, etc, the actors and story just meander out there in distance waiting for the end of the film.

Still, the action sequences and Theron's intensity do make it watchable. Plus, my 14 year old son thought the action was pretty cool. But neither of us where blown away by the movie at all. It's worth a trip to the rental shelf, but there was nothing compelling about spending $8.50 per person at the theatre for this half attempt at scifi by director Karyn Kusama.

My solution- bring back Theron for Flux II, hire Bruckheimer for production and get someone great like Spielberg or someone inventive like Danny Boyle to pilot this ship, and throw Kusama overboard.