wsherrett-677-936271

Don't bother with this one. The story is badly patched together, it doesn't even work as a video game. All of the top stars are in "let's get this one over with" mode. By the end I was hoping one of the bad guys would just shoot Statham's character instead of standing there pointing their gun at him and waiting for him to knock them cold.

The only way that a film like this could maintain interest is if the fight scenes showed some variety as the story goes along. This action director didn't seem to know what he was doing, and the endless, repetitive martial arts sequences seemed to be just filling time.

I always loved this film, and looking back at it from 2023 just astounds me at how well it saw into the void of life among the power brokers of Washington. Ronald Reagan was just ramping up his campaign as this film was released. The GOP would follow his act with George W. Bush, and then the ultimate empty suit, Donald Trump.

The way that everyone in the political media swarm tried to find the best label for the blank slate of Chauncey, without realizing just how blank the slate was, just resonates with the present day, although the more sinister aspects of the current political climate didn't make it into the mainly comical vision. Altogether, it's a bit depressing to think how much hasn't changed since those days.

Apparently, the new rule for movies in which (spoiler) there is demolition of large quantities of mass transit infrastructure is that Sandra Bullock must make a cameo appearance.

That said, this is a well-crafted example of fun action cinema. It hits the right marks better than, say, the Hitman's Bodyguard series. There is a consistent thread throughout the story about which relationships are the most fundamental to each character's motivation as they careen through the mayhem.

The plot twists blow by as fast as the train, making it clearly impossible to keep track of the whole picture, and that is the point. I especially liked the fact that the armored briefcase with the money, (cash and gold bullion?, really?) functioned as the literal McGuffin, and weapon and shield.

This film belongs to the group of elegiac journeys taken by old (mostly) men nearing death, and attempting to reconnect with their past, family, and unresolved issues. If you liked Alexander Payne's "Nebraska," or David Lynch's "The Straight Story," you will probably like this movie. It features everything you could hope for in this genre, gorgeous cinematography, first-rate acting, a perfect musical soundtrack, and a story that is just complex enough to avoid being predictable, but I found satisfying.

Just as an aside, Tom Skerritt is old enough to have served in the Korean war, as his character reveals, but the story could also be the final chapter in the life of Duke Forrest from the 1970 film, M. A. S. H.

I've always liked Cameron Crowe's movies. Not a big fan of Tom Cruise, but whatever. So, the New York Times reviewer got it right, give the guy credit for trying to open up the romcom format. I'm writing this 13 years after the movie's release, and you may notice that there are over 500 reviews of this film here. The only rap on the film I would go along with would be Orlando Bloom's wooden acting, but using him rather than a big name star may have been the deciding factor in getting the film made. And it only helps to highlight Kirsten Dunst's energetic performance.

After the box office tanking of Vanilla Sky, Cameron may have chosen to turn his experience into a movie, which has been the pattern in his writing career from the beginning. The opening segment borrows heavily from Blake Edward's S.O.B., a 1981 comedy from a writer-director with a similar career arc. And the supporting cast is populated by interesting people like Judy Greer and Louden Wainwright, one advantage of being a Hollywood insider with many friends.

The story sails along after that opening bit towards the (spoiler) happy ending with a completely unpredictable sequence of encounters. Any instances of conflict over family issues are resolved with rounds of laughter. I would have edited out much of Susan Sarandon's role, but that's about the only critical thing I can come up with.

Favorite line: "Is there such a thing as partial cremation?"

Martin McDonah's films have dealt with the comic overtones arising from violent clashes between men, a territory mined by Tarantino extensively, and like that writer-director's increasingly outlandish works, his stories have skated near the border of originality and self indulgence. In "Three Billboards," he dives into the world of small-town racism and police corruption in the U.S. with the intent of telling a story of moral redemption, leaving the world of career criminals behind.

Critics that are currently throwing bricks at the film for failing to spell out the details of the racist behavior alluded to in the movie's early scenes, or focusing on white characters almost exclusively, miss the point of a character-driven story that isn't trying to be a movie of the week. Compared to some of the comic-book pictures of American life depicted by European directors such as Luc Besson, McDonah has taken a lighter touch. There is violence, but the story doesn't wallow in it. Frances McDormand even gets to reprise the moment of reconsideration that she had with Billy Crudup's character at the end of "Almost Famous."

Just a few observations on the source and themes of this classic film that I haven't seen mentioned here. The source novel, or novella, really, at 99 pages, differs from the film in its collection and details of characters. Elmore Leonard's John Russell is about twenty- one years old. Newman was forty-one at the time - this required some changes to the plot and characters. The passengers in Leonard's story feature an eighteen-year-old white girl who has recently been freed from the Apaches after being held for a few weeks. She had to be changed into Diane Cilento's character. Russell's attraction in the novel doesn't become obvious until the climax. The novel is narrated by the kid, who is unmarried and leaving on the stage to seek his fortune in the world. Thus the screenwriters set the stage for a new thread of dialog during the trip around the nature of civilized relations between the sexes vs. that of the Indians. This not only replaces the brief discussion of the young girl's experience but provides padding for the longer form of the movie. It does seem out of place in this story, however, as a distraction from the buildup of suspense. But it is almost a requirement for Westerns from this period.

The bad guys in the novel featured both cowboys from Delgado's bar, including the one who got his nose broke. The film, for some reason, substitutes Cameron Mitchell's bad sheriff for one of them, and this only reduces the suspense of whether Russell will be recognized, the irony of which is a central point to the plot. So, if Ford's 1939 movie makes the point that Ringo Kids are sometimes necessary in times of war, Elmore Leonard offers a more nuanced take on whether the good guys are all that good, and where virtue might be found.

For the record, I liked the Robert Stone book better than the movie a bit, only because some of the sidebar stories that were left out added a real note of realism to the whole tale. That said, it should be noted that Stone appears to have based his plot on Leonard's "Hombre." Leonard's book was published in '61, the movie came out in '67. "Dog Soldiers" was published in '74. Both novels were written with a film adaptation in mind.

Both novels center on a relationship between a lone warrior type who stumbles into a group of people who have some illicit item of great value, and are about to be robbed and most likely killed, and the woman that he gradually falls for. In fact, both stories climax with the hero declaring his love for the woman before heading off to take on the criminals while delivering a counterfeit package. Leonard seems to be writing an updated version of "Stagecoach" for the sixties, with the civilized folk unsure of how to deal with John Russell's racial and moral ambiguity. Stone takes us on an odyssey through the cultural wreckage of America transitioning from a lost Cold War crusade to a period of anger, denial and self medication.

Elmore Leonard managed to tell his story in 99 pages, mainly because it was set in the late 1800's. In the intervening years between the two books, the western, as a viable setting for fiction, withered, as did many of the naive assumptions of post-WWII America.