Sunday, November 02, 2008

On capers, commies and copulating males. (OK, not really.)

Quick hits before the list gets out of hand.

Who's next? DeNiro?: "Ocean's Thirteen"

I'm pretty sure he's available these days, based on his questionable choices of roles.

In a nutshell, this is better than the last one but not as good as the first. The whole gang is back, minus Julia Roberts (thank god). This time, they're out for revenge after a Vegas heavy (Al Pacino) wrongs their pal Elliott Gould. You know what to expect: elaborate plans and nothing is as it seems. Oh yes ... hijinks ensue.

Compared to that crap in Europe when most in the cast seemed to be mugging to the camera (more than usual), the return to Vegas is welcome, and I enjoyed this movie all right. Not as much fun as "Eleven," and plenty more confusing. Still, not bad.

Would you trust Turk 182 and Spicoli with national secrets?: "The Falcon and the Snowman"

Never saw this mid-80s tale of actual 1970s treason until last month. Timothy Hutton is a seminary dropout who ends up at a defense company. Disillusioned by what the CIA does in the name of national security, he and his pal, a drug dealer (Sean Penn), start selling info to the Russians via their Mexico embassy. Yeah, I'm sure nothing can go wrong here.

As you might guess, our heroes get in over their head, with Penn especially dipsh*tty. It's no surprise that they get caught. It's just a matter of when. But as interesting as it is to revisit the Cold War, the story drags on too long, and none of the performances are anything great. Hutton and Penn can act, of course, but their characters are pretty one-note here.

Speaking of the Cold War in the '70s ... : "Telefon"

Weird title for what is really an OK story: A rogue Russian gets hold of a list of sleeper agents in the U.S. and starts "activating" them -- sending them on suicide missions. The Russians understandably want to keep this under wraps and send a military officer with a photographic memory (Charles Bronson) to the U.S. to catch the bad guy (Donald Pleasance).

Helping our hero is CIA agent Lee Remick, while Tyne Daly plays a government computer geek looking for patterns in the mysterious deaths. Not a bad cast, but also not a great fit for this story. Remick looks great but isn't a convincing agent at all. Pleasance is mostly wasted; we're told about his character's possible motivation, but he doesn't get a chance to show us much.

Worst of all is Bronson. He does his Bronson thing, and it's really off base. One, I'm not sure he even tried a Russian accent. Two, he comes across as more aloof than menacing. Three, that mustache sucks. It's a shame, too, because I did like the story, even if the DVR cut off the last few minutes. Damn DirecTV.

It's not good when I believe these two guys getting together before I buy Jessica Biel going for Sandler: "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry"

Yeah, I recorded this from one of the movie channels, thinking She Who Defines My Life and I could watch a silly comedy together. Then she passed, and I soldiered on alone. Wasn't horrible, but definitely wasn't great.

Adam Sandler and Kevin James are NYC firefighters -- the former a male slut, the latter a widower with two kids. When James' can't get his pension benefits switched over from his dead wife to his kids, he comes up with a harebrained scheme to have Sandler be his domestic partner so he -- upstanding sort that he is -- can take care of the kids. Got that?

Of course, questions arise, requiring the need for a lawyer. That's Biel, who does have one magnificent scene midway through the movie. Not acting as much as underwear. Oh my. Oh mommy. This movie is worth seeing just for that. Or find the scene on YouTube. It's nice.

Otherwise, we get some hamhanded attempts at making this more than a silly comedy -- early shots showing the heroism of firefighters, later scenes of how prejudice toward gay people is bad. Bad! But as much as we're meant to learn lessons along with our heroes, it's all too sappy, and the laughs in between the pap don't pass muster. Nice try, guys, but nothing great here.

2 Comments:

At 2:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Bronson's mustache always sucked. Don't think "Death Wish" is the first time he sported one, but it was a big hit and, with a couple of exceptions (a good one being "Hard Times," directed, yes, by Walter Hill), he pretty much spent the rest of his movie career wearing one.

 
At 8:36 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

He got use to it because of that time when he was in military prison and refused to shave with cold water.

 

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