By Rick Jackson
In his second film as director, Ben Affleck (Gone Baby Gone) turns his attention to the Boston neighbourhood of Charleston where there is the highest percentage of crime because the authorities are unable to control it. The FBI are frustrated in their efforts to do something about it.
During the first twenty minutes you are introduced to Doug MacRay, the leader of a gang of thieves. Affleck plays him with enough street smarts to foil the police, but his cronies are not as experienced as him. When FBI Agent Bill Frawley (Jon Hamm) arrives to investigate, his knowledge of how criminals work leads him to suspect MacRay and his gang. However, the screenplay allows him to take too much time in trying to catch up to them.
Affleck is determined to give his character anything he needs to do the dirty work and it almost ruins the flow of what could have been a superior film.
What is worth paying attention to are the meticulous methods employed by the thieves in handling their next job. This includes getting rid of any DNA traces of evidence that would lead to them. Their set of rules has been consistently followed up until the robbery that takes place at a bank where they take a young girl named Claire (Rebecca Hall) hostage and injure civilians.
Like any crime film, the perpetrators do not realize the consequences of their actions. MacRay and his partner in crime, Jem (Jeremy Renner from The Hurt Locker) are too nice which is just the beginning of their downfall. When they fall in love with Claire, their further misjudgements by not paying attention to the details around them add to a predicament that even an Irish gangster (Pete Postlethwaite in an excellent supporting role) can detect weaknesses and, in turn, make a simple robbery something much bigger. What transpires is more a personal war against the criminals by the FBI which might have worked if the screenwriters didn't try to make it so important to overlook the real focus of what they were trying to do with the plot.
As for the ordinary moviegoer, Affleck the director does his best to maintain a decent pace but almost short circuits the planned robbery by letting you shake your heads when the police let them get away because the criminals are dressed up like nuns. It's something you can possibly forget because no issue is made of it.
What saves the plot are the determined efforts of the FBI in trying to catch up to the gang, especially Frawley's experience which you don't think will pay off. In this way, you are left thinking more of the inevitable which, thankfully, isn't as predictable unless you've seen too many crime movies or studied them.
Affleck's extensive use of closeups helps underscore the paranoia the gang feels as they perform their next job like clock work. His tight direction captures your undivided attention right from the first frame.
After a predictable first half, the remainder is still too formulaic but interesting enough for you to follow.
Based on the book, Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan, the screenplay by Affleck, Peter Craig and Aaron Stockard starts off as your average crime drama and they almost convince you that they can come up with a top notch effort. Had they tried not to make it so utterly familiar and made Frawley and MacRay a more modern version of Javert going after Valjean in Les Miserables, The Town might have ranked as one of the year's best. As it stands now, it is action packed and memorable to a point with a good cast that makes it all salvageable as entertainment.
It is rated 14A, with the warnings: coarse language and violence.
September 25, 2010
Copyright Rick Jackson 2010
Saturday, September 25, 2010
RESTREPO (MAPLE, 2010)****
By Rick Jackson
Like Frank Capra's Why We Fight series and John Huston's The Battle of San Pietro (1944) which showed what it was like to fight in World War II, Restrepo is a chilling and powerful reminder of what war is like in Afghanistan in the remote Korengal Valley where you follow over the course of 15 months the fighting soldiers who live in constant fear. When one of them gets killed, it is always shocking because the hurt hits home like nothing each soldier has ever experienced.
Directors and choreographers Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger capture the isolation of the men fighting in a territory they know little about. You get to hear guns being fired and bombs exploding which are sight unseen. Each time they hear of casualties from another American company their sorrow can be felt in their faces. When their beloved friend PFC Juan S. Restrepo is killed, the mission is dealt an emotional blow that is buried deep in their minds. You learn he was popular and entertained his fellow soldiers by singing and playing on his guitar. In flashback, you get to see him and when you do you can feel the lessening grip of stress ease slowly as they all enjoy themselves. Their few minutes of joy are short-lived by the same faces which quickly underscore the inherent fear they share every day while fighting on the mountainside against the Taliban. When it comes time to build a new post they name it after Restrepo, their fallen comrade. It becomes part of their assignment which is called Operation Rock Avalanche.
One gets the feeling that the civilians nearby did not trust the Americans and through interpreters they try to find out as much information as they can about the enemy. These weekly meetings are called Shuras, consultations between Capt. Dan Kearney and the village elders. They are moments of humanity in a place that could easily be interrupted by the Taliban. You never see any of them agree with Kearney and this gives the documentary its overpowering sense of purpose in presenting the views of the American side.
Hetherington and Junger use hand-held cameras to cover the action as it happens. They are supported by interviews with the soldiers whose thoughts and feelings help you reach a deeper understanding of the daily life of the individual soldier. They wait in anticipation for the moment when they will fight. As one of them points out, they don't know from where, the right or left.
In describing their position another soldier says they are like fish in a barrel because the Taliban are more acquainted with the terrain. The brief encounters early in the film are a taste of the close encounters they fear will eventually come.
As you see the soldiers' reactions to what is going on, it is all unnerving and real as the filmmakers are allowed to make it. When the Americans kill the enemy it is a triumphant moment. Nothing can replace the fear of being killed and you see them fire in a direction where every minute is meant to have equal impact.
There are no professional actors. The entire cast is comprised of real soldiers and this contributes to the authenticity of what you are watching for over 90 minutes.
The scene where an officer is reminding the men of why they are there is an example of how each soldier had to think to keep their sanity when they hear of brothers-in-arms who have been killed.
The wish of a soldier to not return to Afghanistan is small comfort, as is the return home for each of them carries with them the emotional scars of war that they all will never forget.
Hetherington and Junger draw a lasting impact for the individual moviegoer by their sincerity and proclivity for presenting the war in Afghanistan with a sharp aim in assessing the difficulties of fighting an enemy they never really get to know or see. The images of fighting in Restrepo are bleak enough to force you to sit up and realize what the realities are for any Allied soldiers who are fighting over there. For them the war continues in the trauma they all begin to have at home and which for many will never really go away.
It is rated 14A.
September 25, 2010
Copyright Rick Jackson 2010
Like Frank Capra's Why We Fight series and John Huston's The Battle of San Pietro (1944) which showed what it was like to fight in World War II, Restrepo is a chilling and powerful reminder of what war is like in Afghanistan in the remote Korengal Valley where you follow over the course of 15 months the fighting soldiers who live in constant fear. When one of them gets killed, it is always shocking because the hurt hits home like nothing each soldier has ever experienced.
Directors and choreographers Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger capture the isolation of the men fighting in a territory they know little about. You get to hear guns being fired and bombs exploding which are sight unseen. Each time they hear of casualties from another American company their sorrow can be felt in their faces. When their beloved friend PFC Juan S. Restrepo is killed, the mission is dealt an emotional blow that is buried deep in their minds. You learn he was popular and entertained his fellow soldiers by singing and playing on his guitar. In flashback, you get to see him and when you do you can feel the lessening grip of stress ease slowly as they all enjoy themselves. Their few minutes of joy are short-lived by the same faces which quickly underscore the inherent fear they share every day while fighting on the mountainside against the Taliban. When it comes time to build a new post they name it after Restrepo, their fallen comrade. It becomes part of their assignment which is called Operation Rock Avalanche.
One gets the feeling that the civilians nearby did not trust the Americans and through interpreters they try to find out as much information as they can about the enemy. These weekly meetings are called Shuras, consultations between Capt. Dan Kearney and the village elders. They are moments of humanity in a place that could easily be interrupted by the Taliban. You never see any of them agree with Kearney and this gives the documentary its overpowering sense of purpose in presenting the views of the American side.
Hetherington and Junger use hand-held cameras to cover the action as it happens. They are supported by interviews with the soldiers whose thoughts and feelings help you reach a deeper understanding of the daily life of the individual soldier. They wait in anticipation for the moment when they will fight. As one of them points out, they don't know from where, the right or left.
In describing their position another soldier says they are like fish in a barrel because the Taliban are more acquainted with the terrain. The brief encounters early in the film are a taste of the close encounters they fear will eventually come.
As you see the soldiers' reactions to what is going on, it is all unnerving and real as the filmmakers are allowed to make it. When the Americans kill the enemy it is a triumphant moment. Nothing can replace the fear of being killed and you see them fire in a direction where every minute is meant to have equal impact.
There are no professional actors. The entire cast is comprised of real soldiers and this contributes to the authenticity of what you are watching for over 90 minutes.
The scene where an officer is reminding the men of why they are there is an example of how each soldier had to think to keep their sanity when they hear of brothers-in-arms who have been killed.
The wish of a soldier to not return to Afghanistan is small comfort, as is the return home for each of them carries with them the emotional scars of war that they all will never forget.
Hetherington and Junger draw a lasting impact for the individual moviegoer by their sincerity and proclivity for presenting the war in Afghanistan with a sharp aim in assessing the difficulties of fighting an enemy they never really get to know or see. The images of fighting in Restrepo are bleak enough to force you to sit up and realize what the realities are for any Allied soldiers who are fighting over there. For them the war continues in the trauma they all begin to have at home and which for many will never really go away.
It is rated 14A.
September 25, 2010
Copyright Rick Jackson 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
THE AMERICAN (ALLIANCE, 2010)****
By Rick Jackson
Directed by Anton Corbijn, The American owes a lot to Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger (1975) which used naturalistic sound and silence to emphasize the isolation of Jack Nicholson's character whose actions and behaviour underscored his surroundings and, from him, the interactions of the succeeding situations that comprise the story.
In The American, George Clooney plays an assassin who you meet in Sweden during the opening credits sequence that symbolize his isolation from the outside world. As you learn later, he has lost his touch and allowed himself to be corrupted by his basic human desire to satisfy his sexual appetite. After the camera zooms in closer to the cabin in wintry Sweden, you see him in bed with an unknown woman. When the scene changes to the two of them talking in a snow covered forest, she notices tracks made by hunters. Clooney's Jack realizes there is danger lurking around and his instinct for survival as a man of action determines his next few moves as he protects them both from the impending shots that narrowly miss them. Jack's also a crack shot and without hesitation he knows exactly what to do.
Clooney brings to his role a dichotomy of feeling shared by you, the moviegoer, as you try to discern just what is going on. He is clearly a complex character whose lust for the opposite sex is a major weakness as you will soon find out, but also the beginning of his downfall as an important operative in a mission that is so secret, you anxiously wait to have it all explained.
In the screenplay by Rowan Joffe, based on the novel by Martin Booth, the environs of Sweden articulate the isolation of Jack's personification of loneliness and desperation as he tries to come to terms with his own self worth in a thankless job. Like Nicholson in The Passenger and, later, in The Pledge (2001), who is also alone in a strange place, Jack (aka Edward) compromises his position by being too interested in humanly pursuits when he should know better. This interruption will cost him dearly but you don't find out until the very end of the movie.
The logic of the narrative may, at first, be lost in the lack of plot development. However, in retrospect, it is part of the story's modus operandi. If you watch closely, you will notice a pattern that defines the reality of the main character by linking him to the external sounds of a bell clock chiming at different hours while Jack is exercising to keep in shape. There is no emotional baggage and apart from his only mistake at the beginning, he slowly smartens up to realize he is being set up. Like him, you don't know who it is and you wonder if you will ever find out. The internal and spiritual overtones, courtesy of Father Benedetto (Paolo Bonacelli) helps you understand the motives behind Jack's appearance. Still, it opens up more questions in regard to his role as the good and decent man he pretends to be. His efforts to ensure his survival keep you watching, while the director maintains a constant sense of mystery and intrigue around each corner in a deliberate attempt to throw you off. Yet it is all part of the external forces at work which are not clearly defined, again, on purpose to maintain your undivided attention. He expects Jack to react in a certain way to each situation and, to a certain extent, he manipulates you into thinking each move will be safe. However, he wants to double the fun by exposing your own views at the same time he allows Jack to behave the way he does without thinking why. His primordial instincts as a spy are challenged just as our own logic is challenged by expecting the inevitable to happen without fail.
The women (Irina Bjorklund, Thekla Reuten, Violante Placido) in The American are European and their bold behaviour is unflinching in a different way compared to the safer and totally expected manner in which they are supposed to react. Their nude scenes expose them literally as sex objects while they, too, engender the discreet realties of their positions as either friend or foe. This, too, becomes part of Joffe's raison d'etre.
As the situations grow out of necessity, you are absorbed by the fragments of each of the estranged and tragic sensibilities that are actually or nearly presented as part of the plot.
Clooney gives a top notch peformance in his meanest role to date. If you remember Henry Fonda in Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In The West, it will give you an idea about Clooney's Jack. He maintains a sense of being cold or aloof throughout the film, despite the smouldering sex scenes that serve as a metaphor for his basic human weaknesses. Like Nicholson in The Passenger, his attitude is governed by his actions which are unexpected. Clooney gives an Oscar calibre performance and he is in rare form.
Herbert Gronemeyer's subtle music score complements the entire film by making it more powerful on the surface, while allowing you to appreciate the strengths of the characters.
The American is a refreshing surprise and an outstanding achievement. It is rated 14A, with the warnings: violence and sexual content.
September 1, 2010
Copyright Rick Jackson 2010
Directed by Anton Corbijn, The American owes a lot to Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger (1975) which used naturalistic sound and silence to emphasize the isolation of Jack Nicholson's character whose actions and behaviour underscored his surroundings and, from him, the interactions of the succeeding situations that comprise the story.
In The American, George Clooney plays an assassin who you meet in Sweden during the opening credits sequence that symbolize his isolation from the outside world. As you learn later, he has lost his touch and allowed himself to be corrupted by his basic human desire to satisfy his sexual appetite. After the camera zooms in closer to the cabin in wintry Sweden, you see him in bed with an unknown woman. When the scene changes to the two of them talking in a snow covered forest, she notices tracks made by hunters. Clooney's Jack realizes there is danger lurking around and his instinct for survival as a man of action determines his next few moves as he protects them both from the impending shots that narrowly miss them. Jack's also a crack shot and without hesitation he knows exactly what to do.
Clooney brings to his role a dichotomy of feeling shared by you, the moviegoer, as you try to discern just what is going on. He is clearly a complex character whose lust for the opposite sex is a major weakness as you will soon find out, but also the beginning of his downfall as an important operative in a mission that is so secret, you anxiously wait to have it all explained.
In the screenplay by Rowan Joffe, based on the novel by Martin Booth, the environs of Sweden articulate the isolation of Jack's personification of loneliness and desperation as he tries to come to terms with his own self worth in a thankless job. Like Nicholson in The Passenger and, later, in The Pledge (2001), who is also alone in a strange place, Jack (aka Edward) compromises his position by being too interested in humanly pursuits when he should know better. This interruption will cost him dearly but you don't find out until the very end of the movie.
The logic of the narrative may, at first, be lost in the lack of plot development. However, in retrospect, it is part of the story's modus operandi. If you watch closely, you will notice a pattern that defines the reality of the main character by linking him to the external sounds of a bell clock chiming at different hours while Jack is exercising to keep in shape. There is no emotional baggage and apart from his only mistake at the beginning, he slowly smartens up to realize he is being set up. Like him, you don't know who it is and you wonder if you will ever find out. The internal and spiritual overtones, courtesy of Father Benedetto (Paolo Bonacelli) helps you understand the motives behind Jack's appearance. Still, it opens up more questions in regard to his role as the good and decent man he pretends to be. His efforts to ensure his survival keep you watching, while the director maintains a constant sense of mystery and intrigue around each corner in a deliberate attempt to throw you off. Yet it is all part of the external forces at work which are not clearly defined, again, on purpose to maintain your undivided attention. He expects Jack to react in a certain way to each situation and, to a certain extent, he manipulates you into thinking each move will be safe. However, he wants to double the fun by exposing your own views at the same time he allows Jack to behave the way he does without thinking why. His primordial instincts as a spy are challenged just as our own logic is challenged by expecting the inevitable to happen without fail.
The women (Irina Bjorklund, Thekla Reuten, Violante Placido) in The American are European and their bold behaviour is unflinching in a different way compared to the safer and totally expected manner in which they are supposed to react. Their nude scenes expose them literally as sex objects while they, too, engender the discreet realties of their positions as either friend or foe. This, too, becomes part of Joffe's raison d'etre.
As the situations grow out of necessity, you are absorbed by the fragments of each of the estranged and tragic sensibilities that are actually or nearly presented as part of the plot.
Clooney gives a top notch peformance in his meanest role to date. If you remember Henry Fonda in Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In The West, it will give you an idea about Clooney's Jack. He maintains a sense of being cold or aloof throughout the film, despite the smouldering sex scenes that serve as a metaphor for his basic human weaknesses. Like Nicholson in The Passenger, his attitude is governed by his actions which are unexpected. Clooney gives an Oscar calibre performance and he is in rare form.
Herbert Gronemeyer's subtle music score complements the entire film by making it more powerful on the surface, while allowing you to appreciate the strengths of the characters.
The American is a refreshing surprise and an outstanding achievement. It is rated 14A, with the warnings: violence and sexual content.
September 1, 2010
Copyright Rick Jackson 2010
Saturday, September 4, 2010
AGORA (E1, 2010)***
by Rick Jackson
Agora is not your average swords and sandals epic, but an erudite and entertaining film about ideas and how science went up against superstition in the 4th Century A.D. Rachel Weisz plays Hypatia, a woman ahead of her time. She is a teacher, philosopher, astronomer and a respected citizen in Egypt. Her father, Theon (Michael Lonsdale) is curator of the Library of Alexandria, whose mission is to gather all documents he can in storing what may be the world's top source for information. It was destroyed by the Christians in 391 A.D., and as you watch the events unfold that lead up to this catastrophic event in history, you are literally absorbed in several discussions about the origins of the planet earth, and how it revolved in the solar system. Science and religion clash in an era when ignorance led to violence and upheaval among Jews, Christians, and the Romans.
There are scenes in which valuable manuscripts are ordered to be destroyed and Theon and Hypatia work in earnest to save them.
Weisz gives the film its central focus since it is from her discussions with her students that the story engenders its primary directive as entertainment.
Watch how Hypatia captures attention with her ideas about planetary motion which local pacifists couldn't care less. However, it poses a problem between the pagans and Christians. Like the Salem witch trials many centuries later in the United States, if you were accused of being different, you were burned as a martyr.
I was reminded of two classic films: Joan of Arc (1948) starring Ingrid Bergman in the title role who was captured, tried and and burned at the stake for her religious beliefs. The second, the 1928 silent, The Passion of Joan of Arc with Falconetti with its lack of pageantry and sparseness of detail. In Agora, the pagans led by Orestes (Oscar Isaac) use bloodletting to get rid of what constitutes as evil. Any disagreement meant certain death by stoning.
With the rise of Christianity recorded in the New Testament in the letters to Paul and Timothy, the Christians, according to the screenplay by Mateo Gil and director Alejandro Amenabar, they became militant. How much fact and fiction are obscured is best left up to theologians.
Weisz commands your attention with her indomitable performance and as you watch her work among the residents of Alexandria, her teachings and knowledge become famous by both believers and non-believers. At one point she is in danger for her life which is in keeping with the gravity of her views and the build up of tensions among the different factions who eagerly wanted confrontations because it was the only way to stop people like Hypatia.
When Orestes becomes a powerful Roman prefect, individuals come forward to oppose her. One of them is Ammonius (Ashraf Barhom). When she is damned by the Church, the leaders want nothing to do with this woman upstart. Later, when she refuses to compromise herself, she places herself in imminent danger.
Agora is not a big epic like The Fall of The Roman Empire (1964) but an audacious movie just the same in avoiding the Christians who are always good. Here their ideologies are left open to be discussed from your own knowledge of history and religion.
Cinematographer Xavi Gimenez uses muted colours to underscore the hidden dangers of the radicals.
The music score by Dario Marianella is also low key to maintain the focus of the plot as it explores the imagination and learned citizens of Egypt and how their thinking helped embrace what we know today of how Christianity as a religion was received and accepted.
Amenabar maintains a steady hand in keeping you absorbed in the discussion and, despite some uneven moments, you empathize with the characters in a turbulent time in their historical evolution and growth.
The supporting cast features Max Minghella as Davus, Hypatia's slave, and Rupert Evans as Synesius, one of the elders.
What distinguishes Agora from other films in the same genre is its sense of responsibility in bringing to your attention the feminine point of view which may have existed at the time. In any case, it presents a compelling argument of indifference and it is well done.
It is rated PG/Parental Guidance, with the warnings: violence and not recommended for young children.
September 4, 2010
Copyright Rick Jackson 2010
Agora is not your average swords and sandals epic, but an erudite and entertaining film about ideas and how science went up against superstition in the 4th Century A.D. Rachel Weisz plays Hypatia, a woman ahead of her time. She is a teacher, philosopher, astronomer and a respected citizen in Egypt. Her father, Theon (Michael Lonsdale) is curator of the Library of Alexandria, whose mission is to gather all documents he can in storing what may be the world's top source for information. It was destroyed by the Christians in 391 A.D., and as you watch the events unfold that lead up to this catastrophic event in history, you are literally absorbed in several discussions about the origins of the planet earth, and how it revolved in the solar system. Science and religion clash in an era when ignorance led to violence and upheaval among Jews, Christians, and the Romans.
There are scenes in which valuable manuscripts are ordered to be destroyed and Theon and Hypatia work in earnest to save them.
Weisz gives the film its central focus since it is from her discussions with her students that the story engenders its primary directive as entertainment.
Watch how Hypatia captures attention with her ideas about planetary motion which local pacifists couldn't care less. However, it poses a problem between the pagans and Christians. Like the Salem witch trials many centuries later in the United States, if you were accused of being different, you were burned as a martyr.
I was reminded of two classic films: Joan of Arc (1948) starring Ingrid Bergman in the title role who was captured, tried and and burned at the stake for her religious beliefs. The second, the 1928 silent, The Passion of Joan of Arc with Falconetti with its lack of pageantry and sparseness of detail. In Agora, the pagans led by Orestes (Oscar Isaac) use bloodletting to get rid of what constitutes as evil. Any disagreement meant certain death by stoning.
With the rise of Christianity recorded in the New Testament in the letters to Paul and Timothy, the Christians, according to the screenplay by Mateo Gil and director Alejandro Amenabar, they became militant. How much fact and fiction are obscured is best left up to theologians.
Weisz commands your attention with her indomitable performance and as you watch her work among the residents of Alexandria, her teachings and knowledge become famous by both believers and non-believers. At one point she is in danger for her life which is in keeping with the gravity of her views and the build up of tensions among the different factions who eagerly wanted confrontations because it was the only way to stop people like Hypatia.
When Orestes becomes a powerful Roman prefect, individuals come forward to oppose her. One of them is Ammonius (Ashraf Barhom). When she is damned by the Church, the leaders want nothing to do with this woman upstart. Later, when she refuses to compromise herself, she places herself in imminent danger.
Agora is not a big epic like The Fall of The Roman Empire (1964) but an audacious movie just the same in avoiding the Christians who are always good. Here their ideologies are left open to be discussed from your own knowledge of history and religion.
Cinematographer Xavi Gimenez uses muted colours to underscore the hidden dangers of the radicals.
The music score by Dario Marianella is also low key to maintain the focus of the plot as it explores the imagination and learned citizens of Egypt and how their thinking helped embrace what we know today of how Christianity as a religion was received and accepted.
Amenabar maintains a steady hand in keeping you absorbed in the discussion and, despite some uneven moments, you empathize with the characters in a turbulent time in their historical evolution and growth.
The supporting cast features Max Minghella as Davus, Hypatia's slave, and Rupert Evans as Synesius, one of the elders.
What distinguishes Agora from other films in the same genre is its sense of responsibility in bringing to your attention the feminine point of view which may have existed at the time. In any case, it presents a compelling argument of indifference and it is well done.
It is rated PG/Parental Guidance, with the warnings: violence and not recommended for young children.
September 4, 2010
Copyright Rick Jackson 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
DRESSED TO KILL (AMBASSADOR FILMS, 1980)****
By Rick Jackson
Director Brian De Palma has succeeded in making a film filled with terror and suspense. The last five minutes had me on the edge of my seat when Mr. X (I can't tell you who is playing him because it would spoil it for you), recovers and escapes to go after Nancy Allen. De Palma uses the dream technique to achieve his means to a shocking conclusion.
Evident throughout is the director's casual approach. He invites you in as if you are coming to tea and then he sets you up with each subtle touch in the story. As he moves his cameras swiftly around corners and through hallways, you can almost feel the danger ahead. His use of unsuspected detail, such as a hand picking up a glove, a gleaming doorknob, and a pair of shoes builds up the suspense.
The best use of the director's style of moviemaking is best exemplified in the sequence shot in the art gallery. Watch how the camera subjectively shows Angie Dickinson as she searches for the peeping tom. DePalma makes the camera act like a stranger breathing down one's neck. When she runs outside on the gallery's steps, she drops a glove. The camera stays on it until a mysterious hand picks it up. Lured into a cab by the stranger who has it, you are kept in suspense into what ultimately leads to a grisly climax in an elevator that still has me shaking.
In one of his best screen roles, Michael Caine plays quite a different character from his previous films. He is the psychiatrist Allen sees and, without divulging too much, he has a problem that manifests itself in a strange way.
Allen plays a hooker and a potential victim. In the last scene of the film, she is stark naked in a shower in one of the director's homages to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.
Some moviegoers may be shocked and/or repulsed at the twists and turns in Dressed To Kill, a title that refers to one of the main characters. DePalma cleverly uses your hidden desires of lust and sex to come up with a first rate horror yarn.
It is rated R/Restricted.
September 4, 1980
Copyright 1980, 2010
Director Brian De Palma has succeeded in making a film filled with terror and suspense. The last five minutes had me on the edge of my seat when Mr. X (I can't tell you who is playing him because it would spoil it for you), recovers and escapes to go after Nancy Allen. De Palma uses the dream technique to achieve his means to a shocking conclusion.
Evident throughout is the director's casual approach. He invites you in as if you are coming to tea and then he sets you up with each subtle touch in the story. As he moves his cameras swiftly around corners and through hallways, you can almost feel the danger ahead. His use of unsuspected detail, such as a hand picking up a glove, a gleaming doorknob, and a pair of shoes builds up the suspense.
The best use of the director's style of moviemaking is best exemplified in the sequence shot in the art gallery. Watch how the camera subjectively shows Angie Dickinson as she searches for the peeping tom. DePalma makes the camera act like a stranger breathing down one's neck. When she runs outside on the gallery's steps, she drops a glove. The camera stays on it until a mysterious hand picks it up. Lured into a cab by the stranger who has it, you are kept in suspense into what ultimately leads to a grisly climax in an elevator that still has me shaking.
In one of his best screen roles, Michael Caine plays quite a different character from his previous films. He is the psychiatrist Allen sees and, without divulging too much, he has a problem that manifests itself in a strange way.
Allen plays a hooker and a potential victim. In the last scene of the film, she is stark naked in a shower in one of the director's homages to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.
Some moviegoers may be shocked and/or repulsed at the twists and turns in Dressed To Kill, a title that refers to one of the main characters. DePalma cleverly uses your hidden desires of lust and sex to come up with a first rate horror yarn.
It is rated R/Restricted.
September 4, 1980
Copyright 1980, 2010
FLATLINERS (COLUMBIA, 1990)***
By Rick Jackson
Searching for knowledge about the after life is the subject of director Joel Schumacher's new movie, Flatliners. An ensemble cast featuring Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin, and Oliver Platt star in this eschatological thriller.
The screenplay by Peter Filardi concentrates on a group of five medical students who experiment with death and live to tell about it. They take turns stopping their heart until the monitors reading their vital signs show flat lines. After a period of time the person is revived. Returning to the life of the living has its consequences and the students soon discover something life as well as death.
The sequences about the after life are bizarre and eerie. They are also visually striking and thought provoking. After each experiment the students are forced to deal with their past sins, and find retribution in the present or pay the price for meddling with immortality.
The seriousness of the plot opens a Pandora's Box which is offset by each of the student's sense of humour that acts as a defense mechanism to relieve the tension.
Each member of the team complements each other: Sutherland is the leader who wants to be famous; Roberts is the expert in the field of death; Bacon is the non-believer; Baldwin is the ladies' man, and Platt is the brains.
James Newton Howard's music score is well paced. Over the opening credits a boy's choir can be heard as the camera shows various styles of gothic architecture.
Complemented by Jan De Bont's surrealistic photography, Flatliners is a dark and absorbing tale.
It is rated AA/Adult Accompaniment, with the warnings: coarse language, not recommended for children and sexual content.
September 5, 1990
Copyright Rick Jackson 1990, 2010
Searching for knowledge about the after life is the subject of director Joel Schumacher's new movie, Flatliners. An ensemble cast featuring Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin, and Oliver Platt star in this eschatological thriller.
The screenplay by Peter Filardi concentrates on a group of five medical students who experiment with death and live to tell about it. They take turns stopping their heart until the monitors reading their vital signs show flat lines. After a period of time the person is revived. Returning to the life of the living has its consequences and the students soon discover something life as well as death.
The sequences about the after life are bizarre and eerie. They are also visually striking and thought provoking. After each experiment the students are forced to deal with their past sins, and find retribution in the present or pay the price for meddling with immortality.
The seriousness of the plot opens a Pandora's Box which is offset by each of the student's sense of humour that acts as a defense mechanism to relieve the tension.
Each member of the team complements each other: Sutherland is the leader who wants to be famous; Roberts is the expert in the field of death; Bacon is the non-believer; Baldwin is the ladies' man, and Platt is the brains.
James Newton Howard's music score is well paced. Over the opening credits a boy's choir can be heard as the camera shows various styles of gothic architecture.
Complemented by Jan De Bont's surrealistic photography, Flatliners is a dark and absorbing tale.
It is rated AA/Adult Accompaniment, with the warnings: coarse language, not recommended for children and sexual content.
September 5, 1990
Copyright Rick Jackson 1990, 2010
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