"Crank" Don't Stank

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 60 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux


Crank (2006)
Running time: 87 minutes (1 hour, 27 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong violence, pervasive language, sexuality, nudity, and drug use
WRITERS/DIRECTORS: Neveldine/Taylor
PRODUCERS: Tom Rosenberg, Gary Lucchesi, Richard Wright, and Skip Williamson
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Adam Biddle (director of photography)
EDITOR: Brian Berdan

ACTION/CRIME

Starring: Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Efren Ramirez, Dwight Yoakam, Carlos Sanz, Reno Wilson, Jay Xcala, Edi Gathegi, and Keone Young

In Crank, an action movie from the team of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, a hit man tears through the streets of Los Angeles to get revenge on the man who fatally poisoned him, and he has to do it before the poison kills him. It’s like Speed, except instead riding a bus, we’re following a man on a mission.

Freelance killer Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) wakes up one morning to find that Ricky Verona (Jose Pablo Cantillo), a petty mob boss wannabe, has fatally poisoned him with something called the “Chinese cocktail,” which is designed to make his heart stop. The poisoning is supposed to be some kind of payback for Chelios’ hit on Chinese crime lord, Don Kim (Keone Young).

The clocks starts ticking when Chelios realizes that to stave off death, he must keep his adrenaline pumping. With no time to waste, Chelios cuts a swatch through Los Angeles, on a rampage for Verona with the hope of getting his revenge before he dies, and he has to tie up his loose ends soon. Verona made it clear to Chelios that he plans of savaging Chev’s girlfriend, Eve (Amy Smart), so Chelios races to save Eve, wreaking havoc on anyone who gets in his way – bystanders, cops, emergency workers, store clerks, etc. His hopes of finding an antidote, if it one really exists, may rest in the hands of a debauched and loony underworld physician named Doc Miles (played with creepy mellowness by Dwight Yoakum).

I don’t know if the writing and directing team of Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor are great filmmakers, but they’re highly skilled and bursting with enough visual tricks and shorthand that they can certainly make engaging movies. If talent borrows and genius steals, they’re somewhere in the middle. Watching Crank, I recognize the gigantic buffet of camera effects and editing techniques from other movies that the duo used, and I’m overjoyed that Neveldine/Taylor use them well. Crank is at heart like other American action films with their breakneck pace and testosterone, but look carefully a you’ll find a Whitman sampler of exploitation movies, Pacific Rim action films, and stylish British gangster flicks. Neveldine/Taylor cram it all into something that’s like a video game.

For all their visual cleverness and editing dexterity, Neveldine/Taylor benefit from having a truly great action movie star in Jason Statham. His moderate box office success as a leading man in action movies might be reminiscent of the late 80’s to early 90’s career of Steven Segal (or even Jean-Claude Van Damme), but Statham’s badass aura seems genuine. A tough guy with a balding buzz cut, he literally leaks testosterone, and the cameras that film the roughneck B-movie action flicks in which he stars lap it up.

Crank may seem like a completely disposable thriller for those in need of an adrenaline rush, but that’s not exactly entirely the case. Occasionally clumsy, Crank is well staged when it comes to getting the kicks out. What Neveldine/Taylor and Statham (their skills and style; his tough guy-ness) bring to this misbegotten movie-as-videogame is enough to make Crank stand out. You won’t forget this little movie because it’s the asshole that gave you a kick in the teeth when you thought all it was going to be was just another action movie.

6 of 10
B

Monday, April 02, 2007

Review: "Gone Baby Gone" Superb Directorial Debut for Ben Affleck

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 9 (of 2008) by Leroy Douresseaux

Gone Baby Gone (2007)
Running time: 115 minutes (1 hour, 55 minutes)
MPAA – R for violence, drug content, and pervasive language
DIRECTOR: Ben Affleck
WRITERS: Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard (from the novel by Dennis Lehane)
PRODUCERS: Ben Affleck, Sean Bailey, Alan Ladd, Jr., and Danton Rissner
CINEMATOGRAPHER: John Toll (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: William Goldenburg
2008 Academy Award nominee

CRIME/DRAMA/MYSTERY/THRILLER

Starring: Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, John Ashton, Amy Ryan, Amy Madigan, Titus Welliver, Michael K. Williams, Edi Gathegi, and Madeline O’Brien

Like Martin Scorsese did before him in 1973 with Mean Streets, Ben Affleck visits the tough streets of a city in which he’s familiar, Boston, for his film Gone Baby Gone, based upon a Dennis Lehane (Mystic River) novel. There Affleck tells a harrowing tale of shocking crime, brutal violence, and ultimate betrayal set in the seedy underbelly of a lower working class neighborhood.

Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan), two young private detectives, are hired by grieving aunt, Beatrice “Bea” McCready (Amy Madigan), to take a closer look into the disappearance of her niece, a little girl named Amanda (Madeline O’Brien). Capt. Patrick Doyle (Morgan Freeman), the head of the investigation, and the two senior detectives, Det. Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) and Det. Nick Poole (John Ashton), aren’t happy about Bea and her husband, Lionel McCready (Titus Welliver), bringing in Kenzie and Gennaro, whose specialty is finding missing debtors.

Patrick and Angie take their investigations to the extra mean streets of the Boston neighborhood where the major players, including themselves, live. Patrick and Angie soon trace the child’s disappearance to some kind of deal gone bad involving her mother, a loud and vulgar drug addict/alcoholic named Helene McCready (Amy Ryan, in an Oscar nominated role). Ultimately, Kenzie finds himself risking everything, including his relationship with Gennaro, their sanity and lives, to find Amanda. Nothing is what it seems, and the case is vastly complicated.

If Ben Affleck was known as a pretty boy actor who made bad career choices, now he’s known as an up and coming director to watch. Gone Baby Gone, which Affleck also co-wrote with Aaron Stockard, is a sharp, edgy and morally ambiguous tale. The detective angle of the story is certainly a piece of pulp crackerjack that is as sweet and bitter as dark chocolate, but also as addictive as faerie food. Once you bite into Affleck’s beautiful/accursed confection, you will never leave it, and it won’t leave you.

That’s because the heart of Gone Baby Gone is so frighteningly familiar to viewers – the unsettling notion of a small child stolen by a monstrous human who savages, violates, and ultimately destroys a young life by murder or psychological ruin. However, novelist Dennis Lehane’s tale takes you to even darker regions below the surface of this familiar scenario, and Affleck doesn’t shy from visualizing the story into a film that goes for the vulnerable places on your body and in your mind. It’s the place where the self-righteous find that not only is the road to damnation paved with good intentions but that their justifications make them as bad as the worse people.

Ben Affleck also found his film gifted with a number of high quality performances, including some from Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, and Amy Madigan, among others. The stand outs are the director’s brother, Casey Affleck, and Amy Ryan. Affleck, playing the little tough guy, is a bubbling cauldron as he takes his Patrick Kenzie from the sweet guy who really cares to the tough guy/bad ass detective who can take on the most dangerous on mean street.

Amy Ryan is superb as Helene McCready. Simply put, the audience has no reason to believe that Helene is not a real-life breathing person with an ugly past, a pathetic present, and a loser future. Ryan makes you believe that Helene is both lost in an addictive personality and a totally lousy mother. This is the richness of Ben Affleck’s Gone Baby Gone.

9 of 10
A+

NOTES:
2008 Academy Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role” (Amy Ryan)

2008 Golden Globes: 1 nomination: “Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture” (Amy Ryan)

Saturday, February 23, 2008

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Review: "My Bloody Valentine" Remake is the Bloody Bee's Knees

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 2 (of 2009) by Leroy Douresseaux

My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009)
Running time: 101 minutes (1 hour, 41 minutes)
MPAA – R for graphic brutal horror violence and grisly images throughout, some strong sexuality, graphic nudity and language
DIRECTOR: Patrick Lussier
WRITERS: Todd Farmer and Zane Smith (based upon the 1981 screenplay by John Beaird and 1981 story by Stephen Miller)
PRODUCER: Jack L. Murray
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Brian Pearson
EDITORS: Cynthia Ludwig and Patrick Lussier

HORRO/DRAMA/MYSTERY

Starring: Jensen Ackles, Jaime King, Kerr Smith, Betsy Rue, Edi Gathegi, Tom Atkins, Kevin Tighe, Megan Boone, and Karen Baum

The 3D movie had a golden era in the 1950s, especially the mid-50s with such films as House of Wax (1953) and Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). Another peak from 1980 to 1984 saw the release of films like Friday the 13th Part III (1982) and Jaws 3-D (1983). With the technological improvement in cameras and projectors, the 3D movie now has the popular RealD system. While RealD has been used prominently in computer animated films (Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons), Lionsgate has used the process for its new film My Bloody Valentine 3D.

The story begins with a tragedy. There’s a cave in at the north side of the mine belonging to the Hanniger Mining Co., and only one man, Harry Warden, survives. After a year in a coma, Harry awakens on Valentine’s Day and unleashes a killing spree, a bloody massacre that takes the lives of 22 people. Tom Hanniger (Jensen Ackles), the boss’ son whose actions were responsible for the cave-in, barely survives Warden’s killing rampage.

Ten years later, Tom returns to his hometown in order to sell the mine. He discovers that his former girlfriend is now Sarah Palmer (Jamie King) and is married to the new Sheriff Alex Palmer (Kerr Smith). The townsfolk are not happy to see Tom, neither is his late father’s business partner, Ben Foley (Kevin Tighe), who doesn’t want the mine sold. They will all learn that they have bigger problems than old lovers, cheating spouses, and losing the mine. The killings have begun again. Has Harry Warden returned to take the heart out of Valentine’s Day?

My Bloody Valentine 3D is a remake of the 1981 Canadian slasher film, My Bloody Valentine. I’ve never seen the original movie [Since writing this review, I have seen the original - LD]; nor did I see the new movie in a theatre with RealD capabilities. Watching the movie in 2D, I was still able to identify many of the sequences in the film that were meant to take advantage of 3D to scare the audience, so I can’t consider myself deprived of anything. Even in 2D, My Bloody Valentine 3D had me frozen in my seat.

Director Patrick Lussier is known for his two decades as a film editor of movies and episodes of TV series. His previous directorial efforts, flicks like Dracula III: Legacy and White Noise 2, were straight-to-DVD efforts. His first theatrical feature, Dracula 2000, was pretty bad, and like many stylish horror flicks, it was laughable and cheesy. Lussier delivers the lovely guts of good horror flick, this time around. This film is scary and aggressive. My Bloody Valentine 3D goes after your ass. Lussier lets it all hang out, not afraid to show the killer’s pickaxe doing some gnarly digging in human heads and torsos. There’s even a fine sequence early in the film of a curvy, large-breasted, young woman running around completely naked except for her high heel shoes.

This is a return to the kind of slasher films of the late 1970s and early 1980s that offered a little gratuitous sex and four times the bloody mayhem. What about the acting in this movie? Well, it’s horror movie acting. What about the script? It focuses on creating scenes that are simply opportunities for graphic violence. One of the co-writers of this movie, Todd Farmer, even gets to play a small part, complete with a sex scene. No, this movie is not an insightful character drama, but it’s a blood chilling, senses-shattering horror flick. There is blood splatter throughout, with enough sangre to cover up the holes in the narrative. My Bloody Valentine 3D is a bloody good time, and Mr. Director, it’s all on you. Cheers!

6 of 10
B

Monday, January 19, 2009

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Twilight's Edi Gathegi Cast in "X-Men: First Class"

From AOL Black Voices' "BV on Movies" blog:  Kenyan-born actor Edi Gathegi who played the vampire Laurent in Twilight and Twilight Saga: New Moon has signed on to "X-Men: First Class," the upcoming X-Men movie that looks back at the early days of the X-Men.  The 31-year old Gathegi will reportedly play Armando Munoz, the mutant also known as "Darwin."

The film is being directed by Matthew Vaughn and stars James McAvoy as Charles Xavier, Michael Fassbender as Erik Lensherr, Alice Eve as Emma Frost, Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy, also known as Beast, Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, Caleb Landry Jones as Banshee, Lucas Till as Havok, and Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw.  20th Century Fox will release the film on June 3, 2011.