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2005 Spring Video Roundup, Vol. II

4/25/05

"Dark Blue"

I really wanted "Dark Blue" to be better; I mean, I love Kurt Russell and I love Ving Rhames, but neither seems to be very interested in making a good movie here!  Russell stars as your run-of-the-mill cop on the take during the race riots in L.A. circa Rodney King; Rhames is the by-the-book administrator that works for the LAPD and is out to make Russell's character a whipping boy in the press.  That ought to be easy, since Russell is playing a guy that is down to his last strike before someone finds out just how dirty he is.  Instead, we are fed a steady amount of dogshit as we the audience watch Russell continue to operate on his own law, and then whammo, somebody sells somebody else out and people start getting shot.  This movie should have been better...if anyone even gave a shit.  Even the cop's wannabe-rat partner (Scott Speedman) has a death wish that anyone with two good eyes will see coming for about an hour before it finally happens.  Watching Russell ham it up is occasionally funny, though, saving this film from the bowels of Bellview.

Rating:  Rental

"The Recruit"

Also in the category of "If you can't see this ending coming, you probably aren't old enough to be watching this film", "The Recruit" is about a CIA recruit (Colin Farrell) that completes an intense training regimen only to be given a special assignment by his shady boss (Al Pacino) that leads to big trouble, murder, and deceit for the recruit unless he can find out who is working the strings behind a software file coverup that may or may not be a national security issue.  Uhh, yeah...the film is cool for a while, as we get to watch Farrell go through the training routine that movies of this type have mastered by now, and that is genuinely entertaining even if it is routine.  But, once the recruit is run around by the Pacino character in the film's second half, you can smell major problems with this thing from almost the minute he starts his assignment of scoping out potential leads from a love interest (Bridget Moynahan).  Farrell is engaging and when it is a rookie-in-training movie, I was hooked...it's too bad the film devolved so quickly in the end.  Pacino continues to underachieve!

Rating:  Matinee

"The Battle of Algiers"

Honestly...I thought this film was going to be Opening Weekend material for sure.  But, this 1965 French film (originally banned due to its portrayal of how badly the French treated the Middle Easterners living in Algiers at the time) was just okay for me, not great, because the "terrorists" on the Middle Eastern side weren't profiled enough for me to really form an opinion of them, something that I felt the film sorely missed.  A docudrama told from both sides of the war in Algiers in the 60s, we are shown events that eventually lead to a hostile takeover and police state treatment of Algiers...and, in the process, there are a steady amount of killings and terror bombings that help paint a picture of just how chaotic things must have been in the city as the factions struggled to gain control of the city.  The news footage style of the filming, the intense looks of the city residents as they kill officers in cold blood, the remorse female bombers seems to feel as they drop off their packages to detonate in packed public places...all of this works.  But, in keeping with its documentary style, there isn't much of a personal touch, leading me to feel disconnected from any real feelings for what is happening here.  Innocents get blown up in a market?  So what!  Terrorists are captured before they get to hear their justification for their acts?  No biggie!  If the film just had more of that then I would have been all over a top billing rating for sure.  "The Battle of Algiers" just came up short for me in this area.

Rating:  Matinee

"The Clearing"

At some point, I feel like someone recommended this film to me, about a kidnapping of a businessman (Robert Redford) by depressed loner and former employee Arnold Mack (Willem Dafoe) while Mack demands a ransom from the biz guy's wife (Helen Mirren).  At this point, no matter--I blew my Friday night watching it, a boring portrayal of a deteriorated marriage that leads to an even more boring account of Mack walking the biz guy through what seems like an endlessly long walk through the forest while he leads him to his kidnapping honchos.  Never has 87 minutes felt so long (oh wait...maybe during "Gerry") and worse, you actually are waiting for some kind of a twist or a little extra something to make the whole thing more interesting, but it never comes.  Directed by Pieter Jan Brugge, who produced a number of excellent films including "Heat", "Glory" and "Fatal Instinct", "The Clearing" is solid evidence and producing and directing films are two different worlds!

Rating:  Hard Vice

"Calendar Girls"

Keeping with the Helen Mirren theme, I wanted to see this import from last year about those crazy girls from Knapely (still not sure if this town is made up or not, since the film was shot in Yorkshire) that--in an effort to raise money for a woman's deceased husband--decide to make a calendar to bring in the money for leukemia.  There's just one thing about that calendar--it's a calendar of partially-nude senior citizens hiding behind fruit and pastries!!  Mirren stars as Chris, the best friend of the newly-widowed Annie (Julie Walters), and the twosome lead a great ensemble of women that are intrigued and alternately terrified by the idea of baring all for a fundraising effort.  Some good laughs, although the mix of comedy to drama here is kind of tough because we're talking about a nudie calendar based around another guy's struggle with disease...plus, the movie finds the women successful too fast, so half the movie deals with the women as they meet the press, jet to Hollywood to promote the calendar and deal with self-serving issues in the face of all of their newfound attention.  Good pacing, though, and it's a surprisingly funny movie for an English film, for once not due to wit so much as solid gringo-style laughs.

Rating:  $9.50 Show

"The Story of the Weeping Camel"

Wow, be sure to take a nap before seeing this film, because if you aren't careful you'll miss the whole film here.  This film deals with one extended family living in huts in the deserts of Mongolia, just doing their day-to-day activities while also raising camel.  Two camel in particular are profiled in the film--one, a mother, the other, that mother's child, and the struggle the two have in coming to grips with their relationship.  Sounds silly, I know, but in execution it comes off as fairly touching; you need to have the family values bit to play off of the camels, though, because to watch two camels butt heads for 90 minutes would have been REALLY tough to stomach!  It's fun watching the Mongolian family make their way through life; with no TV, no "things to do" as we gringos know it, watching the kids play games with (shock!) their imagination actually made me realize what a electricity-whoring bastard I have become thanks to video games and TiVo.  Not great, but interesting, and it's quick, just slow and without a soundtrack throughout.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go back and play more Xbox.

Rating:  Matinee

 

Comments?  Drop me a line at justin@bellviewmovies.com.

 

Bellview Rating System:

"Opening Weekend":  This is the highest rating a movie can receive.  Reserved for movies that exhibit the highest level of acting, plot, character development, setting...or Salma Hayek.  Not necessarily in that order. 

"$X.XX Show":  This price changes each year due to the inflation of movie prices; currently, it is the $9.50 Show.  While not technically perfect, this is a movie that will still entertain you at a very high level.  "Undercover Brother" falls into this category; it's no "Casablanca", but you'll have a great time watching.  The $9.50 Show won't win any Oscars, but you'll be quoting lines from the thing for ages (see "Office Space"). 

"Matinee":  An average movie that merits no more than a $6.50 viewing at your local theater.  Seeing it for less than $9.50 will make you feel a lot better about yourself.  A movie like "Blue Crush" fits this category; you leave the theater saying "That wasn't too bad...man, did you see that Lakers game last night?" 

"Rental":  This rating indicates a movie that you see in the previews and say to your friend, "I'll be sure to miss that one."  Mostly forgettable, you couldn't lose too much by going to Hollywood Video and paying $3 to watch it with your sig other, but you would only do that if the video store was out of copies of "Ronin."  If you can, see this movie for free.  This is what your TV Guide would give "one and a half stars." 

"Hard Vice":  This rating is the bottom of the barrel.  A movie that only six other human beings have witnessed, this is the worst movie I have ever seen.  A Shannon Tweed "thriller," it is so bad as to be funny during almost every one of its 84 minutes, and includes the worst ending ever put into a movie.  Marginally worse than "Cabin Boy", "The Avengers" or "Leonard, Part 6", this rating means that you should avoid this movie at all costs, or no costs, EVEN IF YOU CAN SEE IT FOR FREE!  (Warning:  strong profanity will be used in all reviews of "Hard Vice"-rated movies.)