"From Paris With Love"
Richard's Review: 2 stars
Last year French cinematographer-turned-director Pierre Morel brought us "Taken" a violent little Euro-centric thriller about a father who would do anything -- and I mean anything -- to retrieve his daughter from some very bad men. It was a down-and-dirty little flick, classed up somewhat by the presence of Liam Neeson in the lead role, and it became an unexpected lightning-in-a-bottle hit. Morel is back behind the camera with a new actioner called "From Paris With Love."
Unfortunately lightening has not struck twice.
Like "Taken" the story is simple and leaves the action to be the real selling point. Jonathan Rhys Meyers is James Reece an aide to the U.S. ambassador in Paris who moonlights on the side for the FBI. He is given the biggest assignment of his secret agent career when he is partnered with Charlie Wax (John Travolta), the typical unorthodox but effective undercover movie spy. Together they go on a rampage across the streets and embassies of Paris to put a stop to a terrorist attack. Carnage ensues.
"Taken" worked not just because the action sequences were out of control, but because audiences had some empathy for Liam Neeson's character as he was kicking butt across Europe. It was a personal mission; he was trying to get his daughter back. Here, however, Meyers and Travolta are a shadowy part of the war on terror and seem to enjoy the bloodshed a little too much. This time it's not personal, it's psychotic and even the inclusion of a couple of "Royale with Cheese" "Pulp Fiction" call backs won't make us identify with these two.
"From Paris with Love" has some cool action scenes -- a killing spree in a stairwell is tense and exciting -- but the paper-thin story, cardboard characters and silly red herrings suck much of the fun from the movie.
John Travolta is bordering on Nicolas Cage territory here. He seems to be trying his hand at Cage's extreme acting style, working some over-the-top theatrics into his performance, but overall he's simply not that convincing as a devil-may-care secret agent. He can do menacing. We saw it in "Pulp Fiction", "Blowout" and more recently in "The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3" but here he seems to be trying a too hard.
But at least he's trying, which is more than can be said for Jonathan Rhys Meyers who hands in one of the more wooden performances seen on film so far this year. My advice to him: Beware of woodpeckers.
This is only Morel's third film as a director and already he has established a set of trademarks, for better and for worse. On the plus side, he knows how to stage an action sequence and has clearly watched more than a few John Woo movies. He also has an eye for shooting in urban spaces, but compared to "Taken" with its beauty shots of Paris, "From Paris with Love" looks like it could have been made almost anywhere. With the exception of the odd Eiffel Tower shot, location wise it's rather generic, which it shouldn't be when you are shooting in one of the most beautiful and interesting cities in the world.
On the minus side he's already becoming somewhat predictable. In his movies the dinner scene always seems to end poorly for the hostess.
Despite a huge body count and a screen littered with empty shell casings "From Paris with Love" isn't as exciting or as interesting as "Taken."
"Frozen"
Richard's Review: 3 1/2 very tense stars
The most surprising thing about "Frozen" a new horror film from "Hatchet" director Adam Green, is that it isn't a Canadian movie. With its vast vistas of snow, wolf attacks, two Canadian leading men and body parts getting stuck to cold steel poles, "Frozen" has Great White North written all over it.
Set on a remote ski hill in Massachusetts "Frozen's" story is very simple. Three snowboarders -- Parker (Emma Bell), her boyfriend Dan (Kevin Zegers), and his best friend Lynch (Shawn Ashmore) -- get stranded on a ski lift fifty feet in the air after the hill has shut down. The resort, only open on the weekends, won't reopen for another five days and unless they can find a way to safely get off the lift they will freeze to death.
This is situational horror. There are no monsters, just bad timing and bad decisions that force the unlucky trio to face their darkest fears -- the dark, the cold, heights and the worst foe of all, Mother Nature. Director Green subtly ups the ante every minute of the film's running time, believably building horror, both physical and psychological. Not that much happens and the action is at a minimum but "Frozen" is an extremely tense movie.
Green makes good use of the stark surroundings and sound design. I'm not sure what they used to create the squishy sound that dominates one grisly scene, but it proves conclusively that sometimes what you hear is scarier than what you see.
On the downside, the barebones story doesn't demand the full feature length treatment. In the early moments of the film, once the lift stops suddenly, it feels like the movie will movie along quickly. Once the action starts -- or, more accurately stops -- the fear and tension build a little too rapidly. The three friends fall apart in seconds, panicking too soon. Green let that bit of pacing get away from him, but soon the real horror starts and gives them a reason to be on edge.
Still, at 90 minutes "Frozen" feels padded, particularly during the occasionally interminable small talk the friends makes to take their minds off their predicament. Too often it feels like filler and worse, frequently sounds like acting school monologues. The prattling gets tiresome as the movie nears its final moments and a bit of trimming here and there could have brought this down to a lean and mean eighty minutes.
Green has pulled good performances out of the actors, particularly from newcomer Emma Bell, who avoids the usual pitfalls of being the only female presence in a horror film.
"Frozen's" tense story of survival will, at the very least, make you think twice about that trip to Whistler next year. Maybe Myrtle Beach would be a better choice…
"Saint John of Las Vegas"
Richard's Review: 3 stars
"Saint John of Las Vegas" is the sort of movie that exists solely to give quirky actors like Steve Buscemi a chance to strut his stuff as the lead actor, rather than playing second fiddle to more traditionally handsome actors in studio pictures. It's the story of a man whose life didn't turn out the way he planned and Buscemi, with his cartoony hang dog expression, was born to play him.
Buscemi is John, a compulsive gambler whose luck left before his habit did. Fleeing Las Vegas he drove until he ran out of gas, landing in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Leaving the high life behind he finds work as a desk-bound insurance claims adjuster. When he asks his boss (Peter Dinklage) for a raise he is instead told to accompany Virgil, a hardnosed fraud investigator (Romany Malco) back to Vegas. Leaving behind his new love (and the boss's ex-girlfriend), Jill (Sarah Silverman), John and Virgil set out, encountering a surreal collection of people, including wheelchair bound lap dancer, a skittish park ranger, a human fireball sideshow performer and a mysterious man named Lou Cypher.
"Saint John of Las Vegas" isn't exactly laugh-out-loud but it will raise a smile or two. Buscemi takes a thinly drawn character -- we never really know much about him other than he has strange dreams and was once a high roller in Vegas -- gives him pathos and makes him likeable and watchable, but it would have been nice to know a bit more of his back story.
Buscemi is at the center of virtually every scene of the film which is a good thing when he's sharing the screen with Silverman or Dinklage -- those scenes have some real spark to them -- but not always great when he's opposite Malco.
Romany Malco is a talented actor-his credits include "The 40 Year Old Virgin", "Weeds" and the title role in "Too Legit: The MC Hammer Story", and anyone who could survive that and go on to have a career must have something going for him -- but here he seems to be trying to out-quirk Buscemi, which is a fool's game. In some scenes, as when he beats up a stuffed happy face pillow at a fair ground, he seems to be performing simply to be noticed. His strange posturing in these scenes doesn't add anything to his character or the movie and he would have been better served paying attention to how Buscemi can own the screen without resorting to cheap attention getting tricks.
"Saint John of Las Vegas" is a slight movie, both in running time-it clocks in around 75 minutes-and in content. Buscemi, Silverman (as the "happy face" loving girlfriend) and Dinklage keep things interesting but this may be more of a rental than a night out.
