"The Bounty Hunter"
Richard's Review: 2 stars
During the screening of "The Bounty Hunter," a new romantic comedy from Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler, I had a feeling I have never experienced before. I found myself wishing be-mulleted reality star Duane ‘Dog' Chapman would make a cameo appearance and bring some much needed entertainment value to this movie. Not that I'm much of a fan of the A&E bounty hunter show, but his puka shell necklaces and flamboyant hairstyle might have spiced this lame action comedy up.
The premise is simple. Butler is the titular character, a former cop so down on his luck he takes a gig tracking down his ex-wife (and alleged real-life girlfriend) Aniston, for a payday of $5,000. She's an ambitious newspaper reporter who will let nothing get in the way of getting a story -- including a court date. When she skips court to follow a lead, a warrant is issued for her arrest. Enter Butler. He finds her easily, but a funny thing happens on the way back to jail -- the pair begins to appreciate one another again. Imagine a humdrum sitcom version of "Duplicity" or "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" and you get the idea.
"The Bounty Hunter" doesn't really know what it wants to be. Is it a romantic comedy? Sort of. Is it an action picture? Kinda. Is it a road movie? Hmmmm, maybe. In fact it's all those things and less. This truly is a case of the whole being lesser than the sum of its parts.
Aniston and Butler play classic screwball comedy characters, gamely indulging in fast paced repartee and some light farce, but it all feels very "been there, done that." How many more times can the line "You're crazy!" be answered with "Maybe I am," before it takes top dishonors as the Movie Cliché of the Year? The script is on autopilot and even the usually charming Aniston and Butler can't make these characters interesting. It's scene after scene of endless (and often unfunny) bickering, very tepid action and screwball situations that seem like we've seen them before.
There is the odd bright spot. Christine Baranski sparkles as Aniston's mom, a be-dazzled Atlantic City lounge singer and raises the movie's temperature from frigid to temperate when she's on screen, and a dinner scene at a honeymoon hotel has some heat to it, but it comes too late in the movie to make much difference.
"The Bounty Hunter" is an almost instantly forgettable film, one that relies on the appeal of Aniston's short skirts and Butler's abs more than a decent script or interesting story.
"Repo Men"
Richard's Review: 2 1/2 stars
Like last year's "Repo: The Genetic Opera," this weekend's "Repo Men" is set in a dystopian world where health care is a corporate game. Unlike the opera, which starred Paris Hilton and featured a noise-rock soundtrack, this one stars Jude Law and Forest Whittaker as two violent organ repossession agents who kill their clients to complete their jobs. That is, until one of them literally has a change of heart.
Set in the near future (in a city that looks very much like Toronto on steroids) "Repo Men" centres on two weapons grade repo men, Remy and Jake, played by Law and Whittaker. They work for The Union, a multinational health care provider who sell artificial organs -- everything from hearts and lungs to esophagi -- to terminally ill people who are usually unable to pay in full. That's just fine by The Union, because, according to their unctuous head salesman Frank (Liev Schreiber), they don't make any money when people pay in full. Their motto of "a job is a job" regardless of the consequences takes a hit when Remy gets a new pumper, a new attitude and falls behind in his payments.
Originally titled "The Repossession Mambo," after a novel of the same name, I'm sure "Repo Men" was meant to be a timely comment on health care in a world where corporations place profit above human lives. It's a timely message, and one that might have been explored a bit more in a better movie, or at least a movie that wasn't content to replace content with blood and guts. The film is either a.) really gross or b.) marvelously bloody depending on your point of view.
There are several squirm inducing repossession scenes involving open wounds and a shootout in an all white room that leads up to a sequence that can only be called "squirty," is startling. All that brings us to a spectacularly yucky repossession climax and a cool twist (ed) ending.
Law and Whittaker are odd choices to headline an action movie. Despite some good moves -- Whittaker is a martial artist and Law has clearly been visiting the gym -- neither feel like action stars on the screen. Liev Schreiber, seen here as a heartless pencil pusher, might have been a better choice in the action department, but shines anyway as the slimiest salesman ever.
"Repo Men" has a campy sense of humor to it, some wild action sequences, a cool looking vision of the future, and an unforgettable final repossession/sex scene, but ultimately fails because it can't make up its mind whether it is satire, black comedy or serious look at the failings of health care.
"The Runaways"
Richard's Review: 4 stars
Few tales of sex, drugs and rock ‘n' roll contain as much sex, drugs and rock ‘n' roll as the tawdry tale of The Runaways. An underage all girl rock band -- they billed themselves as "Genuine Jailbait" -- spawned from the Sunset Strip's late 1970s seedy underbelly, they imploded in 1979 after four tumultuous years. "The Runaways," a new film written and directed by former video helmer Floria Sigismondi, sees two "Twilight" co-stars leave behind repressed romance for life on the road.
Set back when you could still drink a bottle of stolen booze in the shade of the Hollywood sign without being arrested for trespassing, the movie focuses on two glue sniffing, glam rock obsessed tough girls named Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) and Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning). Disaffected SoCal teens, they see an exit from their mundane suburban lives through rock ‘n' roll. Unfortunately their ticket out comes in the form of impresario Kim Fowley, a record producer and self proclaimed "King Hysteria." He cobbles together the band, trains them to be rock stars, convinced that these "bitches are going to be bigger than the Beatles." Before they can play Shea Stadium, however, the band breaks up -- knee deep in ego, drug abuse and bad management.
Sigismondi has made the movie equivalent of an ear blistering blast of feedback. Like the band's two-minute-forty-five-second guitar punk tunes, "The Runaways" is loud, fast and dirty. If you want depth wait for the rock ‘n' roll bio of Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Here Sigismondi leaves behind the surreal feel of her videos and visual art, instead opting for a straightforward (although probably mostly fictional) retelling of the rapid rise and equally rapid free fall of the band. It's "Behind the Music" formulaic but Sigismondi layers on so many other rock ‘n' roll elements that the lack of experimentation in the telling of the tale isn't a minus.
Kristen Stewart is the name above the title star, and she does bring her brooding Brando best to the role of Joan Jett, but this movie belongs to Dakota Fanning and Michael Shannon, who hands in a flamboyant performance.
As Kim Fowley he has a more than a passing resemblance to Beef from "Phantom of the Paradise," and like that character he is campy, dangerous and slightly unhinged. An egomaniac, he introduces himself as, "Kim Fowley, record producer. You've heard of me." It's a bravura performance that could have gone very wrong in the hands of a less committed actor, but Shannon pulls it off with wild aplomb.
Fanning shines, but in a much more low key way. Low key, but not low wattage. Fowley describes her outer layer as part Bardot, part Bowie but she plays Currie as damaged goods; a young girl with a crappy home life and faraway look in her eye. Fanning quietly gives Currie an unspoken inner life as she slowly falls apart, and whether she's smashing pills with her platform heels and snorting the powder off the floor or rocking it out on stage there is a core of sadness to her that is so real you can almost reach out and touch it. It's the most demanding role in the film and Fanning aces it.
Kim Fowley described the music of The Runaways as the "sound of hormones raging" and in her film Sigismondi transcends the formulaic aspects of the story by capturing the gritty spirit of in-your-face teenage rebellion.
