Firewalker (1986)

Bad-ass idiot Max Donigan (Chuck Norris) and his also pretty stupid but not quite as bad-ass buddy Leo Porter (Louis Gossett Jr.), trot the globe as graverobbers (not that the film would ever use the term) and adventurers, the kind of guys nobody informed that the whole Indiana Jones thing happened decades before (and that guy at least worked for a museum when robbing non-white cultures dry), yet who (sort of) get by being pretty (kind of) decent guys.

Things become really exciting for the two when one Patricia Goodwin (Melody Anderson) hires them to help her find an Aztec/Mayan/Spanish treasure she isn’t outright telling them she’s seen in a vision. Of course, they aren’t the only ones looking – evil shaman El Coyote (Sonny Landham) has put his single eye on the treasure too, so our heroes will have to fight low level magic, random Native Americans, Central American military and their own stupidity on a globe trotting adventure before they just might end up at the treasure of their dreams. On the way, John Rhys-Davies pops in for a few scenes, there’s the obligatory romance between Norris and Anderson, and many a corny joke is made.

One of the traditional rules of my people is “Beware of Chuck Norris trying to be funny”, and I have found that in general, it makes one’s life happier and longer to keep to it. Yet there are exceptions to every rule, and I’d actually call J. Lee Thompson’s mid-80s adventure comedy (of course produced for Cannon) one.

Now, this is not a film that subverts its genre via humour all that deeply - in fact, its treatment of everyone non-white – well, actually everyone non-Norris is as problematic as anything you’ll find in the 80s adventure movie trend though certainly presented without any actual rancour – yet it still manages to come over as so friendly in its ways, and so clearly working for the entertainment of its audience without having a single original (or good idea) it’s difficult for me to avoid simply liking it.

It does help its case that the film’s jokes may not be clever but still had me snorting a bit from time to time, the characters aren’t deep but also not without interest, and the plot merrily jumps from one cheap yet nice old-fashioned adventure set-piece to the next without shame and without ever threatening to become boring. Veteran director J. Lee Thompson doesn’t generally doesn’t get much auteur credit, but he was actually involved in quite a few interesting films, and was never less than a really dependable hired hand that could take your silly, vaguely competent script and turn it into a silly, competent, and usually entertaining film. Which is exactly what he does here, with his usual eye for pacing and a certain dry wit that keeps the film’s humour from becoming annoying instead of funny.

But what about Chuck Norris, butt of many of my jokes? Well, in the company of a charming pro like Louis Gossett, and a rather more competent and charming than I had expected actress like Melody Anderson (whose character also turns out to be rather more spunky than I had feared, a real surprise in this conservative environment), he’s actually giving an okay performance and even seems – which really is a first when it comes to me and Norris – somewhat likeable and funny enough for the film’s goals.

So, Firewalker actually turns out to be a really fun adventure comedy, and exceeds all my expectations mightily by being quite enjoyable.

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,reviews,adventure,comedy,fantasy,j. lee thompson,chuck norris,louis gossett jr.,melody anderson,sonny landham,john rhys-davies

Skin Game (1971)

A few years before the US Civil War (going by the appearance of John Brown, I’d go with 1858), conmen Jason (Louis Gossett Jr.) – a free black man from New Jersey - and Quincy (James Garner) are touring the slave states in the South. Quincy plays the slave owner hitting on hard times who has to sell off his valuable and deeply harmless slave – Jason - quickly and cheaply. Once the deal is done and Jason locked away somewhere for the night, Quincy returns and frees his friend to repeat the same deal again in the next town.

The con is coming to an end though – the duo has played the trick in most every small town in the South by now, and there’s too much risk involved in bigger towns. Additionally, Jason is really growing tired of the whole affair, what with his slowly awakening political consciousness and the little fact that he’s taking the much higher risk of the two partners here. Quincy does convince Jason to do their thing one last time (and after that another last time), though, and as it goes with one last times, things go so wrong, they’ll not only find all their money stolen by con-woman and thief Ginger (Susan Clark) but their next attempt to get some pocket money lands Quincy in jail. Even worse, Jason finds himself an actual slave in the hands of the – appropriately – vile slave hunter Plunkett (Edward Asner). At least there’s honour among thieves, and Ginger might just come back and help Quincy out; and say what you will about Quincy, but he’s certainly not someone who lets what we can only assume to be his only actual friend end his life as a slave. Jason for his part clearly won’t just lie down and take it either.

The thing that’s most interesting about (as far as I know) otherwise undistinguished director Paul Bogart’s Skin Game is how well it manages to make a comedy about something that’s up there with murder and rape as one of the least funny things I can imagine, slavery. It does this without either pulling its punches when it comes to its depiction of slavery (this depiction is of course far less brutal than reality but that’s pretty much a given with anything you put on screen), or falling into the trap of pretending that slavery is funny.

A large part of the film’s humour is based on the joy we derive from seeing rich, powerful, and morally disgusting people put in their place by charming rogues, as evidenced by basically all caper movies ever made, or everyone’s favourite running gag in the Zatoichi films when our blind masseur does the trick that will only hurt the kind of people who’d cheat on a blind man gambling. There’s nothing nicer than seeing bad people get their comeuppance, and there are few people as deserving of said comeuppance than the slave owners. The film is too thoughtful to pretend its protagonists are some sort of Western (Southern?) Robin Hoods, though; they’re really doing what they do for their own gain, and while they are not out to hurt harmless people (much) they aren’t actually helping anyone either. Jason, as the one much more directly hit by the implications of what’s going on around them, does slowly come around to something more altruistic, but he only really takes care of somebody other than himself, and realizes that this skin game isn’t a game for the slaves around them, after he’s become a slave himself and is quite literally feeling the whip.

As you know, Jim, playing the sort of conman playing the games our characters here do was what James Garner spent much of his career on, and his performance is as perfect as they get. There’s the slightly smarmy charm, the curious core of what could be authentic friendliness, the willingness to fuck everyone over, but only up to a point, and the often misguided cleverness that may lead him into a good plan as much as into the kind of trouble you can get into when you’re congratulating yourself for your own cleverness too much – all played up to just the right amount, until you can’t help but like Quincy despite everything. Which, pretty much, is how Jason feels about him too.

Speaking of Jason, turns out that Louis Gossett Jr. is able to play the conman to the same level and style as Garner can, but with some really effective hints of fear, and a bit more sense than Quincy shows with all his cleverness. Gossett also handles the moments when Jason realizes a bit more about how the world around him works for the people who actually have to live in it wonderfully, developing a sense of responsibility his friend will never have, and sticking with it, without things getting preachy. And in the end, while Jason can’t change the world, he decides to save some people and take care of them. Which probably is the best you can do when you don’t want to be maimed by the wheel of history, the film suggests.

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,reviews,western,comedy,paul bogart,louis gossett jr.,james garner,susan clark,brenda sykes,edward asner

The Punisher (1989)

Everyone's favourite serial killer/vigilante Frank "The Punisher" Castle (Dolph Lundgren) is five years into his never-ending killing spree of Mafiosi and other criminals caused by the Mafia accidentally blowing up his family with a car bomb. Castle's efforts have weakened the crime syndicates so much, they need to reimport men like Gianni Franco (Jeroen Krabbé) from England to have any vaguely competent bosses at all.

As it goes with this sort of power vacuum, other criminals attempt to move in on the Mafia's turf, namely the united yakuza clans under Lady Tanaka (Kim Miyori). What, after all, would a US action movie of this era be without all foreigners in it being evil? Lady Tanaka is a bit more competent and lacking in scruples than the remaining Mafia is capable of dealing with. Still the dons refuse her gracious offer of leaving them the City's day to day operations and twenty-five percent of the income. Clearly, rougher methods are needed, so the Yakuza kidnap the dons' children - not really to blackmail their fathers (there are no mothers in this movie) but to sell them into slavery. Oh those evil foreigners!

Ironically, the Mafia's only hope now is Frank Castle, because, as his alcoholic British actor informant Shake (Barry Otto) informs him, the situation is kind of his fault, and the children are innocents after all. I foresee a lot of dead Yakuza in Castle's future, that is, if his former partner Jake Berkowitz (Louis Gossett Jr.) who has been after him for these five years, won't catch him first.

Remember the olden days, when the best Marvel Comics could think of doing with their properties was shoving them off into directions like the greedy little hands of Roger Corman and New World Pictures? The Punisher as directed by future blockbuster editor Mark Goldblatt is clearly the best of the handful of resulting Marvel movies of this era, seeing as it, unlike Albert Pyun's Captain America, actually gets what the character is about (a seriously deranged guy murdering lots of more or less colourful gangsters), and doesn't go out of its way to annoy its potential audience. It's not a well-loved film, though, because Lundgren isn't exactly the obvious choice of actor, and he doesn't even wear the iconic skull shirt! Or something.

Tonally, this one feels very much like Mike Baron's stint with the character in comics, that is it is entertainingly violent, very much a thing of its time, and often also very silly. This is, after all, the kind of film where Castle when he goes to rescue a bunch of kids first steals a bus to transport them (sadly, not a yellow school bus). For that's how you transport children, right? And a film where the mute adoptive daughter of the main bad woman is inevitably a ninja. And her mum owns a pair of awesome automated torture racks she even brought with her to the US, just in case she needs to torture Dolph Lundgren. And where Louis Gossett Jr plays someone named Berkowitz.

Action and violence-wise, this is a professional, tightly edited action movie in the style of its time, with lots of automatic weapons making surprisingly tiny holes in people, knife throwing (who makes Castle's skull-handle throwing knives, by the way?), destroyed cars and quite a few scenes of Lundgren rappelling down from ceilings, as is the traditional tactic of the Punisher. The action is never quite as kinetic as I would wish for, but then brutal, if somewhat silly, heft fits Castle much better than anything more elegant anyway, and it sure is fun to watch as a silly-violent comic book movie.

Lundgren - never a personal favourite - is fine in his role too, seeing as the film mostly needs him to look grim while killing a lot of people, and roll his eyes in anguish from time to time, because Personal Tragedy! These are things Dolph knows how to do and does well, so I'm not going to complain about his performance here.

The way the film treats its foreign characters, as typical as it is of its time and place, would rather be more reason to complain about - Lady Tanaka isn't much better developed than Fu Manchu - but the film's jingoist undertones more or less deconstruct themselves. After all, the people standing in for the clean (oh, the irony) American Way of Life are a bunch of drug-dealing gangsters and a serial killer, so it's not as if the film were actually making any sort of coherent racist argument. It's just too dumb to think about how it uses its clichés.

That's perfectly okay for the kind of movie this is, one which really isn't out to explain the world to us but to entertain us with silly pretend-violence and shots of Dolph Lundgren sitting naked in the sewers. The Punisher is pretty great at that.

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