On Blu-ray/DVD/VOD: FORCE OF NATURE (2020) and THE LEGION (2020)

FORCE OF NATURE
(US - 2020)

There'll no doubt be a knee-jerk, cancel-culture reaction among some to trash FORCE OF NATURE sight unseen just because they object to Mel Gibson being employed. But if you take the time to actually watch it, you'll find so many more valid reasons to hate it. An utterly, depressingly perfunctory Lionsgate/Grindstone DTV time-waster, FORCE OF NATURE is directed by Michael Polish who, with his twin brother Mark, formed the once-promising Polish Brothers team behind the 1999 cult indie hit TWIN FALLS IDAHO. That's a generation ago at this point, and after 2003's higher-profile NORTHFORK flopped, the brothers never really regained their momentum. Michael is flying solo here in hired-gun mode for this Puerto Rico-shot high-rise mayhem/disaster movie hybrid set during a Category 5 hurricane bearing down on San Juan (think THE RAID: REDEMPTION meets THE HURRICANE HEIST). Burned-out, suicidal cop Cardillo (Emile Hirsch) and rookie partner Pena (Stephanie Cayo) are sent to an apartment complex to force two stubborn residents to evacuate: aging German Bergkamp (Jorge Luis Ramos) and terminally ill retired cop Ray (Gibson), whose doctor daughter Troy (Kate Bosworth, Polish's wife) is desperately trying to get him to the hospital so he doesn't miss a dialysis treatment. Ray is a surly pain in the ass suffering from kidney and lung issues with some bonus colitis, and fears that if he goes in the hospital, he won't come out. But there's a bigger issue at hand: psycho criminal John the Baptist (David Zayas) and his crew are made aware of a Van Gogh painting worth $55 million that's in one of the units of the building, and with everyone presumably evacuated, all they need to do is go through each unit to find it. But they need to get rid of the unexpected witnesses, and thus begins a "survive the night" scenario as two separated groups--one with Cardillo, Troy, Bergkamp and tenant Griffin (Will Catlett) and the other Ray and Pena--are forced to take on a ruthless, trigger-happy John the Baptist as the hurricane rages around them.

This is serviceable B-movie material handled in the dumbest and least-inspired, DIPSHIT KEY LARGO way possible. Polish never really establishes the layout of the apartment complex, so it's hard to tell where anyone is in relation to others. Introduced taking an epic, gun-pointed-at-his-own-head Decompression Shower (© David James Keaton), Cardillo's baggage involves his accidentally shooting his ex-girlfriend and fellow cop back in NYC, which sent him on a downward spiral that landed him in San Juan, and somehow, the whole city knows about it ("How do you know about that?" he asks John the Baptist, who replies "I'm John the Baptist...I know everything!"). Griffin has a cop-hating black panther (!) locked up in a room in his apartment (!!), so you know there's no way that won't come into play at some point, and rest assured, Cory Miller's script makes it happen in the most idiotic way possible. Third-billed Gibson is on total Bruce Willis duty and really isn't in it all that much--in fact, Willis was set to play Ray until he backed out and Gibson replaced him. Imagine if you can an installment of Lionsgate/Grindstone's landmark "Bruce Willis Phones In His Performance From His Hotel Room" series that Willis deemed unworthy of his time. Cancellation-era Gibson has done some fine work in under-the-radar gems like BLOOD FATHER and DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE, but he's just phoning it in here, playing Ray as an older, near-death variation of the plays-by-his-own rules Riggs from LETHAL WEAPON. I can deal with Gibson being an asshole anger management case offscreen while still respecting his work onscreen. But he's gotta try harder than FORCE OF NATURE. (R, 91 mins)


THE LEGION
(US/Spain - 2020)

After a half-dozen production company logos, you're barely a minute into THE LEGION when you hear Oscar-nominated actor Mickey Rourke mispronounce "Caligula" as "Ca-lig-lee-uh" and you know you're in for something special. Rourke seems hellbent on squandering whatever reputation he has remaining with his one-day-on-the-set clockpunch of an appearance in this laughably cheap, incompetently-made melodrama set in 62 AD. As a disgruntled general named Corbulo, Rourke--with an eye patch, highlighted hair, Lee Press-On Nails, and enough mascara on his visible eye to make him the next face of L'Oreal (because he's worth it)--spends almost all of his screen time alone, against an obvious greenscreen, mumbling and ranting at a bust of Nero using curiously present-day vernacular, whether it's dropping F-bombs or complaining about a rival's "grubby little hands." Corbulo is peeved that Nero chose another general, Paetus (Joaquim de Almeida), to lead Roman troops into Parthia, where they've been surrounded on all sides by enemy forces and will likely die of starvation and exposure if they aren't killed first. Paetus and his adviser Marcus (Vladimir Kulich) decide to send soldier Noreno (Lee Partridge) on a foreboding mission across treacherous terrain to get to Corbulo and beg him to marshal his troops to rescue the Roman forces.

If that sounds a little like 1917 by way of ancient Rome, you're not far off, aside from the fact that THE LEGION makes Uwe Boll look like Cecil B. DeMille, is saddled with a pitifully low budget, and can almost muster a cast of tens despite having 41 credited producers. Most of the film is dedicated to Noreno running, running, and running some more, periodically stopping to battle a Parthian soldier he might encounter or rescue a young woman (Marta Castellvi) from being raped (she repays the favor by firing an arrow into the chest of a Parthian soldier who's attacking Noreno). He does some soul searching with an aging hermit named Saul (Bosco Hogan) and finally makes it to Corbulo's stronghold, where his arrival is announced and is met with Mickey Rourke mumbling, in the parlance of 62 AD, "A messenger? Where the fuck is he?" The big climax is a long, meandering discussion between Corbulo and his mistress Amiriah (Bai Ling), who has to talk him off the ledge and set him straight after the diva general refuses to help Paetus. Delivering performances that'll make you appreciate the dedication and pride that Steven Seagal takes in his craft, Rourke and Ling audibly flub lines and mispronounce words to the point that they might just be deliberately fucking with director Jose Magan, a veteran Spanish producer making his debut behind the camera (represented by the gaffe-afflicted credit "Directed Jose Magan"). Other than Xavier Gens' Lovecraftian COLD SKIN, Magan is hardly a producer of repute, having bankrolled the entirety of the unwatchable 2001-2006 output of Spanish non-auteur Maria Lidon, aka "Luna" (STRANDED, THE LIFE, MOSCOW ZERO). THE LEGION is bad enough that it almost feels like another craptacular Luna project, but Magan seems awfully proud of it: he's also credited with the story, producer, executive producer, line producer, casting director, post-production coordinator, and "financial services." So I guess there's only 38 producers if you count the three times Magan credits himself. (R, 96 mins)

In Theaters/On VOD: NIGHTMARE CINEMA (2019)

NIGHTMARE CINEMA
(US - 2019)

Directed by Mick Garris, Alejandro Brugues, Joe Dante, Ryuhei Kitamura and David Slade. Written by Mick Garris, Alejandro Brugues, Richard Christian Matheson, Sandra Becerril, David Slade and Lawrence C. Connolly. Cast: Mickey Rourke, Richard Chamberlain, Elizabeth Reaser, Annabeth Gish, Sarah Withers, Faly Rakotohavana, Maurice Benard, Zarah Mahler, Mark Grossman, Kevin Fonteyne, Belinda Balaski, Mariela Garriga, Adam Godley, Ezra Buzzington, Orson Chaplin, Daryl C. Brown, Lexy Panterra, Chris Warren, Eric Nelsen, Celesta Hodge, Reid Cox, voice of Patrick Wilson. (R, 119 mins)

Even in their Amicus heyday 50 years ago, horror anthologies tended to be mixed bag with stories of varying quality, and the format in the modern era, popularized by the like of the V/H/S and ABCs OF DEATH franchises, is even more inconsistent. But they remain favorites with the horror crowd--arguably the easiest lays in fandom--and NIGHTMARE CINEMA comes virtually rubber-stamped as the next Horror Insta-Classic (© William Wilson). Overseen by Mick Garris (best known for his Stephen King TV adaptations THE STAND, THE SHINING, DESPERATION, and BAG OF BONES), and dedicated to Tobe Hooper, Wes Craven, and George A. Romero, NIGHTMARE CINEMA plays a lot like a big-screen offshoot of Garris' Showtime series MASTERS OF HORROR and its NBC follow-up FEAR ITSELF. He corralled some horror pals who would probably turn up on a new season of MASTERS--Alejandro Brugues (JUAN OF THE DEAD), the legendary Joe Dante (PIRANHA, THE HOWLING, GREMLINS), Ryuhei Kitamura (VERSUS, THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN, NO ONE LIVES), and David Slade (HARD CANDY, 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, and episodes of HANNIBAL and BLACK MIRROR)--with each contributing a segment with the Garris-helmed wraparounds taking place in an abandoned movie theater (played by the Rialto in L.A.), where a sinister projectionist (Mickey Rourke, also one of 22 credited producers) entertains five doomed souls by running a film that shows what horrific fate their future holds.

First up is Brugues' "The Thing in the Woods," where Samantha (Sarah Withers) sees herself in what appears to be the climax of a slasher film as she's relentlessly pursued by a shielded maniac known as "The Welder." It starts out as a winking riff on body count thrillers with a wicked sense of humor (a blood-soaked Samantha seeking refuge in a house and screaming "It's not my blood...it's Lizzie's, Maggie's, Tony's, Carl's, Jamie's, Ron's, Stephanie's..."), but soon switches gears and becomes something else entirely. It's wildly unpredictable, genuinely inspired, and the strongest segment overall. The best thing Dante's done in quite some time, "Mirari" finds insecure Anna (Zarah Mahler), self-conscious about a facial scar she got in a car accident when she was two years old, being talked into cosmetic surgery by her seemingly well-meaning fiance David (Mark Grossman). He takes her to Mirari, an exclusive facility run by renowned miracle worker Dr. Leneer (Richard Chamberlain), who allegedly did wonders with work on David's mother. Kitamura's "Mashit" isn't a complete success, but it's a well-crafted homage to a specific type of Italian horror film, blending elements of Lucio Fulci's early '80s gothic horrors and Bruno Mattei's THE OTHER HELL. It's set at a Catholic boarding school where a priest with some dark secrets (longtime GENERAL HOSPITAL star Maurice Benard) and a nun (Mariela Garriga) with whom he's having a secret fling face a reckoning in the form of a demonic entity called "Mashit," who possesses the children and drives them to suicide. It doesn't quite come together in the end, but it has some vividly Fulci-esque vibe (tears of blood a la CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD) and a score by Aldo Shllaku that's seriously indebted to Goblin and Fabio Frizzi.

Slade's "This Way To Egress" details the psychological meltdown of Helen (Elizabeth Reaser), as she waits for an appointment with her shrink (Adam Godley) while dealing with the fallout of being left by her husband (a phoned-in voice cameo by Patrick Wilson). It's a black & white descent into madness as the shrink's office opens portals to a disturbing, disorienting netherworld that looks like something not unlike ERASERHEAD meets PAN'S LABYRINTH. Like "Mashit," "Egress" has some interesting ideas (and an intense, powerful performance by Reaser) and some startling imagery, but never quite coalesces into a complete piece. Last and unquestionably least is Garris' "Dead," with teenage piano prodigy Riley (Faly Rakotohavana) shot and left for dead after a carjacker (Orson Chaplin, the son of SUPERMAN producer Ilya Salkind and Charlie Chaplin's daughter Jane) kills his parents (Annabeth Gish, Daryl C. Brown) and flees the scene. A hospitalized Riley starts seeing dead people as their souls wanders the hospital halls. He not only has to contend with the spirit of his mother encouraging him to let go and join her in the afterlife, but there's also the carjacker, who keeps showing up at the hospital to finish what he started. Alternately riffing on THE SIXTH SENSE and VISITING HOURS, "Dead" is exactly that, and anyone assembling a horror anthology knows you don't put the weakest story last. Clearly, "The Thing in the Woods" would've been the ideal closer, but hey, I guess project leader Mick Garris thought long and hard about it and concluded that contributing director Mick Garris' segment was the best choice. I'd be shocked if Rourke worked more than a day on this (he doesn't even appear until 45 minutes in, appropriately introduced after the conclusion of Dante's plastic surgery segment), but true to form, NIGHTMARE CINEMA is ultimately a mixed bag: there's one great story, then a very good one, then two flawed but interesting offerings before "Dead" lands with a resounding thud. You can't help but think the whole movie would seem better by the end if the order of the stories was completely reversed.

On DVD/Blu-ray: CLOSE RANGE (2015); SHANGHAI (2015); and ASHBY (2015)

CLOSE RANGE
(US - 2015)

The latest teaming of B-movie action icons Scott Adkins and director Isaac Florentine has about as straightforward an action movie set-up as you can get. Adkins is Colton MacReady, an on-the-run Iraq War deserter who turns up in Mexico and takes out a good chunk of the soldiers working for drug lord Fernando Garcia (Tony Perez). Among the dead are Garcia's nephew (Ray Diaz), who kidnapped MacReady's teenage niece Hailey (Madison Lawlor), after her lowlife stepfather Walt (Jake La Botz), the go-between for Garcia's operation north of the border in Arizona, stole a hefty sum of money belonging to the cartel. MacReady brings Hailey home to her mother, his sister Angela (Caitlin Keats), with what's left of Garcia's army in hot pursuit. The bad guys have some help from corrupt sheriff Calloway (Nick Chinlund), who's morally conflicted over his duty to the law and the money that being on the Garcia payroll brings him. In addition to periodic attempts to show Calloway's decent side, there's also some brief overtures at characterization in the way MacReady scolds his widowed sister for settling on a shitbag like Walt for a second husband, but Florentine wisely keeps the focus on action, with MacReady, Angela, and Hailey holed up inside the family farmhouse while Garcia keeps sending his guys in only to get roundhouse-kicked, stabbed repeatedly, or just shot in the head point-blank by MacReady.

If you've ever seen a Florentine/Adkins collaboration, you know that over-the-top action is the main focus, and CLOSE RANGE delivers to almost absurd levels. Florentine fluidly moves the camera around to keep as much of the expertly-choreographed confrontations going with as few cuts as possible. Things get a little sped up at times, as is the norm, but he makes an effort to avoid going for the quick-cut, shaky-cam approach, which showcases exactly how much work went into these sequences by the actors and the stunt crew. Story-wise, CLOSE RANGE is pretty standard and predictable--of course, MacReady deserted for the right reasons, as he was defying incompetent orders that would've disgraced his unit and led to certain death--and Florentine gets a little too winking at times with the fun but repetitive spaghetti western homages. But it steps up where it matters, and again, you're forced to wonder why Adkins isn't headlining bigger movies (Florentine likely prefers the autonomy of low-budget cinema). It's not quite on the level of their UNDISPUTED sequels or the outstanding NINJA: SHADOW OF A TEAR. but it's more entertaining and satisfying than a lot of what passes for major action movies these days. Short, simple, and to the point (except for a drawn-out title card intro for each minor villain, which only seems to be there in order to pad the brief run time), CLOSE RANGE's only goal is to have Scott Adkins glower and kick ass for an hour and a half, and on that end, it achieves everything it sets out to do. (R, 85 mins)


SHANGHAI
(US/China - 2015)

Filmed in Bangkok in the summer of 2008 and released in Asia and other parts of the world over 2010-2011, this lavishly-mounted, $50 million US/Chinese co-production was shelved stateside for seven years by Harvey Weinstein before getting a stealth release on 100 screens in the fall of 2015. SHANGHAI fancies itself a Far East, historical noir CASABLANCA, set in the title city that's doing its best to stave off the encroaching Japanese occupation in October 1941, but the lugubrious pacing, lackluster direction by Mikael Hafstrom (who made the Anthony Hopkins demonic possession film THE RITE and the Stallone/Schwarzenegger pairing ESCAPE PLAN in ensuing years before this finally came out) shoddy CGI, and a hopelessly muddled script by Hossein Amini (DRIVE) prove to be flaws too fatal to overcome. US Naval Intelligence spy Paul Soames (John Cusack) arrives in Shanghai, posing as a Nazi-sympathizing journalist but drawn into a murder investigation when his Navy buddy and fellow agent Conner (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is found dead with his throat slashed. Soames is at the center of an incredibly convoluted story that involves Triad crime lord Anthony Lan-Ting (Chow Yun-Fat) and his mysterious wife Anna (Gong Li), with whom Soames will of course have a clandestine fling. There's also Japanese Intelligence officer Capt. Tanaka (Ken Watanabe), who's suspicious of Soames' true intentions, plus Soames also seduces Leni (an underused Franka Potente), in order to get intel on her husband, a German engineer (Christopher Buchholz), who may have Nazi business to conduct with the Japanese.

A couple of months go by in what feels like real time, and all of these parties converge for a boring climax that takes place on a certain date which will live in infamy--by which I mean the bombing of Pearl Harbor and not the date that Harvey Weinstein greenlit SHANGHAI--with the exception of Leni and her husband, who are completely forgotten by the filmmakers. Rinko Kikuchi (then a recent Oscar nominee for BABEL) turns up as Conner's opium-addicted Japanese girlfriend, and David Morse has a few inconsequential scenes as Soames' contact at the US consulate in Shanghai, warning Soames to not get involved and forced to utter trite dialogue like "This isn't black or white...we're caught in the middle!" SHANGHAI is a tedious, plodding mess that never gets going and never gels together. There's no consistency to the characterizations and everyone wanders in and out of the story with the kind of clunky randomness that suggests this was a much a longer film at some point. Made when Cusack was still getting A-list work but fitting in perfectly with his current string of unseen, Cusackalypse Now paycheck gigs, SHANGHAI reunites the star with Hafstrom, who directed him in the decent 2007 Stephen King adaptation 1408. Cusack is completely unengaging as the hero here and has no chemistry with either Gong or Potente. Beyond that, a fine cast is completely stranded in this incredibly dull misfire that bombed everywhere, grossing just $46,000 in the US. (R, 104 mins)


ASHBY
(US/UK/UAE - 2015)

Mickey Rourke has squandered so many opportunities and burned so many bridges over the last 30 years that it's hard to feel sorry for the present state of his career. But Rourke isn't the problem with the indie comedy-drama ASHBY, an appallingly tone-deaf and wildly inconsistent quirkfest that won raves on the festival circuit because of course it did. The film gives the veteran actor his best role since his Oscar-nominated turn in THE WRESTLER, but ASHBY is an otherwise total failure that's simplistic, insulting, and absolutely insufferable whenever he's not onscreen. In one of the most loathsome performances in recent memory, Nat Wolff, the former NAKED BROTHERS BAND star and current third-string Michael Cera, plays Ed, a 17-year-old who's probably supposed to be a snarky wiseass but comes off as a smug, smirking prick. Ed lives with his divorced mom June (Sarah Silverman) and is put on the backburner by his always-too-busy dad, who traded his old family in for a new one. Ed hates jocks but inexplicably wants to be one anyway, making the football team while befriending quiet neighbor Ashby Holt (Rourke), a withdrawn man who claims to be a retired napkin salesman. Ashby has two secrets he's keeping from Ed: he was recently diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and has three months to live, and he's really a decommissioned CIA assassin, Ed discovering the latter while snooping in Ashby's basement and promising to keep it a secret. Ashby takes Ed under his wing, teaching him how to be a better man than his self-absorbed father (though after spending 100 minutes with Ed, you'll probably at least somewhat see the deadbeat dad's side of things), and Ed improbably becomes the star of the football team while pretending he isn't falling for bespectacled, quirky, and all-around adorkable Eloise (Emma Roberts), the kind of Manic Pixie Dream Girl (© Nathan Rabin) who only exists in movies like ASHBY, and whose neurologist dad has an MRI machine in their house, just in case Ashby will need to use it to prove to Ed that he's indeed terminally ill.

Writer/director Tony McNamara can't seem to decide what he wanted ASHBY to be. It's like the worst parts of Cameron Crowe and Wes Anderson got jumbled in with a RUDY ripoff, a little GRAN TORINO, and a discarded draft of the Kevin Costner-as-a-terminally-ill-assassin movie 3 DAYS TO KILL. When Ashby finds out that one of his assigned contracts was not a threat to the country, but an innocent guy who got in the way of some old associates making a profit on a business deal, he starts taking those associates out--and having an oblivious Ed chauffeur him around--in order to right a wrong while he's still able. Ashby is an anguished man plagued by guilt and regret--he's already lost his wife and daughter and wants nothing more than to be absolved of his countless sins (he estimates he killed 93 people over his career) in order to be permitted into Heaven to be with them. It's a great role for Rourke, but McNamara would rather focus on Wolff's Ed, who's presented as the only smart kid in his class, and the only one with a vague notion of history but who has somehow never seen a cassette tape and, in his clueless fascination, unspools the tape on one of Ashby's Peter Frampton cassettes and smirks "I don't think I can get this back in there." Mind you, it's the entire tape. All of it. How much of the tape do you unspool before you ascertain that it's probably not a good thing?  And why would he unspool it in the first place? Is that how he found it? How can a jaded millennial douchebag like Ed not know what a goddamn cassette looks like?  Can he possibly be that stupid? And if the scene is played for laughs, then it's even worse, because now Ed is a complete dick for fucking with Ashby's Frampton tape. Wolff goes through the film with a cocky "Aren't I just a stinker?" look that renders his the most punchable face this side of Justin Bieber or the Affluenza kid. It's a wonder why Ashby would even dispense life lessons to this little turd. McNamara's characters are unreal, from Roberts' stock quirky girl who serves as whatever the story needs her to be at any given moment, to Kevin Dunn's bombastic football coach who still uses terms like "the Japs" when referencing WWII,  to Zachary Knighton's improbably hipster cool-guy priest with alt-rocker hair who says "fuck" and eats hot wings. The situations are inane, like Ed commandeering the coach's pregame speech--what coach would allow a player to rally the team with "Fuck the coaches!"? ASHBY doesn't exist on any level of reality, and speaking of which, do you know anyone Sarah Silverman's age named June?  I don't. Does she have younger sisters named Edith and Myrtle? And there's even stabs at raunch humor with Ed walking in his mom blowing a guy. Rourke brought his A-game to ASHBY, but his efforts were wasted. Rarely has such an excellent performance been stuck in a movie this bad. Paramount picked this up for distribution but the buyer's remorse must've hit quickly: they only released it on 15 screens and VOD for a total gross of $4600. (R, 103 mins)

On DVD/Blu-ray: WAR PIGS (2015) and RE-KILL (2015)

WAR PIGS
(US/UK - 2015)

This dull and pointless WWII actioner rips off THE DIRTY DOZEN, THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS, and just about every other men-on-a-mission outing and even borrows two stars of THE EXPENDABLES but can't even muster the energy to function as a remotely entertaining dumb movie. Funded in part by Panzerfabrik, a Colorado-based company that manufactures reproductions of WWII German tanks and other war equipment and offers its services for WWII re-enactments, WAR PIGS is basically a bunch of coasting C-listers playing dress-up while wandering around Utah's Uinta National Forest and pretending it's 1944 France while dodging an occasional CGI explosion. Luke Goss, who's devolved from passable second-string Jason Statham into arguably the most boring actor alive, is Capt. Jack Wosick, a disgraced soldier ordered by Maj. A.J. Redding (Mickey Rourke, whose kamikaze squandering of his SIN CITY resurgence and Oscar-nominated WRESTLER triumph is now complete) to team up with Capt. Hans Picault (Dolph Lundgren) of the French Foreign Legion. Their assignment: whip a team of military malcontents, ne'er-do-wells, and all-around fuck-ups into shape to take out a secret weapon being developed by Hitler. Cliches abound, usually with Wosick butting heads with smartass, pretty-boy soldier August (Noah Segan), before they all grow up and emerge heroes. There's no humor and barely any action, Lundgren doesn't even pretend to give a shit, with his French accent coming and going throughout, and third-billed UFC icon Chuck Liddell is killed off five minutes into the movie in a role that's not so much a cameo as it is "POLICE SQUAD! special guest star." Most depressing of all is Rourke, always seen behind a desk and clearly arriving to work in his own clothes, sporting a cowboy hat with his long hair dangling down the side of his head and shirt unbuttoned halfway down in regulation, by-the-book 1944 military style. Looking less like a high-ranking officer and more like he got the part after some Panzerfabrik re-enactors found him dumpster diving on the Uinta campgrounds, Rourke is just a sad sight here, and since Lundgren is in a coma, Liddell has the good sense to get offed 300 seconds into the movie, and there's absolutely no such thing as a fan of Luke Goss movies, there isn't a single reason for anyone to watch this. (R, 87 mins)

RE-KILL
(US - 2015)

After a five-year hiatus, the "8 Films to Die For" After Dark Horrorfest package returns with more indie horror from around the world. Most of the titles released from 2006 to 2010 ranged from completely forgettable to thoroughly awful, but there were a few notable standouts, like Nacho Cerda's THE ABANDONED, Xavier Gens' FRONTIER(S), Sean Ellis' THE BROKEN, and Joel Anderson's disturbing LAKE MUNGO. Lionsgate is no longer involved, and the 2015 relaunch came and went with little fanfare on VOD and has now arrived on DVD courtesy of Fox. One of the new offerings is RE-KILL, a bottom-of-the-barrel zombie shoot 'em up shot so long ago that it was originally announced as part of the 2010 lineup before it was abruptly yanked from the list and shelved for five years. Shot in Bulgaria and Baton Rouge, RE-KILL is a borderline unwatchable 90 minutes of handheld shaky-cam that would've seemed stale even in 2010, set after yet another apocalyptic zombie outbreak, this time generated by some botched government experiment called "The Judas Project." As cities are overrun with the sprinting dead (called "Re-Ans," short for "Re-Animateds"), military officers are followed by a camera crew for a reality TV show called RE-KILL, which documents their pursuit and extermination of Re-Ans. And that's pretty much it, other than frequent breaks for some Paul Verhoeven-esque would-be satirical commercials that lack the bite of similar bits in ROBOCOP and STARSHIP TROOPERS (and furthermore, with 80% of the population dead and hordes of undead in the streets, who's really in the mood or even has time to keep up on reality TV?). The cast is headed by Bruce Payne (PASSENGER 57), doing a Russell Crowe impression as a fanatically religious, thousand-yard-staring hardass soldier, and a badly-utilized Scott Adkins (NINJA: SHADOW OF A TEAR) as a fist-pumping, chest-thumping war hero ("You got questions about soldierin', you come to me!"). Both actors are better than the material (Payne actually appears to be taking it seriously), but both are killed off well before it's over. You can never tell what's going on or who's who or where--it's just a lot of posturing ("This is what we do!"), stating the obvious ("You gotta destroy the brain stem"), yelling ("Get down!"), gunfire, and CGI splatter. There's little nuance or subtlety in the script by Mike Hurst, but that's about what you should expect from the guy who gave us such renowned gems as HOUSE OF THE DEAD II and PUMPKINHEAD 4: BLOOD FEUD. Hurst co-directed with Valeri Milev, who parlayed this success into getting the coveted WRONG TURN 6: LAST RESORT gig in 2014. Payne's effort is the only thing keeping RE-KILL from stumbling off the ledge into utter uselessness, and when it wraps up at the end, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more fitting metaphor than the RE-KILL TV show closing credits rolling on a TV in an empty house with no one watching. (R, 87 mins)

On DVD/Blu-ray: ROSEWATER (2014); PIONEER (2014); and BLACK NOVEMBER (2015)

ROSEWATER
(US - 2014)

ROSEWATER, a chronicle of Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari's 118 days of interrogation and torture at Tehran's Evin Prison, is the big-screen writing and directing debut of THE DAILY SHOW's Jon Stewart--viewers will recall John Oliver hosting over the summer of 2013 while Stewart made this pet project that has a direct tie to the show. A resident of London, Bahari (played here by Gael Garcia Bernal) was in Tehran covering the 2009 Iran presidential election for Newsweek and staying with his mother Moloojoon (Shohreh Aghdashloo) when he was arrested and held in solitary confinement. Initially, Bahari thinks he was arrested for filming some protests over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's questionable victory. But his interrogator (Kim Bodnia), referred to as "Rosewater" by the constantly blindfolded Bahari, who never saw his face but recognized the rosewater scent of his perfume, informs him that he's been arrested for being a spy. The proof? Bahari was interviewed in a DAILY SHOW segment by Jason Jones (playing himself), who was pretending to be an American spy incognito as a reporter.

Stewart occasionally flirts with black comedy but always pulls back, which is too bad, since he would seem to be a natural for exploring the absurdity of the situation with some satirical bite (early on, Iranian authorities label Bahari's DVD collection, with things like THE SOPRANOS and Pasolini's TEOREMA, as "porn"). Instead, Stewart fashions ROSEWATER as a reverent, inspiring, triumph-of-the-human-spirit saga that just never catches fire. There's little suspense or tension in Bahari's situation--not because we know the outcome that he gets released after 118 days and will be OK, but because Stewart tackles the subject in such a perfunctory and by-the-numbers fashion. Perhaps he wanted to be taken seriously as a filmmaker and be respectful of his subject but he erred too much on the side of caution, ending up with a film that's dull, plodding, and predictable. None of Stewart's personality comes through in a creative way and his voice is nowhere to be heard (and THE DAILY SHOW is never even referenced by name) and when he starts showing Bahari having imaginary conversations with and getting "hang in there!" pep talks from the ghosts of his late father (Haluk Bilginer) and sister (Golshifteh Farahani), ROSEWATER starts to look like something any hired gun director could've put together. In Stewart's defense, these conversations with his dead father and sister, both political prisoners, are in Bahari's memoir Then They Came for Me, and while it may have worked on the page and he wanted to remain faithful to Bahari's writing, it's a mawkish, eye-rolling cliche when put on the screen. Given his status as both a comedy figure and an astute political junkie, as well as his own indirect involvement with the situation, there's so many other approaches Stewart could've taken with ROSEWATER rather than going for superficial, transparent awards-bait. Open Road didn't really know what to do with the dry, tedious ROSEWATER, only putting it on 371 screens at its widest release for a gross of $3 million. It's doubtful it would've even gotten that without Stewart's name attached to it. There was a lot of potential here and the intentions are nothing but sincere, but all things considered, this is a major disappointment. (R, 103 mins)


PIONEER
(Norway/Germany/Sweden/Finland/France - 2013; US release 2014)

Set in the late 1970s and looking like it was made then as well, the nautical conspiracy thriller PIONEER is a throwback in every way, right down to an on-set mishap that looks like something out of the original GONE IN 60 SECONDS. Star Aksel Hennie's (HEADHUNTERS) character is being chased in his Jeep, and the actor insisted on doing his own driving. He lost control of the Jeep, flipping twice, windows shattering and top torn off before the Jeep lands upright, Hennie clearly visible in the driver's seat and looking terrified. Even as it happens in the film, it's attention-getting simply for the spontaneous and awkward way it happens...like a real car wreck would rather than one precisely engineered by stunt coordinators or pulled off with CGI. Hennie emerged uninjured but quite shaken, and even in a DVD special feature called "The Crash," he still gets emotional recounting it. It's left in the film as it happened, taking a rather humdrum car chase and making it unforgettable. The film itself has origins in fact, dealing with the installation of an oil pipeline along the floor of the North Sea off the coast of Norway. The job requires training professional divers to do the work and the project is a joint Norwegian-American venture, with the Norwegian divers, headed by Petter (Hennie) and his brother Knut (Andre Eriksen) at odds with the arrogant American divers, represented by Mike (a scowling Wes Bentley). Tragedy strikes when Petter blacks out on a dive, failing to close a valve that results in Knut's death. Aside from losing his younger brother, something doesn't feel right about what happened, and the more he presses for answers, the less anyone around him wants to talk. He begins to suspect that someone tampered with his oxygen supply. Anyone with answers turns up missing or dead, the videotape documenting the accident is nowhere to be found, the perpetually surly Mike speeds up behind Petter and tries to run him off the road, and the bottom-line-watching American oil company rep Ferris (Stephen Lang) is running out of patience with Petter's refusal to let it go.

Director/co-writer Erik Skjoldbjaerg, who helmed the original Norwegian INSOMNIA and came to Hollywood for his mandatory Horrible Harvey Weinstein experience--pretty much a rite of passage for foreign filmmakers at this point--with the four-years-on-the-shelf PROZAC NATION, really gets a solid '70s paranoia vibe throughout, helped a lot by the short, balding Hennie looking nothing like your conventional leading man. He really does look like an average, blue collar guy getting in way over his head with powerful people, but still bulldozing forward, not giving it up--even his widowed sister-in-law (Stephanie Sigman) seems content to take Ferris' fat settlement offer--and it's admirable that Skjoldbjaerg and the screenwriters aren't always concerned with making Petter appealing. Indeed, there's times when he's a bellicose prick. There's a doomy, palpable tension as the screws tighten and Petter realizes that somebody's hiding something and it could cost him his life, but Skjoldbjaerg shows his cards too soon and it's too obvious that the Americans are shady and untrustworthy. Bentley's Mike is a completely unlikable asshole, glaring, seething and yelling at the Norwegians from the moment he first appears, for no real reason. And it makes no sense when he stops someone from torturing Petter in a pressurized chamber ("I didn't sign on to kill anyone," he protests), only to resume the torture as soon as the other guy leaves the room. We've also seen Stephen Lang in enough movies to know that if he's acting altruistic and sympathetic, it's because his character is anything but. PIONEER has its glaring flaws and plot holes, and its ambiguities are such that they lead to an unsatisfying ending, but its positives still outweigh its negatives, generating significant suspense and establishing an effectively bleak, gray atmosphere, which gets an immense push from an occasionally Tangerine Dream-ish score by Air. (R, 111 mins)



BLACK NOVEMBER
(Nigeria/US - 2015)

BLACK NOVEMBER is a bad movie, but at least it's a bad movie with noble intentions. A feature-length lecture on the evils of Big Oil and government corruption, BLACK NOVEMBER opens with text explaining that Nigeria is the world's fifth largest oil supplier, while neglecting to mention that their top export is deposed princes who just need your checking account and social security numbers. A group of Nigerian terrorists led by Opuwei (Akon) and Timi (Wyclef Jean) are holding Western Oil CEO Tom Hudson (Mickey Rourke, looking embalmed) hostage in the 2nd Street Tunnel in Los Angeles. Unlike their needlessly complex plan of orchestrating a massive rush hour traffic jam, their demand is simple: arrange the release of activist Ebiere (a convincing Mbong Amata), currently in a Warri prison in the Niger Delta, where she's about to be executed. Flashbacks reveal that Ebiere attended college in America on a Western Oil scholarship, and Hudson would use her to settle disputes between Nigerians (irate that their land has been ruined by constant oil spills) and the corrupt military that acts at the behest of the oil company, frequently going over the line into atrocities like murder and gang-rape. In time, Ebiere is driven to a shocking act of violence when she realizes she's been set up by Hudson and the whole thing was a ploy to get the protesters arrested. Shockingly, the unscrupulous Hudson is one of those billionaire CEOs who cares more about profits than people, and back in L.A., he's about to pay for his misdeeds if he can't convince the Nigerian government to spare Ebiere's life.

Very sporadically enlivened by bits of action and some inexcusably crummy CGI explosions, BLACK NOVEMBER is essentially a 96-minute public service announcement disguised as a commercial movie. Characters don't speak naturally but rather, in hackneyed, exposition-heavy proclamations, almost like the script is just a bullet-pointed outline (Hudson's model-like daughter, just before he's abducted from his limo: "You always get nervous before you fly to Nigeria."). It's terrible, but that's only because Nigerian writer/director Jeta Amata (Mbong's husband--it's a family affair with Amatas everywhere in the credits, with Mbong being much more talented than the other Amatas in the cast) is more concerned with shouting his points than telling a story with any subtlety or nuance. It's too sincere in its intent to be dismissed as a mere vanity project (though Amata calling his production company "Jeta Amata Concepts" doesn't bode well), but that doesn't give it a pass. The backstory of BLACK NOVEMBER is much more interesting than the film itself. Amata took his shelved 2011 film BLACK GOLD--produced by Nigerian oil baron Captain Hosa Wells Okunbo--dumped roughly half of it and shot additional footage to restructure it into its current form as BLACK NOVEMBER. BLACK GOLD starred Mbong Amata as Ebiere, along with a veritable Who's Who of Redbox All-Stars including Tom Sizemore, Michael Madsen, and Billy Zane, the latter three nowhere to be seen in BLACK NOVEMBER. Conversely, Rourke, Kim Basinger (as intrepid reporter Kristy Ames, covering the L.A. hostage situation), Anne Heche (a virtual walk-on with maybe two lines of dialogue as an FBI agent), Jean, and Akon did not appear in BLACK GOLD. Footage of Vivica A. Fox as a US government official and former WALKING DEAD star Sarah Wayne Callies as a crusading cable news reporter comes from BLACK GOLD, as do most of Mbong Amata's scenes that take place in the Niger Delta (she looks noticeably different in NOVEMBER-shot footage with Rourke). Amata has a confused mess on his hands, but with the help of four credited editors, he almost makes the whole thing hang together, with the seams only slightly showing when Callies picks up a ringing phone in BLACK GOLD and it's BLACK NOVEMBER's Basinger on the other end of the line, and when Fox is seen at a command center that seemingly belongs in another movie, that's because it does. Jean and Akon put up some of the financing for Amata to transform BLACK GOLD into BLACK NOVEMBER, which was completed way back in 2012 and shelved after being screened for events at the Kennedy Center and the United Nations before getting its belated commercial release in early 2015. Regardless of its good intentions, BLACK NOVEMBER is still junky, cobbled-together DTV material (it's too bad the original cut of BLACK GOLD isn't included as a bonus feature for the masochistically-inclined), with Rourke, Basinger, and Heche looking especially perplexed over exactly how they ended up being Raymond Burr'd into a Nigerian protest drama. (Unrated, 97 mins)

In Theaters: SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR (2014)

SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR

(US/Russia/France/UK - 2014)

Directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller. Written by Frank Miller. Cast: Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Josh Brolin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rosario Dawson, Bruce Willis, Eva Green, Powers Boothe, Dennis Haysbert, Ray Liotta, Stacy Keach, Jaime King, Christopher Lloyd, Jamie Chung, Jeremy Piven, Christopher Meloni, Juno Temple, Lady Gaga, Marton Csokas, Julia Garner, Alexa PenaVega, Jude Ciccolella, Johnny Reno. (R, 102 mins)

When the Robert Rodriguez/Frank Miller collaboration SIN CITY was released in 2005, it was hailed as a groundbreaking visual triumph and a trendsetting example of how to adapt a graphic novel--in this case, Miller's legendary series--to the big screen. Nine years later, it holds up beautifully in terms of visuals and its very effective use of CGI, as well as with its loving tribute to the gutsy, hard-boiled prose of a bygone era. While the success of SIN CITY paved the way for other successful graphic novel adaptations like Zack Snyder's 300 (2007), its style is the kind of thing that can't really be repeated without feeling like a tired retread. Look no further than Miller's own disastrous solo directorial outing THE SPIRIT (2008), an excruciatingly awful adaptation of Will Eisner's graphic novel series that came off like a cheap, amateurish ripoff of SIN CITY and was rejected by even the most ardent Miller fanboys. Shot in 2012 and bumped nearly a year from its original October 2013 release date, the belated prequel/sequel combo SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR wasn't really warranted or demanded, and, this far removed from the first film, can't help but pale in comparison to what was so fresh and innovative nearly a decade ago. Rodriguez and Miller seem to recognize that and try to counter it by using 3-D. It makes for some occasionally striking imagery, but remove that superfluous cosmetic addition and you've got a perfectly watchable but thoroughly disposable revamp that plays like a SIN CITY knockoff rather than a follow-up by the same filmmakers. It's almost like a rock band that knocked it out of the park with one instant classic album and followed it with a cash-in comprised of leftover songs that weren't strong enough to make the cut the first time around.

SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR has four segments, only one of which, "A Dame to Kill For," is based on a published Miller work, while the others were written specifically for the film. The time element can be a bit confusing--sometimes it's set in the film's present, other times in the past, which explains the return of some characters killed off in the first film. Ex-boxer and 300-lb killing machine Marv (Mickey Rourke, whose character makeup combined with his own plastic surgery in the years since SIN CITY now have Marv looking like a roid-raging Lionel Stander) disposes of some douchebag college kids who get their kicks by setting bums on fire. Wiseass card sharp Johnny (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) wins a bundle from evil Sen. Roark (Powers Boothe reprises his role) in a backroom card game and lives to regret it. In the longest section, based on "A Dame to Kill For," photographer Dwight (Josh Brolin, replacing Clive Owen), is duped by his femme fatale ex Ava (Eva Green) when she kills her husband (Marton Csokas) and tries to frame him. After being beaten to a pulp by Ava's bodyguard Manute (Dennis Haysbert, replacing the late Michael Clarke Duncan), Dwight teams up with Marv, old flame Gail (a returning Rosario Dawson) and silent assassin Miho (Jamie Chung, replacing Devon Aoki) to exact his revenge. Ava, meanwhile, seduces and manipulates honest cop Mort (Christopher Meloni), despite the warnings of his cynical partner Bob (Jeremy Piven, replacing Michael Madsen). Finally, stripper Nancy (Jessica Alba also returns) is watched over at the sleazy dive bar Kadie's by the ever-present Marv, but she's really waiting for the perfect opportunity to kill Roark, the father of the first film's vicious serial killer The Yellow Bastard. Roark made sure his son's heinous crimes were pinned on pushing-60-with-a-bum-ticker cop Hartigan (Bruce Willis reappears, barely), who was Nancy's guardian angel father figure and was driven to suicide after killing the Yellow Bastard and ensuring her safety.

While SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR has its reasonably entertaining moments and it's never dull, it can't help but feel stale and tired most of the time. Much like the slo-mo and the speed-ramping of 300 have made that the most tired cliche going, the SIN CITY look is something that can only blaze a trail once before everything that comes after is simply following in its path. Miller's writing isn't nearly as good this time around, with the tough-guy narration sounding like cheesy posturing, and there's an almost-total absence of great hard-boiled one-liners that filled the first film, like Hartigan's "When it comes to reassuring a traumatized 19-year-old, I'm as expert as a palsy victim doing brain surgery with a pipe wrench," or Marv, strapped in the electric chair bellowing "Would you get a move on? I ain't got all night!" to a prison chaplain issuing the last rites.

The film does feature some strong performances by a snarling Boothe and a vamping, typically crazy-eyed and frequently nude Green, who almost single-handedly made a must-see film out of 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE, another unnecessary sequel from earlier this year. There's a large cast of familiar faces here, but very few of them are put to any substantive use. Rourke and Willis were terrific back in 2005, but they're just clocking in for this one (it's easy to forget that, three years before THE WRESTLER, it was his performance in SIN CITY that started the now-squandered Rourkeassaince). Willis' Hartigan only appears fleetingly as a ghost. He has maybe two minutes of screen time and I'd be surprised if he was on the set for more than a day. An unrecognizable Stacy Keach, sporting some Jabba the Hutt-inspired makeup, gets about a minute as big shot mobster Wallenquist. Ray Liotta briefly appears as a philandering businessman in love with a young hooker (Juno Temple). Blink and you'll miss Christopher Lloyd as a drug-addicted, back-alley doc who helps reset Johnny's broken fingers. And Lady Gaga cruises through as a hash-slinging waitress at a skeezy all-night diner. With SIN CITY, even those actors in the smallest roles made an impression (remember Nicky Katt's hapless Stuka and his "Heeeey!" reaction to an arrow through the chest?) because that was a film made with care and precision, but here, they're just distractions (Lady Gaga?) popping into Rodriguez's Troublemaker Studios in Austin for a cameo and a quick run by the craft services table, with their driver presumably leaving the limo running outside. Rodriguez, Miller, and the returning actors don't seem very engaged with the second-rate material that consequently fails to provide much in the way of inspiration for the new cast members. SIN CITY was budgeted at $40 million in 2005, still looks terrific and has aged beautifully.  SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR cost $70 million and, factoring out the use of 3-D, more often than not looks and feels like a slipshod, straight-to-DVD knockoff. I didn't hate SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR but unlike its predecessor, it's nothing I'll feel the need to watch again. If nothing else, I guess the best praise to bestow upon it is that it's a masterpiece compared to THE SPIRIT.

On DVD/Blu-ray: VIOLET & DAISY (2013) and DEAD IN TOMBSTONE (2013)

VIOLET & DAISY
(US - 2013)

The directing debut of Oscar-winning PRECIOUS screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher, VIOLET & DAISY is an oddity that starts as an almost chick-flick version of THE BOONDOCK SAINTS before becoming a stagy character study.  It's a little too "cute" at times, only very rarely crossing the line into "quirky." It could almost be a play, and it definitely feels like the kind of movie made by a screenwriter stepping behind the camera for the first time.  Violet (Alexis Bledel) and Daisy (Saoirse Ronan) are two teenaged assassins about to start a much-deserved vacation when they get a call about a quick-money hit from their handler Russ (Danny Trejo):  rub out a guy who stole some money from their boss.  Wanting some time off but needing some extra money to buy matching dresses from the trendy clothing line of teen pop sensation Barbie Sunday (Cody Horn), Violet and Daisy take the assignment.  Arriving at the target's apartment only to find he's out, they wait for him but fall asleep on his couch.  When the schlubby target (James Gandolfini) arrives home, he covers them with a blanket and gives them cookies and milk when they wake up.  The girls unexpectedly bond with the target, who turns out to be a nice guy who's had some shitty luck, and find it difficult to pull the trigger, causing them to re-examine their own friendship and working partnership while the boss sends his top assassin (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) to trail them in case they can't complete the job.

VIOLET & DAISY doesn't always work, and it belongs to that KILLING THEM SOFTLY and THE AMERICAN school of denying audiences the kind of payoff that the set-up seems to ensure (I imagine this would've gotten an "F" from the insipid CinemaScore had it opened wide), but it has its moments amid the inconsistencies.  Ronan and Bledel are quite good, and they get a great intro dressed as nuns, mowing down a roomful of mobsters to the tune of Merrilee Rush's version of "Angel of the Morning."  Other odd touches include the pair being prone to hopscotch and lollipops, riding a large tricycle to a job, and Daisy playing patty-cake with Russ while talking over their assignment.  The joke, of course, is that they're basically little girls in a cold, violent profession, though Violet--played by a well-cast Bledel, who's about a decade older than she looks--hides that she's a bit more hard-edged and worldly and tries to shield that from the naïve and childlike Daisy; Violet is almost like a few-years-older version of Natalie Portman's Matilda from Luc Besson's THE PROFESSIONAL.  At times, there's a bit of a SUCKER PUNCH thing going on here as well, though VIOLET & DAISY was shot in 2010, well before that film's release.  It's also worth a look for the always-excellent work of the late and already much-missed Gandolfini, who died two weeks after the film's belated, 17-screen theatrical release in June 2013.  At just 88 minutes, the film feels a bit hacked down (a pre-OFFICE and MAGIC MIKE Horn is in the credits but is only seen on a magazine cover and a billboard) and hits and misses in equal measure, but the fine performances of the leads make it an interesting curiosity, as does Gandolfini's brief reunion with his SOPRANOS co-star John Ventimiglia.  (R, 88 mins)


DEAD IN TOMBSTONE
(US - 2013)

With films like DEATH RACE 2, DEATH RACE 3: INFERNO, THE MARINE 2, and THE SCORPION KING 3 to his credit, Dutch director Roel Reine is usually mentioned along with Isaac Florentine and John Hyams as a top name in the world of straight-to-DVD.  The surprisingly entertaining DEATH RACE 3, in particular, demonstrated that Reine--who frequently functions as his own cinematographer and camera operator--was adept at making low-budget action films look like big-screen contenders.  The idea of Reine helming a supernatural western is full of potential, but DEAD IN TOMBSTONE is a disappointment, primarily because he falls into the trap of shaky-cam action sequences that reduce everything to jittery, headache-inducing incoherence.  Reine's camera never stops moving and swirling, and he also gets a little too distracted with directorial wankery, usually in the form of bizarre POV shots that bring to mind what a spaghetti western might look like if Sergio Leone had access to a Skycam.

The outlaw Blackwater Gang, led by Guerrero de la Cruz (Danny Trejo) and his half-brother Red Cavanaugh (Anthony Michael Hall), arrives in the small mining town of Edendale to steal some gold from a bank vault.  They successfully steal the gold, but the psychotic Red kills the sheriff (Daniel Lapaine) and goads the rest of the gang into killing Guerrero.  Trapped in a Purgatory that looks like a leftover SILENT HILL set, Guerrero makes a deal with the Devil--who appears in the form of a philosophical blacksmith (Mickey Rourke)--to save his soul in exchange for the six remaining members of the Blackwater Gang.  A year later, Guerrero pulls a HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER and shows up in Edendale--now taken over by the power-mad Red and renamed Tombstone--to exact his revenge.  There's no reason that this shouldn't be a fun B-movie, but Reine can't restrain himself and just shoot a sequence in a straightforward fashion.  He wants to go for a classic Sam Raimi feel with a contemporary, video-game aesthetic--Reine's a talented genre director but he's not Raimi and the results are simply eye-glazingly dull.  If he'd just buckled down and made a normal-looking western, he might've had a minor cult movie on his hands instead of the forgettable DTV throwaway it turned out to be. Trejo is perfectly cast, Hall has some fun playing a dastardly villain, and Dina Meyer is good as the sheriff's vengeance-obsessed widow.  Rourke, presumably here because he torched the last remaining bridge built after his short-lived WRESTLER renaissance by walking off of SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS and trash-talking its director, Martin McDonagh (Woody Harrelson replaced him), looks even worse here than he did in JAVA HEAT.  Reine directed the 2008 Steven Seagal dud PISTOL WHIPPED and seems to employ some classic Seagal tactics here as he has a bloated Rourke a) wearing a big duster in a hapless attempt to conceal his gut, and b) dubbed by someone else in most of his scenes.  There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to why Rourke--who has a distinct sound--has an obviously different voice on and off throughout.  Perhaps a plot point was changed and this was the best they could do rather than deal with him coming back to record some new dialogue?   DEAD IN TOMBSTONE makes impressive use of some unlikely locations in Romania, utilizing some still-standing COLD MOUNTAIN sets that have been seen in several westerns since (the History Channel miniseries HATFIELDS & MCCOYS was also shot in Romania), but when it's all said and done, it's unfortunately a missed opportunity.  Available in both R-rated and unrated versions, the R-rated running 99:59 and the unrated 99:58.  What the hell is that all about?  (R/Unrated, both 100 mins)

On DVD/Blu-ray: THE BLING RING (2013); JAVA HEAT (2013); and PAWN SHOP CHRONICLES (2013)

THE BLING RING
(US/France/Japan/Germany - 2013)

Sofia Coppola's latest film is an account of the rash of 2008-2009 burglaries of celebrity homes in the Hollywood Hills committed by a group of privileged teenagers dubbed the "Bling Ring."  It had the unfortunate timing to be released right after Harmony Korine's more flashy and impressive SPRING BREAKERS, and despite some stinging observations of its protagonists' coddled lifestyles, it doesn't really have much to say.  It starts out fine, as troubled rich kid Marc (Israel Broussard) arrives at a new school and immediately befriends Rebecca (Katie Chang).  Historically a misfit, Marc is welcomed into Rebecca's clique--also consisting of sisters Nicki (Emma Watson) and Sam (Taissa Farmiga), and their friend Chloe (Claire Julien)--and petty crimes committed out of boredom soon lead to burglarizing celebrity mansions after they read that Paris Hilton will be out of town.  They go to Hilton's home and find the keys under the mat.  Hilton is out of town so much that they go back several times, and also hit the homes of Lindsay Lohan, THE HILLS star Audrina Patridge, and Orlando Bloom, and bring along Nicki and Sam's younger sister Emily (Georgia Rock) to Megan Fox's house because she's small enough to fit through a doggy door and let everyone else in.  Like any group of young and inexperienced criminals, they get too cocky and stupid for their own good, not just in their repeat visits to Hilton's house, but posting pics of themselves with the stolen merchandise on their Facebook pages.  And of course, Rebecca, the de facto ringleader, tries to throw everyone under the bus when the shit hits the fan.

The story behind THE BLING RING is a interesting one, so it's hard to tell why the film ends up such an inert trifle, especially in the capable hands of Coppola (THE VIRGIN SUICIDES, LOST IN TRANSLATION).  Maybe it's that in her attempts to convey the shallow and vacuous lives of the "Bling Ring," Coppola inadvertently creates a shallow and vacuous film.  Once the premise and the players are established, the film becomes one montage after another of the titular group hanging out, doing drugs, clubbing, and taking selfies.  There are some high points:  Watson is very good and Leslie Mann gets some laughs as Nicki's, Sam's, and Emily's new agey, home-schooling mother whose educational curriculum is based on Rhonda Byrne's bestselling book The Secret.   There's probably a solid crime film to be made of this story, but it just plays like a less horrific, rich-kid, L.A. ennui version of Larry Clark's BULLY.  (R, 90 mins)


JAVA HEAT
(US - 2013)

JAVA HEAT is a throwback actioner from the L.A.-based Margate House Films, a company owned by former political commentator Rob Allyn (producer, co-writer) and his son Conor (co-writer, director).  Though an American company, they work primarily in Indonesia, and JAVA HEAT does a nice job of capturing the look and feel of Java and Conor Allyn admirably goes for real explosions and stunt work instead of the usual CGI that we get in every other product from the Hollywood assembly line.  While the Allyns' sense of filmmaking aesthetics are admirable, their script is pretty weak and not helped at all by a bland leading man in TWILIGHT co-star Kellan Lutz.  Lutz is Jake Wilde, an AWOL Marine posing as a grad student in Indonesian art history, in Java on a personal mission to eliminate a terror cell run by a Frenchman named Malik, played by what once might've been Mickey Rourke.  Jake forms an uneasy, bickering, culture-clashing alliance with local cop and devout Muslim Hashim (Indonesian superstar Ario Bayu) to bring down Malik...if they don't kill each other first!

It's obvious that the younger Allyn is a disciple of big-budget '80s and early '90s actioners and he does an admirable job of emulating the look of those films, even in the unique (to American audiences, at least) setting.  But other than some nice, real explosions and a few decent action sequences, JAVA HEAT is pretty boring.  Some of that falls on Lutz, who's just not an interesting actor, but the story is pretty hollow and formulaic to the point of catatonia.  It's overlong and badly-paced, and doesn't make good use of cosmetic-surgery-gone-horribly-awry cautionary tale Rourke, who lumbers around like the Frankenstein monster, utilizing a horrid French accent that's so thick and garbled that he's often subtitled even when speaking English. It might've worked if he'd cut loose and played it crazy, but since Rourke is obviously bored, he creates a boring character (though there is one cool shot of him walking away from an explosion in slo-mo). Wasn't THE WRESTLER supposed to rescue him from this kind of junk?  Or has he finally burned every remaining bridge in his quest to squander all of the goodwill that brilliant performance earned?  If you want to see Rourke play the bad guy in dumb action movie, just watch DOUBLE TEAM again. Allyn shows bits of style here and there, and with a script from someone other than him and/or his dad, he might have a future as a reliable, go-to DTV action director of the Isaac Florentine variety.  But for now, JAVA HEAT doesn't really get the job done.  (R, 104 mins)


PAWN SHOP CHRONICLES
(US - 2013)

Anchor Bay barely released this incredibly awful, absurdly tardy PULP FICTION ripoff that plays like it should've gone straight-to-video in 1996.  Co-produced by Limp Bizkit mainman Fred Durst, who was originally set to direct before the job went to the once-promising Wayne Kramer (THE COOLER, RUNNING SCARED), PAWN SHOP CHRONICLES tells a trio of stories centered on a rundown pawn shop in the hillbilly south run by Vincent D'Onofrio and Chi McBride.  First off, a crew of brainless meth heads--including Paul Walker and Lukas Haas--can't get their shit together to follow through with their half-assed plan of robbing the area's top meth cooker (Norman Reedus, his face hidden behind a respirator mask).  The next has Matt Dillon ditching his new bride (Rachelle Lefevre) when he discovers his missing first wife's ring at the pawn shop, sending him on a quest for revenge and the truth behind her disappearance.  The final story involves the redemption of a hopelessly down-on-his-luck Elvis impersonator (Brendan Fraser) who can't even scrape together some pocket change for a coffee at a greasy spoon.  Written by Adam Minarovich, PAWN SHOP CHRONICLES stumbles at every turn as Kramer tries to replicate the balls-out insanity and comic book mindset of RUNNING SCARED but fails miserably, and the film is so slavishly devoted to its Tarantino stylings that you quickly go from feeling sorry for it to being actively pissed off at its sheer laziness, wallowing in sleaze and would-be "shock" bits as it drags on to an exhausting 112 minutes.  Wasting an interesting supporting cast that had some cult-movie potential (there's also Thomas Jane, Pell James, Ashlee Simpson, and a vigorously masturbating Elijah Wood), while getting career-worst performances from most of the past-their-prime leads (Fraser and Dillon are terrible), the appalling, unwatchable PAWN SHOP CHRONICLES has absolutely nothing redeeming about it and offers zero entertainment value.  There's just nothing else to say:  this is a complete pile of dog shit.  (R, 112 mins)

Cult Classics Revisited: THE PLEDGE (2001)

THE PLEDGE
(US, 2001)

Directed by Sean Penn.  Written by Jerzy Kromilowski and Mary Olson-Kromilowski.  Cast: Jack Nicholson, Robin Wright Penn, Aaron Eckhart, Benicio del Toro, Sam Shepard, Helen Mirren, Vanessa Redgrave, Patricia Clarkson, Michael O'Keefe, Mickey Rourke, Harry Dean Stanton, Tom Noonan, Costas Mandylor, Pauline Roberts, Dale Dickey, Lois Smith. (R, 124 mins)

I saw THE PLEDGE when it opened in theaters in January 2001, and as it progressed, it started to feel very familiar.  I kept thinking I'd just seen numerous elements of the plot in some straight-to-VHS European film a few years prior.  And it turns out I did.  The 1996 English-language Dutch film THE COLD LIGHT OF DAY (starring Richard E. Grant) was an adaptation of the same 1958 novel Das Versprechen, by Swiss mystery writer Friedrich Durrenmatt.  Durrenmatt wrote the script for the German thriller ES GESCHAH AM HELLICHTEN TAG (IT HAPPENED IN BROAD DAYLIGHT) and expanded that script into the novel.  It was remade for German TV in 1997 and also turned into a 1979 Italian thriller titled LA PROMESSA. 

THE PLEDGE, the third film directed by Sean Penn, is the first American take on the Durrenmatt source novel and it's more of a psychological character study than the suspense thriller that the trailer and TV spots were selling.  That doesn't mean there aren't some tense moments throughout, but people expecting a fast-paced nailbiter were probably disappointed and the film didn't do well at all.  It's managed to find a following over the last decade, largely through still-frequent cable airings and also because it always seems to turn up in articles about "Great Movies You've Never Heard Of," or on lists of Jack Nicholson's most underrated films that always seem to make the rounds on his birthday.  This is right up there with the following year's ABOUT SCHMIDT as a great late-career Nicholson performance.  Nicholson hasn't acted regularly since the mid-1990s, and THE PLEDGE was his first film since his Oscar-winning turn in 1997's AS GOOD AS IT GETS.  While he hasn't gone into retirement, his film appearances over the last decade and a half have been sporadic enough that it's always an event when he's onscreen again.  At this point in his life, Nicholson, now 75, only works when he wants to and as a result, he gives it his all, presumably because he's legitimately enthused about the project. 

Nicholson, starring in his second film for Penn (the first was 1995's powerful, little-seen THE CROSSING GUARD), is retiring Reno detective Jerry Black.  On his last day on the job (which Penn and screenwriters Jerzy Kromilowski and Mary Olson-Kromilowski thankfully don't turn into a cliche), Jerry leaves his retirement party with some other cops when a little girl's body is found in a snow-covered farmland area.  A suspect--Native American Toby Wadenah (Benicio del Toro)--is quickly rounded up and interrogated by Jerry's cocky replacement Stan Krolak (Aaron Eckhart), who doesn't seem to care that Toby, who has a rape conviction in his past, is clearly mentally challenged and doesn't comprehend the questions.  Krolak coerces a confession out of Toby, who promptly steals a deputy's gun and commits suicide.  The case is closed by Krolak and Capt. Pollack (Sam Shepard), but Jerry, who pledged to the dead girl's parents (Patricia Clarkson, Michael O'Keefe) that he would find the killer, is unconvinced.

Postponing a fishing trip and conducting his own investigation, Jerry finds possible connections to two other killings/abductions of little girls that took place over the last eight years, based on the most recent victims drawings of a black car, driven by a "giant" she called "The Wizard." Pollack and Krolak dismiss his concerns and think the twice-divorced Jerry is suffering from retirement anxiety and can't let go of the job.  Moving to a small town between the two towns where the past attacks occurred, Jerry buys a gas station and befriends single mom Lori (Robin Wright) and her seven-year-old daughter Chrissy (Pauline Roberts).  It looks like a content retirement for Jerry as Lori and Chrissy move in with him and a familial bond develops.  But at some point, Jerry opts for the unthinkable:  by buying Chrissy clothes similar to the red dresses the victims wore, and by putting her swing set right near the road outside the gas station, he practically advertises her availability to The Wizard.  His obsession has become so overwhelming that he's actually using Chrissy to set a trap.

There's much ambiguity here as Penn and the screenwriters are never clear if that was Jerry's intention all along. Maybe the gas station was a longshot trap, but with Chrissy, he has bait.  We don't know how soon those wheels start turning in Jerry's head after he meets Chrissy.  But it eventually supercedes the (I believe) legitimate feelings he's developed for Lori and Chrissy.  Maybe he can't let go of the job, maybe it's a past unsolved case that still gnaws at him and he sees this as redemption...or maybe he's achieved some kind of spiritual rebirth through the pledge he makes to the dead girl's mother.  That scene is really the only major misstep in THE PLEDGE.  It's presented in such a heavy-handed fashion that it doesn't ring true.  It's not enough to have Jerry haltingly promise to find the killer (on his last day, no less--and you get the sense he's not serious about it), but it's a bit over-the-top when the mother pulls a cross down from the wall and makes him swear on his soul's salvation by a cross that was handmade by the dead girl. Regardless, something snaps in Jerry at that moment and he can't rest until he's seen this through to its inevitably devastating end. 

As larger-than-life as he is offscreen, it's always amazing how adept Nicholson is at disappearing into character parts and not simply coming off as "Jack."  His performance as the tortured, tragic Jerry Black is one of his most subtle and understated.  There's no outbursts, sarcastic comments, arched eyebrows, or wicked grins.  It's a haunting performance in a film that stays with you long after it's over.  Nicholson gets stellar support from a packed supporting cast filled with a lot of Penn pals, most of whom (Helen Mirren, Vanessa Redgrave, Harry Dean Stanton, and Mickey Rourke), only have what amount to cameos.  Rourke has about two minutes of screen time and is absolutely gut-wrenching as the father of a missing girl.

There is no real closure for any characters in THE PLEDGE, a bleak, somber examination of obsession that deserved a better commercial reception than it got, though it's admittedly a tough sell and Warner Bros. probably shouldn't have rolled it out nationwide.  But it further established Penn as a maker of challenging, uncompromising films (after THE CROSSING GUARD and his 1991 directing debut THE INDIAN RUNNER) and showcased Nicholson in one of the top performances of his career, which is really saying something.  It's a powerful, thought-provoking work, and it's very quietly come around to being regarded by many as one of the great unsung films of its decade.