jamesjustice-92

Nicolas Cage has never been one of my favorite actors in terms of acting but I cannot deny the fact that the man has got talent, he oozes it from every inch of his body and gives the performance all he's got, most of the times it goes right over the top of the boiling kettle, but it sure makes him one of a kind.

Sympathy for the devil shows Nic as a somewhat demon on a rampage who kidnaps a man in the middle of his wife giving birth to his child and takes him on a hell ride he won't ever forget. That pretty much sums up the premise of the movie but somewhere down the road the thriller turns into a drama and we learn the motivation of the character, and the real faces.

Sometimes to fight the evil off you should either be his complete opposite or an even bigger evil and this movie toys with you on that subject not once. Honestly, the pairing of Nic Cage with Joel Kinnaman has raised eyebrows in me when I started watching the movie - I thought Nicolas exceeded the man far off (the only other time I saw Kinnaman act was on Altered Carbon and I wasn't impressed) but as the picture progresses his character opens up differently with each scene and in the end... I don't know what to make of his performance. It's uneven yet original, not the Kevin Spacey in Seven or The usual suspects type, somewhere much lower, but I was hooked anyhow.

All in all Sympathy for the devil is an average flick, it gives you plenty of hits with just as many misses, most of the twists do not go anywhere and for a 90 minute movie it feels way longer: even when the tension on the screen rises it still manages to procrastinate. Exceptional performance by Nicolas Cage though, too bad it wasn't backed up by an equally intriguing performance from Joel Kinnaman but you can't have it all.

P. S. And how come they didn't use The Rolling Stones' eponymous song anywhere in the film? Seems like such a waste of a great title also.

I've always liked closed space, small cast kind of movies where the plot happens in the meanings of one setting with only a handful of actors - it really gives the picture a theatrical, almost real-life look and you feel like a part of the narrative, as if ingrained. Flight risk also gives you thrills because of the murderer somewhere right there, unconscious or waiting to strike at any given moment so you can't really relax until the end credits. What can I say, maestro Mel Gibson is a pro in his field of filmmaking; you can say anything you want about him personally but how to make a great picture he knows not from the grapevine.

Mel may have had missteps in terms of his acting career but he nevertheless always delivered a fantastic performance. As for Mel the director he never had missteps at all and Flight risk proves it. It did well enough at the box office but for some reasons was panned by the critics and ordinary folks who gave the movie bad after bad reviews but I won't be one of them here because I truly liked it. Yes, it's no Braveheart, Hacksaw Ridge or even The man without a face but it is a well-balanced chilling drama thriller with marvelous performances and a fine setup, everything falls into place and keeps you on the edge of the seat throughout.

And yes, Topher Grace is somewhat typecast and so is Mark Wahlberg... fine, even Michelle Dockery doesn't crawl further away from her usual acting shell but no one expected surprises from them either, not me at least. All of the Chekov's guns shoot when the time comes and the narrative flows pretty standardly, by the book, if one should argue the only thing to actually give negatives about is the predictability of the whole script. But should it have been given to another director it could have been a complete failure but the involvement of Mel Gibson benefited it a lot.

Overall Flight risk is a good movie that you can easily spend your evening with while you're having dinner or just in the mood for a good time off of the real world, packed with solid performances and nice visuals but if you're looking for deeper meanings and non-trivial plots you should definitely look someplace else.

Let me begin by saying that Police Squad! And The naked gun trilogy are unbeatable classics of the parody genre and I love what Leslie Nielsen had done in those. So it was natural of me to be skeptical at first over a prospect of another movie under the moniker of Naked gun, especially when I heard that Liam Neeson will do the part of Frank Drebin (and by the way I couldn't be the first one to point out that both actors have got the same initials L. N. could it be intentional?). But once I've watched this new movie my worries were lifted - Liam does deliver a laugh in the same charismatic, serious manner as Leslie did it and that's what makes the new Naked gun not just another legacy sequel no one asked for but rather a fine piece of parody comedy that we all grew up watching so vigorously back in the days and missed with all our hearts.

Yes, there are some brow-raising jokes here and there but so what? The original had those too. The plot is also not much of a head-scratcher but it works in terms of the narrative. I feel like has this movie been even 10 minutes longer it would have dragged a little by the midpoint but the generous runtime of only 85 minutes uses itself to the fullest where everything is tight and nothing is accessory.

Liam Neeson, to be honest, is the perfect choice to replace Leslie Nielsen - he has got it all, the background of a serious actor and the late action hero type, to gain success in the comedy genre also. Pamela Anderson, I bet, surprised everyone with her performance, as she was mostly absent from the screens for the past 20 years, and did a splendid job being the love interest of Frank Jr., not to mention the well-written, stoic character that she managed to pull off. Bravo!

As usual, the Naked gun boasts some great songs being used in it: Starship's Nothing's gonna stop us now is probably the best song the franchise had since I'm into something good from the original. Overall I've spent, not wasted, a fine and fun time watching the new Naked gun and this is one of those sequels done right at last. If there's ever going to be another one, which I'm sure it would, count me in!