Public Enemies Review

Michael Mann is a mystery to me...while I will always esteem him for one of the best cop shows of all time, Miami Vice and one of my personal all time favorite movies, The Last of the Mohicans (You stay alive!), Public Enemies was somewhat of a disappointment for me. It seemed a no lose situation, the mythical John Dillinger story...Johnny Depp in the lead role...Mann as director, I was practically salivating at the prospect. But this film seemed leeched of any original message or theme, being a lot of flash pots and great camera work with ballyhoo but little substance.

Which was a shame, really. While Mann is one of the better technical directors working today, even he cannot uplift what seems rather stilted and predictable. Mann could have, with the right script and with Depp in hand, could have delivered us an outlaw/criminal story of the first order, perhaps another Bonnie and Clyde, The Untouchables, or The Wild Bunch all of which had something interesting to talk about in the midst of all the gun battles, explosions, and car or horse chases.

Why do we esteem and mythologize figures like Dillinger, Billy the Kid, Bonnie and Clyde, or Butch Cassidy? These figures, who are little more than figures after being elaborated on for generations by an adoring public, have become folk icons....representative of that rowdy, creative American spirit to be different and to walk different paths. All of the best criminal movies weigh in on this very American way of regarding bad men and women...but you see little of this in Public Enemies. Public Enemies seems to want to just present the facts as much as that is possible with fine images artistically and technically presented, but are you left merely with gorgeous images, nothing to connect with as fellow human beings.

Sure, it has Johnny Depp, who seems to embody this unique, rebellious, creative persona not only in the movies but also in his personal life and career. But Depp is so very low key in this film as many of the actors are, as if they or Mann were simply not interested in commenting or elaborating on the legend of John Dillinger. Depp would sometimes look off in the distance longingly or even spare a wink for the camera and the audience behind it, perhaps to suggest some sort of self reflection or awareness about what was happening. And then the moment would be lost even as we lean forward to hear Depp's wisdom.

If all Public Enemies wanted to be was a slickly produced action flick using the 1930's as it's stage then Public Enemies might work very well ultimately. But I felt that when this film was first released the goal and shift was for an elaborate comment on outlawry, celebrity in America, the loss of some sense of the American frontier spirit or simply a man lost in his time with the World gathering swiftly to move on to the next big thing. In a society where people stage situations with lost children in balloons to create celebrity and the money that comes with it, we are in dire need of a film like Public Enemies to be on it's game. Public Enemies somehow just lost the high ground in all the hustle and bustle of it all. It could have been so much more.

TH Review's rating of Public Enemies: 3.5 stars out of five!

Iron Man 2 Review!

Once upon a time there was this little upstart comic book company called Marvel who arrived in the early sixties with a new crop of superheroes that were quite a bit different than the classic superheroes of DC comics (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc). These heroes were different in the sense that they seemed more human, more accessible, more like us...so geeky little kids who were a bit overweight like me could actually dream about turning into a superhero like Spider-man. But Marvel was smart enough to steal some of DC's best ideas like teaming up their best heroes as a super team called The Avengers in one comic book. What Marvel did comic book wise, they are now doing in a cinematic fashion....with better than average results.

Iron Man 2 is just such a wink-wink kind of film that reveals small pieces of a greater and grander story arc that keeps us watching through the endless seeming end credits....gutting through all the assistants, costumers, and CGI artists to get one last scene with a little clue towards what lies ahead. And the rest of Iron Man 2 is worth the wait to get to these little juicy asides. Iron Man 2 happens to be a worthy successor to it's 2008 predecessor.

Once again the CGI is fairly eyepopping with all the fight scenes, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) changing into his Iron Man armor, chase scenes, hot women like Gwneyth Paltrow and Scarlet Johansson..... and the usual shenanigans you would expect from a very smart action flick. But Downey Jr. always makes the difference in these films....no matter how fantasy world it all might be...Downey Jr. grounds it all very well. Computer screens suspended before him magically, are crumbled up and thrown away like baseballs or paper wads all with a comic aplomb. And the scenes with Paltrow and Downey Jr have a comic tartness of writing and delivery that reminds me fondly of the best comic team ups in Hollywood, of Tracy and Hepburn or Powell and Loy.

There is also story here as well...Stark finding out new things about his father and Stark reacting to the continued degradation of his health. It is a fine mess of a comic book/action flick movie that centers itself around Downey Jr's sometimes manic performance. Well worth the time and money to see the next chapter towards The Avengers film that must come soon!

TH Reviews rating of Iron Man 2: Four stars out of Five!

Review of 9!

Once Hollywood sinks it's teeth into something, its kind of hard to make it let go, and so it goes with the huge number of dystopian, end of the world scenarios that have recently paraded down the Mad Max pike. Thanks so much to 2012 for the grim futures it has inspired...one wonders if actually good things might happen in the future... with humanity somehow avoiding destroying itself... or otherwise creating totalitarian regimes to enslave everybody.

Now that my rant is over, the film 9 presents us with an end of the world scenario that is at least somewhat more original than most of it's overtired brethren. In this dark but beautiful, used up world, imagined by director Shane Acker, humanity destroys itself a la Terminator with a war machine basically laying the boom down with the sole exception of a scientist who has created small doll sized robots made up of metal, burlap bags, and a spark of human soul. The dolls, each named by a number in the series, 1...2...3....you get the idea, find themselves in a battle to the death when the long dead head machine is inadvertently reawakened to once again wreak havoc on any creative life spark it might find. As you might expect, the irony here is almost biblical as these slightly human creations of a human find themselves at war with an inhuman creation of a human.

The true artistry of 9 and it's originality lie in the execution of the film's overused theme of technology without human ethics is bad....the animated world of 9 is lush in it's stark, Road Warriorish beauty while the action of the characters is seamless and yet stylized...like any good thinking man's action film. The dialogue while predictable, is above average as are the vocal performances of Elijah (Frodo) Wood, John C. Reilly, and a very good Christopher Plummer. The feeling here was that if this film was made in the way it is made, say ten years ago, this might have been considered somewhat of a classic. As some reviewers have mentioned, it seems to have just missed it's mark, becoming unique in the form but not in the function. 9 never adds anything new to the end of the world mythology, except in the form that presents the quickly becoming boring themes. While remarkable in it's beauty, 9 left me shrugging my shoulders and moving on to the next cinematic Armageddon.

TH Review's rating of 9: Three out of Five stars!

Easy Rider Review!!!!

Easy Rider was and is much more than your standard Youth-Biker-Drugs-Sex exploitation flick, even though Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper had plenty of experience with these kinds of fly by night on the cheap productions. And these themes do exist aplenty in Easy Rider, but not long into the film you begin to realize that Fonda and Hopper have deeper agendas than just titillating or shocking the film audience. Released in 1969, Easy Rider might just be the seminal cinematic epitaph of the counter culture 1960's.

Easy Rider begins in Mexico where Captain America, also known as Wyatt (Fonda) and Billy (Hopper) score some Coke from the natives and transport it to LA where they sell it for cash to bankroll their motorcycle trip to New Orleans where they plan to experience Mardi Gras. We might expect a pot soaked, sex romp with the beautiful people along the way and we get a little of that, but mostly what we get is a rather scathing look at main-stream society and a sorrowful, cynical epitaph of the Age of Aquarius. While Wyatt and Billy look the part of two trippy hippies, they do enjoy the feel of cold cash in their palms in the best tradition of robber baron America. The image of Wyatt stuffing a tube containing several Ben Franklins into the star-spangled tear drop gas tank of his hog is a satiric slap not to mention phallic in the face of main-stream corporate America...an image that still resonates with this modern viewer today.

Soon the boys pick up a hitchhiking stranger, who appears to be a prophetic, almost Christ-like figure that leads them to a nearby commune in which the hippies are trying to build a community in the middle of the desert. Pragmatic and impatient Billy thinks they all are nuts trying to sow crops and raise families in the desert, but thoughtful Wyatt is drawn to the simplicity of the life and perhaps to the emotional security that he as a drifter may crave. But there is an undercurrent of despair even within this hopeful band. The boys gather around a simple meal with the squatters, one of whom says grace for the meal thanking God for a chance "to make a last stand." This whole sequence is informing of the film and story relating the death of not only the peace loving counter-culture, but perhaps the American Dream itself as it devolves into money grubbing isolationism. The John Ford inspired, Western frontier spirit represented by the two main characters Wyatt(Earp) and Billy(the Kid) seems little more than a picked over, flyblown carcass found along a nameless highway.

The boys next encounter George Hanson (Jack Nicholson) in jail after the boys are jailed for "parading without a permit" which kind of echoes Arlo Guthrie getting busted in Alice's Restaurant for dumping garbage without a permit. George, almost lovingly played by Nicholson, is a drunk lawyer with his silver spoon of privilege currently choking him to death. He gets the boys out of jail and is drawn to their quest of liberation.... biking and smoking their way to Mardi Gras. George sort of throws off the shackles of his quiet middle class lifestyle to experience the chaos and freedom of the road. He unfortunately pays for his liberation when local rednecks beat him to death in an attack on the "hippies" he is hanging with. It as if the dream of America is being beat to death along with him.

After a trippy LSD experience of wandering about New Orleans with two hookers, the boys are reflecting on their adventures around a campfire. Billy is quite satisfied, looking forward to continuing the easy life down in Florida. But Wyatt broods over their campfire, simply stating, "We blew it". Billy, along perhaps with the mystified viewer, asks what he means. I believe that Wyatt is grieving for the lost America, dedicated to losers, outcasts, and the huddled masses who yearn for a life of opportunity and freedom. Perhaps he is also mourning the death of mid-sixties' idealism or his parents' dream of a better life in the suburbs.

Whatever he means, Easy Rider is a pop culture visit to the Conrad heart of darkness that has many comic moments (especially with Nicholson), incredible scenery, and a sound track of classic Rock-n-Roll to please the greatest fan. What appears on the surface as a cheapo exploitation flick is actually an independent masterpiece that speaks a lot of truth about a legendary era.

TH Review's Rating: Five out of Five Stars!!!

Gentleman's Agreement review!

Perhaps there was just enough We Can Do It! idealism left over from WWII that Gentleman's Agreement finally got made into a blockbuster film. The best selling book had bounced around Hollywood for some time before Darryl Zanuck and Fox decided to buck the safe studio system to film this expose' of Antisemitism in polite New York society. Interesting to note that while many of the grand old studios were actually run and owned by Jewish immigrants, none of them wanted to break with the patriotic, anti-Communism sentiment of the nation in the post war years. It was dangerous anyway to make a film so critical of American society with HUAC hearings just around the corner to nab any suspicious commie types, not to mention whether anyone would actually pay money to see it.

Make the film Zanuck did and brought in first time director Elia Kazan who was on the verge of a memorable career along with worthies Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, and a personal favorite, John Garfield. The film is also in gloriously dark black and white to illustrate the shades of gray that Phil (Peck) finds as a magazine writer posing as a Jewish person to write an expose' on Antisemitism. He encounters differing levels of prejudice and outright bigotry among people in his building and among his co-workers. Even Kathy (McGuire), the liberal socialite that Phil falls in love with asks him to back off, fearing the retaliation of her social set and neighborhood. We, along with Phil, witness the more blatant bigotry of name calling and bullying, along with the more subtler kinds of exclusion such as a nearby hotel that quietly finds no vacancies for potential Jewish visitors.

While it is hard for the modern viewer to connect with these instances of bigotry and segregation against Jews in the late forties, perhaps we should substitute African Americans, Latino Americans, Asians or Gays within the category of the person different from us. Kazan's film can be as relevant to us today as we encounter the glass ceilings that are placed in the way of Americans based on race, religion, economic background or sexual preference. While at times Gentleman's Agreement can be a bit heavy handed and over dramatic in its presentation of social injustice, its message is still all too relevant and compelling for us today.

TH Reviews rating of Gentleman's Agreement: 4.5 stars out of 5!

Dead Snow Review!

Once you get about five minutes into the Norwegian Slasher/Zombie Flick, Dead Snow, you realize you have already seen five other Slasher/Zombie Flicks. This is not such a bad thing because Dead Snow culls from just about all of the best parts of the Horror films it plays tribute to. As the college age, basically good looking, sexy students trudge up a snowy hill to a remote cabin for a Spring break holiday (already sound familiar?), the geeky film buff among them starts a conversation about all the horror films that start out with the basic premise that they find themselves in...among the films are Friday the 13th and Evil Dead 1&2. And you can find very intentional traces of all those films within Dead Snow...particularly Evil Dead. What you end up with is a very gory, pretty darn scary, and awful dang hilarious Zombie Flick.

As the good looking young people pair off gradually to do what good looking young people like do with one another, namely party, they discover from an old hiker wandering by that the area they are enjoying played host to a bunch of evil Nazis who had occupied Norway during the last few years of WWII. Driven up into the mountains by the furious populace that they were basically raping, killing, and robbing, the Nazis are never heard from again. After the old hiker leaves, the kids begin to hear from the Nazis big time....this time in flesh eatin', super strong, super fast Zombie mode! The kids arm themselves with axes, chain saws, and even mount a WWII era machine gun to a snowmobile to combat the Nazi Zombie scourge.

A fun game to play while watching this film might be Spot All The Horror Film In-Jokes, because bits and pieces of many slasher and zombie horror films pop out at different times. The one liners and visual gags reminded me fondly of the second Evil Dead film with people cutting off limbs that have been zombie-bit and body parts of evil zombies flying everywhere. Dead Snow with all it's funny moments still takes time to scare the pants off you and inspire some lights being turned on and the scenery actually steals the show....breathtaking mountain and forest scenes that looked as if they were filmed on location in Norway. It would be a skier's paradise if it were not for all the Nazi Zombies out for lunch all the time.

Let the normal viewer beware and gore hounds take notice....Dead Snow is bloody gore piled upon bloody gore with particular attention given to the large intestines. But all of this simply serves the absurdity of it all. While not particularly original, Dead Snow still has a lot of fun with all the stuff it rips off!

TH Reviews rating of Dead Snow: 3.5 stars out of 5 stars!

The African Queen movie review!

If you have ever loved mid-life romances in film, like The Bridges of Madison County, you might have to thank a film like The African Queen, John Huston's wonderful adaptation of C.S. Forester's classic novel. Two of Hollywood's finest and most legendary stars, Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart, are teamed up for the first.... and alas, the last time of their careers, and it is a shining moment for the fans of either of these great actors.

The African Queen begins with Rose, played by Hepburn and her brother, played chillingly by Robert Morley, as Methodist missionaries serving a native village in East Africa dominated by the Germans at the beginning of the First World War. While conditions are grim, the two seem to have found their place in life until the German army shows up to forcibly enlist the villagers and burn the village. Robert Morley makes a quick but memorable exit as he proceeds to have a nervous breakdown and dies. Virginal and innocent Hepburn is left to face the unknown dangers of the dark continent.

At this time, Bogart appears, a broken down riverboat captain with an even more broken down riverboat named The African Queen. He is named Charley and is the lifeline for Rose and her brother to the outside world. Now he represents her only hope of escape....and also revenge against the German Army. Charley tells her that the British would have a much easier time of invading East Africa if the Battleship Steamer Louisa in Lake Tanganyika at the mouth of the river could be removed. Charley reluctantly agrees to Rose's plan of shooting the rapids of the river, avoiding a German fort on the same river, and arming The African Queen with homemade torpedoes to destroy the German Steamer.

As they travel down river and face ever more serious peril, these two strong minded people begin to develop first respect for one another and then a very unlikely romance begins to spring up. No less a barrier than class distinctions is overcome, she an English blue-blood missionary and he a Canadian of a disreputable background and of course their differing moralistic outlooks. Perhaps the nadir of their relationship, if not the most hilarious is when Rose dumps Charley's supply of Gin overboard after the drunken captain refuses to go through with their plan. This is also a watershed moment of their relationship as Charley begins to realize his need for her acceptance and Rose understanding the depth of his courage and integrity.

And soon, these two lovable losers begin to find love for one another...almost desperately as each intuitively realizes this is their last shot at love. A sweet September-September romance blossoms between them that is bewitching and compelling to watch, particularly Rose who is discovering a sense of her own sexual awareness and desire. Hepburn is magnificent at this with her longing, yet trembling glances at Bogart. For Bogart's part, he too is never better....breaking out of his cool, world weary mercenary, to deliver a character who is unsure of himself, lonely, and perhaps questioning the choices he has made. Each of these flawed people cling to each other in desperation and become greater human beings for the experience.

Huston is at the apex and maturity of his direction, wringing the most grand performances from his actors and from the rich, colorful cinematography of filming on location. While on location, the entire cast and crew struggled mightily with conditions on the river, sickness, and encounters with dangerous wild life to produce a grand yet intimate epic of adventure and romance. Who says forty or fifty something folks can't be sexy....Hepburn and Bogart are almost magically sexy here!

TH Reviews rating: 5 stars out of 5...highly recommended!