The Weapon (2023)

This is one I've had in my "to-review" box for a while--if that box even exists. I'm not sure what it would even be, like an old Amazon box? "Why do we have this Amazon box sitting around?" "It's my 'to-review' box." "But it's empty." "Of course, this is all done virtually. Duh." This was also featured in episode 135 of the pod, which I did with Ty from Comeuppance back in October of 2023.

The Weapon is something of a Tony Schiena vanity project starring him, directed by him, and co-written by him. He plays Dallas Ultio, some enforcer for a secret organization, but he also has a beef with bikers because they beat his dad to death when he was a kid. As he's taking down bikers, the woman in his life, AnnaLynne McCord, is kidnapped by Richard Grieco, and he's holding her in some bunker he has. This will be Dallas's biggest challenge yet, but he has a bunch of names here to help him in one- or two-scene cameos so their names can be added to the tin.

And it's those names that manage to keep this thing afloat, but ultimately can't fully save it--though that may actually play in its favor as well. This had potential, but it had too many moving parts, and was tonally off in spots. The scene from Schiena's past where as a kid he watches his dad get beaten to death by a biker was funny, and I know it wasn't meant to be. There's another scene where Schiena burns crooked cop Randall Batinkoff alive that didn't do anything to help Schiena's character. This wasn't like they were fighting and in the course of battle set him ablaze, he had Batinkoff tied to some scaffolding or something. Always love heroes setting helpless baddies on fire. Then we have AnnaLyne McCord screaming about something out of nowhere near the end. It was like, are you in the right movie? While we did have some good fights, even that seemed off, like sometimes Schiena was an unstoppable force, others--for the convenience of the plot I guess--he could be taken out rather easily. On the other hand, as a vanity project, there's an earnestness to this that makes it work in spite of itself in a so-bad-it's-good vein. Schiena wants this to work, he isn't just pulling in a bunch of names to put on the tin so he can sell it, and that earnestness does make it endearing despite all the shortcomings. Also, those names I mentioned helped, especially at the very end when we had Jeff Fahey and Bruce Dern seemingly riffing off each other. We've seen a lot worse here, and we've also seen better, but overall I think this works in a low-budget schlock way, like a Samurai Cop kind of thing, which at 85 minutes for free on Tubi may get you to the church on time.

I didn't realize this, but this is actually the fourth time we've seen Tony Schiena on the site, the last two times being Circle of Pain and Locked Down in late 2010, both films directed by the late Daniel Zirilli. (If you're wondering, the other time was the Van Damme flick Wake of Death, which we did in 2007.) As an action lead he's solid enough, but this is where we get the ol' vanity project catch-22: he's not a high-enough tier of star to get the lead roles in bigger DTV action flicks, so he's forced into making his own vanity projects if he wants the better roles, but those vanity projects are going to end up like this. I was looking at his filmography on IMDb, and he doesn't have much since 2010's Locked Down, so it sounds about right that something like this that he directs and co-writes is the only way he's going to get the work he wants, and somehow he's able to lump a bunch of names in and that gets the thing funded, and having those names gets me and Ty to cover it on the pod and me to review it here.

And boy did we have names. I mentioned Richard Grieco, who looks like a cross between someone cosplaying John Wick and Alice Cooper in the "Poison" video--more on that below. How fantastic is that? This is now 7 films for him on the DTVC. We also have Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. in a one-scene cameo as some kind of mysterious blind man. Your guess is as good as mine, but that one scene now makes 13 films for him on the site, which might be the most by an Oscar winner. While he hasn't won an Oscar, Bruce Dern has been nominated twice, and has become something of a darling on the DTVC podcast episodes I do with Ty. His scene at the end of this with Jeff Fahey is fantastic, the best moment of the movie, which left us with a feeling of "where have you been all our lives? We needed you earlier!" This makes 11 for Fahey, which seems low for him, but it makes sense when you consider we don't really seek out more Fahey, he just happens when we're watching a movie with someone else that also has him in it.

Back when I reviewed Lady Terror for director/writer/star Nathan Hill, I talked about how I didn't get the joke right away, because we see so many vanity project movies that look like that one but are completely serious and being played completely straight, and while I think this isn't the worst of those, it does have those moments that would have me thinking I missed the joke in Hill's film. There were also moments though where I liked Schiena and was rooting for him, so it wasn't all bad. But therein lies the rub, I guess: it's hard to root for a guy when you know he's making a movie to make himself the hero. It almost would be better, if a vanity project is going to play it straight, to have the writer/director person be the baddie, and bring on someone else to be the hero. There isn't as much side eye there, or "oh aren't you so great" cynicism on the part of the watcher. Making a movie, no matter how good or bad, is an accomplishment in itself, and I think from a vanity project standpoint, taking as much of the "vanity" out of it can really help and get us to appreciate more the mere accomplishment of it. By the same token, Ty and I discussed on the podcast how sometimes the vanity project is what gives us that earnestness that makes it work in spite of itself, because Schiena wants this to be good, so maybe vanity projects aren't all bad if they're giving us the so-bad-it's-good element.

Finally, I recently put our podcast on the DTV Connoisseur YouTube page. In the process, YouTube was going through the episodes to see if any had potential copyrighted material. There were some from the early iteration with Jamie that were flagged because I had included Wham's "Last Christmas" in the intros when we were recording them around Christmastime. That made sense, but when I saw that this episode was flagged for Alice Cooper's "Poison," it didn't make any sense. I mentioned it to Ty, and he reminded me that he played the opening to it when we were talking about how much Grieco looked like him in this film. He even asked "is it okay to play this on here?"--which for a Spotify podcast it was, but YouTube caught it right away. What that means is, if you do check the podcast out on YouTube, this episode won't be on there.

But that's okay, you can still find it on Spotify, iTunes, and other major podcatchers, episode 135 in the archives. As far as the movie goes, Tubi is the way to go. This is a schlock bad actioner that kind of works in a Samurai Cop so-bad-it's-good kind of way, which might be enough for you.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18228142

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.

Machete Kills (2013)

This is one I've been meaning to do for a while, and on some levels wished I'd seen in the theater, because I enjoyed Machete so much. Alas, I often don't get to the theater at all for any movies, so why would this film be an exception. When I mentioned it to Jamie, her response was a little tepid, and I found out after it was because many people didn't like this at all. I had no idea there was this kind of vitriol targeted at the film--I guess I've been living under a rock for too long. Two guys that haven't been living under a rock and who have also looked at this are Fred from Full Moon Reviews and Mitch from The Video Vacuum, so you can go there and see what they both thought. They're both great friends of the blog and former guests on the podcast.

Machete Kills picks up where the first one left off. Jessica Alba is killed, which leaves our eponymous hero, played again by Danny Trejo, upset and ready to take it out on some people. Our President, played by Charlie Sheen(Estevez), allows Mr. Trejo that chance, by having him take out a Mexican separatist who has a nuclear bomb aimed at the White House. But things aren't as they seem--as they never are--and Mel Gibson is involved, which makes things worse.

I really enjoyed this movie, as did Jamie. I'm not sure why this was so vituperated against then; I don't know if it was the inclusion of Lady Gaga as an assassin, or Sophia Vergara as a screaming woman, or maybe the fact that Robert Rodriguez stuck it to the fan boys by distorting the image when Amber Heard had her love scene with Trejo, thus preventing them from seeing anything good. For me, this was a great action-fest with all the fun of the previous one. Maybe that's it, people were like "I've seen this before" or, "I liked it better when it was called Machete." Either way, it worked for us.

Let's start with Mr. Trejo. He gets this part and gets what he's supposed to do with it. That's why it works so well. He never overdoes it, yet he's never not believable. We've done over 20 Trejo films here at the DTVC, and the vast majority of them are him playing small parts or even just one scene cameos--the best small part of which by far is when he gave Jean-Claude Van Damme a foot massage in Desert Heat--but when he gets a good look at the lead with a good story and a lot of fun action, he nails it, which is great to see.

I wanted to go next to Mr. Sheen aka Mr. Estevez, as he takes on the role his father once held so well in The West Wing. Again, he gets what's required of him here and he plays the part perfectly. I was trying to think, of all the Presidents we've seen here, who is the best. We have Jerry Springer in the Dolph film The Defender. We also had DTVC Hall of Famer Rutger Hauer in the film Scorcher. One thing that's great about both of those is that neither man was born in the US. I think Sheen should go right in there with them as some of the best we've seen here at the DTVC. Also, special mention needs to go to the late Roy Scheider, who has played the president here a couple times, including another Dolph film, The Peacekeeper.

This film is rife with cameos and guest spots. Of course, we had Michelle Rodriguez reprising her role from the first one, which was great to see. Amber Heard, who we have seen here before in And Soon the Darkness. Antonio Banderas was also here, and we've seen him before in The Big Bang. Finally, from last week's film The Frozen Ground, we had Vanessa Hudgens, an actress I thought we'd never see here who's been great in both films. A lot of DTVC alums. One who wasn't an alum, and someone who had the distinction of being the most problematic member of the cast, was Mel Gibson as the baddie. It was a weird thing, because on the one hand I'm seeing everything we loved about him as one of the top leading men in the 80s and 90s, and part of me was enjoying that; but on the other hand, it's just Mel Gibson with all his anti-Semitic grossness on full display, and the problem with him being a baddie is he gets to retain that grossness, which doesn't help. I guess I'm torn on which way to go on that.

For my third picture on the post I had a lot of places I could go. With only three pictures on the main review page per post and the others relegated to the image page; and a film like this with so many names, it's hard to narrow it down. We knew Trejo would be one; and then I liked the idea of doing a paragraph on Presidents in DTVC films, so that was 2; but for three, it could have been anyone. I decided to go with Cuba Gooding Jr., because this is a guy we've been seeing here at the DTVC for some time getting after it in the DTV world because he can't get the parts he wants in Hollywood anymore despite being an Oscar winning actor. It would have been a crime to not recognize him here. The crime might have been that he had such a small part, as I would have liked to have seen him do more; but overall it was good to see him in this flick.

So that wraps things up. This is a yes for Jamie and me. Fun, all the action of the original, and a slew of cameos. Sign me up for number three--just not in the theater, I'll wait till it's on Netflix Instant. You can always check out the pod by going to the sidebar and clicking the link to the podcatcher you prefer.

For more information: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2002718/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

The Hit List (2011)

This is one I've been looking to do for a long time, and now that it's on Netflix Instant, it was a no-brainer.  It's always good to make our way through more of Cuba Gooding Jr.'s DTV oeuvre, and he seems to be getting better with his stay at the DTV Hotel, even rubbing shoulders with long time residents like Dolph Lundgren.  Let's see how this one turned out.  Also, our friends at The Video Vacuum and Explosive Action have looked at this one too, so you can go there to check those out.

The Hit List has Gooding as a government hit man suffering from a terminal illness he got from his contact with depleted uranium.  He decides to go out with a bang, starting with the murder of a popular right wing TV pundit.  He then bumps into Cole Hauser at a bar, right after Hauser gets passed over for a promotion at his job because a rival stole his idea, and he catches his wife in bed with his best friend.  After a few pops, Gooding suggests he make a list of five people he wants dead, and Hauser, thinking this a joke, obliges.  Problem is, Gooding wasn't kidding, and now Hauser has to stop him before he kills all the people on the list.



This is a tough one.  On the one hand, you had this great Hitchcockian Strangers on a Train dynamic, which was made all the better with Gooding's amazing, chilling performance.  On the other, we had this bad action element that, at best came off silly, and at worst-- especially at the end-- completely derailed the film. This needed to be reeled in, stripped down, and instead of silly bad action, focused on the performances of Gooding, Hauser, and Jonathan LaPaglia, who played the police detective.  Now I realize in saying that that I usually applaud bad action, and this is exactly the kind of thing PM Entertainment would've done with a movie like this, probably with Wings Hauser in Gooding's role, and probably with tons of bad, unabashed action goodness.  I think what would've made the PM Entertainment one better though, is it would've hinted at the Hitchcockian thriller aspect, but gone right for the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink action aspect.  This movie went more for the Hitchcockian aspect, and devolved into the bad action, which for me is why it ultimately doesn't work.  But it's a close call.

And it's a close call primarily on the strength of Cuba Gooding Jr.  This is your Oscar winner right here.  I think too that, because of how he was typecast in Hollywood, this is the kind of role he wouldn't have gotten in a big budget picture, but that he's allowed to do here in the world of DTV-- which is probably why he does DTV flicks.  The other thing is that this is one of the few DTV flicks that had enough meat on it that he could really take this role and flex his acting muscle-- though even then the bad action devolution hurt him too.  The key is, he knows how to make crazy scary, not silly, and the result is something downright chilling.  This is easily his best DTV performance.



I couldn't help thinking that Cole Hauser's father would've been great in Gooding's role.  How many psychos has Wings played?  And he's always great as one too, isn't he?  I had no idea that Cole is as young as he is.  He's only like four years older than me.  I think his part was hurt even more by the bad action than Gooding's.  I would've preferred a real suspense thriller ratcheting up of the tension in his life due to Gooding killing everyone, as opposed to this silly bad action construct where everything devolves out of control.  It essentially lets Hauser's character off the hook, which I think was an easy way out.

Let's look at the devolution, because I'm not sure the film makers knew what they were doing here.  First off, 18-20 police officers are killed off.  How are Hauser and his wife's characters' lives more important than theirs?  Just because they're the stars?  It got a little ridiculous.  Second, the news report after the denouement calls the massacre a "hostage situation", again acting like the only bad thing that happened was the trouble Hauser and his wife went through.  20 innocent police officers were massacred, that's the story.  24 hours of death and destruction carried out by Gooding's character, not Hauser and his hit list.  And when we think about the way mass shootings are covered, it would be called the Tragedy in Spokane, and sporting events would commemorate it and honor the victims with patches on their shirts, along with concerts held to raise money for the victim's families and rebuilding the police station.  I'm not poking fun at how we deal with tragedy, I'm making the point that this film devolved to such a degree, that what happened to our main characters became secondary by a wide margin.



There are two other actors I want to mention in this before I wrap this up.  First, Jonathan LaPaglia, brother Anthony, played the detective investigating the case.  In a Hitchcockian thriller, he would've been a great character, piecing together the evidence, a real Film Noirish type hero.  Here, because things moved so fast, he's really solving everything right away, and never gets to be what he should've been, despite the fact that before the bad action aspect takes over, he really was that detective we wanted.  The second is Ginny Weirick, who played Hauser's wife.  I thought she looked familiar, and found out she was in the George Takei flick Ninja Cheerleaders, as one of the cheerleaders.  Even her character starts out great, and then as the film goes on the writing lets her down, especially through a plot twist that I felt removed a lot of the nuance from her character.

All right, enough of this, let's wrap things up.  Cuba Gooding Jr. is great here, and the film starts out in a really solid way.  For me, the bad action element was enough to derail it, but might not be for some.  I think the availability on Netflix Instant, combined with a nice 90-minute running time, make it worth a look just to see how good Gooding can be, and what a true bonus it is for us that Hollywood can't give him the roles he wants, so he's forced to do DTV movies.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1575694/

One in the Chamber (2012)

 Like any huge Dolph Lundgren fan, when I first got word that this flick was on the horizon, I got stoked.  Dolph and Cuba Gooding Jr.?  It just sounds fantastic, right?  But how many times have we been burned before?  How many times have we thought we had a sure thing, something even the worst DTV film maker couldn't screw up, only to have said DTV film maker screw it up.  All we can do is cross our fingers, and hope this lived up to its billing. One in the Chamber stars Gooding as Ray Carver, one of the greatest short story writers-- oh wait, sorry, wrong Ray Carver, this one is a mob assassin working in Prague.  He tries to off Russian mobster Louis Mandylor, but the bastard uses a woman as a human shield and escapes.  Now it's on, there's an all-out mob war, and competing Russian assassin Dolph Lundgren is called in to clean up the job Gooding left unfinished, while Gooding is killing his old employers for Mandylor.  If it sounds like a collision course to wackiness, it is, plus there's a subplot about a cute cafe owner who inevitably finds herself a damsel in distress.



This is what I was looking for.  Gooding was solid, and Dolph was fantastic.  The plot was pretty run-of-the-mill Eastern European schlock-fest, but it never tried too hard to force its way out of that, which I appreciated.  We've seen too many try too hard for credibility, and go off the rails with a gross torture scene, or too much character exposition.  Beyond a few scenes with the mob bosses that didn't have either Gooding or Dolph that I could've done without, this kept a pretty decent pace and gave us DTV action fans what we wanted.  An all around great time. Like I said the Dolph in here is fantastic.  It's as if this guy knows what we like from him, and knows how to deliver, and he's only gotten better as he's gone along.  He plays this fantastic character called "The Wolf"-- a name which he of course doesn't like because he thinks it's cliche-- who wears bad Hawaiian shirts and listens to Frank Sinatra music.  His first scene is so amazing, and it just gets better as he goes along.  So many times when an actor gives us the wink-wink nudge-nudge, he ruins the part because he's too in on the joke.  Not true here.  Dolph tells us he's having as much fun playing this part as we are watching him, and it makes it all the more enjoyable.  A definite add to your next Dolph Fest.



I must confess I have fallen a bit behind on Mr. Gooding Jr.'s DTV oeuvre, so I can't say for sure if this is his best DTV effort, but it feels like it.  He fits in the role well, there's nothing about it that feels forced or fatuous, and while that gives me less here to make fun of, it's a lot of fun to watch.  And while he and Dolph don't have many scenes on-screen together, the ones they do have are great.  While in the past we joked about Cuba Gooding Jr.'s stay in the DTV Hotel, I'm beginning to think this might be the best place for him to be the actor he wants to be.  Hey, Daddy Day Camp and Snow Dogs were released in the theater, and I can't imagine he's prouder of those than he is this here, or some of his other recent DTV work. Rounding out the cast, we had the aforementioned Mandylor, affecting a funny Russian accent.  I think if we're talking Mandylor brothers, I'm more of a Costas guy, but really, who's counting?  Cuba's assassin handler was played by veteran Brit actor Billy Murray, and he's plenty sleazy with a nice ponytail to boot.  The female lead was played by Claudia Bassols, who has had the pleasure of playing Rob Schneider's wife in his short-lived eponymous sitcom.  I wonder why that one didn't work, wasn't there room for another bad comedy about a gross guy and his hot wife?  I didn't think we had enough of those.



I have recently entered into the world of the smartphone.  I know, welcome to the 21st century Matt.  This film takes great advantage of the smartphone, where our characters have apps on their phones that allow them to set off car bombs and look through surveillance cameras they set up in betting houses they planned to hit.  At the same time though, they went low-tech with Gooding's apartment, with some vintage accoutrements, like an old radio.  Being a set designer for a one of these Eastern European flicks must be a lot of fun, with the great combination of old and new around-- though I'm sure there's a lot of emphasis on getting things done quick and cheap, so maybe it sucks.

 What doesn't suck is One in the Chamber.  It's fantastic, and well worth your time.  As of this posting, it isn't available on Netflix Instant, but you can rent it, or, if you're a huge Dolph fan like me, I'd buy it.  This is definitely that one that lived up to its billing, and you'll want in your collection.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1881024/

Dirty (2005)

It's time to roll up our sleeves and get a little Dirty with Cuba Gooding Jr. Netflix was dumping this from Watch Instantly (along with a ton of others on October 1, 2011-- they just keep upping the prices and lowering the quality, don't they?), and considering I have to pay more for only one DVD a month now, I needed to get this done on Watch Instantly and not waste a DVD slot if at all possible.

Dirty is actually centered around Clifton Collins Jr., a former gang member and now gang task force cop, whose partner is Cuba Gooding Jr., a crazy dude who's looking to come up in the game, but might not actually have the game to get there. The two of them are sent by their superiors, Keith David and Cole Hauser, to get evidence locker drugs, and sell them to some Canadian Hell's Angels for Wyclef Jean, only in reality they're supposed to bust them, and take the drugs and the money. Something goes wrong though, and Collins's old gang members are helping the Canadians. Is this all a set-up? Oh yeah, and Collins is trying to go clean and set up a deal with IA. Could this have something to do with that?



This could've been good, but it had three main drawbacks that torpedoed it. First, it had an excruciatingly slow beginning, and almost nothing happens in the first 40 minutes outside of Cuba Gooding Jr. pulling over an older rich couple and harassing them-- the wife just happens to be Gates McFadden. Anyway, this slow start makes the first 40 minutes feel like 90. Then, when it does get going, we're treated to sea sick cam. All over the place, can't hold a frame for two seconds, subjects are in and out of focus, moving all over the shot. Any action is marred by rapid jumpcuts and odd edits. Finally, the end is sauteed in wrong sauce. I'm going to give it away because it's so bad: Clifton Collins Jr. turns into a ghost. Huh? All of that is too bad, because it wastes some really great performances, especially from Gooding, Collins, Wyclef, and Keith David. I don't know what this movie was going for, what its message was, but it was all over the map. A film like this needs to be reigned in, simplified, and allowed to lean on the talent.

And speaking of that talent, Cuba Gooding Jr. shows why he has that Oscar. This isn't him parroting Denzel Washington in Training Day, this is him getting to the nuts and bolts of what this character is about, and not leaving out a single detail in any scene. There's the insanity, the harsh gangster bravado, yet at the same time the cowardice of a fugazi player. You can hear it and see it in everything he does. I don't blame him for taking a role like this in a DTV flick when his other options are things like Snow Dogs. By all means, stretch that range, and hopefully, bigger productions or higher quality indie flicks will come back to you and let you do your thing on a bigger stage.



I know I rail against bad, gimmicky camerwork a lot on here, but in a movie like this, it makes the least sense. This is no TapOut film, this is supposed to be taken seriously, and I just don't know how we can be expected to. And this wasn't so much shaky cam as it was sea sick cam, where it's just moving and bobbing all over the place. There should be a Dramamine warning on the cover. These are all pretty good actors, how hard is it to just train the camera on them and let us watch them work. In the moments when the cinematography was less all over the place, those were some of the best parts of the film.

Another thing that baffled me was why Cliffton Collins Jr. was doing the voice overs when they had one of the foremost voice actors in the world in Keith David. I get that they wanted it to be from Collins's perspective, but to make it from Keith David's as a form of wise man that's seen it all before, and at the same time remove the ghost aspect-- at least at the end with Collins--, this could've jumped in quality right away. It's moves like this that keep a film closer to the schlock DTV side of the spectrum, as opposed to the hidden gem DTV indie find side of the spectrum.



When last we saw Gates McFadden, she was in Make the Yuletide Gay, a film I picked for Christmas back in 2009. She only had a slightly bigger role in that than she did in this. Here, she and her husband are lost in a bad part of LA, and Clifton Collins Jr. tries to offer assistance. Then her husband makes a crack about how he can't understand Collins due to his accent, and Cuba gets pissed and has the guy exit his vehicle and lay across the hood while he goes inside and sexually harasses Gates and takes the guy's PDA from his glovebox. Hey, any Gates is good Gates, that's what I always say.

The only redeeming quality for this is how good Cuba Gooding Jr. is, but I'm not sure that's enough. This is slow at first, then sea sick inducing, and finally just plain weird to finish. Too bad, because Gooding wasn't the only great performance, but none of the actors could carry the material.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0439544/

Shadowboxer (2005)

As we move through Cuba Gooding Jr.'s DTV oeuvre, we find this potential gem. It grossed about $300,000, meaning it had a very limited theatrical run; and with the great cast, and the fact that it was directed by Lee Daniels, it looked like a shoe-in for one of those fell through the cracks kind of deals.

Shadowboxer has Helen Mirren and Cuba Gooding Jr. as a pair of assassins. Mirren is both his adopted mother and his lover, but she's dying of cancer, and Gooding hasn't accepted the fact that he may have to do without her. That's when they both are hired to do a hit for crime boss Stephen Dorff, involving wiping out pretty much his entire gang, and his pregnant wife. Mirren, though, takes pity on the pregnant wife, especially when the girl's water breaks in front of her and she has to deliver the baby. This puts in motion a series of events where Mirren and Gooding take the girl and the baby to a remote location and tell Dorff that she's dead. From there, Mirren's life is ending, and Gooding wants her all to himself, not wanting to share her with the girl and the baby. And there's still Stephen Dorff out there too.



So if you didn't guess from the synopsis, this is based on the Oedipus Complex, only it strays from the usual paradigm by having the friction come not with the young man choosing the normal life with the young girl over the older woman, but instead the young man wanting to maintain the status quo with his older lady, and her wanting the normal life with the younger girl. For the first hour or so, this works well, with not only the interplay between Mirren and Gooding, but also the chilling nature of some of Gooding's kills-- the one with Macy Gray especially. Throw in Dorff as a great baddie, and supporting parts by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Mo'Nique, and things were looking pretty good. But then it comes off the rails a bit, devolves into a paint-by-numbers bad Noir-ish yarn, and the only attempt to raise it from that baseness is to go either macabre, weird, or both, all of which feels grafted on. I get why the film went in the direction it did, because it had a specific ending falling in with the Oedipal paradigm that it wanted, but with a 93 minute running time, to have as a big a chunk as 30 minutes of it be blah, really detracts from the rest of it too much for me, which was too bad, because I really wanted to like it.

This is an interesting area for Mr. Gooding Jr.'s career, because you have three or four like this, extremely limited release films that made a couple hundred thou then went to video; then he moves onto Norbit and Daddy Day Camp, and that's it, DTV and a few small parts in big screen flicks from there on. This is an interesting one, though, because it's at the very start of that, and it has three Oscar winners-- though at the time Gooding was only who had won yet. I gotta think that Lee Daniels and his recent success with Precious will call back Gooding and get him in one of his films. Of course, we don't want Gooding to leave just yet, he still has a movie with Dolph Lundgren to make.



Who'd'a thunk we'd be reviewing a flick with Helen Mirren in it? I guess if you review these movies enough you'll find almost anybody. I want to be able say that she's too good for this movie, that she way out acted everyone, but I can't. Yes, she was great, but so were Cuba, Dorff, Gordon-Levitt, and Mo'Nique. The talent alone almost elevated this to that next level, but again, it was let down by a lackluster last half hour.

Stephen Dorff makes an excellent baddie. I'm not sure if we've ever covered that on here before. He actually won for best villain at both the Blockbuster Movie Awards and MTV Movie Awards for Blade. (Yes, I know those aren't real award shows, just excuses to get celebrities into a room to sell ads.) It's ironic then that this is the first Dorff film we've done where he plays a villain, the other three having him as a hero. Wonders never cease here at the DTVC.



I love Joseph Gordon-Levitt, which I think I brought up before in The Road Killers, a Christopher Lambert flick we did about 2 years ago. He's much better here as the doctor who does work for the underworld. His character also carries on a relationship with Mo'Nique. All of it was really cool, and enhanced the film, only to fall off in a very predictable plot development, something we saw coming miles away once the film shifted into blah mode at the hour mark.

All right, I know most of the DTVC audience will not enjoy this due to the enormous lack of action. An attempt to turn the Oedipal paradigm on its ear through Helen Mirren and Cuba Gooding Jr.'s relationship is probably better suited for my Tumblr blog; but it's near DTV existence makes it prime for review here, plus its packaging makes it look like it's marketed to the DTV action market. Either way, it doesn't work, and I guess the only issue is how much it doesn't work for you.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0396857/

The Devil's Tomb (2009)

My Netflix Instant Queue is a big void where movies available on Watch Instantly get dumped, often never to be seen again, at least until Netflix decides it wants to remove a film, and then I have to decide if I want to watch the movie before it gets the ax, or let it go and get it later on DVD. I almost never want to resort to the latter, so when this Cuba Gooding Jr. flick The Devil's Tomb was set to be removed, I bumped it up in the rotation to get it in and avoid having to use a DVD slot for it.

The Devil's Tomb has Gooding Jr. as the leader of some special ops wet-works team sent to extract Ron Perlman from some underground research facility in Afghanistan. When they get down there though, things aren't what they seem, as gross dudes with gross sores start coming out of the woodwork, quoting scripture and spitting black grossness on people. To make matters worse, Gooding's team start hallucinating. And then, Henry Rollins shows up, overacting more than a rapper in his first film role-- that might be the scariest thing of all...



I don't know, bad horror I guess, that's what this is, but not fun bad horror, more like dreary derivative bad horror. The religious bent made it even weirder. Gooding Jr., along with Perlman, and Ray Winstone in a small part, try their best to save this from blah-dom, but it was too much of an uphill battle. You've seen this before, and you've seen it better before.

This movie, perhaps more than any of Cuba Gooding Jr's DTV stuff we've done on here, really shows how much better an actor he is than the material he's forced to work with. If it wasn't for Perlman and Winstone, I would've felt really bad for him, but he had those two to share in his misery. Word on the street, if imdb is to be believed, Gooding is attached to a project called One in the Chamber, co-starring the Babe Ruth of DTV, Dolph Lundgren! I can't think of a better guy for Gooding to learn under as he gets the hang of this whole DTV thing-- of course, my posts are littered with mentions of upcoming projects that two or three years later I look back in the archives and am like "wow, that one never happened." Cross your fingers.



This is directed by Sean Connery's son. He didn't do a bad job, this just wasn't a really great or original concept, so it just was what it was. I don't even know if an assist from his dad could've saved it. Maybe, if they tweaked the script some, and had Gooding play an immortal from the Highlands of Scotland named Cuba MacLeod. "You can't die Macleod."

This had a few other recognizable names. Jason London, not to be confused with his twin brother Jeremy, Taryn Manning, and Henry Rollins were probably this biggest. I don't really know what to make of Henry Rollins, not just in this, but period. I know people who think he's the bee's knees, so maybe it's more me than it is him. I will say he was guilty of overacting in The Devil's Tomb, which meant I knew even less what to make of him.



I have a habit of calling Ron Perlman Bruce, I guess mixing him up with former Tennessee head basketball coach Bruce Pearl. I bet as I go back through this to proofread, I'll find some "Bruce Pearlmans" that need fixing-- and I may even miss some! I know upon seeing that the queue is starting with people wanting to hit me with the corrections comments: "you know, his name's RON, not BRUCE, duh!", and I could call him Ron for 90% of the post, but one Bruce, and boom, there's the comment letting me know.

All right, before I alienate all of my readers who scan my posts for brainfarts they can jump on-- hey, they still count as traffic and comments, so keep up the good work!-- I'll wrap this up. This film's days are numbered on Watch Instantly, but DVD is still an option, though I'm not so sure that's a good thing. Also, the Watch Instantly version was in full screen, but maybe this was originally Made for TV and no TV channel wanted it, as opposed to crammed into Pan and Scan from a widescreen cut. For our UK readers, our friend Lee Nicholson at Straight to DVD Heaven mentioned in the Sacrifice post that this finally came out on DVD over there. We wait for Seagal flicks, they wait for Cuba Gooding Jr. flicks, go figure.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1147687/

Sacrifice (2011)

This DTV bad boy starring Cuba Gooding Jr., Christian Slater, and Kim Coates came out recently and went straight to Netflix Watch Instantly, so it was high on my radar. We've seen recent DTV flicks starring various combinations of this trio not quite do it, so I was hoping all three would be enough to get us to the church on time. Let's see.

Sacrifice takes place in Toronto, and centers around a narcotics cop, Gooding, whose wife and daughter were murdered by men hired by a dude whom he put away; a priest, Slater, looking for meaning in his life after he was the lone survivor of a special forces unit in Afghanistan that was hit by a bomb; a kid looking to get out of the drug cartel he's been working for; and Kim Coates as the head of that cartel. All these people are brought together when the kid steals a statue of the Virgin Mary made out of heroin, which he's hidden in plain sight in Slater's church. He's killed by Coates's men, leaving behind a 5-year-old sister who is taken in by Gooding, only to be kidnapped by Coates's men in order to find his statue. Now Slater and Gooding have to work together to get the girl back and bring Coates to justice.



This was one of those that 15-20 minutes in, I was like "wow, I'm only 15-20 minutes in? It feels like an hour!" I was actually feeling bad for Gooding and Slater, because this looked and felt so bad. It was like one of those low-budget Lifetime movies made on the cheap in Canada with a bunch of Soap stars from here in the States combined with character actors from British Columbia. But then it shifted. The story took on depth and nuance. Slater, Gooding, and Coates were turning in great performances, and the material was keeping up with them. Overall, this film really worked for me, and was a pleasant surprise after the slow opening.

There's a scene where the 5-year-old asks Cuba Gooding Jr. to tell her a story. "Once upon a time, there was a big Hollywood star who won an Oscar and everything. Then he did a movie called Snow Dogs and a movie called Daddy Day Camp, and suddenly, no one was returning his agent's phone calls and no one was sending him scripts, other than people pitching DTV projects." We kid because we love Mr. Gooding Jr., and it can't be that bad at the DTV Hotel when you have neighbors like Val Kilmer and Christian Slater. Even though this movie did end up being really good, the quality of the film stock and whatnot really gave it that low-rent Lifetime movie look that made me feel bad for him. This guy won an Oscar, he really should be making big budget Hollywood flicks or high-quality independent movies-- but while he's here at the DTV Hotel, we're going to do our best to make his stay as nice as possible.



Speaking of Christian Slater, this is now our third of his DTV movies to make it to the DTVC. Like Cuba Gooding Jr., seeing him in these movies is odd, but it's a different kind of odd. With Slater, his voice is so classic, and so recognizable that I can't divorce it from all his great roles I remember growing up. If anyone could be a priest who was a former special forces soldier in Afghanistan, it's him.

The director of Sacrifice was Damian Lee. He's responsible for four other films we've reviewed at the DTVC: Ski School, Moving Target (Dudikoff, not Wilson), Terminal Rush, and Agent Red; plus he has a few others that are in need of reviews eventually, like Abraxas and a Don "The Dragon" Wilson flick called Paper Trail. I wonder how he felt to be working with Gooding and Slater after Dolph Lundgren.



DTVC favorite Kim Coates is back, and he's pretty good as the dude running the drug cartel-- but do you expect anything less from Kim Coates? Also, should we be surprised he's an acting machine, considering he hails from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan? Rowdy Roddy Piper is also from that great city. I've personally never been-- in fact never been to Canada period-- but I'd love to check it out. Hey, if it's good enough for Kim Coates and Roddy Piper, it's good enough for me.

I say go for it with this one. Yes, the beginning is a bit of a drag, but this is a pretty solid and entertaining film overall. I'm not sure what its availability is outside of the US at this moment, but here in the States it was just released on DVD, plus it's available on Netflix Watch Instantly, which makes it less of a risk. It's worth checking out.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1630564/

Hero Wanted (2008)

It's been a while since we've done a Cuba Gooding Jr. film here at the DTVC, and Hero Wanted, because it also stars Ray Liotta, has been on my radar for some time. When it made it to Watch Instantly, I figured I had no more excuses. Besides, Cuba's DTV output is picking up, I need to stay caught up with him!

Hero Wanted is a convoluted tale about a man, CBJ, who is a shell of himself after his wife dies. Then he saves a girl's life from a burning car, and things change. After seeing an innocent woman shot in a bank robbery gone bad, he decides to avenge her shooting by taking out the robbers, one by one. The thing is, how does he know who they are? How is he connected with them?



This is one of those that got too cute for its own good. It had a semi-decent story, but they decided to go the Lawrence Durrell wannabe route, and give it to us in a series of sections, taken from the beginning, middle, and end, mixed together, until it builds to the resolution. As I'm watching it, I'm thinking, this would've been a lot better without that storytelling gimmick, i.e., had they just started at the beginning and moved in a linear fashion to the denouement. Also, the mystery, the why Cuba Gooding Jr. knew the robbers, was clunky and contrived anyway; and the ending was really weird and drawn out, as if they just didn't know when to stop writing-- it felt like someone who has just put his foot in his mouth, but only makes it worse by not shutting up and instead trying to explain himself. There's nothing wrong with a film being more straightforward. I know with these DTV Film Noir pieces, it's tempting to get all cute with the order in which you deliver us the plot, but sometimes you hurt the final product that way. Beyond that, this was a pretty paint-by-numbers low-budget Noir, with some great actors who give some great performances, but in the end too dependent on a gimmick as opposed to a solid story for its foundation.

Look at Kim Coates trying to shove your head into the world of DTV Mr. Gooding Jr. That's not very nice, is it? At least here you had some great actors to share your space with, enough to make you think you were doing an actual Hollywood movie again, huh? Then we saw the credits, and all the last names in the crew that ended in the letter "V", and realized that there aren't that many Bulgarians in Los Angeles, are there? Kim Coates, you big meanie, leave our Cuba Gooding Jr. alone, and let him have his Oscar winning Hollywood career back!



Ray Liotta was in this as a cop, not a gangster. I know, crazy, right? He's not in this much, which is kind of too bad. Jean Smart, of Designing Women fame, also starred in this, and it's too bad the two of them didn't have a love scene. I have to think Liotta and Gooding were reassuring each other that things weren't as bad as they seemed career wise, though if you look at their imdb bios, after this came out in 2008, Liotta's had a better go of it, especially with feature films like Date Night and Charlie St. Cloud. Cuba Gooding Jr., on the other hand, moved on from DTV films co-starring with Ray Liotta, to DTV films co-starring with Christian Slater.

The supporting cast after these two is pretty solid. I already mentioned Coates and Smart, plus you had Ben Cross, Tommy Flannigan, Norman Reedus, Christa Campbell, and Paul Sampson, who starred in a film with Carmen Electra, Whacked!, which I reviewed a long time ago. I don't know if the director or screenwriters or producers or whoever didn't trust these actors and actresses to do their jobs adequately, and that's why they chose to go at telling the story in that gimmicky way; but that was a mistake, because they should've trusted these people, and their performances were diminished by that gimmickry.



One guy I didn't mention in that cast I decided to save for here, is Mr. Todd Jensen. Unlike these other actors-- other than maybe Paul Sampson-- who have made it happen on the big screen, Todd Jensen earned his chops in the DTV ranks, in gems like Cyborg Cop. To see him act opposite Ray Liotta as his police detective partner was great. Sure, Ray Liotta is no David Bradley wearing a fanny pack, but he's close, right?

This is available on Watch Instantly, but I don't know if it's entirely worth it. That's too bad, because a more straightforward telling of the story, plus a less weird and drawn-out ending, and we might have had a real Cuba Gooding Jr. home run here. It's okay, though, we have quite a few more of his DTV oeuvre to get through. I hope your stay at the Hotel DTV has been a good one, Mr. Gooding Jr. I'm afraid you'll be staying with us a little longer though...

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0977214/

Lies & Illusions (2009)

One of our more faithful supporters, RepoGenetic, warned me against this one (at least I think it was him, sorry if I'm wrong and not giving someone credit), but as a reviewer, the Christian Slater and Cuba Gooding Jr. factor just drew me in, and bad or no, it was my job to watch it and tell everyone what I think. Now it's time to make lemons out of lemonade.

Lies & Illusions is a Hitchcockian style thriller with Christian Slater as a best selling author who loses his fiancée in an apparent mugging, and after a year of her missing, she's declared dead. Trying to move on, Slater discovers his girlfriend may not have been who he thought she was, and a whole host of unsavory characters start popping up beating up Slater and making him get things out of safety deposit boxes for them. Now this simple author is thrust into a world of danger and intrigue that he neither wanted nor was equipped to handle.



This movie sent me a strong message at the 13 minute mark, letting me know what I was in for. Lochlyn Monroe as an attorney for Slater's missing wife has his finger put into a paper shredder by some baddies. This is totally useless as far as the plot goes, because the baddies already had what they wanted out of him by threatening his family, meaning the film makers did it just to do it. I've never had a film give me a sign like that, only to have them turn things around and make a quality film, and Lies & Illusions was no exception. Beyond the weirdness and grossness of that (which wasn't shown, but the fact they did it was enough, plus they showed Monroe's chewed up pinky finger after to remind us they did it), there was the story that didn't know if it was a suspense thriller, a bad action film, or a screwball comedy, and as with all films suffering from an identity crisis, it did none of those genres well at all.

One of the most poorly emulated directors of all time is Alfred Hitchcock, and the further in time we get from his films, the worse the emulations seem to get. Putting fingers in paper shredders? Hitchcock would never do that, yet he'd make his films so much more suspense filled than anything like this that did. Maybe it's because I love Hitchcock so much, but I feel like these people love him as much as I do, so it frustrates me when they don't get it. I know if the people involved are making a DTV picture with Christian Slater and Cuba Gooding Jr., they aren't of the pedigree of a Hitchcock anyway, and that's not what upsets me. The key is to understand their limitations and bring us some quality, and putting fingers in paper shredders for no reason is indicative of that lack of understanding.



Before I deal with Cuba Gooding Jr. and Christian Slater, I want to look at one scene they did together. It was near the beginning, after Slater's woman had disappeared, and Gooding shows up at one of Slater's book signings pretending to be a fan. I had this vibe that 15 years ago, these two actors would've been paired in a similar scene in a theatrically released Romantic Comedy. The critics would've torn it apart, it probably would've faded quickly after a decent opening week, then we'd have forgotten about it accept for the occasional airings on TBS after Jersey Girl, or in our married friends' DVD collections next to Sahara. The thing is, as a Romantic Comedy, Lies & Illusions would've been a better movie. Same basic plot, only focus on Slater's love triangle, and make Cuba's gangster character a much more ironic bad guy. I would've liked that one.

This is our first Christian Slater DTV film, and the only thing I have to say is: "where ya been old pal?" This was classic wisecracking and ranting Slater, reminding me of something like Kuffs. I'm not exactly sure what happened to him. Unlike Gooding and Val Kilmer who were big stars that Hollywood just couldn't find a place for, Slater was never as big as them, and I can't see why what he brings to the table isn't still a staple in most modern films. That's the problem with the way movies are made today, they'd rather have a rapper or comedian play a part that Christian Slater could do so much better. Had he been born 30 years earlier, he never would've lost his place in the film industry.



Now if Cuba Gooding Jr. had been born 30 years earlier, he would've been doing Blaxploitation films and would've had no chance of winning an Oscar, but have times changed enough? I guess what I'm saying is, how many African American actors can you name that are his age and weren't either a comedian or rapper first? Don Cheadle comes to mind. Forest Whitaker and Terrence Howard too, but that's about it. What do those three have that Gooding doesn't? We believe them in more serious films than we do him. Considering how good Gooding was in Gladiator, I think that's a shame, but he took a lot of parts after Jerry McGuire that were family friendly and feel good; and now it seems like he's making up for that by playing all these bad ass roles in his DTV career. I get that, but he's kind of overdoing it, and he was great in the Romantic Comedy style scene he had with Slater at the book signing. I guess it just sucks that Hollywood is picking rappers over him when he's a much better actor than any of them.

I was late on reviewing this, so I probably didn't save you from a Red Box disaster, but if you see it on TV or Netflix, stay away. It's currently on Watch Instantly, so it may be tempting. Don't succumb to temptation. You'll thank me for it.

The Way of War (2009)

I watched this not long after I saw Wrong Turn at Tahoe, because I had it on Watch Instantly, and Netflix was removing it. I would've waited on it to put some space between my Cuba Gooding jr. DTV films, but when forced with the decision of whether to waste a DVD rental on it in the future, or get it out of the way now directly on my computer, I chose the latter. Maybe I should've just let it evaporate from my queue and never watched it-- ever.

The Way of War has Cuba Gooding jr. as an elite special forces guy sent on a secret mission that was bad and stuff. What follows is a mess of double crosses and people killing people related to this or that element. To say anything more would be to pretend this was somewhat decent.



The first user review I saw of this on imdb was titled "CUBA, what were you THINKING !?!?" The only thing I could think was he did it for children who have trouble sleeping, because this snoozefest, if it wasn't for the violence, would work better than anything I could think of to put kids to sleep. Hell, it put me to sleep twice when I watched it. I'm not kidding. It's like Lunesta without the side effects like depression and thoughts of suicide. Pending FDA approval.

Hey Cuba, how has your stay been at the DTV Hotel? You need more towels? Oh, because you have to take so many showers to wash away the dirty you feel after making such a sack of asscrack as this. I guess looking at the Oscar on the mantel doesn't work anymore like it did with Snow Dogs and Daddy Day Camp. The reality is, if this is the best you can do in the DTV world, why not just stick to Boat Trip? Is it worth it that much to play a dark, brooding, cold-blooded killer, even if it's in a horribly written cinematic tranquilizer?



For most people who find out that I have a blog that focuses on Direct to Video movies, when I mention Cuba Gooding jr.'s films they always say "Cuba Gooding jr. does [DTV]? Didn't he win an Oscar?" imdb is not very clear on what happened, so I went to Wikipedia to get the lowdown on him. All they could say was that after As Good as It Gets, his films were "inconsistently successful" and that he did some that were critically panned or did poorly in the box office. They also mention his bright spot recently in American Gangster. Maybe he just decided if the best he could do in Hollywood was Norbit, he'd try different roles in DTV. The Wikipedia article does say he trained in martial arts before becoming an actor, which I didn't know, so maybe Hollywood, based on his reputation as a good guy, would never let him be the action guy he wanted. The problem is, he's taking DTV roles that are complete crap. I guess the question is, again, is it worth it?

The dad from Juno is in this as well. He was one of the bright spots, and he and Cuba acted well together. The best way to look at his part is pretty much the dad from Juno as the head of an elite special forces unit, only without any of the great Oscar winning dialog. There's a reason why, on imdb, Cuba's name and his name are set apart from everyone else's. The only other talent was Clarence Williams III, or Link from The Mod Squad, and his name is buried near the bottom-- probably better than being at the top when dealing with a sack of asscrack like this.



One thing that was kind of cool was the amount of Washington Redskins memorabilia. I do think they should change their name to something else, in part because the name's offensive, but more because it doesn't really fit the city. The Beltways or Traffic Jams is better, or maybe the Taxations without Representations. Anyway, I remember in the 80s and early 90s, the Redskins were good, and as a Patriots fan, I was jealous of how good they were. Boy do times change. One team gets a good owner, the other gets a shitty one, and the rest is history.

I don't know how much more explicitly I can say this: STAY AWAY! According to imdb it's airing on TMC on Tuesday December 29^th. Again, STAY AWAY! If you're having trouble sleeping, watch the Weather Channel or drink some warm milk.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1133995/

Wrong Turn at Tahoe (2010)

I know, it's not 2010 yet, but that's the year imdb lists for it, so this is the first official post of the new year. The film was actually released last week, but I couldn't review it then due to our Golan-Globus celebration, so I tabled it until now. If you've seen it at Walmart, or in your local video store, and wasted your money because I didn't warn you in time, let me know. I can't refund your money, but I can at least offer a personal apology.

Wrong Turn at Tahoe is a Noir-ish thriller that borrows from everything from Pulp Fiction to Goodfellas to Ghost Dog (that's two Ghost Dog mentions in a week!). Gooding jr. plays a hatchet man for a local gangster (Miguel Ferrer) and finds out a local drug dealer, named Tahoe, wants Ferrer dead. So, unlike Robocop, Ferrer becomes proactive and takes the dealer out first. Problem is, he's the best dealer a local mafioso, played by Harvey Keitel, has, and now Keitel wants retribution. As things spiral apart around the warring gangsters, can Cuba get out in time before he's pulled under with the current?



There are two types of Film Noir in this world: the good, and the self-indulgent, and this was the latter. Conversations about foot massages and Big Kahuna burgers: very cool. Conversations about whether fat chicks give better blow jobs: stupid-- and even dumber when given to us as if it were very cool. The plot twist at the end, which I won't give away, made no sense based on the rest of the story, meaning the writers wrote themselves into a corner. I'm also not sure where this movie took place-- it looked like the Pacific Northwest in the winter, but everyone had New York plates. This just didn't work.

I think had it not been so obviously derivative, I would've liked it more. What made a film like City of Industry work, and a film like The Limey not, was the derivative-ness. It's almost like the latter was grabbed by a studio and remade to make it more like Pulp Fiction, while the former stood alone as decent Film Noir. Wrong Turn at Tahoe was different, in that the film makers seemed to just take every cliché out of the Tarentino rip-off handbook. Perhaps, in that sense, it was art, because it was like a collage of clichés pasted together in a Warhol-esque manner-- but that would be giving the film too much credit.



Ah, Mr. Gooding jr. Comfortable here? Feeling all right in the world of DTV? Can we get you anything, maybe to make your stay a little nicer? If you want, we can place your Oscar in one of our strong boxes we keep behind the front desk. I'm not sure you'll be needing it anytime soon. How did this happen? Somewhere in the mid-oughts his Radios and Boat Trips caught up with him, and Daddy Day Camp was not the right response. I'd ask why he's decided to do DTV actioners and Noir-ish thrillers, but why doesn't matter anymore, because he's done like 1o of them already, and I need to catch up, because I've only reviewed Hardwired, which was released less than a month ago. Like I said, Cuba, you'll be here for a while, and I can't wait to have you as a guest. The ice machine is right next to Mr. Lundgren's room.

Miguel Ferrer was not believable as a vicious gangster. That's it. And because he wasn't believable, it came off as him trying too hard, which wasn't a good look for him. He was amazing as the ode to young 80s greed in Robocop, so we know he's good, he just didn't do it here. What's crazy is how believable Cuba Gooding jr. was as the hatchet man, which is a stunner, because I think if you asked me going in who would work better, I'd say it was the other way around. Very disappointing.



We love Harvey Keitel at the DTVC. We've reviewed two of his films, Bad Lieutenant and Star Knight, and this third effort is certainly closer to the latter than the former, though the people making this would watch a Star Knight and think how much better they are than it, and watch a Bad Lieutenant and think how great they are at emulating it, and they'd be dead wrong on both accounts. It's funny that Cuba Gooding jr. is the one with the Oscar and Keitel isn't. I think Gooding should've won in '96 (though I wouldn't have argued with Macy in Fargo), and if you look at the people who won in the 90s when Keitel did some of his best work, it's hard to make a case for Keitel against the other winners, other than 1992, when Keitel should've won for Bad Lieutenant (which he wasn't even nominated for) over Pacino's lifetime achievement Oscar for Scent of a Woman.

Stay away from this. If you see it and think "I like Harvey Keitel", rent something else with him in it; or think "I liked Ferrer in Robocop", then rent Robocop; or think "Ooh, Cuba Gooding jr., I loved Pearl Harbor!-- well in that case you shouldn't be reading my blog.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1393000/