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 Frozen Ground (2013)

This is one I noticed on Instant a while back and really wanted to check out, especially because it has Nicolas Cage and John Cusack. What happened though was Jamie and I had done Killing Season for the pod, and we both felt we needed a break from "90s-00s big name star does DTV". So we took about eight weeks and looked at some other films-- plus I got married--and then came back to it.  Let's see how it went.

The Frozen Ground is based on the true story of Alaskan serial killer Robert Hansen (Cusack). In it we follow the story of Cindy Paulson (played by Vanessa Hudgens), and Det. Jack Halcolme (Cage). Cage is trying to crack the case of this serial killer, and Hudgens is the one woman who got away from the serial killer, making her the key to bringing him down. It's a race against time as Cage tries to lock him up before he kills again.

We both enjoyed this one, and it worked on a lot of levels. First, it's not your usual serial killer film that tells the story from serial killer's point of view. In fact, Hansen's part in the film is smaller, and it's a credit to Cusack that he does so well with that small part to make it seem bigger. Second, speaking of Cusack, he, Cage, and Hudgens all turn in great performances which makes the film work that much more. Without good performances we might as well watch the Robert Hansen hour-long bio on the ID channel, and this film and these actors give us a reason to watch this instead. Finally, it has a lot of great supporting characters played by myriad character actors that we saw throughout the 90s and 2000s that really gave the film a feel like it was a Hollywood flick made in 2001 instead of DTV in 2013, among them Michael McGrady, Kevin Dunn, and Kurt Fuller. My one complaint was that we had some deal with 50 Cent as a pimp that felt grafted in and bogged the film down for me, but Jamie wasn't as annoyed by it as I was, so maybe that's just me and my "anything over 90 minutes is bad" issues.

Let's start with Mr. Cage. We joke about him often, and he's become sort of an Internet meme and butt of jokes, but this film really took me back to that late 90s/early 2000s Cage who was at the top of his game and the king of Hollywood. From the moment it starts he gives us a guy we can root for and want to see win. There's nothing gimmicky or quirky about this character, and he never goes off the rails, he just gives a solid, earnest performance, and the film is better for it. I don't know where this Cage has been, and I'm not saying I don't love the quirky or over-the-top Cage, it's just good to have this mixed in every once in a while.

As I said above, Cusack is also great as the serial killer. He has this way in his limited screen time of giving us the three sides of all serial killers: innocuous, popular local man whom no one would ever suspect; sick fiend who craves power and dominance over women to the point of committing these heinous crimes; and then cowering wimp who can't handle when the power dynamic has changed and Cage as the police detective is in control. Cusack gives us all so effortlessly and naturally, it's scary. Unlike Cage, who probably would have done the part he had if this had been made in the 2000s, I don't know if Cusack's agent would have let him play the serial killer, because of the kind of role it was.

Let's get back to this idea of what the film would have been in 2000 versus 2013. Overall this would have been a big screen Hollywood release that would have turned around and made huge money in DVD (and still VHS at that time as well) rentals and TV licensing. By 2006 it would have been a TNT "New Classic," in heavy rotation with films like Kiss the Girls, US Marshals, and Domestic Disturbance, and my mom would have passively left it on after a Law and Order episode on a lazy Saturday. On the one hand, a 2000 theatrical release would have meant a longer runtime, more padding, and probably a larger focus on Cusack and Cage. More cat and mouse, more thrill--in short, not the movie we got here. Maybe 2013 was the time to make this film, and we're lucky for that.

Finally, we always talk about our morbid fascination with serial killers, and what I liked about this film is that it wasn't that. One scene I really loved was when Cage has Hudgens stay at his home, and his wife, played by Radha Mitchell, is upset about that. Later she comes around and realizes that was wrong of her, but it also illustrated a great point: we as a society can have a morbid fascination with serial killers because we have that luxury. Like Radha Mitchell's character, we can shut our eyes and go back to our own lives, because serial killers happen out there to other people, and what Mitchell's character was upset about initially was that her husband was turning "other people" into "them." What this film tells us is that there are people who don't have the luxury of going back to their own lives, who don't have the luxury of a morbid fascination with serial killers. These people are their victims and the victim's families. They don't get to just watch the show on ID, or post pics of John Wayne Gacy in a clown suit on Tumblr, then change the channel or close their browser and have everything be okay. Radha Mitchell's character realizes also that her husband, due to the line of work he chose, also doesn't have the luxury of serial killers only happening to "other people," and without him doing his job a man like Hansen is never brought to justice. The film finishes this thought off by giving us a picture of each victim in the credits, as opposed to showing Hansen.

Again, The Frozen Ground was a yes from both of us. This is the Cage and Cusack you were accustomed to in the late-90s/early 2000s, only now it's without the bells and whistles of a big screen Hollywood production, which I think makes it that much better. Definitely worth checking out while it's on Instant. And you can always check out the pod on most major podcatchers. Find the links in the sidebar.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2005374/

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/