Tag Archives: action movies

Channeling His Inner Damage

Blood Father

by Hope Madden

Back in 2008, the inexplicable popularity of the mid-budget action flick Taken accomplished two things. (Three, if you count exacerbating my cynicism with the film industry.) The two noteworthy accomplishments, however, were extending the career of an aging male actor and creating a new genre of film.

If two sequels and at least half a dozen copycats (including one currently listed as filming) could turn a sixty something character actor into a mainstay action figure, couldn’t the same be done for, say, an aging action hero? Why not Stallone? Why not Schwarzenegger?

Here’s why not – they can’t act. You know who can, though? Mel Gibson.

Right, he’s looney as a tune, not to mention being a professional and social pariah, but Mad Max can kick Rambo’s ass any day and who doesn’t want to see that?

Maybe next time. Right now, though, talented French action director Jean-Francois Richet directs the lunatic in Blood Father.

The story is right out of the Liam Neeson playbook: ex-con father, clean and sober but struggling to suppress his rage and shame, needs to take action to save his teenage daughter from a drug cartel.

How will he do it? Will it be his particular set of skills?!

Of course it will. And while Blood Father is absolutely faithful to its genre, there is genuine craftsmanship in the effort. Richet allows the California desert to cast an apocalyptic spell over the tale, then brings in just enough Mad Max touches to command a burst of joy.

Gibson’s character doesn’t call for a great deal of nuance, though the actor does deliver a gruff and realistically damaged performance. He’s aided by the kind of supporting cast you just don’t find in films like these.

The great William H. Macy, the underappreciated Diego Luna, the effortlessly badass Dale Dickey, and the always welcome Michael Parks round out an ensemble talented enough to find the sun-scarred and chemical-damaged humanity in every character.

A tale told in tattoos and bullet wounds, Blood Father is still, at its heart, a love note from a shitty father to his damaged daughter – a welcome dose of near-reality in a genre saturated with creepy paternal child worship.

This is not a great movie. But you know what? I swear to God, it is not bad.

Verdict-3-0-Stars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJHL3srsMy8

Effective Blunt Instrument

Sicario

by Hope Madden

How versatile is Emily Blunt?

Who’d have thought, back when she caught our attention in Devil Wears Prada or The Young Victoria that she’d step so easily into the role of badass? But between her shotgun-wielding protector in Looper and her Sigourney Weaver-esque role in Edge of Tomorrow, she’s proven as compelling a figure in action as she is in comedy and drama. She proves her mettle again in Denis Villeneuve’s take on the drug war, Sicario.

Blunt plays Kate Macer, a determined cop working hostage crises who’s promoted to a vaguely defined drug taskforce. She will find that her desire to make an impact and her hunger for justice do not always gel. It’s a flawed character who struggles against her naiveté while battling to keep her idealism intact in an operation that vividly encapsulates the murky, complex, and unwholesome battle at our Southern border.

As wonderful as Blunt is, she’s matched step for step by Josh Brolin, as a flippant senior officer who finds humor where most of us would not, and a breathtaking Benicio Del Toro.

Del Toro is at his best as a haunted, mysterious consultant on the case, and his relationship with Blunt’s character is equally menacing and tender.

Villeneuve’s films are dark and challenging, which is certainly the case with Sicario – his most satisfying film to date.

By focusing as intimately as he does on three or four characters, the global picture he paints is anchored, becoming more relevant and comprehensible. Roger Deakins’s weirdly beautiful cinematography mimics the rising panic of Kate’s attempt to soak in every piece of information in her new surroundings, generating an awestruck and terrified depiction of the escalating action.

Villeneuve walks a line between thoughtful drama and all out action film, never abandoning character while still creating arresting, unforgettable action sequences. The opening scene will stay with you, while two different visits to the border – one above ground, one below – are pure cinematic genius.

A tourism advertisement it is not, but Sicario offers an insightful, thrilling glimpse into a possibly unsolvable riddle.

Verdict-4-0-Stars

Cruising Altitude

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

by Hope Madden

Tom Cruise may have finally found a marriage that will work. His partnership with writer/director Christopher McQuarrie has produced four of the actor’s most recent films.

McQuarrie wrote Valkyrie and Edge of Tomorrow (arguably Cruise’s finest film this century), and he wrote and directed both Jack Reacher and Cruise’s latest action extravaganza, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation.

McQuarrie inherited the series at its peak, Brad Bird’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol having brought the franchise back to relevance with talented new teammates, extravagant set pieces, and much-needed humor.

Rogue Nation picks up that same beat. The band’s back together: Cruise’s super-agent Ethan Hunt, skeptical wise cracker Brandt (Jeremy Renner), systems wizard Luther (Ving Rhames), and delightful hacker Benji (Simon Pegg).

Blessedly, the talentless Paula Patton sits this one out.

In her place as the beautiful woman who will appear in only one episode is Rebecca Ferguson as the mysterious double (or triple?) agent Ilsa Faust.

Now disgraced and disavowed by their own government, what’s left of IMF must expose their underworld counterpart The Syndicate to reclaim their status and save the world.

McQuarrie keeps the pace moving with a gliding camera that not only captures the enormity of each sequence, but develops a graceful, controlled urgency about each event.

Truth be told, though, the movie succeeds or fails depending on Cruise, and Ethan Hunt is a great character for the beleaguered movie star. Cruise can show off his still quite impressive physical presence, the script’s use of humor capitalizes on the actor’s underused strengths, and let’s be honest – Cruise has a bit of the crazy-eye, which makes him more believable in the part.

The action sequences are not quite as breathtaking as they were in Ghost Protocol, but they are impressive nonetheless.

What McQuarrie does better than any previous director in the series is to imbue every scene with a bit of humor – enough to exploit the ridiculousness of the situation without actually mocking it. He finds the fun in the familiar old gimmicks and draws on the strengths of his cast to create a blast of entertainment.

Verdict-3-5-Stars

Mad World

Mad Max: Fury Road

by Hope Madden

Holy shit.

To say that George Miller has stepped up his game since he left us at Thunderdome would be far too mild a statement to open with. Mad Max: Fury Road is not just superior to everything in this franchise, as well as everything else Miller has ever directed. It’s among the most exhausting, thrilling, visceral action films ever made.

Powerful, villainous white guys have ruined the planet by way of their greed for oil and their warmongering, and now they are sustaining their power by taking control of women’s reproductive systems. So, you know, pretty far-fetched.

But Max doesn’t belong to any of these festering wounds called societies. He’s feral. Again. No telling how long it’s been since Max saved the kids from Aunty Entity, but he’s lost himself again, wandering the desert hunted by man and haunted by those he couldn’t save.

Again Miller puts Max in a position to redeem himself by helping the vulnerable and pure survive this apocalyptic future. Mercifully, there are no children and no mullets this go-round.

Unsurprisingly, the great Tom Hardy delivers a perfect, guttural performance as the road warrior. As his reluctant partner in survival, Charlize Theron is the perfect mix of compassion and badassedness. Hardy’s a fascinating, mysterious presence, but Theron owns this film.

Like the first two films in this series, Fury Road wastes little time on dialogue or plotting. Rather, it is basically one long, magnificent car chase. Miller adorns every scene with the most astonishing, peculiar imagery and the vehicular action is like nothing you’ve ever seen.

Dudes on poles!

Miller’s magnificent action sequences keep the film from ever hitting the dragging monotony of his first two efforts in the series. While the characters remain as paper thin as they have been in every episode, the vast superiority of this cast from top to bottom guarantees that the marauding band’s excess and abandon are handled with genuine skill.

Fury Road amounts to a film about survival, redemption and the power of the universal blood donor. Clever, spare scripting makes room for indulgent set pieces that astonish and amaze. There’s real craftsmanship involved here – in the practical effects, the pacing, the disturbing imagery, and the performances that hold it all together – that marks not just a creative force at the top of his game, but a high water mark for summer blockbusters.

Paging Mr. Neeson

The Gunman

by Hope Madden

Taken director Pierre Morel helms a film where a middle aged man with a particular set of skills finds himself marked for death and must shoot/stab/explode/punch his way out of it to redeem himself and save the one he loves. At first blush, The Gunman just looks like a Liam Neeson movie with a better cast, right? Not quite.

Sean Penn (2-time Oscar winner and 5-time nominee) goes beefcake as Terrier, the retired and oft shirtless gun-for-hire who gets pulled back in. Terrier was once a triggerman for a Democratic Republic of Congo assassination, but he’s carried that guilt and the remorse over a bad breakup for 8 years. Now, with a plot against his life (the contrivance that gets him into and out of hot water is beyond ludicrous), he sets out to make amends.

Penn cannot find his footing as an action hero. Yes, he now has the build for it, but his performance is laborious. Whether he’s smooshy and romantic or single mindedly ripping through foes, nothing has the honesty of his dramatic work or the exciting edge of an action flick.

Flanking Penn are Oscar winner and 3-time nominee Javier Bardem (arguably the best actor of his generation) and the endlessly underrated character actor Ray Winstone. Both men are worth watching, each chewing scenery just enough to keep their screen time vibrant and intriguing. Neither actor has ever turned in a lackluster performance, and this film needs that level of generosity and skill.

Unfortunately for us, the great Idris Alba is woefully underused and Terrier’s love interest Annie (Jasmine Trinca) is both predictably bland and, at twenty-plus years Penn’s junior, embarrassingly young for the effort.

Morel cannot find a usable path through the convoluted story and the only tensions that feel real at all are those in fleeting scenes between Penn and Bardem. There’s a murkiness to the script that requires more skill than Morel has ever shown, and the final product suffers from misplaced drama, uneven tensions, badly tacked on symbolism and misspent artistic capital.

At least with Neeson’s current catalog you know what you’re in for. The Gunman doesn’t know what it is. Too plodding to be an action movie, too obvious to be a thriller, too needlessly bloody to be a drama, The Gunman is a man without a country.

Verdict-2-5-Stars