No.226 : The Yards (2000)

 

The Yards at the IMDb

You may have thought that E.U. rules would have demanded that this film be renamed ‘The Metres’ but fear not - the yards referred to are train yards, rather than units of measurement.

The film opens with a young looking Markie Mark heading home to Queens from a stint in prison. He was actually 29 when this was made and is the same age as me so it must just be a good vintage.

His family has a party for him and he is collared by his parole officer who needs him to get a job. He meets with his uncle James Caan who suggests a two year apprenticeship so that he can get a proper job. Not fancying this Markie hooks up with his friend Jaoquin Phoenix who works for Caan and seems to have loads of cash. He also has Markie’s old flame Charlize heron as a girlfriend.

Jaoquin explains that he is a fixer who wins contracts for Caan’s train fitting business. Of course this is done by way of bribes and smashing up his opposition’s rolling stock. He takes Markie along on a job that sees the yard manager refuse to play ball which results in Jaoquin stabbing him to death. Meanwhile altered by the alarm pressed by the yard manager a cop confronts Markie about his presence in the yard after dark. After a scuffle the cop is in a coma and sharp focus is drawn on the antics of Cann’s outfit and in the train tendering process in general.

Things deteriorate for Markie after he chickens out of finishing off the now conscious cop in his hospital bed, and gets fingered for the beating as well. Caan and the crew wash their hands of him and soon he is a marked man, especially after Jaoquin pins the murder on him too, after he learns that Charlize may like the Funky Bunch front man more than him.

With a large corruption investigation underway can Markie escape taking the blame and will the widespread corruption help to save his ass?

This was a decent offering but at the end it felt a bit slight and insubstantial. The story would have worked better as a mini series, as the sequence of events seemed hurried and unlikely. Markie basically goes for a job and on the first night is on the run for murder - maybe bed him in a bit and show us how things usually operate?

The settings and characters were familiar with the gritty realism of ‘Gone Baby Gone’ and ‘The Drop’ plain to see. It could have done with a Casey Affleck or similar in one of the leads as Markie and Jaoquin both looked like they were playing dress up. The larger cast was better despite James Caan’s poor moustache and Fay Dunaway’s poor fainting.

I’m not sure if this was a morality tale or just a slice of life but I wasn’t buying it. Markie seemed a bit of a scumbag and his resistance to a straight job left him being unsympathetic when circumstances went against him.

The big finale seemed a bit daft and I’m sure the police wouldn’t let a murder suspect out of their sight never mind let him weasel his way out of a air tight collar. I guess the message was that corruption goes to all levels, but it made for an unsatisfying conclusion that mirrored the rest of the film.

THE Tag Line - One Train You Can Miss 60%

No.219 :The Gambler (2014)

The Gambler (2014) at the IMDb

It was always going to be a tough ask to have Marky Mark fill James Caan’s 70’s Cuban heels, but this remake falls well short of the original. It does have a decent cast, but with nothing new added you have to wonder why they bothered.

The film opens with George Kennedy on his death bed - presciently so as it turned out to be his last role. He offers sage advice to his son Jim (Marky Mark) who proceeds to ignore it, heading off instead to a casino. He has $10k, which he bets on a single hand of blackjack, which he doubles up again and again before losing the lot. The casino’s owner is owed $240k and refuses any more credit. That’s fine as Omar off ‘The Wire’ is there and offers a $50k loan for a vig of 20 points a week - ten grand to you or me.

These rates would make Brighthouse blush but Jim is an addict and pisses the cash away. If you think he doesn’t convince as a gambler wait til you see him as a university literary professor. He tells his students not to try and write unless they are a genius or Captain Marvel who has shown up, as she’s not due to save the world for at least five years. He has another student who doesn’t care for class but he’s good at basketball and needs the scholastic credit. Might come in handy later that nugget!

Jim then goes hunting for more credit with John Goodman, using the impeccable logic that he can gamble his way out of his financial hole. When that doesn’t work out he heads to his mother Jessica Lange, who gets him a big bag of cash out of the bank. Problem solved.

No wait, he’s off to Vegas with Captain Marvel and he pisses that all away too. With the loan sharks circling Jim has only one shot - his ‘in’ with his basketball playing student. Can he corrupt the youth to save his neck and if he does is he only postponing the inevitable?

As a standalone movie this was decent but it pales in comparison to its predecessor. I felt Marky was too young to convey the gravitas as a professor or the world weariness needed to portray a gambler, keen to lose his cash as soon as possible.

The film followed the same narrative lines as the original but with some changes - there is no long suffering girlfriend here, only a prospect of a better life in the shape of Brie Larson. The mother role was transplanted intact but it was a mistake to have so many loan sharks played by familiar faces. Omar and Goodman both lacked menace and were too fond of talking and not keen enough on the leg breaking. I found it hard to believe the lines of credit being offered and the fact they were cool with Jim being in hock to so many bookies.

The film tried to add a bit of tension by having captions counting down the days until the debts became due. This was mostly pointless as Jim got shaken down every day anyway.

The gambling was mostly restricted to blackjack and roulette which at least it kept simple, without rules having to be explained. The Vegas sequence was a misfire with the ‘hit me on 18’ scene stuck in at the start which totally missed the point for me - in the original this was a sign that Caan was on an unbeatable lucky streak. Here he wins that one and then loses the lot.

The film missed the thrill and sleaziness of the gambling life with most of the bets being skill free coin flips. Fair enough the man’s an inveterate gambler, but his motivations and redemption were lacking for me.

Over all a decent character piece but one lacking any real insight or tension.

THE Tagline : Stick to the Seventies!  60%