No.40 : The Shootist (1976)

The Shootist at the IMDb

This turned out to be John Wayne’s last film and fittingly he plays an aged gun slinger trying to live out his last days as the old west gives way to new fangled inventions and values.

Wayne plays JB Brooks a notorious killing machine who returns home to Carson City for a check up at Jimmy Stewart’s medical practice. After checking his trap door a grim diagnosis is given - he has cancer and a matter of days to live. After being given a bottle of dope by the Doc, Wayne heads off for some digs and manages to find a bed at Lauren Bacall’s B&B.

Becall is your stereotyped western widow with lots of huffing and disapproval of our man’s antics and language. She has an impressionable son in the shape of Ron Howard and quickly worries that the boy’s idolisation of Wayne can’t lead to anything good. Despite of his hopes of lying low, Wayne’s presence hasn’t gone unnoticed and pretty soon every man and his dog is at the door trying to turn a buck off his notoriety.

After booting out a newspaper man and biographer Wayne soon sorts out other conmen in the shape of the undertaker and Scatman Crothers’ horse trader. He realises that other less soft people may be on their way to settle some old scores and readies himself for one last show down. After shooting two night time assassins and wrecking the guest house, all of Becall’s other tenants move out leaving our happy trio a few days together before the inevitable blood bath. As the brigands descend on the town will Wayne get his wish of a quiet death or will he go down all guns blazing?

Most of what I’d heard about this film wasn’t true - Wayne didn’t have cancer throughout shooting (he did die of cancer 3 years later) and the film wasn’t specifically written for him as a swan song to a career in westerns - he was seemingly fifth choice for the lead. This misinformation sits well with the film however which deals with the difference between the legend and the man. Despite the locals all living in fear of Wayne, he is in reality a scared old man waiting to die.

The film opens in black and white with clips of old Wayne films showing him (and his character here) as a young man before dissolving into colour for the present day. The sets are well done with things like the horse drawn trolley car a good indicator that the wild west days are falling away. The film is set in the week following the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 and the ‘end of an era’ feel permeates throughout.

Wayne has never been a favourite of mine but he does well in this role, showing just enough humility beneath his gruff exterior. It was fun to see him paired up with James Stewart although the latter’s performance is little more than a cameo followed by a wordless appearance at the end. Becall is good value as the spirited widow although I didn’t really buy the transformation in her affections for the potty mouthed hell raiser.

Ron Howard was OK as the impressionable lad although you are still thinking ‘Happy Days’ throughout. He didn’t ring true when he was swigging the booze but when he was doing his ‘can I mister, can I?’ routine he was fine. Of the bit parts John Carradine hammed it up big style as the undertaker and Scatman was good fun as the horse trader with an early eye for celebrity memorabilia.

The film runs a pretty straight narrative and there are no real surprises. It is good fun however and great to see some genuine Hollywood legends strut their stuff for one last time. The gun play and action is a bit low key but the characters are great and it’s well worth shooting down the DVD shop for. Or just download it - I don’t care.

THE Tag Line : Bang, Bang - I’m Dead 75%

No.39 : The Penthouse (2010)

The Penthouse at the IMDb

The Penthouse is a dire effort that amazingly seems to have been inspired by the equally desperate ‘Wild Roomies’ (which our sister Blog covered : http://100wmovies.blogspot.com/2008/08/no47-wild-roomies.html ) right down to the promising a lot, but delivering nothing poster.

The film opens with a reality show nearing its conclusion. This tired formula takes the guise of a show where the winning contestant gets to live in the penthouse apartment where the show is filmed. The last two are our hero Tyler and a dizzy blonde who doesn’t care who wins as they are in love and will live together anyway. Predictably Tyler wins and dumps the blonde, choosing to move his friends in instead.

As you’d imagine the friends are a mismatched lot but have something in common in all being about 30, good looking and white - bet this one broke all records at the Harlem multiplex! The friends include an introverted writer who has a dysfunctional relationship and anther douche bag who wants to be a nurse to get some flange.

Initially things go well with a couple of racy parties but soon we have to address some issues, as you do. The writer has writer’s block and is being presurised by his father in law, Ed Begley Jnr, to commit to his daughter and provide some offspring. Why he wants this dickwad to contaminate his gene pool is anyone’s guess but our man isn’t up for it anyway. He’s got his eye on Tyler’s sister who was once an ugly duckling but has now blossomed into a pretty lady. The pair are perfect for each other but only we the viewer can see it - well until the last ten minutes at any rate.

Tyler’s life of debauchery and instant fame are starting to take a toll and the film attempts to document the downside of fame while he sucks beer off the plastic tits of two models - er, job done. His erstwhile girlfriend shows up at his book signing and pretty soon he starts to realise that the trappings of fame are no match for true love .

The third plot strand is barely worth a mention but the nurse guy ends up boning the pretty doctor he answers to in a revelation I totally missed the point of.

This is a totally pointless exercise in a film. The three males leads are all awful actors and terrible characters. Two are beer swilling boors while the third is a sensitive nerd just waiting to blossom when he finds the right girl. What lessons or development we are meant to be getting here is totally lost in the random script and in the total lack of development for all concerned.

The trials of half a dozen beautiful white yuppies living in a luxurious apartment is clearly a valid one, but only if you flushed your brain down the toilet. Not one of the cast convinces and at no point does your dial shift from ‘asshole’ for any of the leads.

The reality TV bubble burst a long time ago and if this 2010 production thought it could add a foot note to the phenomena it’s clearly mistaken. Virtually all the film is sent inside the titular abode, which is fair enough, but the whole production looks like it was completed in an afternoon for some student film project. The director does try to add some flair by using several cut shots of wind up toys but sadly these serve only to highlight the desperate acting of those of the non-clockwork variety.

As you’d have gathered ‘The Penthouse’ wasn’t quite ‘top of the block’ for me and frankly if they hadn’t invested in those gyrating topless dancers we could have been looking at a new record low score.

THE Tag Line : More Pavement Than Penthouse 21%

No.38 : The Matador (2005)

The Matador at the IMDb

Pierce Brosnan tries to shed his James Bond image with a role as a hard drinking, hard shagging assassin with indifferent results.

Brosnan basically plays an exaggerated version of Bond but with an oh so important moustache. He kills various business and political figures without a second thought through his handler, The Library Detective off ‘Seinfeld’. He enjoys his mojiotos, which is useful seeing as the whole film was filmed in Mexico City despite the various clumsy graphics that pop up denoting different cities around the world.

His world is coming apart however and after a botched hit he starts to wonder if he’s next on the hit list. Meanwhile businessman Greg Kinnear has problems of his own as his important business deal is about to go down the pan. He’s also in mouring for his dead son and his relationship with wife, Hope Davis , is showing the strain.

Our two heroes paths collide and after a bonding session at a bullfight they have decisions to make. The film then jumps six months into the future as Brosnan turns up at Kinnear’s snowy Denver home. He’s on the run from his handlers and looking for a return favour. Did he do Kinnear a turn to get his pivotal business deal through and can the favour be returned to save Brosnan’s ever shakier, but still pumping ass?

On first looks this film seems a bit slight. Essentially it’s a two way show between two middle aged men with crisisies in their business and family lives. Obviously the hit man angle spices things up a bit but given we get to see only a couple of actual hits this isn’t really going to win the film pass marks. Brosnan does his best to go against type and parades quite happily in his pants and cow boy boots while getting it on doggy style with several ladies.

His character is quite fun although not entirely believable. Someone so erratic and flamboyant wouldn’t last five minutes without gaining the attentions of the authorities but you tend to overlook this when you sign up for the fun ride the film offers. Kinnear on the other hand does his usual shtick of being the slightly off kilter everyman and is an able foil to Brosnan. I don’t think I’ve seen a bad Greg Kinnear film and he does his usual solid work here.

The film really hits its stride after the bullfight and the two protagonists are pulled from their lives and have to rely on each other. The final scenes and acts are off camera and we’re left to wonder who did what to whom.

The film is a pretty tight 90 minutes and although not a lot happens it does offer two good performances in a shady world with plenty of dark laughs along the way. I’d maybe have liked a bit more action and less chat but Brosnan was good fun and the script was witty and peppered with enough lovely ladies to keep things humming along.

It’s maybe not a classic that’ll live long in the memory but as an exercise in exorcising Bond’s sharp one liners and off screen sexual acrobatics it’s well worth a look.

THE Tag Line : No Bull - Matador Worth Seeing

No.37 : The Squeeze (1987)

The Squeeze at the IMDb

Let’s get a bit obscure now on The Definite Article Movie list with this clunker comedy from 1987 which stars Michael Keaton. Keaton was only two years away from his star turns in ‘Batman’ and ‘Pacific Heights’ so it’s just as well the producers of those hits missed out on this effort which is short on laughs, drama and basically anything that makes a film worth watching. And look at that poster too! - Was Bin Laden a secret fan?!

Keaton plays the poorly defined Harry who is a loser hustler one minute and creator of pretty impressive dinosaurs made out of TVs the next. He has a strangely motivated sidekick in Joe Pantolianio who seems to get nothing from the relationship other than a loss of his cash and occasional beating. Maybe I missed the gay subtext? Well it is the 80’s you can’t judge by the haircuts and loud, baggy shirts.

The film opens with our likely lads executing the poorest card hustle you’ve ever seen, unless you watched ‘Big Deal’ like I did. As our heroes make good their escape Keaton’s ex-wife is trying to post a package twice as big as the mail box. Maybe they shrunk overnight or she’d never posted anything before, but it was never going in, Love.

On getting back home she finds her cat chowing down on a finger and sussing that the game was up she runs off to enlist Keaton’s help. He is strangely agreeable to this despite her debt collector being on his back for unpaid maintenance. After recovering the box and determining it to be a big magnet Keaton hooks up with the debt collector lady to try and work out why the mysterious Frenchman and his goons need the box back before the lottery is drawn.

This isn’t that bad a film, it’s just nothing special and I defy you to remember one thing about it in a month’s time, apart from the massive triceratops made out of TV sets. Keaton plays his usual mulleted, maniacal self which I always find a bit tiresome. He does OK with a weak script and poor character definition but it’s hard to care for a shiftless loser trying to con a fast buck.

Pantoliano gets very little to do and given this was the guy who played Ralphie in ‘The Sopranos’ that was a waste. Speaking of waists Meat Loaf also shows up as a henchman and despite having one of the strongest voices in rock he plays a mute who only gets one line when he’s been stabbed with the Empire State Building - well a model of it at any rate.

The love interest is provided by Rae Dong Chong who sets feminism back 20 years by falling for the alimony dodging Keaton 10 minutes after meeting him. The chemistry isn’t there at all and the devices that bring them together, like a mutual love of ‘Raw Hide’, seem strained at best.

The plot is wafer thin and involves the magnetising of lottery balls to swindle the jackpot. The draw, which is naturally held on the deck of an aircraft carrier, has scandalously low security which lets our cast manipulate the result and shoot off rockets like no one cares who gets the $55 million.

To pick plot holes in the flimsy narrative would be as hard as getting sand in your ass crack at the beach and frankly less fun. It’s not edgy or offensive with there being no sex or swearing to juice things up and without that you’re left with a largely disinterested cast running around for a 100 minutes before the hero has to decide between the money and the girl. ‘The Squeeze’? Puleeze!

THE Tag Line : Lottery Swindle Flick Is A Lot Of Balls 46%