No.93 : The Disappeared (2008)

The Disappeared at the IMDb

Time for a nice uplifting British film now that deals with child abduction, murder and mental health. Oh and it’s set on a decaying council estate too - can’t forget that ray of sunshine!

We open as our hero Matthew is being discharged from a mental health facility. We learn that he suffered a breakdown when his 10 year old brother Tom went missing. No trace of the lad was ever found and this has placed a strain on Matthew’s relationship with his Dad. He moves back into the squalid council flat occupied by his Pop and hooks up with his friend Simon who is having time off from being Draco in the Harry Potter films. Simon is a tough guy who smokes and swears so watch out wizard lovers!

Matthew looks over old videotapes concerning his brother’s disappearance and hears the lad’s voice on one of the tapes. No one else can however and his ‘find’ is dismissed as a by product of his medication. Simon, who has clearly seen ‘White Noise’, tells him about dead people appearing on tapes and Matthew tries his hand at capturing the spirit world. Alas it’s more ‘Shite Noise’ than ‘White Noise’ as the local toughs smash up his cassette player.

Not to be put off Matthew also confides in Amy, a wet kind of girl who offers encouragement but little else. He also speaks to a local medium and to a vicar about his thoughts regarding Tom’s disappearance. There is also a worrying trend of people at windows and symbols appearing in slightly iffy CGI. We soon learn that the medium was actually a ‘well done’ as she died in a fire years before. Is Matthew nuts or are the lost sprits trying to lead him to a place where both they and he will find closure?

Other clues such as his brother’s watch showing up in his father’s effects add to the mystery and sense of unease and although hands seem to be reaching out to grab Matthew at every turn, a change in camera angle shows us there is nothing there. As we head to an underground lair can the spirits be put to rest and can Matthew escape the netherworld between reality and fantasy?

This was a decent horror/thriller done on a low budget but it wasn’t inventive or shocking enough to live long in the memory. The director did well to create and maintain a sense of unease throughout the film with simple lighting effects being enough to show that all was not well. The cast were all pretty good with Harry Treadaway doing well in an unsympathetic lead role. I can’t say I was ever rooting for Matthew but his balancing act between sane and insane was well realised.

There were a few surprises along the way such as the black suburban medium lifted straight out the ‘Matrix’ films. At times it wasn’t clear what was meant to be real or not but that was a no doubt deliberate attempt to unsettle the viewer. The conclusion was well handled but I can’t help think the bad guy would have been a little badder than he turned out to be - shallow grave indeed!

The final revelation wasn’t much of a surprise but certainly maintained the vibe of otherworldliness that had gone before. All in all this was a decent attempt at an urban ghost story but it lacked anything that would take it out of the ordinary.

THE Tag Line : This Town is Totally Dead!
60%

No.92 : The Marauders (1955)

The Marauders at the IMDb

Low key western action now in ‘The Marauders’  from 1955, a film with the distinction of starring no one I’ve ever heard of.

We open with a man stopping at a remote ranch looking for water. This is grudgingly given before he’s told to bugger off. Clearly this is a ranch owned by a social misfit or by a rancher experiencing troubles from the local cattle baron. It turned out to be the latter.

Our man is a homesteader who has the rights to settle where he likes. This is against the wishes of the poor sod who actually owns the place and understandably he wants the squatter out. He enlists the help of ‘the general’ a Confederate officer who now works as a bookkeeper and has illusions of being a great military tactician. They plot to take the ranch but meanwhile the rancher is showing his usual hospitality to a thirsty family. Sadly for them they don’t bugger off in time and they are soon holed up in the ranch as the bad guys make their play.

Luckily the ranch is at the bottom of a steep cliff and is easy to defend. The cattle baron is quickly dispatched but his nutty bookkeeper decides to rally his motley band of marauders to take the homestead. Fortunately the sheltering family all turn out to be solid shorts and soon they are assisting the defence so much so that the marauders think there is an army hiding in the small shack.

The bad guys plot like Wylie Coyote on acid but, like their inspiration, they are doomed to fail as they are outsmarted at each turn. The bookkeeper isn’t happy with developments and destroys the water supply meaning his men must secure the cabin or die of thirst. Can they get what’s rightfully theirs or will the squatter’s law of the jungle win the day? Will the precocious child survive and will the loss of Daddy mean the end of the rancher’s lonely nights?

This was a totally forgettable western that probably took a little longer than its 80 minutes running time to actually shoot. The characters were thinly drawn with the baddie bookkeeper with the English accent the only one with any colour. Sadly this colour was mostly brown as his sneering and conniving didn’t convince and he was as hammy as a bacon sandwich. The rest of the ‘Marauders’ were faceless nobodies although at least they kept the tradition of having one of them being a Mexican with a big sombrero.

The central relationship between the rancher and the wife was also thinly drawn with her largely unaffected when her husband ran off leaving her and her boy with their kidnapper. Although she gives him a small wound she’s quickly in line doing the womanly stuff like cooking the dinner and loading the guns. The boy wasn’t as bad as some but he grated all the same and sadly missed out on a grisly death.

If there was any subtext intended about the ideas of freedom or liberty I missed them as this just came across as a lazy script bashed out by someone who had a loan of some horses and cowboy hats for the weekend. Even the usual saving graces of great settings or elaborate gun fights were missing and the whole enterprise was instantly forgettable.

THE Tag Line : 80 minute eviction - Western Style  45%

No.91 : The Oranges (2011)

The Oranges at the IMDb

Sorry fruit fans ; the title refers to the street in New Jersey where our characters live and most of the action takes place. Hold on though I’m pretty sure an apple and a banana make some uncredited appearances.

This romantic comedy isn’t demanding in the slightest and is almost more about manners and foibles in general than it is about any of the poorly sketched characters.

Our two principles are played by Hugh Laurie and Oliver Platt. Both are middle aged suburbanites with decaying marriages that they supplement with jogging and a fondness for gadgets. They socialise together with Laurie’s kids being Maybe Bluth off ‘Arrested Development’ and some lightweight drinker who is heading off to a trade mission to China. Platt has one daughter who is a free spirit living abroad with a surfer dude boyfriend.

The family don’t approve when she phones to says she’s engaged to the douche bag but no sooner than she hangs up the phone does she find him hanging out of some slapper. She returns to the family home for thanksgiving and the families are keen to pair her off with the trade delegate son. Alas he can’t hold his booze and when he passes out the strumpet heads over to Hugh’s man cave for some kissing action.

The next day the pair agree it was a mistake but soon end up kissing some more. Their plans are quickly undone when they are spotted by a nosey mother at a motel and they have to decide where to go from here. Hugh’s wife, the virgin deflowerer from ‘The 40 Year Old Virgin’ moves out to a B&B and works things through with her choir and goat providing charity. Hugh has some awkward dates with his youthful love and the age gap becomes apparent when you get the usual scenes of ‘uh-oh maybe this wasn’t a good idea’. Speaking of Maybe she busies herself with doing the narration and little else.

Things come to a head over Christmas as the cheating boyfriend and the trade delegate show up leaving us with the quandary of who will end up with whom and whether they are all really happy .

This film could have been subtitles ‘First World Problems’ as a bunch of well to do yuppies bump uglies and work through issues. It was hard to care about any of them, even the wronged wife who just came across as a whiny moaner with a penchant for snowman murder.

Hugh Laurie played his usual self with no empathy on show. There was no obvious reason why he’s tear his life up for a skinnier version of Keira Knightly (if such as thing is possible!) especially as he and the girl had no chemistry whatsoever. Thankfully the bedroom action was kept to our imagination but there were quite a few kisses that went on a bit too long.

Oliver Platt was phoning his part in as the father of the slapper who liked gadgets. He did have some decent scenes but it was unclear why is daughter being a slut was a reason for the rebirth of his soul and libido. There were a couple of laughs with one discussion of Hugh Laurie’s aged balls the best.

I think this was a decent stab at a bit of whimsy with an indie soundtrack attempting to blare out cool credentials that the bouncer refused at the door. The intention may be to examine relationships and morays  but the result was just a lot of middle-aged people moaning a lot while the kids tried their best to keep up.

THE Tag Line - You Need to Work at Your Relationship (Film)
60%

No.90 : The Specialist (1994)

The Specialist at The IMDb

 It’s not often we cover tent pole release films here at The Definite Article Movie Blog but sometimes they show up on ITV4 and you have to justify why you are watching when the shower scene comes on.

You probably saw this film, like I did when, it came out in 1994 but if you haven’t seen it lately beware - it’s dated worse than Hugh Hefner in flares.

Sly Stallone stars as Ray an explosives expert who may be all broody or just a bit slow. Suffice it so say he needs several puffs on his huge cigar before his words of wisdom are slurred out - I blame that Apollo Creed. We meet Ray back in the old days when he and James Woods are a couple of black-ops guys taking on the cartels. Sly has a conscience and when the drug lord shows up on the rigged to explode bridge with his daughter he tries to stop the death fest. Woods on the other hand is a bastard (who follows orders, it has to be said) and pistol whips Sly when his attempted rescue fails like his bid to defeat Clubber Lang (in the first fight).

The two part on bad terms but we know the daft looking flashback with the aging actors pretending to be young has to suggest their paths will cross again. We move to present day Miami and Sly is in contact with a mysterious woman we know to be Sharon Stone. She’s trying to get Sly to kill three men who killed her pop when she was a little girl. Sly is cautious and conducts all his business on the phone using the first laptop in history to get his messages.

Sharon can’t wait for Sly (despite hanging about 40 years to start her plan) and tries to get inside the bad guys’ gang by dating slimy Eric Roberts who ordered her dad’s killing. Sly watches on as Roberts plays grabby hands with Sharon and eventually agrees to take on the hits.  He takes out the two henchmen first alerting Roberts to his existence and causing him to hire James Woods from that earlier paragraph. As Sly prepares his hit on Roberts we learn that he and Sharon and Woods have a plan of their own to trap Ray - but has Sharon fallen for the punch drunk pyromaniac?

Soon the pieces start to fall into place and Sly falls into Sharon - can the pair trust each other and get away from the increasingly overacting Woods and grieving Rod Steiger?

This is a gawd awful effort of a film but you have to say some of that is down to the dated fashions, technology and Kenny G soundtrack that has a wailing sax in every scene. There is however some stuff you can't excuse such as Sly doing tai-chi in his pants to a power ballad intercut with Sharon flouncing about in her nighty. If they were trying for ‘sexy’ they got stuck on ‘laughable’.

The film does try to have an almost film noir feel with moody glances and a sense that the characters are doomed or at least a bit troubled. The truth is they largely look like they’ve been on a frenzy of steroids and shoulder pads before finding out that the acting school has been burnt down.

Sly is pretty much as you’d expect and he does have some moments including one where he takes the bus (?) and beats up a gang of rowdies for no apparent reason. Stone is dreadful as the wronged daughter seeking revenge and she’s way too old for Eric Roberts who is meant to be at least 20 years her senior but looks more like her young son. Poor old Rod Steiger shows up in a dreadful role as a maniacal Mafia boss and he may be playing it for laughs, I couldn’t tell. Worst was Woods who as an explosives expert he makes a convincing actor who needs a new agent.

The explosions and sex scenes may garner this turkey pass marks but it is about as involving and affecting and finding out that your newspaper is missing its promised ‘Investing in Kazakhstan’ supplement.

THE Tag Line - It’s about an hour or so in..       54%

No.89 : The Kentuckian (1955)

The Kentuckian at the IMDb

Burt Lancaster starred and directed this 1955 undemanding but overlong western.

He plays Big Eli, a frontiersman who feels civilisation has encroached too much onto his world and takes his son off on a quest to make a life in Texas where land is measured by your eye, not a rope and chain. Sadly this is easier said than done as low cost airlines are still some time away. Burt has saved up $215 to pay his passage and to secure some land. His boy is at the precocious age of being most annoying and Burt tells him he won’t be a man until he can blow a horn - don’t ask.

The pair soon encounter some small minded townsfolk who dislike Burt’s penchant for dog fighting. They slam him in the jail and he has to rely on a nice local lass for vitals. The girl, Hannah, is a kind of slave who is in servitude to her boss, who happens to be an abusive dick. She manages to free Burt, but his faithful dog leads the baddies to their campfire. Burt agrees to spend his whole bankroll on freeing the woman but even then still it seems cheap!

Burt arrives at his brother in law’s home and not surprisingly his hosts aren’t too impressed with his new purchase. The brother in law dislikes Burt’s lifestyle and presumably the coonskin cap he’s wearing, that no doubt stinks to high heaven. He tries to talk Burt out of his Texan dream and sets him up in a fancy suit and tries to teach him his tobacco selling business.

Burt however is more keen on Sophie, the local school teacher who is slightly hotter than Hannah but does come with the baggage of a crippled mother whom we only hear from up the stairs; and believe me she sounds a total nightmare. The boy however prefers Hannah and soon his own life is getting tougher as Dad’s mess ups cause him no end of high school hassles. Burt you see, has made a tit of himself as a freshwater pearl he found and sent to the President turns out to be worthless and send the whole town into fits of giggles.

Rather than lose face Burt decides to restore his bankroll and in an almost slapstick scene hustles some river boat gamblers by pretending to be a sucker with a large bag marked ‘$’. With his money now restored Burt has the choice of the ladies and of a life as a tobacco baron or as a Texan rancher. But wait! Walter Matthau and his handy whip may still have a part to play as will the boy’s horn.

This was an OK western but at approaching two hours it didn’t have enough meat on the bones to sustain the journey. Burt is a Daniel Boone type character rallying against the advancements society has made while he’s been rolling about in the dirt. His sage wisdom grated and his annoying son did nothing to help the viewer’s affections towards the pair. The women were mere chattels that Burt could pick and choose while they looked on with pathetic hopefulness. His big choice at the end was based on the burden of the mother in law more than the affection he felt for either woman, which makes him a stand up dude.

I did enjoy some aspects especially Walter Matthau’s character who was a sadistic bastard who was handy with the whip and the riverboat scene was good fun although totally out of kilter with the rest of the film.

All things considered the film wasn’t a hit but it did have enough elements to suggest a look if there’s nothing else on and your DVD player is broken.

THE Tag Line - Whip It Real Good
53%

No.88 : The Contract (2006)

The Contract at the IMDb

 You would think you’d have heard of the 2006 thriller starring Morgan Freeman and John Cusack, but the chances are you haven’t as it had the dreaded ‘DVD Premiere’ tag. Having seen it, it is not hard to see why as it’s a total mess despite what would appear to be a straightforward plot.

Cusack plays Ray, a widowed father to a wayward teen. He lost his wife to cancer two years previously and we know he’s still hurting as he wears a pink support bracelet. The off the rails kid is more stage school than reform school and his chat about reefers doesn’t ring true at all. The boy is excluded from school and to try for some bonding Cusack takes him on a hiking trip to the state park.

Meanwhile Morgan Freeman is planning a hit with four henchmen. They are all a bit colourful with one playing chess to show he’s the brains of the outfit. We aren’t told the target but stage one involves shoving a bloke in front of a car. Before stage two can take place Freeman is involved in a car smash of his own and wakes up chained to a hospital bed. His henchmen plot his escape as only Morgan has the bank codes and soon the standard ‘broken down truck’ ploy has freed the aged assassin.

Not quite however as the escape plan sends freeman down river with a shot FBI agent where he is rescued by Cusack and his son. What follows is the predictable cat and mouse set up you’d expect as Cusack tries to keep ahead of Morgan’s mates and return him to justice. Meanwhile the Borg Queen and some local hick sheriffs try to save the day. With the finale approaching will Freeman manage to fulfil ‘The Contract’ which is largely forgotten throughout the film but still serves as its title.

This film probably serves as the ‘Day 1’ showing on the ‘Troubled Production’ section of any film school course. The main issue is that it doesn’t make any sense and there are unnecessary complications that add nothing to the mix except those unwanted ingredients of confusion and dissatisfaction.

The main issue I had was with the whole police angle. They may have been solely employed as filler to the patchy script but they did nothing apart from comment on the coffee and  local law enforcement. The sub-plot of one of Freeman’s men being a plant wasn’t explored and I’ve no idea what the motivation of his boss, The Borg Queen, was.

The finale, where we were meant to be wrong footed about the assassination target, was totally fudged and I was totally expecting the revealed target and not the ridiculous suggestion that it might be the President.

The cast looked largely disinterested and Freeman totally didn’t convince as the hard as nails, military trained assassin. He wandered about in his suit trying to play mind games with his captors but exuded all the menace of Graham Norton on an extra camp day. Cusack looked aghast at some of the hokey dialogue he was provided and again his motivation was unclear. The idea that he was marching a hit man about the mountains to show his son about responsibility was as laughable as it was unbelievable.

There was possibly a good film in here somewhere with a clearly excellent cast and large budget that was at least used to show an impressive helicopter crash. It does however have to go down as a wasted opportunity with a messy script and sketchy characters signalling its failure before the first half hour had passed.

THE Tag Line - It’s only 90 minutes!  28%

No.87 : The Revengers (1972)

The Revengers at the IMDb

I’m not sure that ‘revengers’ is a word, and certainly my spellchecker doesn’t think so, but if it is a made up word at least it’s one that tells you what to expect. Yes people seeking, if not always getting, some revenge - western style.

William Holden plays Mr Benedict, an ageing rancher who returns to his family after business away. He’s a firm but fair father and has brought presents for all. Things are looking up as the army has offered his son a place at West Point owing to Benedict being a Civil War hero. As you’d anticipate this five minutes of contented bliss is shattered when bandits kill all his family while he’s away hunting a mountain lion. The bad guys are mostly Indians but they also have two white men in their ranks, one of whom has a distinctive milky eye.

Benedict takes the time to bury the five murdered family members before setting off on a mission to kill all the men who have condemned him to lonely Christmas dinners. He gets some clues and realises that as the bad guys are holed up in a notorious trouble spot that he’ll need to hire some guns. Rather than go to a bar or other desperado hangout he heads to a prison camp where he recruits six colourful characters including Ernest Borgnine (last seen in ‘The Vikings’) and a German and a Frenchman. If this sounds like the beginning of a bad joke you are quicker on the uptake than me!

Our trusting hero kits his now fugitive felons in new clothes and gives them guns and horses. It is no surprise when they all bugger off apart from the loyal black chap, but for no obvious reason they all return the next day having drunk and spunked away all their cash. They are soon ready to launch an assault on the bad guys’ base and manage to infiltrate it with an unlikely ruse regarding empty boxes. They shoot the place up but old Milky Eye gets away.

Not one to give up, Benedict chases after his man and is soon followed by his petulant posse who show an unbelievable streak of loyalty. A montage shows a year passing with all our guys still together - the Milky Eye bandit must be the World Hide and Seek Champion at this rate! Things start to fray and after a shocking bar room showdown they go their separate ways. While Benedict recovers with an Oirish lovely, his men start to catch up over some red eye. Can a new tip lead them to their quarry and will revenge be best served extremely cold?

This was as straightforward a western as you can imagine. Benedict is set up as happy and then revenge driven in the first ten minutes, and after that it’s basically ‘The Fugitive’ in cowboy hats. The locations and cinematography were great but the characterisation was lacking with the main bad guy barely getting a word in during his couple of brief scenes. OK this was an exercise in assessing the benefits of revenge and what it can do to people, but when the final showdown appeared I doubt any watcher was urging Holden to pull the trigger.

There was one clumsy scene where an old friend catches up with Benedict a year into his quest and says he’s now a stranger to him. He also is repulsed by a bloodstained bottle and retreats into one of his own. I get it that a bloodlust isn’t necessarily a good thing, but the character’s struggles with his dilemma didn’t convince.

On a more positive note the posse of six prisoners was good fun and they were grotty enough to be a ‘dirty half dozen’. Their motivations were mixed and I liked the self interest of Borgnine’s Mr Hoop, the only one who seemed realistic,. The rest looked like they were hanging about as they’d nothing better to do apart from one who, in a pointless sub plot, thought he might be Benedict’s long lost son.

The final battle was well staged with plenty of explosions and people falling off horses, as you’d expect. The final confrontation didn’t surprise but neither did the film in general so at least it was consistent!

Best Bit : Translator works from Hungarian phrasebook  64%

No.86 : The Breed (2006)

The Breed at the IMDb

Feeling a bit wuff? Well then, ‘The Breed’ may just be the film for you.

We open with a young couple on a yacht having a super time in the wide blue sea. They spot an island and decide to have a look - Huge mistake! While the bloke ties up the boat the girl runs off to find a bar but instead finds a big fence with ominous looking equipment poking out from within. She heads off but is soon chased by an unknown assailant and is quickly caught and pulled off camera by an unseen but snarling attacker.

We then cut to a group of college kids in a seaplane heading towards the same island. We learn a rich yuppie type has inherited the house that some of them holidayed in as kids, and they’ve brought some friends along for some pre-exam partying. After some unnecessary but highly enjoyable frolicking about in bikinis we get down to business as a blonde hottie gets nipped by a stray dog. A medical student tells her she will be OK as rabies will take a week to develop, but she’s soon getting horny and ‘feeling great’ which is usually movie shorthand for ‘possessed by monsters’.

The bloodied bloke from the yacht appears to warn them that ‘the dogs don’t want you here’ before being mercilessly chomped by a pack of mutts that look more ‘Crufts’ than junkyard. The kids take refuge in their cabin, after one gets an arrow in the leg from a friend who’s not so much ‘Green Arrow’ as ‘Crap at Archery’. The kids recall a local attack dog school (on a deserted island?) but it was closed down after a rabies outbreak - could these be refugee mutts driven insane by a strain of rabies? And why are the dogs drawn to the bitten girl, even after she puts on clothes and starts to get all weird?

These are some smart poochies and once they send the seaplane out to sea they terrorise the kids as they try to outsmart the ferocious Fidoes. As you’d expect the kids start to get picked off in a variety of dog based methods including an inventive ‘death by merry-go-round’. Soon we are down to three survivors and they manage to get an old car working - where better to head than the dog experiment laboratory? Who will survive and will the bitten maintain their ‘doggy instincts’ and will they be house trained?

‘The Breed’ is a workmanlike thriller with nothing new to say but it’s still good fun all the same. The premise is slight with the synopsis basically being ‘sexy kids fight killer dogs’ but you can’t say it is aimed at the high brow market. The cast are mostly unknowns with only Michelle Rodriguez being a familiar face and indeed body. This works well as you’ve no idea who is likely to survive given the low star profiles on offer.

The threat level is mild throughout with a severe biting the worst fate offered. To get in the range of the jaws a few unlikely scenarios are worked into the script with a handy zip line offering plenty of dangling opportunities. The origins of the threat are barely touched upon with a rack of test tubes offered as definitive proof of evil scientists at work.

The dogs themselves seem well trained but lack any real evil or frothing jaws. They take a few hits themselves with a few hot dogs thinning their numbers. Obviously they can’t hurt real dogs so their actual deaths happen off camera with whines and whelps dubbed on to show it’s one up for the good guys.

This was a fast paced 90 minutes and it certainly kept my interest. The film offered mild peril, some bikinied lovelies and a few inventive deaths - you could do a lot worse!

THE Tag Line - Doggone It’s OK!  68%