No.197 : The Replacements (2000)

The Replacements at the IMDb

Time for a bit of sporting fun now as we try to cram every cliché possible into this unsatisfying American football romp.

We meet our hero Shane Falco (Keanu Reeves) as he clears barnacles off the hull of a boat whilst scuba diving. He finds an old American Football trophy discarded on the sea bed and relives a moment of glory before going back to his work. We learn he was a former star who froze during his big chance at the Sugar Bowl a few years back. They didn’t explore why he didn’t use his time travel phone box to fix things, which may have made for a more exciting film.

His chance of redemption comes along pretty quickly, as all the overpaid football stars are going on strike. The producers must have been a bunch of commies as the players were made out to be the bad guys with one moaning about the price of Ferrari insurance. Too bad it’s a short career that leaves most with brain damage!

Local team, the Washington Sentinels, are an outside bet to make the playoffs - if they can win 3 out of their last 4 games they qualify. The club’s owner gets washed up boss Gene Hackman to take over the team and to recruit a posse of replacement players to win the day. We get a quick montage of loads of characters who might, just might, be the greatest players you’ve ever seen.

Strangely the cheerleaders are also recruiting - must be out in support of the players- , with the ladies getting a ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ style montage of all the losers making a tit of themselves. A full stable of cheerleaders is however found in the strip joint with their leader definitely not going to fall for Keanu’s quarterback, as she doesn’t date players. Well for about five minutes she doesn’t.

The team go through training, fights and then bonding and soon the first game looms. Can they win  3 out of 4 after losing the first? - 3 out of 3 then Duh! And will the various misfits find the redemption they crave?

This was a strange kind of film that had no interest in the labour laws situation and it didn’t address things like crossing a picket line or undermining the original players’ genuine grievances. I’m no Ted the Red (Cuba!) but it seemed a bit strange for a blue collar film to side with the management - it was ‘Carry on at Your Convenience’ all over again.

The reasonable cast fared badly with some poor material. Reeves was OK in the lead but Jon Faverau was wasted as an annoying character who just ran into people. Rhys Ifans was better as soccer player Nigel from Wales who could kick massive field goals whilst smoking a fag. It looks like he was let down in the edit as his arc didn’t make any sense at all. There was also a lot of shoving and name calling and, most regrettably, dance numbers.

Hackman phoned it in and showed no passion at all - compare him to Pacino in ‘Any Given Sunday’ and you’ll see a lightweight getting smashed by a heavyweight in the 'down at heel football coach' role.

The games were poorly scripted with each of the four games coming down to the last seconds with our guys just behind. There was very little in the way of actual game play, the kind you see most Sundays, with every point being either a comical mishap or a death defying kick or throw.

It was OK in places but ultimately it was an uneven mess with unengaging characters and a suspect premise.

THE Tag Line : Strike it off your list!   55%

No.196 : The Signal (2007)

The Signal at the IMDb

There is another ‘The Signal’ out there dating from 2014 which has three times more votes than this one on the IMDb. We didn’t get where we are by being popular, so it’s the less seen one for us.

I went into this cold and thought it was a tonal mess. It was only when reading up on the film I see that the three segments or ‘transmissions’ were filmed by three different directors using different genres to tell their part of the story. I’m not sure what this approach added to the project, apart from confusion, as it was grating to see the film jump about the place with an in-cohesive narrative.

Anyway, we open with our heroine, Mya, getting out of bed. She keeps her bra on in bed but takes her knickers off. Fair enough. Mya is having an affair and is worried that she can’t get though to her husband to spin her lies due to a strange signal on her phone. The TV also displays strobing patterns and we suspect that this is ‘the signal’ of the title. And we’re right!

Mya heads home and meets up with her suspicious and controlling husband and his two friends. They are all pissed off that the can’t watch the game due to ‘the signal’ and tempers start to fray. Before long random people, including the husband's friend who happens to have a baseball bat, become homicidal maniacs and the killing begins.

Mya gets away but hooks up with a neighbour and the two head out to find that the city is aflame with murders happening all over.

The seconds transmission sees a couple setting up for a New Year’s party. Bodies have already begun to stack up with the wife either mental or in denial. This section is played for laughs and doesn’t sit well alongside the first which was straight out horror. This one goes on too long and there is too much farce on show with comedy clubbings, Vic and Bob Style.

The last section charts Mya’s journey to the station where she had agreed to meet her lover before the chaos started. Will she make it? Will ‘the signal’ be explained? And how come that disembodied head is talking?

This was a cheap looking, horror satire that overextended itself in terms of ambition and effects. Some bits were decent with others just looking plain daft. One chap gets his head cut off and it’s later reanimated so it can be interrogated. Good science! This was in the comedy section but it just looked daft.

If they had kept to the tone of the first section throughout this could have been a serviceable survival post apocalyptic thriller. Instead you were taken out of the action with the slapstick of chapter two and you also lose sight of your main character for 30 minutes which is never going to be satisfying.

You won’t know anyone in the cast but they were mostly serviceable and I liked Anessa Ramsey in the lead, despite thinking she was the waitress out of ‘Always Sunny’ for most of the film.

You could say this was a brave experiment in mixing genres but to me it was just a mess and a waste of time. A couple of good kills and getting hit by a frying pan is never going to sustain a 100 minute film.

The Tag Line : 3 Directors? More is less, 53%

No.195 : The Circle (2017)

The Circle at the IMDb

Emma, one of the famous Watsons along with me and Bubba, stars in this tech thriller that outstays its welcome by a good half hour.

She plays Mae, who works as a temp for a water company and drives a crappy old car. She has an admirer in Mercer who fixes her car and doesn’t realise he has no chance. Mae gets a job at tech company ‘The Circle’ thanks to her friend Karen Gillen who sets up the interview.

The job is basically customer service, but soon the inevitable creepiness starts to appear. The Circle demands full access to all employee details and expects them to socialise within the company. Mae is resistant at first but when she sees the benefits, such as medical care for her sick father, she buys in.

Her enthusiasm is noted by company supremo Tom Hanks and CEO Patton Oswalt. Neither of these two are overly involved and Hanks looks like he filmed his scenes in a single afternoon.

Mae meets John Boyega off ‘Star Wars’, who seemed a bit miscast as the tech genius behind some of The Circle’s products, and he warns her of getting in too deep. Mae doesn’t listen and gets wired up for 24 hour webcam exposure to promote the company’s new ‘See Change’ technology. Later innovations such as compulsory voter registration via The Circle make us a bit uneasy and when Mercer dies in a company stunt, Mae has to reevaluate her commitment to the company.

Can this once temp worker bring down the multi-national tech company with help form the Star Wars guy? Are the company really evil and is the message really going to be that blunt? You Bet!

This film started out OK but as soon as Mae steals the kayak it goes downhill. The message about privacy was hammered home with a sledgehammer, with the tech company basically planning to record everything we ever say or do. Hanks was a bit one note and I wasn’t sure if he was meant to be evil or just misguided. Watson was OK but had a lot of heavy lifting to do and I really didn’t care for her journey. The peer pressure was well realised, but I was expecting a big reveal that she’d been brainwashed when she really just got caught up in the hype.

The guy playing Mercer looked like he found the part in a cereal box and Boyega’s ‘deep throat’ character was a waste of time. Some scenes ran too long and I felt like I’d spent days in the auditorium watching product demos - buy ‘The Circle’ products! It did look like there had been a big change of plan midway by the production as Karen Gillan’s character went from high-flyer to mentalist in the blink of an eye.

It was sad to see Bill Paxton and Glenne Headly as Mae’s parents, as they were both dead within a year of this film coming out. Paxton looked terrible and I assumed his character’s MS was the actor’s own. He actually died of a stroke so good performance here Bill!

‘The Circle’ had a hollow ring to it and I didn’t believe the public’s buy in to their shenanigans, which weren’t really evil just a bit invasive. If you want to watch something about an shady tech company watch ‘Devs’ instead of this - that’s got Ron Swanson in it too. This one was over long and under developed.

THE Tag Line - Not Fully Rounded     56%

No.194 : The Strangers (2008)

The Strangers at the IMDb

This film opens with a caption saying that there are 1.3 million crimes of violence a year in America and that this film is ‘inspired by true events’. Off the bat we know that our own fears of being murdered will be played on and that they have basically made everything up. Just as well really as it’s nasty and pointless film that you’d hope would never happen in reality. But probably does.

We get a brief preamble of two boys entering a blood soaked house  - we can’t see any bodies but carnage has ensued. It is soon apparent that this is a flash forward…

Kirsten and James arrive home late after a night out. They drive a Volvo so we know that they are safety conscious and middle class. They arrive in silence and a flashback tells us that James proposed at their night out and she didn’t accept. Despite it being 4am they stick on some records and have a drink.

A knock on the door is the first sign that all is not well. A woman asks for someone they don’t know and we wonder if this was just a test to see if anyone is in. James goes out to get Kirsten some cigarettes and whilst he’s gone the door knocking continues. More sinister things happen such as a broken smoke alarm is found put back together and a man with a bag on his head is seen at the window.

James is initially sceptical but starts to buy in when his car gets trashed and his lost mobile phone shows up on the counter. He gets his father’s shotgun and the pair hide out in a back room -predictably the phone lines are down and the mobiles aren’t working.

Unfortunately for him, James’ friend Dennis Reynolds shows up and is promptly shot in the face. This doesn’t put off your bag and mask wearing bad guys however, with the three of them now revealed and in the house. Our heroes try to make it to a barn that has a radio but soon the pair are tied to some chars and, worryingly, the bad guys take off their masks. Who will survive? Why are they doing this and have I locked the door?

This film was all about the tension with every long period of silence ended with a scream or a jump scare. I find this very annoying and the screeching Liv Tyler, in the lead, lost any empathy from me long before the end. I didn’t like that there was no motivation from the bad guys and that they were simply just psychos. Even that is an assumption as we barely hear them talk and they are little more than devices for our characters to run away from.

It’s a common flaw in films like this that the bad guys have second sight - they always know what window to stand at and when to jump out of the way just as the character turns around. Just once I’d love to see one stub his toe and shout as he’s silently stalking the hero.

The violence was pretty nasty and I could see this film doing well in a darkened cinema with all the scares in full surround sound. There just wasn’t any substance. It takes about 15 minutes to start properly and only lasts 75 minutes in total. Even with just an hour of action it seems padded with the whole quest of getting to the radio in the barn seeming pointless and proving to be so.

If you like a good home invasion film check out ‘The Desperate Hours’. This one was just desperate.

THE Tag Line : There’s Somebody at the Door!  45%

No.193 : The Outfit (1973)

The Outfit at the IMDb

No, it’s not a nice film about a pretty dress; ‘The Outfit’ is a pretty brutal gangster pic from 1973 that is seemingly a Tarantino favourite.

We open with a priest pulling something lethal from his pants. Don’t worry, it’s only a gun and I’m not sure he’s a priest. He and a cabbie gun down a man building a wall - must have disliked his pointing work. Meanwhile Robert Duvall is getting out of jail having done ‘two and a quarter’ for a firearms charge.

He’s picked up by Karen Black and learns that it was his brother who was killed in the first paragraph. Black goes to a motel with Duvall but he smells a rat and manages to avoid being whacked by ‘the outfit’ - basically the mob. Duvall and his brother had robbed a mafia bank a few years back and the deed is coming back to haunt them.

Not one to go on the defensive Duvall takes the mob on and demands $250k from them to back off. He hits a variety of card games and scams and eventually the mafia agree to pay him off. Of course the money drop is a trap but after escaping with his henchman, Joe Don Baker, Duvall decides to go up against the big boss, Robert Ryan.

Will he get the justice he doesn’t really deserve and who will get out alive?

I enjoyed this straightforward revenge picture that didn’t try to be overly complex, instead relying on some good planning and tense sequences. The near bald Duvall is great as Macklin although he is a bit of a low talker. 'Quiet menace' they’d no doubt call it, but speak up Bob! He was cunning and lethal in a fight, although I have to say ‘The Outfit’ weren’t really at the races; falling for every old disguise and misdirection trick in the book.

Black was OK as the moll, but she and all the female characters fared badly with ‘shut up’ the usual response they earned to every utterance. I liked one trouble making lady, who was a spit for Dee out of ‘Always Sunny’, who offered her charms to Baker and wasn’t impressed at his rejection. Another got a straight right to the chin and Black got a right good slapping for daring to touch Duvall’s pistol - and him just out of the joint too!

You could see this film as inspiration for a lot of features that followed, with Black running down two henchman going straight into ‘Breaking Bad’ and the showdown at the end  being seen many times since, in lesser productions.

The film zipped along with several robberies planned and executed in some detail. I thought the ending was a bit pat but at least it proved the old adage of always take a white coat with you on your murder sprees.

Duvall did well to bring some empathy to a scumbag character and you couldn't help but admire his quite determination to gain his flawed version of justice. I probably preferred ‘Charley Varrick’ which tread very similar ground, but there was plenty to like here and you can see why it is still well regarded in a crowded genre.

THE Tag Line : No Hair : Doesn’t Care    76%

No.192 : The Pallbearer (1996)

The Pallbearer at the IMDb

‘Friend’ David Schwimmer was two years into his tenure as Ross Geller when he made this clunker. The glory days of ‘Run Fat Boy Run’ were still a decade away.

Ross plays against type as a drippy architecture graduate who is looking for a job and who lives with his Mom. We have already seen a man gas himself in his car (did he see the trailer for this?) so it’s no surprise when Ross gets the call to be a pallbearer at the funeral. It is for him however, as he doesn’t remember the dead man, Bill. Rather than say ‘Sorry I don’t know him, have you got the right person?’ he instead agrees.

He meets with the dead man’s mother, Judge Hershey, and is soon talked into giving the eulogy too. The school yearbook is no use as it doesn’t have a picture of Bill and offers only that he was in the chess club. Ross’ fortunes look up however when he meets his high school crush, Gwyneth Paltrow, at a party. She doesn’t remember Ross and mistakes him for someone else. There’s your clue to the big surprise!

Ross helps Hershey tidy up her dead son’s room and is soon in her pants too. Meanwhile Ross’ friends are due to get married and are having difficulties respectively, with one of the husbands having designs on Paltrow.

After snagging the dead man’s car and his mother, Ross starts to cool on the older lady and gains confidence with Paltrow, eventually bedding her after an interminable courtship. Bumps in the road appear however with Paltrow keen to spread her wings and the rightly pissed off Hershey looking for answers. Will Ross get the job and the girl or was this all a big waste of time?

This was an awful effort where very little happens and no laughs or drama are offered. Ross is a horrible character and although I’m sure the idea is to chart his progress to being a more rounded and caring man he just comes across as a tit. Paltrow as the object of his affections is no better and her attempts at a New York / Italian accent are laughable - when she bothers to try.

I think they were maybe looking for a Woody Allen style take on modern relationships but it was just dreadful. To make out the grieving, humped and dumped, mother as a nutter was cruel as was the revelation that her son was just plain forgettable. No redemption for him but a smidgen for Ross who gives away the death trap Pinto to allow Paltrow to follow her dreams.

The surprise twist that it was another ‘Tom’ that was really the friend was signalled in the first five minutes and it seemed pointless for this one to say he hardly knew the dead guy either.

There was a decent cast lurking in the background such as Toni Colette and Hector Salamanca but both had little to do, with Hector not even having his bell to keep us amused.

The film lacked any point and was morally dubious throughout - Harvey Weinstein producing? Oh well that explains it!

THE Tag Line - Drop it in a Hole 38%

No.191 : The Trust (2016)

The Trust at the IMDb

This is one of five films made by Nicholas Cage in 2016, so you know it has to be good, what with all that practice. ‘The Trust’ is probably best known as the final film of Jerry Lewis, but he has barely a minute on screen.

The film opens with two Las Vegas policemen starting their day. Cage’s Jim is meticulous and organised whereas his friend David (Froddo) is having sex with a hooker and smoking drugs. The pair work at the evidence locker and plan ways of making a big score to get out.

Cage is disrespected by his corrupt seniors who want the best pickings from the evidence locker from themselves. He has a look over a drug dealer’s car and sees that his $200k bail was paid by cash. He thinks that the dealer works for a rich operation and decides to go undercover, on his own time as a hotel waiter, so he can follow his target’s activities.

Woods meanwhile stakes out the target’s apartment and they discover that goods go in but none come out. They also find a large safe in the plans for the building and make plans to rob it. There is a bit of planning and a reveal that Cage may not be as nice as he seems at first.

The robbery goes poorly from the off as the occupants in the flat above aren’t immediately agreeable to being the base for the drilling operation, with one chap getting shot and the lady being chained up. The plan to burrow into the safe goes well, despite an issue with the drill, and soon they are in the vault which holds a lot more than anticipated. Wood gets cold feet and starts to worry about what Cage has planned for him. Cage starts to display his trademark mania and we just know that both are not going to get clean away.

This was a decent, workmanlike heist movie that tapered off towards the end. I quite liked the planning stages and Ethan Suplee’s Russian roulette loving policeman. I liked that when they went for plans or when they ordered the drill that they were immediate thought to be crooked, despite their elaborate cover story.

The heist was less good with it starting wordlessly like ‘Riffifi’ and being overlaid by some Grieg. This couldn’t last however and it quickly spiralled down to a lot of shouting and double crosses. The twist at the end was well handled with the moment of realisation being a solid ‘Ahhh’ realisation as it all became apparent.

The characters weren’t overly deep, with their motivations not being clear - since when was too much money been an issue with a robbery? Just take a wee bit of the loot if it bothers you!

The two leads gelled well at first, but like the plot they kind of lost their way at the end. Wood’s empathy for the hostage wasn’t borne out by what had gone before and his behaviour towards Cage just smacked of ‘this will surprise them’.

I do always like a robbery film, especially when the safe door cracks open. In this case however, it was when the money arrived that things fell apart. A decent if uneven effort.

THE Tag Line : Open It! Open It ! Open It! X 10  65%

No.190 : The Pact (2012)

The Pact at the IMDb

Johnny Rico out of ‘Starship Troopers, stars in this film - Would you like to know more? If you’re smart you’ll say ‘No, I’m off to see ‘Love is Nice’ with Jennifer Aniston . This was a dull, depressing and low budget effort that wasn’t worth the bother.

Annie returns to her home town in California following the death of her mother. She can’t convince her sister to return to their childhood home as the sister has a lot of bad memories of the place. Annie seems in denial somewhat and has a troubling night when unseen forces watch her having a pee before chucking her about the place.

Annie manages to escape with her young niece but learns that her sister is now missing and she’s the only suspect. Rico is a nice policeman who hands out ice cream to suspects and enjoys listening to their wild and fantastical theories of what’s going on.

The pair return to the family home and discover a boarded up room complete with a rickety bed and enough peepholes to make Norman Bates blush. With the cops no use Annie starts her own investigation and finds a woman waving at her from Google Maps. She also visits a bunch of stoners in a scene so annoying with industrial clanging that I had to fast forward it. I think they were trying for a ‘Silent Hill’ type unsettling vibe but it was just plain headache inducing.

Believing there to be a supernatural explanation for her troubles Anne drafts in Stevie, a pale, scary looking psychic, who yells Judas before freaking out - must be a Dylan fan. After some more internet wizardry Annie earns about the Judas Killer, a serial killer from her neighbourhood who remains at large.

Rico does some investigating of his own and soon wishes he hadn’t. But fear not! we have a Ouija board and some ghostly special effects that may save the day.

I didn’t like this film at all. From it’s washed out palette to its uninspiring lead. The clues were all over the shop and the obvious explanation was the one they went with. There were too many jump scares and no real horror. Some of the effects were somewhat unsettling but I’ve seen better elsewhere, even in video games.

The plot, about repressed memories and childhood abuse, was never going to float my boat but it could have made an effort beyond the standard haunted house tropes. The film was made for a shoestring $400k and it does show with a lot of talk and very little show.

Rico was miscast as the nice policeman and his comeuppance was a small mercy at least. His reappearance in Ouija was a chuckle and I wondered if his pay had ran out and he phoned this bit in. The revelations were decently handled although the helpful ghost took a bit of acceptance. The baddy reveal was a bit of a letdown, but sometimes the real horrors aren’t ethereal, they are bald guys with their shirts off. The climax was reasonably good with it let down somewhat with the eye at the peep hole at the end - oh no! It’s starting all over again.

Over all I wasn’t scared or affected or even interested throughout. Make a pact with yourself and give it a miss.

THE Tag Line : Pact Full of Nothing 32%

No.189 : The Drownsman (2014)

The Drownsman at the IMDb

These cheap films that you find on The Horror Channel, with made up words for titles, don’t have to be dreadful - we recently enjoyed ‘The Hexecutioners’ - but this one certainly was.

We open in a ‘Saw’ type basement with a  shadowy figure abusing a bunch of women who he has in water filled tanks. We later learn that he gets his kicks from listening to their heartbeats as they drown. This was due to him being an 18 lb baby that gestated for 19 months - I bet that made Mommy Drownsman’s eyes water!

One lady fights back and manages to stab the bad guy with a sliver of broken fish tank. Movie done? Alas no - there is no body and it looks like we are dealing with something from the supernatural.

We then meet Madison, a sort of blander Anne Hathaway, who on being made maid of honour for her friend’s wedding celebrates by slipping on a beer bottle and falling into the lake. As she flounders she has visions of a shadowy man, similar to the chap in the preamble. Hope it’s the same one, or we have two of these guys to sort out. Madison is pulled from the water but is changed by the incident, developing a pathological fear of water, so much so that she has to inject all her fluids. Her bathing and toilet habits are not disclosed.

A year passes and she misses her friend’s wedding due it having rained. Her friends are pissed off at her hydrophobia and stage an intervention with a psychic, who is wise in all things water demonic. The intervention goes as expected with the shadowy chap, now officially called ‘The Drownsman’ showing up, although not seen by all. This alerts The Drownsman to the girls’ presence and he starts to pick them off in a variety of aquatic ways - often through the medium of puddle.

Knowing their time is running out, Madison starts to research The Drownsman (wish I hadn’t) and learns things about her own family and possibly a way to get back at her tormentor. Who will survive? And will this soggy Freddie Kruger be defeated?

First a word on that poster - didn’t happen. For a film all about water based murders there were strangely none in a bath or shower. Plenty of sinks and a couple of spillages but nothing that required any undressing. Very coy for a supposed horror, the domain of the late night pervert viewer - and me!

At one point Madison heads to The Craven Hospital which was an obvious nod to Wes Craven whose works this film totally ripped off. Rather than Freddie’s domain of dreams, The Drownsman operates in water. Any time a tap leaks or a glass of water appears you know your man isn’t far away. This leads to daft scenes of people being pulled into sinks and the like, and into The Drownsman’s other worldly lair.

To pad the film out the gals visit the nut house and a man who investigates The Drownsman and has a website asking for contact, but when you show up he basically says 'bugger off'. Time waster. The stuff about Madison’s family was plain daft, but I would like to be at her house for a family reunion.

The ‘rules’ were made up on the hoof and to be honest I had no idea what was happening towards the end. Well I did, but then there was a pointless twist that negated all that had gone before and suggested  that sequels may follow. Thankfully, none to date.

The whole premise gives rise to plenty of potential for smart arsed remarks and I for one wont stoop that low. I’ll just say that this was a damp squib, the cast were a bunch of drips and it was moistly terrible.

THE Tag Line - Dry Your Eyes - It’s Garbage 31%

No.188 : The Rise (2012)

The Rise at the IMDb

Wikipedia tells me that this film was called ‘Wasteland’ for its North American release, which means that it is the first cross blog feature that we have watched. Both posters are attached but I’ll go with ‘The Rise’ as that was the title card on the version I watched on Film4.

It’s a British film so obviously it deals with drugs, crime, sink estates and respect. It would be nice to see some sci-fi or even a light heated period comedy, but bad slags are cheap so that’s what the British film industry will go with.

The film opens with a beaten up young man talking to Barry off ‘Auf Wiedersein Pet’. Barry has retrained as a police detective and he’s interviewing Harvey, a young man recently released from a year long stretch for dealing drugs. We go the familiar non-linear narrative route, so he tells Barry that it’s a long story and we soon dissolve to a flashback ‘six months before’…

Harvey is a chatty chap and provides a lot of narration about the drugs trade in his estate. He’s supposedly clean, but the local drug lord gets him sent down for a year so that  the police make their quota and the drug lord can be left in peace. After getting out, Harvey decides to get his own back on the drug lord with his crew of three friends, including Ramsay Bolton.

All three are struggling but soon take to Harvey’s plan to rob the drug lord of his takings and to invest the money in a hash café in Amsterdam - it’s good that they have worthy ambitions. He also has to reconnect with his nurse girlfriend, who’s a bit tiresome, and to train the gang so as to flesh out the plot so that enough time passes before we return to Barry in the interview room where all the clever twists are explained.

‘The Rise’ of the title is a working man’s club, and Harvey heard in prison that they have a safe with loads of cash in it. If this seems like a flimsy prospect for a job it also serves as the premise of the film, so keep quiet.

The gang hone their skills in a manner of elaborate an ultimately pointless ways before the heist is on. Will they get the cash and a new worthless life, or will the mild drug lord win the day?

If you liked ‘Oceans 11, 12 and 13’ you may like this, but be warned, it’s ‘Ocean’s 0.5’ at best. The heist is pretty straightforward and although it seemingly goes off the rails, there was never any doubt that a few planned wrong foots would save the day.

The characters were all wafer thin, with it being a mistake to hang the whole film on Harvey who was dull and unengaging. I didn’t care if he got the money or the girl and the whole enterprise was like a bunch of rats fighting over a rotten chicken leg.

Ramsay was a bit underused with this clunker coming out a year before he started in ‘Game of Thrones’. I’m guessing this effort was left of his CV.

There wasn’t much in the way of invention and I didn’t believe in the actions of Barry’s police detective who seemed to make a call on judgement rather than base his decision on the evidence. It looked like he only worked a day on the film, so he probably just wanted to get home.

You may find some form of entertainment hidden within this mess but to be honest I wasn’t engaged at all and the big revelations barely registered on the ‘So what’ meter. These criminals feeding off each other features do nothing for me, and if they were all sucked into a black hole after five minutes I’d have no complaints.

Overall a workmanlike British heist that failed to deliver the goods.

THE Tag Line : Get Your Bad Slags Here!  43%

No.187 : The Hexecutioners (2015)

The Hexecutioners at the IMDb

This film is set in a world where euthanasia has been legalised. As long as you have the correct paperwork you are fine to employ an agency who will send over a worker to dispatch your ailing loved one in the manner of your choosing. You’d think that such a job would demand a strong person with a lot of life experience, but actually you just need to be a pretty young woman. One such worker is Malison whom we meet on her first day in the job. Somewhat strangely she is sent on her own and it’s no surprise when she makes a right pig’s ear of it.

The comatose old woman she’s supposed to put down wakes up after her ‘lethal’ injection, throws up and calls Malison a murderer. You’d think the husband would be happy to see his wife out of the coma, but instead he finishes the old gal off with a pillow.

Somewhat distressed Mel, as she mother used to call her, heads home but is soon evicted from her flat when her landlord learns of her occupation - and of her cat. She abandons the cat in a field and heads of to her next assignment. Learning of her bang up job on the old woman, Mel’s boss pairs her up with an experienced employee, Olivia, who doesn’t wear a bra and is happy to complete her assignments without complaint, even if it means blowing people’s brains out, so that Mel can learn the ropes.

The mismatched pair head off to a mansion with the big pair of CGI gates as seen in the poster above. Falling short of ‘employee of the month’ once again, Mel faints on the doorstep and has visions of a large group of cultists in masks approaching an alter as well as of the old, now dead, woman. Well they’d probably paid her for the day and had put her make up on already.

They meet creepy Edgar who tends to the needs of the girls’ next job, who has the same stylist as Gary Oldman had in ‘Hannibal’. The termination contract contains lots of extra details including cutting the body up and feeding it to the birds whilst text is read from a creepy tome. This is a $1m contract - wonder why the boss sent two emotional ladies? - and they resolve not to get involved. The old house soon exerts its influence on the girls however, with their behaviours changing and the previously prim Mel looking for some lesbian action which Olivia refuses - as is her right. Boo Hiss!

The day of the termination is looming and Mel is having more and more creepy visions. Will the planned ritual go ahead and what is it in aid of? Will our girls survive and will Mel’s housing problem be resolved?

I was surprised this film only had an IMBd rating of 4/10 as I quite enjoyed it. It was small scale and low budget but was teeming with ideas and grisly imagery. I wasn’t 100% sure what was going on but it was the usual stuff about human sacrifices and portals. It was quite creepy throughout and there were some decent touches such as the ritual being chroma keyed, with only the reds showing against a washed out background.

The two female leads were good with Liv Collins handling the transition from mouse to vixen with aplomb. Sarah Power as Olivia had less of a story arc but more than made up for that in other ways. Er, dramatic acting ways!

It didn’t set the heather alight but as a late night offering on the Horror Channel this was a welcome find and one well worth seeking out.

THE Tag Line Getting ready For Bed - and Other Scenes Too! 66%

No.186 : The Frogmen (1951)

The Frogmen at the IMDb

* This entry was originally written for a planned new blog called ‘The Creature Feature’ in which every film title reviewed would contain  the name of an animal. The project was shelved when it was realised that two unread blogs was plenty, thanks very much. Fortunately this review also fitted into the criteria for this blog and could therefore be repurposed. Sadly ‘The Mosquito Squadron’ may never see the light of day.

Richard Widmark stars in this 1951 effort that could, and probably did, serve as a recruitment film for the navy.

The film open with a bunch of soldier bickering. The navy regulars don’t like the supposed preferential treatment given to the operatives of the underwater demolition team or frogmen. We learn the frogmen are mourning the loss of their popular commanding officer who bought it at Iwo Jima. After a low rent scuffle their new CO arrives in the shape of Widmark. His first job is to tell them all off and this sets the tone of their fractious relationship.

The war in the Pacific is going well and it’s the frogmens’ job to lay explosives to clear underwater hazards prior to the invasion of the islands around Japan. The first mission goes OK until one of the support ships carrying some of the team is blown up by a shell. Widmark, resplendent in his trunks, refuses to turn back for survivors in favour of completing the mission and this increases the ire against him. We the viewer know he’s a stand up guy however, as he got scratched on some coral and didn’t moan about it.

Widmark knows he’s losing the team and three put in for transfers. He can’t go on the next mission due to his gamey leg, but when a frogman gets shot in the ass after a prank goes wrong he has to lay down the law again, demoting a popular but frankly stupid member of the team. Soon it’s more like Skidmark than Widmark as the rest of the team put in for transfers. Don’t they know there’s a war on?

As you’d expect Widmark’s chance of redemption comes along soon, when unexploded torpedo finds it’s way into sick bay where the ass shot man is recovering. I hate it when that happens. Widmark saves the day with his trusty screwdriver and things may be starting to thaw as he gains a sliver of respect from his hard to please crew.

Before the transfers take place they have one last  mission - to blow up the Jap submarine pens - can Widmark save the day and win over his so not worth it crew?

This was a pretty enjoyable slice of navy life. The characters were all painted with broad strokes and the three acts were signalled prominently with nothing in the way of surprises on offer. From the start when we see the frogmen eulogising about their fallen Commander Cassidy we knew that Widmark would have a tough task on his hands and one he’d eventually succeed at.

The crew, who included ‘Number 2’ Robert Wagner and the Brooklyn one off ‘Sergeant Bilko’ were an unlikable lot and it was surprising that Widmark was so keen on winning their admiration. You’d have expected in a time of war that he’d be a bit more no-nonsense rather than whimpering like a schoolgirl about his lack of popularity.

The action scenes were good, especially the bombardments, and the under water stuff was well handled. The exploding ship however looked like some one had painted a big flash on the film and the underwater knife fights were a bit tame. The climatic raid was quite good but not a patch on the British derring do of ‘We Dive at Dawn’.

You did get the sense they were on a real ship with real navy men doing the stunts and it was quite a change from the normal WW2 clichés and settings. The word ‘frogmen’ is never used and it was only towards the end they actually put on the gas tanks.

It was undemanding stuff with a totally predictable narrative, but overall it was good fun apart from the bit where one guy’s left nut appears as he clambers off the boat - thanks a lot HD TV!

THE Tag Line - Please love me 70%

No.185 : The Guvnors (2014)

The Guvnors at the IMDb

Another episode of Alan Partridge’s ‘Bad Slags’ now as we visit one of England’s finest sink estates and watch people carving each other up.

The film opens with two men confronting each other with one demanding the other shoots him. There’s the usual nonsense about street cred and respect before we dissolve to ‘1 month before’. Oh good, a non-linear narrative - this one takes about an hour to unwind so you could really just fast forward it and you wouldn’t miss much.

We meet Adam, a scarred youth of mixed race who runs the local estate. Not in a civic amenities sense, more that he’s in charge of the brawling and the drugs. Someone has blabbed to the cops so he carries out a public slashing with his soon to be signature move with a Stanley knife. He’s concerned that he isn’t getting the respect he deserves and hates hearing about ‘The Guvnors’ a group of football hooligans from 20 years ago.

Meanwhile city worker Mitch is having problems of his own. His workers are obsessed with street fight videos on Youtube and his own son is a right wee prick who bullies his classmates. It turns out that Mitch was the leader of the Guvnors but left 20 years ago when he fell in love.

Adam’s gang decide on flexing their muscles in the Guvnors’ old pub but end up getting handed their asses by retired gym owner Mickey, played by an unrecognisable David Essex. Essex enjoys a brief moment of viral video success but soon the feral youth are at his door and jumping on his head.

The police are ineffective - possibly because they have home made uniforms and possibly because they have recruited comedian Richard Blackwood for some unfathomable reason. It’s therefore up to the Guvnors to reclaim the streets and to avenge Essex. Will it all end in tears? You betcha!

This was a terrible offering but to be honest I did enjoy the ‘what cliché next’ game that the film offers throughout. I also enjoyed its aspirations, looking as it did to set what was essentially a squalid street brawl as something from a Greek Tragedy. There were efforts made with the sepia toned flashbacks being a nice touch, although ‘Wembley Stadium‘ looked like the local dog track. The eulogising of the Guvnors was a mistake as they just came across as a bunch of self satisfied thugs despite efforts to make them look like the less bad option for the estate.

The feral youth were no better. The lead villain Adam, who was played by someone out of Rizzle Kicks (apparently) was very poor. He’s slightly built and talked very slowly. I’m sure that was to give him some menace and gravitas but he just came across as a slow learner who’d won a competition to be in a film.

The big twist of a dynastic struggle was signalled from far off and the massed pitched battle finale made ‘Game of Thrones’ look like, well, Game of Thrones. The themes of trying to escape your past, destiny and fate were all touched upon, but soon set aside in favour of another whack over the head with a house brick.

I imagine the target audience for this film would lap up the sadistic violence and hooliganism but it made me just want a shower as the credits rolled. A guilty pleasure or just plain guilty of making a bunch of scumbags look like heroes? Second one.

The Tag Line : Complete With Anchorman Style Pitched Battle!  45%

No.184 : The Decline (2020)

The Decline at the IMDb

Like our previous film ‘The Objective’ this film also has a group of people who are gradually whittled down by a relentless killer, but that’s where the similarities end, as this one was quite good.

Made by Netflix, the film is French/Canadian and the version I watched had dubbing that would make a porno blush. I think you can watch it in the original French and view the subtitles if your O'level language skills are lacking, and that would present the film at its best. I watched it dubbed with sub-titles and it was strange that barely a line of dialogue matched the words spelled out below.

Anyway, we open with people looking over a dead body wrapped in a bloody sheet and we wonder how we got here - well you’ll need to wait 34 minutes before you catch up. We meet Antoine who, in Chas Tenenbaum style, rouses his family in the night and evacuates them from the city. We learn that it was just a drill and that the next time his daughter’s turtle is getting left behind. Antoine worries about social decay and feels that things will kick off soon. He preps his family by watching Youtube videos of a Ray Mears style outdoorsman who gives handy tips on preserving rice and bush craft.

Things get moving when Antoine is invited to a survival camp hosted in the wilderness, by his hero. Things start off OK, with some rabbit skinning and dish washing, but we start to wonder the agenda when the arts and crafts lesson turns to pipe bomb manufacturing and the conversation to immigrants with machetes. Clearly our man is a nutter, but before the visitors can make their excuses and leave, one of them is blown up and killed by a home made bomb.

Our previously counter culture visitors agree that they should really be calling the cops, but the survival nut host, Alain, says no and  starts to burn the body. Protests from the group see one shot in the leg and another three, flee into the woods where we know plenty of traps lie in wait. Alain teams up with return guest and fellow mentalist David, and the hunt is on.

Who will survive? Will it be family man Antoine whom we have invested in or maybe the military woman whom we know is good at wrestling moves? Surely not the shot woman tied to the table?

Despite the poor dubbing I really liked this film and it kept a heady pace throughout. It’s hard to comment on the acting, as the dubbing took so much away from the performances, but it was likeable and believable group of characters. I liked how they all started out as survivalists fearing ‘the man’ only to have to re-examine their positions once things went out of their comfort zone.

It was good that it was quickly whittled down to a two versus two scenario and there were a few surprises to keep you guessing. The deaths were all visceral with plenty of blood being splattered across the fresh snow. Of course, you will have seen a survival horror along these lines before, but there were enough fresh elements and twists here to keep me engaged.

I’m not sure why it was called ‘The Decline’ - a decline in society? Declining numbers of survivors? Probably lost in translation. At only 85 minutes this is a quick thrill and definitely one to spend some of your Nexflix time on.

THE Tag Line : Survive This!  75%

No.183 : The Objective (2008)

The Objective at the IMDb

Box office Mojo gives this film’s domestic gross as $95. Having watched it, that seems about a hundred bucks more than it’s worth.

We open with a portentous voiceover which is never a good sign. CIA Agent Keynes tells us that 3 days after 9/11 mysterious signals were detected in the Afghan desert and he’s been sent to investigate. He meets up with the usual rag tag of soldiers who accompany him on the mission.

The briefing takes all of a couple of minutes as he explains they are going to get a statement from a holy man. The mission starts off OK as they visit some locals and hand out some candy. They gain a guide in the form of Abdul and head off to the mountains, where the holy man is hanging out.

Almost immediately they are attacked in an ambush and lose a soldier. They kill a few terrorists but their bodies mysteriously disappear. The fire fight takes out their jeep and most of their water supply and things predictably go downhill from here.

Keynes stays aloof from the men and is constantly peering at his thermal image camera. They witness some strange lights and before long their numbers are whittled down as men are vaporised by an invisible enemy.

Eventually Keynes comes clean to his rapidly depleting crew - they are trying to track an ancient and terrible force that took care of some British troops in the first Afghan war and which was documented by Alexander the Great. Unfortunately for us it’s not exciting aliens or monsters but some lights that form a triangle - excitement she wrote!

With further loses to dehydration and desertion, Keynes is on his own but he finds an oasis in the desert. Just as he has hope of recovery, his camera picks up a new image - will this be death or salvation?

I didn’t enjoy much about this film apart from the great Moroccan locations that doubled for the slightly more hostile Afghanistan. The acting was uniformly terrible with the lead being the most wooden turn since Pinocchio. The voice over was pretentious with philosophical gubbins being trotted out at every turn. The usual men on a mission clichés were all present and correct as was the standard ‘unit depleting one at a time‘ narrative.

The end, and indeed the whole film, didn’t make a lick of sense and I was really none the wiser about what was going on as the credits rolled. It could have been interesting given the location and overarching ideas in play, but the execution was awful and compounded by a terrible script and lamentable acting.

The Tag Line : Your Objective : Give this a miss! 23%

No.182 : The Duellists (1977)

The Duellists at the IMDb

Off to the early 19th centaury now, in this historical romp which was director Ridley Scott’s first feature.

We open is Strasbourg with hot headed Harvey Keitel’s cavalry officer winning a duel by running his sabre through an unfortunate rival. The bosses aren’t too impressed and as Twitter is still 200 years away they send Keith Carradine over to tell him off. Unfortunately for Carradine, Keitel is duel mad and immediately challenges him to a showdown. Honour dictates that the challenge must be accepted, but being an able soldier Carradine manages to win the day. So that’s that then.

Of course not, as he survived Keitel can challenge again and again and again. The battles continue through the years with the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars raging as they look to sort out their personal beef. Frankly it’s no surprise that Napoleon lost, given his officers were so distracted with their own set-tos.

Both men enjoy varying military careers with Carradine doing better because he can follow orders and stuff. Keitel on the other hand becomes more bitter and when Napoleon is unseated is only saved from being executed by Carradine’s secret intervention.

With the war over and Carradine retired and married, albeit with a limp, a final challenge is received - who will survive this final battle?

This was an excellent film that ready bounded along. The central premise seems a bit daft but it was based on a true story of two Frenchmen who had more than 30 duels between them. The whole thing was bound upon honour with turning the other cheek meaning shame for you and your regiment. Keitel is great as the mental Feraud, complete with his nice ponytails. It’s not clear why he zeros in on Carradine, who is nothing but nice, but that’s the obsession in our Harvey.

The narrative device was good in allowing us to see the many theatres of the Napoleonic wars, with the two bumping into each other all over the place, even in Russia. Well it looked more like Scotland, but you get the idea.

The costumes were the standout with the Hussars uniforms a thing of beauty - Adam Ant clearly took notice. The limited budget was on show however, with the invasion of Russia involving about 30 guys. That’s not to say the film looked cheap, often it was sumptuous, but clearly there were limits in their ability to recreate a Pan-European conflict.

You are meant to favour the skilled but slightly dull Carradine over the hot headed Harvey, but I did like Keitel’s mania and devotion  to his flawed cause. The cast in general was excellent with some familiar faces getting a run out such as Alun Armstrong and Pete Postlethwaite as well as Tom Conti, pre-Rumikub commercials.

Overall this was an excellent and engaging offering which is well worth a look on Amazon Prime - for a short time only!

THE Tag Line :  Get it Up Ye!  80%

No.181 : The Alibi (2006)

The Alibi at the IMDb

As a fan of most things Coogan, I was hoping that I’d unearthed a hidden gem here from 2006. Alas it’s a dud and rightly forgotten.

Steve plays Ray Elliott a slick businessman who operates a high end organisation that supplies alibis to cheating spouses. We open with him meeting with regular client James Brolin who is a happy customer, so much so that he recommends the outfit to his son, Cyclops off ‘X-Men’.

The set up seems unnecessarily complex with operators intercepting calls and operatives checking into hotels in the client’s names with identities switched. Of course the elaborate scheme immediately comes undone, with Cyclops’s girlfriend dying during some kinky sex. There’s no suggestion of murder so I don’t know why they can’t just say it was an accident, which it was. That’s not a plot however, so what follows is a lot of convoluted encounters that makes the whole mess more complicated than Mensa running an episode of ‘3-2-1’.

Near the start of the film we see Steve employ Rebecca Romijn and he explains the operation to her as well as to us, the unconvinced viewers. It seems however that Rebecca may have her own agenda. Meanwhile, Brolin hires Sam Elliott to whack Steve to protect Cyclops, whilst Sam’s daughter Selma Blair fancies Steve and plans an assignation with him. We also get John Leguizamo, in some ill advised corn rows, as the real boyfriend of Cyclops’ date and some side plot about Coogan’s unseen partner ‘Jack’ who may or may not exist.

The various players meander their way towards a big showdown at a hotel which is maybe played for laughs, but I wasn’t sure. They did go for farce and to be fair it couldn’t have been more farcical if Ronnie Corbett had shown up with his trousers at his ankles.

There were a few signs early on that this was a troubled production. Two directors isn’t a good start nor is narration to tell you what’s going on - show, don’t say! There was also a lot of fast edits and call backs, and the whole enterprise was just plain confusing.

I get that they were trying to make some sort of commentary on social mores but it just came across as a lot of random stuff loosely patched together into an incoherent narrative.

Coogan tries hard but he seemed out of his depth in the leading man role, and it was a mistake to have Romijn as his love interest as she towered above him. Usually reliable heavy weights like Brolin, Elliott and Lezguizamo were given precious little to do, and what they got was a poor use of their talents.

You didn’t care for Ray and his sleazy business and at the end the big reveal was met by me with a resounding ‘so what’? It was also a bit tame also for a film about adultery, with everyone keeping their underwear on and swearing kept to a minimum. These seemed strange choices, and you have to wonder what audience they were actually aiming for?

My guess is that the end product was the result of massive cuts and reediting that led to the voice over and short 86 minute run time. There may have been a decent film here at one point, but it certainly wasn’t the one that oozed shamefully onto my DVD player.

The Tag Line : Make an excuse not to watch -  45%

No.180 : The Mack (1973)

The Mack at the IMDb

The Urban Dictionary describes a ‘Mack’ as a ladies’ man or a pimp. In this film it’s definitely the latter with Goldie being our main man. The film opens with Goldie getting arrested after a botched robbery he attempts with Richard Pryor, and getting five years in the joint.

Time flies and soon he’s back on the streets with ambitions to takes back what’s his, as well as lots of other stuff that isn’t his. The film is decidedly un PC with every character a racist bigot and that’s just the decent ones. Goldie’s plan is to get some broads or ‘bitches’ as he puts it, and to put them to work on the streets. Rather than feel exploited the women flock to have Goldie as their man.

He soon has a harem of ten ladies of the night on his payroll, with each earning him $100 a night (in 1973 money!). This allows him to indulge in a funny montage where he gets the best pimp gear and a fly Cadillac.

Not all is good however, with the two cops who arrested Goldie at the start trying to muscle in on his action and ‘The Fat Man’, the local Mr Big, also trying to get him in line.

We see some halcyon days with a pimp’s baseball match and barbecue (really!) as well as the ‘Playa of the Year’ awards where Goldie comes out on top. Goldie is also able to get his Mom out of the ghetto and into a harbour side apartment, whilst also having a hot white girlfriend. Can he hold it all together or will the lifestyle choices he has made come back to haunt him?

This was an outrageously un PC film by today’s standards with being caught with a copy of the script no doubt being a hate crime. It was almost exactly like ‘I’m Gonna Git Ya Sucker’ but funnier despite that one being a spoof. The clothes were amazing with Goldie’s gold bowler hat and cape combo a thing of beauty.

Goldie was a terrible person, with his exploitation of women and murders only slightly worse than his dress sense. At times he was painted in almost Robin Hood terms, but when he’s running classes in robbery and brainwashing women in a Planetarium it’s hard to cheer him on. There is some payback and reflection when various members of his posse and family get hit, but it’s played in such a cartoon fashion that it’s hard to really care.

I did like all the white villains such as the cops who, although corrupt, were also seen in a bad light for arresting Goldie for the big shoot out at the start. He was no angel and five years seemed a bit light. The Fat Man was a terrible overlord and it was no surprise that he fell for the old blind accordion player trick.

Max Julien in the lead was cool, but I wasn’t convinced by his powers of threat or menace. He looked like a nice man stuck in a funny hat and given reams of terrible dialogue to read out.

The film is a good laugh and a historical oddity. It does nothing for race relations with the African American community portrayed as mostly savage and backstabbing. All the whites were horrible too, so at least there was balance. Overall, one to watch and enjoy but also to burn if you get a knock on the door from some woke activists.

THE Tag Line : I Wanna See Assholes & Elbows! 60%

No.179 : The Birds (1963)

The Birds at the IMDb

I had previously watched ‘The Birds’ as part of my quest to see every film in the IMDb top 250 and, on first viewing, granted it an impressive 8/10. Due to a change in the ranking criteria I have now only seen 227 of  the top 250 and ‘The Birds’ no longer gets a mention; so was my rating fair? To be honest it was a while ago so a re-watch was needed. I still enjoyed the film but probably less so than an 8/10 rating suggests, but let’s have a look.

We follow the fortunes of Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), a rich socialite with a penchant of seemingly weak practical jokes. We meet her in a pet shop where she is awaiting the delivery on a myna bird which she hopes can speak and upset her auntie. She is mistaken for an assistant by lawyer Rod Taylor who is after a pair of lovebirds. After some awkward flirting he reveals that he knows Melanie isn’t an assistant and just wanted to show her what being at the wrong end of a practical joke felt like. What a dick.

Not to be outdone, Melanie learns of Rod’s identity from her newspaper editor father and resolves to prank him by delivering the two lovebirds to his Bodaga Bay house for his sister’s birthday - that’ll show him. After a long bit of exposition in which Melanie meets local teacher Suzanne Pleshette and buys a nightgown, she delivers the birds, only to be spotted by the ever alert Taylor. Taylor was 33 at the time of filming, the same as Hedren, but he looks about 50.

Anyway, he spots her bird delivery and intercepts her at the harbour only to witness her being pecked by a seagull. This causes mild unrest but she agrees to return to have dinner with Taylor and his mother Jessica Tandy, and presumably her copper kettle. She also takes a room at Suzanne’s guest house despite not having a change of pants.

Through the night a seagull attacks their door and things quickly escalate as the birds start a full on pecking offensive which results in a gas station exploding and Melanie getting a lot of kisses from Rod.

Who will survive the onslaught of The Birds?, why are they attacking? and can a peck really be that sore?

I enjoyed this film less than I’d remembered it and it seemed a bit drawn out and silly on a second viewing. You can’t really feel the pervading sense of menace that was intended by director Hitchcock, who can be seen with his dogs in the opening scene, due to some ropey effects and some poor bird motivation. I felt that the birds lacked a bit of menace and despite the first victim appearing with his eyes pecked out, you have to wonder why he didn’t just hide under the duvet.

The build up is slow, with things layered and gradually escalating, such as the hens not eating their feed. There wasn’t however any attempt at explaining why the birds went mental and something like a mad scientist or environmental concerns may have made the whole thing a bit more engaging.

I did like the shot of the birds hovering over the gas station explosion which had an eerie ‘We did that' feel. The effects were however somewhat limited with the sparrow invasion down the chimney looking fake as did the attack on the children fleeing the church - some of those stuffed birds were held on for grim death!

The film does look dated with it’s rear projection driving and boating scenes but that’s fair enough given its 1963 origins. Tippi does well in the lead, although I bet that green twin set must have reeked by the end. Rod was less good as the square jawed hero with no answers, but I liked Pleshette and Tandy as the sultry school teacher and bitchy mother respectively.

I didn’t feel that the birds were much of a threat and the lack of motivation for them left me somewhat unengaged. It was however a decent thriller. and although a big net would have saved the day, there was enough to keep me watching for the full two hours.

THE Tag Line : Where’s the burds? Arrgghhh!  70%

No.178 : The Wackness (2008)

The Wackness at the IMDb

Although made in 2008 this film looks to capture those crazy days of 1994 when pagers and mix tapes were all the rage.

We follow our hero Luke through a hot New York summer as he deals with issues and has a romance with Judge Anderson, no less. The film has chapter cards showing each month in a graffiti tag style which was also used to vandalise the ‘Sony Picture Classics’ logo at the beginning, in what was a fun touch.

Luke kills the time before he heads for college by pedalling dope from an ice cream cart whilst staying out of the way of his parents who are constantly fighting and about to lose their fancy mid town apartment. Luke also engages in therapy with his slightly offbeat shrink played by an excellent Ben Kingsley. He is a bit off the wall but offers solid advice in exchange for packages of pot.

Luke is still a virgin - must be the only drug dealer who is! - and has no friends. He doesn’t always charge for his drugs but is still left out of the party invites and of the trips abroad. Things look up however when he meet’s Ben’s stepdaughter, the lovely Olivia Thirlby. She is a free spirit and agrees to start seeing Luke, an event that leads the pavement to light up Billie Jean style as he walks home.

The two enjoy an idyllic beach house weekend and despite Luke’s hair trigger the two get it on before Luke spoils it all by saying something stupid like ‘I love you’. Olivia has a different agenda and cuts him off. Meanwhile Ben and his wife Famke Janssen are splitting up and as a result he's taking up hard drugs and suicide attempts.

With all this disfunctionality on show, who will survive the summer and what will the fallout be? Can Luke embrace the dopeness (good) and forget about the wackness (bad)?

I really liked this film despite not being a fan of the drugs culture or of the hip-hop music that permeates throughout. The two leads are great and their long chats are good fun as are their experiments in bad behaviour.

The whole melancholy mood is well realised and I got the vibe of ‘The Royal Tenenbaums' of lives being on hold waiting for something to happen. New York looked great with the hot, claustrophobic elements of the city brought to the fore.

The ending was satisfying - hopeful but not Hollywood. Overall this was an enjoyable outing to a more innocent time when drug busts, mobile phones and Covid-19 were all the things of a madman’s dreams.

THE Tagline : Dopeness Achieved - 75%

No.177 : The Goods (2009)

The Goods at the IMDb

Given the stellar cast on show I was surprised that this film passed me by on it’s original release. As it neared it’s end it dawned on me that I had seen it before but had largely forgotten it. Either that or I have suddenly become great at guessing major plot twists!

The cast is excellent with at least a dozen of recognisable faces on show. It could be a case of less is more however as lots of them get very little to do.

Anyway, we follow the fortunes of Don ‘The Goods’ Ready (Jeremy Piven, unshaven) who, along with his crack team, shakes up used car lots and sells the stock. In this case it’s James Brolin’s ‘Sellick Cars’ that are getting the treatment. The sales force, who include Ken Jeong, Buster Bluth and Charles Napier, haven’t sold a car in weeks and James is close to selling the business to his idiotic son in law, Ed Helms. Helms is engaged to James' daughter and runs a rival lot which he advertises with his boy, sorry, man band.

Don takes the call and, after a party flight in which he convinces the stewardess of his patriotic right to smoke they arrive at the lot. Their shock and awe tactics work too well when another patriotic speech sees the sales force attack Ken Jeong over Pearl Harbour despite him being Korean. “We participated in a hate crime”.

The plan includes hiring strippers and Craig Robinson’s ‘DJ Request’ who refuses to play anything that is asked for. Day one goes well with 70 of cars sold from the lot of 214. Obviously things need mixed up so Don takes a mad bet from Helms that he can sell every car, failing which Helms takes the lot. There is also a go nowhere subplot of a possible offspring for Don and a couple of romantic turns for the rest of the crew, including a stripper for Ving Rhames (Fresh from ‘The Tournament‘!) and a suspect youthful pursuit for Kathryn Hahn “The rug matches the drapes”.

Will the cars be sold? What happened in ‘Querque and will the insufferable Helms get the lot and the girl?

I enjoyed this film despite it lacking much in the way of substance. The first half hour is best when they set the scene and there are a couple of cracking un-PC moments that I doubt they’d event attempt these days.

It slowed down once the previous gung-ho Don started to reevaluate his life, but it was a funny touch that resolved the parenthood of his ‘son’. His romance seemed a bit unlikely with the lovely Jordana Spiro (The woman with the bar on ‘Ozark’) falling for his charms with rather undue haste.

Kathryn Hahn’s character had a lot of the funniest lines “They made me breastfeed an old man”! but her attraction to the ten year old boy with the hormone issues was a bit creepy - make it a ten year old girl and there’d rightly be outrage.

There were a lot of funny scenes, and I liked Will Ferrell’s skydiver being plagued by dildos, but at times it looked like a long ‘Funny or Die’ sketch with things happening for no other reason than to be funny or outrageous.

The ending was signalled from a long way off but it was good fun and although we didn’t grow or learn anything a few laughs were had.

THE Tag Line : The Goods Deliver 71%

No.176 : The Tournament (2009)

The Tournament at the IMDb

30 of the world’s best assassins converge every 7 years (despite it saying ten on that poster) and have a last man standing free for all with the winner getting $10 million. We witness the end of the previous event and now the Tournament is happening again - and this time it’s in, er, Middlesbrough. God knows why - maybe a council grant or something?

Ving Rhames is defending champion - he’s not back because he’s pissed the prize money away - he’s back for revenge as one of the participants killed his wife. He must have had a late flight however as he doesn’t show up until we are about halfway through.

We follow the fortunes of Kelly Hu who is sexy and deadly. Not much personality, but you can’t have everything. She hooks up with innocent (!) priest Robert Carlyle who is having a crisis of faith and is also a target after another competitor fed him his tracking chip, meaning the pissed up priest is fair game.

Meanwhile the action is being monitored by a room of clichés; rich gamblers like the loud Texan and sinister Orientals who have bets on the outcome. Middlesbrough has loads of CCTV that the baddies can hack into, so our gamblers can get their thrills. It also seems to have no police or many civilians at all.

We get various face offs between contestants including that French bloke who does parkour and a nutty American who we don’t like as he kills a dog. Soon the numbers are whittled down, especially after a bloody encounter in a strip joint.

As you would expect it’s comes down to our three principals - who will win…The Tournament?! Not the audience, that’s for sure!

This was actually a decent offering if you have parked your brain and are just seeking shoot ‘em up thrills. It was a mistake to make Carlyle’s priest so prominent as his crisis of faith was just dull and it beggared belief that a top assassin would take him under her wing.

The action sequences were decent with the big motorway finale well choreographed. They do seem to have a lot of crappy old cars in Middlesbrough though - just as well as they all get blown up.

There was little in the way of characterisation with Rhames especially phoning it in. Hu was lovely but her dialogue was a bit stilted and I wasn’t buying her hard ass rep. Of the under card you get your usual cavalcade of psychos and exotics with snipers, grenade chuckers and one chap with a rocket launcher all adding a bit of colour - mostly red.

The film does lose momentum in the last third with the showdown and ending all being somewhat predictable. It was decent enough but you can see why there wasn’t enough to kick-start a franchise here.

THE Tag Line - Everyone is a loser in the Tournament 58%

No.175 : The Bookshop (2017)

The Bookshop at the IMDb

You know those films with alien invasions, car chases and lots of sex and violence? Well, this isn’t one of those, although there is an awkward bit of hand holding at one point.

Emily Mortimer stars as Florence, a widow who dreams of opening a book shop in the village she grew up in. She finds a run down building and orders in some stock. So far so good, and she even nets a regular customer in the reclusive Bill Nighy, who is also on his own and in the need of some action. Book action.

But there are clouds on the horizon. Light fluffy clouds, but clouds no less. Evil Patricia Clarkson wants Florence’s building for her Art Centre and her dirty tricks to get it no know bounds. Well she opens a rival book shop and poaches Florence’s schoolgirl helper.

Will the bookshop prevail? Will the friendship will Bill go anywhere and does she have adequate fire insurance?

Clearly I’m not the target audience for this film, but it really was meandering pap. I get that it was gently paced with loneliness a big theme but I was just waiting for something to happen - anything.

At one point Florence invests in 250 copies of ‘Lolita’ but that didn’t go anywhere. We never saw the rival bookshop and James Lance’s miscast London arty type villain offered little and delivered less.

The film looked good and evoked a gentler time in 1950s East Anglia. The perils were minor and everyone was quite nice although they were all bastards underneath. I could have done without Julie Christie’s pretentious voice over and it was no surprise to learn which character she was - clue the only young female in the cast.

I don’t think we learned anything here and there were certainly no laughs or thrills. You could dress it up as a ’slice of life’, but it would be a dull and unconvincing life.

The cast was mostly decent with Bill Nighy doing his usual thing in a suit and Patricia Clarkson trying to channel Cruella DeVille. Mortimer does OK in the lead and is likeable but you never got the sense she was truly invested in the shop, and the ending kind of underscored that.

Over all this was an inoffensive bit of period drama but an instantly forgettable one - read a good book instead!

THE Tag Line : Don’t Book a Viewing   - 54%

No.174 : The Room (2019)

The Room (2019) at the IMDb

In the second of our ‘The Room’ double bill we look over this creepy horror cum fairy tale that sees a European couple buy a ramshackle house in upstate New York. They learn that the house has laid empty for some years after a double murder that saw the unidentified killer slung in the nut house.

The couple have obviously never seen a horror film as they don’t immediately run away, but instead start work on the house. First order of business is to move that large pile of furniture that looks suspiciously like a barricade. Once the junk has gone a steel door is found, and don’t you know it? the elaborate two piece key is right there in the junk. You’d think if you blocked up the door you’d drop the key down a well, but we need to get inside if we’re going to have a film so on you go.

Strangely the couple don’t immediately explore the room but have a look at the electrics - their entire basement is covered in wires with a large glowing hub in the middle. How that passed the Home Inspection is anyone’s guess. Our man, Matt, drinks some whisky in the room and somewhat strangely says to himself ‘I could do with another bottle’. The lights go down and when they come on he has a new bottle. Jackpot! By the time the wife, Kate, wakes up Matt has filled the room with lots of paintings and booze. Lucky he didn’t think of drugs and hookers.

The two enjoy a fun montage of wishing for loads of stuff and have a great old time, including a frolic in some space suits - guess the props department had them lying around. As you’ll probably guess there is a catch, which Matt learns when he tries to take some money outside and it turns to dust. After a test with an original Van Gogh which disintegrates as it crosses the threshold he learns that all the wished for stuff can only exist within the house. This is obviously a drawback when, not knowing of the restriction, Kate wishes for a baby following two miscarriages of her own.

She takes the baby outside and it is quickly a five year old, who frankly is a little shit. Matt traces the original murderer at the nut house and learns that he too was a wished for baby and the only way to escape the house is to kill whomever wished for you. I don’t know how this was known - maybe The Room came with a manual when installed.

With their marriage deteriorating and the boy getting stronger and older with every step outside we have to wonder who will survive and what is really real.

I really liked this creepy horror with it’s underlying vibe of ‘what would YOU do’. Obviously the first step would be to check your mental health with the second being ‘run like hell’. Nothing good ever comes of these situations and in that sense the film reminded me of  'The Box‘. I thought here the wishes would turn out to be at the expense of someone else, but I liked the idea of you being stuck to the house if you wanted the stuff. What a needy and controlling house!

There was no attempt to explain how the room came about or what powered it and I was grateful for that. If they’d said ‘oh it used to be owned by a mad scientist/Cult/ voodoo priestess’ it would have taken away a lot of the intrigue.

The film kept a strong pace and my interest which was good going for a high concept affair like this. The ending sequences where there were rooms within rooms was well done and they kept on the right side of confusing.

The two leads were fine with Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace) putting in a good show and looking rather fetching in a Basque. The male lead was a bit non-descript but he did well with some outrageous dialogue.

Over all this was a entertaining offering and, although it’s tearing me up to say it, it's the pick of the ‘The Rooms.

THE Tag Line : Make Room for The Room 73%