No. 254 : The Jackal (1997)

 

The Jackal at the IMDb

With the new Eddie Redmayne TV series of this classic tale garnering great reviews, I rewatched the 1973 original. That was as good as I’d remembered it, and this led me to watching this 1997 remake. Huge mistake! I say ‘remake’ but there are curious credits that note the film is ‘inspired by the 1973 screenplay’ and Wikipedia reveals that author Frederick Forsyth and director Fred Zinnemann didn’t endorse this effort. Indeed, original Jackal Edward Fox, also turned down a cameo, so the film looks like a tainted effort from the start.

 

The picture opens with a raid on some Russian gangsters. Somewhat implausibly, my favourite actor Mister Sidney Poitier, is in charge with some joint operation nonsense shovelled into explain his place in a Moscow dust up. Things go south and a prominent mobster is killed. This doesn’t land well with his brother who demands high level retribution.

 

We see him meeting with Bruce Willis’s Jackal and a deal of $70 million is agreed for a hit. It’s kept deliberately unclear as to who the target is, but you can bet your boots it’s not the FBI director that is dangled before us!

 

Bruce tries to look enigmatic and sinister but comes across as mildly constipated, He has a hotline set up for tips and sets about his mission. He finds an unlikely forger in a young black woman who he tips a few quid - £500 for a bunch of documents does seem pretty cheap – even in 1997! He also orders a big gun using a clunky voice interface on his computer in a scene that may have been impressive once, but just looks ridiculous now, what with Ali Express and all.

 

Unlike the original, when a thin gun that could be hidden in a set of crutches is used, Bruce’s gun is massive and needs a mini van to cart it about. Subtle this is not. He employs Jack Black’s tech genius, yes really, to build him a big mount for his gun, but Jack makes the unwise decision to blackmail Bruce and gets turned into a colander for his troubles.

 

Elsewhere the investigation is on and the Feds have nothing apart from a rumour that IRA terrorist Declan Mulqueen may have seen him once. They head to the prison and meet the Irish terrorist. Wouldn’t you know it’s Richard Gere, in a performance what must be to Irish people what Dick Van Dyke is to Cockneys. Gere goes full ‘Bejeezus’ and is soon helping the Feds for some vague concessions to his situation in jail.

 

Bruce manages to evade all his pursuers, including a pointless group of hijackers, who are after his gun. An excuse for some more killings and explosions, I guess. He also raids the dress up box to show off his fantastic range including fat delivery man, stoner surfer and gay seducer. He’s equally awful and unbelievable in each.

 

As we meander to a climax the true target is revealed, and the countdown is on. Who will win the day and who will get away?

 

This was a terrible film full of 90’s excess and noise. Willis made a pitiful Jackal with all of Edward Fox’s subtlety replaced with a dress up box and a script deserving of the cat’s litter box only.

There was no sense of urgency, and the detection angle was weak. A scar faced lady Russian character tried to add a bit of suspense and a personal angle, but she just got shoved to the side as Willis and Gere took turns to chew the scenery.

 

A good cast was wasted with JK Simmons showing up as a second banana agent and Leslie Phillips, who offered dodgy banking services, meriting only a single scene. The climax with Willis’ gunship mini van was a laugh, with the bored looking Bruce sitting on a bench with a laptop and joystick controlling this, and garnering no attention whatsoever from a seemingly on high alert security service.

 

The finale was drawn out with a long chase through the subway tunnels before the day of the Jackal finally ended, but only after a predictable resurrection.

There is a lot to like here but sadly it’s mainly laughing at the film’s awfulness, it’s unbelievable plot and more outrageous accents.

THE Tag Line : Stick with the original - 45%

 

No. 253 : The Rapture (1991)

 

The Rapture at the IMDb

 

This is a strange offering that is part swinger party and part religious brainwashing. I’m not sure what the target audience was, but it would make for a pretty narrow demographic.

Mimi Rogers, who is excellent throughout, stars as Sharon, a bored phone operator who gets her thrills through having sex with random couples, along with her sleazy boyfriend. One of these couples includes David Duchovny, and the two start a relationship on the side.

Sharon is aware of some co-workers talking about God and seems to laugh it off, but one night at 3am she shoves David (who has the excellent character name ‘Randy’) out of bed as she needs to change the sheets. Well, we’ve all been there. She decides her whole life is dirty and she needs to find God.

 

We get other clues along the way that she may not be a total nut, such as a vision she has of a pearl, having first seen it on a swinger’s tattoo. She joins a religious sect centred around ‘The Boy’, a wise child who tells them that God will be back in five or six years. Kind of a loose arrangement, it would seem. Mimi is totally bought in at this stage even going so far as to offer religious direction to people ringing her for a phone number. She seeks out now former love Randy, who is also a lost soul, and the two get back together.

 

We jump forward six years and learn that God has yet to show up, but at least he told Randy to ditch the mullet. They all eagerly await the Rapture with the now teenage ‘The Boy’ telling them it’s this year for sure. Shouldn’t have used Evri for the delivery, I guess.

Tragedy strikes however, when Randy is killed in a workplace shooting, leaving Sharon alone with their annoying daughter. Randy's death only affirms Sharon's beliefs and she decides that her vision of Randy in a photoshop window is enough to send her to the desert to await the big moment.

 

Once again, God is delayed. I’m sure he must be at the baggage carousel by now. Sharon decides that she’ll speed things up by shooting her daughter, as you do. The once friendly policeman, who clearly needed better safeguarding training, arrests her and sticks her in a cell with another God botherer. Unfortunately, Sharon has given up on God as he let her shoot her own daughter – free will anyone?- so when the rapture does arrive, she’s not onboard.

The Rapture is a bit low rent with some horns and people on horses and more smoke than an 80's rock video. We do get overlaid hoofbeats and those who accept God are sent on their way with a mechanism somewhere between ‘Star Trek’ and Thanos. Sharon, who refuses to forgive the Almighty, is left in purgatory – will she proclaim her love for God or will she hang about in the dark for all eternity?

 

I quite enjoyed this film but I wasn’t totally buying Sharon who went from carefree slut to pious worshipper to then outright denier in the three acts. Her initial conversion seemed a bit urgent with little in the way of doubt seen before she decided that she was right and that everyone she’d previously scoffed were on the ball after all. Mimi was great although a bit more modest at first as she held the bedsheets tight to her chest in the bed scenes. Later on she was a bit more of her carefree self. I see this film was made around the time she split from Tom Cruise so maybe that was a factor. The film poster makes the production look like a sex romp, so no doubt there were a few disappointed cinema goers when this was released!

 

The whole endeavour was clearly low budget, but I liked the almost Ray Bradburyesque conspiracy with people muttering away about their visions in the background. It gave the film a sense of unease and I wasn't sure if we were going to find redemption or mental illness at the end. Believers were found in all sorts of places and it was fun when Sharon gets pulled in by her boss for God bothering the callers before he reveals he’s seen the light himself!

 

There are large portions of the film that seem like a recruitment video for the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Sharon was all over the place with her conflicted mental states. It was however a decent ride and offered a few questions, albeit with no real answers - if you want answers, I'd recommend 'This Is the End'.

 

THE Tag Line : Praise Be! 64%

No.252 : The Animal (2001)

 

The Animal at the IMDb

Reviewing a Rob Schnieder film is pretty much an object lesson in futility – you know it’s going to be rubbish with a few cheap laughs, but let’s do it anyway.

This one dates from his golden period where he crapped out a couple of Deuce Bigalow films along with ‘The Hot Chick’ and ‘Stan Helsing’. Rob isn’t much of an actor so he relies on mugging a lot and crowbarring in as many fart jokes as possible. At least he can’t be touched under the Trades Descriptions Act, as you are served up pretty much what you’d expect with each outing.

Here Rob plays Marvin Mange a police evidence clerk who dreams of emulating his late father and becoming a fully-fledged police officer. He has failed the vital obstacle course the previous four years and pissed his pants during his last attempt. To add to his troubles, he gets grief off John C Reilly’s Officer Sisk who is a pumped-up alpha male, and no respect from his field trip school children.

He does have a couple of friends in a thinly drawn (the irony!) character ‘Fatty’ and in Miles, a black man who thinks everyone is being nice to him to atone for 400 years of slavery. He probably had the best lines in the film and I’m not saying that because he was black!

The action, as it is, starts when Marvin has to answer a 911 call having been left alone at the station. He gets distracted by a seal on the road and endures an endless car crash as his vehicle tumbles down an never-ending mountain before being crushed by a boulder. Hopes that he’s dead and we can stop the film after 25 minutes are dashed when he is rescued by a mysterious stranger. Through his fevered dreams Marvin has visions of various animals in medical gear before waking up at the crash site a week later. He isn’t very curious about his situation, but soon we see changes in his character and abilities.

It turns out he has been fitted with various animal parts, as you do, and can now run fast, swim like a dolphin and smell things up peoples’ butts. After a successful drugs bust and a water based rescue Marvin becomes a full police officer and starts dating local tree hugger Rhianna, who also runs an animal sanctuary.

The only fly in the ointment is an unknown predator referred to as ‘The Beast’ which is attacking people and eating cows – could these nocturnal events be down to Marvin or is he not the first to have endured animal part transplants? Soon an angry mob of townsfolk are hunting for The Beast and we have to wonder who is the culprit and can Marvin enjoy a happy ending?

I’d seen this film 20 years ago and thought it was quite funny. Time hasn’t been kind however and apart from a couple of scenes it was really poor. I’d did like Ed Asner telling Marvin that ‘We’ve all eaten from the garbage’ and the black characters outrage at people being nice to him still translated to today’s easily offended world. It was also fun to see the late Norm MacDonald as an inquisitive mob member and, as is usually the case in Rob’s films, Adam Sandler, this time as a baying rabble rouser. 

The wafter thin plot was padded with too many overlong scenes such as those with the orangutan and the goat, but I guess if you’ve booked the animals you better use them! There were a few plot holes which was some going seeing at it was pretty much transparent to start with- I mean, who ate the cows? 

As a mindless distraction this squeezes a pass but the laughs were too far apart and there was no plot or intrigue to speak of.

 

THE Tag Line : Animal Lacks Bite 51%

No. 251 : The Outfit (2022)

 

The Outfit at the IMDb

 

After a long hiatus the Definite Article Movie Blog returns! The ‘W Movie Blog’ has also had a recent entry and the long awaited Michael Shannon Blog, ‘Michael Shannon and On and On’ is coming soon. It is truly a golden age of unread blogingness!

I picked this film up on Netflix, mainly because it featured Johnny Flynn whom I recently enjoyed in a cinema screening of the play ‘The Motive and the Cue’. He played Richard Burton in that and gave good Welshness. In this one he plays gangster against Mark Rylance’s tailor, sorry cutter.

The film feels like a play itself, with only a couple of sets and the action all taking place over a few days, and in mainly during one night in 1950’s Chicago. Rylance is excellent as Leonard an English tailor who has set up shop in The Windy City, citing the advent of blue jeans in London as his reason for his move. We later learn that there was more than denim behind his emigration, but from the start he’s a simple and quietly spoken man going about his work.

The film opens with a voice over as we witness Rylance making a suit. We learn of the various fabrics involved and the skilled and complex process behind the making of a bespoke garment. He corrects people when he is described as a tailor, whom mainly do alterations – he’s a cutter who cuts out the many shapes of fabric needed for a suit, before stitching them together.

As he goes about his business various shady men appear and drop off envelopes in a locked box at the back of the shop. It’s not clear what’s going on initially, but Rylance just minds his own business. Some of the envelopes bear a distinctive mark which we learn is that of ‘the outfit’. This is a shady organisation, seemingly started by Al Capone, and the local low level gangsters think that they may soon merit an invite to the top table.

We learn that Rylance’s first customer was a mob boss and he has since dressed all manner of underworld figures. There is however an issue as there is a rat in the organisation and ‘the outfit’ has sent over a copy of audio tape that fingers the suspect.

The tape sets in motion a night of violence and double crosses as gangster Flynn and the boss’s son try to work out who the rat is. Gun play and double crosses ensue, and soon rival mob bosses are in the back shop - and they’re not after a new pair of trousers.

Who is the rat? And what other secrets does the mild mannered cutter have in store for us?

This was a superior offering that passed me by on it’s cinema release. The whole production is played out like a theatre offering and I don’t think much was lost with a Netflix viewing at home. Rylance does his usual excellent work and he was ably assisted by a fine supporting cast.

The film kept me guessing and, despite it’s single set staging, it never seemed limited or unambitious. The dialogue crackled along and I like how Rylance’s true character slowly emerged as the film wore on. The twists were well realised and fully earned and I liked the cut of this one’s cloth overall.

THE Tag Line : A Cut Above 74%