No. 259 : The Specialist (1975)

 

The Specialist at the IMDb

Do you know that you can get free movies on YouTube? Good ones too, like ‘Galaxy Quest’ and both Anchorman films, but you can also find stuff like ‘The Specialist’. No, not the sexy Sharon Stone / Sly Stallone one, a 1975 flick of the same name.

The film has Adam West as its star, so you know it will be good and to be fair it is a bit of low stakes fun. The plot is a bit complicated but basically one lawyer tries to get another disbarred after one of his clients is stolen from him. You’d think the client would have the choice, but the matter goes to trial.

There is a brief preamble in some offices which suspiciously all have their curtains drawn during the LA day – I’m guessing the filming schedule was tight! The wronged lawyer, Pike Smith, won’t go down without a fight and decides to engage in some jury rigging. He enlists a local hood and his son to engage ‘The specialist’ – basically a big whore who will seduce the opposing counsel.

The Specialist, Londa, played with abandon by Ahna Capri, is soon on the job after getting out of the bed in the buff immediately agrees to a spot of nude modelling for Pike’s artist son. Got to meet the T&A quotient somehow, I guess!

The trial is convened and Londa asks to see the lake which is the subject of the contentious lawsuit. West gives an impassioned speech to a confused judge and jury (and audience) who were led to believe that the trial was about client stealing. Londa gives West a wipe down after the trial and despite him initially saying he can’t speak to her, due to the law and stuff, he agrees to go on a trip to the lake with her.

Within five minutes West is having some loving in the water, whilst the local police, fixer and, strangely, the judge look on. A mistrial is ordered and West faces disbarment. Luckily enough for him, his shrew wife doesn’t knee him in the balls but sets about unravelling the conspiracy.

 

Londa flees back home and manages another nude scene, this time with her boyfriend/pimp before the plot unravels. A blackmail plan goes awry when the boyfriend is strangled by a door and soon both lawyers are up for disbarment. Who will keep their law licence? It really comes down to that!

This was a strange film that looked like a 1970s TV movie but with added nudity. Adam West didn’t really convince as the straying lawyer and his sexy credentials weren’t stamped when he got his shirt off - it was of course Pure West.

I did like the free-spirited performance by Ahna Capri who you may remember as the love interest in ‘Enter the Dragon’. The main issue I have is with the plot. There were endless dull legal scenes with low stakes and worse acting. The judge looked like they found him in a pub ten minutes before filming.

 

The big disbarment hearing, that looked like it was filmed in someone’s living room, was really tension free despite a surprise outcome. With a minute left on the runtime and with an unsatisfying ending fast approaching, the director went for the ‘what the hell’ option and a freezeframe. It wasn’t earned or believable, but I didn’t care; so no harm done.

 

All in all, this was a pretty mindless romp involving scheming lawyers and a sexy ‘specialist’ who would probably be riddled with VD - the way she carries on and would need a specialist of her own pretty soon – one well versed in the clap!

THE Tag Line : Taking Down the Briefs!  56%

No. 257 : The Vanishing (2018)

 

The Vanishing at the IMDb

No, not the 1998 Dutch film of the same name or even the Jeff Bridges remake of that from 1993, this one is a bunch of Scotsmen on a lighthouse shouting a lot in a 2018 flick that had passed me by.

I found this in a charity shop for 10p and although it was probably worth that I’m glad that I didn’t invest more – apart from my precious time!

The film is based on the real-life disappearance of three lighthouse keepers from the Flannan Isle lighthouse in 1900. The official report concluded that the men were most likely swept out to sea, but that would be somewhat prosaic for a movie – so let’s have some gold and murder to spice things up!

I’m no puritan, but I have to say if these men were my relatives I’d be a bit upset at seeing them portrayed as a bunch of murdering psychos who swear for Scotland and have a Gollum type fascination for the shiny stuff.

The film opens with the three men taking over a remote lighthouse for a few weeks. We have Peter Mullen and Gerard Butler (Trinity House should be investigated if that casting is an accurate depiction of the men involved!) along with a young lad, there on his first stint. We get a brief idea of what’s involved with the light being cleaned and the foghorn tested before the action proper begins.

The men find a washed-up lifeboat with a body nearby. The body, in what becomes a recurring theme, doesn’t stay dead for long as the seaman wakes up and starts to fight the younger keeper. Our man manages to bash the salty tar’s head in with a rock, before the body and a mysterious box are recovered to the lighthouse station.

Mullen decrees that the box remain locked but within five minutes he’s opened it up and found it to be full of gold bars. He initially tries to keep the hoard to himself but soon the other two get wind of the treasure and the three plot to keep the loot. Butler suggests someone will come looking for the gold and he’s proven right within another five minutes.

 

The crew show themselves up to be inept liars, as the owners of the gold aren’t convinced with the lads’ tall tale that the box has already been handed over to the authorities. After a brief stramash our lads have another two bodies on their hands – wait, three as Butler carelessly whacks a young lad causing Paisley's finest no end of trauma and bad acting.

The three men now have a quandary – what to do with the loot and with each other as tensions and suspicions multiply.

This was an OK kind of film but it’s easy to see why it sank without trace. Mullen and a rather portly Butler play to form with a lot of shouting and swearing. Butler’s trip into mania and back again isn’t believable nor is Mullen’s relative indifference to the horrors unfolding in front of him. There are a lot of long pauses and drawn-out scenes that appear to be an attempt to show the malaise and isolation of the situation but it just looks like so much constipation.

The settings were good, but I didn’t buy into the tension or that these three men would turn to murder over a pile of metal – this is no ‘Treasure of the Sierra Madre’. It was a passable 100 minutes, but one that offered no insight into the true events of Flannan Isle nor a compelling narrative for a standalone feature.

THE Tag Line - Light's Out! 56%

No.222 : The Iceman (2012)

The Iceman at the IMDb

No, it’s not a spin off from ‘Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends’ instead it’s a bio-pic of mob hit man Richard Kuklinski, starring blog second favourite Michael, Mr Shannon.

The film opens with an aged and beardy Shannon being asked if he has any regrets. Before he can answer the film morphs back to 1964 with a younger Shannon on his first date with soon to be wife, Winona Ryder. She admires his tattoos and slow drawl, and even believes his story of being employed as a voice actor for Walt Disney. In fact he has a slightly seedier job copying porno films. He plays pool for cash in a bar and we get a quick taste of his temper when he slashes a man’s throat for giving him some lip.

Meanwhile at the porn lab he takes a slap himself when gang boss Ray Liotta wants to know why his order of porn isn’t ready yet. Ray sees a steely coolness about Shannon and offers him a job as a hit man. Shannon is keen to please and shows his loyalty, and psychopathic tendencies, by gunning down a random beggar. Things go well for a while and Shannon, Ryder and their two daughters move to the suburbs. His cover story is that he’s a currency trader, but it’s more whacks than Marks that he’s into.

Liotta has issues of his own when big boss Robert Davi wants him to kill his idiot henchman David Schwimmer who has stolen some drugs. This causes Liotta to lie low and this puts Shannon out of business. Despite being warned off, he decides to go freelance and hooks up with Captain America’s ‘Mr Whippy’ hit man who uses an ice cream van as cover.

The two soon pile up the bodies, keeping them frozen to disguise their crimes and the dates of death. After one loose talker too many, we are back at the start with Shannon reflecting on his worthless life and lack of regret.

I had high hopes for this film but it dropped off quickly and became a bit dull. It was confusing in places as the double crosses racked up and it was hard to care for a mass murderer whose only redeeming feature was supposedly his loyalty to his family. They touched briefly on his abusive childhood for his motivation but you need some excuse to pardon over 100 confirmed kills.

They did try to sugar coat the character of Richie, but reading the real life accounts it’s clear he was nothing but a murderous and wife beating psycho.

The cast was mostly good with thin material with the likes of James Franco, Chris Evans and Winona all underused. Chris Evans was hidden in a big wig and beard and his casting seemed largely pointless. Better than Franco though, who only got one short scene.

60s/70s New York was well realised with lots of classic cars and brown clothing on show. The film did one of my pets hates in that they had captions for dates of certain events at the start but they quickly disappeared, even when years had clearly passed in terms of fashion. Do it consistently or not at all!

Shannon was OK in the lead with his usual quiet menace. I didn’t really buy the character however and if he was seeking sympathy he got none from me. You could dress this up as a morality tale but ultimately it’s a bloke killing loads of people for money and getting caught. THE END.

THE Tag Line : Will Leave You Cold  - 56%

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.161 : The Hand (1960)

The Hand at the IMDb

I’m sure you all remember our previous ‘The Hand’ review, the one starring Michael Caine and directed by Oliver Stone? Well this isn’t that but it does serve to give us a pair of (the) hands! Hahahaha!

This is a 70 minute British horror/drama from 1960. It’s black and white and has few special effects or big set pieces to keep you entertained. Does it have enough to keep you interested, even for it’s short run time? I’m afraid it isn’t going to get a big hand from me.

The film opens with a caption stating ‘Burma 1946’, and we find the British fighting the Japanese in some really stirring stock footage. It’s not clear why they are still fighting a year after the war ended but I’ll be generous and say this is an alternative reality where the war lasted a bit longer rather than the caption man missed that day of school.

With the battle still raging we meet three British Prisoners of war. They are being interrogated by a terrible Japanese commandant. I say ‘terrible’ because he’s clearly a white guy with eye make up going a terrible oriental voice. He asks where the troops are based and says ‘Velly Unfortunate’ when they refuse to answer. A war crime that can never be forgiven.

He takes the men in turn and when the first two refuse to give away any details he lops their hands off with his big sword. He then asks the same question of the officer who is clearly made of weaker stuff. Before he spills the beans we dissolve to ‘London to-day’. Looks a bit of a pea souper out.

A beat officer finds a tramp in a doorway short of one hand but with £500 in his pocket. At the station they speculate how he got the cash and a neat surgical wound where his hand once was. Before they make any headway the tramp disappears from his bed and is soon found dead in the Thames.

The cops do some investigation and a train ticket leads them to a nursing home. The orderly remembers the operation which wasn’t recorded. The good doctor in charge found the vagrant at the roadside with an injured hand and amputated it to save his life. A likely tale! After some minor questioning the doctor shoots himself and leaves his nurse wife bereft. We also learn that his rich brother refused him a loan of £500. We learn that the tramp was paid £500 by the mysterious Mr Roberts for his hand and Dr Crenshaw did the operation.

A call to the home leads the police to the lodgings of a Mr Brodie who is later revealed to have a hook in place of his hand. We also meet Mr Adams who is similarly one down in the hand department.

Who is Mr Roberts and what is his fascination with all things five fingered? Hope it’s not the same one we had pegged for it at the start!

The detection angle was pretty good with a nice logical flow of events. It was a bit unlikely in places and the bad guy’s motivation wasn’t too clear apart from him being a nutter, due to the war and that.

I found this film a bit confusing. There were two Brodies, two Crenshaws and two
Adamses - add in all the false names and ageing make up and you can see where it’s easy to go wrong. The actors all look alike and I’m not even sure why the tramp lost his hand in the first place. I’m guessing the cowardly hand retainer wanted it to pretend that he too had lost a hand to the Japanese, but it’s hardly likely they’d have given him it to take home if he had! It didn’t help that ‘Adams’ Senior looked like Mark Williams off ‘The Fast Show’ - ‘Today I’m mostly having my hand chopped off’.

Of the cast I’d only heard of Ray Cooney and the film is clearly a ‘B Movie’ filler from the golden days of two mutilation films and a cone of chips for two bob.

The film was hovering about the fail line for me but a fantastic final scene, laden with irony, made it worth the watch. I choo-choo choose to give you your comeuppance!

THE Tag Line - The Caine One was Better! 56%

No.155 : The Stuff (1985)

The Stuff at the IMDb

I remember seeing posters for ‘The Stuff’ when it was realised in 1985 and thinking it looked interesting. Sadly it was ‘R’ rated and I was too busy with ‘S.S. Experiment Camp’ and Cannibal Ferox. Simpler times when you are 14! I came across it again on a trawl through Amazon Prime and thought I’d give it a go. Sadly some films should remain as posters on the wall in the Muirhead Café’s video department for all time!

We encounter the titular stuff in the first moments of the film. A man, who couldn’t be mistaken for an actor, finds the white stuff bubbling through the snow and has a taste. He’s a brave man - this was the era of white dog shit remember! He deems it delicious as does his friend - before we know it everyone is tucking into to this tasty marvel and the ice cream industry is getting nervous.

They have tried to analyse the mysterious foodstuff with no success. They had also tried to bribe The Food & Drug Administration for some details but all those involved in its approval are now dead or on holiday. Their only option is to hire corporate spy Mo Rutherford to get the low down on the mysterious morsel. Mo, played by Michael Moriarty, is an annoying know it all with a slow drawl and cowboy boots. He gets results however and has soon recruited The Stuff’s head of marketing to his endeavour.

Meanwhile a young lad is waging his own campaign against the stuff. He saw it moving about on its own in the fridge and tries to stop anyone eating it. Sadly his acting school must have burnt down as no one believes him. That is until he joins up with Mo and Mo’s unfortunately named accomplice ‘Chocolate Chip Charlie’. Wouldn’t happen today, I can tell you.

The investigation takes a few predictable turns and we are treated to some dreadful model work, as a dog and then a man contort violently when the stuff exits their bodies, leaving empty husks behind. Soon the source of the stuff is located. Can it’s inexorable conquest of greedy people continue unabated? Or will that old ‘stolen uniform’ plan work as usual?

I enjoyed the start of ‘The Stuff’ but it soon ran out of puff and I was struggling to see it through to it’s predictable ending, where it may not all be over after all!

The themes of addiction, corporate greed and an exploding dog are well worn and were handled with all of the subtlety of a sledgehammer wrapped in another sledgehammer. The ultimate source and point of the stuff was never really explored - it was just there, it was exploited and it was bad for people. I’m sure it was a metaphor for something, as the white ooze became additive and then consumed people, but I was too busy eating my McFlurry to work it out.

There were a couple of minor star turns with Danny Aiello and Paul Sorvino off ‘Goodfellas’ hamming it up for no worthwhile purpose. I did like some of the special effects, including a reworking of the spinning room out of ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ but it was strange that these sat cheek by jowl with some absolutely risible effects that wouldn’t have made the cut of kids’ TV show ‘Knightmare’.

I could see how the film would be a cult classic as some of the dialogue and effects are just the thing that trendy post modernists would love to have a go at. Unlike me. I did see a few lifts taken by ‘The World’s End’ and there was a decent amount of invention for a budget that seemed to run out half way through.

There wasn’t enough development in the threat for me and it just seemed a straight forward outing of danger followed by a pat resolution. The film is barely 90 minutes but I had had enough of ‘The Stuff’ long before the credits rolled.

The Tag Line : Stuff This 56%

No.116 : The Lifeguard (2013)

The Lifeguard at the IMDb

 Kristen Bell stars in the title role who, when we meet her is a journalist in New York. We know things aren’t going great as the film stock is washed out in blue tones. She reports a story of a man who kept a tiger in his apartment and it later died after trying to claw its way out. As a metaphor it is a bit blunt and soon Kristen has fled the pressures of the city and headed home to her parents in Connecticut.

We learn that she’s near 30 and although young for a mid-life crisis she and her parents both feel she has failed up to her early promise when she was top of her class. She hooks up with some old friends including a fey man with a beard who has yet to come out as being gay and another who is trying to get pregnant and live the conventional life she feels is predestined to her.

Bell gets a job at an apartment complex pool as the lifeguard and soon makes friends with a bunch of teenagers including the janitor’s hot teenage son. Her two groups of friends start to mix and smoke pot  and stay out late much to the annoyance of her parents who don’t really want her moving back in, especially as she’s brought the cat.

After a run in with some young kids at the pool and with the cops who are bullying her skater pals Bell starts to reassess her life and falls into bed with her teenage chum. This sets her at odds with her wannabe pregnant friend who can’t even get her husband to slap his dick across her face. As the affair becomes public and the gay friend gets bolder a tragedy tells everyone that it’s time to get on with their lives and stop sitting about smoking hash and listening to indie music.

This ‘slice of life’ effort wasn’t really worth the effort. The usually attractive Bell spends most of this film with a scowl on her face and her listless existence is more tiresome than thoughtful. The film tries to have a melancholy air with a slow dirge soundtrack and lots of ponderous scenes of kids hanging about or slow-mo scenes in the pool. I appreciate these are rudderless people looking for a meaning to their existence but they just come across as dull and needy.

Bell does OK holding the whole thing together but she’s not that likeable and her motivations appear totally selfish throughout. The running theme of being trapped and needing direction is life is hardly going to excite the audience and at no point did I feel invested in any of the characters. She may feel she is daring taking a part where she has an affair with a teenager but it was low key stuff and I liked when the boy’s Dad, when confronted with the horror, basically said ‘that’s my boy’!

The big turning point was a bit of a surprise but the character involved wasn’t one we had invested much in and although a catalyst for change it seemed unlikely given what had gone before. There were a couple of sex scenes but they were modestly played with the only nudity some poor bloke who got his shorts dropped.

The needy and demanding people shown in this film could easily be categorised as ‘first world problems’ with the availability of beer their most pressing concern. The general gloomy mood of the film is not one that would engage the viewer and when Bell makes her inevitable return to the big city we have to wonder if her trip was really worth the bother.

THE Tag Line : Lifeguard Needs Saving!   56%

No.111 : The Desperadoes (1943)

The Desperadoes at the IMDb

 
A crooked banker in a frontier town plans to rip all the townsfolk off for half their savings - how times have changed! Nowadays they wouldn’t be left with half! The scheme involves hiring an outsider to ‘rob’ the bank and then tell the folks that the banks will repay half their losses with the other half going to the crook. Unfortunately the hired gun fails to show and a local mob, hired on the rush, shoot the place up and kill three locals.

The original robber eventually shows up and is not best pleased to see that his  gig has been stolen. He thaws however when he finds his friend is the sheriff and the local floozy catches his eye. Meanwhile the bad guys get nervous as their employers turn out to be loose cannons and a lost fancy spur may spell trouble.

A local posse of well meaning idiots challenge the Sheriff, Steve (good name), to catch the villains and given he’s Randolph Scott he has little choice. For some reason he invests in the counsel of the evil Uncle Willie but we remain hopeful that the two former friends will triumph and at least get the top button undone on their overdressed wenches.

From 1943 this was Columbia Pictures’ first colour movie and it shows in the gaudy costumes and sets  which are clearly used to impress the audience who were still in black and white. It is a basic, unimaginative western with the usual good guys / bad guys motif with a saloon floozy thrown in for a bit of glamour. There is also a scene of two greased up men giving each other a massage only to be embarrassed when the saloon madam walks in - like I say something for everyone!

It does stand above a lot of its contemporaries in terms of locations and a couple of stars in the shape of Randolph Scott and Glenn Ford.  Scott is wooden and I can never see any star quality in him - he’s more like stern history teacher. Ford is better as Bill ‘Cheyenne’ Rogers who wrestles with morals and presumably with the buckles on Randolph’s corset. There isn’t much in the way of danger or menace although I was surprised to see three locals get shot in the opening bank raid - maybe they were just over enthusiastic extras.

The female leads do OK in the standard window dressing roles with plenty of fancy gowns to keep the ladies happy and to let the men play butch. There is also an ill-advised comedy bar brawl which was always going to happen when the saloon keeper says he’s selling up tomorrow. The usual pratfalls and dazed ‘Oh I’ve been knocked out’ expressions ensue but it was good to see a proto-Mongo who would later win the day in ‘Blazing Saddles’.

The early reveal that the late arriving bad guy was once a goodie with the will to reform was puny character development and it was no surprise at all when the two former friends put bygones aside to fight the common enemy.  The weasely banker was good fun as was the likeable and murderously traitorous ‘Uncle Willie’ who was played for laughs but a real bastard.

There was nothing in the way of social commentary and any hints of a moral tale above the standard good versus evil were dispelled early on. Of course it was the 1940s and there had to be something for everyone along with no sex and limited violence you can tell this isn’t going to make any top ten list.

It was competently made and had a lot to like in its naïve view of the world where good beat bad and the nasty banker got what was due to him. Are you watching Financial Crime Office? Probably not.

THE Tag Line : Bill and Steve Moderate Adventure  56%

No.99 : The Grudge (2004)

The Grudge at the IMDb

This was the first in a spate of American remakes of Japanese horror films and having watched the result I won’t be seeking out any of its contemporaries or indeed sequels. It’s not because I was scared or anything; I just thought the whole thing was a bit pointless and forgettable.

The film opens with the always wooden Bill Pullman getting out of bed and falling off his balcony to his death. This is before the credits and you wonder if this is to be the shortest star turn this side of Steven Seagal in ‘Executive Decision’. Alas there are flashbacks so Bill will return!

We move across town to a catatonic woman who needs a full time carer. The carer makes the huge mistake of poking around in the attic and gets snatched away by an unseen force. Her ever caring employers don’t give a toss as they have Sarah Michelle Gellar on standby. Buffy and her douche boyfriend are staying in Tokyo and the vampire botherer is volunteering her assistance to the needy. Sadly she’s not much use as after five minutes she gets menaced by a big ball of smoke and we cut away.

We then meet the catatonic woman in more lively times as she and her son and her wife are viewing the same house - it’s a flashback you see. Soon they are all either staring at the ceiling or fighting with the bath as hands and faces reach out to ruin their days.

Back in the present Gellar is talking to the cops who recount earlier tales of woe from the haunted house. For some reason they haven’t boarded it up despite it taking care of more Americans than Pearl Harbour. Gellar does some handy online research and finds that several unexplained deaths have occurred at the house since the tragic death of a young boy - could this be the same one who keeps popping up as people start to scream?

The curse of the house gets mobile and starts to bother people from afar. Gellar is worried that she may be cursed, but before she can act the police chief is heading over to the demonic detached with some cans of petrol. Elsewhere Gellar’s boyfriend has been reading her research and is heading over for a look - huge mistake. Gellar runs over to save her man and solve the mystery but wait - Bill Pullman has moved in - isn’t he dead? Will the hairy wide eyed girl shriek some more and will someone please feed that cat?

This was a decent enough film but you could see it was a Hollywood makeover from  the start with all the affecting and original stuff looking out of place against the American enclave that has apparently moved to Tokyo, complete with near perfect Japanese. Gellar and Pullman get no sympathy from me whatsoever what with her big jumper and him dropping splinters in every scene.

The curse angle was overplayed with literally every house occupant getting a dose - don’t these cops keep records? The first time the familiar long haired girl appeared it was quite chilling but half a dozen times later you’re like ‘come on love, get a new act’. The creepy small boy was overused too but I liked him appearing in the background even when the characters didn’t spot him.

The deaths were mostly off screen with a lost lower jaw the worst of the gore. People by and large just disappeared which may be a bit scary but give me a zombie invasion any day. The ending was unsatisfying as it cried ‘here comes the sequel’ and nothing much was explained apart from ‘it’s a haunted house , live with it’.

The film was probably better in its day but for now it seems a pretty blunt and unsophisticated horror flick that relied on cheap scares over any slow burning fear or menace.

THE Tag Line - You’ll Grudge the £2 Rental   56%

No.80 : The Brotherhood (1968)

The Brotherhood at the IMDb

Off to 1968 as Kirk Douglas tries to shoe horn is as many Mafia clichés as he can in 90 minutes - will he break the record? Fagagettaboutit!

We open as a plane begins its decent into Sicily with our focus on a nervous young man. He is rebuffed by taxi drivers at arrival when they hear his destination but one cabbie agrees to take him. He must have flown Ryanair as it takes ages for him to arrive at his destination. Meanwhile a moustachioed Kirk Douglas is also making a journey and taking his gun along for the ride.

The two meet at a ruined castle and quickly embrace - Kirk tells the guns wielding torpedoes to settle down as this is his brother. The two men have a good old chat but Kirk’s wife warns him that ‘they will send someone’ as his brother unpacks his own gun in his bedroom.

We then go into flashback mode to see how things ended up as they have.

This section of the film opens with the younger brother, Vince, getting married. He’s fresh out of the forces and asks Kirk if he can join the family firm. Kirk is made up about this but we can see that the never smooth running world of the Mafia is creaking at the edges as different factions at various tables spend the whole time glaring at each other.

Some sections of the mob are keen to modernise with a lucrative deal in electronics appealing to the new guard. Kirk is more old school and is cautious to stay in scams that he understands, which unsettles the other Dons.

Meanwhile a canary is executed and as always in these films everyone is wondering who is squealing to the Feds to save their own skin.

After some pretty complicated double crosses Kirk decides to make a stand and kills a suspected snitch. This sends him into exile to Sicily and we are quickly back where we started. With the two bothers reunited can they resolve their differences and satisfy the mob? Will ties to the Mafia supersede family loyalties?

For a film concerned with the mafia this was a dull affair with too much talking and not enough action. As the title implies ‘brotherhood’ and loyalty are closely examined but as with all mafia films they all come across as a bunch of nutters looking out for themselves. The plan here to corner the electronics market was hardly exciting, and this was borne out by Vince showing Kirk lots of accounts to demonstrate how lucrative it could be. Call me old fashioned, but I was longing for a bit of honest to goodness leg breaking instead.

The film was hung on the central relationship between the two brothers and it didn’t work for me. Kirk was the fiery, headstrong one while Vince was more thoughtful and measured. This may be to show they are chalk and cheese but I didn’t see any real passion and that followed through to the denouement where the big decision was made without a second thought.

The locations in New York and Sicily were great but the cast was chock full of dull old stereotypes and the script was plodding at best. Overall how they managed to wring such a dull non-event out of the subject matter was an achievement indeed!

THE Tag Line : You won’t see this, Right?   56%

No.73 : The Veteran (2011)

The Veteran at the IMDB

What a rip off ; there was nobody healing animals at all throughout this film!

What we get is a kind of ‘Harry Brown’ meets ‘The Bourne Identity’ as a soldier returns from Afghanistan to his sink estate home to find it under the control of drug lords. Our man isn’t intimidated and smacks a few around. The local kingpin is impressed and offers him work which he refuses, despite the veiled threats of 'choosing sides'.

Meanwhile, a meeting with other ex-soldiers gives him the chance to get back to some kind of work, running black ops for a shady intelligence outfit, as you do. All the while we realise he is on the edge, with subtle clues like him constantly punching walls giving away his inner torment.

His first operation goes well as he uncovers a back street bomb factory but he soon gets in deep as he befriends a possible double agent woman and engages with his always shouting boss, Brian Cox. He slowly realises that his two worlds are not so far apart and that and it’s going to take a lot of shooting to clean up the estate and stop a possible terrorist outrage.

I didn’t really take to this film from the off. The grim sink estate setting and washed out colour palette did nothing to draw me in and the lead lacks any sympathy or charisma whatsoever. The feral yoof were well realised but it never really touched upon why they are being furnished with Uzi 9mms by the shady intel community. They is some blather about ‘GOD’ - Guns, Oil and drugs but why the poweres that be would align themselves with some foul mouthed youth isn’t addressed.

 I think the director was trying to set a sense of disconnectedness with our hero’s action scenes being so random that we weren’t sure if it was real or fantasy. This is maybe burrowing too deep, as at the end of the day it was a mish mash of a plot tail-ended by some crowd pleasing vermin control.

It is hard to be too tough on a film that clearly has a shoe-string budget but if the script had been more rounded and clear there would be a decent film to be had here. Brian Cox looks like he did his couple of scenes in a day, despite his high billing and although you might recognise a couple of faces the names will escape you.

The blood soaked finale was out of step with the rest of the film and you have to wonder if they thought- ‘Sod it let’s have a big shoot out’. The action was well choreographed and the hardware impressive. The finale with its hints towards a damned future was seen a mile off and it’s just a shame things ended with so many plot threads left hanging.

THE Tag Line : Call a Vet - this needs shooting  56%

No.9 : The Zodiac (2005)

The Zodiac at the IMDb

Wait, wait , wait comes the cry - that David Fincher film staring Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr. was called ‘Zodiac’ not ‘The Zodiac’ what a con - I want my money back.

Well, dear reader, you are bang wrong. This 2005 movie is indeed ‘The Zodiac’ and stars the library detective out of ‘Seinfeld’ and one of the lesser Culkin children. Yes the cast list is that starry and it does have a TV movie sensibility but let’s have a look and see if it competes with its behemoth brother.

Both films follow the case of ‘The Zodiac’, a serial killer who plagued San Francisco in the late 1960’s and was never caught. His elusiveness creates a problem for the film makers as there is no resolution to the tale. This to me leaves the whole thing a bit unsatisfying and I did feel slightly cheated after three hours of the Fincher version to be basically told ‘that’s all folks’.

Obviously they can’t make up an ending or pin it on some dead guy but if there isn’t an ending you have to wonder if it’s a good subject for a film in the first place. Both films go for the same approach and that is to follow the detective angle. This is fair enough because all the killers actions and motivations can only be speculated on whereas the investigation is a matter of public record.

In the Fincher film they follow amateur cartoonist sleuth Jake Gyllenhaal whose character, although based on a real person, isn’t touched on in ‘The Zodiac’. This film follows the investigations of Inspector Matt Parish who is charged with solving the case by his library detective boss who presumably had some fine to collect. He follows a few angles and soon gets so obsessed that he undoes his collar and forgets to shave.

We also see the impact the case has on his family with his creepy son seemingly allowed free access to the evidence locker to trawl through the grizzly snaps on his own. There is also an ambitious reporter whom I think is meant to come across as sleazy but in fact seems to be doing a bang up job of keeping the public informed.

The killings themselves are seen from the Zodiac’s P.O.V. and are clumsily handled. The fear and terror he would have carried are totally missing and the murders seem like a Crimewatch re-enactment rather than a slaying in progress. As the years pass the film shows stock footage of the moon landings and race riots as the murders rack up. The Inspector pins all his hopes on one suspect and when that fizzles out it’s hard not to feel that you’ve wasted your time.

The lead actor Justin Chambers, whom I’d never heard of but is seemingly a big noise in ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, is very poor especially in the scenes where his obsession threatens to derail his marriage. When we are meant to think he’s going overboard he just comes across like a boozy jerk.

The case is an interesting one and the unanswered questions and unsolved picto-grams make for interesting reading but for a film it just doesn’t work for me - in either version. In it’s favour ‘The Zodiac’ is only 90 minutes and they cover more or less the same plot points as the bloated big budget effort. It is let down by its cheap production however with 1960’s San Francisco never less convincingly evoked - I especially liked the establishing shot of the university sign with a big bit of tape stretched across the area where its web address presumably was.

As a TV movie it may spark some interest that’ll lead you to looking up the details of an interesting case but as an entertainment I’d give the whole Zodiac movie franchise a wide berth. Which is best? Probably ‘The Zodiac’ but only because we’re biased and it’s half the length of its rival.

THE Tag Line : Whodunit? Dunno 56%