No.223 : The Gambler (1980)

The Gambler (1980) at the IMDb

It’s quite common to have hit songs come from a film, but it’s less usual to have a film made around a hit song. Such is the case here in our third ‘The Gambler’ offering in short order. Dare you place a wager as to which is best? Clue : It’s not this one!

In doing my usual exhaustive research I was surprised to learn that this was the first of five films in ‘The Gambler’ franchise. All were TV movies and each starred Kenny Rogers as the wily and wise card player, Brady Hawkes.

The film sets its stall out early doors with ‘The Gambler’ predictably playing over the titles. Kenny was 42 when this came out so he’s clearly meant to be the one doling out the advice rather than the one asking for it. That said maybe he’s the non-dead one in the song, now grown up.

Anyway, Kenny rides his horse slowly into town and makes his way to the station waiting room which could not look more like a set if it had ‘This is a set’ written all over it. We’ve already met young card sharp Billy Montana who has tried and failed to pick up a single lady with his tales of his journey to a big poker tournament in San Francisco. He takes on and beats a couple of poker players who accuse him of cheating and who draw guns on him. Fortunately Kenny has arrived and exposes them as cheats and sends them on their way. He also notes that Billy was cheating too, but he was better at it than his marks.

Kenny enlists the lady to deal the cards and he gives Billy a lesson in five card stud. At no point does anyone swear or stab anyone and you just know we’re in the version of old west, where values remain strong and no one says ‘motherfucker’. With the wisdom now extolled, the long awaited train is ready to leave now that the rich owner has arrived. We also learn that Kenny is on a mission, no not to sell chicken but to answer a letter. We hear it read out by a young lad who claims Kenny is his Dad - rubbish he doesn’t even have a beard. He says his mother kept him a secret, so that we know Kenny isn’t a bastard, but now they need help.

The son’s mother has a Mrs Skywalker relationship with his step-father and can’t escape his evil clutches, but the boy gets away and meets up with Kenny on the train. Meanwhile the rich railroad owner has set up a $10k a head card game involving Kenny, Montana and a hired card sharp, The Doc. Soon the hangers on are eliminated and it’s down to the last hand. Can Kenny win and will he outsmart the boy’s father’s henchmen who lie in wait? Can the boy escape his servitude and will Kenny gets some more homilies in before the credits roll? Yes to everything!

This would fall strictly into the ‘does what it says on the tin’ file and you would be hard pressed to find fault in this gentle offering. Let’s try anyway. Rodgers is no actor and tends to mistake talking slowly for wisdom. He hobbles about on a stick but is as fast a cheetah when chucking folk out of windows or over bars. Hope the DSS are watching.

Everyone listens with rapt attention when Kenny starts giving out his wise words, including a long conversation with the lady who turns out to be a reformed whore. Kenny tells her that’s all good and she’s very grateful to him. Not that grateful though.

The poker scenes were decent with a king high losing to a pair of fours in one hand of five card stud. It did all fall apart in the last hand however, when Kenny starts to shove in the chips despite facing three aces with a card to come. ‘That’s way they call it gambling’ he says wisely - no Kenny, that’s what they call suicidal bankroll management.

Bruce Boxleitner was likeable as Montana, but I doubt he’d last five minutes in the real old west. That said, Kenny’s large ass would be hung out to dry as soon as he took on three gringos with his stick, so there is an element of disbelief being suspended throughout.

You could show this one to your granny if she was OK with talk about whores and unlikely straight flushes. Right onto the sequels for me.

That was a bluff!

THE Tag Line : You Gotta Know When to Watch ‘Em and When Not to Bother 57%

No.217 : The Greatest (2009)

The Greatest at the IMDb

This film opens with Kick-Ass getting it on with Carey Mulligan - enjoy this happy scene as it’s the last bit of joy you’ll get for another 90 minutes, as a dysfunctional family deals with the loss of their son. Kick-Ass you see may be ‘the greatest’ in bed but isn’t so hot on his driving. He stops in the middle of the road to profess his love and is killed by Michael Shannon’s truck for his trouble.

His mother Susan Sarandon is devastated and his father Pierce Brosnan is a bit upset too. His brother is mostly stoned and the bereaved girlfriend, who survived the wreck, finds that she is pregnant.

We learn that Pierce, a maths professor, had an affair with Jennifer Ehle and his marriage is on shaky ground as a result. Sarandon wakes up crying every day and wants to know what happened in the 17 minutes following the crash, before her son expired. The other driver Shannon, is in a convenient movie coma, so she goes and reads to him hoping that he awakes and fills in the blanks.

The pregnant Mulligan moves in with the family but finds it hard to connect with Mum who wishes the girl had died and not her son. She also doesn’t want people to think they are blessed with the son’s baby, when she is grieving for her first born. Meanwhile the less favoured druggy son heads to a grief support group a la ‘Fight Club’ and meets a nice girl who sadly turns out to be a mental.

The film progresses in chapters, signalled by the months of the pregnancy. As she becomes due Pierce has a heart episode, Sarandon has a breakdown and Shannon wakes up - it’s almost like a movie script! Will the baby be born without issues and will it be accepted by the dysfunctional family who could fill a whole season of Alan Partridge’s ‘Problem People’?

I tried to like this film, and to be fair it had a lot of good qualities, but at the end it all seemed somewhat forced and unrealistic. For a start Brosnan and Sarandon weren’t a good match. You could say that’s why he strayed but her earthiness and his tidiness never really gelled, and in some scenes with them both wailing it was flat out embarrassing.

Mulligan was better, but she hadn’t much of an emotional range given she’d had the hardest time out of everyone. The big fall out seemed totally engineered and the coming together was laughable as the family chased the labouring mum to be through the woods. Everyone had a breakthrough and all was put right just in time.

Shannon, who spent the first 70 minutes in a coma only got one real scene and he didn’t convince as the criminal car crasher. He starts by telling Sarandon to bugger off but after a moment’s pleading he manages to recount every second of Kick-Ass’ last minutes in beautiful detail. Maybe that’s what she needed, but I doubt that’s what she really would have gotten in a prison hospital from a man going to the clink due to her idiot son.

The film did have some touching moments and was a decent essay on the way different people have varying reactions to loss. It seemed a bit pat and convenient on many levels however, and far from being ‘the greatest’ it will have to settle for ‘the average’ in this critic’s book.

THE Tag Line : Bring the Kleenex - no not like that -  57%

No.152 : The Prophecy (1995)

The Prophecy at the IMDb

Here we go with another one off look at a franchise - there are five ‘The Prophecy’ films to pick from, but for us, it’s a one and done. This series starts off reasonably high rent with a decent cast but it soon loses its lustre and heads into the ‘video premiere’ twilight zone.

This is the first of the franchise and it’s decent 1990’s fun with lots of big hair and puffy shirts. We open with someone looking forlorn over the remains of what appears to be an angel…

No, not that one - a real one! There is a portentous and pretentious voice over by Eric Stoltz who waffles on about an never ending war in heaven. After the credits we meet Thomas who is being ordained as a priest. As the ceremony goes on he suffers horrible visions - no not of choir boy abuse but of lots of angels killing each other. He quite correctly freaks out and when we catch up with him again he’s become a hard bitten police detective. That’s some career office they have right there.

We meet Stoltz and learn that he is the ginger angel Simon. He gets into a big fight with another angel (they all look like people, no wings or anything) and bests him when his opponent gets smashed into a wall by  a car. Our hero is called into investigate the death and gets top coroner Kenny Banya to do the autopsy. He’s the best Jerry, the best! Banya finds the body has both sets of sex organs and the oldest bible in existence. With such an important discovery they decide to lock him up in the meat locker for the night and head home.

There’s no rest for the dead however when Christopher Walken shows up to have a lick of the body before incinerating it. Maybe the corpse laughed at his bad dye job, it’s not clear. After lots of painful exposition we learn that there is a soul out there that both sides in the angel war want. Stoltz has it, but he manages to transfer it to a little native American girl by way of a frankly creepy big kiss. The girl is looked after by Virginia Madsen who has nicked the remains of Walken’s black hair dye.

She and the failed priest must now join forces to save the little girl from the converging forces in the angel war - who’s your money on? Gabriel or Lucifer? FIGHT!

This was a lot of nonsense but it was enjoyable nonsense with some decent action and a few good turns. One of these was not Viggo Mortensen who shows up as Lucifer near the end and overacts like hell, sorry heaven.

The exposition is poor with the angels all fighting over God’s love, as God now loves humans the most and whom the angels refer to as ‘monkeys’ - bit racist.

Walken plays it pretty straight and intense and is good value. I liked his habit of perching on things like a big vulture. His dialogue, and that of everyone else, was shocking with lines like "Two hells is one too many” being trotted out with a straight faces along with the Yoda worthy “War  leads to arrogance and that leads to evil which leads to me”.

There were a lot of B list stars popping up including Amanda Plummer as Walken’s replacement zombie - he needs a helper as he can’t drive - probably shouldn’t have given up the wings Chris! And Eric Stoltz who had the good taste to bow out before the halfway mark.

The poor Native Americans came out of it badly portrayed as always as a bunch of hicks living in trailers but with a mystic sixth senses. This translated to them just chanting and waving sticks for much of the film.

The big denouement was poorly handled although I would like to see how they manage to get a sequel with Walken still in the lead - not enough to seek it out though!

If you want a bit of mindless pap with cod philosophy, religious posturing and blouses tied at the waist this would be the film for you.

THE Tag Line : No Angel delight 57%

No.122 : The Grand (2007)

The Grand at the IMDb

An ensemble cast try to do for poker what Christopher Guest did for dog shows and amateur dramatics in ‘Best in Show’ and ‘Waiting for Guffman’. The results are pretty uneven but if you like poker there will be enough here to keep you interested. Needless to say if you don’t like poker, get your jollies elsewhere.

The film uses the familiar documentary format as we follow six poker players who are preparing for the titular tournament which is worth $10 million, winner take all. The main character is played by Woody Harrelson. He’s spent the last three years in rehab and has had 70 wives - and that’s just his own. He’s motivated to win the tournament as he owes $6 million to Michael McKean’s property developer character and if he loses his family casino, ‘The Rabbit’s Foot’, will be bulldozed.

We also get ‘The German’ played by Werner Herzog who is as mean as his name suggests and he  kills an animal a day to get himself in the mood. Next up is Andy, played by Larry David’s idiot cousin off ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ who plays a hapless internet qualifier who is enjoying a freak streak of luck - or could he be bluffing?

Fourth at the table is Phil off ‘The Sopranos’ who represents the old school of leg breaking poker players, fifth, a semi autistic pro who has George Costanza’s mother in tow and lastly siblings David Cross and Cheryl Hines who are a bit of a dick and is married to Ray Romano respectively.

The film is held together by two sports anchors who run through profiles of each of the characters by way of giving us an introduction to each. We also follow their preparations and hear them rant before the tournament gets under way. The early rounds of the tournament are a bit of a waste of time as we are already certain as to who the last six players will be. This does give the opportunity to show some real life poker players such as Brunson, Helmuth and Negrano acting badly for a bit of screen time.

As the final table is seated we wonder which of our favourites will win through and what will happen afterwards as those predictable captions over the credits round off a very by the numbers offering.

I quite liked this film despite its obvious shortcomings and lack of ambition. Much of the script was improvised and that was apparent given the small number of laughs. The characters were caricatures of your usual poker stereotypes and it was hard to engage with any of them, even Woody who was set up to be our favourite.

The tried device of having dueling sports anchors hold the piece together was a waste, especially as it has been done so much better in films like ‘Dodgeball’ and ‘Best in Show’. The idea that one was constantly trying to pitch his own merchandise got old very quickly and the other lacked any personality.

The usually reliable David Cross was forgettable as the ‘Bad Boy of Poker’ although I did smile at his rubbish website address acquired after all the good ones had been taken. Hines and Romano didn’t play well together and it wasn’t clear why she was with the nerd with a fixation for fantasy football.

It was fun to see fleeting glimpses of Jason Alexander and Michael McKean among others but there were so many talking heads vying for attention that it just seemed like a scatter gun approach with nothing sticking to the screen or to our memories for any length of time.

The final table showdown, which was seemingly played for real, offered nothing but an anti-climax and you have to wonder if a tight script and some dramatic tension couldn’t have helped this film to a full house rather than the 7-2 off suit that it delivered.

THE Tag Line -  Busted Flush! 57%

No.110 : The Spoilers (1955)

The Spoilers at the IMDb

 This review of  ‘The Spoilers’ may contain spoilers. It was his childhood sled. There told you.

The spoilers in question aren’t movie reviewers with a heightened sense of their own worth but people who spoil things for other people - in this case gold miners.

It’s frontier time in Nome Alaska and the sluts at the local saloon are showing an ankle for two bits - well it is 1955. Whoremaster Anne Baxter has a new dress in every scene so there’s clearly cash in teasing the toothless prospectors with low cut tops that on closer examination appear to be flesh coloured flannel.

Gold is in tham thar hills and so are claim jumpers, spoilers who try to make claims against the legitimate miners working on the legal precedent of ‘finders keepers’. To stop these carpet baggers a circuit judge is employed to vet the legal veracity of the claims. In Nome the Judge is due but so is Anne’s boyfriend and she tarts herself up in her finest duffel coat as the ship appears. But wait! Her beau Roy has hooked up with the Judge’s matronly looking daughter.

Happily for Anne she is not short of admirers and despite Roy’s protestations of innocence she’s soon showing an ankle to Alex, who is a dirty dog if ever I saw one. Roy’s mine is one of those challenged and he foolishly ignores his toothless hillbilly partner and turns his claim over to the Gold Commission for the Judge’s verdict. Alas this is delayed 90 days meaning the mine could be stripped clean by the time they get it back.

This can’t be good old American justice and of course it’s not as we soon learn that the Judge and ‘the Gold commission’ are a bunch of big fakers. What follows is a predictable sequence of bar fist fights and shoot outs before a toy train falls over and honour is restored. Roy gets a kiss on his dirty face and could that be a bit of real cleavage as the credits roll? Oh I’ve come over all faint!

This 1955 effort was a remake of a film from the 1930s - God knows what the bar room sluts looked like in that! Here they were a gaudy technicoloured bunch of hefty hoofers but no less fun for all that. Clearly no one could look nicer than Anne Baxter who shined in every scene - mostly due to intense lighting and a costume budget that would match King Kong’s.

The film skirted a thin line between comedy and drama with the drunken yokel and drunken maid playing it for laughs that never came against some pretty nasty schemes and murders. There was of course no doubt that right would prevail but I have to admit being wrong footed when the judge was revealed to be bent - can’t trust anyone these days!

The sets and costumes were as you’d expect with the location work kept to a minimum. There was a horse shit free main street and a basic mine set but you could tell the western was on the way out when the whole bar set was smashed up at the end in a scene reminiscent of ‘Blazing Saddles’.

It’s clearly an unsophisticated film made for simpler times with goodies versus baddies and no one catching syphilis. I quite enjoyed it for the most part but I doubt it’s one that I’ll ever revisit or even remember after this beer. Cheers!

The Tag Line : Not Authentic - It’s twoo, it’s twoo   57%

No.95 : The Switch (2010)

The Switch at the IMDb

Poor old Jason Bateman - he does such good work in TV shows such as ‘Arrested Development’ and in movies like ‘Up in the Air’, ‘Extract’ and even ‘Identity Thief’ but sadly, every so often, he has to sign up to stuff like ‘The Switch’ to presumably pay the bills. The film isn’t terrible but it  is so unimaginative and forgettable that you’ll have cleared it from your mental cache as soon as the credits roll.

Bateman plays Wally Mars a likeable but slightly unusual New Yorker who has yet to meet the right woman. He’s no out and out weirdo but wears tank tops and is the choice of transient mentalists when walking the streets of the Big Apple. He is best friends with Jennifer Aniston, although there is no reason given why they are friends and not shagging - he’s not gay you see. They completely bypass the whole ‘When Harry Met Sally’ thing and have the relationship set at ‘platonic’ from the off.

We know he wants more from the relationship as Jennifer is so lovely, but apart from confiding in his boss, Jeff Goldblum, Jason does nothing to seal the deal. Jennifer however is worried that her biological clock is ticking and lines up a sperm donor in the shape of ‘Little Children’ and ‘Watchmen’s Patrick Wilson to supply the population paste.

She throws a tasteless insemination party where the donor and his wife along with a gaggle of friends show up to sell the man fat. Wilson does his duty into a cup but when Bateman finds the sample when he hits the toilet he decides that maybe his man paste is the product of choice. He forgets all in a drunken haze but we are given clues the next day when Goldblum recounts tales of a late night visits that suggests Wally has been generous with his muck.

We flash forward seven years and Aniston has decided to return to town following the birth and raising of her child in Montana. We know that Bateman is the likely daddy and when they meet up the boy’s introspective character certainly suggest he has child support payments in his future. Several unlikely scenarios serve to bring Bateman and the boy closer together but when Aniston reveals she’s started to date the alleged surrogate we have to wonder who is the daddy and who will end up with the frankly needy Jennifer.

This ‘Who’s the Daddy’ rom-com is OK but it is also undemanding and for the most part unfunny. The central relationship between the earnest and likeable Bateman and the flaky and unreliable Aniston is poorly formed and they have no chemistry whatsoever. That said it’s better than that between Wilson and Aniston which is totally devoid of any believability. The idea of a straight man having Jennifer as a best friend was feeble from the off and although they set him up as a tank top wearer it beggared belief that Bateman wouldn’t call her out early on for leading him on.

The first arc that leads up to the insemination was without laughs and not least because of Aniston’s friend, Juliette Lewis who can’t do comedy and who hasn’t had a decent role since ‘Strange Days’ - don’t come it, ‘Starsky & Hutch’ was rubbish!

‘Seven years later’ was a bit better due to the rapport between Bateman and the boy but the whole tacked on relationship with the surrogate seemed forced and unbelievable from the off. The three acts were clearly marked and when Aniston told Bateman she didn’t want to see him again an hour in you knew things were going to work out fine.

Overall there was nothing to offend or greatly dislike in ‘The Switch’ it just seemed a waste to produce something so formulaic and dull given the talent available.

THE Tag Line - More Fun With the Cup
57%

No.65 : The Village (2004)

The Village on IMDb

 Even you haven’t seen ‘The Village’ you will doubtless know the twist ending, but in case you’ve been living in a cave for the last ten years I’ll begin with *Spoilers* follow.

We open with a village community surrounding the cemetery - they are standing well back as Brendan Gleeson is weeping and cuddling a small coffin. We learn later it was his daughter and her tombstone indicates the year to be in the 1880s. Things go along OK for a while but strange behaviour is noted such as the burying of some red flowers lest their ‘forbidden colour‘ be seen. Village simpleton Adrien Brody larks about and has a fancy for the blind Bryce Dallas Howard, while young men test their bravery by standing close to the woods.

Romances also blossom with the quiet Joaquin Phoenix being pursued by Judy Greer and widowers William Hurt and Sigourney Weaver having a mild flirtation. Through all this character development we learn that the village is in a valley surrounded by woods, which are occupied by ‘those we do not speak of’. An age old truce keeps these presumed monsters out of the town, and the villagers out of the woods.

There are however signs that the truce may be ending, as small incursions into the woods see animal corpses strung up in the village and red marks on their doors. Tensions heighten until the shambling, red cloaked creatures start vacationing in the village making us all a bit scared and wondering who does their tailoring.

Things reach a head when Adrien stabs Joaquin for stealing his girl and leaves him critically injured. As he hangs on to life it’s up to his new and blind fiancé to brave the woods and hopefully secure the medicine that may save his life.

I saw this film in 2004 and remembered it as being better than this repeat viewing. I can’t remember if I was aware of the big reveal prior to seeing it originally but now watching with the full facts it seems daft and heavily signalled from the off. Sigourney’s big secret box foreshadows the drawn out reveal and the danger towards the end was totally impotent given William Hurt was showing off the suits like a Burton’s salesman.

The cast, impressive as it is, deliver pretty poor performances. Adrien Brody goes ‘full retard (thanks ‘Tropic Thunder’) and never convinces as the simple yet latently psychopathic Noah. Joaquin is flagged early as being ‘quiet’ which is a blessing to all as it limits his dialogue. He does however deliver a master class in understatement when he’s stabbed.

I’d like to have seen more of the dependable Weaver and Gleeson but instead we get loads of the earnest and portentous William Hurt.

The direction, tension building and reveals are all clumsily handled and the pacing is poor. We trudge through an hour of slow boil tension build only for it to be undone with little or no pay off.

Overall this is an OK kind of distraction but on reflection it’s really just a one trick pony, and a lame one at that.

THE Tag Line - Village People not worth a song and dance.  57%