No.237 : The Hitcher (2007)

 

The Hitcher (2007) at the IMDb

Why bother with classic Definite Article films when there’s a crappy remake to look over? I’ve not seen the Rutger Hauer version in ages, but I remember it to be a slow burn, with subtle malevolent terror building before a satisfying climax. This remake had none of that but it did have a man being pulled apart by a truck and an non-exploding helicopter.

Our hero couple are Grace and Jim. They are headed across country for spring break, with their early character traits being he’s a bit of a douche and she likes going to the toilet a lot. The opening credits meander along for ages as they slowly leave the city and head into New Mexico where the roads are quiet and the filming incentives seemingly quite generous.

They narrowly avoid hitting a man hitching for a lift by his broken down car and drive off as he approaches them for assistance. This seems a wise move but they then stop at a local gas station as she needs the toilet - again! Inevitably the hitchhiker catches up with them and don’t you know it, it’s good old affable Sean Bean. Jim agrees to take Sean to a nearby hotel despite Grace giving him the stink eye for offering - well Bean is notorious for hogging the stereo.

Grace’s misgivings prove correct when Sean, after asking after the couple’s sex life, pulls a knife and a struggle ensures. The couple manage to kick Sean out of their fast moving car but unfortunately for them they have already divulged their travel plans and he has Grace‘s old Nokia phone.

As you’d probably guess he stalks their every move, with their car soon getting totalled after a failed attempt to warn a family about Sean’s stabbing ways. The two continue on foot and are soon picked up by the police. Safety at last! Not really, as Sean Terminators his way through the whole station causing our kids to flee into the wilderness. After some more gratuitous blood letting the police, with their leader Neil McDonough , arrest our pair as Sean has cleverly framed them.

Sean doesn’t want to leave the film however, so he explodes all the police cars and a helicopter (off screen) and again our kids are fighting for their lives. How many more must die? Can the scriptwriter be next?!

This was a total waste of time and derivative trash but it will probably raise the odd smile with you as it did with me. It is so ridiculous and over the top it was no surprise to see Michael Bay’s name in the credits. There is a great scene where Sean roars up in his black Trans-am and takes on three fully laden cop cars and a helicopter. Unfortunately for the police their cars weren’t fitted with gravity as they immediately start flying in the air as Sean pops his pistol at them.

Bean is a decent actor but he lacks the presence of Rutger and his character’s lack of backstory just made him dull rather than enigmatic. The two leads were forgettable with the girl especially poor as she tried to kick ass with a shotgun but only managed to pull off ‘slightly daft looking’ instead.

There were plenty of killings and gore if that’s your thing, but for me it was a bit too on the nose with Bean being a force of nature, killing everyone with a single shot whilst being invulnerable himself.

This one pales next to the original, but as a throwaway on Amazon Prime it does have its moments and doesn’t ask too much of you as it delivers them.

The Tag Line : Give It a Ride!  55%

No.204 : The In-Laws (1979)

The In-Laws at the IMDb

Columbo and Alan Arkin team up for this screwball comedy, which I thought was dire but seems to be quite well regarded - go figure!

The film starts with an overly elaborate bank robbery as a bunch of hooded men grab a bank truck with a big magnet and lift it over a fence where they cut the doors off to get at the loot. They disregard the cash for some metal plates, which I correctly guessed where engravings for bill printing. Go me. It’s not clear why the mint are driving the valuable plates around some back streets but there you go.

A robber takes the plates on a long journey as the titles run and ends up with Columbo. The robber says he needs the agreed $1.5 million paid by tomorrow. Columbo says that this may present a problem as his son is soon to be married and he has to meet the in-laws - that’s the name of the film!

Alan Arkin plays the other half of this odd couple as a buttoned down dentist who yells too much. The two families meet and Columbo tells tall tales  before hiding one of the plates in Arkin’s basement.

He then shows up at Arkin’s dental office and ropes him into a scheme where the remaining plates are removed from his safe under the noses of some heavies. I wasn’t clear why he split the plates up or why he left them somewhere where he couldn’t get at them but you have to go with it. Arkin manages to recover the plates but doesn’t appreciate being shot at, and his wife is unhappy too as she found the other one and called in the cops.

At this point I wasn’t clear if Columbo was a crook or a CIA operative as he claimed. He gets disavowed by his handler Ed Begley Jnr, but that may be a bluff too. Anyway, before the wedding the two guys have innumerable and intolerable adventures where they fly to Honduras in a racist airline ‘Wong Airways’ before trying to offload the goods to a tiresome dictator. Will they survive? What is the plot? And will they make the wedding on time?

You’ll probably have gathered that I didn’t enjoy this one too much and to be honest the only smirk the film earned from me was the dictator’s new flag for his country that has a big pair of knockers on it. I know lowbrow humour wins the day, but I didn’t enjoy the farce or wackiness that permeated throughout the film.

I normally like Alan Arkin, but as a shouty and neurotic dentist he was no fun and Columbo was no better as the man of mystery I couldn’t get interested in. At times the comedy was so on the nose I could barely watch, with the dictator’s hand puppet and silly voice just plain embarrassing.

The plot was sketchy at best and really just served to put our heroes into funny situations. The idea that the plates will be used to destabilise the economy was fair enough but why not just take out the baddies with some carpet bombing, rather than have an overlong and unfunny caper to achieve the same result? Oh, so you can have a film?, I see.

The set pieces were poor with an overlong car chase that inevitably resulted in the demise of some fruit, and another sequence where they kept circling with the baddies in their cars -’Again?’ says Arkin at the fifth repetition - I’m afraid so Alan.

The high praise lavished on this film tells you that it must appeal to someone, but it wasn’t me. The capers were too contrived and the characters lacked anything that made me give a toss.

THE Tag Line : As Fun as a Visit to Your In-Laws -  50%

No. 129 : The Destructors (1974)

 The Destructors @ the IMDb

 This film is also known as ‘The Marseilles Contract’ which might be a better and more relevant title but until we start doing a French cities movie blog ‘The Destructors’ it is. Hmmm ‘Dunkirk’, ‘Paris, Texas’, ’Bergerac’.. that idea has potential!

Anyway a side project of watching a lot of Michael Caine films drew me to this effort that has rightly been forgotten. It was made in 1974 in the middle of Caine’s ‘Paycheque first, script second’ phase, and it shows through the mercifully short 89 minutes run time.

The film opens with a man being crushed to death by a big Citroen. The man must have eaten too many croissants as the car is hardly moving before it pins him to a wall and crushes the life from him. Alas the script must have been in his pocket as any signs of life in that are extinguished too - and we‘ve not had the credits yet!.

We learn that the flattened citizen is in fact a U.S. D.E.A. agent who was on the trail of James Mason’s drug baron, Brizard. Mason has protection from on high and beleaguered policeman Anthony Quinn decides to hire an assassin to take him down. He is somewhat surprised when the assassin turns out to be Michael Caine - well wouldn’t you be?

We have already met Caine who was bedecked in double denim and shown to be a man of culture - we know this as he fixes his hi-fi so he can play Beethoven’s 5th while a tarty lady lies in his bed. Caine takes on the hit and proceeds to seduce Mason’s daughter so he can get into the inner sanctum - and into Mason’s house too.

The two men get on well and Caine does the odd job for Mason such as tossing an enemy off a half constructed building - just like he did to Alf Roberts in ‘Get Carter’! News of a big drugs shipment heading to Marseilles brings things to the boil and we have to wonder who Caine’s loyalties lie with and why are two Englishmen and a Greek causing al this bother to the poor old French.

This was a terrible, forgettable film with only a couple of minor, unintended, laughs to save it from being a complete washout. Caine plays himself, as usual, and sports some hideous outfits including shades at night and a red and black leather jacket that looks like a refugee from the ‘Thriller ‘ video. He’s not in the best of shape and puffs his way through the ‘action’ sequences - except when the stuntman takes over. Indeed, one of the highlights was a totally pointless motorcycle scene where the least convincing stuntman double since ‘The Omega Man’ does wheelies about some Parisian streets.

The plot is unnecessarily complex with Caine’s infiltration angle totally pointless - never heard of a sniper rifle Mike? Given the ending, a ticket to the dancing would have served just as well too! There is a half decent car chase cum seduction scene that was later replicated in ‘Goldeneye’ but it was telling of the budget that the only car that was destroyed was an old Citroen that the Luftwaffe missed.

From the title down this film is a baffling mess and totally merits James Mason’s constant disparaging look of ‘Oh I’ve just stepping in a turd’ - starred in one more like!

THE Tag Line : Hit Man Misses the Mark 35%

No.121 : The Passenger (1975)

The Passenger at the IMDb

 Jack Nicholson stars in this ponderous two hour drama that isn’t as smart or as insightful as you’d expect.

Jack plays a jaded war correspondent trying and failing to interview some rebels in Africa so he can complete his film. Much of the opening ten minutes is devoid of dialogue as Jack frustrations mirror those of the viewer who is yelling ‘get on with it!’. He eventually gets stranded on a sand dune and abandons his Landover after giving it a thorough spanking with a spade. He returns to his hotel and ponders over his next move.

He visits the room next door to talk with a businessman with whom he has struck up a friendship but finds that he has died of a heart attack. For reasons not immediately apparent Jack switches passport photos with the dead man and goes to reception to report ‘his’ death. He then assumes the dead man’s life and starts to keep his appointments. On recovering documents from a left luggage locker he learns his new life is that of a gun runner and he quickly harvests a fat wad of cash when he manages to bluff his buyers.

Back in London Jack’s office are making enquiries, with his wife, who is having an affair, also keen to learn of Jack’s last days. When Jack spots his old boss in Barcelona seeking a meeting with his new identity he asks a young student to grab his stuff from the hotel. This helpful girl (Maria Schneider) happily plays along and soon the pair are travelling around Spain in an open top car and making whoopee.

It’s not long however before the police, Jack’s wife and boss and the duped gun buyers are all closing in and we have to wonder if it was worth all the effort.

I didn’t like this film much. It was too full of its own importance with long ponderous scenes meandering by with nothing to say. I got the ideas being offered about identity and isolation and trying to break free from the constraints of society but it just came across as a bit of a caper that hadn’t been thought through.

Jack is always watchable but it was hard to engage with his selfish and random character. His literally life changing decision came across as a whim and he didn’t really do much with it apart from get jiggy with the lovely Maria, which is fair enough I suppose.

I know it wasn’t the focus of the drama but a bit more danger from the gun buyers would have been welcome as two hours of Jack being a bit lost and wistful was too much to take. With the long investment in the film the ending was a letdown and although the single 8 minute shot may be seen as innovative it just came over as lazy editing and unfocused film making.

I can see this playing well to the art cinema audience with plenty of room left for conjecture and theorizing about Jack’s motivations and the metaphors employed. For me this barely qualified as entertainment and although the premise was interesting the execution was overlong and too ponderous to garner half marks.

THE Tag Line - Passenger Taxes!  46%

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%