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.214 : The Cooler (2003)

The Cooler at the IMDb

Time for middle aged man wish fulfilment now - getting off with Maria Bello and winning at Vegas.

William Hall Macy, to give him his full name, stars as Bernie, a cooler in a Vegas casino. He’s basically the physical embodiment of bad luck and is employed by the casino to cool down players on a hot streak. His effectiveness is displayed by how much cream he gets in his coffee (not a metaphor) and how baggy his suit is. As the film starts he’s super baggy and cream free but that will soon change.

His casino, The Golden Shangri-La, is the last of the old school casinos, still run by the mob and holding out against the corporate takeover that has befallen many of its contemporaries. The manager Alec Baldwin likes his old school crooners and leg breaking policy, but change is on the way in the form of Ron Livingston’s corporate go-getter who is keen to transform the ageing casino.

Things change fro Bernie too as he meets up with attractive waitress Maria Bello. It’s unclear why she takes a shine to Bernie but the pair hit it off and are soon repaying Bernie’s demonstrative neighbours with sex noises of their own, albeit faked ones. This upswing in Bernie’s happiness is a dampener on his powers and soon everyone is winning on his watch. Added to the mix is Bernie’s hustler son and his possibly pregnant girlfriend and Bernie’s ambition to leave his old life behind. Can he get away and find happiness or will Baldwin display his big brass balls once again and keep him in his cooler job?

I hadn’t seen this film in many years and although I still liked it, it was hard to justify my previous 8/10 rating. It is very good with some excellent performances, but I just fund it somewhat slight the second time around. No explanation is given for Bernie’s powers and although Bello likes astrology, there is no suggestion that anything supernatural is going on. I think it was better left unexplained but as a gimmick it was a but light to carry a whole film - I could see it as an ‘X-Files’ episode quite comfortably, but as a 100 minute feature it seemed a bit padded.

Macy and Bello were good and I liked that my early thoughts that she’d never go for him were borne out when Baldwin’s scheming was revealed. It was nice that she did end up liking him after all and it’s doubtful that his piles of cash had anything to do with that. Both were fully immersed in their role and, whilst their expressions of love were justified in the context of the film, I could have done without the shots of Macy’s sweaty bum.

Baldwin was excellent as the casino boss hanging onto the old times but he didn’t quite match the intensity of his ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ performance. It was also good to see Ron Livingston off ‘Office Space’ and ‘Band of Brothers’ but he didn’t get much to work with as the corporate face of Vegas’ future.

There were some quite brutal scenes of women being beaten up and the film wasn’t shy is showing Vegas’ seamy underbelly, but a pat ending made for an enjoyable if slightly underwhelming experience.


THE Tag Line : Worth a Flutter 70%

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.79 : The Grey (2011)

The Grey at the IMDb

Liam Neeson sheds his hard as nails killer with wife problems image from ‘Taken’ to play a hard as nails killer with wife problems in this survival thriller. You can’t say the man doesn’t have range.

Neeson works as a hunter for a petroleum company in Alaska - basically when a work crew goes out to fix the pipes it’s Liam who shoots the wolves. He’s not happy though, and neither are we as we have to listen to five minutes of sentimental voice over as he writes what may be a suicide note before heading out to the pub. He downs a couple of shots, and presumably because the kebab shop is shut, heads outside to eat his rifle.

He’s about to end the film early when some howling makes him think twice - huge mistake! He heads for home the next day but his flight is of the no frills variety - the fare doesn’t even include a proper landing! Before the plane goes down he pisses off a friendly workmate so we know he’s not exactly a people person, well for now at least.

The plane goes down in the wilderness with only half a dozen survivors who include both Liam and the man he had words with - awkward! The guys gather up the salvable stuff and once we establish Liam’s gun is wrecked we meet the bad guys in the form of a pack of mostly CGI wolves. These guys aren’t after dinner, they only want to assert their authority over these interlopers. Liam assumes control and given his wolfy knowledge the rest fall in line despite the normal grumbles.

What follows is what you’d expect in the form of the group being relentlessly whittled down by the lupine louts. There are some slight deviations to the ‘Ten Little Indians’ format but as you’d probably guess we end up with Liam and one cannon fodder guy and a showdown with the marauding pack.

I quite liked ‘The Grey’ but I felt it was writing a smart cheque that its script couldn’t cash. The attempt to make Liam deep and thoughtful failed despite the constant call-backs to his wife who may have left him or is dead. There was a lot of spiritual stuff going on throughout with a couple of near death workers experiencing visions of what they loved most.

This would suggest we are delving into the realms of metaphor or allegory but I’m not buying. You could argue that they were all dead from the off and it was how they met their fate and faced it was what mattered. Indeed some of the guys don’t fall prey to the wolves with the weather and a direct lift from ‘Sometimes a Great Notion’ taking care of two of them.

The tension never really scaled the heights I expected with the attacks too far apart and too much time spent jabbering on about the meaning of life. If I wanted my mind expanded I’d gets some LSD - what you want in a Liam Neeson survival picture is some man on wolf action.

I did like a few scenes especially early on, when the darkness was lit up by more and more wolf eyes. At this point the guys knew they were screwed and that kind of fed into their approaches going forward. The ensemble cast mostly of lesser known actors did well and each got a decent dispatch.

The finale was kept enigmatic with a post credit snippet giving us a clue. I don’t always need a definite conclusion, and a helicopter showing up to save the day may have been stretching it, but something less inconclusive may have been more satisfying.

The film is worth a look but at two hours it does plod at some points and I really needed more bang sticks for my bucks if I was going to rate it higher.

THE Tag Line :  No Result - Going to Extra Time 70%