No. 254 : The Jackal (1997)

 

The Jackal at the IMDb

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

THE Tag Line : Stick with the original - 45%

 

No.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.219 :The Gambler (2014)

The Gambler (2014) at the IMDb

It was always going to be a tough ask to have Marky Mark fill James Caan’s 70’s Cuban heels, but this remake falls well short of the original. It does have a decent cast, but with nothing new added you have to wonder why they bothered.

The film opens with George Kennedy on his death bed - presciently so as it turned out to be his last role. He offers sage advice to his son Jim (Marky Mark) who proceeds to ignore it, heading off instead to a casino. He has $10k, which he bets on a single hand of blackjack, which he doubles up again and again before losing the lot. The casino’s owner is owed $240k and refuses any more credit. That’s fine as Omar off ‘The Wire’ is there and offers a $50k loan for a vig of 20 points a week - ten grand to you or me.

These rates would make Brighthouse blush but Jim is an addict and pisses the cash away. If you think he doesn’t convince as a gambler wait til you see him as a university literary professor. He tells his students not to try and write unless they are a genius or Captain Marvel who has shown up, as she’s not due to save the world for at least five years. He has another student who doesn’t care for class but he’s good at basketball and needs the scholastic credit. Might come in handy later that nugget!

Jim then goes hunting for more credit with John Goodman, using the impeccable logic that he can gamble his way out of his financial hole. When that doesn’t work out he heads to his mother Jessica Lange, who gets him a big bag of cash out of the bank. Problem solved.

No wait, he’s off to Vegas with Captain Marvel and he pisses that all away too. With the loan sharks circling Jim has only one shot - his ‘in’ with his basketball playing student. Can he corrupt the youth to save his neck and if he does is he only postponing the inevitable?

As a standalone movie this was decent but it pales in comparison to its predecessor. I felt Marky was too young to convey the gravitas as a professor or the world weariness needed to portray a gambler, keen to lose his cash as soon as possible.

The film followed the same narrative lines as the original but with some changes - there is no long suffering girlfriend here, only a prospect of a better life in the shape of Brie Larson. The mother role was transplanted intact but it was a mistake to have so many loan sharks played by familiar faces. Omar and Goodman both lacked menace and were too fond of talking and not keen enough on the leg breaking. I found it hard to believe the lines of credit being offered and the fact they were cool with Jim being in hock to so many bookies.

The film tried to add a bit of tension by having captions counting down the days until the debts became due. This was mostly pointless as Jim got shaken down every day anyway.

The gambling was mostly restricted to blackjack and roulette which at least it kept simple, without rules having to be explained. The Vegas sequence was a misfire with the ‘hit me on 18’ scene stuck in at the start which totally missed the point for me - in the original this was a sign that Caan was on an unbeatable lucky streak. Here he wins that one and then loses the lot.

The film missed the thrill and sleaziness of the gambling life with most of the bets being skill free coin flips. Fair enough the man’s an inveterate gambler, but his motivations and redemption were lacking for me.

Over all a decent character piece but one lacking any real insight or tension.

THE Tagline : Stick to the Seventies!  60%

No.48 : The Wolfman (2010)

The Wolfman at the IMDb

The classic 1940s Universal horror movie gets a modern makeover in this faithful and enjoyable remake.

We open with the familiar sight of a man stumbling through a smoky forest at night. The credits have still to roll so we know it isn’t looking good. Our wolfy hero does a bit of quick slashing and soon we’re in London watching a ropey actor playing an even ropier actor. After the show the actor thinks the groupies have arrived but sadly no, it’s the fiancée of the forest guy who’s our man’s brother and she worried about his going missing.

Although dismissive at first he’s soon compelled by the script to head home to the gothic family pile. On the way he’s given a wolf head cane by Max Von Sydow in a scene that looks more important than it later turns out to be. At the crumbling family home our actor hero (Benicio Del Toro) meets his family’s imaginatively named Indian servant , Singh, and his gun totting Pop Anthony Hopkins. The search for his brother proves a short one as he’s already turned up in a ditch.

Our man decides to hang around and do some sleuthing. He tries out the gypsy camp as there are stories that their dancing bear is the culprit but after consulting with the wise woman and seeing a fragging great wolf eat about 20 people he decides that the legends are true after all. He gets further evidence when he gets chomped too.

As you’d expect he’s soon banging on about feeling fitter and stronger and everyone is most impressed when the wound heals in a couple of days - no MRSA to worry about then. Of course he has the wolf curse flowing through his veins and on the next full moon (which seem to occur at least twice a week) he takes several bites out of the local community. These guys are on the ball however and soon with the help of Jack the Ripper sleuth Abberline (Agent Smith off ‘The Matrix’) he’s captured and shipped off to a London loony bin. Here he’s in the care of a nut job who looks like David Gest who thinks the best curse is to sit him in front of a full moon in front of a large audience - HUGE mistake.

After an extended bite fest through the streets of ye Olde London our man heads back to the family home to try and end the curse once and for all. Can the identity of the main wolf been ascertained - surely it’s not going to be the obvious candidate Tony Hopkins? Might be!

At two hours this film is a bit long for the plot it covers. That said it was enjoyable and the kill rate kept my interest up. The casting of Del Toro seemed a bit strange given that he was meant to be an English society man but that was explained away by his gypsy mother. They don’t manage to explain why he looks nothing like his dad, Tony Hopkins or why he talks like a Mexican doing an English accent but that’s the olden days for you.

Del Toro is good in the lead and seemed to invest a lot in some of the nastier killing and torture scenes. Less good was the normally reliable Hopkins who seemed off his game somewhat umming and ahhing through several lines.

Obviously a wolf man picture hangs on its special effects and the ones employed here were largely good. There was quite a bit of overt CGI but the transformations, killings and evocations of Olde London were all well done. I liked that the film was more or less a straight remake and although that defuses many of the surprises there were a few turns that kept me interested. The Abberline character although largely ineffectual was a good add and it was nice to see a few Victorian cases, real and imagined being married together.

The whole production reeked of class with the grotty Victorian streets and the visceral murders all excellently realised. There may not have been too much to worry the academy but for a remake of a classic horror movie this had a lot to like.

THE Tag Line - Full Moon - Full (ish) Marks 75%

No.47 : The Champ (1979)

The Champ at the IMDb

A real old sob fest next in the shape of ‘The Champ’ a remake of the family struggle boxing drama.

Jon Voight plays the titular pugilist who works as a horse trainer seven years after he last fought in a losing title fight. He has a cutesy pie son , TJ, and a passion for booze and gambling. An early chance at a comeback is lost when he decides to go drumming and boozing in what later turns out to be one of his better decisions.

Sad at letting his son down he makes amends by stealing his boy’s $20 savings and by heading off to the craps table. As Hollywood would have it he transforms the $20 into $6400 and gives his long suffering offspring a horse as a share of the winnings. The horse, as you’d expect, is a cracker and soon it’s running in a class one race. The young lad shows off his potty mouth and attracts the attention of society lady Faye Dunaway who turns out to be the lad’s mother.

The Champ is less than impressed at the mother being back on the scene seeing as she walked out on him and the boy years ago. She must be good in the sack or something because she now lives on a luxury yacht with a doctor and wants the boy back in her life. Keen to show he’s still an able father The Champ goes out and gets pissed and loses the boy’s horse in a card game. When the gamblers show up to collect The Champ shows off his punching skills but ends up in the pokey for his troubles.

He realises that the Mother ain’t so bad and tries to get the boy to go and stay with her. Unbelievably the boy gives up life on the ocean waves for The Champ’s hotel room and sozzled socker realises that the only way he can show the boy any kind of life is to get back in the ring, despite his ringing headaches (remember that!). After your typical boxing film training montage the big fight is set. TJ is ring side and the ex-wife takes on the Talia Shire role in the stand. Can The Champ regain his former glories? Or will his hard living catch up with him?

I was quite surprised by the gritty edges of ‘The Champ’. Yeah it’s sentimental and schmaltzy but the scenes of parental neglect were pretty full on. The Miami social services clearly got their training off Haringey Council as this was a care case if ever there was one. Voight was good value as the pished up puncher, complete with wide collared shirts and vacant looks.

The longed for happy ending is continually dashed with the horse falling over the least of the troubles for the blue eyed seven year old, who manages to idolise The Champ despite all the evidence staring him in the face. Faye Dunnaway is less good as the estranged Mother whose motivations aren’t really touched on. I think at the end we’re meant to like her but the feeling I was left with was that she’d managed to hook a rich hubby and thought she’s grab the boy for her entertainment.

The film is a bit long for what the plot contains, with the two hour running time at least five rounds too long. There is only one fight in the film but it’s well handled with some real brutality layed on for the baying crowd and crying child.

I’m not sure what conclusion we were meant to reach here but it wasn’t redemption from my angle - something like bad bitches come out smelling of roses would probably cover it. With the suspect ending the whole thing is a bit unsatisfying but as a whole the film is well played and mostly entertaining.

THE Tag Line : Ring Rusty Champ Wins On Points 64%

No.44 : The Crazies 1973 & 2010

The Crazies (1973) at the IMDb
The Crazies (2010) at the IMDb

Well here’s a treat for our loyal readership, yes both of you, it’s a double bill of all things ‘The Crazies’. Don’t expect this kind of double barrelled excitement on a regular basis although a three letter definitive double of ‘The Fly’ & ‘The Fog’ could just happen. Although probably not.

I had never heard of ‘The Crazies’ franchise until I recently saw a TV ad for the new version. This consisted of a load of screaming people and then an earnest voiceover announce ‘THE CRAZIES’ - "I wonder what that’s about" I sarcastically said to the long suffering wife. Rubbish looking or not I thought I’d have a look for this quest and was pleasantly surprised. I then found it was a remake of a 1973 George Romero film and I was unpleasantly disappointed. Still one out of two ain’t bad as a downsized Meatloaf might say.

Both films, as you’d expect, have basically the same premise : the military tries to contain the outbreak of a virus that makes people crazy and homicidal. We follow the lead through his attempts to avoid capture before a downbeat ending. There are differences along the way but the essence is the same with the values and talent being the deciding factor between the relative success and failure of the two films.

The original sees a fireman and his nurse girlfriend getting it on. He’s a bit scared to have some loving as she’s pregnant and he’s worried about getting his cock bitten by the baby. She dances around in the buff for a while in one of the film’s few highlights before he’s called to a big fire. A man has gone crazy and has killed his wife, toasted his kids and burnt his house down. Meanwhile the preggers nurse has been called into work to find loads of guys in haz-mat suits barking orders and acting badly.

We soon learn that a military plane went down in the nearby hills and its bio-weapon has escaped. As the population start to exhibit signs of the virus all hands get to work finding a cure while the president’s finger hovers over the ‘nuke’ button. The local population, who seem very red neck, take up arms against the military and shoot up plenty, spoiling their nice white suits. Will our heroes survive and can the virus be contained?



Meanwhile in 2010 the sheriff out of ‘Deadwood’ has been cunningly recast as a sheriff in a small town. He’s got a doctor wife who’s pregnant - eat that 70’s fireman - and a bit of a problem at the baseball field. A local man has gone crazy, well he’s more sleepwalking, and the sheriff has to shoot him down in the middle of the game - one foul ball too many methinks.

He’s a bit upset but more so when other people start acting mental and filling up his jail. He does some digging and soon finds a massive underwater plane and a dead ejected pilot and realises that bio-weapon transport has not improved one inch in 27 years. He figures the water is tainted with the toxin and the trail of crazy people follows the water’s path into town. With this information in hand he tries to shut down the water but is stopped by the mayor and then the military who shove everyone into the high school and strap them to beds.

Before long it kicks off big style with crazies, the military and local vigilantes all shooting the place up. With no regard for quarantine our man heads out of town with his flaky deputy and foxy wife with a slight niggle that the craziness may be in one of them already.

This is a rare occasion where the remake totally trumps the original. The idea is a good one but in the original the ‘crazy’ aspect is hardly seen in favour of lots of middle aged men shouting a lot and looking at test tubes to a soundtrack of annoying military drummimg. In the remake the cure isn’t touched on with containment being the military’s focus. The sequel also does a good job in keeping you unnerved as to who is crazy and who is just having a really bad day.

Both films didn’t really sell the motivation of the main character too well. I may be a soft touch but if I were a sheriff told by the army that there was a lethal virus about I wouldn’t be trying to get out of town. Both films also have a high kill rate with the former probably having the most. Virtually all of these were gun shots though and it seems like the local marksmen have a good chance at the Olympics. The newer film has a lot of inventive gore and a couple of scenes where the jeopardy was really well handled to the point I couldn’t see a way out.

The first film clearly suffered from a lack of budget with amateur actors delivering some horrendously crappy dialogue. The second is a no expense spared high tech extravaganza with a lot of similarities to the ‘Resident Evil’ films with the on screen text and satellite shots all present and correct.

You aficionados out there may scream that the remake is a triumph of style over substance but when you are dealing with a crazy person plague I’ll take all the style going.

THE Tag Line : Modern Master Triumphs Over 70’s Shite

1973 - 53% 2010 - 74%