Bandit: old story, thin paint

As generic as its name, Bandit recounts the career of Gilbert Galvan, a felon who flees the US for Canada in 1985. There he exploits national traits of kindness and trust to rob 59 banks. Played largely for laughs until it turns squishy, Bandit is pleasant but immediately forgettable.

Moviegoers love to watch crooks get away with heists, and Bandit‘s real-life angle adds another layer of potential to the film. Kraig Kenman’s script, based on a book by Robert Knuckle, covers incidents in Galvan’s story efficiently enough. The underpinnings of his behavior remain a mystery.

That’s the problem with Allan Ungar’s direction as well. Scenes unfold clearly enough, and some of the many bank robberies depicted do build tension. Still, Bandit is dismayingly superficial, from its 1980s production design to its needle-drop soundtrack to its almost complete disinterest in the feelings and motives of its characters.

Ungar adopts a lighthearted tone, letting Galvin (played by Josh Duhamel) deliver a jokey voice-over and steering away from the story’s darker elements. Galvin (known as Robert Whiteman for most of the film) is a nice guy in a bad business. Conscientious, nonviolent, clever, occasionally reckless, he is described by others as charming.

Duhamel’s charm factor is hit-or-miss, and while he gets how his character behaves, he doesn’t seem to understand why. He’s a blank in a film that desperately needs a better sense of time and place, of how Canadian society worked. As his girlfriend Andrea, Elisha Cuthbert is pleasant but not especially memorable. Nestor Carbonell plays Snydes, a Javert-like cop who pursues Galvin across Canada. It’s a perfunctory performance at best.

That leaves Mel Gibson as Tommy Kay, a sort of pimp and fence and minor crime lord who’s usually seen knocking back drinks in a strip club. Gibson’s been cancelled so many times that he’s having trouble scrounging up parts in low-budget B-films. Love him or hate him, he’s the best thing in Bandit. An unapologetic crook who can still lecture his teenage daughter about visiting strip joints, Kay is a master of his grimy, sordid milieu. Gibson makes the most of the role, but he’s not in the movie very long.

At points in the story Galvan tries to reform, promises to go straight. Then he drops right back into crime without a second thought. For all their own faults, movies like The Old Man and the Gun or The Grey Fox at least tried to examine the remorse their career criminals felt. Bandit bounces along from one robbery to another, from one stake-out to the next, from betrayals to double crosses with the same sunny indifference.

In Theaters, On Digital, and On Demand September 23rd, 2022. Photos courtesy Quiver Distribution.

Directed by Allan Ungar

Written by Kraig Wenman

Based on the novel by Robert Knuckle

Starring Josh Duhamel, Elisha Cuthbert, Nestor Carbonell, and Mel Gibson

 

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Restored Infernal Affairs trilogy: Film at Lincoln Center

You may know Infernal Affairs even if you’ve never seen it. The plot to the 2002 Hong Kong movie formed the basis for The Departed, to date Martin Scorsese’s only directing Oscar.

Recently restored by L’Immagine Ritrovata, all three entries in the original trilogy screen starting September 16 at Film Society at Lincoln Center. Directed by Andrew Lau Wai-keung and Alan Mak, they are the high-water mark in Hong Kong cinema over the past two decades, the gold standard for their direction, writing, and acting.

The plot pits two undercover agents — one a police officer posing as a gangster, the other a triad member who infiltrates the police — against each other. Moles have often been employed as plot points in crime films, like White Heat and Point Break. The innovation here was to mirror the two informants like yin and yang. Each has elements of the foe he pursues. Each has to betray his beliefs to carry out his mission. Each becomes lost between good and evil.

The script — by Alan Mak and Felix Chong — attracted the industry’s biggest stars. In fact, this kind of talent had rarely been seen together before. Andy Lau, a Cantopop heart-throb and romance icon, was Lau Kin-ming, a by-the-books policeman hiding a dark secret. Tony Leung Chiu-wai, a former TV actor shaped into a star by turns in Hard-Boiled and Bullet in the Head, took the part of gang mole Chan Wing-yan.  

Leung spoke to me about summoning up past hurts, rejections, betrayals to play Chan. “When  you think of how you’ve been hurt in the past, it’s not hard to bring those feelings to the scene,” he told me. In a startling scene, he responds wordlessly as Hon Sam, his boss and mentor smashes the cast on his arm, looking for proof that he is wearing a wire.

Triad Hon Sam boss is played by Eric Tsang, one of the series’ two secret weapons. (Tsang’s part was played by Jack Nicholson in The Departed. Arguably Tsang’s is the stronger, more coherent performance.) The roly-poly Tsang was a beloved TV host, the star and director of popular comedies, and a founding member of Cinema Cities, a studio that helped Tsui Hark, John Woo, and Ringo Lam find a foothold in the industry.

He plays Hon with a combination of affability and menace, a strategy that keeps his underlings off-balance.

“I’ve done many gangster roles. Comrades, Almost a Love Story, was my first, and  I thought about that one for days. How can I be believable as a bad guy? Then I remembered a big brother figure, someone like me physically. Short, not too handsome, but with a great sense of humor. You would always hear him laughing. So I tried that.

“When I accepted the Hon Sam part, I said to myself, there must be a reason for me to do what I do. Why do I have someone killed in prison? Because he doesn’t deserve to be jailed, he deserves to be dead. So there’s always a reason to my character. Even though I commit hideous crimes, I feel I am doing the right thing.”

A director himself, Tsang introduced nuances to his  Infernal Affairs that weren’t in the script.

“With the gangster element in Infernal Affairs, all the violence, I have to surprise viewers,” he said. “For instance, when I throw the rice plate in the police station, that wasn’t in the script. I brought that lunch box myself. I felt that by swiping it off the desk, it shows the viciousness of my character. That he’s not afraid of law enforcement.

“That scene where I break Leung’s cast — I wanted to do something unexpected, to shock the audience. Breaking his cast shows my fearlessness.”

Tsang’s counterpart in the story is Chong Chi-Shing, played by Anthony Wong. (Martin Sheen played a similar role in The Departed.) One of the cornerstones of the HK industry, Wong built a career in which he drew upon his Eurasian background to portray a series of villains and monsters in films like Hard-Boiled, The Heroic Trio, and the real-life cannibal tale The Untold Story.

He plays Chong with casual aplomb, tight-lipped, carefully dressed. In his scenes with Leung he pulls away from the other actor, uncomfortable with the informant’s uncontrolled emotions.

“Normally when actors play policemen, they act very powerful, exert authority,” he told me.  “I played Chong a different way. My uncle was a policeman. To him it was only a job. So when I was Inspector Wong, it was only a job to him. I go to the office, I do the job, and then I go home. I played him like a banker, not a policeman.”

Wong has since appeared in a remarkably wide range of roles, from Johnnie To thrillers like Vengeance and real-life martial-arts teacher Ip Man to a Cantonese adaptation of The Normal Heart.

Lau started out as a cinematographer at the Shaw, eventually shooting significant films like Ringo Lam’s City on Fire and Wong Kar Wai’s feature debut As Tears Go By. By the 1990s he was directing the Young and Dangerous franchise and Sausalito, a Maggie Cheung vehicle. After Infernal Affairs he collaborated with Mak on the race car drama Initial D and Confessions of Pain, starring Tony Leung. Working solo, he directed Revenge of the Green Dragons, executive produced by Scorsese.

Cinematography and production design were key to Infernal Affairs. (Lau shared photography with Lai Yiu-fai.) Unlike most Hong Kong films of the time, shot with feverish colors on garish sets, Infernal Affairs unfolded in monotonous office towers, washed out tenements, barren storerooms. The palette featured steel greys and icy blues. Christopher Doyle, the “visual consultant,” helped refine how Lau and Lai would approach shooting.

Apart from its action, expertly staged by Dion Lam, and the enormous tension generated by the screenplay’s twists and reversals, Infernal Affairs is marked by its gravity. The entire series is permeated by a sense of destiny, of predestination, of the impossibility of escaping fate.

The Chinese title Mou gaan dou translates roughly as Infinite Way or Non-Stop Way, a reference to eternal hell. This concept propels all the characters in the story to their inescapable destiny. Life is an endless hell, as an opening title states.

Andrew Lau and Alan Mak did not set out to make a trilogy, but response to the first Infernal Affairs was so overwhelming that they put together both a prequel and sequel. Infernal Affairs II starred Edison Chan and Shawn Yue as younger informants, with Tsang and Wong reprising their roles. Infernal Affairs III puts the focus back on Leung and Lau, introducing Leon Lai as another police foil. They are superb additions to the first entry.

Do not miss this opportunity to see Hong Kong filmmaking at its peak.

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Moonage Daydream review: pieces of Bowie

How much you like David Bowie, and when you started liking him, will determine how you respond to Moonage Daydream. Written, directed, produced, and edited by Brett Morgen, the documentary provides an exhaustive account of very specific sections of Bowie’s career. What it doesn’t do is offer a convincing portrait of a notorious shape-shifter.

You’d never know it from this documentary, but Bowie was a divisive figure in the rock world. His early efforts were distinctly folk or pop, catchy enough at times (“The Man Who Sold the World”) but often just average. In his Hunky Dory phase he started appropriating glam rock, leading to accusations of selling out. Each new musical shift brought criticism as well as praise. The truth is, Bowie did not have a great rock voice, relying instead on personas and genre — spaceman, bisexual, plastic soul, krautrock — to push across his material.

Morgen buys into all the space crap, in particular “Space Oddity.” That’s partly due to the fact that the best material here comes from D.A. Pennebaker’s concert documentary Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (filmed in 1973 and released in 1979). On the other hand, Bowie not only participated in, but encouraged the visual documentation of his life. It’s amazing to see the same shot — Bowie from behind, the back of his head center frame, walking backstage — tour after tour, year after year, country after country.

Moonage Daydream takes a scattershot approach to its subject. Biographical details emerge slowly, based on Bowie’s own comments about his institutionalized half-brother, his emotionally distant mother, and his artistic ambitions. Through tape recordings, Bowie offers what amounts to a running narration in which he makes broad but not very helpful generalizations about art, music, love.

Morgen buttresses these with imagery, a staggering array of movie slips, concert footage, advertisements, posters, paintings, animation, talk shows, newspaper headlines, magazine covers, light shows, and umpteen shots of ecstatic audience members.

Some of Morgen’s choices are distressingly on point. Should Bowie mention a ray gun, Morgen will offer a 1950s sci-fi clip of, you guessed it, a ray gun in action. On the other hand, pronouncements like, “I’ve been esoteric all my life,” are likely to result in clips from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis or F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu. It’s up to you to figure out how Land Without Bread or A Night Out influenced Bowie. Or why they’re here.

Morgen includes a lot of Bowie’s music, but it’s mostly snippets: concert excerpts, video footage, etc. He makes almost no attempt to explain how Bowie worked: how he created, how he collaborated, how he refined.

The director focuses predominately on Bowie’s glam rock phase, and the artist’s later reaction to that style. Whole stretches of his career are ignored. “Changes” is relegated to the end of the closing credits. Where is “Fame” or “Young Americans”? For that matter, where is his first wife Angela?

Morgen is entitled to his own views about Bowie, even if they skew away from the musician’s most popular work. I’m grateful to hear a complete, live version of “Heroes,” and a bit miffed “Suffragette City” was left out. If you’re a Bowie fan, you’ll have your own pleasures and regrets.

David Bowie was a considerably more sophisticated artist than Moonage Daydream suggests. His reach was wider, his tastes more complex, and his relationship to the industry more conflicted. It’s too bad Morgen couldn’t have aimed higher.

Photos courtesy Neon.

Credits

Written, directed, and edited by Brett Morgen.

Produced by Brett Morgen.

Re-recording mixers: Paul Massey David Giammarco.

Supervising sound and music editor: John Warhurst.

Supervising sound editor: Nina Hartstone.

Music produced by Tony Visconti.

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Brahmāstra Part One: An Indian multiverse

Years in the making, Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva is the first episode in a trilogy about the “Astraverse,” an Indian take on the multiverse. Astras are superpowers that can take the form of a weapon or a person (a “divine” person). So like X-Men, and like Journey to the East, there are superstrong “bull” people, “fire” people, a “monkey” character who is hard to catch, etc. Like Avengers: Infinity War, the villains are trying to piece together shards of pottery to form a talisman that will destroy the planet. The pieces are held by “Bramansh” heroes: a Scientist (an unbilled superstar in an extended cameo), an Artist (beefy Nagarjuna Akkineni), and a Guru (the estimable Amitabh Bachchan).

It’s up to Shiva (Ranbir Kapoor, part of an acting dynasty), owner of an orphanage, an orphan himself, and part-time DJ, to discover his destiny, take on the villains, and save the planet. He’s helped by Isha (Alia Bhatt), a rich girl from London who can “feel the groove” when Shiva’s DJ-ing.

The first half is a typical Bollywood romance: poor guy wins over rich girl by showing her winsome orphans, rooftop barbecues, and superhot dance moves. It’s set on a scale unimaginable in Western films: hundreds of choreographed extras flinging themselves around ancient temples, courtyards, waterfronts. The second half descends into a sludge of indifferent special effects, endless battles, and deaths that turn out to be not deaths after all.

The film is being distributed by Star Studios, at one time Fox’s producing arm in India, now under Disney’s umbrella. Disney is opening it worldwide tomorrow (September 9), in five languages: Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada.

Director Ayan Mukerji has made a half-dozen or so movies, working a lot with Ranbir Kapoor. He has yet to start filming Part Two: Dev (spoiler alert: Dev = Darth Vader) and I will be surprised if he gets to Part Three. Mukerji does an excellent job with the songs but has trouble executing action + effects. He has no trouble milking maudlin plot turns for tears. The problem isn’t Mukerji’s efforts to make a Marvel-style movie in India. It’s why he would bother trying. Why prove you can make something as bad as a comic-book movie?

This is all TMI due entirely to my obsession with Alia Bhatt. Brahmāstra is her fourth film release this year, after her third-act appearance in RRR, her brothel-revenge drama Gangubai Kathiawadi, and her comedy about murdering an abusive husband, Darlings. [The last two are now on Netflix.] She is incredibly appealing here, even when called on to simper over fallen superheroes. Bhatt’s already finished two more movies, including the Gal Gadot vehicle Heart of Stone.

Bhatt also married Kapoor and is expecting their first child, which may help explain their undeniable onscreen chemstry. [Photos courtesy Star Studios.]

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Coast review: Teen friends grow up fast

A coming-of-age story with more bite than expected, Coast follows four young teens as they navigate their way through a summer in the suburbs of Santa Maria. Strong performances and sensitive direction make this stand out from usual genre entries.

Writer Cindy Kitagawa’s script focuses primarily on Abby (Fatima Ptacek), who lives in a modest house with her mother Debra (Cristela Alonzo), a nurse working night shifts. With her father largely absent (thanks to a transgression no one wants to talk about), Abby’s largely on her own.

Her old friends Kat (an exceptional Mia Xitlali) and Laura (Kaylee Kamiya) are being replaced by out-of-towner Kristi (Mia Rose Frampton), a flashy blond with connections to a visiting rock band. Jealousies, minor betrayals, misunderstandings all serve to cloud choices, spur fights, realign friendships.

Quarrels that will soon seem petty are shattering when they occur, especially in a washed-out, boarded-up, dead-end town. Or at least that’s how Abby sees it. Whether she and her friends realize it or not, their lives are changing, their world shrinking. Teachers and parents gently try to warn them of reduced expectations.

Directors Jessica Hester and Derek Schweickart take a quiet, observational approach to the story. They don’t push emotional scenes, and they take the time to let small moments unfold without comment. That way viewers share Abby’s point-of-view. The shabby bedrooms, boring classes, dusty streets are pushing her away in ways that are very easy to understand.

Through Kristi, Abby connects with Pinata Jones, a rock band led by Dave (real-life musician Kane Ritchotte). Abby’s inchoate dreams of a music career suddenly come into focus, prompting spur-of-the-moment steps that could have drastic consequences.

Which makes Coast sound much more ominous or pretentious than it really is. The miracle of the film is how it shifts viewers’ perceptions without judging anyone. In one small example, Abby makes fun of the Future Farmers of America, but Kat sees agriculture as a way to honor her family’s heritage.

In fact if Coast is about anything, it’s about acceptance, about finding a way to reconcile your dreams with reality.

Inevitably in a film this small there are some shortcomings. Subplots that feel a bit lumpy, like Melissa Leo’s turn as an advice-dispensing patient. The music is filmed live, a plus, but the band’s offstage material feels week. Kristi’s motives are opaque, while Abby occasionally makes choices that feel out of character.

But these are minor problems in a film with such a big heart. Coast captures small-town life so honestly that you care deeply what happens to Abby and her friends. That’s exactly what you want a movie to do.

After its film festival run, Coast was released to streaming on April 8 on Apple, Amazon, and Vudu. It’s also available on Google, Xbox, and Hoopla. The directors praise the mentorship of Bruce Dern, whose partner Wendy Guerrero grew up with screenwriter Cindy Kitagawa in Santa Maria. Although I’m coming late to this, Coast is a rewarding film that deserves your notice.

Top photo: Fatima Ptacek. Second photo: Ptacek and Mia Xitlali.

Directors: Jessica Hester | Derek Schweickart
Writer: Cindy Kitagawa
Producers: Alex Cirillo | Wendy Guerrero | Jessica Hester | Dani Faith Leonard | Derek Schweickart
Composers: Hannah Hooper | Kane Ritchotte | Alex Walker | Christian Zucconi
Cinematographer: D.J. Harder
Editor: Angelica Hester
Casting Director: Faryn Einhorn
Production Designer: Victor Capoccia

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Review: Beneath the Banyan Tree

Sensitive to a fault, Beneath the Banyan Tree explores an uprooted Chinese family trying to find its way in Los Angeles. Anchored by strong performances, the movie overcomes script and pacing problems to reach emotional moments that will resonate with sympathetic viewers.

Written and directed by Nani Li Yang, Banyan focuses at first on Ai-Jia (Kathy Wu), a struggling writer who earns a living leading sightseeing tours for Chinese. In a comfortable relationship with Vance (Travis Goodman), an animator, she’s thrown out of balance when she learns her brother and sister-in-law have been jailed on corruption charges in mainland China.

That means Ai-Jia has to take care of their children, rebellious teen Sheng-Qi (Demi Zijing Ke) and her shy, withdrawn brother Sheng-Yu (Jiayu Wang). They arrive in LA with Ai-Jia’s mother Jia-Rong Woo (Ah-Leh Chang Gua), a stern matriarch who doesn’t know anything about Vance. He’s not the only secret that will come to light as the characters try to adjust to new surroundings.

Much of Banyan concentrates on the day-to-day lives of its characters. Conflicts and complications multiply when the children enter school. Woo meets up with Tsiu (Ying Xie), an acquaintance from China prone to gossip, and starts visiting a senior community center. Vance stays in the background, confused about a dynamic unfolding in a language he doesn’t understand.

Given the film’s limited budget, director Li Yang handles the various storylines with an assured hand. Ai-Jia’s problems feel honest enough, and her inability or unwillingness to explain herself to her mother gives their scenes a surprising depth.

That’s partly due to two exceptional performances, partly to Li Yang’s light hand as a director. Edwin Beckenbach’s cinematography is a huge factor as well. He finds ways to bring out the best in the somewhat bland production design. Beckenbach’s extreme close-ups are something else, at times pushing the narrative forward almost singlehandedly. The shots of Qi are exquisitely beautiful, as are the tight, isolated shots of Yu with his classmate Raymond (Scott Felix).

Banyan reaches its emotional peaks in the scenes between Woo and Ai Jia. As played by the screen veteran Gua, Woo can be simultaneously steely and vulnerable. Past disappointments can be seen in her formal posture, her forbearance, the way she looks at the people around her. As much as she tries to deny it, Ai-Jia has the same traits. Kathy Wu does a superb job detailing Ai-Jia’s growing realization that she is very much like her mother. Both performers are wonderful.

The other storylines are more predictable and less persuasive. Qi is taken in by a smooth-talking student, Yu tries to repress his sexual urges, and both are pressured to live up to ideals they may not accept. These problems just aren’t very original, no matter how carefully Li Yang stages them.

Yes, Banyan has problems, some due to the budget, others to the script. Still, there is a commitment here that makes the movie compelling even when it occasionally sputters. That’s largely due to Li Yang’s sympathetic approach to the characters, and to a cast and crew that takes their work seriously.

BENEATH THE BANYAN TREE opened in North America on 3/15/2022. Platforms include: AT&T U-Verse, DirecTV, Dish Network, Sling TV. Also Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, Xbox, Google Play, YouTube Movies. The DVD is available via Amazon.com, Bestbuy.com, Walmart.com, and Barnesandnoble.com.

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Donnie Yen and Nicholas Tse in Benny Chan’s Raging Fire

A first-rate action thriller, Raging Fire pits dedicated cop Donnie Yen against Nicholas Tse’s gang of killers in a story of betrayal and revenge. It’s sadly the last film from director Benny Chan, who died of cancer in 2020.

Nicholas Tse and Donnie Yen

Raging Fire has a sprawling storyline that unfolds over several years. Yen plays Bong Cheung, a cop who resists pleas to look the other way, angering superiors who want him to bend. As a result, Bong and his team are kicked off a police sting against Wong Kwun, a gangster they’ve been tracking for years.

In a well-executed scene set in a shopping mall, both the gang and the police are massacred by a third team of black-masked crooks. It is a luxury to watch action this skilled and precise, with stunts that are simply beyond the abilities of most Hollywood productions. Benny Chan and Donnie Yen (who is credited as action choreographer and director) take the time to explain the geography of the scene, cutting to a police command center filled with surveillance monitors to show the mall’s layout, before unleashing bullets and blows.

Viewers know that Tse’s character, Ngo, is e leader of the masked gang. They soon learn that Ngo and his team were policemen betrayed by higher-ups after following orders to torture a suspect in order to rescue a kidnapped financier. Bong is the one who turned them in.

Donnie Yen

The rest of the film is an intricate path to a showdown between Bong and Ngo. First Bong tracks down drugs to Guai’s gang, nestled deep within a slum. In an extraordinary action scene, Bong fights off dozens of guards before flinging himself out a window after Guai.

In one brief, seconds-long shot, Yen shows why he is possibly the best martial arts performer on screen. Guai kicks Bong’s leg, knocking him to his knee. Regaining his feet, Bong goes after Guai, this time stepping over and around his next kick. The moves aren’t just flawless, they’re part of a larger tapestry of action that pulls viewers along.

Sequences like that are what makes Raging Fire such a delight. The action is stuffed with jaw-dropping moves executed one after the other, the fights ranging from rooftops to sewers. The car chases up the ante. Even in an era of wirework and CGI, the car and motorcycle stunts are breathtaking.

The dramatic scenes, on the other hand, feel stuck in a previous generation of films about macho cops bravely maintaining integrity in a corrupt system. Even the frequent flashbacks evoke 1980s Hong Kong movies. Yen in a determined performer, Tse a more natural one, but neither actor can entirely pull off the screenplay’s emotional demands.

Nicholas Tse

Benny Chan barrels through anyway, persevering in his vision. There are call-outs to John Woo’s The Killer and Johnnie To’s Breaking News, among many other inspirations, but Chan maintains his own distinctive style.

Chan was behind several action hits, including Jackie Chan’s Who Am I? and The White Storm with Louis Koo and Nick Cheung — films marked more by forward momentum than psychological subtlety. There is an honesty to Chan’s work, a drive that glories in what film can accomplish. He will be missed.

Raging Fire is streaming now on Hi-Yah! and will be available November 23 on Digital, Blu-ray and DVD from Well Go USA Entertainment. Photos courtesy Well Go USA.

Official trailer: https://youtu.be/_hL0sAde1DA

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Reminiscence review: Stop If You’ve Seen This Before

The future is grim in Reminiscence, a Warner Bros. release starring Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Ferguson and Thandiwe Newton. Written and directed by Lisa Joy (a Westworld vet), the movie slips time-travel tropes into a well-worn film noir plot. If you’re a fan of either genre, you’ve been down this road before.

Sometime dead ahead, the coast of Florida is sinking into the sea. Politics, climate change, corruption all reduce Miami to a soggy war zone in which the poor splash through flooded streets while the rich don’t.

Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman) worked in the war as an interrogator, using technology that allowed him to evoke and change memories embedded in the subconscious. The process involves electrodes, pools borrowed from Minority Report, and Nick intoning a vaguely Twilight Zone rap to his zapped-out subjects.

Nick’s a noble loser addicted to his own memories, too self-absorbed to see that his assistant “Watts” (Thandiwe Newton) has a thing for him. Jackman plays him sullen, unwilling to face up to his past behavior, incapable of applying his training and experience, ignorant of the red flags that presumably kept him alive to this point. He’s a tired stereotype with few redeeming qualities: he can throw a punch and rock a wife-beater T-shirt, but he can’t crack a joke or break free from his tunnel vision.

Into Nick’s sad life walks Mae (Rebecca Ferguson), a standard femme fatale in a clinging red dress. She wants something that Nick mistakes for love, sending him into a tailspin when she suddenly disappears.

Finding her again requires Nick to dive deep into his memories, to question New Orleans drug kingpin Saint Joe (hello Daniel Wu, but really: the accomplished lead in Johnnie To romances reduced to lounging in dressing gowns while his goons torture dimwits?) and disgraced cop Cyrus Boothe (Cliff Curtis, a nasty ham). In the process Nick uncovers a weirdly incestuous heiress, a real estate conspiracy, and something about drugs or gun running or man-eating eels.

None of it matters. Lily Joy’s vision of the future is the most interesting aspect of Reminiscence (a meaningless title, although it did force me to learn how to spell it), brought to vivid life by production designer Howard Cummings. DoP Paul Cameron does what he can to emphasize the movie’s noir elements, mostly with slanted shadows, angled perspectives, deep reds and blues.

Production values can’t fix the screenplay, with its purple voice-over passages, flashbacks and dream sequences, and gratuitous violence. The story circles around itself like a bad Philip K. Dick rip-off, maybe Next or Paycheck. The plot, none of it surprising, strands Jackman, a physical but not especially nuanced performer. Newton holds her own, but Rebecca Ferguson, an intriguing presence in her previous roles, comes off poorly. Playing a duplicitous chanteuse, she coos her way through cabaret chestnuts like “Where or When” while Jackman stares at her longingly.

Like Westworld, Reminiscence fixes its characters in a genre and plot they dimly recognize. But in this case Nick Bannister takes his role all too seriously, succumbing to noir’s tendency to sentimentalize suffering.

Captions: 1) (L-r) THANDIWE NEWTON as Watts and HUGH JACKMAN as Nick Bannister in Warner Bros. Pictures’ action thriller “REMINISCENCE.” Photo Credit: Ben Rothstein. 2) DANIEL WU as Saint Joe in Warner Bros. Pictures’ action thriller “REMINISCENCE. 3) (L-r) REBECCA FERGUSON as Mae and HUGH JACKMAN as Nick Bannister in Warner Bros. Pictures’ action thriller “REMINISCENCE.” Photo Credit: Ben Rothstein. All photos Copyright: © 2021 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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The Fatal Raid review: Old-school gunplay

Released in 2019, The Fatal Raid was originally intended as a sequel to 2016’s Special Female Force. A couple of that film’s performers reappear, notably Jade Leung as Wong, an undercover cop. But The Fatal Raid is essentially a standalone project. Directed by Jacky Lee, it’s an old-fashioned cop thriller that spans some twenty years.

Patrick Tam dominates the film as a Hong Kong police inspector investigating an arms-smuggling gang in Macao. When his team is wiped out, including his best friend Hard Gor (Michael Tong), Tam represses his anger and sense of betrayal to focus on his career.

Twenty years later, Tam oversees an assignment in Macao. This time his team is to provide security for government officials. But, as a title notifies viewers, “Karma is unforgiving and always gets it payback.”

Things go south, cops end up in a warehouse where amateur terrorists are hiding out, but real gangsters show up and gunfire erupts.

Lee orchestrates several large-scale shootouts in the movie. Unfortunately, the crooks and terrorists are the worst shots in the world, their thousands of rounds hitting no one but cars, trucks, walls, offices, etc.

Michael Tong has something to prove in The Fatal Raid. Photos courtesy
Well Go USA Entertainment.

Some of the hand-to-hand fights are credible, but the heavy emphasis on male bonding quickly becomes tiresome. Just like a Hong Kong film from the 1990s, the last part of the film unfolds long flashbacks that repeat a story that wasn’t that complicated to begin with.

It’s great to see Jade Leung again, and Michael Tong brings more nuance than expected to his role.

Fans of guns and explosions will find just enough here to keep them occupied. Well Go USA Entertainment is Available from Well Go USA Entertainment on Digital, Blu-ray and DVD formats, starting August 24.

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Marvel’s Black Widow: So Much Money

Delayed by COVID-19, Black Widow arrives in theaters and online July 9 carrying the weight of the Marvel Cinematic Universe on its shoulders. No one could have anticipated that a pandemic would disrupt the movie industry for the past 16 months. It might have been easier to predict that Black Widow would fail to meet expectations.

Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff. Photo courtesy Marvel Studios.

As a superpower-less human teamed with superheroes, Natasha Romanoff has always been overlooked and undervalued. She’s been relegated to consoling, empathizing, encouraging her teammates, distracting villains until the “real” heroes can get it together, offering hints of emotion during downtimes between explosions and cataclysms. Then she offed herself in the kind of sacrificial gesture that in the comic book world usually brings about completely predictable resurrections.

Black Widow was supposed to come out in May, 2020, both a prequel and a sad coda to The Avengers: Endgame. The plan was for shows like WandaVision and Loki to dismantle the MCI, replacing it with new characters, narratives, and timelines. Appearing as it does now, Black Widow feels worn out, a repeat of other movies, devices, and tricks. Even the effects are tired.

Florence Pugh as Yelena. Photo by Kevin Baker.

Director Cate Shortland opens the film in a suburban Ohio neighborhood in a 1995 that more closely resembles 1957. Idyllic life with dad and mom Alexei and Melina (computer-enhanced David Harbour and Rachel Weisz) quickly turns into an episode of The Americans as the family flees US agents for Cuba and the protection of Russian mastermind Dreykov (Ray Winstone)

The main plot finds Natasha (played by Scarlett Johansson in a state of perpetual frustration) forced out of post-Captain America: Civil War hiding by the menacing supervillain Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko). Meanwhile in Morocco, another Black Widow named Yelena (Florence Pugh) learns of a deadly conspiracy (are there any other kinds?) involving other Black Widows who have been programmed to take over the world.

Or something. Like viewers, their minds are controlled by others who may be hoping no one notices Black Widow‘s similarities to other films. Turns out Natasha and Yelena are sisters, or stepsister, or grew up together. Just like the Fast and Furious franchise, where family members become plot twists. Natasha and Yelena team up as they are attacked in an apartment in a scene that evokes Atomic Blonde without the crisp action. Then a Mission: Impossible chase that ends up in a subway, after a Taken interlude on rooftops.

This is Shortland’s first blockbuster, which may help explain the derivative action, wavering point-of-view, and disappointing effects. Grenades explode, bullets shred walls (but not people), bodies drop, cars flip, buildings collapse—just as they do in any number of action films. Black Widow is missing a voice, a vision, a distinctive take, despite efforts to make it “meta.”

What it has is the sheen of money, Marvel money, the kind that allows shooting in Norway, Budapest, Morocco, the Bahamas, Los Angeles, and Marvel Studios in Georgia, with tax credits from Australia, British Columbia, Ireland, New Zealand, Ontario, and Quebec.

Photo by Jay Maidment.

Johansson’s okay without dominating the screen, leaving Harbour, Winstone and Weisz free to ham it up in the mistaken impression that they’re supposed to.

Critics have latched onto Florence Pugh’s performance as a sign that Black Widow isn’t completely bereft of life. After Fighting with My Family and Little Women, Pugh’s insolent shtick is wearing out, especially with a Russian accent. Yes, she teases Natasha about “posing” and has pithy putdowns prepared about her teammates. But what’s the point of joking about a movie you eventually embrace wholeheartedly?

It’s no fun attacking Black Widow. Everybody involved deserved better, except the corporate overlords who continue to devalue their golden egg.

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