The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid

The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid (1972) dir. Philip Kaufman
Starring: Cliff Robertson, Robert Duvall, Luke Askew

**1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Philip Kaufman is a venerable old filmmaker, a career which spans 40 years with a variety of memorable and culturally significant films. Perhaps ‘The Right Stuff’ is his most famous film – certainly his best. But scouring his filmography you’d see a some sci-fi, ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ (1978), the Daniel Day-Lewis starrer, ‘The Unbearable Likeness of Being’, ‘Quills’, ‘Henry and June’, of course, his screenplay credit on ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’

His breakout film ‘The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid’, though a flawed, has enough sparkles of greatness to warrant our attention.

The title refers to famous failed bank robbery by the James/Younger gang. This is not a Jesse James film though, but a vehicle for Cliff Robertson as Cole Younger, the charismatic leader of the gang. After a violent gunbattle with the Pinkertons, the gang finds themselves split up – Jesse James and his brother taking half the gang to Northfield to violate an amnestry agreement with the government and rob their new bank, and Younger who apparently is working with the Northfield bankers to trap James. Once in Northfield, it’s a doublecross and a reunification of James and Younger to take down the bank. But thanks to the new fangled time lock device installed the gang runs into some major problems and soon finds themselves under siege by the citizens of the town who band together to protect their own money.

Kaufman’s dank and dirty environment replete with muddy outhouses, a grim and psychotic depiction of James by Robert Duvall and the especially bloody treatment of the violence positions the film in the revisionist subgenre of Westerns. Part Altman, part Peckinpah, part (Arthur) Penn, it’s a conscious and admirable attempt by Kaufman to show us another side of the mythologized James gang. Unfortunately Walter Hill did this story monumentally better with ‘the Long Riders’ just 8 years later, a film which renders Kuafman’s film virtually irrelevant.

There’s an awful 'television' quality to much of it - specifically Paul Frees' voiceover which unnecessarily sets the scene with Dukes of Hazard-like hokiness. The only line missing is ‘previously on ‘The Great Northfield Massacre' . Add in Dave Grusin's cooky and bumbling country score and we’re in Bonanza territory. And lastly the title sequence featuring bubbly yellow font put the audience in a completely different tone of film to what Kaufman needs to establish off the top.

What we can still cherish is Cliff Robertson who is fantastic as Cole Younger, and so it was no surprise to see he was one of the producers, and thus, likely a passion project for him. The actual Raid sequence is superbly directed - not quite 'Long Riders' artistic grandiosity, but Kaufman’s use of the plummeting rainstorm echoes the famous waterworks in Akira Kurosawa’s ‘The Seven Samurai’ climax. Robert Duvall is grossly miscast, or perhaps grossly misdirected. As an unintelligible hillbilly psychopath he lacks all the lustre the name Jesse James conjures up. Perhaps it was by design from producer/actor Robertson who didn’t want his character overshadowed.

For Western genre fans, 'The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid' is still essential viewing as a decent benchamrk in the evolution of the Western.

Lord of the Rings (1978)

Lord of the Rings (1978) dir. Ralph Bakshi
Voices by: Christopher Guard, William Squire, Michael Scholes, John Hurt, Simon Chandler, Anthony Daniels

***

By Alan Bacchus

Timed well with the Blu-Ray release of the Peter Jackson version of ‘Lord of the Rings’ is the first screen incarnation of the story, the Ralph Bakshi animated version. It runs 132mins, which is less running time than any one of Jackson’s Rings movies, and sure it ends on an unsolved cliffhanger, and sure it condenses much of the dense text of Tolkien, but for non-Tolkien devotees for such as I, it makes for a surprisingly well told ‘abridged’ (though aesthetically-dated) version of the story.

Bakshi's version represents 'Fellowship of the Ring' and 'The Two Towers' books, with the misfortune of having an unsolved cliff-hanger ending. The film was not a success and thus, the sequel and final chapter of the story was never completed.

Ralph Bakshi's unmistakable animation style, for the most part, creates a unique mood and tone for the story. And looking back at the time period when serious sci-fi and fantasy were non-existent, Bakshi’s (time-constrained) reverence to the material and his commitment to telling an adult fantasy picture is a remarkable achievement and decades ahead of his time.

To create a sense of serious realism Bakshi used rotoscoping techniques to animate his characters. Rotoscoping is a rarely used cinematic art form which involves hand drawing over top of live action footage, frame by frame. The result is a fluidity in motion difficult to achieve through traditional handdrawn cell animation. Of course, this meant that Bakshi had to film the entire movie with real actors, sets, locations, props, horses etc before animating the film. Again, a remarkable achievement.

Bakshi’s film is actually enhanced by the presence of Peter Jackson’s film. For those who haven't read the novels, we get to use Jackson’s near full text adaptation as a reference point to Bakshi’s abridged version. And so as the film clips along with a sharp pace, plot wise, we realize how little Bakshi’s version differs from Jackson’s. Credit to writers Chris Conkling and Peter Beadle who manage to squeeze in all the major set pieces of the books, and getting in and out of each scene at the right time to conserve precious running time, arguably at the expense of the ‘breathing room’ and internal reflection of the characters.

The film opens with the same voiceovered preamble to the rings forged for Men, Elves, Dwarves and of course, the one ring to rule them all. Then there’s the introduction to the Shire, Bilbo, Gandalf and Frodo. The one major difference involves the timeline of Frodo’s possession of the ring. In Bakshi’s version Bilbo gives Frodo the ring, which he holds for 17 years before Gandalf returns to send him on his way to Rivendale. Jackson’s condensing of Tolkien’s timeline creates a greater sense of urgency and instinctual action which benefits these scenes better.

Once on his way the events which befall Frodo are scene for scene exact to Jackson’s version, save for the elimination of the Arwen character who brings Frodo to Rivendale. The midpoint of the film is the Rivendale sequence and thus, the second half condenses the second half of 'Fellowship of the Ring' AND 'The Two Towers' into just over an hour of screen time. Bakshi even manages to trump the emotional gravitas of Boromir’s death. While Jackson’s overloaded this scene with exaggerated music and melodrama, Bakshi’s is arguably the more elegant and genuine of the two.

While there’s innovation in Bakshi’s style of animation, it’s also inconsistent aesthetically, and for lack of a better word dated. The characters are a mix of comic strip simplicity and the rotoscoped realism. Legolas for instance looks like he's pulled from TV Fun House, or an episode of He-Man, while the Aragon is drawn like the brooding hero he should be. What we miss most from Bakshi’s style is the details of landscape and the environment which seem glossed over likely for budgetary purposes. As such the characters often seem to be moving through matted backdrops instead of a fully realized alternate world.

Regardless of your opinion of this version, Bakshi’s cultural importance in cinematic animation is never questioned. The Blu-Ray contains a decent half hour documentary looking back at Bakshi’s bold career which up to him creating ‘Lord of the Rings’ – a rebellious career which bucked all traditions of the genre.

'Lord of the Rings' is available on Blu-Ray from Warner Home Video

Worst Moments in the Spielberg Canon

You’re watching a Steven Spielberg movie, one of the cinema’s greatest filmmakers and you’re enjoying the picture, and suddenly you double-take, ‘oh no, did I just see that?’ You rewind the DVD, or VHS cassette and watch some a bunch of costumed children skateboarding through conveniently placed ramps around the Peter Pan neverland set. This is one of those moments where Spielberg ‘goes wrong’ – a momentary lapse in judgment which against, the mostly magnificence of his body of work, sticks out like amateur hour.

His filmography is peppered these moments, which makes it worth compiling and discussing.

Monkey Swinging in INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULLS

There's a few cringe moments in the latest Indiana Jones film, but none more awful than the moment Shia Lebeouf's character, during a hectic chase sequence through the jungle, starts swinging on vines like Tarzan to catch up to the baddies.

Gymnastics Routine in THE LOST WORLD (1997)

I could have put the moment in “The Lost World” – in general, the unfairly trounced Jurassic sequel – when we first see Dr. Malcolm’s adopted child emerge rambunctiously into the picture and run into his arms. I think there was a collective groan by everyone – throwing a child into the situation inevitably invites childish scenes. Indeed we get it at the end when Spielberg completes Kelly Malcolm’s (played by Vanessa Lee Chester) character arc by having her use her failed gymnastic skills on a conveniently placed high bar to kick out the oncoming velociraptor out of the shack.

Going Inside the Mothership in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND

The story behind the multiple editions of Close Encounters is well known. Despite the enormous success of the film in 1977, Spielberg felt rushed and that he didn’t get his ‘director’s cut’. Spielberg managed to convince Columbia to give him money to shoot an additional scene inside the big ol’ mothership as an added bonus to get people into the theatres again. Even Spielberg admitted, it was a wrong decision, a scene which extends and essentially ruins the flow of the majestic otherworldly and spiritual finale.

“I am free!!” – AMISTAD

Who could forgot the moment in the final act court room trial when Djimon Honsou stands up so dramatically from his bench and loudly proclaims in broken English, ‘I am Free! I am Free!’

Kamikaze CPR in EMPIRE OF THE SUN

'Empire of the Sun' had the makings of a great movie. For two thirds, the journey of Jim Graham (based on author JG Ballard’s real experiences) from the upper class British privilege to Japanese war prisoner is a remarkable film, with some of Spielberg best scenes and characters. Until the third act… throughout Spielberg shows us a parallel story of a Japanese youth of similar age who like Jim is smitten with airplanes and thus recruited into the air force. After a failed Kamikaze mission Jim tries to revive the boy life’s from death resulting some awful over-the-top melodrama.

Skateboarding Lost Boys in HOOK

Easily Spielberg’s worst movie, a shameless attempt to rekindle the childhood ‘magic’ some had claimed he had lost while he was making more mature films in the 80’s. The introduction of his version of the JM Barrie’s lost boys just proves how out of touch his sensibilities were with the youth of then.

Alien/Robots in AI: Artificial Intelligence

You’d think he would have learned from his mistakes on Close Encounters, yet when he came to write and direct AI, Spielberg essentially ruined one of his best films by needlessly extending a fine two hour film by another 20mins. After Gigilo Joe is captured by the corporate robotmakers, David is left in the helicopter, which subsequently crashed into the water and floats to the bottom. If the film ended there Spielberg had a decent and profound revelation of David’s self-acknowledgement as a robot. The 4th act set years into the future with hyper-intelligent robots and David’s revived memories of his mother which only last one day is contrived nonsense.

Assassins

Assassins (1995) dir. Richard Donner
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Antonio Banderas, Julianne Moore

*1/2

Review by Reece Crothers

Part of the continuing series In Praise of Richard Donner

This is one of those perfect storm movies where everything is wrong, from the director to the stars, to the composer, and even the screenwriter doing the rewrite. Everyone involved seems out of their comfort zone and awkwardly struggling to find sure footing. The picture is ridiculously overlong, joyless, unfocused and badly dated. Like the technology it over-relies on to tell it's story, it was already obsolete before it even saw release, a film hopelessly stuck in 1995, the year after Tarantino changed the whole game.

By the mid 90s Quentin's influence had spread like wildfire through all kinds of pictures, but the ones that were really wrecked by the spell 1994's "Pulp Fiction" cast over audiences, were the male action hero pictures. Stallone and his pectoral contemporary Schwarzenegger looked like something out of the 50's once the cool, pop-culture-obsessed, violent, sickos and cowboys of "Reservoir Dogs", "True Romance", and "Pulp Fiction" were let loose on cinema screens. The Joel Silver special, the wise-cracks and big explosions formula, was beginning to feel like a relic of the cold war. Only Bruce Willis would survive and prosper in the ensuing shake-up, largely due to his roles in "Pulp Fiction" and "The Last Boyscout" (directed by "True Romance" helmer Tony Scott) and later Robert Rodriguez' s "Sin City"(Guest directed by Tarantino). Stallone's only blip in an otherwise fading career-trajectory throughout the 90s was his Miramax-produced picture "Copland", and as we all know, Miramax is the "house that Quentin built".

Sly's actual performance isn't bad, really, just uninteresting. And he looks dorky. Not in a fun, ironic, Rambo-wears-a-headband kind of way, but in a Banana Republic, shirts-tucked-into-your-high-waisted-khakis kind of way. What would "Cobra" say about this? Somebody get this man some aviators.

Banderas does what he can with an uninteresting villain, but whenever he is on screen you can't help but wish you were watching Rodriguez's "Desperado" (released the same year) instead, a film that knew how to use his charm and physicality to great effect. Here, he is just swarthy.

Interesting to note is the performance of Julianne Moore, not yet come into herself, still waiting for P.T. Anderson's "Boogie Nights" to ignite her career. She floundered early on in the decade with forgettable parts in pictures like "The Hand That Rocks The Cradle" and "Body Of Evidence" but made a strong impression in "Benny & Joon" as Aiden Quinn's love interest, and with a brief cameo in "The Fugitive". I would bet she signed on to do this before she garnered arthouse acclaim in Altman's "Short Cuts" or Louis Malle's "Vanya On 42nd Street" the previous year. Despite those pictures, it was P.T. Anderson who best knew how to highlight Moore's talents. She has never been as good in any other picture as she was in "Boogie Nights", but she was so good in that film that no one seems to mind. Here, in the Donner picture, we see evidence of the kind of overly serious and miscalculated performances she would give later on in movies like "Next" and "The Forgotten". She is so awkward in her manner, her beauty so fragile, that like everybody else in the picture, she just doesn't fit.

The story, about a good assassin (Stallone) and a bad one (Banderas) going all "Highlander" on each other in a cat and mouse game over their latest "mark" (Moore), occasionally sparks to life in the action sequences and we are reminded that this is indeed from the man with the megaphone on classics like "Superman" and "Lethal Weapon", but those moments are far too few and despite the promise of an early scene that recalls the famous "Look into your heart..." speech from "Miller's Crossing", the picture feels like it should end 40 minutes before it actually does.

The spec script was written by The Wachowski Brothers and picked up by Producer Joel Silver at the same time as The Wachowski's "The Matrix". Silver gave the script to his friend and frequent collaborator, Richard Donner, one of those old-fashioned action-directors who must've hated Pulp Fiction at the time, and Dick, bless his heart, brought in Brian Helgeland to rewrite it. Helgeland has been involved in some good pictures ("Payback"), some great ones ("L.A. Confidential") and some awful ones ("The Order", anyone?). His writing is incredibly stiff and sluggish and occasionally a film is great despite his contribution (Eastwood's direction and the performances of the cast in "Mystic River" cover up a poor adaptation of Dennis Lehane's brilliant novel). The Wachowski's are no Robert Towne but if they wrote this back in their Matrix 1 days, I would bet their script was much more entertaining that what Helgeland did to it. There is a rumour that when producer Joel Silver saw the Wachowski's directorial debut "Bound", he apologized for his part in "Assassins" and let them do "The Matrix" their way. And the game was changed again. For The Matrix whetted the appetites of an audience now craving more and more effects, more and more spectacle. The blockbuster killed the indie by the end of the decade. Just as it had done at the end of the 70's. The 70's belonged to Coppola, the 80s to Spielberg. And so it goes. As we enter a new decade we can only hope the next game changer is ready to throw down, because shit is getting stale again, and while nobody was minding the store Michael Bay has been having too much fun.

The Eclipse

The Eclipse (2010) dir. Conor McPherson
Starring: Ciarán Hinds, Iben Hjejle, Aidan Quinn

***

By Alan Bacchus

This small-scale, atmospheric Irish tale brings the audience through an odd mix of character-based introspective drama and disturbing psychological horror, a mix that isn't quite oil and water, but still doesn't congeal into a complete and satisfactory film.

Ciarán Hinds plays Michael Farr, a soft-spoken widower and single dad to two young kids living in a quiet seaside Irish town. During the town's literary festival, Michael befriends London, a lovely, middle-aged and unmarried female novelist of supernatural fiction. Perhaps its happenstance or not, but this coincides with a series of ghostly sightings of his father-in-law as a grotesque zombie stalking him in his home, his car, even in the shoe rack of his closet. As romance blossoms it would appear to finally bring Michael out of his depressed funk and allow him to move on in his life, if the ghostly demon doesn't take him first.

It's a frustrating experience because each of the essential elements of this film ― tone, character, suspense, romance ― works on its own, but not together as a whole. As a melancholy character study of a grieving man trying to move on in his life, the film is tender and earthy romantic, rendered with genuine sympathy by Hinds. In the moments of terrifying horror, the film is actually stunningly creepy. But there are two movies fighting each other, and it would appear that director Conor McPherson is trying to have his cake and eat it too.

If anything, it's worth the price of admission just to experience the three or four moments of horror, which are truly some of the most frightening I've seen on film in a while. There's a terrifying moment with Michael driving in the car, at first misdirected by the gentle flirting between he and London the scene before, then the camera pans over to the ghost sitting beside him in the passenger seat with black blood coming out of his eyes and mouth, a shocking moment that will lift even the most hardened horror fan boy out of his or her seat.

But these moments, despite their brilliance, serve little narrative purpose and don't substantially plug into the story. And why Michael is seeing the ghost of his father-in-law, who is alive, and not his dead wife is confusing and never explained. Even the presence of Aidan Quinn as a snobby American writer who competes for London's affection is also never integrated properly. And their climatic fist fight in London's hotel room borders on slapstick.

The film ends without closing off anything, just a random fade to black at the 85 mark, which had me asking: is there another reel missing? Did they run out of film? Or money? Or did they realize there's no movie here and just gave up?

The Killers (1946)

The Killers (1946) dir. Robert Siodmak
Starring: Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmund O’Brien

****

By Alan Bacchus

Film Noir does not get more hard boiled, tough and pulpy then Robert Siodmak’s original 1946 ‘The Killers’. Of course, it’s also based on a story by Ernest Hemingway whose mere presence lends it the tough street cred, but apparently his name above the title actually overstates his connection to the story and the film.

The opening scene, which is Hemingway’s more than anything else in the film, is a stunner. In fact, it’s so good, it feels like a set piece lifted from another film. Two hitmen wearing overcoats and black hats walk into a small diner with ice cold attitude to spare. After bullying around the two occupants they reveal they’re here to do a hit job on someone called ‘The Swede’. Their banter is some of the sharpest hard boiled noir dialogue ever written. It’s so cold and ruthless it feels like a parody of crime dialogue. Soon we learn The Swede is Ole Anderson (Burt Lancaster’s first starring role), an ex-boxer and small time hood, and is indeed killed, but who dies without a fight as if accepting his fate as some kind of penance.

We learn his insurance policy lists an unrelated old woman, a near stranger, whom he boarded with once years ago as his benefactor. Enter crack insurance agent Jim Reardon (Edmund O’Brien) who seeks to trace back Ole’s life and find the secrets behind his mysterious death.

Writer Anthony Veiller (with some uncredited help from John Huston and Richard Brooks), does a Sunset Boulevard/Citizen Kane/Double Indemnity track back, bringing Reardon to the doorsteps of the influential people and events in his life. At the centre are a femme fatale dame Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner) and a burglary job with a number of double-crosses in between.

The caper anchors the film and is choreographed cinematically with the kind of distinct expressionistic technique we wouldn’t see until some of the great French crime films of the 50’s. The plotting scene is marvellous seedy, a shadowy poker game with boxing ring hoodlums, cigarette smoke creating ominous clouds adding textures to the scene. Ava Gardner, who forms a love triangle between the Swede and one of the thieves, is at her comely best. Just watch her posture as she watches the card game on the bed, dressed in a demure sweater. This is sexual napalm!

Siodmark who earned his stripes directing in Germany during the Lang/Murnau Expressionist days creates striking compositions. Elwood Bredell’s lighting nearly writes the book on the noir look. Long shadowsand harsh contrasty lighting dominate the frame. Swede’s funeral scene for instance, though filmed in an interior uses the studio control to create luscious and rich gothic cloudscape overhead. Bredell even uses Toland-style deep focus photography, low camera angles, dramatic camera moves, and long takes. The film's technical high point is the hat store robbery scene which is executed in one single unedited shot.

And lastly I can’t go on without mentioning Miklós Rózsa’s hard driving, an angry and violent pulsating rhythm as tough and brutal as anything else in the film. “The Killers” is a must see.

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) dir. Peter Jackson
Starring: Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortonsen, Ian McKellan, Sean Astin, Christopher Lee, Cate Blanchet, Hugo Weaving, Liv Tyler

***

By Alan Bacchus

The experience of watching the entire ‘Lord of the Rings’ saga is one of supreme admiration, 3 x 3hrs overloaded with every possible emotion, so many wondrous creatures and lands, so many sweeping epic landscapes trying really hard to take our breath away.

Everything to do with the film points to it as a phenomenal achievement. The challenge of adapting the dense Tolkien material for the big screen, making it visual and not literary and rendering it palatable to both Tolkienites and lay audiences is miraculous. The cinematic achievements made these films the high bar of technical cinema of its day –special effects which used a mixture of modern CGI and old fashioned in camera sleight of hand is clever and near seamless (though less so now). The consistency of tone, pace, and visual design over these three films which from pre-production of the first film to post of the last film spanned 5 years is remarkable. Hell, shooting three movie back-to-back-to-back was unheard of.

So why am I left unmoved by any of these pictures?

For good and bad Peter Jackson and his team, for sake of satisfying the broadest possible audience has given everybody a little of everything they want to see, he and so will inevitably alienate and dissatisfy some.

As for the first film, to bring people into the world of Tolkien, FOTR is by far the most baroque of the three. It doesn’t long to introduce the world and the characters. The opening sequence tells us of the forging of a number of rings for the purpose of keeping order in the world (though it’s consciously oblique with the details of exactly how rings can do this). We’re then told of the ONE ring forged in ‘secret' to rule all other rings. Again, the physics/mechanics or even logic of this statement we’re not supposed to question. And so this becomes literature’s, and now cinema’s, biggest ever maguffin, the impetus to send us on Jackson’s epic journey.

The opening moments in the Hobbit Shire introducing Bilbo Baggins passing the ring off to Frodo are perhaps the best moments in the entire series. Ian Holm’s frightful and twitchy performance realizes a huge backstory of pain and suffering by the ring (a backstory which, of course, will be fleshed out by Guillermo Del Toro’s version of ‘The Hobbit”). In fact, the entire first half of Fellowship is spectacular. The horse riding ringwraiths, who resemble the evil ghosts in ‘The Frighteners’, is the scariest creatures in the whole series, but whom we unfortunately rarely get to see in the latter half of the first and rest of the other two films. Weighting the film down is the lengthy Galadriel forest sequence which is full of visual CG wonder, and foreshadowing but a slow uneventful section which adds to the running time.

The second half shows the Fellowship united and fighting off the beasts in the Mines of Moria and the Orcs on the hillside in the film’s climax, and the eventual demise of Boromir who succumbs to the lure of the ring. On first viewing I questioned the lack of scope in the final battle, but after seeing the escalation of action in the second and third films, Jackson’s instinct not to blow his wad early was a good one. In hindsight the contained forest battle to end FOTR is perhaps the best action sequence in series. Free of the grossly exaggerated CG multiplication of huge armies which now looks so awfully unreal, the use of real creatures and actors with real make-up makes the fight that much more violent and intense.

Looking back, Wood and Astin make a good team as the Hobbit leaders mixing drama and humour well. Unfortunately Billy Boyd is a Jar-Jar worthy waste of space, and most of the time excruciating to watch. Dominic Monaghan is barely noticeable which is probably a good thing (as an actor, he would be challenged much more in 'Lost'). Orlando Bloom’s silent but stoic presence is also barely noticeable, but when he’s fighting and launching arrows with speed and accuracy at the Orcs during the action sequence there's no one better. John Rhys-Davies is disguised well as a 3 foot dwarf, but the camera tricks required to make the tall actor into a short character prevents us from seeing the character fight in all his full glory. His tight close-ups thus have to be used over and over again to avoid recognizing the size differences and thus becomes a visual handicap.

Perhaps the most irksome quality of this film and much of the trilogy as a whole is Jackson’s inability (at least to this viewer) to make me believe in the emotions of his characters. In ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ in particular Jackson's emotional histrionics are hit so hard he’s forcing us to feel his characters’ pain harder than he needs to. Just look how hard Jackson wrings out the tears shed by the death of Gandalf. After the magnificent Mines of Moria sequence which has the Grey Wizard sacrificing himself against the impressive Balrog monster, Jackson lingers heavily on the Hobbits excruciating pain, and in slow motion and with Howard Shore’s melodramatic swooning. We get this same feeling during Samwise Gamgee’s fitful attempt to chase down Frodo who has floated away in a boat. Frodo’s dramatic rescue of Sam feels like Jackson again not trusting the investment we have already made in the characters and pulling too hard for emotion where force is not required.

Then again even as I write this it feels odd to critique so finely a film, which as mentioned I admire so much. But then again we can’t just settle to admire a film. To be moved by a film is to have the amalgam of its scenes, sequences, characters, music, special effects and combine to be greater than the sum of its parts. There’s so much in ‘Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring’ that in fits and starts the moments of greatness, but as a whole, it’s just an admirable film.

The entire “Lord of the Rings” saga is now available on Blu-Ray from Alliance Films in Canada. Look out for more extensive examination of the new Blu-Ray set in the subsequent analysis of the next two films later this week. As for the question of the 'Extened Edition', while I enjoyed watching the near three and a half hour version for curiosity sake, the theatrical edition is still my preferred version to watch. Thankfully the Blu-Ray set contains all the comprehensive special features which appeared on the Extended Edition DVDs released back in the day.

An Education

An Education (2009) dir. Lone Scherfig
Starring: Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina, Dominic Cooper, Rosamund Pike

**1/2

By Alan Bacchus

I never could see why "An Education" was exalted so highly by virtually everyone who saw it – critics or audiences. I had the privilege of seeing it at Sundance, and came out thinking ‘meh’. In fact, I was so indifferent I didn’t even bother writing a review. And so when it won the international Audience Award I was shocked. Second time around, knowing how the film ends, it’s a different experience, though much the same reaction. Is that all?

Carey Mulligan plays Jenny, a smart 16 year old attending private school in 1961 London. Her good grades and high standing with her teachers put her on track to go to Oxford. In fact, her father (Alfred Molina) is so vigilant with Oxford, it becomes the dominant conversation at dinner. All that changes when Jenny meets a charming and handsome bachelor, David (Peter Sarsgaard), a man who, despite being over twice his age, courts her with a sly but careful determination.

Jenny, smitten with the attention and the worldly cultured lifestyle he leads, is not shy to reciprocate David’s affection. Jenny soon leaves behind her scholastic aspirations and goes on a whirlwind romantic journey with David who takes her from London’s West End to the shops of Paris and all stops of bohemia in between. The more Jenny forces herself into womanhood, the more we know this heavenly bliss will come at a price. The lustre of David’s charm eventually wears down revealing to Jenny an education into life more challenging than anything she’s tested on in school.

With the film centred acutely on Jenny’s point of view the film succeeds admirably because of Carey Mulligan’s performance. She richly deserves her accolades. Her face, though relatively plain and, for lack of a better word, ordinary, shows a remarkable range of inner thoughts with only the slightest degrees of change. She has an ability to just raise an eyebrow or turn her eyes to plunge us deep into the unspoken emotions not said through her words.

Writer Nick Hornby and director Lone Scherfig also succeed in capturing the folly of youth, and specifically the freedom of the pre-hippie 60’s era. Considering the delicateness of having an older man court and teenage girl, miraculously Scherfig manages to make the romance of David and Jenny evolve naturally.

Knowing how the film ends, however, increases the frustration I had during my initial screening. For someone as cultured as David his desire for someone so young and immature never reconciled adequately enough for me to believe their romance. Even though we’re within Jenny’s point of view, and thus not supposed to enter the thoughts of the other characters, the motivations of David never coalesce. Just what was David’s angle? The moment he saw her in the rain walking with her cello, was he attracted to her, sexually? Was he truly in love with Jenny? Or did he see her as something to be conquered, or convert into his playboy world? Or was he just as immature as Jenny? And so I couldn’t help think that David was the most interesting character to examine. Jenny’s reaction to such a charming gentleman is easy to understand, but not so much the older man who has much more to lose than she.

The other glaring weak spot is Jenny father, played by Alfred Molina. Normally a wonderful actor, but as Jack, he's plays him so comically affable it feels like he's acting in a different picture. Ultimately it’s the father’s fault for believing David’s charm and a hypocrite for letting Jenny discard her scholastic goals. And so Jack’s inability to take action or responsibility is so emasculating to his character we desperately desire an explanation.

Everything seems to work out in the end, without anyone truly being called to task or punished for their actions and choices. David perhaps, but his wife seems to brush off his philandering too casually with a smug reaction like “oh no, not again”. Jenny gets into Oxford with ease, leaving her actions in the film as a mere ‘learning experience’ for her. But then again, it is the title of the film, so maybe this is all we should have expected.

“An Education” is available on Blu-Ray and DVD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Clash of the Titans

Clash of the Titans (2010) dir. Louis Leterrier
Starring: Sam Worthington, Mads Mikkelson, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arteton, Jason Flemyng

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Rotten Tomato meter, Metacritic score and all critics be damned ‘Clash of the Titans’ is a great picture! Some of the negative responses thus far refer to the 3D presentation of the film. But let it be known that director Louis Leterrier shot the film for 2D, NOT 3D, and even in some interviews diplomatically disapproves of the 3D version. The fact is, in good old fashioned two dimensions, Louis Leterrier has managed to capture the sense of fun adventure of the Harryhausen sword and sandals pictures (its main influence 1981’s ‘Clash of the Titans’ as well as ‘Jason and the Argonauts’ and host of other b-movie adventures with refreshing restraint.

Leterrier plays it all so very humble – it runs a scant one hour and forty minutes, not including credits, a welcomed minimalist philosophy which he seems to have extended into his creative rendering strategy.

While more comparable and more respected genre fantasies like ‘Avatar’ and ‘Lord of the Rings’ wallow in sometimes overwrought super-seriousness ‘Clash of the Titans’ serves only to give its audience a good time, not to shower them with engorged special effects or convoluted plotting, or even overly designed sets, locations, monsters and like his main influence Ray Harryhausen, he keeps it simple stupid.

The Greek myth of Perseus provides the story for this adventure tale – though I haven’t brushed up on my Greek mythology, the original ‘Clash of the Titans’ is the real starting point for Leterrier. In flashback we meet a young Perseus, who is found by a humble working class fisherman, floating in a coffin with her dead mother. The fisherman raises Perseus to respect the Gods, but when Hades (God of the underworld) rears his evil head to destroy the populous city of Argos and kills his father in the process, Perseus becomes anti-religious and hell bent on revenge against Hades.

Perseus is taken in by the remaining Argos military and is recruited to help fight Hades and save the city from total destruction by the monstrous Kraken. Why not just kill everyone all at once? It’s part of the diabolical plan of Zeus to reestablish fear among the masses, fear of the Gods, and thus reclaim the order of world. Perseus’ quest has him fighting off giant scorpions, Medusa, his vengeful mutated stepfather Carabos, the Kraken and eventually Hades himself.

Leterrier’s version of the story departs significantly in a number of places for the better. Chiefly he discards the romantic angle of Perseus’ love for Andromeda, who in both films, must be sacrificed to appease the Kraken. Too many disposable blockbuster movies force feed us romantic subplots to increase the personal stakes of its hero, and giving us hyperbole like, 'it's not really action film, it's a love story'. Instead Perseus’s goals are refreshingly egalitarian, saviour of humanity, and on a personal level to avenge the death of father by the Gods.

The action scenes are conceived and choreographed in what seems consciously reactionary to the trend of overly-produced special effects extravaganzas of today. The giant scorpion battle for instance is a simple man vs. scorpion battle something which would have easily been conceived by Harryhausen himself. And there’s no need to mutate the scorpions or anything, they are just really big b-movie monster which as rendered expertly by CGI look as real as any human in the picture.

The Olympus scenes are dramatized with wonderful campness. When we first glimpse the set and costume design of the heavenly Olympus we’re reminded of a couple other Titans-era fantasy classics – Richard Donner’s “Superman: The Movie” and John Boorman’s ‘Excalibur”. The glowing armour worn by Liam Neeson, Danny Huston, Alexander Siddig and the rest of the actors playing the Gods pay fun homage to the design of Marlon Brando’ costume in ‘Superman’ or the shiny armour in ‘Excalibur’ or even the neon glow of ‘Tron.’

Neeson’s banter with fellow Schindler’s List-alum Ralph Fiennes is fun and free of the complicated dialogue of say the Harry Potter of LOTR films, which feels so desperately reverent to its source material. Sam Worthington is not great, but decent and is a good non-brooding alternative to big heads like Russell Crowe. Mads Mikkelson, the unsung Dane, emerges as the most sympathetic and the hero we silently cheer for. Thus his unworthy and uneventful death is a disappointment. The estrogen is supplied not by the sacrificed heroine Andromeda, but Gemma Arterton playing the helpful Lo, a hero cursed with everlasting life (also look out for her as the title character in a J Blakeson's awesome three-hander noir 'The Disappearance of Alice Creed'). Her girl-next-door demureness and silky pasty white skin which is surprisingly covered up with toga cloth, is a great tease. She’s one of the boys for most of the picture, until a genuine and understated attraction emerges with Perseus. Thankfully Letterier doesn’t betray us and force feed us that the romance he chose to avoid.

“Clash of the Titans” need only be reverent to the sense of adventure of the great fantasy pictures of the late 70’s early 80’s. Louis Leterrier has admirably made a reactionary film to ‘Avatar’, respecting the audience and the genre enough not to compete with James Cameron, but to do a picture justice what someone like Stephen Somers would have fucked up beyond belief.

The Warriors

The Warriors (1979) - Ultimate Director's Cut dir. Walter Hill
Starring: Michael Beck, James Remar, Deborah Van Valkenburgh, David Patrick Kelly and Roger Hill

****

By Greg Klymkiw

Damn! This is one spectacular action picture that definitely deserves to be ranked as a classic of the genre. The movie is over thirty-years-old and while falling a few tiny notches below utter perfection, it has not dated at all and still carries the weight and power to dazzle audiences as it did so many years ago. It really is so terrific, I have to urge everyone to see it - preferably on Blu-Ray - before seeing the remake from that proficient, but utterly boneheaded hack Tony Scott.

The story is simple. A visionary New York City crime warlord named Cyrus (Roger Hill) gathers nine reps from one hundred gangs to assemble for a meeting in a Bronx park where he charismatically informs everyone that fighting for turf amongst each other is a losing game. He notes that NYC gang members number 100,000 strong and with only 20,000 policeman to fight crime, they outnumber law enforcement authorities big-time. In this small, but pivotal role, Roger Hill - with his resonant alto-bass voice - whips the masses into a frenzy with his punctuating cries of "Can you dig it?"

Alas, the psycho Luther (brilliantly played by David Patrick Kelly - a pre-Crispin Glover who out-Crispin-Glovers Crispin Glover) assassinates Cyrus and blames the murder on the Coney Island gang called The Warriors. Soon, the nine, stylish and buff young fellas from the wrong side of Brighton Beach find themselves having to get back to their home turf with 100,000 furious gang members thirsting for their blood. As Cyrus ordered everyone to come to the meeting sans-heat, The Warriors are unarmed and need to use brains, animal instinct and their fists to savagely defend themselves and embark on a dangerous odyssey across the city - a city so dark and labyrinthine, they might as well be trying to make their way on foot from Toronto to Timbuktu.

Led by the silent, but deadly Swan (Michael Beck) and the hot-headed Ajax (James Remar), The Warriors encounter some of the most nightmarish gangs imaginable. This is where Hill really succeeds in painting a veritable inferno. This New York City is unlike any New York we have ever seen. Yes, the streets are as rough and dirty as we've seen, but the population at night appears to be solely comprised of cops and gangs. And the gangs are adorned in "colours" (the threads that identify them) that create a kaleidoscopic of fresco of trash fashion and malevolence: the Gramercy Riffs are adorned in bright yellow satin kung-fu jammies and shades, the Lizzies, an all-female gang ooze sex appeal with their trashy, utilitarian garb and, among many other, the Baseball Furies deliver the kind of dazzling nightmare qualities that only the movies can give us as the gang members are outfitted in full baseball regalia, hideously painted faces and wielding heavy-duty baseball bats.

The journey itself is propelled by the gorgeous lips of a female D.J. who sexily spins appropriate tunes to fuel the action of the evening and murmurs threats to the Warriors and updated information to the 100,000 strong looking to take them out.The only slight disappointment here is the otherwise appropriate song "Nowhere to Run" which is, unfortunately, delivered by a pallid cover band instead of the original Martha and the Vandellas. Other than that, though, Barry De Vorzon's pulsating synth-score and Joe Walsh's stirring anthem "In the City", more than make up for the above mentioned musical gaffe.

Andrew Laszlo's cinematography etches a veritable film noir quality, but with dollops of fluorescent light and garish colour. The entire picture, save for the early morning light during the picture's climax, is shot at night where every deep, dark shadow pulsates with the threat of all manner of nastiness.

It's certainly no wonder that "The Warriors" took North American audiences by storm. Boxoffice on the picture sizzled and responses were highly emotional - especially in theatres situated in areas populated by heavy gang activity. This led to actual violence in some cinemas and both the studio and exhibitors across North America, fearing a backlash, idiotically started pulling advertising and even dropping the picture, in spite of its sizzling grosses. This, of course, resulted in numbers that didn't accurately reflect the movie's full potential. As an audience member in the relatively benign (at least in the 70s) city of Winnipeg, I was always amazed at the hugely emotional reaction to the film. People cheered, whistled, and clapped their way through the picture, and even when it ended its run, I remember booking the film in a repertory cinema I programmed - again and again and again. The grosses were stunning long after its first-run. Midnight screenings were especially lucrative and the audiences (gang-affiliated or not) stylishly adorned themselves in the manner of all the gangs in the movie.

"The Warriors" was more than a movie. It was a phenomenon. The kind of thing that doesn't really happen anymore in our world of short-runs, multiplexes and home entertainment.

Directed by Walter Hill, the only real heir apparent to the legendary Sam Peckinpah (Hill wrote the wonderful screenplay adaptation of Jim Thomson's "The Getaway" for Peckinpah), he was, for much of his career, one of the most agile, tough-minded and original directors of exquisite pulp. Hill could direct action scenes with the assuredness of a master, but his real talents were rooted in creating worlds that could ONLY exist on film - delicious never-never-lands that delivered a macho fairy tale quality for little boys of all ages. (Though, if truth be told, my nine-year-old daughter just saw "The Warriors" and was thoroughly dazzled by it.)

With one great action picture after another, Hill took us into almost fantastical worlds on the darkside of human existence. His debut, "Hard Times" lovingly recreated the world of prize-fighting during the depression, "The Driver" dove deeply into a pseudo-existentialist post-Jean-Pierre-Melville-styled world of car thieves and crooked cops, "The Long Riders" was, without question, one of the most evocative renderings of the Jesse James legend, "Southern Comfort" - clearly in "Deliverance" territory - this terrifying thriller followed a group of unarmed National Guardsmen through the Louisiana Bayous as they fend off repeated attacks by slavering psycho Cajun inbreds and finally, the spectacular expressionistic rock and roll phantasmagoria "Streets of Fire" capped a sterling career.

His foray into overtly conventional and commercial cinema delivered the well-directed, but empty-headed "48 Hrs." (and its dreadful sequel "Another 48 Hrs.") and signalled a beginning of the end for Hill. He never quite recovered from this period and his output ranged from dreadful to competent, with a few flawed, but interesting pictures like "Wild Bill", "Johnny Handsome" and "Crossroads".

His one great masterpiece, however, was and still is, "The Warriors". Hill's camera is always where it should be with superb compositions. Each shot is a gem and much like a great cartoon, Hill doesn't hold longer than he has to - he leaves you desperate for more. The editing, while fast-paced and flashy (replete with really cool wipes and dissolves) is, in tandem with the fabulous cinematography, never disorienting and/or sloppy in that contemporary herky-jerky style of contemporary action (usually directed by boneheads like J. J. Abrams or Christopher Nolan who have no talent whatsoever for crafting lean and mean action).

The Blu-Ray and DVD releases of "The Wariors" are presented as a Director's Cut. What this really means, is that Hill was finally able to incorporate comic book panels to bridge all the different movements and locations in the film. While the film lived without these additions for a long time - now that they're there, I can't quite imagine the picture without them.

With all the contemporary comic book film adaptations out there these days, "The Warriors" actually comes closest to recreating a thrilling and delightful comic book style. Not only because of Hill's recent additions, but in his adherence to a never-never-land mise-en-scene.

And the action sequences have seldom been matched. These spectacular set-pieces - replete with Peckinpah styled slow motion - are charged with the kind of fury that great action thrillers MUST have. The battle between the Warriors and the Baseball Furies in a dark, inner-city park with rich green lawns and leafy trees, is still a thing of great beauty and there's a sequence on a subway platform that's both chilling and finally, when the action shifts to a grotty public washroom, the choreography and pyrotechnics are a veritable ballet of visceral violence.

If you've never seen "The Warriors" you are doing yourself a great disservice by not seeing it, especially if your only taste is the remake. If you've seen it before, see it again. My recent helping of the picture was the first time I'd seen it since the 80s and I can assure you, it not only held up, but actually felt fresher, more vibrant and more urgent than ever before.

"The Warriors" is available on Blu-Ray and DVD from Paramount Home Video.

Jason and the Argonauts

Jason and the Argonauts (1963) dir. Don Chaffey
Starring: Todd Armstrong, Niall MacGinnis, Jack Gwillim, Nancy Kovack

**

By Alan Bacchus

It’s difficult to enjoy ‘Jason and the Argonauts’ beyond its influence on some of today’s action/sci-fi/horror filmmakers. I can appreciate a good b-movie, but even within this pastiche context it’s a pretty awful film.

The famous Greek myth of Jason hero who intrepidly leads an army of warriors in search of the Golden fleece serves only to showcase the special effect of the great stop motion artist Ray Harryhausen and for most its running time we have to wait labouriously for these glorious moments.

Unfortunately Harryhausen’s matting and blue-screen process effects extend longer than his reach and look just plain awful, especially under super crisp high definition. But its his legendary stop motion creatures which are the showcase of this film and still awe-inspiring to this day,

Take for instance the giant statue set piece at the top of the film. As Jason and his bunch land at the beach on the isle of Bronze, one of his soldiers steals a scared pin and unleashes a statue who suddenly becomes animate. The attack of the statue on the Argonauts is choreographed and composed with truly awesome epic value and scope. The statue’s attack on the Argo ship straddling to edges of a channel is a glorious moment.

There's also the rock landslide scene, which has Jason's ship saved by the merman who provides a barrier to the rocks which allows it to pass. There’s also Jason’s toil with the multi-headed hydro snake which guards the fleece; and for cinephiles, the key set piece we sit and wait for, the film’s most famous scene, the skeleton sword fight at the end – a scene Sam Raimi famously reworked into ‘Army of Darkness’.

Like Harryhausen's last film 'Clash of the Titans’, as the heroes on earth battle the beasts the Gods in the clouds watch below and control the action like chess pieces on a board. Zeus in this film is played unmemorably by Niall MacGinnis, Dr. No Bond villain Honor ("Pussy Galore") Blackman shows up on Olympus though as the lovely Hera.

Somehow the producers had a relationship with the great Bernard Herrman who along with composing some of the greatest scores ever in the 50’s and 60’s for Hitchcock, did a number of these b-action monster movies. Scour through Herrman’s filmography and you’ll see a scattering of high profile hits and disposable b-movies. Unfortunately Herrman’s score can only bring the picture up a notch or so, as it’s a largely unmemorable music and not his best work.

So, unfortunately 'Jason and the Argonauts' hasn’t aged well, the acting atrocious and most of the process effects glaringly poor, but Ray Harryhausen’s set pieces still reign supreme and is at least worthy of fast-forwarding to.

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes (2009) dir. Guy Ritchie
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Mark Strong

***

By Alan Bacchus

For some reason I’ve always liked Guy Ritchie, even though I hated all of his movies since ‘Snatch’ I wanted him to succeed. And so I was happy with the success of Sherlock Holmes. As a hired gun on a tentpole/franchise operation Ritchie succeeds admirably, and finally puts him on the right career track.

In terms of scale and budget, it’s a giant leap from his niche idiosyncratic crime pictures he’s famous for. But even with studio and Joel Silver's breath on the back of his neck Ritchie’s manages to retain his trademark style and yet satisfy the broad multiplex audience.

Of course, American Robert Downey Jr. plays the legendary British hero and the role fits him like a glove. The Downey Jr. mannerisms, confidence and swagger of his previous roles show up here in Holmes, so it’s not much of a stretch for him dramatically. In this first outing, it all fun and games for Holmes and Watson. Their case du jour is the search for Lord Blackwell, a nefarious occultist and serial murderer who, after being hanged for his crimes, starts turning up around the city, back from the dead. Holmes’ intelligence and attentive skills at deduction unravels Blackwood’s apparent supernatural abilities and eventually reveals a bigger plot to leverage political advantage of the British Parliament to attack the United States.

Ritchie’s direction of the action is inspired. Each of his set pieces are executed with perfect clarity and choreography without going over the top into Stephen Somers-type ludicrous fantasy. Nineteenth century London looks superb under the glossy visual design. The Oscar nominated art direction, ample special effects fill out the real London locations to make it all look as authentic as could be. If anything it all looks too glossy for foggy London, but it’s also a blockbuster movie and so this artistic license is allowed.

We are sufficiently teased for a sequel involving the famed archnemeis Professor Moriarty, whom we only see in shadow. So it had me speculating just who would play this character in the next instalment – Ralph Fiennes? Alan Rickman? Or maybe someone younger and against type: Christian Bale? Johnny Depp?

If anything, missing from the Holmes character are some of the gritty flaws which fleshed out other literary and screen versions of the man. I really hope the franchise is gutsy enough to add in the Holmes drug addiction traits like in, say, 'The Seven-Percent Solution'. With Downey bringing his own history with substances into the character it could be a miraculous combination.

I would never have believed that this stodgy old English hero could be made into a viable tentpole franchise – and for it to be a fun and thrilling as it is. What’s next then? Charlie Chan as directed Paul Greengrass, or a Miss Marple franchise helmed Bryan Singer?

“Sherlock Holmes” is available on Blu-Ray and DVD from Warner Home Video

Green Zone

Green Zone (2010) dir. Paul Greengrass
Starring: Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear, Khalid Abdalla, Brendan Gleeson, Amy Ryan

***

By Alan Bacchus

‘Green Zone’ is probably Paul Greengrass least successful film of his post 'Bloody Sunday' creative output, but considering the high bar of work he’s been involved with we unfortunately have those other films to compare to. Under anyone else’s watch ‘Green Zone’ is terrific picture.

Over the decade Greengrass has carved a niche body of work of gritty action realism and documentary-like dramatization of political events. ‘Green Zone’ falls somewhere in between both genres. It’s a shame because there’s some powerful ideas thrown around which if dramatized using say, an Oliver Stone or Steven Soderbergh/Stephen Gaghan aesthetic Greengrass would have had a very incendiary film on his hands. But because he hits the mark so squarely on the action thriller elements, the real world conspiratory postulations get lost in the chases and gunfights.

The hot button issue at stake here are those pesky WMDs which the Bush administration used to convince the nation and the world to go to war in Iraq. Joe Miller (Matt Damon) is an officer in Iraq charged with finding these bombs. For each mission he received so-called ‘intelligence’ briefings of suspected or even confirmed WMD locations. But each and every time he goes there, his team comes up empty. It’s the elephant in the room which no one wants to talk about except for Miller when he blunting questions the intelligence in a large group meeting. As the smarmy political wonk Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear) looks on with worry, we figure there’s a cover up going on somewhere.

Miller finds an ally in the CIA, and works with Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson) to covertly source out informants who can uncover the truth. Miller also teams up with an Iraqi civilian to help in the hunt but whose own personal vendetta against the former Bathe/Hussain government threatens to subvert Miller’s action. Real life Hussain general General Al-Rawi (Yigal Naor) becomes the main target, a man whose been playing both sides of the Bathists and the US Government and holds to key to the conspiracy.

The most admirable aspect of 'Green Zone', much like his Bourne films is a heightened sense of urgency which propels the picture forward. It’s a race from start to finish, climaxing in a taut and tightly edited chase and confrontation. This is Greengrass at his best, pulse pounding action, shot and edited with blistering pace. Damon plays Miller with the same emotionally detached austerity as Jason Bourne. While there’s little to differentiate these two characters, these traits fit the characters of military officer in a hostile environment such as Iraq perfectly. But with familiar grounded treaded for the third time, Greengrass has essentially killed this genre.

If there's a problem it lies in Brian Helgeland’s script – a prolific hired-gun writer whose body of work leans heavily to traditional genre action thrillers than the attention-to-detail political savvy this film needed to have to be truly thought-provoking. In ‘Bloody Sunday’ and ‘United 93’ Greengrass wrote his own screenplays, and it's no coincidence here another layer of depth into the time, place and character of this recent and important period of history is missing.

That said, it still makes for a thrill ride worthy of Greengrass’s credit, even though the US military establishment has been left largely unscathed.

The Vega Brothers aka "Double V Vega"

The Vega Brothers aka Double V Vega (2000) dir. by Quentin Tarantino
Starring: John Travolta, Michael Madsen, Adrienne Barbeau, Danny Trejo, Chow Yun-Fat and Patricia Arquette

**1/2

By Blair Stewart

One of cinema's great ungainly monsters from a director given carte blanche on par with Leone's pre-studio cut of "Once Upon a Time in America" and Cimino's contested "Heaven's Gate", the three-hour plus follow-up to "Pulp Fiction" still excites as much as it frustrates, yet never truly bores.

With a title card elusively dating the story as "This one time in the mid-80's...", the respective sibling stars of "Pulp Fiction" and "Reservoir Dogs", Vincent (Travolta) and Vic Vega (Madsen) team up to avenge the murder of Father Vega, sly Belgian pimp Valentine (Johnny Halladay's finest, briefest moment in the English language).

If only it were that simple. Criss-crossing Los Angeles and Texas backwaters (and time itself with a shitload of flashbacks and a familiar non-linear plot line) before the whacked-out final chapter in a seedy Mexican border town, Tarantino attempts to unite his cinematic crime universe with near-cosmic finiteness.

Opening with a non-sequitur prologue that's a short film unto itself, Winston Wolf (Harvey Keitel) brings his son Django (Lucas Haas) along to learn the old family trade of cleaning up other folks bloody messes. At the behest of Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames in a cameo) father & son assist a foul-mouthed Senator (Chevy Chase) who finds himself handcuffed to a very-dead hooker in a set-up that features some of the more darkly humorous lines to come from Tarantino's febrile mind.

After this detour we embark on the jumbled-up main story when the Vega bros. blood is inflamed by Pa Vega being gunned down by the mute Triad gunman Yusen Wu (Chow Yun-Fat) in a sustained masterclass of silent, nervy tension. Hitting the road to torture, shoot and seduce the truth out of all who cross their paths the brothers riff on some memorable pop-culture minutiae before a long-winded family dinner at stoned Ma Vega's (Adrienne Barbeau?!) trailerpark home that plays like an extension of the slack dialogue in "Death Proof".

After this lull in the script and several other over-indulgences (the drawn-out biker bar standoff, the still-infamous Achilles Heel scene scored to The Knack's "My Sharona", Samuel L. Jackson's piano man monologue that will tie into the forthcoming "Kill Bill" series) "The Vega Brothers" kicks back into top-gear after they pick up kindred hitchhiker Alabama (Patricia Arquette reprising her best role from "True Romance") for a ride south of the border to hunt down Wu and Mexicali warlord Luis Verde (Danny "Fucking" Trejo as the credits loudly announce him).

This section stands as some of Tarantino's most blatant cinema theft and overt loving homage to classic westerns with Yun-Fat doing a sizable impression of Jack Palance's Black Jack Wilson from "Shane" and Trejo sharing a hard-boiled, glass half-empty fate to that of the bandit Tuco in the graveyard at the end of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly".

While the film has its faults (the aforementioned dawdling family dinner, the tacked-on cutaway to Bruce Willis's Butch Coolidge from "Pulp" being introduced to Chris Penn's Nice Guy Eddie from "Dogs" for a chin-wag) that keeps it from being regarded on par with QT's previous successes, "Vega" has moments of greatness. Travolta and Madsen have an easy chemistry especially when crooning Kenny Rogers sublime classic "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town", Arquette deservedly earned her Best Supporting Actress nomination alone for her monologue at the coda and Tarantino's only collaboration with cinematographer Michael Ballhaus ("Goodfellas", "Broadcast News") is a marvel of sierra reds, burnt oranges and a pirate's booty of ace in-camera tricks. The soundtrack as always is shit-hot with Desmond Dekker's best singles and The Ventures's "Walk Don't Run" surf classic getting some air-play while Morricone provides an original piece for the overwrought climax.

A great, uneven script that lead to a great, uneven film both in need of a final trim, "The Vega Brothers" didn't totally deserve the critical backlash it received and is certainly worth a second look for its sheer bloody criminal immensity. Enjoy.

A new print of "The Vega Brothers" is playing as part of a Tarantino retrospective at the newly-restored Le Gamaar Cinema in Paris on April 1st. Contact Emmanuelle Mimieux for tickets.