The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans

Title: The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans

Year of Release: 2009

Date Viewed: November 17th, 2010

MPAA Rating: R

Nicolas Cage had to face wide lampooning in recent years due to his tendency to overact his film roles, resulting in unexpected laughs that overshadow the drama. For The Bad Lieutenant, Cage appears to have been encouraged to bring his over-the-top shtick to new heights.

Here he plays rugged New Orleans policeman Terrence McDonagh in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He's an unapologetic loudmouth with a sick sense of humor, but can be counted on to get jobs done. He acquires the rank of Lieutenant after saving the life of a prisoner but consequently suffers a serious back injury.

Terrence is prescribed Vicodin as a way to cope with his new pain. The drugs have become addictive and his new obsession seems to have set off a time bomb inside of him. Terrence now places his desire for drugs first in his life and performing his policeman duties second.

Meanwhile, a new murder case has become the police department's center of attention. Terrence, now a loose cannon, is assigned to the investigation of discovering who was responsible for the slaying of five immigrants residing in the area. It is at this point where his fellow comrades begin to question Terrence's ability to stay focused on the job. The line between duty and personal desire is blurred and nobody knows what to make of this Lieutenant, especially the witnesses that have to answer to him.

As I explained before, Cage cranks his "insanity" lever into maximum power here. One minute he's patrolling the neighborhood in a perfectly conspicuous manner. The next minute, he's screaming his lungs out and threatening anyone that stands in the way of what he wants. Usually, the thing he wants is cocaine. Terrence probably takes more cocaine hits in this movie than all of the after school specials from the 1970s combined.

Sometimes, we get to see events from Terrence's distorted view of the world. For a non-comedy, this movie has a lot of running jokes. Probably the most memorable one is Terrence's recurring hallucinations of iguanas and other exotic wildlife. Another is his slow descent into total madness. At one point, his speech degrades into sounding like Jimmy Stewart with a mouth full of water.

I don't know how close to reality the often-seen "Good cop, Bad cop" routine is to real police work. If it's used at all, Nicolas Cage would be one of the most convincing bad cops to ever walk the Earth. His slick way of presenting himself as a lost pathetic soul only to transform into a monster is a work of genius. Proudly serving the city of New Orleans or exhibiting pure sadism seems interchangeable. Forget Harvey Two-Face. Terrence McDonagh has five faces. And any one of them could show up at any moment.

Yet in spite of the praise I'm lending out, I found myself not caring at all about what I was watching. Whatever this movie was trying to prove was lost on me. Was Cage trying to impress people with his sense of dramatic timing and unpredictable behavior? He may have, but it wasn't any surprise to me. I had seen Cage act crazy in the movies plenty of times and needed no convincing that he still had the touch.

Was the story trying to expose how policemen can abuse their power and its impact on the vulnerable oblivious people of broken down America? I think enough citizens are already well aware of actions that betray the public trust. Was Hurricane Katrina supposed to be a metaphor for Terrence's broken body in need of healing? If so, it wasn't a very clever one.

Perhaps it was a simple character study. Never mind the plot. Just watch this guy at work and enjoy the dark beauty behind it. That seems to be the most likely scenario. But then why do I still not understand Terrence McDonagh? I only felt like I was watching Nicolas Cage acting this entire time. It wasn't his fault. It was the fault of a pretentious movie trying to be something that it's not. It tried to amuse audiences by acting fearless and prying for laughs toward a serious tale. It doesn't work because fearlessness alone doesn't make the movie. A coherent direction is all that's needed and this movie doesn't have one. Or maybe it does and I just missed it. Either way, I don't care enough to find out.

Rating: 3

The Six Wives of Henry Lefay

Title: The Six Wives of Henry Lefay

Year of Release: 2009

Date Viewed: November 14th, 2010

MPAA Rating: PG-13

The aforementioned six wives of the title character serve to be more like data rather than co-stars. Much like the legend of Bill Brasky made famous on Saturday Night Live, several people that have encountered Henry Lefay during the course of life have come together to share their favorite and least favorite stories about him.

Tim Allen plays Henry Lefay and gets to depart the picture rather early thanks to his character kicking the bucket in the first scene due to a fatal parasailing accident in Mexico. News of his death reach his daughter Barbara (Elisha Cuthbert). Barbara had been fed up with bailing out her father through countless occasions of carelessness and misfortune. She initially blows off the news as just another one of his desperate grabs for attention, but becomes distraught when she realizes that the tragedy is legit. The last conversation between Barbara and Henry ended with the former insisting to the latter that she never wanted to see him again. The movie enters flashback mode after the opening scene where the dissension is examined more closely before returning to present time.

Feeling remorse over their troubled relationship, Barbara takes upon herself the task of arranging her father's funeral. That also means meeting all of Henry's ex-wives face to face. Despite having the perfect ladies man charm, Henry was constantly convinced that he had found the perfect soul mate only to change his mind later. The ex-wives all come from different backgrounds and can't seem to find enough common ground to get through the funeral without something getting damaged. Most of the hostility comes from the last will and testament situation. Henry relayed a different message to each wife over how he wanted his death to be handled. No one can agree on how to best honor his memory.

Frustrated over being forced to clean up yet another mess, Barbara has to keep everyone's sanity under control long enough to bring closure to her father's wife-jumping legacy.

Tim Allen is a good choice for the role of Henry since he is written very closely to Allen's "Men are Pigs" signature character that made him a star all those years ago. Beyond that though, Henry isn't colorful enough for me to understand why he is such a charmer. The movie always shows him with someone but never shows how they met. We are just expected to believe he is a magician. As a result, Allen didn't have much to work with and had no choice but to play the role on auto-pilot.

Elisha Cuthbert has already proved herself to be a versatile enough actress for the Hollywood big leagues. However, she is terribly miscast here. Her role demanded someone that had the credible aura of an authority figure. Trapped with inmates running the asylum, Barbara has to act as the voice of reason in these situations. Cuthbert does not have the voice nor the presence to act intimidating enough for things to progress past the bickering stage. Too many of her scenes fail to look convincing because of this glaring shortcoming that was far too important to get wrong.

It's difficult for me to describe why so many gags do not work outside of saying that they just weren't funny. A lot of it may have to do with how "forced" the delivery was. The few moments of cleverness are easier to spot because the actresses don't have to try so hard to sell it. Comedy works in a strange way. Even if the situation is completely absurd, it still has to be remotely believable to be effective. The talent among the cast was there. It was the passion that was missing.

In the end, The Six Wives of Henry Lefay turns out to be a project that had promise but finished as an amateur imitation of a Neil Simon play. Due to the quiet release and being devoid of any real embarrassing material, it's unlikely any careers will suffer positive or negative consequences.

Rating: 4

North by Northwest

Title: North by Northwest

Year of Release: 1959

Date Viewed: November 7th, 2010

MPAA Rating: Not Rated

When this blog was first developed, I wasn't expecting to study many "classic" films. The reason was that I felt very out of touch with the entertainment eras that I had not lived through. Therefore I wouldn't be able to offer a fair opinion or understand director's motives. It's like asking an orange expert to write a report on apples.

So it was to my relief that I was able to enjoy North by Northwest and also explain why. It also persuaded me to re-evaluate my prior reservations about exploring early Hollywood. Before I became a serious reviewer, I wasn't interested in movies as art. I was a bored young kid searching for escapism from this boring world of ours. North by Northwest reminded me of several action/adventure movies that I had grown to enjoy during my youth. Perhaps these vintage classics weren't so different after all. Ideas have to be drawn from somewhere. So it should have been no surprise to find familiarity here. Many directors claim to draw inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock and I used to think they only said that because they wanted to sound professional. North by Northwest was a nice way to be enlightened to the truth behind those statements.

Cary Grant plays an average man from Manhattan named Roger Thornhill. After finishing an ordinary day of work, he finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. A passing telegram representative calls for a "George Kaplan." Roger flags down the messenger so he can send a telegram to his mother. This draws the attention of two henchman who believe Roger was actually Kaplan answering the call. Roger is abducted and brought to a man named Lestor Townsend (James Mason) for questioning.

We learn that Townsend is in charge of a corrupt organization. He had been tracking the whereabouts of a George Kaplan; a secret agent believed to be following him. Roger tries to expose the mistake and offers up every visual piece of evidence on hand to prove his identity. Townsend doesn't buy any of it.

After surviving interrogation and escaping death, Roger's life turns from dull to overly intense. Townsend's men pull out all the stops to get their revenge by framing him for murder and covering up all the trails. Via quick wits and sheer luck, Roger manages to barely escape one sticky situation after another, always staying one step ahead of his stalkers. He's a man on the run with no one to trust. That is, until he meets the mysterious and gorgeous Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) onboard a train to Chicago. She helps him elude the authorities, but also seems to know too much about the situation. Is Eve the answer to Roger's problem or is she part of it?

This movie never stops being entertaining. Within five minutes, the storyline is already revved up for the journey, the chaos is foreshadowed (part can be owed to an epic score by longtime Hitchcock collaborator Bernard Herrmann), Cary Grant's character is set up and it is impossible to tell what is going to happen next. Despite existing for over fifty years, the movie feels as refreshing as the day it was born, even if it doesn't look as fresh.

But hey, it does look fresh! Whadya know? Whoever was in charge of restoring the movie for the DVD format deserved a raise. Not a speck of graininess in sight save for some outdated special effects that couldn't be helped. It looked even better than most Turner Classic Movie broadcasts I've seen.

As I was saying though, the movie never stops being entertaining. It doesn't rely on dragging out events until they wear out their welcome. The story keeps on moving and doesn't stop until it needs to catch its breath. Hitchcock should have directed a movie about auto racing. He's probably the only person that can make a pit stop dramatic enough to be worth watching. Almost as if on cue, the action starts going when I desired it to and I was given enough ample time to take in the background scenery when the situation demanded it. Is it a mind reading movie or simply my kind of movie?

All of that was expected though. I knew enough about Hitchcock to recognize that he had a talent for keeping audiences in suspense. What I wasn't anticipating was how funny the movie was at times. Cary Grant plays his role like he is a distant cousin to Sean Connery's James Bond. Always trying to stay prim and proper no matter how much danger is staring at him in the face. It can almost be considered parody except that Dr. No wasn't released until three years later. Hitchcock ahead of his time again.

The movie is not afraid to be silly and proud of itself for that. Several moments, usually a key decision made by a character to escape danger, left me scratching my head and wondering if that was really the best course of action. Staunch Hitchcock devotees seem to insist that it was done intentionally as a way of livening up the fun factor. That's always okay in my book, unless reasonable alternative set-ups were available. That's the only glaring flaw in this otherwise fine product. To use one example, Roger and his love interest try to elude danger once again by climbing down the unstable terrain of Mount Rushmore. "Do we have any other choice?," he asks. Um, yes. I think you do have another choice. Run sideways around the mountain. They weren't following THAT close behind you.

That criticism is only there for the sake of objectivity. It really didn't affect my enjoyment nor did it ruin my suspension of disbelief. It's a crazy ride and one that I was happy to climb aboard for. I'll even pay for extra tickets.

It may be safe to hypothesize that all other movies that borrow the "unsuspecting ordinary man falls into a mess" storyline can owe a bit of their success to North by Northwest. Audiences eat up these sort of movies because it's all about them. For many including myself, movies are loved because they allow the willing participant to be somewhere that they're really not. On the same token, videogames allow the participant to become someone that they're not. North by Northwest offers the best of both worlds. We get to watch Roger Thornhill become someone he is not and stay right beside him the whole way through. If that's not entertainment......you know the rest.

Rating: 8

Evolution

Title: Evolution

Year of Release: 2001

Date Viewed: November 3rd, 2010

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Evolution is about a primitive alien species that quickly evolve into intelligent advanced creatures. It's too bad the same can't be said for the humans that worked on this movie.

Set outside a college community in Arizona, Ira Kane (David Duchovny) and Harry Block (Orlando Jones) are two professors that investigate a fallen meteor that crashed in the desert. Kane takes home a sample of unknown specimen and is astonished at how fast they change. These organisms are separating and growing at a rate that even the naked eye can witness in progress.

Convinced that a Nobel Prize is within their grasp, Kane and Block return to the crash site for more research only to discover that the area is now under military control. Evidently, the professors' data research had been hacked into and reported as a possible national threat. Sensing that he wouldn't be receiving due credit for the discovery, Kane disobeys orders to stay away and infiltrates the guarded area, putting him at odds with attractive scientist Allison Reed (Julianne Moore).

Before anyone knows what hit them, the alien beings have grown more hostile and are now the size of the dangerous kind of zoo animals. An all-out military assault appears to be the only plausible option to save the human race from being devoured by these new visitors. But Kane soon realizes that nuclear warfare will only add to the problem. A new solution needs to be implemented if he can only convince the arrogant General Russell Woodman (Ted Levine) to listen to him.

Playing the role of sideshow clown is Seann William Scott. He plays the useless sidekick character that only exists so the audience can laugh at his stupidity, clumsiness and annoying animal calls. The real reason he was casted was because the American Pie movies were popular in 2001. America loved watching Seann William Scott but realized too late that he was only funny when playing Stifler.

David Duchovny and Julianne Moore are not known for their comedic timing yet were expected to perform at the same level as Bill Murray and Sigourney Weaver. How can I tell, you ask? Because the entire storyline is an obvious nod to the Ghostbusters franchise and it even has Ivan Reitman as the director. But whereas Ghostbusters was charming and fresh, Evolution is as stale as the cereal in my cupboard. The much needed chemistry among the cast was not there. Yet the script still forces a romantic relationship between Kane and Reed using the same circumstances that we've seen in the movies a billion times before. Guy and girl come from different backgrounds and disagree over a matter. They can't stand each other. The guy then does something cool that the girl admires. Then they both kiss and act as if they were made for each other all along. That's the way the cookie cutter crumbles.

What's most baffling to me is the way the human characters respond to these alien beings. Their impressions have an irrational transition from wonderment to panic. Sure, the creatures are getting larger. But what real harm have they done? You would think that these scientists would have a better solution than simple termination unless they were the crazy comic book mad scientists. But there is no reason to believe there was ever a real danger outside of character dialogue explaining hypothetical situations.

A few highlights exist. One standout moment involves Professor Block in a scene that parodies the chest bursting scene from Alien. A small creature invades his body, leaving the doctors with no choice but to remove it by digging into his rectum.

The creatures in question are digitally animated. They look cute and grotesque at the same time. Probably the perfect design to compliment the movie's zany tone.

The idea behind Evolution is not bad. It just failed to evolve into a good result. Ivan Reitman may have an eye for effective comedy, but nobody is perfect and even a veteran like him can be stumped on how to present what's pitched to him. He tried to re-use the same formula that has worked for him in the past to no avail. When the scientists in the movie found out that the end would be disastrous, they went back to the drawing board. The screenwriters would have been wise to follow suit.

Rating: 3

Lost Boys: The Thirst

Title: Lost Boys: The Thirst

Year of Release: 2010

Date Viewed: November 3rd, 2010

MPAA Rating: R

You know those low budget made-for-television movies that air on basic cable and end up becoming far better than anticipated? Well, this isn't one of those movies but it very well could have been one. Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander reprise their roles as the vampire hunting team known as The Frog Brothers in this third installment of the Lost Boys franchise.

Edgar Frog (Feldman) is going through some very tough times. His lifelong mission to destroy the undead has taken a harsh emotional and financial toll. No matter how much success he has in neutralizing vampire threats, evil always finds a way to return. He's falling behind on rent for his trailer park home and faces an eviction if the money is not paid in a week. Convinced that it may be time to retire from this unrewarding lifestyle, Edgar resorts to selling his beloved comic book collection to help keep the landlord off his back.

Days later, he receives an unexpected visit from famed author Gwen Lieber (Tanit Phoenix), who has a proposition for a new assignment. Her brother Peter (Felix Mosse) had been kidnapped by a cult of vampires at an underground rave. He was drugged with an ecstasy mix containing vampire blood known as The Thirst. If enough humans fall under control of the thirst, a new undead army will be under the command of a head vampire, perhaps the ultimate one that Edgar had been searching for all his life. Edgar accepts the mission when he realizes that this may be his only chance to save his brother Alan, who had succumbed to the darkness during a recent expedition in Washington D.C.

Edgar was too late to save his friend Sam Emerson (played by Corey Haim in the original Lost Boys and seen here in flashbacks), who suffered the same fate as Alan. Edgar's visit to Sam's grave operates as a way to swing his character's decision in avenging Sam's death and to bid a tribute farewell to Corey Haim, who passed away earlier this year. Edgar's sleep is haunted by nostalgic dreams of Alan and Sam. His Batman #14 comic book that Sam had a fondness for remains in his possession for its sentimental value. Edgar's life is actually very closely related to Batman's. He works nights, keeps to himself most of the time and speaks in a comically raspy voice.

The Thirst is a return to form for how the masses prefer vampire flicks to be presented. The supernatural elements tie to various legends, most of which Edgar has encyclopedias for. The vampires are bloodthirsty savages without any concern for the survival of the human race. They could be anywhere disguised as anybody. That's the spirit that drives the franchise.

The movie dishes out a few jabs toward the Twilight book series, no doubt pleasing the crowd that prefers their beloved demons to drool blood instead of sparkle. The character of Gwen has made a fortune from writing romantic vampire novels aimed for teens. You can see the disgust in Edgar's eyes as he wonders how someone could have the audacity to portray his enemies as sexy.

The Thirst's main weakness is that the direct-to-video smudges are clearly visible. The acting is not bad but nobody climbs above the call of duty for a B-flick. The direction has enough inspiration but not enough flare. It's sorely missing the experience of a seasoned director that can better establish the atmosphere that a vampire tale demands. And while it's nice to hear the new cover of "Cry Little Sister" used once again for dramatic effect, the rest of the music seemed like it was lazily composed in someone's basement with a modern synthesizer.

What The Thirst can be proud to show for is the script. It's mostly smart and extremely fun. The earlier films had a larger main character cast, thereby suffering from shadowy glimpses of promising stories. This movie is all about Edgar. Corey Feldman's performance is like a melodramatic version of John Rambo. The first meeting between him and Gwen is nearly a line by line reenactment of Rambo reluctantly returning to war after vowing to never go back to that world again. Not original, but amusing to see here.

There is a lot to like in this film. It kept me smiling even through its not-so-bright moments. Most of that credit can probably go to Corey Feldman who took on a producer job and vowed to listen to the feedback for the previous movie and make this one for the fans. The ending leaves a door wide open. So if enough reviews turn up positive, a fourth film is very likely to be made. The Thirst is entertaining enough to be considered for a weekend rental and I think most longtime fans will appreciate it enough to add it to their home collection.

Rating: 6