Next of Kin.

Review #2553: Next of Kin.

Cast: 

Patrick Swayze (Detective Truman Gates), Liam Neeson (Briar Gates), Adam Baldwin (Joey Rosselini), Helen Hunt (Jessie Gates), Andreas Katsulas (Johnny "Papa John" Isabella), Bill Paxton (Gerald Gates), Ben Stiller (Lawrence Isabella), Michael J. Pollard (Harold), Ted Levine (Willy Simpson), Del Close (Frank), Valentino Cimo (Rhino), Paul Greco (Leo), Vincent Guastaferro (Paulie), and Paul Herman (Lieutenant Tony Antonelli) Directed by John Irvin (#1591 - Hamburger Hill)

Review: 

Sure, you probably saw this on a DVD pack sometime or maybe your dad had the film on the shelf (this is a case where both applies, because it lurks on both the bottom of the film shelf and also on an "action multi-pack" with stuff such as The Last Boy Scout). You might say this is a case of a movie being so mediocre that I have to strain to find words to talk about it. This was the seventh film of John Irvin, who had moved over from his native England (where he did documentaries, TV adaptations such as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) to do feature films, with a few of his first being a mix of British and American productions, such as The Dogs of War (1980) and Raw Deal (1986), respectively. The years after this film saw him do a varied amount of films and TV work afterwards, mostly outside the States. The movie was written by Michael Jenning in his only film credit (the only other credit is writing for a TV movie called "Spot Marks the X"). Made on a budget of roughly $12 million and released a few months after audiences could see Swayze in, say, Road House, the movie was not a major success with audiences.

Admittedly, I wanted to like the movie. You've got young promising talent with Neeson, Hunt and Stiller (one of these people won an Academy Award, and somehow it wasn't Neeson) to go along with ideas of interest with Baldwin and Katsulas and a semi-game Swayze for a movie...that never really goes that far. It lumbers for 108 minutes with what can only be described as "the bare minimum" in generic nature that will work for some and make others shrug when it ends and leaves the memory bank just as quickly. It's a revenge tale that has an idea in mind: a tale serving revenge "country style" (no, I will not use the word "hillbilly") that you would imagine would sound like someone trying to drunkenly combine Deliverance and The Godfather. But no, it basically just meanders around Chicago with Swayze trying to corral Neeson from blazing a path fierier than Sherman's March to the Sea*, complete with one stunt about jumping onto a train. It is an aimless movie that only really commits to having a battle between country style folks and gangsters for the ending, which naturally has to be at night, with arrows being involved (somehow, there's a scene of preparing lunch for the travelling country boys that amuses me in its placement). There are flashes of lunacy from Baldwin to be compelling, but it mostly feels like moving the chairs on the deck waiting to see if something really comes into play beyond neutral gear. Swayze basically has the movie stolen from him by Neeson, who just has the offbeat energy to be more compelling in a misguided quest (and accent, because if you have the shot to cast a Northern Irishman to play a man from Kentucky, you take it) than whatever is supposed to be the case with an ordinary family dynamic between Swayze and Hunt. Obviously one character has to go at minimum to advance the plot, but it sure is a shame to see Paxton go so early, but it almost seems necessary to do so with Stiller in a nepo baby role that basically screams "move along". It all is just a long-winded revenge tale where you find yourself entranced at the stuff you've seen before in these type of movies or just check your watch. At least the climax tries to present something different in resolving the wounds of a blood feud, corny as it can be. As a whole, Next of Kin might as well be the Ink blot test of action movies: you see what you see and go from there in either liking the experience or forgetting it just as quickly as you saw it.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*Stretching a reference, sure. But fuck the Confederacy.

Point Break.

Review #2520: Point Break.

Cast: 

Keanu Reeves (FBI Agent Johnny Utah), Patrick Swayze (Bodhi), Gary Busey (FBI Agent Angelo Pappas), Lori Petty (Tyler Ann Endicott), John C. McGinley (FBI Director Ben Harp), James LeGros (Roach), John Philbin (Nathaniel), Bojesse Christopher (Grommet), Lee Tergesen (Rosie), Vincent Klyn (Lupton 'Warchild' Pittman), Chris Pedersen ('Bunker' Weiss), Dave Olson (Archbold), Anthony Kiedis (Tone), and Galyn Gorg (Margarita) Directed by Kathryn Bigelow (#1258 - K-19: The Widowmaker, #1548 - The Hurt Locker, #1820 - The Loveless, #2188 - Near Dark, #2361 - Blue Steel, #2494 - Strange Days)

Review: 

“Thrill-seeking adrenaline addicts have always fascinated me. The idea seems to be that it’s not until you risk your humanness that you feel most human. Not until you risk all awareness do you gain awareness.”

Sure, it feels right. The original idea of the film came from Rick King, who wondered about surfers who robbed banks. King had directed Prayer of the Rollerboys (1990), which was written by W. Peter Iliff, who once was waiting tables in his late twenties before becoming a screenwriter. Iliff's original screenplay (under the working title Johnny Utah) actually had bounced around for much of the late 1980s (Ridley Scott was at one point tapped before pre-production didn't go anywhere) before eventually falling into the hands of Lawrence Gordon and his company that went with Kathryn Bigelow to direct. Bigelow, alongside her then-husband James Cameron did re-writes for a production draft (one particular moment that Cameron came up with was the main character jumping out of a plane without a parachute); in short, it wasn't a movie crafted by one person but through a variety of influences (Cameron, for whatever reason, recently expressed a bit of bitterness over not getting a writer's credit). Made on a budget of $24 million, the movie was a decent enough with audiences at the time of release and it attracted enough of a following that someone made a "reality-play" parody (which premiered in Seattle in 2003) of the film that has a new unrehearsed actor play the lead role and read lines from cue-cards (various people have attended performances such as Busey, Petty, and even Bigelow). A remake was released in 2015, which was shot/directed by Ericson Core with Édgar Ramírez and Luke Bracey playing the lead roles, and a TV adaptation has been floating around for a few months.

Well, you either live for the ride, or the waves will just splash you away. The whole "initiation into a group by a cop" thing wasn't completely mined out by this point (as evidenced by say, The Fast and the Furious [2001] a decade later), but the best thing about the movie is that it just coasts on the amount of casual energy it has with its cast and action. The folks here play the whole thing as straight as you can play it even with folks being named "Johnny Utah" going from former football players to FBI agents (in fairness, Charles Tillman actually did go from former NFL player to federal agent, so there's that) to go along with people who are all in their own varying levels of inner balance*. Reeves was the one that Bigelow defended despite studio doubts, and, yeah, he makes for a good pairing with Swayze in that type of bond that basically goes past the usual cat-and-mouse game that comes with these types of movies. You've got vulnerability and the yearning to actually do something on one side with Reeves and the eclectic confidence that comes from someone who aims to be the master of their own domain (spiritually, literally, whatever). All will drift onto the other side, so why not try to aim for the ultimate thrill when doing so? The rest of the cast* are fairly charming in their aims for a film that takes things casually, whether that means a few chuckles at the strait-laced McGinley or the odd duck straight man nature of Busey (see, he doesn't always play louts or the heavy). Call it whatever you want (one label that has been floated around is "wet Western"), call it a movie about finding a soul within riding the waves of the frontier that is the sea, the important part is that it is a pretty neat thriller at the end of the day. It packs enough heat within its 122-minute runtime that coasts in the air with skydiving, on the ground with one particular chase scene and in the water for, well, various moments to try and capture the feeling of surfing (I myself can't say stuff about water besides trips to the waterpark). It even has an ending like a Western with the culmination of one perhaps finding a soul within the waves. For a movie as stimulating in its curiosity for high-octane interest as this one is, you will probably have a good time with a film that has managed to get to 35 years with relative ease.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*There are apparently people who find a homoerotic subtext to the film in the same sense that people try to do that for Top Gun. Truth be told, I wish people had half as much time to use on Strange Days, which is the far more interesting Bigelow movie of the 1990s. Seriously, go see it.

*My balance is trying to hide my desire to be wrapped up on an island with a lady just like Lori Petty's character. What a character, especially with that hair.

Ghost.

Review #1626: Ghost.

Cast: 
Patrick Swayze (Sam Wheat), Demi Moore (Molly Jensen), Whoopi Goldberg (Oda Mae Brown), Tony Goldwyn (Carl Bruner), Rick Aviles (Willie Lopez), Vincent Schiavelli (Subway Ghost), Gail Boggs (Louise), Armelia McQueen (Clara), and Phil Leeds (Emergency Room Ghost)  Directed by Jerry Zucker (#585 - Top Secret!, #664 - Airplane!, and #1274 - First Knight)

Review: 
"You have an idea of where you want to get, but you have to experiment your way through it, and it might take a long time to get there.”

It's easy to say a movie is a ride before you actually see it. One that tries to balance romance and comedy within a mystery that certainly has endured for itself after three decades as a romance for the spirits. I suppose romances always had a big appeal with audiences, so it shouldn't be a surprise that this was actually the highest grossing film of its year (beating out films with their own notable reputations like Home Alone and Pretty Woman). The film began its script life through an idea Bruce Joel Rubin (whose two previous writing credits involved death with Brainstorm (1983) and Deadly Friend (1986)) had involving inspiration taken from Hamlet, in which the ghost desired for someone to take avenge him. Years of approaching studios for the script (written in 1984) led to Jerry Zucker being approached by Paramount Pictures to do the film; Rubin reportedly cried when he heard the news, thinking that it would be turned into a comedy, owing to the success that the Wisconsin native Zucker had with films like Airplane! (1980) with his brother David and Jim Abrahams. Discussions with the director over quibbles with the script to improve its structure led to better confidence in Zucker, who had expressed interest in the film not so much to break out of comedy but instead to just make a good film. This was the fourth film that Zucker directed, and it is one of just two that did not fall into comedy (the other was First Knight) - he wanted to make a "roller-coaster ride" that would make you laugh and cry. 

Rubin believes the film taps into some sort of primal thing with audiences, since it deals with death and closure within romance in fantasy. There is certainly a bit of truth to that argument, since what we have is a fairly interesting film with some spiritual interest that will soothe those searching for something pleasing in entertainment without too many quibbles. Others might bristle at its 128 minutes as perhaps being a bit too labored in pace, and its reach for thriller tropes that could be thought of as contrived when leading to its drawn out ending. In other words, it is the kind of entertainment that could be thought of as either sweet or corny depending on one's patience for such material (i.e. something like Titanic, albeit with more/less hokum). Is it one of the best films of its year? Not exactly but being a good film with some staying power isn't exactly a bad thing either, being one that proved rewarding for everyone who did the film, particularly with Rubin and Goldberg. Believe it or not, the lead role was actually a hard one to cast, since I suppose playing a ghostly observer isn't something easy to peg to one actor, with even Paul Hogan rejecting the role because he thought it wasn't funny enough (he would star in a film involving ghosts with Almost an Angel the same year). A showing of Road House (1989) furthered Rubin's belief in Swayze for the lead while conversely not convincing Zucker, and it was an audition with Swayze (who wanted to break from action fare) that convinced the director. Swayze has the charm required in someone tasked to observe and find one's place without the one needed most, balancing that line between chilled and confident that naturally sells his time spent with Moore for all the tissues needed in curiosity. Moore does well enough with chilled mourning that plays the other side of the romantic coin with great interest, as the pottery sequence allows them to move with grace that dazzles in crisp romantic charm, and it repeats itself with soothing closure for the end. The film kicks itself into the next gear of interest when Goldberg shows up around the forty-minute mark. Who would've have believed that a comedian could play a charlatan so well? Her and Swayze do quite well with keeping the film on its toes in amusement without it turning into a bit just for ghostly giggles. This seems most apparent with the sequence spent in the bank, as one guides the other with conniving chuckles that keeps the plot rolling; if The Color Purple (1985) was her breakout role, this only proves to confirm her obvious talent within humor and soothing truth. Not to be forgotten in all of this is Goldwyn (in his fourth film role), walking that tight rope of assured and sniveling that does quite well with what is needed in balance, while Aviles (a stand-up comedian) plays the heavy to useful effect. Schiavelli may only have two scenes, but he makes them count for what it is worth in rough advisory that nevertheless sticks in your mind. As a whole, it is the passion of the film that keeps things going on as decently as they go, for better or worse - it has a neat cast and a stirring music score from Maurice Jarre that makes for a serviceable effort. It has a range of memorable moments that keep it on the level more so than the aspects that could have sunk a lesser effort that drives this film to three decades (and counting) of endurance for all the right reasons.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

The Outsiders.

Review #1469: The Outsiders.

Cast:
C. Thomas Howell (Ponyboy Curtis), Matt Dillon (Dallas "Dally" Winston), Ralph Macchio (Johnny Cade), Patrick Swayze (Darrel "Darry" Curtis), Rob Lowe (Sodapop Curtis), Emilio Estevez (Keith "Two-Bit" Matthews), Tom Cruise (Steve Randle), Glenn Withrow (Tim Shepard), Diane Lane (Sherri "Cherry" Valance), and Leif Garrett (Robert "Bob" Sheldon) Directed by Francis Ford Coppola (#592 - Dementia 13, #1139 - Supernova, and #1460 - Apocalypse Now)

Review: 
"I used to be a great camp counselor, and the idea of being with half a dozen kids in the country and making a movie seemed like being a camp counselor again. It would be a breath of fresh air. I'd forget my troubles and have some laughs again." 

The 1980s were an interesting time for coming-of-age dramas along with Francis Ford Coppola. It was the busiest decade of his career, if not the most difficult. Having reached a peak with Apocalypse Now (1979), he tried to further innovation in films with the music fantasy One from the Heart (1982), which proved a failure with audiences and wrecked his finances with Zoetrope Studio (now known as American Zoetrope). He would ultimately direct six further films in this decade (including a segment for New York Stories in 1989) while trying to get out of his debts, and two of his films were uniquely released in the same year that were adaptations of S.E. Hinton novels in Rumble Fish and this film (based on the 1967 novel of the same name). The inspiration for the film came from an interesting source: a petition on the behalf of middle school students of Lone Star Elementary School in Fresno, California by school librarian Jo Ellen Misakian, since the students felt that Coppola would be a great director to make a film out of such a key book of reading from the famed author in Hinton (who wrote it as a teenager inspired by rival gangs in her high school in Oklahoma, where the film would be shot). She was very involved with the making of the film, having numerous moments of enjoyment spent with the actors of the film. One can only imagine how much interest can be generated from a film with so many young and aspiring actors present in one film: Cruise (in the first of four key roles in a breakthrough year), Swayze (a talented dancer in his second film role), Dillon (a teen idol that starred in two other Hinton adaptations in Tex and Rumble Fish), Lane (making her transition into older roles after debuting in theater at age six and film at 14), Macchio, Lowe and Estevez (with this being a breakthrough for the latter three).

There exists two different versions of the film: The original version of the film ran for 91 minutes after Coppola edited it down from 133 minutes of shooting because of studio fears of it being too long. In 2005, he decided to do a new version of the film, inspired to do a version that restored the film to be more faithful to the book that his granddaughter could watch. The newest edition of the film, called "The Complete Novel" release, runs at 114 minutes, since Coppola re-incorporated 22 minutes of deleted footage while also taking out footage from before while also replacing most of Carmine Coppola's musical score with comtemporary 1960s music. Regardless of how one sees the film, there is a fine sense of craftsmanship in making a captivating coming-of-age story with touches of realism and style that reach most of what it desires to say about the nature of teenagers when it comes to class and adapting to the way one was raised by a family (whether the traditional one or not). Nothing comes easy in life, particularly when it comes to trying to belong in society - that applied in the 1960s and it applies just as much now more than ever, as trying to find a place to belong with others doesn't change the struggle within us no matter the supposed evolution of community over the years. With a young and hungry ensemble like this, there is plenty to generate interest in making things come alive. As our focus for a primary amount of time, Howell proves himself worthy of our attention, a complicated kid on the crossroads that we can buy into fairly well. It is Dillon who commands attention with an irresistible and irascible hardened spirit. Macchio follows along with well-done conviction to follow along with Howell, with a sequence involving the sunset being a key highlight for each in idealism that will inevitably clash with reality. Swayze (the oldest of an teenaged/twentysomething ensemble at 31) is a weary but worthwhile presence to see help lead his family of brothers and outsider brothers. The others in Lowe, Estevez, and Cruise make their own interesting impressions (the best likely being a short scene of Estevez waiting for a conversation to end with Howell and someone else by cracking wise), while Lane proves a steady counterpart of the other side of town, bright in conviction.

In the end, The Outsiders still manages to reach an audience today because of what it can say about youth on the fringes. By the time it reaches its rumble for the end, one can find themselves swept over whose actually fighting who, as if the lines of conflict can muddle between what really matters, as signified by its true ending (or at least in its burning sequence), poignant in hardened reality without drowning its viewer in what really matters - to belong. In that sense, I would say Coppola certainly made a film worth belonging to, which all came together from kids that wanted to see the folks try to "stay gold" on screen.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Movie Night: Youngblood.

Review #397: Youngblood.

Cast
Rob Lowe (Dean Youngblood), Patrick Swayze (Derek Sutton), Cynthia Gibb (Jessie Chadwick), Ed Lauter (Murray Chadwick), Keanu Reeves (Heaver), and George Finn (Carl Racki) Directed by Peter Markle.

Review
Sports films aren't exactly my fortay, but I figured I might as well do one, so why not a hockey film since hockey's still going on with the Finals. That, and I haven't reviewed much of Rob Lowe, or Patrick Swayze. Is this film any good, or is just an 80s relic? Mostly the latter. It has it's weird moments, trying to be comedic that ends up getting in the way of the drama the film also tries to set, being a bit unbalenced. That goes for the hockey as well, which can be good, and Lowe does skate well, but the film then switches to fighting mode, which reminds me an awful lot of Rocky, which doesn't work well. Even though fighting in hockey is commonplace, having good hockey plays is more common, and combined the two just don't mesh. The acting's okay, mostly reminiscent of usual sports film acting. Lowe is allright, not too bad. The film spirals, it has its allright moments but it clunks where it doesn't need it, being disjointed, but mildly entertaining. Countdown to 400 Reviews: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3...

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.