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Starring: Jason Statham, Joan Allen, Ian McShane, Tyrese Gibson, Natalie Martinez
Screenplay: Paul WS Anderson
Director: Paul WS Anderson
Running Time: 98 minutes
Based on the 1975 Roger Corman-produced B-grade cult classic Death Race 2000, this updated version offers none of the cheesy lines and bad special effects of its predecessor, but even with the benefit of recent technology can’t save this mish-mash of a film.
Set in a post financial-meltdown world (how apt), the masses get their thrills and spills via televised car races held in maximum security prisons where the inmates are armed to the teeth. Each car has reinforced chassis as well as an array of firepower. If an inmate manages to win five races in a row, they get their freedom.
Into this world walks our main protagonist Jensen Ames (please don’t tell me Brit director Anderson is a fan of F1 driver Jensen Button – surely the name Lewis Ames would have worked better!), who has been wrongly (sigh) accused of murdering his wife. He also happens to be a slick former race car driver making him an ideal candidate to be in the race of the title – something not lost on warden (the always great Allen).
Overall, tonnes of clichés and action, and if that is what you are after then you’ll no doubt enjoy. A paint by numbers flick for sure, but still worth a look if you are into mindless violence and have nothing better to do on a wet Sunday afternoon. One minor bright light in the whole shebang is Jason Clarke as sadistic guard Ulrich. He makes a great baddie, and it would be interesting to see how he would act in a more meatier/credible role/film. It would also be good to see Statham take on a more substantial role - so far his career has been one dimensional, but could be a whole lot more if he took some risks.
2 stars out of 5
Starring: Ricky Gervais, Greg Kinnear, Tea Leoni, Aasif Mandvi
Director: David Koepp
Screenplay: David Koepp and John Kamps
Running Time: 102 minutes
Ricky Gervais hasn’t taken too many risks trying to launch his Hollywood career after an exceptional rise to the upper echelons of British comedy.
A couple of cameos in A Night At The Museum and Stardust were nice little earners, as well as a way to get yourself acquainted with doing things Hollywood-style.
However, Ghost Town won't do his status in Tinseltown any favours. There are many problems with the movie, not the least being Gervais yet again playing the same character he always seems to play. It lends itself to leaving no petrol in the tank, and you can almost say his lines for him, such is the predictability of it all.
Gervais plays Bertram Pincus, a dentist who leads a mean, lonely and boring existence who dies on the operating table for 10 minutes undergoing what is a supposed routine operation. When he comes back to life he finds he is the conduit by which all the world's ghosts try and resolve their problems that were left hanging when they suddenly died. While the premise sounds great, the execution is awful.
A mediocre script and miscasting seem to be the main culprits – I mean, who really believes a beautiful-looking Tea Leoni is going to fall for a slightly pot-bellied, obnoxious, average-looking guy like Gervais? Greg Kinnear as Leoni's recently departed philandering husband does the best he can, but overall the film is a mess. A couple of gags come off, but a little more work on the cast and script could have done wonders for what must have seemed like a great idea at the time.
2.5 stars
Starring: Clint Eastwood,
Director: Clint Eastwood, Christopher Carley, Bee Vang, Ahney Her
Screenplay: Nick Schenk
Running Time: 116 minutes
Reading the premise of Clint Eastwood’s latest outing my first thoughts were “Don’t do it Clint!”
Here's a guy whose early career got box-holed into the vigilante, tainted avenger role, only for his later years to gain some much-deserved credibility - not only as a versatile actor, but as a double Academy award-winning director.
So when reading that Eastwood plays an avenging, racist, disgruntled ex-Korean War Vet whose neighbourhood has been taken over by "Gooks" and other miscreants, I thought, "uh-uh, no way! You're pushing 80 Clint – it's not believable."
However, I needn't have worried. Eastwood the director is far too smart to let Eastwood the actor fall into clichés, and so my fear of a Hollywood legend falling flat on his face was allayed.
Eastwood does play the character as described, but there are more facets to Walt Kowalski than similar fair offered up by a Dirty Harry Callaghan or the Man With No Name from the Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns. I should have known better after he took a detour with such characterization as William Munny in Unforgiven.
Pic is the story of how a grumpy old man puts the a local Korean teenager on the straight and narrow after the latter tries to steal Walt's Gran Torino at the behest of the local ethnic gang. What follows is a story of redemption, but with a kick at the close that lends it to being more realistic, instead of the contrived ending that most probably expected and Eastwood and his backers must have been tempted to do.
Where the story is let down is the acting ability for debutant Bee Vang who plays the teenager in question. Vang delivers his lines in a sometimes clunky and clumsy manner. However, he can be forgiven as it's his first outing, and we can only hope for better things to come.
An Eastwood classic? No, but not a bomb either.
3.5 stars out of 5
Starring: Tadanobu Asano, Honglei Sun, Odnyam Odsuren, Khulan Chuluun, Aliya, Ba Sen, Amadu Mamadakov
Director: Sergei Bodrov
Screenplay: Arif Aliyev, Sergei Bodrov
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Starring: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Olivier Rabourdin
Director: Pierre Morel
Screenplay: Luc Besson, Robert Kamen
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Brickbat One: More Time Wasting By "Current Events" Folk
ANYBODY over the age of 35 remembers Danny "I Bashed a Tranny" Bonaduce from his time on The Partridge Family. His story of hitting rock bottom before clawing his way back to a form of respectibility has been told countless times over the past five years. Channel 9's Richard Wilkin's interviewed the diminutive redhead on A Current Affair last night. So what is so interesting about Bonaduce? Some new, exciting project? An earth-shattering confession that'll rock the entertainment industry? The benefit of his wisdom? Not really. Just an overview of his life (which,as mentioned, has been done to death so many times over the past five years by every media avenue available to man). So freaking what? This is news? I don't think so. Surely it had nothing to do with his being a judge on the Channel 9 reality show My Kid's A Star which aired the same night? Surely not! To be fair, he wasn't on last night's episode, but the question begs to be asked is it current affairs or infotainment? You be the judge
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SMACK! Biff! Bang! Crack! Kapow! No, this isn’t a remake of the 1960s camp version of Batman, it’s an ode to days gone by on the footy field – a time where lifting legs, a sleight of fist, or a good bare-knuckled brawl was interspersed with the odd try and hard-hitting tackles..
When former Newcastle Knight-turned-TV-personality Matty Johns’ alter-ego Reg Reagan called for rugby league to “bring back the biff”, I for one wasn’t unhappy. Not PC to say so, I know, but there’s nothing like a good stoush on the footy field to sort out the boys from the men, and, funny as it sounds, it’s a good way to settle a game down if things have started to get a bit niggly. Usually the two instigators of the brawl get 10 minutes in the sin bin, the other players take stock of the situation, and the game continues in a more conventional manner.
Yet, the Powers That Be that run all major sports in the world – whether it be football, cricket, rugby, basketball, as well as the minor sports such as rugby league and AFL – have decided that coming down hard on such infringements will clean up the game and all will be well. Their argument is a strong one. My little fellas both play football (that’s soccer to you heathens who misuse the correct term!) because my wife doesn’t want them to get hurt. Administrators of the more physically harder sports such as AFL, League and Union, know that a boy’s fledgling career is influenced by the kid’s mother. In my wife’s case, she believes when they hit their early teens they can make the decision for themselves, but until that time, it’s her call. This gives soccer a foot in the door, something that other codes realise is hurting their game
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I HAVE a bee up my butt about so-called “current affairs” programmes at the moment – specifically Today/Tonight and A Current Affair. For those unfamiliar with these two shows, they are Australian programmes that follow the 6.30 evening news on Channel 7 and Channel 9 respectively. Both take hot topics of the day, some of which have been given the once-over-lightly treatment on the preceding news, and try and give the subject matter more in-depth coverage. I’ve never really been a fan of these types of shows. There is never enough time to encourage a more thorough, robust discussion on any subject, with most given only 6-8 minutes of coverage.
Being a news junkie, and having just arrived to these shores, last night I thought I’d give both shows a look – hopping between channels and letting go of the remote once a particular subject caught my eye.
Today/Tonight started off with a piece on successful restaurateur turned TV chef Gordon Ramsay; of particular interest the amount of cussing he did on his Channel 9 programme Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. To be fair, the story was accurate in that the somewhat excitable Ramsay does indeed expound an expletive or 10 during the show, so you might think reporter David Richardson has a point. However, it became clear within the first minute it was a hatchet job. Why? Because Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares just happens to run on the opposition Channel 9 network
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When stations dress up new television series as stories on their current affairs programmes. I was once told by a senior television journalist that they are told to write their stories like they are talking to 14 year olds. Well, they might write their stories that way, but that doesn't mean the viewers have an equivalent IQ. Most people who watch the news and current affairs programmes are pretty astute.
Channel 7's Gladiators is back on screen. Yippee!! Well, not really - not from me anyway. Just not my cup of tea. But how do I know it is back on TV? Commercials during the break? Ads in the print media? Radio spots? Nope. It was a segment on Today/Tonight. In a day where Kevin Rudd is overseas doing business on behalf of Australians, interest rate hikes are an ongoing bane, Sydney's infrastructure is futterly ucked, and a plethora of crime going on, this is the best you guys could come up with?
Thing is, you could possibly give an argument that it is news worthy. I don't think it is, but mine is just one opinion. However, what I find more annoying is not so much the story itself, but it reeks of lazy, lazy, lazy. Both producer and reporter need a kick up that butt for trying to sell it as news (as does the exec producer of Gladiators, who I bet set the ball rolling
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Starring: Andy Garcia, Tomas Milian, Ines Sastre, Richard Bradford, Nestor Carbonell, Dustin Hoffman, Bill Murray
Director: Andy Garcia
Screenplay: Cabrera Infante, Daniel Vujic
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Comments (14)
) I liked the script and the direction. Not a huge Orlando fan though. Seems like he's made a mark as a leading man, when really he isn't (IMO of course). Loved Silence of the Lambs, am pretty mediocre about the original and subsequen sequels. Don't have opinions on the others...
Comment by Mike Wheeler
on Vote: Which Director Would You Most Want To Punch In The Face?