Perry Mason’s ex-girlfriend, Laura Robertson (Jean Simmons), is about to be appointed to the Senate when blackmailer Pete Dixon (Jonathan Banks) threatens to reveal that she once underwent shock treatment after having a nervous breakdown. When Dixon is murdered, Laura’s husband (Gene Barry) is arrested. Laura hires Perry (Raymond Burr) to serve as his attorney.
At first, this movie felt weird to me because it didn’t seem right for Perry to have an ex-girlfriend when we all know that he and Della (Barbara Hale) were in love. When Laura is at the office waiting to see Perry, she and Della have a conversation and it’s obvious that each is jealous of the other. When Laura asks, “What about you and Perry?,” Perry shows up before Della can answer. We all know what the answer was though. Della loves Perry and, probably because she was so upset over Perry dating Laura, she threw herself at Paul Drake, Sr. and that’s how we got Paul Drake, Jr.
As for Paul Drake, Jr. (William Katt), he flirts with two different women in this movie but he doesn’t get to do as much investigating as he did in the first few films. This movie is almost all Perry Mason interrogating people. Raymond Burr uses a cane in this movie and there’s a few scenes where it’s obvious that he was in pain but he still gives a very good performance. The movie is very talky but it also has the best courtroom confession scene yet and Raymond Burr really sells Perry’s ambivalent feelings. The identity of the killer actually took me by surprise!
It was weird to see Perry in love with someone oter than Della but this was still an excellent entry in the series.
Publisher Chris Thorne (Chevy Chase) is eager to get to know lawyer Diane Lightson (Demi Moore) so he agrees to drive her and two Brazilian hangers-on from Manhattan to New Jersey. The Brazilians encourage Chris to take a detour, which leads to him running a stop sign, getting into a high-speed chase with chief of police Dennis Valkenheiser (John Candy), and being detained in the dilapidated village of Valkhenheiser. Dennis decides to leave town with the Brazilians, leaving Chris and Diane to face the wrath of 106 year-old Judge Alvin “J.P” Valkenheiser (Dan Aykroyd). Judge Valkenheiser has spent decades killing anyone who breaks the law in his village, though he also kills anyone who he just dislikes. The Judge assumes Chris is a banker (and he hates bankers) and is prepared to kill him unless he marries the Judge’s granddaughter, Eldona (John Candy, in drag). This town is nothing but trouble and Chris and Diane have to escape.
Nothing But Trouble was both the directorial debut and swan song for Dan Aykroyd. (Aykroyd also wrote the script, from a story that was written by his brother, Peter.) The film was an notorious box office bomb and watching, it’s easy to see why. The story is all over the place, awkwardly mixing humor and horror. Anyone who has seen the early seasons of Saturday Night Live knows that young Dan Aykroyd was one of the funniest people around but, when it comes to the movies, he’s always worked better with a collaborator than on his own. As a director, Aykroyd throws a little bit of everything into Nothing But Trouble and the movie feels overstuffed.
As an actor, though, Aykroyd is funny. Whatever laughs are to be found in Nothing But Trouble are largely the result of his performance as the Judge. Chevy Chase seems bored. Demi Moore actually gives a decent performance but she plays her role straight. John Candy is likable as Dennis but too cartoonish as Eldona. Aykroyd, however, so commits himself to playing the 106 year-old judge that he wrings laughs from even the weakest of lines. Criticize Aykroyd the director all you want, Aykroyd the actor delivers.
One final note: The rap group Digital Underground makes a cameo appearance as themselves, performing in the Judge’s courtroom after getting arrested for speeding. When I was watching Chevy Chase mugging for the camera and Dan Aykroyd walking around hunched over, I hardly expected to see a young Tupac Shakur suddenly show up but he did. Digital Underground’s cameo is one of the film’s better moments, even if they don’t perform The Humpty Dance.
Billy the Kid (Bob Steele) escapes from a Mexican prison (where he was being held on a trumped-up charge) and ends up in Corral City, Texas with his old friend, Fuzzy Jones (Al St. John). This version of Billy the Kid may be an outlaw but he’s a really nice outlaw. He holds up two men who had previously held up a express wagon but he turns over the loot after he and Fuzzy are appointed the new law in Corral City. The bad outlaws don’t want Billy the Kid or anyone else as their new sheriff so they bring in a notorious gunslinger (Carleton Young) to help them keep the town under their control but it turns out that Billy and the gunslinger have a past that no one knew about.
Bob Steele played Billy the Kid in a series of films, until Buster Crabbe took over the role in 1942. Steele was a convincing cowboy and a convincing gunman but he wasn’t a convincing kid. Of course, this version of Billy the Kid didn’t have much in common with the real Billy the Kid. The movie version of Billy the Kid got into a lot of trouble but it was usually due to a misunderstanding.
Billy the Kid In Texas is definitely a Poverty Row western. It looks cheap and it was cheap but it did feature a good fight scene between Bob Steele and Charles King and the relationship between Billy the Kid and Carleton Young’s gunslinger also added some extra dimension to the otherwise predictable story. This film is okay for western fans who aren’t sticklers for historical accuracy.
“Is there anything better than punching somebody in the face who’s got it coming?” — Braxton
The Accountant 2 plunges back into the offbeat world of Christian Wolff, Ben Affleck’s autistic accounting savant who wields a calculator and a combat prowess with equal deadliness. Directed by Gavin O’Connor, the sequel reunites Christian with his wayward brother Braxton (Jon Bernthal) as they unravel a conspiracy triggered by the murder of FinCEN director Raymond King (J.K. Simmons), pulling in agent Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) for a tense alliance. It cranks up the action and brotherly banter from the 2016 original, delivering bursts of gritty fun, but bogs down in bloated plotting and uneven tone that dilute its punchy premise.
The story explodes open with King’s brutal assassination, his dying message—”find the accountant”—dragging Christian out of his trailer-bound solitude. Medina taps Wolff’s uncanny financial insight to sift through King’s jumbled clues, tracing a trail from a pizza parlor’s money-laundering scheme to a vicious human trafficking ring straddling the Juarez border. A sleek assassin named Anaïs (Daniella Pineda) haunts the edges, her fragmented memories linking to Christian’s murky history, while Braxton joins for brawn and levity, transforming the probe into a chaotic sibling odyssey. The narrative sprawls across factories, motels, and hacker dens, blending forensic number-crunching with explosive confrontations, though it piles on subplots—like selfie-stalking tech whizzes and cartel infighting—that strain coherence without sharp resolutions.
Affleck deepens Christian’s portrayal, blending rigid logic with flashes of wry humor that feel more lived-in than the first film’s stiffness. He shines in quirky beats, like speed-dating disasters fueled by probabilistic algorithms or spotting fiscal fraud in pizza dough sales, then enforcing confessions with a vicious finger-twist. Yet the character teeters into trope territory, his neurodivergence often serving as shorthand for unstoppable violence rather than a nuanced lens on isolation. Bernthal dominates as Braxton, his raw charisma and emotional cracks—vulnerable confessions evolving into rowdy bar dances teaching Christian social flow—infuse the film with infectious warmth. Their rooftop schemes and escort-aided stakeouts pulse with buddy-movie spark, a major merit that carries weaker stretches.
Action remains the film’s powerhouse, surpassing the original in raw ferocity if not elegance. The pizza factory brawl erupts from interrogation into a whirlwind of pipes, knives, and improvised carnage, while garage pursuits and a border compound siege unleash R-rated savagery—precise headshots, joint-snapping grapples, even a sniper duel echoing thriller classics. O’Connor’s practical stuntwork and sweaty cinematography ground the chaos effectively, with a throbbing score that heightens tension without flash. These sequences thrill, but the climax devolves into a generic bullet storm, missing the original warehouse fight’s balletic intimacy, and the 132-minute runtime drags amid repetitive cop-agenta standoffs.
Medina’s arc offers steady grit, as Addai-Robinson charts her shift from protocol-bound skeptic to off-book partner, her rapport with Christian adding subtle friction to the bromance. Simmons maximizes his opener, fending off thugs in a dive bar before a fatal shot, nailing a tone of immediate peril. Pineda’s Anaïs cuts a striking figure—poised killer grappling with resurfaced trauma—but her threat fizzles, undermined by sparse buildup and a rushed tie-in to the brothers’ past. Lesser foes like the greasy pizza kingpin or border thug Tomas propel the plot competently yet forgettably, while Christian’s handler Justine (Annie Oosterom) doles out remote wisdom that’s underutilized.
At its core, The Accountant 2 wrestles with family bonds and hidden pains, pitting Christian’s analytical shell against Braxton’s impulsive soul in redemption-tinged flashbacks. Lighter quirks—honky-tonk flirtations, cat cameos, goofy T-shirts—humanize without diluting the edge, crafting a playful hyperviolence that charms in detours like smart-home hacks gone absurd. These merits shine brightest in hangout vibes, where meandering chats and line dances breathe life into the formula. Failures creep in through diluted quirks: the accounting genius takes a backseat to rote crime-thriller beats, cartel clichés overwhelm the fresh oddity, and pacing lurches from taut kills to listless exposition.
Technical craft holds firm, with O’Connor’s no-frills visuals capturing industrial grime and motel seediness, favoring tangible impacts over CGI gloss. The R-rating justifies itself via unflinching gore and profanity, satisfying gorehounds, though humor occasionally jars—like trailer quips amid slaughter—disrupting tonal balance. Compared to the debut’s sleeper surprise, this entry coasts on familiarity, expanding the Wolff mythos with teases of future clashes but lacking the tight ingenuity that sparked cult love.
The Accountant 2 succeeds as a rowdy sequel when leaning on its stars’ chemistry, visceral fights, and odd-couple heart, making it a blast for action cravings. It falters, however, in overreaching scope, diluting Christian’s uniqueness amid familiar shadows and slack momentum. Solid for fans seeking sibling sparks and calculated brutality, it lands as entertaining excess rather than essential evolution—catch it for the highs, forgive the math that doesn’t quite balance.
In NOWHERE TO RUN, Jean-Claude Van Damme plays Sam Gillen, a recently escaped convict who finds himself hiding on the outer edges of a rural farm owned by widowed mother Clydie Anderson (Rosanna Arquette) and her two children, Mookie and Bree (Kieran Culkin and Tiffany Taubman). Through a variety of circumstances, Sam learns that a ruthless developer, Franklin Hale (Joss Ackland), and his enforcer Mr. Dunston (Ted Levine), are trying to force all of the farmers to sell their land, using violence if necessary. When bad guys show up one night and threaten Clydie and her kids, Sam emerges from the woods and kicks their asses. Soon Sam finds himself fighting off more of Hale’s goons, romancing the beautiful widow and becoming more emotionally connected to the kids. With his past closing in, Sam decides to do whatever it takes to protect Clydie and her kids, even if that costs him his freedom.
The late 80’s and early 90’s saw the emergence of two new action stars… Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme. As a constant patron of our local video stores, I was there at the beginning of their careers and rented each of their new movies as they became available. Van Damme would establish himself in hit films like BLOODSPORT (1988), KICKBOXER (1989), DEATH WARRANT (1990) and UNIVERSAL SOLDIER (1992). As a big fan, I found myself in a movie theater in January of 1993 to watch his latest film, NOWHERE TO RUN.
With a plot that resembles an old western… a man corrupted by wealth tries to force a widow off her land until a kind-hearted drifter steps in… NOWHERE TO RUN isn’t trying to reinvent the action genre, but it does give Van Damme a different kind of role. His Sam Gillen isn’t a wisecracking action hero or an unstoppable martial artist. Rather, he’s a flawed man with a particular set of skills who’s looking for redemption. I think Van Damme plays that soulful weariness better than most would give him credit for. Rosanna Arquette brings a credible presence to this genre film that helps sell the relationship between her and Van Damme, and the presence of her kids, also amps up the stakes and gives the story a genuine sense of vulnerability. When Sam decides to fight back, it’s not to protect himself, but to protect people worth standing up for. That motivation helps make the film more engaging than you might normally expect from an early 90’s action film.
Speaking of action, NOWHERE TO RUN doesn’t feature a ton of action, but what it does have is effective. The early sequence where Van Damme’s character initially steps in to help the terrorized family is especially strong. There are several additional fight sequences and a prolonged motorcycle chase to provide some entertainment, but don’t expect wall-to-wall action or you could be disappointed. Joss Ackland (LETHAL WEAPON 2) and Ted Levine (THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS) are suitably nasty villains so we definitely want to see them get their comeuppances, and the film effectively obliges. I also like the fact that NOWHERE TO RUN is set out on a rural farm. This setting enhances its “western” feel, and I certainly appreciate that unique element for an action film of this era.
At the end of the day, I enjoyed NOWHERE TO RUN when I watched it in the movie theater back in 1993, and I enjoyed it again today. It’s certainly not flashy and action packed like HARD TARGET or TIMECOP, but it is a solid, and surprisingly emotional Van Damme film. I recommend it.
Today’s scene that I love comes from the 1985 film, Rambo: First Blood Part II. In this scene, Sylvester Stallone’s John Rambo — having survived being abandoned yet again in Vietnam — let’s the CIA knew exactly what he thinks about their operation. As directed by George Pan Cosmatos and performed by Stallone, this scene is pure 80s action.
If you ever meet James Cameron, remind him that he wrote the script for this film and see how he reacts.
4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Today, we celebrate the birth of director George Pan Cosmatos! It’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 George Pan Cosmatos Films
The Cassandra Crossing (1976, dir by George Pan Cosmatos, DP: Ennio Guarnieri)
Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985, dir by George Pan Cosmatos, DP: Jack Cardiff)
Cobra (1986, dir. George Pan Cosmatos, DP: Ric Waite)
Leviathan (1989, dir by George Pan Cosmatos, DP: Alex Thomson)
Through the Shattered Lens 