The Films of 2024: Bob Marley: One Love (dir by Reinaldo Marcus Green)

Posted on May 10, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Bob Marley: One Love opens in 1976. With Jamaica torn by political violence, Reggae superstar and devout Rastafari Bob Marley (Kingsley Ben-Adir) announces that he will be holding a concert for peace. When Marley, his wife Rita (Lashana Lynch), and several members of the band are shot in a home invasion, a disillusioned Marley sends his wife and children to stay with his mother in Delaware and then heads to London with his band.

The majority of Bob Marley: One Love centers around the years that Marley spent outside of Jamaica. In London, Marley struggles to come up with a concept his new album, finally finding inspiration in the soundtrack for Otto Preminger’s Exodus. Marley explains his philosophy and Rastafari beliefs to journalists and listeners, many of whom are shocked by Marley’s claim to not care about money. With more and more countries declaring their independence and freeing themselves from colonialism, Marley makes plans to perform in Africa and to spread his message of love and freedom. Rita, who eventually rejoins Bob when he tells her that he cannot create his music without her presence, tells Bob that he needs to return to Jamaica and perform his peace concert. Bob remains stubborn but when he’s diagnosed with a rare-form of cancer, he realizes that it’s time for him to return to his home and not just preach about peace and forgiveness but to extend it as well.

Musical biopics have been all the rage since the release of Bohemian Rhapsody and Bob Marley: One Love features enough of Marley’s music that it’s not surprising that the film was a crowd-pleaser when it was released in February. The film was clearly made by people who loved Marley’s music. Kingsley Ben-Adir has a strong screen presence and gives a charismatic performance as Bob but, for whatever reason, Bob Marley remains something of a distant figure throughout the film. We learn a bit about what motivated Bob Marley as a musician and as an activist but we still don’t really feel that we get to know him as a person. (Nor does the film delve too deeply into the details of Marley’s Rastafari beliefs, presenting it as being more about good vibes than a belief in the divinity of Ethiopia’s emperor, Haile Selassie I.) The film hits all of the expected biopic plot points like clockwork. It’s almost too efficient for its own good, lacking any of the spontaneity that makes real life so memorable. It leaves the viewer very much aware that they’re watching a well-made film.

But, one might be justified in dismissing that as just being nit-picking. The film is full of Marley’s music and it ends with a good deal of archival footage that allows the viewer to see both Bob Marley’s real-life charisma and the joy that he took in performing. As I said, the film is a crowd pleaser. While it doesn’t quite provide the insight into Marley’s life that Rocketman did for Elton John, it’s still a better-made and less cynical production than Bohemian Rhapsody. Even if the film is a bit too conventional for its own good, the love of the music still comes through.

The Rough Tough West (1952, directed by Ray Nazarro)

Posted on May 10, 2024 by Jedadiah Leland

Steve Holden (Charles Starrett) is hired by an old friend, Jack Mahoney (played by Jock Mahoney), to serve as the sheriff of a frontier town. Steve soon discovers that his old friend has been corrupted by power and is plotting to cheat the locals out of their land and the gold that the land holds. Despite their friendship, Steve knows that Jack has to be stopped and made to see the errors of his way. It’s a good thing that Steve is secretly the Durango Kid and that his old sidekick, Smiley Burnette, is the town’s police chief. But even if Jack Mahoney does eventually see the error of his ways, will it be soon enough to stop his out-of-control henchmen?

This was one of the last of the Durango Kid films and it’s heavy on stock footage and Smiley Burnette musical numbers. It has all of the usual horse chases and gunfights but making the villain an old friend of the Durango Kid adds a little more emotional weight to this entry than some of the other Durango Kid films. As always, Charles Starrett is a strong western hero and Smiley Burnette’s antics are nowhere nearly as annoying as the antics of some of the other western sidekicks who were populating matinee movie screens in 1952. Western fans should enjoy this fast-paced and undemanding film.

This is not the first time that Jock Mahoney played a friend of the Durango Kid who is named Jack Mahoney, though I think the Jack Mahoney who appeared in Pecos River, Junction City, Smokey Canyon, The Hawk of Wild River, and The Kid From Broken Gun was meant to be a different character than the one who appeared in The Rough, Tough West. If Smiley Burnette could have a rotating cast of musicians who followed him from town-to-town, then the Durango Kid could very well have known multiple Jack Mahoneys.

The Films of 2024: The Beautiful Game (dir by Thea Sharrock)

Posted on May 9, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

When we first see Vinny (Michael Ward), he is watching a group of children play soccer. (Yes, I know that both this movie and the rest of the world calls it football. I grew up calling it soccer.) He looks at the jerseys of the players and provides a running commentary as they play. “We’ve got David Beckham, we’ve got a big Messi, we’ve got a little Messi, we’ve got a classic Brazilian Messi….” Finally, Vinny runs out onto the field and kicks the ball himself until the parents of the children tell him to go away.

Watching Vinny is a legendary scout named Mal Bradley (Bill Nighy). Mal approaches Vinny and convinces to come meet his “dream team,” a collection of homeless men who all play soccer. Mal explains that the men are going to be representing England at the annual Homeless World Cup tournament in Rome. Teams made up of homeless from all over the world will be competing. Mal explains that it’s not all about winning. It’s about giving the players a chance to prove something to themselves. Mal reveals that he wants Vinny to join the team. Vinny announces that he’s not homeless. He has a job. He has a family. Vinny then goes to the car in which he is currently living.

Eventually, Vinny changes his mind and agrees to accompany the team to Rome. The team is welcoming but Vinny still struggles to open up to them. Some of it is due to his pride. Unlike his teammates, Vinny actually did once play professional soccer, though not for long. Some of it is due to Vinny being in denial about his status as a homeless person. When a teammate opens up about being a recovering heroin addict, Vinny leaves the room. When one player reveals that he’s a compulsive gambler and another talks about his own failures as a father, Vinny tries to change the subject. What Vinny doesn’t know is that he and Mal have a past connection, one that has left Mal wracked with guilt.

There’s a lot going on in The Beautiful Game. The film focuses on Vinny, Mal, and England’s team but it also finds room for subplots involving the Italian team, the South African team, the American team, and the Japanese team. Adlar (Robin Nazari), a Kurdish refugee who plays for England, has to decide whether to play against a team led by a player who was on the opposite side of the Syrian Civil War. Sister Protasia (Susan Wokoma), coach of the South African team, struggles to get a visa for one of her players. Rosita (Christina Rodlo) of the American team hopes to play well enough to receive a college scholarship. Mika (Aoi Okuyama), the young coach of the Japanese team, struggles to inspire her older players. It can sometimes be difficult to keep track of it all but, at the same time, it does capture the idea of the Homeless World Cup being a truly international event, one that gives hope and opportunity to people across the world. For Rosita and Vinny, the competition is a way to change the direction of their lives. For the Japanese team, the competition is way to see the world and enjoy themselves. And for Mal, the competition is a chance to give something back to the game that he loves.

The Beautiful Game is overlong and a bit overstuffed but it still occasionally brought tears to my mismatched eyes. It’s a film with a big heart but enough of an edge that it avoids the trap of being overly sentimental. It’s a well-acted film, especially by Michael Ward and Bill Nighy. In the end, I think my favorite performances came from Aoi Okuyama and the members of the Japanese team. Early on, they say that all they want to do is score one goal against another team. When they do, their joy is infectious. One might even say it’s beautiful.

Enemy (1990, directed by George Rowe)

Posted on May 9, 2024 by Jedadiah Leland

At the height of the Vietnam War, CIA agent Ken Andrews (Peter Fonda) disguises himself as a French journalist, slips into North Vietnam, assassinates a VC general, and then makes his escape into the jungle. Unfortunately, the helicopter that was meant to take Ken to safety is blown up, leaving Ken stranded in the jungle with a beautiful Chinese spy named Mai Chang (Tia Carrere).

With the VC after both of them, Ken and Mai will have to set aside their initial enmity and work together to make it out of North Vietnam. In between endless scenes of the two of them making their way through the jungle, there are battle scenes where the VC manage to shoot everything except for the two people that they’re after.

This cheap film was shot in 1988 but it sat on the shelf for two years. The script, which attempts to be a rumination on the nature of war, feels as if it was written even earlier. It will always be strange to me how Peter Fonda went from starring as bikers and aging hippies in films like Easy Rider and The Wild Angels to playing CIA agents and military officers in films like this one. Peter Fonda was a stiff actor but, in this case, it works for his character, who, after all, is meant to be a man who has to keep his emotions under control. Tia Carrere is beautiful and seems to be trying really hard to give a convincing performance despite being miscast as a grim spy. Fonda and Carrere do have a surprising amount of chemistry together. The romance that develops between them actually feels believable.

Enemy suffers from too much padding. It’s a two-person show and those two people spend a lot of time walking through the jungle. Some of the action scenes are exciting and the idea of an American spy falling in love with a Chinese spy is interesting but the ending, while action-packed, still feels like a cop out that’s designed to give Ken an easy out. You can almost hear Ken thinking to himself, “I really dodged a bullet there.”

Concert Film Review: Pink Floyd: Live in Venice (dir by Wayne Isham and Egbert van Hees)

Posted on May 9, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’m actually a bit embarrassed to say that Venice is my favorite city in Italy.

I mean, it’s such a cliché, isn’t it? Tourists always fall in love with Venice, even though the majority of us really don’t know much about the city beyond the canals and the gondolas. I spent a summer in Italy and Venice was definitely the city that had the most American visitors. Sadly, the majority of them didn’t do a very good job representing the U.S. in Europe. I’ll never forget the drunk frat boys who approached me one night, all wearing University of Texas t-shirts. One of them asked, “Are you from Texas?”

“No, sweetie, ah’m from up north.” I lied.

“You sound like you’re from Texas!” his friend said.

“No, ah’m not from Texas,” I said, “Sorry, y’all.”

I mean, that’s not something that would have happened in Florence or even Naples! In Rome, handsome men on motor scooters gave me flowers. In Venice, on the other hand, I had to deal with the same jerks that I dealt with back home!

That said, I still fell in love with Venice. And yes, it did happen while I was riding in a gondola. At that moment, I felt like I was living in a work of art. I can still remember looking over the side of the gondola and watching as a small crab ran across someone’s front porch. That’s when I realized that, by its very existence, Venice proved that anything was possible.

I’ve often heard that Venice is slowly sinking. That Venice has a reputation as being a dying city would probably have come to a surprise to the drunk Americans who were just looking for a girl from Texas that summer. And it would certainly come as a surprise to anyone who watched the 1989 concert film, Pink Floyd Live In Venice.

Just as with last week’s Pink Floyd concert in Pompeii, this was something that I watched more because of where it took place than who was performing. There are some very good Pink Floyd songs and there are others that are just silly and overly portentous. As well, I’ll always have mixed feelings about Pink Floyd due to the fact that — bleh! — Roger Waters was a founding member. Whenever I hear any of their songs, I automatically find myself looking for coded moments of anti-Semitism. Fortunately, by the time the band played in Venice, Waters had left the group. As a result, I didn’t feel quite as conflicted over watching the Venice concert as I did the Pompeii concert.

As for the show, the band performed while floating on a barge while some members of the audience sat in gondolas. It was a lovely sight that captured the otherworldly romance of Venice. The concert itself was a bit uneven, with the first half in particular dominated by songs that just seemed to go on and on and which often exposed the limits of lead singer David Gilmour’s vocal range. The second half was a greatest hits collection and it was a notable improvement. If Gilmour’s raspy vocals seemed limited during the first half of the concert, they were perfect for songs like Comfortably Numb and Money. The highlight of the concert and the film was undoubtedly the performance of The Great Gig In The Sky, which created a feeling of the heavens descending upon Venice.

In the end, Venice was the true star of the concert. For a dying city, it looked beautiful and vibrant. I can’t wait to return.

The Films of 2024: One More Shot (dir by James Nunn)

Posted on May 8, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s the night of the President’s State of the Union address and it appears that someone is planning to blow up the capital and spare everyone from having to sit through it. (Personally, I’ve always found the pomp and circumstance surrounding the State of the Union address to be the opposite of what the Founding Fathers probably envisioned. Presidents should go back to just sending Congress a note at the start of the year.) Unfortunately, the bomb itself is radioactive so, though Americans will be spared the speech, Washington D.C. will still be reduced to an atomic wasteland. Canceling the speech and the special Congressional session seems like an obvious solution but the President’s approval ratings are tanking and he’s hoping a good State of the Union will energize his reelection campaign.

Navy SEAL Jake Harris (Scott Adkins) has been tasked with escorting terrorist suspect Amin Mansur (Waleed Elgadi) from Poland to Washington so that CIA director Mike Marshall (Tom Berenger, looking generally annoyed) can interrogate Mansur about the location of the bomb. A Baltimore airport has been cleared out so that Mansur can be transferred to FBI custody with as little attention as possible. Marshall takes a few minutes to yell at Jake, because this is an action film and action heroes always get yelled at by their superiors. No sooner has Jake been yelled at then a bunch of mercenaries attack the airport. It turns out that they also want Mansur and they’re willing to kill everyone in the airport to both get him and to make sure that the bomb is properly delivered.

Jake finds himself fighting for his life and also in the position of having to protect the terrorist that he brought to America. However, as the night progresses, Jake discovers that Mansur is not the terrorist mastermind that he assumed and that the mercenaries are working for an enemy who is very close to home.

One More Shot is a sequel to 2021’s One Shot and, like that film, it’s shot and edited to make it appear as if the action is playing out in one continuous take. The camera never seems to stop roaming through the airport, occasionally catching a mercenary or sometimes even Jake hiding in the shadows and waiting for a chance to attack. It’s a gimmick but it’s an undeniably effective gimmick, one that is especially well-used in the film’s many battle scenes and which keeps the audience on its toes. One More Shot has some of the most effective gunfights that I’ve recently seen and a lengthy sequence where Jake, Mansur, and a few others attempts to drive their way through a gauntlet of mercenaries is as genuinely exciting as anything you’d expect to find in an action film with bigger budget.

In the end, One More Shot feels like a video game come to life, with everything that implies. One More Shot is an unapologetic action film, which is to say that this is not the film to watch if you’re looking for extensive character development or a nuanced debate about terrorism and American foreign policy. We don’t really find out much about Jake Harris, other than the fact that he’s a good shot and he’s not easily intimidated. Of course, that’s all we really need to know. It’s an exiting 100 minutes and that’s all that it really needs to be.

Real Men (1987, directed by Dennis Feldman)

Posted on May 8, 2024 by Jedadiah Leland

Due to a chemical spill that is spreading through the ocean, life on Earth is going to end in five years unless something is done. A group of friendly alien offer to give Earth either the “Good Package” or the “Big Gun.” The Good Package can clean up the ocean. The Big Gun is a big gun. They both sound good to me! The aliens only want a glass of water in return and they want that glass to be delivered by CIA Agent Pillbox.

Unfortunately, Pillbox has been killed in the field so the government tracks down a meek office worker named Bob Wilson (John Ritter) who looks just like Pillbox. Tough and streetwise Nick Pirandello (Jim Belushi) is sent to recruit Bob and take him to the aliens. Trying to stop Nick and Bob are a group of rogue CIA agents who would rather get the Big Gun than the Good Package. Nick teaches Bob how to be a “real man” and Bob teaches Nick how to be a real friend. They also beat up clowns.

A box office failure that did even worse with the critics, Real Men is a movie that was saved by cable. When I was a kid, Real Men used to show up on HBO all the time. Whatever flaws the film may have had, the mix of John Ritter’s physical comedy, Jim Belushi’s wiseguy attitude, and the action scenes made it the type of movie that was ideal for home viewing, especially if you had just gotten out of school and wanted to watch something before your parents came home and asked if you had done your homework. Real Men was fun enough to hold up to repeat viewings but it was also slight enough that it wasn’t a huge tragedy if the channel got changed before the movie ended.

When I rewatched Real Men, I thought the film’s storytelling could have been tighter but it still turned out to be better than I was expecting. There were a lot of classic buddy movies released in the 80s and while Real Men may not be the equivalent of a 48 Hours or a Midnight Run, John Ritter and Jim Belushi are still an entertainingly mismatched team. Ritter again shows that he was a master at physical comedy while Belushi provides sarcastic commentary from the side. A lot of the odd couple-style banter is predictable (Bob doesn’t smoke but Nick does) but Ritter and Belushi deliver their lines with enough conviction to still make it work. Nick teaches Bob to believe in himself and Bob is able to both save the world and tell off the neighborhood bullies. The film’s mix of action, science fiction, and broad comedy confounded critics in 1987 but it holds up today.

The Eric Roberts Collection: The Rebels of PT-218 (dir by Nick Lyon)

Posted on May 8, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2021 film, The Rebels of PT-218, takes place in 1943.

At the height of World War II, the Allies are on the verge of invading Italy and moving into Europe. General Omar Bradley (played by William Baldwin, who looks like Alec but sounds like Stephen) orders the SS Lawton, a small torpedo boat to help secure the port of Solano. It won’t be easy. The Atlantic Ocean is full of German U-boats and the Lawton is built to move cargo, not fight battles. But the Lawton is still the most powerful boat in the area and General Bradley believes in the abilities of the Lawton’s commander, Lt. William Snow (Eric Roberts).

However, Snow is eager to get into combat and defeat the Germans. In fact, he’s so gung ho to fight that some of Bradley’s assistants feel that Lt. Snow’s judgment can’t be trusted. Commander Barnes (Noah Blake) tells Ensign Kenneth Ford (Geoff Meed) to keep an eye on Snow and do everything he can to keep Lt. Snow on track.

The men of the SS Lawton, meanwhile, just want to man the guns, launch the torpedoes, and stop the Germans. They’re from all over the United States but they’ll be familiar to anyone who has ever seen a war film. Some of them are naive. Some of them are cocky and streetwise. One of them is played by Danny Trejo! Trejo plays Cookie, a former gunner turned cook. He delights in serving chorizos for dinner. Cookie has a mustache and a pony tail, which definitely do not feel like they would be within Navy regulations. After Cookie is wounded in action, a crewman tosses Cookie a machete and Trejo smiles like a man who has waited his entire life for that exact moment.

Historical accuracy? Who needs historical accuracy when you’ve got Danny Trejo and Eric Roberts in the same movie? Obviously, both Roberts and Trejo are a bit too old for their roles. Cookie would have probably retired from the Navy long before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. As for Roberts, one has to worry about any officer who is clearly in his 70s and still hasn’t achieved a rank higher than lieutenant. When Snow expresses his ambition to be promoted, you have to wonder if he’s hoping to be the world’s oldest admiral.

This film is an attempt to do an epic war story on a budget and it doesn’t quite work. One never feels that any of the characters are waking up everyday with the knowledge that this could be the day that they die. The ship and all of the characters are remarkably clean and fresh-faced throughout the film, with none of the grime nor grit that would have given the story a realistic edge. That said, Danny Trejo gets a few good lines and it’s always fun to watch Eric Roberts play an authority figure. In the end, the important thing is that America won.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

The Films of 2024: Lights Out (dir by Christian Sesma)

Posted on May 7, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Duffy (Frank Grillo) is haunted by the past. When he was serving in the U.S. military, he watched as his friends and fellow soldiers were killed in battle. Now that he’s back in America, he’s haunted by the memories and the trauma has left him incapable of finding peace. He’s angry and paranoid and restless. He drifts around the country, making whatever money that he can as a gambler. But when a poker game at a Los Angeles roadhouse leads to a physical confrontation, Duffy is offered a new opportunity.

Max (Mekhi Phifer) watches as Duffy defends himself and is impressed with what he sees. Max is a ex-con who works as a recruiter for underground fight clubs. Max recognizes the source of Duffy’s anger because Max’s brother was also a veteran who returned to America carrying the mental and physical scars of war. Max feels that he failed his brother but maybe he can make up for it by saving Duffy’s life. Max recruits Duffy as a fighter and gives him a place to live. Duffy and Max soon find themselves in conflict with an evil gym owner (Dermot Mulroney, making the most of a rare villainous role) and a corrupt cop (Jaime King) who is secretly in charge of the town’s underground fight scene.

Lights Out is a fast-paced and occasionally self-aware B-movie. I always find movies like this fascinating because they present a world where there’s an underground fight club located in every backroom and lumber yard. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that there aren’t underground fight clubs. I’m sure they’re out there and I’m sure that there are some dangerous people involved in promoting them. I’m just saying that I kind of suspect that there might not be as many of them as there tends to be in the movies. I always find it interesting that so many underground fight clubs seem to have a “fight until the death” rule. I mean, it seems to me that would cause you to quickly run out of fighters. I also wonder what people do when they want to start an underground fight club but they don’t have access to an abandoned warehouse or any acquaintances in the Russian Mafia. I guess those people are just screwed.

While Mulroney and King definitely make an impression as the two over-the-top villains, Lights Out is dominated by Frank Grillo. Grillo has been lucky enough to be blessed with a down-to-Earth screen presence that allows him to be likable while also leaving little doubt that he is someone who can handle himself in a fight. He has the weathered good looks of some one who has seen some things but who hasn’t yet surrendered his humanity. He’s like the modern day version of one of those wonderful character actors who used to populate the gangster movies of the 1930s. Grillo’s tough sincerity and streetwise persona is well-used here. John Garfield had his Body and Soul. Frank Grillo has his Lights Out.

Mission of Justice (1992, directed by Steve Barnett)

Posted on May 7, 2024 by Jedadiah Leland

Suspended from the police force because he does thing his way and doesn’t follow the book, martial artist Kurt Harris (Jeff Wincott) joins the Peacekeepers, a Guardian Angel-like group that is led by Dr. Rachel K. Larkin (Brigitte Nielsen). Larkin is running for mayor on a law-and-order platform. Just as the Peacekeepers have protected the local bodegas, Dr. Larkin will clean up the streets.

Kurt has a reason beyond just bitterness for joining the Peacekeepers. Kurt suspects that the Peacekeepers is actually a criminal enterprise and that they are responsible for the murder of his mentor, Cedric Williams (Tony Burton, who does not throw the damn towel when confronted by the bad guys).

There were some good fight scenes and the idea of the Peacekeepers hiding their crimes behind their vigilante activities was an interesting one. The Peacekeepers were obviously based on New York’s Guardian Angels and it’s interesting that both the leader of the Angels and the leader of the Peacekeepers ended up running for mayor. Of course, Curt Sliwa’s campaign was not as destructive or evil as Dr. Larkin’s. In fact, I wasn’t really sure why Dr. Larkin was running for mayor, out of all the things that she could have done with her money and her paramilitary force.

Brigitte Nielsen always makes a good villain and the movie also features dependable straight-to-video action mainstays like Matthias Hues, Luca Bercovivi, and Karen Sheperd. Unfortunately, Jeff Wincott was always one of the blandest of the 90s second tier action heroes, lacking the charisma of a Dolph Lundgren, a Jean-Claude Van Damme, or even as Steven Seagal. Wincott was the star you called only after exhausting every attempt to sign Lorenzo Lamas. Wincott is convincing when he’s throwing a punch or kicking someone in the face but when he has to show emotion or deliver dialogue, the movie come to a halt.

With a more charismatic star, Mission of Justice could have been a B-classic but instead, it’s just another forgettable straight-to-video action movie.