Category Archives: Film Review

Film Review: Father Stu (dir by Rosalind Ross)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I don’t care what all the other critics said when Father Stu was first released in April.  It’s not that bad.

Now, of course, I should be upfront and mention that I come from a Catholic background.  My father’s side of the family is Irish.  My mother’s side is Italian/Spanish.  Am I saying that you have to have been raised Catholic to appreciate Father Stu?  Not at all.  But it does help.

And when I say that Father Stu is not that bad, what I mean is that’s actually pretty good.

Based on a true story, Father Stu stars Mark Wahlberg as Stuart Long.  When the movie opens, Stu is in a boxing ring, beating up his opponents while taking a lot of punishment himself.  From that opening scene, we learn a few things about Stu.  He’s a fighter.  He’s determined.  He’s willing to take a beating.  And he really doesn’t know when to quit.  We then meet his no-nonsense mother, Kathleen (Jacki Weaver), and his father, Bill (Mel Gibson).  Bill is an alcoholic truck driver, the type who shouts at other drivers and who gets into an argument with a random child about who is the worse driver.

When Stu is informed that he could very well die if he continues to box, he decides that it’s time to pursue another profession.  The 30-something Stu announces to his mother that he’s going to be an actor.  He may not have any training but he has a lot of personality.  Stu’s mother suggests that it might be a little late in life for Stu to pursue a career as a film star but Stu packs up and leaves for Montana for California.

He does manage to land one gig, a commercial for a mop.  But Stu’s acting career never really takes off.  Instead, he gets a job working in a deli.  It’s there that he first spots Carmen (Teresa Ruiz), a Sunday school teacher.  When Carmen tells Stu that she wouldn’t even consider dating a man who was not baptized, Stu begins RCIA at the local parish.  Eventually, he’s baptized into the parish but it’s not until he’s nearly killed in a motorcycle accident and has a vision of Mary that he truly starts to believe.  He also comes to feel that he’s been called to the priesthood, despite the fact that it means ending his relationship with Carmen.  Stu enters the seminary, under the watchful eye of the initially skeptical but eventually supportive Monsignor Kelly (Malcolm McDowell).  However, Stu soon finds himself facing his greatest challenge when he’s diagnosed with inclusion body myositis, a disease that will eventually rob him of his ability to care for himself.

When Father Stu was first released in April, it received a lot of attention for being an R-rated film about faith.  But the fact that the characters frequently (and colorfully) curse is actually one of the best things about Father Stu.  People curse.  Both the religious and the non-religious curse.  Catholics especially curse.  When you find out that you have an incurable disease that’s going to kill you by the time you turn 50, you’re going to curse regardless of how much faith you may or may not have.  Far too many films about religion seem to take place in some strange world where the 50s never ended and people still say, “Darn,” when faced with the world’s problems.  To its credit, Father Stu‘s characters never lose their edge.

Father Stu also received a lot of negative attention for the involvement of Mel Gibson.  That’s understandable but, at the same time, there’s probably no contemporary actor who is more convincing as a self-destructive alcoholic than Mel Gibson.  For better or worse, Gibson brings a certain authenticity to the role and that authenticity is what a film like Father Stu needs.

In the lead role, Mark Wahlberg brings a lot of sincerity to the role of Stu.  When we’re first introduced to Stu, he’s earnest but he’s not particularly smart.  He doesn’t think things through.  He’s the type of guy who will work hard in his job without understanding that it’s still not a good idea to show up at work looking like you’ve spent the weekend fighting people in an alley for loose change.  As a result of Wahlberg’s performance, it’s easy to see why everyone in Stu’s life is skeptical when he announces that he’s going to become a priest.  However, it’s also due to his performance that Stu’s eventual transformation is undeniably moving.  Wahlberg’s rough-edged sincerity keeps the film from becoming overly mawkish after Stu discovers that he’s ill.  He remains a fighter from beginning to end and it’s hard not to want to see him win.

Father Stu is probably the epitome of the type of film that audiences love but critics hate.  But you know what?  Sometimes, the audiences are right and sometimes, critics try way too hard to be cynical.  Father Stu is a touching movie, one that serves as an antidote to the God’s Not Dead-style of movies about religion.  It’s a good movie that, like its protagonist, never stops fighting.

Friend of the Family II a.k.a. Passionate Revenge (1996, directed by Fred Olen Ray)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Alex Madison (Paul Michael Robinson) goes to New Orleans on business and spots the beautiful and sexy Linda (Shauna O’Brien) having a fight with her boyfriend at a local bar.  Alex introduces himself to Lind and offers to pay for her dinner.  Later, directed Fred Olen Ray mixes shots of them making love with shots of Mardi Gras happening right outside the bedroom window.

Linda falls in love with Alex and becomes clingy but Alex has a wife and newborn at home.  When Alex leaves Linda (and breaks up with her via a note) and returns home, Linda is heartbroken.  When Linda’s ex finds out about the affair and shoots himself in the kitchen, Linda is outraged and decides to track Alex and his family down.  When Alex’s wife, Maddy (Jenna Bodnar), announces that she’s ready to go back to work and says that they will have to hire a nanny to look after the baby, Linda applies for the job.  Alex impresses Maddy by holding the baby and, more importantly, she doesn’t mention that she had a weekend affair with Maddy’s husband.  Alex comes home from work and is shocked to discover that Linda not only lives in his house but she’s also now best friends with his wife!  Linda is soon sexually blackmailing Alex while carrying on an affair with Linda’s horndog of a younger brother, Byron (Sid Farley).  Linda wants revenge against all of them.

This is a pretty typical example of the type of films that Cinemax used to air once the sun went down.  (There’s a reason why the network was once nicknamed Skinemax.)  I think anyone who grew up in the 90s has at least a few memories of watching these movies with the sound turned down low enough to not run the risk of waking up the adults in the house.  Fred Olen Ray was one of the main directors of these films and he certainly understood what his audience was expecting and, more often than not, he delivered.

That is certainly the case with Friend of the Family II, which is full of sex, violence, and not much else.  (It is also a sequel in name only so don’t worry about not being able to follow the plot if you haven’t seen the first Friend of the Family.)  As someone who casually cheats on his wife and is then shocked to discover that there are consequences for his actions, Alex is not exactly a likable or sympathetic protagonist but most people watching this movie will be watching Shauna O’Brien, who goes all out in the role of Linda.  Linda is unhinged enough to demand sex from Alex while his wife is sleeping right next to him but also clever enough to worm her way into Alex’s family.  Fortunately, O’Brien is convincing no matter what she’s doing and she also brings some vulnerability to the role so Linda is sympathetic no matter how much she tries to destroy everyone’s live.

Friend of the Family II is currently on Tubi, under the name Passionate Revenge.  It will be best enjoyed by people who have nostalgic memories of late night Cinemax.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Urban Cowboy (dir by James Bridges)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched the 1980 film, Urban Cowboy.  This was a film that had been sitting on my DVR for over a year.  For some reason, I had never actually gotten around to watching it.  There were many times when I started to watch it but I always ended up stopping after a few minutes.  I was never quite sure why as everything that I had heard about the film was positive.  Having finally watched it last night, I think I hesitated because I instinctively knew that John Travolta would look silly wearing a cowboy hat.

And let’s just be honest.  He does.  I mean, Travolta actually gives a fairly good performance in Urban Cowboy.  He plays Bud, a kid from West Texas who moves to Houston so that he can work on an oil rig with his uncle, Bob (Barry Corbin).  At first, he only wants to stay in Houston long enough to raise the money to buy some land back home.  But, he soon falls in love with the Houston nightlife and the local country-western bar.  (He’s Travolta so, of course, he can dance.)  He also falls in love with and eventually marries Sissy (Debra Winger).

Travolta is believable as an impulsive young adult who might not be particularly smart but who makes up for it with a lot of determination.  And he even does an okay job when it comes to capturing the country accent of West Texas.  But that said, whenever he puts on that cowboy hat, the viewer is immediately reminded that Travolta is actually from New Jersey and probably never even attended a rodeo until he was cast in Urban Cowboy.  The hat feels like an affectation, an attempt by a city boy to be more country as opposed to a country boy trying to hold onto his identity in the city.  Ironically, the term “urban cowboy” has come to mean someone who, despite having never left the city, dresses like they’re heading out to herd the cattle and rope some steers.  However, in the film itself, the hat is meant to be a natural part of Bud’s persona but it never quite feels that way.

Far more credible as a cowboy is a youngish Scott Glenn, who plays Wes Hightower.  After Bud’s chauvinistic and abusive behavior drives Sissy away, she ends up with Wes.  Wes teaches Sissy how to ride a mechanical bull, which is something Bud tried to forbid her from doing.  Wes is confident and dangerously sexy and he can even make the fact that he lives in a run-down trailer work for him.  Unfortunately, Wes also turns out to be even more controlling and abusive than Bud.  Even though Bud still loves Sissy and Sissy still loves him, Bud soon hooks up with Pam (Madolyn Smith), the daughter of a wealthy oilman.

Many more complications follow and, of course, there’s one big tragedy that causes Bud to reexamine his life.  Not surprisingly, the film’s conclusion all comes down to who can stay on that mechanical bull for the longest….

The best thing that Urban Cowboy has going for it is not Travolta or Glenn but instead, it’s Debra Winger, who gives a believable and relatable performance as Sissy, playing her as someone who may not have much but who refuses to surrender her pride.  She knows that she deserves better than both Bud and Wes, even if she is hopelessly in love with one of them.  Winger has chemistry with both Travolta and Scott Glenn, which makes the film’s love triangle feel like something more than just a typical story about a girl who can’t resist a bad boy.  She grounds the film in reality and, as such, there are real stakes to the film’s story.  Thanks to Winger, Urban Cowboy becomes about something more than just a fight over a mechanical bull.

The second best thing that Urban Cowboy has going for it is that it does manage to capture the atmosphere of a good country-and-western bar.  It’s place where people go to relax after a hard day’s work.  Unlike the discotheques  that Travolta frequented in Saturday Night Fever, the bars in Urban Cowboy eschew glamour and artifice.  Instead, they’re all about proving yourself not on the dance floor but on the back of a mechanical bull.  For Sissy, the bull symbolizes freedom.  For men like Bud and Wes, it symbolizes survival.  Myself, I’m not a drinker so my bar experience is limited.  And, though I may be from Texas and I spent a lot of time in the country while I was growing up, I’ve never been a fan of country music.  That said, I’ve danced to a few country songs and I’ve certainly stopped by a few bars, even if I was usually the one who annoyed my family and friends by just asking for a glass of water.  I’ve been to the rodeo and I’ve seen people get trampled.  I’ve also seen a few people get tossed off a mechanical bull.  I’ve never been on a mechanical bull myself but I did buy one for my Sims.  (They loved it but, sadly, I had to get rid of it because they spent so much time riding it, they kept missing work and getting fired.)  From my limited experience, I can say that Urban Cowboy got most of the details right.  Even though it was made 42 years ago, it still feels authentic.

That said, Travolta still looks odd wearing a cowboy hat.

Film Review: Honk For Jesus. Save Your Soul. (dir by Adamma Ebo)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In Honk for Jesus Save Your Soul, Sterling K. Brown plays Lee-Curtis Childs, a once-popular and powerful preacher who is looking to make a comeback after his career and his church were both hit by a scandal.

Regina Hall plays Trinitie Childs, Lee-Curtis’s wife and the “first lady” of Wander The Great Paths Church.  She is just as determined as Lee-Curtis to make a comeback.

Together, they solve crimes!

Actually, they don’t.  They really don’t do much of anything, beyond trying and usually failing to talk people into returning to their church.  In archival footage, we see Lee-Curtis preaching the prosperity gospel and claiming that his faith in God is the reason why he not only has expensive clothes and a big house but that it is also the reason why he deserves them.  We see footage of Lee-Curtis in the past, condemning homosexuality from the pulpit but, in the present, Lee-Curtis seems to hit on almost every man that he meets.  Lee-Curtis is quick to smile and to speak of how he’s made his mistakes but he’s been forgiven by God.  At the same  time, he also always seems to be just one minute away from having a complete meltdown.

Trinitie spends her time trying to keep that meltdown from occurring.  She is someone who knows how to play the loving wife.  A meeting her mother establishes that being a loving wife is what Trinitie was raised to do.  It’s only in private that Trinitie reveals how difficult it is to be married to Lee-Curtis.  She wants the respect that comes from being married to a powerful man, enough so that she’ll even humiliate herself by standing on a street corner while holding a sign that requests for drivers to honk if they love Jesus.  When others attack her over her husband’s infidelities, she smiles and argues with them until she eventually reaches a point where she can smile no longer.

Regina Hall and Sterling K. Brown both give excellent performances, with Hall doing an especially good job of capturing Trinitie’s conflicting emotions over being the wife of Lee-Curtis Childs.  As played by Hall, Trinitie is someone who knows that she deserves better but who has also become addicted to the lifestyle that comes from being the first lady of a megachurch.  As such, she’ll do anything to help Lee-Curtis regain his former popularity.  While Lee-Curtis practices vapid sermons and wallows in self-pity, Trinitie is the one who is left to talk to the people that Lee-Curtis victimized.  Brown has the magnetism necessary to be credible as a man who could convince others that he was without sin.  Hall has the determination necessary to be credible as the power behind the pulpit.

Unfortunately, as good as both Hall and Brown are, the rest of the film is a complete mess.  It starts out as a mockumentary but then it includes scenes that are clearly not meant to have been filmed by the documentary film crew.  Unfortunately, there’s rarely any indication whether we’re watching a mockumentary scene or a “behind the scenes” scene and it’s left to the audience to sort out which is which.  Ultimately, the film’s main flaw is one that is shared by many films that have attempted to satirize the excesses of organized religion.  Honk for Jesus Save Your Soul doesn’t really bring anything new to the table.  At this point, is anyone shocked to discover that some pastors are corrupt?  Is anyone shocked to discover that religious people can also be hypocrites?  None of the criticism is quite as groundbreaking or shocking as the film seems to think that it is.  The movie feels like the equivalent of the atheist who thinks that he’s the first person to make the “But if God created everything, who created God?” argument.  When it comes to making an argument one way or another about organized religion, Honk for Jesus is as shallow and predictable as the God’s Not Dead franchise.  This wouldn’t matter, of course, if the film’s satire had any bite or was, at the very least, consistently humorous.  Unfortunately, this is pretty much a one joke movie.  It is, admittedly, funny the first time that Hall switches from yelling to smiling when she realizes that she’s on camera.  But, at one hour and 40 minutes, a satire needs more than one good joke.

The film is partially redeemed by Hall and Brown but ultimately, there’s little here that hasn’t been done better before.

City of Bad Men (1953, directed by Harmon Jones)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In the year 1897, an outlaw gang led by brothers Brett (Dale Robertson) and Gar (Lloyd Bridges) ride into the frontier town of Carson City, Nevada.  Brett and Gar remember Carson City as being a sleepy town where not much happens but, when they arrive, they discover that a carnival-like atmosphere has broken out in the streets.  A heavyweight fight between “Gentleman Jim” Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons is scheduled to take place in Carson City and the once sleepy little town has become the center of the old west.

Sheriff Bill Gifford (Hugh Sanders) already knows that he’s going to have his hands full with all of the people coming to town for the fight so he’s not happy to see that Brett and Gar have returned.  When the notorious outlaw Johnny Ringo (Richard Boone) also shows up for the fight, Gifford realizes that he’s going to have to do something unheard of.  He deputizes the three outlaws, assigning them to keep the peace.

Even as deputies, the outlaws scheme to steal the money that’s raised by the fight.  However, Brett is actually more interested in getting back together with his former girlfriend, Linda (Jeanne Crain).  When Gar and Ringo realize that Brett might be backing away from the plan, it leads to a climatic showdown in Carson City.

This B-western tells a semi-true story.  Corbett and Fitzsimmons did fight a match in Carson City in 1897.  The fight lasted for over 90 minutes and ended with an upset victory for Fitzsimmons.  It was the first boxing match to be filmed and it was later released into cinemas as The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight.  It was the first film to last over an hour and it is considered to be the first feature film.  It’s also considered to be the first pay-per-view event because the film of the fight made the boxers more money than the fight itself.  The rest of the film is pure fiction.  (The infamous outlaw Johnny Ringo had been dead for five years by the time of the Corbett/Fitzsimmons fight.)  But even if there wasn’t an attempt to rob the Corbett/Fitzsimmons Fight, the use of the actual fight and the publicity surrounding it serves to remind the audience that the modern world is coming to the frontier.

For most, the main appeal of this film will be to see Dale Robertson, Richard Boone, and Lloyd Bridges acting opposite each other.  All three are well known to western fans.  Boone would later star in Have Gun Will Travel while Robertson appeared in Tales of Wells Fargo, Iron Horse, and Death Valley Days.  Lloyd Bridges previously played the resentful deputy in High Noon.  The three of them are in top form in City of Bad Men, with Bridges especially making an impression as the less honest of the two outlaw brothers.  The three of them play outlaws who know that the era of the lawless west is coming to an end and all three of them have to decide whether they want to go straight or if they want to go out with a bang (some more literally than others).  With the fast-paced script and a dedicated cast, City of Bad Men is a film that will be appreciated by anyone who likes a good western tale.

Film Review: Corrective Measures (dir by Sean O’Reilly)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to the future!

War is raging.  Food is scarce.  At the start of the film, a newscaster officially says farewell to Australia as it’s swallowed by the ocean.  Due to some sort of vaguely defined cosmic event, certain citizens have developed super powers.  Normally, you might think that would be a good thing.  Maybe someone can use their super strength to save Australia.  Instead, it’s led to a rise in supervillains.  People with names like The Conductor and the Lobe are terrorizing the world.  Fortunately (or not), a prison has been designed to hold all of these super villains.

Running that prison is Overseer Devlin (Michael Rooker).  Devlin is quick to correct anyone who calls him a warden.  That said, Devlin runs his prison with a firm and sometimes cruel hand.  All of the inmates are forced to wear a leg brace that neutralizes their powers.  They’re at Devlin’s mercy and Devlin knows it.  A sentence to San Tiburon prison is a life sentence, regardless of what the courts may say.  No one gets parole unless Devlin wants them too and Devlin’s not in the business of giving people freedom.

Corrective Measures follows four inmates in particular.  Diego Diaz (Brennan Meija) is an empath, a super power that will be of little help in a prison where empathy is seen as a weakness.  Gordon Tweedy (Tom Cavanagh) is also known as the Conductor because he can control electricity.  Payback (Dan Payne) is a self-styled vigilante who killed evildoers on the outside and who looks forward to killing more on the inside.  Finally, there’s the Lobe (Bruce Willis), who is the most feared supervillain of all.  The Lobe can control minds, but only if his leg brace is removed.  While the Warden prepares for his retirement and considers who among his staff he should name as a his replacement, the inmates simply try to survive from one day to the next.

Corrective Measures is an episodic film, with the focus continually shifting from one character to another.  When the film begins, Payback seems like he’s going to be the main character but then the focus shifts to Diego and The Conductor.  Towards the end of the film, the focus switches once again and it becomes about The Lobe and his schemes.  The one theme running through the entire film is the struggle to maintain one’s freedom and dignity in even the most difficult of circumstances.  Yes, Corrective Measures might be a low-budget super hero film and yes, it was based on a graphic novel but it’s also a mediation on what it means to be free in a society that persecutes anyone who is perceived as failing to conform.  That theme elevates the film, making it more than just a B-movie.  If Sam Fuller directed a comic book movie, it would probably look something like Corrective Measures.

The actors also do wonders with the material, with Michael Rooker giving an entertainingly evil performance as Warden Devlin and Tom Cavanagh turning The Conductor into a surprisingly poignant character.  That said, I imagine most people will be watching this film because it was one of the final films that Bruce Willis worked on before announcing his retirement from acting.  It is true that Willis does spend the majority of this film in his cell.  It’s rare that he’s ever actually seen in a shot with any of the other actors, leading me to suspect that Willis probably shot all of his scenes in a day or two.  Despite that, Willis is well-cast as The Lobe and there’s even a few scenes where he seems like the Willis of old, smirking at his opponents and dismissing them with a well-timed insult.  While it’s obvious that Willis was not in the best shape when he shot his scenes, Corrective Measures still feels like a better closing act than something like American Siege.

Corrective Measures is a far better film than I think anyone would have expected it to be.  It’s a celebration of freedom that understands why it’s worth celebrating.

Revolver (1992, directed by Gary Nelson)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In Revolver, Robert Urich plays an FBI agent who, for some reason, is not named Johnny Revolver.  Instead, his name is Nick Suster.  When a drug bust goes wrong and Nick accidentally shoots an innocent bystander in the head, he retires from the FBI and announces that his days of carrying a gun are over.  But then he’s approached by his former boss and asked to take one last special assignment.

Nick goes undercover, offering his services as a bodyguard to the head of Spanish Mafia, Aldo Testi (David Ryall).  Testi agrees to hire Nick and, to celebrate their new arrangement, they go to a strip club where the dancers dress like cowgirls and all the patrons are given small cap guns that they can fire at the stage.  (How could that possibly go wrong?)  Of course, one man has a real gun and uses it to shoot Nick.  The gunman tells Aldo that he’ll be next and then runs off.  Then Aldo runs off, leaving Nick to possibly die.  Eventually, someone calls 9-1-1 and Nick goes to the hospital.

Nick survives being shot but now he’s in a wheelchair.  After spending a month or two feeling bitter, Nick plays one game of wheelchair basketball and decides that it’s time to get on with his life.  Defying the orders of his superiors, Nick flies to Barcelona and tries to learn why he was shot and who was responsible.  After recruiting a broke college student (Jordi Molla) to serve as his legman, Nick sets out to get revenge.

It’s not a bad premise and the film benefits from being filmed on location in Barcelona, which is one of Spain’s more photogenic cities.  Unfortunately, Revolver is a good idea searching for and failing to find a compelling story.  It doesn’t take long for Nick to become not only comfortable with his wheelchair but also combat proficient with it as well.  It also defies credibility that Testi would not be suspicious of Nick still wanting to work for him even after Testi previously left him for dead.  Even when it’s revealed that Testi is dealing in something far more powerful and dangerous than just drugs, the revelation doesn’t carry any weight.  The low budget of this made for television production is obvious when one major cliffhanger is resolved off-screen and dismissed with just two lines of dialogue.

At the time of his death in 2002, Robert Urich held the record for having starred in the most primetime network television shows.  He starred in 15 shows.  Since Revolver was obviously meant to be a pilot, he could have starred in 16 if it had been better received.  In the role of Nick, Urich gives a typically workmanlike performance.  He’s credible but a little boring.  The movie does not help him by having him adopt the phrase “Wherever you go, there you are,” as a philosophy.  Urich gives a sincere reading of the line but it’s impossible to hear it without thinking of Gary Cole in The Brady Bunch Movie.

Revolver would not lead to a series.  Robert Urich would have to wait another four years before he starred in his 13th series, UPN’s Lazarus Man.

Film Review: Vendetta (dir by Jared Cohn)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s a dangerous world out there, make no doubt about it.

William Duncan (Clive Standen) thought that his days of violence were behind him.  Sure, he did a tour of duty in the military.  And yes, he was trained how to kill a man.  In fact, he was trained how to kill dozens of men and he did just that as a part of his patriotic duty.  But that was the past.  Now, William lives in the suburbs of Atlanta and he’s got a pretty nice life.

Unfortunately, one day, William’s life falls apart, shortly after he picks up his 16 year-old daughter, Kat (Maddie Nichols), from softball practice.  William’s plan is to pick up his daughter, grab some food for dinner, and then head home.  Unfortunately, a gang led by Rory Fetter (Theo Rossi) has a different idea.  The time has come for Rory’s younger brother, Danny (Cabot Badsen), to be initiated into the gang.  At first, it seems like Danny doesn’t even want to join the gang but still, when he’s ordered to murder a random bystander, he does so.  That bystander happens to be Kat.

Danny’s arrested for the murder but he’s released due to the influence of his father, a powerful gangster named Donnie (Bruce Willis).  Having been failed by the legal system, William decides to put his military training to good use and get his vengeance.  At first, he’s armed with only his dead daughter’s softball bat.  Later, he joins up with an arms dealer named Dante (Thomas Jane) and the war truly begins.

It should also be noted that Dante is friends with a shady garage owner named Roach.  Roach is played by Mike Tyson.  Yes, that Mike Tyson.  Tyson doesn’t really get to do much as Roach.  His garage does serve as one of the film’s many battlegrounds but, for the most part, Tyson is something of a bystander.  It’s easy to see that the main reason he was included in the film was because it would inevitably cause at least a few potential viewers to say, “Hey, Mike Tyson’s in this!  Let’s watch!”  That said, even with his limited screen time, Mike Tyson has a surprisingly likable screen presence.  I don’t think that anyone will ever mistake Tyson for being an actor of great range but he does a good enough job here that it would be foolish for someone not to cast him in a bigger role in a future low-budget action flick.

As for Vendetta, it’s about as pulpy as pulp can get.  It’s an action/revenge flick that makes no excuse for being an action/revenge flick and, as a result, it’s difficult not to be entertained by it.  The story moves quickly, there aren’t really any slow spots, and the cast does well with their roles.  That includes Bruce Willis.  This, of course, is one of Willis’s final films.  Watching the films that were released after Willis revealed that he was retiring due to aphasia can feel a bit awkward as it’s obvious that the Willis who appeared in these films was quite a bit different from the Willis who appeared in Die Hard.  That said, Willis is effectively intimidating in Vendetta.  Even if he doesn’t display the wiseguy charm that was his trademark, Willis still has enough of his streetwise, tough guy screen presence that the viewers will be able to buy him as being a feared crime boss.

As far as 2022’s collection of Bruce Willis films go, Vendetta isn’t bad.  It’s maybe a smidgen below Gasoline Alley (which, as of this writing, is the best Willis film of 2022) but it’s a hundred times better than American Siege and A Day To Die.

Vigilante (1982, directed by William Lustig)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The year is 1982 and New York City has gone to Hell.  While honest, hard-working people try to make a living and take care of their families, the streets are ruled by gangs and drug dealers.  The police and the legal system impotent in the face of intimidation and corruption.  Maybe it’s time for the citizens to take the streets back, by force if necessary.

That’s what Nick (Fred Williamson) and most of his friends believe.  Eddie Marino (Robert Forster) disagrees.  He says that people taking the law into their own hands will just lead to more violence and death.  The vigilantes will become just a bloodthirsty as the criminals.  While Eddie is debating policy with Nick, Eddie’s wife (Rutanya Alda) is threatening to call the police on a Che Guevara look-alike who she spots trying to set a gas station attendant on fire.  Eddie’s wife is stabbed.  His son is killed.  And when the man responsible is allowed to walk by a crooked judge, Eddie’s courtroom outburst leads to him being sent to jail.

Eddie spends 30 days in jail, fighting off predators and befriending a mysterious inmate named Rake (Woody Strode).  When Eddie is finally released, his traumatized wife no longer wants to be married to him but Eddie has found a new purpose in life.  Working with Nick, Eddie tracks down and murders the men who have destroyed his family.

One of the many films to be inspired by the success and enduring popularity of the original Death Wish, Vigilante is a classic of its kind.  Director William Lustig wastes no time in establishing New York City as being a graffiti-decorated war zone where good is fighting a losing war against evil and most of the victims are just innocent bystanders.  The New York of Vigilante looks even worse than it did in Lustig’s previous film, Maniac.  (Maniac’s Joe Spinell plays one a crooked lawyer in Vigilante.)  The action is brutal and bloody.  While Forster fights for his life in prison, the people who killed his son are allowed to run free.  It’s not subtle but, by the time Forster finally walks out of jail, you’ll be more than on his side and ready to see him get his revenge.  With his trademark intensity, Robert Forster is believable as someone who goes from aborhing to violence to being a stone cold killer who doesn’t even flinch when he shoots a defenseless man.  As Nick, Fred Williamson is his usual confident self.  Williamson may not have much range as an actor but he has such a forceful screen presence that he dominates any scene in which he appears.

Vigilante is a grim film, with Eddie ultimately going further than almost any other screen vigilante before him.  It’s also a deeply satisfying film because it appeals to everyone’s desire for revenge.  In the real world, vigilantes are often as dangerous as the people they’re trying to keep off the streets.  In the movies, though, they’re easy to root for.  They present easy and direct solutions to complex problems.  Even a film as dark as Vigilante works as a sort of wish fulfillment.  With crime on the rise and the constant news reports about innocent victims who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, it’s easy to root for Nick and Eddie as it once was for Paul Kersey.

Film Review: I Came By (dir by Babak Anvari)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In this British crime thriller, George McKay plays Toby Nealy, a self-styled revolutionary who breaks into the homes of the very rich and paints “I Came By” on their walls.  His actions have made the I Came By Tagger something of an underground legend but no one knows his true identity.  In the real world, Toby is 23 years old and still lives at home with his long-suffering mother, a psychologist named Lizzie (Kelly MacDonald).  Toby’s best friend and partner-in-activism, Jay (Perecelle Ascot), wants to retire from tagging and devote his time to repairing his relationship with his pregnant girlfriend.

Still, Toby is determined to continue with his activities.  His latest target is Hector Blake (Hugh Bonneville), a retired judge who has a reputation for being a progressive but who Toby suspects is actually a hypocrite.  (Toby notices that Blake has an ivory sculpture in his home and that’s all it takes to convince him that Blake is being insincere.)  Working alone, Toby breaks into Blake’s home and discovers that not only does Blake have nice taste in furniture but he also has a half-naked man chained up in the basement.

Unfortunately, try as he might, Toby can’t get anyone to believe him.  Jay is too busy with his personal problems.  Lizzie, who doesn’t know about her son’s secret life as a graffiti artist, is upset that Toby doesn’t seem to understand how much privilege he has compared to the rest of the world.  Toby makes an anonymous call to the police but, when they visit Blake’s home, they don’t find his torture dungeon.  Besides, Blake is a respected member of the establishment and everyone also knows that Blake has been outspoken in his defense of refugees.  Why would he have a man chained up in his home?

Though the film starts with Toby and his discovery of Blake’s crimes, the action is evenly divided between him, Lizzie, and Jay.  All three of them are drawn into investigating Blake.  Toby is outraged but he soon discovers that trying to expose Blake is far more dangerous and difficult than just spraying a pithy slogan on the wall.  Lizzie goes from believing in the system to discovering that the system only exists to protect certain people and, unfortunately, neither she nor her son are considered to be among them.  Meanwhile, Jay is very much aware that, as a black man, investigating Blake will be even more dangerous for him than it will be for Toby and his mother.

It’s an interesting idea and Hugh Bonneville is appropriately sinister as Blake.  Indeed, while watching the film, it was hard not to think about the number of rich, self-declared “progressives” who have recently been exposed as exploiting those who they claim to be helping.  (Hector Blake has much in common with Ed Buck.)  Unfortunately, as intriguing as the idea may be, the execution is lacking.  This is one of those films that would have worked well as a compact, 80-minute B film but instead, I Came By runs for nearly two hours.  The action unfolds at a slow pace and the story is told with a heavy hand, as if the filmmakers were worried that the man chained in the basement would not be enough to convince us that Hector Blake was an evil dude.  When Hector first appears, he’s grimly listening to Henry Purcell’s Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary, a detail that will immediately remind most viewers of the opening of A Clockwork Orange.  A word of advice to all filmmakers: Don’t invite comparisons to Stanley Kubrick unless you’re sure you can back them up.