Film Review: Pain Hustlers (dir by David Yates)

Posted on November 8, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I had high hopes for Pain Hustlers, largely because it featured some of my favorite actors and actresses. Chris Evans, Emily Blunt, Andy Garcia …. how can you go wrong with that cast, right?

Unfortunately, when I watched the film, it only took a few minutes for me to lose interest. The film opens with black-and-white interview clips of Liza Drake (Emily Blunt) and Pete Brenner (Chris Evans), in which they both claim to be the only one who can tell the true story of how a failing pharmaceutical firm became a powerhouse by bribing doctor to prescribe Fentanyl. For lack of a better term, I refer to this as the I, Tonya approach though it perhaps would be better to name it after director Adam McKay, whose superficial but slickly made films are often mistaken for being important political statements. It’s a style of filmmaking that may have once been exciting but now, it’s so overused that it’s come to feel a bit like a cliché.

As for the film itself, it opens with Liza working as an exotic dancer and living in a run-down motel with her daughter, Phoebe (Chloe Coleman). A chance meeting with pharmaceutical salesman Pete Brenner leads to Liza getting a job as a sales rep despite the fact that she’s a high school drop-out who previously served time in jail for drug trafficking. (Pete writes up a fake resume for her and lists her as being PHD, which Pete says stands for, “poor, hungry, and desperate.”) After a rocky start, Liza is able to convince Dr. Lydell (Brian D’Arcy James) to start prescribing a powerful painkiller that was developed for cancer patients. Of course, people get addicted to the drug and many overdose but it doesn’t matter because Liza, Pete, and Dr. Lydell are all getting rich. The unstable head of the company, Dr. Jack Neel (Andy Garcia), is happy as long as the money keeps rolling in and as long as everyone takes off their shoes at work because he’s worried about the floors getting dirty.

As I said at the start of the review, the film attempts to take an I, Tonya-style approach to the material, mixing conflicting narrators with moments of dark humor and sudden melodrama. Unfortunately, David Yates is exactly the wrong director for this film. Yates is best-known for his work with the Harry Potter franchise. Yates did a wonderful job directing the last few of the Harry Potter films but, as a director, his tendency is to be a crowd-pleaser and Pain Hustlers fails precisely because Yates always pulls back before the film can get too dark or subversive. This is the type of film where, during the final fourth of the film, everyone starts acting in ways totally contrary to everything we’ve previously learned and seen about them so that the film can end on a traditional note of good vs evil. Watching previously amoral characters suddenly and unconvincingly developed a conscience, I found myself thinking about Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street. One reason why The Wolf of Wall Street worked is because Jordan Belfort remained an unrepentant crook through the entire film, even after all of his schemes fell apart. Scorsese has the courage to the let the audience make up their own mind about Belfort. Scorsese understood that suddenly having Belfort (or Henry Hill in Goodfellas or Ace Rothstein in Casino) develop a sense of right and wrong would not only feel unnatural to the character but it would also undercut the effectiveness of the story he was trying to tell. For lack of a better term, it would feel fake. It would feel like pandering to those who demands a cut-and-dried, easy-to-digest message. That’s a lesson that Pain Hustlers missed, to its detriment.

It’s just not a very good film, which is a shame when you consider the amount of talent involved. Of the cast, Chris Evans is the only one who really makes much of an impression, playing Pete as someone who might not be smart but who definitely understands how to charm enough people to get by. Poor Emily Blunt is sabotaged by an inconsistent script while Andy Garcia is pretty much wasted as Dr. Neel. Seriously, can we make an effort to write more decent roles for Andy Garcia? He’s such a good actor and he keeps getting wasted in these small, pointless roles!

Pain Hustlers was a disappointment for me. It happens.

Here’s The Trailer for Miranda’s Victim

Posted on September 18, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The upcoming film, Miranda’s Victim, takes a look at the crime that was at heart of the Supreme Court’s once-infamous Miranda decision. Trish Weir (played by Abigail Breslin) was raped by Ernesto Miranda (Sebastian Quinn). Miranda confessed to the crime will being interrogated but his conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court, who decided that Miranda had not been fully informed of his rights. Ernesto Miranda is the reason why we still hear talk of whether or not a suspect had been properly “mirandized.” Told from the point of view of Trish, the film appears to be offering up a perspective that is far too often ignored when it comes to films about “miscarriages of justice.” That Ernesto Miranda become a cause célèbre for some does not make him any less guilty of the crime that he committed.

This is one of those films that seems like it was made specifically to appeal to me. Along with the story’s historical context, the cast is full of intriguing names. Along with Abigail Breslin and Sebastian Quinn, supporting roles are played by Luke Wilson, Kyle MacLachlan, Ryan Phillipe, Mireille Enos, Emily VanCamp, Andy Garcia, and Donald Sutherland. Personally, I’m looking forward to seeing Kyle MacLachlan’s performance as Earl Warren.

Here’s the trailer!

An Offer You Can’t Refuse #20: The Untouchables (dir by Brian DePalma)

Posted on July 9, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Let’s do some good!” Eliot Ness shouts as he and a platoon of Chicago cops raid what they believe is a bootlegger’s warehouse.

That line right there tells you everything that you need to know about the 1987 film, The Untouchables. In real life, Eliot Ness was known to be an honest member of law enforcement (which did make him a bit of a rarity in 1920s Chicago) but he was also considered to be something of a self-promoter, someone who tried to leverage his momentary fame into an unsuccessful political career. In the 50s, after Ness had lost most of his money due to a series of bad investments and his own alcoholism, Ness wrote a book about his efforts to take down Al Capone in Chicago. That book was called The Untouchables and though Ness died of a heart attack shortly before it was published, it still proved popular enough to not only rehabilitate Ness’s heroic image but also to inspire both a television series and the movie that I’m currently reviewing.

None of that is to say that Ness didn’t play a role in Al Capone’s downfall. He did, though it’s since been argued that Ness had little to do with actual tax evasion case that led to Capone going to prison. It’s just that, in real life, Eliot Ness was a complicated human being, one who had his flaws. In The Untouchables, Kevin Costner plays him as a beacon of midwestern integrity, a Gary Cooper-type who has found himself in the very corrupt city of Chicago in the very corrupt decade of the 1920s. The film version of Eliot Ness has no flaws, beyond his naive belief that everyone is as determined to “do some good” as he is.

So, The Untouchables may not be historically accurate but it’s still an entertaining film. It’s less concerned with the reality of Eliot Ness’s life and more about the mythology that has risen up around the roaring 20s. Everything about the film is big and operatic. In the role of Al Capone, Robert De Niro sneers through every scene with the self-satisfaction of a tyrant looking over the kingdom that he’s just conquered. While Costner’s Ness tells everyone to do some good, De Niro’s Capone uses a baseball bat to keep his underlings in line. He goes to the opera and cries until he’s told that one of Ness’s men has been killed. Then a big grin spreads out across his face. It’s not exactly a subtle performance but then again, The Untouchables is not exactly a subtle movie. It’s not designed to be a film that makes you think about whether or not prohibition was a good law. Instead, everything is bigger-than-life. It’s a film that takes place in a dream world that appears to have sprung from mix of old movies and American mythology.

In real life, Ness had ten agents working under him. They were all selected because they were considered to be honest lawmen and they were nicknamed The Untouchables after it was announced to the press that Ness had refused a bribe from one of Capone’s men. In the film, Ness only has three men working underneath him and they’re all recognizable types. Sean Connery won an Oscar for playing Jmmy Malone, the crusty old beat cop who teaches Ness about the Chicago Way. A young and incredibly hot Andy Garcia plays George Stone, the youngest of the Untouchables. Best of all is Charles Martin Smith, cast as Oscar Wallace, a mild-mannered accountant who first suggests that Capone must be cheating on his taxes. There’s a great scene in which the Untouchables intercept a liquor shipment on the Canadian border, all while riding horses. Sitting on the back of his galloping horse and trying not to fall off, both Oscar Wallace and the actor playing him appear to be having the time of their lives. For Oscar (and probably for much of the audience), it’s a fantasy come to life, a chance to “do some good.”

The Untouchables was directed by Brian DePalma and his stylish approach to the material is perfect for the film’s story. DePalma fills the film with references to other movies, some from the gangster genre and some not. (In one of the film’s most famous sequence, DePalma reimagines Battleship Potemkin‘s massacre on The Odessa Steps as a shoot-out between Eliot Ness and Capone’s men.) DePalma’s kinetic style reminds us that The Untouchables is less about history and more about how we imagine history. In reality, Capone was succeeded by Frank Nitti and The Chicago Outfit continued to thrive even in Capone’s absence. In the film, Nitti (played by Billy Drago) brags about killing one of the Untouchables and, as a result, is tossed off the roof of a courthouse by Eliot Ness. It’s not historically accurate but it makes for a crowd-pleasing scene.

Big, operatic, and always entertaining, The Untouchables is an offer that you can’t refuse.

Previous Offers You Can’t (or Can) Refuse:

An Offer You Can’t Refuse #9: Rob the Mob (dir by Raymond De Felitta)

Posted on June 11, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2014 film, Rob the Mob, tells the true story of a young couple in love who became minor celebrities when they robbed the mob. Of course, they also ended up with a huge target on their back, which tends to happen when you repeatedly humiliate a bunch of angry men who have weapons at their disposal.

The year is 1992 and Tommy Uva (Michael Pitt) and his wife, Rosemarie (Nina Arianda) are professional criminals who, after getting busted for trying to rob a florist on Valentine’s Day, end up working at a debt collection agency. Their boss (played by Griffin Dunne) spent time in prison for insider trading and he believes in giving convicts a second chance. The problem is that Tommy doesn’t really want a second chance. He’s actually pretty happy being a criminal.

Tommy has some issues with the Mafia, largely due to the fact that his father borrowed money from the mob to open up a shop and spent the rest of his short life being beaten and humiliated by loan sharks. Tommy believes that the pressure is what led his father to an early grave. Tommy’s mother (Cathy Moriarty), on the other hand, claims that it was the stress caused by Tommy being a criminal. Regardless, seeing his father repeatedly mistreated has definitely left Tommy with some anger issues.

Even though Tommy claims that he hates the Mafia, he still seems to be rather obsessed with them. At times, it’s hard to tell if Tommy is angry with the Mafia or if he’s just jealous about the fact that he’ll never be as rich or as powerful as the local neighborhood mobster. Tommy starts to skip work so that he can observe the trial of John Gotti. It’s while doing this that Tommy hears that guns are not allowed in Mafia social clubs.

Soon, Tommy is robbing those same clubs, taking all of the money that he can and humiliating the mobsters at the same time. (He forces one group of paunchy gangsters to march outside in their underwear.) With Rosemarie serving as his getaway driver, Tommy soon becomes something of a legend. The mobsters even nickname the pair “Bonnie and Clyde.” Because the Mafia doesn’t want to attract any unnecessary attention during the Gotti trial, Tommy and Rosemarie are able to get away with their activities for a while. But then they make the mistake of stealing a list that could bring down the entire New York Mafia….

Rob the Mob is a bit of an uneven film. The film starts with Tommy and Rosemarie getting high and then attempting to rob a florist and, in that scene, they both seemed like such idiots that I really wasn’t sure that I wanted to spend 104 minutes of my life watching a film about them. Even after Tommy got out of a prison and got a legitimate job, he still seemed like such an unsympathetic loser that I found myself wondering why I should care.

However, once Tommy and Rosemarie start actually robbing the mob, the film picks up. We meet Big Al, the temporary head of the New York mafia, and he’s played by Andy Garcia, who gives an intelligent and understated performance. Big Al may be a mobster but he’s not an unsympathetic character. The film presents him as being someone who has been unexpectedly thrust into a position of power and who is doing his best to keep everything from falling apart. Then, as the robberies continue, Ray Romano shows up as Jerry Cardozo, a reporter who makes “Bonnie and Clyde” famous but who realizes too late that he’s also put their lives in even greater danger than they were before. Over the past few years, Romano has gone from being a former sitcom star to being a surprisingly effective character actor and his performance here gives Rob the Mob its conscience.

Perhaps even more importantly, during the second half of the film, the chemistry of Michael Pitt and Nina Arianda finally won me over and I actually started to care about what would happen to Tommy and Rosemarie. Tommy and Rosemarie find a reason for living in their criminal activities. They go from being losers to being minor New York celebrities, even if they can’t reveal their actual identities. They may be idiots but their love is real and there’s something very touching about how much they actually do care about each other. It’s hard not to be happy for them, even if it’s obvious from the start that their story is not going to have a happy ending.

Rob the Mob is uneven but, in the end, it’s more than worth watching. This is an offer you should not refuse.

Previous Offers You Can’t (or Can) Refuse:

Film Review: The Mule (dir by Clint Eastwood)

Posted on May 31, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In The Mule, Clint Eastwood plays Earl Stone.

In some ways, Earl is typical of the characters that Eastwood has played during the latter part of his career. He’s grouchy. He’s alienated almost everyone who was previously close to him. He drives an old pickup truck and he has no idea how to text and he seems to literally snarls whenever he sees anyone under the age of 60. He served in the Korean War and he’s not scared of guns.

In other ways, Earl is not a typical Eastwood character at all. First off, he’s on the verge of financial ruin. Earl may not be the first Eastwood character to not know how to responsibly handle money but he is perhaps the first one to be on the verge of homelessness as a result. (He’s perhaps the first of Eastwood’s modern character to face real-world consequences for his flaws.) Secondly, Earl often seems to be lost in the 21st century world. In Gran Torino and Trouble With The Curve, Eastwood played grumpy old men who could still hold their own when it came to dealing with younger people. But, in The Mule, Earl seems to be defeated by life. The only thing that he really has going for him is his reputation as a horticulturist and, as the film makes clear, that’s not a skill that’s going to bring in much money.

That all changes when Earl has a chance meeting with Rico (Victor Rasuk), a friend of his granddaughter’s. Knowing that Earl is desperate for money, Rico tells him that he could make a quick payday by transporting a package for some friends. After giving it some thought, Earl agrees. When Earl meets Rico’s friends, everyone is shocked at how old he is. They’re even more shocked when Earl says that he doesn’t know how to text. Earl is given a phone and told to answer it whenever it rings but to never use it to call anyone. A package is put in the back of Earl’s pickup truck. It’s suggested that Earl not look in the package.

Does Earl know that he’s transporting drugs? At first, it’s hard to say. While it seems obvious to us, Earl is from a different time. Still, once Earl does eventually learn that he’s being used as a drug mule, it doesn’t seem to bother him. If nothing else, Earl actually seems to get a kick out of being a real-life outlaw. He continues to make his runs and he continues to make money and, perhaps most importantly, he now has a purpose in life. In a strange way, the drug runners even become his new family. (They call him Tata, which is Spanish for grandfather.) Of course, they’re a family that makes it cleat that they’ll kill Earl if he’s ever late delivering the package but that doesn’t seem to matter to Earl.

Meanwhile, the DEA (represented by Laurence Fishburne, Bradley Cooper, and — somewhat inevitably — Michael Pena) are hearing reports about a new drug mule who has been nicknamed Tata. What they don’t suspect, of course, is that Tata is a 90 year-old man who has no criminal record and who is always very careful to obey all the traffic laws. Even when Earl is pulled over by the police, he’s such a nice old man that they let him go without bothering to really search his vehicle. It seems like Earl’s got a perfect thing going but, unfortunately, things are never as good as they seem and eventually, the reality of Earl’s situation intrudes on his fantasy….

It’s been said that The Mule is going to be Eastwood’s final film as an actor and he gives an excellent performance as Earl. The Mule, which feels, in many ways, like a good-natured companion piece to Gran Torino, features Eastwood at both his most vulnerable and, probably not coincidentally, his most likable and sympathetic. In this film, Eastwood makes clear that he’s no longer the righteous Dirty Harry or the mythological Man With No Name. Now, he’s just a man nearing the end of his life and trying to come to terms with the mistakes and the decisions of the past. Eastwood plays Earl like a man who knows that his time is limited. Smuggling drugs gives him a chance to feel like he’s alive again but, throughout it all, there’s still a deep sadness. Earl can use his money to pay his bills and to fix up the local VFW hall but he still can’t buy his family’s forgiveness. Watching the film, it’s impossible not to feel for Earl. You’re happy that he found at least a little satisfaction with his criminal career, even though you immediately suspect that things probably aren’t going to turn out well for him.

Admittedly, there is one cringe-worthy scene in which it’s suggested that the 90 year-old Earl has had a threesome with two twenty year-olds (and one gets the feeling that the scene would not have been included if not for the fact that the film’s star was also the director). For the most part, though, this is a thoughtful film that features a poignant performance from Eastwood and which is directed in a restrained, but empathetic manner. If this is Eastwood’s swan song as an actor, it’s a good note to go out on.

4 Shots From 4 Bill Murray Films: Cradle Will Rock, Lost In Translation, The Lost City, Zombieland

Posted on February 2, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 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.

Happy Groundhog Day!

Today is the day when groundhogs across America will be asked whether or not they see their shadow and whether or not winter will be ending anytime soon. Personally, I’m hoping for a lot more winter. It still hasn’t snowed here in Texas and, if we don’t get any in February, we’ll probably have to wait until next December to get another opportunity!

Of course, the patron saint of Groundhog Day is Charlotte, the groundhog that was murdered by the mayor of New York a few years ago. However, this is also a good day to give thanks for Bill Murray and his current place in the pop cultural universe. So, in honor of Bill Murray, here are….

4 Shots From 4 Bill Murray Films

Cradle Will Rock (1999, dir by Tim Robbins)

Lost In Translation (2003, dir by Sofia Coppola)

The Lost City (2005, dir by Andy Garcia)

Zombieland (2009, dir by Ruben Fleischer)

Film Review: The Mean Season (dir by Phillip Borsos)

Posted on April 24, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

From the very first few scenes of the 1985 film, The Mean Season, one thing is abundantly clear. People are dying in Florida.

In itself, that’s probably not a shock. Death is a part of life, after all. Add to that, the majority of The Mean Season takes place in Miami, the seventh most populous area of the United States. It makes sense that the more people you have living in one area, the more people are also going to end up dead. That’s just the way things work.

Still, Malcolm Anderson is getting tired of all the death. Played by a youngish and sexy Kurt Russell, Malcolm’s a journalist. He covers the crime beat for the Miami Herald. He spends all day reporting on death and violence and he’s finally reached the point where he’s burned out. He and his girlfriend, a teacher named Christine (Mariel Hemingway), are even planning on moving to Colorado. Malcolm says that he could be very happy working at a small town newspaper. His editor (Richard Masur) doesn’t believe him and, quite frankly, neither do we. Malcolm may say that he wants peace and quiet but it’s hard not to feel as if he’s fooling himself.

One day, Malcolm gets a phone call. The voice on the other line (which belongs to character actor Richard Jordan) is deceptively calm. The caller explains that he’s a fan of Malcolm’s work. The caller also claims to be responsible for a series of murders that have recently taken place. At first, Malcolm is skeptical. After all, he gets calls from crazy people all the time. That’s one reason why he wants to leave Miami, after all. But then the caller starts to give Malcolm details about the crimes, details that haven’t been released to general public…

The killings continue and, after every murder, the caller contacts Malcolm. Soon, Malcolm is appearing on the national news, giving carefully calculated interviews about what it’s like to be a celebrity. Malcolm is soon on the front page of all the papers. Malcolm’s happy. His editor is happy. But you know who isn’t happy? The killer. He didn’t go to all the trouble to kill those people just so Malcolm could get famous off of his hard work! Soon, the killer is no longer content to just call Malcolm. Now, he wants to meet face-to-face and maybe even get to know Christine as well…

The Mean Season is one of those movies that starts out well but then falls apart towards the end. It’s not a spoiler to tell you that the killer eventually ends up kidnapping Christine. You probably figured out that was going to happen as soon as I told you that Malcolm had a girlfriend. (It doesn’t help that Christine is such an underwritten character that it feels like the only reason she was put in the film was so she could be used for one gratuitous nude scene and then get kidnapped.) Once the killer kidnaps her, he goes from being a genuinely intriguing menace to just being a typical and overly verbose movie psycho.

That’s a shame because the first half of The Mean Season is really quite good. The film makes excellent use of its locations, capturing the humid atmosphere of Florida in the summer. As the killer, Richard Jordan alternates between being coldly calculating and surprisingly vulnerable without missing a beat. (Interestingly, he appears to be personally hurt when he realizes that Malcolm doesn’t consider him to be a friend.) Not surprisingly, Kurt Russell is likable as the conflicted Malcolm but his best moments are the ones where he suggests that Malcolm has become so addicted to fame that he’s almost hoping that the killer strikes again. As the two homicide detectives who are assigned to keep an eye on Malcolm, both Richard Bradford and Andy Garcia are perfectly cast. A scene where Bradford tries to comfort a child who accidentally gets in the middle of the search for the killer is the best in the film. “We’re just looking for the bad guys,” he tell the traumatized child. It’s small moments like this that elevates The Mean Season above the typical mid-80s serial killer film.

Seen today, The Mean Season — with its emphasis on newspapers — feels like a historical artifact. If the film were made today, Russell would definitely work for either a 24-hour cable news channel or an online news site. It actually would be interesting to see this story updated and retold for the age of clickbait. Somebody needs to get on that and, while they’re at it, come up with the type of ending that an otherwise intriguing story like this deserves.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Just The Ticket (dir by Richard Wenk)

Posted on December 15, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Hi there! So, as you may know because I’ve been talking about it on this site all year, I have got way too much stuff on my DVR. Seriously, I currently have 193 things recorded! I’ve decided that, on January 15th, I am going to erase everything on the DVR, regardless of whether I’ve watched it or not. So, that means that I’ve now have only have a month to clean out the DVR! Will I make it? Keep checking this site to find out! I recorded the 1999 romantic comedy Just The Ticket off of Epix on October 13th!)

Just The Ticket tells the story of Gary Starke (Andy Garcia).

Gary lives in New York City. He is a tough, streetwise character, loyal to his friends and quick to anger if he feels that anyone is trying to take advantage of him. He has no time for pretentious posturing or snobbish social gatherings. Gary’s a man of the people. He works with and takes care of an aging former boxer named Benny (Richard Bradford). He looks after a pregnant, former drug addict named Alice (Laura Harris). When the slick and dangerous Casino (Andre B. Blake) starts to do business in Gary’s territory, Gary is the only person with the guts to stand up to him. Having never had a family (he’s never even seen his birth certificate and has no idea who his parents were), Gary has adopted the street people as his surrogate family.

That’s not all. Gary is also a lapsed Catholic who, when he goes to confession, opens by saying that it’s been 25 years since his last confession and that he’s taken the Lord’s name in vain 20 to 30 times that morning. Gary needs some help because his girlfriend, an aspiring chef named Linda (Andie McDowell), has left him and Gary wants to win her back. The priest asks Gary if he can get him tickets to see the Knicks…

Why does he ask that?

You see, Gary is a legendary ticket scalper and…

Okay, I probably just lost you when I used the terms “legendary” and “ticket scalper” in the same sentence. And I’ll admit that, when I discovered this movie was about ticket scalpers, it nearly lost me as well. Just The Ticket treats ticket scalping with a dignity and reverence that I’m not quite sure it deserves. I wasn’t surprised to discover that director/writer Richard Wenk apparently based the character of Gary on an actual ticket scalper that he knew. A lot of bad movies have been made as the result of a director, writer, or producer coming across some mundane activity and thinking, “Wow, this would make a great movie!”

(That’s one reason why, every few years, we suddenly get a dozen movies about race car drivers.)

However, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Just The Ticket is not a terrible movie. Admittedly, it’s totally predictable and there are a lot of scenes that don’t work. For instance, there’s a lengthy scene where Gary and Linda destroy a snobbish food critic’s kitchen. I could imagine Gary doing that because he has nothing to lose. But Linda is actually hoping to become a chef in New York City. Would she really run the risk of making a permanent enemy at the New York Times? There’s nothing about Andie McDowell’s performance that suggests she would. The scenes between Gary and his aging partner also tend to overplay their hand. Richard Bradford gives a good performance as Benny but we all know what’s going to end up happening to him as soon as he starts crying after Gary insults him.

With all that in mind, Just The Ticket still has an undeniable charm. Some of it is due to Andy Garcia’s dedicated performance. He is frequently better than the material and he and Andie McDowell have enough chemistry that you do want to see Linda and Gary get back together. Some of it is because Just The Ticket is not afraid to shy away from being sentimental. It’s hard to think of any other romantic comedy in which the Pope plays such an important supporting role. It’s a sweet movie. It has a good heart.

There’s something to be said for that.

A Movie A Day #265: Hoodlum (1997, directed by Bill Duke)

Posted on September 30, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

1930s. New York City. For years, Stephanie St. Clair (Cicely Tyson) has been the benevolent queen of the Harlem underworld, running a successful numbers game and protecting her community from outsiders. However, psychotic crime boss Dutch Schultz (Tim Roth) is determined to move into Harlem and take over the rackets for himself. With the weary support of Lucky Luciano (Andy Garcia), Schultz thinks that he is unstoppable but he did not count on the intervention of Bumpy Johnson (Laurence Fishburne). Just paroled from Sing Sing, Bumpy is determined to do whatever has to be done to keep Schultz out of Harlem.

When I reviewed The Cotton Club yesterday, I knew that I would have to do Hoodlum today. Hoodlum and The Cotton Club are based on the same historic events and both of them feature Laurence Fishburne in the role of Bumpy Johnson. Of the two, Hoodlum is the more straightforward film, without any of the operatic flourishes that Coppola brought to The Cotton Club. Fisburne is surprisingly dull as Bumpy Johnson but Tim Roth goes all in as Dutch Schultz and Andy Garcia is memorably oily as the Machiavellian Luciano. Hoodlum is about forty minutes too long but the gangster action scenes are staged well. Bumpy Johnson lived a fascinating life and it is unfortunate that no film has yet to really do him justice, though Clarence Williams III came close with his brief cameo in American Gangster. (Interestingly enough, Williams is also in Hoodlum, playing one of Shultz’s lieutenants.)

One final note: Hoodlum features William Atherton in the role of District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey. Atherton plays Dewey as being a corrupt and sleazy politician on Luciano’s payroll. In real life, Dewey was known for being so honest that Dutch Schultz actually put a contract out on his life after he discovered that Dewey could not be bribed. I am not sure why Hoodlum decided to slander the subject of one of America’s most famous headlines but it seems unnecessary.

A Movie A Day #85: Blue Skies Again (1983, directed by Richard Michaels)

Posted on April 2, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

As Lisa said in her review of Night Game, Erin asked for baseball reviews today and there is no way you can turn down Erin. So, I watched Blue Skies Again on YouTube.

The Denver Devils is a minor league baseball team that is coming off of its worst season ever. The new owner (Harry Hamlin) is only concerned with making money and does not know anything about baseball. The veteran coach (Kenneth McMillan) does not have the respect of his players. Teammates like Ken (Andy Garcia), Calvin (Joseph Gian), and Wall Street (Cylk Cozart) are worried that they could lose their place on the team at any moment. The only good news is that two sports agents (Mimi Rogers and Dana Elcar) have found the perfect prospect for the Devils. This player can play second base. This player can catch a grounder and turn it into a double play. This player can hit the ball out of the park. The only problem? The player’s name is Paula (Robyn Barto) and she’s a girl!

Robyn Barto was asked to audition after a casting director saw her playing softball for her community college. Blue Skies Again was her first film role. In the role of a professional baseball player, Barto was a very convincing softball player. But Barto was likable and had an engaging screen presence so it’s too bad that this movie was not only her first but also her last. In the publicity leading up to the release of Blue Skies Again, Barto got to throw out the opening pitch at a Dodger game but that was it for her time in the spotlight. According to one article that I found that was written ten years after the release of Blue Skies Again, Barto never regretted not having a film career and ended up coaching the softball team at her old high school.

Blue Skies Again was not only the debut of Robyn Barto but also the first feature film for both Mimi Rogers and Andy Garcia. Garcia does not get to do much but Mimi Rogers shows off the sexy and fun screen presence that always makes me wonder why she never really became a big star.

Blue Skies Again is an okay movie but it does not add up to much. No one wants to play with a girl but then she gets a hit so everyone changes their mind. It’s the type of movie that, today, would be made for Hallmark or the Family Channel. It’s a nice baseball movie but it can’t compare to the real thing.