This is, without a doubt, one of the best sequences that Quentin Tarantino has ever directed. Along with the perfect visuals of Shoshanna getting ready for the premiere, Tarantino makes perfect use of Theme From Cat People, reinventing the song from a somewhat silly horror theme to an anthem of revolution and revenge.
4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy 63rd birthday to director/screenwriter/cultural institution, Quentin Tarantino!
Here are….
4 Shots From 4 Quentin Tarantino Films
Reservoir Dogs (1992, dir by Quentin Tarantino, DP: Andrzej Sekuła)
Pulp Fiction (1994, dir by Quentin Tarantino, DP: Andrzej Sekuła)
Kill Bill (2003, dir by Quentin Tarantino, DP: Robert Richardson)
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019, dir by Quentin Tarantino, DP: Robert Richardson)
In rural Alabama, James Brody (Jason Patric) is a recovering alcoholic who makes his living as an armored truck driver. He works with his son, Casey (Josh Wiggins). Every day, James and Casey transport millions from bank to bank and usually, they’re able to do it without incident. However, this day is different. James and Casey find themselves trapped on a bridge with a team of thieves on every side of them. James and Casey struggle to escape while working out their own personal issues.
Sylvester Stallone receives top billing in 2024’s Armor and, just by looking at the poster, you would probably be excused for assuming that Stallone was playing the hero of the film. Instead, Stallone only has a few minutes of screentime and he plays one of the criminals, a tough guy named Rook. Rook may be a professional thief but he has a conscience and he doesn’t believe in killing anyone who doesn’t need to be killed. That sets him apart from the rest of the thieves.
One may wonder what a star like Stallone is doing in a low-budget, direct-to-video film like this. The answer is that Armor was produced by Randall Emmett, a producer who specializes in getting big names to appear in small roles in B-movies. Not much money may have gone into the budget of Armor but one can be sure but the majority of it was used to pay Stallone’s salary. According to some comments left on Letterboxd by someone who claims to have worked on the film’s crew, Stallone shot his scenes in one day and was deliberately kept in the dark about the fact that the film was actually being directed by Emmett and not the credited Justin Routt. Now, whether or not any of that is true, I can’t definitely say for sure. However, it definitely has the ring of truth. Randall Emmett himself is best known for producing many of Bruce Willis’s final films. With Willis having retired and John Travolta perhaps busy, Sylvester Stallone ended up as Emmett’s star-in-name-only for Armor.
Give credit where credit is due. Stallone dominates the few scenes in which he appears. For all the criticism that Stallone has taken over the course of his career, this film reminds us that there’s no other actor who has quite the same screen presence as Sylvester Stallone. As for the rest of the cast, Jason Patric is convincing as the haunted James. Unfortunately, the film can never make up its mind whether or not it wants to be an action flick or a relationship drama. Patric does his best but he’s let down by a script that never seem to be quite sure what it wants to say.
I appreciated that this film took place in the South. The film opens with a news report about an armored truck crash in Dallas and, as soon as they mentioned the Thornton Freeway, I was like, “I was stuck there just a few days ago!” The majority of the film takes place on a bridge in Alabama. The scenery is lovely, even when the action is hackneyed.
Hi, everyone! Tonight, on both twitter and Mastodon, I will be hosting a watch party in memory of the late Chick Norris! Join us for 1986’s The Delta Force!
You can find the movie on Tubi and then you can join us on twitter and mastodon at 9 pm central time! (That’s 10 pm for you folks on the East Coast.) We will be using #TheDeltaForce hashtag! See you then!
The Delta Force (1986, dir by Menahem Golan, DP: David Gurifinkel)
Looking at the title of 2021’s Survive the Game, you may be tempted to wonder what game the characters are attempting to survive.
The answer is that there isn’t a game, unless you’re one of those people who still insists on using “The Game,” to refer to the drug trade because you once heard someone do the same thing on The Wire.
Though there are no games, the film is full of people who are trying to survive. For instance, after a drug bust gone wrong, Detective David Watson (Bruce Willis) is trying to survive having been shot in the gut. He manages to do so surprisingly well, even though he’s being held hostage by the bad guys. The leader of the bad guys, Frank (Michael Sirow), is supposed to be a fearsome torture expert but David just smirks at him.
David’s partner, Cal (Swen Temmel), survives by running to a nearby farm. The farm itself is owned by Eric (Chad Michael Murray), a veteran who is haunted by the death of his wife and who just wants to be left alone. With the bad guys surrounding his farm and looking to eliminate all of the witnesses, Eric teams up with Cal.
There’s a lot of bad guys in this film and they’re all so eccentric that they really do become the main attraction. The bad guys are occasionally entertaining. They spend a lot of time bickering and each one has at least one particularly obnoxious personality trait that can be used to distinguish one from the other. Most of them have a tattoos. One has a mohawk. Quite a few have brightly colored hair. You can’t help but wonder how any of these people could possibly be successful criminals because they’ve all gone out of their way to make sure that it will be easy for law enforcement to spot and identify them. To once again cite The Wire, Wee-Bey Brice yelled at at his son Namond for not shaving his head because the police would be able to easily spot Namond’s haircut. Wee-Bey had a point.
Anyway, this is a siege film. Cal and Eric spend almost the entire movie running around the farm and picking off bad guys. For those of you who are into this sort of thing, some of the kills are imaginative and ruthless. Interestingly, some of the bad guys are presented as being more sympathetic than the film’s heroes. They have their own relationships and fears and they get upset when their friends are killed. I actually felt a little bit bad for some of them. It makes Survive the Game slightly more interesting than the usual DTV B-action movie.
As you may have guessed, this is another Randall Emmett production. Emmett is best-known for his ability to get former and current A-listers to take small roles in his B-movies. As such, an actor like Bruce Willis or Sylvester Stallone would put in a day’s worth of work and the film could be advertised as starring Bruce Willis as opposed to Chad Michael Murray. In Survive The Game, there’s a somewhat endearing moment that occurs when Willis appears to start laughing at the ludicrous dialogue to which he is being subjected. That said, Willis was obviously not doing well when he appeared in this film and it does make some of his scenes somewhat difficult to watch. The viewer really does end up missing the Bruce who could drive Alan Rickman to distraction.
Survive the Game is a film that I had long meant to watch, though I’m not sure why. I think the title appealed to me. Again, I’m not sure why. It’s better than some of Emmett’s DTV action movies but it’s still pretty forgettable. I would still watch a prequel about how the mohawk guy became a ruthless mercenary. It seems like there’s probably a story there.
The first question that one might want to ask about 2021’s Out of Death is what is going on with that title.
Out of Death? Did they run out? Is there an issue with the warehouse? Is it a nationwide outage or just a regional problem? How exactly does someone find themselves out of death? I mean, there are plenty of shortages in the world. There are people who can’t get clean drinking water or tasty food. I had to wait an extra day to get my new scanner because of a supply chain issue. These things happen. But people never seem to run out of death. Death is the one thing that we will always in large quantities.
As for the film itself, it is rather death-obsessed. Shannon (Jaime King) is a photojournalist who has recently lost her father. All she wants to do is spread his ashes in the woods. However, when she witnesses a murder in the woods, she finds herself being pursued by a compromised deputy (Lala Kent). Meanwhile, Jack Harris (Bruce Willis) is a retired detective who has recently lost his wife. He wants to spend some time alone in his niece’s cabin but instead, he finds himself mixed up in Shannon’s problems. The corrupt sheriff (Michael Sirow) wants to be mayor and he’s not going to let Shannon and Jack stand in his way, even if it means killing every possible witness.
Even though Bruce Willis gets top-billing along with Jaime King, he’s not in much of Out of Death. Out of Death was one of the many film productions to be delayed by the COVID lockdowns. When production finally did begin, Bruce Willis shot all of his scenes in one day. (The entire film took 9 days to shoot. Roger Corman, if he was still with us, would want to know why the production took 9 days when it could just as easily been done in two.) Sadly, this is one of the films that Bruce Willis made after it became apparent that he was having serious issues with his health. Willis delivers his lines in a halting manner, which technically works for his emotionally shattered character but which is still hard to watch now that we know that Willis was suffering from frontotemporal dementia at the time. Producer Randall Emmett made his career by convincing big stars to appear in B-movies and he shouldn’t be faulted for that. However, the later films he made with Willis not always easy to watch. Say what you will about the films that Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro have made with Emmett, they all knew what they were getting into. It’s hard to say whether the same was true with Bruce Willis.
As for Out of Death, it’s a fairly dull cat-and-mouse game but I will give it some credit for capturing the atmosphere that goes along with being isolated in the Southern wilderness. This is a film where you could feel the humidity rising from the screen. And Jaime King, who deserves better, gave a strong performance as Shannon. Otherwise, the most interesting thing about Out of Death is the mystery as to what exactly the title means.
Out of Death? It’s a nice thought.
On the mean streets of Detroit …. really, Detroit again?
Well, anyway, Sonny (5o Cent) is a career criminal who also happens to be a really nice guy. When his partner-in-crime, Vincent (Ryan Phillippe), worries about the survival of his imprisoned father (James Remar), Sonny is sympathetic. When his other partner-in-crime, Dave (Brent Granstaff), won’t shut up about how much he loves his wife and his life in the suburbs, Sonny is genuinely happy for him. Sonny may be a criminal but he’s not violent. He’s not a killer.
Understandably, Sonny is upset when Vincent kills a guard during their latest diamond heist. However, that’s nothing compared to how angry Sonny becomes when Vincent betrays both him and Dave, shooting them and leaving them for dead. Dave dies but Sonny survives. Seeking revenge, Sonny teams up with a gangster named Biggs (Bruce Willis). Biggs demands that Sonny retrieve some money for him. It really shouldn’t be that difficult except for the fact that every criminal in Detroit is soon revealed to be an absolute idiot.
At this point, I’ll admit that 2011’s Setup has more than a little in common with Gun. Like that film, it takes place in Detroit and it centers on the drama that takes place in the shadows of the underworld. 50 Cent plays a criminal in both films. James Remar has a small role in both films. Both films feature multiple betrayals and both of them contrast the criminals on the street with the bosses behind-the-scenes. Both films were also produced by Randall Emmett. Indeed, this was one of the first films that Bruce Willis did with Emmett. Emmett would go on to produce several of Willis’s final films and there’s definitely some controversy as to whether or not those films exploited Willis at a time when he was particularly vulnerable.
That said, I actually kind of liked Setup. It’s definitely a low-budget B-flick but it still has its ambitions and it actually achieves some of them. 50 Cent is far more convincing as the well-intentioned but somewhat dumb Sonny in Setup than he was in Gun and he actually does pretty well as the film progresses and Sonny becomes more conflicted about whether or not he actually wants his legacy to be one of vengeance. Ryan Phillippe is well-cast as Vincent and I liked the performances of Jay Karnes and Jenna Dewan, both playing low-level criminals who find themselves in over their heads. The film did a good job of examining all of the different levels of crime in Detroit, from the wealthy Biggs all the way down to the idiots who continually screw up the simplest of plans. Randy Courtere does an especially good job as Petey, the moron who thinks playing with a loaded gun is a good idea.
As for Bruce Willis, his role here is small and it’s a role that probably could have been played by any tough guy actor of a certain age. But, Willis still brings his cocky charm to the role. (Seeing Willis here really drives home just how different he was in the final films that he did for Emmett.) Willis plays Biggs with a sense of humor and it’s just what the movie needed.
To say a movie is better than expected can sound like a backhanded compliment but it’s a compliment nonetheless. Setup was definitely better than I expected.
Angel (Val Kilmer) has just been released from prison and he’s returned to the hard streets of Detroit. Hooking up with his old friend Rich (50 Cent), Angel gets involved in a gun-running operation.
Unfortunately, it’s no longer easy or safe to sell guns in Detroit. The police are cracking down. Rival gun dealers are trying to take out a competition. A raid at a club leaves a dealer dead and a huge power void in Detroit’s criminal underworld. When it becomes obvious that the police have a snitch in Rich’s crew, Rich’s girlfriend (AnnaLynne McCord) suspects that it’s Angel. Can Rich find the snitch without having to betray his best friend? And does Angel have secrets of his own?
First released in 201o, Gun was the third film that Val Kilmer made with 50 Cent and it’s apparently their only collaboration that Kilmer didn’t mention in his autobiography. It probably should be noted that Val Kilmer doesn’t look particularly happy in the movie but that actually works for his character. Angel has just gotten out of prison, he’s mourning his wife, and he’s found himself right in the middle of the type of violent situation that could lead to him going back to prison. In many ways, Angel feels like he could be a version of Heat’s Chris Shiherlis. It’d easy to imagine that maybe Chris changed his name after escaping Los Angeles. He became Angel and he found a new partner in the form of Rich. Unfortunately, Detroit is a lot uglier than Los Angeles, Rich is no Neil McCauley, and Michael Mann’s not directing. Kilmer’s performance is not bad. Even in a low-budget movie like this, he still did his best.
That said, the film is centered around 50 Cent. 50 Cent plays Rich. 50 Cent provides the music. 50 Cent produced the film, along with Randall Emmett, a producer who largely made a career out of getting faded stars to appear in B-movies. (He’s best-known for producing the many of Bruce Willis’s final films.) As Rich, 50 Cent gives a rather stiff performance. It’s not so much that he’s not convincing as a street smart gun dealer as he’s just not very interesting to watch. There’s a predictability to his performance, one that is reflected in the songs that appear on the film’s soundtrack. How many rap songs about making money and shooting people can one listen to before admitting that it all gets boring after a while?
In the end, the most interesting thing about Gun is the number of familiar faces who appear in small roles. James Remar plays a cop. Paul Calderon, the bartender from Pulp Fiction and the traitor from King of New York, plays a detective. John Larroquette and, somewhat inevitably, Danny Trejo both make appearances. Perhaps most oddly, Mike “Boogie” Malin, the winner of Big Brother All-Stars, plays an ATF agent. I should mention that, in real life, Boogie Mike and Dr. Will Kirby (winner of Big Brother 2) had a friendship that widely mirrored the friendship between Rich and Angel. I doubt that factored into his casting. That would be giving Gun to much credit.
Gun was not a particularly compelling film, though it did win some authenticity points by actually being shot on location in Michigan. That said, Val Kilmer gave a better performance than perhaps the material deserved. Val is definitely missed.
In the town of Edison, a reporter named Pollack (Justin Timberlake) is convinced that he’s uncovered evidence of massive police corruption. His editor, Moses Ashford (Morgan Freeman), responds by firing Pollack but then rehires him on the condition that he actually do the work and interview everyone involved. Pollack is confused until he sees that Ashford has a Pulitzer Prize in his Edison bachelor pad.
FRAT stands for First Response Assault and Tactical. Led by Captian Tilman (John Heard) and protected by duplicitous politician Jack Reigert (Cary Elwes), FRAT has made Edison safe but at what cost? The constitution is regularly trampled. Drug dealers are summarily executed. Sgt. Lazaerov (Dylan McDermott) confiscates and uses the drugs himself while the newest recruit, Detective Deeds (LL Cool J), worries that he’ll be executed when he declines to lie in court. Deeds has reason to be worried because he witnesses the attempted assassination of both Pollack and his girlfriend (Piper Perabo).
Teaming up with Detective Leon Wallace (Kevin Spacey), Pollack and Ashford try to get Deeds to turn on FRAT and expose the trouble in Edison.
First released in 2005, Edison was produced by Randall Emmett, who is today best-known for producing (and occasionally directing) Bruce Willis’s final films. Emmett specializes in getting name actors to play small roles in what are otherwise B-movies. In an Emmett film, De Niro, Stallone, Travolta, or Nicolas Cage might get top billing but usually, they only have a few minutes of screentime. Edison is unique in that Morgan Freeman and Kevin Spacey (who was still considered to be a big name back in 2005) both actually have fairly large roles. Though LL Cool J and Justin Timberlake are the stars of the film, it still appears that it probably took Freeman and Spacey longer than a day to shoot their scenes and that truly does set this film apart from other Emmett productions. I should also note that Spacey wears an incredibly tacky hairpiece while Freeman gets an extended dance scene set to Time Has Come Today by The Chambers Brothers.
Is the film itself any good? Eh, not really. It’s a bit disjointed. John Heard was a good actor but this movie was made when he was at the height of his “9-11 was an inside job” nuttiness and he gives a cartoonish performance as the main bad guy. Cary Elwes is entertaining as the crooked politician but it’s hard not to feel that the film would have been more interesting if he and Kevin Spacey had switched roles. LL Cool J is not particularly convincing as a cop so naive that he’s shocked to discover that there’s corruption on the force. As for Justin Timberlake, this was actually his debut as an actor. Timberlake is always at his best playing morally shady characters, like in Alpha Dog or The Social Network. In this film, he has to play earnest and outraged and he’s never particularly convincing. If anything, he comes across as being a little whiny.
That said, the idea behind Edison is at least interesting. FRAT — like countless other special police units in the country — has become untouchable by actually doing its job. The streets are safer, as long as you don’t get on FRAT’s bad side. Who watches the watchmen? Edison asked this now common question in 2005, when America was still embracing the survelliance state. Flaws and all, Edison was ahead of its time.
Lawrence of Arabia (dir. by David Lean)
Since today is David Lean’s birthday, it only seems appropriate that today’s song of the day should come from the film that is regularly acknowledged as being Lean’s masterpiece, 1962’s Lawrence of Arabia. Composed by Maurice Jarre, here is one of the greatest film scores of all times.
Through the Shattered Lens