Tag Archives: Laurence Fishburne

Catching Up With The Films of 2024: Megalopolis (dir by Francis Ford Coppola)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s hard to know where to really start with Megalopolis.

Directed, written, produced, and financed by Francis Ford Coppola, Megalopolis takes place in an alternate version of the United States of America.  In this alternative world, New York is called New Rome and it is dominated by a handful of wealthy families.  Former District Attorney Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) has been elected mayor.  Everyone seems to hate Cicero and the character tends to come across as being a bit whiny so you really do have to wonder how he got elected in the first place.

Cicero is obsessed with the powerful Crassus-Catallina family, which is headed by banker Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight).  Hamilton’s nephew is Cesar Catallina (Adam Driver), a brilliant architect who won a Nobel Prize for inventing a type of invisible material.  Ever since Cesar’s wife vanished under mysterious circumstances, a cloud of scandal has hung over Cesar’s name and with that scandal has come popularity with both the masses and the tabloid press.  When Cesar was tried for murder, the prosecutor was Franklin Cicero.  Cesar was acquitted but he now spends his time drinking and mourning his wife.  Cesar also has the power to stop time for everyone but him.  Why he has this power and how he came to possess it is never made clear, though Cesar compares it to the way that a great painter or writer can capture one moment for eternity.

Cesar is driven through the rainy streets of New York by his chauffeur, Fundi Romaine (Laurence Fishburne).  Fundi also serves as the film’s narrator, ruminating about how the Roman Empire eventually became a victim of its own decadence.  Just in case the viewer somehow doesn’t pick up on the fact that the movie is comparing modern America to ancient Rome, Fundi informs us of this fact.  Thanks, Fundi!

After Cesar publicly denounces Cicero’s plans to turn New Rome into a casino, Cicero’s daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) decides to take a break from decadent partying to follow Cesar around and try to discover whether or not he actually murdered his wife.  Julia discovers that Cesar is not only still mourning his wife but she also witnesses him stopping time.  Soon, Julia is working for Cesar’s design firm.  At some point, she and Cesar become lovers.

Meanwhile, Cesar’s former lover, Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), has married Crassus and is plotting to take control of his bank.  Working with Wow is Cesar’s buffoonish cousin, Clodio Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf), who organizes the angry citizens of New Rome into a mob that threatens the safety and power of both Cicero and Cesar.  “Make Rome Great Again,” a sign reads at one of Clodio’s rallies, just in case anyone was missing Coppola’s point.

Clodio is obsessed with destroying Cesar.  First, he frames Cesar for deflowering New Rome’s vestal virgin, the singer Vesta Sweetwater (Grace VanderWaal).  Then, he sends a 12 year-old assassin after Cesar.  Cesar fears that he’s lost his ability to stop time.  Julia falls more and more in love with him.  Cicero gets booed everywhere he goes and, after his fixer (Dustin Hoffman) is mysteriously killed, he finds himself helpless against Clodio’s mob.  Can Cesar be convinced to abandon his self-pity long enough to stand up to Clodio?

And what about the Russian spy satellite that just crashed into New Rome?  Who will rebuild the city?

And …. well, let’s just say that there’s a lot going on in New Rome.

Francis Ford Coppola originally came up with the idea for Megalopolis in 1977 and he spent decades trying to bring the film to the big screen.  Eventually, Coppola ended up producing and financing the film himself.  From 2023 to the the day of the film’s Cannes premiere, the trade papers were full of stories about how difficult the production had been, with the underlying theme being that everything was Francis Ford Coppola’s fault and that the movie would be an unmitigated disaster.  (In the coverage found in both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, there seemed to be a good deal of hostility directed at Coppola’s decision to work outside of the Hollywood system.)  Disgruntled members of the crew complained that Coppola was an undisciplined director who spent most of the production high.  A half-baked attempt to generate a #MeToo scandal around the film made it obvious that Coppola had burned a lot of bridges with both Hollywood and the media.  The film was released to critical derision and poor box office returns.  Coppola is 85 years old and it’s entirely possible that Megalopolis will be his final film.

Critics be damned, I liked the majority of Megalopolis.  Though the film may be thematically and narratively incoherent, it is a feast for the eyes and it’s hard not to respect the fact that, in this age of overwhelming conformity, Coppola brought his own unique vision to the screen.  There are a few moments of genuinely macabre beauty to be found in the film.  When the Russian satellite crashes into New York, we don’t see the impact but, on the city walls, we do see the shadows of people screaming in fear.  When a drunk Cesar is driven through New Rome, he sees gigantic statues stepping off of their bases and slumping to the ground, exhausted with being on display.  Coppola films New Rome like a beautiful, open-air prison.  It’s an amazing view but don’t even think about trying to escape.  The scenes in New Rome’s Coliseum are filled with an epic yet seedy grandeur.  At times, the film’s scenes seem to be almost randomly assembled, leaving us to wonder if we’re seeing the past, the present, or maybe just something that Cesar is imagining in his head.

What is the film actually about?  It’s not always easy to say.  Even in his best films, Coppola has had a tendency to be self-indulgent.  Sometimes, that self-indulgence pays off.  Though few would admit it now, The Godfather Part II is one of the most self-indulgent films ever made.  But it’s also brilliant so it doesn’t matter.  However, with Megalopolis, it’s hard not to feel that this film was such a passion project for Coppola that he didn’t stop to consider whether or not he really had anything new to say.  Megalopolis is hardly the first film to compare the supposed decline of America to the fall of the Roman Empire.  As much as I enjoyed the film’s visuals, I cringed at the film’s ending.  One can only imagine how a past Coppola collaborator like John Milius would have reacted to a bunch of children reciting a pledge to take care of the “one Earth.”

It’s a random film, one in which plot points are raised and often quickly abandoned.  At one point, Cesar starts to recite Hamlet’s famous “to be or not to be” soliloquy.  The cast is huge and everyone seems to be acting in a different movie.  Surprisingly enough, neither Esposito nor Adam Driver are particularly believable in their roles, though I think that has more to do with the film’s loose narrative structure than anything else.  Shia LaBeouf is convincingly feral as Clodio while Jon Voight seems to be having fun as the wealthy and crude Crassus.  The best performance in the film comes from Aubrey Plaza, who plays her role like a vampish femme fatale who has somehow found herself in a science fiction story.  Plaza holds nothing back with her performance and she actually manages to bring some genuine human emotion to Coppola’s surreal epic.

Megalopolis is a monument to self-indulgence but it’s always watchable.  Coppola may not know what he’s trying to say but he captures the surreal beauty that comes from getting trapped in one’s own imagination.  Megalopolis is not a film for everyone but I’m glad it exists.  At a time when artistic freedom seems to be under constant attack, it’s hard not to be happy that Coppola did things his way.

DEATH WISH II – Bronson wears a beanie!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

I’m on Day 2 of my discussion of Charles Bronson’s DEATH WISH series in chronological order. This series has brought me countless hours of entertainment over the last 40 years, so enjoy and let me know your thoughts!

Charles Bronson returns as vigilante Paul Kersey in DEATH WISH II. In this installment, Kersey is trying to get his life back on track in Los Angeles with his daughter Carol, who’s still traumatized from the events of the first film, and with his new lady friend Geri Nichols (Jill Ireland). One day when he takes these two out for a fun day of shopping and ice cream, Kersey runs afoul of a group of young thugs who take his wallet. They use the wallet to find Kersey’s address, stand outside his house and make a plan like they’re diagramming a back yard football play, and then break in and rape his housekeeper. They set up shop to wait on Kersey to come home. When Kersey and his daughter finally arrive, the thugs knock out Kersey and kidnap his daughter. They take her back to their warehouse / hideout, where they rape her and she then falls to her death trying to escape. After this series of horrific events, Paul Kersey again turns vigilante to hunt down and kill every person responsible. 

DEATH WISH II (1982) came along at a time in Charles Bronson’s career when he needed a box office hit. His prior three movies, DEATH HUNT, BORDERLINE & CABOBLANCO, had barely made a dent at the box office. Around the same time that Bronson needed a hit, the infamous Cannon Films, recently purchased by cousins Menahem Golan & Yoram Globus, was also looking to make a big splash in the American movie market. Cannon decided that a sequel to DEATH WISH was just what they needed, and with a big paycheck, they were able to convince Bronson to come along for the ride. Director Michael Winner was also hired to direct. The resulting film was a big success, earning back eight times its production budget at the box office alone. Its success also started a relationship between Bronson & Cannon Films that lasted for a total of eight films all the way to the end of the 1980’s. 

Now that we’ve discussed how important DEATH WISH II was to extending Charles Bronson’s leading man career and providing Cannon Films a needed hit, let’s talk about the movie itself. I’m just going to say upfront that it’s my least favorite of the DEATH WISH series. Even though it presents itself as a serious film, it’s more of an exploitative retread of the 70’s classic than a realistic continuation of the Kersey character. And the first thirty minutes is hard to watch. Not content with just allowing Kersey to lose a beloved family member, Winner has crafted two graphic rape and murder sequences. These scenes are rough. While they do make sure we want to see Paul Kersey get his revenge, they leave a bad taste in our mouth that doesn’t go away as the creeps are being dispatched one by one. Vincent Gardenia returns as Frank Ochoa, the New York detective who investigated the original vigilante killings in DEATH WISH. Gardenia was so good in the original, but he’s not given much to do here. Jill Ireland doesn’t really add much either as his new lady friend. 

This is a Charles Bronson film though, so there are definitely some things about DEATH WISH II that I really do like. First, I think Bronson looks like a total badass in his beanie that he wears when he’s hunting down the creeps on the mean streets of LA. It’s a classic 80’s Bronson look. Second, Kersey has some cool sayings as he dispatches the bad guys. The “Do you believe in Jesus” exchange is the best example. Third, it’s fun seeing a young Laurence Fishburne show up as one of the creeps, extending the franchise’s ability to cast future big stars as horrific rapists. Jeff Goldblum had that distinction in DEATH WISH. And finally, Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page composed the music for DEATH WISH II. It’s a memorable soundtrack that’s different than just about anything I’ve ever heard. It’s the most unique thing about the entire movie! 

The bottom line is that I would watch Charles Bronson read a phone book, so I will always find something to enjoy about his films. Well, maybe every one but LOLA. DEATH WISH II isn’t as fun as most Bronson movies, even if it does have some good moments. I’m glad DEATH WISH 3 went a completely different direction with Kersey’s character.

BONUS: Robert “Bobby” Lyons had a part in DEATH WISH II. On our THIS WEEK IN CHARLES BRONSON PODCAST, my partner Eric Todd and I interviewed Bobby about his time on DEATH WISH II and a whole bunch of other topics. He has some interesting stories to tell about working with Charles Bronson, as well as clashing on the DEATH WISH II set with Michael Winner. Give it a listen if you get a chance!

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 3.4 “Walk-Alone”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

This week, it’s a rare Tubbs episode!

Episode 3.4 “Walk-Alone”

(Dir by David Jackson, originally aired October 17th, 1986)

As Switek puts it, Tubbs has been walking on air for two weeks.  He’s got a new girlfriend, a waitress at a hot Miami restaurant.  Unfortunately, a shoot-out at that restaurant leaves her dead.  Though Crockett thinks that Tubbs is still too close to the case to be trusted to investigate, Tubbs insists on being involved and Castillo agrees.  (Castillo, at times, just seem to automatically do the opposite of whatever Crockett suggests.)

The shoot-out happened as a result of a drug deal that went down in the state prison.  Using the name Cubero, Tubbs goes undercover as a recently transferred prisoner.  He enters the prison as his usual cool and collected self.  He’s promptly beaten up by the Aryan Nations.  Fortunately, since this is a television show and not The Shawshank Redemption, beating him up is the only thing the Aryans do to Tubbs.

Tubbs is being targeted by all the prisoners, from the Aryans to the Muslims.  But when words get out that he’s a big-time drug dealer, Commander Fox (Keven Conway) makes a deal with him.  If Tubbs keeps Fox and his men supplied with drugs, Tubbs (or Cubero) will be kept safe.

Unfortunately, when Switek, Zito, and Trudy go the prison to see Tubbs, a prisoner recognizes them.  Tubbs’s cover is blown.  Crockett wants to go into the prison to save him but Castillo points out that everyone in the prison knows that Crockett is a cop.  (Tubbs has been Crockett’s partner for three years now so why did Castillo assume no one in the prison would be able to make him?)  Castillo goes into the prison to save Tubbs from both the guards and the prisoners.  The episode ends with Castillo gunning down a few guards and saving Tubbs’s life.  Way to go, Castillo!  The main lesson here seems to be that Castillo would rather risk of his own life than depend on Crockett for anything.

This was …. well, this episode was okay.  The plot was nothing special.  For all the talk about how Florida’s state prison was the most dangerous place in the world, it actually came across as being a rather mild place.  Tubbs got beaten up and he got threatened but he didn’t get shanked and or any of the other things that one tends to associate with prison.  The prison guards were not the most intimidating or interesting villains to appear on Miami Vice, even though one of them is played by a young Laurence Fishburne.

(This episode all features a youngish Ron Perlman, playing a good guy who I kept expecting to turn out to be a bad guy because he was being played by Ron Perlman.)

In the end, this episode was a bit forgettable, though it did allow the often-underused Philip Michael Thomas a chance to have the spotlight for once.  He does a good job, even if he doesn’t get to bust out his fake Caribbean accent.

Film Review: John Wick: Chapter Four (dir by Chad Stahelski)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yesterday, I finally watched the hit film of March 2023, John Wick: Chapter Four.  It left me overwhelmed and I mean that in the best possible way.

The film picks up where the last film left off.  John Wick (Keanu Reeves), the dog-loving, formerly retired professional hit man, is still traveling the world and killing the leaders of the High Table.  As becomes apparent from the start of the film, it’s a bit of a fool’s errand as killing one leader only leads to another leader being installed.  When John travels to Morocco to kill the leader known as “The Elder,” he discovers that the Elder he knew is gone and has been replaced with a new Elder.  He still kills the new Elder because that’s what John Wick does.  He kills people.  He’s a literal killing machine, one who audiences like because he loves dogs, is still mourning for his dead wife, and he’s played by Keanu Reeves.  On paper, the relentless and ruthless character of John Wick is horrifying.  But, when he’s played by Keanu Reeves, he becomes the killing machine that audiences can’t help but love.

The arrogant and brilliantly named Marquis Vincent Bisset de Gramont (Bill Skarsgard, giving a wonderfully hissable performance) is currently in charge of the efforts to track down and kill John.  The Marquis establishes himself as being evil by not only killing Charon (Lance Reddick) but also blowing up the Continental.  Upset by the murder of Charon and the destruction of his business, Winston (Ian McShane, playing his role with the perfect amount of wounded dignity) tells John that he can end his entire war with the High Table by challenging the Marquis to a duel.  Unfortunately, to do that, John has to convince another criminal organization to sponsor him and just about criminal organization on the planet wants John did.  To make things even more difficult, the Marquis has brought the blind assassin, Caine (the incredible Donnie Yen), out of retirement to track down John.  Caine and John are old friends but Caine knows that his daughter will be killed unless he kills John.

Clocking in at 169 minutes, John Wick: Chapter Four is a big, flamboyant, and at times overwhelming production.  John Wick travels across the world and every country in which he finds himself is home to someone who wants him dead.  And since everyone that John Wick knows seems to have a unlimited supply of guards and henchmen, the fights are nonstop and the violence is over the top but the film is so energetic and cheerfully excessive that it’s never boring.  Each fight scene feels like it could be a separate film on its own, with each member of the cast getting a chance to show off what they can do.  The water-filled fight in a Berlin night club is the film’s best moment but it’s closely followed by an extended combat sequence that’s set in a hotel in Japan.  With its vivid cinematography and ornate production design and its spectacular stunts, John Wick Chapter 4 is a work of pure cinema, an thrill ride of glorious excess.  Along with providing an ending to John Wick’s story, it also pays tribute to everything that audiences love about action cinema.  It’s a film for people who love action and, even more importantly, it’s film that has as much love for its audience as it does for itself.

The film ends on a note of apparent finality, one that becomes more ambiguous the more that one examines it.  This may be the last chapter of John Wick’s story or it may not.  (Considering the film’s box office and critical success, I suspect that it will not be the last.)  John Wick Chapter Four serves as a fitting (if perhaps temporary) end to the saga and also a tribute to both the action aesthetic and Keanu Reeves’s innate likability. 

Keanu Reeves returns in the John Wick 4 Trailer!

Posted on by Leonard Wilson

The High Table would like a word with John Wick.

I’m surprised there’s anyone left to fight, but on hand, we have Natalia Tena (Game of Thrones), Bill Skarsgard (Barbarian), Hiroyuki Sanada (The Wolverine), Scott Adkins (Accident Man), Clancy Brown (Thor: Ragnarok) and the legendary Donnie Yen (Ip-Man, Rogue One). They join the original cast that includes Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Lance Reddick, & Ian McShane.

John Wick: Chapter 4 is set to release in theatres on March 24, 2023.

Band of the Hand (1986, directed by Paul Michael Glaser)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

This place is Florida.  The time is the 80s.  Five juvenile delinquents have been given a chance to earn their freedom.  All they have to do is go down to the Everglades and train with Indian Joe (Stephen Lang), a no-nonsense Vietnam veteran who is determined to teach them not only survival sills but also how to work together as a team.  But Joe is interested in more than just reforming a group of youthful troublemakers.  He wants to turn them into a crime-fighting team who can help clean up the most dangerous neighborhood in Miami.  When Joe and delinquents move into and refurbish a previously condemned building, they get the attention of both the local drug kingpin (James Remar) and his main enforcer (Laurence Fishburne).

Band of the Hand is very much a film of its time, not only in its fashion and music choices but also in its full-on embrace of the war on drugs and the idea that the best way to clean up the streets is for vigilantes to do it on their own.  The film was produced by Michael Mann and, as directed by former Starsky and Hutch star Paul Michael Glaser, the film has the look of an episode of Miami Vice.  That might be because the film itself was originally meant to be a pilot for a television show.  When the networks passed on it, it was released to theaters instead and advertised as being “from the maker of Miami Vice.”    The movie never escapes its television origins.  Things start strong in the Everglades, with Lang proving himself to be a master of glowering and the young delinquents struggling to not only survive Lang’s training but also resist the temptation to kill each other.  It’s less interesting once the action moves to Miami and it becomes Death Wish 3 without the blood or Charles Bronson.  The scenes with the young men goofing around are an awkward fit with the scenes of Remar and Fishburne terrorizing the neighborhood.

Band of the Hand is still worth watching if you want to see some familiar faces early in their careers.  John Cameron Mitchell and Leon both score early roles as two of the delinquents-turned-crime fighters and Lauren Holly plays the romantic interest who is inevitably ends up with the bag guys.  James Remar was always a good villain and Laurence Fishburne channels both his previous performance in Death Wish II and his future performance in King of New York.  It’s a good cast, even if no one really breaks free from the production’s television origins.

The idea of creating a show about a special unit of young crime fighters who battle drug pushers was one that Mann didn’t abandon.  The final episode of Miami Vice was essentially an unsold pilot that followed many of the same plot beats as Band Of the Hand.  (It also didn’t lead to a television series, though some might argue that 21 Jump Street took the same idea and ran with it.)  As for director Paul Michael Glaser, he would later do a much better job with The Running Man.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Class Action (dir by Michael Apted)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Sometimes, it takes a really good actor to give a really bad performance.

That’s what I found myself considering tonight as I watched the 1991 film, Class Action. I recorded this film off of Starz a few months ago, mostly due to the fact that I usually enjoy legal dramas. Class Action is about a father and a daughter, both of whom are attorneys, who find themselves facing each other in court. Gene Hackman plays Jedediah Ward Tucker while Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio played Maggie, his daughter.

From the very first scenes, Jed Tucker is portrayed as being a firebrand, a crusader who stands up for the little guy against big corporate interests. (“Jed Ward is a great man!” one his clients exclaims while the other lawyers nod along in agreement.) Tucker is flamboyant, loud, perpetually outraged, in love with attention, and determined to make the world a better place. This is the type of role that would probably encourage any actor to overact just a bit. However, when you cast someone like Gene Hackman in the role, the performance becomes a masterclass in overacting. Gene Hackman was never a particularly subtle actor to begin with and casting him as Jed Tucker guarantees about two hours of Hackman bellowing, smirking, occasionally flirting, and basically coming across less like Gene Hackman and more like someone doing a particularly antic impersonation of Gene Hackman. Hackman goes so over overboard in the role that it becomes rather fascinating to watch. You watch and you ask yourself, “How much louder can he get? He much more obviously can he telegraph his intentions? Just how Gene Hackmanish is Gene Hackman going to get in this film?” Don’t get me wrong, Gene Hackman was a great actor. (He famously retired in 2004, after the indignity of appearing in Welcome to Mooseport.) One need only watch Bonnie and Clyde, The French Connection, Unforgiven, and The Royal Tennenbaums to see that Gene Hackman was a great actor. But sometimes, it takes a great actor to give a memorably bad performance.

Gene Hackman’s performance, as overbaked as it may be, is actually the only interesting thing about Class Action. It’s a well-made but ultimately rather silly mix legal maneuvering and family drama. Jed was a terrible father so Maggie becomes a corporate attorney in order to spite him. Class Action so embraces the idea that all professional women are motivated by daddy issues that even Aaron Sorkin would probably look at it and say, “Whoa, that’s really demeaning.” At one point, Maggie says to her father, “Have you ever considered that I might be a good attorney?,” just to have her father smirk and say that’s only because he’s her father. Jed’s response is to be expected, as he’s kind of an arrogant windbag. The problem is that the movie itself doesn’t seem to be willing to consider that Maggie could be a good attorney.

The other problem, of course, is that Class Action makes its good guys and its bad guys so painfully obvious that it’s hard to take any of the conflicts seriously. Of course, the big corporate law firm is going to be evil and of course, Jed Ward’s associates are going to be saints even if Jed isn’t. Laurence Fishburne plays Jed’s protégée and he gets stuck with all of the worst lines. Far more entertaining is future U.S. Senator and presidential contender Fred Dalton Thompson, playing a doctor who explains why it actually costs less for a car company to settle a lawsuit than to fix a design flaw.

Class Action is a forgettable film, not so much terrible as just bland. That said, if you want to hear some vintage Gene Hackman-style yelling, this might be the film for you.

Film Review: The Mule (dir by Clint Eastwood)

Posted on 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.

Deep Cover (1992, directed by Bill Duke)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

When Russell Stevens was 10 years old, he saw his father get gunned down while holding up a liquor store.  Now, 20 years later, Russell (Laurence Fishburne) is a cop who is so straight that he doesn’t even drink.  But because of his father’s background, a psychological profile that indicates Russell is unique suited to understand how the criminal mind works, and the fact that he has no loved ones at home, he is recruited to work undercover.  His weaselly handler, Carver (Charles Martin Smith), explains that going undercover means that Russell is going to have to become a criminal 24/7.  He can’t just do his job for 8 hours a day and then go back to his normal life at night.

With the government’s money, Russell sets himself up as a dealer, buying and selling the drugs that are destroying his community.  It does not take long before Russell meets David Jason (Jeff Goldblum), a lawyer and aspiring drug kingpin.  At first, David makes Russell as being an undercover cop but, after Russell is arrested by the righteous but clueless Detective Taft (Clarence Williams III), David changes his mind and brings Russell into the operation.  The line between being a cop and a criminal starts to blur, especially after David and Russell start to bond over their mutual dislike of their boss, Felix (Gregory Sierra).  It doesn’t take long for Russell to get in over his head.

There have been a lot of films made about undercover cops losing themselves in their new criminal identity but few take the story to its logical conclusion like Deep Cover does.  Russell may start out as a straight arrow but, by the end of the movie, he’s killed a dealer in cold blood and broken his own personal pledge to never do cocaine himself.  He also discovers that David is often a more trustworthy partner than his own colleagues in law enforcement.  Fishburne and Goldblum both give excellent, spot-on performances as Russell and David and they’re supported by an able cast of weasels and tough guys.  I especially liked Charles Martin Smith’s performance as Carver.  (When Russell asks Carver if he’s ever killed a man, Carver laughs and says that he went to Princeton “just to avoid that shit.”)  Gregory Sierra is also great in the role of Felix and I loved that, of all people, Sidney Lassick played one of Felix’s henchmen.  That’s like seeing John Fiedler play the Godfather.

One of the best crime thrillers of the 90s, Deep Cover is not only a detective film but it’s also a politically-charged look at why America’s war on drugs was doomed to failure.  No sooner does Russell get into position to catch the man behind Felix’s operation than he’s told to drop the case because the State Department thinks that the drug lord could be politically helpful to them in South America.  As Russell discovers, the War on Drugs is more interested in taking out the soldiers on the streets than the generals in charge.  While men like Carver sit in their offices and move people around like pieces on a chess board, people like Russell are left to clean up the mess afterward.

Music Video Of The Day: White Lines by Melle Mel (1983, directed by Spike Lee)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

This song, one of the first hit rap songs about drugs, is often mistakenly described as being a collaboration between Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel.  Grandmaster Flash actually had nothing to do with the song.  He had already left Sugar Hill Records before the song was even recorded.  When the single was first released, it was credited to “Grandmaster and Melle Mel,” in order to create the impression that Flash was involved.  In his autobiography, Flash wrote that he once heard the song was while he was on the way to buy crack and, at that moment, he felt that Melle Mel was specifically speaking to him.

This song was recorded at a time when much of America — specifically, white America — was either unaware of or unconcerned with the drug epidemic that was ravaging America’s poorest neighborhoods.  White Lines attacks both cocaine and a legal system that punishes poor black kids more harshly than rich, white businessmen.  “The businessman who is caught with 24 kilos” is a reference to car manufacturer John DeLorean, who was arrested after trying to buy 24 kilos from an undercover FBI agent.  DeLorean was later acquitted after he made the case that the FBI agent had entrapped him.

(DeLorean today is best remembered for designing the car made famous by Back to the Future.  Between 1981 and 1983, 9,000 Deloreans were manufactured and 6,500 of them are reported to still be in working condition.  I once came across a classified ad from someone who was looking to sell his DeLorean.  I called and offered him a thousand dollars.  He laughed and hung up.)

This video was shot by Spike Lee, who was a film student at NYU at the time and yes, that is Laurence Fishburne.  Fishburne appeared in this video shortly after playing Cutter in Death Wish II and he has the same look in the video as he did in the movie.

Enjoy!