Could the detective be the killer?

Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
Starring: Albert Finney, Martin Balsam, Lauren Bacall, Richard Widmark, Anthony Perkins, Sean Connery, Ingrid Bergman, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Jean Pierre Cassel, Michael York, Jacqueline Bisset, and Vanessa Redgrave
Director: Sidney Lumet
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

While traveling westward on the Orient Express, celebrated detective Hercule Poirot (Finney) must solve the murder of an unpleasant passenger as the train is halted by a mudslide. The case is complicated by the fact that virtually none of his fellow passengers are telling the truth or are who they appear to be, and that Poirot is apparently the only person without an iron-clad alibi.


"Murder on the Orient Express" is an excellent adaptation of one of Agatha Christie's best mystery tales. It manages to streamline a very complex and tangled scenario while keeping Christie's original narraive mostly intact. It also features an excellent cast giving great performances, with Albert Finney as the Great Detective, Lauren Bacall as an annoying American widow, and John Gielgud as an acid-tongued gentleman's gentleman being particularly noteworthy.

The weakness of the film is that it's slow in getting underway and that when it's finally got a good head of steam going, the mystery is solved and the movie ends. It causes the viewer to swing from a "get on with it!" sensibility to a "wait... that's all?" mindset. I think that if the movie had been more carefully edited, losing perhaps as little as five or ten minutes of running time during its first act, the film would have carried alot more tension.

That's not to say that what's here isn't good... it's very good and it's definately worth seeing for fans of period films and "cozy" mysteries. (On a personal note, the solution to the mystery in this film really creeped me out as a child, and I partially watched it again to see if it had remained as impactful. I didn't have quite the reaction I remember, but it is well delivered.)

'Infernal Affairs' is an excellent police thriller

Infernal Affairs (2002)
Starring: Andy Lau, Tony Leung, Eric Tsang, and Anthony Wong
Director: Wei Keung Lau
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

A mole (Lau) for the Triad criminal gangs has risen to a position of prominance and authority in the Hong Kong police department and has been assigned to the prestigious anti-drug and anti-organized crime taskforce, exactly where his crimeboss master (Tsang) wanted him to be. While taking part in a sting, the mole discovers that the police have a counterpart to him in the Triads--a cop (Leung) who has been undercover for so long that only one person in the police department knows his identity. The undercover cop likewise realizes there is mole in his ranks... and the two men begin an investigative race to unmask and destroy each other to save themselves. Along the way, they must also choose where their real loyalties lie--with the lives they have adopted, or the lives they left behind.


Police dramas don't come much more tense and well-written than this one. The suspense and stakes grow ever-higher as the film unfolds, and Lau and Leung's excellent performances as two men who have lived lies for so long they may have lost track of who they were to begin with, lend even more tension to the story.

Few movies manage to pull off a cat-and-mouse chase story as successfully as this one does, particularly since it's got two mice and each are also the cat. The stars and the supporting cast are all excellent, the action sequences are well done--even if the tensest of moments actually take place with characters sitting at tables or in front of computers--and it's got a couple of twists toward the end that don't feel like the sort of cheats that so many movie makers like to impliment these days.

"Infernal Affairs" is a truly excellent crime-drama. It loses One Star for a couple of stray plot-threads I would have liked to have seen better handled, but that's only a minor annoyance.

The second Bond lives twice

You Only Live Twice (1967)
Starring: Sean Connery, Akiko Wakabayashi, Donald Pleasence, Tetsuro Tamba, Karin Dor, Mie Hama, Desmond Lleweland, and Charles Gray
Director: Lewis Gilbert
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

With the Soviet Union and the United States blaming each other for mysteriously missing space capsules, war between the two superpowers seems imminent. However, British intelligence agent James Bond (Connery) tracks the real culprit behind the vanishing spacecraft to Japan. Here, he teams up with Japanese governmental ninjas (including the sexy Aki (Wakabayashi)) to put a stop to another evil plan set in motion by SPECTRE and Bond's nemesis, Blodfeld (Pleasence).


"You Only Live Twice" was a movie a ahead of its time, insofar as it has something of a 1980s-style action movie feel to it. Some of the action scenes go way over the top, and if you stop and think about them, they don't even make sense as they're unfolding in the movie. Plus, it's got ninjas in their jammies! Who knew such a thing was even allowed to be in movies before 1980?

However, the occasional lapses in logic are of no great consequence, as the film has so much else going for it. Connery gives a fine performance as Bond, composer John Barry turns our yet another excellent score, the film takes advantage of both the natural beauty of Japan as well as some of the myths around its culture, even while tearing others down, and one of the niftiest "secret lair" sets to ever appear in a Bond film.


Another point of interest is this was the first Bond movie where he teams with a female agent who truly is his match (Aki, played by the very lovely Akiko Wakabayashi. It is also the first time where there's a sense that genuine romance may be developing between Bond and woman. Of course, this is also the first manifestation of the "Bond Curse"--any woman he loves is bound to die.

A fun, solid entry in the James Bond series that's worth seeing by fans of 1960s spy films as well as lovers of action movies.





(If you're wondering why I mention the second Bond in this post's title, check out ththis review at "Shades of Gray".)

A political comedy that was dated on release

Silver City (2004)
Starring: Danny Huston, Chris Cooper, Richard Dreyfuss, Maria Bello, Daryl Hannah, and Billy Zane
Director: John Sayles
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A press opportunity and campaign commercial shoot for dimwitted gubernatorial candidate Dickie Pilager (Cooper) is disrupted when a dead body is discovered. Take-no-prisoners campaign manager Chuck Raven (Dreyfuss) hires burned-out-reporter turned private detective Danny O'Brien (Huston) to investigage possible links between the Pilager family and the corpse so he can institute damage control if he needs to. O'Brien uncovers far more than anyone had expected, and he drawn into a high-stakes political conspiracy involving billion dollar real estate development deals and illegal alien smuggling.


That summary of "Silver City" maikes it sound far more interesting than it is. This 2004 movie is so heavy-handed in its political messages (Republicans/Conservaitves ALL bad and evil and corrupt and stupid, Democrats/Liberals ALL good and pure and civic-minded and brilliant); the satire not even approaching clever or insightful, but merely recycled George Bush jokes that were old in 2001; and the mystery that Danny O'Brien investigates is drap and ultimately of a "so what"? variety. (But, it mostly becomes that due to the unrelenting, hackneyed political screeds that passes for the script and plot in this piece of junk.)

This is a film that was stale and dated when it was released in September of 2004, and it's only gotten more-so as George W. Bush's presidency slips away into history. Who could have guessed that so many talented actors could be so blinded by their politics so as to not recognize this film for a piece of garbage when they read the script?

This could have been a decent political thriller with satirical overtones if it hadn't been helmed by what I can only assume are a bunch of frothing fanatics. "Silver City" is the political equivilant of a third-rate drama airing late at night that Christian cable channel--if you're a True Believer, you'll think it's thrilling and funny. If you're even the least bit able to see that politics and politicians is far from a black and white game, and that no one rises to the top by being an idiot, and that no one is pure evil or pure sweetness and light, you will find this film to be a total waste of your time.

The only positive thing I can say about "Silver City" is that the cast all turn in excellent performances. I particuarly enjoyed Danny Huston, Billy Zane, and Daryl Hannah. I might even have liked Chris Cooper if his character had been just a tad more original and better written... but he did what he could with the unfunny crap he was working with.

I think the many glowing and fawning reviews this movie--which stinks worse than the corpse that ruins Dickie Pilager's film shoot--can be used as evidence for right-wingers who like to cry about liberal media bias. Only someone who is so severely brainwashed they're a mind-numbed robot could give this film anything approximating a positive review.

Sherlock Sunday: Moriarty teams with up with the Nazis!

Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1943)
Starring: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Lionel Atwill, William Post Jr, Kaaren Verne and Dennis Hoey
Director: Roy William Neill
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Sherlock Holmes (Rathbone) is charged with rescuing a Swiss scientist (Post) and his revolutionary new bomb-sighting system from the Nazis and bringing him safely to England. However, when the scientist turns out to have too high an opinion of himself and his intelligence, and he falls into the hands of British Nazi agents, Holmes finds himself in race against his old nemesis Professor Moriarty (Atwill) to unlock a coded message that reveals where the prototype of the bomb-sight is hidden.



"Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon" is the second of Universal's "Holmes vs. the Nazis" flick, and it is not only a fun Holmes adventure but a passable espionage thriller. The opening sequence where Holmes outsmarts the Gestapo agents who have crossed into Switzerland to kidnap genius inventor Franz Tobel is a great bit of filmmaker--and the only part of the film that stuck with me from the first time I saw this film at some point in the distant past. (I have no memory of watching this film before, but that opening bit, the revelation of Holmes, and the get-away was all very familiar to me.)

Like many movies of this type, the villains initially benefit from the fact that Holmes' charge may be a genius when it comes to inventing military hardware, but he's otherwise an idiot who ends up in Professor Moriarty's clutches because he had sneak out for a clandestine booty call and because of irrational demands placed on the British security forces regarding the production of his bomb sights. This is what leads to the race to decrypt the code. Apparently, Dr. Tobel is SUCH a genius that he knew the clandestine booty call was a bad idea, so he wrote a code he thought only Holmes would be able to help build his bomb sight should he come to a bad end. Too bad for Tobel that a man almost as part as Holmes is the one who grabbed him.



Speaking of Moriarity, Lionel Atwill gives an excellent performance as Holmes' evil opposite. The script writers also do a nice job of demonstrating his sinister genius by having him and Holmes discover the key to unlocking a particular complicated part of the code only by accident. (I suppose this means that neither are as smart as Tobel gave them credit for... but at least neither Holmes nor Moriarty would sneak out for booty calls while Nazi agents are prowling the streets looking for them.)

In some ways, actually, the film makes Moriarty out to be a bit smarter than Holmes in some ways, but ultimately too crazy to be as effective an evil genius as he might be. Twice during this picture, Holmes places himself completely at Moriarty's mercy, presumably assuming that the evil professor won't just kill him. A pretty stupid thing to do, and one that almost backfires at one point and leads to a more chilling portrayal of Moriarity than I've ever seen. Still, if he had just killed Holmes instead of being duped into killing him slowly (by Holmes playing off Moriarty's ego and sadism), he would have won the day AND the war for his Nazi paymasters.

Then again, if Moariarity had been as smart as Holmes, he wouldn't have teamed up with Nazi losers to begin with... and there wouldn't have been a movie.

"Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon" is a film that you'll enjoy if you get a kick out of old-time thrillers and pulp-fiction style detective tales. Hardcore Holmes fans will probably mostly enjoy the film for it being a sequel of sorts to Doyle's "The Dancing Men" short story, but only if they aren't too annoyed by Holmes and Watson being transplanted to 1940s London instead of 1880s London. (And all of us will have to ignore the goofy looking hair-do on Holmes. I will have to get around to researching that. It is so stupid looking there HAS to be story behind it.)

'The Hidden' should be found by viewers

The Hidden (1987)
Starring: Michael Nouri, Kyle MacLachlan, Claudia Christian
Director: Jack Sholder
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

There's a serial killer/robber on the loose... he loves fast cars, loud music, and over-the-top violence. A homicide detective (Michael Nouri) manages to end the madman's killing spree, but then ANOTHER equally violent crook pops up. A young, soft-spoken FBI agent (Kyle MacLachlan) appears and reveals that he has been tracking these criminals, claiming that they change identities frequently. The two team up to end the mayhem once and for all.


The killer in the film is actually a disgusting alien criminal that leaps from body to body, and MacLachlan is actually ANOTHER alien who likewise leaps from body to body, but he is a cop, or at the very least a vigilante, who has been tracking the murderous creature across space for many years. 'The Hidden' is the tale of their final confrontation.

The above paragraph does not spoil the film--at this late date in the history of sci-fi/action films, it's exactly the sort of thing that we've come to expect from this sort of film. However, 'The Hidden' delivers all the standard elements with far more skill, grace, and craftsmanship. The performances delivered by the actors are top-notch, the script is tight and the dialogue is sharp and well-done, and the use of all the standard sci-fi and action film elements are extremely well-executed. Even the car chases and other action scenes--which often emerge as the weakest points of movies featuring this mix of elements and set in the modern day--are top-notch and better than several more well-known films of this type. What's more, the scenes and exchanges intended to be funny actually are funny, something else many films of this kind fail to pull off.

Another fantastic aspect of this movie is that the main characters--and even a couple of the minor ones--emerge as fully realized personalities that the viewer can't help but care about. Nouri's tough-as-nails homicide detective with a tranquil home life, and MacLachlan's fish-out-water pretend FBI agent with a tragic past make both a good team as well as an interesting contract (both in the action and humorous portions of the film) and the friendship that develops between them is highly believable. And it makes the movie's denouement both creepy and touching at the same time.

I think this is a film that any lover of sci-fi and/or action movies MUST see. (If you can find it. It's been out of print for a while.)

James Bond for the tatooed skateboarder crowd

xXx (aka Triple X) (2002)
Starring: Vin Diesel, Samuel L. Jackson, Asia Argento, and Marton Csokas
Director: Rob Cohen
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

After losing several agents attempting to get the goods on a mysterious Russian crime group known as Anarchy 99, NSA honcho Augustus Gibbons (Jackson) decides it's time to fight fire with fire. He recruits extreme sportsman, professional rebel, and underground Internet celebrity Xander Cage (Diesel) into the agency's service and sends him to eastern Europe. After gaining the trust of Yorgi (Csokas), the Russian military officer turned ararchist and crimelord, he discovers that Anarchy 99 is a far more deadly terrorist threat than anyone has imagined even in their worst nightmares.


"xXx" is a James Bond movie for the skateboarding, snowboarding, tongue-piercing, random tatooing, baggy-pants crowd. From Xander's nifty spy-toys through the superweapon that Yorgi is going to unleash on the world, this film follows the step-by-step recipies that every Bond film since "Diamonds Are Forever" has followed. The action has been amped up--it's pretty much non-stop for the two-hour running time of the film--but the major showpiece stunts are pretty much what you'd expect to see in a James Bond film... and the same is true to the climax AND the denoument.

Heck, there's even one element of this film that makes it seem a tiny bit more sensible and believable than most James Bond films: Xander Cage is established as being 100% capable of pulling off crazy stunts with just about any mode of transportation you care to think of. How exactly did James Bond master such skills? (Not that I'm saying "xXx" is realistic, but then I'd never accuse a James Bond movie of that either.)

People who slam this movie like to complain about Vin Diesel's acting. I don't know what their problem is, as I think he does a fine job... considering he doesn't really have to act at all in this film. (The one scene where he does does do some acting--where Yorgi shows himself to be a more psychopathic monster than even the worse Bond foes--he does an okay job, given the character has been established as having nerves of titanium and a large amount of sympathy for "the little guy.") If there's someone that should be slammed for not giving much of a performance, it should be Asia Argento; she's attractive to look at, but she's not much of an actress, if one is to judge her by this film.

All in all, "xXx" succeeds extremely well as being at being a spy-movie in the James Bond mold. Check it out; it's a great deal of fun.