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.

Don't spend your cash on 'Hard Cash'

The vast majority of movies I watch, I come to cold. If I know anything about them, it comes from reading the blurb on the back of the DVD case, or, rarely, a review on another website or a preview on the DVD itself, which I sometimes watch to decide if I'm actually in the mood for the film in question.

Such was the case with "Hard Cash". I'm a fan of Christian Slater, and I am of course familiar with Val Kilmer and Daryl Hannah, but I knew nothing about the film itself. So, after it sat about a month in my review stack, I stuck it in the DVD player to, at the very least, watch any preview of it that might be included.

And I decided that I had to watch the movie right then, because any flick that's got a midget assassin hiding in a toilet bowl can't be all bad (particularly when it's the midget who played Mini-Me).

But, unfortunately, the midget assassin in the toilet was merely indicative of the turd that this movie turned out to be... and I had been suckered by a well-done promo.


Hard Cash (aka "Run for the Money") (2002)
Starring: Christian Slater, Val Kilmer, Sara Downing and Daryl Hannah
Director: Peter Antonijevic
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Thomas (Slater), a clever thief working with a gang of morons who manage to pull off a $1.9 million heist. All Thomas wants is to split the money with his partners and flee to lead a better life with his young daughter and girlfriend (Downing). Unfortunately, Thomas and his gang stole marked money that a crooked, mildly insane FBI agent (Kilmer) had already stolen and was having laundered. Now, Thomas has to pull off an impossible job at the behest of the crooked Fed while trying to keep his own criminal associates from killing him and each other.


I love a good heist movie, I love good action films, I love good crime dramas, and I love good comedies. "Hard Cash", a film with a case of severe attention deficit disorder, tries to be all of the above, but fails to be any of the above. It reminded me of a pale imitation of a Donald Westlake novel, except the jokes weren't all that funny and the stakes didn't seem to higher... only more unbelievable and stupid. Worse, the stunts and chases aren't particularly good (and obviously cheaply made... the filmmakers couldn't even bother to make most of the cars they demolished look like anything but the junkers they were) and the heists weren't very suspenseful. In fact, "Hard Cash" does a great job at remaining 100% Tension Free. (In fact, the "teaser heist" at the very beginning of the movie is more interesting than anything that follows.)

The only halfway decent thing about this film is Christian Slater and the character he plays--even Val Kilmer can quite manage to rise above the awful script and character he has to work with. Slater's character is the only one with even the slightest bit of depth in the film, and he is the only one who seems to be doing any acting. (Okay, so he's the same character he is in most movies he's done--he's Christian Slater!--but at least there's SOME range of emotion in his performance. No one else has that.

Save your hard-earned cash for something better than "Hard Cash".