'Haunts' is an interesting misfire

Haunts (aka "The Veil") (1977)
Starring: May Britt, Cameron Mitchell, and Aldo Ray
Director: Herb Free
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A young woman (Britt) haunted by dark memories is stalked by a murdering rapist, or is she? The town sheriff (Aldo) thinks she's being hysterical... and just what is it her slovenly uncle (Mitchell) doing with his nights?


"Haunts" is a thriller that attempts to use a mentally unbalanced character to provide the narrative Point of View for the film. It's a clever and laudable idea, but it's not one that the director and writer (one and the same, at least with a co-writing credit on the script) were up to pulling off. The film is a bit too slow in unfolding, and what could have been a truly powerful ending (with some chilling realizations dawning on the part of the attentive viewers) is weakened by it likewise going on for a tad too long and by a last-minute attempt at throwing a possibility of something supernatural into a straight thriller. Once again, we have an ending that's ruined by filmmakers who just didn't know when to quit.

With some judicious editing, this film could actually be quite good, and it's one I wish I liked more. There's alot of misspent potential here, and all the three leads do such a good job that the void of talent embodied by some of the supporting cast is almost not noticeable. (In fact, a scene in a bar featuring two of these talentless actors could be cut almost entirely, and the film would immediately get stronger in several ways--the mystery of the killer's ID would be heightened, and we'd have lost some of the more noxious flab dangling from the work's body.

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".

Witness Jane Tennison's final case

Prime Suspect 7: The Final Act (2006)
Starring: Helen Mirren, Laura Greenwood, and Gary Lewis
Director: Philip Martin
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

As her life is in total melt-down and alcholism is about to claim her once and for all, Detective Superintendent Jane Tennison (Mirren) struggles to close one last case before she retires from the Metropolitan Police force... the case of a 14 year-old girl who vanished on her way to basketball practice.


"The Final Act" is a nice, two-part close to one of the best television crime dramas to ever be created. It presents a decent mystery--one that I solved just ahead of Tennison, so the show plays as fair with the adience as ever--and it continues and concludes the downward spiral that's been Jane Tennison's life for the last 15 years. As she walks away from her collegues on the force in the final shot of the series, there is a sense that maybe she'll rise from rock-bottom, even if the character flaws that have grown deeper over the years are still very much present.

Although it is a bit slower moving than episodes in the early days of the series and not quite as good as the masterful heights reached in the early "Prime Suspect" series, it's still a fantastically acted and artfully written show. Helen Mirren and teenaged actress Laura Greenwood are particularly good in their parts.

'Police Story' has Jackie Chan at his best

Police Story (1985)
Starring: Jackie Chan and Birgitte Lin
Director: Jackie Chan
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

After Police Sgt. Chan (Chan) busts an infamous crime lord, he is assigned to protect the woman authorities hope will be their chief witness against him (Lin). Chan is soon trapped between the anger of his unwilling charge and the intricate plots of the gangsters.


"Police Story" is, from the very first frame, a raging volcano of action and comedy. The film has a bare minimum of plot and characterization to get in the way of the jokes and impressive fight and/or action scenes... but the action is so impressive that we don't need a whole lot of plot. From a fantastic chase that leaves a shanty-town in ruins through a massive battle that lays waste to a shopping mall, this film is everything Jackie Chan fans love at its most concentrated.

"Police Story" is a must-see for action film fans. The shanty town car chase and bus chase are incredibly impressive. There's nothing like real cars flying through real buildings to make a real action film. No wussy computer graphics in this film!

As of this writing, this classic action film is unavailable for purchase, but it can almost certainly be rented from Netflix and other outlets.

One of the best movies of 2000s

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2005)
Starring: Robert Downey, Jr., Val Kilmer and Michelle Monaghan
Director: Shane Black
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

In "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang," petty thief Harry (Downey) is whisked away to Hollywood when a casting director decides he'll be perfect to play a detective in an upcoming movie. Here, he meets homosexual private detective "Gay" Perry (Kilmer) and, through a chance encounter, is reunited with childhood friend and unfulfilled dream-girl Harmony (Monaghan). The trio soon find themselves (despite their best efforts not to be) involved with mysteries, murders, and mayhem so bizarre that it's as though they've stepped into a classic pulp dime store mystery novel.


"Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" manages to be both a black comedy and a modern take on "film noir," as our reluctant heroes try to sort out the evermore complicated and deadly mystery they have been drawn into. The humor is derived from extremely witty patter that is delivered with great skill by Downey and Kilmer, and from the movie's playful fourth-wall approach to the ever-present narrator so common in this type of film. (More than once, the narrator--Harry--stops the film and comments that he left something and then goes on hilarious, self-deprecating rants about narration, storytelling, and how bad he is at both.) Laughs are also generated by the way the film turns several of the genre's conventions on its head, prime among these being that the hardboiled detective is openly gay.

This movie is fantastic not only because every actor is at the top of their game for every moment they spend on screen, but also because the film manages to keep its tense mystery plot going while being playful with the artifact that is a movie and the narration device. Even the digs at the "typical Hollywood happy ending" that the film gets in at the end, and the final wrap-up by the narrator are executed so flawlessly that they actually work!

Pay attention, all you filmmakers who think you're making clever suspense movies or clever comedies about movie-making and Hollywood... "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" is an incredibly well-done example of how to do both.

Cary Grant heads 'North by Northwest'

North by Northwest (1959)
Starring: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, and James Mason
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Rating: Ten of Ten Stars

When ad executive Roger Thornhill (Grant) is mistakenly identified by foreign spies as an elusive American agent, he finds himself framed for murder and on the run for his life, hunted by an ever-present foe (Mason) for reasons he doesn't understand. He eventually attempts to turn his situation back on his tormentors and discover the true identity of the spy they've mistaken him for, with the help of enigmatic beauty, Eve Kendell (Saint).


"North by Northwest" is perhaps the greatest thriller ever made, and I think it's quite possibly the very best movie Alfred Hitchcock directed; it's tied with "Young and Innocent" as my favorite Hitchcock film. It's got a fantastic cast--with Grant, as the hapless hero, and Mason. as the ultra-polished, James-Bondian bad guy, Vandamm shining brightest--a perfectly paced script that moves from one complication to another, from one breathtaking chase to another with roller coaster-like ups and downs and whip-lash turns; brilliant camera-work and editing; and one of the most fabulous scores ever written for cinema.

The use of sound in the film is also incredibly impressive. The cropduster scene (perhaps the most famous sequence from any Hitchcock film) is as impactful as it is because of the strategic use of sound (or, more accurately, the use of silence).

Modern filmmakers and writers should study this film carefully. They'll notice that the KISS principle is best when it comes to effective thrillers, and they'll also perhaps see what real witty dialogue sounds like. Lovers of thrillers and spy movies should also seek it out if they haven't seen it yet. It truly is a classic, and it is a movie that deserves to be seen again and again.

'Goldfinger' is Bond at his greatest

Goldfinger (1964)
Starring: Sean Connery, Gert Frobe, and Honor Blackman
Director: Guy Hamilton
Rating: Ten of Ten Stars

British secret agent James Bond (Connery) is sent to investigate suspicious dealings of megalomanical billionaire Auric Goldfinger (Frobe). Bond uncovers that Goldfinger is involved in criminal activity on a far grander scale than anyone had suspected in their wildest nightmares.


"Goldfinger" is the James Bond movie that set the standard for all the (good) James Bond movies that followed. It was the first to introduce wild gadgetry and a tongue-in-cheek tone, which took the series and character away from its Ian Fleming roots, but gave the series the elements that have sustained it for over 40 years.

This is also the best James Bond movie so far, and it features one my all-time favorite movie exchanges...

Bond (strapped to a table, while a laserbeam is slowly moving into position to slice him in half): Do you expect me to talk?

Goldfinger (with a laugh, as he walks away): No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.

It's perhaps the only time in the entire series where the inflappable Mr. Bond was in genuine fear for his life, and Goldfinger still stands as the classiest, coldest Bond villian of them all. He also had the best sidekicks, from pilot Pussy Galore to Oddjob (he of the lethal bowler hat). From the opening titles through the final (and surprising) deadly encounter between Bond and the bad guys, every thing in this film works perfectly. The cast is fabulous, the pacing is flawless, and the John Barry/Monte Norman soundtrack still stands as one of the very best Bond scores.

They keep the gritty, depressing James Bond reboot that has been inflicted upon the movie going public. I'll stick with the classics.