China also made 'crazy Vietnam vet' films

The Long Goodbye (aka "The Head Hunter") (1981)
Starring: Chow Yun-Fat, Rosamund Kwan, Philip Chan, Chun Hsiang Ko, and Melvin Wong
Director: Shing Hon Lau
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Andy (Yun-Fat) is an ex-South Vietnamese soldier now working as a hitman for an international crime syndicate and arms-dealers who use a movie studio as its legitimate front. He is himself is marked for death after first assassinating Soviet agents in Kwoloon and then later refusing to kill his investigative reporter girlfriend, Vicky (Kwan).


"The Long Goodbye" is a low-budget crime drama that suffers from a chaotic plot, glacial pacing, useless subplots, indifferent camera and lighting work, and a cast of actors who mostly seem like they'd rather be anywhere else but on the set of this movie.

The film shows a few glimmers of quality and real suspense at the climax, as Andy squares off his one-time boss and a crazed, machete-wielding assassin with Vicky's life at stake. Unfortunately, what's good about the ending is almost ruined by an awful, inconsistent music soundtrack that seems to get worse even as the rest of the film gets better in its closing minutes.

I think that anyone except the world's biggest fans of Chow Yun-Fat or Rosamund Kwan can safely take a pass on this movie, although it is interesting to note that the Chinese made "crazy Vietnam Vet" movies, too.

Diamonds are forever, even if Bond isn't

Another review from when James Bond movies were entertaining.

Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
Starring: Sean Connery, Jill St. John, Jimmy Dean, Charles Gray, Bruce Glover, and Putter Smith
Director: Guy Hamilton

British secret agent James Bond (Connery) impersonates an international diamond smuggler to figure out why a reclusive American business magnate (Dean) is acquiring large amount of diamonds. He soon discovers that his old nemesis Ernst Blofeld (Gray) is lurking in the background.


"Diamonds Are Forever" is another of my favorite Bond movie. It's perhaps the quirkiest of the series, with a level of flip humor that rises almost to the level of some of the later Roger Moore films,and of the series' goofiest chase scenes that sees Bond escaping a research lab in a moon buggy while being pursued by security guards in sedans and on pocket-bikes; yet, the film has a dark center, where a creepy pair of assassins stalking Bond at every turn (the flamboyantly gay couple of Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wint, played with great flair by Glover and Smith) and evil mastermind Blofeld can easily commandeer the resources of a financial empire and the United States government in order to threaten the world.

The film also features one of the most likable Bond Girls ever. The almost-never fully clad Tiffany Case (St. John) brings her considerable assets to film with a twinkle of comic relief--and nothing is more amusing and fun to look at than the outfit she shows up in at one point after being told to put on some more clothes.

Much has been written about the film being homophobic, because it features a pair of pyschopathic, flamingly gay--and so polite that they are every etiquette coach's dream--characters. I think this says more about a pathological hysteria present in the ultra-PC crowd than anything that's actually on screen in "Diamonds Are Forever." Having gay villains in a film is homophobic? Does Blofeld admiring Tiffany Case's ass mean the movie-makers fear straight people, too? No, it doesn't. What it means is that some critics are idiots who probably need therapy.

Another strong element of the film its score. It doesn't have the lasting presence that the "Goldfinger" and "From Russia With Love" music had on the series--themes from which keep popping up for the next decade or more, including this one--but John Barry turns in another excellent effort. The theme song is one of the best so far in the entire series, and Barry incorporates the very hummable tune into several different sequences, and sometimes in very creative ways.

A very enjoyable entry in the Bond series that I think gets unfairly dumped on.

'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.