'The Contract' is not worth working for

The Contract (2006)
Starring: Morgan Freeman, John Cusack, and Jamie Anderson
Director: Bruce Beresford
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A top assassin (Freeman), stranded in the Washington backwoods, ends up in the custody of Ray (Cusack), a retired police officer who wants to reconnect with and impress his young son (Anderson). Will Ray manage to bring the killer to the authorities, or will the rest of the hit team catch with up him first?


"The Contract" isn't a bad movie, but it isn't exactly a good one, either. The plot is one that's been done a dozen times over, the "twists" are all predictable because they too have been done a dozen times over characters are cliches that only come to life due to the excellent work of the actors portraying them... but even the best actor can make up for the fact that every action the characters take seem dictated by plot needs rather than common sense. It's the sort of film that's worth watching if you come across it late at night on television and can't sleep. It's not worth going out of your way for, though.

The best thing about the film is actually Morgan Freeman. He plays the cold-blooded, practical, and well-spoken sociopath very well... although he's had plenty of practice, given that this is the third or fourth time he's played that character. Freeman is interesting enough of an actor that he manages to make hit man Frank Carden interesting and likable, even if the character is as written is as dull as they come, and he is the villain of the piece; not the main villain, but certainly not a character the viewer is supposed to be as sympathetic toward as we are.

Our sympathies should lie with Ray, the father struggling to keep his son from "going bad" and the struggling to keep everyone alive. Unfortunately, Ray is such a dunderhead--being the main factor that keeps some fairly simple resolutions to the storyline from being enacted, no matter how sensible they might be--and John Cusack plays the part like he's asleep half the time, so Ray ends up feeling like a non-entity, exactly like the troubled single father stereotype he's written as.

Where Freeman seems to give his character life beyond the page, Cusack never seems to rise above the workman-like script. So, with a perceptive man of steel on one hand, and a dimwitted dish rag on the other, it's no wonder that we like Freeman's character over Cusack's. (And, of course, in the end, Freeman's character turns out to be not such a bad guy after all... because hit men are murderers with honor and hearts of gold in the world of movie stereotypes.)

'Medusa' is a twisted crime drama full of quirky characters

Medusa (1973)
Starring: George Hamilton, Luciana Paluzzi, Cameron Mitchell, Theodor Rambow, and Takis Kavouras
Direector: Gordon Hessler
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Jeffrey (Hamilton) is a drunken playboy living in Greece and whooping it up like the quintessential Ugly American. However, when word gets out that a last minute change to their father's will might leave Jeffrey and Sarah penniless, Jeffrey's life takes a turn for the serious, as a local mobbed-up casino owner (Mitchell) starts squeezing him to settle his $170K+ debts, and a mysterious strangler starts following him around, killing everyone connected with the rumored will. Is this masked killer real, or simply a figment Jeffrey's cracked mind?


"Medusa" is an offbeat crime drama that, despite an excess of padding in the form of Greeks singing, dancing, throwing plates, and otherwise behaving as though they're in an "Official Production of the Greek Travel and Tourism Department," is a fun and entertaining ride. Its populated by quirky characters, many of whom have an almost classic film-noir sense about them, such as the omni-present, nameless homicide detective (Kavouras) and Mitchell's health-nut gangster. In fact, I think Mitchell may well give the best performance of his career in this film.

Hamilton also gives the best performance I think I've ever seen from him--and while that may sound like I'm damning with faint praise, I'm not. I've always seen him as a comedic actor, and while he certainly plays a goofball here, he plays a dangerous, crazy goofball... and the menace oozes from his glittering smile when the scene calls for it.

In fact, this film was good enough that I almost feel inclined to forgive Gordon Hessler for the awful piece of crap that was "Scream and Scream Again".

Hitchcock's cold war thriller still works

Torn Curtain (1966)
Starring: Paul Newman, Julie Andrews, Gunther Strack, Wolfgang Keiling, Ludwig Donath and Tamara Touronova
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

When Dr. Sarah Sherman (Andrews) discovers her fiance, disaffected American nuclear physist Professor Michael Armstrong (Newman) is hiding something from her, she decides to trail him on a mystery flight to East Berlin. There, she learns is about to defect to East Germany during a showy media conference. But, there is more to Armstrong's defection than mere treason to his country, and Sherman unwittingly puts both herself and him in mortal danger.


"Torn Curtain" is a thriller that turns from spy movie to escape/persuit film fairly early in the story--far earlier than is typical in these sorts of films.

From beginning to end, this film breaks with the conventions of the Cold War spy movies, particularly those made in the 1960s. The lead "spy" is not flashy and he probably has never touched a gun in his life--Armstrong is about as low-key as he could possibly be. Similarly, while the East German secret police are menacing and definately oppressive, none of them are overtly as flamboyantly evil.

The film features the usual good acting, fast-paced story, and skilled use of visual story-telling elements that we expect from a Hitchcock movie, but the production design leaves a little to be desired. Specifically, I wish some more effort had gone into the matte paitings that transport Paul Newman from a Universal soundstage to an art museum in East Berlin; the paintings are obvious and almost embarrasingly bad.

"Torn Curtain" isn't as ignored as some of Hitchcock's early films, but it is one that deserves more attention than it gets. It's a well-done, low-key thriller that fans of Hitchcock should see. Fans of Julie Andrews should seek it out as well, as she's better here than in anything else I've seen her in. (Yes, even "Mary Poppins".)

The Adventures of Lemon Drop!

Lemon Drop (2010)
Starring: Ali Larter, Martin Kove, and Erica McIntyre
Director: Traktor
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Lemon Drop (Larter) is a sexy defender of cute animals, and when a pair of kittens are abducted from the pet store that serves as the front for her operation, she swings into immediate action. Clues lead her to a night club, but why would singing sensation Johnny Thunderbird (Kove) want to abduct kittens?

Absolut Vodka has a cute ad campaign going for their lemon flavored vodka, the center piece of which is an online short film that tries to look like one of those discarded drive-in B-movies that show up in less-than-perfect condition in the DVD multi-packs with titles like "Tough Dames" and "Drive-In Movie Classics."

Although it's not a "full-length movie" as banner ads at Rottentomatoes.com and elsewhere claim, it is still a cute little spoof. Although I'm usually a Three Olives kinda guy--with chocolate and cherry flavored vodkas being my favorites--I might reward them by giving their product a test next time I'm restocking the liquor cabinet. The jokes are funnier and the performances are better in this little ad are better than in some real movies I've been subjected to in recent years.

You can check out "Lemon Drop" without needing to go anywhere but here. Just click "play" on the imbedded video, below. (For what it's worth, it's strictly a soft-sell ad.)



(For more on Ali Larter and her recurring part in the "Resident Evil" series, click here to visit my Terror Titans blog.)

'High Anxiety' is a Mel Brooks masterpiece

High Anxiety (1977)
Starring: Mel Brooks, Madeline Khan, Harvey Korman, and Cloris Leachman
Director: Mel Brooks
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

When psychiatrist Richard Thorndyke (Brooks) takes a new job as director of the Psychoneurotic Institute for the Very, Very Nervous, he finds that something is amiss. Before he can take action, he is framed for murder and set on the run. In order to clear his name, he must face his own neurotic condition, "high anxiety."


In "High Anxiety", one of cinema's greatest satirists takes on the works of Alfred Hitchcock, and he does so beautifully. In theory, this should be a movie that doesn't work, because making a satire of a body of work that's already rich in comedy--Hitchcock's movies mostly mix suspense and humor in near equal amounts--but Brooks manages to deliver a film that keeps viewers chuckling, giggling, and issuing full belly laughs in order to clear his name. Fans of Hitchcock will be laughing especially loudly and consistently, as Brooks not only offers spot-on spoofs of some of Hitchcock's most famous scenes, but provides affectionate mockery of many of his most-used stylistic flourishes. (And when Brooks isn't spoofing Hitchcock, he's delivering random insanity, such as Leachman's Nazi nurse character.)

And then there's the catchy tune of the theme song. Some twenty years after first seeing the film, the melody still stuck with me, and now that I've heard it again, it'll probably be in my head for days. (I find myself humming it as I type this review!) It's also nifty how it gets used in Bernard Hermann music score parodies in the film, too.

Lovers of well-done satires should get a big laugh out of this suspense movie spoof, and fans of Hitchcock's work absolutely must see this loving send-up.



For reviews of some of Hitchcock's actual films, click here for the ones I've reviewed at the Shades of Gray blog. (For ones reviewed here, click on the Alfred Hitchcock tag at the bottom of this post.)

You can read reviews of other Mel Brooks films by clicking here to Cinema Steve, the hub for all my review blogs.

'Ninja Heat' is 100% Ninja Free!

Ninja Heat (1978 (?))
Starring: Chan Sheng, Chan Wai Mang, Sze Ming, YuYang, Shan Qu, Tse Yuen, and Fong Lam
Directors: Lo Mar and Leung Siu Chang
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Released after spending six years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, a martial arts expert and his brother take revenge on the men who framed him (not to mention killed his mother, raped his girlfriend, and probably shaved all the hair off his dog).


"Ninja Heat" is a straight-forward revenge flick that follows the two brothers as they track down the men on their "Black List" and beat them to death one by one. The film is so straight forward that it doesn't even bother with the standard twists, including one that seemed so clearly telegraphed I was pleasently surprised when it never materialized.

With a cinematic style that leans heavily on Sergio Leone (of all people), well-choreographed and filmed fight and chase scenes, and more melodrama than I think I've ever experienced crammed into a single movie (EVERY bad guy had a drawn-out death scene, and most got to have flashbacks as they died... seeing their wifes or girlfriends and regretting their lives of crime in their last moments), and a nice music soundtrack with a catchy main theme that, like the look of the film, seems like it belongs in a Sergio Leone movie, I think those who like the low-tech, gritty martial arts features from the late 1970s and early 1980s will enjoy this movie.

It has one problem: There are no Ninja anywhere to be seen in this movie! Maybe "Ninja Heat" refers to the weather that makes so many of the characters in this movie sweat more profusely than a fat man chained on a runaway treadmill?

Or maybe the Ninjas are there, but they're hiding really, REALLY well! (That might make sense. There might be obscure Ninja Secrets that are hidden within this film... it would explain why it's so obscure that it doesn't even have a listing at Internet Movie Database, nor at Rotten Tomatoes. I can't even find any other reviews of the film out there! Could this be the Ninja equivalent of "The DaVinci Code"?!)

If you've seen this movie (it's included in the "Martial Arts 50-Movie Pack" and a few other multipacks) and if you have an idea of what its "aka" may be, I'd love to know. It's not a bad little little movie (even if it is 100% Ninja Free), so it's surprsing to me that it' so completely obscure as far as the Web goes.





(Programming Note: The lack of Ninja in this film will be made up for in November with Nine Days of the Ninja. Mark it on your calendar, and perhaps even consider posting a few reviews of Ninja movies of your own!)

'Machete' is a well-made exploitation retread

Machete (2010)
Starring: Danny Trejo, Jeff Fahey, Jessica Alba, Robert De Niro, Cheech Marin, Michelle Rodriguez, Don Johnson, Lindsay Lohan, and Steven Seagal
Directors: Ethan Maniquis and Robert Rodriguez
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A former Mexican police officer (Trejo) is betrayed by corrupt superiors to a powerful drug kingpin (Seagal). He ultimately flees to the United States, crossing the border secretly and disappears into the semi-hidden underworld of illegal aliens. Yet, Fate draws him into conflict with the drug lord once again, when a sinister political operative on his pay-roll(Fahey) attempts to make him a patsy in a staged assassination of a state senator whose career is in trouble (Di Nero).


This seems to be the summer of throwbacks. First there was "Predators", the movie that took the "Most Dangerous Game"-hunting aliens back to their jungle roots. Then there was "The Expendables", which set out to recreate the feel of a late 1980s action flick. And now there's "Machete", a film that casts itself in the mold of a 1970s exploitation flicks. While there hasn't really been much new under the sun since circa 1965, I don't know that "hey, we have nothing original to offer!" has ever been quite such a marketing point.

Not that it's necessarily bad, at least in the specific cases of the three films mentioned above. All three succeed quite well at what they set out to do--which was to be entertaining yet not-terribly-original action films. So long as the movies are good, and the audience is warned up front that there's nothing fresh between the main title card and the end credits crawl, I have no issue with them being derivative.

And "Machete" is about as derivative as they come. It's like one of the sleazier blaxploitation flicks where small-time hoods or drug-pushers were glorified and set up as if they were heroic figures, because, in this one particular story, they were actually pitted against bigger scum-bags than they were--more evil criminals and corrupt politicians and cops. (And the only way I could fully root for The Network, the group dedicated to smuggling illegal aliens across the United States border with Mexico and find them crap jobs just one step up from slavery, so a select few might be able to work their way into a decent living, is to ignore the fact that the reason they come into conflict with Steven Seagal's drug kingpin is the detail offered in passing that The Network itself is funded by illegal drug smuggling and the money generated by it.)

As for the acting, it's also in line with what you'd expect in a movie derived from the 1970s exploitation/blaxploitation films. Almost everyone is being overly dramatic and chewing up the scenery to a degree that would have you rolling your eyes if they were doing it in any other kind of movie.

Robert Di Nero, Jeff Fahey, Michelle Rodriguez, and Danny Trejo--even if that last one goes without saying--all give over-the-top performances that are in perfect keeping with the genre. Cheech Marin, Don Johnson (even if I'm not sure I get the "introducing Don Johnson" joke in the credits), and Steven Seagal are also fun to watch, each giving performances of the kind we know they're capable based on some of their best previous work. Heck, the directors even manage to make Seagal look good, even if it's plain to the sharp observer that he isn't doing much in the way of physical activity; he was probably wise in choosing this project over Stallone's as he gets to have a big dramatic final scene. Maybe he'll be smart and trade in the acting for strictly behind-the-scenes functions... we can almost see the old Steven Seagal--the guy who was in "Marked For Death" and "Under Siege"--in the performance he gives here. It would be nice if he would let this stand as his final acting job.


Of the major featured players, only Jessica Alba and Lindsay Lohan disappoint.

Perhaps I can't say that Alba disappoints, because she is as good here as she was the last time I saw her, in "The Love Guru." But she's completely out of place. Alba seems to be the only performer who isn't "playing to the gallery," who isn't going way over the top. Her performance would be far better suited on an episode of "Law & Order" than this film. (Actually, as I think about it, the only time I remember really liking Alba in a part was "Into the Blue". Maybe all the bare flesh addled the brain?)

As for Lohan, she serves no purpose in the film other than to appear as a slutty character that seems to fit right in with the image she's developed over the past few years. It's the sort of part the likes of John Carradine took during the 1970s at the end of his career, parts that were little more than glorified cameos, parts that didn't add anything to the film but merely traded on Carradine's name. The film would have been better without Lohan's character, because it adds nothing except the opportunity for everyone to chuckle at Lohan and perhaps reflect on wasted potential.

The only other problem with the film is uneven, choppy pacing. There are times, usually during or leading up to unimpressive scenes with Lohan and Alba, where the film drags. Sometimes these slow points arise from badly conceived comic relief (such as the two security guards exchanging sage views on Mexican gardeners), and other times they are pointless scenes of expository dialogue that I'm sure the writers and directors believed were "character development" (such as when Alba's I.C.E. agent character finds The Network's headquarters) but whenever they occur, you will start to be very bored and wish that the film would get back to the shootings and stabbings.

Speaking of shooting and stabbings, this is ANOTHER movie that features computer-generated blood-splatter. It even features computer generated bullet impacts--and badly matched bullet impacts at that, as we're shown the top of a church pew get riddled with bullets in one shot, yet no pews are damaged in later ones. The effects are a little less obvious than they were in the low-budget films that pioneered this technique (or in recent big-budget ones like "The Expendables" or "MacGruber"), but you can still tell cartoon gore from old-fashioned syrup-spray.

Bottom line, this is not a perfect movie. Then again, neither were the films it is trying to emulate... even if those old timers could probably have made 20 movies on the budget of this single film. It's worth checking out if you enjoy blaxploitation flicks--because that's what this is exactly like, only with Mexican illegal aliens and others of Mexican descent standing in for the black characters.





Fun Fact: Exactly 20 years ago, Steven Seagal's character beat the hell out of Danny Trejo's character in the opening scene of "Marked For Death". This has been a rematch long in the making.