'Zodiac' is too long, but still worth the time

Zodiac (2007)
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr, Anthony Edwards, Chloë Sevigny, Elias Koteas, and John Carroll Lynch
Director: David Fincher
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A mysterious killer taunts the police and the press with letters while remaining unknown and uncatchable. "Zodiac" tells the story of three men (Downey, Gyllenhaal, and Ruffalo) whose lives were altered and consumed by their attempts to unmask the killer. The tagline here-- "There's more than one way to lose your life to a killer"--is one of the more apt ones to ever be applied to a film.


Based on real-life events, "Zodiac" is a dialogue-driven thriller that keeps a downbeat, tense mood--accented by brief horror sequences as Zodiac commits his murders or moments such as when cartoonist-turned-amateur-slueth Robert Graysmith (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) comes face to face with a man he comes to believe is the Zodiac himself--as it grinds through its nearly three hour running time. While the fillm is entirely too long, it is nonetheless well put together with excellent performances by every member of the cast. (I am mildly troubled by the fact there's a two disk director's cut of this film available. It already began to feel tortourously long as the Zodiac investigation ran around in a swamp of dead ends and I was about ready to give up on it just when Graysmith finally started putting some pieces together and the movie picked up its pace as he zeroed in on the identity of the Zodiac Killer. I shudder to imagine how dull an even longer version of this movie must be.)

"Zodiac" is worth seeing, particularly if you enjoy true-to-life police procedurals and low-key thrillers, but be aware that you'll probably have to set aside an entire evening to do so. I'd be prone to stay away from the extended director's cut, but I admit to not having seen it.)

'Nurse Betty' features great performances

This review is part of Blogcabin's 30 dAyS oF cRaZy blog-a-thon.

Nurse Betty (2000)
Starring: Renee Zellweger, Morgan Freeman, Chris Rock, Greg Kinnear, Tia Texada, and Crispin Glover
Director: Neil LaBute
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

The shock of witnessing her husband's murder drives Betty (Zellweger) into a fantasy world where she believes she is the first love of her favorite soap opera character. She sets off for California to reunite with him. Meanwhile, two hired killers (Freeman and Rock) are tracking her, intending to eliminate the only witness to their crime and to recover drugs they believe she has stolen.


"Nurse Betty" is a sharply written comedy that delivers a multi layered message about how expectations and dreams drive us forward and shape our actions. Three of the film's major characters are in love with an ideal that has a physical counterpart but really doesn't exist outside their imagination. (Betty is in love with a kindhearted, romantic heart surgeon whose personality is very different from the actor who portrays him; Betty comes to represent the perfect woman to the hit man played by Morgan Freeman who falls in love with her picture as he tracks her westward; and Greg Kinnear comes to view Betty as his ticket to the next stage of his career, as he believes her to be a fantastically talented improv performer instead of a poor woman suffering from a dissociative disorder).

As is often the case when supported by a good script, every actor in this film is at their best. Even Chris Rock, who usually annoys the heck out of me, is funny at the right times and dramatic at the right times.

Of particular note in this stand-out cast is Morgan Freeman. While Freeman is playing the character he seems to play most often--a professional killer who is smarter and a little less psychotic than is typical for members of that profession--he is perhaps better here than any other of the times he's played it. While he usually manages to present a charming and somewhat sympathetic character no matter how amoral he ultimately turns out to be, his character here is one that you will find yourself having real sympathy for when all his hopes and dreams are shattered toward the end of the movie, and he ends up paying a heavy price for his life of violence.

This is one of those movies I sat down to watch with no idea what to suspect--the leads have all appeared in a wide variety of genres--but it was a pleasant surprise. The script is well written with not a single moment wasted, and every performer featured gives a top-notch performance. It's definitely worth checking out by anyone who enjoys a well-crafted romantic comedies. While "Nurse Betty" might not have a storybook ending, every character who deserves a happy ending gets one, and you're guaranteed to be left feeling warm and fuzzy as the end credits roll.

'Sudden Impact' is weakest Dirty Harry film

Sudden Impact (1983)
Starring: Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke
Director: Clint Eastwood
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A rape victim (Locke) is taking brutal revenge on her attackers, and SFPD's most rebellious police inspector, Harry Callahan (Eastwood) is trying to catch her.


I once wrote that "Magnum Force" is the weakest link in the "Dirty Harry" cycle. I take it back. That dubious distiction properly goes to "Sudden Impact", a film without any likable characters (with the possible exception of Meathead the Dog); flat performances from most of the actors (even Eastwood); a story that relies waaay too much on coincidence to keep moving (yes, there always needs to be some sort of coincidental convergence of events and characters, but "Sudden Impact" features so many that it's just plain bad writing); and the end is out of step with the way Callahan has been portrayed in previous films, how he is portrayed in the final film in the series... and it's just a bad ending all-around. (Without providing too many spoilers, Harry pretty much abandons any moral high-ground he once may have been able to claim, because as the end credits roll in "Sudden Impact", he's no longer a good cop by any stretch of the imagination.)

To make the experience even worse, Sandra Locke appears to have received a talent-ectomy before filming on "Sudden Impact" began.

I remember liking this movie alot when I saw it as a kid some two decades ago. All I really remembered was the startling final shot of the main bad guy, and the scenes with Meathead. I really should have watched all the "Dirty Harry" movies again before condemning "Magnum Force." It's interesting how tastes change as we grow older.

'Abraxas': Kirby Homage or Rip-off?

Abraxas: Guardian of the Universe (1990)
Starring: Jesse Ventura, Marjorie Bransfield, and Jim Belushi
Director: Damian Lee
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Anyone out there remember Jack Kirby's "Fourth World"? Maybe the DC Comics' "New Gods"? Well, "Abraxas: Guardian of the Universe," either through coincidence or creative borrowing plays like an unauthorized adaptation of Kirby's "Fourth World" creations.


In "Abraxas," Jesse Ventura stars as the title character, an immortal super cop who pursues Secundus, a rogue member of his ranks, to Earth. The villain uses wonder-tech to impregnate a young woman (Bransfield) with a child who carries within his genetics the secret of the Anti-Life Equation. Abraxas is tasked with killing the child before the Anti-Life Equation is revealed, but, being a heroic sort, he disregards his orders and looks for another way.

"Abraxas" sports many of the standards remembered from the Jack Kirby comics--godlike superbeings who prove the statement "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," interstellar travel is done through wormholes (the "boom tubes" from the comic); and the characters possess semi-sentient, miniaturized supercomputers that can perform just about any function you can imagine, but which may also nag the possessor when he isn't following the orders of his superiors ("talk boxes" in "Abraxas," "Mother Boxes" in the Kirby comic).

As a standalone movie, "Abraxas" rates Four Stars for being a slow and boring film--the premise could have been so much more exciting. It's a Five Star film if you know Jack Kirby's Fourth World work and pretend this is a third-rate adaptation of it. Decent performances by the actors and some okay dialogue saves it from complete suckage. (There are, however, some really laughable sequences in the film and some truly mind-numbing story continuity issues that should probably cost the film several Tomatoes... but they are so unintentionally funny that one has to admire them. Foremost among these are the fight scene with soundtrack music that must be been licensed from Muzak, followed closely by the scene where a woman gives birth without needing to take pants off.)

Nice concepts, lousy execution

The Chosen One: Legend of the Raven (1998)
Starring: Carmen Electra, Debra Xavier, and Shauna Sand
Director: Lawrence Lanoff
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

"The Chosen: Legend of the Raven" is the story of a young woman (Electra) who is chosen by birthright and circumstance to take up her family mantle (represented by a necklace with mystical powers) to become the Raven fight against an Evil that threatens to swallow the world. The film depicts her transformation and her first battle against said evil, manifested in the Wolf (Xavier).


It's a nice concept with an exceedingly bad execution. The script is very nearly devoid of focus, the acting is almost universally bad (Xavier shows some glimmers of talent, or maybe just carries herself with natural intensity... but this is offset by Carmen Electra's thoroughly wooden and amateurish performance), and the fight scenes are as lame as any ever committed to film. There's not even anything remarkable about the camera work or costuming, and there's no humour to speak of. To top it off, the Raven's enemies seem more pathetic than truly threatening.

The only thing I can think of to recommend this film is that it did manage to hold my attention. Unlike many other poorly made films the creators here at least had a sense of pacing.My advice? Pass on this one unless you're the world's biggest fan of Carmen Electra or Shauna Sand.

Steven Seagal embarrasses himself again

Belly of the Beast (2003)
Starring: Steven Seagal, Byron Mann, Monica Lo, Tom Wu, and Sara Malakul Lane
Director: Tony Ching
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

One-time CIA operative Jake Hopper (Seagal) travels to Thailand to rescue his daughter (Lane) who is being held for ransom by militants. He runs head-long into intrigues involving rogue military officers, corrupt CIA agents, and an evil sorcerer.

"Belly of the Beast" is a paint-by-numbers action flick that borrows and steals from any number of superior films. I'm not sure there's a single frame in it that isn't cribbed from somewhere, except perhaps the bit where a monastery full of Buddhist monks get together to unite their spiritual force and attempt to slay the evil Thai voodoo priest who is targeting their good buddy Jake Hooper with his voodoo dolls and chants. (It also happens to be one of the dumber moments in the movie. I know Buddhism is a big tent, but does it really have room for an entire monastery of monks who violate one of the most basic preciepts of Buddhism, that being "you will not take a human life"?)

Being unoriginal isn't necessarily bad. The recent hit movie "Machete"--which features Steven Seagal in a supporting role as the main villain--owes everything to 1970s blacksploitation films, and it's a great deal of fun. Sometimes, turning off the brain and just watching things explode isn't all that bad.

"Belly of the Beast" had the potential to be a movie like that, but that potential is sapped away by the presence of a weak, overweight, and generally unhealthly looking Steven Seagal. The fact that he is past his physical prime and out of shape--perhaps even ill--is made all the more obvious by the scenes he shares with sidekick Byron Mann. Mann is the young, physically fit actor that Seagal USED to be twenty years ago, and Mann doesn't need stand-ins and creative camera angles to make it look like he is doing his fight scenes, because he actually is doing his fight scenes.


Actually, this film would have been a far-sight more watchable if Mann had been the hero on a quest to free his kidnapped daughter and Seagal being the sidekick recruited out of retirement in a Buddhist monastery. Mann in the lead and Seagal as the sidekick would have fixed this film's worst problems. It might even have made the plot line with the barmaid falling head-over-heels in love with the dashing hero who rescues her believable. (Of course, the different casting would not have allowed broken down old fat guys like me to imagine us in Steven Seagal's shoes... "wow, if he can get a hot chick, then so can I!" Nor would we have been treated to teenaged girls in short-shorts and bikini tops, as any daugther Mann's character might have would be entirely too young for such displays. But I think it would have been a fair trade-off to avoid yet another sad spectacle of Steven Seagal humiliating himself.)

With a new decade upon us, I think maybe that Steven Seagal has FINALLY taken the hard look at himself and his career that he should have taken back in 2000. The role his plays in "Machete" is far more suitable for his physical condition and appearance these days--even if he had to play at being the bad-ass there, too. Maybe now, he will start settling into supporting roles and stop making those of us who liked his films in the early 1990s look upon him with pity.

'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.)