HIGH RISK (1981, ROKU CHANNEL) HUDSON HAWK (1991, KINO BLU-RAY)
"High Risk's" writer/director Stewart Raffill has a filmography ("Mac and Me," "The Ice Pirates," "Mannequin: On the Move," etc.) worthy of taking chances during June every year. But even by the heist genre playbook "HR" ventures too far off the reservation to be taken seriously. Three down-on-their-luck unemployed California workers (a baby-faced Bruce Davis, Cleavon Little and Chick Vennera) join their documentarian friend Stone (James Brolin) to buy never-gonna-use-them guns from Ernest Borgnine, fly down to Colombia and hit the flush-with-cash safe of a drug dealer (James Coburn) inside his compound. With only a female dog to distract Doberman guards (!) and the hope everyone's asleep during the afternoon siesta (WTF?!?!), the foursome get more than they bargained for when Stone's plan turns to shit right away (no doy!). They get chased/shot through a brothel, run afoul of guerrilla-leader-turned-bandit Mariano (Anthony Quinn), pick-up "The Bionic Woman" herself, Lindsay Wagner, as part of their crew, etc. The cast might be stacked with recognizable names, but "HR" looks/feels like "Romancing the Stone" on welfare. Colombia's never looked more like Southern California/Northern Mexico, and nobody ("good" or bad guys) can shoot worth a damn. The ending is supposed to make you pump your fists with joy... not shut off the TV halfway through the credits in disgust. 2.35 REAGONOMICS-BASHING RADIO NEWS ITEMS (out of five).
Started watching Michael Lehman's "Hudson Hawk" at 4PM Saturday and was finished by 8:15 because I kept falling asleep and having to rewind large portions... which kept happening even though I was wide awake at the start. And yet there is a reason I own this on Kino Blu-ray and won't get rid of the disc anytime soon. The early '90's poster child of superstar Bruce Willis' ego run amok, "HK" has bad pacing to go with the million other negative elements (no consistent tone, unfunny jokes/one-liners, disregard for physics, Andie McDowell trying too hard to be flirty/cute and failing, candy-named CIA agents who serve no purpose, James Coburn wasting his charm, etc.) that has kept it in the guilty pleasure/bad movie conversation for decades. But there are a handful of great moments/performances sprinkled throughout that make this an entertaining curio. The 'Swinging on a Star' auction house singing heist is actually a blast, the closest the narrative comes to being silly fun. The Vatican Codex heist doesn't reach the same heights but it's a too-brief chance to see Hawk being the great cat burglar we're told he is. And hey, that's "V: The Miniseries'" Leonardo Cimino as The Cardinal! :-D
The bromance/friendship between Willis' Hawk and Danny Aiello's Tommy Five-Tone is the heart of "HK", which we never experience in full because McDowell keeps getting rubbed in our faces by the script. Up until near the end of a normal-length film that seems thrice as long, whenever Aiello pops on screen everything/everyone in it comes alive. I disliked them as characters, but the Mayflowers (Richard E. Grant's Darwin and Sandra Bernhard's Minerva) at least feel like actors making choices and sticking with them. It's a mess and often a fascinating/entertaining one (the deleted scenes hint at this being an even bigger dumpster fire involving Hudson's pet monkey), one worth revisiting if you manage to stay awake long enough to see it through to the end. 2.75 (212) 555-1989 'WONG' NUMBERS (out of five).
A trio of hapless bank robbers pull off a successful heist, but it turns out it’s much easier to rob a New York bank than get out of New York. Hilarity ensues - and I mean it, the movie is really funny. Bill Murray is at his Bill Murray-est, but unsurprisingly it's Geena Davis who steals the show with her combination of exasperated and vulnerable. She and Murray have nice chemistry together and you find yourself rooting for these crazy kids to make it.
Im trying to only do new watches this month. So when i heard about this movie on a recent Screen Drafts for the films of the always brilliant Gene Hackman (RIP), directed by Mamet, i knew it'd be my choice for today. LOVED IT. The cast is phenom, every single person bringing their A game. It is an outstanding entry into the Heist genre which i love. From dropping us into the middle of an elaborate jewelry heist in the opening moments to the just-need-to-pull-one-last-job-what-could-possibly-go-wrong premise for the rest of the flick. And the flick is filled with fun dialogue. DIG IT!
Jimmy: So, is he going to be cool? Pinky: My motherf@cker is so cool, when he goes to bed, sheep count him
ROUGH CUT (1980, D. Siegel) First-time watch, Paramount Blu-ray, 7/10. This flick doesn't get much love, & while I'm not about to slather it with praise, it's an easily entertaining, non-kids-PG movie for any Sunday afternoon. David Niven is almost retired but if he can nail uber-thief Burt Reynolds first, he can ascend to Scotland Yard Valhalla. Lesley-Anne Down is a clepto with a politician father, an easy mark for Niven to use as bait. Patrick Magee is a N@zi pilot, Al Matthews (ALIENS) is his copilot & Joss Ackland doesn't believe Niven. Movie-star fluff; warm it up with THE PINK PANTHER.
A Franco-phile suggests: Last one, I promise. GRETA, THE MAD BUTCHER (1977, aka ILSA THE WICKED WARDEN) Apparently, Dyanne Thorne was approached about making a kung fu film that turned out to be a women-in-prison movie that was easily retitled as an ILSA cash-in. It's what you'd think/hope/fear: sl3azeb@ll goodness with Lina Romay, Eric Falk & Franco himself. This is part of Franco's time with Swiss producer Erwin C. Dietrich. Dietrich, like Towers, had some standards; for better or worse, they weren't anywhere close to Towers'. Now playing on Night Flight Plus.
3000 Miles to Graceland (2001, dir. Demian Lichtenstein)
Michael (Kurt Russell) is barely out of prison when his old cellmate (and Elvis obsessive) Murphy (Kevin Costner) invites him to join a gang planning to rob a Vegas casino during an Elvis impersonator convention. But when no one is eager to split the loot evenly, a deadly game of cat and mouse between the robbers, Michael's new girlfriend (Courteney Cox) and her son, a money launderer, the cops and a pair of FBI agents begins.
The most 2001 movie that ever 2001'd. The plotting, the cinematography, the editing, the humor, the sound effects, the needle drops, they're all trying really, really hard to be slick and cool. They only occasionally succeed. What does constantly work is the cast: Kurt Russell is great as always in the lead and Kevin Costner is having fun in a rare villain role. I associate Courteney Cox so much with Friends that it's a little jarring seeing her play a very different character, but she's fine at it. The deep bench includes Christian Slater, David Arquette, Bokeem Woodbine, Thomas Haden Church, Kevin Pollak, Jon Lovitz, and Ice-T.
I started watching "3,000 Miles...." after "Hudson Hawk" last night. Made it about 15 minutes in (right after Kurt Russell makes love to pre-surgery Courtney Cox the 2nd time) and gave up. That's when l went looking and found "High Risk." Yep, lousy day all around. 🙄💀☠️
Taxi (1998): One of my favorite french action movie, written by Luc Besson, with a kick-ass hip-hop soundtrack (I'm not even a fan of hip-hop). The car chases are great, the banter is funny. There's a mix of Bad Boys and The Fast And Furious, before they existed. The first of series of movies much like F&F, where it starts relatively simple, but eventually gets way crazier with flying cars and stuff like that. Don't confuse this movie with the american remake, that was is baaaaaaaad. It's also the first time I saw Marion Cotillard on the screen.
George Burns, Art Carney and a show-stealing Lee Strasberg decide to rob a bank to add some excitement to their dull lives. Smart, funny, sad and moving this was everything I want in a movie. Movie magic from start to finish. Highly recommended.
FIRESTORM (2013, Alan Yuen) First-time watch, Well Go DVD (from Dollar Tree), 6/10. An armored car is robbed after the criminals lift it off the highway with a giant crane. Cop Andy Lau is gunning for the biggest crime boss (making this a nice accidental double with ROUGH CUT) but he wants to do it right. Gordon Lam just got out of jail, but is he flying straight? What about when he beat Lau in high school judo? Lau's been watching Philip Keung's severely autistic daughter while he was in prison, but Keung wants to go undercover. With three hours of plot jammed into 109 minutes, FIRESTORM's use of ever more ludicrous non-great CGI helps balance what feels like an ever more tangled story. It's not great, but it's entertaining up to the finish. It's also a sad reminder of how easily digital cinema can look non-great.
I'm not a big Guy Ritchie fan, or a Jason Statham fan, but I had heard good things about this one (probably from someone on the podcast). It's still got too much "Look how macho and not gay we are!" banter for me, but I liked the story structure and the jumping around in time. It was occasionally confusing as to who is who, and on which team, but it's a good time.
A solid film about two sisters who turn to train robberies to help with the bills and pay their mom's bail.
A solid film about family, but honestly not super strong as a heist movie. They rob the train several times for small time goods, so there's not the epic laying out the plan scene, which for me is a staple of a heist movie.
Today is a perfect day outside, sunny, not too hot, light breeze... so obviously I stayed inside to watch the rest of the Taxi movies. There's 5 of them, and as I've mentioned before, they get weirder, but not necessarily better, and clearly smaller budgets. It's also more of the same, same type of jokes, same cast, they do manage to change the stories a little bit: heist, kidnapping, but always with the taxi at the center of it. Stallone has a cameo in the 3rd movie, dubbed by his usual guy. The last one, they changed the 2 main guys and the director, and it's not very good. Except for that 5th movie, they're mostly entertaining enough, but never as good as the first movie.
'UNDERWHELMING ODDS' TWO-WAY SPLIT!
ReplyDeleteHIGH RISK (1981, ROKU CHANNEL)
HUDSON HAWK (1991, KINO BLU-RAY)
"High Risk's" writer/director Stewart Raffill has a filmography ("Mac and Me," "The Ice Pirates," "Mannequin: On the Move," etc.) worthy of taking chances during June every year. But even by the heist genre playbook "HR" ventures too far off the reservation to be taken seriously. Three down-on-their-luck unemployed California workers (a baby-faced Bruce Davis, Cleavon Little and Chick Vennera) join their documentarian friend Stone (James Brolin) to buy never-gonna-use-them guns from Ernest Borgnine, fly down to Colombia and hit the flush-with-cash safe of a drug dealer (James Coburn) inside his compound. With only a female dog to distract Doberman guards (!) and the hope everyone's asleep during the afternoon siesta (WTF?!?!), the foursome get more than they bargained for when Stone's plan turns to shit right away (no doy!). They get chased/shot through a brothel, run afoul of guerrilla-leader-turned-bandit Mariano (Anthony Quinn), pick-up "The Bionic Woman" herself, Lindsay Wagner, as part of their crew, etc. The cast might be stacked with recognizable names, but "HR" looks/feels like "Romancing the Stone" on welfare. Colombia's never looked more like Southern California/Northern Mexico, and nobody ("good" or bad guys) can shoot worth a damn. The ending is supposed to make you pump your fists with joy... not shut off the TV halfway through the credits in disgust. 2.35 REAGONOMICS-BASHING RADIO NEWS ITEMS (out of five).
Started watching Michael Lehman's "Hudson Hawk" at 4PM Saturday and was finished by 8:15 because I kept falling asleep and having to rewind large portions... which kept happening even though I was wide awake at the start. And yet there is a reason I own this on Kino Blu-ray and won't get rid of the disc anytime soon. The early '90's poster child of superstar Bruce Willis' ego run amok, "HK" has bad pacing to go with the million other negative elements (no consistent tone, unfunny jokes/one-liners, disregard for physics, Andie McDowell trying too hard to be flirty/cute and failing, candy-named CIA agents who serve no purpose, James Coburn wasting his charm, etc.) that has kept it in the guilty pleasure/bad movie conversation for decades. But there are a handful of great moments/performances sprinkled throughout that make this an entertaining curio. The 'Swinging on a Star' auction house singing heist is actually a blast, the closest the narrative comes to being silly fun. The Vatican Codex heist doesn't reach the same heights but it's a too-brief chance to see Hawk being the great cat burglar we're told he is. And hey, that's "V: The Miniseries'" Leonardo Cimino as The Cardinal! :-D
The bromance/friendship between Willis' Hawk and Danny Aiello's Tommy Five-Tone is the heart of "HK", which we never experience in full because McDowell keeps getting rubbed in our faces by the script. Up until near the end of a normal-length film that seems thrice as long, whenever Aiello pops on screen everything/everyone in it comes alive. I disliked them as characters, but the Mayflowers (Richard E. Grant's Darwin and Sandra Bernhard's Minerva) at least feel like actors making choices and sticking with them. It's a mess and often a fascinating/entertaining one (the deleted scenes hint at this being an even bigger dumpster fire involving Hudson's pet monkey), one worth revisiting if you manage to stay awake long enough to see it through to the end. 2.75 (212) 555-1989 'WONG' NUMBERS (out of five).
Hudson Hawk Rules!!!! (and, ironic timing, i was JUST listening to an old mix tape with Swingin on a Star from HH on it!)
DeleteI know movie people who consider "HH" their No.1 guilty pleasure. Not me, but l can see why. 😉😇
DeleteI'm not even guilty, I always loved that movie 😎
DeleteLoving your rating system
DeleteTPA, my way of proving l actually watch the pics l said l do. 😉🫢
DeleteQuick Change (1990)
ReplyDeleteA trio of hapless bank robbers pull off a successful heist, but it turns out it’s much easier to rob a New York bank than get out of New York. Hilarity ensues - and I mean it, the movie is really funny. Bill Murray is at his Bill Murray-est, but unsurprisingly it's Geena Davis who steals the show with her combination of exasperated and vulnerable. She and Murray have nice chemistry together and you find yourself rooting for these crazy kids to make it.
No love for Randy Quaid? Tony Shaloub? Or Jason freakin' Robards? 🤨😉😃
DeleteWere they in the movie? Sorry, I only saw Geena Davis.
Delete{mic drop}
DeleteHeist (2001)
ReplyDeleteIm trying to only do new watches this month. So when i heard about this movie on a recent Screen Drafts for the films of the always brilliant Gene Hackman (RIP), directed by Mamet, i knew it'd be my choice for today. LOVED IT. The cast is phenom, every single person bringing their A game. It is an outstanding entry into the Heist genre which i love. From dropping us into the middle of an elaborate jewelry heist in the opening moments to the just-need-to-pull-one-last-job-what-could-possibly-go-wrong premise for the rest of the flick. And the flick is filled with fun dialogue. DIG IT!
Jimmy: So, is he going to be cool?
Pinky: My motherf@cker is so cool, when he goes to bed, sheep count him
ROUGH CUT (1980, D. Siegel)
ReplyDeleteFirst-time watch, Paramount Blu-ray, 7/10.
This flick doesn't get much love, & while I'm not about to slather it with praise, it's an easily entertaining, non-kids-PG movie for any Sunday afternoon. David Niven is almost retired but if he can nail uber-thief Burt Reynolds first, he can ascend to Scotland Yard Valhalla. Lesley-Anne Down is a clepto with a politician father, an easy mark for Niven to use as bait. Patrick Magee is a N@zi pilot, Al Matthews (ALIENS) is his copilot & Joss Ackland doesn't believe Niven. Movie-star fluff; warm it up with THE PINK PANTHER.
A Franco-phile suggests:
Last one, I promise.
GRETA, THE MAD BUTCHER (1977, aka ILSA THE WICKED WARDEN)
Apparently, Dyanne Thorne was approached about making a kung fu film that turned out to be a women-in-prison movie that was easily retitled as an ILSA cash-in. It's what you'd think/hope/fear: sl3azeb@ll goodness with Lina Romay, Eric Falk & Franco himself. This is part of Franco's time with Swiss producer Erwin C. Dietrich. Dietrich, like Towers, had some standards; for better or worse, they weren't anywhere close to Towers'.
Now playing on Night Flight Plus.
3000 Miles to Graceland (2001, dir. Demian Lichtenstein)
ReplyDeleteMichael (Kurt Russell) is barely out of prison when his old cellmate (and Elvis obsessive) Murphy (Kevin Costner) invites him to join a gang planning to rob a Vegas casino during an Elvis impersonator convention. But when no one is eager to split the loot evenly, a deadly game of cat and mouse between the robbers, Michael's new girlfriend (Courteney Cox) and her son, a money launderer, the cops and a pair of FBI agents begins.
The most 2001 movie that ever 2001'd. The plotting, the cinematography, the editing, the humor, the sound effects, the needle drops, they're all trying really, really hard to be slick and cool. They only occasionally succeed. What does constantly work is the cast: Kurt Russell is great as always in the lead and Kevin Costner is having fun in a rare villain role. I associate Courteney Cox so much with Friends that it's a little jarring seeing her play a very different character, but she's fine at it. The deep bench includes Christian Slater, David Arquette, Bokeem Woodbine, Thomas Haden Church, Kevin Pollak, Jon Lovitz, and Ice-T.
I started watching "3,000 Miles...." after "Hudson Hawk" last night. Made it about 15 minutes in (right after Kurt Russell makes love to pre-surgery Courtney Cox the 2nd time) and gave up. That's when l went looking and found "High Risk." Yep, lousy day all around. 🙄💀☠️
DeleteTaxi (1998): One of my favorite french action movie, written by Luc Besson, with a kick-ass hip-hop soundtrack (I'm not even a fan of hip-hop). The car chases are great, the banter is funny. There's a mix of Bad Boys and The Fast And Furious, before they existed. The first of series of movies much like F&F, where it starts relatively simple, but eventually gets way crazier with flying cars and stuff like that. Don't confuse this movie with the american remake, that was is baaaaaaaad. It's also the first time I saw Marion Cotillard on the screen.
ReplyDeleteGoing in Style (1979, dir. Martin Brest)
ReplyDeleteGeorge Burns, Art Carney and a show-stealing Lee Strasberg decide to rob a bank to add some excitement to their dull lives. Smart, funny, sad and moving this was everything I want in a movie. Movie magic from start to finish. Highly recommended.
I cannot figure out how to show my profile pic
ReplyDeleteSelect your name, you should be able to edit your profile from there
Deleteno way! i never messed around with that. thanks for the heads up Kunider!!!!
Deleteweird...i added a photo which i now see when i blog but the posts dont show it...maybe a setting? or blogger just hates me?
DeleteI think Blogger hates everybody, but sometimes it feels like they're targeting our merry little community
DeleteFIRESTORM (2013, Alan Yuen)
ReplyDeleteFirst-time watch, Well Go DVD (from Dollar Tree), 6/10.
An armored car is robbed after the criminals lift it off the highway with a giant crane. Cop Andy Lau is gunning for the biggest crime boss (making this a nice accidental double with ROUGH CUT) but he wants to do it right. Gordon Lam just got out of jail, but is he flying straight? What about when he beat Lau in high school judo? Lau's been watching Philip Keung's severely autistic daughter while he was in prison, but Keung wants to go undercover. With three hours of plot jammed into 109 minutes, FIRESTORM's use of ever more ludicrous non-great CGI helps balance what feels like an ever more tangled story. It's not great, but it's entertaining up to the finish. It's also a sad reminder of how easily digital cinema can look non-great.
Wrath of Man (2021)
ReplyDeleteI'm not a big Guy Ritchie fan, or a Jason Statham fan, but I had heard good things about this one (probably from someone on the podcast). It's still got too much "Look how macho and not gay we are!" banter for me, but I liked the story structure and the jumping around in time. It was occasionally confusing as to who is who, and on which team, but it's a good time.
Deidra & Laney Rob a Train (2017)
ReplyDeleteA solid film about two sisters who turn to train robberies to help with the bills and pay their mom's bail.
A solid film about family, but honestly not super strong as a heist movie. They rob the train several times for small time goods, so there's not the epic laying out the plan scene, which for me is a staple of a heist movie.
Today is a perfect day outside, sunny, not too hot, light breeze... so obviously I stayed inside to watch the rest of the Taxi movies. There's 5 of them, and as I've mentioned before, they get weirder, but not necessarily better, and clearly smaller budgets. It's also more of the same, same type of jokes, same cast, they do manage to change the stories a little bit: heist, kidnapping, but always with the taxi at the center of it. Stallone has a cameo in the 3rd movie, dubbed by his usual guy. The last one, they changed the 2 main guys and the director, and it's not very good. Except for that 5th movie, they're mostly entertaining enough, but never as good as the first movie.
ReplyDelete