Movies about old people and other movies
Feb. 5th, 2013 09:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficBullet In The Head
In case you don't know, director Walter Hill is an action movie legend who, unlikely enough, never made a movie with action movie legend Sylvester Stallone. So this is something of an event. Unfortunately, like The Expendables and a Bruno/Jimmy/Ah-Nuld, I think this team-up is past its sell-by date.
The whole thing is streamlined enough to get by on B-movie charm. There's a simple story—Sly's Jimmy Bobo (why does everyone he play now have a weird name?) a hitman with a heart of gold whose partner is killed, so he's out for revenge against the guy who killed his partner. However, Jimmy's last target was a cop's partner, who is also out for revenge—conveniently, not against Jimmy, but against the shotcaller, who also called the shot on Jimmy and his partner. Jimmy doesn't really share that philosophy, since the hitman's hitman is Jason Momoa and they're out to rumble. So the cop's working to avenge his partner with the man who killed his partner because the man who killed his partner had his partner killed by the man who killed his partner.
The movie is similarly simple: Jimmy and cop go from place to place, beating up people and shooting the occasional henchmen until they reach the final boss. Now, Hill does unleash a bit of the kraken—nothing as great as Diane Lane playing a punk rocker in Streets of Fire, but there is a New Orleans orgy with naked chicks ballroom dancing, ax fights to the death, and Sarah Shahi as Sly's daughter/a punksy tattoo artist who the cop has a thing with (Tango & Cash rules: If one of the buddies has a hot family relative, the other buddy will be into them).
The problem is the buddy of this buddy movie. Sung Kang (Han Seoul-Oh in The Fast And The Furious) plays the cop who objects to Jimmy killing his way to the bottom of this mystery. Okay, conflict, right, good? Only Kang is completely neutered. I mean, it's to such an extent that it's borderline racist. He's totally ineffectual, can't do anything right, isn't respected at all. He gets, like, five shots in, but it's seriously bare minimum for an action movie character. Matt Ferrell got in more in Live Free Or Die Hard, and he was supposed to be an omega male. Kang's meant to be Jimmy's equal, but he comes across more as a nagging sitcom housewife for Jimmy to make Asian jokes about.
As the movie was being developed, Tom Jane (the Official Punisher of Fempop.com, says I) was meant as the cop character. It's really hard to see him eating as much shit as Kang; I could see him earning Jimmy's respect or registering as a threat to his hitman livelihood. Joel Silver eighty-sixed him because part of his buddy movie formula is an interracial partnership and Jane made a joke about Jimmy wanting a partner “whose penis is smaller than his.” And I know it's a dick joke, but that's really how it comes off, like Sly was too much of a prima donna to have a co-star who could stand up to him.
So, it's a fun DTV-level ride, but it's strictly The Sly Stallone show and that keeps it from being one to remember.
Stand-Up Guys
Here's a weird one. Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, and Alan Arkin play old-time mob guys. Pacino's been in the clink for twenty-eight years after taking the fall for a robbery where he accidentally killed a crime lord's son. Now that he's out, Walken's been told to kill him. However, he doesn't have to do it immediately, so they bust Arkin out of a retirement home to have one last night on the town. So basically, it's the three old-timers playing themselves. Really reminds me of Tough Guys, an underrated eighties comedy with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas as retired gangsters.
This time around, Lucy Punch (the Ultimate universe Catherine Tate) plays a whoremonger who wears giant glasses and speaks in a Minnesota accent. I smell spin-off!
However, I liked Tough Guys a bit more because it kept an even keel. Stand-Up Guys has a much darker premise, but it plays things so light that it makes for some weird-ass tonal shifts. The sadistic gangster who's forcing Walken to kill his best friend, the old men laying to rest a dead friend, and even a weird second-act rape-revenge plot—it's all treated with the same jokey irrelevance. The old guys steal a gang's car for a joy ride, find a naked girl tied up in the trunk, Pacino gives her his jacket, then there's some banter about who's going to give her a pair of pants to wear.
And this woman, who as it turns out was gang-raped, treats it just like she had a bad date. She's bantering right back with them and ends up making jokes about the Nutcracker as they tie the bad guys up and let her have at their groins with a baseball bat. So that's fine and all, but still... gang rape. I don't think there should be “he took too much Viagra!” jokes and gang rape in the same movie. Just me. It just seems really unnecessary. What would've worked a lot better is if she just had an abusive boyfriend who locked her in his trunk and they taught him a lesson. You'd still have the same contrast between the old omerta gangsters and the new asshole gangsters, you'd still have the same white knighting, hell, even domestic abuse is still pretty borderline as far as being played for laughs (or at least it's comeuppance being played for laughs), but it would go down a bit easier.
Parker
Another weird one. One part of it is Jason Statham out for revenge and being Jason Statham. That's fine. Generic, but fine. The books are supposed to be classics, but then, I've heard the same thing about Trav McGee, and those books had him beating up lesbians because they resented him for being an "authentic male." But as I haven't read them and can't judge either way, I'll just rate this as a Statham movie.
The thing is, Jennifer Lopez is... not the love interest, that's another character. More like the other woman in a love triangle, only Parker clearly doesn't give a shit about her. Like, there's this scene where he makes her strip down to check for a wire and she gets all breathy and flustered, and later makes a flirty reference to it. Yeah, a violent criminal makes you strip down to your underwear—so hot, right?
And they're supposed to team-up because she knows the area and Parker doesn't, but she doesn't come in that handy at all. Yet she's the female lead. She could've been in one or two scenes, Statham does a Texas accent, that's all, but no, she's in the whole thing. She has a backstory about a jerk boyfriend and we see her steal Statham's commission from her real estate co-workers and be rude to her mother (none of which is making her very sympathetic). And I'm not blaming all this on the script; Lopez plays it like she's in The Wedding Planner and this is a gritty crime drama! Jason Statham gets stabbed through the hand! And she's practically ready to burst into song.
So, stick with the book. You know it's better.
In case you don't know, director Walter Hill is an action movie legend who, unlikely enough, never made a movie with action movie legend Sylvester Stallone. So this is something of an event. Unfortunately, like The Expendables and a Bruno/Jimmy/Ah-Nuld, I think this team-up is past its sell-by date.
The whole thing is streamlined enough to get by on B-movie charm. There's a simple story—Sly's Jimmy Bobo (why does everyone he play now have a weird name?) a hitman with a heart of gold whose partner is killed, so he's out for revenge against the guy who killed his partner. However, Jimmy's last target was a cop's partner, who is also out for revenge—conveniently, not against Jimmy, but against the shotcaller, who also called the shot on Jimmy and his partner. Jimmy doesn't really share that philosophy, since the hitman's hitman is Jason Momoa and they're out to rumble. So the cop's working to avenge his partner with the man who killed his partner because the man who killed his partner had his partner killed by the man who killed his partner.
The movie is similarly simple: Jimmy and cop go from place to place, beating up people and shooting the occasional henchmen until they reach the final boss. Now, Hill does unleash a bit of the kraken—nothing as great as Diane Lane playing a punk rocker in Streets of Fire, but there is a New Orleans orgy with naked chicks ballroom dancing, ax fights to the death, and Sarah Shahi as Sly's daughter/a punksy tattoo artist who the cop has a thing with (Tango & Cash rules: If one of the buddies has a hot family relative, the other buddy will be into them).
The problem is the buddy of this buddy movie. Sung Kang (Han Seoul-Oh in The Fast And The Furious) plays the cop who objects to Jimmy killing his way to the bottom of this mystery. Okay, conflict, right, good? Only Kang is completely neutered. I mean, it's to such an extent that it's borderline racist. He's totally ineffectual, can't do anything right, isn't respected at all. He gets, like, five shots in, but it's seriously bare minimum for an action movie character. Matt Ferrell got in more in Live Free Or Die Hard, and he was supposed to be an omega male. Kang's meant to be Jimmy's equal, but he comes across more as a nagging sitcom housewife for Jimmy to make Asian jokes about.
As the movie was being developed, Tom Jane (the Official Punisher of Fempop.com, says I) was meant as the cop character. It's really hard to see him eating as much shit as Kang; I could see him earning Jimmy's respect or registering as a threat to his hitman livelihood. Joel Silver eighty-sixed him because part of his buddy movie formula is an interracial partnership and Jane made a joke about Jimmy wanting a partner “whose penis is smaller than his.” And I know it's a dick joke, but that's really how it comes off, like Sly was too much of a prima donna to have a co-star who could stand up to him.
So, it's a fun DTV-level ride, but it's strictly The Sly Stallone show and that keeps it from being one to remember.
Stand-Up Guys
Here's a weird one. Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, and Alan Arkin play old-time mob guys. Pacino's been in the clink for twenty-eight years after taking the fall for a robbery where he accidentally killed a crime lord's son. Now that he's out, Walken's been told to kill him. However, he doesn't have to do it immediately, so they bust Arkin out of a retirement home to have one last night on the town. So basically, it's the three old-timers playing themselves. Really reminds me of Tough Guys, an underrated eighties comedy with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas as retired gangsters.
This time around, Lucy Punch (the Ultimate universe Catherine Tate) plays a whoremonger who wears giant glasses and speaks in a Minnesota accent. I smell spin-off!
However, I liked Tough Guys a bit more because it kept an even keel. Stand-Up Guys has a much darker premise, but it plays things so light that it makes for some weird-ass tonal shifts. The sadistic gangster who's forcing Walken to kill his best friend, the old men laying to rest a dead friend, and even a weird second-act rape-revenge plot—it's all treated with the same jokey irrelevance. The old guys steal a gang's car for a joy ride, find a naked girl tied up in the trunk, Pacino gives her his jacket, then there's some banter about who's going to give her a pair of pants to wear.
And this woman, who as it turns out was gang-raped, treats it just like she had a bad date. She's bantering right back with them and ends up making jokes about the Nutcracker as they tie the bad guys up and let her have at their groins with a baseball bat. So that's fine and all, but still... gang rape. I don't think there should be “he took too much Viagra!” jokes and gang rape in the same movie. Just me. It just seems really unnecessary. What would've worked a lot better is if she just had an abusive boyfriend who locked her in his trunk and they taught him a lesson. You'd still have the same contrast between the old omerta gangsters and the new asshole gangsters, you'd still have the same white knighting, hell, even domestic abuse is still pretty borderline as far as being played for laughs (or at least it's comeuppance being played for laughs), but it would go down a bit easier.
Parker
Another weird one. One part of it is Jason Statham out for revenge and being Jason Statham. That's fine. Generic, but fine. The books are supposed to be classics, but then, I've heard the same thing about Trav McGee, and those books had him beating up lesbians because they resented him for being an "authentic male." But as I haven't read them and can't judge either way, I'll just rate this as a Statham movie.
The thing is, Jennifer Lopez is... not the love interest, that's another character. More like the other woman in a love triangle, only Parker clearly doesn't give a shit about her. Like, there's this scene where he makes her strip down to check for a wire and she gets all breathy and flustered, and later makes a flirty reference to it. Yeah, a violent criminal makes you strip down to your underwear—so hot, right?
And they're supposed to team-up because she knows the area and Parker doesn't, but she doesn't come in that handy at all. Yet she's the female lead. She could've been in one or two scenes, Statham does a Texas accent, that's all, but no, she's in the whole thing. She has a backstory about a jerk boyfriend and we see her steal Statham's commission from her real estate co-workers and be rude to her mother (none of which is making her very sympathetic). And I'm not blaming all this on the script; Lopez plays it like she's in The Wedding Planner and this is a gritty crime drama! Jason Statham gets stabbed through the hand! And she's practically ready to burst into song.
So, stick with the book. You know it's better.
