Movie Review: A Shot at Glory

A Shot at Glory (2002) 

Directed by Michael Corrente 

Written by Denis O'Neill 

Starring Robert Duvall, Ally McCoist, Brian Cox, Kristy Mitchell, Cole Hauser, Michael Keaton 

Release Date May 3rd, 2002 

Published August 5th, 2002

Robert Duvall may be the most under-appreciated actor in the business. Despite his awesome resume, Duvall is not offered the roles that go to the actors of his age and class such as Deniro, Eastwood, Pacino and the like. The reason is likely his lack of leading man looks, but what he doesn't have in looks he makes up for with pure acting chops.

Easily one of the best actors going today Duvall still has a hard time getting a movie greenlighted, struggling with the film The Apostle for nearly 20 years. The soccer movie A Shot At Glory is another of Duvall's passion features, co-written and financed by Duvall himself. Though the film isn't as good as The Apostle the film once again showcases Duvall's amazing talent.

A Shot At Glory tells the story of a tiny Scottish soccer team trying to compete with the big boys. Duvall is the teams coach Gordon McLeod, a former player with the major league team The Rangers whom he now feuds with over incidents not fully explained. Michael Keaton is the owner of Duvall's team, Peter Cameron, a brash American who wants to move the tiny team to the bigtime by taking the team and it's players from it's home in Kilknockie, Scotland to Dublin, Ireland. Cameron thinks he can make the team more marketable to the Irish investors by acquiring past-his-prime soccer star Jackie McQuillan, played by real Scottish soccer legend Ally McCoist.

McQuillan is an egocentric jerk, overcoming a drinking problem, but also Gordon's son in law, though Jackie and his wife are separated. Parallel to the main story is that of Gordon's daughter, British stunner Kirsty Mitchell as Kate McQuillan. Gordon doesn't speak to his daughter since she married Jackie. It has little to do with Jackie's being a jerk, though, it is because Gordon is Protestant and Jackie is Catholic and the marriage took place outside of either church. The rivalry of Protestants and Catholics is vicious at times, even resulting in violent feuds that often spill over onto the soccer field.

Cole Hauser rounds out the cast as a rookie American goalie who is pressed into duty as the team surprisingly advances through Scotland's biggest soccer tournament.

No doubt about it A Shot At Glory is a sports movie bound by that genre’s many clichés. The aforementioned Hauser only plays after the starting goalie is injured and, wouldn't you know it, the rookie is forced to play in the two biggest games of the season. As for Gordon, what a shock when he is forced to play his former team, The Rangers, in the big game and face his hated rival Martin Smith (Brian Cox).

Though the film is steeped in sports movie clichés, the soccer scenes are well presented thanks to cinematographer Alex Thomson who makes his living as a soccer cameraman. Thomson knows how to film the action and given the tools of a handheld cameras and super 16 film, Thomson gives the film a realistically gritty look.

Duvall is excellent, his mere presence elevates even the film’s most leaden moments to passably interesting. Saddled with a difficult Scottish accent and some very dull and obvious dialogue, Duvall still manages to be entertaining and engaging. The real surprise though is Scottish soccer star Ally McCoist who really holds his own against Duvall and comes off very natural.

A Shot At Glory almost never got made. Duvall had set the film up with a Hollywood studio with Russell Crowe attached to play the soccer star. Crowe however pulled out at the last minute and Duvall was forced to make the film independently. Nevertheless, Duvall has crafted an above average sport movie that rises above genre convention to be an entertaining little movie.

Movie Review The Cave

The Cave (2005) 

Directed by Bruce Hunt

Written by Michael Steinberg, Tegan West

Starring Cole Hauser, Morris Chestnut, Eddie Cibrian, Lena Headey, Piper Perabo

Release Date August 26th, 2005

Published August 27th, 2005

Did you know that Cave Diver is a legitimate profession?

I had no idea! To me it sounded more like the title to some long lost "Mystery Science Theater 3000" feature than any legit money making venture. That perception was only enforced by the goofy goings-on in the new creature feature The Cave in which a group of cave divers line up to become lunch for some alien knockoff.

Cole Hauser leads a multicultural cast to their doom as the head of a cave diving team brought to some third world European locale to investigate a massive series of caves uncovered during an archaeological dig. Hey wouldn't you know it, these caves are the cursed remains of a once destroyed church.  They almost always are. Once inside, our intrepid divers are picked off one by one as if the plot had been written by an efficiency expert.

Director Bruce Hunt has little time for developing characters, what with all of this cool cave diving equipment to show off and all of the cool underwater photography to play with. Instead Hunt, with screenwriters Michael Steinberg and Tegan West, opts for multi-cultural placeholders who stand in line and wait for their turn to be monster food. Naturally such a simplistic story has attracted Morris Chestnut who just made this same movie last year with a giant snake, Anaconda 2: The Search For The Blood Orchid. Chestnutt is not a bad actor but has been a magnet for bad scripts (Like Mike, Half Past Dead) and parts well below his talent (Confidence, Under Siege 2) ever since his terrific debut in John Singleton's Boyz In The Hood.

Cole Hauser's rise to above the title star continues to puzzle me. Last year he top lined Paparazzi, a film that never should have seen light outside the video store. Now he leads The Cave which at least has the budget required of a big screen feature but little else. Don't most actors have to prove they can open a movie before they are given two starring roles in a row. Whoever decided Cole Hauser was a star may need to rethink that after The Cave. I would not speak so ill of Hauser, who wasn't bad as one of those nameless character actors with a recognizable face in films like White Oleander and Pitch Black, if he had just stayed with those types of roles.

Almost unrecognizable in this B-list cast is Coyote Ugly star Piper Perabo. Oh how the once promising star has fallen. Ms. Perabo really did look like a star in the overheated Jerry Bruckheimer dramedy Coyote Ugly but she is far from that shining promise here in The Cave where she is only the second most prominent female character in the movie behind Brothers Grimm star Lena Headey. Ouch! If you don't know how good Ms. Perabo is, forget Coyote Ugly, avoid The Cave, and check out the tiny Canadian independent Lost & Delirious. Her earnest romantic tragedy in that film is at times trite but more often moving and lovable.

With all apologies to my mother who always liked to drop that classic mom-ism, 'If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all',  there is simply nothing nice to say about the acting of former underwear model turned TV actor turned movie blackhole Eddie Cibrian. The guy is like a placeholder waiting for a real actor to step in. His blank stare and thudding delivery makes one wonder if he was simply there to block the lighting and then the real actor never showed up.  That is the only way I can make sense of his being here.

Cibrian plays Tyler and Morris Chestnut plays Tom Buchanan. However, whether it was due to bad editing or simple oversight, the actors appear to switch character names throughout the film. In an early scene where the team is plotting its cave descent both characters are referred to as Tyler at least once. That is slightly better than poor Daniel Dae Kim ("Lost") who may as well have been called That Asian Guy because he just doesn't seem to have a name throughout the film.

There were actually some things I liked about The Cave. The underwater photography, for example, is very cool. The crisp, clear blue water is beautifully shot, credited to Cinematographer Ross Emory, although second unit Director Wes Skiles is credited as the Underwater Unit Director. The scuba equipment, so lovingly dissected by the expositional dialogue, I'm told is top of the line stuff by a friend who dives for a living. My friend was also quite impressed with the underwater scenes for what that's worth. He does that professionally as well.

That is about it for the niceties unfortunately. Out of the water, The Cave is a knockoff of the two Anaconda films, Deep Rising, Mimic, Deep Blue Sea and any number of creature features in which an ensemble of B-listers comprise a buffet for some computer generated baddies. All of those films are mere retreads of the ultimate Sci-Fi ensemble flick Alien, which is also the only film to get that formula right, not once but twice if you count its excellent first sequel.

It's a given that particular plots are going to be rehashed, especially when they have been financially successful in the past. In the case of a film with a plot such as this you have to grade on a curve. The key to taking a cliched plot like that of The Cave and making an entertaining movie of it is to dress it up with lighting, with sets, with great dialogue, and with at least a few interesting premises. The Cave has some nice underwater locations that are very well photographed and some cool looking scuba gear but not much else.

Movies like The Cave make me long for the long lost wit and sarcasm of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" in all its movie-bashing glory. Just imagining the fun that Crow, Mike Nelson and Tom Servo could have had slicing up The Cave is more entertaining than anything in the film's 90 some odd minute runtime. Naturally the Alien plot will continue to have knock-offs produced again and again and again as years go by but perhaps they'll die out once we stop throwing our hard-earned money at them. 

Movie Review Hart's War

Hart's War (2002) 

Directed by Gregory Hoblit

Written by Billy Ray, Terry George 

Starring Bruce Willis, Colin Farrell, Terrence Howard, Cole Hauser, Rory Cochrane, Sam Worthington

Release Date February 15th, 2002 

Published February 14th, 2002 

War movies are hell. Earlier this year we were bombarded by war movies with Black Hawk Down, Behind Enemy Lines, No Man's Land, and We Were Soldiers. And now, this week, Bruce Willis has a war movie for us. Set in a WW2 prison camp, Hart's War has Willis co-starring with hot young superstar Colin Farrell (According to MGM, Colin Farrell's name must always be preceded by the words "hot young superstar"). Farrell is Thomas Hart, a privileged lieutenant whose Senator father pulled strings to get him an office job rather than serving on the front. 

Hart is a map jockey, as my grandpa always called the guys back at headquarters. When an army major needs a ride, Hart offers to drive him but on the way German soldiers attack them. The major is killed and Hart is taken prisoner. After being tortured by German intelligence over his knowledge of American troop movements we are left to wonder if Hart gave up the info as he is sent to a military prison.

The American prisoners are presided over by Colonel McNamara (Willis), a third generation West Point grad. Although it seems as if McNamara has accepted his situation as a P.O.W, we find out that McNamara has far from given up the idea of fighting the war. In secret, McNamara and fellow P.O.W's are scheming to fight their captors. When Farrell arrives in the camp, he gets caught in the middle of suspicions over the escape attempts and a racial divide among the white American Officers and the African American enlisted men. 

Though the flyers are officers they are assigned to bunk with the enlisted men where racial tensions flare leading to one of the flyers (played by Reon Shannon) being framed and accused of attempting to escape for which he is executed by the Germans. This leads to a murder, with the other flyer (Terrence Howard) being accused. All of this is a build-up to the film’s climactic courtroom sequence, which is actually a cover for an escape attempt. That isn't any spoiler; you know that from the films over explanatory marketing campaign.

Filmed at a former Russian military training camp in the Czech Republic, Hart's War has the look of WW2 Germany down, the period is well realized. The film’s story, however, is not. The pace is slow and while Hart's War distinguishes itself from other recent war films with its lack of gory realistic violence, it lacks the urgency such violence portrays and what helps make people understand just how horrific war is.

The courtroom scenes provide a strong cover for the escape but in comparison they aren't nearly as interesting. The drama is with the guys going under the wire, not with the kid lawyer exercising his knowledge of military justice. Terrence Howard is effective with a fantastic monologue in the court sequence. Willis and Farrell however never come to life. Both characters seem like passionate guys but they both hide their passion behind glum masks, which distances the audience from the tension that should be building.

Hart's War is a slowly paced, slog through a courtroom story that is all a dull cliche. The war is never portrayed as the urgent activity it obviously was. The film begins slow and never gains speed. If you’re a Bruce Willis fan you might check it out, if not, I'd skip Hart's War.

Movie Review: White Oleander

White Oleander (2002) 

Directed by Peter Kominsky 

Written by Mary Agnes Donaghue 

Starring Michele Pfeiffer, Allison Lohman, Renee Zellweger, Noah Wyle, Cole Hauser, Patrick Fugit 

Releasse Date October 11th, 2002 

Published October 10th, 2002 

In What Lies Beneath Michele Pfeiffer spends the first three quarters of the film giving the best performance of her career. A performance that was vulnerable and wrenching, combining madness and sanity with depth and sexuality. Then the film becomes a typical horror slasher movie with an un-killable and unbelievable villain that ruins the entire film. Now with White Oleander, Pfeiffer is allowed to complete the performance she started in What Lies Beneath and finally give the best performance of her career.

In White Oleander, Pfeiffer stars as Ingrid Magnusson, a talented but highly troubled artist and mother. Alison Lohman is Ingrid’s daughter Astrid, who quietly witnesses her mother's madness yet still worships her. After Ingrid is sent to jail for killing her lover, Astrid is moved to a series of horrendous foster homes but cannot escape the reach of her mother who fears that she is losing control of her daughter.

The first foster home Astrid is sent to belongs to a former stripper turned born again Christian named Starr (Robin Wright Penn). At first Starr seems merely strange and highly hypocritical, she is born again but lives with a married man, Ray, played by Cole Hauser. As the story proceeds we find that there is far more wrong with Starr than mere hypocrisy. As Astrid gets to know and like Ray, Starr begins to suspect that Astrid is trying to seduce him. 

As it turns out it’s the other way around. Though Ray never tries anything with Astrid the attraction is there and leads to a dangerous climax. Ray and Starr disappear and Astrid is sent to an orphanage where she meets a fellow artist and kindred spirit named Paul played by Almost Famous star Patrick Fugit. The tentative romance is a little rushed but the actors chemistry is good enough to cover any problems caused by the poor scripting.

Astrid and Paul’s relationship is short lived as Astrid is shuttled to another foster home. This time it’s the upscale home of an actress named Claire (Renee Zellweger) and her producer husband Mark ("E.R’s" Noah Wyle). Astrid quickly begins to enjoy her new home though trouble is obvious as Claire suspects Mark’s frequent travel is hiding something. And of course there is Ingrid who, without Astrid’s knowledge, has begun to contact Claire and would like to meet her. 

Astrid is quick to notice her mothers’ malevolent intentions but Claire is oblivious and once she is drawn into Ingrid’s web Claire is quick to crumble. With Ingrid’s prodding, Claire becomes more suspicious of Mark and distant from Astrid, leading to an emotional ending that is the film's emotional climax. Watching Pfeiffer and Zellweger play scenes together is remarkable. Both actresses are giving everything they have and it is a sight to see. 

The mother-daughter relationship is the film's centerpiece and Pfeiffer and Lohman work like clockwork. Trading lines of dialogue as if they had worked together forever, their characters come to life in each other's presence. Each actress brings the best out of the other and their scenes together are riveting and intense. Oscar should call on both of these actresses.

That’s not to say that the film they inhabit isn’t flawed. Indeed were it not for the strong performances the film would no doubt collapse under it’s clichés. There is only so much sadness an audience can endure and White Oleander lays it on pretty thick, forcing Lohman into situations that would lead most sane people to consider taking their own life.

White Oleander is certainly no advertisement for the foster care system as Astrid is dropped on the doorstep of people far too obviously damaged to be real. Robin Wright Penn’s Starr is an unmarried former stripper caring for three foster kids even before she takes in Astrid. Renee Zellweger’s Claire, while affluent enough to provide a home for a child, has a history of suicidal tendencies and taking in children as if they were pets, sending them back if her husband seems unhappy. Astrid’s last foster home experience is with a Russian prostitute who has her foster children sift through garbage for things to sell at flea markets or steal from other children she takes in.

The most glaring problem is the lack of a fully fleshed out male character to balance the female centric vibe. Patrick Fugit is great but his character is far too sweet and accepting to be believed and he doesn’t get enough screen time to establish a real presence. Nevertheless it’s the two lead performances by Lohman and Pfeiffer that make White Oleander easy to recommend. Forget the ridiculous chick flick label, great performances are great performances, no matter what the gender. Great acting deserves to be appreciated, and White Oleander is blessed with great acting.

Movie Review Tears of the Sun

Tears of the Sun (2003) 

Directed by Antoine Fuqua

Written by Alex Lasker, Patrick Cirillo 

Starring Bruce Willis, Monica Bellucci, Cole Hauser, Tom Skerritt

Release Date March 7th, 2003 

Published March 6th, 2003 

In researching Tears of The Sun I came across the strange revelation that the film was initially founded as a vehicle for Bruce Willis' Die Hard series. It began its life as Die Hard 4:Tears of the Sun. You think I'm making that up, and I wish I were but no. Thankfully, someone figured there was no plausible reason for John McClain to be in Africa during a tribal civil war so the storyline was changed to have Willis play a different fictional tough guy. The film still has the action flourish of a Die Hard movie but the character’s name is different.

In Tears Of The Sun, Willis is LT Waters, a special forces leader assigned to drop into the middle of a country in the midst of a civil war to rescue a missionary and her staff. Of course if it were that simple there wouldn't be much of a movie. The missionary is Dr. Lena Hendricks (Monica Bellucci), the wife of a murdered American doctor. When Waters and his crew arrive in her camp to rescue her the doctor refuses to leave without her people, forcing Waters to accept a compromise. Anyone who can walk can come with her. The doctor’s staff of two nurses and a priest decide to stay behind and care for the remaining patients.

Despite his promise, Waters has no plans to break from his mission and when they arrive at their exit point the doctor’s patients are left behind while the doctor is forced onto a helicopter to be taken to an awaiting aircraft carrier. Intent on simply accomplishing his mission Waters’s conscience is tested when the helicopter passes back over the hospital and finds it in flames with the bodies of its remaining patients strewn over the ground. Knowing that the same fate awaits the patients he left behind, Waters turns the helicopter around, determined to help the remaining patients to the border of a friendly ally.

Director Antoine Fuqua packs the film with action flourishes and a cast of recognizable supporting players including Cole Hauser, Isaiah Washington and Tom Skerrit as Willis' commanding officer. The casting is excellent and the recognizable character actors earn our sympathy simply through familiarity. This however is Willis' show and the action star hasn't been this good since The Sixth Sense. Stoic and studied, Willis has not only the look of a tough guy marine but the fighting spirit that one would hope to find in all of our soldiers.

That's not to say Tears of The Sun doesn't have its troubles. Where the action scenes are exciting and well staged, the surrounding scenes are a little thin. When bullets aren't flying the film stalls, and when a twist is thrown in about half way through, it does little to change that. Nevertheless, with Fuqua's sure handed direction and Willis' fine performance, Tears of The Sun has just enough action to hold the audience's attention from beginning to end.