Movie Review: Armored

Armored (2009) 

Directed by Nimrod Antal

Written by James V. Simpson

Starring Matt Dillon, Columbus Short, Jean Reno, Laurence Fishburne, Skeet Ulrich

Release Date December 4th, 2009 

Published December 4th, 2009 

Streaming Rental via Amazon Prime 

Armored is the latest attempt by Hollywood to look engaged and aware of the current economic condition. At its center is a character making less than a living wage and about to lose his home and the desperate lengths he considers going to in order to save everything.

Columbus Short stars in Armored as Ty a former Iraq war veteran who returns home to a crumbling neighborhood and a teenage brother to take care of. The bank is looking to foreclose on Ty's house and the only job he can get is a part time gig as a guard working for an armored car company.

Ty's pal Mike (Matt Dillon) got him the job and does what he can to help him out. Mike has a plan, with the help of 4 other guards they will set up a robbery of their own trucks. 42 million dollars can go a long way toward solving Ty's problems but he only agrees to go along after a threat by child services to take his little brother away.

The plan comes off without a hitch, initially. Hiding the trucks in an abandoned industrial building the crew begins off-loading the cash when Baines (Laurence Fishburne) spots a homeless guy hiding in the building. He kills the guy and Ty realizes that things have gone too far. He locks himself in one of the trucks and sets off the alarm to try and draw attention. A cop (Milo Ventimiglia) does arrive and he too is shot. 

Ty makes an effort to save the cop and stop the bad guys and that is where Armored gets its juice. Directed by Nimrod Antal, Armored gets off to an exceptionally slow start but once it picks up some speed it gets pretty entertaining. Columbus Short is a likable actor who holds the screen well as well as our hero. Matt Dillon as the villain is backed up well  by Laurence Fishburne, Skeet Ulrich and Jean Reno.

As for how timely Armored is? The idea of a guy willing to rob an armored truck to save his house is more of a motivational conceit than a comment on our times. Armored isn't much related to our current economic conditions as it as a coincidence. This film has been made a few times before and could work just as well in a prosperous economy; there's always someone who’s struggling.

Armored is an old school action flick with good chase scenes, gunplay and a strong hero. Director Nimrod Antal takes a little while to get things going but the final act moves fast toward a satisfying action flick conclusion. If everything is tied up a little too neatly; call it a function of modern pop entertainment, modern audiences hate a down ending.

Movie Review: Cadillac Records

Cadillac Records (2008)

Directed by by Darnell Martin

Written by Darnell Martin

Starring Adrien Brody, Jerffrey Wright, Gabrielle Union, Columbus Short 

Release Date December 5th, 2008 

Published December 12th, 2008

Without Muddy Waters there is no Mick Jagger, there are no Rolling Stones. The hardest working band in Rock N' Roll heard Muddy Waters when they were just passing puberty and were so effected by it that their whole lives have been shaped by the experience.

Thus the extraordinary influence of a man and a genre of music that has too long gone unnoticed. Cadillac Records is a far from perfect tribute that comes up short of truly honoring the history the history of Chess Records and the Blues but as a reminder of it does an effective job of getting your attention and making you at least hear the music.

Leonard Chess (Oscar winner Adrian Brody) was a Chicago nightclub owner whose club mysteriously burned to the ground leaving him just enough insurance money to build a recording studio and found a record label. Having just met and heard Muddy Waters (Geoffrey Wright) and his protege Little Walter (Columbus Short) for the first time, I'm sure the fire was just a coincidence.

Chess got Muddy and Walter in the studio and with a little grease for the local DJ's, Chess Records started making big money. The nickname Cadillac Records because instead of paying his artists royalties, early on, he gave them Caddies paid for with their royalty money.

From there Chess went on to discover Howlin Wolf (Eammon Walker), Willie Dixon (Cedric The Entertainer), Etta James (Beyonce) and his most famous find Chuck Berry (Mos Def). After introducing the actors and the artists they portray we are treated to a song or two some manufactured melodrama and then it's over. Say this for Cadillac Records, it's efficient and to point.

The pre-packaged drama is as weak as I imply but director Darnell Martin smartly doesn't dwell on it to much, Martin knows where the bread of Cadillac Records is buttered, it's all about the tunes. Geoffrey Wright, Beyonce and Mos Def sing these indelible classics themselves and the performances capture the passion of live performance like few music movies have.

This is powerful stuff and though many will be distracted by Beyonce's celebrity, all reservations about her taking on the role of Etta James will be alleviated when her performance of "I'd Rather Go Blind" is belted out through tears and deep, deep subtext.

Mos Def gives the film a jolt of joy as the ebulliant Chuck Berry. The irreverent, duck walking Berry is the perfect role for Mos Def an actor who does childlike joy and mischief like few other actors working today. Even portraying the darkest moments of Berry's life, Mos Def captures the roll with the punches style that has sustained Berry to this day.

Cadillac Records is not the tribute that people like Muddy Water, Etta James or Leonard Chess deserves, not to mention Chess' brother who was shamefully left out of the movie over life rights issues, he's still alive, but it is a solid reminder of these legends collective greatness and it gives us a chance to hear these songs again.

That alone is worth the price of admission.

Movie Review Quarantine

Quarantine (2008) 

Directed by John Erick Dowdle

Written by John Erick Dowdle, Drew Dowdle 

Starring Jennifer Carpenter, Jay Hernandez, Columbus Short, Steve Harris, Dania Ramirez 

Release Date October 10th, 2008

Published October 10th, 2008 

Yawn! Another horror remake. Ah, but there is a twist this time. Quarantine isn't a Japanese or Chinese ripoff but rather a trashing of a Spanish horror movie. At least the film has one innovation.

Jennifer Carpenter stars in Quarantine as a reality TV host whose assignment this week is to follow the Los Angeles fire department on a 911 call. First though we are introduced to her assigned fire fighters. Jay Hernandez and Jonathan Schaech are the firefighters and they are a couple of likable sorts. Hernandez is knowledgeable and respectful. Schaech is boorish and flirty. Carpenter takes to them both quickly and in another movie this would be quite a love triangle. In Quarantine however, these attractive actors are merely bait.

Finally getting a call, Jennifer jumps aboard a fire engine with her fighters and soon arrives at the scene of a medical emergency in an old apartment building. Inside one of the apartments an old woman has been screaming in pain and not responding to the knocks and calls of neighbors and super. The firefighters arrive with the police and eventually break down the door. Inside the old woman has a crazed look on her face and soon she has attacked and bitten a cop so badly that he bleeds to death. As Hernandez and a cop played by Columbus Short tend to the injured cop, they and the rest of the building's tenants find themselves locked inside the building by the CDC.

Someone or something is infecting the residents and the CDC is not about to let anyone carry it to the outside. This sets up a cat and mouse game between the infected, flesh eating zombie types and the trapped tenants, cop, firefighters, our intrepid reporter and her loyal cameraman (Steve Harris). The film is shot entirely from the cameraman's perspective, as if we are watching the documentary in progress. Yes, for those who suffer from shaky cam-itis aka motion sickness, Quarantine is one of those movies. Like Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project, Quarantine operates on the guise that these events took place and we are watching after the fact.

If only being unoriginal and a cause of mass projectile vomiting and dizziness were Quarantine's only issue. Sadly, star Jennifer Carpenter's performance rivals the remake and motion sickness issues by being the least believable TV personality since Angelina Jolie's dopey reporter in Life of Something Like It. Acting more like a spoiled teenager than a TV reporter, Carpenter giggles and flirts and exploits her access to the firemen for no other purpose than she thinks they're cute. She tells the camera that she has always wanted to be a fireman but I find it hard to believe she wanted to be anything other than a magnet for cute boys.

Things devolve further as we get into crisis mode in the apartment building. Now, no one would ever assume when they are responding to an emergency that you might end up dealing with cannibalistic, rabies ridden zombies. However, after the old woman has killed the cop and a firefighter someone should become a little more suspicious and cautious. But no. Instead characters still wander into dark areas throughout the building, fail to stick together and are picked off one by one as they remain heavily in denial about their situation.

I didn't buy a second of it. Carpenter breaks the believability with her ditz reporter and everyone else puts off because the plot requires them to be tools. As one after another is picked off our involvement with the story and the characters becomes less and less until we get to the inevitable end that we absolutely know is coming.

The style gives away the ending, not that there was much suspense involved anyway. The point and purpose to a movie like Quarantine is to try and frighten with atmosphere and camera tricks. That it fails is a function of poor craftsmanship and a lack of deeper ideas than a scary noise off camera that suddenly becomes something on camera.

Movie Review: Accepted

Accepted (2006) 

Directed by Steve Pink 

Written by Adam Cooper, Bill Collage, Mark Perez 

Starring Justin Long, Blake Lively, Anthony Heald, Jonah Hill, Lewis Black, Columbus Short 

Release Date August 18th, 2006 

Published August 19th, 2006 

The college comedy is a genre all it's own. It has conventions and clichés and stock characters. The latest example of the genre, Accepted starring Justin Long, breaks no new ground in the college comedy genre. It's a slight, forgettable little comedy that has a more than a few redeeming qualities but not much to recommend it.

Justin Long stars in Accepted as Bartleby Gaines an underachieving slacker whose inattention to his schoolwork has left him without a college acceptance letter. Every school he applied to has rejected him. Even Ohio State! His safety school. With his parents breathing down his neck Bartleby launches one of those only in the movies kind of schemes, he starts his own college.

With the help of his computer nerd best friend Sherman (Jonah Hill), who got into the hometown school Harmon College, Bartleby founds the South Harmon Institute of Technology, if you don't get the joke of that name don't worry the film will explain it again and again and again. At first it's just a very convincing website and acceptance letter but when mom and dad insist on driving Bartleby to school he makes the drastic choice to use his tuition check to rent a building.

Bartleby is not alone in his rejection and acceptance of this wacky scheme. Joining Bartleby at South Harmon is his pal Hands (Columbus Short) who lost his football scholarship after an injury and Rory (Maria Thayer) a Ivy league wannabe who only applied to Yale and swore off other college's after being rejected. Pooling their collective tuitions they rent and renovate an old psychiatric hospital and manage to fool their parents into thinking South Harmon is for real.

Unfortunately they also convince a bunch of other rejects who show up at South Harmon expecting their freshman year. Can Bartleby and friends keep up the ruse of South Harmon or will they be headed to jail on fraud charges. If you don't know already then you probably haven't seen very many movies.

Predictability is not the biggest problem with Accepted. It's biggest problem is Director Steve Pink and writers Bill Collage and Adam Cooper who fail to put their own unique spin on the requirements of the college comedy genre. While director Pink does a good job of keeping up an energetic pace and his cast crafts some lovable characters, there is not one college comedy cliche that Accepted manages to avoid.

The bad guys are the crusty dean from the rival college played with extra crust by Anthony Heald. The dean is joined, in typical Animal House fashion, by a group of overprivileged white frat boys lead by Arian dreamboat Travis Van Winkle. No points for guessing that Travis's character, Hoyt Ambrose, has a hot but very sweet girlfriend who also has eyes for Bartleby. The lovely Blake Lively is Monica who you can bet won't be with Hoyt much longer than the plot deems necessary.

Wait, you won't believe it, there is a bigtime party in the movie too, that happens to be on the same night as major bash thrown by the evil frat guys. No points again for guessing that the bad guys are crashing our heroes party with vague threats and evil intent. These scenes have been repeated more times than I or you can count and there is nothing even remotely original about them in Accepted.

I have said in countless reviews of similar genre pictures that the key to genre filmmaking is not originality but rather taking the established conventions of genre and simply doing them better or at the very least slightly different than they have been done before. Accepted simply repeats the conventions with different actors. These are some very good actors but we've heard all of the jokes before.

The film becomes almost saccharine near the end when a full of himself Bartleby gives one of those rousing the troops speeches that becomes an earnest defense of his wacky scheme. This almost works because we like Justin Long as Bartleby but the speech is simply another of the many clichés that Accepted doesn't just repeat it relies upon.

Accepted has a secret weapon in comedian Lewis Black. Brought in as a burnout ex-educator to be South Harmon's Dean, Black brings his sardonic, downer persona to Accepted and gives the film it's one shot of originality. Doling out his opinions on the education system, taxes and bureaucracy, like he was delivering one of his brilliant stand up routines, Black teaches the kids of South Harmon more about the real world than anything they could learn at a real college even if it is delivered with severe cynicism.

Justin Long is an appealing young actor who has been turning heads in supporting roles since his breakout turn on TV's Ed. He came to mainstream attention as the youngest member of Vince Vaughn's Dodgeball team and turned in a radically different cameo as a gay art gallery employee in Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston's The Break Up earlier this summer.

Now, in his first starring role in a mainstream comedy, Long shows a great deal of charisma and charm but the role is to familiar to be as funny as it could be. There is simply nothing that Long can do to break the mold of the classic, fast talking, quick witted campus legend. It's the mold put in place by past college comedy leads like Ryan Reynolds in Van Wilder or Jeremy Piven in the cult classic P.C.U. It's a template with it's roots in classic Bugs Bunny cartoons where our hero is always imperiled but also always one step ahead of that peril thanks to his quick wits.

Originality is not a prerequisite in a college comedy genre. There are some unavoidable conventions of the genre that filmmakers simply cannot avoid. What the better filmmakers do is try and twist those conventions with their own unique vision. Unfortunately director Steve Pink lacked the vision to bring any new twists to Accepted which wastes a terrifically likable cast on a retread of every cliché in the book.

Movie Review Stomp the Yard

Stomp the Yard (2007) 

Directed by Sylvain White 

Written by Gregory Anderson

Starring Columbus Short, Meagan Good, Ne-Yo, Darrin Henson, Brian White, Laz Alonzo, Harry Lennix

Release Date January 12th, 2007

Published January 16th, 2007 

MTV Films has pioneered a new kind of filmmaking. It's a low budget, high teen appeal style that involves formula stories about young protagonists and killer soundtracks that drive the film's marketing. It began with the dance drama Save The Last Dance and continued through the surprise 2004 dance hit You Got Served. The new movie Stomp The Yard is not an MTV film but it follows the MTV Films business plan. Made on the cheap, with a killer hip hop soundtrack and cameos by hip hop stars, Stomp The Yard made its budget back over the opening weekend.

That is great for business but the formula filmmaking is tired and the cheapness shows in the low quality of the filmmaking. Stomp The Yard may have youth appeal but it lacks greatly in story and filmmaking appeal. 

In Stomp The Yard Columbus Short plays D.J, a wrong side of the tracks kid from the L.A streets who finds himself in college in Atlanta after the violent death of his brother Duron. At Truth University his hard ass uncle Nate works on the campus landscaping and had to pull every string imaginable to get D.J in. Once there, D.J's culture shock includes a crash course in stepping, a dance competition among historic African American fraternities.

D.J knows how to step, he and his late brother and a team of friends were battle dancers back in L.A before Duron was killed after a competition. Now in Atlanta, D.J is shy about getting into stepping but after showing off for a girl in a bar, D.J becomes a hot commodity among the top two frats on campus, who also happen to be the top two stepping frats in the country.

The girl D.J danced for is April (Meagan Goode) and she happens to be the girlfriend of a top stepper, Grant (Darrin Henson) and the daughter of the school provost. If you think both of these attributes will be laid out as romantic obstacles and then easily overcome, then you have likely seen a few of these formula films in the past. Indeed, those on the wrong side of the tracks always seem to get the girl, especially when the upper crust of society forbids it.

There are few clichés that Stomp The Yard doesn't stomp all over on the way to its rote conclusion. Director Sylvain White, like most directors of January filler material, isn't so much a director as he is a vessel for transporting this cliché ridden script to the screen with little innovation. His style choices are sloppy and he seems to have no interest in the story beyond the opportunities it offers to film elaborate dance scenes.

Throughout Stomp The Yard White opts for a shaky handheld camera work that is sloppy and distracting, especially during the dance scenes where the camerawork makes you doubt just how spectacular the dancing really is. Throughout the film there are confusing scenes where one person or a team dances and one is alleged to be better than the other but we have no idea why. Each side is precise and athletic, even charismatic, but why one is better than the other is left completely subjective to individual taste. The way these scenes are put together however, it seems like we are supposed to understand that one side has been shown up, but for the life of me I had no idea why.

There is an interesting idea buried beneath the retread plot of Stomp The Yard. A movie that focuses its energy on why stepping is so venerated and why it is such a marvelous tradition. Stomp The Yard simply wishes for us to assume stepping is an important part of the culture, it never bothers to explain why. An education in the styles and grading of stepping might make an interesting movie or a better documentary.

For an education in battle dancing, more specifically a battle between krumping and clowning, check out David LaChappelle's documentary Rize. That film is gorgeously shot with no cuts during the dance scenes to prove that indeed no tricks were used, these dancers really did those amazing things. The crew of Stomp The Yard could have learned a lot watching Rize.

As it is, it seems that the Stomp The Yard crew watched how successful the clichés of 2005's You Got Served worked as a business model and simply copied them with slightly less skill. Yes, Stomp The Yard makes You Got Served look better by comparison. That is really saying something.

Movie Review: The Losers

The Losers (2010) 

Directed by Sylvain White 

Written by Peter Berg, James Vanderbilt 

Starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Idris Elba, Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans, Columbus Short 

Release Date April 23rd, 2010 

Published April 22nd, 2010 

A ragtag band of America's best soldiers are burned by unknown superiors and forced to go outside the law to get their lives back. “The A-Team?” No, “The Losers” starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Idris Elba and Zoe Saldana. Oh but don't worry, this isn't some derivative waste of celluloid, it's merely a boring rehash of tired cliches dressed up in music video edits and big explosions. OK, yeah that is rather derivative.

Clay (Morgan) is the leader of “The Losers,” a group of Special Forces soldiers whose latest mission  involves taking down a hostage taking drug dealer somewhere in South America. The mission is a lie. Instead, the man is a puppet that some CIA spook wants out of the way. The bad guy hides behind a large group of orphans to hold off people like The Losers. When Clay and his team, tech expert Jensen (Chris Evans), Second in Command Roque (Idris Elba), pilot Pooch (Columbus Short) and sharp shooter Cougar (Oscar Janaeda), find the kids they decide to rescue them. The rescue goes bad when the CIA decides to eliminate “The Losers” and instead eliminate the little kids.

Trapped in South America with no passports, identification or cash, “The Losers” seem resigned to their fate until an encounter with a mysterious woman. Her name is Aisha (Zoe Saldana) and she knows who burned “The Losers” and how they can find him and though her motives and origin are suspicious it doesn't stop Clay from falling into bed with her. ”The Losers” has a certain charm to it, especially in the loose, fun performance of future “Captain America” Chris Evans, but for the most part it lags because there is just nothing new here. “The Losers” is filled to overflow with been there, done that action set pieces and dull, lifeless effects and quick edits.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan is solid actor with a strong, manly appeal. His weathered mug and half smile seem built for gritty, grunge action movies. Too bad for him that “The Losers” is a slick, lifeless effects movie and not the kind of grungy, punk rock war movie that might suit Morgan and his performance here far better. That said, Morgan has a great sexual chemistry with “Avatar” angel Zoe Saldana and their sex scene is arguably the only reason to see “The Losers.”

Sadly, this movie is not about watching good looking people get down. Rather, The Losers is a lame caper flick in which the caper isn't very clever or original and the film-making is derivative and dull. “The Losers,” I am told, is based on a popular series of comic books. I am further told that many of the frames in the film are modeled on actual panels from the comic. This is notable for comics fans and entirely inconsequential for me. Maybe we should check out the comic and skip “The Losers” movie.