Classic Movie Review Judgment Night

Judgment Night (1993) 

Directed by Stephen Hopkins 

Written by Lewis Colick 

Starring Emilio Estevez, Cuba Gooding Jr., Jeremy Piven, Stephen Dorff, Denis Leary 

Release Date October 15th, 1993

Published October 16th, 2023 

The most interesting aspect of 1993's action flick, Judgment Night is how star Emilio Estevez held the producers over a barrel. Estevez is rumored to have been very low on the list of actors that the producers wanted for the lead role of Frank in Judgment Day. Naturally, they were chasing a big star, Tom Cruise. That didn't work so they went to Christian Slater who also passed on the role. The role was then passed on by John Travolta and Ray Liotta before landing at the feet of Emilio Estevez. The production had a small window to actually shoot and complete the film and with that, the studio offered Estevez the role because he was available and so many others said no. And then Estevez asked for $4 million dollars for the role and he got it. 

That's way more interesting than what happens in this dopey urban action drama which posits a mostly empty downtown Chicago a fully dystopian Chicago that is desperately violent but also a ghost town. Four buddies are traveling to the big city from the suburbs in order to attend a boxing event. Frank (Estevez) is joining his best friend Mike (Cuba Gooding Jr), Frank's brother, John (Stephen Dorff), and their obnoxious, pushy, irritating pal Ray (Jeremy Piven) for the trip to the city. 

Because his personality apparently isn't obnoxious enough, Ray decides to scam his way to borrowing a gigantic motor home to take the four friends to the city for the fight. Unfortunately, the group fails to account for Chicago traffic on a night when there is a giant sporting event and they wind up missing the start of the event while trapped on an expressway. With time slipping away, Ray makes an illegal turn and uses an off-ramp to try and sneak around traffic. The group ends up in the dystopian future set of Chicago, unrecognizable to suburban yokels like themselves. 

As the group bickers about being lost, Ray hits a pedestrian with the motor home. Forced to stop by his friends, Ray frets about going to jail as his buddies tend to the injured pedestrian. To say this pedestrian is having a rough night would be an understatement. Not only was hit just hit by a motor home, he'd been shot in the gut just before the accident. Clutching a bag full of ill-gotten cash, the man begs for help and the friends force Ray to try and find a hospital, despite his desire to abandon the injured man and try to avoid going to jail. 

Mike takes over driving and the group is on the run, choosing to try and chase a police car on its way to call. That's when the motor home is struck by a car and forced off the road. The motor home finally comes to rest trapped between two buildings. The men in the car that hit them turn out to be gangsters led by Fallon (Denis Leary). They break open the back of the motor home to snatch the injured man and they kill him. They then want to kill the witnesses to that killing and set off after our suburban commandos who rush off into those famously empty Chicago streets. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Norbit

Norbit (2007) 

Directed by Brian Robbins

Written by Eddie Murphy, Charlie Murphy

Starring Eddie Murphy, Thandie Newton, Cuba Gooding Jr., Eddie Griffin, Marlon Wayans, Charlie Murphy 

Release Date February 9th, 2007 

Published February 9th, 2007 

The last thing Eddie Murphy needs with Oscar ballots still uncounted is a movie like Norbit. Unfortunately, Norbit is out there and TV commercials are exposing Eddie at his most commercially bankrupt. Will Norbit cast Eddie an Oscar? It's possible. Norbit is an example of Murphy at his most bankrupt, displaying his declining comic talent for the world to see, at a time when Hollywood is close to honoring him for the best dramatic work of his career.

Oscar voters aren't likely to see Norbit, which might lessen the impact, but just the sight of his giant fat suited character on TV could be enough for a few voters to turn their attention to actors with a tad more talent and integrity. 

Norbit (Eddie Murphy) was abandoned as a baby, thrown from a moving car at the doorstep of an orphanage/Chinese restaurant. There, Mr. Wong (Also Eddie Murphy) took young Norbit in and raised him as his own. Growing up in the orphanage, Norbit fell for a fellow orphan named Kate until she was adopted. With Kate gone, Norbit fell under the spell of Rasputia (Eddie, again) a giantess who protected him from bullies and years later forced him to marry her.

Trapped in an awful marriage to an awful woman, Norbit wants a way out. This is when Kate (Thandie Newton) returns and Norbit see's a different path for his life. Unfortunately, Kate has brought her fiance Deion (Cuba Gooding Jr.) with her. Can Norbit escape Rasputia and win Kate away from the scheming, jerky, Deion? These are the strands that stand in as a plot for Norbit.

Directed by Bryan Robbins, the auteur behind The Shaggy Dog and Ready To Rumble, Norbit is a terribly unfunny series of sitcomic sketches whose sole purpose is placing their star in a different funny outfit. The makeup on Eddie Murphy, done as it was in The Nutty Professor by effects master Rick Baker, is damn impressive but not nearly impressive enough to warrant a movie that is basically dedicated to the talent of the makeup department.

Norbit is pretty bad but not entirely laugh free. Comics Eddie Griffin and Katt Williams have small roles as pimps, Pope Sweet Jesus and Lord Have Mercy. The roles are awful stereotypes but Griffin and Williams are too talented not to deliver a couple of good laughs. In a scene near the end of Norbit, the two riff on love and steal the show for a few minutes.

Also kinda funny is Murphy's awful chinese caricature Mr. Wong. Murphy gives Mr. Wong all of the best and most shocking lines in the film and the racist banter and love of whaling are just wild enough to earn what few laughs are offered in Norbit.

As for Rasputia, Murphy's giant drag cliche, the character is a force of nature but there isn't anything there beyond the fat jokes. Unlike Tyler Perry's Madea who combines the bizarre look of a man in drag with a character that has its own level of odd integrity, Rasputia is just a walking stereotypical punchline. That Murphy infuses Rasputia with unending self confidence keeps the jokes from becoming meanspirited but the real problem is not political correctness or hurt feelings but rather that none of the jokes are funny.

Toss Norbit on the pile next to Daddy Day Care, Metro and Holy Man, yet another step in the decline of the comic talent of Eddie Murphy. Eddie's concert video Delirious hit DVD recently and is a hilarious example of how talented and gut bustingly funny Eddie Murphy once was. Why his skills have declined so badly is a mystery.

Like Adam Sandler impressing so many critics in Punch Drunk Love, Eddie Murphy's turn in Dreamgirls now looks like a flash in the pan, a moment of brilliance in a sea of declining talent. What a shame.

Movie Review: American Gangster

American Gangster (2007) 

Directed by Ridley Scott 

Written by Steven Zaillian 

Starring Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Clarence Williams III, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Cuba Gooding Jr 

Release Date November 2nd, 2007 

Published November 1st, 2007

The story of Frank Lucas could have found this enterprising, intelligent man as CEO of a fortune 500 company. The man knew how to run a business. He was a retail pioneer at heart who figured a way to cut out the middle man and bring his product directly from the manufacturer, no middle man. He sounds like an electronics dealer with his own chain of wholesale retailers.

The reality, captured in fictional form, in American Gangster is that Frank Lucas was a drug dealer and a murderer who coldly and heartlessly killed hundreds with his product and more with his own gun.

As the driver for legendary Harlem gangster Bumpy Johnson (Clarence Williams III) Frank Lucas learned the business of being a gangster up close and personal. When Bumpy died the city fell into a chaos of crime and violence and Frank Lucas longed to bring back Bumpy's sense of order and profit from it as he did.

Finding a way to get heroin without having to share with the mob and the NYPD, Frank went all the way to Vietnam to get his product which was then smuggled into the country in the coffins of US soldiers returning from the war. The result was a more pure and addictive form of heroin that Frank nicknamed Blue Magic. With his product in place Frank brought his brothers up from North Carolina and the Lucas empire was born.

Unraveling the tangled web of the Lucas drug trade is Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe). A lone good cop in department overflowing with corruption, Richie never took a dime, even when he and his partner stumbled on a million dollars of easily stealable drug money. It's good that Richie has his professional integrity because he has little else. His wife is leaving him and taking his son while his personal life consists of a series of mindless one night stands.

The collision of Frank Lucas and Richie Roberts was inevitable how it arrives and plays out in American Gangster is entirely unpredictable if you haven't already investigated the rise and fall of Frank Lucas. Indeed, Frank was for real. His reign in Harlem lasted nearly a decade. He once had more than 150 million dollars in cash stored in his home. He also murdered enemies in broad daylight in front of dozens of witnesses and was not caught.

Richie Roberts was also for real and the the path of his life through this film is fascinating and the prologue hints that even after getting Frank Lucas his life was colorful and unique. As played by Russell Crowe, Richie Roberts almost steals the picture. Crowe's Richie isn't your typical meatheaded tough guy roughing up suspects to get the information he needs to get the bad guy. Richie was a law student and eventually a prosecutor. He was a thinking man's detective even as he put forth a tough guy front.

This character could not be better suited to Russell Crowe who has played Nobel prize winner John Nash and fictional Gladiator Maximus, each to Oscar level. Don't be surprised if his Richie Roberts gets called on the morning of the Oscar nominations.

There was recently quite a heated debate at MovieCityNews.com over director Ridley Scott. A writer for the site wrote that he felt Scott is overrated as a director. He cited his examples and made some strong points about Scott's resume, which I agree, is somewhat inflated. However, after watching American Gangster I am convinced that Scott is an auteur of the highest order.

Fighting for two years to get American Gangster on the screen, Scott battled studio heads to get his vision of the film as the final product and he succeeded. This is top notch work that plays to Scott's strengths as a director of epics like Gladiator and Alien. Say what you will about Scott's many failings, his American Gangster is a modern film classic.

American Gangster can fairly be called Ridley Scott's Godfather. It is the height of his work thus far and it reflects everything he has accomplished including his earning the loyalty and trust of two of the finest actors of this generation. If Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington love Ridley Scott that's gotta mean he's doing something right.

Denzel Washington remains the king of cool in Hollywood. No one could have played the role of Frank Lucas like Denzel does. The charisma, the elegance, the cold steely intelligence rolls off the screen in waves when Denzel is on camera. His work is so effortless I worry that people will call the performance lazy. There is none of the histrionics of his Oscar winning performance in Training Day , none of the harrumphing bravado that announces a big dramatic performance.

The menace and charm are all played in Denzel's eyes. In fact, much of Denzel's Frank Lucas is in his eyes. There are scenes where that steely gaze could kill whoever it falls upon. There are other scenes, ones with his mother played by Ruby Dee and his wife (Lymari Nadal), where those eyes are as soft and inviting as Denzel in The Preacher's Wife. The entire dichotomy that is Frank Lucas can be found in Denzel's electric gaze.

That is the extraordinary talent of Denzel Washington on display in American Gangster, he makes it look so easy even as he has so much going on. Some will no doubt walk away feeling like they have seen this Denzel before. Cocky and harsh but still charismatic and even charming, there are so many levels to Denzel's performance and he plays them so well that it barely registers until after you've had time to think about, after the performance has already worked on you.

Two extraordinary actors under the direction of a director at the height of his powers creates one hell of a filmgoing experience. American Gangster is the kind of epic filmmaking that so rarely lives up to its ambitions. American Gangster more than lives up to its grand ambitions. A true powerhouse of dramatic filmmaking, American Gangster is a must see for all audiences, but especially those that want to see the movie that will be featured on Oscar night come March.

Movie Review Radio

Radio (2003)

Directed by Michael Tollin 

Written by Mike Rich 

Starring Cuba Gooding Jr, Ed Harris, Alfre Woodard, Debra Winger, Sarah Drew 

Release Date October 24th, 2003 

Published October 25th, 2003

Writer-Director-Producer Michael Tollin seems to aspire to mediocrity. A cursory look at his resume shows just that, a string of mediocre films as both a director and a producer. He has a particular affinity for the most mediocre of genres, the sports movie. With his partner, Brian Robbins, Tollin was a part of the predictable football movie Varsity Blues, the lame and predictable baseball movie Hardball and the God-awful Freddie Prinze Jr. movie Summer Catch. The latest addition to the Tollin-Robbins sports pantheon is Radio, a cloying tearjerker that hits all the manipulative notes.

The film stars Cuba Gooding Jr. as a mentally challenged man named Radio, a nickname given to him by Coach Harold Jones, the coach of the local High School football team. Coach decides to help out Radio after finding some of his players harassing the poor guy. Coach makes Radio a part of the team, allowing him to take part in practices and eventually allowing him into the school and classes.

Radio's involvement with the team and the school is good for him but is met with some resistance by a local booster Frank Clay (Chris Mulkey), who doesn't like Radio because, well, because he's just mean. That is really the only reason the movie gives for his unnecessarily rude behavior toward Radio who everyone else in town loves.

S. Epatha Merkerson turns up in the unforgiving role of Radio's mother whose fate is foretold from her first appearance onscreen. The rest of the supporting cast is less than memorable. Debra Winger is nearly unrecognizable in the role of the coach's wife, and young Sarah Drew in her first live action film role (she did voice work on TV's Daria) is not bad as the coach's oft-forgotten daughter.

Ed Harris is the only real asset of the film. His stature and dignity infuse his role with more credibility than it deserves. As written, the character is rather wishy-washy liberal do-gooder but with Harris in the role, the character has more weight and the melodramatic script is improved with his presence and delivery.

As for Gooding, just add Radio to the growing list of roles that have marked his career's death spiral since his Oscar winning role in Jerry Maguire. I've written way too much about Gooding's self destruction and it's getting harder and harder to watch. Jerry Maguire continues to be one of my all time favorites and Gooding was a huge part of that. However, the goodwill he earned from his role as Rod Tidwell is completely gone and his presence in any film is becoming unwelcome.

As for Tollin and his producing partner Brian Robbins, Radio shows little improvement over their previous mediocre outings. While it's billed as a true story and there is a real man named Radio who lives for high school football in South Carolina, the movie of his life never once rings true. Rather it is the same market-tested family drama that is better left to Hallmark Hall of fame.

Movie Review: Boat Trip

Boat Trip (2003) 

Directed by Mort Nathan

Written by Mort Nathan 

Starring Cuba Gooding Jr. Horatio Sanz, Roger Moore, Vivica A. Fox 

Release Date March 21st 2003 

Published March 20th, 2003 

It is a testament to just how good Cuba Gooding Jr. was in his Oscar winning role in Jerry Maguire that people like myself have so willingly ignored the number of awful films he's made. 

This is the guy who even after a breakout role in Boyz in The Hoodmade the decision to star opposite Paul Hogan in Lightning Jack as a mute sidekick. A man who since winning an Oscar has made the films Chill Factor, Instinct, Rat Race, and Snow Dogs and done so with a straight face. So I shouldn't be surprised when Gooding turns out another abysmal film with his new comedy Boat Trip. I once again walked in with my Jerry Maguire rose colored glasses on and once again left disappointed.

In Boat Trip, Gooding plays Jerry, recently dumped by his fiancée (Vivica A. Fox) and wallowing in self-pity. That is until his buddy Nick (Horatio Sanz) books them on a singles cruise. Unfortunately for Jerry and Nick, when they booked the cruise they ticked off the travel agent (Will Ferrell, in a cameo) that decides to book them on a gay cruise.

In a scene that defies believability and credibility to an astounding degree, Jerry and Nick manage to board the ship without noticing the number of men holding hands and the odd lack of women anywhere on the boat. It isn't until the boat has left and the two friends sit in the boat's bar with Roger Moore as a rich gay guy and he tells them they are on a gay cruise. Well needless to say this leads to a stream of homophobic ranting with Nick and Jerry screaming and yelling as if they were going down on the Titanic.

So of course the next logical step once they realize they are on a gay cruise, well of course you pretend to be a couple so that Jerry can seduce the ship’s lone female dance instructor, played by Roselyn Sanchez. Meanwhile Sanz's homophobic Nick comes to think he may be gay because he enjoys playing poker with gay guys.

If that doesn't illustrate the exquisite pain that is Boat Trip, try sprinkling in lame attempts at Farrelly Brothers style gross out humor. Writer/director Mort Nathan knows how to ape the histrionics of a Farrelly Brothers comedy but what he can't do is match the Farrelly's sweetness that tempers their worst gags. The Farrellys know that for the audience to tolerate the gross out stuff it has be in the service of characters we like. Boat Trip never for one moment establishes characters we like. Both Gooding and Sanz mug and preen and deliver dialogue in service of the plot but never for a moment act. They never connect with the audience and never rise above caricatures, while the supporting cast exist as plot points and sight gags.

I feel it necessary to hit the filmmakers for their use of Roselyn Sanchez in the film. True, she is a beautiful woman who I don't mind seeing in sexy, slinky outfits that barely cover her. However, the misogynistic attention paid to her and other female cast members is the kind of ancient, Neanderthal behavior relegated to the worst of Russ Meyer. But to Meyer's credit, he never attempted to hide his misogyny inside a mainstream feature.