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: Bad Boys 2

Bad Boys 2 (2003)

Directed by Michael Bay 

Written by Ron Shelton, Jerry Stahl 

Starring Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Gabrielle Union, Peter Stormare, Theresa Randle 

Release Date July 18th, 2003 

Published July 17th, 2003 

Director Michael Bay cut his teeth on innovative music videos and commercials until his 30-seconds-at-a-time style caught the attention of producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson. In Bay, the producers saw a director who fit perfectly their MTV-style films; movies filled with hit soundtracks, quick edits, pretty girls, and massive explosions. For his part Bay was malleable, without a hint of the headstrong behavior that would take a film's authorship from the high-profile producers. 

The music video style of bay was very evident in his first Bruckheimer/Simpson collaboration, 1994's Bad Boys. Now, a mere nine years later, Bay continues in the same whipsaw, bombastic style that made him Bruckheimer's pet director and makes Bad Boys II yet another Bruckheimer assault on the intelligence of the American film-going public.

That they reteamed Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, the stars from the original Bad Boys, is the end of the praise I can give the makers of Bad Boys II. It is Smith and Lawrence's snappy chemistry that provides the film's only moments of pleasure. However, even the charming sass of the leads can't save this loud, dumb disaster.

Smith and Lawrence are again Miami narcotics cops Mike Lowery and Marcus Burnett. Mike is still the player, the dog, the trust fund baby, while Marcus is the hard-working family man forever henpecked by his loving wife Theresa (Theresa Randle; reprising her role from the first film, though only in a cameo). Mike and Marcus are tracking a shipment of ecstasy supposedly being shipped in from Cuba.  We are told that since September 11, 2001, security on the ocean has gotten tighter and the drug dealers are adapting quickly, finding new ways to ship drugs into America. In this case, a Cuban dealer named Johnny Tapia (Jordi Molla) is shipping drugs and money inside dead bodies.

Not only are Marcus and Mike after Tapia, so is the DEA, lead by Marcus's sister Sydney (the ungodly hot Gabrielle Union). Mike and Sydney have a little secret they have been keeping from Marcus; they secretly hooked up about a month earlier and the relationship is getting serious. While Sydney goes undercover inside Tapia's organization, Mike and Marcus try to protect her while compiling evidence to arrest Tapia (or, more to the point, find an excuse to shoot him.)

Indeed, in the Bay-Bruckheimer world, cops don't arrest people, they compile enough evidence for a justifiable homicide. The script is clever enough to call attention to the carnage with a running gag about Marcus's being in therapy and no longer wanting to kill people. Smith's hotshot Lowery has no such qualms about violence, taking shoot-first ask-questions-later to new heights; he makes Dirty Harry look like an expert in police procedure. 

Now, I'm not asking for realism, but some level of professionalism isn't out of the question. If police want to get upset about their portrayal in rap music, where is their outrage about their portrayal in Bad Boys II? Here, Cops are portrayed wanton cowboys who leave as much carnage in their wake as the bad guys they collar? Why is that acceptable but portraying cops as abusing their power out of line? It can't possibly be that Cops like being portrayed as Bad Boy cowboys is it? 

At a bloated two hours, 37 minutes, Bad Boys II is an interminable jumble of massive explosions and flying bullets. And while Michael Bay may feel that this is his specialty, being good at it doesn't make it entertaining. As he does in Armageddon, The Rock, and Pearl Harbor, Bay delights in blowin' stuff up good and may in fact have collected more bullets and explosions than ever before in Bad Boys II. Like an overlong Motley Crue video, Bad Boys II whips forward with jump-cut edits, fiery explosions, and busty stripper chicks, including a naked dead girl the guys stop to ogle while searching for evidence. Classy. 

I have a lot of goodwill for Smith and Lawrence and would love to see them work together again, but on a different project. In Bad Boys II, their quick, jokey banter is completely overwhelmed by Bay's over-the-top obsession with pyrotechnics.

Movie Review: Cradle 2 the Grave

Cradle 2 the Grave (2003) 

Directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak 

Written by John O'Brien 

Starring DMX, Jet Li, Anthony Anderson, Kelly Hu, Tom Arnold, Marc Dacascos, Gabrielle Union 

Release Date February 28th, 2003 

Published February 27th, 2003 

DMX has made it clear with the opening of his production company that the movie business isn't a hobby or a bandwagon-jumping fad. DMX the actor is dead serious about making a go of it in Hollywood. Unfortunately for DMX, Hollywood is not yet taking him seriously, sticking him with bad B-movie action scripts like the one he's saddled with in Cradle 2 the Grave, which, much like his last film Exit Wounds, casts him as the anti-hero with a heart of gold. It is a tiresome formula from which he will have a hard time.

In Cradle 2 the Grave, DMX is a diamond thief named Tony Fait who, along with his crew (including Anthony Anderson and Gabrielle Union) knock over a huge diamond vault in broad daylight. Unfortunately, they are being watched and followed by a shady Taiwanese law enforcement agent named Su (Jet Li). Just when it seems that the crew has pulled a successful heist, Su sends in the cops and Tony and company escape with only a fraction of their loot.

What they did get away with is a very valuable and mysterious bag of black diamonds. Having never seen anything like them before, Fait takes the diamond to a expert fence played by comedian Tom Arnold. Before the fence can find anything out about the diamonds, they are stolen by a rival gang headed up by Boston Public's Chi McBride. It gets worse. The original owners of the black diamonds, headed up by straight-to-video legend Mark Dacascos, want their diamonds back and take Fait's eight-year-old daughter in order to get Fait to give them what they want. (The child in danger plot is the hallmark of hack screenwriting.) Now, with nowhere to turn, Fait must team with Su to get his daughter and the diamonds, which are actually a powerful new terrorist weapon created by the Taiwanese government.

Director Adrzej Bartkowiak, who also helmed Exit Wounds, gives Cradle 2 the Gravea strong music video slickness that work well during the fight scenes, which are choreographed to the film's strong point, its soundtrack. If only the film were as entertaining as it is music. Unfortunately, it's not.

Still struggling with English, Li is given little to do when he isn't fighting bad guys. This puts the dramatic onus on DMX, who has a strong presence but is still a little too raw to be a leading man. The supporting cast is not bad; Union gives an especially strong accounting of herself showing off some kick-ass moves that she's never shown before. Anderson manages to keep his most annoying traits in check, though he is still somewhat grating, especially in the obviously improvised moments.

Poor Mark Dacascos is laughable as the villain. With his vapidity oozing over every sentence, Dacascos is one of least intimidating baddies in a long time. This guy is supposed to be a criminal mastermind; I doubt this guy could mastermind a convenience store robbery let alone negotiate an international arms deal. He, of course, is stuck with the film's most unintentionally chuckle-inducing moments when he addresses the world's foremost arms dealers by saying, "You are the world's most foremost arms dealers." Thanks for the plot update, genius.

Cradle 2 the Grave is yet another chase-scene, explosion, special-effect, action movie on auto-pilot. A film that had a cast and a poster before it had a script, Cradle 2 the Grave is a marketer's dream and an intelligent moviegoer's nightmare.

Movie Review: Abandon

Abandon (2002) 

Directed by Stephen Gaghan

Written by Stephen Gaghan 

Starring Katie Holmes, Benjamin Bratt, Charlie Hunnam, Zoey Deschanel, Gabrielle Union 

Release Date October 18th, 2002 

Published October 17th, 2002 

The cast of Dawson’s Creek is going to have a tough time shaking their TV characters. As James Van Der Beek showed in Rules OF Attraction, even working with a great filmmaker doesn't allow him to him escape from his TV alter ego. Roger Avery appeared to enjoy using set pieces that traded on the Dawson persona in little winks to the audience that practically screamed "you wouldn’t see Dawson do this!" 

Katie Holmes has a similar problem, her Joey Potter is the picture of cherubic teenage innocence and even stripping in The Gift or going Goth in Disturbing Behavior hasn't separated her from the character that made her famous.  In the new movie Abandon, writer director Stephen Gaghan uses Holmes' TV persona in ways that bring the character a little more depth and makes the film's surprises a little more effective.

In Abandon, Holmes plays Caty Burke an ambitious college senior with a big money job waiting for her when she graduates. Things are not that simple however. Caty is still longing for an ex-boyfriend who disappeared two years previous. The boyfriend, Embry (Charlie Hunnam), vanished without a trace and now is being investigated as a missing person. The company that holds Embry’s million dollar trust wants him to be declared dead so they can move in on his millions. 

The investigation into Embry's disappearance is turned over to a recovering alcoholic cop named Wade (Benjamin Bratt). Wade’s investigation immediately leads him to Caty, the last person to have seen Embry alive. While she isn’t considered a suspect, Wade is suspicious of what she isn’t telling him. The investigation is bringing back a lot of memories for Caty, memories that are keeping her up at night and are beginning to effect her work. Caty is convinced that she has seen Embry recently, and that he is following her with intent to harm her. Not surprisingly she turns to Wade.

It’s not difficult to see where this is going, but director Stephen Gaghan has a few tricks up his sleeve, tossing out red herrings right and left and a brilliant clue early on that makes you feel stupid when it pays off later in the film. Though one too many flashbacks makes the film a little tedious, Gaghan develops enough mystery to keep your attention.

Embry, as played by Charlie Hunnam (best known for TV’s short lived and underappreciated "Undeclared") is such a great character. Embry is this totally self involved artist, the kind of guy every college woman dated for a semester despite the fact that he treated them terribly. Embry is the type of guy who picks up girls by promising to paint their portrait. Hunnam does a fantastic job of portraying the horrible qualities that every woman knows they shouldn’t want but can’t resist. 

Holmes and Bratt don’t have much chemistry, but it was interesting to see a male character as a functionary to a female. Normally in Hollywood it is the female character that is thrown in as a plot point. In Abandon however it is Bratt’s Detective who is the plot point. This is Katie Holmes’s show and while I still can’t get past Joey Potter on the big screen, I’m sure others will be able to put aside the Dawson’s Creek association and enjoy this popcorn thriller. 

Writer-Director Stephen Gaghan, an Oscar winner for his screenplay for Traffic, steps behind the camera for the first time with Abandon and delivers a first-rate Brian De Palma impression, and I mean that in a good way. Abandon is the kind of trashy popcorn flick DePalma made in the 80s with movies like Dressed To Kill, Body Heat and Obsession. While it may not be as memorable as those films, Abandon is nearly as skillfully made and a sign of good things to come from this first-time director.