Movie Review I Am Number 4

I Am Number 4 (2011) 

Directed by D.J Caruso

Written by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, Marti Noxon 

Starring Alex Pettyfer, Timothy Olyphant, Teresa Palmer, Dianna Agron, Kevin Durand

Release Date February 18th, 2011

Published February 18th, 2011

If the half baked Twilight novels can ride teenage Vampires and Chastity to box office bonanza why can't a half baked story about teenage aliens and chastity do the same. That is the unspoken origin story of “I Am Number 4” a supremely lame attempt to clone the success of “Twilight” by trading angsty vamps for angsty aliens.

Number 4 (Alex Pettyfer), alternately referred to as Daniel or John looks like any other handsome teenager but that Number 4 designation kind of tips off the fact that there is more to him than meets the eye. Number 4 is an alien being from the planet Lorian. He is hiding on earth with his warrior bodyguard, Henri (Timothy Olyphant), while he waits for his powers, known to his people as Legacies, to be revealed.

Meanwhile, his numbered brethren are being hunted down by the evil Mogadorians who destroyed Lorien. The Mogadorians have killed 1,2,3 and are now on the trail of Number 4. After nearly revealing himself as an alien living in Florida, Number 4 and Henri move to Paradise, Ohio where Henri hopes to find a human with important information.

In Paradise Number 4 becomes John and begins attending High School because the plot needs him to. At school John meets and falls in love with Sarah Hart (Dianna Agron, Glee). He also by chance befriends Sam (Callan McAullife), the son of the man Henri came to Paradise to find. What luck that Sam has what Henri needs, a rock containing a link between the remaining numbered Lorians.

You don't have to be a psychic to know that I Am Number 4 is building toward a showdown between Number 4 and Mogadorians and that he will likely win this showdown as many sequels ride on his 

winning. Director D.J Caruso brings a modest amount of skill to keeping us distracted from the inevitability of this plot but the material is too weak to keep all the seams from showing.

”I Am Number 4” is a naked cash grab; a supremely lame attempt to lure in “Twilight” fans for a new, easily sequelized, franchise built on iconic genre creatures, aliens instead of Vampires, and great looking actors who do little else than look good. Not to demean young star Alex Pettyfer too much. Pettyfer is a really handsome kid hamstrung by a part that doesn't offer him any challenge.

Pettyfer along with Glee star Dianna Agron and Teresa Palmer, who plays yet another numbered Lorian, Number 6 for those who care, are all great looking and if that were all it took to make a movie work they would have a real hit on their hands. Those of us however, who go to movies for more than just the ogling of pretty people will find “I Am Number 4” lacking.

”I Am Number 4” was the brainchild of legendary liar and literary fraud James Frey who has found another money making scam, young adult fiction. Under the odd pseudonym 'Pittacus Lore' he and co-writer Jobie Hughes have demonstrated just how easy Twilight has made it for hacks to crack the book biz these days. 

Take a legendary genre character, in this case aliens, throw them in a high school setting. Give them bullies and bad guys; teen angst and a little chaste romance and cook for 30 minutes. Bang! You've got a young adult bestseller just aching for a Hollywood adaptation. 

The cynicism pours from every scripted word of “I Am Number 4” and while I don't blame the young actors involved, everyone else in this production should be (but are not) ashamed of this movie. It's our fault for giving them such an easy in, it was our culture that allowed “Twilight” to thrive. As long as we don't ask for more than just pretty, stupid movies then “I Am Number 4” is what Hollywood is going to give us.

Movie Review The Crazies

The Crazies (2010) 

Directed by Breck Eisner 

Written by Scott Kosar

Starring Timothy Olyphant. Radha Mitchell, Joe Anderson

Release Date February 26th, 2010

Published February 25th, 2010

In a world of been there, done that, sometimes the best a filmmaker can do is improve upon the things that have been done before. That is exactly what director Breck Eisner does with the pseudo-zombie flick The Crazies. Eisner takes the elements we've seen before from movies like Resident Evil or 28 Days Later or George Romero's oeuvre and simply does the same thing better or at least with a neat twist. The result is a smart, atmospheric, fast paced horror flick that entertains from beginning to end with strong characters and a clever spin on expected scenes.

Something strange is taking place in Ogden Marsh Iowa. In the midst of a High School baseball game a guy everyone in town knows wanders onto the field carrying a shotgun. The field is cleared and the man is confronted by the local sheriff, Dave Dutton (Timothy Olyphant). Dave is eventually forced to shoot and kill the man in front of most of the population of Ogden Marsh.

Later, another fine, up-standing citizen of Ogden Marsh burns down his house with his wife and child inside and no indication of a motive. Sheriff Dave, being smarter than most movie versions of small town sheriffs, quickly surmises something beyond mere coincidence in these crimes. With his deputy Russell (Joe Anderson) and his wife Judy (Radha Mitchell), Sheriff Dave discovers the sinister origins of what eventual military invaders of the town call 'The Crazies.'

To give away too much of the plot would spoil the fun of this clever, quirky and even humorous film. The humor is subjective and maybe unintentional, but I laughed a few times at the unique twists and turns of this exceptionally well made genre movie. Director Breck Eisner takes a highly familiar premise and jazzes it up with odd angles and nimble inversions of expectations.

Timothy Olyphant is the perfect star for The Crazies. He's handsome with a relaxed, good ol' boy manner. His toughness was solidified by his role on HBO's beloved Cowboy series Deadwood and he has a classic John Wayne sort of swagger that makes him just the guy you want to be behind when the stuff hits the fan.

Radha Mitchell is a slightly esoteric choice to play the sheriff's wife but she has a number of effective scenes, especially as the damsel in distress late in the film and one seriously butt kicking scene that will have audiences cheering. A hint about Mitchell's big scene: keep an eye on the three big redneck hunters who pop up at unexpected moments.

The Crazies is a genre movie that embraces its genre-ness; takes the conventions head on and is effective for the minor twists on what is expected. You've seen this type of movie before but you don't often see it with this much visual wit, skill and savvy. The Crazies is, quite surprisingly, one of my early favorites of 2010.

Movie Review Rango

Rango (2011) 

Directed by Gore Verbinski 

Written by John Logan 

Starring Johnny Depp, Bill Nighy, Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin, Alfred Molina, Timothy Olyphant 

Release Date March 4th, 2011

Published March 3rd, 2011 

2011 has seen very great movies. For me, the best film of the year, before the Oscar bait stuff arrives in October, November and December, is the animated Johnny Depp comedy "Rango." This endlessly inventive animated feature stunned me back in March of this year and has lingered in the back of my mind ever since.

"Rango '' stars Johnny Depp as the title character, a movie loving pet chameleon who gets lost in the desert after falling out of the back of a car. After meeting a Possum named Roadkill (Alfred Molina) Rango wanders off into the desert in search of the spirit of the west.

Eventually, after being chased by a hawk and passing out from the heat, Rango meets Beans (Isla Fisher), an iguana from a western town called Dirt. Through a series of mishaps Rango becomes the sheriff of Dirt and is tasked to stare down Rattlesnake Jake (Bill Nighy) while uncovering a scam to steal the city's water supply.

"Rango" was directed by Gore Verbinski, best known for the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise, and written by John Logan, writer of "Gladiator" and "The Aviator." Together, Verbinski and Logan have cooked up an animated western that gathers influence not merely from the obvious sources, the westerns of Clint Eastwood and Gary Cooper, but also the HBO series "Deadwood" (Timothy Olyphant voices a mysterious character known as the Spirit of the West) and even the forgotten Lee Marvin classic "Cat Ballou" and the epic "Once Upon a Time in the West."

The references are literate and lively and will delight western fans to no end. But the mimicry in Rango doesn't end with the western. Rango includes nods to everything from "Star Wars" to "Raising Arizona" to "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," the last two, of course, starring Johnny Depp.

The plot of Rango turns on the same premise of the film classic "Chinatown," a corrupt man taking control of a town's water supply. Most kids won't get the reference but the key to Rango's charm is the way it keeps both kids and parents wildly entertained. While parents are cataloging the numerous references to classic and newer movies, the kids will love the cleverness of the story as well as the marvelous color and the energetic voice performances from Johnny Depp, Ned Beatty, Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin and more.

Unlike most animated films where the voice actors are recorded over several months, often one voice at a time, the cast of Rango recorded vocals all at the same time with the cast often acting out the action of the animated characters. The lively interaction of the cast and the way the animators worked to capture the emotions of the actors in their animated characters gives Rango its unique energy.

The animation of Rango is phenomenal with bright colors, visual nods to the work of Sergio Leone, the legendary Italian master of the Spaghetti Western, and an almost Dali-esque sense of the absurd, captured especially by a dream sequence involving a floating, wind-up fish.

Rango is entertaining on multiple levels from the film encyclopedia level of movie references to the extraordinary animation and the lively, boisterous, and wildly talented voice cast led by the brilliant Johnny Depp. With these elements combined, there is no question that Rango is, thus far, the best movie of 2011.

Movie Review Hitman

Hitman (2007) 

Directed by Xavier Gens

Written by Skip Woods

Starring Timothy Olyphant, Dougray Scott, Olga Kurylenko 

Release Date November 20th, 2007

Published November 19th, 2007

Have you ever seen somebody who is clearly trying hard to be cool? He looks cool on the surface, but closer inspection shows the strain, the hard work that went into being cool. Hitman is a movie that is trying very hard to be cool, but the strain shows. Desperately aping the sleek style of the Matrix while trying to capture the cool of the sadly overlooked 2002 flick Equilibrium, a film of such effortless cool that even failing at the office does little to diminish it, Hitman comes of as desperate and uncool. 

Timothy Olyphant stars in Hitman as a nameless assassin who is said to be the best killer in the world. Raised in a secret society and trained in diapers to be a stone cold killer, our nameless hitman is given only a number, 47, and a barcode tattoo on the back of his head. Sent to Russia to assassinate the Russian President, a former hardliner going soft toward the west, 47 finds himself wrapped in Russian politics when the man who he knows he killed continues to make public appearances after his death.

On the assassin's trail is a hard charging Interpol agent Mike Whittier (Dougray Scott). His pursuit of the assassin is dogged and determined and yet he carries a grudging respect for the skill and efficiency of the killer. When the two catch up to one another the determined stares are nearly as lethal as the bullets.

Directed by Xavier Gens, Hitman is far from being a bad movie. Rather, Hitman is a thinly premised action flick that looks much cooler than it actually is. Highly stylized, quickly choreographed violence is nothing new and Hitman arrives looking like a poseur. We've been there since The Matrix, and we've done that a few times already this year alone, Smokin' Aces, Shoot'Em Up.

So why isn't Hitman really cool? Because it's too late. This highly stylized, high body count action movie is already becoming out of date. In fact, this action sub-genre has already been sent up and blown away in Michael Davis' Shoot'Em Up. That doesn't mean there are no more thrills to be garnered from the highly stylized action movie but that Hitman simply doesn't do enough to innovate or set itself apart from what has come before it.

Timothy Olyphant oozes charisma and machismo but I'm not sure this is the right role for him. Anyone who remembers his terrific performance in Go or his foul mouthed role on television's Deadwood will find him hard to believe as an asexual hitman monk. Co-star Dougray Scott plays the good guy better than expected in Hitman. Often typecast as a faceless baddie, Scott shows good guy range never seen before in his journeyman career.

No doubt Hitman will satisfy audiences with short attention spans. Only a moviegoer who has already forgotten the last stylized action flick they saw will truly enjoy the derivative action of Hitman. On the bright side, Hitman is the rare video game adaptation that doesn't entirely suck. Director Xavier Gens is a more than competent director. His action is solid, if unspectacular. He's far better than most directors left with the task of interpreting artless video games into movies.

Hitman is too familiar to be great and is far less cool than it wishes it were. Trying to be cool is the most uncool thing you can do. That's the unfortunate place where the makers of Hitman find themselves.

Movie Review Live Free or Die Hard

Live Free or Die Hard (2007) 

Directed by Len Wiseman

Written by Mark Bomback

Starring Bruce Willis, Justin Long, Timothy Olyphant, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Maggie Q, Kevin Smith

Release Date June 27th, 2007

Published June 26th, 2007 

It's official, the Die Hard series has jumped the shark, to appropriate a TV term. Or maybe it's a literal term, there may have been an actual shark jumped in Live Free Or Die Hard. Lord knows director Len Wiseman has every other type of mayhem imaginable crammed into this over the top Tom and Jerry meets Wile E. Coyote concoction of cartoon action hero histrionics.

And yet, how cool is Bruce Willis that no matter how brainless the action, he never fails to entertain.

If there is one character in our cultural stew who can relate to 24's Jack Bauer; it's John McClane. This New York City cop has seen dangerous situations that only Kiefer Sutherland's CTU agent could relate to. In his latest entanglement, detective McClane finds himself smack dab in the middle of a cyber terrorism attack by a group formed inside our own government.

Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant) was once the go to guy in Washington when it came to cyber terrorism. However, when the government refused to listen to all of his warnings, he went rogue and decided to demostrate the possibilities of a cyber terror attack on America's infrastructure, and if he can get paid big bucks along the way, so be it.

Employing some of the greatest hackers in the country to help him carry off his attack, Gabriel sets in motion a plan that eventually leads to detective McClane getting stuck with a young hacker named Matthew Farrell (Justin Long) who unwittingly contributed some important info to the bad guys. McClane is tasked with getting the kid to Homeland Security in Washington but along the way the bad guys try to kill him. Let's just say, John McClane does not take kindly to being targeted for death.

Bruce Willis has an endless supply of cool and charisma that he can tap with a curl of his lip and a snarling curse word and he makes a good solid living off those characteristics in Live Free Or Die Hard. The rare working parts of this otherwise execrable piece of action trash is Willis' charm and his comic chemistry with the talented comic Long.

Live Free Or Die Hard plays like Michael Bay by way of Ed Wood. Director Len Wiseman, he of the Underworld movies, you know those vampire flicks about Kate Beckinsale's butt in tight black spandex; those Underworld movies, Len Wiseman directs Live Free Or Die Hard with a callous disregard for the brains of his audience. And, by the way, there is yet another hot babe in tight spandex, martial arts master Maggie Q, for good measure.

Like the old Dave Thomas-John Candy characters on SCTV, Wiseman's only joy comes from watching stuff blow up, blow up good. Early on it's Willis shooting a fire extinguisher with the precision of a military marksman; leading to the kind of explosion only McGyver could recreate. Later the film abandons even a television level of reality as John McClane drives up an embankment in a tunnel and dives out as the car flies directly into a helicopter.

Later, John drives a semi-truck that is attacked and destroyed by rockets and bullets from a harrier jet. McClane survives, as does some portion of the driving part of the semi which drives up a crumbling portion of overpass, also destroyed by the jet. Eventually John must abandon the truck and when does, he ends up landing on top of the soon to crash jet and then out running the jet as a giant fireball.

It's all so ludicrous that indeed it does take on a camp quality that makes it all goofily entertaining.

Live Free or Die Hard is high camp. With mind numbing explosions and mind blowing mindlessness, the film surpasses some of the greats of the high action, low brain power genre. A most recent comparison, Mr. and Mrs Smith starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, a film that fired more bullets than your average war and featured more evil henchmen than a James Bond villain convention, is really the only film in the last decade that can match Live Free or Die Hard explosion for explosion.

Both films are equally entertaining and that is because of pure starpower. Bruce Willis is such a force of personality that no matter how ludicrous the film becomes we in the audience are still emotionally involved and even compelled because we love this guy and this character so much. Whether it's years of earned loyalty from four movies in the series or simply the force of Willis' charisma, there is no denying the awesome star wattage of Bruce Willis.

Even as the film is a sieve in the brain department, the screenplay by committee does manage a few good chuckles at the expense of other film franchises. References to Spiderman and Transformers are just a couple of the meta moments from this otherwise brain free movie. Other inside moments include numerous references to the original Diehard.

Final Destination star Mary Elizabeth Winstead appears in Live Free or Die Hard as Lucy McClane, John's now grown daughter. Her inclusion here is really only as plot addendum to be used to refer to the first film. Yes, she does become involved in the climax of the film but that really is the lesser part of her purpose here.

And the final joke of Live Free or Die Hard is the use of director Kevin Smith in the role of Warlock, a hacker who lives in his mom's basement. Smith is legendary online for his love of all things movies, including the Die Hard series. His inclusion is one of many nods to and knocks on the internet community that has been a Live Free or Die Hard constituency since the film was rumored years ago with Bruce starring alongside Britney Spears as Lucy McClane. Sadly, screenwriters couldn't find a meta way to work a Britney joke into the script.

Live Free or Die Hard would be unforgivably dimwitted if it were not for Bruce Willis whose star persona is so powerful you can almost forgive all of the deplorable excess of his latest film. The Diehard franchise has likely run its course and there is certainly no need nor want for more of the tortured life of John McClane. So, if Live Free or Die Hard is in fact the final installment, let us remember John McClane as the most charismatic of our action heroes, an everyman superhero in street clothes who goes above and beyond the call of duty and the bounds of logic for our entertainment.

Bless you John McClane, and here's to what we hope will be a long and fruitful retirement.

Movie Review: Catch and Release

Catch and Release (2007) 

Directed by Susannah Grant 

Written by Susannah Grant 

Starring Jennifer Garner, Kevin Smith, Timothy Olyphant, Sam Jaeger, Fiona Shaw, Juliette Lewis 

Release Date January 26th, 2007

Published January 25th, 2007 

Jennifer Garner is a stunner. Those lips; perfectly bee stung. That body honed from spy play on TV's Alias. And that perfectly indefinable quality that stars have, the effortless ability to be ephemeral. She's got all the assets necessary for stardom and she needs every trick in the bag to make the light breezy romance of Catch and Release work.

A romantic comedy that desperately wants to be more than it is, a female Cameron Crowe movie, an examination of life, death and grief, a sexy romp. The thin characters and thinner premise can only manage a surface level affability that, with a lesser actress in the lead would fail miserably.

Gray (Garner) has lost the love of her life. Her fiance Grady decided to go skiing days before their wedding and died in an accident on the slopes. At his funeral she is trapped with his family and their mutual friends and desperately wants to escape. Hiding in a bathroom she is mortified to accidentally witness Grady's best friend Fritz (Timothy Olyphant) hooking up with the caterer. Gray never liked Fritz before and this does little to improve things.

Unfortunately for Gray; Fritz is staying at the same place she is. Unable to move into the home she was to share with her fiancee, Gray moves in with their closest friends Sam (Kevin Smith) and Dennis (Sam Jaeger). Over the course of the week after Grady's death these four characters each deal with grief in their own unique ways and are tested by revelations about Grady's life that no one, except maybe Fritz might have expected.

The story of Catch and Release wants to be smarter and deeper than it is. Director Susannah Grant, a screenwriter (Charlotte's Web, In Her Shoes) by trade, directing her first feature, at times evokes a lighter version of the warm, nostalgic prose style of Cameron Crowe. What she lacks is Crowe's wit and ear for great dialogue.

The subject of Catch and Release is grief and how different people deal with it. But this is a romantic comedy so, much more time is devoted to developing roadblocks to romance than to delving deeper into the psyches of these characters where director Susannah Grant really seems to want to go. Why else would the movie devote so much time to each characters own quirky way of dealing with their friends death.

Romantic comedy formula tells you that when a male and female character loathe one another; they will eventually fall in love. This leaves the writer-director the challenge of finding ways to put up roadblocks to the couples eventual happiness. In Catch and Release, writer-director Susannah Grant has few new tricks up her sleeve.

There is nothing new here. Grant follows the romance formula. Her only hope was that her stars would be likable enough for us to feel comfortable inside the formula. And we are comfortable. Jennifer Garner is warm and sensitive and easy to fall for. Timothy Olyphant is roguish and charming and we root for him to redeem himself after his wretched introduction.

Then there is the movie's secret weapon, writer-director Kevin Smith. The man behind Silent Bob isn't much of an actor, as he readily admits, but trading off his famously self effacing personality, Smith's self deprecation and vocal mannerisms are terrifically funny. Whenever the film seems to lag a little Smith energizes things with a good joke. It's a bit of a cheat, Smith's Sam threatens to become more of a comic device than a character, but Smith is so much fun that you are unlikely to notice.

Catch and Release teeters on the verge of complete collapse. However, thanks to the megawatt smile of star Jennifer Garner and her unending likability, Catch and Release is a passably entertaining romantic comedy worth your time on DVD or cable in a few months.

Movie Review: Dreamcatcher

Dreamcatcher (2003) 

Directed by Lawrence Kasden

Written by William Goldman 

Starring Morgan Freeman, Thomas Jane, Jason Lee, Damian Lewis, Timothy Olyphant, Donnie Wahlberg

Release Date March 21st, 2003

Published March 20th, 2003 

For once Stephen King is publicly saying he likes a movie made from one of his books. Always his work’s harshest critic, King claims to never have been fully satisfied with any screen adaptation. However, the newest King adaptation, Dreamcatcher, has earned his seal of approval. That is likely because it is the most too-the-word adaptation of any of King's work. Dreamcatcher seems to go out of it's way to be faithful to King's vision, some might say that’s a good thing, some like myself disagree.

In Dreamcatcher we meet four guys, friends since childhood, who share the unique ability to communicate telepathically and read people’s minds. This ability stems from a childhood incident when they saved a retarded boy nicknamed Duddits from a group of bullies. Now adults, the four friends, Henry (Thomas Jane), Jonesy (Daniel Lewis), Beaver (Jason Lee) and Pete (Timothy Olyphant) planning a trip to a shared cabin in the woods. The trip is called off when Jonesy is nearly killed in a sick looking car accident.

Cut to six months later and the friends finally make it to the cabin. Jonesy, having survived the accident, seems normal but tells his friends that the accident was caused by a vision of their childhood friend Duddits. He doesn't blame Duddits for the accident but cannot explain the strange vision and especially how he survived the horrific accident.

This setup is very intriguing with good chemistry among the four actors and the character development and the use of the telepathy is very engaging. It entices the audience into what one hopes is an examination of these characters and theie abilities. Unfortunately, this is where Dreamcatcher flies off the rails and turns into yet another sci-fi/ horror schlockfest.

It is at this point that we meet Morgan Freeman and his insane General Kurtz. Kurtz is tracking the crash of an alien ship that contains aliens intent on spreading a virus that could wipe out humanity. As Kurtz searches for the ship, our four friends are witnesses to some freaky stuff. While Henry and Pete go on a beer run, Jonesy and Beaver take in a hunter who was lost in the woods. The hunter is very ill, as the number of loud farts coming out of him attest. It's not long before Jonesy and Beaver find out what's wrong with the guy, in a scene that makes John Hurt's ET indigestion in Alien look tame.

Now with Morgan Freeman in the film it would seem impervious to being bad, but oh how wrong you are. In fact, it is Freeman who provides many of the unintentionally funny moments of the film. Woefully miscast as a crazy man, Freeman should be playing the good guy role that went to Tom Sizemore. After all, who could possibly play crazy opposite Tom Sizemore? It’s worth noting that naming Freeman's General Kurtz is a cute little allusion to Apocolypse Now.

I mentioned just how faithful Dreamcatcher is to it's source material and though I haven't read it, I'm sure it is. What so many people don't realize about Stephen King's writing is, is how blatantly uncommercial it is. Oh sure it sells millions of copies, but that doesn't tell you how many people bought the book and were unable to make it all the way through it. This is the problem in faithfully adapting a King novel because most of his novels are far more gruesome than anyone would ever want to film.

Dreamcatcher, in being faithful to the original, took a risk that the disgusting elements of the writing and the outrageous plot twists would cause audiences to turn away or even walk out. Props for taking the risk, however it failed miserably.

Apparently Dreamcatcher isn't one of King's best because if this is a faithful adaptation it's an absolute mess. From ridiculous looking rejects from the Alien movies, to the cringe inducing dialogue, Dreamcatcher is at times a painful moviegoing experience. Schlocky sci-fi/horror on par with Resident Evil and Jason Goes to Space, or whatever the hell they called that Friday the 13th dud.

It's a real shame because the opening 35-40 minutes are pretty good and Director Lawrence Kasdan does a good job of building suspense throughout the beginning of the film. Why he drifted into horror movie cliches and sci-fi nastiness at a certain point in the film is maddening. It's a shame Kasdan decided to remain faithful to King when a director of his skill could have taken the strong start and taken the story in a more interesting direction.

Movie Review: A Perfect Getaway

A Perfect Getaway (2009) 

Directed by David Twohy

Written by David Twohy 

Starring Milla Jovovich, Timothy Olyphant, Marley Shelton, Chris Hemsworth, Steve Zahn

Release Date August 7th, 2009

Published August 7th, 2009

Beware the movie trailer/commercial that tells you of a 'heart-stopping' twist. Right then and there the marketing has spoiled the movie. Now the experience of the movie is waiting for the twist to happen or, in the case of the new thriller A Perfect Getaway, guessing the twist well before it happens. A Perfect Getaway isn't a great movie to begin with. Having the ending spoiled is merely the moldy cherry on top of a melted sundae.

Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich star in A Perfect Getaway as Cliff and Cydney Anderson, newlyweds in Hawaii for their honeymoon. Having decided to hike to a secluded beach on a very remote part of Kauai they think they are in for some romantic alone time. Instead, they are quickly jolted out of their fantasies by two pairs of strangers. 

The first are a dangerous looking pair of hitchhikers, Kale and Cleo (Chris Hemsworth and Marley Shelton), who look fresh from a parole hearing. Then there are Nick and Gina (Timothy Olyphant and Kiele Sanchez). Nick is ex-special ops and unafraid of telling tales of murder and injury. Gina meanwhile, is a little too good with a knife and fearless. When Nick brings a dead goat back to the couple's shared campsite, Gina guts and cleans it, much to the disgust of both Cliff and Cydney.

Soon, news arrives that a murder has taken place. A newlywed couple has been murdered on the island that both of the newly arrived couples have just left and police suspect the killer are a man and a woman and that they may have jumped islands. Naturally, Cliff and Cydney come to suspect Nick and Gina are the killers. Ahh, but what of the Kale and Cleo, the nefarious looking couple?

Cliff is a screenwriter by trade and this leads to an inside baseball conversation between he and Nick that the movie thinks is exceptionally clever. Director David Twohey (Pitch Black, Chronicles of Riddick)  seems to think that by having his characters talk so openly about thriller clichés in mocking tones that that will excuse his movie from taking advantage of those clichés. The meta trick doesn't pay off, we can still see the wheels of the plot turning quite obviously.

Now, it's likely that I have seen too many movies and thus am more difficult to fool than those who don't see so many of the same movies over and over again. Indeed, I can see a less experienced audience taken in by A Perfect Getaway. Me, I wasn't fooled for a second. The clumsy plot fails to hide very particular details that are relatively easy to discern, especially if you aren't taken in by these characters and this dimwitted story. 

That said, A Perfect Getaway isn't without some charm. I did love the detailed stories that Nick tells about his many wild exploits. Timothy Olyphant oozes charismatic danger. He's just off kilter enough to keep you afraid of him but humorous and engaging enough to make you want to root for him, whether he's the killer or the one about to be killed. Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich on the other hand? Ugh. Trying to bust out of their acting molds, she as a badass action heroine, he as a goofball comic relief sidekick, the pair desperately overplay the yuppie-ness of their characters. That may or may not be by design but that doesn't make it any less irritating.

So, what of this 'pulse pounding' twist? The film does everything it can to cheat around uber-aware audience members like me, even throwing out knowing dialogue about red-herrings, or as Olyphant mistakenly calls them 'red snappers'. The cheats are bothersome and rather than forcing call backs to earlier in the movie, as I am sure they are supposed to, they cause one to reconsider the whole movie and realize how much of a cheat the whole thing really is.

A Perfect Getaway needed to settle one aspect of the essential nature of its story and it could have succeeded in a modest way. Instead, the film cheats and hopes you won't notice. I did notice, repeatedly, and that combined with the irksome performances by Jovovich and Zahn make A Perfect Getaway a chore to endure.

Movie Review Meet Bill

Meet Bill (2008) 

Directed by Bernie Goldman, Melisa Wallack 

Written by Melisa Wallack 

Starring Aaron Eckhardt, Timothy Olyphant, Logan Lerman, Jessica Alba, Elizabeth Banks

Release Date April 4th, 2008

Published July 10th, 2008 

The male midlife crisis has inspired many Hollywood writers. The twist in the new to DVD movie Meet Bill starring Aaron Eckhart is that it was written by a woman. Melisa Wallack wrote the script and was co-director of Meet Bill with veteran producer Bernie Goldmann and her gender doesn't really matter. Like most male midlife crisis movies Meet Bill has little to add in terms of any new insights from men, women or anyone else.

Living off of the wealth and generosity of his wife's family, Bill (Aaron Eckhart) has come to hate his life. With the stomach paunch that seemed to come out of nowhere and his lazy, floppy haircut; Bill looks as sloppy as he feels. At work he is a lackey and a joke as the guy whose job is to be the boss's son. At home, his wife Jess (Elizabeth Banks) is cheating on him with a local news talking head (Timothy Olyphant).

Bill's life changes for good when he is teamed with a teenager (Logan Lerman) who does what he wants when he wants. The kid, as Bill calls him, adopts Bill whether he likes it or not and soon Bill is living life the way he always wanted. As he decides what to do about his wife, the Kid introduces him to a lingerie shop clerk, Lucy (Jessica Alba), who becomes his friend and offers to help him with his marital issues.

The Jessica Alba subplot doesn't go where you think it will. In fact, like a couple of subplots in Meet Bill, it doesn't really go anywhere. Meet Bill is a movie filled with characters and actors who seem like they should be more important than they end up being. Alba is moved about the plot like nice looking furniture. Character actor extraordinaire Todd Louiso plays Bill's brother in law and despite a couple of awkward scenes he barely registers.

Craig Bierko plays Bill's brother and though he is given something of a back story, some kind local sports star or war hero or something, he is shown and shuffled off the mains stage with little notice. I like that the character is gay and that it doesn't seem to be any kind of issue, but it is yet another strand of plot that is left dangling in the end.

There is a certain charm to the fact that the movie Meet Bill is nearly as much of a shambles as Bill himself, but by the end, the film is an even bigger mess than Bill ever was. I had hoped the story would pull together the same way Bill the character seems to pull himself together but it never happens. Writer and co-director Melisa Wallick just doesn't know what to do with all of these characters she introduces and by the end she even loses her grip on Bill.

Even the history of the making and release of Meet Bill is a mess. A Canadian production, Meet Bill was briefly released in theaters and dumped. It made it onto the internet and now it arrives on DVD with little fanfare. Especially little fanfare considering a cast that includes Jessica Alba, Hitman star Timothy Olyphant, 40 Year Old Virgin star Banks and Eckhart who has been a well known presence in a number of movies and will soon be seen in the next Batman.

With a cast this big and talented the only way Meet Bill could fail this miserably is to stink up the joint. It did, so it failed.