Takers review

Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery and that's really what "Takers" feels like. Not so much a rip-off because many of the things done in 'Takers' have become somewhat staples in the heist movie genre. You know there's a twist somewhere abouts, you know things never quite go to plan and you generally know what happens to any pursuing the gang of thieves.

The issue that ultimately brings the whole movie down is that fact that it becomes a pretty well traveled film. At least within the first twenty to forty minutes you had enough to think that it was leading somewhere new, but after that it simply makes pulls from 'The Italian Job" (which is basically how they performed their heist) as well as Michael Mann films. I'm not knocking the fact that they wanna be like Mike as I am quite a fan, however they don't have nearly enough going on under the hood to make it come to together. Aesthetically however they kind of have it down shooting in his digital style and lighting the entire movie as handsomely as possible. So basically it's Michael Mann without the brains, brawn or grit.

The plot is simple as pie. The band of always nicely dressed thieves (Idris Elba, Paul Walker, Michael Ealy, Chris Brown and Hayden Christensen) pull off a daring bank heist to kick off the film and let us know that they mean business by slowly walking away from the helicopter they stole and blew up. I admit the preceding sequence although ridiculous was still somewhat impressive. Then a former member of the gang, Ghost (T.I.) gets out of jail and tells them he has a plan for hardcore armored car heist in five days. Now already these guys claim to be smart and claim that Ghost isn't yet they take the rushed job anyway and away we go with planning sequences and so on and so fourth. Now something that makes a strong heist movie (and actually a good movie in general) is when you're characters having something going on. 'Takers' almost gets this concept right except for the fact that some of the more interesting characters have nothing to do. Idris Elba gets a lengthy side plot involving his drug addicted sister which is pretty interesting although sometimes ill-timed to be placed into the story, but that's it. Michael Ealy seemed pretty damn intense in the beginning scenes and then gets nothing to do till the hotel shootout. Paul Walker just walks through the movie doing things and yet we know next to nothing about him or his personality. And the list goes on.

There is the side story with the cops on their tail too. Matt Dillion and Jay Hernandez play the partners that are getting close to figuring out how it all might tie together maybe. There lays the problem with their story, they're always like five steps behind so it never feel like... oh shit they're on their tail! It's more like they have enough personal issues that they'll probably forget about the case and go home to be with their troubled kids. And yet with all these plot and character flaws the film still finds a way to ALMOST work. It does so by A: shooting the entire movie like a GQ photo shoot B: casting mostly well (T.I. who also produced the film, not too great an actor) C: got creative with the action sequences. Strangely those three things really do work to smooth out some of the other issues a bit.

The hotel shoot out is done almost completely in slow mo and rather clean as it's PG-13. But their against the grain music choice, set design and edits make it work pretty well. It's not outstanding, but it looks nice and feels rough and fast. Chris Brown's parkour sequence; mostly shot well, somewhat funny when he body checks a woman into a wall, works out well enough. Some of the ending pieces are also skillfully shot and tend to impress, but upon it's airport finale which you knew was going to happen a long, long time ago you just sort of feel 'meh' about it all.

Sherlock Holmes review

I found something interesting last night as I was reading through my twitter messages. Apparently as of next summer with "Iron Man 2", Robert Downey Jr. will have had four films hit over one hundred million dollars and giving him probably the best actor come back of all time. Downey Jr. has been adding character after character to his rose gallery ever since he's returned and he can proudly add Sherlock Holmes to it now. Indeed it seems he was the man to play this part just as Jude Law was perfect for Dr. Watson. I will say that this film has three main things to not just like about it for me, but love about. The first two are them and the third is for all the big budget action moments and all the small seemingly uninteresting scenes, director Guy Ritchie STILL makes his style and tone present through it all. This is a dymanic looking and feeling movie. But not without it's draw backs.

On the scale of Robert Downey Jr. films most everyone goes ga-ga for "Iron Man". Hey it was a good movie. But I've never thought it as great as everyone else. Neither is this, but it's better. With the team of writers under Ritchie, the plot to the film is interesting and it's reveal is quite good, but it goes through so much complication that it sometimes feels that for all this guy's smarts, we should've come to this conclusion sooner. Furthermore Rachel McAdams and Mark Strong don't feel as strong character wise as Holmes and Watson and yes I know that they are supporting characters and what not, but one thing Ritchie is great at is handling a ton of characters throughout an overly complicated plot.

However even with those flaws there is so much to enjoy in "Sherlock Holmes" that they're never that big of an issue. The Holmes-Watson banter is great and their chemistry is perfect and Hans Zimmer delivers one of his best scores yet. I mean if nothing else, the score to this film is brillant to no end. McAdams is...welll... still as beautiful as ever and has some very fun moments in the film, but it never felt like she was given too many great lines or pieces in which we could enjoy her acting. Mark Strong has an equally annoying issue as the villian. Strong is an awesome actor and I feel like we're going to be seeing a lot of him in the future. As Lord Blackwood he's lines are very stationary villian and so his is general appearence. Although some of the stuff he does is pretty damn cool.

I think what's holding me back from loving the hell out of the movie is that it's a franchise starter and it's directed towards that sort of general action fans. Which isn't bad, but it means that a lot of it is pointed squarely at what they know people like. That's why the idea of a sequel gets me very excited because that's when you can take some risks and do things a bit differently. And have a feeling a sequel to this is gonna really knock it out of the part. So aside from my personal issues... "Sherlock Holmes" is very fun, smart and generally entertaining for everyone. It's got a great style and terrific actors at work within it. Definitly one of the better holiday films out.

"Sherlock Holmes" *** out of ****

The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day review

I've been trying to figure out nice ways of expressing all that I feel about this film, it's predecessor and it's fan base, and I've come to the conclusion that I can't find a really nice way of doing it. It's like talking about "Saw" or "Twilight" and their fans kind of. Okay... maybe that's a little harsh, but then again a lot of their fans can be dickish to non-saints lovers so they've got this coming.

Why are they so loyal to these cheap, imitations of good crime action films? Maybe it's the whole 'anyone could make this movie' look to it that's inspiring? Maybe not enough of their fans have seen the movies these are ripping off (sometimes blatantly ripping off) or seen any actually good movies in this genre. Maybe they've just got bad taste? Nah... many of them are Tarantino fans as well so that can't be it I guess. Hell, maybe it's just an Irish and Catholic thing. Whatever the case, because of said fans writer-director Troy Duffy has created a second and possibly soon... a third one of these pictures. Good news is that I don't think this is has smelly, reeking and pretentious of a rip off as the first one. But it still sucks a lot.

Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flanery return as the two hitmen/vigilantes/cursin' Irish brothers MacManus (name taken from "The Usual Suspects"). The boys along with their father, an older hitman played by Billy Connolly; a character which seems to serve very little purpose except to add another story to the movie and give a "Righteous Kill" worthy twist at the end. They all live together back in Ireland and are called back into the seedy underbelly of Boston after the murder of a priest by someone pretending to be the boys. This piece of the story and the prep in a lift from dozens of hiding persons movies as a way to draw them out of hiding. The aforementioned prep is a lame version of Karl Urban's character from 'The Bourne Supremacy'... who just happens to have done the EXACT SAME THING in that movie. But wait it's different here because this guy is Spanish or Italian but looks Spanish. Anyways this brings in fill-in-character Special Agent Bloom played by Julie Benz to replace the over acting, over characterized motor mouth gay cop Williem Dafoe played in the first film.

I liked Benz in most of her movies although she has been on a weird rift of doing corny ass accents. Here though her southern accent is as ear bleedingly bad as some of the dialogue in the movie. Furthermore Duffy does several of the same types of shots and sequences as he did with Dafoe, but with Benz smiling seductively and looking at the camera. And apparently every cop... scratch that every man is so dumb in Boston or rather in this movie's version of Boston that no one asks why the fuck she's staring off at the wall all the time and walking that way. Apparently because all the blood from their brains have shot to their dicks, but after six of these scenes you've gotta let it go. But hey... who said this was serious? It's supposed to be a fun, action movie so who needs logic? Well maybe if the action wasn't so crappy it could play that card.

Sorry, but two guys with two desert eagles sliding in slow motion, killing a room full of people with a few drip-drips of blood doesn't cut it. Not in a world where John Woo could do these scenes with ten times that amount of carnage with less money, resources and time. And he did... over two decades ago! These brothers aren't badass either, they're just supped of versions of Duffy's drinking buddies mixed with shallow interpretations of characters from 'Pulp Fiction' and 'Reservoir Dogs'. Shit Benz even has a line stolen from 'Manhunter'! Every action scene in this film has been done and yet still people are going ga-ga over it!

So now I come to the qusi-social commentary which begs the question of are these boys heroes or villains. My thoughts... who the fuck cares?! They both could have bit it in the first twenty minutes and I wouldn't have cared. They lifeless drones walking around trying to talk tough and walk tough in dozens of pointless, stupid and boring scenes with talking, shitty jokes that might have been funny when I was in 8th grade and piss poor shoot-outs. And I'm not someone to be easily bored. Did Harvey Keitel try to be badass in 'Bad Lieutenant'? FUCK NO! He just was. Hell even Paul Walker in 'Running Scared', he succeeded in being a badass in a world of complete and utter shitty chaos. This isn't Scorsese's Boston. There's no fear of being chopped up and feed to the poor. These gangsters are as weak as their punishers and with worst aim than the Russians in 'Rambo III'.

So I'll end this nicely. I feel like I've gotten about as much spite and hell fire out of my lungs and mind as I can. I want to give fans of these film the same treatment I give fans of 'Saw'. Obviously you have an interest in these sort of characters and movies. That's great and wonderful and such, BUT you need to see the light... by seeing some stuff that doesn't suck and isn't wasting your time... I know right now you don't believe me and you think I'm full of shit, but I assure you I know what I'm talking about. There's millions of great, badass, action films that have everything you need and more, but you've gotta get outside and find them first. Never seen old school Scorsese? This is as good a time as any. Missed out on 'Natural Born Killers' or 'The Long Kiss Goodnight'? See em'. Ever heard of 'The King of New York' or either version of 'Bad Lieutenant'? No? Get on Netflix pronto.

"The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day" * out of ****