A Most Violent Year (2014)

☆ ☆ ☆

A Most Violent Year (2014) – J. C. Chandor

Grim, somewhat turgid, tale of a heating oil executive contending with a variety of stresses in early ‘80s NYC.  Oscar Isaac is subdued in the lead, perhaps because he plays an extremely controlled guy who is motivated to overcome the obstacles against all odds (which include robbers hijacking his trucks, the district attorney bringing down corruption charges, and a risky business play that starts to go sour).  Jessica Chastain is his crass wife, daughter of the previous company president who ran the company as a gangster rather than in the upstanding way Isaac wishes to pursue, and she is a piece of work (but doesn’t always feel as though she is in the same film with the others).  So, it’s an unusual story – about a business man, his wife, his banker, and his lawyer (played by an unrecognizable Albert Brooks…except for his voice) – that threatened not to hold my interest.  I mean, who cares about business guys? Although there are elements of a thriller embedded in the story, they feel tacked on to the plot in order to stop the anaemia.  The grimy New York locations and sad old cars only add to the effect.

  

Police Story 2 (1988)

☆ ☆ ☆

Police Story 2 (1988) – J. Chan

Almost anything would be a let-down after the exciting thrills of Jackie Chan’s Police Story (1985) but I have to admit that Police Story 2 is pretty lacklustre.  But never fear, because Police Story 3: Supercop (1992) would soon redeem the series with even more breathtaking stunts than before.  It is worth noting that Jackie was also making the Project A and Armour of God/Operation Condor series at the same time.  So, the fact that Police Story 2 contains proportionally less exciting stunts than other films from the same time doesn’t really reduce the Jackie Chan awesomeness quotient.  And if you only know Jackie from later efforts such as Rush Hour or beyond, then you are really missing out.  After starting in Bruce Lee’s shadow as an extra, Jackie worked his way up to the top of the Hong Kong industry, starting with gems like Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow and Drunken Master (more or less straight kung fu) and then hitting his stride in the 1980s and early 1990s with the different series mentioned above that made him a true action star focused not just on fighting but on daring stunts which he always always performed himself (and put the accidents and mistakes into the end credits reel).  Here in Police Story 2, he is again taunted by evil bad guys Mr. Chu and John Ko, variously supported or fired by Uncle Bill and Raymond (his superiors on the force), and in danger of being dumped by lovely May (played by a young Maggie Cheung).  Of course, in the end, Jackie triumphs over all the obstacles – but he does get pretty beat up in the process.  The big stunt is a fireworks factory getting blown up!

99 River Street (1953)

☆ ☆ ☆

99 River Street (1953) – P. Karlson

John Payne plays a washed-up boxer driving a cab who catches his wannabe gold-digger wife with another guy.  This sets the wheels in motion and the screws gradually tighten on Payne in true noir style.  Turns out the other guy is a diamond thief who has trouble with his fence and the fence’s tough guy assistant (played by noir stalwart Jack Lambert) over Payne’s wife’s involvement in the heist.  When she turns up dead, the cops come looking for Payne.  After having reality literally ripped away from him in one crazy scene, he has to use his knuckles to fight his way to the truth.  Director Phil Karlson knows his noir sets (see also Dark Alibi, Kansas City Confidential, or The Phenix City Story) and he lays them all out for us here (late night drug store, boxing ring, all-night café, waterfront, expensive upper class apartment, neon lit or darkened streets of New York, and unusually the Broadway footlights).  Perhaps there isn’t as much a sense of dread as in other 1950s noirs and perhaps Payne is a little too wooden in the lead but for solid genre fare, look no further.

Final Episode (1974)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Final Episode (1974) – K. Fukasaku

Yes, the final episode in the five-film Yakuza Papers series (aka Jingi Naki Tatakai) is called Final Episode.  However, it is far from final, leaving things wide open for further yakuza actions in Hiroshima and Kure even as the older generation finally retires and lets the young upstarts have their way.  As with the previous sequels (also all directed by Fukasaku), this one adds new characters to the plot (particularly Jo Shishido as a hot-head who doesn’t want to follow the new corporate business methods of the family), who then interact with the characters that have been followed from earlier films.  Only Bunta Sugiwara and Nobuo Kaneko seem to have made it through all five films alive.  The typical pattern is for central characters to get offed, violently.  All told, this was a complex, sometimes confusing (some say Shakespearean), always tense and very exciting set of films that I recommend for those willing to withstand the brutality.

One-Eyed Jacks (1961)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

One-Eyed Jacks (1961) – M. Brando

Marlon Brando’s only directorial effort is a long-ish Western that holds up pretty well.  Brando mumbles his way through it as Rio, a bank robber, who is betrayed by partner Dad Longworth (Karl Malden) right at the start of the picture.  After five years in a Mexican jail, Rio makes his way up to Monterrey with a couple of dodgy outlaws to have a show-down with Longworth, who is now the sheriff there.  He falls in love with Longworth’s stepdaughter.  Apparently in Brando’s original five hour cut, things ended rather badly but a conventional Hollywood ending was forced upon him.  Slim Pickens is here in support.  One review I read wondered whether there was a competition among actors to see who could deliver the thickest drawl.  Brando’s is reminiscent of Elvis but you can’t deny Pickens.  The Monterrey vistas are very pretty as backdrop.  Again, the whole thing does hang together, pretty well, charting some classical Western themes in a leisurely laid back way.

Babel (2006)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Babel (2006) – A. G. Iñárritu

Iñárritu weaves together four seemingly disparate stories that link somewhat incidentally (but also consequentially).  Each tale is filled with tension as characters engage in actions that you know they should not – that could and sometimes will end badly.  Beginning in Morocco, we see two kids playing with a high powered rifle.  Enough said.  Then, in San Diego, a Mexican nanny needs to go to her son’s wedding but her employers forbade her to go, leading her to take their kids to Mexico with her.  Uh-oh. Back in Morocco, tourist Cate Blanchett is accidentally shot through the window of the bus she and Brad Pitt are travelling in.   Damn. Finally, deaf-mute Rinko Kikuchi gradually unravels in Tokyo trying to cope with the suicide of her mother and just plain being a teenage girl.  Hmmmm.  Although each tale on its own is rather gripping, well shot, and well acted, the sum of the parts does not entirely cohere.  Sure, you could draw parallels if you made the effort, but it shouldn’t be this unclear. Drawing from the title, one could probably conclude that the message of the film is that communication between humans is inevitably problematic, both across and within cultures.  No kidding.

Night Creatures (1962)

☆ ☆ ☆

Night Creatures (1962) – P. G. Scott

Hammer tries their hand at the oft-told tale of Dr. Syn (here renamed Dr. Blyss), who defies the King’s men and their taxes to smuggle brandy and gin and deliver the proceeds to the poor.  Disney’s film starring Patrick McGoohan is perhaps better known but with Peter Cushing in the lead, the Hammer version is solid enough with some creepy moments out on the marsh (where the smugglers pretend to be phantoms) added to up the horror quotient.  Probably there is more bustling about than true action here but things still feel adventuresome and suitably enticing with secret passages and men in scarecrow costumes and all that.  For only 81 minutes, what more can you ask?