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Reviews
If I Had You (2006)
Cliché-ridden, implausible...you name it.
The acting, photography, and location choice is great. It makes it so much more the pity that the script lets it down. Cut-and-paste storytelling with cliché-ridden dialogue is not acceptable in 2017. Most, if not all, scenes were predictable. I once heard an actor complain that the scriptwriters forgot what had happened to a character. This wasn't entirely the case, but the seriously frustrating problems here were the sheer implausibility of the characters. When one is a police inspector covering a murder enquiry one does not fall in love with the suspect to the extent that evidence tampering is the number one priority. To do their job, police inspectors must have a finely-tuned sense of consequences, both in terms of crime and criminal procedures. This drama threw away so much credibility I nearly switched off two or three times. Emotionally unstable police inspectors have surely had their 15 minutes of scripted fame, along with the predictable cliché of inspector to subordinate detective tension. The actors are worthy of so much better material.
The Man with the Iron Fists (2012)
Fail - despite cast and effects
It may be a reflection of my age, but as soon as people start performing acrobatics which are impossible it begins to annoy, because it tells me immediately that there are to be no rules of normality in the movie. I think the depth of serious involvement for any viewer depends to a large extent on credibility, the fact that one can identify with the characters on screen it terms of the emotions and the actions. This film was loosely thrown together, has a script built on hackneyed clichés, and contains so many antagonistic groups and individuals that it lacks any cohesion whatsoever. If one wishes to convey the feeling of remoteness in a foreign/Asian country one shouldn't have characters delivering lines in modern Bronx, Cockney, Estuary English, or whatever else. Just for laughs is alright, but this is becoming a trend, and I fear that the quality is going down and down. Most of the actors are worthy of far better things. The computer effects are impressive. It's a pity the script wasn't and the finer points weren't of the same standard.
Nude Nuns with Big Guns (2010)
Unbelievable - literally, and not as a word of praise
It is often said that undeveloped characters in movies are as shallow as cardboard cut-outs. In this film they are not even cardboard. They are paper - in fact, they are newspaper, with print which can be read from the other side. The so-called 'Nude Nuns...' eroticism pales into insignificance when one thinks of the way Ken Russell portrayed it with infinitely more depth and shock. 'Nude Nuns...' has hardly any erotic titillation for today's audience, conceived as it is in 1970s attitudes - indeed the stealing of hackneyed effects, such as the 'spaghetti western' character description through text-on-screen over still-shot, is boring beyond words. Just who is this trash aimed at?
A Bridge Too Far (1977)
Outdated
They don't make them like this anymore - thank goodness! If I were asked to sum up this film in one word, cringeworthy would suffice. This particular episode in WWII may well warrant a film, but they could have done better with a tenth of the number of 'stars' and a four-times better script. For pity's sake, every one of the sprawling individual little scenarios consisted of the kind of hackneyed stereotypes which began to be outdated in the 1950s and early 1960s. One could forgive the 'knocking the Hun for six' jingoism in 'The Dam Busters' as the wartime Pathe newsreel propaganda had not fully died down when that film was made, but 'A Bridge Too Far' was made in 1977 and Levine and Attenborough had no excuses for such twaddle. I'm not sure whether it was the American officer chewing on his cigar, or the British officer with his umbrella, or the 'rebel without a cause' always played by James Caan, or the immortal superhuman James Bond in uniform always played by Sean Connery, which annoyed me the most. Or, perhaps it was the limiting and wooden script given to Dirk Bogarde, who, along with Olivier, were wasted in cameo roles. The final damning indictment on the film was completed by the Pathe newsreel type music and the nauseatingly predictable and stereotypical background speech and shouted comments of the soldiers 'all doing their bit'.
Hobo with a Shotgun (2011)
Wast of talent - waste of time - wast of money
Rutger Hauer is capable of so much more than this rubbish. Impossibly savage criminals and corrupt police are progressively killed by the Hobo of the title. There is no story, there is no moral, there is no redeeming feature to the film. It is simply the effects department emulating wanton and gory murder in the most graphic fashion. The film producer should aim higher. Hauer should aim higher. The audience should aim higher. There are so many interesting and important themes in the world, yet here we have something which any normally educated and balanced person must find repulsive. I once had a book which reviewed films. It had grades of watching importance: 1) Don't miss this! 2) If you have nothing better to do. 3) Find something better to do. This film definitely falls into the latter category
The Mummy (1999)
Formulaic and half-hearted
Oh dear! Perhaps the genre has seen too many serious attempts in the past for any producer to contemplate another. If we grade the handling of the subject and its commitment, regarding either Abbott and Costello or the Marx Bros Meet the Curse of the Pharoah at 1, to Indiana Jones at 10, this film comes in at about 4. I found myself disenchanted at the lack of any form of intellectual content, with minimal lip-service being paid to the scholarship in Egyptology. The characters are largely pantomime, with stereotypical roles and attitudes. Spoof-laden, most of the scenes are (I hope, intentionally) played for laughs, an especially irritating strategy which undermines all attempts to make any convincing characterisations - not that there are any genuine attempts, or characters, for that matter. The pace of the film is generally too fast, a feature which also contributes to its overall superficiality. Top marks for securing the services of Jerry Goldsmith, however. The music is truly worthy of a much greater film.
The Foreigner (2003)
Who are these films made for?
The most puzzling thing for me is trying to work out exactly who the makers of this film were aiming at. In all of Seagals's early films, seen I'm sure by everyone with an interest in the genre, one was treated to reasonably competent acting, a script which, for all its fantasy, was at least partly logical and convincing, and athletic, fast-moving action which kept the attention fixed. By now, in 'The Foreigner', all remnants of his athleticism gone, Seagal trudges through an admittedly meaningless story with a bored and indifferent manner: perhaps this must happen to any special agent who knows he has a charmed life and unbeatable fighting skills. This, however, is only part of what what ultimately drags these films, and Seagal's presence, down. In 'Above the Law','Under Siege', 'Under Siege 2', etc., although we knew he would win through, there was just that slight degree of uncertainty about the outcome which kept you on the edge of your seat during the action sequences. The opponents appeared evil and seriously menacing, since care and attention had been given to their character build-up, however slight, but this certainly added a raw immediacy and tension to the inevitable confrontation. Allowing opponents to be transient cardboard cut-outs, as in 'The Foreigner', destroys their credibility, and renders the confrontations, which should be gripping high-points, almost casual and unimportant, hence removing interest, excitement, and entertainment value. What upset me most about the film was seeing such a vastly-experienced and talented actor as Gary Raymond playing the part of Jared Olyphant.