Ed's Review Dot Com

Endgame Entertainment, Aura Film Partnership, Fierce Entertainment,

Nicolas Cage, January Jones, Guy Pearce, Harold Perrineau, Jennifer Carpenter, Xander Berkeley

Set in New Orleans, humble high school teacher Will Gerard (Nicholas Cage) lives with his wife, musician Laura Gerard (January Jones). One evening while Will is playing chess with a friend, Laura heads home, but was brutally attacked, beaten nearly to death and raped. While visiting her in the hospital, Will meets Simon (Guy Pearce) who lets him in on the secret that he is part of a vigilante group that helps people get justice outside the law for crimes like this. He lets Will know the police will likely never catch the guilty party and that even if they do, there is little chance of any decent payback. So he offers the help of the group to find and punish the guilty. Will jumps at the chance, but later finds to his regret that their help isn’t free. He is given the name of a pedophile and told he must take care of it to pay them back. It turns out things are not as it seems, and the tables have been turned on Will, and he finds himself in deep trouble. Is it too late to tell the truth, or will he have to just keep quiet about the truth he knows.

This is an action/crime story that is right up Cage’s alley. This is exactly the kind of role he is perfect for. But I didn’t get blown away with this film. It gets a bit cloudy somewhere in the middle, and you need to keep a close eye on what’s going on to keep from getting lost. It’s a lot more convoluted than it needed to be. A little cleanup on the script would have helped a lot. Though the story is fairly common, there are some twists and turns. But some turns were so tight that the logic is really stretched to the breaking point.

The best thing in the film is Guy Pearce who plays the heavy really well. He did a great job. Nicholas Cage is in the middle. He’s ok, but not record breaking. January Jones is probably the weak link. It’s a fair action film, but nothing major to write home about. Ok for a evening rental, but you can find much better unless you’re a huge Cage fan.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Movie Rentals Releasing Tuesday August 14, 2012

• The Hunger Games [Click here for Ed’s Review]
• The Raid: Redemption

Bourne Film Productions, Bourne Four Productions, Bourne Four Productions,

Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Joan Allen, Albert Finney, Stacy Keach, Oscar Isaac, David Strathairn, Scott Glenn

Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) is out there in the world, struggling to stay alive and cut off by the people who created him. Bourne is gone, but we find that there were other genetic experiments gone awry. The government is out to kill him and he’s in a bad way. But he meets and save Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz) who joins him in a global adventure to get Aaron the help that he needs and to keep one step away from the folks that are trying to kill him in this heavy duty fourth wheel on the tricycle which is the Bourne Legacy. It’s high adventure, fast chases, spectacular locations, and did I say “fast chases?” This fourth Bourne film build on the “Legacy” Jason Bourne built up in the first three films and adds to it.

Universal, in making this film, was stretching for something to bring out to make some moolah this summer. They decided to make a forth Bourne film that was jokingly described initially as “Bourne Redunancy”. Not a bad title. You remember the City Slickers movies with Billy Crystal and Jack Palance as Curley. Curley was one of my favorite characters of all times. But in one particularly poignant moment, Billy Crystal’s character is reflecting on how unhappy his life is…how unfulfilled, and how the journey was an attempt for him to find out where his life is going, and Curley gives him the secret of true happiness. “One thing”, Curley tells him. Find one thing that makes you happy and hold on to it and never let it go. When Billy’s character asks him what the “one thing” is, of course Curley tells him that’s for him to find out. Well it appears this film is built around the City Slickers theory. The makers of this film got their “one thing”.
They created something they shouldn’t have, it’s about to blow up in their face, and they want to destroy all evidence of it before it brings them down. So for the entire first 2/3 of the movie, every scene, every bit of dialog, everything that happens is to tell us that they created something bad, and they need to get rid of it. This is told to us over and over and over and over. As if we didn’t get enough of that in the original three films, we need a fourth to hammer it home.

First the really good things about this film. Jeremy Renner is actually a very good action hero. I’ve seen him before, but I’ve never seen him take over a film like he did in this one. Rachel Weisz also did a really good job playing her role. One moment a mousy little scientist who has no clue what’s going on, and the next, Aaron’s sidekick that can stand up to the toughest of bad guys. The locations are stunning. The final chase scene through the city of Manila is breathtaking, though a tad unrealistic, high speed chases are not supposed to be realistic.

But on the down side….don’t worry if half way into this thing you don’t understand what’s going on. When it’s over, you still won’t know, so what’s the difference. Just remember that they “bad guys who look like good guys” did a bad thing and they’re trying to undo it before they get caught. That’s all you need to know. I guess that in the previews someone mentioned that “Bourne” was only the beginning. That made it seem like there was more than one. So just before wrapping up, someone must have though…oh, what about the “other Bournes” so they came up with this Asian guy who decided to step in during the final chase scene and keep trying to kill Aaron. They keep telling us what a bad ass he is, and though I don’t really know why he simply wanted to kill Aaron (I guess somehow they programmed him to go after him or something, but that doesn’t make sense. If it were that easy, they could program Aaron to come home, right?) Anyway, he keeps chasing Aaron, and it appears we’re in for a huge showdown at some point. I’m talking a Bruce Lee fights Chuck Norris in the Colosseum in Rome showdown! Instead, Rachel kicks him and he’s gone. What was that about?

There are a number of similar things that made this whole thing seem weakly put together and kind of an afterthought kind of story. It could have used some help. On the other hand, I was never really into the whole Bourne thing in the first place. Superheroes that aren’t super and aren’t heroes never actually grabbed me. It’s a decent adventure with some good locations. It’s a tad long, and could have been shorter. The whole “wolf chase” in the beginning didn’t seem to be very critical to the story, and I found myself looking at my watch a few times. Basically, I had to see this, but I’m glad I can move on to something a little more to my taste now.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Relativity Media, Virgin Produced, Apparatus Productions,

Gerard Butler, Michelle Monaghan, Kathy Baker, Michael Shannon, Madeline Carroll, Souleymane Sy Savane, Grant R. Krause, Reavis Graham

Sam Childers (Gerard Butler) is a bit of a tough guy. He’s frequently in trouble and as the movie opens, he’s just being released from prison. When he gets home, he finds a major change in his family. His stripper wife is no longer working in that profession and has converted to Christianity and is not willing to go back to the way things were. But Sam finds himself in trouble once again in just a short time. But the winds are changing. When Sam finally decides to change his life around, nobody can believe it. He takes a job in construction and straightens up. But wanting to do more, he volunteers to make a missionary journey to Africa and in the process is touched by the torture and murder going on there. Before you know it, he’s built an orphanage and is fighting toe to toe against the war lords that terrorize the people. Sam never does anything half way, and he gets obsessed with his new calling, even to the point of risking his own family back home. Based on the writings of Sam Childers, this film is based on his writings, so it’s at least based on what he sees as the true story.

Butler is pretty good as Sam Childers. He’s pretty good as the bad ass, drug dealing, hard guy in the beginning. He’s also convincing as the fearless defender of his schools and of the little kids of Sudan. He does a decent job of showing the compassion and caring for the kids he adopts as his own. This is Sam’s story, in his own words, and therefore Gerard, who plays Sam, is the focus of the film. This doesn’t leave a lot of room for everyone else to shine here. This is a pretty good story, but there are a lot of ways that it could have been better. But I guess some of what I feel are weaknesses in the film, may be due to the weaknesses in the real story. I’m not convinced that Sam’s ways are the best ways to accomplish what he wants to do. He becomes so focused that he adopts a sort of ruthless stubbornness that doesn’t always suit. Perhaps that’s why it’s been so hard to get help from anyone else. Perhaps he wants to be the lone wolf.

At any rate, it is an interesting story of an interesting guy. It’s got a lot of the background information on the powerful warlords that terrorize and slaughter the people who are simply trying to live. So it’s got a lot of important material, and if you look past some of the grating personality quirks of Sam, you might find it worthwhile to watch. For me, it makes me shrug and say, Ok, that was alright, but it’s not extremely memorable or life changing.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

New in theaters this weekend Friday August 10, 2012

• The Bourne Legacy
• The Campaign
• Hope Springs
• 2 Days in New York
• Red Hook Summer
• Nitro Circus: The Movie
• Freelancers

Greetings movie fans. The highlight of this weekend must be the release of the latest in the “Bourne” series of films. In this one, The Bourne Legacy, Jeremy Renner, Rachael Weisz, and Edward Norton bring the story forward with a new hero who is in the same boat as those faces by Jason Bourne in the first three films. Also, a fairly large release is “The Campaign” a comedy about politics with Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis work to try to save the election after a huge gaffe by Will’s character just days before Election Day.

Other smaller films are “2 Days in New York” a sort of romantic comedy with the emphasis on the comedy, featuring Chris Rock and Julie Delpy. “Freelancers” Robert DeNiro, Forest Whittaker in a crime story about the LAPD force in a violent story of a cop hell bent to find out the truth of what happened at his father’s death. “Hope Springs” is the comedy about a couple who’s marriage has turned boring who seek out advice from a love councilor. Merle Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, and a very unconventional advisor played by Steve Careell.

“Red Hook Summer” is a generational drama about a young man who moves in with and tries to get along with his very religious grandfather, and finally “Nitro Circus: The Movie” which is kind of like “jackass on steroids” kind of film of a few guys with a death wash. Trying harder and harder to impress with very dangerous extreme stunts.
Last Weeks top Box Office:

1 – The Dark Knight Rises
2 – Total Recall
3 – Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days
4 – Ice Age: Continental Drift
5 – The Watch