|
88 MINUTES 2007
Written by Gary Scott Thompson.
Directed by Jon Avent.
Starring Al Pacino, Alicia Witt, Amy Brenneman, William Forsythe, Deborah Kara Unger, Leelee Sobieski, Neal McDonough, Benjamin McKenzie, Stephen Moyer and Leah Cairns.
This film is a like a kid with ADHD who hasn’t had his Ritalin in about a month. Apparently these filmmakers thought that if everything went really, really fast, we wouldn’t notice how much it all stinks. They were wrong.
Jack Gramm (Al Pacino, looking like he desperately needs a haircut) is a forensic psychologist. 9 years ago he helped convict Jon Forster (Neal McDonough) for a rape and murder. Today, Forster is going to be executed and Gramm gets a call on his cell phone telling him he has 88 minutes to live. Now, you’d think that after getting that after getting such a call, the first thing to do would be to contact the police. You know, have them take you into custody and put you some place where no one can kill you. That’s not what Jack Gramm does. He decides to gallivant around the city of Seattle with his teaching assistant Kim Cummings (the sexy hot Alicia Witt) in tow, randomly suspecting people of being out to get him.
There’s honestly not much of an actual story here. Characters just rush here and there until an “exposition bomb” goes off and everything stops while somebody explains things to another character and the audience. There’s no real mystery to the story, despite throwing at least 5 separate red herrings at you. There’s very little suspense, because it largely forgets about the whole “ticking clock” scenario facing Gramm. It even reveals its surprise ending 5 minutes early, producing the cinematic version of premature ejaculation.
88 Minutes is one of those movies that make actresses hate Hollywood. This script does have 5 significant roles for women but not only are they all awful, each one is worse than the last. Alicia Witt gets the most screen time, but does nothing but follow Al Pacino around like a red-headed puppy. Amy Brenneman plays Jack Gramm’s office assistant and her role consists, in its entirety, of 80% plot device and 20% whimpering. Leelee Sobieski’s character as one of Gramm’s students is entirely a product of the Almighty Plot Hammer. Deborah Kara Unger, as the Dean of the university where Jack Gramm teaches, spends most of her time on screen trussed up like a dead rabbit waiting to be skinned. And poor Sara Pollard plays a one night stand of Gramm’s and, I kid you not, has as many nude scenes as she does lines of dialog. These women all seem to be talented actresses and they’re all certainly sweet pieces of ass, but you could have replaced them with trained chimps and it wouldn’t have made much of a difference.
Al Pacino gives one of his “I’m Al Pacino and I need a paycheck” performances. It’s almost as bad as when his buddy Robert DeNiro does his “I need a paycheck” shtick and it’s topped off by a concluding scene where Jack Gramm YET AGAIN explains what has happened for the audience’s benefit while Pacino appears to forget how to talk into a cell phone. And unlike Roddy McDowall in Battle for the Planet of the Apes, where you feel sorry for a good actor stuck in such a relentless hunk of garbage, 88 Minutes makes you pissed off at Pacino for wasting his time and talent in this way.
As you can probably tell already, this script is horrible. The direction is just as bad. Director Jon Avent thinks the height of drama is Al Pacino running up two flights of stairs, Al Pacino sitting in a chair or really anything Pacino does that rhymes with “air”. Given the number of times the movie contradicts itself and the exceptionally frequent use of dubbed in dialog which was obviously added in after filming was completed to explain stuff left out of the story, I’m not sure Avent actually read the script before he started shooting.
And just so you know, 88 Minutes is 107 minutes long and the 88 minutes of the title don’t elapse in real time. Yeah, it’s that kind of movie.
If you’d like to laugh at Pacino making a fool of himself or feel sorry for the flock of actresses trapped in this huge turkey, go rent 88 Minutes. After that you might consider scheduling some surgery and removing most of your brain, because you clearly aren’t getting any use out of it.
EL MARIACHI 1992
Written and Directed by Robert Rodriguez.
Starring Carlos Gallardo, Consuelo Gomez, Peter Marquardt and Reinol Martinez.
This is the low budget film that launched the career of Robert Rodriguez and really cast him as the Squire to Quentin Tarantino’s Knight in what was thought to be a Kingdom of New Cinema. So far, neither has really lived up to the stratospheric expectations that were thrust upon them. But while Tarantino has at least achieved momentary greatness, Rodriguez has so far never been more than just good. Watching El Mariachi now, you can see that he probably never really deserved to be in Taratino’s class.
The story concerns a violent Mexican criminal named Azul (Reinol Martinez), a drug-dealing Anglo named Moco (Peter Marquardt) and a traveling Mexican guitar player we never know as anything but “El Mariachi” (Carlos Gallardo). Azul and Moco used to be partners, but Moco cheated Azul out of his cut. That, apparently, wasn’t so bad…but when Moco tries to have Azul killed and fails, all bets are off as Azul picks up his guitar case full of weapons and starts to hunt down his old partner. Unfortunately for El Mariachi, Azul dresses all in black and carries a guitar case, just like the young musician. Moco’s men mistake Mariachi for Azul and try to kill him in spectacularly unsuccessful fashion. As he tries to stay alive and figure out why strangers are trying to kill him, Mariachi meets a local girl named Domino (Consuelo Gomez), who’s connected in someway to Moco. That sets the stage for our three main characters to collide in a deadly climax.
For a low, low, low budget movie, El Mariachi isn’t half bad. None of the actors are particularly talented and Paul Marquardt reveals himself to be especially horrid at the end of the film, though up to that point he was quite convincingly menacing, even while getting a manicure. The dialog is effective but unremarkable. The scenery and the costuming is all appropriately low rent and the story itself is more like a pilot for a TV show than a legitimate movie.
Rodriguez’ direction, however is obviously a cut above the rest of the material. He was still very green and some of his shots and set ups are very basic, almost student-film like at times, but there’s a noticeable confidence in his storytelling. The camera doesn’t linger on any shot for too long, scenes don’t just ramble along until they peter out, and you can tell that he’s trying to be as visually interesting as he can with limited resources. He also manages to pull off some stunt work that is very impressive for this level of film. Low budget movies are notoriously bad for cheesy, fake and lame action sequences. Putting explosions, gun battles and harrowing escapes onscreen usually takes a lot of money. If you can’t afford good special effects, good make up or good stunt men, there’s not much you can do. Rodriguez manages to somehow make it work, with one scene involving sliding down a telephone wire to the hood of a moving bus being remarkable for a low budget film. That one scene is probably the single thing that most attracted attention to Rodriguez out of all of El Mariachi.
And though he occasionally lapses into dumb melodrama, Rodriguez shows a very good grasp of storytelling fundamentals. He tries to show the audience things through a character’s actions, instead of having someone tell the audiences stuff through clunky exposition. He’s able to pull off a running gag involving Azul always wanting his beer in a bottle. And he knows exactly when he’s got to juice things up a bit to keep the story moving and the audience engaged.
But while there’s flashes of talent shown, El Mariachi isn’t really the mark of a great filmmaker. There’s no reason to think they guy who made it would go on to create anything like Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction. You can see that things like From Dusk Til Dawn or the Spy Kids movies were a much more natural progression for Rodriguez. Because ultimately, he only attempted to be good with El Mariachi. He succeeded, but for a low budget film to be great it has to be willing to be so “out there”, so over the top, so outrageous, so imaginative that it runs the risk of being a complete and utter clusterbleep. Rodriguez isn’t willing to take that chance and probably didn’t deserve quite as much of a moment in the Sun as he got from this film.
But there’s nothing wrong with “just” being a good filmmaker and there’s nothing wrong with “just” being a decent film. You can certainly do a lot worse for an evening’s entertainment than renting a copy of El Mariachi.
ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE 2007
Written by William Nicholson and Michael Hirst.
Directed by Shekhar Apur.
Starring Cate Blanchett, Clive Owen, Geoffrey Rush, Abbie Cornish, Jordi Molla, Samantha Morton and David Threlwell.
This movie demonstrates the same thing winning the lottery sometimes does. It proves you can’t give some people money.
This is the hugely disappointing sequel to the outstanding “Elizabeth”, which was largely the film that launched the career of Cate Blanchett. Here she returns to the role of Queen Elizabeth I. It is 1585 and England finds itself under the threat of Spain, whose King Philip II (Jordi Molla) is a Catholic religious fanatic who waits only for an excuse to topple the Protestant Elizabeth from her throne. As the Queen’s right hand man, Sir Francis Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush), defends Elizabeth from plots at home and tries to find a politically advantageous husband for her and her country, Elizabeth’s fancy settles on a privateer and explorer named Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen). Eventually a scheme involving Mary, Queen of Scots (Samantha Morton) and Walsingham’s own brother gives Philip a justification for war and the Spanish Armada, the greatest fleet in human history, sets sail to conquer England in the same of God. Unless you’re intellectually allergic to the subject of history, you probably know how that turned out.
This isn’t really that bad a movie. It’s mediocre or, perhaps, a bit worse. When judged against the quality of the first film, however, it is one of the worst sequels ever. We’re talking Godfather III territory. “Elizabeth” was a low budget film that took the idea of the historical epic and turned it on its head. It took one of the most important moments in British history, the ascension of Elizabeth to the throne, and made those important events merely the setting for a deeply personal tale of a young woman in a dangerous and conflicting circumstance. All the other elements of the story, political, religious and cultural were secondary to human joy, ambition and anguish of the woman who would become one of the greatest rulers in world history.
“Elizabeth: The Golden Age” had a big budget, bigger stars and arguably focuses on an even more dramatic moment in the Queen’s reign. But while the first movie subverted the concept of the historical epic, this movie fully embraces it. This is not the story of a woman, it’s the story of a kingdom. And while Elizabeth may be the most significant character in the story, she isn’t the most important. This story is really about the efforts of Francis Walsingham to defend his sovereign with deceit and strength. And it’s about Charles Howard and Francis Drake, who actually led the British to victory over Philip’s massive assembly of ships. Those men’s actions may be in service to Elizabeth, but she’s not directly involved in what they do.
The movie tries on occasion to go back to what the first film did and let us see the pressures and inner pain of Elizabeth, but it never quite figures out what to do with her. The Queen is mostly a bystander for these events of history and for what is going on in this movie. Even in the love triangle of Elizabeth, Raleigh and the Queen’s handmaiden Bess Throckmorton (Abbie Cornish), Blanchett has nothing to actually do but fuss and fume. Yet the attention of the story is so completely fixed on Elizabeth, that none of the other characters get the chance to live and breathe on screen.
“Elizabeth” gave us a new and compelling look at the legendary monarch. Elizabeth: The Golden Age tells the same sort of story about her that every other historical epic tells about every famous ruler. If you’ve never seen the first film, you may find this one passable. But if you haven’t seen the first film, definitely rent it instead of this.
ELSEWHERE 2009
Written and Directed by Nathan Hope.
Starring Anna Kendrick, Tania Raymonde, Chuck Carter, Paul Wesley, Olivia York, Jeff Daniel Phillips, Shannon Holt, Jon Gries and Kinna McInroe.
Elsewhere is a middling little concoction that’s one or two ingredients away from being really good. It’s like a Nancy Drew Mystery without a mystery but with a serial killer. Writer/director Nathan Hope came up with a lot of nice ancillary pieces and then assembled them around an empty core. The result is a promising beginning, an anticipatory middle and a disappointing ending.
Jillian and Sarah (Tania Raymonde and Anna Kendrick) are teenaged best friends. Jillian is a rocker chick whose edginess hides a desperate desire to get far away from a life she hates. Sarah is a good girl and that’s pretty much it. The character has the disposition of a coat rack and while Anna Kendrick makes a very cute coat rack, Sarah being such a non-entity becomes the biggest problem in the entire movie.
After a stretch of time where Jillian and Sarah lounge around doing terribly typical teenage stuff, Jillian disappears. Sarah investigates and with no help from her absentee mother, she turns to computer geek Jasper (Chuck Carter) for assistance. The only clue is a video sent from Jillian’s cell phone that shows the inside of a school bus and then Jillian screams.
Sarah eventually discovers that Jillian is only one of several missing girls, but who is responsible? Is it Officer Berg (Jeff Daniel Phillips), the creepy local cop? Billy (Paul Wesley), the high school dickhead? Is it the unstable Patty (Shannon Holt), mother of a girl who vanished 5 years ago? Well, there’s honestly not much of a puzzle to figure out here. There really is no series of clues in this story that eventually lead to the identity of the killer. There are only a couple of pathetic, obviously constructed red herrings inserted into the script long after a reasonably astute viewer has deduced everything for him or herself. I mean, the average episode of Speed Buggy or Jabberjaw had a more elaborate mystery to solve than this film.
That narrative weakness isn’t that aggravating because writer/director Hope emphasizes the characters and their interrelationships over plot developments. The roles are all fairly clichéd - “girl acting out”, “jock jackass”, “super strict father” - but they’re well constructed clichés and the cast perfectly provides the formulaic performances for which they were asked. Except for Jeff Daniel Phillips, who appears to be doing a bad Jack Nicholson impersonation all the time he’s on screen. And the connections/confrontations between the characters achieve a certain believability. For example, you can feel the layered friendship between Jillian and Sarah and the long standing animosity between Billy and Jasper.
Unfortunately, the blankest and least developed character in Elsewhere is also the main character in the story. Sarah has the most lines and is in almost every scene, but has the least amount of personality in the whole cast. That’s not Kendrick’s fault. She doesn’t do a bad acting job. There’s simply nothing distinctive, individualistic or interesting about Sarah. Having such a void as the leading role undermines every dramatic aspect of the movie. It’s not a fatal flaw but, geez, this thing would have been soooooo much better if Sarah has disappeared and Jillian had been the one to look for her.
Elsewhere does look good, moves at a satisfactory clip and has several effective though quite illogical scares. Combined with more than adequate acting in all but one case, that’s usually enough for a film like this. But the emptiness of its plot and main character prevents Elsewhere from being fully entertaining. It’s certainly better than most of the crap out there, yet there’s no need to go out of your way to see it. |
