Mate, I better get off the blower. The cabby’s about to throw a wobbly.

Stolen

(2012)

In which Nicolas Cage’s latest wig is unleashed on New Orleans. His syrup is certainly put through its paces this time, as our Nic has to do quite a lot of pegging it hither and thither. His daughter’s been stolen, you see, and he wants her back. Stolen by an ex-partner in crime (revealing that his ex-partner is not dead is not really a spoiler, as this fact is only a secret for about two minutes of screen time) with whom Nic stole $10m, and which Nic promptly caused to vanish (nothing as sleight of hand as Now You See Me, which is a small mercy), so leaving ex-partner a tad disgruntled. Thus, the title is highly descriptive and appropriate. It also sits comfortably with other succinctly named recent Cage (pretty much) straight-to-DVD fare like Trespass and Justice (the latter also set in Cage’s favourite city). Neither of those were particularly smart thrillers, but sat next to Stolen they take on hitherto unrecognised qualities. This is a particularly dumb movie, and it doesn’t even have the benefit of a crazy Cage performance to see it through. Lots of running, though, so requiring a firmly glued rug.

The first 20 minutes are reasonable, setting the scene for the main event. A bank robbery goes wrong thanks to the dogged pursuit of Danny Huston’s FBI guy, and Cage’s Will Montgomery is banged up for the next eight years. The rest of the gang escape justice (including the sweetly pretty Malin Akermen and Lost’s not-at-all becoming M.C. Gainey), but Will is compelled to put a bullet in unhinged cohort Vincent’s leg. Vincent (Josh Lucas) has been Will’s accomplice for years, but it’s only now that it becomes obvious he’s a complete psycho? So Will has both the police and (the apparently dead) Vincent on his trail when he is released, after the disappearing loot.

David Guggenheim, writer of Safe House (which moved fast enough not to notice the script problems, I guess) wrote this sub-Ransom crap, which doesn’t have an ounce of logic or coherence. The sign of a good robbery/heist movie is how intricate, well conceived and staged the big steals are (take Heat, for example). Guggenheim has lifted a couple of ideas, but seemingly couldn’t be bothered to think them through. So there’s the old “it looks like the Feds are going to bust in on our protagonists but actually they’ve the wrong building” visual gag, but the geography and staging are so muddled it fails to carry as a “clever” twist. Likewise, Montgomery stealing a store of gold is… well, I see no reason to spoil it but it’s utterly absurd.

If director Simon West had approached Stolen with the tongue-in-cheek excess that washed over his previous collaboration with Cage, Con Air, this might just have worked. But truth be told, West did his level best to murder a witty script in that case and little he has done since show’s any indication of mastery of his chosen field. He’s perhaps a more coherent action director now, but it’s telling that he has found his niche directing B-movies with the Stat (The Mechanic remake might actually be the best thing he’s done in a decade, although that’s not saying much). I’m frankly stunned that, following his next Stat vehicle (a remake of an ‘80s William Goldman script that starred Burt Reynolds) he is making Tolkien & Lewis. This sounds tantamount to Roland Emmerich directing Anonymous (although that picture is actually quite good fun). Will the two authors have bare-chested fisticuffs in a forest at some point? Or try to stab each other in the eyes with fountain pens?

Race-against-time scripts often at least have the benefit of creating a natural inner tension, but West’s picture picks up only very sporadically. The occasional encounter with the cops dogging Will’s heels, a break-in at the FBI, Nic pulling some of his special fight moves. But it’s a movie that quickly becomes about diversion. Vincent kidnaps estranged daughter Alison (Sami Gayle), but the only thing on my mind was how Nic buying a plush Care Bear was a conscious nod-wink to Con Air’s bunny in the box (likewise, Cage gets in a de rigueur reference to his music tastes).

Mainly, though, it becomes about Lucas’ deranged performance. Somewhere along the road he lost any chance of making it as a leading man, probably around the time of Hulk. It’s that inherent shiftiness, most likely. It must chafe a bit that similarly cold-eyed killer type Jason Clarke is getting starring roles. Lucas knows that the only way to approach his one-legged, crazy-brained nutjob is to go bigger and bigger with each scene. And he is quite entertaining; God knows, the picture needs distractions. So when he kicks the living shit out of annoying Aussie tourist we’re almost on side with him. The climax, at a disused fairground, is the stuff of ‘80s Dolph Lundgren movies, as a waterlogged Lucas and Cage duke it out and the former, having been set alight and hit by a car, resorts to his best Creature from the Black Lagoon impression. Grarrr!

It’s all alright, however. Inevitably, this peril teaches Will’s daughter how much daddy means to her (shouldn’t it be the other way round, reconfirming what a monumental ass he is?) and sad-eyed Nic gets to play one last jape on the not-so-bad-really FBI guys. Lucas and an aggressively cheesy Mark Isham score aside, there isn’t enough to make this a so-bad-it’s-good latter-day Cage & the Tax Man effort; Trespass is much more fun in that regard. The poster is absolutely appalling too (below). This is the thing; I’m a (increasingly rare) fan of Cage’s but if he’s going to appear in consistent rubbish in order to pay the bills he could at least give us the satisfaction of deranged performances to make up for it. When he first started with his action hero reinvention he brought the same spark to them as he did his “serious” roles. Lately the only distinguishing feature of his performances has been his postiche rental.

That was worth five minutes in photoshop, now wasn't it?

If I do nothing else, I will convince them that Herbert Stempel knows what won the goddam Academy Award for Best goddam Picture of 1955. That’s what I’m going to accomplish.

Quiz Show (1994) (SPOILERS) Quiz Show perfectly encapsulates a certain brand of Best Picture nominee: the staid, respectable, diligent historical episode, a morality tale in response to which the Academy can nod their heads approvingly and discerningly, feeding as it does their own vainglorious self-image about how times and attitudes have changed, in part thanks to their own virtuousness. Robert Redford’s film about the 1950s Twenty-One quiz show scandals is immaculately made, boasts a notable cast and is guided by a strong screenplay from Paul Attanasio (who, on television, had just created the seminal Homicide: Life on the Streets ), but it lacks that something extra that pushes it into truly memorable territory.

Your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!

Enemy Mine (1985) (SPOILERS) The essential dynamic of Enemy Mine – sworn enemies overcome their differences to become firm friends – was a well-ploughed one when it was made, such that it led to TV Tropes assuming, since edited, that it took its title from an existing phrase (Barry Longyear, author of the 1979 novella, made it up, inspired by the 1961 David Niven film The Best of Enemies ). The Film Yearbook Volume 5 opined that that Wolfgang Petersen’s picture “ lacks the gritty sauciness of Hell in the Pacific”; John Boorman’s WWII film stranded Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune on a desert island and had them first duking it out before becoming reluctant bedfellows. Perhaps germanely, both movies were box office flops.

Piece by piece, the camel enters the couscous.

The Forgiven (2021) (SPOILERS) By this point, the differences between filmmaker John Michael McDonagh and his younger brother, filmmaker and playwright Martin McDonagh, are fairly clearly established. Both wear badges of irreverence and provocation in their writing, and a willingness to tackle – or take pot-shots – at bigger issues, ones that may find them dangling their toes in hot water. But Martin receives the lion’s share of the critical attention, while John is generally recognised as the slightly lesser light. Sure, some might mistake Seven Psychopaths for a John movie, and Calvary for a Martin one, but there’s a more flagrant sense of attention seeking in John’s work, and concomitantly less substance. The Forgiven is clearly aiming more in the expressly substantial vein of John’s earlier Calvary, but it ultimately bears the same kind of issues in delivery.

Haven’t you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?

Batman (1989) (SPOILERS) There’s Jaws , there’s Star Wars , and then there’s Batman in terms of defining the modern blockbuster. Jaws ’ success was so profound, it changed the way movies were made and marketed. Batman’s marketing was so profound, it changed the way tentpoles would be perceived: as cash cows. Disney tried to reproduce the effect the following year with Dick Tracy , to markedly less enthusiastic response. None of this places Batman in the company of Jaws as a classic movie sold well, far from it. It just so happened to hit the spot. As Tim Burton put it, it was “ more of a cultural phenomenon than a great movie ”. It’s difficult to disagree with his verdict that the finished product (for that is what it is) is “ mainly boring ”. Now, of course, the Burton bat has been usurped by the Nolan incarnation (and soon the Snyder). They have some things in common. Both take the character seriously and favour a sombre tone, which was much more of shock to the

Say hello to the Scream Extractor.

Monsters, Inc. (2001) (SPOILERS) I was never the greatest fan of Monsters, Inc. , even before charges began to be levelled regarding its “true” subtext. I didn’t much care for the characters, and I particularly didn’t like the way Pixar’s directors injected their own parenting/ childhood nostalgia into their plots. Something that just seems to go on with their fare ad infinitum. Which means the Pixars I preferred tended to be the Brad Bird ones. You know, the alleged objectivist. Now, though, we learn Pixar has always been about the adrenochrome, so there’s no going back…

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

I’m just the balloon man.

Copshop (2021) (SPOILERS) A consistent problem with Joe Carnahan’s oeuvre is that, no matter how confidently his movies begin, or how strong his premise, or how adept his direction or compelling the performances he extracts, he ends up blowing it. He blows it with Copshop , a ’70s-inspired variant on Assault on Precinct 13 that is pretty damn good during the first hour, before devolving into his standard mode of sado-nihilistic mayhem.

Twenty dwarves took turns doing handstands on the carpet.

Bugsy (1991) (SPOILERS) Bugsy is very much a Warren Beatty vanity project (aren’t they all, even the ones that don’t seem that way on the surface?), to the extent of his playing a title character a decade and a half younger than him. As such, it makes sense that producer Warren’s choice of director wouldn’t be inclined to overshadow star Warren, but the effect is to end up with a movie that, for all its considerable merits (including a script from James Toback chock full of incident), never really feels quite focussed, that it’s destined to lead anywhere, even if we know where it’s going.

When we have been subtle, then can I kill him?

The Avengers 6.16. Legacy of Death There’s scarcely any crediting the Terry Nation of Noon-Doomsday as the same Terry Nation that wrote this, let alone the Terry Nation churning out a no-frills Dalek story a season for the latter stages of the Jon Pertwee era. Of course, Nation had started out as a comedy writer (for Hancock), and it may be that the kick Brian Clemens gave him up the pants in reaction to the quality of Noon-Doomsday loosened a whole load of gags. Admittedly, a lot of them are well worn, but they come so thick and fast in Legacy of Death , accompanied by an assuredly giddy pace from director Don Chaffey (of Ray Harryhausen’s Jason and the Argonauts ) and a fine ensemble of supporting players, that it would be churlish to complain.

You ever heard the saying, “Don’t rob the bank across from the diner that has the best donuts in three counties”?

2 Guns (2013) (SPOILERS) Denzel Washington is such a reliable performer, that it can get a bit boring. You end up knowing every gesture or inflection in advance, whether he’s playing a good guy or a bad guy. And his films are generally at least half decent, so you end up seeing them. Even in Flight (or perhaps especially in Flight ; just watch him chugging down that vodka) where he’s giving it his Oscar-nominatable best, he seems too familiar. I think it may be because he’s an actor who is more effective the less he does. In 2 Guns he’s not doing less, but sometimes it seems like it. That’s because the last person I’d ever expect blows him off the screen; Mark Wahlberg.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog