Bullet To The Head

Title: Bullet To The Head

Director: Walter Hill

Released: 2012

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Sung Kang, Sarah Shahi, Adewale Akinnuoye-Abaje, Christian Slater, Jason Momoa

Plot: Hitman James Bonomo (Stallone) and police detective Taylor Kwon (Kang) find themselves forced to work together when they find themselves targeted by the same enemy.

 

Review: Not to be confused by the superior John Woo classic "Bullet In The Head" and Based on Alexis Nolent’s French graphic novel “Du Plomb Dans La Tete” loosely translated as “Lead In The Head” with this film would come for Stallone at a time when he was riding high once more in his career, having dragged himself out of the depths of DTV hell by revisiting the roles which first made him a star, as well as cashing in on that legacy further with the first two entries in “The Expendables” trilogy. Of course we would be heavily mistaken if we thought that Stallone was back on track as here he sleepwalks his walks through this shambling Neo-Noir thriller.

Now the idea of someone with a legacy like Walter Hill has in the director’s chair it would normally be something to be excited about, but sadly this is not working at his prime as we like to remember him with films like “The Warriors” or “Southern Comfort”. With this film though it is hard to tell if these lacklustre effort is to do with a veteran director losing his mojo or the fact that he was drafted in to replace Wayne Kramer who wanted a darker vision for the film than Stallone wanted, leading to Stallone bringing in Hill who at the time had at the time just had the movie he’d been working on fall apart after he’d spent a year trying to get it made.

Refreshing set in New Orleans, here Stallone’s Bonomo also known as the bafflingly unthreatening Jimmy Bobo, is an aging hitman who lives by his own code of conduct, as emphasised by the opening hit on a corrupt cop in which he refuses to kill a prostitute witness. It is of course this hit which Bobo on the radar of Kwon who was the cops partner and from here it is only an onslaught of confused plotlines with only the occasional dash of action to keep the mildest hint of interest in this otherwise bland thriller. Things head south pretty quickly here after a strong opening, with the Bobo and Kwon being forced to work together, but thanks to Stallone and Kang having zero chemistry together this is far from the mismatched partner dynamic we would expect with every situation usually consisting on Stallone handling the action, while Kang plays on his phone. Seriously there is no situation which doesn’t seemingly find a resolution by him looking up the answer on his phone making his credentials as a detective all the more shaky while making you wonder why his character had to be a cop and instead couldn’t have been a hacker or some other profession. Interestingly though Thomas Jane was to play this role, only for producer Joel Silver to recast the part feeling needed a “more ethnic actor” to appeal to a wider audience. It remains to be seen if Jane could have done a better job, or if the flaw is just in the character. Elsewhere Shahi shows up as Bobo’s tattooist daughter who supposedly according to Bobo’s claims went to med school for a week, yet has no problem dealing with gun shot wounds or any other medical issue that arises. Frustratingly while Shahi gives a good performance, her character seems to largely have been included as an excuse to up the nudity quota or just so Hill could have a pretty girl in the cast, especially when her character could have easily have been written out without any effect to the film in the slightest.  

The other main issue with the film is the lack of a decent big evil with the closest we get to a memorable villain is in ex-mercenary turned heavy Keegan (Momoa) who gets one of the few highlights of the film when he gets to engage in a fire axe dual with Bobo at the finale. While the character is memorable, its another lacklustre performance from Momoa, who the more I see the more convinced I am that his performance as Khal Drogo in “Game of Thrones” was a one off, especially when everything else I’ve seen him in has yet to come close to that performance as further reinforced here. 

The action scenes are all enjoyable enough, though hardly containing anything overly original to make them standout more, while the final axe dual despite containing a number of impressive moments, relies too heavily on close up shots to be truly effective. We also get a massage parlour brawl but again I struggled to get into this fight, mainly because it felt like a poor man’s version of the same scene in “Eastern Promises” only thankfully Stallone doesn’t get naked in this one.

A forgettable Neo-Noir thriller let alone a heavily flawed one which even the diehard Stallone fans will struggle to find anything to make it worth your time. At the same time it remains to be seen if Hill can recapture his film making mojo which made his early films so memorable especially when this is certainly a stumble on his resume. Of course this is only made all the more frustrating when here is clearly trying to do something new within the genre, especially in terms of setting, its just a shame that the few moments when the film does work, don’t make up for the rest of the film to warrant giving it anything but a curious watch.

Seven Psychopaths

 

 

 

Title: Seven Psychopaths

Director: Martin McDonagh
Released: 2012
Staring: Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Walken, Tom Waits, Abbie Cornish, Olga Kurylenko, Linda Bright Clay, Amanda Mason Warren

Plot: Marty (Farrell) a writer struggling to finish his screenplay entitled “Seven Psychopaths”, while receiving inspiration from his friends Billy (Rockwell) and Hans (Walken) make a living kidnapping dogs in order to collect the owner’s cash rewards. However when the duo unwittingly steal the beloved Shih Tzu of gangster Charlie Costello (Harrelson), Marty soon finds himself along with his friends entangled in a confrontation with the LA criminal underworld.

 

Review: Sneaking in at the end of last year, this film has hardly been on the radar for most movie goers who were no doubt more focused on the release of the first film in “The Hobbit” trilogy. Still this is still not the most suprising reaction to this films release considering the last film we saw from director McDonagh was equally overlooked “In Bruges”, which honestly was not a film I exactly dug, thanks largely to the fact it could never quite decide what sort of film it wanted to be. Still it would seem that McDonagh may have learned something from his debut as he returns here with a film which only improves on what “In Bruges” hinted at before.

A multistring tale which shares more than a few ideas in its construction with Spike Jonze's “Adaptation” due to both films switching between real life and fiction, with the two worlds interlinking, the film frequently switches between the film version of Marty’s screenplay and real life were he makes various attempts to finish he script. which is far from easy considering he hasn’t even come up with one of his proposed psychopaths. Slowly over the course of the film these psychopaths are slowly revealed while the lines between fact and fiction become even more worryingly blurred.

These stories of the psychopaths and thier legacies make up the majority of the film as starting with “The Jack of Diamonds Killer” the real life balaclava clad killer currently running around the city with a passion for killing mid to high level members of the mob and a gentle introduction of those who are to follow as we are soon introduced to the first of Marty’s fictional creations “The Quaker” a highly religious hitman who unsurprisingly dresses as a Quaker, who is soon joined by the also religious themed Vietnamese Priest on a quest for revenge against the American platoon who killed his family in the Vietnam war. The most interesting of these colourful characters though is Tom Wait’s killer of serial killers after Billy randomly places an advert in the newspaper

CALLING ALL PSYCHOPATHS! Are you MENTAL or DERANGED? Maybe you have been recently hospitalised but are now Okay? Or perhaps the world just doesn't understand you?",

Sadly McDonagh misses a trick here as rather than a queue of crazies, we instead get a solitary visit by Wait’s rabbit carrying Zachariah, who gives us yet another member of the titular seven, as he tells the tale of how he rescued a girl named Maggie (Warren) from the basement of a serial killer and how the two of them as a couple went across the country killing some of the most famous serial killers including more humorously a rabbit obsessed “Zodiac”. While Waits appearance here is pretty much a brief one, it is still like all of the psychopaths still none the less memorable, perhaps even more so thanks to his pennant for constantly carrying around his white rabbit.

Clearly realising that a collection of short stories about psychopaths would be a hard sell on its own, McDonagh’s attempt to string them together with the dog snatch plotline does at times lack some of the polish that he gives to the short stories, especially when it lacks any of the smart humour that is given to the rest of the film outside of a running joke about a frequently jamming gun. Still the film is generally at its strongest when it is left to the antics of the three friends trying to piece together the screenplay and it’s here that the choice casting really comes into play with Farrell once again wheeling out his befuddled charm as he lives in a state of constant frenzied panic, especially as his screenplay spins wildly out of control. Meanwhile Rockwell continues to be equally enjoyable as the loud and brash Billy, while our man in focus for this month Walken gives another thoughtful performance which he seems to give more frequently these days and here it works especially well, especially when facing down armed gangsters with nothing but an stone faced glance, as he continues to prove that he has just as much presence on the screen even when he is not giving one of his more dominating performances, which he might be more memorable for.

As the main villain Harrelson is truly believable, even if the role had originally been written for Mickey Rouke, who dropped out thanks to creative diffrences with McDonagh and was replaced by Harrelson which ultimately makes for a stronger choice for the role and even more so when it comes to the frequent mood swings which Charlie is prone to, but then Harrelson has always done great crazy!

While it is also inevitable whenever violence is being made to look cool, that comparisons to Tarantino will be drawn but here McDonagh still manages to give us an original spin to proceedings, thanks largely to how he has chosen to shoot the film, with the frequent cut always to the cinematic interpretation of Marty’s script often proving to be the most fun, especially when Billy gives his idea for an ending, which inturn gives us possibly one of the most random shootout’s ever put on screen, especially with Marty being shown trying to write the script in the midst of it, while Walken’s Hans emerges from a coffin like a vampire. However due to this shooting style it will no doubt confound the less open minded movie goer’s who would no doubt prefer a more straightforward approach to the story and essentially only furthering the films status as a cult movie in the making, while making me seriously reconsider McDonagh’s reputation as a director, this is one certainly worth hunting down.

F Is For Fulltime Killer

Title: Fulltime Killer
Director: Johnnie To, Ka-Fai Wai
Released: 2003
Staring: Andy Lau, Takashi Sorimachi, Simon Yam, Kelly Lin, Cherrie Ying, Suet Lam

Plot: O (Sorimachi) for many years has been the number one Assassin, living an isolated life and caring only for his work. However his life is soon thrown into turmoil by the appearance of the flamboyant Tok (Lau), who is keen to take O’s place as the number one assassin.



Review: After the watching the subtle “Election”, it’s hard to really imagine that the same director, could also have directed this film, which is essentially the polar opposite with Director To teaming up with Wai to create a very traditional Hong Kong style action movie, meaning that countless rounds are fired without a single reload taking place, while every attempt is being made to emphasise the action taking place, as bullet holes create huge crimson splatters and even kneecaps explode in one glorious bullet strewn ballet of violence, while also in many ways coming across as almost like an homage to Hollywood action movies, with the numerous nods it contains, including an extremely obvious one to “Point Break” (1991) during one of Tok’s showboating styled assassinations, yet at the same time it still retains the charm and style of an Hong Kong action film, which at the same time it bares so many of the trademarks of, especially the more overblown the action scenes become.

Complete opposites of each other the two assassins are each interesting to watch as they go about their chosen career, with O the unanimous king of killers going about his work with a cold disregard for human life, as especially highlighted during the opening sequence when he is forced to kill an old school friend, after they witness him carrying out a hit, which he calmly disregards any feelings of guilt, seeing it as just another aspect of his work, while only truly showing any emotion, when it comes to his ongoing obsession with his housekeeper Chin (Lin) whose friend was O’s previous housekeeper, whom he'd failed to save after she was caught up in a murder plot against O, somthing which continues to haunt him as he now lives in minimalist apartment across from what he potrays to be his real apartment, spending his evening spying on Chin as she carries out her housekeeping chores.
Meanwhile Tok on the other hand gets much more of a kick out his work, drawing inspiration for his hits from the action movies he adores, while also dropping constant references in the conversations he has, including comparing Chin to Emu from “Crying Freeman” (1988), which is honestly a pretty accurate description, seeing how she is the typical good girl attracted to the mysterious bad man, as Tok charms her while questionably hanging around the video store she works in wearing a variety of rubber president masks, yet for some unexplained reason this random seduction technique pays off, rather than her doing the more rationale and realistic thing of calling the cops on his wacky ass. Still Lau certainly seems to have fun playing a more theatrical character than he usually associated with playing, sporting a red leather jacket and a manical grin as he carries out his movie inspired hits, all while caring little for anything resembling subtlty.

Meanwhile on the side of the so called good guys we have the Interpol Agent Lee (Yam), who has become obsessed with capturing the two assassins, which only grows the more intense the rivalry between O and Tok becomes, yet the questionable shift in focus onto his character towards the end is slightly questionable, though Yam is still on great form here, for what is essentially a supporting role to add some sense of morality to proceedings and generally fill in the gaps to O and Tok’s personal histories, in particular highlighting an unusual weakness in Tok who suffers from epilepsy and something that To uses to great effect during several key sequences and certainly brings something original to the film, much like the action sequences which are all exciting and visually stunning to watch, which each one seemingly aiming to top the last as it builds to the climatic firework factory showdown.

While it might come off as all flash and little character development, it still makes for a fun time, with the only characterisation really proving filler for the next action scene, while characters are given enough depth to rise above being simple cut outs, while To avoids going into any real depth with any of his characters, preferring it would seem to focus more on the action and keeping the plot moving at a brisk pace, which might not sit with the more snobbish of movie goers and true the plot of assassin versus assassin and the woman that comes between them, has been seen numerous times before, but it still makes for a great companion piece to the other great films of John Woo and Ringo Lam, whose work this film rightfully deserve a place amongst.