Crime Pays… well sort of ...

Ben Affleck tackles the tough streets of Boston
by
Morgan P Salvo



The Town is one of those movies that you watch the entire time just wishing it was better. It’s not bad and some parts are pretty good, but there is either something amiss or else too much stuff crammed into each prolonged scene. The flick comes off as a decent TV show with swearing.
A den of thieves are committing bank robberies set in Charlestown, Massachusetts, a one square mile neighborhood in Boston that is reportedly responsible for more bank and armored car robberies than anywhere else in America. Making up the foursome of criminals are Doug (Ben Affleck) the brains behind the muscle, Jem (Jeremy Renner), the psychotic loose cannon, the driver Gloansy (Slaine), and Desmond (Owen Burke) the electrician. All adept and professional, they have been getting away with this kind of stuff for a long time. Things go wrong when Jem takes bank manager Claire (Rebecca Hall) hostage. In order to make sure she didn't see anything, Doug finds a way to ingratiate himself into her life post-robbery, leading to a strong attraction and romance. The FBI are there to complicate matters, led by determined agents Frawley (Mad Men’s Jon Hamm) and Ciampa (Titus Welliver seen in Lost/Deadwood /Gone Baby Gone).

The Town starts in instant robbery mode and follows formula with another in the middle and a Fenway Park finale shoot out at the end. The robbers use ingenious and scary masks, from heavy metal skulls with dreads to Nixon-faced nuns. I admit stuff does look cool here. Boston is shown in a different light, focusing on the claustrophobic streets of Charlestown and a very believable bumper car-type chase scene through alleys. But let’s not get fooled: this is a love story amidst the dudes emoting tough talk, car chases and the bullets flying. When we get the gist of where this flick is going it becomes unrequited love 101 and way too much storytelling for back history that’s supposed to invoke sympathy for the characters.
Slow paced and drawn out, this movie suffered from its own seriousness, needing more momentum, which might have been achieved by showing us less. Somewhat stale and redundant, everyone in The Town has a “tell all” monologue that just seems old hat and forced. Filmmakers who shine always know that their audiences are smart and treat them that way. I found myself checking out the inconsistencies of Affleck’s five o’ clock shadow turning to 10 o’ clock shadow from scene to scene.
To his credit, Affleck proved highly honed directional skills with Gone Baby Gone but kept himself out of in front of the camera. Ben has been in some lame movies, giving us some supremely bad performances. But rest assured this is not the acting ilk of Gigli or Daredevil but the return to Good Will Hunting territory. Affleck actually does a slow burn and explosions of rage with ease and force. Affleck’s Boston’s roots and his master of the Boston dialect dial him right in with this movie. Chris Cooper as Doug’s incarcerated Dad mesmerizes in his three minute scene. Renner delivers unbridled acting chops here. Hot on the heels of The Hurt Locker, every scene he has brings the tension up a notch. Renner has been giving us complex renderings of characters ever since his intricate portrayal of a serial killer in the vastly overlooked movie Dahmer. And here the mercurial actor doesn’t disappoint. Character actor Welliver is always dependable with his “don’t-mess-with-me” demeanor and Hamm is good but merely sufficient. Pete Postlethwaite flops down a bit part as a florist/gangster while Hall does fine in the lead female role with what little she’s given script–wise.
Under the guise of gritty and claustrophobic, Affleck fine tunes his directorial chops. It’s hard not to draw comparisons to Clint Eastwood here. Starring, directing and being in virtually every scene has its plusses and minuses. As the driving force behind a heist movie with real people’s problems, Affleck takes a page from Eastwood’s book coming through with the arc of a three act movie, drawn out emotions and dialogue, but delivering where it counts. The Town is a little schmaltzy, too formulaic and things get sewn up a little too easily. Ben’s no Clint, but he’s working on it.

The Town
Starring Ben Affleck, Jeremy Renner, Rebecca Hall, Jon Hamm
Directed By Ben Affleck












Rated R
2 ½ stars

After Burn

3-D action punches through staggering dullness
by
Morgan P Salvo

Be Warned: Resident Evil: Afterlife really isn’t a movie it’s a great big huge video game that you can only watch.Shot in Real-D, not the horrible post-shooting conversion process 3-D, these state-of-the-art effects are the Avatar-in-yer-face kind and are a welcome dose of visual improvement to the fourth installment of this franchise.
Milla Jovovich returns as Alice, the genetically altered superwoman, to do battle in the T-Virus apocalypse land, waging war on the Umbrella Corp. Alice goes to Alaska to find an elusive zombie-free paradise known as Arcadia, and then to a prison-turned-fortress where she plots to escape to safety.

Writer of all three and now director of two Resident Evils, Paul W.S. Anderson (AVP/ Death Race) returns to the feel of his original with a blaring soundtrack, over the top special effects and high-end overblown Matrix-style stunts. The high tech action just keeps getting better, successfully outdoing its predecessors.

Though technology has come a long way, the same can’t be said for inventive storylines or acting. Jovovich is on cruise control here failing to bring any kind of new life to her character. At one point she resembles Amelia Earhart with guns. The promising supporting cast is even worse, muttering extremely juvenile by-the-numbers dialogue.The grinding industrial rock score provided by “tomandandy” forces techno beats and crunching guitars into every action scene.
3-D Highlights included the bullets whizzing through zombies’ splattering heads into your lap and the monstrous hooded-executioner-butcher-dude chucking a combo anvil/axe at your face. In addition there are mutant zombie split-dogs, zombies with regurgitating mouth talons and exquisite head loppings. There’s also burrowing zombies; a first. !! There’s an ingenious nod to Peckinpah’s Pat Garret Billy the Kid where Alice shoots zombies with a shot gun loaded with quarters (bigger barrels I suppose)
Unnecessary was the over use of freeze-frame, stop action and the transition from slow to kinetic super fast motion amidst all the hyper reality. Ludicrous was that, in an entire city of zombies to shoot the brains out of, we’re stuck with mindless adventure saga jibber jabber. But most annoying was the evil villain: a sun glasses-wearing evil clone of Guy Pierce and Val Kilmer.
But amongst all the head-banging entertainment, right when Resident Evil Afterlife starts to get good and some major shit is about to hit the fan, it blacks out to credits, making way for the next installment. They just don’t make whole movies anymore. It’s all about the sequel. Even though this Resident Evil tries real hard to valiantly rise above its dullness, the 3-D action only serves to make it humorously watchable but then pulls the rug out, leaving you with a 3-D hangover and a bad taste in your mouth.

Resident Evil: Afterlife
Starring Milla Jovovich, Ali Lauter, Kim Coates, Boris Kodjoe
Rated R
2 stars

Hackin’ and Hewin’

Machete’s riotous good fun doesn’t skimp on the exploitation
 By Morgan P Salvo

Machete’s origin stems from a pseudo movie trailer (and one of the highlights) in the B-movie homage Grindhouse, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantinos’ double bill. Machete is a fine gory, pulpy action thriller about a hitman/ex-cop professional slasher seeking revenge on very bad people. Not only do things start off with an immediate bang and an El Mariachi feel, within the first five minutes Machete delivers ample badass dudes with big knives, guns, sluts and gore…this is my kind of flick.This revenge film’s roots go back to Rodriguez’s first casting of Danny Trejo, a knife chucking dude in the 1995 film Desperado. Trejo as Machete carries the film in a Charles Bronson/Charles Bukowski kind of swagger. If you IMDB Trejo you’ll see a scary-looking ex-con from San Quentin and veteran actor with over 200 movies under his belt. Trejo’s badass-ness is funny yet the movie, co-directed by Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis (longtime Rodriguez editor), never treats him like a joke. Machete trudges through all the violence gore, corruption that’s ladled on him in heaping doses. Trejo has about 10 lines but does a bang up job just being ultra cool, extra tough and super hip.

Machete manages to weave in and out of all plot loopholes and stick to the corrupt avenging saga incorporating a melting pot of immigration, political corrupt power, revolution, unbalanced media, blackmail, propaganda and just plain heroic adventure with bad one-liners. Rodriguez & Co rip through Mexican culture with pride sufficiently supporting the violence by its humorous and creative edge. Yes, guys with big weapons and chicks in hot outfits and high heels are gratuitous and over-the-top, but the film’s self-awareness has respect for its 70’s exploitation. Every single one of Machete’s sexual dalliances is enhanced by 70’s porn-sexploitation-disco-wah-wah music. Lines like, “We didn’t cross the border; the border crossed us” and “Machete don’t text” are destined to be quoted classics. The religious imagery is hilarious throughout and of special note is a scene with the best use of a splattering intestine in a movie ever.

The cavalcade of stars propels this flick. There are no real cameos: everyone has abundant screen time to establish their characters. Steven Segal’s Torrez is totally evil, Jeff Fahey’s Booth a two faced bungling political slime, and Cheech Marin’s Padre, a cursing gun-wielding priest. The redneck vermin include Robert De Niro’s Senator McLaughlin, a combination of George W. Bush and Dukes of Hazzard’s Sherriff Roscoe, and Don Johnson’s Sherriff Stillman, a deeply prejudiced cowboy with grey Elvis sideburns. Michelle Rodriguez’s Shé, a smokin’ hot revolutionary legend disguised as a taco vendor. Jessica Alba’s Sartana an INS agent with all the outfits from Modesty Blassie, and last but not least Lindsey Lohan as April, a damsel in distress who finds salvation in a nun’s habit.
Everyone’s having fun here.

Seagal shows up with samurai sword and Nehru jacket fatter and with more hair than he had in the 90’s. Art imitates life when Lohan is discovered in a meth lab while wallowing in her own puke. The shameless age-defying pairing of Alba and Trejo is a huge joke but watching him make out shirtless with an equally topless Lohan and her mother (Alicia Rachel Merek) in a swimming pool is downright laugh out loud funny (and wrong).
Alba is too cutesy for her role and blows it continuing to tease with naked scenes exposing only her side breast.
Tito and Tarantula came up with a great soundtrack. But Machete’s lackluster ending was all buildup and fizzled out like the time to finish it had expired. The climactic face-off between gardeners, dishwashers and day laborers and their squadron of colorful tricked out chopped low-riding Mexican machines devolved too quickly. The Gatling gun mounted on a motorcycle handlebars explosion was merely lifted from the original trailer. The ending comes off like a disjointed three ring circus, piling up one idea after another, barely sewing it all together cohesively instead of one grandiose culmination. It seems to only touch the surface of everything Machete had been leading up to. This is strange considering Rodriguez’s comic book forte. Maybe that’s the curse of dual directing.
Knowing full well that we’ve “Pissed off the wrong Mexican” the ending credits tell us to watch for Machete Kills, the next installment, and hopefully they aren’t just teasing.
Machete
Starring Danny Trejo, Michelle Rodriguez, Jeff Fahey, Jessica Alba, Steven Seagal, Don Johnson, Robert De Niro
Directed by Robert Rodriguez, Ethan Maniquis

Paranormal Captivity

This Linda Blair Witch Project is exciting and fresh at first,
then drops the ball
By Morgan P Salvo



The Last Exorcism is a pain in the ass. A lot of movies tick me off but this one takes the cake. My observation is that movies with either “Exorcism” or “Haunting” in the title have a high rate of sucking. But with this flick I thought I’d found something completely different. I was once again duped and mistaken. The Last Exorcism had me watching and very entertained with which direction it was headed but in the last ten minutes defeated its entire purpose with an implausible absolutely utterly STUPID ending. The super creepy shocking previews are beyond misleading. I mean, I counted five bone cracks in the previews and there was merely one in this flick (not that more would have redeemed it).
The plot involves Preacher Cotton Marcus, a scam artist preacher/exorcist who, after a crisis of faith, makes it his mission to debunk the myth of exorcism as merely psychological phenomenon and/or scam. A fast talking charismatic guy, he has the best two minute summation of the existence of demons ever. Following in the overdone hand-held pseudo documentary camera style of Cloverfield, Quarantine, and Blair Witch, the representative “found” footage piece together all the zooms and cuts, telling a compelling story.
With a well-chosen cast, decent dialogue and ambivalent characters, The Last Exorcism offers a welcome twist to the demonic-possession movie. All the acting was superb and believable while the tension and dread the characters felt was palpable. It even has a creepy, stringed soundtrack. For the longest time it’s quite riveting. A well-paced approach to exposing the exorcism myth and medical/physiological ramifications, the methodical tempo generates enough doubt as to what is really happening. The suspense is ideological: is this documentary practicality or horror absurdity? Then with the finish line in sight there’s a complete meltdown by the writers in the last 10 minutes. The filmmakers botch the ending so badly it makes me think that no one is capable of writing a decent movie in this genre anymore. This is sad because up till then I was thoroughly enjoying where this movie’s uninterrupted excellence was taking me.
But the inept and totally lazy Devil’s Rain/Brotherhood of Satan/Race with the Devil ending is so out of left field, ridiculously unnecessary, cheap and idiotic it defies any further discussion. The filmmakers of The Last Exorcism should be ashamed of themselves. This was a brilliant little masterpiece that opted for such a cop-out ending that ruined everything it had so gallantly strived for.

The Last Exorcism
Starring Patrick Fabian, Ashley Bell, Iris Bahr, Louis Herthum, Caleb Landry Jones
Directed by: Daniel Stamm
 2 stars

Is it Soup yet?

People-chomping fish prove intentionally hilarious in Piranha 3-D’s high camp fun
By
Morgan P Salvo


Piranha 3-D is not necessarily a good movie but it’s one of the best movies I’ve seen all year. The fact that it doesn’t skimp on the blood, gore, carnage, splatter, along with bouncing bikini-clad, well-endowed women unafraid to take off their tops and swim naked might just give it three stars right there. Throw in the demonic flesh-ripping meat chewing little sea-devils and you have a CGI masterpiece of underwater hideousness.
Starting off with a cameo of Richard Dreyfuss looking like Hemmingway’s “Old Man in the Sea” and parodying Jaws to the hilt, Piranha is a patent set up for 70’s horror extravagance. Its Spring break at Victoria Lake and prehistoric piranhas are released from an underwater cave by an earthquake, ready to wreak havoc on the drunken half-naked partiers. The sub plot of a “Wild Wild Girls” video shoot is where it gets the most comically absurd. The bumping and grinding to bad disco/beat/house music is pretty hilarious, but nothing will prepare you for the beach front piranha attack melee and ensuing blood drenched slaughter of the party animals. I haven’t laughed this hard in years.

The huge plot loopholes and ridiculous pedestrian dialogue can be forgiven as Director Alexandre Aja (High Tension, Hills Have Eyes) nods to all things held sacred in 70’s schlock horror, even including a homage to Lucio Fulci’s Zombie and its splattery effects. The original Piranha, directed by Joe Dante and written by John Sayles, pulled off intended high camp with cheesy glory. Here Piranha 3D’s amped to the max and all the cheese left intact. Elizabeth Shue plants tongue firmly in cheek to play the stern sheriff/mom, Adam Scott is the weirdly subdued scientist, Christopher Lloyd psychotically mumbles through the fish authority-mad-scientist role, Eli Roth provides yet another stupid cameo and gruff-yet-fair Ving Rhames goes turbo, killing the demon fish with an outboard motorboat engine.

This movie is drive-in classic personified: grisly flesh hanging off limbs, swimming piranha eye lens, tequila body shots and even an underwater nude mermaid porn ballet. The 3-D excels underwater but not in the long drawn out plot babbling scenes. The Jaws-like paranoia never reaches the nail biting realm but when these herds of fish-with-teeth start hauling-ass it’s a blood spurting frenzy payday. The gore fills the screen with such panoramic blood letting I wanted to watch this movie again immediately to see what was going on in the wide shots.
Yep, P3-D is a special trashy movie with unrelenting, heinous gore and splatter, and an overabundance of gratuitous nudity. My only complaint was that at 90 minutes it was way too short.

Piranha 3-D
Starring Elizabeth Shue, Adam Scott, Jerry O’Connell, Ving Rhames
Directed by Alexandre Aja

 4 stars