Blown Away

Ryan Gaerity (Tommy Lee Jones (Rolling Thunder, Batman Forever)) busts out of prison in Ireland where he was being held as a mad bomber guy.  He makes his way to Boston where he discovers his old pal Liam McGivney, now called Jimmy Dove (Jeff Bridges (Starman, King Kong (1976))), is also living there and part of the Boston bomb squad (I honestly don’t know if Dove being part of the bomb squad is stupidly ironic or if it actually makes perfect sense).  As you would expect, Gaerity starts blowing away Dove’s team members and also goes after Dove’s family. 

You may notice a key thing missing in that plot description, motive.  There’s some background I left out which involves Dove being part of Gaerity’s crew a long time ago in Ireland and Dove messed up Gaerity’s plan to kill hundreds of people.  He only got to kill a handful (including his own sister), but the point is Gaerity got locked away because of Dove.  The thing I can’t get past is that Gaerity didn’t cook up a revenge plan while in jail and then put it into action once he broke out.  He had no idea about Dove being in Boston and his new family or any of that shit.  This is made explicit in the movie too where Gaerity is shocked to see Dove on TV as part of coverage on a bomb found at MIT (not one of Gaerity’s by the way, some other asshole).  So right off the bat this film’s premise is based off of a huge coincidence.  That’s really not a good starting point.

I mean what was Gaerity planning on doing if he hadn’t serendipitously come across Dove?  Was he gonna blow stuff up anyway or was he gonna hang back and take it easy?  The way they have it it’s like “oh shit Dove’s in Boston too?!  Well, I gotta kill everybody now”.

Jeez, look at that fuckin' Jesus shirt

And the story isn’t the only thing that’s underdeveloped.  Every character, except Dove, is flat as can be with ham-fisted traits that define their entire existence.  Dove’s wife (Suzy Amis (Firestorm, The Usual Suspects, also James Cameron’s wife, but not at the time)) is there so he can explain his background to somebody and so she can be an eventual target for Gaerity.  She’s an all round good person that we never learn anything about except that she plays the violin in an orchestra.  Dove’s step-daughter (Stephi Lineburg (Richie Rich)) is there so she can also get in the sights of Gaerity.  Once again, seems like an all around good little girl that we don’t know a damn thing about.  Anthony (Forest Whitaker (The Color of Money, Species)) is there so Dove can bump heads with a teammate and keep tempers hot.  He also fulfills the deus ex machina role at the end.  His whole thing is he’s a cocky bastard.  He brags about his “moves” when it comes to bomb disposal and likes to listen to jazz at full fucking volume in headphones.  And Gaerity is just evil, plain and simple.  We never learn why he has this urge to blow everything up so badly or get any insight into his politics, except that he wants to create a new country called chaos and a new government called anarchy (that’s actually in the movie by the way, I didn’t make that shit up).

Dove is the only character with any nuance.  He has a sordid background about being into Gaerity’s…uhh…craziness?  I don’t know, it isn’t explained.  He’s trying to forget his haunted past and focus on his new family.  But he also doesn’t want anyone to know about his Ireland days which adds some good tension so I’ll give the film that.

There’s plenty of bomb stuff in here for those of you that are into that kind of thing.  The filmmakers really play up the idea that a bomb could potentially be anywhere, in anything.  The problem is they choose some silly setups that don’t make sense if you’re purely trying to kill people and create havoc.  Like there’s one where this bomb kills a team member by ricocheting part of the thing off of steel plates in a fancy way.  I don’t even have to explain what’s wrong here, the movie does it for me: “…if somebody wanted to kill one of the squad he wouldn’t have to go through all that trouble…he’d just blow the shit out of him”.  And you could say that about every single scene involving a bomb in this picture.

I will admit that the filmmakers did remarkably stick to a bombs-only rule.  I think a gun is fired only three times and never at a human.  It would’ve been so easy to throw in a shootout or have any character whip out a gun to heighten and/or end a situation.  But they didn’t go that route so kudos, I guess.

And I just want to mention the showdown at the end on the abandoned ocean liner.  It’s an ok final fight but the exploding ship climax looks fucking incredible.  It looks like they did it full scale too with a giant mock up that they completely obliterated in a massive fireball.  The explosion goes full goddamn frame with a bunch of the angles they used and is quite a sight.  This and the bomb squad truck explosion in the middle of the movie are really impressive.  The special effects team did a fantastic job creating some memorable blasts. 

Also, this piece is really into Boston.  There are several skyline shots, MIT, Irish shit everywhere, TWO Red Sox games and what I can only assume is the Boston Pops orchestra playing at the Hatch Shell.  What’s missing is the famous accent.  Bridges puts it on a handful of times but that’s about it.  No one else even tries which is kinda weird since this is otherwise such a blowjob to the city.

But to wrap this up, man, this movie is way dumber than I remembered and that’s unfortunate because Jeff Bridges and Tommy Lee Jones look like they’re pretty into it.  Jones especially with one of the most cartoonish Irish accents I’ve ever heard (but because it’s so exaggerated I actually kinda like it).  Not even director Stephen Hopkins, who had a run of damn fun movies up until this point (Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, Predator 2, Judgment Night), could mold this into something really exciting.  It just didn’t blow me away (oh Christ, sorry).

One last thing, it’s interesting that Jeff Bridges made another bomb-centric movie with Arlington Road just five years later.  From what I remember that didn’t blow me away either (alright I promise that’s the last time) but I wanna say it’s better than this.         

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Lloyd Bridges is...Mad Max

This poster is better than the film