Mish Mash 18 (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Rapid Fire, Legacy of Rage, The Silent Partner Ending)

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

I know I’m late to the party on this one like I was with Spider-Man: Homecoming but this is another really fun Spider-Man picture.  And just like Homecoming it feels almost more like a comedy accented with comic book action than the other way around.  It’s a damn funny movie in a lot of parts with silly dry humor that’s up my alley.

The animation style is striking and unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.  Sure it looks like comic book panels come to life but it also somehow seems more tangible and quasi photo realistic.  I don’t mean the crazy action or the exaggerated size of villain Kingpin but the textures and the lighting.  I like it better than whatever the hell Pixar and Dreamworks are doing.  And it’s hard seeing this story playing out nearly as successfully if they had done live action.  So that was a smart move.

Anyway, this piece is colorful, energetic, suspenseful, well designed, well voice acted and it’s miraculous how the intricate plot isn’t completely confusing.  This one’s a really good time.  I recommend it.

Rapid Fire

Real good picture starring Brandon Lee (Showdown in Little Tokyo) who’s just trying to live his life, go to art school, maybe pick up some chicks and definitely forget about his haunted past.  He was at Tiananmen Square when the Chinese government broke up the protesters and killed hundreds of them including his father.  But you know something’s gotta come along and fuck his shit up.

At an art exhibition/party a mobster (Nick Mancuso (Under Siege, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory)) murders one of the patrons (really a Chinese crime boss) and Brandon is the witness.  Now he’s on the run and can’t even trust some of the cops because they’re in the bad guy’s pocket.

Lee does such a great job in the lead.  He’s charismatic, troubled, pissed off, humorous and has an accessible down to Earth persona.  He doesn’t flaunt his martial arts skills or flex his muscles or pretend to be tougher than he actually is.  Like any reasonable person he’s freaked out that this is the horrible situation he’s in and uses high kicks and punches only when absolutely necessary.

With The Crow Lee proved he could get more serious, melancholy and intense if he wanted to but he could also give a real honest performance like he does here.  Few action stars can pull this off, most don’t even attempt it.

And yea, the action scenes are well done too.  There’s a close quarters two on one fight in a small cramped apartment, a large scale brawl and shootout in a restaurant and he zips around on a motorcycle in the aforementioned art space dodging henchmen.

This was directed by Dwight H. Little who did Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and Marked for fuckin’ Death.  He delivers a pretty dynamic film with more flourish than the two of his I just listed.  Apparently Lee originally wanted John Woo to direct so maybe that influenced Little to be a bit flashier than normal.  I dunno.

So Rapid Fire is a cool time.  I always enjoy going back to this one.

Oh and Powers Boothe (Sudden Death, Deadwood) kicks ass here as well.  Fuckin’ a.

Legacy of Rage

While we’re on Brandon Lee, you know his very short career comprised almost entirely of gems.  Yes it’s remarkable but more than that it showed he had a real nose for picking good projects.  This intuition paid off even from his feature debut, Legacy of Rage, an 80’s Hong Kong action piece that earned him major street cred.

Lee’s longtime buddy Michael (Michael Wong (Knock Off)) is a gangster who’s mob family is getting shook down by a dirty cop.  They rub out the cop and decide to use Lee as the scapegoat.  Michael also covets Lee’s fiancé so he sees this as a chance to get with her, a double win in his eyes.  While Lee’s in prison he figures out the truth so by the time he gets out he’s good and vengeful.

At first the title may seem unfitting but the story spans like over eight years and involves Lee’s unborn son and fiancé fleeing to Brazil and a whole stretch in the middle where he must survive prison life and a bunch more.  So as you can see the scope is legacy appropriate.  It’s amazing how they were able to fit all this in just under 90 mins.

Everything about this movie is great.  Lee is perfectly cast as the regular Joe struggling to make ends meet who suddenly has his life taken away from him, the plot is one for the ages with devastating betrayals and touching alliances and that signature Hong Kong action style with dudes flying through the air while blasting away with guns in both hands is fuckin’ awesome.  Plus you got cars flipping over and exploding and hard hitting hand to hand combat with more than a little blood splatter.  This shit gets pretty damn brutal but man it’s done so well.  I only wish almost all of the stunt and fight sequences weren’t crammed in at the end but the rest of the film makes up for the imbalance with good drama.

From Ronny Yu who started out making successful Chinese pictures across all genres and then had a very weird and interesting career in the US with shit like Bride of Chucky, Formula 51 and Freddy vs. Jason.  You guys gotta check this out.

The Silent Partner Ending

Ok, this is gonna be all spoilers because I wanna talk about the totally off the rails ending to The Silent Partner.

You’re still here?  Alright, so to catch you up mild mannered bank teller Miles Cullen (Elliott Gould (Capricorn One)) stole fifty grand from his drawer before bank robber Christopher Plummer (The Return of the Pink Panther) could.  Chris finds out what happened and has girlfriend Celine Lomez (Plague) pretend to fall for Miles so they can pinch the loot from him.  However Celine ends up betraying Chris by becoming Miles’ partner.  It’s a somewhat taut and very straightforward thriller.  Nothing too special going on so far.

The part I want to bring to your attention though is when Chris shows up to confront Celine and they tussle.  He tries to drown her in Miles’ aquarium but she fights back.  Eventually the tank breaks and Chris then slits Celine’s throat on the shattered glass wall.  Ugh, jeez.

First off, that’s a really great subversion of expectations.  You think it’s gonna be a drowning or maybe someone will get smashed over the head with a vase or something but nope, a throat cut.

Second, where it gets totally strange is Miles comes home to find Celine’s severed head in the aquarium!  Now nothing even remotely like this happens in the plot before or after.  It’s so gruesome and out of place.  And Chris either spent a helluva long time cutting that head off with the glass or he had to go get a knife to do it.  In any event this was deliberate and makes Chris so much more sadistic than was necessary.

After this event Chris and Miles agree to meet at the bank where they’re supposed to exchange the fifty grand.  The thing is Chris turns up in drag.  I mean I get that he wants to put on a disguise because they’re doing something illegal in a public place but he’s clearly just a dude in a wig.  There’s no makeup or sunglasses or anything else to obscure his face.  It’s like something you’d see in a satire.  And of course the deception doesn’t work and Chris gets gunned down.

The movie is only mediocre to begin with but it suddenly dissolves into a slimy goo that oozes through your fingers.  What the fuck happened?  These last couple of twists are damn weird and not in keeping with the tone of the rest of the picture.

I wouldn’t recommend this movie for several reasons but it’s certainly a curious case of a misreading of material.

Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000) and Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)

Kip Raines couldn’t deliver fifty stolen high end cars on time so now his big brother Randall “Memphis” Raines has to step up to fill the contract or the bad guy will kill them both.  Randall puts together a crew, scouts the cars and decides to attempt the incredible feat of boosting all fifty in one night.  But the cops know something’s up so he must contend with them as well.

Everything about this one is just fun.  The casting is awesome (Nicolas Cage (no mega acting but still good) (Zandalee), Angelina Jolie (Original Sin), Robert Duval (Falling Down), Giovanni Ribisi (Lost Highway), Will Patton (Entrapment), Delroy Lindo (Blood In, Blood Out), Timothy Olyphant (Live Free or Die Hard)), the lighting is crazy with bright almost neon hues, the plot is streamlined, there are lots of beautiful cars and the high speed chase finale is pretty neat where they drive through the streets of Long Beach, CA and traverse a busy shipyard.  They really do deliver on everything you’d wanna see from a movie like this.

It’s one of those pictures with a good natured group of thieves like the Fast & Furious gang.  They have morals and are ripping off rich assholes (we assume) and fancy car dealerships because they only steal the most expensive brands and rarest cars in existence.  It’s not right but we presume these cars are insured and/or the owner can easily afford to buy a replacement.  Hell, these people might even deserve it.  If that mindset isn’t in place then this film isn’t going to be enjoyable at all.

Anyway I still recommend it.  Be warned though, it’s pretty 2000s-y with the techno soundtrack, frosted hair and one particular scene involving terrible looking CGI.

The movie this was based on is another matter however.  And I hesitate to even call it a “movie”.  The original Gone in 60 Seconds was a passion project of mechanic/stunt man H.B. Halicki.  He wrote, produced, directed and starred in what was meant to be a showcase of his skills as a stunt driver.  The last forty mins (the entire second half of the picture) is dedicated to a monster car chase that goes all over southern California and Halicki smashes the shit out of the ’73 yellow Ford Mustang he zooms around in.  The chase goes on for so long, so many cop cars get involved and his car gets so beat up it becomes reminiscent of the epic Blues Brothers chase.

The large scope of the sequence becomes a double edged sword though.  Yea it’s impressive as hell with all the near misses, direct hits and nightmare of logistics that must’ve been involved.  Plus these cars are really going 80-100 mph and boy does it look dangerous.  But it’s so lengthy and repetitive that it gets boring.  There’s one particular stretch in the middle where Halicki is driving around in a dirt field for what feels like forever.

Aside from the car chase stuff there really isn’t anything else going on.  It’s a very cheap B movie with the entire budget going to the finale.  For what’s supposed to be the narrative Halicki uses this bizarre technique of putting dialogue from a scene over a montage of other unrelated footage.  Any scrap of info we’re supposed to pick up comes from these voiceovers but the mismatched visual is unnecessarily confusing and makes paying attention difficult. 

There’s also the usual shit of poorly recorded audio, out of focus shots, shots that are so dark you can’t make anything out and atrocious acting. 

On top of this the soundtrack and some sound effects couldn’t be used beyond the original VHS release due to rights issues.  So different more modern music was used for any version after that (the one I saw) creating another layer to the mess.

But the idea of stealing a load of pricey cars (forty eight here), the scene where they boost a car with drugs in it and a cop shows up to snoop around right at that moment, giving the cars women’s names and Eleanor being the last car they steal which is also used for the ending chase are all established here.  The merry band of thieves with a code is part of this version as well.  These guys don’t take any car that isn’t insured.  In fact when they discover they’ve mistakenly pinched one that’s uninsured they return it and look for another.

All the cars are stolen in just a few seconds though.  Much less than the advertised 60.  That could be a positive or a gyp depending on how you look at it.

So unless you’re extremely curious to check out the whole film I’d say just watch the forty min ending (you won’t be lost or have missed anything that great, I promise).  The remake is definitely the better of the two.  It takes the few tiny kernels that Halicki had and grows them into a real full blown movie.  And I almost forgot to mention it has a serious Tony Scott (The Fan, True Romance, The Hunger) vibe.  But former music video director Dominic Sena (Janet Jackson, Fleetwood Mac, Sting, Sheena Easton, Kalifornia, Swordfish, Season of the Witch) did the deed.  I bet if you weren’t sold on it before you are now.