Death Wish 4: The Crackdown

Ok, so we’re back in LA (again) and Paul Kersey (Charlie Bronson (The Great Escape)) has settled into his architect job.  He isn’t going out at night anymore to do his vigilante thang.  Tragedy strikes once more though when the teenage daughter of the woman he’s dating overdoses on coke which puts him on a path to find and kill the dealer.  After that we completely switch gears to a Yojimbo type plot with some mysterious rich dude hiring Kersey to take out the two largest drug gangs in town.  Of course he accepts to feed his passion for destroying human life.

The biggest issue with this chapter is it’s sloppy as fuck.  It ranges from small things like the coke having a tan color making you think it’s heroin to larger head scratchers like the finale strangely taking place in a roller rink and then they abandon that idea mid scene to finish the fight outside in front of a high-rise office building.

But what really gets to me is there’s an absurdly annoying amount of wasted time.  Like the first twenty minutes of the movie that deals with the loss of a loved one essentially has nothing to do with the playing-drug-gangs-against-each-other plot we eventually settle on.  But also Kersey goes around bugging the bad guys’ phones and it takes forever for him to get any useful info out of it.  Plus he ends up killing one fella immediately after placing the bug rendering half the scene immaterial.  And his reporter girlfriend starts to do research on a piece about drugs but there’s no payoff.  We never come back to it after two scenes.  And on and on.

Apparently there were daily rewrites of the script and it shows.  The whole thing is pretty incoherent and feels the least like a Death Wish entry.  With Kersey being recruited and bankrolled to destroy organized crime it’s basically a cop movie except these guys aren’t cops.

That isn’t to say they don’t cram in the staples of the series.  Corrupt cops make an appearance, there’s an attempted rape scene, Kersey blows a guy up with a grenade launcher (I’m hoping this one in particular carries over into Part 5) and Danny Trejo (Desperado) plays a bad guy in one of his first roles.  You know I gotta hand it to them, for being a bullshit installment they sure hit the main points.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the sweet Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 cardboard cutout we’re treated to when Kersey pays a bad guy a visit in a video store.  Cannon made that picture as well as the first three Death Wish sequels.  So nice to see that masterpiece getting some love mugging for the camera in the background.

Overall this is pretty forgettable.  If anything it starts to make you feel sorta bad for Paul Kersey because the man attracts misery at every turn.  Whoever comes in contact with him gets their existence shattered.  Does he think the events of his life are simply a long run of bad luck or is he screaming on the inside in agony?  How much goddamn calamity can one person take?

Definitely the worst sequel yet.

Death Wish 3

Paul Kersey (Charlie Bronson (The Mechanic)) returns home to NYC to visit a friend but arrives just as he’s dying.  A gang of punks beat him for kicks and left him for dead.  When the cops show up they think Kersey is the culprit and arrest him.  The police chief (Ed Lautner (Cujo)) recognizes him though from eleven years prior (or whatever number they use, I haven’t mentioned this yet but there’s zero consistency with any character’s recollection of how long ago Kersey’s original crime spree was).  He makes a deal with Kersey that he’ll let him go if he cleans up the streets.

Once again the fucking cops look the other way because they basically agree with Kersey’s measures.  I don’t know what it is with this universe and corrupt police.  A key difference this time is they’re onto him from the start making the concept go down easier.  It’s better than magically waving your hand at the end and saying “ok we’re gonna let you walk on who knows how many homicides we haven’t really firmed up the final tally yet but listen pal, you better not do that again”.

The whole movie’s more fun than the previous two.  From the ridiculous Escape from New York type premise to the mostly omitted rape scene, it’s lighter all around.  Kersey acts as protector of the neighborhood and given permission to do so which makes his actions feel more legit.  The filmmakers do a good job of acquainting you with some of the people who live in the area and how horribly they’re treated by the thugs who have the run of the place giving you a reason to side with Kersey and the police chief.

And the city truly is a shithole.  There’s rubble where buildings and sidewalks should be, trash and graffiti everywhere, attacks on citizens occurring constantly, things are far worse than they were in ’74.  Now NYC was actually like a really dangerous place in the 70’s and 80’s but the crime here still seems on a cartoonish level.  Again, this exaggeration works in the film’s favor though giving you a reason to get in Kersey’s corner.

They take a lot of leeway with the action too adding more variety than ever before.  Instead of Kersey only using a handgun he sets booby traps like rigging a wooden board to spring up and smack someone in the face if they crawl through the window.  He also throws a guy off a roof, fires a giant WWII era machine gun and uses a rocket launcher!  They definitely rack up the highest body count yet.

Part 3 continues the tradition of casting a future star as a gang member and in this film it’s Alex Winter (Bill from the Bill & Teds) in his first role.  He’s not quite as vicious as Jeff Goldblum or Laurence Fishburne were but he still participates in killing an innocent man and jumps on the hood of some poor lady’s car terrorizing her.

Jimmy Page’s score is back and a lot of it sounds recycled from Part II.  For whatever reason the roaring guitar (or synth?) slides work better here.  I think it’s the way they edited it plus the new music they added is nicer too.

If you think about it Paul Kersey has some of the worst luck in the world.  He keeps finding himself the victim of heinous crimes involving rape and murder.  He’s still an asshole though because he makes insane decisions like stalking the streets at night blowing away anyone he thinks deserves to die.

At least this one isn’t totally the same picture as the original like the previous sequel is.  It goes off the rails for sure but in a good way.  It’s embellished to the point where we can have fun with the concept of a vigilante taking bad dudes out.  I mean Kersey’s being blackmailed so you can justify all this shit in your mind if you want to.  But hey, for all we know he would’ve taken the loss of his friend really well and not rediscover his taste for blood.  Maybe.  Nah, he definitely would’ve killed a whole bunch of people anyway.

Death Wish II

*There’s gonna be some spoilers for Death Wish I

In the immortal words of A-number-one badass John McClane: how can the same shit happen to the same guy twice?  After getting away scot-free on committing multiple homicides Paul Kersey (Charlie Bronson (Mr. Majestyk)) moves out to LA and is still working as an architect.  He transferred his daughter (Robin Sherwood (Blow Out)) too so they can be together.  She’s never gotten over the incident in NYC and remains silent and detached from the world.  But goddammit, some muggers randomly pick Kersey out of the clear blue to fuck with.  What are the odds?

If you can believe it the assault on Kersey’s housekeeper (Silvana Gallardo (Days of Our Lives)) and daughter is actually worse than what Jeff Goldblum and crew did in the original.  Not only do the home invaders gang rape and beat the housekeeper but they end up killing her too.  Then they kidnap the daughter, rape her and she ends up throwing herself out of a window and getting impaled by the metal fence below.  Jesus.

Where this picture departs from its predecessor is instead of taking his fury out on random criminals Kersey decides to track down the specific people who destroyed his family.  He leads a double life at night by renting a shitty room in a sleazy part of town and dressing down to blend in with his surroundings.  He doesn’t have any info to go on besides his memory of their faces but manages to find his targets in a matter of days simply by walking the streets.  However, there’s some collateral damage as he kills a bunch of dudes not on his list because they stand in the way of completing his mission.

Amazingly there’s some fallout from the cops letting Kersey go in NYC.  When the New York police get wind of vigilante activity that sounds similar to what they experienced they send the detective who was on the case out to check in on Kersey.  It’s only through tons of incredible luck (sorta too complicated to explain here) that the impending shitstorm doesn’t come crashing down on Kersey’s head.  Still, I’ll give credit for following through on this lose end.

Another callback from the first picture to let you know it’s the same universe is the amount of unexpected help Kersey gets.  The everyday folks that happen to cross paths with the sonuvabitch when he’s working think of him as a hero.  Witnesses to his crimes refuse to cooperate with the cops because they want him to continue.  Again, it’s ridiculous luck that so many people are willing to look the other way for this guy.

And with the inclusion of the east coast police we can tick off corrupt cops on the Death Wish essentials checklist.  That’s not to say the LA boys are entirely off the hook.  They’re total dicks to any victim who gets shot, innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire and genuine criminals.  They lean on them hard for info while they’re bleeding and in pain and refuse them medical care.  I get that they’re passionate and pissed off but that’s not cool.

Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix) picks up the series trend of showcasing a young actor in an early role as a gang member.  When he plays a bad guy he hams it up and looks like he’s having a good time.  In this and King of New York he has this undeniable swagger of “I’m the baddest, I’m the smoothest, what the fuck you gonna do about it?”

Ultimately this film is more satisfying than the original.  It follows a more typical revenge story outline with the protagonist taking down the particular people who smashed his life to bits.  There’s a clear arc and a better build up and release.  Plus the deaths hit pretty hard too with an amped up gunshot sound and violent convulsing of the victims.  These are absolutely horrible people that you want to see get annihilated.

With that said it’s also a dumber movie.  I mean Kersey goes to get ice cream and out of nowhere winds up in an alley knife fight with some guy.  What the fuck is happening?  How did we get here?  And in another scene he impersonates a doctor to break into a hospital so he can attack one of the rapists.  He’s using disguises now?  He made a fake ID badge and everything?  Wow.

Comparable to how the ending of the original kind of almost definitely ruins the movie they pull some shit here as well.  Now that Kersey has started killing again he can’t stop.  These five assholes who raped and slaughtered his housekeeper and daughter were just the beginning.  He needs to feed his bloodlust by continuing to roam the streets at night and murdering others he deems not worthy to live anymore.  Are you fucking kidding me Paul Kersey?  STOP DOING THAT!

Oh and the Jimmy Page score of bellowing, wallowing, effects heavy guitar and clicking glass bottles is terrible.

Death Wish

Death Wish is a conflicting movie for me.  I sorta like it overall but I have serious issues with Paul Kersey, how vigilantism is portrayed and the very tidy ending.

First things first though, that title is one of the best ever in cinema history.  It evokes so much mystery.  Who has a death wish?  Why?  What happened to get to this point?  However, I contend Kersey doesn’t really have a death wish.  He’s bereft but not to the point where he doesn’t care if he lives or dies.  If that’s not the case the filmmakers should’ve been more overtly explicit.  Maybe he was more depressed and on the edge in the book this was based on.

With that out of the way let’s dive into the man himself.  Kersey suffers tremendous hardship when his wife and daughter are beaten and raped.  His wife eventually dies from her injuries while his daughter breaks from reality remaining in a catatonic state.  The cops have virtually nothing to go on so finding the perps is next to impossible.  Kersey’s conclusion is if the cops won’t do their job he’ll do it for them.  So with immense pain in his back pocket Kersey turns rogue and dishes out his own brand of justice to any mugger he comes across.  He’s confused, blinded by rage and naturally thinks he’s doing the right thing.  The world isn’t safe so he’ll make it safe one dead body at a time.  A co-worker in the beginning of the film calls him a bleeding heart liberal and we find out he was a conscientious objector during the Korean War which is setup to make his turn towards violence seem all the more disturbing.  The agonizing evolution this character goes through is fascinating and terrifying.

If this series wasn’t inextricably linked to Charlie Bronson (Hard Times) you might think it would be hard for him to pull off being such a mild mannered person who gets pushed into berserker mode because he was known for playing tough as nails characters.  He definitely has that strong stoic presence here but he exudes a softness that I don’t think I’ve seen from him in some of his other films.  He’s believable as someone who initially wouldn’t hurt a fly but then a switch is flipped in him to where he views human life as something less than precious.

You could say Bronson is emotionless for most of the run except for a couple of scenes and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree.  I like his performance though because it reminds me of Steven Segal’s cool under pressure poker face.  He has little dialogue but he makes it count when he has to.  Underplaying the character like this makes him more enigmatic in a good way in my opinion.  We don’t really know what he’s thinking so you can interpret his actions for yourself leading to endless debate.

It’s a marvel how efficient the storytelling and editing is.  The longest scene probably only lasts about two minutes.  For a movie with such a simple plot, but complicated protagonist, it’s smart filmmaking.  I appreciate that they keep shit rolling and tell as much as they can through the visuals.  Like when Kersey paints his apartment a new color to establish he’s started a new part of his life or when he looks through his recent vacation pictures that show his dead wife smiling on the beach it’s the tipping point when his emotions boil over.

Paul Kersey is sort of what a real life superhero would be like.  No ridiculous costume, no fancy gadgets, no network of helpers, just a guy with a gun weeding out crime on his beat.  He’s like Batman if you stripped away all the trappings.  They’re both wealthy white dudes who appear amiable and gentle during the day but at night they say “fuck the law” and write their own justice.  Of course the key difference is Batman either turns the criminals over to the cops or intimidates the shit out of them so they’ll think twice before committing any nefarious activity.  Kersey straight up massacres them.

Besides being an iconic role for Charlie Bronson this movie is also famous for featuring a young Jeff Goldblum (Nine Months) in his first feature (that’ll be a recurring theme with the sequels).  He plays one of the home invaders who calls Mrs. Kersey the c-word and rapes her daughter.  Interesting debut.  Additionally, Christopher Guest (Best in Show) has one brief scene towards the end as a rookie cop who actually has a pivotal role in the wrap up.

Before we get to more serious matters I want to mention Herbie Hancock’s really cool score.  It’s a great mix of jazz and classical that stirs up the energy in some scenes and remains beautifully subdued in others.  It’s definitely one of the strongest elements of the picture.

Ok, things get dicey when you start to dig into the racial and class aspects of the movie.  Kersey is a rich white guy going around killing people because his wife and daughter were beaten and raped and he feels it’s his duty to rid the world of the type of low level scum that violated his family.  Nothing gives him the right to do this but his actions are condoned when (spoilers) the cops let him fucking walk.  That’s right, they let this asshole go! 

Bronson said he doesn’t think the film promotes taking the law into your own hands but that seems kinda crazy to me considering Kersey was successful in his mission of slaying as many thieves as possible and the cops decide to look the other way.  It’s sorta clear the movie’s saying vigilantism works or at least isn’t that bad.  And even if you’re caught the most you’ll get is a slap on the wrist.  I don’t think the police would’ve been so gracious towards someone else with darker skin.  Being rich and white gives you a lot of leeway.

It’s also fucked up that aside from one cop black folks are exclusively portrayed as crooks.  For instance, while Kersey usually uses himself as bait to lure out attackers there’s one time that he flashes a wallet full of cash in front of two black dudes in a restaurant.  He knows they won’t be able to resist.  Would these guys have committed a crime if Kersey hadn’t come along?  We’ll never know.

This is a tough one.  I mean on a technical level it’s a pretty well made movie.  But I certainly feel like I shouldn’t like it because in terms of the story and the character of Paul Kersey it’s problematic as fuck.  A rich white guy gunning down muggers in the street and essentially getting endorsed by the police in the end is a pretty big middle finger to, well, everyone but especially anyone who isn’t rich and white.

Now, Kersey does wait for someone to actually attempt to rob him before he pulls the trigger.  We never see him preemptively blow someone away.  That still doesn’t give him the right to end people’s lives though.  He seeks out trouble by setting traps which doesn’t feel fair.  I wish the film was a bit more nuanced and there were consequences to Kersey’s actions.  It makes you think about how vigilantism is done in movies and why we’re ok with it when it’s a superhero but it’s messed up when Kersey’s on the prowl.  I think it’s safe to say this is how NOT to do vigilantism.

It’s the fact that the cops let him go that I have the biggest issue with.  This decision robs the film of being a more legitimately challenging picture.

I love the way this poster looks.  The awkward firing over the shoulder pose,
the leaf-less stark trees, the eerie cold feel of the rust, white and black coloring. 
It's more like something out of a horror movie.  Just magnificent.

Prime Cut

Let’s take a walk on the wilder side of 70’s action thrillers.  And that’s mainly due to the story involving young women trapped in white slavery who are harvested for meat.  I’ll let that sink in for a min.

Mary Ann (Gene Hackman (Narrow Margin)) runs this operation out of his legit meat plant (where he apparently also manufactures dope) on the farmlands outside Kansas City.  He stiffed the Chicago Irish mob for half a mill which by itself is a big no no.  But then on top of that he kills some low level goons who try to collect even turning one poor bastard into sausage.  Yuck!  I’d say the message he’s sending is loud and clear.  So now it’s up to enforcer Nick (Lee Marvin (Emperor of the North)) to set this asshole straight and get the money.

The whole atmosphere of this movie is strange.  The concept of gangsters butting heads is as old as time but the added angle of human meat production definitely makes things unsettling.  It’s almost like we took a wrong turn and somehow wound up in a very peculiar corner of the Texas Chainsaw universe where they do things a little different.

We’re introduced to the meat plant first in the opening credits that takes you through the whole process, from cattle off the truck to packaging preformed hamburger patties.  They make sure to let you know this isn’t your ordinary factory by quickly flashing a human mixed in with the other carcasses going off to the grinder.  I could see this part alone making some folks feel a touch squeamish.

Later on we meet Mary Ann and his boys during what seems like either an auction or a dinner party (or both).  They’re in a barn full of guests with a banquet laid out and all these streamers and there are girls locked in enclosures laying on bales of hay naked all drugged up to the point where they look dead.  People gawk at them like they’re livestock.  Maybe they’re bidding on them or maybe Mary Ann is showing off his inventory but either way the sight is absolutely fucked up.

Hackman plays such an amazing asshole too where he smiles almost constantly while insulting the shit out of everyone.  I do kinda love that we’re introduced to him while he’s shoveling an enormous plate of nasty greasy brown meat into his mouth.  He’s basically arrogance incarnate with no intention of stopping his operation or handing over a penny to Nick.

Mary Ann’s brother, Weenie (Gregory Walcott (The Sugarland Express)), is another piece of crap that Nick has to deal with.  He runs the plant, is always grimy, smirks at everything and is constantly eating some piece of meat, usually hot dogs (hence his name).  He’s portrayed as a dummy for sure being the muscle of the outfit.  And there’s a part where we’re led to think he likes to wear women’s clothes but maybe that isn’t really the case.  Plus the villains names are Mary Ann and Weenie (both are dudes) which could point to gay undertones.  I dunno.  It’s pretty blurry.

Marvin’s badassery is cranked all the way up as usual here with his take-no-shit attitude, few words spoken, menacing glare and suave way with the ladies.  Marvin telegraphs so much with his body language, eyes and simple gestures.  He’s without a doubt the coolest motherfucker in the room. 

Anyway, what’s kinda funny is Nick doesn’t seem to care about the meat harvesting or the dope dealing.  He’s there because Mary Ann owes a ton of mullah and offed a few of his boss’/partner’s guys.  Order needs to be restored.  And of course he’s up to the task.

Nick damn near kills himself to complete his mission when it’s clear Mary Ann won’t fork over the dough.  He works his way through several shootouts, gets chased by one of those monstrous combine harvesters with spinning blades on the front and there’s a great sequence where he hijacks an eighteen-wheeler and crashes it right into the meat plant’s huge greenhouse.  He doesn’t give a fuck.

Perhaps Nick’s motivations change a bit after he steals a girl named Poppy (Sissy Spacek (The Ring Two) in her first movie) who’s destined for the chopping block.  She tells him about the “orphanage” where the girls come from (really just a prison to raise and keep future victims) and how scared they get.  Once Nick’s face to face with the reality of the situation I think he recognizes he can’t let this shit go on.

This was directed by Michael Ritchie who had a long career doing mostly comedies like The Bad News Bears and Fletch.  Robert Dillon had also been around a while writing for TV but he would eventually pen The French Connection II and Flight of the Intruder. 

So I mean this isn’t an amazing picture but it’s sort of a fun time even though the subject matter is dark as hell.  The film comes across like a horrible dream set to an eclectic score by Lalo Shiffrin that includes easy listening, country and fuzzed out guitar driven jazz.

Ironically I don’t know if I’d call this a prime cut since everyone involved has done better work, but it’s engaging and well, just kinda fuckin’ weird.

Mish Mash 24 (Rookie of the Year Loves Ass, Peggy Sue Got Married (and Slit Her Throat), Fear City Slice and Dice, Mystic Pizza Subverts)

Rookie of the Year Loves Ass

In Daniel Stern’s family baseball freak show movie Rookie of the Year a kid (Thomas Ian Nicholas (Halloween: Resurrection)) injures his arm and suddenly has the ability to throw a baseball over a hundred miles an hour.  Of course the Chicago Cubs want him immediately because, well, they suck and are willing to try anything.  Ignoring all logic is an artform in this picture but a child being exploited by a large organization while also letting him live his dream is what we’re here to see.  If I want reality I’ll watch Weekend at Bernie’s.

Anyway, the part I wanted to bring up is when the doctor examines the golden arm after the cast is removed.  He asks to move the arm around some to check how it healed.  However, he gets slapped in the fucking face by the kid accidentally at an enormous speed smashing his nose.  The doctor’s reaction is to yell out “FUNKY BUTT LOVIN’!!!”  I gotta hand it to Stern on this one, that’s a good sneak on a PG film.

 

Peggy Sue Got Married (and Slit Her Throat)

A woman named Peggy Sue (Kathleen Turner (Romancing the Stone)) goes back in time to 1960 and relives her high school life for a week hoping to avoid the same mistakes she made the first time.  Chiefly she doesn’t want to fall in love with her sweetheart Charlie (Nicolas Cage (Moonstruck)) again because in the present they’re going through a divorce.  It’s a lighthearted comedy meant to make you think about your own life choices and what you might’ve done differently given the chance.

If the plot sounds familiar that’s because it’s essentially Back to the Future with a few changes.  But boy it’s amazing what those tweaks do.  I found this film to be mostly very depressing and that’s for two reasons.  Peggy Sue is reliving her own life instead of examining her parent’s youth.  Seeing what your folks were like in high school stirs up some curiosity and removes yourself from the situation by a step.  Reliving your own past sounds like a nightmare because you know everything that’s going to happen and the horrors that lie ahead.  Suddenly you’re living at home again and have all the restrictions of a teenager.  Plus Peggy Sue spends some time with her sister that she lost contact with over the years and visits her grandparents who’ve been long dead.  How the hell can anyone process all this shit?

The second reason the situation is worse is Peggy Sue doesn’t know if she’s dreaming or crazy.  In Back to the Future Marty knows for sure he time traveled and works with Doc Brown to find a way to get him to his proper time.  There’s a goal that’s worked toward.  In this picture Peggy Sue has no idea how long she’s stuck in 1960.  It could be a day, a week, a year, eternity, whatever.  And who knows, maybe when she finally reaches the present the cycle will start all over again.

So with these seemingly small changes the impact is huge.  I mean if I were Peggy Sue I would probably blow my fucking brains out after two days.  The emotional strain would be overwhelming with no end in sight.  Damn dude, what a cruel fate.

 

Fear City Slice and Dice

Abel Ferrara’s Fear City is not a good movie.  He’s done killer-runs-amok-on-the-streets-of-NYC better with Ms .45 and to a lesser extent The Driller Killer except this one is a lot sleazier.  Some asshole is murdering strippers and it’s up to the seedy heads of the talent agencies who supply the dancing girls to flush him out.

The killer (Neil Clifford (Class of 1984) in an uncredited role) has a manifesto, called “Fear City”, about ridding the world of filth.  Naturally his approach is to do martial arts training in an empty warehouse and strike strippers on their way home from work.  Most of the time it’s knife attacks but for one he uses nunchucks which comes across pretty silly.

But the real reason I’m bringing this picture up is the murderer dispatches one of his victims with a samurai sword.  The setup is so fuckin’ ridiculous with the dude standing on a street corner with his back to the building waiting for the poor woman to walk right into his blade.  We’re talking New York fuckin’ City here where there’s no one around and someone can flash a katana in public, hold out for a min and slice a broad in half right on the street.  Who does that?

 

Mystic Pizza Subverts

(Warning: this is gonna be all spoilers)

So I checked out Mystic Pizza and didn’t think too much about it going in.  The plot involves three ladies played by Annabeth Gish (SLC Punk!), Lili Taylor (Leatherface) and Julia Roberts (Mary Reilly) who just finished high school and don’t know where their lives are headed next.  Each gets in a relationship and you feel pretty smart about where this shit is going ‘cause you’ve seen a dramedy or two like this before.  But in a bold move the filmmakers flip the tables on you and subvert your expectations.

Taylor is engaged to Vincent D’Onofrio (Rings) but is having second thoughts.  She wants to fool around some more before jumping right into marriage.  When Taylor tries to have sex with D’Onofrio he can’t do it and is offended that all she wants is his penis.  This is the opposite of every guy in every movie ever.  He wants a long term commitment and not only sex.  Sensitive dude.

Roberts gets tangled up with a rich law school kid (Adam Storke (Death Becomes Her)) who drives a Porsche and lives in a mansion and the whole bit.  So he’s got to eventually reveal himself to be a major asshole, right?  Turns out sure, he does a couple of jerky things but in the end he apologizes for his stupid behavior and at no point does he really treat Roberts badly.  He shows he can grow as a person and better himself and Roberts recognizes that.  So again, another guy that doesn’t go down a path you expect.

The real kicker though is Gish’s relationship with her employer (William Moses (lots of crime solving TV shit)).  She gets hired as a babysitter and develops a crush on the father flirting with him.  The wife is overseas on a business trip so she’s not around.  This sonuvabitch picks up on the googly eyes and makes his move on Gish.  The fact that they have sex is terrible not necessarily because of the age difference but more because this fella’s willing to risk his marriage and the wellbeing of his child for a fling with a teenager.  They don’t seem like they have a lot in common or much chemistry either.  The entire relationship is creepy.  And when the wife returns of course Gish is devastated.  It’s a very shitty situation that I could see the film advancing towards but refused to believe they would actually go through with it until it happened.

Mystic Pizza, not exactly what I thought I was gonna get but in a good way.  I guess I like the movie overall and appreciate that it tries different ideas.

This was written by Amy Holden Jones who also wrote Beethoven and Indecent Proposal and wrote and directed The Slumber Party Massacre.  Interesting career.

Mortal Kombat (2021)

The new Mortal Kombat movie is surprisingly confusing.  It starts off in 1600’s Japan with the guy who would eventually become Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim (The Raid: Redemption)) invading the home of the guy who would eventually become Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada (Ringu)).  We’re thrown into this situation where guards and baddies are being picked off left and right and one dude can form icicles out of his hand and another guy’s body disappears in flames and we don’t know why they’re fighting and it’s supposed to be very emotional and this doesn’t look too much like the video game and I don’t know what’s going on.

Skip to modern day where washed up MMA fighter Cole Young (Lewis Tan (Deadpool 2)) scrapes by on $200 matches he never wins.  Jax (Mehcad Brooks (Glory Road)) pays a visit because they both share a dragon shaped marking on their bodies.  We find out this means they’ve been chosen to fight in a mystical otherworldly competition for the fate of Earthrealm (Earth) and must travel to Raiden’s (Tadanobu Asano (Thors)) temple to train.  Now we’re getting into more familiar territory.  I can follow this part.

But what’s really kinda weird about this film is (and spoiler) there’s no tournament.  Instead villain Shang Tsung (Chin Han (2012)) decides to cheat and kill off his opponents before the official bouts.  Not a cool move.  So I get the filmmakers wanted to do their own thing instead of replicating the 1995 picture which followed a classic kumite structure but ditching the tournament altogether definitely comes off as a sequel idea.  I kept waiting for the contest to formally start and was disappointed when that never happened.

Another strange mix up is creating an original character for the lead.  I thought maybe Cole Young was from one of the later games because I didn’t recognize him (I’ve only played the first two entries) but read afterward he was made up just for this movie.  Why?  You’re telling me there isn’t a character from any of the games that could be a suitable main hero?  Why not give it to Sonya (Jessica McNamee (The Meg))?  The only change you would need is to have her be less knowledgeable about the tourney from the get go so she can learn with the audience about what’s happening.

It’s not only Cole Young that’s an issue though.  All the characters are pretty bland except for Sonya who’s alright and Kano (Josh Lawson (Bombshell)) who steals the show.  Literally every one of his lines is a smarmy joke and normally that would get real fuckin’ old real fuckin’ fast but I didn’t mind it here.  I think because most of the stuff he says I actually found funny.  This was probably one of those situations where he had a smaller role initially but then the filmmakers realized they had struck gold and gave him more lines during production.

Can we touch on the special powers for a minute?  Each fighter has some sort of unique ability and the movie attempts to explain this by saying every contender has it in them already and they need to unlock it through pain/will/aggression, something like that.  The powers are ridiculously random though like throwing fireballs, a magic hat that can act as a deadly frisbee or sawblade, a laser eye and there’s a human sized lizard that can spit acid and turn invisible.  Anything goes.  Yes, these are the characters from the games.  I know.  It’s just silly that they felt like they needed to give some reason for their abilities like it’s a metaphor for tapping into one’s inner strength/confidence.

Ok, let’s move on to the fighting.  While a lot of it is fairly choppy in the editing, overall it’s fine.  Nothing really crazy or impressive to marvel at but solid martial arts mixed with fantasy elements like teleporting or forming an ice sword in mid combat or summoning a gargantuan fire dragon to…set someone on fire.  It’s the video game inspired maneuvers that make these scenes stand out and one of the coolest moments in the whole piece (which was in the trailer so you’ve seen it already) is when Sub-Zero freezes Scorpion’s blood that’s shooting out of his body to form an instant ice spike to stab him with.

From that last statement you can probably guess they don’t shy away from the gore either.  Although, they wait until towards the end to amp it way up.  You got shit like folks getting sawed in half vertically, intestines spilling out and heads getting crushed.  The filmmakers stayed faithful to the source material in this area so I have to at least give them credit for that.

However, the catchphrases like “flawless victory”, “Kano wins” and the infamous “get over here!” all feel extremely shoehorned in.  Like they sound sorta stupid in the context of everything else in the movie which is mostly serious.  It’s more like what a little kid would say rather than something truly badass.

Unfortunately the dialogue and acting in general is not very good.  Lots of tropes you’ve heard before and delivered flatly.

Even though this review came out pretty damn negative this isn’t a horrible picture.  Some of the fights and Kano are enjoyable enough.  Everything else is either forgettable (the characters) or doesn’t exactly seem Mortal Kombat-y (the opening, the plot).  And there’s unnecessary confusion sprinkled throughout concerning special abilities and how they work, the fact that they constantly talk about this incredibly important fate-of-humanity-hangs-in-the-balance tournament yet they never actually deliver on it, etc.

Look, the 1995 version is a dumb fuckin’ movie but there’s a charm in how campy it is and it feels more like the video game come to life.  I can appreciate they went in a different direction this time but there were a bunch of questionable choices made.  I’m not sure if I’ll end up revisiting this.