Tag: Juan Pablo Raba

For my (checks notes) second film of 2021, I was given a movie called The Marksman. I guess it would be about a guy who is good at shooting, or fond of shooting, or one who shoots occasionally?

Oh shit, it is a Liam Neeson action movie! That definitely has a bad track record from me. Ever since the first Taken, it has been either bad or ignored from my website. I can’t handle the cuts, the bad staging, any of that. I can have Liam Neeson as a serious star, I just can’t even have him as a serious action star, not anymore.

And honestly, I knew nothing going into this movie, so it didn’t surprise me that it was a January release.

Give a boy a gun, and he’ll gun for a day. Teach a boy to gun, and he will gun at least for a day.

Jim Hanson (Liam Neeson), former US Marine and current old dude, is living in Arizona near the Mexico border. He has been mostly working at a Ranch of his own the last few years with his wife. But when she got sick, the ranch didn’t do as well, the bills piled up, and then he eventually lost the light of his life. Now those foreclosing son-of-a-guns are going to take his house, and then what? Probably nothing great!

He is a pretty dark place in his life, unable to get extra work either, when he happens upon Rosa (Teresa Ruiz) and her son, Miguel (Jacob Perez) literally right after they crawl through a hole in the border fence. He wants to call it in, because Rosa was hurt, but after doing so, a few cartel members start firing on him, and now suddenly he is in jeopardy!

Jim is able to get out of there, but not able to save Rosa, and is now left not sure what to do with the kid. They were heading up to Chicago where there is family, and some bad dudes are apparently after him. Can he help the kid, or let the authorities just send him back to Mexico?

Also starring Katheryn Winnick and Juan Pablo Raba.

This gun is way bigger than the last gun, why did you not teach the boy this gun?

The Marksmen is not a classic, straight up Neeson action movie. No, it has dramatic components, and a plot here. A guy trying to get this kid to Chicago, with some people who want to kill him and take him back, for some reason. Occasionally they get close to stopping them, and then they get really close to stopping him, and then eventually it ends. By the way, the problems resolved at the end of the movie involve the kid, not the crimes committed, or the ranch money problems, but hey, that was just intro movie problems I guess.

Neeson’s acting is pretty average for what he has done lately. He has to play a stern older gentlemen technically way above his head, but also, with a certain set of skills that might help him out. He is kind of a dick for large parts of the movie, and I wouldn’t say that changes much by the end. It is like this movie was made for Clint Eastwood, but he didn’t feel like it.

I’m not sure what the overall message of the film is after seeing it, except that there isn’t one. Life can be difficult and strange some times, but you have to follow your heart? Hard to tell. I just know that if you want to see this movie for action, you will be disappointed. If you want to see it for a great story and acting, you will be disappointed.

However, if you want to see it for a quick shout out to Sierra Vista, Arizona (A city I lived in once before), you might get some glee out of it.

When is the last time Jennifer Garner was in an action movie? I really don’t know. Quickly glancing, my guess is in 2007 when she was in The Kingdom, but I could have missed something else over the last 11 years.

She has been “mom” in so many movies for so long, it is hard to imagine her doing anything badass. Hell, she is the current voice for the Mama in Llama Llama, a simple as fuck show on Netflix.

I just cannot imagine her kicking butt and doing anything believable. I can imagine her making me cry, sure. I can imagine her caring for her kids. But the lady who made me teary in a Christian movie (a hard task), Miracles from Heaven, has to do a huge shift in momentum for me to imagine her wrecking house.

All I am saying is that Peppermint has a hill to climb from the get go.

I too may weep when it comes to the family dying scene.

Riley North (Jennifer Garner) is not a porn star name, but a young mother who just wants to do whatever she can to protect her family. That probably doesn’t make it feel less porn star yet.

Their family is struggling a bit, but they are making things work. Her daughter (Cailey Fleming) is having issues with friends. Her husband (Jeff Hephner) is trying to find additional sources of income. Some low life comes to him with an idea, about stealing from a drug dealer in a fool proof plan. He turns it down overall, but apparently the dealer (Juan Pablo Raba) already got word about it, and wants to make sure a message is sent. And that message involves being gunned down in public, taking out the daughter as well but not fully killing Riley.

Riley takes things to trial, clearly pointing out in a line up the culprits, but yet the crime lord has great lawyers, and has the D.A. and judge in his pocket.

So what’s a girl to do? Maybe get some fat stacks of cash, run away around the world, and train for about five years in combat, shooting, whatever, in order to come back for revenge to take down anyway who let this corruption happen.

Also starring John Gallagher Jr., John Ortiz, Annie Ilonzeh, and Method Man.

Mommy’s got a gun, bad guns on the run, shoot ’em as they come.

In retrospect, Garner is the perfect person for this role. After the last decade of being a mom, in this movie, her extreme mom-ness mattered. She needed to have that loving, do anything for family look, and she has nailed that over the years. She also has some experience with action films and shows before that time, so working with stunt crews, choreography, etc would probably be second nature, even after this time. Peppermint called for a vengeful mom in order to work, and Garner fit the role very well.

Now, the film on its own does do a lot of strange things. It tells the story out of order early on, which mostly feels unnecessary. We get to see all of this build up of the case that she is so angry about, with these players. We especially got a lot of action with their lawyer. And yet when she is doing her revenge killings, we barely see any of the actual people involved getting punished. We get to see the judge get murdered, we see one of the shooters in a quick tussle, but the lawyer is completely ignored. A man who threatens her, has dialogue, is killed off screen and not even shown a death. It doesn’t make sense.

Instead most of her violent vendetta is shown against the gang itself, who sure, were involved with the death of her family. But didn’t actively do the dead or the cover up, just orchestrated it. It was very strange to not give us that initial satisfaction. They also made it way too easy for these initial things, deciding to brush it all over by turning her into some female batman who had some money and some years of training.

The film is still definitely entertaining. There are twists I tried to guess and was surprised with how they turned out. An okay film overall, one that you can reasonable accept and go along with.

And to answer the question you probably had, no, I did not cry when the family died. That probably says a lot about the film, I imagine.

The 2010 Chilean mining accident is a wonderful topic for a movie. I am surprised it took them five years in fact.

It was a national event, it lasted months, it involved dozens of people (33 to be exact), and it had a happy ending.

Imagine if they opened the hole and it was a few guys surrounded by corpses. That’d be terrifying. That would be a different sort of movie, not at all uplifting.

So I am going into The 33 with optimism. I hope they get buried within like, the first 10 minutes too. Let them build up that scare factor just a bit.

Besides, the last movie I saw set in Chile that involved a huge disaster and trying to survive was Aftershock. That wasn’t uplifting, well, besides the tectonic plates.

Seeing all those sweaty food deprived bodies could also be considered uplifting.

12,000 miners die every year. That is a big number. But, at least 9 million kids under 5 die every year, and that is only one portion of minors. So it is much more dangerous to be a minor than a miner. I assume.

Well, in this case, the miners were going down on a normal day, just to get the copper and gold. They use relatively small crews, I guess to not upset the mountain too much with the drills and other equipment. This particular mountain has been mined heavily and they are very deep into it. Mario Sepúlveda (Antonio Banderas) needs some extra money, so he is working too, despite not originally on the schedule. And guess what? Not long after they are down there and working, the mountain begins to move. Now, a super rock is blocking their only exit and they are trapped in a relatively small area. They have a hall way or two, and thankfully they are in The Refuge, a room with some food and supplies. But still, it is quite dangerous and scary down there.

The food supplies are not plentiful. The company lied about a few safety measures as well, making escape impossible. And the company isn’t even going to do anything about it! They are a private company, so they are doing the bare minimum, but they aren’t even letting the friends and family members enter the area, as they are blocked off by gates and people with guns.

Thankfully, María Segovia (Juliette Binoche) is not having any of their shit. She is the sister of one of the miners and she basically helps frenzy them into a riot, creating pressure on the government and company to attempt the rescue mission. This brings the Minister of Mining, Laurence Golborne (Rodrigo Santoro) down to the scene. He is moved by everyone’s committment and he promises to do everything he can to rescue the miners, no matter the cost.

Sure they only have 3 days of food for 3 people and it would take at least a week to get a small hole somewhere into their area. And they also have no idea how to get to the right spot, due to the density of the stone being unknown and their drills will curve. But damn it, they gotta try, right?

Obviously with so many minors, we have a huge cast. But most of the minors have no talking roles. But the people they do showcase have families worried about them or other unusual characteristics. And a lot of people helping, including Bob Gunton playing President Piñera. These people are played by Mario Casas, Juan Pablo Raba, Oscar Nuñez, Tenoch Huerta, Marco Treviño, Jacob Vargas, Lou Diamond Phillips, James Brolin, Adriana Barraza, Kate del Castillo, Elizabeth De Razzo, Cote de Pablo, and Gabriel Byrne.

Count them. They don’t even try to make the number of characters accurate.

Did I cry? Of course I cried. They had beautiful tense moments of rescue. They had people who hadn’t seen each other for 69 days, who had assumed their loved ones died, reconnecting. Someone had a baby girl, and you know how they affect me. But just because I cried doesn’t mean it is an excellent film.

First of all, when your title is The 33 and it is a well known fact that there are 33 people, you should probably have all the many extras around who don’t talk when the whole group is together. That dinner scene is unacceptable. Didn’t even have people standing to the side having their own conversation.

Second of all, there is geology in this movie. Not a lot, technically. But there was the big “eureka” moment with how they would get the drill to the correct area. And it was terrible. I cannot believe that is how it really happened, because it would mean all of the drilling crews were inept.

But there were some nice moments of course. Banderas gives an excellent speech or two that really get me going. The scene where they imagined food was super weird. And they really felt like coworkers and a family by the end.

Slightly inspirational without shoving it in your face, and a nice tail. Just those inaccuracies.