Tag: Thriller

Ahh! Fooled again!

When I saw the movie title A Perfect Getaway, you know what I assumed it was about? Cars. Crime. Running away from crime maybe and being awesome on a beach. Something with action and betrayal. All of that you know?

Turns out I was wrong. Perfect Getaway refers to the location (this location being someplace in Hawaii). And it is a lie. It isn’t really perfect. Because there is a couple of psychopaths apparently running around, murdering couples. What!? DID I ACCIDENTALLY WATCH A HORROR? Fuck!

My perfect getaway is nerd-free. Including myself.

Milla Jovovich and Steve Zahn are a couple. Oh yeah, start suspending your belief. They just got married, so they want to go on a vacation. Steve being a movie writer or something, and Milla just being whatever. Their goal is to hike out to a remote part of Hawaii, that you need permits to camp in, and enjoy being alone and free!

But they run into other people. Like Chris Hemsworth and Marley Shelton, two free spirited hitch hikers on the side of the road, who they don’t give a ride to. Yes, Thor plays a dirty hippie like character. They refrain from showing you his god like face at the beginning, because you need time to fully comprehend this fact.

After they run away from them, they run into Timothy Olyphant in the wilderness, who ends up saving Milla’s life. They follow him, since he is way cooler, and they find out he has a woman of his own in Kiele Sanchez. They also end up finding out that a newlywed couple was killed in a hotel where both groups had just come from a few days prior. Not only that, but they know a couple killed them, and removed their teeth and finger nails to make it so they couldn’t be identified.

Well, that’s creepy.

But who did it? Who can trust who? Or, is their an additional couple out in the wilderness, stalking them, trying to kill them all?

Or was it just Thor? He seems twisted.

So, obviously once I realized this whole movie was about an island and not car racing, I had to take a step back. Make sure I wasn’t missing anything. The questions you would wonder are answered about 3/5 of the way through, and are pretty interesting. Unfortunately, it then goes through a whole bunch of flashbacks, that really take you out of the moment. You know, since it takes you through the last few days again. So unnecessary feeling.

After the the action tends to pick up again, or at least panic does. They do a lot of interesting camera shots, that seems like they were just made for trailers, and seem weird in an actual movie to me. So, despite it being an interesting story, I think the film shot itself in the foot with the last 2/5. Which just disappoints me even further.

But hey, I could just be upset that there was only one car scene at all.

Well Fuck.

That is kind of what I said after watching this movie. I mean. What did I just see? Is it super deep? Is it very dumb and predictable? I don’t even know!

Here is a very patriotic picture of the disk?

Beginning of Removal starts off weird. Billy Burke is naked and bloody, and there is a dead woman in his shower. Also, he then kills himself when Mark Kelly(I will call Cole) shows up on the scene. He is a floor/rug cleaner.

Shortly after that we find out that Cole is kind of crazy. He has hallucinations in his head. He went therapy, but his wife doesn’t feel safe and she wants him to have more. But he says screw that, he is good, too expensive.

ONE YEAR LATER.

Cole is still a cleaner. After working his third double in a row, he is forced to go to a rich guys mansion, just to do an estimate. Rich guy, Oz Perkins, however says that he will give him $5000 extra, in cash if he cleans it all that night. By himself. Sketch, yes. Especially once you find out that no one has seen the rich guys wife in weeks.

Hmm.

And really. That is all you are going to get. A lot of things happen in that night. Including surprise rooms. Possible hallucinations, possible crazy people. Who is to say really?

I just found out the naked dead guy also plays Bella‘s dad.

So there really isn’t much to say. I had a hard time deciding if I liked it or not. I also had a hard time figuring out what happened. Thankfully I talked it out with my mom (Yeah!) and have concluded on what I think happened in the movie. So there is that. Some may argue the movie doesn’t really end either. But I am not sure at all.

So I say it is worth the one watch. Preferably with someone else cause you will probably want to try and find out what other people thought about it. But then again, there is always me.

Hold your horses everyone. ANOTHER Hollywood remake!? For shame. After all, the first Straw Dogs is only 40 years old. It should still be fresh and in everyone’s minds. Clearly Hollywood is running out of ideas, if it has to remake something only 40 years old. The NEW Straw Dogs will automatically suck, by comparison. It has things like credit cards in it!

It is also full of thievery and shame.

The other option is to ignore all of that.

Done! James Marsden and Kate Bosworth are traveling down south to the town where Kate used to live. It is a smaller community, not all hustlin’ and bustlin’ like the big cities up north. Which is good! She has an old place there, and he needs a quiet place to write a screenplay. They also want the roof of the shed/barn thing repaired, for some reason (even if they are there temporarily). A friend of Kates, played by Alexander Skarsgård, and his posse, agree to fix the roof.

Then crazy shit happens. And by crazy, I mean subtle annoyances between the two groups. Coming too early to start work. Leaving too early. Coming too late. Drinking their beers. Playing loud music.

This also makes Kate and James argue. Because James is a pussy who hates confrontation, and Kate is running around braless and “asking for it”. Which just leads her to flash seductively the crew (and oh yeah, that guy is her former ex). As expected, this leads to further elevation of conflict. A dead cat, bizarre hunting antics, and a rape or two.

“Or two?! Let’s calm down here. I am a one and done kind of guy.” – Flynn

There is also a side story involving James Woods (a high school football coach), his cheerleading daughter, and Dominic Purcell who plays “local retarded boy”. She has taken a fancy to him, which Woods is sourly against. The two plot lines accumulate by the end, to create a standoff where James Marsden finally breaks, and protects his family at all costs.

So, a lot of this film had me cringing in my seat. The violence at the end, rape in the middle, a scene where bone was shown coming out of the arm. When the final final scene happened, which also happened in the original, I half expected to hear someone yell “FATALITY!”, it was that crazy.

Personally, the reason I can’t rate this higher is because I know I probably won’t ever watch this again. Although an enjoyable experience, I wouldn’t want to see it more than once, which is a weird feeling.

From what I can tell, the differences between the two movies are: Going down South instead of North, less boobs in the rape scene (despite the fact that her boobs are pretty much visible throughout with her clothing choices), the guy is a writer not a mathematician, the violence was upped a bit, and it ends sooner. The first is based on a book though (And this one is based off the movie). That should have been done, because changing medias is fine.

But remakes never. After all, The Wizard of Oz and Scarface were both remakes, and they failed horribly because of it.

Maybe the problem is that it is too similar to the original still, and thus doesn’t warrant being made. But, if it had a lot different, people would bitch about it not being Straw Dogs. Lose lose.

Oooh. A foreign film. Not just any foreign film. A film from Switzerland, and spoken in German! This is a nice change up, given that all my other foreign films (but 1, Spanish) have been in an Asian language, and I actually know some German to better my experience. I especially liked that some of the subtitles weren’t translated, like when it popped up with the date, or how much time has passed. But since I understood it, I was like “OH MAN! I CAN READ MONTHS!”

Because of that, here is a non-relevant picture from the movie, that actually might not have happened.

Cargo is a sci-fi film, which means you know there might be some philosophical crazy stuff going on. It is in the 2200s, Earth is now inhabitable. Rhea is found as perfect new place to live, you know, before they can live, but it is expensive to get there. Anna-Katharina Schwabroh, who plays Laura Portmann, wants to go to Rhea. Her sister went there a few years ago and loves it. So she signs up to be a doctor on a cargo ship that is going to a random satellite station. The trip is 8 years, four years there and back, and after it she will have enough to go to Rhea!

Also it is pretty cool, that the ship of like, 5 crew members only are awake for 8.5 months. Only needs one person to run it, its pretty much on auto-pilot. So the rest of the time they sleep and don’t age, wicked cool. But there is also a space police dude on board named Samuel Decker, played by Martin Rapold, due to the higher number of space pirates out there, and he wakes up on a more frequent basis, for whatever reason.

During the last leg of the trip, Portmann is in charge and thinks she is hearing weird noises in the cargo, and think someone else is there. She wakes up the captain before the rest, to help investigate with Decker the disturbance. But then the captain dies. Shit. What is going on!?

So then in the last 2~ months of their journey they have to find out who is on their ship extra, if anyone? Why is their cargo weird? Where are they actually going? WILL PORTMANN EVER SEE HER SISTER AGAIN?

“It is awfully lonely on this ship…”

The movie was interesting, definitely. But nothing really surprised me that much. A lot of it seemed obvious. There were moments when weird stuff went on, that I wasn’t afraid of just because I didn’t know how the ship worked. When the cargo bays started moving, a couple people freaked out, but like Portmann, I was like “okay? just move a bit. and safe!”. So a bit of thrill of the thriller was left out for me. I think there also could have been more in it. I was confused by some of the characters motivations, so maybe a bit back story on some of the people would have been nice.

It is a decent sci-fi thriller, but not the best.

The Debt is a remake of an Israeli movie made a few years before it. This is Americanized though, and therefore cooler. I haven’t done much into the kinda spy based thriller drama movies, so this is a good start. Especially because it isn’t probably known at all, at least not the major actors involved.

The Debt also has two main storylines that take place 30 years apart. So, except for the doctor, the three leads who are Israeli spies are played by two people each. But as I liked the 1960s portion of the movie a bit more, I will just link the younger ones.

Jessica Chastain, Marton Csokas, and Sam Worthington are sent to East Berlin in the mid-60s to capture a Nazi war criminal. This doctor, played by Jesper Christensen, is accused of being the “Surgeon of Birkenau” and doing a lot of bad experiments on patients there. Genetic tests, what ever. So their mission is to capture him, and bring him back to Israel so he can be tried. Noble goal indeed!

Given that this is the past, I assume all trials looked like this.

The girl goes undercover as someone needing advice on giving birth. Eventually they succeed in capturing the doctor, but due to complications, they are unable to safetly carry out part 2 of their plan to get him out of East Germany, and are forced to hold him capture. This begins a psychological like battle between the spies and the doctor, whom cannot be killed because it wouldn’t be fair.

Thirty years after these events, having lied about the events, the secrets that occurred may finally be coming up. They have to try and stop the truth from coming out to save face, and make sure Israel doesn’t look like it has bush league spies.

This plot outline is too vague to give the story justice, but it is defintely a well crafted story. The acting is very good, and hell, its a spy film that doesn’t rely on gadgets or people just being stronger than everyone else. Just seems like normally trained people, trying to make best of a hard situation. I think the ending personally was a bit of a letdown, but what can you do.

Definitely give this movie a shot if you are into that sort of stuff. It has a bunch of German subtitles in it as well, in case you are anti-german.

“Herr Doktor! Ich habe nicht sprochen die Aushwitz und blieberin.”

State Of Play was originally much further on my “to watch list”, but thanks to not getting the next shipment of movies in time, it became a quick backup plan. I just assumed it would be a lame thriller, but it turned out to be a lot more interesting.

But first you have to assume that Russell Crowe is supposed to be okay with looking like a hobo.

Hobo looking Crowe is some big shot journalist. Old school methods, has some sort of integrity. But the movie opens with deaths! The first thing you see him do is get extra info from the head cop, because oh boy is he sly. Ben Affleck plays a congressman who is in charge of a committee / task force brought together to investigate PointCorp, a Blackwater like group that appears to be profiting way too much from the war, and shady tactics with mercenaries.

Turns out that besides the deaths, a woman also committed suicide in one of the three areas of the Metro in DC that isn’t covered by cameras. Of course foul play is expected, especially when she is on the same committee and a secret lover of Ben. Oh noes!

Rachel McAdams is also a new reporter, former blogger, who is assigned to the case with Crowe (before it becomes the big deal that it is). Also involved in smaller roles are Jason Bateman, Robin Wright, and Jeff Daniels.

For the movie, you will follow the journalist and police investigations of this crime, as they work together, and try and unravel who is behind everything and why are the events happening. Along th heads Crowe and McAdams different philosophies on journalism but heads, and is a central plot. A lot of ethical lines are also crossed, in order for “justice.”

Of course, you could also just completely guess what happens by the end too, and be right. I kinda did.

My guess was that Affleck wears a tie. Cha-ching!

Although interesting, a lot of it went over my head. Talk of war, politics, journalistic integrity, these are not my forte. I just like movies. I think I’d really have to watch it twice just in order to get it all. Definitely a smarter movie too. So for that…

Looking at all of the tags, I know you are thinking the same thing. How the hell does a movie called Predators not also include Chris Hanson?

Because he’d catch them all too quickly and make them have a seat.

The movie begins with Adrien Brody falling in the sky. He is strapped to the chair and flipping out, cause he is falling through the sky. He kinda gets a parachute off, allowing him to note die, but also, only kinda. I generally don’t expect to see Brody as a big action star, but he pulled it off pretty convincingly in the jungle.

Who else fell from the sky? A bunch of soldiers and criminals I tell ya! Alice Braga, the only woman, Danny Trejo, Walton Goggins (Rapist like guy who is in prison jump suit) and Topher Grace. Topher Grace?! Yeah. He is just a doctor. Awkward.

Also, later they meet a past survivor. One Laurence Fishburne, kicking ass, and taking names.

So why are they out in the middle of no where? Eventually they find out that they are prey, for some type of aliens war games. Humans who speak English tend to call them Predators, which is good to know! I am sure their alien name is something like Graafbbfzx. These Predators only tend to kill bad humans though, not innocent ones. So, the title makes more sense when you realize that even the prey are “predators” in their own right. We see what you did there, movie people.

But an alien that only prededates on other predators? So it is like an army of strong, alien, highly technological, Dexters.

I can kind of see the resemblance too.

What can you expect from a movie based on some 80s movies? A pretty decent action movie, actually. By making all the humans bad people, I have no problem with a force running around killing humans. Usually I think Humans > All Aliens, but hey, if they are bad people, who cares right? So I can enjoy the (many) deaths that occur, and the tactics the humans use to try and survive and kill them first.

Thankfully the plot didn’t have much going for it. A very easy thing to imagine, since we already have to imagine aliens with great technology, we can easily imagine they can have a planet where humans can live, and teleport them from Earth to this place, and you know, death. Also there was a samurai sword fight scene out of no where. These Predators at heart at just warriors, and duelists. They give humans a fair fight, and I like that too. What is the fun in massive slaughter?

The cover of this movie looks like a normal action thriller hostage like thing, where a lot of abuse happens to the main characters until they beat the bad guy by the end and somehow are better off.

I mean, that’s just by the cover.

This would have been a better cover. Seriously, all I did was look up the title and got this. Main characters and all.

But on the back description, I like it even more. It must be a lower budget thing that didn’t do well anywhere, so to make it seem better they tried to make it seem modern and cool. After all, it stars Maria Bello from Prime Suspect (a now canceled in its first season television show) and Stephen Dorff, from Immortals (a minor character, and a movie you know I didn’t like).

Okay, I am just making fun of celebrities now. Either way, those are the stars. And those are the shows/movies they want you to think about to get this movie.

I have been stalling on the plot. Carjacked has a mom and her kid get carjacked from a bank robber. They are poor too. He forces her to drive him to a meet up in Mexico, and after that? Who knows.

So she has to figure out how to save her child, without like, you know, dying.

Unfortunately there is MANY options that she had available to her, and she never took in the movie. Had to make it last after all. The ending is ridiculous, based on the choices she made. The cops seem to be just as ridiculous.

Also, the jabs at her ex husband come from nowhere. All we are told is they are divorced, so I guess we have to assume he is a bad guy and shouldn’t be raising children. So she has a happy ending. Yay!

Now she just needs to stop making bad decisions in terms of shows and movies.

To give it some credit, the Dorff as robber / fear monger was decent.

Damn it, Liam Neeson.

“What?” – Liam Neeson.

My original review of this movie was just the first four words. But I asked three people and one wanted me to elaborate.

Neeson’s wife (Laura Linney), a shoe designer, died. He finds out she may have been sleeping with anOther Man. He finds out it is Antonio Banderas in Milan. He goes to Milan. He stalks him, talks to him, finds out the truth. And that is about it.

Spoilers???

The movie is slow. I don’t care about any of the characters. Liam Neeson is just raging, but it leads to nothing. Eventual closer, that is it. It is super boring. 90 minutes was far too long for about 15 minutes of actual activity it seems. Just don’t watch this movie, because the emotion you will feel is anger.

Unthinkable starts off with some Muslim dude saying he has planted three nuclear bombs in cities around America, and set to go off in a few days, Friday at noon.

I could swear, during the video of this, which they were showing CIA/FBI people on Wednesday, someone said “That’s four days!”. Dumb. Just saying.

The beginning of this movie is kind of weird too, with the FBI being behind the news in this matter. For some reason, when trying to find said suspect, they get attached to Samuel L Jackson, who kind of just sticks around. We are told he is a dangerous man under protection. But good thing they did, because he can help!

And SLJ just loves helping people!

The head FBI lady is Carrie-Anne Moss, or Trinity from The Matrix. SLJ is a “interrogation specialist” or at least a guy who is willing to do anything in torture to get the truth. Yes, even the Unthinkable.

His assistant is Benito Martinez, or that guy from The Shield, and Stephen Root is his lawyer/representative guy. I have been wanting to tag Stephen Root forever, he is probably in half of these movies I have on the site, but NEVER has a major role.

Anyways. Most of the movie is the few days of them trying to torture this guy, going back and forth between the two methods. And by back and forth, I mean 90% of it is SLJ’s way. 100%, if you assume he is allowing the other way to even happen, and can stop it whenever.

Obviously this movie questions everything about interrogation procedures. Does torture give viable results? Which side is overall right? Why is the head army dude so wishwashy and quick to pass blame? (Seriously, what a horrible character. Not believable). I guess it just goes to show that no one know what to do when trying to stop 3 nuclear bombs from going off.

I find it hard to believe a guy could make them. Especially with such great “countdown software” which I bet is only real in movies.

But the movie and acting were very great. The only thing I can take out of this really is that they really hate Muslims. I think the film avoids taking sides, and still has a dreary ending just to prove that live sucks. You know. Well, it would at least if we didn’t have Samuel L. Jackson.

If Samuel L. Jackson was actually in charge of torturing a man, you know he’d have shotguns instead.