Plot summary (from the studio): A sexy, stylish thriller, Slow Burn stars Ray Liotta as Ford Cole, a big-city district attorney with his eye on the mayor’s office and a big problem on his hands. One of his deputies, the beautiful assistant district attorney Nora Timmer (Jolene Blalock), has just confessed to killing a man in what she claims was self-defense. A bad situation gets worse when an enigmatic stranger named Luther Pinks (LL Cool J) turns up at the police station to contradict Nora’s story and paint a very different picture of Ford’s talented colleague. With his career and perhaps his life on the line, has a mere handful of hours to sort the truth from the lies in a saga involving Nora, a record store clerk (Mekhi Phifer), and a powerful gang lord.

Warning: Spoilers Below!

Liked:

• I thought this movie had the potential to be engrossing and intriguing. The set-up was pretty good (albeit reminiscent of some better films) and main plot was interesting. I knew Nora was bad right from the start, but I couldn’t guess exactly what her angle was. This was the main thing that kept me watching.

Disliked:

• Some of the acting was pretty bad. I mean, this felt like a straight-to-DVD movie at times, even though it was actually a Lions Gate film and had a regular (though short-lived) theatrical release.
• I thought the whole race angle was kind of dumb. So Nora was actually white but just passed herself off as black to get ahead? Meh, big deal. How much of an impact did her race really have on the actual story/crime? Not a whole heck of a lot, so why even bring that up? That’s the kind of thing that could have been explored in an entirely separate film, not tacked on to one that already had a lot going on.
• I appreciate a good twist as much as the next viewer, but at the end, it just seemed like the writers were throwing as many in as they could possibly fit. Seriously, it was one after the other in quick succession, making it hard to process what was happening on the screen. Instead of going, “Wow, that was great!” I just sat back and said, “Oh, right…” and rolled my eyes.

Rating:

I wasn’t expecting much out of Slow Burn, so it would be unfair to say I was disappointed in the result. Instead, I’ll just say that the movie wasn’t worth the 93 minutes I spent on it, and recommend that you not bother watching. I give it 2 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Brittany Havers (played by Susan Ward) is a high school senior on the verge of inheriting about $70 million after her stepfather Niles (Anthony John Denison) dies in a plane crash. There are no other heirs — or so she thinks. Before the money transfer can take place, Maya (Leila Arcieri), a classmate, comes forward claiming to be Niles’ illegitimate daughter. A DNA test is ordered, and coroner Julian Hayes (Joe Michael Burke) confirms that Maya and Niles were indeed father and daughter. Brittany throws a fit in court — but that was obviously just for show. Later that night, she, Maya, and Julian all gather to celebrate the ruling.

The three conspirators think they are home free, but that’s when insurance investigator Terence Bridge (Isaiah Washington) starts nosing around. His insurance company stands to lose $2 million because of the crash, so he wants to make sure that everything about the “accident” was aboveboard before writing the check. He starts asking questions that even the cops hasn’t bothered with, and gets suspicious of Brittany, Maya, and Julian. Before long, he starts following them and figures out that they were all in on the scam together.

Bridge arrives at one of the trio’s rendezvous points just in time to see Brittany shoot Julian. Instead of going to the cops, he tries to turn the event into a big payday for himself. He confronts Maya and Brittany and demands to be cut in on the $70 million. Maya agrees, but Brittany doesn’t. Brittany then shoots Maya, and demands that Bridge help her dispose of the body. While driving to a dump site, Brittany casually leaves the car after noticing a police cruiser behind their vehicle. She then phones in an anonymous tip about the car Bridge is still driving, which leads to his arrest once the cops find Maya’s body in the trunk.

Brittany is then home free to share the money with — Niles, whose death has been faked in an elaborate scheme to elude creditors and skip out on gambling losses. The two are headed somewhere tropical, intending to ditch Brittany’s plane and make it look like she died too. The plan is to parachute to safety, but Brittany hands Niles a chute packed with newspapers so that he plunges to his death. Brittany then goes on to meet her real partner in crime, her mother.

Liked:

• Nothing. I try very hard to come up with at least one thing I like about each movie I watch, but it’s impossible with this title. I can totally see why the film went straight to DVD.

Disliked:

• I hate that this was called Wild Things 2. There wasn’t any real connection to the first movie; the title just gave the filmmakers the right to rip off the plot and twists from the original. The murder, cover-up, conspiracy, threesome, double-cross… it was all rehashed, just with different characters.
• Wow, did the threesome scene have to go on for a full two minutes?? That’s an eternity in movie time. Obviously this was meant to be a big selling point for the teenage boys likely to rent or buy this film.
• The dialogue was extremely clunky throughout. Most of the words probably looked good on paper, but sounded very awkward in spoken form. I’m not gonna go look up the screenwriter, but I’d be willing to bet this was his/her first or second try. This was definitely not the work of a seasoned pro.
• Speaking of the screenplay, the way this movie unfolded, I could practically see the storyboard right there on my TV. The whole thing felt incredibly formulaic, even with the “unexpected” twists thrown in.
• I know the last thing I should expect from a film like this is any kind of realism, but come on: there’s no way Brittany and her mom could have anticipated every single move that every character made. The simplest plans are the ones that work best. The overly elaborate ones with multiple layers are the ones where screw-ups happen. There’s no way this should have worked.

Rating:

I’m not sure what possessed me to rent Wild Things 2, but I can admit mistakes when I make them. This was a terrible film with only one redeeming quality: its relatively short run time. That’s the only thing preventing me from giving it 0 stars. The characters are flat and uninteresting, the plot is ludicrous, and the outcome a foregone conclusion. I give it 1 star out of 5.

Plot summary (from the studio): In the gripping thriller “The Lincoln Lawyer,” Matthew McConaughey stars as Michael “Mick” Haller, a slick, charismatic Los Angeles criminal defense attorney who operates out of the back of his Lincoln Continental sedan. Having spent most of his career defending petty, gutter-variety criminals, Mick unexpectedly lands the case of a lifetime: defending a rich Beverly Hills playboy (Ryan Phillippe) who is accused of attempted murder. However, what initially appears to be a straightforward case with a big money pay-off swiftly develops into a deadly match between two masters of manipulation and a crisis of conscience for Haller.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• I thought Matthew McConaughey was a brilliant choice to play Mickey Haller. McConaughey has that kind of charm that borders on smarmy, which is precisely how I imagined the Haller of the original book. This is the kind of defense lawyer that makes under-the-table deals with freelance videographers to rip off his own clients, but who also has a strange kind of conscience when it comes to the notion of justice. I am rarely impressed by McConaughey’s roles, but he was very good here.
• I just really like the whole concept of an attorney working out of the back seat of a Lincoln. It was pretty original, and added a twist to what might otherwise be a run-of-the-mill character. The idea didn’t come off as well on the screen as it did in the book (on screen, it just seemed as though Haller was simply commuting somewhere rather than actually working in the car), but it was still cool as hell.
• The supporting cast in this film was good. I like it when recognizable actors pop up as minor characters (Bryan Cranston as the detective) because it’s far easier for me to keep track of who’s who.

Disliked:

• I didn’t think the filmmakers did a good enough job of describing what allegedly happened at the victim’s apartment. I didn’t really understand what the whole deal was. I mean, of course I knew the details because I’d previously read the book, but the crime didn’t make sense as described in the film. How did that tiny woman overpower Roulet to begin with? Was an attempt even made to explain that?
• In the book, Haller makes a big deal out of the possibility of Roulet becoming the “franchise player” (a wealthy client that will return for legal advice again and again) that he needs in order to turn his firm around and hit the big time. But although there were a few mentions of Roulet’s money in the movie, they didn’t do enough to play up that reason as to why Haller wanted to take on the case.
• The mother’s motives for killing the investigator and shooting Haller were unclear. Was she simply trying to protect her boy? Or was there something more to the mother-son relationship than met the eye? Either way, to have her appear at the end wielding Haller’s gun was a bit unbelievable.

Rating:
Despite the flaws I listed above, I thought The Lincoln Lawyer was a solid movie adaptation of the Michael Connelly book. It was well paced, there were some good actors involved, and the story was inherently interesting. The likable protagonist helped keep me interested in his fate from beginning to end. I give the film 4 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (with spoilers): This Lifetime made-for-TV movie examines the circumstances of the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher (played by Amanda Fernando Stevens) in Perugia, Italy. The crime made headlines around the world when Kercher’s roommate Amanda Knox (Hayden Panettiere), an American exchange student from Seattle, emerged as the prime suspect, along with boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito (Paolo Romio).

The film, which mixes both fact and conjecture to “recreate” some of the major events of the story, shows how Knox and Sollecito got mixed up in the police investigation and why they were eventually indicted, tried, and convicted for Meredith’s murder. Knox is currently serving a 26-year sentence in Italy, while Sollecito is serving 25. Another perpetrator, Rudy Guede (Djibril Kébé), was convicted as well. He initially received a 30-year sentence, but it was reduced to 16 years because he apologized to Kercher’s family.

Knox and Sollecito are appealing their sentences.

Liked:

• I thought Hayden Panettiere was wonderful in this movie! She looked a lot like the photographs of Knox that I’ve seen in newspapers, which really went a long way towards helping the performance seem convincing. I’ve never watched Panettiere in anything else before, so I was duly impressed by her skills.
• The film seemed pretty balanced to me. I know people have very strong feelings about this case, and they either believe that Knox was 100% guilty or that she was railroaded by an incompetent police force, prosecutor, and justice system. I personally feel that Knox is guilty, but I thought the movie left the question fairly open-ended. She wasn’t portrayed as a monster, nor did she come off as a victim. Honestly, I was expecting one or the other, so the balance was a nice surprise.

Disliked:

• The actor that played Raffaele bugged me every time he was on the screen. Ugh.
• The trial part seemed very rushed. It seemed that one minute it was opening arguments, and then in the very next scene, the verdict was being read. I would have liked to have seen more of the trial.
• The movie didn’t really bring any new facts or insights to the table. If you’ve followed the case in the newspapers, then you already know the whole story.

Rating:

Viewers often dismiss made-for-TV movies without giving them a proper chance, but that would be a mistake with Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy. This is a good retelling of the story (as it appeared in the newspapers. Whether this is the truth or not remains to be seen, I guess.) and was very compelling to watch. I give the film 4 stars out of 5.

Plot synopsis (from the studio): As he plans his next job that could result in his gang’s biggest score ever, a longtime thief plans his way out of the life and the town while dodging the FBI agent looking to bring him and his bank-robbing crew down. In addition the heading an electrifying cast, Ben Affleck also directed and co-wrote this suspenseful, critically-acclaimed crime thriller that unfolds — and often explodes — across gritty Boston locations. Rebecca Hall, Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner, Blake Lively, Titus Welliver, Pete Postlethwaite, and Chris Cooper also star.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• Ben Affleck’s acting career has been all over the place, but I think he is a terrific director. He doesn’t surprise you with his choices (like Tarantino or the Coens might), but he is a technically sound storyteller that manages to hit the right notes throughout the entire film.
• Jeremy Renner was about as good in this as he was in Hurt Locker, despite playing vastly different characters. He is quickly becoming one of my favorite actors. I hope he continues to make smart role choices and doesn’t just go for a huge payday with some brainless action flick.
• I liked that it turned out the florist was calling all (or most of) the shots. This made it easier to believe that Doug actually was a decent human being beneath the thug exterior and that he really was capable of changing.
• I loved that Claire signaled to Doug to stay away because of the FBI. Sure, the scene was reminiscent of Heat, but I liked it nonetheless. Doug clearly wasn’t going to get trapped anyway, because he could see exactly what was going on, but it was extremely important that he know Claire still cared for him even just a little.
• Robbing Fenway Park? Wow, how could those guys ever think a plan like that would work??? But it was an original one, as far as films go. Usually the big score is a bank, armored truck, jewelry store, art gallery, etc. I don’t think an iconic sports stadium has ever been the primary target before!

Disliked:

• The Boston accents were highly distracting. I understand having the characters speak that way lends an air of authenticity to the film, but there in several scenes, it was incredibly difficult to figure out what was being said. The accents just got in the way. I finally had to turn subtitles on and read the damn dialogue.
• I thought Doug’s escape was a bit too easy. I knew from the start that he would get away (that’s why the film was told from his point of view, not Jon Hamm’s), but didn’t think it would be as easy as hopping on a train and making it to Florida. His mug would be all over the wires, especially since the FBI was already involved and federal agents were killed during the attempted robbery. Growing a mountain man beard wasn’t going to be enough to put everyone off the trail.
• Some parts of the film were predictable and formulaic. For example, if there’s a shootout before the halfway point, you can bet none of the major characters will get hit, making those scenes feel like a waste of time. Also, since Jem and Doug were the only two guys from the gang that had substantial roles, you could tell that the lesser gang members would get shot first during the final stand against law enforcement. And of course the crazy-ass Jem would go down shooting in a suicide-by-cop scene. I know this movie was based on a book, so I’m not exactly blaming Affleck for this, but still…
• I didn’t like Titus Welliver in this because to me he will always be the Man in Black (from Lost). I know, this is wholly on me, not the actor, but I still felt obligated to throw it out there.

Rating:

The Town received very positive critical reviews, so I was expecting a great movie — and I got one. Despite the sometimes formulaic nature of the plot, the characters, acting, and directing really make this film worth watching. I give it 4 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): The film opens with four armed men boarding a New York City subway train. The men, led by Ryder (played by John Travolta), proceed to quickly take over the train, holding the passengers hostage. When Metropolitan Transportation Authority employee Walter Garber (Denzel Washington) notices that the Pelham 1:23 train is no longer moving, he gets on the radio to the driver to find out what’s going on. Ryder picks up and demands $10 million to be delivered in one hour or passengers will start dying.

Garber is not trained to handle hostage situations, so he defers to NYPD Emergency Service Unit Lt. Camonetti (John Turturro), who gets on the radio with Ryder to begin negotiating. But Ryder insists that he will only talk to Garber, so Garber is back in play. By this time the NYC mayor (James Gandolfini) also arrives at the Rail Control Center to monitor the situation. The Mayor begins speculating about why Ryder would ask for a relatively small sum like $10 million, when he notices that the stock market is going crazy. He figures out that the $10 million is likely just a ruse, and that the real goal of the terrorists is to make a killing in the market.

As the film unfolds, viewers learn that this is indeed the case. It is revealed that Ryder sold short and invested in gold, earning somewhere in the neighborhood of $300 million for his antics on the Pelham train. After the usual hostage film developments (delays with the money, screamed threats, hostages getting killed, hostages getting saved at the last minute), Ryder eventually makes off with the money. But as he’s trying to escape across the Manhattan Bridge, he comes face to face with Garber, who has no choice but to shoot him.

My Reaction: I wasn’t really planning on seeing The Taking of Pelham 123, but it was shown on a long flight I was on recently, so I figured what the heck. John Travolta is not one of my favorite actors, particularly when he tries to play a “crazy bad guy”, and sure enough, his performance annoyed. But The film as a whole wasn’t as much of a disaster as I thought it would be.

I think Denzel Washington saved this for me. He was the perfect choice to play Garber because Washington always exudes that cool, unflappable demeanor, which was exactly what Garber needed in that situation. I liked how Garber and Ryder’s relationship developed. There seemed to be a mutual respect going on there, but fortunately it never crossed the boundary into friendship. That would have been a major misstep. Thankfully, however, the Ryder character was so completely unlikable that this particular angle simply wasn’t possible — which paved the way for Garber to be able to shoot Ryder in the end.

Most of the film seemed like a retread of stuff we’ve all seen in hostage movies before. I wish the screenwriters would have played up the stock market angle a bit more, as that was the only unique/interesting part of the whole plot.

Overall, while The Taking of Pelham 123 wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, it was far from good. Act II was pretty boring, and the film seemed to drag in a lot of places. This is not something I feel compelled to watch again. I give the movie 2 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Ray Koval (played by Clive Owen) and Claire Stenwick (Julia Roberts) are corporate spies who first run into each other in Dubai in 2003 while working for rival companies. Claire seduces Ray, then drugs him and ransacks his hotel room to find the information she needs. Ray is humiliated by the incident, but can’t do anything about it because Claire is long gone.

But a couple years later, Ray happens to run into her again. They hash things out, end up in bed once more, and then put their heads together to come up with a scheme that will net them $40 million, enough money to retire and enjoy the good life. The plan requires that they pretend not to know each other and that they work as spies for rival companies for a while, so they separate, meeting only occasionally for quick trysts and debriefings.

The big score involves a cosmetics company that Claire manages to join as part of the counterintelligence division. Rumor has it that the company has come up with a formula to “regrow hair in all the right places”. Obviously, a cure for baldness would be worth billions, so the plan is to steal the formula and then sell it to the highest bidder.

Of course, things aren’t always as they seem in the world of corporate espionage, so after several twists and turns, Claire and Ray are in for a big surprise on payday.

My Reaction: I haven’t agreed with Roger Ebert’s reviews for a very long time, but I found myself thinking some of the same things regarding Duplicity. Though Ebert liked the film a whole lot more than I did, there were two solid points that he made. First, the plot was so convoluted and twisty that the audience teeters on the brink of not caring about it at all. Second, Owen and Roberts were fun to watch.

In my summary, I laid out the plot as well as I could in chronological order. But that’s not how it was presented in the film. Instead, writer/director Tony Gilroy moved back and forth in time throughout the entire thing, weaving flashbacks into current action so often that it practically made my head spin. I didn’t know who half the characters were (besides Ray and Claire, of course), and had no idea what roles they were supposed to be playing in the scheme. In that regard, the movie became a bit tedious to watch because it was just a bunch of random people doing things for obscure reasons.

Roberts and Owen did their best to save Duplicity, but even they couldn’t make this film watchable. They had some spark in a few of their argument scenes, but other than that, there was very little about the movie that held my attention.

Overall, I was pretty disappointed with Duplicity. It’s a film that tries to be too clever by half, and ends up just short of a garbled mess. I give it 2 stars out of 5.

I think Edward Norton is a terrific actor, so I usually try to catch all of his films, even the ones that don’t get rave reviews from critics or audiences. This was the case with Pride and Glory, the much-delayed cop drama from writer/director Gavin O’Connor that was finally released in October of 2008. The film opened quietly, earning just $6.2 million during its debut weekend, and quickly disappeared from theaters soon thereafter. So when I rented the DVD recently, I wasn’t expecting a whole heck of a lot from this movie. In that respect, I can’t say I was disappointed!

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Edward Norton stars as Ray Tierney, an NYPD cop who has been assigned to desk duty after being shot in the face while making an arrest. But when four fellow officers are found slain in a known drug dealer’s apartment, Ray is picked to head up the special task force to investigate the crime. The officers were part of a squad that also included Ray’s brother Francis (Noah Emmerich) and brother-in-law Jimmy (Colin Farrell), so there’s even more incentive than usual for Ray to get to the bottom of the crime.

While Ray conducts his investigation through proper channels, viewers soon learn that Jimmy and Francis know a lot more than they’re letting on. Specifically, Jimmy is a dirty cop who was taking kickbacks from the drug dealer Angel Tezo (Ramon Rodriguez) along with the four cops who were shot, while Francis simply looked the other way, letting his men do what they wanted. Jimmy knows that if Ray gets to Tezo first, everything will come to light and the dirty cops will be done for.

The rest of the film then shows both Jimmy and Ray racing to find Tezo before it’s too late. Ray eventually discovers the truth about Jimmy and Francis, and is then forced to choose between telling the truth and ruining his brothers’ careers or of going along with a lie in order to cover everything up.

My Reaction: Pride and Glory felt, looked, and sounded like it could have come out a decade ago. The plot was something that has been done to death in cop movies, with nothing original added by the screenwriters. Why is it that if there are two brothers on the same police force, one is invariably good while the other dirty? And why is the father always a high-ranking official in the department as well? Boring!

As I said before, I think Edward Norton is a great actor, but even he couldn’t do very much with the material he was given. This was one of those films that was hard to get into because there are a bunch of interchangeable characters that are hard to keep straight at the beginning, (except for the familiar faces, of course) and there are a lot of plot points to try to keep in mind as well. Then add in the fact that the audience is made privy to the dirty cops and their dirty deeds from very early on, and well, there just isn’t a whole lot of suspense or drama along the way.

Overall, I thought Pride and Glory was an average film that brought nothing new to the screen. If you watch it, you might like it and be entertained for a while, but if you don’t see it, you’re not exactly missing out on much. I give it 2 stars out of 5.

Putting Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino together in a movie seems like a surefire way to guarantee a hit — especially when the two play hard-nosed NYC cops on the trail of a serial killer. That’s the premise of Righteous Kill, the Jon Avnet vehicle that brought DeNiro and Pacino together on screen for the first time since 1995′s Heat. But unlike in Heat, DeNiro and Pacino failed to bring their “A” game to this project, and the weak, predictable script didn’t help matters much. Needless to say, I doubt that Righteous Kill will be remembered in the same light as Heat or Godfather II.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): DeNiro and Pacino star as Turk and Rooster (respectively), two New York City detectives who have seen more criminals walk due to technicalities and legal wrangling than they can handle. They reach the breaking point when a child killer goes free because of a procedural mishap, and Turk takes it upon himself to plant a gun in the killer’s apartment so that he would go down for a different crime.

Soon after that, more and more of these types of criminals — the ones who managed to evade jail because of the justice system — turn up dead around the city. Each one is found shot from close range and each is found with a short poem near the body. It becomes evident that Turk and Rooster are dealing with a serial killer, and later, clues point to the killer being a cop.

Turk and Rooster are joined on the investigation by Det. Perez (John Leguizamo) and Det. Riley (Donnie Wahlberg), who begin working the case from their own angle. Once Perez and Riley begin to suspect Turk, they set up surveillance in an attempt to catch him in the act.

The rest of the film then follows this investigation to its unsatisfying end, and includes a “twist” that alert viewers could probably see coming from at least the midway point.

My Reaction: Although I’m not exactly a fan of either DeNiro or Pacino, I never imagined that a film starring the both of them together could turn out to be this boring. There was absolutely nothing original in the Righteous Kill script, and it played out like the hundreds of other police procedurals that have preceded it.

And that “twist” that wasn’t a twist at all just had me rolling my eyes once the killer’s identity was revealed. As soon as the scenes started focusing on Turk’s actions, I knew that it wasn’t him. After all, the story was set up as a whodunnit, so the audience wasn’t supposed to be able to see who the killer was that early on. That left only one other plausible perp — even though the writers tried one last bit of misdirection with DeNiro’s too young, too hot (for him) girlfriend.

Overall, Righteous Kill doesn’t have much going for it. There’s a boring story, two acclaimed actors with subpar material to work with, and a decided lack of suspense throughout. I give this film 2 stars out of 5.