I 'Wanted' A Fun Action Flick, and I Got One!

by Brett Parker

Picture a wild action picture that plays on the inventive grandeur of The Matrix, the twisted philosophies of Fight Club, and the relentless testosterone of 300 and you’d probably get Wanted, a fast and furious burst of action creativity that goes so far over the top, it can touch the rings of Saturn. Forget such silly things like plausibility and patience, Wanted is too busy with flying cars, curving bullets, crashing trains, blowing up rats, and teaching a sensitive young actor to be a tough guy, to slow down. It brings your suspension of disbelief to its absolute pressure point, and you’ll love every minute of it!

James McAvoy stars as Wesley Gibson, a depressed office drone who is growing restless with his humdrum existence. His obnoxious boss (Lorna Scott) chews him out in his cubicle, his girlfriend (Kristen Hager) is sleeping with his best friend (Chris Pratt), and his medication doesn’t seem to be helping too much with his intense anxiety attacks. Things change dramatically for Wesley when he is approached by the mysterious Fox (Angelina Jolie) in a pharmacy. Fox informs Wesley that the father he never knew was in fact a super assassin who was killed earlier in the week. Wesley finds that information preposterous until an assassin named Cross (Thomas Kretschmann) opens fire on both of them in the pharmacy. Fox helps Wesley escape this hail of gunfire in one of the most manic car chases you’ll find on the screen this summer.

Fox takes Wesley to the headquarters of the Fraternity, a secret society of assassins headed by Sloan (Morgan Freeman). Sloan explains that the Fraternity exterminates bad men who will do evil things in the future, altering the course of history for the worse. How do they know who these bad people are? They in fact receive premonitions from an age old secret code that can be found in weaving fabrics (yeah…I’m serious). Sloan claims that Wesley has the instincts of a super killer locked in his DNA and he offers him the chance to join the Fraternity. Dreading a return to his boring office life, Wesley agrees to join and set his sights on taking out Cross, who he believes murdered his father.

What is first and foremost impressive about Wanted is the creativity and technical skill of its action sequences. Director Timur Bekmambetov (the Night Watch films) pushes the envelope and tries for action that has never been seen before. This includes bullets that can zip and curve around corners, an assassin that can crash through a skyscraper window and leap over to another skyscraper unharmed, cars that can leap and do flips while landing safely, and assassins that can run on top of speeding subways while shooting to dead accuracy. Of course, these scenes completely stretch plausibility and could never ever (ever) happen in the real world. Yet we’re so dazzled by the action’s audacity and special effects wizardry that we have zero problem letting a lack of realism slide.

I’ve begun realizing lately that a lot of great action films usually have an illogical preposterousness about them, yet if the technical skill and levels of melodrama are up to par, the audience won’t mind investing in the material. To be sure, Wanted is completely preposterous, but it has a wild creativity that feels rare in today’s action pictures. The film is so caught up in its own ideas and universe that we can’t help but buy what they’re selling. Take for example the concept of the Fates, the method in which the Fraternity decides who to kill. If you apply logical thought to it, you’d find holes all over the place. Yet you can’t help but admit what a cool idea that is. The film takes it so seriously that it at least feels plausible. You can accuse Wanted of being ridiculous, but you certainly can’t accuse it of being by-the-numbers.

It helps that the actors labor away like true professionals, giving their characters an undeniable edge and coolness. Angelina Jolie finds a role that fits perfectly with her action bad-girl image. She knows how to rock a role like this, internalizing emotions and being ferociously immersed in the action scenes. It also helps that she displays what could be the sexiest use of body tattoos to ever grace the silver screen. Of course Morgan Freeman can play wise and slick like no other, and he probably has in this film what could be the line of his career (it’s in the final library scene). Common and Terrance Stamp are cooler than hell in supporting roles, yet the award for coolest character surprisingly goes to McAvoy for his portrayal of Wesley. He masterfully handles Wesley’s transition from white-collared wussy to cooler-than-ice assassin. A scene where he tries on a leather jacket and a shotgun in front of a mirror will have you cheering. If you look at the heroes of this summer’s blockbusters, which include Robert Downey, JR. in Iron Man, Shia LeBeouf in Indiana Jones, and now McAvoy, you’ll find that skilled character actors who used to take on soft, sensitive roles are now cooler-than-hell tough guys showing us what big-screen heroes should look like. How awesome is that?

Of course, Wanted isn’t exactly an action masterpiece. I wish the film had taken more time with its pacing so it could develop its ideas a bit more, especially considering the wonderful twist the plot dishes out halfway through the film. Plus I had the same issue with Wanted I had with 300, its over-the-top creativity can feel too cartoonish at times to be taken seriously. I’ve come to realize that a great action movie is one that gets crazy and excessive, yet pretends that it’s grounded in realism. However, these are only minor complaints. Wanted is an action thrill ride that doesn’t quit, doesn’t disappoint, and blows so many current action vehicles right out of the water. Wesley’s final line to the audience almost seems to be directed at all the second-rate action directors making mundane movies: “what the f—k have you done lately?”

Carolla's 'Hammer' Hits Lots of Laughs

by Andrew Jupin

There is a lot to be said about seeing the “Underdog Story” on film. Mainly that it’s been done to death. Why do we see it so many times? Well because people love to root for the underdog. We love knowing that there is always a chance for the little guy to rise up and take it all. We’ve seen it in Rudy, we’ve seen it in Rocky and yes, we’ve even seen it in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. That one even has ‘underdog’ in the title. Well thankfully, Adam Carolla has decided to keep the underdog spirit alive with his new film, The Hammer.

Carolla stars as Jerry Ferro, a down-and-out construction worker (and one time amateur boxer) who finds himself out of work on his fortieth birthday. On top of getting fired, his girlfriend, Nicole (Constance Zimmer), is fed up with his string of employment failures and she also decides to give their relationship the ole’ pink slip. Left with no one but his best friend, Oswaldo (Oswaldo Castillo), Jerry starts picking up a few shifts a week teaching a boxing class at his friend’s gym. Eventually his own skills get noticed by Coach Bell (Tom Quinn), a legendary boxing trainer, who offers Jerry a shot at competing on the Olympic Boxing team.

The story pretty much plays out the way you’d expect the classic underdog story to go: Jerry gets good at boxing again; he meets a younger, stronger competitor that he’ll inevitably have to battle in the end; he gets the girl through one means or another, and yes, everything works out in the end. However, I think the thing that sets aside The Hammer from other underdog comedies—like Dodgeball for example—is that there is a certain sincerity to Carolla’s character that is really appealing.

Through all the challenges that lay in his way, he’s still always looking out for Oswaldo—a Nicaraguan immigrant—by making sure he can always have some sort of odd job around. Before Jerry makes most of his career decisions, he first makes sure that he’ll be able to take Oswaldo along so he can pick up some extra money. His relationship that blossoms with one of his boxing students, Lindsay (Heather Juergensen), also feels very sweet and real. When she reveals she has a chance to take a job in another city far away (of course) Carolla’s performance is very believable when he has to seem legitimately hurt and disappointed. What Jerry does to try and make her stay is also very noble and believable.

There is never a moment when the film resorts to ridiculous tactics to win a laugh; no one mocks any major religion—Mike Meyers—and no one relieves themselves in their pants—thank you very much, the Sex and the City movie. All the laughs are very natural and nothing is over the top. Carolla pulls off this performance with flying colors and proves that he can take on more leading man material.

Unfortunately the film only received a brief run in New York in March and a small post-release ‘premiere’ at the Tribeca Film Festival in April. Not even the insistence of The Soup’s Joel McHale could raise a buzz about the film. However hopefully with this new DVD release from Weinstein Company and Genius Products will do something to gather some fans. The disc itself comes along with some extras including the usual outtakes and deleted scenes and trailer. But there is also a great commentary featuring Carolla and writer/co-producer, Kevin Hench. There is even an amusing feature where you can hear Carolla coaching actor Oswaldo Castillo on toning down his thick accent. This isn’t a disc to pick up for the features, but I strongly urge everyone to get out there and pick up this disc for the feature itself. It’s a great, small movie that is really funny and that I honestly think deserves a large, dedicated following. I guess you could say the film is a real ‘knock-out.’

I’m sorry. I apologize for that. I couldn’t stop myself.

The Hammer is out on DVD tomorrow, June 24^th.

The Top 5 Break-Up Films of All Time

by Brett Parker

Good break-up movies are hard to find in Hollywood. If Hollywood usually favors silly and attractive romantic comedies, then break-up movies by contrast appear just as goofy and shallow. There are usually two persistent reasons for this: (1) filmmakers usually favor durable clichés and formulas over real life emotions or (2) they create situations so close to their own real life experiences that they end up lacking the outsider’s perspective the audience needs. It’s because of this that most break-up movies usually come across as too silly (The Break-Up), too sappy (For Love of the Game), or too clueless (The Hottest State).

Yet as specific films have wonderfully demonstrated, there are certainly ways to make a wonderful break-up movie. One key is to make the film’s emotions as realistic as possible. Breaking-up is a subject that has universal appeal because almost everyone from any race, color, or walk-of-life has experienced a serious heartbreak at one point in their life. It’s a part of life that everyone has dealt with and knows about. To make a break-up movie that lacks authenticity and depth would turn off way too many people and make your film more transparent then you had hoped for. Why watch a phony and clueless break-up situation when the real life version feels so much more dramatic and meaningful?

It’s also not enough to just make a realistic film, but a hopeful one as well. A good break-up movie should not only be represented with honesty, but should also offer a wise and helpful observation on the subject as well. Breaking-up may be hard, but it’s not the end of the world. Even if you have a romantic relationship that falls apart, you still have family, friends, a career, and a whole lot of living to fall back on. There’s more to life than romantic heartbreaks and the best films are the ones that understand this and try to convey it into the plot.

So since these great films are so hard to find, I’ve decided to pay tribute to the top five best films that deal with romantic break-ups. Some of these choices may seem strange, yet if you dig deep into the movie’s ideology, you will find a movie that presents heartbreak and shines light on how to deal with it:

1) Casablanca (1942)
There’s a reason why this film has held-up over the years to become one of America’s most beloved classics, one more so than the war-time drama. Casablanca finds two of classic Hollywood’s most beloved stars, Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, dealing with the heartbreaking aftermath of a loving relationship gone terribly wrong. As war-torn lovers reuniting in Casablanca, Bogart and Bergman are sensational as heartbroken souls struggling to work out their bruised emotions. They dig so deep into their characters’ complexities that even by today’s standards their acting seems modern and authentic.

There are other films on this list that deal more directly with the subject of breaking-up, yet I place Casablanca at the top because it not only nails the roller-coaster emotions of breaking-up, but it shows our romantic hero realizing that there’s more to life than his own relationship and that things would work out better if they went their separate ways. How deep it is for Bogart to realize that his relationship “don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world” and that his lover is better off with her freedom fighter husband, Victor Lazlo (Paul Henreid). Even though Casablanca owes more to classic Hollywood than modern romance, the characters have a depth and wisdom about their relationship that allows audiences of today to identify more strongly with this film than most contemporary romances.

2) High Fidelity (2000)
It’s always hard to watch a movie about a pathetic slacker who cries over losing his girlfriend. What’s great about High Fidelity, is that Rob Gordon (John Cusack) realizes he’s a pathetic slacker and wants to truly understand why his girlfriend left him and how he can improve that. As Rob embarks on a quest to examine his romantic skills by revisiting all of his former girlfriends, he begins to learn huge revelations as to why his past relationships failed and the audience begins to realize their watching one of the most insightful movies about relationships ever made. From high school hook-ups to high maintenance hotties, High Fidelity wonderfully paints a portrait of the murky romantic waters most men have to endure in this modern age.

What makes the film so refreshing is not just the insight the audience gains, but the insight Rob gains as well. By the end of the film, he has learned to grow up and be more of a man. He wins back his ex-girlfriend (Iben Hjeje) not with money or an elaborate scheme, but because he has shown maturity and tenderness. The scene in which Rob tells her why she’s the one is among the best-written scenes in modern romance (credit is also due to the wonderful British author Nick Hornby, who wrote the novel on which the film is based).

3) Swingers (1996)
Mike (Jon Favreau) left behind a loving girlfriend in New York to pursue an acting career in Los Angeles. He struggles to find work in L.A. and grows very love sick over his girl, who appears to be moving on from their relationship. What’s a guy to do? Why hang out with his buddies of course! One phone call to best pal Trent (Vince Vaughn) and Mike is out on the town hanging out at the coolest bars and meeting all sorts of new people. Who needs a girlfriend when you got great friends, swing music, and a whole ocean of attractive girls!

Swingers may be mostly about being a struggling actor in L.A. and partying on the west coast, but I call it a great break-up film because it offers wonderful alternatives from wrestling with heartbreak. As Mike has wacky social adventures with Trent and his army of swingers, we realize that spending time with friends and searching for good times just might be more fulfilling than hanging out with a girlfriend. It certainly is authentic in its convictions. Favreau also wrote the screenplay for the film and the story is largely based on his own experiences while moving out to L.A. Throw in then-indie director Doug Liman and you have an honest and hilarious look at living it up that triumphantly avoids commercial phoniness.

4) Boomerang (1992)
If most break-up movies follow pathetic whiners, then the nice thing about Boomerang is how it shows that even smooth operators get it wrong sometimes. That’s exactly what Marcus Graham (Eddie Murphy) is. He’s a cocky yet likeable advertising executive who goes through women like candy. That is until he meets Jacqueline (Robin Givens) a gorgeous business woman who has Marcus convinced that he’s found his match. Yet as Marcus tries to get serious with Jacqueline, she treats him as carelessly as he treated other women. Rejected and embarrassed, Marcus feels depressed and has no idea how to deal with heartbreak. With the help of some loyal buddies (Martin Lawrence & David Alan Grier) and a sweet new love (Halle Berry), Marcus learns some important matters of the heart and realizes what’s truly important when it comes to relationships.

Of course things are more complicated than this. Tensions flare, friendships get tested, and Marcus doesn’t have the easiest time abandoning his old ways. It is those very complications that make Boomerang so unique. On the surface, it has the appearance of your typical Eddie Murphy or office-romance comedy. While the film is very funny, it digs unexpectedly deep into the characters and we get the feeling that we’re watching real people with real life relationships. There are certain sections that seem formulaic, but there is a genuine heart beating beneath this insightful comedy.

5) Ocean’s Eleven (2001)
Not a break-up film you say? Ocean’s Eleven is nothing but a slick heist film? That may be the popular opinion, yet if you were to peel away the heist conventions, the Hollywood glamour, and the old school coolness, you would find that this movie tells the story of a heartbroken guy who plots to win back his ex-wife the best way he knows how!

As Danny Ocean (George Clooney) assembles an eleven-man crew to rob three Las Vegas casinos, he also plans to win back ex-wife Tess (Julia Roberts) who also happens to be dating the owner of those very three casinos (Andy Garcia). It proves to be a difficult task, for Tess is furious with Danny, but all goes according to plan and Tess realizes that any man who would go to such great lengths for her must be worth another try.

I realize this sounds like a bit of a stretch. But when all is said and done, you realize that the film teaches a very important lesson in breaking-up: if you truly care about someone and you sincerely put forth your all your intelligence and confidence, you just might be able to make the romantic impossible become possible! That's honestly more wisdom than can be found in a more straight-forward romantic film nowadays. If nothing else, who better to take break-up counseling from than George Clooney?

Shyamalan Isn't As 'Happening' As He Used To Be

by Brett Parker

If M. Night Shyamalan had never directed The Happening, I’d probably label the film as being a “second-rate Shyamalan knockoff.” The film has the director’s look and feel, yet it lacks the magic that made his best films so special. To be sure, it has a concept that’s just as fascinating as his previous works, yet it lacks the patience, nuances, and production values we’d expect from him. This film proves that Shyamalan on a lesser day can still make an entertaining film, but where’s the skilled horror of The Sixth Sense? Where’s the emotional impact of Signs?

The film opens on a fall day in Central Park, NY. Two girls sit on a park bench while one of them notices that everyone in the park has stopped moving dead in their tracks. Everyone surrounding them is as still as statues. The one girl turns and realizes that the other girl has stabbed herself in the neck with a hair pin. This is a morbid pattern that begins happening throughout the northeast. Countless people find themselves frozen in their tracks and seeking gruesome ways to kill themselves. It is realized that a deadly toxin is flowing through the air and causing this deadly epidemic at a rapid rate.

News of the outbreak reaches a high school in New York. This causes Science teacher Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) and his colleague Julian (John Leguizamo) to flee the state and head towards Pennsylvania. Elliot grabs his conflicted wife, Alma (Zooey Deschanel), while Julian gets his introverted daughter, Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez), as they flee the state by train. Yet halfway on the trip, everyone on the train is abandoned in the small town of Filbert, PA after a railway employee informs Elliot that the train lost contact with “everyone.” The survivors begin to realize that the deadly toxins will soon catch up with them and they struggle not only to survive, but to figure out what is possibly causing this deadly plague. Is it a terrorist threat? An act of God? Elliot soon realizes that it just might be a disturbing mechanism of nature.

Before I list off descriptions of the film’s flaws, don’t think I’m one of those skeptical critics out to see Shyamalan fail. It’s very much the opposite: I’m a huge fan of his work. Shyamalan, along with Cameron Crowe and Michael Mann, is a director I secretly root for and consider to be one of my favorites for these times. Unbreakable and Signs are two of my favorite movies ever and The Village was on my list of the ten best films of 2004. And while I admit Lady in the Water was Shyamalan’s weakest film, I enjoyed it and found many positive things within the material. What I like about his films is the way he takes concepts that would’ve thrilled me as a 12-year-old and brings a dramatic maturity to them that satisfies both the child and the intellectual in me at the same time, a feat very few directors can pull off. He always achieves this with a minimalist skill that packs a giant cinematic punch. Of course, many critics are out to nail Shyamalan due to his ego and commercial values, yet it would be wiser to let the films speak for themselves, for as I see it, they speak wonderfully.

If any other director had made The Happening, I probably would’ve been easier on it. Obviously, I hold Shyamalan’s work to an exceptional standard and it’s hard to buy this film outright when I know he’s capable of so much more. Yet the film’s hopes for greatness weren’t completely out of reach. It’s the technical aspects that hold the film back from being more powerful. This is strange, considering the perfectionist Shyamalan can be behind the camera. Usually, he has a unique visual scheme behind his films that make even throwaway shots look extremely relevant to the film’s atmosphere. His framing of shots helped strengthen the comic book scheme of Unbreakable and the menacing vastness of the woods in The Village, all with a pacing that takes its time to build suspense. Here, things move in a lazier manner. There are too many tight and unremarkable shots that move along at a pace that’s too quick for its own good. We never get the strong sense of emptiness and tension that the characters are experiencing. It also doesn’t help that James Newton Howard’s musical work, which reached sublime heights in Shyamalan’s past films, underscores nearly every scene here, diminishing the haunting silence that almost serves as the director’s trademark.

Consider the film’s most unforgettable scene, in which Elliot, Alma, and Jess join two pre-teen boys they meet in asking gun-toting locals for food. What proceeds to happen in that scene is undoubtedly the most viscous thing Shyamalan has ever unleashed on an audience. Yet the scene contains a laughable slow-motion shot, a line of bad dialogue, and an extreme close-up of emotional overkill that immediately harms the overall effect of the scene. More thoughtful and subtle staging could’ve retained a more harrowing sting. Mistakes like this can be found all throughout the film. A scene where a man gets attacked by an animal demonstrates Shyamalan’s defeated confession that he’s not the best with CGI. Then there’s the curious case of Mrs. Jones (Betty Buckley), an eccentric recluse the main trio meets on their journey for safety. Hers is a subplot of, shall I say, anticlimactic lunacy. Her behavior is so bizarre and counter-productive to the plot that you immediately question its reason for existing in the first place. Perhaps she is meant to represent the startling alternative to the everyday society that harms the environment? Maybe she demonstrates to Elliot and Alma what a life without love looks like? Either way, her meaning is never highlighted in an effective way and we’re left scratching our heads and laughing unintentionally.

Despite its flaws, The Happening is still a competent film with big ideas and likeable characters. It’s on par with an entertaining B-Movie, and it’s truly better than half the horror thrillers Hollywood churns out eat year (thinking of Dark Water and the Ring series makes me realize how much more inane this film could’ve been). I loved the film’s ideas about the environment taking revenge on mankind and Shyamalan brings a hushed realism and unforgiving hostility to it that makes it truly scary. Only a filmmaker like Shyamalan could make plants seem scary and I can’t remember a film where they came across more threatening (sorry Little Shop of Horrors). And while the actors wrestle with bad dialogue and underwritten characters, they are all competent and convincing. Wahlberg and Deschanel bring a likeable spirit to their characters; it’s especially fun watching the minimalist action star Wahlberg play a quirky science teacher. I liked their characters so much that I wish there were more scenes highlighting the marital stress between them. The film’s climax is meant to be a major romantic triumph (Shyamalan tries to capture the emotional impact of the Signs climax) and while I appreciated the effort, we know too little about this couple to get that worked up.

So we can basically chalk this up as a minor Shyamalan work. It’s likeable and entertaining, but it’s destined to be a more obscure mark in his filmography. Even Hitchcock had films like those. But after Lady in the Water, this film, and the fact that his next project is an adaptation of a Nickelodeon cartoon, I hope he’s able to recapture that popcorn magic he had so strongly in the past. Like a good Shyamalan film, I hope a big twist is coming real soon.