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Bedazzled [2000]

Director: Harold Ramis
Actor: Brendan Fraser, Elizabeth Hurley

This film is goofy, the plotline is paper-thin, the acting is mediocre, and Hurley’s dialogue incredibly simple and uninspiring. But Brendan Fraser steals the show by showing off his diversity and comedic insight.

The plot is simple; Fraser plays Elliott, a very lonely and socially awkward man. He cries himself to sleep at night while desperately trying to make friends with his co-workers and secretely dreaming of Allison, who doesn’t know he is alive (literally.) One night, after having had his co-workers peer-pressure him into finally talking to Allison, he makes a fool of himself, and as he watches her walk out the door, wishes that he could be with her.

Enter the Devil (Hurley) offering him 7 wishes in return for his soul. Of course he has to be convinced first. It takes a while but this seductress finally manages him to sign the contract (a stack of papers heavy enough to kill a full sized bull, filled with tiny letters). His first wish is to be rich and powerful and to be married to Allison.

Of course, all goes to hell as the Devil tries (successfully) to find loopholes in the wording of each wish. Luckily, she gives Elliott a way to get in contact with her should a wish not work out. He quickly wastes wish after wish not being thorough enough in his wording.

Very funny film in which Brendan Fraser really shines.

300 [2006]

Director: Zack Snyder
Actor: Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, Dominic West, Michael Fassbender, David Wenham, Rodrigo Santoro

An amazing film about an event that came to define courage and valour throughout western civilisation, the Battle of Thermopylae. The film, while riddled with cliché-ic acting and stereotypes, is fantastically beautiful, and gruesome. No lack of maimed and ruined bodies.

No lack of super-slo-mo action, either. Sometimes I thought it was a bit overdone, like a John Woo-wannabe, trying to impress the audience with slow motion action sequences. Not bad, but overdone.

So I’m left disappointed in this film, which is not to say I didn’t enjoy it. I had just hoped for a little more, and maybe for too much.

Smokin’ Aces [2007]

Director: Joe Carnahan
Actor: Jeremy Piven, Ryan Reynolds, Ray Liotta, Andy Garcia, Common, Alicia Keys, Taraji P. Henson, Matthew Fox, Tommy Flanagan, Chris Pine, Kevin Durand, Maury Sterling, Joel Edgerton, Nestor Carbonell

God, if you love action-flicks that don’t necessarily have to be very believable, then this one is it for 2007. Basic (very basic) rundown; Buddy “Aces” Isreal, a Las Vegas entertainer with mafia ties, is testifying against the last real capo in America; Primo Sparazza, who orders a hit on him for the grand sum of $1.000.000. That type of money attracts some big fish, and so Lake Tahoe (where he’s holed up in the penthouse, surrounded by private security and his own squadron of thugs) suddenly becomes overrun by an ecclectic mix of assassins.

There’s Georgia and Sharice, two bad-boy girls that are up and coming assassins, having pulled off a Triad hit that put them on the shortlist of shit-hot assassins. Georgia (Keys) is the sexy face, while Sharice is the hard-hitting guns-n-ammo girl. They have a .50 cal rifle, fer chrissakes.

There’s Lazlo Soot, the master-disguise artist, ruthless and cunning, who manages to infiltrate the hotel and get closer and closer by killing people and assuming their identity.

Then there are the brothers Tremor, or “The Tremors”, three brothers (same mother, different daddies) who consider Mein Kampf as their bible and are completely nihilistic. They are well known for…eh…collateral damage. They will kill anything without a heartbeat, and they’ll do it with a bang. Guns, bombs, chainsaws, punk-rock and unintelligible screaming. _Nazi_ _nihilists._

Then there’s “El Estrago,” a.k.a. “The Plague,” who is known for his inventive ways of murdering people, daring infiltrations, and incredible cruelty. He’s an international man of mystery who has done contracts all over the globe, and for all manner of organisations and individuals, even the CIA. An expert torture-artist, who, when caught by authorities he chewed off his own fingertips so they wouldn’t be able to identify him.

And of course, then there’s the mysterious “Swede” that nobody seems to know anything about. A foreign hitman who hasn’t shown up on anyone’s radar yet!

Want to know more about these assassins? Then read the short, excellent article called The Seven Assassins of Smokin’ Aces.

Then there’s Jack Dupree (Affleck), a bailbondsman, who, together with his two ex-cop partners, is out to get Buddy Israel on a skipped bond. Affleck is fantastic is the handle-bar moustache wearing, rough-house bailbondsman.

And of course there’s the FBI; Carruthers (Liotta) and Messner (Reynolds) who are trying to get him into the Witness Protection Program before the assassins get to him. Sadly, they are cobwebbed by beauracracy, and even by their own boss Locke (Garcia) by what is consider “bureau politics.”

What follows I have only ever seen in my old Shadowrun games; complete and utter chaos. It’s great. I love it. :) People are trying to protect Buddy, people are trying to kill Buddy, and it seems that Buddy is just looking out for Buddy, and burning the goodwill of his buddies at the same time.

Special notice goes out to Common (formerly known as Common Sense), a Chicago-based rapper who plays Sir Ivy, Buddy’s lieutenant, who maintains a strange but refreshing code of honour, which is a mix between street and budo. He doesn’t get enough screen-time, but does a fantastic job.

Blood Diamond [2006]

Director: Edward Zwick
Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, Jennifer Connelly

This is a gripping story about two men, whose lives become closely intertwined when the RUF (Revolutionary United Front) is pushing back the government forces of Sierra Leone in the early 90s. One man, Danny Archer (DiCaprio) finds his trade (former-mercenary-turned-diamond-smuggler) hindered by the war, while he tries desperately to find a way to make enough money to get out of Africa. Another man, Solomon Vandy (Hounsou) finds his once peaceful village overrun, his eldest son taken as a child-soldier for the RUF, his wife and daughter sent fleeing, and himself taken as a slave to work in one of the many diamond rich areas of Sierra Leone.

The come together when Solomon finds a huge, 100+ carat diamond which he tries to keep from his slavers, right before government forces overrun the mining camp and take everyone prisoner. He manages to bury the diamond before being captured, however, but when word gets out in prison that he had found the diamond, Danny (also in prison for smuggling) decides to get close to him in order to get the diamond. Danny does it for the money, Solomon in order to get his son back. Together they travel through a war-torn Sierra Leone in search for the diamond and Solomon’s family.

It’s very powerful. Not Hotel Rwanda powerful, but it comes close. It’s made extra powerful by the fact that diamonds are traded over the backs of slaves, and sold to our fat, white arses in the west. We don’t realise what has happens sometimes to get us our engagement rings, or diamond-studded earrings. This film portrays the worst of days, before the Kimberley accord.

“T.I.A.; This is Africa.” A cold comfort that people remind themselves of whenever something bad happens to them. As if bad luck, bad fortune is somehow inextricably tied to Africa.