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A History of Violence [2005]

Director: David Cronenberg
Actor: Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris, William Hurt

Tom Stall (Mortensen) is a humble and loving family man living in a small town in Indiana, happily married and running a small diner in the centre of town. He is a well respected and popular member of the small, close-knit community, and with two healthy kids and a beautiful wife seems to be living out the American Dream.

When one day two notorious murderers come knocking at the diner at closing time, dead set on robbing the place and leaving some cold bodies on the checkered floor, Tom is forced to take action. In a heroic display of violence he guns down the killers while himself sustaining only minor injuries. He is heralded as a hero, and seen as the man who decidedly and single-handedly stopped the robbery, saved the threatened people that were still in the diner, and rid the streets of two wanted killers.

Much to his irritation, his face is plastered all over the news, which attracts some unwanted attention. A mobster from the eastcoast by the name of Fogarty (Harris) comes calling with two goons, claiming Tom is someone else, someone they’ve been trying to track down for a long time. They insist and start harrassing him and his family.

What happens next is appaling and appealing at the same time, in that Cronenberg sort of way. I enjoyed this movie a lot, for it’s acting, directing and its gratuitous but purposeful violence.

Doom [2005]

Director: Andrzej Bartkowiak
Actor: The Rock, Karl Urban

It’s twenty years into the future, and a strange portal has been found in the Nevada desert that can teleport people to a strange base on Mars. The base seemed to have been once inhabited by a people that resemble human very closely. It’s an archaelogical site that’s continuously being excavated in order to find out more information about these ancient people, their technology and their customs. It’s also a science laboratory where experiments are done, mostly environmental.

These ancient people resembled humans very closely, but the younger ones they excavated have an extra chromosome (24 instead of the normal 23 for humans), while the older ones only had 23, leading researchers to believe that the extra chromosome was artificially created by them. Insert a team of experts doing genetic experiments. Insert a bio-weaponry project. Insert test subjects getting out of control. Insert massacre. Insert a small squad of ass-stomping marines under the leadership of The Rock, sent in to clean the place out.

In itself the movie is pretty shit, but highly entertaining. The story of marines going in to investigate and clean a research facility has been done to death, and done first and best by Aliens, probably one of the best films of the last 2 decades. What is cool about this film, however, is how closely it resembles the (third and latest) game, maybe no in story, but definitely in atmosphere, weapons and action. There’s even a whole 10 minute scene in complete first person mode, excellently done, with a “BOOM…Headshot!” moment, and a chainsaw melee moment. It really can’t much better than this.

I was in the cinema, laughing out loud like a little kid, strangely reminded of my time watching XXX with Caz, Barb, Jes and Cash.

The Skeleton Key [2005]

Director: Iain Softley
Actor: Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands, John Hurt, Peter Sarsgaard

Ever since I played Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father’s, I’ve had a bit of a facination for Voodoo and Hoodoo. Most films that I’ve seen that paid it tribute, most notably Angel Heart (from ’87, starring Mickey Rourke, Lisa Bonet and Robert deNiro), I thoroughly enjoy. This film is no exception. I find that I can’t really tell you much about the plot, since it’s so simple, yet clever, that giving away the slightest will give away too much of the movie. While it’s of the “I Know What You Did Last Summer” style of films, and the traditional Hoodoo in it, isn’t properly explained, nor represented I’m guessing, it’s still good fun to watch, and a must for everyone who digs Lovecraftian stories, for it has incredible “The Case of Dexter Ward” overtones.

Oops, I’ve said too much!

Dog Day Afternoon [1975]

Director: Sidney Lumet
Actor: Al Pacino, John Cazale

In my attempt to watch some of the great, under-appreciated movies of all time I watched Dog Day Afternoon today, while I was home sick from work. This film is based on a true story of a man robbing a bank to pay for his lover’s sex-change operation. I’m not going to review all of it, because I’m ill, and because it’ll be hard to find the words to describe this film – the distinct, mid-seventies feel, the tempo, the acting – because it’s 30 years old. Made in a time of many great films, most of them, if not all of them, ending up forgotten. This film, as well as Serpico, come to mind. This is probably one of Pacino’s best films.

Danny the Dog [2005]

Director: Louis Leterrier
Actor: Jet Li, Morgan Freeman, Bob Hoskins
Writer: Luc Besson
Score: Massive Attack

Danny (Li) is a functional retard, made so by his cruel “uncle” Bart (Hoskins), who found him when he was very young and saw a raw potential in him, a killer, that could be harnessed and unleashed at his will, if he had the patience to train him. And train him he did, Danny was turned into a dog, calm while leashed, a crazed killing machine when unleashed. Such a unstoppable force proved very lucrative for Bart, as he needed bones broken and perceptions realigned quite often in his loan-sharking business.

When a perverted, eccentric and extremely wealthy man happens to witness Danny in action he proposes a deal to Bart; to let Danny fight in an arena, to the death, for profit. Danny preforms admirably, killing his opponent with three successive strikes. Upon leaving the arena Bart and the promoter cheer to a wealthy future, but the promoter does require a bit more entertainment next time. On the way back home they are attacked by a disgruntled “client” of Bart’s and only Danny survives, or so he thinks.

He finds a new home, with Sam (Freeman) a blind piano tuner whom Danny had a brief but pleasant encounter with before the fight in the arena. He and his daughter decide to take Danny in and slowly teach him the basics of life, of friendship and love. He adjusts and learns quickly, but doesn’t seem to remember much of his childhood, knowing only his violent life with Bart. As they delve deeper and deeper into his memory through the use of piano-music, for which Danny seems to have a particular fondness, he slowly discovers his past.

Naturally, Bart wasn’t as dead as Danny thought he did, and he comes calling, wanting his fighting dog back to fight in the arena and make him rich.

Hoskins is fabulously malicious while Freeman is magnificently pure and friendly. Li does well as a boyish cute retard, and even better as a furious, feral killer. Luc Besson, the author of the story, wrote this story specifically for Li, and with the help of Yuen Woo Ping, of Matrix fame, as the choreographer, this is one action flick that aims for something different…and succeeds!