Tag: action movies

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American Ultra

A whole week without a movie review? Time to rectify that with another movie involving secret agents! Is it just me or have there been a LOT of those recently?

At least this one has a twist in its comedic approach to espionage and kicking people. American Ultra stars Jesse Eisenberg as a stoner who slowly realises that he has powers beyond his control. Powers of kicking ass!

The Big Eisenbowski!

When I saw the red-band trailer for this movie two weeks ago for the first time, just before watching Southpaw, I thought two things. First, that this must be the 126th movie to feature the word “American” in its title (seriously look at this list) and second that it looked like a funny way to do the old “one-man-army” action film.

Like I mentioned or subtly implied in my review of The Gunman, this sub-genre of action movies is one that really feels like it has been oversaturated. Some people are beginning to get sick of the number of superhero films that are coming out nowadays, but everyone seems to ignore the fact that everyone for the past decade has been unsuccessfully trying to do one thing, re-do Bourne. Sadly, nobody has been doing anything about it. American Ultra is attempting to amend this.

Does it succeed? Let’s look at the positives.

Eisenberg is joined by Kristen Stewart as his girlfriend and they were both brilliant, separately and as a couple. Unlike with so many comedies, I genuinely felt like these two loved one another and that they’d want to go through the troubles that come their way to sort it out. They sort out these problems through some often funny and well-choreographed and satisfyingly brutal action sequences.

What surprised me was the amount of serious drama that took place in this action-comedy. A lot of the time it works really well, it gets you invested into our two excellent leads and for the most part is written rather nicely.

However, at other times I forget that I’m watching a comedy at all. Don’t get me wrong, there are some really funny jokes, but there are long periods of time where I feel like I’m watching a not particularly good thriller/drama. I feel like there could have been a few more jokes.

The film cuts back and forth between those chasing our leads for both good and bad reasons and the leads themselves. I honestly think one could do a fan-edit to cut out most of the former part. It’s just not as interesting as the other.

Now that’s not to say I don’t like this movie, I do, I really enjoyed it, particularly the chemistry shared between its two main stars and the fact that it took itself both seriously and with a pinch of salt. I just feel that it fell short of that Cornetto Trilogy and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang brilliant balance which has been and will probably always be the holy grail of action comedy (note the hidden comedy reference in that sentence).

Recommended Scenario: If you’re like me and appreciate the definitely flawed, but often underrated Knight & Day.

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The Gunman

Film pitch time. What if there was one of these “one-man-army” action movies (along the lines of Bourne, Die Hard, Bond, et al), but half-way through the film, our hero, let’s call him Jammy Biggs (played by Eric Bana) gets killed by one of the random baddie henchmen and the movie takes off in a completely new direction afterwards. I think that in the right hands, this would be an awesome twist!

The Gunman is a one-man-army actioner which follows the general formula which was reworked by the excellent Bourne Trilogy from 80’s action movies. Sean Penn plays a former hitman on the run from his previous bosses.

There’s apathy of action heroes while they kill people, then there’s Sean Penn killing people.

What works a tad better in this movie compared to the three films starring Jason Bourne are some elements of the action.

While Doug Liman and later Paul Greengrass’ work with shaky-cam is some of the best the industry has ever seen, it is nice that The Gunman has a much smoother feel to its action. This satisfaction is only due to the overuse of camera shake in other Bourne imitators.

Secondly, though the violence in the Bournes was devastatingly brutal, some of the best ever put on film without gore, it is a welcome sight, and this is going to sound strange, to see blood in this film. I deeply respect the filmmakers for sticking to their guns, quite literally, and refused to cut away from the action unnecessarily.

Now, a cut-away from a kill can be used for dramatic effect, but often the greatest drama can be delivered by showing us the true ugliness of death. In fact, a friend once made the point to me that “clean” violence, the kind where there is no feeling of the characters feeling pain or death, is actually more of a bad influence for children. Violence can be done over-the-top fun (Commando), over-the-top stylish (Kill Bill), or disturbingly realistic (A History of Violence).

The Gunman is nothing special for its use of violence. But, it does serve as an example to those who want to water down action in order to get more audience members through a 12A rating.

Our lead, Sean Penn, is really good in this movie. His character suffers from the mistakes of his past life and this permeates his surface superbly.

The supporting cast all do a pretty good job as well. Unfortunately however, the film stumbles at the usual obstacle of this sort of film.

Penn’s character has a girlfriend at the beginning of the film. Stuff happens. He has to leave her. A long time later they meet again due to circumstances. They hook up despite the girlfriend being already in a relationship. Stuff happens. They have to go on the run.

These characters do not need to get together here. At best they can be friends by the end. It would make no difference to the plot if instead of them both being in love, he was still in love with her, but it remains unrequited.

I would like to see that more in movies. Instead we have a female character, who on one hand has some really nice moments of strength and breaking down in the face of the madness of the situation. On the other hand, she gets back together with a man who, while a good man, has treated her like dirt.

This annoyed me quite a bit, but I can’t necessarily blame the movie. This sort of trend has been going on since the first movies. It takes proper cajones to break it.

So, all in all, not a bad movie. Just don’t expect me to be raving about it to my friends.

Recommended Scenario: If you want a gritty, no-nonsense action flick, that is pretty similar to most gritty, no-nonsense action flicks.

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Run All Night

For the second time this year, I am reviewing a movie starring Liam Neeson as a man who has problems connecting with his kid and has the ability to beat people up. This is still a thing apparently.

Run All Night has Neeson play a former gangster who has to struggle to save his son, who is on the run from Neeson’s former mob boss. And as the title suggests, this is all over the course of one night.

Liam Neeson should really spend more time talking to people face to face in his movies.

It is fun to point out that this film’s lead actor has been doing the same sort of stuff in most of his films for years. Besides being an action hero a lot, he also consistently plays the older gentleman who teaches the feckless youth how to kick ass.

When I saw the trailers and other promotional stuff about this film, I thought, just like everyone else, that this was going to be another Taken retread. And while there are a number of similarities, besides both films being of the same genre and having the same lead actor, I don’t necessarily think that this should be a problem in and of itself.

For one, Liam Neeson is not the only actor to have one character archetype he keeps to, with subtle variations. John Wayne and Clint Eastwood are two of cinema’s greatest “legends” despite their acting careers both consisting of the same sort of work.

Secondly, despite the fact that a particular actor has the ability to drastically change the way a film could work, for many films, including this one, the fact that the lead has been in other similar projects should have no bearing on how I critique its quality.

So what level is Run All Night‘s quality? The answer is surprisingly good.

The premise feels like a reasonably clever twist on the classic revenge actioner, with the antagonist having a genuine reason to be angry at our heroes and the hero having sins that act as a consistent chip on his shoulder.

Yes, it has some cliches and the dialogue, being in a story that goes over the course of one night, is distractingly expository at times, but this movie kept me invested throughout.

The supporting cast, which includes Ed Harris as the mob boss after Neeson’s son, does an excellent job. A strange incident here is that the only member of the cast to have ever won an Oscar, despite big names like the two already named, was Common, the singer/songwriter, who plays a random hitman.

What about our lead? Liam Neeson’s character, like many in this movie, occupies a dark and dangerous world of people who carry scars from past lives, himself included. This makes for a protagonist who is easy to despise and sympathise with, which I loved. Neeson himself plays it well, despite him continuing to be unable to do a convincing American accent. Let’s face it, he really has problems with it.

The action suffers from some of the problems which plague many action movies in recent years. Occasionally the camera shakes to an extent where you cannot quite see what’s going on. However, I have seen far, far worse and I was never bored or confused by it. And at least the good guys often seem like underdogs, keeping the tension high.

Also, the violence is stepped up to 15 rating levels. This in and of itself is a move which can never save terrible action, but can at least help to deliver more powerful punches to the audience.

The direction has some noticeable style to it which I think kind of worked here, though I will concede that not everyone will agree.

Run All Night is everything Taken 3 should have been. I hope it doesn’t get a sequel which demolishes it all.

Recommended Scenario: When you want an action film that isn’t based on nostalgia or pandering to the male demographic.