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Countdown ★★★

April 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment

A action packed Korean gangster flick – with plenty of laughs at the comic villains

Website: countdown2011.co.kr
Director: Huh Jong-ho
Lead: Jae-yeong Jeong
Co-Star: Do-yeon Jeon
Genre: Action
Runtime: 119mins
Rating: PG
Stars: ★★★

Not that I was aware of it while watching it, but Countdown is full of a bunch of big Korean stars. The stars including actress Jeon Do-yeon and Jeong Jae-yeong. This probably isn’t a film I would usually get to watch, but on a SIA flight coming out of Korea you need to take your opportunities.

Jeong plays Gun Ho (a great name). He is a debt collector who is starting to have memory problems and actually has some debt problems of his own. He soon finds out that his memory issues relate to terminal liver cancer which means he only has a few months left to live. As a result he sets out on a quest to track down the five people who were donated the organs of his dead son – in a hope that the compatibility that made these people suitable as donor recipients – which make them happy to donate some liver to him.

All refuse of course – except for con artist Ha Yeon (Jeon). She is just out of prison and agrees on condition that Gun Ho held him track down a man from her past. Gun Ho realises that she is not the most trustworthy partner – but he really has no choice. All this is complicated when a gangster from Ha Yeon’s past starts coming after them for some unrelated piece of revenge.

The whole film hikes along at good pace. There is also some great laughs here too – with loads of humour at the expense of the almost comic villains (which is often the case in Korean movies I find).

Worth checking out on DVD if you get the chance.

IMDb

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Abduction ★★

January 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The only thing going for this is Lautner’s sex appeal

Website: abductionthefilm.com
Director: John Singleton
Lead: Taylor Lautner
Co-Star: Lily Collins
Genre: Action | Drama | Mystery
Runtime: 106mins
Rating: M
Stars: ★★

This latest vehicle for Taylor Lautner proves yet again that this boy had enormous sex appeal but not a large range of emotion. There are so many moment in this film which would normally call for some reaction behind the stony faced Lautner’s range – but he just doesn’t have it. That aside – he is hot and likeable – so he is one of the good things about the film too.

Abduction follows Nathan Harper (Lautner) who was already feeling like he didn’t fit in his family. He confesses as much to his shrink (Sigourney Weaver). But when trained killers invade his home there are a load more questions that need to be answered.

This all happens when Nathan and potential girlfriend Karen (Lily Collins) find Nathan as a 3 year old on a missing persons website. He contacts the site to notify them that he has seen ‘Stephen Price’ but the questions they ask immediately get him concerned. Juvenile Justice – as they have called themselves – arrives at the door not very much later and kill his parents and destroy the house. Nathan has gotten himself into a real mess.

We find out that Nathan’s picture was inserted on the site by a rogue black ops agent named Kozlow (Michael Nyqvist) who is hoping to use Nathan as a bargaining chip for a top secret list of double agents that the CIA is also trying to obtain. It is in the possession of Martin – the undercover CIA agent who is Nathan’s real father.

I’m going to leave the description of the plot there – lest you want to actually watch this thing – but lets say – this is where the action begins. One big chase scene until the final showdown between Nathan and Kozlow. Along the way he also has to contend with the CIA chasing him – headed up by Frank Burton (Alfred Molina).

Lautner clearly enjoyed the role – doing many of his stunts himself. There is plenty of appalling dialogue to laugh along with (even if it is unintended).

Give this one a miss.

IMDb

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Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows ★★

January 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The dynamic of Downey Jr/Law is starting to wear thin

Website: warnerbros.com
Director: Guy Ritchie
Lead: Robert Downey Jr
Co-Star: Jude Law
Genre: Action | Adventure | Crime
Runtime: 129mins
Rating: M
Stars: ★★

So now an increasingly crazy Sherlock Holmes becomes an early precursor to Homeland Security chasing down terrorists in the latest incarnation of the Robert Downey Jr/Jude Law franchise – Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

Holmes (Downey Jr) springs into action after a bunch of shocking bombings around Europe with a theory that his arch enemy Professor Moriarty (the always ominous Jared Harris) is behind a plot to create a world war after having bought up all of the weapons and first aid companies in Europe. His ‘springing’ is becoming more and more eccentric (or perhaps I just forgave it in the first film) – but I found myself thinking that Downey Jr was trying too hard to emulate the fun of Johnny Depp/Jack Sparrow and not really hitting the mark.

Meanwhile Dr Watson (Law) is about to get married – so we also have the ‘fun’ of a bachelor party gone wrong. Here we meet Mycroft Holmes – his equally eccentric brother – played by Stephen Fry. Unfortunately for Fry this might not have been the best vehicle for him – and he just seems a little faltering in his deliver (particularly in a rather unnecessary scene with him in the nude).

The major problem with this effort – and the first film which I enjoyed far more is guilty of the same – is that there is no resemblance of the Sherlock Holmes character created by Arthur Conan-Doyle in this film. Indeed this character is probably the antithesis of what Conan Doyle saw Holmes as (although I have to say I did enjoy the imagery of Holmes putting together the clues in a room in a reconstruction of events in his mind).

Give it a miss for now.

IMDb

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SFF: Girl Shy ★★★★

June 15, 2006 By Leave a Comment

Website: imdb.com
Director: Sam Taylor
Lead: Harold Lloyd
Co-Star: Jobyna Ralston
Genre: Action/Comedy/Romance/Family
Runtime: 80mins
Rating: NR
Stars: ★★★★

Its not often in this day and age that you sit down to watch a silent film. So when one came up in the Sydney Film Festival complete with live classic trio to play accompaniment – why would you pass up this opportunity. I had not heard anything about Harold Lloyd previously but now I’m quite interested to see some more of his work – because this was a daredevil thrill-a-minute kind of picture that made the entire audience laugh out loud.

Now I know that Lloyd was best known for his physical comedy. He plays this sweet guy who is terrified of girls. He is an apprentice at his uncle’s small-town tailor shop and is watching girls from a distance as he writes a handbook on how to make love – despite having never done so himself. He takes the manuscript off to an LA publisher and on the way meets Mary Buckingham (Jobyna Ralston) – who’s car has broken down. The slapstick action starts with attempts to hide Mary’s dog from the conductor on the train. For some reason, Harold is able to control his stuttering around Mary – this could be signs of good things to come.

Later in the film, as both Harold and Mary pine over the lost love they potentially found on the train they bump into each other again. Harold has finds out that Mary is to be married to her long time friend Ronald De Vore (Carlton Griffin) who actually already has a wife! Harold has to save Mary from the womaniser – and having just sold his book (which the publishers think is a comedy) he feels suitably wealthy to challenge for her hand himself. The method of getting to LA is hilarious. He uses just about every method of transportation except for a plane to make it there. He hijacks horses, carriages, cars, motorcycles and even a tram in a series of scenes that had the audience in an uproar.

Apparently this is the formula that many of Lloyd’s movies used – which is why I would be interested on seeing some of the others. Sometimes you just need to have a good laugh.

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Layer Cake ★★★★

July 30, 2005 By Leave a Comment

Website: layercake.co.uk
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Lead: Daniel Craig
Co-Star: Tom Hardy
Genre: Thriller/Crime/Action/Drama
Runtime: 105mins
Rating: MA
Stars: ★★★★

Like lots of other similar movies – Layer Cake opens with a narration describing a criminal world made in heaven. But as the narration goes on we realise that this world has been slowly slipping towards hell. The voice explaining everything to us belongs to Daniel Craig who plays the competent and conservative middle-mn in a well-run London cocaine operation. Throughout the movie we don’t know his name – and even the credits don’t give us a clue.

Craig’s credo is told to us as if he is lecturing at a university. It is run like any other business – knowing your suppliers, knowing your customers, paying your bills and not being too greedy. On the side he runs a real estate business – and there isn’t a lot of difference. He has an exit plan and hopes to retire from the drug business in the future. But all of that changes when he gets the call to a private club for luncheon with his immediate superior in the chain – Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham). Jimmy is a hard man with cold eyes – and he wants Craig to sort out an ecstacy deal that went bad – but also to find the missing daughter of his boss Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon).

Craig doesn’t like this assignment – it is not his usual kind of work. He usually sticks well clear of this kind of mess as a way of making an easy escape – but he has no choice. The ecstacy deal is especially dicey. One of Jimmy’s cronies named Duke (Jamie Forman) stole pills allegedly worth a million pounds. The Serbs he stole them from want them back. The ideal outcome would be for Craig to grab the pills for Jimmy while Duke is sacrificed to the Serbs. Ouch.

Confused yet? I was.

Anyway.. Craig isn’t alone in doing the job – he has some hard men by his side. Produced by Matthew Vaughn who did ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ and ‘Snatch’ and the style is highly reminiscent – although there is a fair amount of Scorscese in their as well. Anyway – I personally think that the the flick is done very well. Particularly in that it shows both the high-life and low-life of the crime world. The dilemma in Craig’s world is that he has the resources to enjoy himself but works for people who he works for speak a different language.

Daniel Craig is good – as is most of the rest of the cast. He is said to be the front runner to play the next James Bond (but isn’t half of Hollywood). I get a sense he plays a great criminal so I’m not sure how he would go at being a secret agent. Hmm. Interesting.

Definitely worth checking out.

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