Movie Review: The Serpent And The Rainbow (1988)

Genre: Occult Horror Drama  

Director: Wes Craven  

Starring: Bill Pullman, Cathy Tyson  

Running Time: 98 minutes  

Synopsis: After drinking a hallucinatory potion during a misadventure in the Amazon, Dr. Dennis Alan (Bill Pullman) is commissioned by a Boston-based pharmaceutical company to investigate a drug being used in Haiti to create zombies. Once in Haiti, Dennis teams up with Dr. Marielle Duchamp (Cathy Tyson). After a spooky graveyard episode and a meeting with potion-maker Louis Mozart (Brent Jennings), Dennis becomes the target of brutal militia leader Peytraud (Zakes Mokae), who uses zombifaction to terrorize regime opponents.

What Works Well: Director Wes Craven finds an outlet for his horror passion in a unique drama (only loosely inspired by actual events) that combines gory dream and fantasy scenes within an occult milieu. The political backdrop features the unraveling of the Duvalier regime, the savagery of ruling thugs extending to torture and worse-than-death drugs. The on-location cinematography (filmed in Haiti and the Dominican Republic) captures the on-the-ground organic chaos of disintegration fueled by mystical practices and beliefs.

What Does Not Work As Well: The attempts to deliver gory shocks within nightmarish sequences unsurprisingly wear thin with repetition. In comparison, the overarching political landscape is shortchanged, particularly given the climactic narrative choices. Bill Pullman struggles to get a grip on Dr. Dennis Alan, who is less of an instigator and more a victim of wild experiences, while the romance with his counterpart Dr. Marielle fails to convince.

Key Quote:

Peytraud: Scream all you want. There is no escape from the grave.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Last Seduction (1994)

Genre: Neo-Noir Crime Thriller

Director: John Dahl

Starring: Linda Fiorentino, Peter Berg, Bill Pullman, Bill Nunn, J.T. Walsh

Running Time: 110 minutes

Synopsis: In New York City, corrupt doctor Clay Gregory illegally sells a batch of medications for $700,000 in cash. He desperately needs the money to pay-off a loan shark, but is stunned when his wife Bridget (Linda Fiorentino) takes off with all the money. She hides under a new identity in the small town of Beston near Buffalo, where she seduces local man Mike Swale (Peter Berg) and engages lawyer Griffith (J.T. Walsh) to negotiate a divorce. Instead Clay hires private detective Harlan (Bill Nunn) to track down his runaway wife and recover the money, but she has several contingency plans.

What Works Well: Director John Dahl and writer Steve Barancik deliver a smooth and sexy noir, a direct descendent of 1940s crime-and-seduction masterpieces and reminiscent of 1981's Body Heat. In Bridget, Linda Fiorentino finds the role of her career and occupies the fatale skin of an unforgettably imperious narcissist, perfectly defined by Joseph Vitarelli's playful jazz score. The plot is a twisty battle-of-wits between Bridget and Clay, with side-characters including Mike and Harlan unwitting pawns in a duel they do not understand. The compact narrative still finds time for biting humour, and pokes at themes of female empowerment, small town malaise, and the clash between ambition and ability.

What Does Not Work As Well: The plot offers only a tenuous explanation as to why Bridget does not use her genius to simply disappear rather than waste her time seeking a divorce.

Conclusion: A pleasure-filled, dark-souled delight.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: The High Note (2020)

Genre: Romantic Music Dramedy

Director: Nisha Ganatra

Starring: Dakota Johnson, Tracee Ellis Ross, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Ice Cube, Bill Pullman

Running Time: 113 minutes

Synopsis: In Los Angeles, Maggie (Dakota Johnson) is the personal assistant to music legend Grace Davis (Tracee Ellis Ross) but has ambitions to become a record producer. Grace's career has plateaued, and her manager Jack Robertson (Ice Cube) is plotting a Vegas residency. Maggie meets promising singer/songwriter David Cliff (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) and helps him in the recording studio. A romance blossoms between them, but Grace notices that her assistant is distracted.

What Works Well: The villain-free plot avoids many romantic comedy cliches, and the focus on in-studio creativity and sound optimization is handled with controlled verve. Dakota Johnson brings an amiable screen presence to Maggie, and Tracee Ellis Ross (Diana's daughter) finds texture beneath a diva's veneer. Ice Cube contributes streaks of gruff humour, while Bill Pullman adds character nuance in a third act appearance as Maggie's father.

What Does Not Work As Well: The mix of music, drama, comedy, and romance never extends beyond a cordial mid-range, and it's eventually painfully obvious that both superstar Grace and potential star David are more interesting than central character Maggie.

Conclusion: A pleasant enough tune, but lacking long-term sonority.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Coldest Game (2019)

A Cold War drama, The Coldest Game is a fictional imagining of spies convening at a chess showdown during the Cuban missiles crisis. Despite evoking an era of espionage, the jagged script wobbles.

It's 1962, and the conflict over Soviet warheads in Cuba is threatening to erupt into a global nuclear war. American professor Joshua Mansky (Bill Pullman), now an alcoholic but formerly a chess prodigy, is involuntarily recruited by Federal agents Stone (Lotte Verbeek), White (James Bloor) and Novak (Corey Johnson) to be the United States contender in a chess championship match against Soviet grandmaster Gavrylov.

The event is held in Poland at the hotel wing of Warsaw's Palace of Culture and Science. The facility's director Alfred (Robert Więckiewicz), a World War Two Polish underground resistance hero, befriends Mansky. Menacing Soviet General Krutov (Aleksey Serebryakov) is also in Warsaw, exerting his influence. Mansky learns he was recruited as the point of contact with a Soviet mole, who is carrying vital information about the missiles headed to Cuba.

A Polish production, The Coldest Game is set deep within the world of spies, where moles, murders, and quiet mayhem prevent worse fates. Director and co-writer Łukasz Kośmicki recreates Warsaw behind the iron curtain, a city still hurting from a ruinous war and overrun by agents as it hosts an east versus west showdown. The character of Alfred, now a hotel director wondering if his war sacrifices meant anything as his country chafes under the Soviet boot, provides the narrative heartbeat. The personal city tour he provides to Mansky is the visual and emotional highlight. 

But beyond the cloak-and-dagger aesthetics, The Coldest Game falters. Kośmicki tries to juggle a cold war thriller, a chess drama, a character study, and an international impasse, and unsurprisingly only manages to short-change all topics. Appending a fictional side-story on a history-shaping real-world crisis is always a risky gambit, and the chess-tournament-in-the-shadow-of-imminent-war narrative never justifies itself.

The passing-of-secrets raison d'etre for all the spies gathering in Warsaw is shoved so far back into the shadows that it barely registers, and eventually the film can be accused of focusing on the wrong protagonist: the Soviet mole risking everything to deliver crucial information seems to have a much more interesting story compared to the bamboozled and perpetually drunk professor. As for the chess, the tactics are not even esoterically explained. 

Bill Pullman sinks into the Mansky role with weighty resignation, salvaging a few moments by conveying the sheer fatigue of a man reluctantly forced to function. Despite his frumpled contributions, The Coldest Game thaws into the tepid claminess of muddled intentions.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Battle Of The Sexes (2017)

A biography of tennis legend Billie Jean King around the time of her famous showdown with Bobby Riggs, Battle Of The Sexes reveals the tumult behind the headlines but doesn't quite achieve the intended emotional heights.

It's 1973, and 29 year old Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) is on top of the tennis world. When tournament organizer Jack Kramer (Bill Pullman) refuses to close the gender pay gap, King leads a renegade group of players in the establishment of the Women's Tennis Association, with her friend Gladys (Sarah Silverman) as manager. Although married to Larry (Austin Stowell), King meets and starts a secret lesbian affair with hairdresser Marilyn (Andrea Riseborough).

Meanwhile, former tennis champ Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) is now 55 years old, a compulsive (but successful) gambler much to the disdain of his wife Priscilla (Elisabeth Shue). He is also a self-professed male chauvinist pig. Sensing an opportunity to make money and reclaim the spotlight, Riggs tries to goad King into a publicity-grabbing "battle of the sexes" televized tennis match. She refuses, but Riggs does find an opponent in Margaret Court (Jessica McNamee). The outcome of that game forces King into accepting Riggs' challenge, although her private life is in turmoil.

Directed by the duo of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, Battle Of The Sexes takes on plenty of weighty topics. The early 1970s witnessed the confluence of turbulent currents that had been building up over a decade, and finally feminism, sexuality, money, broadcasting and politics started to fully come together.

The specific tennis match between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King was just that: a one-off, made-for-television stunt event, but it also carried the winds of change: if the reigning queen of women's tennis, carrying the torch of pay equity, could not defeat a loudmouth overweight over-the-hill sexist man in his mid-50s, the cultural setbacks would have propagated far from the tennis court.

Dayton and Faris, working from a script by Simon Beaufoy, are workmanlike in capturing the events of the times, but the central character's spirit eludes them. The film largely focuses on King as she helps form the WTA, meets Marilyn and awakens to her sexuality. Despite a focused Emma Stone performance, King's energy and societal drivers are notably missing. The film meets her at the peak, a woman demanding change while grappling with fundamental personal changes. How and why King got here are absent, an unfortunate gap in a biographical film.

Riggs is very much a supporting character, a caricature battling his middle-age demons and refusing to grow up because his wealth means he does not have to. The rest of the characters are fleeting. Marilyn remains an ethereal partner, more a muse than a person. Riggs' wife Priscilla and WTA organizer Gladys drop in and mostly out of the story.

The match itself forms the climax of the film, and is well presented as an inflated media circus, King cutting a lonely figure as she singularly enters a noisy arena in a world tilted against women's equality. Her on-the-court public showdown contrasts well with her private life, King compelled to keep her relationship with Marilyn a secret despite the whispers, the battle to come for gay rights already visible, but for now still ahead.

Battle Of The Sexes is a good serve, but misses the ace.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Equalizer (2014)

A polished action thriller, The Equalizer offers plenty of style and an immersive Denzel Washington performance, but also a limited premise stretched over an unnecessarily long running time.

In Boston, former CIA operative Bob McCall (Denzel Washington) lives a lonely quiet life, works at a home improvement store, and still grieves the loss of his wife. Most nights he is unable to sleep and whiles away the hours at a 24/7 diner, where young prostitute Alina (Chloë Grace Moretz) is also a regular. Bob and Alina strike up conversations and become friends of sorts. When Alina gets badly roughed up by her Russian mobster pimp, Bob hunts down the den of gangsters and kills five bad guys in 28 seconds.

Unfortunately, the dead Russians are part of a much larger criminal cartel controlled by the Moscow-based Pushkin (Vladimir Kulich) and involved in bribery, corruption and extortion on a national scale. Pushkin dispatches his top henchman Nicolai (Marton Csokas) to find out who killed his men. Nicolai teams up with corrupt police officer Frank Masters (David Harbour), and they start to hunt down McCall to seek revenge.

Directed by Antoine Fuqua and based on the 1980s television series, The Equalizer oozes with  elegance. While the story is standard fare involving hissing Russian villains and an incredulously indestructible hero, Fuqua's weapon is Denzel Washington in fine form. Together director and star create enough depth in the central character to elevate the film above the merely ordinary.

McCall suffers from a combination of obsessive compulsive disorder, insomnia, and leftover depression from his wife's death. These ailments are hinted at on the margins of the film, creating enough of a tantalizing taste that this is a person with a rich emotional history worth spending time with, despite his loner tendencies.

Fuqua's best and worst attributes are revealed in the two highlight action scenes. McCall's cool invasion of the gang hangout to eliminate the scum responsible for Alina's agony is a masterpiece of build-up and execution. But later McCall has to deal with a dozen or so heavily armed goons in a home improvement warehouse store. That scene is both prolonged to the point of exhaustion and starts to resemble a slasher film parody, with McCall taking down his enemies one by one with an assortment of power tools rigged into weapons of death.

Marton Csokas provides a sturdy enough counterpoint to Washington, but Chloë Grace Moretz is shortchanged as she disappears from the film for a very long time. Melissa Leo and Bill Pullman appear in one scene as McCall's former colleagues from his prior life with the CIA.

The Equalizer is effective in what it does, but it does relatively little and for too long.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Singles (1992)

A romantic comedy set at the peak of Seattle's grunge scene, Singles captures a unique moment in time and music, but is an otherwise unremarkable story of typical relationships among young adults.

The film focuses on the love lives of twentysomething friends living in and around a Seattle apartment rental block. Linda (Kyra Sedgwick) is an environmental activist. After getting burned by an affair with a duplicitous foreign student, she meets Steve (Campbell Scott), an engineer with the department of transportation also smarting from a recent breakup. They start a relationship that will have its fair share of unexpected ups and downs.

Meanwhile Steve's neighbour Janet (Bridget Fonda) is obsessed with musician Cliff (Matt Dillon), a member of the grunge band Citizen Dick. She wants to be dedicated to him, but Cliff is unsure he wants to commit to anyone, as his mediocre band struggles for a breakthrough. Also looking for a mate is Debbie (Sheila Kelley), who is friends with Steve and Janet. She decides to go the video dating route, and creates a video to try and find the perfect match.

Written and directed by Cameron Crowe, Singles is more about mood, feel and music and less about plot and characters. The film is a celebration of a Seattle's unexpected moment in the spotlight of the music world, when grunge erupted as the sound of the day and bands went from underground to global stardom within months. The film features the music of Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Mother Love Bone and Mudhoney among others, and band members, mostly before their fame, appear in supporting roles.

As for the relationship stories, they are simple and routine. Crowe's writing is not sharp enough to highlight any of the personalities, and the characters do not move beyond pleasant, generally inoffensive and only vaguely interesting. There is nothing wrong with the romance, comedy and frequent fourth wall breaks; there just isn't anything too compelling on offer, either. Crowe does earn points for keeping his characters deglamorized and refreshingly real, in keeping with grunge's no-frills blue collar aesthetic.

The ensemble cast does what is required, both Kyra Sedgwick and Bridget Fonda playing up the cutesy angle, while Campbell Scott downs in blandness. Matt Dillon as the generally clueless band leader of a mediocre band could have emerged with most distinction, but is given relatively little to do. His band Citizen Dick is a reminder that even in Seattle of 1992, that there were some grunge bands too crap to break out. Bill Pullman (a plastic surgeon), Tom Skerritt (Seattle's Mayor), Jeremy Piven (a store check-out clerk), Eric Stoltz (a random street mime), Victor Garber and Paul Giamatti all appear in small roles.

In addition to the music, Singles is most famous for possibly being the inspiration for the television series Friends. Regardless, the film is like a familiar friend: fun to hang out with, but not necessarily a sizzling experience.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Independence Day (1996)

An alien invasion science fiction extravaganza, Independence Day packs a globe-full of carnage into the story of yucky invaders intent on destroying Earth, and the human efforts to repel them.

With July 4th approaching, a menacing armada of mammoth alien spaceships arrives over Earth, disrupts all satellite communications and takes up station above major cities. US President Thomas Whitmore (Bill Pullman), a former air force pilot, is unsure of the aliens' motives and whether or not to order an evacuation. His advisors include the stoic General William Grey (Robert Loggia), excitable Secretary of Defense Albert Nimzicki (James Rebhorn) and Communications Director Constance Spano (Margaret Colin).

Constance's former husband is David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum), an intellectually gifted MIT graduate whose lack of ambition has landed him a job as a satellite technician at a television station. David decodes the aliens' inter-fleet communication signal, revealing their countdown towards a massive hostile attack. David and his father Julius (Judd Hirsch) rush to the White House to try and warn the President. In Los Angeles, Captain Steven Hiller (Will Smith) is a cocky air force pilot, debating whether to propose to long-term girlfriend Jasmine (Vivica A. Fox), an exotic dancer. He interrupts his vacation and reports back to base upon witnessing the alien spaceship above LA.

The aliens do indeed attack as predicted by David, causing massive loss of life and the destruction of entire cities. The President is hustled off on Air Force One, but the First Lady (Mary McDonnell) isn't so lucky. Hiller joins an air force counterattack, but the advanced technology of the invaders proves too strong. President Whitmore faces a monumental challenge to save the human species, and the path to unlocking an effective military counter strategy passes through the government's secretive Area 51 facility in the Nevada desert.

Directed by Roland Emmerich, Independence Day is a throwback to 1950s style humans vs. aliens sci-fi thrillers. With the advantage of glitzy special effects and charming actors radiating heroism, the film rides a cool groove of action and devastation, set against end-of-the-world excitement. The film takes its time in the first 30 minutes to establish an interesting set of characters, and once the aliens reveal their intent, Emmerich kicks off more than two hours of merriment and mayhem around a simple question: how will humans fight back when faced with nothing less than a surprise war of annihilation with superior extraterrestrials.

For all the sound, fury and glib one-liners, not all of Independence Day is as slick as it would like to be. The scenes of massive spaceships hovering over cities are impressive, but never quite satisfying with the enemy craft rarely fully defined. In general the computer-generated scenes of destruction are hit-and-miss, with the scale sometimes appearing suspect. To maintain family-friendliness there is a notable absence of corpses in scenes where survivors stumble through the wreckage of cities reduced to rubble. The technological key to defeating the aliens, once found, is barely explained, with star charisma expected to be more important than even an iota of scientific discourse.

The romance elements are standard fare for the genre without getting too much in the way, while the independence day hokum about the rebirth of humanity on America's birthday is adequate for easily excitable patriotic young minds, but is best not dwelled upon.

But star charisma is what Independence Day is all about, and the combination of Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum does not disappoint. Smith oozes star power, gets the best lines and the snappiest attitude, and emerges as a hero as both an ace pilot and a man sticking by his exotic dancer girlfriend. Goldblum plays perfectly off his persona as the geeky-but-potentially-cool science guy cultivated around The Fly and Jurassic Park. Bill Pullman is adequate but lands in more bland territory compared to his two co-stars.

The secondary cast adds plenty of texture and is better than the regulation stock characters. Robert Loggia adds stature as the General standing by the side of the President, James Rebhorn is his counterweight as a Secretary of Defence playing politics at the wrong time, and Judd Hirsch get an expanded presence as David's slightly overwhelmed but still thoughtful father. Randy Quaid achieves one his better supporting roles as an alcoholic crop duster with a colourful history related to the aliens, and eventually finds his inner Slim Pickens.

Flashy and furiously fun, Independence Day has much to celebrate.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

The Movies Of Bill Pullman

All movies starring Bill Pullman and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

The Serpent And The Rainbow (1988)

A League Of Their Own (1992)

Singles (1992)

Sleepless In Seattle (1993)

Malice (1993)

Wyatt Earp (1994)

The Last Seduction (1994)

Independence Day (1996)

The Killer Inside Me (2010)

Too Big To Fail (2011)

The Equalizer (2014)

American Ultra (2015)

Battle Of The Sexes (2017)

The Equalizer 2 (2018)

The Coldest Game (2019)

Dark Waters (2019)

The High Note (2020)

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.
The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Sleepless In Seattle (1993)

An unashamedly syrupy romance, Sleepless In Seattle concocts a relationship between America's favourite perky sweetheart Meg Ryan and America's favourite sensitive everyman Tom Hanks. The film's dedication to the magic of love is strong enough to withstand the nuisance of the two leads living separate lives, a continent apart.

Sam Baldwin (Tom Hanks) is a widower struggling to get over the loss of his wife. With his eight year old son Jonah (Ross Malinger) in tow, Sam relocates to Seattle to try and start a new life, but 18 months later, his is still in the emotional doldrums. Desperate, Jonah calls-in to the national radio show of celebrity shrink Dr. Martha. Eventually Sam gets on the phone and Dr. Martha cajoles him into expressing his emotions to the whole country. Thousands of women listeners are touched by his story.

Among the listeners is Baltimore-based reporter Annie Reed (Meg Ryan), engaged to be married to the loving but insufferably predictable Walter (Bill Pullman). Annie finds herself inexplicably drawn to Sam, and begins to seriously doubt her relationship with Walter. Sam embarks on a tentative relationship with co-worker Victoria (Barbara Garrick), while unsanctioned interventions by Annie's friend Becky (Rosie O'Donnell) and Jonah attempt to prod Sam and Annie towards their joint destiny.

The magic of true love as imagined by women is the unshakable core of Sleepless In Seattle, and director Nora Ephron (who also co-wrote the script) in unapologetic in layering on the tear-inducing liquid sugar early and often in large, gooey spoonfuls. The soundtrack is a succession of classic romantic favourites including the likes of As Time Goes By, A Kiss To Build A Dream On and When I Fall In Love, and the movie borrows its themes from the 1957 Cary Grant - Deborah Kerr classic An Affair To Remember, which is only considered one of the most romantic films of all time.

Two of the hottest stars of the time, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan make for an appealing would-be couple, despite sharing precious little screen time with each other. Hanks portrays Sam as the perfect catch for any woman, as dictated by the script, while being genuinely affecting as a heartbroken husband and father struggling to overcome the loss of the true love of his life. Ryan regularly risks overplaying her cute America's sweetheart persona, often betraying an actress ever so slightly over-confident about how much the audience loves her. She makes up for it with some terrific reaction scenes where she commandingly reveals the stripped away essence of a woman realizing that true romance is both currently missing in her life and calling to her from the other end of the radio.

The supporting cast fulfils its mandate in contributing to the magic-of-true-love theme, with the consequence that some characters become so much cannon fodder as they stand in the way of the central relationship. Bill Pullman's Walter is set up as the sacrificial lamb, his character burdened with so many flaws that ditching him is merciful relief. Similarly, Victoria is saddled with a hyena laugh that, while comic, dooms her from behind the starting gate. Rosie O'Donnell and Rob Reiner get small roles as the token witty friends. Young Ross Malinger joined the long list of child actors whose debuts coincided with their best performance, and he was unfortunately unable to translate his excellent portrayal as Jonah into a meaningful career.

If the script replaces wit and realism with the quest for perfect love, it does leave room for a thread of humour. A satirical manly recounting of the tragic ending of The Dirty Dozen as an antidote to all the gushing estrogen hits the comic bulls-eye. Ephron also treads softly in a variety of locations, with Chicago, New York and Baltimore as well as Seattle all playing their role in the transcontinental love flow.

What Sleepless In Seattle lacks in subtlety, it makes up in honest intentions. This is a story of love at its most enchanting, the fairy with the magic wand perhaps not visible but very much in evidence.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.