The Ace Black Movie Blog

Showing posts with label Dan Hedaya. Show all posts

Saturday, 9 July 2022

Movie Review: The God Committee (2021)

A medical ethics drama, The God Committee tackles organ transplant dilemmas but insists on a surly tone.

Events jump between two timelines in 2014 and 2021. In 2014, the romantic relationship between the dour and near-retirement Dr. Andre Boxer (Kelsey Grammer) and the much younger Dr. Jordan Taylor (Julia Stiles) is coming to an end. They are both heart surgeons on the organ transplant committee of New York's St. Augustine Hospital.

A fatal motor vehicle accident in Baltimore means a donor heart has become available, and the committee has to select from three candidate recipients: an overweight man with a previous suicide attempt, an elderly woman who is ambivalent about receiving a new heart; or a young entitled man with a history of drug addiction. The young man is the son of business tycoon Emmett Granger (Dan Hedaya), who complicates the committee's work by dangling the potential of a $25 million gift to the hospital.

In 2021, Boxer has retired from the hospital and is leading an ambitious research program that could enable organ harvesting in animals for potential human use. Emmet is one of his main funders, but Boxer's health is deteriorating, jeopardizing the program. Meanwhile, Jordan is a senior doctor at the hospital, and a mother to a six-year-old boy.

An independent production, The God Committee adapts a play by Mark St. Germain, and seeks the intersection of medicine, morality, and money. Director Austin Stark also wrote the screenplay, and enjoys the presence of a talented cast to help overcome the lack of high-budget pizazz. In addition to Kelsey Grammer, Julia Stiles, and Dan Hedaya, Janeane Garofalo (the hospital's chief administrator) and Colman Domingo (a priest with a past and an agenda) have tasty roles.

The source material appears intended as a tense debate-around-the-table in the vein of 12 Angry Men. Stark does well to free the movie from stage origins, the drama visiting multiple locations and never feeling constrained. The twin timeline structure adds narrative tension and a benefit-of-time consequence to the central guessing game of who gets the donor heart.

While the main characters are provocative, they are also weighed down and wrestling with predictable soon-to-be-exposed flaws. Dr. Boxer, Dr. Taylor, and investor Granger all carry a ton of emotional bricks into every scene, nary a smile nor witticism in evidence. The script is a couple of polishes away from a final product, the dialogue lacking zing and the stream of self-satisfied revelations barely making an impression.

The central theme digs into the conundrums of a committee grappling with the God-like power to decide which patient gets a better chance to live. With the best of intentions, personal judgements, subjective assessments, self-interest, and the influence of money contaminate the process. The medical professionals around this table are not above talking themselves into compromising decisions, the big picture and individual patient needs often obscuring each other.

Without lecturing, The God Committee does point to the potential for a better science-enabled future, but other committees in other movies will need to uncork the ethical dilemmas of using animals to harvest organs for humans.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Saturday, 14 December 2019

Movie Review: Shaft (2000)

A next-generation sequel and reboot, Shaft reaches for a cool vibe but stumbles on shallow stock characters and a dull story.

In New York City, detective John Shaft (Samuel L. Jackson) roughs up snotty and racist rich kid Walter Wade Jr. (Christian Bale), who has just been arrested for a murder. The only witness to Wade's crime is bartender Diane Palmieri (Toni Collette), and she immediately goes into hiding. Walter is released on bail and promptly flees to Switzerland. Two years later Shaft tangles with local drug gang leader Peoples (Jeffrey Wright), then re-arrests Wade as soon as he lands back on US soil.

Again the justice system fails and Wade is released on bail, enraging Shaft who quits the force and vows to pursue private justice. Wade wants to silence Diane before she testifies against him, and hires Peoples to do the dirty work. Shaft gets help from detective Vasquez (Vanessa Williams) and taxi driver Rasaan (Busta Rhymes), but has to overcome crooked cops Roselli (Dan Hedaya) and Groves (Ruben Santiago-Hudson) in his quest to find and save Diane.

The original Shaft spawned two sequels, but after 1973's Shaft In Africa the series fizzled along with the blaxploitation sub-genre. A full 27 years later the 2000 entry picks up with the nephew of the original character in the lead role. Richard Roundtree does get to reprise his star-making turn in a few incidental scenes, still as a private investigator and now waiting for his nephew to experience the futility of working within the system.

The problem with Shaft in 2000 is its utter routineness. Director and co-writer John Singleton is unable to elevate the film beyond standard-fare Hollywood-style police work and masculine posturing, with frequent nods to broken officialdom perforated by corruption and justice tilted heavily towards white rich people. These are well-worn themes, and no amount of profanity (in almost every sentence) can elevate the film towards a new edge.

The script certainly does not help. The find-the-witness central quest is misplaced into an environment where scores are settled with bullets flying around every corner and dead bodies piling up on the street. The thought that after all the killing some sort of court case will determine Wade's fate is quaint, and too thin a thread to hang a film on. The complete absence of any character backstories adds a lightweight feel to 99 minutes of superficiality.

Samuel L. Jackson slices through the film oozing self-confidence but lacking any depth. Singleton delivers a few deft directorial touches and handles the frequent shootouts with decent cohesion, and Isaac Hayes' classic Theme from Shaft enlivens the otherwise forgettable soundtrack. But rather than a cool cat, in 2000 Shaft is just another angry cop.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Tuesday, 7 May 2019

Movie Review: Blood Simple (1984)

A neo-noir masterpiece, Blood Simple is the debut of the Coen brothers and an exquisitely crafted crime thriller.

In rural Texas, Abby (Frances McDormand) is cheating on her husband Marty (Dan Hedaya), a bar owner, with his employee Ray (John Getz). But Marty is on to her, and has hired private detective Lorren Visser (M. Emmet Walsh) to catch Abby in the act, which he promptly does. Marty tries and fails to reel Abby in, and in desperation hires Visser to help him exact revenge. But events will spiral in unexpected and dangerous directions for the lovers, the jilted husband and the detective.

The plot summary is just the start. Blood Simple stands atop that foundation of infidelity and humiliation and builds a delightfully askew structure, where every next level is twisted. Double crosses and on-the-fly criminal improvisations engulf the characters in a nightmare of their own making, driven by overlapping combinations of lust, love, greed and retribution.

Produced on a budget of $1.5 million, Blood Simple credits Joel Coen as director and his brother Ethan as producer, and both as co-writers. But this is the start of their shared vision to create quality quirky films, and their first big screen foray delivers a visual and cerebral treat.

Classic film noir fundamentals abound, with all the characters deeply flawed and susceptible to self-serving sin. In the first scene Abby hints to her lover Ray that maybe something bad should happen to her husband Marty; the detective Visser is primarily interested in lining his pockets; and all three men are not beyond plotting and executing acts of violence most foul.

And the classic noir style is also evident in almost every scene. The film opens with an in-car conversation between two silhouettes on a rainy night, interrupted at regular intervals by the headlights of oncoming traffic. Later, light streams through bullet holes in a perforated wall. Lazy ceiling fans shuffle the stale air and help transition scenes and settings. And from third-rate motel rooms to the cluttered back room of Marty's bar, the Coens find ideal locales for everything to go wrong.

The highlight set-piece is an unforgettable Hitchcock-meets-noir sequence involving a victim, blood-soaked clothes, an attempted cover-up, an abandoned country road, a shovel and a grave site. It's an excruciatingly beautiful piece of tense film making, devoid of dialogue but filled with dread and mounting horror.

The four principal cast members fully immerse into their characters. Dan Hedaya and M. Emmet Walsh have rarely had similar opportunities for prominence, and both demonstrate their often underutilized dedication to scheming personas. Walsh, in particular, finds a career highlight as the sleazy private detective happy to freelance in search of maximum profit for least amount of work.

John Getz creates in Ray the perfect handsome but maybe not-so-smart guy ensnared by the wrong woman. In her debut, Frances McDormand projects just the right amount of sly seductiveness under an innocent veneer.

The final showdown features an attempt to tidy up criminal loose ends, and by this stage every ill-advised plan to cause harm has taken an astonishing turn. It's generally inadvisable to take a knife to a gunfight, but in Blood Simple, nothing is that simple.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Saturday, 9 June 2018

Movie Review: Clueless (1995)

A high school comedy and romance, Clueless is a sparkling story about affluent teenaged girls navigating the hazardous complexities of friendship, love, schoolwork and trips to the mall.

Cher: Isn't my house classic? The columns date all the way back to 1972.

At a Beverly Hills high school, almost-16-year-old Cher (Alicia Silverstone) and her best friend Dionne (Stacey Dash) are fashionable and high- up on the popularity charts, but not that academically inclined. Cher lives in a mansion with her father Mel (Dan Hedaya), a successful litigation lawyer, while her mother died young from liposuction surgery complications. Cher has picked up her father's sharp argumentative skills, and manages to talk her teachers into increasing her grades.

Mel: Which reminds me, where's your report card?
Cher: It's not ready yet.
Mel: What do you mean, "it's not ready yet?"
Cher: Well, some teachers are trying to low-ball me, Daddy. And I know how you say, "Never accept a first offer", so I figure these grades are just a jumping off point to start negotiations.

Cher regularly spars with her ex-stepbrother Josh (Paul Rudd), and takes it upon herself to create projects out of other people. First she arranges for teachers Mr. Hall (Wallace Shawn) and Ms. Geist (Twink Caplan) to fall in love with each other. Then when dorky new student Tai (Brittany Murphy) arrives at the school, Cher gets to work transforming Tai's looks and attitude and finding her a boyfriend. But things get complicated when Tai starts to gain in popularity and Cher herself falls for cool kid Christian (Justin Walker).

Tai: Do you think she's pretty?
Cher: No, she's a full-on Monet.
Tai: What's a monet?
Cher: It's like a painting, see? From far away, it's OK, but up close, it's a big old mess.

Directed and written by Amy Heckerling as a loose adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma, Clueless is a joyous and positive celebration of the teenaged high school world as seen through the eyes of privileged girls turning into young women. Here fashion and cliques are king, actual school work is irrelevant, every look to or from a boy is to be analyzed, and trends come and go in a day.

Mel (to Christian): Anything happens to my daughter, I got a .45 and a shovel, I doubt anybody would miss you.

At the middle of it all is Cher, and Clueless succeeds brilliantly thanks to the immensely likeable central character. Cher's heart is as big as her father's mansion, and she combines her privilege with an irresistible genuine desire to improve the lives of others, her instincts to do good a pointy antidote to privileged rich snootiness. Alicia Silverstone is exceptionally well suited for the role and brings an an alluring goofiness to Cher, whether delivering exquisitely underprepared homework presentations or navigating her mammoth wardrobe, defining the best of what being young, wealthy and clueless can be all about.

Josh: Do you have any idea what you're talking about?
Cher: No. Why, does it sound like I do?

Clocking in at a breezy 97 minutes, Clueless is bathed in bright Southern California colours blazing with vivid pink and yellow fashions. The film is consistently funny, and often hilarious, Heckerling adopting a sharp self-aware attitude spiced with epic one-liners carrying lasting cultural impact.

Mel: What the hell is that?
Cher: A dress.
Mel: Says who?
Cher: Calvin Klein.

And despite the prevailing sense of fun, Clueless still finds time to explore themes of jealousy, sexual identity, the importance (or not) of losing virginity from a young woman's perspective, distracted parenting, finding love in the unlikeliest of places, and the agony of passing the driving test.

Dionne: Hello? There was a Stop sign.
Cher: I totally paused.

While Cher herself is on a journey to discover exactly how Clueless she is, the film is as sleek and sharp as a Rodeo Drive boutique.

As if!

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Tuesday, 16 August 2016

Movie Review: Ransom (1996)

A child kidnapping thriller, Ransom enjoys excellent production values, a committed Mel Gibson performance and a determination to accentuate the cerebral aspects of crime gamesmanship.

Tom Mullen (Gibson) is a successful businessman, the head of a major airline that he created from humble beginnings. He lives in a swanky Manhattan condominium overlooking Central Park with his wife Kate (Rene Russo) and young son Sean (Brawley Nolte). However, there is a shadow hanging over Tom's business dealings involving unproven accusations of illegal payments to avoid a union strike. The Mullens' world is plunged into a nightmare when Sean is abducted during an outdoor public event. Tom and Kate soon receive a ransom demand for $2 million, and FBI Agent Lonnie Hawkins (Delroy Lindo) takes charge of the investigation.

The kidnap mastermind is New York Police Detective Jimmy Shaker (Gary Sinise), who is disgusted with Tom's seemingly shady business ethics. Jimmy's crew consists of girlfriend Maris (Lili Taylor), tech expert Miles (Evan Handler), and brothers Clark and Cubby (Liev Schreiber and Donnie Wahlberg). Sean is handcuffed to a bed and blindfolded while Jimmy makes his demands, with Tom and Kate wondering how much they can trust Lonnie's advice. When an arranged money drop goes bad, Sean's life is placed in grave danger, and Tom decides that a fundamental change in negotiating tactics is needed.

Directed by Ron Howard, Ransom is an intelligent thriller which relies on plot and characters and resists most impulses to engage in mindless action. The film remains grounded in relative foundations of reality, and the kidnapping ordeal enjoys a trio of excellent, out of the box twists. The drama is well paced, the two hours of running time efficiently used to recount a story rich in detail and resolve.

The script by Richard Price and Alexander Ignon gets the fundamentals right by investing in both sides of the kidnapping. While Tom and Kate's trauma does get the majority of attention, a significant amount of time is spent with Jimmy and his gang, humanizing the criminals and building to an effective climax where the need for complex decisions will come to the fore at the individual level.

The central twist in the negotiations, a ploy too clever to reveal, sets the film off in a new direction and radically changes the dynamic between Jimmy, Tom and Kate. It's an idea both foolish and audacious, and sets the film apart from most other kidnap thrillers. Of course all daring initiatives can suffer from the law of unintended consequences, and Ransom rides one wild notion straight into another, victim and perpetrator locking horns and engaging in a new battle of wits within an unexpected context.

Howard infuses the film with his usual commitment to quality, and Ransom enjoys lush cinematography courtesy of Piotr Sobocińsk, attractive locations and the occasional on-the-street burst of dynamism. Not unexpectedly, there are hints of big budget over orchestration in some scenes, Howard always choosing multiple helicopters and hordes of extras when more intriguing and more modest options were perhaps available.

Mel Gibson delivers a surprisingly effective performance. He tones down both his boyish charm and his manic intensity, and settles into the relatively steady tone of a concerned father who nevertheless will not subdue his entrepreneurial inclination to seek a different and better solution. Gary Sinise offers a perfect foil as the smart and determined police detective moonlighting as a criminal, although more background on what fueled Jimmy Shaker's motivation would have been welcome. The rest of the cast is brimming with talent and provides solid support.

Canny and resourceful, Ransom delivers a satisfying pay off.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Monday, 30 May 2016

Movie Review: Commando (1985)

An action film with no pretensions and some wit, Commando is exactly what is says on the can: Arnold Schwarzenegger killing a lot of bad guys as only he can.

Colonel John Matrix (Schwarzenegger) used to lead an elite army commando unit. Now retired, he is trying to forge a quiet life for himself with his daughter Jenny (Alyssa Milano). But the peace is disrupted when assailants first kill former members of Matrix's unit and then storm his mountaintop house and abduct Jenny. The attackers are working for Arius (Dan Hedaya), the former brutal dictator of the fictitious South American country Val Verde. Arius' main henchman is Bennett (Vernon Wells) a former commando in Matrix' team.

Arius holds Jenny as leverage and demands that Matrix travel to Val Verde and assassinate the current President, opening the door for Arius to return to power. Matrix pretends to play along and boards the plane for the eleven hour flight, but he reverses course and tangles with Henrique, Sully and Cook, the goons tasked with keeping him under control. Matrix then sets out to uncover Arius' hideout on a small island off the California coast and storms the compound to rescue his daughter. He will get help along the way from feisty flight attendant Cindy (Rae Dawn Chong).

Matrix. Remember, Sully, when I promised to kill you last?
Sully: That's right Matrix, you did!
Matrix: I lied.

Directed by Mark L. Lester, Commando is noisy and lethal action at its most basic. And what it does, it does really well. The film goes about the business of creating a straightforward revenge and rescue plot, and releases Schwarzenegger in to clean up the bad guys with the biggest weapons one very strong man can conceivably carry.

Cindy: What did you do with Sully?
Matrix: I let him go...

The film never pauses to ponder its own ludicrous elements, and hurtles full speed ahead from one well-executed set piece to another. It all ends with the final 30 minute sequence, one man assaulting an entire army in what proves to be a military mismatch of epic proportions: no army stands a chance against one angry Arnold wielding weapons liberated from a military surplus superstore. Only in America.

Cook: Scared, motherfucker? Well you should be, 'cos this Green Beret's going to kick your big ass!
Matrix: I eat Green Berets for breakfast and right now I am very hungry!
Cindy: I can't believe this macho bullshit!

To its credit the film does not take itself seriously, and despite the high body count and hissing villains plotting nefarious bad deeds, a stream of humour runs close to the surface. Many of the best laughs come to life in the exchanges between Matrix and Cindy, Rae Dawn Chong's flight attendant and wannabe pilot proving more than handy weather flying a plane or firing a rocket launcher.

Matrix: Excuse me, how long is the flight?
Stewardess: We land in Val Verde in exactly eleven hours.
Matrix: Thanks. And please do me a favor: don't disturb my friend, he is dead tired.

The supporting cast is not bad for this type of action film, and in addition to Hedaya, Wells and Milano also includes James Olson in the Richard Crenna role as Matrix' former superior, David Patrick Kelly as the slimy Sully, Bill Duke, and a small role for Bill Paxton.

But this is a film all about Arnold Schwarzenegger, an oversized star in the making. Commando celebrates all of its hero's attribute, the script conspiring to strip Schwarzenegger down to his swimming trunks to display his fearsome physique. John Matrix may be retired, but he clearly has not lost the motivation to work out, nor the desire to kill first and not bother with asking any questions.

Diaz (one of the men who abducted Jenny), trying to reason with Matrix: Mellow out man. We can't talk business with you waving guns in people's faces... Your daughter is safe, Colonel. Now whether she stays that way is up to you. My people got some business with you. And if you want your kid back, then you gotta co-operate, right?
Matrix: WRONG! [shoots him between the eyes].