Movie Review: The Amityville Horror (1979)

Genre: Supernatural Horror  

Director: Stuart Rosenberg  

Starring: James Brolin, Margot Kidder, Rod Steiger, Don Stroud, Murray Hamilton, Helen Shaver, Val Avery  

Running Time: 118 minutes  

Synopsis: Newlyweds George and Kathy Lutz (James Brolin and Margot Kidder) stretch the family finances and buy a dream Long Island house, priced at a discount because it was previously the scene of a murderous rampage. Father Delaney (Rod Steiger) arrives to bless the house but is chased away by an evil presence, while George becomes sullen and obsessed with wood chopping and axe sharpening. Other strange phenomena include a self-locking closet, the front door blowing off its hinges, the dog clawing at the base of a brick wall, and young daughter Amy developing an unhealthy attachment to an unseen entity she calls Jody. 

What Works Well: Initially believed to be based on actual events (the predecessor multiple murders did happen), this adaptation of the Jay Anson novel does develop a sense of dread. The theme of a family's financial stress threatening tranquility underpins the premise, while the more traditional bump-in-the-night scenes are capably staged by director Stuart Rosenberg, who finds the best angles to turn a house into a threat. James Brolin and Margot Kidder make for an appealing couple, and the rest of the cast features capable talent. 

What Does Not Work As Well: A lot seems to happen, but nothing of plot substance actually happens, exposing the underlying narrative weakness. Rod Steiger's priest fumbles around to no effect, Don Stroud and Murray Hamilton are two other priests with little to contribute, and Val Avery's frumpy detective does...what, exactly? Helen Shaver as a psychic family friend seems to have all the answers to questions that are never asked, and there is an awkward wedding sub-plot that never gels. Finally a muddle of theories encompassing Satanism and the gateway to Hell are trotted out in context-free desperation to create something out of nothing.

Key Quote:

The House (to Father Delaney): GET OUT! 

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Movie Review: Skyjacked (1972)

Genre: Hijacking Thriller

Director: John Guillermin

Starring: Charlton Heston, Yvette Mimieux, James Brolin, Walter Pidgeon, Jeanne Crain, Susan Dey

Running Time: 101 minutes

Synopsis: Captain O'Hara (Charlton Heston) is in charge of a Global Airways flight to Minneapolis when one of the first-class cabin passengers (Susan Dey) discovers a lipstick message on the bathroom mirror, claiming there is a bomb onboard and demanding a re-route to Anchorage. Angela (Yvette Mimieux) is the chief flight attendant, while the hijacker suspects include musician Brown (Roosevelt Grier), Senator Lindner (Walter Pidgeon), army veteran Weber (James Brolin), and Mrs. Shaw (Jeanne Crain), the wife of a depressed businessman.

What Works Well: The guess-the-hijacker game is engaging enough for the first 40 minutes. Once revealed, the unhinged machinations in the antagonist's mind hint at an intriguing psychological profile that, in better hands, could have been much better explored.

What Does Not Work As Well: Jumping on the bandwagon of the era's airplane-related crisis movies, this is a derivative disaster drama stocked with plastic and crushingly uninteresting characters. Almost all the details are botched, including basic terrorist negotiations and the time needed to refuel and fly between destinations. Most of the character actions and decisions are inane, and the flashback scenes attempting to provide background context are embarrassing. In the most realistic aspect, the economy passengers are unapologetically treated like cattle.

Conclusion: Somehow, the Russians save the day.



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Movie Review: Last Chance Harvey (2008)

Genre: Romantic Dramedy

Director: Joel Hopkins

Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Kathy Baker, James Brolin

Running Time: 92 minutes

Synopsis: Divorced music composer Harvey Shine (Dustin Hoffman) is struggling to save his career. He travels to London to attend his daughter's wedding, but receives another emotional blow when she selects her stepfather (James Brolin) to walk her down the aisle. Meanwhile British government worker Kate Walker (Emma Thompson) is unlucky in love, and exasperated by her over-attentive mother Maggie (Eileen Atkins). Harvey and Kate meet at the airport, and a romance blossoms.

What Works Well: The later-in-life romance benefits from Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson in fine form, a laid-back attitude, and crisp London locations. Both lead characters are surrounded by plenty of luggage and regrets, Harvey's sense of exclusion from his ex-family and Kate's overbearing mother providing signposts to past missteps. Director Joel Hopkins seeks touches of mild humour, including Harvey's misadventures in a white suit and Maggie's interactions with a next-door Polish neighbour.

What Does Not Work As Well: This is as vanilla and predictable as a romance can get, complete with a de rigueur third act complication. And although Hoffman hides it well, he is still 22 years older than his co-star.

Conclusion: Familiar and borderline bland content is saved by a good cast and tidy production values.



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Movie Review: The Cape Town Affair (1967)

Genre: Cold War Spy Thriller

Director: Robert D. Webb

Starring: Claire Trevor, Jacqueline Bisset, James Brolin

Running Time: 100 minutes

Synopsis: On a crowded bus in Cape Town, South Africa, pick-pocket Skip McCoy (James Brolin) steals the wallet of courier Candy (Jacqueline Bisset). He is unaware that she is under surveillance by government agents, and that the wallet contains a top secret microfiche coveted by communist spies. The authorities turn to professional snitch Sam (Claire Trevor) to track Skip down, as he pursues a romance with the increasingly desperate Candy.

What Works Well: This remake of 1953's Pickup On South Street benefits from bright Cape Town locations, two attractive stars in Jacqueline Bisset and James Brolin (both in early career performances), and a flamboyant Claire Trevor. The jazzy Joe Kentridge music score is not bad.

What Does Not Work As Well: Although Samuel Fuller is still credited as a writer, director Robert D. Webb strips out all the noir grittiness, and Brolin offers superficial style rather than gnarly substance. The result is artistically bland tedium, the focus on small characters (a pickpocket and a courier) flailing within skimpy plot details. The apartheid-era South African production portrays a whites-only society, and beyond the three stars, the supporting actors are wooden at best.

Conclusion: Adds nothing to the original, but subtracts plenty.

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Movie Review: The Car (1977)

A low-budget horror film, The Car drives past humble origins to deliver buoyant entertainment.

In the small desert community of Thomas County (filmed in Utah), a menacing-looking car appears from nowhere and starts mowing down road users. Two cyclists are the first to be murdered, followed by a hitchhiker. Sheriff Everett Peck (John Marley) and his detachment of lawmen struggle to make sense of the random crimes, then Everett himself is killed by the car. 

Captain Wade Parent (James Brolin) takes over as sheriff, and in addition to figuring out how to find and stop the murderous car, he has to worry about the safety of his two young daughters and his girlfriend Lauren (Kathleen Lloyd), a feisty schoolteacher. Wade's allies include recovering alcoholic Deputy Luke Johnson (Ronny Cox), native American Deputy Chas (Henry O'Brien), and explosives expert and wife abuser Amos (R.G. Armstrong).

A mash-up of Spielberg's Duel and Jaws with a dash of The Omen, The Car is an over-revved and overachieving B-movie. Director Elliot Silverstein starts with a sparse script (co-written by Michael Butler, Dennis Shryack, and Lane Slate) and produces an eye-catching and often heart-pounding spectacle, with many well-executed highlights. The willing group of actors, many of them veterans of secondary cast lists, battle bravely against plastic contrivances and cringe-worthy dialogue whenever the car is not on the screen.

But ingenuity is also frequently on display, with every kill unfolding to an original rhythm. The car sometimes races after its targets, at other times lays a trap, or pulls-off unexpected stunts. Some kills are quick-and-gone, others are monstrous displays of anger. Probably due to the limited budget, the film is thankfully gore-free.

The visuals, courtesy of cinematographer Gerald Hirschfeld, make fine use of the expansive setting and ominous predator. The car itself is a piece of design genius, a 1971 Lincoln Continental Mark III unrecognizably transformed into a machine proportioned to ooze pure evil, with a triumphal honk to match. Silverstein plays with rising dust clouds in the wide open desert to build evil-is-coming tension, but also demonstrates a deft touch to spring close-up surprises. When all else fails, diabolical engine noise announces heinous intent.

As the death count mounts, consensus builds that the car has no driver and refuses to enter hallowed ground. But otherwise, possession-by-the-devil metaphors for a deadly but unstoppable human invention can be embraced or discarded to suit. As it roars down the open road carrying no pretensions, The Car is pure hellish carnage.

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Movie Review: Capricorn One (1977)

A conspiracy thriller about a faked Mars landing, Capricorn One is exceptionally silly and wildly entertaining.

NASA is about to launch the first crewed mission to Mars. But minutes before blast-off, astronauts Brubaker (James Brolin), Willis (Sam Waterston) and Walker (O.J. Simpson) are removed from the spacecraft and hustled to a secret base in the desert, where a warehouse has been converted to a television studio with a Mars-like set. The launch proceeds without the crew, using voice recordings from earlier simulations. 

NASA's Dr. James Kelloway (Hal Holbrook) pressures the three astronauts into participating in fake studio broadcasts, pretending to be on Mars. He explains the original mission had to be scrubbed and converted to a crew-less flight due to faulty life-sustaining equipment, but admitting failure would have meant loss of funding. Brubaker, Willis and Walker reluctantly go along with the ruse, but Brubaker is uneasy about lying to his wife Kay (Brenda Vaccaro) and their young kids.

Meanwhile journalists Robert Caulfield (Elliot Gould) and Judy Drinkwater (Karen Black) are covering the mission. Caulfield receives a tip something is wrong, and starts to investigate.

Combining post-Watergate cynicism about government corruption with wild-ass conspiracy theories about faked moon landings, Capricorn One ambitiously aims for the sweet spot where unfettered collusion thrives. Writer and director Peter Hyams conjures a plot straight from a conspiracy theorists' convention floor, and with B-movie charm but a decent cast and budget, delivers a ridiculously engrossing two hours.

The details subversively reveal the lunacy of conspiracy theories, but may still be too subtle for ardent believers in the cause of nonsense. The Capricorn One conspiracy elements do not attempt to pass rudimentary scrutiny, the script requiring a roomful of the smartest scientists on the planet to not notice they are communicating with recorded messages. Over at the secret warehouse studio, the televised fakery resorts to slow-motion to simulate the lack of gravity. And between the warehouse technicians and the launchpad extraction team, Kelloway is relying on a lot of people to play along.

The group of conspirators becomes larger in the second half, when Brubaker, Willis and Walker make a run for it, split up and are stranded in the desert, hunted down by evil-looking but still cute twin helicopters. Capricorn One re-invents itself as a survival-in-the-desert adventure drama, until Elliot Gould's reporter Caulfield finally connects the dots and intervenes. 

Late in the day and in yet another sly twist, Hyams inserts Telly Savalas as acerbic crop duster Albain. His thorny dialogue exchanges with Caulfield are jagged diamonds, and the climactic chase between the two helicopters and the crop-duster biplane is executed with playful panache.

Capricorn One stays on earth, but is still a rollicking ride.



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Movie Review: The Hunting Party (2007)

A journalists-in-peril adventure, The Hunting Party has a potentially good story to tell but features an imbalance between danger and levity.

War zone journalist Simon Hunt (Richard Gere) and his cameraman and close friend Duck (Terrence Howard) enjoy an adrenaline-fuelled life covering the world's most dangerous conflicts. But in 1994, Simon suffers an on-air meltdown while covering the brutal war and ethnic cleansing atrocities in Bosnia. He is fired and his career goes into a downward spiral. Duck eventually loses track of his friend and secures a cushy job as the chief cameraman for the network's main anchor Franklin Harris (James Brolin).

In 2000, Duck and Franklin along with rookie reporter and nepotism beneficiary Benjamin Strauss (Jesse Eisenberg) arrive in Bosnia to cover the 5 year anniversary of the war-ending peace treaty. Simon re-enters Duck's life, claiming to know the whereabouts of wanted fugitive Dragoslav "The Fox" Bogdanović (Ljubomir Kerekeš), one of the main purveyors of ethnic cleansing. Duck and Benjamin join Hunt on a dangerous journey deep into Serb-controlled territory, where suspicious locals and UN peacekeepers immediately mistake the journalists as a CIA hit-squad, leading to surreal encounters.

Filmed in Croatia and loosely inspired by real events recounted in an Esquire magazine article, The Hunting Party attempts a difficult balancing act. The Bosnian conflict resulted in over 100,000 deaths and horrific acts of massacre and ethnic cleansing in the heart of Europe. While levity can be an antidote for brutality, here writer and director Richard Shepard tries to have it both ways by exposing his trio of intrepid journalists to genuine horror and danger then angling for laughs. The mix rarely works and more often leaves an unsatisfactory taste in the mouth.

In 2007 this story was a condemnation of inaction. By chronicling the misadventures of a group of bickering journalists as they get close to The Fox within a couple of days of amateurish searching, the film rightly exposes foot-dragging by an international community seemingly unwilling to seriously go after the architects of war. Since then the wheels of justice have turned, leaving The Hunting Party in mid-narrative territory.

Idea fragments, some more promising than others, are introduced on the periphery of the main plot. Simon Hunt's emotional collapse and career disintegration after repeated exposure to violence is a welcome acknowledgement of post traumatic stress disorder creeping up on the seemingly immune, but deserved more exposition. Much less successful is the hurried injection of a barely-baked romance to personalize his tragedy and turn the quest to find The Fox into a personal vendetta.

Richard Gere, Terrence Howard and Jesse Eisenberg are functional without ever departing from stock characterizations. Diane Kruger gets one scene as a mysterious informant demanding money from the CIA (as she is convinced the journalists are all undercover agents) to reveal The Fox's hideout.

Despite exposing snippets from a tragic and cinematically underexposed conflict, The Hunting Party misses its prey.

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Movie Review: Sisters (2015)

A raunchy comedy, Sisters benefits from sharp timing and chemistry of the two leads, but is otherwise one long endless scene of adults behaving badly.

Maura and Kate Ellis (Amy Poehler and Tina Fey) are sisters still trying to sort out their lives. Maura is divorced and has always placed everybody else's happiness ahead of hers. Kate is irresponsible, cannot hold a job and is a single mom to teenager Haley (Madison Davenport). They are both shocked and disappointed when their parents (James Brolin and Dianne Wiest) announce plans to sell the family home in Orlando.

While cleaning out their childhood rooms Maura and Kate decide to have one final bash in the big house and invite all their friends, but pointedly exclude Brinda (Maya Rudolph), Kate's frenemy since high school. The party is well attended but muted, until the alcohol and drugs start flowing and it turns into a raucous event. Kate is desperate to hook up with hunky handyman James (Ike Barinholtz), but the night will only get wilder and there are many scores to settle.

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are a funny and fearless couple, share undeniable rapport and are unafraid to let loose and laugh at themselves. However, Sisters is unfortunately beneath them. The Paula Pell script works its way in fits and starts to the big party scene, and that is where it stays. There is some fun to be had with adults partying as if they were 20 years younger, but once the rowdy and juvenile antics take over the film quickly runs out of steam.

The funnier moments are the side quests burrowing deep into irreverence, such as Maura and Korean aesthetician Hae Won (Greta Lee) descending into an ill considered but hilarious pronunciation duel, or bad girl Kate drooling over tree trunk armed drug dealer Pazuzu (John Cena).

Every 15 minutes or so director Jason Moore briefly pauses the raunchiness for a brief interlude featuring more tender interaction, either between the sisters or exploring the dysfunctionality dominating the mother-daughter bond between Haley and Kate. The attempts to tackle themes of growing up and settling down appear slapped together and never convince, with James Brolin and Dianne Wiest reduced to caricatures in the parent roles.

The Sisters are ready and willing to deliver laughs, but need a more ambitious venue than one long night of irresponsibility.

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The Movies Of James Brolin

All movies starring James Brolin and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Von Ryan's Express (1965)

Our Man Flint (1966, uncredited)

Fantastic Voyage (1966)

The Cape Town Affair (1967)

The Boston Strangler (1968)

Skyjacked (1972)

Westworld (1973)

The Car (1977)

Capricorn One (1977)

The Amityville Horror (1979)

Traffic (2000)

Catch Me If You Can (2002)

The Hunting Party (2007)

Last Chance Harvey (2008)

Burlesque (2010)

Sisters (2015)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Catch Me If You Can (2002)

A light-hearted chase drama inspired by real events, Catch Me If You Can is treat for the eyes and the mind. The story of master con artist and cheque fraudster Frank Abagnale Jr. is a breezy tale told with a bouncy spirit.

In New York of the early 1960s, 16 year old Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) grows up idolizing his father Frank Sr. (Christopher Walken), an independently-minded businessman who constantly runs into money problems. When Frank Sr.'s marriage to passionate Frenchwoman Paula (Nathalie Baye) falls apart due to his financial difficulties and her infidelity, Frank Jr.'s life is shattered and he goes on the run. Having inherited his father's instincts for charming people into parting with money, Frank survives by cashing fraudulent cheques at various banks.

Frank Abagnale Sr.: Two little mice fell in a bucket of cream. The first mouse quickly gave up and drowned. The second mouse, wouldn't quit. He struggled so hard that eventually he churned that cream into butter and crawled out. Gentlemen, as of this moment, I am that second mouse.

Wanting more, driven by a desire to recover all that his Dad lost, and appreciating the power of a slick uniform, Frank pretends to be a Pan Am co-pilot. He starts forging payroll cheques, and is soon flying around the country, amassing a fortune in cash, and leaving a long trail of victimized banks in his wake. His exploits grab the attention of FBI bank fraud agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), who starts a years-long pursuit. But the FBI man is always half a step behind the con artist, and Frank has more tricks up his sleeve and new personas to disappear into.

Directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the book by the same name co-written by Abagnale, Catch Me If You Can is an engaging, remarkably entertaining film. Approximately 80 percent based on reality (according to Abagnale himself), the film focuses on one kid on the run possessing extraordinary self-confidence and one dour FBI agent determined to catch up to him. By avoiding all buddy movie and action cliches that could have crept into the narrative, Spielberg and his screenwriter Jeff Nathanson produce an original, funny and character-driven film, with the momentum generated by intellect and the human condition.

Frank Sr.: You know why the Yankees always win, Frank?
Frank Jr.: 'Cause they have Mickey Mantle?
Frank Sr.: No, it's 'cause the other teams can't stop staring at those damn pinstripes.

It's takes a perpetrator and a victim to run a successful con, and the film delights in showing the various ways Frank is able to either get what he wants or escape from sticky situations using confidence and the razzle dazzle of image and props. He's both the struggling mouse and the Yankees in pinstripes. Whether it's a Pan Am pilot's outfit, a doctor's white coat, a shiny pendant, or a wallet full of junk, he distracts and sweet talks in equal measure. He succeeds to the tune of millions in cash, even conniving to get a high class call girl to pay him for a night of pleasure.

Compared to real events the film overplays the two key relationships in Frank's life, and that's quite excusable because Spielberg knows what makes a good screen drama. Frank is provided with regular touch points with his father, whose life is on an endless downward spiral that only he fails to see. Frank Jr.'s motivation is to set all that went wrong in his dad's life, but for Frank Sr. the struggle is the life, and he takes joy not in escaping the bucket, but watching his son churn for another day.

The in-pursuit relationship between Frank and Carl is also enriched for cinematic purposes (and to provide Tom Hanks with more to do). The film features Christmas time phone calls between the two men to affirm the emptiness and broken homes they share, and to build a bond that comes to fruition in the final act.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks are both excellent, smoothly building complex characters continuously longing for something just out of reach. Christopher Walken gives Frank Sr. the doomed air of a smart man determined to fight a system that merciless crushes him into nothingness, but that is no reason for him to stop the fight.  The rich cast also features small but telling roles for Martin Sheen, James Brolin, Amy Adams and Jennifer Garner.

Catch Me If You Can features a stunning throwback opening credit sequence by Kuntzel+Deygas that recalls the best of Saul Bass. A whimsical, curious John Williams progressive jazz music score enhances the 1960s vibe.

Cool, creative and captivating, Catch Me If You Can is a cat and mouse game at its finest.

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Movie Review: Westworld (1973)

A low budget science-gone-wrong thriller, Westworld is engaging enough but runs out of steam in its final act.

The Delos amusement park features three "worlds" to serve as vacation resorts for the rich traveler. Western World provides a taste of the wild west, Medieval World recreates the dark ages, and Roman World offers the sinful opulence of a corrupt empire. The resort is populated by highly sophisticated robots in human form, programmed to offer the human vacationers excitement, adventure, thrills and sex. The robots are supposed to never harm the humans.

Peter (Richard Benjamin) and John (James Brolin) are friends who travel together for a vacation at Western World. It's Peter's first trip, and he has many questions, while John has been at the resort before and is back for another make-believe dose of the western frontier. Once the vacation starts all seems to go well, with Peter and John enjoying interactions with The Gunslinger robot (Yul Brynner), the company of prostitutes, a confrontation with the Sheriff robot, and a wild bar fight. But the technicians running the resort start to notice that the robots at all three worlds are going off script, and guests are starting to suffer injuries. Peter and John's adventure will turn from carefree fun to deadly serious.

Writer and director Michael Crichton would go on and evolve most of his concepts about scientific inventions turning on their human creators in the wildly successful Jurassic Park. Westworld is more an incubator of ideas rather than a stellar film. There is plenty to enjoy and ponder, but ultimately the film boils down to two thirds seen-it-before western set-pieces and one third routine chase action, all hampered by stiff acting, wooden dialogue, and a pervasive sense of a cheap production trying to look more expensive than it can get away with.

While Crichton takes his time to set up the premise and sell the lure of resorts offering make-believe adventures for adults, the film offers little to explain what is going wrong and why. Faceless technicians scurry around with worried expressions when the robots start to misbehave, but other than some quick one-sentence theories about a contagion, not much else is presented to explain why the robots may have transformed into murderers. And the absence of a kill switch in such technologically advanced robots is a critical oversight that receives no attention.

Ironically, once the robots turn to killers, the film loses most of its thrust. The final third is a slow moving and relatively uninvolving chase between The Gunslinger and Peter. Crichton does offer a few ideas that would be picked up and developed in future and better film, including the robot's stubborn indestructibility and his pixilated point-of-view. And once the violence starts, the blood and gore visuals are not spared. But the climax is hampered by the absence of a credible threat: Peter always seems to be faster, smarter and more resourceful than the cumbersome Gunslinger.

Yul Brynner, packing a few too many pounds and barely saying 10 words in the entire film, nails the beady eyed look of a robot gone bad. James Brolin and Richard Benjamin are perfectly suited to the grade B production values.

Westworld is worth a visit, but it could have delivered more: what makes science veer off in the wrong direction is more interesting than a slow chase with a six-shooter.

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