Movie Review: Thief (1981)

Genre: Crime Drama

Director: Michael Mann

Starring: James Caan, Tuesday Weld, Robert Prosky, and James Belushi

Running time: 123 minutes

Synopsis: Ex-convict Frank (James Caan) is a car dealership manager by day and an independent thief and safe cracker by night. Frank dreams of making enough money to live the American dream, and convinces Jessie (Tuesday Weld) to join his quest. Against his better judgment, Frank agrees to work for ruthless mob boss Leo (Robert Prosky), but although the money is good, there is no turning back.

What Works Well: Director Michael Mann delivers a paletted cool vibe, mixing 1970s gritty crime granularity with glossier new decade aesthetics. James Caan dominates as the fiercely autonomous Frank, and his diner scene with Tuesday Weld, explaining his life's philosophy and ambitions, is epic. Donald Thorin's cinematography luxuriates in damp electric nighttime blues, and Tangerine Dream provide an edgy synth-dominated soundtrack.

What Doesn't Work As Well: Mann (understandably) lingers a bit too long on the spark-filled beauty of metal-on-metal safe-cracking.

Conclusion: An exquisitely crafted character study enhanced by crime mechanics and bursts of hard-hitting violence.



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Movie Review: K-9 (1989)

A trivial crime comedy, K-9 stitches together a barely-there plot around the more-silly-than-clever antics of a police dog.

San Diego police detective Michael Dooley (Jim Belushi) survives an assassination attempt ordered by his nemesis Lyman (Kevin Tighe), a seemingly respectable wealthy businessman involved in large scale illegal drug shipments. Dooley recruits the help of drug-sniffing police dog Jerry Lee, who has a stubborn and quirky personality. Dooley's obsessive pursuit of Lyman causes a rift with his girlfriend Tracy (Mel Harris). But with Jerry Lee's help he makes progress towards uncovering Lyman's shipment methods and schedule, setting up a final showdown.

One of two detective-with-dog films released within three months in 1989, K-9 features an excellent dog performance as it surrenders to canine urges and hardly bothers with much else. Once Jerry Lee makes his appearance, the script by Steven Siegel and Scott Myers just agitates for the next four-legged highlight. Dog ignores all Dooley's orders, dog disrupts Dooley's sex life, dog wins a bar fight, dog discovers love, and, of course, dog saves the day. 

All of the escapades are vaguely watchable as pet tricks, but are also as obvious as they are mundane. Director Rod Daniel does not help by extending each sequence longer than necessary to wring 102 minutes out of the scant material.

The plot involving Dooley's dog-with-a-bone pursuit of a drug kingpin is a flimsy narrative device, most investigative logic bypassed in favour of short-cuts to scenes borrowed from other movies. By the third act Dooley is an unhinged man on a mad mission, police work be damned. Jim Belushi has the misfortune of being the dumb cop trying to match wits with a smart dog, human dignity and pride eviscerated early.

K-9's bark and bite are about the same, prosaic rather than penetrating.



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Movie Review: The Hollow Point (2016)

A crime thriller with occasional dollops of gore, The Hollow Point is visually inviting but offers a baffling jumble of poorly executed ideas.

Prodigal son Wallace (Patrick Wilson) is appointed Sheriff of his rural Arizona hometown, located on the Mexico border. He replaces the grizzled and hard drinking Leland (Ian McShane), who is growing increasingly disillusioned and has just killed an ammunition smuggler after a violent struggle. Wallace reconnects with his ex-lover Marla (Lynn Collins), whose current boyfriend Ken has gone missing after killing a cartel member and helping himself to some cash

Wallace goes looking for Ken and soon tangles with corrupt used car dealer Shep Diaz (Jim Belushi), who appears to be profiting from the illegal ammunition trade. But much worse is to come in the form of ruthless and mysterious murderer Atticus (John Leguizamo), who is working his way through a kill list.

A good cast, impressive rural and remote landscapes and stylish cinematography cannot save The Hollow Point. The script is muddled beyond redemption, and in the absence of wit, depth and soul, the ambitions to recreate a No Country For Old Men vibe fall well short.

The story by Nils Lyew appears to have been haphazardly reassembled after going through the business end of a shredder, with key characters and events popping in and out of the story in random disorder. Director Gonzalo López-Gallego ploughs ahead, oblivious to the incomprehensible mess on his hands. What starts out as cross-border ammunition smuggling thriller morphs into a pseudo-horror indestructible killer drama without breaking stride. Intended victims routinely survive close-quarters gunshots with minimal scratches and no explanations.

And with no prior or subsequent context, one scene appears intent on infusing twisted religious demagoguery as the root of all evil. A clunky romance between Wallace and Marla never registers, and John Leguizamo is horribly miscast as a ruthless machete wielding killing machine.

Only Ian McShane stands above the carnage, his emotionally drained and craggy presence an order of magnitude better than the material around him. Otherwise, The Hollow Point is hollow but pointless.

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Movie Review: The Whole Truth (2016)

A basic courtroom drama, The Whole Truth is shallow and fairly rudimentary.

In Louisiana, defence attorney Richard Ramsay (Keanu Reeves) is representing seventeen year old Mike Lassiter (Gabriel Basso), accused of stabbing his businessman father Boone (Jim Belushi) to death. Richard is a family friend of the Lassiters, including Boone's widow Loretta (Renée Zellweger), but Mike refused to say anything ahead of the trial, hampering defence preparations.

The trial starts and prosecutor Leblanc (Jim Klock) has a strong case, with Mike having been found over his father's dead body and all but admitting to the murder. But in surprise testimony by Loretta and Mike himself, a more complex picture of events starts to emerge. Richard's inexperienced but perceptive assistant Janelle Brady (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) starts to suspect there is more to the case than is being revealed in court.

It's only a better-than-average cast that keeps The Whole Truth away from television movie-of-the-week territory, and even then the film barely proves worthy of any other designation. Directed by Courtney Hunt and written by Nicholas Kazan, the first-draft level script sets up for one big revelation and another twist in the tail, but forgets all the basics along the way.

The courtroom proceedings are sloppy in the extreme, testimony is accepted without corroboration or evidence, both lawyers awful in representing their case. The script is more interested in placing first Loretta and then Mike on the witness stand with no foreknowledge as to what they will say, and the flashback recreations, as well as the dull narration by Ramsay, are of no help: they change according to each subsequent unreliable witness.

It all leads to a rushed and awkwardly explained final curve intended to shock but in reality and as presented, makes little sense.

Keanu Reeves is more bland and blank than usual, his narration exceptionally unsuitable, aiming and totally missing a noir vibe. Zellweger and Mbatha-Raw fare better, but both their roles are underwritten. Belushi boorishly trundles through the flashback scenery as Boone, amplifying the deserved-victim designation. The rest of the cast members struggle to step over the amateur bar.

The Whole Truth is courtroom light, and deserves to be cited for contempt due to under preparation.

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Movie Review: The Man With One Red Shoe (1985)

A bland comedy set in the domestic spy world, The Man With One Red Shoe is about nothing in particular and struggles to define a purpose.

In Morocco, CIA Deputy Director Cooper (Dabney Coleman), who covets the top job, sabotages an undercover drug operation and embarrasses CIA Director Ross (Charles Durning). Back in Washington DC, Ross is forced to testify before a Senate subcommittee, but plots his revenge against Cooper. Knowing that Cooper is tracking his every move, Ross dispatches loyal ally Brown (Edward Herrman) to the airport to liaise with a complete stranger.

Brown picks violinist Richard Drew (Tom Hanks) at random, and their brief interaction sets Cooper and his crew on a wild goose chase to find out why Drew is important. Drew is actually the victim of frequent pranks by orchestra percussionist Morris (Jim Belushi), and in return Drew is having an affair with Morris' wife Paula (Carrie Fisher). Otherwise Drew is a normal everyday guy, but Cooper's surveillance kicks into overdrive, including mobilizing the luscious agent Maddy (Lori Singer) to seduce Drew and learn his secrets.

Directed by Stan Dragoti, The Man With One Red Shoe is a remake of the 1972 French film Le Grand Blond Avec Une Chaussure Noire starring Pierre Richard. The Hollywood version enjoys slick production value and a strong cast including a young Tom Hanks, but the jokes (if they exist at all) are lame, the story is unengaging, and a void exists where meaningful plot elements and substantive characters are supposed to reside.

Drew is an innocent bystander and remains a most uninteresting central character, and Hanks can do nothing with role. Jim Belushi tries too hard as the immature friend still pulling high school level pranks, while Carrie Fisher gets one long scene in fetching leopard lingerie in a nod to her Return Of The Jedi slave outfit, but otherwise drifts aimlessly in and mostly out of the film.

Cooper and Ross contribute most of the narrative drivers in an astonishingly dreadful spy versus spy battle. Neither man is remotely likable, and who wins or who loses their petty careerist battle generates the flimsiest foundation for comedy. While Dabney Coleman and Charles Durning are fine supporting actors, they cannot carry the weight of the plot or the laughs. Lori Singer nails the role of the seductress and gets to wear a contender for the most stunning backless dress paraded on screen. She also owns the best laugh with a caught-in-the-zipper moment.

The Man With One Red Shoe doesn't so much run out of original ideas; it never had any in the first place.

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The Movies Of Jim Belushi

All movies starring Jim Belushi and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Thief (1981)

Trading Places (1983)

The Man With One Red Shoe (1985)

Salvador (1986)

About Last Night... (1986)

K-9 (1989)

Red Heat (1988)

Only The Lonely (1991)

Wag The Dog (1997, as himself)

The Ghost Writer (2010)

New Year's Eve (2011)

The Hollow Point (2016)

The Whole Truth (2016)

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

Movie Review: Red Heat (1988)

A prototypical buddy cop action movie, Red Heat is all about flying bullets, macho men and attempts at witty one-liners. Some of it works, but most of it doesn't.

In Moscow, Captain Ivan Danko (Arnold Schwarzenegger) tracks down lethal drug trafficker Viktor Rostavili (Ed O'Ross). The criminal escapes and lands in Chicago, where he establishes contact with local thugs and arranges for a major new drug deal. When Viktor is picked up for a minor traffic infraction by Detective Art Ridzik (Jim Belushi), Danko arrives from Moscow to escort the prisoner back to the Soviet Union. Nothing goes as planned, Viktor is soon loose and carnage is unleashed on the streets of Chicago.

Directed and co-written by Walter Hill, who helped invent the buddy cop movie in 48 Hrs., Red Heat is a generic example of the genre and offers an episodic, incomprehensible and generally irrelevant plot that serves no purpose other than moving the action from one set-piece to the next. A good portion of the film has characters speaking in Russian with no subtitles, and once the setting moves to Chicago, Hill's sole preoccupation is to create the opportunity for Danko's next one-liner and Ridzik's next snarky retort as they engage in firefights and running battles with the bad guys using progressively bigger machinery.

The action is of course over the top, the mayhem on a grand scale, as the pursuit of one man converts Chicago into a war zone. In his brief time in Chicago Viktor manages to both get married to dance instructor Catherine Manzetti (Gina Gershon) and antagonize a gang of heavily-armed black thugs, ensuring that Danko and Ridzik have plenty of reasons to pursue suspects and dodge high-calibre bullets. Somewhere in there Hill throws in a MacGuffin in the form of a locker key where a bag full of something important is locked up, triggering plenty of chases, threats and hissing matches.

Schwarzenegger as a straitlaced Soviet cop is more subdued and emotionless than usual, maintaining a fixed expression and monotone delivery of monosyllabic words. Belushi fills the gap with an over-animated take on cynical Chicago cop Ridzik. Peter Boyle and Laurence Fishburne are generally wasted in generic roles as Ridzik's superiors.

Ridzik: Well, tell me something, Captain. If you've got such a fucking paradise over there, how come you're up the same creek as we are with heroin and cocaine?
Danko: Chinese find way. Right after revolution, they round up all drug dealers, all drug addicts, take them to public square, and shoot them in back of head.
Ridzik: Ah, it'd never work here. Fucking politicians wouldn't go for it.
Danko: Shoot them first.

At no time does the film pause to take a breath, explain itself, or attempt to find any character depth, at least not in English. Red Heat tosses in a few good zingers and boasts reasonable production values, but while the temperature is high, there is nothing of substance in the oven.

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Movie Review: Salvador (1986)

Through the eyes of photojournalists, Oliver Stone tackles the brutal civil war that destroyed El Salvador and killed 75,000 people in the 1980s. Salvador is a small film that dares to ask the big questions, and a smart enough movie to realize that the answers are most elusive.

Richard Boyle (James Woods) makes it his job to take pictures in the world's most violent hotspots, and his experience covers Vietnam, Cambodia, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. Nevertheless, in 1980 he is living in a squalid San Francisco apartment, unemployed and broke. His wife abandons him, so he packs his car, grabs his friend Dr. Rock (James Belushi), and drives to El Salvador, a country in the midst of an ugly war between a right-wing ruling junta and a left-wing peasant uprising.

But it's the cold war and no conflict is simple: the rebels are portrayed as heavily armed communists backed by Castro and the Soviets; the army is recast as defenders of freedom and gets the support of Reagan's United States while committing widespread atrocities, operating death squads, and ensuring that "disappearances" occur on a wide scale.

Despite the chaos, Boyle is initially more interested in womanizing, drugs and alcohol, and he soon hooks up with former lover Maria (Elipidia Carrillo) and her family. But he is also desperate to make some money, so he joins forces with fellow photojournalist John Cassady (John Savage, portraying a character loosely based on real-life photojournalist John Hoagland), and together they start capturing the horrors of the conflict: a mass open grave for victims of the death squads; a trip to a rebel camp; and the disappearance and murder of innocent civilians. Boyle also chronicles landmark events of the El Salvador war, including the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, and the rape and murder of four American women missionaries. For Boyle and Cassady, chronicling the ever more violent conflict and staying alive start to become mutually exclusive.

Civil wars in small countries are particularly nasty affairs, and rarely receive much attention. Using straightforward in-your-face filmmaking, Stone whitewashes nothing. Boyle is a sleazy leach, living off others and believing in very little. The right-wing army rulers are despicable, barbarous and heartless. The Americans pulling the strings of the army are obsessed cold-war warriors who see nothing except a global conflict with communism. The local US ambassador is clueless. The rebels are initially portrayed as peasant freedom fighters who have Boyle's sympathy; but his eyes are opened when they, too, start to cold-heartedly assassinate unarmed soldiers.

The only genuinely sympathetic character is Maria, and she stands for the country, victimized from all sides, and left terrified and abandoned even by those with genuine intentions to help.

James Woods gives a trademark performance with intensity cranked up to eleven. A man driven by pumping adrenaline and capable of talking himself into huge amounts of trouble, Woods makes sure that Boyle is a memorable, hugely flawed but ultimately caring man, perfectly suited to surviving the world's worst trouble spots.

Salvador contains no glamour, no fake emotions, no little victories, and no happy endings: a perfect metaphor for the futility and wastefulness of nasty proxy wars.

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