Movie Review: Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2016)

Genre: War Drama  

Director: Ang Lee  

Starring: Joe Alwyn, Steve Martin, Vin Diesel, Chris Tucker, Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart  

Running Time: 113 minutes  

Synopsis: After performing heroics during a firefight in Iraq, 19 year-old US Army Specialist Billy Lynn (Joe Alwyn) is on a two-week publicity tour of the United States along with his Bravo company members. In the lead-up to an appearance at the glitzy half-time show of a Dallas football game, Billy recalls the war experiences that led to death of his Sergeant "Shroom" (Vin Diesel). In the meantime a publicity agent (Chris Tucker) is trying to secure a movie deal for Bravo, the football team owner (Steve Martin) is eager to share in the glory, Billy's sister Kathryn (Kristen Stewart) wants to convince him to avoid re-deployment, and a cheerleader (Makenzie Leigh) shows a romantic interest.

What Works Well: This reflective drama delivers a blunt anti-war message with impressive visuals, while simultaneously saluting the soldiers dispatched to do the dirty work. Director Ang Lee seeks a sense of geographic disorientation among the Bravo team members, paraded onto a stage where they don't belong and exploited by wealthy men willing to underbid for unearned glory. Despite the surrounding razzmatazz, the clock is ticking towards the men's redeployment back to the hell of war, not that anyone on the home front cares beyond Billy Lynn's sister.

What Does Not Work As Well: More a message than a movie, the plot is directionless and never gains momentum. The Billy Lynn character provides insufficient weight to carry the narrative, and the collective group of soldiers is not much more than a compilation of banter and hijinks. The two most interesting characters are the mythology-inspired Shroom (already dead) and the grounded Kathryn (reduced to a couple of scenes).

Key Quote:

Billy: It's sort of weird, being honored for the worst day of your life.



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Movie Review: The Chronicles Of Riddick (2004)

A science fiction action movie and sequel to 2000's Pitch Black, The Chronicles Of Riddick cannot overcome a sparse plot made worse by hyperactive editing. 

Five years after the fun events of Pitch Black, fugitive Riddick (Vin Diesel) is tracked down by bounty hunter Toombs (Nick Chinlund). Riddick travels back to the planet Helion Prime to reconnect with Imam (Keith David), and also meets spectral presence Aereon (Judi Dench). Both appeal for his help to resist the evil Necromongers, who invade planets with overwhelming force and kill anyone who refuses to convert to their twisted religion.

Riddick may be one of the last surviving Furyans, a warrior race feared by the Necromongers. But the attack on Helion Prime is quick and decisive, and Riddick is captured by the Necromonger leaders including Lord Marshal (Colm Feore), Commander Vaako (Karl Urban), and his ambitious wife Dame Vaako (Thandie Newton). Riddick makes an escape to the fiery prison planet Crematoria, hoping to free the prisoner Kyra (Alexa Davalos), previously known as Jack. But bounty hunters, the guards of Crematoria, and the pursuing Vaako will all pose a challenge.

The character of Riddick as a white-eyed outsider highly skilled in combat and ever ready with a smart quip is rich with promise, and director David Twohy occasionally threatens to make good use of a steam-punk influenced visual style. But otherwise, The Chronicles Of Riddick is a boring mess. Instead of latching on to a plot the film gets bogged down in a few long, drawn out and unexciting chase-and-escape set-pieces, overdependent on CGI and resorting to cheap - almost childish - stunts including a useless battle with oversized cougar-like creatures.

With non-existent or hasty character introductions, the preponderance of outlandish costumes, and names like Underverse, Necromongers, Vaako and the Purifier, the film teeters dangerously close to Dune levels of pompous cluelessness. Vin Diesel as Riddick limits his acting to dropping dry one-liners and either taking off or putting on his shades about once every three minutes. Meanwhile, the combat action scenes are micro-fragmented into utter incomprehensibility by a hack editing job.

The climactic across-the-terrain run ahead of a deadly sunrise on the planet Crematoria delivers a few moments of splendour, and Thandie Newton's Lady MacBeth-inspired lust for power emerges as the one character arc that may have been worth exploring. But The Chronicles Of Riddick unfortunately jettisons potential and wraps itself in choppy gimmickry.



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The Movies Of Vin Diesel

All movies starring Vin Diesel and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Awakenings (1990, uncredited)

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Boiler Room (2000)

Pitch Black (2000)

The Fast And The Furious (2001)

xXx (2002)

The Chronicles Of Riddick (2004)

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2016)

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

Movie Review: xXx (2002)

A spy thriller, xXx is over the top in everything it does, and proud of it.

Xander Cage, to Czech police officer: You have a bazooka! Dude, stop thinking Prague Police and start thinking Playstation. Blow shit up!

Adventure seeker and borderline outlaw Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) is reluctantly recruited by Agent Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson) of the National Security Agency to gather information about mobsters operating out of Eastern Europe and dabbling in biological weapons. Xander travels to Prague, where he connects with criminal mastermind Yorgi (Marton Csokas), who is running a violent gang called Anarchy 99 made up of ex-Soviet military types.

Gibbons: I want you to meet some people and find out whatever you can about them.
Xander Cage: What kind of people?
Gibbons: Dirty. Dangerous. Tattooed. Uncivilized. Your kind of people.

Xander gradually gains Yorgi's confidence, and also meets Yelena (Asia Argento), who looks after the gang's finances. Xander uncovers a deadly plot involving the release of biological weapons to instigate global chaos, and also realizes that Yelena is harbouring her own secrets.

Yelena: I've been undercover here for two years.
Xander: Two years? What was your plan? To let them die of old age?

Directed by Ron Cohen, xXx grabs hold of the James Bond formula, dumbs it down, turns up the volume, and jacks up the jaw-dropping stunts. Remarkably, the film actually works, as long as it is accepted for what it is. This is a hyperkinetic action film with just enough plot, villainy and wisecracks to sustain itself. The film is marginally overlong at over two hours, but room had to be found for just one more stunt, and then one more after that. Unfortunately, stuntman Harry O'Connor lost his life performing one of the more dangerous stunts.

Xander Cage: You're okay, Yorgi
Yorgi: Everything's okay... with enough vodka.

Xander Cage is a protagonist plucked from the world of extreme sports and plonked into the spy milieu, and is therefore given license to occasionally wink at the rampant absurdity of his mission and play by no rules at all. Vin Diesel is the furthest thing from a smooth operator, and so is perfectly suited to barge into the world of murderous anarchists intent on resetting civilization.

The elements borrowed from 007 are on full display. The theme music, when it takes a break from heavy metal, tickles the classic John Barry composition. Xander is given some gadgets to play with, including binoculars that see through walls - and clothes. And the stunts take Bond's typical outlandish escapades and turn the knob to eleven. Every conceivable motorized machine is featured, on land, on water, off bridges and on ski slopes, and more often than not the stunts in xXx exist for their own purpose, and the film does not pretend otherwise.

Yelena: I want immunity from prosecution, asylum in the U.S., and citizenship.
Xander Cage: How bout a condo in South Beach and a rich boyfriend?
Yelena: Those I can get for myself.

Of course Xander extends his superhuman physical abilities into irresistible sex appeal. That xXx pauses enough for some scenes of dialogue between Xander and the initially enigmatic Yelena is a bonus, and she emerges as a more rounded-than-expected character with a hidden but easy-to-guess agenda. Samuel L. Jackson lends some weight to the film through his well-suited Gibbons.

Loud, hectic and incessant, xXx is James Bond for adrenaline junkies.

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Movie Review: Pitch Black (2000)

A science fiction horror thriller, Pitch Black (later re-released on DVD as The Chronicles of Riddick: Pitch Black) introduces the character of Riddick in a solid if patchy adventure on a hostile planet.

Deep in space, an interplanetary merchant ship is damaged by a comet storm. With the captain killed, docking pilot Carolyn Fry (Radha Mitchell) crash-lands the stricken craft onto the surface of a seemingly deserted barren planet. The survivors include convicted murderer Richard B. Riddick (Vin Diesel), who is being transported by his captor bounty hunter William Johns (Cole Hauser). A Muslim Imam (Keith David), his children and a mysterious boy Jack are among the others who emerge from the wreckage.

The survivors stumble upon a small but abandoned outpost set-up by a geological expedition years prior, with a dropship in near-working condition. They also encounter monstrous killer creatures who live in caves deep below ground and can only survive in darkness. Riddick initially takes the opportunity to escape, but then strikes an uneasy deal with Johns to help the group survive. Fry believes they can repair the dropship and use it to escape, but the group discover that an eclipse will engulf the planet in darkness, giving the predatory creatures an opportunity to emerge and feast.

A mix of low-budget Aliens and humourless Tremors, Pitch Black may lack funding and fundamental originality, but makes up for it with better than average character dynamics. Riddick is an impressive anti-hero, a reluctant prisoner with a troubled background happy to kill on demand but with a humanity throbbing somewhere deep in his damaged soul. His surgically modified eyes, allowing him to pierce through the dark but needing shades for the light, is a nice touch. Riddick also gets to deliver a few deadpan lines of dialogue.

Providing the counterbalance to Riddick are three other survivors also worth knowing. Johns tries to pass himself off as the law, but he is less than he pretends, with weaknesses of his own. Fry, with Radha Mitchell in excellent form, is the reluctant leader, haunted by the decisions she had to make during the crash landing. And the Imam is another neat addition, a Muslim cleric and father introducing an uncommon tone.

But director and co-writer David Twohy has other challenges, probably budget-related, that cause a few stumbles. Much of the action is in the dark and not very clear, and some of the dialogue is mumbled and drowned out by the sound effects. The computer-generated creatures, mostly indistinct cousins of the Aliens, are a study in quantity not amounting to quality.

Still there are a few impressive visuals and the use of colour is inventive, Twohy and his cinematographer David Eggby creating a stark, scorched planet environment perfect for a severe survival test. And several of the death scenes are suitably sharp and brutal.

Pitch Black was Vin Diesel's breakout role, and also launched the intermittent Riddick franchise, a welcome reminder that movies are not totally dependent on comics for hero inspiration. Pitch Black could have used more polish, but nevertheless lights up with gory thrills and impressive heroics.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Boiler Room (2000)

Further proof that there is a sucker born every minute, Boiler Room takes a look at the modern-day snake-oil salesmen taking advantage of the suckers by peddling worthless stocks with empty promises of future riches.

College student Seth Davis (Giovanni Ribisi) is trying hard to impress his stern father (Ron Rifkin), but he is going about it the wrong way. Seth drops out of college and establishes an illegal but successful casino in his apartment, raking in money from fellow college kids looking for a good time.

Seth's entrepreneurial skills attract the attention of the shady stock-trading firm J.T. Marlin, and he is recruited as a trainee. Senior trader Greg (Nicky Katt) is appointed as Seth's mentor, while Chris (Vin Diesel) and Richie (Scott Caan) are among the other traders peddling shady stocks. Jim (Ben Affleck) is the motivator-in-chief, promising all the young recruits a life of unimaginable riches.

J.T. Marlin's phone-based business is sweet-talking naive investors into pouring their life's savings into useless stocks, and Seth becomes quite good at it. He also starts a relationship with the firm's secretary Abbie (Nia Long), who has just dumped Greg. But no matter what he does, Seth cannot get his father's approval, and eventually he wises up to the damage his salesmanship is causing, and the illegalities of the firm's business.

Boiler Room's premise is painted in vivid colours that dissolve under the mildest scrutiny. Can Seth really be the only person in the United States curious enough to notice the shuttered and abandoned offices of a supposed high-tech medical research company developing the next miracle drug? A scene that features a regulator shredding documents at night is underlined as proof of wrong-doing; a large but empty office filled with banks of phones on the floor is also supposed to hold evil intent. Neither the significance of the documents being shredded nor the purpose of the lonely phones are ever convincingly explained, and once again, Seth is the only one noticing.

Ben Affleck has a grand total of three scenes, as J.T. Marlin's in-house recruiter and morale booster. It looks like a good paycheck for about a day's worth of work, but Affleck does bring a testosterone-injected intensity to his cheesy rabble-rousing speeches.

Any reminder of the ease with which the combination of greed and gullibility can be exploited is useful, but Boiler Room otherwise brings little that is new to an old morality tale.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Fast And The Furious (2001)

In a demonstration of the potential for style to triumph over substance, The Fast And The Furious is a sleek, shiny film that entertains thanks to its vibe and cool factor. Not much else about this movie actually matters.

Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) is an undercover cop, infiltrating the Los Angeles illegal street racing community to crack an audacious theft ring that hijacks container trucks at formidable speeds. Brian befriends Dominic (Dom) Toretto (Vin Diesel), the fulcrum around whom the street racing scene rotates; Brian also falls for Dom's sister Mia (Jordana Brewster). Dom has shady friends and dangerous enemies; Brian is soon under pressure and has to risk his relationships to sort out the bad guys from the ugly guys before the truck drivers start resolving matters with shotguns.

The Fast And The Furious derives its pleasure and appeal from the glimmering overpowered machines that fuel the street racing scene, and the film matches the insane kinetic energy of the cars that are as important to the movie as the actors. Credit to director Rob Cohen for avoiding the temptation of moving mindlessly from one stunt race scene to the next; there is actually surprisingly little racing action in the movie, more a glorification of the cars, the people, and the culture, as time is spent colouring, with vivid intensity, the details of the characters who inhabit this underground world.

As a result, when the racing and stunt set-pieces do kick-in, they are treats to be enjoyed, helped by exceptional execution, editing and directing.

Vin Diesel cruises through the movie oozing coolness that is appropriately unreal. Paul Walker is almost equally impossibly on top of the out of control action, but as the force of good in the movie he manages to be less outrightly dismissive. The grease-stained group surrounding Dom Toretto's character appear to be drawn from the guys that always seem to be hanging around the local car repair shops, doing nothing much that appears to be legal.

The rap music score thumps along adding to the high and edgy level of energy that throbs through the movie.

The Fast And The Furious is like speeding on an empty freeway. Absolutely nothing good will come of it, but it could be ever so enjoyable.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.