This was the last movie that John Huston made with Humphrey Bogart, and one of the more overlooked ones as well. World War II veteran Frank McCloud visits a sleepy little bed and breakfast in Key Largo to give his respects to the family of an old war pal who has passed on. Along the way he meets his buddy’s widow (Lauren Bacall), his father … Continue reading Key Largo Review
This is a story of two kids, Tom Powers and Matt Doyle, who begin a life in crime early on. One of them winds up going straight and becomes a policemen, the other winds up a crook. You can guess which one James Cagney plays. This movie is over eighty years old but still feels fresher and more original than at least half of the … Continue reading The Public Enemy Review
It had completely escaped my memory that both Liam Neeson and Jim Carrey (in yes, their only movie together) appeared in the fifth and final installment of the Dirty Harry franchise known as “The Dead Pool”. Those are two of my favorite actors for very different reasons, and if any modern actor was going to take over the mantle of Dirty Harry right now Neeson … Continue reading The Dead Pool Review
This was the first Dirty Harry movie to be made in the 1980s, and as such the change in tone was very noticeable. This was a time when marketing and product placement became much more obvious in movies, and these kinds of movies more or less became vehicles to establish catch phrases and make flashy trailers, and also tell a story if there was enough … Continue reading Sudden Impact Review
In this the third installment of the Dirty Harry series, Harry Callahan takes on a group of Mayor kidnapping hippy-terrorists known as the People’s Revolutionary Strike Force (PRSF), Black Extremists, and also deals with feminism in his own unique way. The feminism bit comes when Callahan is assigned a partner (which never, ever works out well in these movies…) that “happens to be” female played … Continue reading The Enforcer Review
Force, the second movie of the Dirty Harry film franchise was released just two years after the original, and in many ways is a response to the criticism leveled against it. It is quite strange that the bad guys of this film are vigilante cops gone too far unless you look at it from that lens of responding to the claims of the first movie … Continue reading Magnum Force Review
Socially and politically speaking now is probably not the right time to review a movie like Dirty Harry, a movie I have loved since I was really too young to be watching it to begin with. There is an argument made by some that some of the current rash of police violence can be blamed on movies like Dirty Harry because today’s policemen in many … Continue reading Dirty Harry Review
I do not think it is a stretch to call this the best Christian Slater lead movie ever produced. Not high praise when the next highest runner’s up include such classics as “Gleaming the Cube” and “Young Guns II” (AKA Brat Back Goes West – Part Duex). That said this is a hell of a movie, and Slater represents himself accordingly. This was also one … Continue reading True Romance Review
This movie, while both a critical and box office failure, is to me a good hidden gem example of a fun “garbage movie”. Take the preposterous plot that involves a large group of Elvis impersonators robbing a Vegas casino and then wind up turning on each other (have mercy!) leaving the two alpha males to fight over the remaining prize. (They just could not go … Continue reading 3,000 Miles to Graceland Review
Movies can tell us a lot about the political and social climate of the times in which they were made. The 70s for instance, as evidenced by movies like this, Death Wish, and Dirty Harry was a time when there was a lot of right wing backlash against the previous decade bubbling up. We had a return of the old masculine heroes of yesteryear, only … Continue reading Rolling Thunder Review
Sometimes it’s best to leave childhood favorites in your childhood. This might have been one of those cases. I would have been around ten to twelve years old when I first saw “Beyond The Law”, which also would have been my first exposure to the idea of biker gangs and such, and at the time I thought it was just about the coolest film ever … Continue reading Beyond The Law Review
Ellis and Neckbone live on the banks of the Arkansas river. What an amazing place to grow up this must be. Ellis stays on a houseboat with his father and mother, who are going through problems he cannot even begin to understand, but that may soon cost him his entire known way of life. In the evenings he sneaks off with his best friend, the … Continue reading Mud Review
It isn’t easy being a widow. Willa Harper (Shelley Winters) finds that out the hard way when her good intentioned husband Ben (Peter Graves) finds himself hanging from the gallows after robbing a local bank. The movie is set during the depression, and bank robbing at the time was about the noblest form of outlawry to be found, especially to many down and out sodbusters … Continue reading Night of the Hunter Review
There was a much more interesting movie that bookended Homefront’s main story. It was about a long haired Jason Statham infiltrating a biker gang lead by a guy called Danny T, played by Chuck Zito, and it ended with a giant police raid, featuring an intense standoff in which T’s son basically commits suicide by cop as a dozen or so uniformed officers make it … Continue reading Homefront Review
Keller Dover is an uber-macho survivalist who keeps a basement full of canned goods and assorted Zombie Apocalypse gear all set up in neat alphabetically ordered shelving units. During a Thanksgiving dinner at a friend’s house, both his daughter and his friend’s daughter go missing in an apparent kidnapping. Normally kidnapping movies save the kidnapping for at least a little ways into the movie to establish … Continue reading Prisoners Review
stle is the best movie to come out of 2013, but it is for damned sure the most fun one to have made it to the big screen. Wow, what a fun ride that was. I am going to spend the next few hundred words or so just completely gushing about this movie with no pretense of objectivity or any other journalistic credos so read … Continue reading American Hustle Review
The following introduction is a little spoilery, but it doesn’t really reveal anything that will compromise enjoyment of the movie in my opinion, but anyway, read at your own risk, or simply skip down to the next one. Denzel Washington stars as undercover DEA agent Robert “Bobby” Trench, while Mark Wahlberg plays undercover Naval Intelligence officer Michael “Stig” Stigman. Together the two of them plot … Continue reading 2 Guns Review
The great movie ‘Fargo’ has forever strained my ability to trust any movie that claims itself to be a “true story”. Fargo did that in its opening credits as an inside joke on the audience (one that, according to legend actually inspired a person to go searching for the lost money in that story). The story of Fargo was completely fictional, but indeed, it was … Continue reading Pain & Gain Review
After his niece is abducted, criminal psychologist Dr. Alex Cross (Freeman) goes to North Carolina to aid/follow the investigation. What he learns is that his niece, Naomi, is the latest “trophy” of a man who calls himself “Casanova,” a man who collects women, but not necessarily for the purposes of killing them. Shortly after Casanova takes Naomi, a medical intern, Dr. Kate McTiernan (Judd), is … Continue reading Kiss The Girls Review
If the Maltese Falcon is to be considered the grandfather of the Film Noir genre, which many have claimed it to be over the years, then ‘Out of the Past’ is definitely the genre’s chief biological father. For when you break down this movie to its basic D.N.A components, you see a perfect and incriminating match. As here we see the next generation of noir … Continue reading Out of the Past Review
