The Mechanic

First Hit: I liked the first film with Charles Bronson and I fully enjoyed this one with Jason Statham.

Charles Bronson had the look and feel of someone who was very tough with hidden intelligence.

Jason Statham as Arthur Bishop plays The Mechanic as intelligent first and physically tough second but when required he is tough really tough.

Bishop gets misled into killing his best friend Harry McKenna (played by Donald Sutherland) and mentor based on fabricated evidence. When he learns that he was tricked, he decides to mentor McKenna’s wayward and intense son Steve (played by Ben Foster) to be a mechanic. Together they do a couple of jobs and then go after Dean (played by Tony Goldwyn) who put out the hit on Harry.

Not all the kills involve bombs or guns. Many of them are stealth in nature and require lots of planning. This film does it well and Statham does it very well.

Statham is perfect as the quiet, straight forward, intelligent and focused mechanic. Sutherland is believable as Statham’s mentor. Foster is really good as the wayward mixed up son who needs to find a life path. Goldwyn is good as the ego driven guy who thinks he’s got everything under control but finds his ending commensurate with his actions. Simon West directed this with effectiveness.

Overall: Although the film is about killing effectively, it was enjoyable and well done.

The Dilemma

First Hit: Although not a great film, I found it amusing and enjoyable to watch.

With Vince Vaughn in a film, you know you are going to get fast talking, sarcasm, and an attempt to make a serious point. In this film the point is, does Ronnie Valentine (played by Vaughn) tell his best friend, Nick Brannen (played by Kevin James) that his wife Geneva (played by Winona Ryder) is having an affair.

Ronnie is living with Beth (played by Jennifer Connelly) who is the films straight character is a chef and is happy living with Ronnie. Nick and Geneva are pushing for Ronnie and Beth to get married saying it is the best thing to do, however when Ronnie discovers that Geneva is having an affair his is at a loss as to what to do. He doesn’t know if he should tell his friend and ends up confronting Geneva and her lover Zip (played by Channing Tatum).

This leads to lots of odd behavior which gives Vaughn a character to act out and non-stop dialogue. Because Ronnie and Nick are partners in a business and their business is at the precipice of making it big, the pressure is on.

Does Ronnie tell his friend of his wife’s affair and risk losing the biggest business deal of their lives?

Vaughn is the same character in every movie he makes, so there is little that is new and yet he does have the capacity to make it watchable. James is also type cast in the same sort of role of funny but insecure guy. It was great to see Ryder again in a primary role. She had the best scene and best performance in a scene when she and Vaughn were in a café and she told him how she was going to lie about her affair. She did what Meg Ryan did for faking an orgasm in “Harry Loves Sally” by acting how she was a victim of a horrible lie by her husband’s best friend. Connelly has a minor role and she was the sane and conscious one in the group. I found myself wanting her to be more involved in the film. Allan Loeb wrote the script and I’m sure Vaughn ad libbed sections of it. Ron Howard directed these actors well and was able to make Vaughn watchable and enjoyable.

Overall: This isn’t a great film but it is fun enough to watch without wondering where it is going or how it is going to end.

Green Hornet

First Hit: Nothing based in reality - but a silly and sometimes fun film.

Seth Rogen as the Hornet didn’t fit in the role I imagined so I was disappointed in the role Rogan created. 

Supposedly Rogan plays a rich boy named Britt Reid being raised by his strict father James (played by Tom Wilkinson) because his mother died early in his life. Not sure why this was important to repeat numerous times, but they did. Britt is spoiled and as an adult he just goes out and parties.

His father dies and to get back at him, Britt and his father’s car maintenance and coffee maker Kato (played by Jay Chou), cut the head off the bronze statue the town put up in his father’s honor. Kato is a genius at inventing things and he turns one of Jame's old cars into a super sophisticated rolling weapon’s machine.

Britt decides to name himself the “Green Hornet” and his assistant, Kato decide to raise havoc by fighting crime and also create mayhem. Britt also inherits his father’s newspaper and decides to hire Cameron Diaz as his assistant Lenore Case.

This was mostly a meaningless part and added very little to the storyline except that both Kato and Britt wanted Lenor to be their girlfriend. After a well-known criminal hooks up with the DA to kill the Green Hornet, the Hornet and Kato decide to blow the lid off the DA’s links with the mob as well as letting everyone know who the Green Hornet is.

Rogen is simply not right for the role of the real Green Hornet" of Helnit Comics fame. He is also very difficult to take as a straight character. There is nothing that makes this film really work as something other than a one-off semi-comedy. Rogan is the wrong guy for this film. Chou is the only interesting character in the film and I enjoyed watching him. Diaz is wasted in this. Wilkinson is also wasted in this film. Evan Goldberg and Rogan wrote this mess and Michael Gondry did the best he could to keep the effects and action interesting.

Overall: This film will probably result in a sequel but I won’t go, one version was enough.

Tron: Legacy (3D)

First Hit: Great 3D visual experience and if the dialogue were better we’d have a good film.

The original film TRON wasn’t a great film, what made is irresistible was the cutting edge visuals. This second effort has many of the same; great visuals. The 3D adds so much to the original look and feel which makes this film fun to watch.

The film begins with Sam Flynn (played by Garrett Hedlund) playing havoc with the company he owns. The company is one his father Kevin Flynn (played by Jeff Bridges who also starred in the original) started with cutting edge technology before he disappeared into “the grid”. Kevin disappeared when Sam was only 2 and therefore Sam is angry at his father for leaving him.

Alan Bradley (played by Bruce Boxleitner) who was his father’s confidant tells Sam that his there was a page from Flynn’s old office below an arcade. Sam goes to the office and discovers a way to get sucked into the grid. There he meets his father’s alter ego Clu who challenges Sam (the User) to a match against his perfect programs. His programs are part of the perfection he was commanded to create by Kevin.

Sam with the help of Kevin's confidant Quorra (played by Olivia Wilde), escapes Clu's challenge on light-cycles and is delivered to his real father Kevin. Kevin on the other hand sees that perfection includes imperfection and that sometimes doing nothing is the best thing to do.

Philosophically this could have been an interesting film but what hurts this film is the dialogue. Kevin is reduced to living in the grid with no way back to reality after discovering the perfection.

The visuals are, again, extraordinary and just like the first film; I want to ride a light-cycle.

Bridges was good when the dialogue was OK but when it was poor, the film fell flat and Jeff looked less than the man who was master of the grid. Hedlund was good enough to make it work. Again, the script let the actors down. Wilde was very good and less affected by the poor script. Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz are to blame for much of the failings of this picture as their script was weak, unclear and not thought out. Joseph Kosinski exceeded my hopes on the visuals, I love them. However, the script needed a lot of work to hold up to the world created by the legacy of the first film.

Overall: Unfortunately the best part of this film is the visuals and the weak part is the dialogue. This is a very uneven film.

The Next Three Days

First Hit: Much better than I anticipated.

The trailers for this film didn’t seem very interesting nor am I a big Russell Crowe fan.

This film starts out oddly as John Brennan (Crowe) and his wife Lara (played by Elizabeth Banks) are out to dinner with friends. They are discussing working with a boss who one doesn’t respect. The next morning as they and their son Luke are having breakfast in the kitchen; the cops come to the door and burst in to arrest Lara. This moment in the film is unrealistic.

I just don’t think they would have burst in with that sort of aggressiveness. It takes a bit of time for the crime to be revealed in this film as it is more of a side note. With appeals long past John seeks out advice on how to break his wife out of prison.

Liam Neeson plays Damon Pennington a former prisoner who broke out of prison 7 times and with this experience plays a short but pivotal role in John’s path to break his wife out of jail. The next hour plus is about how he slowly finds the right people with the right information (including using YouTube clips) to help him make his plan. Here the film stays interesting.

The story doesn’t give too much away but does provide enough information to drive the audience into wondering what choice is John making and how is he constructing the plan. When the plan is executed, it takes some intense discussion for his wife to go along with the plan. In the end, she does and they successfully get to where they can spend their lives all together and in some relative peace.

As a twist, at the end of the film a detective tries to find the one clue that would have exonerated Lara, but he just misses, but the audience seeing the clue allows us to know Lara was innocent.

Crowe is effective at keeping his intensity under wraps and not overdoing it. Banks is very good as the mother who understands her son enough to let him find his way back to her emotionally. Neeson is wonderful in his short 5 minute scene. Paul Haggis, Fred Cavaye and Guillaume Lemans wrote a very strong script. Haggis did a really good job of directing this giving Pittsburgh the feel of being a long time blue collar town with an intelligent law enforcement team.

Overall: I was surprised at how much I liked it.