Posts tagged John Ortiz
The Drop “Definitely Worth Seeing”
Sep 22nd
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE DROP is a very good, dark, and gritty movie that revolves around a bar in Brooklyn called Cousin Marv’s, which used to belong to Marv, played by James Gandolfini.
Bob, played by Tom Hardy, who actually is a cousin of Marv’s, tends bar there, and the bar is sometimes used as a “drop bar,” where bookies and dealers leave bundles of cash in envelopes for the crime bosses who control them to come by after hours to collect the money.
There is a rotating circuit of bars that are used as drop bars, but one night when Cousin Marv’s is the drop bar, it is robbed by two men wearing masks, and even though Marv tries to warn them about whose money they are stealing, the two robbers take the money anyway.
Bob notices that one of the men is wearing a wristwatch that is broken, but when he mentions this to the police who investigate, Marv gets upset with Bob.
One night Bob had been out walking in the neighborhood, and he discovers a bleeding puppy in a garbage can. The woman who lives in the house behind the garbage can comes out and starts talking to Bob about the puppy, which is not hers, nor does she know anything about it or why it had been left in her garbage can.
Bob promises to think about taking the dog to the shelter if she will just keep it until Saturday when he will come back to pick it up.
The woman’s name is Nadia, and Bob decides to keep the dog, but because he has never owned a dog before, Nadia goes with Bob to the store and helps him buy the necessities that Bob needs in order to keep he dog, which he names Rocco.
Meanwhile, the police keep coming around to investigate the robbery, the owners of the bar show up wanting the money that had been taken in the robbery, and a menacing man named Eric Deeds, who used to be involved with Nadia, shows up at Bob’s apartment, claiming that the dog is his, but he will let Bob keep Rocco if Bob will pay him $10,000.
The bar is designated the drop bar for Super Bowl Sunday, and everything comes to a head.
THE DROP is definitely worth seeing.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
The Drop – Movie Trailer
Sep 15th
THE DROP is a new crime drama from Michaël R. Roskam, the Academy Award nominated director of Bullhead. Based on a screenplay from Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone), THE DROP follows lonely bartender Bob Saginowski (Tom Hardy) through a covert scheme of funneling cash to local gangsters – “money drops” in the underworld of Brooklyn bars. Under the heavy hand of his employer and cousin Marv (James Gandolfini), Bob finds himself at the center of a robbery gone awry and entwined in an investigation that digs deep into the neighborhood’s past.
“Public Enemies” Not Number 1
Jul 9th
Not Number 1
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
PUBLIC ENEMIES is a disappointment, but it just might get better over time as some movies do when their reputations grow.
However, it has so many problems that that probably won’t happen.
Johnny Depp stars as John Dillinger, the notorious bank robber in the Thirties whom the FBI classified as “Public Enemy Number 1” until he was gunned down on a Chicago street after coming out of a movie theater.
No, that isn’t a “spoiler alert.” It is a historical fact and one of the problems with the movie: You know how it is going to end, and so where is the suspense?
The film starts in 1933, and we are told that it is the fourth year of the Great Depression. Dillinger shows up at a prison where he had just been paroled eight weeks earlier after serving nine years there.
He leads an escape of some prisoners, and as they head off in a getaway car, he says, “Let’s go to Chicago and make some money!”
Now, he doesn’t mean for them to get jobs in the Windy City. He means for them to rob some banks, even though robbing banks is getting harder than it once was.
Meanwhile, we meet Christian Bale as FBI agent Melvin Purvis, the special agent in charge of the Chicago field office. He has just shot and killed Pretty Boy Floyd, another well-known gangster.
In the meantime, Dillinger has picked up a coat-check girl named Billie Frechette, played by Marion Cotillard. He tells her right away that he is John Dillinger and that he robs banks, and he impresses her enough that he manages to get her to quit her job and to leave with him.
Now, there isn’t much of a story arc and what little there is, is confusing.
Depp comes from the Marlon Brando School of Acting with his mumbling, scratching, and twitching, and sometimes you can’t understand what he says.
Also, there are so many characters with their own stories that you can’t tell who they are, and they all look so much alike that you have a hard time telling who got killed and who is still alive.
Some well-known actors, you might not even recognize.
PUBLIC ENEMIES is definitely not Number 1, but it still brings a tear to your eye at the end.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
