Posts tagged Mystery
“Law Abiding Citizen” Disappointing Ending
Oct 22nd
Disappointing Ending
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
LAW ABIDING CITIZEN is a thriller with a theme about revenge, it has good execution, fine special effects, but a lousy ending that doesn’t satisfy what has gone before it as much as it seems to be tacked on just to please the sensibilities of certain audiences.
However, knowing Hollywood, don’t be surprised if the inevitable DVD of the film comes out with the obligatory “alternate ending” which should have been the one released into theaters in the first place.
Gerard Butler plays Clyde Shelton, an engineer whose wife and daughter are brutally murdered by two men who burst into their home one evening.
However, after the two men are caught and put on trial, Nick Rice, the prosecuting attorney played by Jamie Foxx, makes a deal with one of the killers and spares his life in exchange for the man’s testimony against his partner in order to improve Rice’s conviction rate, which is an astounding 96 percent.
Shelton is extremely disappointed that the second killer, Darby, is going to live, and he doesn’t feel any better when Rice tells him, “Some justice is better than no justice at all.”
Then it is 10 years later, the convicted killer is about to be executed, and we get a not-so-clever cross-cutting scene between the execution and a cello recital by Rice’s young daughter.
The execution doesn’t go as planned, it is definitely not painless, and the authorities figure out that Shelton was responsible.
Shelton makes clear that he is determined to kill everyone who was involved in the trial of the killers, and he gets revenge on Darby in more ways than one.
However, Shelton lets himself get caught, is tried and sent to prison, but the killings still continue even though Shelton is behind bars.
In fact, after a surprising turn of events in prison, Shelton is put into solitary confinement, and the killings still continue, each one more elaborate than the previous one.
Shelton plays with the authorities. They know that he did it, but he is locked up, and they can’t stop him.
However, the ending is a big letdown. Shelton is clearly an anti-hero in this story, but the ending makes you feel as if political correctness prevailed in spite of everything that goes before it.
LAW ABIDING CITIZEN is better than its disappointing ending.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Law Abiding Citizen – Movie Trailer
Oct 16th
Jamie Foxx stars as an assistant DA who finds himself at the mercy of a spiteful vigilante (Gerard Butler) hell-bent on avenging the death of his wife and daughter, whose murderers are set free due to legal loopholes. F. Gary Gray (The Italian Job) directs from a script by Frank Darabont and Kurt Wimmer.
“Surrogates” Derivatives
Sep 30th
Derivatives
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
SURROGATES is a classy looking science-fiction thriller starring Bruce Willis, and the first thing you are going to notice is all the weird-looking blond hair he has.
No, wait! That isn’t Willis’s character with all the hair. That is his surrogate, a realistic android that most people use to go out into society in place of them while the owners stay at home in a room hooked up to a device that allows them to be the “operators,” the eyes, ears, mouth, and flesh of their surrogate.
So, right away the audience is going to be confused between knowing what is a surrogate and what is a real person, and that confusion is going to result in more than one plot point.
Now, here is where I should say that the film is based on a series of comic books–Excuse me! “graphic novels”–called “The Surrogates,” written by Robert Venditti, who went to college with the dream of becoming a novelist.
In fact, in an interview Venditti said, “I was going to be the next Hemingway.”
Venditti is 35, and I am surprised he even knows anything about Ernest Hemingway.
Anyway, back to our movie.
Willis and his surrogate play FBI Agent Tom Greer, who are investigating a seemingly random murder that involves an unregistered surrogate.
Agent Greer has a partner, Agent Jennifer Peters, and she is a beautiful young woman played by Radha Mitchell.
After all, this is based on a comic book, remember?
Their investigation leads them to Dr. Canter, played by James Cromwell, the man who invented surrogates and ran the company that built them.
But before you say, “Uh oh! Wasn’t this already done in the 1982 BLADE RUNNER?” you are going to be reminded of the 2002 MINORITY REPORT when we learn about Agent Greer’s dead son.
And, in fact, when Cromwell shows up, you are also going to be reminded of the 1996 STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT.
Now, I used to make fun of recycled plots by saying that Hollywood has run out of ideas. Now I am going to say that writers have run out of ideas.
The frame of reference for young writers isn’t literature anymore. It is old movies, and by “old,” I mean within the past 30 years.
SURROGATES is not bad, but should be called DERIVATIVES.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
