Posts tagged talk
“The Taking of Pelham 123” Better Than Expected
Jun 17th
Better Than Expected
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3 is a remake of the 1974 film of the same name but with different spelling, and it has been updated with new technology and financial conditions, as well as with the whiz-bang visual techniques of director Tony Scott.
Denzel Washington plays the Walter Matthau role of Walter Garber, a temporary dispatcher of New York City Transit, and John Travolta plays the Robert Shaw role of a man named Ryder, who leads a team of four hijackers of a subway train.
When Garber first talks to Ryder to ask why the train stopped, Ryder says, “This is the man who’s going to give the City a run for its money.”
After some quick and obviously phony calculations, Ryder demands $10 million and one cent in cash in exactly one hour, or else he will start killing one of the 19 passenger hostages for every minute that the money is late.
James Gandolfini plays the mayor, who gets involved when he has to authorize the payment of the ransom, and we get an awful lot of preliminary setup shots followed by an awful lot of talk, plus the flashy visuals of the police racing to transport the money downtown to where the subway car is waiting.
Garber’s boss tells Garber to go home and let the official hostage negotiator from the police take over, which is fine with Garber, because he has had the dispatching job only a couple of weeks. But when Ryder learns that Garber is gone, he shoots the motorman and demands that Garber be brought back for the negotiations.
If you are not familiar with the story, at this point you might start to wonder What’s the suspense? Well, the suspense is in whether the hijackers are going to succeed or fail, depending on which side you are rooting for.
So, essentially we have a weak story with very good execution and exceptionally fine acting, especially by Travolta, who naturally has the showier part.
Garber and Ryder eventually even get to meet face to face when Ryder demands that the dispatcher come underground with the money for reasons we don’t learn until afterwards.
Then we get an exciting ending that we didn’t anticipate.
THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3 is better than expected or deserves to be.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“The Brothers Bloom” Not the Perfect Con
Jun 3rd
Not the Perfect Con
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE BROTHERS BLOOM is one of those movies that feel better to talk about than to actually see.
By that, I mean that it has very good ingredients, but when they are all mixed together, you can end up feeling cheated, because you didn’t enjoy it as much as you thought you would.
Written and directed by Rian Johnson, whose first film was the much- acclaimed 2006 BRICK, this film is about two brothers who have been con artists all their lives.
The film begins when they are kids after they have been through 38 foster homes and Stephen devises a con designed to allow his younger brother Bloom to get the girl in school that he pines for.
The plan doesn’t end the way they had hoped it would, but that doesn’t stop them, as we see 25 years later in Berlin and the conclusion of their most recent con.
Stephen, now played by Mark Ruffalo, and Bloom, now played by Adrian Brody, are successful, but Bloom wants out of the game and tells his brother, “I want an unwritten life.”
Bloom says he is going to take off where Stephen and their colleague, an Oriental woman named Bang Bang, can never find him.
Well, naturally, they can, and three months later Stephen and Bang Bang show up in Montenegro, where Bloom is living. Stephen outlines what he says will be their last con together, and the mark is Penelope Stamp, played by Rachel Weisz, even though their rule has always been “No women.”
Penelope lives alone in the largest private estate on the East Coast of America and is incredibly rich, and at this point you will probably guess the ending, but you would be only half right.
Stephen has designed an elaborate step to get Bloom to meet Penelope, and to say that it doesn’t go exactly as planned would be the understatement of all understatements.
However, the first part of the con works, and Penelope accompanies them on a steamer to Greece, and at this point you might conclude that the only ones being conned are the audience.
We are told that the perfect con is the one in which everyone involved gets just the thing they wanted.
THE BROTHERS BLOOM is not the perfect con, because the audience doesn’t get the enjoyment they wanted.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”