Shameless Self Expression

Jet Li stars as assassin Rogue, playing both sides (Triad, led by John Lone, and Yakuza, led by Ryo Ishibashi and his daughter Devon Aoki) in a San Francisco war over a supposedly valuable artefact, both sides thinking Rogue works for them. Meanwhile, agent Jason Statham (an expert on Asian culture and criminal organisations) could care less about the crime war, he just wants Rogue for personal reasons. He holds the elusive assassin personally responsible for the death of his partner a few years back, and now wants revenge. Turns out, revenge is a dish best served cold, but here also served somewhat complicated. 2007 Philip G. Atwell (a first-timer experienced in rap music videos mostly) crime/action flick brings together action stars Jet Li and Jason Statham, and puts them in a slow, overly-complicated (hence the slowness, as the complex story has to unravel), sometimes silly, but sometimes quite interesting crime story (influenced by Kurosawa’s “Yojimbo” in parts) with a f...

Released from an eight year stretch in the slammer (for sexual battery), ex-con Max Cady (Robert Mitchum) aims to make life a living hell for the lawyer (Gregory Peck) whose testimony saw him incarcerated. He sets about planting the seeds in Peck’s mind that his wife (Polly Bergen) and teenage daughter (Lori Martin) are the prey to Cady’s predator...but without actually doing anything wrong. He just...hangs around. Everywhere Peck turns, Cady is there, looking all insinuating and menacing, but he doesn’t commit any crimes. And then the family dog gets poisoned, and Peck has had enough. Peck uses his friendship with police chief Martin Balsam to get Cady thrown out of town (on mere vagrancy charges), but that only has Cady turn to his slick lawyer (Jack Kruschen) to accuse the police and Peck of harassment. You see, Cady’s no dummy, he read a lot of law books whilst in prison, and he’s using all that knowledge to push things as far as he can, to ruin Peck’s life like he perceives hi...

Til Schweiger is a hard-drinking former Special Forces guy who now earns a modest quid as a boat captain who ferries whale watchers around. He reluctantly agrees to take reporter Emmanuelle Vaugier on a mission to a remote island that harbours a mad scientist (Udo Kier) and some genetically-engineered super soldiers, including Vaugier’s uncle Ralf Moeller. Craig Fairbrass and Natalia Avelon play henchmen of differing moral codes, the late Don S. Davis plays a General and genre veteran (and sadly, Uwe Boll regular) Michael Paré has a small role too. This 2008 film gets marginally better reviews than most films from uber-hack Uwe Boll ( “House of the Dead” , “Alone in the Dark” , “BloodRayne” , “In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale” ), but excuse me for not doing cartwheels here. It’s still pretty crummy, and in fact, I think “BloodRayne” is better. The funny thing is, it’s not entirely Boll’s fault this time, he’s let down by a bland and plagiaristic script and poor ...

Set in 1933, Clint Eastwood stars as a surly Kansas City cop reluctantly teaming up with smart-arse detective Burt Reynolds to find out who killed Reynolds’ partner (Richard Roundtree). Tony Lo Bianco and Rip Torn play the city’s two big mobsters who are the likeliest suspects (there’s something about Roundtree having stolen a set of rather damning mob books), whilst Irene Cara plays a nightclub singer whom Roundtree was friendly with. Jane Alexander plays Reynolds’ faithful secretary, whilst Robert Davi and William Sanderson play a couple of goons. Madeline Kahn appears briefly as Reynolds’ shrill girlfriend who gets kidnapped. I hope you guys like people being thrown through glass windows. Directed by Richard Benjamin ( “My Favourite Year” , “Little Nikita” , “Mermaids” ), and with a screenplay credited to the amusingly named Sam O. Brown (check the initials, in reality it’s an uncredited Blake “Pink Panther” Edwards), this 1984 critical flop is easily one of the worst fil...

Set in 1957 with the title intrepid history professor cum-archaeologist adventurer (Harrison Ford) being held prisoner by pesky Russian psychic (!) Cate Blanchett (part of a Paranormal/Scientific branch of the KGB) and cohorts, forcing him to get into Area 51 and steal a precious artefact found (a crystal skull) at Roswell in the late 40s. He escapes, only to have to evade a nuclear blast, followed by an interrogation by the FBI (who have apparently employed the janitor from “Scrubs” ), who are unsure of his loyalties. Anyhoo, the film really gets going when Indy is approached by young punk ‘Mutt’ (Shia LaBeouf) to help save an old friend (John Hurt). Indy’s investigation into the missing professor’s whereabouts leads him to the legendary El Dorado in Peru, with Hurt apparently obsessed with finding the Crystal Skull of Akator, something Blanchett and those pesky psychic Russkies sure would like to get their hands on, too, for nefarious (read: COLD WAR) purposes. Whilst in Peru, In...