Catch .44

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Catch .44
  • IMDB: link

catch-44-dvdI’m not sure if writer/director Aaron Harvey is attempting to give us nothing more than B-movie along the lines of 2 Days in the Valley or (God help us) Smokin’ Aces or if he aspires to something more like early Tarantino. Whatever his intentions, what Catch .44 delivers is a trio of attractive actresses, short skirts, a couple loving butt shots, and a movie not nearly as smart as it wants to be.

Our story begins with a theft of a drug shipment gone wrong. Our would be robbers are a trio of women working for a local drug trafficker (Bruce Willis). After the opening shootout the movie resets to the beginning of the night as Tes (Malin Akerman), Kara (Nikki Reed), and Dawn (Deborah Ann Woll) while away the hours together before their job goes horribly wrong.

Tes is the leader of the pack, or “the smart one.” A waitress in a seedy strip club who gets kicks by stealing customers wallets, she takes the job as a drug runner as much out of boredom as anything else.

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Birds of Prey #4

/ / Comics

birds-of-prey-new-52-4-coverIt takes more than half the issue but Batgirl finally joins the team. The addition of Batgil may mean good things for the future of the comic but it doesn’t do much to help out here as the story is still stuck in neutral with invisible ninja assassins and super-secret scientists planting bombs in peoples heads.

Birds of Prey is a comic I want to like but now for four months it’s given me little reason to do so. The addition of Batgirl isn’t the only change that needs to be made on this title. We still know next to nothing about Starling, Katana remains a one-note character, and I don’t see how Babs sticks around for a team that includes Poison Ivy as one of its members.

The good news is Batgirl works well here, especially with Black Canary. It’s good to see the Babs/Dinah team back together. Now if we can just figure out a way to get Zinda Blake and the Huntress to replace Poison Ivy and Katana we might, might have something. Hit-and-Miss.

[DC, $2.99]

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Nightwing #4

/ / Comics

nightwing-new-52-4-coverAnother of DC Comics New 52 titles goes off the rails. We know we’re in trouble from the very start when the comic is opened to find a that Trevor McCarthy has replaced Eddy Barrows as artist for this issue. Aside from not knowing what age to draw Dick Grayson (a common problem in Bat-books this month) McCarthy’s art is certainly slick, but he seems to be suffering from the same affliction of Jim Lee and Todd McFarlane in wanting to draw characters in awkward angles in big splash pages regardless of whether it helps tell the story (or makes sense).

The story is also confusing as Batgirl comes to town asking for Nightwing’s help (after telling him to stay away just one month ago). I don’t know if the writers’ were going for a Buffy/Angel homage here, but it’s impossible not to see the similarities with “Sanctuary” and “The Yoko Factor.”

The villain is an undeveloped stand-in for Clayface that comes off disappointing that the pair deal with without too much trouble. The more looming threat of a villain who knows Nightwing’s secrets is mentioned but instantly discarded.

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Justice League #4

/ / Comics

justice-league-new-52-4-coverI’ve enjoyed the New 52 version of the Justice League, but this latest issue from writer Geoff Johns and artist Jim Lee is a complete trainwreck. For the issue that introduces Darkseid, one of DC Comics’ biggest and baddest villains, to fumble the ball this badly is simply inexcusable.

Almost everything goes wrong here as the characters speak in nothing more than clipped plot and character points, Lee’s art finds the characters in more and more ridiculous poses, and even the action shots don’t make sense from panel to panel.

The humor and character interactions that worked well in previous issues are missing (except for Green Lantern‘s comment about Batman‘s reaction to GL touching Wonder Woman‘s lasso of truth). Darkseid is imposing, but I’m not really sure we needed a centerfold of the character, and the layout of the sequence is bizarre as the League is starring at the villain emerging from a Boom Tube yet, in close-ups, the Boom Tube is to the back of every character. How is this possible? Pass.

[DC, $2.99]

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Leverage – The Lonely Hearts Job

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Leverage – The Lonely Hearts Job
  • tv.com: link

leverage-the-lonely-hearts-job

The Leverage team takes a case from an unlikely client when a millionaire (David Ogden Stiers), the sort the team usually takes down, begs Nate (Timothy Hutton) to find his missing wife. What starts out as a missing persons case, or a possible kidnapping, turns into something completely different when the team uncovers a ring of grifters running a complex sweetheart scam on several unsuspecting marks.

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