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Your Mission if You Choose to Accept It

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Mission: Impossible III
  • IMDb: link

mission-impossible-3-poster

I wasn’t a fan of the first film, but enjoyed Mission: Impossible II for its style and big stunts (and the delectable Thandie Newton), but this film finally is what I’ve been waiting for from the franchise.  Big elaborate stunts, a comprehensible plot, a bad-ass villain, and a team of IMF agents working together doing their jobs (and not all killed off in the first ten minutes) this is the Mission: Impossible I’ve been waiting for.

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has given up active assignments for the IMF and now trains recruits and spends time with his fiance Julia (Michelle Monaghan) who doesn’t know what he really does for a living.  Hunt is finally happy and at peace until a friend from the IMF (Billy Crudup) contacts him and tells him his star pupil (Keri Russell) has been taken hostage.  Hunt returns to the field with his team (Ving Rhames, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and Maggie Q) for a rescue mission.

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The Sentinel

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Sentinel
  • IMDb: link

Remember when it seemed like every other film was about the President of the United States?  What happened to that trend? Oh yeah, Clinton left office.  It’s telling when the only time Hollywood looks to the White House for material it’s either damning (see American Dreamz) or focusing on the underlings who make things run.  One would think that In the Line of Fire closed the book on Secret Service films, but apparently that was not to be.  Are we better off for having reopened the veiled windows of what goes on with the President’s bodyguards once more?  Let’s find out, shall we?

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Unlucky Slevin Lacks Bang

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Lucky Number Slevin
  • IMDb: link

Lucky Number Slevin

I’m not a big Josh Hartnett fan; I’ve seen to many of his movies.  I know that sounds harsh but anybody else remember Hollywood Homicide, 40 Days and 40 Nights, Blow Dry, and Pearl Harbor?  Slevin takes a rather simple plot and twists it up in a maze-like formula of so many thrillers these days.  While it’s better than something like Taking Lives in the end that’s not saying much.  It’s not bad, it’s got a good cast and a few memorable moments, and a 70’s style set designer for some reason.  But in the end it’s just okay.  Still, any film where Josh Hartnett gets punched repeatedly in the face I’m all for.

Slevin (Josh Hartnett) decides to take a trip to New York City to visit his friend Nick Fisher (Sam Jaeger).  From the moment he steps into NY things go wrong.  First he’s mugged getting into town losing his wallet and all identification (and getting his nose broken for the first time) and on arriving at Nick’s apartment is taken by thugs to be the owner of the apartment, his friend Nick, who has fled the city owing money to two competing gangster families and left Slevin holding the bag.  With friends like these…

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Be Very Afraid

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Running Scared
  • IMDb: link

Running Scared

I wonder how some films get made; I really do.  Running Scared is one of the worst movies to be dropped on an unsuspecting public in years.  I know I told you Freedomland was awful (and it was) but Scared digs deep down into the same pile of sludge and manages without much effort to be even worse.  The film uses issues – child abuse, murder. children shooting guns, torture, inappropriate sex, children being beaten and threatened with guns and knives, child molestation and child pornography, and the total legitimacy of blowing away the bad guys as the right thing to do – as empty plot devices to keep the “action” rolling right along.  Much like Freedomland the film doesn’t deal with any of these issues only exploits them for cheap thrills, but Scared does it over and over and over again with joyfully perverse glee. 

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Heads You Live, Tails You Die

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Domino
  • IMDb: link

What an entertaining ride.  Although rather messy and with more than a couple of flaws, Domino delivers one of the most enjoyable and watchable films this year.  Comparison to Tarantino’s Kill Bill are probably inevitable, but this is a far superior film with actual heart.  And damn, is it fun!!

Domino Harvey (Keira Knightley) is a glamour girl with a thirst for violence turned bounty hunter.  As the film opens Domino is in custody telling FBI Agent Taryn Miles (Lucy Liu) discussing what went wrong and landed her handcuffed in the interrogation room.  Something horrible happened on the last bounty and the movie is a series of flashbacks inter-cut with Knightley telling her story and finding her own understanding of what happened out in the desert.

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