Review: 0 out of 5

Best Scene: Blackberry equips Sniper rifle and common room fan.

You know when you see a movie and you know within the first ten minutes if it sucks or not. Well this is one of those movies where you know you’ve been duped within the first five. For god sakes, even the trailers were bad. This movie ensemble cast stars none other than, Dennis Quaid, Forest Whitaker, the dude from Party of Five and a Terry Bradshaw a-like. The plot line is simple, some Spanish terrorist group assassinates the president and then shows what each character saw happen. Apparently, there are 8 vantage points, but I only saw the story rewind 4 times. This movie is definitely not worth seeing as the implausibility of it all is just too much to trick even the American public.

One of the worst scenes in the movie is when Dennis Quaid, whose like 80 years old, is driving a Suzuki Sidekick through the streets of Spain and is t-boned by a u-haul truck and yet the car sustains no damage and continues in pursuit of the bad guy. This is not the only mis-step in this sequence, but throughout this whole scene its as if the director decided to turn “damage off” ala Grand Theft Auto style.

Another hilarious scene, which isn’t supposed to be funny, is when the Dennis Quid saves the president and says, “I got you” and later on “Your welcome sir”. I swear I haven’t been to a movie in a while where everyone in the theater is laughing at the so-called “serious parts”. This movie isn’t worth seeing, worth downloading, worth renting, and is only worth writing about to warn you not to spend $10 bucks on this sorry excuse for a movie.

After watching movies like this me and my friends always come out the theater asking “why did the studio pay tens of millions of dollars for this movie? What were they thinking? Don’t they watch the movie before they release them? Not even Forest Whitaker, who probably got like 10 million for acting like a retarded pedophile, can save the poor acting in this one.

PS. Where’s Jack Bauer when you really need him? Oh yeah writer’s strike. 24 in Jan 2009!

After watching this, I’m convinced this shit is fake. If you don’t believe me watch this.

Director: Joel Coen
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem
Release Date: November 21, 2007

Review: 4 out of 5

Best Scene: The first three quarters of the movie.

This movie is friggen sick. I know no hip hop head would be interested in a movie that from the marketing seems is about old white cowboys. In fact, me and my homie were like the only people in the theatre, it was two other old black dudes and the just those artsy white couples. But let me break it down for you, this movie has “Mcgyvor-like” cowboys, huge Giant Gonzales serial killers, Mexican drug dealers, a 2.8 million dollar stash box and one bad ass Tommy Lee Jones. Oh yeah and a lot of bodies get laid out.

This movie is intense. I had like thirty-eight heart attacks watching it. The dialogue is sparse but effective, the acting is damn good, the cinematography is breath taking and adds to the empty darkness of the film. The antagonist who is this psychotic Giant Gonzales like dude, who is played by Javier Bardem, is the main reason for my increase in blood pressure and higher chance of cardiovascular disease.

This dude is beyond gangster, he’s psycho gangster. He operates on some skewed logic that determines who lives and who dies. Not only that, but this dude is one ugly mother-beep. Just looking at him, I wondered if dude really was an actor, this guy is the meanest dude I’ve ever seen. It was like watching Jason when I was three years old.

The protagonist on the other hand, is this typical redneck cowboy, he’s got a McGyvor like abilities but when it comes to street smarts his trailer park IQ prevents him from really being the hero of the film. This is ultimately the weakness of the film, as the ending is way too philosophical for the majority of movie goers to understand. You know those films that win Oscars that you never heard of or go see, we’ll this is one of them. Ultimately, if you have a chance you need to see this flick.

Director: Xavier Gens
Starring: Timothy Olyphant
Release Date: November 21, 2007

Review: 0 out of 5

Best Scene: When the credits roll.

I always wanted to play the video game “Hitman” cause it looks mad cool. But since I never got a chance too, on a bored snowy friday night had the choice of either having a few beers on the block (in the cold) or checking out the movie “Hitman”. I chose the ladder, bad move.

This movie is absolute garbage. The acting is so bad that it’s actually funny. The only thing good about this movie is the score and the trailer. What I’m really trying to say is do not pay money to see this movie.

Looking forward to that I am Legend though.

Director: Ridley Scott
Starring: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe
Release date: November 2, 2007

Review: 3 out of 5

Best Scene: When Denzel pops that dude from “Daddy’s Little Girls” in the head.

What do you do when you attempt to make a “serious” film about a gangster from Harlem’s rise to riches and spend over a $100 million doing so? You pander like a politician to to the young generation to fill seats. And who better to fill seats than the “dumb” hip hop generation. The marketing of this film has been impeccable. Everything from the trailers showing Denzel Washington pumping his fist over Jay-Z’s classic record “Heart of the City” to casting rappers T.I., Common and RZA and let’s not forget Jay-Z releasing an album by the same name that he says is “inspired by the movie”. To any hip hop head, having Jay-Z inspired by your movie, so much so to make an album about it, is a flashing light sign saying “MUST SEE”.

That’s pretty much where the hype ends. This movie is without a doubt the most boring gangster film ever made. If Smokin Aces (2006) was the genres contrived attempt at reaching a younger audience through hyper-reality, this movie is this years attempt at putting those same kids to bed. The film is mature (read: for old white guys), it has an interesting story and it may win an Oscar for best picture (since most movies that win best picture are long and boring), but that’s about it. Director Ridley Scott, hasn’t the slightest idea of how to pace this movie.

For starters, we are introduced to Denzel’s character, real life gangster, Frank Lucas who is supposed to be a driver for Harlem’s kingpin Bumpy Johnson (Clarence Williams III) but we never see him driving a car around. All of a sudden Frank and Bumpy enter a bank and Bumpy suffers a heart attack and dies. And then next thing we know Frank is Harlem’s #1 heroin pusher. What happened to the journey? I was expecting flash back scenes and child hood sequences like all other movie’s in the gangster genre. Heck, if they had re-made Scarface with Denzel as the lead I would have been happy. The film needed to build up Denzel’s character as to his motivations for going from lackey driver to drug lord. This is undoubtedly the biggest problem with the film.

Moreover, the film is just plain boring for a gangster film. There are hardly any random acts of violence, the cinematography is analogous to a bird watching documentary and even the musical score falls short of painting the vibrant soundscape of the 70’s. These small things are guaranteed to put any young person to sleep, not to mention the three hour length.

Aside from these missteps, the film does try to “preach” by showing the fall of a drug boss and there are scenes near the end of the film which show the adverse effects on the heroine users. However, the end of the film turns Denzel into Leonardo DiCaprio from Catch Me If You Can, by helping authorities he is able to get a 70 year sentence shortened to 15 years! Kids its okay to be a drug dealer as long as you cooperate with authorities when you are caught. I also didn’t feel the movie held true to the original New York Magazine article The Return of Super Fly in which the real life Lucas is much more arrogant and despicable than charming Denzel could ever be (except in Training Day). Whatever happened to that Denzel?