Posts by Brent Lorentson

Coming off the success of James Cameron’s The Terminator, just about every studio was looking to piggyback off that gold mine, and what followed was a parade of knockoff films that for the most part failed to match The Terminator in quality and in box office draw. One of those bottom-of-the-barrel knockoffs is the 1987 film Programmed To Kill, also known as The Retaliator. While in the 80’s this was a film that could be appreciated  in drive-ins and later on late-night cable, nowadays the unexpected draw for this film is that it has the late Paul Walker in one of his earliest roles playing Jason, the son of the film’s lead character, Eric Mathews (Robert Ginty). Former CIA agent Eric Matthews is hired to lead a group of mercenaries to rescue a pair of kidnapped kids from a group of terrorists. In the process of performing the extraction, Samira (Sandahl Bergman), one of the terrorists, is critically wounded. For some reason, the mercenaries bring Samira with them. Samira is then brought to a group of government scientists who do experimental brain surgery and in the process turn her into a cyborg with one goal in mind, to use her to eliminate the head of the terrorist cell that she was a part of. This aspect of the film for obvious reasons has me thinking about Robocop. Even when we get to see things through her perspective, it is like a cheap imitation.

For the record, the first 40 minutes are a bit dull, but thankfully there is enough action in the sequence where the mercenaries rescue the kids to make the first half bearable. Where things do pick up is when the government first dispatches their cyborg assassin to kill the terrorist leader and her former lover. Things obviously don’t go as planned, and of course their robot assassin becomes a killing machine with one goal in mind, to eliminate all those responsible for making her what she is. The second half of this film is fun.  It’s a shame the filmmakers decided to play this so seriously, because let’s face it, the film is nowhere near the quality of The Terminator or Robocop, and the result is just unintentionally silly.

Director William Wyler is a bit of an icon when you look back in Hollywood history. He’s a director with such classics under his belt as Roman Holiday, Funny Girl, and then of course Ben-Hur. But before he filmed those, he did a smaller and more intimate film called Detective Story. This isn’t a big spectacle, but instead it is a gritty drama that takes place over a single day in a New York police station. The film is so simplistic in scope that it’s no surprise that it was originally a stage play, but it’s Wyler’s direction that elevates this film to something bigger. Then there are the remarkable performances from Kirk Douglas and the rest of the cast that make this film better than the potential snore-fest this could have been. Jim McLeod (Douglas) is a hard-nosed cop who likes nothing more than to take the criminals down in his city, to the point that he doesn’t realize it’s been days since he’s been home and seen his wife.  He’s about to head out when he has an encounter with a criminal that sets McLeod off, and he attacks then criminal in custody. The altercation is bad enough to send the criminal to the hospital and jeopardize McLeod’s career. This is just one of the stories going on in the police station. There’s also a woman who’s there after her husband assaulted her, a shoplifter who finds himself in a bind but has a female companion that is trying to help him out, then there is a burglar with an odd sense of humor. All these stories are unfolding and somewhat overlap as the officers do what they can to help each other out, but the main focus seems to be on McLeod.

The drama between McLeod and his wife Mary (Eleanor Parker) is certainly the more interesting story, though I feel audiences these days would be clawing at the screen complaining about how misogynistic McLeod is. It’s their conflict that seems the most profound, though, because at the root of it all this is exploring what happens when couples keep secrets from the other, even if the secrets are kept for good reason. This is what makes this film feel timeless despite being released in 1951. Then factor in the police brutality storyline, and this seems as though it’s been ripped from the modern day headlines. The way these characters are written, it’s easy for the audience to side with one or the other, though there is a dialog exchange that stuck with me where Mary objects to being called a “tramp”, and McLeod’s response to how he interprets the meaning of the word speaks volumes to the time and the characters.

Some movies are simply timeless. The Apartment (1960) is one of those films that I feel still holds up today and is still rightfully considered a classic. Then there are films like Peking Express (1951) that may have been good for their time, but my experience with the film just felt like a chore I couldn’t wait to finish. It’s not that the film did anything wrong. It was shot well, had decent acting, and the story was simple, but it just didn’t grab me. I like older films. I never had a problem with B&W films, but I guess to simply put it, this one just didn’t do it for me. That’s not to say that this film is bad. It just wasn’t my cup of tea, I guess you could say. The focus is mostly on Dr. Michael Bachlin (Joseph Cotton), a doctor who works with the World Health Organization who is traveling from Shanghai to Peking. No this isn’t a coronavirus-related trip, but instead it’s about a group of people trying to flee the Communist-ruled areas out of fear of being taken prisoner and killed. On board the train, Michael runs into his former lover, Danielle (Corinne Calvet). The romance and tension that builds between Michael and Danielle definitely gave me vibes of a poor imitation of Casablanca, but on a train. This could have worked if only the characters were better developed.

There’s a little bit of mystery when a woman is nearly killed on the train, and Michael suspects that it is her husband that is responsible. Granted, I’m not sure if this film taking an Agatha Christie route would have helped, but when the film shifts gears out of nowhere to the train being held captive by a militia group, things sort of improve.

The 1972 film The Valachi Papers is the mostly true story of Joe Valachi, who was made famous/infamous for his testimony to the US Senate about the activities of the Cosa Nostra, or what we more commonly call the mafia. I have to be honest; I don’t’ know how this film has escaped me for so long, I hadn’t even heard of it till Kino pulled this one from the vaults to release on Blu-ray. For film lovers, and especially those who love a good old fashioned gangster film, I’d say this is a must-watch, mostly because the first thing that came to mind while watching this film is how much this film must have influenced Martin Scorsese and his approach to making Goodfellas, If that’s not enough to get you to want to check out the film, well, let me tell you a little more about it.

Charles Bronson plays the role of Joe Valachi, and this film does span his entire criminal career from the early 1920’s to his testimony in the 1960’s. What’s a little surprising is that Bronson plays the role throughout. Of course back then the filmmakers couldn’t pull the CGI tricks we see in The Irishman, and instead all they use for the aging effects in this film are simple makeup and hair styling products. Is it believable seeing Bronson playing a character in their 20s when at the time the actor was well into their 50s? No, but I still appreciate it more than the de-aging technology we’re seeing nowadays.

I was surprised to read that actor Henry Silva passed away back in September; he’s one of the great tough-guy actors who thrived in the 60’s and 70’s that we just don’t have any more. Personally I was a fan of his Euro Crime films, The Boss and The Italian Connection. Silva just had a way of exuding cool and badass that in  my eyes made him a rock star on the screen. He was like a rougher Charles Bronson. He was in two movies that made a big impression on me as a kid. Granted they are both glorified B movies, but Allan Quaterman and the Lost City of Gold and Alligator (1980) were movies that were in a high rotation for me as a kid, and it’s Henry Silva’s mean-guy mug that has stuck with me for so long. My point is, I look at Henry Silva as a cinematic treasure, and when I had the chance to check out the new Kino release of Assassination, a Henry Silva film I had never seen or even heard of, well, I was excited. Sadly, this one is a bit of a mess.

Assassination is a film that fits into the sub-genre of the Euro-Spy wave that came along after the success of the James Bond films. There were a lot of knockoffs; some were even pretty good, The Cold War supplied so much material for the spy genre that we are still getting a plentiful amount of films about the topic. This film opens up with John Chandler (Henry Silva) awaiting execution for crimes we only find out later that he is responsible for. We see the whole song and dance of them prepping for his execution and his farewell to his wife, only to discover that this is all an elaborate hoax the CIA is pulling off to fake Chandler’s death, then to give him plastic surgery just so they can use him to play his long-lost brother Philip so he can help the government take down a crime boss. It’s an elaborate plot that gets so overly complicated with double crosses that the film just seems silly.

Into the Deep is one of those films that offers so much promise with its setup that it is a bit frustrating when you watch the final product and it has managed to fall short in every way imaginable. When I first read the synopsis, I couldn’t help but think about the 1989 film Dead Calm. It’s one of those underrated psychological thrillers that I always felt was fun. While Into the Deep does share some parallels, unfortunately this film just goes off the rails because of its absurd plot twists and, well, let’s face it; no one in this cast is on par with Sam Neill, Billy Zane, or Nicole Kidman.  Into the Deep is a film that pretty much hopes that its audience isn’t thinking about logic, because the moment you apply any sort of critical thinking, this film just falls apart. Jess (Ella-Rae Smith) is still struggling with the loss of her mother as the anniversary of her death is approaching. As a distraction she allows herself to get swept off her feet in a romance with Ben (Matthew Daddario), who whisks her away on a romantic evening on his boat. Everything seems great until she wakes up the next morning and they are in the middle of the ocean. Honestly, this is the first of many red flags that come up with this charming suitor that Jess seems to happily ignore. This should have been played up more to give this film a tone of dread, but it seems the filmmakers were dead set on just making Ben seems like a quirky romantic, when the audience  just isn’t going to fall for it. This is one of my biggest criticisms of the film: that it doesn’t trust the audience has seen through Ben’s motives. Seriousl,y when the film finally decides to let Ben be the bad guy, so much time has passed that every opportunity the film could have had to have fun with this dynamic is ruined.

A twist is introduced with Jess and Ben finding a lone jet skier passed out in the middle of nowhere. Lexie (Jessica Alexander) as it turns out isn’t what she seems and has pulled off her ruse to confront Ben and get him to reveal what he did to her, though she herself doesn’t remember what he did to her. This gets so absurd. I mean, how did she even know how to find him in the middle of nowhere if she barely remembers what may or may not of happened when she was on his boat. Seriously, this movie creates so many plot holes it is treading water for its last half and just continues to make it difficult to care, much less continue watching.