Movie Reviews By Movie Reviews Pro

Brooklyn’s Finest

Rating:

Movie: Brooklyn’s Finest (2010)

Studio : Millenium Films

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 132 min

Website : brooklynsfinestthemovie.com

Trailer :http://www.dailymotion.com/videoxbjqfc

Review:

I’m currently teaching a class in introductory literature, during which students are required to read one play. This semester, that play will be Oedipus Rex. As I’ve been rereading the play and attempting to tie it into my lessons on Greek tragedy, I couldn’t help but think of Brooklyn’s Finest, which stars three characters who could easily be tragic heroes in a Greek drama.

The first is Tango (Don Cheadle), a narc who’s been undercover for so long that he’s become confused about where his loyalties lie, particularly to Caz (a returning Wesley Snipes), a drug dealer who apparently saved him during a prison riot when he did an undercover stint there. Eddie (Richard Gere) is a burnt-out patrolman with seven days left before retirement. We first see him when he wakes himself up by chugging some whiskey and pointing a revolver into his mouth. Ethan Hawke is Sal, a detective with a wife and family that’s too big to support, with a set of twins on the way. In desperation, he’s taken to robbing drug dealers.

The movie intercuts these three stories, as we’re meant to see the hardships that real New York City cops endure: it’s the antidote to the fake buddy cop picture. We see Tango’s frustration appear to drift into borderline madness as he keeps being promised Detective First Grade by his supervisor (Will Patton) and threatened by a slimy agent (Ellen Barkin) if he doesn’t bust Caz. Eddie’s being asked to mentor rookie cops by taking them into the high-crime Brooklyn streets that have worn him down. His “retirement ceremony” brings some dark humor, all the more because it’s so sad. Sal’s wife (Lili Taylor) has to go to the hospital because of mold on the ceiling, which is threatening the health of her unborn twins. “Can you move to a bigger house?” the doctor asks. If only he knew…

The pacing here is excellent. Antoine Fuqua, the director of Training Day, does a great job at moving back and forth between these three stories, never dwelling on one for too long but allowing us enough time to get to know each character. The only downside was I had a hard time sympathizing with Hawke’s character, who seems to have put himself in his predicament of “too many kids.” My reasons will make me sound inhuman, so I’ll stop there.

The cinematography is fitting to the story as well. We don’t see overhead shots of the Brooklyn Bridge with the Manhattan skyline in the background, like most New York-set movies. Shots are limited to the streets, because this is the world occupied by these cops. The romance of New York is lost by most people who live there, but these guys appear to see it as a crime-ridden hellhole. With the exception of a shot of a subway station and the Brooklyn accents (well-done by both Gere and Hawke), this could really take place in any city.

One of my favorite movies is Requiem for a Dream, based on the Hubert Selby book. I hadn’t seen his name on any of the previews, but I wondered for a bit if the screenplay had been adapted from one of his novels. Brooklyn served as a fitting backdrop for his stories, all of which focused on multiple characters suffering from their own faults, and ultimately, succumbing to the consequences to follow. Michael C. Martin and Brad Caleb Kane, the screenwriters, certainly seem to have been inspired. It’s well-written and well-made. Not as good as Training Day, but worth the trip to the theater.

-Craig Wynne

Action, Crime, Drama, Just left Theaters, Reviews by Genre, Reviews by Status, Thriller Action, Brooklyn's Finest, crime, Drama, Richard Gere, Thriller

Shutter Island

Rating:

Movie: Shutter Island (2010)

Studio : Paramount Pictures

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 138 min

Website : shutterisland.com

Trailer :http://www.dailymotion.com/videoxbyi72

Review:

Having been a huge fan of such classic Martin Scorsese films like The Departed, Taxi Driver, and Raging Bull, I had been anticipating the release of Shutter Island ever since I saw the first preview. And I’m glad I got the opportunity to see it.

Set in 1954, the movie starts Scorsese regular Leonardo DiCaprio as Teddy Daniels, a U.S. Marshal who’s been sent to Ashcliffe, a hospital for the criminally insane, to investigate the disappearance of a patient who drowned her children. Accompanying him is fellow Marshal Chuck Aule (played by a characteristically muted Mark Ruffalo).

The hospital is located on an island just off the coast of Massachusetts, and we open as Daniels and Aule are introduced to each other on the ferry ride in, but there’s something about the gray skies and rough waters on their journey that give ominous hints of things to come.

We meet Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley) and Dr. Naehring (Max von Sydow), who carry a friendly guise, but appear to have something more sinister lurking beneath. They’re reluctant to offer information to the lawmen on their investigation, so DiCaprio does some snooping around on his own.

DiCaprio digs into his character well, as he shows a man troubled by his experiences in World War II along with the recent death of his wife. As he spends more time on the island, he begins to undergo hallucinations starring his wife, and there are hints that he could just become one of the patients.

The first half of the movie appears to be a hyped-up whodunit, and an excellent one at that. Scorsese appears to layer the investigation piece by piece, as DiCaprio and Ruffalo meet with a wide assortment of characters on the island that seem to lead them towards something more complex than the case of an escaped murderess.

For this part, the hallucinations, while necessary in establishing DiCaprio’s character, seemed to be overdone and were somewhat distracting from the actual case itself. However, this being a Scorsese film, there are a few surprises, and I can’t write too much more about it without giving away a twist that I half-predicted. However, it did end up surprising me and had me thinking the next day.

The movie is visually impressive as well. A hurricane approaches, and there are a couple tautly filmed sequences starring a lighthouse at the edge of the island, as well as some harrowingly tight cliffs and high-splashing waves that echo of Cape Fear. This movie proves once again why Scorsese is the legend that he is.

-Craig Wynne

Drama, In Theaters, Mystery crime, Drama, Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Scorsese, Mystery

Up in the Air

Rating:

Movie: Up in the Air (2009)

Studio : Paramount

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 109 min

Website : upintheairmovie.com

Trailer :http://www.dailymotion.com/videoxavvdg

Review:

I once read an article in which George Clooney revealed that he sometimes sleeps in a closet with only his pet potbelly pig to keep him company. All that fame and adulation, I remember thinking, and yet he still sounds like a lonely guy. The same may well be said of Ryan Bingham, whom Clooney portrays so admirably in Up in the Air.

Bingham’s job is firing people on behalf of employers who haven’t got the chutzpah to do it themselves. An upmarket loner, he prowls the sterile airports and corporate offices of the nation, stoically clocking up as many employee scalps and air-miles as he can manage. Like any good sociopath worth his salt, he uses an expert line of bullshit to convince himself that he performs all of his duties with the utmost respect and humanity. Once he meets Alex, his soon-to-be lover and fellow traveller, however, cracks in the charming but smugly emotion-free facade begin to show.

The notion of home, and all that it entails, forms the gentle backdrop to the abrasive foreground of this movie. What is brave and refreshing about how Reitman depicts Bingham’s estrangement from ordinary life is that he does not ram it down your throat. It would have been an easy target perhaps to simply accuse Bingham of being the bad guy for firing people in recession-era America and to leave it at that. Instead Reitman builds a subtle web of choices into which Bingham treads at the same time as the viewer. How will he treat Natalie, the snot-nosed young Stanford upstart as he brings her out on the road for training? Will he ever have the balls to step up to the plate and declare his growing feelings for Alex? Thanks to Reitman’s taut and cliché-free direction, we learn the sometimes uneasy answers to these questions at the same instant as Bingham does and this keeps you on your toes throughout. In an age of predictable plots and unearned emotional resolutions this sort of approach to character – where you’re genuinely not sure what he will do in the end – is almost revolutionary.

Interestingly, the people you see being fired by Bingham throughout the movie are in fact all real-life employees who have recently been let go from their jobs. Up in the Air doesn’t lay out the political or economic reasons why this has happened – but it does successfully burrow under the surprisingly sensitive skin of the kind of character that eased it right along.

-Paul Meade

Comedy, Drama, Family, In Theaters, Reviews by Genre, Reviews by Status

Daybreakers

Rating:

Movie: Daybreakers(2010)

Studio : Lionsgate

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 98 min

Website : daybreakersmovie.com

Trailer :
http://www.dailymotion.com/videox9ot1f

Review:

When the Spierig brothers plotted out this film, you can tell from the start that they have a passion for vampires and the culture around them.

The world of Daybreakers is a reflection of our own, cast in a shadow where the dead work at night through a Metropolis-inspired cityscape as they drink their coffee mingled with AB positive. From sun-blocking tinted panels to LCD mirrors, the design of this alternate reality is perhaps the most breathtaking thing about this film.

We step into this world long after humanity was given an ultimatum to live as vampires or die as their cattle. Unfortunately, living this way has led to a decline in the once mighty human population, and humans are becoming rarer as vampires begin to starve. What’s worse, those that starve do not simply “die,” but instead lose their sentience and mutate into mindless bat-human hybrids (think Nosferatu). The fear of starving and the greater fear of mutating is creating havoc within the populace, and the only salvation to be found is in a blood substitute that will keep vampire society alive.

Ethan Hawke plays Edward—did they really have to name him that?—a researcher for a “Big Brother” pharmacy agency that is trying to find a blood substitute while trying to maintain their dwindling supply of humans to feed the country. He is also one of the only humanitarians of this world and brother to a soldier who enjoys life as a vampire. Along the way, Edward encounters a small colony of humans and a potential new way to save vampirekind.

The movie starts off as interesting, but the storyline can not seem to hold up. It wants to be a horror film, but really comes off as more of a thriller with action elements. I don’t mind this, but a lot of cheap scare tactics get thrown in to prove its origin and it gets annoying. Worse still, the luxurious pace of the film fails as it goes from a scenic stroll of this new world into a clumsy gallop past the interesting grotesqueness of this rotting society. It’s a shame considering there’s so much detail that is easy to miss by the later half of the film.

I think this film would have been better as a mini-series. With what the Spierig brothers made, it would have given more time to love being in their vampire-dominated society and made it that much more horrifying to watch it slowly crumble away. As it stands now, it’s only a good idea with a half-baked execution. Don’t get me wrong, it has a lot of cult potential, and at a 20 million dollar budget this is an impressive film, but I don’t see it winning the recognition it has the chance to gain.

-Donald Lee

Action, Horror, In Theaters, Thriller ethan hawke, michael spierig, movies better off as mini-series, peter spierig, spierig brothers, vampire city, willem defoe