Movie Reviews By Movie Reviews Pro

The Losers

Rating:

Movie: The Losers (2010)

Studio : Warner Bros.

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 98 min

Website : the-losers.com

Trailer :
http://www.dailymotion.com/videoxc2luf

Review:

Based on a comic of the same name, this film is an old-fashioned action movie with tough guys, guns, chicks, and explosions. The plot has the main characters, The Losers, traveling from place to place, working together, carrying out various missions, exchanging witty banter, while trying to find and destroy the ever-so-elusive Max, a ruthless boss who is very well-protected.

Sylvain White (Stomp the Yard) directs this action flick with lots of confidence, zooms, action still shots, and various editing tricks, which, thankfully, weren’t too distracting. The typical action movie plot had occasional fun twists.

The characters and their relationship dynamics truly make this film shine. They have great chemistry. Jeffery Dean Morgan (who played The Comedian in The Watchmen) is charismatic as the decisive, yet flawed leader of the group. Zoe Saldana brings a lot of feminine charm and spunk as Aisha. The banter between the characters brings a lot of humor and life to much of the film.

Jason Patric is particularly great to watch on screen as the bad guy, Max, an evil genius with the best lines, just short from being completely insane. He is often surrounded by women. He kills and gets people killed for small things. Of course, he may not be realistic, but is a great cinematic bad guy.

There are occasional missteps here and there. A fight scene between Clay and Aisha appear to make little sense in regards to plot (but hey, it looks cool). Also, while the stunt work and real-life action scenes look good, whenever there is CG, it looks out of place, and in some cases, took me out of the film. Now, given its comic book origins, I have forgiven a lot worse in other films that were also made from comics.

This film reminded me a bit of the 2003’s Italian Job, in terms of flavor. Overall, this film, padded with humor, action, and fun characters, was made purely to entertain, and the filmmakers have certainly accomplished that mission.

-”D-Art” Kang

Action, Adventure, Drama, In Theaters, Mystery, Thriller Action, Adventure, Drama, losers, Mystery, Thriller

Kung Fu Hustle

Rating:

Movie: Kung Fu Hustle (2005)

Studio : Sony Pictures Classics

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 117 min

Website : kungfuhustle.com

Trailer :
http://www.dailymotion.com/videox1l206

Review:

“Kung Fu Hustle” is the brain-child of Stephen Chow, a Chinese film maker who combines both his knowledge of American and East Asian film making. Though probably classified as a comedy, it should be equally a fantasy and martial arts woman.

As with every film, the opening image is the most important one in a film, the second-most being the ending. Instead of going straight into the story and introducing the main characters, the villains are first introduced. They are the third group seen, the first being the city’s police, who are being beaten by the leader of the “Crocodile Gang”, a tough group of gangsters who have the police in their pocket. “The Axe Gang” approaches them in the street and a fight ensues, the Crocodile gang getting the worst end of it.

The protagonist of the story isn’t even introduced until easily 12 minutes into the film. “Pig Sty Alley”, the home of the majority of the film’s action is a poor part of town run by a chauvinist and his loud-mouth, cigarette-smoking wife. These people are destitute but have great courage. The Axe Gang comes to town after Sing (Chow) and his friend attempt to steal money from one of the sty’s occupants. They attempt to call the gang members with a firecracker, which backfires, but in the end, the gang members approach and are promptly beaten back by three of the store owners.

The action sequences are incredible. As someone who prefers a realistic style of violence over movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but these sequences are for more than artistic sake, being a vehicle for both plotting and humor at the same time.
A word on the humor: there is a lot of great humor in the movie, from the physical comedy of the hair stylist who wears pants that almost have no point to dancing gangsters, and Loony Tunes inspired moments, coupled with a lot of puns as well as very subtle moments in dialogue and staging of the actors.

This is one martial arts movie that I can watch time and time again, feeling like I have missed details that make it better with each viewing. As with all his films, Chow plays a major role in the film, his comedic talents not just on the script. His performance sticks out among many great characters in the film. This is a film for anyone wanting a laugh or seeing incredibly choreographed action.

-M. Sigurd Hall

Action, Comedy, Crime, Fantasy, On BLU-RAY, On DVD Action, crime, Drama, kung fu

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

Gamer

Rating:

Movie: Gamer (2009)

Studio : Lakeshore Entertainment

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 95 min

Website : gamerthemovie.com

Trailer :http://www.dailymotion.com/videox99ofj

Review:

Do you expect a movie made by the guys behind Crank about a future of people-controlled first-person shooters to be a masterpiece worthy of several Academy Awards? If you do, then you’re probably going to be disappointed. For the majority of you that know better, you’re probably just wondering if you are going to see something violent and crazy and if your protagonist is going to give you something as epic as his time as King Leonitas. If you are those people: you’re probably going to feel mostly satisfied.

Reconstituted plot aside, Gamer does live up to its promise in being over-the-top with copious amounts of bosoms and blood. In a way, this movie manages to make you feel the mood of a First Person Shooter where you are chunking anything meaty (beware: the shaky camera approach gets used extensively during those scenes), while giving you the sensation of a hedonist humanity that seems too jaded with excess to care about their living toys and some eccentric bits that work fairly well.

That said, I can see people griping about the storyline having a fair number of gaps of nonviolent scenes where “Kable” (Gerard Butler) is piecing together his past. Me, I liked it. These scenes usually had a somewhat artistic slant with the camera work and it did its purpose fairly effectively. For those just expecting a pure modern grindhouse, though, it may seem offset with the rest of the film, moreso with its fairly underwhelming ending that I keep reminding myself is not a homage to Blade Runner despite how much of this film’s plot is reconstituted from other recent movies.

In the end, I can not really gripe the film. It is watchable, moreso with friends, but I’d recommend this film for a DVD night.

-Donald Lee

Action, In Theaters, Sci-Fi, Thriller Action, gamer, mark neveldine, sci-fi, Thriller