A Walk Among the Tombstones

First Hit:  Neeson is really good in an OK film.

Even when he’s given a poorly conceived script, Liam Neeson brings the quality of any film up. Take the last film I saw him in, “Non-Stop”, it was truly a mediocre script, but he made it better.

Here he does the same, although this script is better and overall it's a much better film than “Non-Stop”. As a former police officer who accidentally kills a young girl in a shootout after he’d been drinking, he gives up the drink and law enforcement. When we are re-introduced to Matt Scudder (Neeson’s character), we see he's a changed man, he does AA meetings and does unlicensed PI work on the side.

The story begins when he’s asked to find the killers of a drug dealer’s wife even though the husband paid the kidnappers $400,000 in ransom money. Will he take the job? Yes. At times the scenes of NYC are stunningly shot.

The grit, yet livability of the spaces and streets are true to form and add to the film’s story-line and feel. Scudder meets TJ (Astro) a homeless sickle cell stricken young man who ends up becoming an “associate” that helps him find and apprehend the culprits. Ray and Albert (David Harbour and Adam David Thompson respectively) are two really sick guys that kidnap, kill and maim their young female victims. Their mode is to hit on drug dealers who will have lots of cash on hand, have meaningful women in their lives, and ask for and get a ransom.

However they are sick guys who also just want to maim beautiful women, and paying the ransom won’t return them to their loved ones. I found myself wondering more about the interaction between these two guys because they were sick and odd. This could have been explored more along with their fixation with deviant sexual practices (thrill killing) and the cutting up women.

This edge in the film hung there like a huge weight.

Neeson as is his way, kept the film edgy and believable. Astro was great as the young man wanting to be a part of something and matter in some way. The interactions with Neeson were great. Harbour and Thompson were both perfectly sick in their actions and the way they interacted with each other. Scott Frank both wrote and directed this film.

Overall:  Aspects of this film were strong yet I felt something missing and maybe it was knowing more about the kidnappers.

The Drop

First Hit:  I liked the developing twist of who really was in-charge of the neighborhood scene.

It isn’t easy to play the guy who appears to be a little slow of mind on the outside while really taking stock of everything and making sure it all works out for the best.

Tom Hardy plays Bob the bartender to his uncle’s bar. Although Cousin Marv (James Gandolfini) manages the bar he once owned, he sold it to some Chechnya tough guys who use the bar as a money drop for illicit activities.

Bob is quite, responds to situations in a measured way and isn’t rattled by threats. He happens upon a beaten and cut dog in a trash can and decides to rescue it. The trash can resides on Nadia’s (Noomi Rapace) property. Slowly they become friends around caring for the dog.

As Marv believes he can scam the new owners for one last large big score, he knows Bob will attempt to keep things on par and do what he has to do to keep clarity with a sense of purpose. Brooklyn, thugs, and a closed tight neighborhood are also stars of this film.

Some of the shots of the neighborhood and the interaction and closeness of bar patrons in “their bar” are sublime.

Hardy is brilliant. It isn’t easy to play the type of character this film calls for, while not giving away the actor's intelligence. Hardy does it in spades and makes this one of the very best performances  I’ve ever seen him give. Gandolfini was difficult to watch. The way he smoked his cigarettes belied a man who was sucking smoke to ease the hassle of living not only as a man but as the character. Life and art being one here. Although he did a good job with this character, I couldn’t help but watch him slowly dig his own grave through his unhappiness. Rapace was sublime. Her vulnerability, strength and action based on fear were perfect for the role. Dennis Lehane wrote a very strong screenplay. The direction by Michael R. Roskam for this story was very good and I liked how the brooding mood was consistently felt throughout the film.

Overall:  It was well acted and strong film.

The November Man

First Hit:  Albeit an overly complicated plot, it kept me wondering how it would turn out.

There isn’t much about this film that makes it good.

The complicated plot line: Was it about Devereaux (Pierce Brosnan) and Mason (Luke Bracey)? Was it about how the CIA works? Was it about Devereaux and Alice (Olga Kurylenko)? Maybe it was about what being a CIA hit man deals with his/her life? Or was it about age and experience versus youth?

It could have been about Hanley (Bill Smitrovich) the head CIA operative and Devereaux, or was it about Arkady Federov (Lazar Ristovski) the guy trying to win a Russian Presidential election and Alice the girl he raped? There are a couple more I could have mentioned but the point being I never really understood what this film was about.

It is fine to have sub-plots and stories other than the main story, but the main story must be obvious to all – here it wasn’t. One things is for sure, there is a lot of shooting and a lot of bodies are given up for an unknown plot. What was good was Kurylenko’s Alice – she was engaging and created a believable character amongst the film’s lack of clarity.

Brosnan seemed OK but there were too many times that he looked like he was acting a character versus being the character. There was a separation of acting and being that, at times, seemed visible. Kurylenko was good and was fully engaged with her character. Bracey was pretty good as well as the young agent learning  to make choices about his personal and professional life. Smitrovich was very strong as the CIA person only caring about his agenda and what he thinks the US should be doing. Amila Terzimehic was a great unemotional assassin. Michael Finch and Karl Gajdusek wrote a confusing out of focus script. Roger Donaldson directed this with few highlights and mostly just adequate.

Overall:  This will not be a memorable film and needed clarity of plot to work.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

First Hit:  Visually interesting and fun, however the storyline was very week.

This film started out lost and ended up lost. Between these points, it seemed to find a path, get some traction, then get lost with extra crap.

Was this a story about Ava (Eva Green) or Senator Roark (Powers Boothe)? Or was this film about Marv (Mickey Rourke) or Nancy (Jessica Alba)? Or was this film about Dwight (Josh Brolin) or Johnny (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)? Although these stories were all inter-relational, it didn’t have a strong enough focus to keep me fully engaged.

Visually though, at times this film was outstanding. The use of black and white graphics, black and white film, and then adding splashes of color; a dress, hair, lipstick, bottle of booze, whatever – it added the kind of interest to keep me watching the film.

Green was pretty good as the femme-fatal however I think the storyline let her down. Rourke was virtually unrecognizable (probably on purpose) but he was good as Marv the brutish indestructible hard charging protector. Boothe was great to see again and his role was perfect Boothe. Alba had a somewhat minor role and I didn’t like it. She was good, but the role was pretty weak and I lacked the ability to care about her character. Gordon-Levitt was the role I enjoyed the most. I would have rather have the film be about his story more than the side story it ended up being. Brolin was in a hero role and he always does this well even in a weakly scripted film like this. Bruce Willis had an OK role as a ghost that assists Alba with her mission. Dennis Haysbert was fantastic as Manute Ava’s bodyguard. His voice and presence in the film was really strong. Frank Miller wrote a disjointed script and I cannot figure out what the point of the film was. That he promoted this film with his name is egocentric driven and disappointing.  Miller and Robert Rodriguez both directed this film and if the script had been better the film might have been better.

Overall:  Although the visualizations were fun, this film is forgettable.

Dom Hemingway

Hit:  This is a well done story about a man who is not likeable and continually makes bad choices.

Dom (Jude Law) is full of himself. He’s been an angry criminal his whole life.

As the film begins he’s in jail and telling the audience, over and over again, why his “cock” is a work of art. You don’t see the person giving him a BJ but you know he’s getting one.

That is the opening scene. He’s Dom Hemingway and the audience and the other character’s in the film know this. He gets released from jail after serving 12 years for not ratting out Mr. Fontaine (Demian Bichir).

His first act is to find the guy who supported his wife while he was in prison and beat the holy livin’ crap out of him. He’s not seen his daughter in all this time and wants to see her and maybe develop a relationship. But he is afraid of reaching out because he knows he's done wrong by her. To deal with it, he drinks himself into his next mistake.

This film is dark, Dom is dark and makes a slew of bad choices thinking he’s invincible. Did the film work? Yes. Was the subject likeable? Not to very many people. And that is the hard part of this film. It is really difficult to like Dom. However he does have a friend in the film Dickie Black (Richard E. Grant) and it is this friend that eases the film through Dom’s tirades.

Law is fully engaged with the character Dom and played him well. It is just difficult to like the character. Birchir is very good as the mob chief who owes Dom money for his silence. Grant is superb as Dom’s grounding friend. Richard Shepard both wrote and directed this film. The writing and direction was good, it is simply a dark film with an unlikeable character.

Overall:  Not very likeable.