It’s no surprise that the blockbuster The Bourne Identity has inspired more than one subsequent tough guy action thriller. While The Gunman isn’t a complete rip-off, there are definitely a number of aspects of the story that are inspired by the exploits of Jason Bourne. The title character of The Gunman is Jim Terrier (Sean Penn), a sniper who assassinates the Minister of Mining in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, and is then immediately whisked…Read More
Review: Noah
Let’s start with my creative retitling of the epic drama Noah from director Darren Aronofsky. I suggest that it makes more sense as Transformers: Revenge of the Righteous. Yes, somehow a film about a guy who gets a message from God that tells him to build a huge ship to rescue every animal because a storm of, well, Biblical proportions is on the way has been turned into a fantasy epic complete with 15-foot tall rock…Read More
Review: Hugo
Once in a while, a film comes along that defies simple explanation. The story proves complex, the characters unexpectedly nuanced, and the entire narrative experience is beyond anything you expect. Hugo is just such a movie, a story that succeeds as a children’s fable in the spirit of childhood fantasies like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and City of Ember, and simultaneously offers a surprisingly deep and profound exploration of love, family and what it means to be…Read More
Review: Edge of Darkness
Mel Gibson has made a lot of films where he’s the simple-minded tough guy, notably the Lethal Weapon series, but the last few years have seen his personal life overshadow his career, as he careened from one gaffe to the next. Edge of Darkness represents him trying to get back into the groove, to recover his acting career, and it’s an exciting but distressingly formulaic film. The film, based on a mid-80’s BBC drama also…Read More