Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 09 May 2002

Mean Machine begins with Danny Meehan (Jones) being sentenced to three years jail for drink driving and striking a police officer.  Meehan is a celebrity in prison as he was once the captain of the English soccer team before having his reputation trashed for deliberately losing an important soccer game.  On his opening day in the slammer, Meehan is approached by the prison’s Governor (Hemmings) to coach the guards’ soccer team to help them get promoted in their local competition.

He refuses and is punished with time in solitary confinement.  Once back amongst the ranks, they give him a suggestion as a compromise to the Governor.  Meehan will organise, coach and play in a soccer team made up of the inmates to take on the guards’ team as a pre-season opener to toughen them up.  But this is about more than just a friendly game.  It’s a chance for the inmates to get revenge for years of torment and a chance for the guards to show they are still the boss.

The film’s opening hour is pretty flat.  We meet the characters, understand a little about them, have a couple of quick adventures but that’s about it.  There aren’t enough laughs either.  Jason Statham is the best character of the bunch as Monk but the script doesn’t offer him much screen time.  In addition to the pending soccer game, there’s a more interesting subplot in watching one of the inmates control the Governor with the offer of inside tips on racehorses.

The big game then arrives and I won’t spoil it for those who can’t foresee its result.  The direction of the soccer scenes was cool - there’s a mix of a fast-mo, slow-mo and regular-mo.  Plus some great “in your face” camera angles and some hilarious commentary from two of the inmates.  It’s definitely the best part of the flick but a little late to make significant inroads into its success.

Next week sees the release of... drum-roll please... Star Wars Episode 2: Attack Of The Clones.  It’s guaranteed to be screening on about every second cinema which means there’ll be little room for a small English flick about soccer.  So if you’re tempted to check out the efforts of the Mean Machine, I wouldn’t be wasting any time.

Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 02 May 2002

In a split second though, their lives suddenly change.  At a baseball game, Michael collapses and is rushed to hospital.  Doctor Raymond Turner (Woods) informs John and Denise their son has an enlarged heart and if a transplant is not performed, he will die within a matter of weeks.  Hospital director Rebecca Payne (Heche) then informs them that their insurance policy will not cover a procedure of this magnitude and that if they cannot find a 30% deposit to cover the $250,000 cost of the operation, their son will be released untreated.

At wits end, John’s actions are forced upon him.  After getting the ring-around from every insurance company and financial aid group, John feels he has no choice.  He takes the emergency wing of the hospital hostage.  The doors are locked, the media are informed and through police negotiator, Frank Grimes (Duvall), John’s demand is made - to have his son placed on a donor’s list.

This film has flaws of gigantic proportions.  Firstly, it tries to cover too much territory by attacking a string of easy targets who aren’t given true representation.  Insurance companies, hospitals, aid groups, the police, the media, the government and the economy are all heavily criticised - it’s everyone’s fault but John’s.  It always leaves a bad taste in the mouth to see a well-made film mislead an audience with obvious propaganda.  I hope people are aware this is a completely fictitious story.

Secondly, the plot development is artificial and based on reaching a predefined conclusion.  The story’s ending has been determined first and then the beginning has been written to match this conclusion.  This sequence of events is too remarkable to believe and the finale is the perfect emphasis to this point.  There isn’t enough grit or suspense - it’s all too easy for John if you ask me.

Newly crowned Oscar champ Denzel Washington gives an emotionally powerful and impressive performance.  As both John Q and Training Day showed, he pours 100% into every character he portrays but is consistently let down by a screenplay transforming his character into a superficial myth rather than a believable hero.  Robert Duvall was also great in a more light-hearted role and it brought back memories of his persona from a personal favourite of mine, Falling Down.

Does this film set a dangerous precedent?  Maybe.  It may only be a movie but a film that justifies illegally putting many lives at risk to save one’s son does deliver a subliminal message.  I didn’t feel the insurance companies and hospitals were given sufficient representation and by casting James Woods and Anne Heche in cold roles, it only adds to the audience’s hatred for them.  Last year, I criticised The Man Who Sued God for similar one-sided reasons.  John Q is just the American version.

Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 09 May 2002

Storytelling is made by a director who has recent established cult-status, Todd Solondz.  His only two other films, Welcome To The Dollhouse and Happiness were praised by critics for their deeply rich studies of human complexities.  This film has similar traits but once senses Solondz isn’t happy with this finished product.

The film is quite unique.  It is actually two completely unrelated short stories.  The first is about a struggling English Literature student who has an intellectually handicapped boyfriend.  At a bar, she bumps into one of her lecturers, an African-American Pulitzer Prize winning writer.  The two then go back to his house, have rough sex, and the experience gives her the platform to explore new emotions in her writing.

The second story is longer and more expansive.  It is about a sexually confused teenager in his final year of school who is being pressured by his wealthy parents to knuckle down and get into college.  His only identifiable aim in life is to be on television and when approached by a pathetic loser trying to make a film documentary about adolescent troubles, he allows both his life to be captured on camera.

There is a lot missing from this film thanks to studio intervention.  The original cut featured a homosexual sex scene involving Dawson’s Creek’s James Van Der Beek which was removed from the film due to “creative differences”.  Also, there is a sex scene which was ordered to be removed by the censorship board before the film could be screened.  Refusing to concede to their demands, Solondz stuck a big red box over the “explicit” part of the scene as a smart-ass compromise.  I applaud him and thankfully, the Australian censors approved the scene without the red box.

So why are there two stories rather than just one?  The adventurous Solondz has the same fundamentals in both stories and describes Storytelling as a “two-paneled painting”.  You can look at two different impressions of his “message” from two completely different angles.  Certainly a fresh idea.

As I hinted at earlier, this film is about the characters.  They are an erratic mix of personalities and you’ll oscillate back and forth in your impressions about them.  Can they be helped or are they beyond help?  Should we feel sorry for them?  Are they just a bunch of idiots?  My opinions were changing every five minutes and the doubt which clouded my mind was certainly an unaccustomed feeling whilst sitting in a darkened theatre.

I suspect most readers haven’t seen either Happiness or Welcome To The Dollhouse nor will have time to sneak to the Dendy to catch Storytelling.  But they are three amazing films that may upset your emotional apple cart.  They go way beyond the one-dimensional world created by Hollywood and into a new world of disturbing realism.

Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 02 May 2002

Gordon Brewer (Scharzenegger) is a firefighter.  That way, we’ll see him as a decent guy.  His wife and child are killed in a terrorist explosion when Gordon is late in picking them up.  Now we’re supposed to feel sorry for him.  Then he finds the CIA and FBI cannot locate the man responsible, Claudio Perrini (Curtis), because he’s fled back home to Colombia.  Tragic, isn’t it?  So Gordon takes justice into his own hands, goes to Columbia, manages to infiltrate the militia against billion-to-one odds and gets his man.  Excuse me if I’m not busting out of my seat with excitement.

I cannot stand movies that justify revenge killings.  Our emotions are milked by seeing poor innocent Gordon have his beautiful wife and son blown up right in front of him.  The Colombians are to blame 100% (as America has no responsibility whatsoever) and so he goes and blows some of them up.  It’s an eye for an eye.  Wouldn’t it be a great society if we could all do this?  It’s ironic that Americans are currently trying to intervene in the Israeli-Palestinian to create a state of peace when films like this are screening in their own country.

Gordon must be the luckiest son of a bitch that ever existed.  He’s fired at constantly and is never injured.  He jumps off a massive waterfall and manages to survive with only a few scratches.  He can wire a grenade with a rubber-band and predict exactly when the rubber band will break.  He sense when he’s in danger and manages to avoid a bomb exploding in his face by a matter of seconds.  Oh, and he has a moral fibre and despite obliterating hundreds of men, has a thing against killing women and children.  Well excuse me if I say, what a f***ing joke.

The editing and special effects stink.  There’s some stunts early on where it’s clear Arnold is using a body double.  Many scenes don’t flow seem jumbled and inconsistent.  All the good guys can preempt the actions of the bad guys - probably because everyone acts like a cardboard cut-out.  Hollywood stars John Leguizamo and John Turturro make small cameo like appearances but are wasted.  In fact, the sound quality was so poor during Turturro’s scene, I couldn’t understand half of his dialogue.  For a film with an $85 budget, that’s farcical.

When you take a script of the worst magnitude and combine it with one of the year’s worst directing efforts, you have a film that will be included in the list of most critic’s worst of 2002 lists.  The film was to be released last October but following the events of September 11, the opening was delayed.  It’s my contention the opening should have been delayed permanently.

Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 09 May 2002

Claire Kubik (Judd) and her husband Tom are very happily married and are desperately trying to conceive their first child.  Out of nowhere, comes a bombshell.  Tom is arrested by the military for pulling the trigger in a massacre ten years ago where a group of innocent women and children were killed.  His real name is Ronald Chapman and Clarie is horrified that the man she thought she knew so well, has such a sordid past.

Tom declares his innocence and tells of a massive cover-up.  It was another member of his crew that was responsible for the shooting but since he is now the second-hand man to the powerful Brigadier General, Tom is the scapegoat to take the fall.

Claire is a lawyer herself but has no experience in the procedures and protocols of a military trial.  So she calls upon the reputable Charlie Grimes (Freeman) to represent her husband and together they find more and more truth in her husband’s theory.  Claire’s life is threatened by an attacker which only adds more fuel to her passion to seek the truth.  But what she would discover would soon make the purpose of the trial seem rather insignificant...

Ok, it’s run of the mill.  Some people have called it predictable but others, including myself, were a little stunned by the false ending and subsequent twist.  Perhaps I need to see it a second time to see whether every piece of the puzzle actually fits but despite not tackling anything new, High Crimes is solid entertainment.

Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman do work well together but neither actor is required to stretch beyond their personas.  Judd seems to be replacing Sigorney Weaver as the new tough-girl thriller heroine with this role following eye-catching performances in Double Jeopardy and Kiss The Girls.  Freeman is above this material and I much preferred to see him diversifying his portfolio in films such as last year’s Nurse Betty.

You know it’s a really weak title when I think about it - High Crimes just isn’t a title that sounds like it’ll sell tickets.  Whilst the film squeaked into number one last week at the Australian box-office, this is the kind of film that will be gathering dust in video stores in about three years time.