Film Review: Brooklyn's Finest

Brooklyn's Finest is the latest entry to the trend of gritty cop films, sadly, this one is a giant cop movie cliche. This was directed by Antoine Fuqua, who directed one of the good recent cop flicks Training Day. You can tell that Fuqua is trying hard to replicate Training Day in this one.

The film focus on 3 different cops. The first one being played by Don Cheadle, as a cop who's been working undercover for the last few years, because of this, his private life hasn't been the same. He is trying to get out of the undercover game.

The second cop played by Ethan Hawke, who is a family man with 2 more kids along the way. Hawke is trying to save money to move out of his moldy apartment to raise a family in an actual house. With his recent cases of trail and tribulation, he decides to start stealing money from gang drug busts in order to get the new house.

The third cop is played by Richard Gere, who has been on the force for 22 years and is about to retire in a week. No one on the force likes him, since he is a coward. He is also suicidal and loves a certain hooker.

The three stories interwine barely and the plot is nothing we've never seen before. The film is also more than two hours, I was checking the time alot. I can't really buy Cheadle acting like a thug, if I was a gangster, I would've easily been able to tell he is an undercover cop. Hawke seems like he is trying and Gere seems bored.

Another reason this film is getting some attention is because of the return of Wesley Snipes, his role is pretty small and his performance wasn't bad, didn't really stand out. I was hoping his performance would be similar to New Jack City, not even.

Overall, the actors seems to try to do work with such a cliche piece of shit. Don't waste your time.

Overall Grade: C-

Film Review: The Crazies

The Crazies is another entry along the recent trends of horror movie remakes. Unlike the majority of these flicks, this one doesn't suck.

Along with this and the remake of Dawn Of The Dead, it seems thaat remaking a George A. Romero flick with possibly lead to a good remake (except for Night Of The Living Dead and Day Of The Dead).

The plot is pretty straight-forward, people in a small town start acting weird and become "zombies" and start killing people. Timothy Olyphant (who actually doesn't suck in this) and his wife (Radha Mitchell) are trying to survive and also slowly discover what's going on.

Once you get to what is going on within the first 30 minutes, the audience are hoping that these characters survive. While this film isn't breaking any new grounds, it's still entertaining.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with this one.

Overall Grade: B

Film Review: Cop Out

Cop Out is a departure from Kevin Smith, it's the first film he directed without taking credit for writing it. Sadly to say, this is a complete miss for Smith.

Cop Out is basically a "homage" to the 80's buddy cop flicks like Beverly Hills Cop and 48 Hrs.

Willis and Morgan are partners who just got suspended, Willis needed the work to pay for his daughter's wedding. He decides to sell an old baseball card, but it gets stolen. This stolen card leads to the drug underworld, and it's up to Willis and Morgan making amends without their badges.

Morgan is playing the same character Morgan always plays, I didn't buy him being a cop. Willis just seems bored in this. The couple of chuckles I got from the movie was from Seann William Scott.

Make sure you skip this one.

Overall Grade: D-

Film Review: Shutter Island

Shutter Island is latest flick for Martin Scorsese, probably one of his most ambitious film so far in his interesting career. I was really looking forward to this since I tend to find 80's Scorsese a tad underrated, and this film reminds me of the ambitious projects he did during that period. While it isn't a bad movie, it sure isn't good up to Scorsese's standards.

The film stars Leonardo Dicaprio delivering another one of his funny accents, "federal MARshall". He plays Teddy, a federal marshall who goes to Shutter Island with his partner (Mark Ruffalo). They both are invistigating the dissapearance of mental patient Rachel Solondo. Upon arrival, things are already starting to look sketchy, as Teddy is trying to find answers, the staff is keeping a tight lip (this is the point where I already knew where this was going, I hope you do too).

During this investigation, Teddy gets "migrains" and starts having flashbacks of his dead wife and kids and memories of his time during WWII. I found all the flashback stuff very interesting, as some of the images were quite surreal.

Here's the good, the film starts off good, and Scorsese can obviously direct (questioning his direction is pretty stupid at this point).

The bad, the story is insaaaaaaaanely predictable, I predicted the ending right when the trailer came out. The story is very similar to Sam Fuller's "Shock Corridor", and the ending pretty much identical.

Overall, Shutter Island starts off good, but it's dull and predictable ending knocked it down several points.

Overall Grade: C+

Brief Catch Up

The Wolfman

I wanted to like this movie, it had potential. It had a good cast, a promising director (the director is also directing the Captain America movie), and it's the fucking wolfman. While it isn't a bad movie, sure isn't a good one neither. While the Wolfman moments do not dissapoint, it tries to hard set up mood and atmosphere.

Overall Grade: C

Zombies Of Mass Destruction

This is by far the most amazingly stupid zombie film I've ever seen. I don't think there was a moment where I wasn't laughing. The movie tries to attempt to be a commentary towards post 9/11-esque xenophobia, but it fails and turns out to be completely racist. It's so wrong, it's right.

Overall Grade:
Professional: F
Entertainment: A

Film Review: From Paris With Love

From Paris With Love is the latest film that has Luc Besson's name on it, but he didn't direct it. He wrote it this time around, this one comes off more as an R-Rated version of The Transporter.

James Reece (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is the personal aide to the U.S. Ambassador in France, he seems to have the good life; a good job, his own place, and a hot french girlfriend, but Reece aspires to be a low level operative for the CIA. That opportunity came in a phone call where if he does this mission sucessfully, he'll get the job. The problem is, his partner is the loose cannon Charlie Wax (played awesomely by John Travolta). Reece has to drive Wax around while he is disposing casualties like it's his ABC's.

The film is basically a buddy cop flick, you got your action and you got your chemistry between the two leads. Travolta and Meyers work well together, but it's always Travolta who shines throughout the film. If there is one reason to watch it, it's for Travolta. The story is nothing we haven't seen before and the story and some of the action movie dialogue is quite predictable, but I didn't care, I enjoyed the so called ride.

If your looking for a good escapist action flick, then I suggest checking this one out, if your looking for something original and not violent, you may want to check out one of the films that received an Oscar nomination.

Overall Grade: B

Film Review: Edge Of Darkness

Edge Of Darkness is the potential comeback for Mel Gibson (hasn't acted in a mainstream flick since "Signs". While Gibson is good in this, this isn't exactly a fully triumphant return.

The film is about Thomas Craven (Gibson) finding out who murdered his daughter and why she was murdered. The mystery leads to political conspiracies and Gibson being a badass, if there were more scenes of Gibson being a badass, I would have called it a triumphant return.

While the film is well-directed and acted, the only flaw is the predictable story. I knew where everything was going, it reminded me of all those political mystery thrillers. While the story was predictable, I was still entertained, thanks too Mel.

This movie was a mildly less badass version of Taken, except the violence is more satisfying in this one. Despite the film's predictable plot, the film still entertains and Gibson hasn't lost his touch as far as acting goes.

Overall Grade: B-