Face/Off

 

 

Sean Archer is the head of a special unit set up to hunt down master criminal Caster Troy. In an airport shootout Archer puts Troy in a coma and captures his brother Pollux. Archer then discovers that Troy has planted a bomb in LA, yet Pollux refuses to reveal where it is. With time running out Archer is offered a terrible option - to switch faces with Troy and have surgery to alter his body shape. After the surgery Archer goes undercover in prison to learn the location of the bomb. However when in prison, Troy awakes from his coma, forces the doctors to give him Archer's face, kills everyone who knows about the mission and assumes Archer's life. Trapped in prison, Archer is forced to escape from prison and join with Troy's gang to expose Troy - mayhem ensues.

This was Woo's third American film and it was the one he finally struck gold with. The story is simply daft - don't try to pick holes in it because it's far too easy to do. What makes the film is that the plot is glossed over by sheer spectacle and great action - you barely have a moment to catch your breath, never mind pick holes in the plot. The action is fantastic throughout - plenty of trademark slow-mo, diving with two guns etc and all given such style. In his other US films it all felt like Woo-lite, however here he is allowed to do just what he wants. OK - the plot may not stand up in repeated viewing, but the action is superb!

Travolta and Cage both have great fun playing each other - they mange to swap roles really well. Travolta has the most fun as he gets to ham it up as Troy for most of the time, but Cage has the better role as he plays the `good guy' for most of it. Allen and Gershon are both good as the protagonist's partners but have little to do in this man's world. Really it's all about Cage and Travolta and Woo - nobody else really matters.

Overall this may not be a great film due to the weakness of it's plot, but it is still a superb action movie. Most action movies have poor plots - but not all can provide the huge amount of action and fun that Face/Off does. Fantastic!

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American Gangster

Need not be in the mafia movie grouped on this assumption. At first I was Denzel nails hero, this film is the police catch criminals. Not many spectators, it is the end, he and all his other Dzunhamyon Frank Lucas is a man, it is very clear.

American Gangster works on numerous levels. It's in part a portrait of late 60s-early 70s Harlem and America, full of drugs and desperation and weakness, where the strong rise above the rest and the cops are dirtier than the rats. As a crime thriller it's entertaining and at 2 hours 37 minutes, never loses interest. But, maybe most surprisingly, it's also a superb character drama and study. Literally every character who steps on screen is compelling, has depth to them, has their motivations, and is tossed into conflict. For example there's a scene early on where Crowe's character Richie and his partner are searching a parked car and find a very large amount of unmarked money in the trunk. Without giving away more, it and the following scenes lead to some surprising moral and character statements by Scott. Richie's morals vs everyone else the temptation of the streets is commonly laid on him throughout the film, and thanks to Crowe's great great performance, it adds a lot to the movie.

Denzel is brilliant here. Frank Lucas, with his collected yet fiery, always powerfully menacing performance is one of the better king bosses I can think of in recent memory. When he's not talking, just the way his face is set, he totally totally gets in this character. The academy would do right to easily give him a nomination this year. I also wanted to add that while the two leads don't get on screen till the last 20 minutes, they have a long extended scene that is pure dynamite and gold. They play off each other perfectly and it's well worth the build-up, and maybe are among the highlights of each performance.

Going through supporting actors, Josh Brolin gives one of the year's most surprising performances as an insufferable and despicable dirty cop. He's so slimy, money-grubbing, and yet intelligent and an equal, he's just cunning. Cuba Gooding, Jr. is decent in his one scene, though it's hampered by being mostly unneeded. Chiwetal Ejifor makes a believable side character though he's not given as much to do, and finally I think Ruby Dee could be a sleeper Best Supporting Actress contender for her role as Mama Lucas. Every other short and thankless role I didn't mention is acted superbly here as well, it's a sign of a great director that they're all so on their game.

Ridley Scott's direction, brilliant, what can you say. He creates New York and the rats living in it to the point with fantastic attention to detail, and most of the scenes in the film are shot and constructed simply perfectly. This includes the short but brutally effective opening scene, which stands as one of the more memorable openings I've seen in a while. Actually any time there's gunplay or action, even if there isn't that much overall, it's stunning. Particularly, at the end there's a police raid scene that stands as the "holyyyy crap" sequence of the film. Going from a hallway to a heroine preparing apartment, and without revealing anything more, it's incredible, simply incredible. Remember when people were going nuts over the tracking shot gimmick in Children of Men? I felt that way about this one. If there's a god, Ridley will finally pick up his directing Oscar this year, he deserves it for this and his wide career.

American Gangster is probably one of the best cop-based films I've seen, and up there with gangster ones. It does one of the best jobs of examining the rise and fall of a crime or drug boss right from the beginning, and dives right into on the other side what it means to be a cop and to strive for something, as well as just telling an awesome and magnificently directed gangster story.

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Public Enemies

This year, 1933, it is the Great Depression. Imagine the number of tries desperately to do for the time. The people have suffered for a crime he can improve. John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) two, it was time for the opportunities and possibilities: been formed a steep slide in the rampant criminality, JJ Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup), who the FBI to meet Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) is out. Public Enemy Number One, is to deal with them is doomed to failure. Collection of information (eg, the same court records about the purchase and track the location of the phone call, etc.), to nature and their brutal training and armed with a new access type delrinjeoui wave, thermal, and the company operates.

"I like baseball, movies, good clothes, fast cars... and you. What else do you need to know?" - John Dillinger. Johnny Depp IS John Dillinger. He's perfect for the role. The cool, confident and almost cocky nature of the character is really portrayed on screen (such as bragging to reporters about his bank jobs and teasing Purvis and agents who are after him). It's a look of how a man lived and succeeded in a hard time. Dillinger was a man that lived in the moment as only a man in the depression could. From the worlds on John Dillinger, "I'm to busy having fun today to even think about tomorrow." Who knows what tomorrow might bring? Bale also succeeds in his role and is a solid counterpart against Depp. It works well having two top, well known actors opposing each other on screen.
 

The film is directed by Michael Mann who brought us such films as Heat, The Insider, and Collateral and he adds another good film to his resume with this one. The action sequences, bank heists, and shootouts in this film are probably the biggest highlights. After all, this is from the same guy who gave us one of the most famous and arguably the best shootout of all time in Heat. The sequences are cool, slick, and gritty. Excellence at it's best. (I have to throw in a note of praise for the superb shootout at the Little Bohemia lodge, which was an extremely impressive scene)
 

The cat and mouse aspect makes it intriguing, but I think more could have been added to it. It just feels as if something was missing. Much of the film focuses on the love story between Dillinger and Billie Frechette (Marion Cottillard) It's also interesting to see the other gangsters of this time and how they relate to Dillinger and the criminal world.

Much has been made of Public Enemies being filmed on HD video, mostly complaints. I must say that at times, the picture looked amazing. The night sequences, especially looked beautifully slick and realistic. I loved the cinematography here. The cars, headlights, street lights, and everything looked fantastic. Other times, it doesn't look as good. It just felt as if something didn't look right. I'm not sure what to think about this.

One problem I had with this film would have to be the lack of character depth in many of the characters. At times, it seems as if we are expected to know and understand the characters before going to see the film because it is a real life story. But as a film, it could have developed the characters more to help us (and those who know nothing about Dillinger, his life, or Purvis and the FBI) understand them better. Another problem was some of the historical inaccuracies. Many things portrayed in the film, do not happen as they did in real life. Many sequences are just out of order. I know the filmmakers had to know about this and just tried to work it in as best as they could. It's not a documentary, it's a movie.
 

I really enjoyed Public Enemies. It's a solid crime drama and a good summer film. I understand expectations were through the roof, but that's a little hard to ask for. It's a really good film, but not quite a great one... The action is fun, the story is interesting. Maybe instead of being a very good film, it could have became a really great film if more was put into the characters? I'm not sure. It just felt as if something were missing. But who can knock a film for still being good?

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