The Samaritan (2012)

"So whaddya say, baby? Shall I put on some Marvin Gaye?"

At a glance:

All Samuel L. Jackson movies are at least half watchable and this offbeat pulp fiction drops ever so neatly into that category - it jolts, it teases and then at the end credits you're left decidin whether this movie axiom remains true. The veteran anti-hero relishes the tag of bein one of Hollywood's most charismatic actors, a son of a gun who gets paid to shout at people, picture after picture. So when he's not in an eye-patch assemblin mutants to fight aliens, he's in The Samaritan (2012) playin an embattled ex-con (convict AND conman) who had just done a 25-year stretch, only to come out to a strange world populated by characters like Ethan (Luke Kirby), the son of the partner he murdered, and Iris (Ruth Negga) the enigmatic addict nympho who's got the hots for him. The hoverin crime boss Xavier (Tom Wilkinson) provides further intrigue.

Bad news on the doorstep:

Err... how do I say this? The Samaritan changes genre midway and there's a twist in the middle that beggars belief. Worse, it's been done before, so if I tell you which famous movie it's from, it will utterly spoil it for you. This twist is so pivotal and monolithic that entire scripts can be built around it, so it doesn't quite sit in with the rest of the various noir elements in the movie. Perhaps a hint of this iffy approach could be seen in Samuel L Jackson himself, who appears rather bored most of the time, despite also co-producin the movie. He's the master of persuasion and always makes his characters count but in this heist flick gone wrong, we really have to wonder why this story needed to be told. The film is shot by director David Weaver entirely in Toronto and that ain't exactly one of the first cities that come to mind when you're sellin a noir or heist.

Ruth Negga

"You're old enough to be my father...
and that's how dirty I like it."

Perennial wonderment:

Why can't Ruth Negga get more roles outside of TV? She's the delectable Irish-Ethiopian beauty we saw in Breakfast On Pluto (2005) and that crazy cow horror Isolation (2005). Very Thandie Newton, perhaps with a more ethnic edge. Her looks here directly lent some credibility to movie logic and kept the movie from fallin apart. While we're talkin about looks, there's a small role here for Deborah Kara Unger. Don't know if her placid, botoxed look is part of the character but she sure don't look like the spring chicken she was back when she was gettin her kit off for Michael Douglas in The Game (1997).

Reminds me of:

You know I can't spoil it for you.

Watch out for:

When the big twist is given away. People were laughin out loud in my hall.

Most memorable line:

"If you keep on doing what you've always done, you keep on being what you've always been."

"You could always get a job at McDonald's or Walmart, honey."

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

Two and a half, I'd say. Rushed endin drew disaffected faces at an advanced screenin I attended at AMC Yonge. On a partin note, the term "Samaritan" is a reference to a type of con, by which it succeeds when con artists get one person to pose as a helpful friend to the mark to gain his trust. Watch the video below for Samuel L Jackson's explanation.

Bonus material:

The Samuel L Jackson Venn Diagram.
[click to enlarge]
Kudos to the guy who thought of it.

In Samuel L Jackson's own words:
Why is it called the Samaritan?

Citizen Gangster: Edwin Boyd (2012)

"What? You mean some other joker is already famous
for robbing banks with face paint on?"

At a glance:
A decidedly indie Canadian product made by Canadians and starrin mostly Canadians, about the true life story of a Canadian bloke who went from war vet bus driver to wannabe actor and accomplished bank robber in 1949. The eldest son of a police officer, this slippery son of Toronto with two jailbreaks under his belt was Edwin Alonzo Boyd - and as I understand it, not that widely known among locals after all. In an interview, Canadian main cast member Kevin Durand said he didn't know about the Boyd Gang prior to his involvement. The movie trailer plays Boyd up a flamboyant, tapdancin rogue who flirts with the blushin tellers, but conceivably he and his band of miscreants were actually responsible for the biggest bank robbery of all time in Toronto. In fact, their unprecedented manhunt, escapes and arrests became the subject of the first news report on CBC TV.

"Are you sure nobody will make a movie about our scandalous
extra-marital affair and embarrass our grandchildren?"

Anyway, Boyd's story had been told before in the TV movie The Life And Times Of Edwin Alonzo Boyd (1982) starrin Gordon Pinsent but it was in 1995 that Toronto uni student Nathan Morlando contacted the real Edwin Boyd for biopic aspirations. They apparently developed a phone relationship and after 15 years, last week the husband-and-wife team of debutant director Morlando and producer Allison Black were at hand to see the Canadian general release of Citizen Gangster: Edwin Boyd (2012) after its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival last year.
Bad news on the doorstep:
Hey, you know it's pretty hard for me not to sing praises about any half decent gangster flick that comes my way, especially one about a real life criminal with folk hero qualities. However, as I watched this at the Lightbox on openin night with the filmmakin duo in attendance for a little Q & A, it dawned upon me that Citizen Gangster: Edwin Boyd was only half the movie it could've been.

Canadian actor Scott Speedman is Edwin Boyd, Toronto's slipperiest son.
The director says he actually looks like Edwin Boyd.

Despite a classy muted colour scheme to lend credence to the period detail, what he have here is an uneven crime drama, diluted by the dynamics of undue heed paid to various parts of Morlando's homework that he selected i.e. the uneasy focus on supportin characters when Speedman's Boyd was already in danger of appearin too pedestrian. The titular character had authority and looked great in the trailer but suffers from havin to have to share too much of the spotlight with other people who muddy the proceedings and have us askin what's so great about Eddie Boyd in the first place?

The real Edwin Alonzo Boyd
(1914-2002)

Through some admission by the filmmakers, we learn of production compromises that were made, and now they had me reduced to guessin which relatives said no to what, as the story arc did less and less to help make Boyd larger than life, somethin one has legitimate expectations of from watchin the trailer. Morlando's depth of research has somehow failed to convert to its emotional equivalent onscreen and we are left with a labour of love that definitely reflected the filmmaker's ambitions but flawed by production exigencies that weren't only concernin its admittedly small budget.

Standout support from Kevin Durand as a villainous colleague.
Maybe he would've made a more memorable Boyd?

Perennial wonderment:

Did Boyd's kids effectively disowned him? In an interview with Morlando, he was quoted as sayin: “The way he [Boyd] talked about his bank robbing exploits, he was still very excited by it. But when I talked to him about his relationship with his children and his relationship with his ex-wife, he couldn’t hide behind the fun of the bank-robbing… You could see it in his eyes that there was incredible loss and regret.” Yet the daughter, Carolyn, seemed to have approved of the movie accordin to the filmmakers, who are in turn heavin a sign of relief. Morlando told the Lightbox openin crowd that it was her creative input behind the literal money-launderin scene.

"But darling, if you steal grocery, you can't get the air miles!"

Most memorable line:

This is what I mean. They didn't even give him some cool lines to say.
Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
At the end of the movie, we learn through title cards of Eddie's fate but not before an unusual sequence of events that would lead him to some form of bizarre redemption. These events, if they had only been featured in the slightest, would've possibly reconnected us to Boyd and given the picture a badly needed gloss of epic. Perhaps Liam Lacey's take is more mature than mine, as he wrote: "In the Hollywood version, Edwin Boyd should have gone out in a hail of bullets and twitching limbs. Citizen Gangster deals him a more ignominious sentence: He is forced to become ordinary again." ★★ 1/2

Trailer for the curious:

Let The Bullets Fly (2010) @ 让子弹飞

"I'm the director of this movie and this is what I get to do, okay Carina?"

At a glance:

Dubbed by the film's director as China's answer to Hollywood's Oceans Twelve (2004), Jiang Wen's Let The Bullets Fly 让子弹飞 is an immensely rich and successful genre-bender that will go down as one of the best movies in the past 10 years to all Mandarin-speakin territories. With even Feng Xiao Gang in a cameo appearance early in the film, Jiang Wen blends art house storytellin with commercial sensibilities to deliver an entertainin period caper about three men in 1920s warrin China - Bangde Ma (Ge You), Pocky Zhang (Jiang Wen himself in an inspired performance) and Huang (Chow Yun Fatt). It's black humour with lots of old school banditry seeped in a political battle of wits.
Bad news on the doorstep:
The cast turn in a five-star performance with each actor stealin the scenes of another; it's appropriately convoluted and sharply tackled. However, most reviewers note that some of the subtleties of language are perhaps lost to all but the native Chinese. The sequences are intelligent and weighted, although some CG work comes across very cartoonish.

Reminds me of:

The last time I had so much fun watchin a Mainland movie - One Foot Off The Ground (2006).

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
Four stars. Any viewer who manages to catch Let The Bullets Fly will know that the 30 over script drafts the director went over before finally bein satisfied was likely no exaggeration. With its two versions (one in Mandarin and one in Sichuanese), the film broke several box office records in Mainland China and Hong Kong, and received critical acclaim when it was released. One source has it down for a 730 million yuan (US$111.1 million) in box office, becomin the highest-grossin domestic film in China's cinematic history when it was released. Movie opens Stateside this week, almost two years since the Chinese first saw it.
Trailer for the curious:

Bonus material:

DID YOU KNOW? Chow Yun Fatt hasn't been in a Cantonese movie for 17 long years, since God Of Gambler Returns (1994), I think.

Man On A Ledge (2012)

"Hi. I'm Genesis Rodriguez. This movie is so rubbish, they're gonna market it by findin a suitable scene to display by pinkest bits to you."

At a glance:

Self-explanatory heist thriller that unconvincingly stretches its four-word premise into 102 minutes of celluloid, written by the ghostwriter behind O.J. Simpson's book. Sam Worthington is the uncomfortable male lead, playin the titular role with a really lousy accent.

Bad news on the doorstep:

You might wanna jump off that ledge havin sat through the movie. Dodgy character arcs, weak dialogue, uninspired miscast actors and a story riddled with preposterous plot-holes left, right, centre. The romantic subplot between Jamie Bell (Adventures Of Tintin, 2011) and Genesis Rodriguez (TV's Entourage) is annoyingly unhelpful and in the case of the latter, particularly distractin to the proceedings, as she prances about with the best angle of her cleavage in full view all the time. Anthony Mackie and Edward Burns are in the wrong movie. The movie starts collapsin as soon as the premise is set and surprisingly makes no apologies endin on an over-simplistic note, devoid of credible resolution and even token emotional payoff. Lazy storytellin!

"Shit. Looks like a parking ticket."

Perennial wonderment:

How come Sam Worthlesston continues to be in big movies, one after another. He's very uneventful and doesn't have the charisma to do strong and silent like say, Jason Statham. The Aussie plays the same stoic fuck in every movie - Clash Of The Titans (2010), Avatar (2009) and Terminator Salvation (2009. The only time I saw him do slightly better was in Texas Killing Fields (2011) - a horrible mess of a movie, and an Australian movie called Somersault (2004).

Reminds me of:

Phone Booth (2002) and The Negotiator (1998) but those were good movies.

I can't remember if I cried:

When Ed Harris appears. He plays an unscrupulous businessman in the movie but really looks haggard. He actually looks worse than he did in character as a patient dyin from AIDS in The Hours (2002).

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

Two stars, one each for Genesis Rodriguez' breasts - the most memorable aspect of this completely unnecessary movie. Avoid.

Trailer for the curious:

Bonus material:
Jamie Bell and Genesis Rodriguez bein interviewed. How insubstantial can these two get?

Reykjavík-Rotterdam (2008)

At a glance:

You'd probably never come across this one, unless you were seekin it out. Reykjavík-Rotterdam (2008) is the original movie that spawned that Hollywood remake starrin Mark Wahlberg, Contraband (2012). It's apparently the largest movie that was ever done in Iceland and stars a who's who of Iceland's finest, if only we bloody knew who those are. What we do know is that Baltasar Kormákur, the main actor in this movie, later returned as director for the Hollywood flick. The title basically refers to the plot - a smugglin run between two ports.

Bad news on the doorstep:

Lilja Nótt Þórarinsdóttir

Dammit I ain't seen me an Icelandic film for more than 10 years since 101 Reykjavík (2000) and this turned out pretty forgettable. Cineastes who seek out Óskar Jónasson's original hopin to catch a superior film will end up fairly disappointed - it's simpler, shorter and not much more fun. Mark Wahlberg had to drag himself through psychotic criminals and killer high seas for more than two hours but Baltasar Kormákur wraps it all up under 88 minutes. Make no mistake, it's definitely a remake - but it is unclear if one was expanded from the other or if deleted elements from the original were simply restored in the remake. The main difference is that Reykjavík-Rotterdam is about smugglin alcohol and Contraband goes for funny money. However, everythin else is similar, down to Kate Beckinsale's anonymous blonde role bein copied from Lilja Nótt Þórarinsdóttir's uneventful turn.
Perennial wonderment:
If Contraband was gonna be rated R anyway, why not throw in some titties? This Icelandic flick has got some trademark dry Scandinavian humour but sorely needed some grunge and spunk.
Reminds me of:

Leadin man Baltasar Kormákur (pic) reminds me of Bollywood badboy Emraan Hashmi. 

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

Two and half. They sent it as Iceland's Oscars 2010 submission for Best Foreign Language Pic anyway. 

Trailer for the curious:

Contraband (2012)

At a glance:

Okay, here's the first movie I've seen in 2012 and if you didn't know it, January is the month for the big studios to dump their rubbish. Baltasar Kormákur's direction isn't exactly Oceans Fourteen and if you've seen the trailer, you know there's no slick and suave in this here heist movie, despite two very sexy saleable mainstream leads in Mark Wahlberg and Kate Beckinsale. Contraband (2012) is apparently a Hollywood remake of an Icelandic film starrin the director himself, called Reykjavík-Rotterdam (2009). I'll confirm for you the extent to which this is true once I'm done watchin that.

Bad news on the doorstep:

Doubt UIP managed to flog this out too much across Malaysia - the two-minute trailer they cut feels like 20 and the title of the movie is regrettably inaccessible to most here, save maybe kretek smokers and the fat bastards down at Customs. There are no cool one-liners, no bazooka explosions, no caped superhero with own theme song. Marky Mark ain't dodgin bullets like in Max Payne (2008) and Beckinsale doesn't appear in a tight latex corset (though she will next week when Underworld: Awakening opens). The appeal is limited to heist movie fans - and by this I mean boys who might actually be takin notes on the A-Zs of smugglin funny money.

Giovanni Ribisi

Perennial wonderment:

If the jobless man I watched this with will end up bein slightly too enamoured with this film and start developin grand illusions of the criminal kind. He enjoyed it very much and wanted to alert another mate about the film - a bloke who works in logistics. O my days, this sounds like another heist script already.

Reminds me of:

Gone In Sixty Seconds (2000) and The Town (2010).

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

Three and a half for bein much better than you would expect from somethin as low-key as this. Solid supportin cast and a neat finish. You'll like the music too.
Trailer for the curious: