THE ALIEN FRANCHISE

ALIEN

I saw the original Alien on its opening weekend in 1979. People actually ran out of the theater during the chest-burster scene. A sign of how jaded moviegoers have become since, I can’t imagine that happening today.

As a sci-fi fan geek, I had been told to expect something visceral and disturbing in the movie so was somewhat prepared for what happened. It is an unforgettable scene.

What Ridley Scott did here was take the sci-fi horror story to a new level. While it’s all still just essentially a monster movie, a haunted house in space story, Scott dropped all the melodrama and took a more organic, naturalistic approach with his actors. That, for me, is the key that makes Alien work the way it does.

Like the classic Thing From Another World, Scott takes time let us get to know the crew of the Nostromo and, like the Howard Hawks film, we watch as they engage in banter and ball-busting and griping in the sort of easy exchange and  patois that people adopt when they share a task or are in each others company for a prolonged period. He used the camera in such a way that were distanced from the action at first, very much voyeurs to their world. He’s aided in this by as fine an ensemble of character actors as you’ll find in any movie of this period as well as Sigourney Weaver in her breakout role as Ripley.

Unlike in The Thing, not much about the alien is revealed. We learn about its gestation cycle along with the crew but know nothing more than what they, and we, can see. Like earthbound insects, it has a metamorphosis. But is the eight-foot-tall humanoid monster the end of this cycle or is there more? Its origins are a mystery. The only clear motivation it seems to have is to kill every living thing it meets. Like all great science fiction, this movie asks more questions than it answers.

The look of the film is also spectacular. Jean “Moebius” Giraud worked on set and costume design and the movie, overall, derives much of its look from the work of Belgian and French comic artists. As Star Wars borrowed heavily from the look of Jean Claude Mezieres’ Valerian, this film was inspired by the organic, lived-in look of SF graphic novel works of Mezieres, Giraud, Druilliet and Bilal and others.

The screenwriters and Scott do not look away from the meaner aspects of the story they’ve created. And that is at the core of the entire Alien franchise. Meanness. This is a horror series that is unrelentingly brutal and unforgiving to its characters.  Throughout the entire film cycle we see characters established only to be killed in the most awful ways imaginable and often unexpectedly.

This cynical angle on man’s place in the universe, that we’re all only meat for the taking or hosts for extraterrestrial offspring, is at the center of what makes these movies (at their best) click. It sets up the notion that no one is safe. That anything can happen to anyone at anytime and very often does.

Another unique aspect that is very present in the first film but not much as the series continues is the pure, danged cussedness of the human race. Sure, Ripley is scared and we’re scared for her. But she’s also pissed off and we feel that too. She has this mindless, eyeless thing that’s murdered her crewmates chasing her around and she’s been effed over by her own employer in the shape of the ultimate company man, the android Ash. She’s tired of being effed with and someone has to pay fro that. First the alien and then her bosses back on Earth.

For me, that excuses the one departure from the “anything to survive” theme of this movie. I’m talking about Ripley’s foolhardy efforts to save Jones, the ship’s cat. I can excuse it because, hell, I want her to save the cat. But, more than that, Jones becomes a symbol of Ripley’s determination not only to survive but to triumph. She’s NOT going to let that mean old beasty have  the only other living earthling remaining on the Nostromo.

In the end, the movie ends on a satisfying note but also leaves us uneasy about Ripley’s fate. Will she be found? And how much time will pass? And what will the world be like when she awakens?

 

Which brings us to.........

ALIENS

This won’t be popular with some of you. Most of you even.

I have to confess that I loved his movie when it came out. It was a pure adrenalin rush. And, on the surface, what’s not to like? The story is a sturdy one. A distant colony has not been heard from in a while. The last reports mentioned a dangerous xenomorph species. A military unit is dispatched to investigate and, if needed, eradicate the threat. They will be taking along Ellen Ripley who is the only survivor to have encountered this species.

Gung ho monster-killing action by the guy who made The Terminator. Yay. 

And the movie does deliver on its original premise. Loads of action between space marines and aliens. The discovery of the beginning of the alien birth cycle, a cyclopean queen who is murderous in her wrath when her children are threatened. It’s even cool that it all ends in a Battle of Moms with Ripley defending the helpless waif Newt from the killer alien queen.

But…the movie does not bear up well over time. Unlike the first movie in the series which looks timeless, this movie is firmly stuck in the 80s. Paul Reiser looks so in the period this movie was made in he looks like he got an unlimited giftcard to L.L. Bean. He even acts 80s.

And the dialogue. James Cameron can write the most painful, on-the-money dialogue ever written. And here he shoots the wad. Everyone talks in hyperbole or jargon without a trace of irony. This is lightyears away from the organic, naturalistic conversations of the first film that made the characters so human and relatable. Here the characters have par phrases and ready responses instead of conversations, ball-busting by rote. Except they don’t seem tired of it. Their bon mots are delivered as if they still think they’re clever. Sigourney’s eye-rolling at some of these exchanges probably wasn’t scripted.

This is especially, excruciatingly true of all the military characters. James Cameron either has a “special loathing” for the military (to quite Bill Clinton) or simply doesn’t know how to write them.  These are supposed to be experienced soldiers, specialists in their own way. Yet they come off as preening morons, strutting around like peacocks and spouting one “you talkin’ to me” cliché after another. I think Cameron is writing them as jocks. He must have gotten shut up on a locker or pantsed by his football team back in junior high and is now getting back at them. And this isn’t the only instance in his writing. In his screenplay for Rambo 2 he portrays everyone but Rambo and Troutman as uber-macho gym rats. Same for Avatar, soldiers as braggadocios murderers.  

Not only are the Marines shown as loudmouth dullards, they’re not even good at their jobs. Even Hicks, the only “good” and principled one in the unit is portrayed as kind of slow on the uptake and lacking in initiative or drive. He needs Ripley to tell him what to do. 

And, while their shared dialogue reveals that they have been on “bug hunts” before they seem entirely unprepared for what comes next. One can assume that they went on military missions against alien life forms perhaps not as lethal as the critters of this franchise. But wouldn’t that have them taking even more precautions as they begin to realize that this new species is different than any they faced before? Wouldn’t their preconceived notions of what to expect evaporate in the light of the complete annihilation of the colony’s population and the presence of a massive, maze-like hive under construction at the heart of the complex? It’s obvious even from the first encounter that these “bugs” are no Zanti misfits. And yet these vaunted space marines troop into an ambush bunched up like the Bowery Boys.

And what’s with the Bishop character? Why should Ripley trust him after almost being murdered by one of his kind in the previous film? His reasoning that the previous models were “twitchy” excuses nothing. It all comes off as a ham-handed allegory to racial prejudice. “Don’t judge all us robots by one homicidal machine man.” Never mind that Bishop works for, and was programmed by, the same company that ordered Ash to make sure everyone on the Nostromo died. What is this thing Cameron has about killer androids redeeming themselves? He’d revisit this theme in Terminator 2.

As we’ll see in a future review, he might not be the only filmmaker working out some personal issues through this franchise.

More than anything else, this sequel takes us away from the meanest aspect of what defines this series; the inescapable chaos of the natural universe. The sheer random brutality of the universe. Aliens works more like a standard horror or action film in which all the “right” people survive. By this standard, Captain Dallas should have lived to the end of the first film as he was undeniably the most courageous of the Nostromo’s crew. Here, we see all the braggarts, cowards, connivers, fools and assholes rendered victims of the beasties while the virtuous heroes, Ripley, Newt and Hicks survive. The only regrettable casualty is Bishop who ends his existence while valiantly trying to assist Ripley in her battle with the queen mama. But, as I stated before, there’s no reason a future programming update wouldn’t have had him shoving the survivors’ hyper-sleep chambers out an airlock.

ALIEN 3

I’m going to lose even more friends over this one, but I see Alien 3 as the only true sequel to Ridley Scott’s first film. In tone if nothing else.

While Cameron went full bore on a comic book approach, here David Fincher embraces a more somber mood piece much like the first film. Here there’s a return to the “nature’s a bitch” theme. Nothing will save you from this film’s critter. The deserving die alongside the sinners. It’s also the end of Ellen Ripley’s arc. This Ripley anyway. And the conclusion of the film is fitting and poignant despite being downbeat.

I like the logical progression of the alien metamorphosis as well as this time the monster is created out of a dog rather than a human. The end result is pure predator, a creature that relies on speed rather than size. There’s less of the wandering in a haunted house feel and far more of a chase going on.

The setting of a prison planet that’s become a sort of twisted monastery is an interesting choice. Ripley is as much an alien here as the creature she brought along with her. They are both, in their own way, in a fight to survive in this hostile environment.

I know this entry doesn’t have a lot of fans but I will defend it without reservation. It has a number of amazing sequences, a crushing feeling of dread throughout and one of the most iconic images of the entire franchise; Ripley’s face-to-face confrontation with an alien warrior.

Now let’s move on to the entry that everyone loves to hate.

ALIEN RESURRECTION 

You know, Alien Resurrection has a lot going for it right up until the third act.

Of all of them, this one comes closest to the French graphic album feel that played such a part in the first film. And there’s a lot of very cool scenes.

First up, I’m a sucker for the “you don’t know who you’re messing with” kind of story. And the clone of Ellen Ripley is all that. Sigourney’s slicked back look, newly acquired gym muscle and general air of “I can kill everyone on in this room’ badassery makes for a lot of fun encounters. Plus, this is the first time the franchise takes advantage of her real-life six-foot height. She really is imposing especially against the rest of the not-so-tall cast.

The crew of space vagabonds who show up and become Ripley 2.0’s allies is well cast with Ron Perlman at his most Neanderthal and the criminally underused Michael Wincott as the space pirate skipper. 

Winona Ryder is along in the thankless role of the android. She’s all emo all the time and the only character in the movie who seems to care for anyone beyond herself. Get it? A robot is more human than the humans! You got that right? Just making sure. Ryder seems genuinely scared of Weaver but I’m going to put that down to acting skills.

And we have Brad Dourif and Dan Hedaya here in a race to see who can chew more scenery. It’s a wonder there weren’t bite marks everywhere.

Well it’s all run and shoot and fight and die and a fine sci-fi monster movie until we get to whatever the hell that hybrid human/alien thing was supposed to be. There’s no way the cast and crew didn’t have trouble keeping a straight face at the idiotic end design of this creature. It’s all pink and rubbery and has a nose! A little, nubby, tilted nose. Oh, and big sad eyes. It’s possibly the dumbest monster design ever and I’m including Philippine kaiju and Roger Corman movies. What the hell were they thinking? There were probably thousands of concept drawing done for this and they picked the worst possible one.

And the design was key to make the final scenes of the movie work. I mean, the remaining human portion of Ripley’s mind is supposed to bond with this wriggly beastie like a mother to a child. But who could become attached to this thing? I could understand if it was scary looking. But it looked so silly! If there was an Academy Award for not bursting out laughing it has to go to Sigourney for all those close-up shots she shared with the overgrown gummi baby.

As I promised, this movie features a recurring theme from its screenwriter.

The scene where Ripley discovers the room full of aborted clones is remarkably similar to another reveal scene in another Joss Whedon scripted movie.

 

Remember when Buzz Lightyear discovers that he’s a toy and not a terrible unique one at that? Same scene right?

Well, anyway, that’s my take on the Alien franchise. I might do a future entry dealing with the prequels, crossovers and prequel crossovers. But that would mean watching Prometheus again and I’m not sure that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.

                       GAME OVER, MAN!

There will be reviews

Le chant du loup/CALL OF THE WOLF (2019) Netflix’ French productions are the main reason I keep their service. This flick is an excellent current-day, post-Cold War thriller focusing on an audio warfare analyst who uncovers what may be a nefarious Russian plot to upset the balance of underwater military power. Ah, but it all goes much deeper than that. The rarity of rarities these days, the movie with a story that goes in unexpected directions and provides real surprises. Part detective story and part submarine action thriller, this one scores on all counts. The nerdy hero is relatable and sympathetic, and his personal story drives the narrative. The submarine action is superb. The screenplay was either written by a silent service vet or someone who really did their homework. The actors are all excellent working off a lean script and without any of the melodrama you so often find in this kind of movie. The final act is edge of your seat stuff.




HUNTER/KILLER (2018) Next to Jane Austen adaptations, submarine movies are my wife’s favorite film genre. So, naturally, this one was a must-see. And I have to say it was far better than I anticipated. Imagine a very earnest mash-up of G.I. Joe and Tom Clancy and you come close. A dual mission between a squad of Navy SEALs and a U.S. nuclear submarine move to quash a coup meant to topple the Russian government and throw the world into chaos. Who expected a movie where we’d be rootin’ for Putin? But the pace is good, the effects generally excellent and the action, both on land and sea, suspenseful if not entirely believable. And there’s one scene that seems to be in all these movies that I’m glad they skipped in this one. That shot of everyone in the war room cheering when the good guys win like it’s the Stanley Cup finals. “We averted global nuclear war! High five!” I hate those scenes. They always look disingenuous and I very much doubt that this ever happened in a war room. Heavy sighs of relief and maybe someone quietly puking in a corner would be more realistic, to my mind. Solid cast with Gary Oldman wasted once again in a “My God, man! Do you realize what you’re saying?” role.



MORTAL ENGINES (2018) What would the makers of movies like this be doing now if they didn't have the original Star Wars movies to steal plot elements from. I assume this eye-candy loaded mess was taken from some YA novel. It has that feel. Massive coincidences, a small cast out to save the world, everyone knows each other (or is related to each other) and everyone is an orphan. Not one, NOT ONE, original story idea in its entire running time. And you'll NEVER guess, SWEAR TO GOD, you'll NEVER guess how the heroine and the villain are related! Go on, guess. A million technicians and CGI artists worked hard to bring this ludicrous pile of poop together. The plot? You know the plot if you've seen the trailer. All the world's cities are on massive tank treads and ripping around the globe gobbling each other up for some reason that's never made clear beyond "We're running out of fuel!" Here's an idea, keep your city in one place instead of powering up your massive engines to take the city of London off-roading every day and night. That just might cut down your fuel consumption. Maybe it's all an allegory for socialism. Probably not as its daring message for the world is "War is bad."
Watch the worst 80s SF movie you can find instead of this one. At least it'll be shorter.



A VIEW TO A KILL (1985) For a long time this was the only James Bond movie I'd never seen. After the ridiculous travesty of OCTOPUSSY, I elected to wait out the franchise until Roger Moore was gone. Every participant on this one was phoning it in. Moore is way too old for the part and his dalliances with younger women becoming creepy. Christopher Walken appeared to be lost, for the most part. Tanya Roberts plays the most useless Bond girl ever. Only Grace Jones seems to be having any fun. The story crawls along at a snail's pace and is almost entirely absent of any signature Bond elements. No cool car or gadgets and his snappy one-liners are beyond vapid. The action scenes are contrived, poorly blocked out and often confusing. And Walken's world-domination scheme seems to have been partly lifted from Auric Goldfinger and not terribly well thought out. But, at least I've seen them all.



I AM MOTHER (2019) Netflix might just be the home of the best filmed SF. Spooky, suspenseful story of a robot raising a child from birth in the years following the end of the human race. Or is it? I won't go into the plot except to say that it has its share of surprises. It's thought provoking without telling the viewer what to think. Superbly acted and stylishly made. Solid hard science fiction entertainment.




THE WOLVERINE (2013) My youngest knows I don't like the X-Men movies (or the X-Men in general) but suggested I might like this one. He was a wrong. A predictable, humorless mess with events you can anticipate before they happen and dialogue before it's spoken. Feathery or confusing motivations for the entire cast and by-the-numbers action scenes including a frankly embarrassing extended fight atop a bullet train. Very little in this movie makes sense and no one acts or reacts to anything like a normal human being would and characters spend a lot of time feeling sorry for themselves. In other words, the perfect X-Men story.

 


TROUBLE IN STORE (1953) Brit comic Norman Wisdom plays his signature hyperactive simpleton in a movie that follows his usual formula. He's a lowly stockboy at a massive London department store. He's in love with a sales clerk in the music department but she's been wooed by a hood who leads a gang set on robbing the store on the big sale day. Margaret Rutherford is here as well playing the world's most ambitious shoplifter. It's all silly with a plot that serves to set up comic set-pieces for Wisdom to perform his athletic antics that always leave a path of destruction behind him.



ONE GOOD TURN (1954) Another Norman Wisdom comedy with a plot that's light as a feather. Once again, he's smitten with a woman way out of his league though this movie deals with that more realistically than usual. Norman is a minder and jack-of-all-trades at a London orphanage. Yes, there's cute little po-faced orphans under foot everywhere. Once again, all the story events serve to set up wild slapstick scenes. The highlight of these is Norman being mistaken for an orchestra conductor and creating an epic level of havoc.

 

MURDER MYSTERY (2019) Hey, it's an Adam Sandler comedy so I knew what I was getting into, but Jennifer Aniston, right? It's a fun, breezy affair with some funny scenes and good chemistry between the leads. But, for my money, Aniston is ALL chemistry and always finds a way to make every role work. The rest of the cast plays it with the same light tone and sense of fun. BUT...this effort could have been more than just forgettable fluff with a bit more craft applied on the writing end. What the story needed was more set-up for the two leads. Sandler is a New York cop. We know this because we're told this. We needed a scene of him BEING a cop, to establish visually all the things we learn about him later. Aniston's interest in murder mysteries needed to be set up WAY earlier in the movie and been made more a part of the story than it is. Once again, everything we learn about her character is told to us through dialogue. Someone needs to sit down and watch some old Jean Arthur movies.



HELL IS FOR HEROES (1962) Taut war movie programmer effectively directed by Don Siegel with a script by WWII vet Robert Pirosh who wrote the war movie classic BATTLEGROUND as well as the pilot of the Combat! TV series. Fess Parker commands a platoon left out on the ass-end of a defensive line to hold their ground against a German advance. Steve McQueen plays a busted sergeant who seems to have a death wish. Lots of other young actors in the cast like Nick Adams, Bob Newhart and Bobby Darin. Trivia note: This is the movie that was on screen in the theater in which Lee Harvey Oswald tried to hide after assassinating John F. Kennedy in November 1963.

 

ATTACK (1956) Real, grown-up war drama featuring a cast of real-life WWII combat vets including Lee Marvin and Jack Palance. Eddie Albert plays a coward here but, in reality, was a decorated war hero for saving the lives of dozens of marines on Tarawa. "Mr. Douglas, I salute you!" An infantry platoon is put at the point of the spear and betrayed again and again by their craven commander. But Jack Palance isn't having it anymore and crawls through a combat hell to see his own brand of justice done. Excellent moral quandary drama set against the backdrop of war. Shot at MGM's extensive WWII Europe back lot familiar to viewers of Combat!



NAKED AMONG WOLVES (2015) In the final weeks of the war in Europe, the plans of Buchenwald inmates to resist their annihilation at the hands of their brutal SS guards are complicated by the arrival of an unregistered Jewish child. This movie presents a full range of the best and worst in human behavior from the highest heroism to the most base self-interest. All wrapped up in a story of excruciating suspense and the highest stakes imaginable. More than a historically accurate portrayal of life in a concentration camp, this movie contemplates the values of civilization and how fragile a construct it is.



HIGHWAY PATROLMAN (1991) Made in Mexico, directed by an Englishman and financed by a Japanese film company. Alex Cox says that this is his best film and I have to agree. The story of a young highway cop in Northern Mexico seems barely to be a story at all and that's the beauty of it. There's all the beats and arcs and acts of a story but they're deftly concealed as a series of seemingly random events so that the viewer *experiences* what happens rather than be led along by contrivance. Excellently acted on a shoestring budget and some of the most realistically portrayed gunfights ever put in film. By no means a "feel good" movie but a sly piece of guerrilla film-making by a director who think is most of the time off his rocker. The screenwriter would go on to work on NARCOS and QUEEN OF THE SOUTH.

   
FRIGHT NIGHT (2011) I was never terribly fond of the 1985 original and didn't expect much from this re-make. I was wrong. Veteran Buffy writer Marti Noxon infuses the original with loads of energy and fun while trimming away the hoke and contrivance of the original. Colin Farrell carries off his role to perfection, playing the closeted vampire with a brand of quirk and charm all his own. David Tennant is a standout as a cheesy Las Vegas magician who turns out to be a real vampire hunter. The tone is excellent throughout and the horror and comedic scenes are equally effective. Not an easy task. That is a fine line Ms. Noxon walked here.



THE BOOGEYMAN WILL GET YOU (1942) Not sure what this was meant to be. Kind of like a Bob Hope or Abbott and Costello movie sans the comedians. Boris Karloff is a doddering mad scientist who means well and Peter Lorre is the local sheriff/ justice of the peace/insurance agent/and loan officer in a lightly toasted (one can't really call it 'dark') comedy. It's virtually plot-less and mostly just silly with the two leads looking like they're having fun spoofing their usual typecast roles. Lorre gets the most laughs with his constantly shifting moral compass, hair-trigger irritability and the Siamese kitten he keeps in his coat pocket for some never explained reason.

 

T-34 (2018) Russian WWII action flick that goes a little too Hollywood for my tastes. Some fine tank action that would have been better with less CGI. But a solid plot about Soviet POWs who are to be used as target practice for the Panzers until they find some ammo and turn the game into a live fire exercise. The Russians have been making some very good war films of late but I always expect them to be more bloodthirsty than they are. Still, a good actioner with loads of period weaponry for geeks like me to ogle.




Boulevard du Rhum/RUM RUNNERS (1971) Brigitte Bardot and Lino Ventura in a period action comedy set in the 1920s. Ventura smuggles liquor to the rocky shores of Florida(!) and Bardot is a silent film star that he falls for. Might have been a successful romp but Ventura, a fine actor, has no touch for broad comedy. And beyond her usual wit and charm, Bardot is given little to do except keep an army of wardrobe people and hairdressers busy. Imagine this film with Belmondo in the lead. He had the talent for farce as well as the physicality to pull off the action set pieces with panache. Why were these two film legends never paired in anything? The most fun comes from the movies-within-a-movie featuring Bebe as a jungle princess!

Yes, you can have more movie reviews!

Yeah, once again, there's a lot of French language films in this latest batch of reviews. I have most of my DVDs on a server now which allows me to add sub-titles in English to movies that never had them. So I've been bingeing a bit on Gallic cinema recently.

BANG, BANG! YOU'RE DEAD! (1966) I fully expected this 60s spy spoof to have a cheesy theme song (sung by Jack Jones or LuLu) and animated opening credits. But cheapie studio American International had probably spent all their budget on the cast. Tony Randall plays his usual feckless character. Senta Berger is beautiful. Herbert Lom is menacing. Klaus Kinski is creepy. Denholm Elliott and Wilfrid Hyde-White work overtime to see who can act more British until Terry-Thomas shows up and blows them both out of the water. It's all silly and could have been an effective comedy but it fails to find a consistent tone or pace.

Arrêtez-moi/ARREST ME (2013) French police movie with a more psychological bent. Sophie Marceau shoves her abusive husband off a balcony and arrives at a police station to confess just hours before the ten-year statute of limitations is up. Inspector Miou-Miou is having none of it. Engaging anti-structure movie that shows how both women came to be who they are on the night of their meeting.

LONE HAND (1953) Fine, fast paced Joel McCrea western that packs a lot of story into a lean 76 minute running time. Joel's a dad who arrives in the territory looking to start a farm with his young son. But he runs into some hard luck and must turn to being an outlaw and risk losing the love and respect of everyone he cares about. Some effective suspense sequences and solid action. And a memorable early performance by James Arness.

A DAY AT THE RACES (1937) One of the quartet of Marx Brothers movies that represent their best. Groucho is horse doctor Hugo Z. Hackenbush posing as a people doctor at a posh Florida health resort. Margaret Dumont as his favorite patient. Maureen O'Sullivan as the damsel in distress. Alan Jones standing in for Zeppo. And Harpo and Chico in top form. And, in the climactic horse-race scene Harpo is plainly visible doing his own riding ion a field of professional jockeys! Best line? Harpo is posing as a hotel detective and running a magnifying glass up the arm of Groucho's latest blonde floozie. "If you're looking for my fingerprints, you're a little early."

ONE CHANCE SUR TWO/HALF A CHANCE (1998) A young car thief learns that her father is one of two men that her mother had dalliances with in the past. Boy, the French love that gag! Her two possible daddies are Jean-Paul Belmondo and Alain Delon who are teamed for the first time since BORSALINO. Of course, there's a reference to that movie here. The pair retain their chemistry here and play off one another effortlessly. Solid comedy and action with Belmondo doing his last on-screen stunts. He does his signature hanging from a helicopter deal and, as he climbs on board he gasps, "This is the last time! The last time!" I don't think that was in the script.

FIREMAN, SAVE MY CHILD (1932) A classic Joe E,Brown vehicle with the loudmouth comedian as a small town fireman who's a baseball phenom. Brown plays yet another version of his credulous braggart character. There's loads of complications and a ticking clock suspense element in the third act. Like all of Brown's films this is a deft exercise in silliness loaded with clever dialogue exchanges and wild action. And the guy could throw a horsehide.

ANY NUMBER CAN WIN (1963) French film legend Jean Gabin gets out of prison to team with Alain Delon to heist a casino on the Riviera. Well-executed with some terrific suspense moments, beautiful women and loads of scenery. Delon is pitch-perfect as a heel with a bruised ego.

THE 12TH MAN (2017) Inspiring true story of a Norwegian enemy of the Reich and his escape in to Sweden with the Nazis hit on his trail every step. All of this movie takes place in the brutal conditions of northern Norway. The protagonist is indefatigable and goes on where most of us would have laid down and died. Not for the faint-hearted and some breath-taking suspense scenes with real consequences.

THE EQUALIZER 2 (2018) A worthy entry in what I hope becomes a franchise. Denzel is properly intense in a well-crafted thriller with some expertly executed action set pieces and chases. I particularly enjoyed the final showdown set in a violent nor'easter. Also enjoyed the way in which McCall touches the lives of those around him in a beneficial way in addition to all the badassery. And seeing Orson Bean in a dramatic role was a real treat.

RETURN OF THE HERO (2018) Jean Dujardin and Mélanie Laurent are comic perfection in this excellently crafted period comedy. Dujardin plays an amoral heel who leaves for war promising to write every day to his young fiancee. When he fails to do so, Laurent, the girl's older sister posts a series of long letters from the "valiant" Captain ending with a final letter of his heroic death in India. Complications ensue when Dujardin returns years later. One twist, surprise, reversal and unforeseen complication after another leading to a thrilling and very funny climax.

RAIN MAN (1988) Haven't watched this in decades. Seeing it again, the movie made me sad because H'wood makes almost no movies like this anymore. An actual, grown-up, mature drama that never stoops to cheap laughs, mawkish sentimentality or contrivance. Cruise gives his best performance to date and a level of craft he would not replicate until MAGNOLIA (1999). Hoffman is amazing in his restraint, working his timing like the master he is.

FURY (2014) Re-watched this and was rewarded with some of the nuances I missed first time around. Other than films from the German POV, I can't think of another movie that deals with Americans in the final days of the war in Europe. I've spoken to quite a few vets who were in the rush to Berlin and this story presents the brutality of those days in a way that jibes with what I was told. The movie portrays the GIs accurately: killing machines still capable of compassion and mercy. Men resisting becoming the monsters they hunt but paying for that with little pieces of their soul.
The Shermans vs a Tiger 1 battle is a perfect demonstration of the meatgrinder our dads and grandads were thrown into. They were no real match for the German's armor but adapted tactics that required raw nerve and horrid losses to finally succeed against all odds.
There are those who question the accuracy of the Wild Bunch style ending. Well Audie Murphy went up against a German Panzer company all by himself and walked away leaving more than fifty dead, three tanks in flames and a grenadier unit in rout.

Un bonheur n'arrive jamais seul /HAPPINESS NEVER COMES ALONE (2012) Gad Elmaleh and Sophie Marceau in a fun romantic comedy. Child-hating Gad falls for Sophie not realizing that she had three kids and a troubled past with a series of ex-husbands. The kind of frothy stuff that they make here with Matthew McConoughey and Kate Hudson with a Gallic twist. Meaning, lots more sex and excused amorality. Fun stuff with a gifted comic cast and the kids are funny without being cute or cloying.

CA$H (2008) Complicated (perhaps TOO complicated) con artist/heist thriller done in the French once-over-lightly style. Jean DuJardin leads a cast of liars, tricksters and pigeons in the kind of movie where you learn never to trust what you can see. I'm seriously going to have to watch this one again and soon to catch what I missed the first time around. Great cast with Valeria Golino, Jean Reno and others. This one moves fast at a blink-and-you'll-miss pace. And Caroline Proust cleans up nice. I'm used to seeing her as the overly-obsessed homicide cop who never showers in the excellent series SPIRAL.

COME WHAT MAY (2015) Effective and suspenseful movie about a rural French village that decides to evacuate before the German invasion of 1940. Well-crafted characters, harrowing action and high stakes in a deliberately paced story that will draw you inexorably into these people's lives. Matthew Rhys is excellent as a British soldier who joins the evacuation after his unit is slaughtered. This movie contain one of the neatest (and most desired) scenes of retribution I've ever seen on film. Epic in scale but highly personal as well. It took real skill to balance the big and small story here.

THE KING'S CHOICE (2016) Another tale of evacuation before a Nazi invasion. This time it deals with the king of Norway and the choices he made following the betrayal of his country by both weak-willed politicians and ones who outright colluded with Hitler. Ironically, King Haakon, a monarch, is the one who saves Norway's democratic status. A real, grown-up historical drama done to perfection to present an important chapter of the war most Americans were not aware of.

CANYON PASSAGE (1946) Handsomely mounted technicolor production that deserved better than the second feature programmer status it was deigned for. An additional twenty minutes for more character development would have helped this movie in a big way. An astonishing amount of story happens off screen or is explained away in exposition scenes. While there's lots going on, this lack of development at the beginning makes it hard to invest oneself in what comes after. I also had a problem with Dana Andrews as a rough and tumble man of the west. He simply never looks period enough in these movies. But he gets able support from Susan Hayward, Brian Donleavy, Lloyd Bridges, Andy Devine, Hoagy Carmichael and Ward Bond at his most primal.