BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99 (2017) ****

I was a fan of S. Craig Zahler’s Bone Tomahawk, but nothing could’ve prepared me for the awesomeness that is Brawl in Cell Block 99.  I love it when a director shows me something I haven’t seen before.  In this case, it’s Vince Vaughn being a total badass.  As much as I like Vaughn, he never really struck me as the badass type.  Cocky and likeable, sure, but not a hulking, scary, bringer-of-death.  Now that I have seen him in this, I am perfectly okay with the idea of Vaughn playing Jason in the next Friday the 13^th movie.

Zahler is a novelist, and he approaches his films as he would a book.  Structurally, they’re very similar.  He also spends a lot of time on establishing his characters and developing their relationships before turning the screws to them.  While some may find the first half of Brawl in Cell Block 99 slow, it’s here where Zahler is allowing the meat to marinate.  The last half hour is when he fires up the grill, and it is a gloriously bloody, insanely gory buffet of brutality.  (Imagine if Sam Peckinpah and Herschell Gordon Lewis had a baby out of wedlock.)  Without the character-driven first half, the movie would’ve come off as a nasty, but effective piece of exploitation filmmaking.  With it, the film is elevated to high art.

I will avoid plot specifics, as some of the plot turns are deliciously disgusting and downright wrong.  Not matter how pulpy it gets, you’re emotionally invested, thanks to Vaughn’s performance.  Vaughn is a revelation.  I can’t stress this enough.  Halfway through, you kind of forget it’s him.  Shaved completely bald and stomping around the place like a freight train on two legs, Vaughn has transformed himself into a beast of a man.  Even though he’s a physical monster, his moral compass is so strong that you are with him every step of the way… or I should say, every stomp of the way.  Every time he puts a boot down on some miserable bastard’s head, it’s cause for celebration.

The eclectic supporting cast is equally fine.  Jennifer Carpenter is excellent as Vaughn’s pregnant wife.  At first glance, her role is a thankless one, but she proves to be more resilient and savvy than what she appears to be.  

My jaw dropped when Udo Kier showed up.  I totally wasn’t expecting him at the party.  The wonderful thing is, Zahler knows exactly how to use Udo.  How many movies have you seen where the director thoroughly wastes Kier?  Not Zahler.  He gives Udo what might be his Udo-iest role yet.

Then there’s Don Johnson.  Holy Hell.  He gives what is probably the most sinister performance in a movie rife with sinister performances.  How come it seems like only Tarantino, Rodriguez, and Zahler are giving him roles like this?  As much as I liked his work on Miami Vice, I have to say he’s never been better.

By all means see this movie.  This is truly something special.  Everyone involved is at the peak of their powers.  I just read that Zahler’s next movie features much of the same cast AND Mel Gibson.  I don’t know about you, but I can’t fucking wait to see what he has up his sleeve.  (Not only that, but he’s apparently written the next Puppet Master movie too!)

HOSTILES (2017) ****

Hostiles is simply one of the best westerns to come along in many a moon.  It’s a downbeat, gritty, depressing, and handsomely mounted film that is expertly acted by its impressive cast.  Not only is it a picture about the savagery that lies in any man, regardless of skin color, it’s also about the inherent good in them.  It’s strongest theme though is that redemption is possible for the most brutal of men, even if they don’t exactly go out looking for it.

Christian Bale stars as an Army captain who is given orders to take an imprisoned sickly Cheyenne chief (Wes Studi) home to his reservation to die as a free man.  Bale is less than thrilled with this assignment since the chief killed many of his officers and friends.  Still, he is bound by duty to follow orders.  On the trail, they cross paths with a frontier woman (Rosamund Pike) whose entire family were slaughtered by Apaches.  They take pity on her, stay with her for a while and offer their time and company.  They eventually take her with them on the trail where they are soon menaced by the Apaches, who are still out for blood.

Bale and Pike give devastating performances.  Both are working without a net here and push themselves as far as an actor can go to convey sorrow, anger, and loss.  How they were overlooked at awards time is a mystery.  

Hostiles is a grim, unrelenting, and fascinating film.  It shows that both the Native Americans and the white man were heroic, but also capable of great evil as well.  Because of that, it’s an honest and unflinching take on the Old West.  Director Scott (Out of the Furnace) Cooper paints his characters with the finest of brushstrokes.  No one is completely innocent, nor are they wholly guilty.  Everyone’s done deeds in the past they aren’t proud of.  It’s what they do next that matters most.  I think that’s a theme that will stand the test of time.  This movie will do likewise.

WHITE LOTUS TRIO (1989) **

Three knuckleheads rob some gangsters in an attempt to support their very pregnant wives.  The triads find out they’ve been ripped off and murder the husbands in cold blood.  The wives then vow that their unborn children will avenge their fathers’ deaths.  Eighteen years later, they reunite and set out to do just that.

White Lotus Trio offers up an odd mix of comedy that isn’t very funny and action that is rather lackluster.  I guess there is one memorable scene in which a woman tries to suffocate a guy with her bosom.  Since she’s nowhere near as busty as Chesty Morgan, the guy was never in any danger.  The subtitles are a constant source of amusement though as the dialogue is often misspelled and/or mistranslated.  (For instance, the word “whip” is replaced with “wipe”.)  Or in some cases, the dialogue just don’t make any sense.  (“Are you a dump?")  

This isn’t really much to hang an entire movie around, I’m afraid.  It also takes a long time for the children to finally join forces and go on their quest for revenge.  I did like the scene where one of our heroes prays in front of a Cobra poster though.

Gordon Liu shows up as the detective who’s investigating the deaths of the gangsters.  He’s frankly, wasted as his role is rather small.  Even if the film gave him something worthy of his talents to do, I’m still not sure he could’ve saved it singlehandedly.

AKA:  Avenging Trio.

SHAOLIN QUICK DRAW (1987) **

Like most Joseph Lai productions, this is just two films edited into one.  He took an old movie (Fury of Storm) and added new unrelated footage of Richard Harrison and Stuart Smith as warring Ninjas.  The new stuff is rather hilarious too.  It’s so funny that it makes you wish Lai had gotten rid of Fury of Storm completely and made a flick entirely about Harrison and Smith.

Most of the movie revolves around a guy named Antonio.  We first see him dressed as a priest and dragging an enormous cross along a railroad track.  The train stops for him, but it’s all just a diversion so his buddies can steal a golden statue.  Antonio’s crooked cohorts double-cross him and leave him for dead.  Luckily for him, a Kung Fu expert named Dragon comes along and nurses Antonio back to health, setting the stage for him to try to recover the gold.

The footage from Fury in Storm is ho-hum at best.  Then again, it’s hard to tell, thanks to the haphazard way Lai re-edited it.  The back and forth between Antonio and Dragon is uninvolving, but there’s still enough action here to keep you marginally invested.  Unfortunately, there’s too much of this crap and not enough of Joseph Lai’s nutty Ninja inserts.

The opening is priceless.  Smith gets out of jail and is met by two disciples who kneel before him begging for forgiveness.

Smith:  How many of you are left? 

Ninja #1:  Just us.  

Smith:  Shit!  

Harrison is awkwardly edited in about a half hour into the picture, minus his trademark moustache and wearing a red bandana that says “Ninja” on it.  That is to say, he looks awesome.  He warns Antonio of the Ninjas and… That’s it!  That’s the last we see of him or Smith, for that matter.  Their appearances are fleeting, but thank goodness they were there because without them, Shaolin Quick Draw would’ve been totally forgettable.

AKA:  Ninja Avengers.  AKA:  Ninja Operation 6:  Champion on Fire.  AKA:  Ninja:  Champion on Fire.

TYCOON (1947) * ½

John Wayne stars as a railroad engineer who is blasting out a mountain so the titular tycoon (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) can run his railroad through it.  The snobby tycoon looks down on the hardworking blue-collar Wayne and that feeling is exasperated when Wayne falls in love with his daughter (Laraine Day).  Both men are stubborn to the core and butt heads at every turn.  Things come to a boil when Wayne suggests they stop tunneling in favor of a building a bridge.

If this is starting to sound like Public Works:  The Movie, that probably because that’s exactly what it feels like.

Tycoon was an expensive flop for RKO Pictures and you can see why.  It’s a slow moving and overlong melodrama that features more scenes of people building shit than you’d ever want to see.  It’s hard to tell where all the money went since the model work on the train is so damned phony looking.

Wayne does what he can with the subpar and maudlin material.  Even someone of his stature and charisma can’t breathe any life into the movie as the script never really gives him anything to do besides dig tunnels and bat eyelashes at his leading lady.  Admittedly, there are intermittent sparks between Wayne and Day.  Their scenes are marginally more appealing than the boring drama with Hardwicke and the dull tunneling sequences.  Hardwicke isn’t bad as the stuffy millionaire and Anthony Quinn has some nice moments as his right-hand man, but both men are hamstrung by the weak script.

REUNION IN FRANCE (1942) * ½

Joan Crawford gets separated from her boyfriend Philip Dorn in Paris during WWII.  The Nazis invade, and Joan gets attacked by a mess of stock footage.  The Germans confiscate her house and she finds out her boy toy is in cahoots with the Nazis.  When Joan stumbles upon a wounded American air force pilot (John Wayne), she decides to help him, which could get her into a lot of hot water with her fiancé.

Reunion in France is an unsuccessful melding of melodramatic tearjerker and jingoistic war picture.  Director Jules (Rififi) Dassin does a fine job of giving Crawford plenty of elegantly shot close-ups, but the drama is never captivating and the pacing borders on excruciating.  Crawford is her usual maudlin self, so if you’re one of her die-hard fans, you might find her very appearance reason enough to watch it.

I came to the party to see my boy John Wayne and I was sorely disappointed.  Even though The Duke is second-billed, Wayne doesn't show up until forty minutes into the picture.  He gives the movie a shot in the arm whenever he’s on screen, but frankly, this thing was beyond saving.  There aren’t any sparks between Wayne and Crawford either, which makes things even more unbearable.  The supporting cast, which includes John Carradine, Morris Ankrum, and Henry Daniell, is pretty good though.

The romance stuff is rather insufferable and the plot twist at the end is predictable as all get out.  However, Dassin does give us at least one cool looking shot.  At a Nazi dinner party, he slowly pulls back the camera to reveal that all the tables have been arranged in the shape of a swastika!  If the amount of care that went into the party planning was put into the plot, this might’ve been a winner.

GALLOWWALKERS (2013) **

I have an affinity for horror-western hybrids.  This one certainly had promise.  I mean the prospect of a horror-western starring Wesley Snipes as a cowboy who scours the west gunning down the titular monsters, undead frontier killers who wear the skin of their victims, sounds like a good time.  

It also blatantly steals from spaghetti westerns of the past.  From the weird camera angles to the Morricone-inspired music cues, the film nicely captures that old time feel.  It looks better than your typical Direct to Video actioner, that’s for sure.

Gallowwalkers is odd, uneven, but not altogether uninteresting.  Imagine if Blade went to the Wild West and that might give you an idea of what we’re dealing with.  I’m not saying it’s nearly as good as Blade was, it’s just nice seeing Snipes in a horror setting again.  You wish he was given more to do than ride around the prairie and look grim, but at least there’s enough weirdness here to prevent it from being just another western.

Unfortunately, the mythology revolving around the gallowwalkers themselves is a bit muddy.  “No one knows why” they returned from the dead, which is a bit of a cop-out if you ask me.  At least the film is a lot gorier than expected and there’s plenty of odd moments revolving around skinning people that help to make it memorable.  (In one scene, a henchman begs the main gallowwalker to let him sew on a woman’s lips.)

All of this is more or less entertaining; at least for an hour or so.  Too bad it gets more drab and confusing as it goes along.  The needless flashbacks and clunky narration that try to hold it all together adds to the perplexing narrative.  In fact, they pulled a Steven Seagal on us as they used a guy that sounds like Snipes (but isn’t) as the narrator.  

I guess they had to do what they can.  This film was made right when Snipes was having his legal troubles.  Given the circumstances, I can’t exactly fault them for using a voice double.

The villain gets the best line of the movie when he grabs a preacher and says, “Forgive me, Lord, for I have skinned!”