FEARLESS FIGHTERS (1974) ****

Two clan brothers are at odds.  One feels the government owes him, so he steals a shipment of gold.  His brother, hoping to restore his honor, steals it back with the intention of handing it over to the authorities.  Of course, HE gets blamed for the theft.  Four strangers are drawn into the plot, each with their own suspicions and motivations for getting involved with the gold.  Eventually, they learn to trust one another and work as a team to fight the evildoer who wants the gold for himself.

Fearless Fighters is densely plotted but never confusing.  It reminded me a little of Shogun Assassin as it sometimes feels like there were multiple movies edited into one.  It moves at a breathless pace and amazingly enough, it crams in a ton of plot and even more action into a short amount of time.  Our heroes can’t take two steps without a group of bandits or killers or somebody jumping into the frame to do battle with them. 

It’s also chockful of colorful characters, many of whom have cool gimmicks.  My favorite was a badass named “One Man Army” whose sword splits in two.  He also lulls his enemies by hypnotizing them by waving his arms.  While they’re busy standing around watching him flail around, he runs in and cuts them to shreds. 

Fearless Fighters features lots of scenes where the bad guys shoot arrows at our heroes, who almost always catch them and throw them back.  Incredibly, the arrows always land into the chests of the archers who shot them.  This begs the question:  Why would you need a bow in the first place if you can just throw arrows so fast that they kill their intended targets?  No matter.  It’s just another reason to love this nutty movie.

If you’re looking for non-stop carnage and first-rate chopsocky goodness, Fearless Fighters is hard to beat.  It’s a film about loyalty, friendship, honor, and kicking lots of ass.  Kung Fu fans will undoubtedly eat this one up. 

James Hong helped prepare the American version and did some of the dubbing. 

AKA:  A Real Man.  AKA:  A Hero of Heroes.

REVAMPED (2008) ***

Jeff Rector (who also directed) finds out his wife is cheating on him.  Distraught, he stays up all night drinking and watching TV.  He sees a vampire infomercial that states they’re looking for new recruits.  He calls them up and the sexy Tane McClure arrives at his door to bite him.

The pre-opening credits sequence is a lot of fun and probably could’ve made its own self-contained short film.  The rest of the movie isn’t quite as good as that crackling opening.  However, it’s always a little bit better and funnier than you’d expect. 

Anyway, Rector gets caught up in a war between vampires and humans.  He doesn’t want the humans dead, which makes him an outcast in the vampire community.  Since he’s a vampire, it doesn’t earn him any friends with the humans.  The shit hits the fan when he’s is prophesized to be the “chosen one” who has the power to stop the vampire Armageddon.  

There’s some really funny stuff here that is sure to please fans of low budget horror-comedies.  My favorite part was the vampire “patch”.  Instead of weaning you off nicotine, it lessens your craving for blood.  Heck, even the most obvious jokes score laughs because of the game cast. 

And what a cast it is. Flash Gordon’s Sam J. Jones is a scarred vampire hunter, Fred Williamson is the Yelling Police Captain, Tane McClure and Christa Campbell are sexy vampire sisters, Martin Kove and Paul Michael Robinson are a pair of wisecracking cops, and Billy Drago is the head vampire.  That’s just the tip of the iceberg as there is a dozen or more recognizable faces in the cast.  Rector must’ve called in every favor he had in Hollywood to assemble a cast like this.  (Heck, even Kato Kaelin shows up.)

I can’t say Revamped is going to win any awards.  I can say, I had a blast watching it.  It’s fast-paced, funny, and one heck of a good time.

DILLINGER (1973) **

The best scene in John Milius’ Dillinger is the first one.  Warren Oates, mean, scowling, and dangerous as John Dillinger walks into a bank and approaches the teller window.  The camera is positioned so that we are seeing the teller’s point of view.  He addresses the audience in such a way that it feels like we are being held up ourselves.  It’s a startingly effective sequence.  Too bad the rest of the movie never comes close to matching it.

From there, Dillinger and his gang go around finding more banks to knock off.  Along the way, he fancies a young woman (Michelle Phillips from The Mamas and the Pappas) and romances her.  Well, in the only way a guy like Dillinger knows.  Meanwhile, dogged G-Man Melvin Purvis (a fine Ben Johnson) is on Dillinger’s trail, staying one step behind him and his crew.  

After the gripping opening, the film soon falls into a repetitive pattern.  After about the third shootout it gets to be a bit numbing.  Not only was Dillinger meant to capitalize on the success of Bonnie and Clyde, it had to compete with The Godfather too.  That means the various tommy gun deaths are long, drawn-out, and bloody.  That doesn’t really make up for the lack of story and engaging characters though.  

Oates softens up as he goes along, but it’s hard to sympathize with his character or his romantic subplot.  While Bonnie and Clyde may have robbed banks, they were likeable folk hero outlaws.  Oates, who is nevertheless very good in the role, keeps the audience at arm’s length, which makes it difficult to get a handle on him.  The scenes with Johnson work the best.  He has a good gimmick of lighting up a cigar before rubbing out a robber.  It’s a small, but crucial touch that Dillinger’s character doesn’t really have.  

In the end, none of it really gels.  You can, however, bide your time watching the colorful supporting cast do their thing.  Geoffrey Lewis and Harry Dean Stanton make memorable impressions as members of Dillinger’s gang, and Richard Dreyfuss pops up for a bit as Baby Face Nelson (who probably deserved his own spin-off).

ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL (2019) ***

I feel like I’ve been hearing about Alita:  Battle Angel for twenty years.  I remember James Cameron wanting to make this manga adaptation right after Titanic, but he never quite had the technology at his disposal to do it justice.  Once he got into the Avatar business full time, Cameron decided to hand the directorial reigns over to Robert Rodriguez while still staying on as a producer and co-writer. 

I’m happy to report Alita:  Battle Angel is exactly what you’d think a Rodriguez version of a Cameron movie looks like.  It may have big ideas and a lavish budget, but it keeps Rodriguez’s scrappy B movie spirit.  One can only imagine what it would look like if Cameron was at the helm.  As it stands, it’s an enjoyable, breezy sci-fi action hodgepodge.

A broken robot (Rosa Salazar) is found in a scrap heap by Dr. Ido (Christoph Waltz) who restores her and names her Alita.  As she tries to remember her past, Alita explores the city, finds love, and becomes a bounty hunter.  She also finds time to become a Motorball star and uses her newfound popularity to stick it to Nova (the futuristic version of “The Man”), an omnipotent alien who lives in a spaceship hovering over the city and likes to play God with its citizens.

I know Cameron had been developing this for over twenty years, and sometimes it really shows.  It often feels like a ‘90s movie.  With chintzier CGI and action, it would’ve looked right at home on a double bill with The Matrix.  Heck, even some of the brand-new effects are a little on the cheesy side.  (The attempt to make Alita have enormous anime-style eyes isn’t quite successful.)  Even the sport of “Motorball” (a mix of Rollerball and NASCAR) is firmly stuck in the ‘90s as the contestants wear motorized rollerblades, and folks, it doesn’t get much more ‘90s than rollerblades.

I’m not going to lie.  There are some clunky bits, especially in the late stages of the film.  You could probably make a drinking game for every time Jennifer Connelly’s character conveniently shows up to stir the pot.  I’m not sure if even Cameron could’ve made her scenes work.

Alita also suffers from weak finale.  The final confrontation lacks sparks and it tries too hard to set itself up for a sequel.  Instead of a proper ending, we just get a half-assed cliffhanger, which sends you out of the theater with a bad taste in your mouth.

Despite the disappointing ending, there’s enough invention and fun here to fill two movies.  Rodriguez is clearly having a blast playing in Cameron’s sandbox as he delivers some truly eye-popping visuals.  The action is top notch too as the various swordfights and chase scenes are finely executed.  The Motorball sequence is a real doozy too and sort of plays like a meaner version of one of those video game scenes in Spy Kids 3-D.

Speaking of 3-D, the 3-D effects are just alright.  Not a whole lot pops out at the screen, so you’re probably okay to check it out in 2-D.  The only things that jump out at the audience are:

·         3-D Hands

·         3-D Blades

·         3-D Blowtorch

·         3-D Claws

·         3-D Molotov Cocktail

Salazar has a lot of spunk and screen presence and makes for an ideal lead.  She holds her own with Waltz and is quite convincing in her action sequences.  The supporting cast (most of which play robots or cyborgs) is almost unrecognizable (including the surprise reveal of Nova, which I won’t spoil).  All I’ll say is that for all its faults, Alita:  Battle Angel gives us a scene in which Jeff Fahey plays a grizzled cyborg cowboy who owns a pack of robot hunting dogs.  If that doesn’t make you want to see it, nothing will.

THE SINGING DETECTIVE (2003) **

Robert Downey, Jr. stars as an author hospitalized with a debilitating bout of psoriasis that covers most of his body.  He refuses pain medication, choosing instead to live inside his own head as his literary creation, the fictional title character.  As the doctors endlessly assess his predicament, Downey’s detective alter ego desperately tries to solve a mystery.

A detective molded in ‘40s film noir who sometimes lip syncs to ‘50s pop music inhabiting a Johnny Got His Gun-style wraparound was going to be a tough sell.  I will say director Keith (The Chocolate War) Gordon’s opening, which sets up the premise is sterling.  It establishes the concept in a brisk and effective manner before allowing Downey to cut loose and do his thing.

Unfortunately, it sort of yields diminishing returns as it rambles on.  As Downey heals, the less interesting his character (and the movie, honestly) becomes.  The gimmick of having his fiction creeping into his reality is uneven too.  Sometimes, the results are gripping (like when his doctors stand around gawking at him oblivious to the fact that he can hear them clearly), while others come off clunky (especially the way Downey’s mother and wife become characters in his fantasy). 

Downey is excellent.  I don’t know many actors who could’ve pulled this off this well for this long.  Even he can’t save the movie.  The supporting cast are pretty much left in the lurch, mostly because they’re given stock characters to play that have no real substance.  An unrecognizable Mel Gibson seems to be having the most fun as Downey’s cantankerous doctor.  His out-of-the-box performance alone is worth a look.  However, the rest of The Singing Detective is much too uneven to be considered a success.

THE LAYOVER (2017) **

Kate Upton and Alexandra Daddario are best friends whose flight to Florida gets redirected due to a hurricane.  On the plane, they both become infatuated with a hunk (Matt Barr) sitting next to them.  The trio then decide to take a road trip down to Florida and the two friends soon become bitter rivals as they compete for his affections. 

Director William H. Macy (yes, THAT William H. Macy) tries to make a raunchy R rated comedy with the gender roles reversed (which is an OK idea, I guess), but with only marginal success.  I’m a big fan of all involved.  Daddario and Upton are charming as always and seem to be having fun playing Girls Behaving Badly.  Sadly, they aren’t given much to work with.  The script by It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s David Hornsby and Lance Krall feels like a leftover It’s Always Sunny script.  That might not have been so bad if there were some genuine laughs here.

Macy is one of the greatest actors of his generation.  As a director, he doesn’t have much in the way of style.  It’s hard to see what drew him to the material in the first place as most of the gags revolve around poop, burping, sex, and drugs.  Some enjoyment can be found from seeing Upton and Daddario being totally willing to make a fool of themselves, but they really deserved a vehicle worthy of their talents. 

COLD PURSUIT (2019) ****

I know y’all aren’t watching Liam Neeson movies anymore, and that’s a damn shame because Cold Pursuit just might be the finest film of his latter-day career.  It hits all the notes you want to see from a Neeson revenge picture, but there’s a lot more going on here than just that.  It starts simplistically enough (Neeson is a snowplow driver who is out to avenge the death of his son by some unscrupulous drug dealers) before slowly revealing a grand canvas of violence begetting violence until the bodies begin piling up like cordwood.

It’s a terrific showcase for its supporting cast of colorful characters.  Many of these actors I have never heard of, but all of them shine brightly and leave memorable impressions in their brief screen time.  The best was the ever-reliable William Forsythe as Neeson’s ex-con brother.  

I also wasn’t expecting it to be so damned funny.  There are more laughs here than most recent TV comedies have in an entire season.  Imagine if the Coen Brothers, or maybe even ‘90s era Quentin Tarantino made a Liam Neeson actioner and it might’ve looked a lot like Cold Pursuit.  It’s full of quirky characters, surprising bursts of violence, and colorful dialogue.  The best part is the monologue by one of the villain’s goons about maids in hotels. 

Don’t fret die-hard Neeson fans.  The straightforward revenge stuff is still great.  Director Hans Petter Moland is smart enough not to skimp on the good stuff.  I especially loved how Neeson isn’t very good at killing people in the beginning.  When he murders a guy in a parking garage, he parks so far away that he has to drag the body a long way before putting it into his van.  Later, it takes him multiple tries to strangle a guy to death. 

He gets good at it really quick though.  Neeson gets this one guy all alone, pulls a gun on him, and proceeds to punch him with the gun.  That’s right, folks.  This movie features gun punching.

There are no wasted moments in Cold Pursuit.  Every scene builds on the last.  Each scene is surprising, unique, and morbidly funny in its own way.  By the time Neeson’s using heavy machinery to plant trees in the villain’s Tesla you got to tip your hat to the filmmakers.  They have taken a thoroughly standard action template and turned it into a fascinating, absurd, and unforgettable masterpiece.