DYING OF THE LIGHT (2014) ***

At first glance, Dying of the Light has all the earmarks of a bad DTV flick.  It was made by Grindstone Entertainment, has a shitty Photoshop poster, and stars Nicolas Cage.  If you look closer though, you’ll see it was written and directed by Paul (Hardcore) Schrader and produced by Nicholas Winding (Drive) Refn, which is hardly the guarantee it will be good, but at least it’ll be interesting or memorable.  Apparently, the studio recut it against Schrader’s wishes, leading him to disown the final product.  I can’t speak to that version of the film, but the one that was released is a couple notches better than your typical Cage DTV flick.

Cage stars as an aging CIA agent who is nearing retirement.  When he learns the man who captured and disfigured him twenty years earlier is still alive, he risks everything to get revenge.  Complicating matters is his recent diagnosis of an advanced form of dementia, which gets increasingly worse at sundown, leaving him prone to fits of rage and the inability to trust his senses.  

I think this might be the first DTV Cage flick in which his character has a medical condition to help explain his over the top Cagey theatrics.  As such, he doesn’t chew the scenery as much as you’d think, but he does have a few choice moments of unbridled thespianism.  In fact, this is one of his best performances in recent memory, no doubt aided by the fact that Schrader was at the helm and he had fine back-up in the form of the late Anton Yelchin, who plays the junior agent who gives up everything to assist him in his quest for vengeance.    

Visually, the film falls well short of something like Schrader’s Cat People, but it does look better than your average DTV fare.  Thematically, it’s similar in some ways to the Schrader-scripted Rolling Thunder, although not nearly as effective.  Despite its flaws (and the fact that just about everyone involved disowned it), Dying of the Light remains a solid thriller that should please fans of not only Schrader, but Cage as well.

Cage and Schrader teamed up two years later with Dog Eat Dog.

AKA:  Dark.

TETRO (2009) ** ½

Bennie (Alden Ehrenreich) goes to Buenos Aires looking for his enigmatic half-brother Angelo (Vincent Gallo) who now insists on being called “Tetro”.  He initially gives his estranged brother a chilly reception, but his feisty girlfriend Miranda (Maribel Verdu) convinces him to let Bennie stay.  Bennie pesters Tetro for information regarding their family’s past and is almost always shot down.  While fumbling around the apartment, Bennie finds one of Tetro’s unfinished plays.  He completes it and enters it into a local festival.  This infuriates Tetro and forces him to reveal a long-suppressed secret.  

Tetro is a throwback to the smaller films writer/director Francis Ford Coppola used to make in the ‘60s before The Godfather changed the trajectory of his career.  It’s obviously a deeply personal movie to Coppola.  He publicly stated at the premiere, “Nothing in it happened, but it’s all true”.  It’s not particularly bad or anything.  It’s just that it will probably mean more to him than the audience.  

I love both leads.  Gallo always brings a fiery intensity to his roles.  This is no exception.  Ehrenreich (in his film debut) is a genuinely charismatic actor.  Separately, they are engaging in the movie.  However, there is just no chemistry between them.  Their styles are like oil and water, and they never quite mesh.  This kind of suits their estranged characters, but it also prevents the viewer from fully engaging in their plight.  

Coppola repeats himself a little bit here stylistically speaking.  The use of black and white with only sparing (but meaningful) use of color is very similar to Rumble Fish.  I like the idea in theory, but it doesn’t exactly work this time around.  The dancing interludes (inspired by The Red Shoes) are gratuitous and needlessly showy.  They could’ve easily been edited out and resulted in a much tighter and more effective movie.

That said, patient viewers will be rewarded with a memorable and powerful final act.  The sudden shift into full blown operatic melodrama isn’t entirely successful, but Coppola sticks the landing admirably enough.  Tetro is clearly personal to Coppola.  Creatively, I’m sure he enjoyed the more experimental tangents the script presents.  That doesn’t mean it works as a whole; but I’m still glad he made it. 

RESCUE ME (1993) * ½

Rescue Me was one of the final films released theatrically by Cannon Films.  It comes to us courtesy of Arthur Allan Seidelman, the director of Hercules in New York.  Here’s the thing, Hercules in New York is a lot more fun.

A young Stephen Dorff stars as the dorky yearbook photographer who has a crush on the head cheerleader, played by Ami Dolenz.  Michael (American Ninja) Dudikoff is a motorcycle riding drug dealer whose transaction is interrupted by Dolenz and her boyfriend.  Things go south, and in the commotion, the buyers (William Lucking and Peter DeLuise) wind up kidnapping Dolenz.  Dorff wants to impress her, so he blackmails Dudikoff into following the kidnappers to rescue Ami.

This weird amalgam of road movie and coming of age story starts off well enough, but it quickly gets bogged down before the journey begins to gather any momentum.  In fact, there are several junctures in which the film grinds to a halt, and Seidelman’s inert direction does little to move things along.  

The comedic shtick lands with a thud, which wouldn’t be so bad if the center of the film (the relationship between Dudikoff and Dorff) worked.  As it is, the scenes of them bonding fall flat.  It really doesn’t help that the coming of age stuff never quite gels with the hostage plot. 

The big problem is that no one really acts like a human being.  What does Dolenz do when she escapes the kidnappers?  Does she go to the cops?   No, she goes to a concert and makes time with the singer.  

Another issue is that there is just no chemistry between Dorff and Dudikoff.  Dudikoff almost gets by from just being Michael Dudikoff, but Dorff is seriously miscast as a nerd.  Lucking and DeLuise aren’t convincing as villains either and are thoroughly annoying to boot.  It’s nice seeing E.T.’s Dee Wallace-Stone hanging around briefly in the thankless role of Dorff’s mom.  The only real bright spot is Chained Heat 2’s Kimberley Kates, who makes a memorable impression in a short amount of screen time as a hooker with a heart of gold.  Sadly, her efforts aren’t enough to rescue Rescue Me.

AKA:  The Infernal Venture.  AKA:  Street Hunter.  AKA:  Streethunter.

WHEN THE BULLET HITS THE BONE (1998) *

A few days ago, I watched a decent Jeff Wincott flick, Martial Law 2:  Undercover.  That got me itching to watch another Jeff Wincott movie.  Unfortunately for me, the one I watched was When the Bullet Hits the Bone.  

Jeff stars as a doctor who becomes disillusioned with stitching up drug dealers, pushers, and junkies.  He quits, crawls into a whisky bottle, and winds up confronting a gunman hassling Michelle Johnson in an alley.  After a lot of back and forth, he eventually agrees to help Johnson and her kid get away from the main baddie who controls the drug flow in the city.  In the process, Jeff comes into possession of a disc that could incriminate a bunch of politicians.

I like Jeff Wincott and all, but it’s a little hard to buy him as a doctor.  He isn’t a bad actor.  It’s just that he’s at his best when he’s allowed to kick a little ass.  Since When the Bullet Hits the Bone doesn’t give him any opportunities to bust out his patented Kung Fu moves, it feels like his talents are being wasted.  Johnson isn’t convincing as the junkie damsel in distress either.

As bad as the movie is, it really drags whenever Wincott isn’t on screen.  The bad guy is weak and his righthand man is even worse.  He has a lame gimmick where he asks presidential trivia before he kills someone.  There’s also an odd scene where he makes an old guy do a bunch of push-ups before offing him.  Speaking of push-ups, the only (unintentionally) funny moment comes when Wincott is doing push-ups and the camera is set way too close to his crotch.

Written and directed by Damian Lee (who also directed Wincott and Johnson in The Donor a few years prior), When the Bullet Hits the Bone is low rent in just about every way.  The overall cheapness of the production coupled with the nearly nonexistent action (the few shootouts we do get are poorly staged) make for a bottom of the barrel affair.  I wouldn’t mind the crappy production values if the movie wasn’t so dull, lifeless, and forgettable.  Also, some scenes suffer from crummy editing and inexplicable use slow motion.  All this might’ve been tolerable if Wincott karate chopped or kicked a bunch of people.  The heavy emphasis on torture doesn’t help.  

The phrase “When the Bullet Hits the Bone”, of course comes from The Golden Earring song, Twilight Zone.  This movie is so cheap, they couldn’t even afford to put it on the soundtrack.  Heck, I’d rather listen to that song played on a loop for 82 minutes straight than watch When the Bullet Hits the Bone again. 

AKA:  Terror Zone.  AKA:  Bullet in the Dark.

THE BLIND MENACE (1960) ***

The last movie I watched was A Man for Emmanuelle, which was kind of like an Emmanuelle movie before they invented Emmanuelle movies.  The Blind Menace is an interesting precursor to the Zatoichi series.  As you all know, the great Shintaro Katsu played the blind swordsman, Zatoichi in over two dozen films.  That character roamed the countryside giving people massages while taking down whatever villain got in his way.  In The Blind Menace, Katsu also plays a blind masseur, but he’s no hero.  (He also doesn’t use a sword either, sadly.)

From an early age, the blind Suganoichi pulls scams on the streets, conning gullible people out of money (and sake).  He soon grows up to be a coldblooded killer and thief.  (He even takes to offering travelers massages before killing them with acupuncture needles and robbing them.)  Eventually, he hooks up with a thief nicknamed “Severed Head” to fleece people out of dough.  In just a few years’ time, Suganoichi goes from running small time scams to being in charge of an organized crime racket.

I must say, it’s a little disconcerting seeing the usually good-natured Katsu robbing, killing, and raping.  He probably sensed the character was better suited as a hero and was wise to tweak the role into what would later become Zatoichi.  The thing is, he’s quite good in the villain role.  It may be an unpleasant movie, but his performance makes it watchable.  As depraved as the character is, you have to give him props for the variety of ways he manages to connive people out of their money.  Katsu was always a bit of a rogue as Zatoichi.  Here, he’s an out and out bastard.  Despite that, he plays the role of the guy you love to hate so well that the final product, while flawed (it’s sometimes sluggishly paced and suffers from a weak third act), is almost always captivating thanks to his considerable acting chops.

Fans of the Zatoichi series will probably disappointed by the lack of swordplay as this is more of a crime picture than a samurai movie.  However, as a vehicle for Katsu, The Blind Menace delivers.  

AKA:  Agent Shiranui.  AKA:  Secrets of a Court Masseur.  AKA:  Shirani, the Blind Court Masseur.

A MAN FOR EMMANUELLE (1969) ***

A Man for Emmanuelle is the first Emmanuelle rip-off.  Actually, it’s the first Emmanuelle movie, period.  While the later “Emanuelle” films were ripping off the Sylvia Kristel series, this one was meant to cash in on Emmanuelle Arsan’s novel, Emmanuelle.  

Erika (The Devil’s Nightmare) Blanc stars as the screen’s first Emmanuelle, although there’s no relation to the character Sylvia Kristel played.  She has the same knack for getting into sexual misadventures, but the big difference here is that this is a nymphomaniac who takes no pleasure in her actions.  In fact, she spends most of her time alone in her home, bored and suicidal.  (She often looks down from her balcony and imagines her dead body splattered on the pavement.)  This should be the immediate tip-off that A Man for Emmanuelle isn’t your ordinary sex flick.

In fact, the nudity is brief and not all that tantalizing.  The camera spends a lot of time looking at her belly, which is an odd focal point for a ‘60s sexploitation movie.  Does Emmanuelle think she’s pregnant?  Or does she have a dysmorphia thing going on where she’s really skinny, but thinks she’s fat?  I’m not sure, but one scene has a Michael Bay-type shot that spins around and round her body with nothing but tummy shots for like thirty seconds straight. 

Unlike most heroines in these kinds of films, Emmanuelle is hoping to find a guy to bang in order to feel something… anything, other than the isolation and loneliness she keeps inside.  When she does go to bed with a man, the expression on her face is so blank that it’s hard to tell if she has succeeded, which is kind of heartbreaking.  Most of her encounters end awkwardly.  Sometimes Emmanuelle fails to seduce her intended conquest, which adds to her frustration.  Eventually, she finds a man who introduces a little violence in with the sex, which helps… somewhat.  Mostly, she spends a lot of her time pining for the older man who deflowered her years ago. 

Blanc is excellent in the lead.  She experiences a whirlwind of emotions throughout and her performance is nothing less than captivating.  It’s also fun seeing Adolfo (Thunderball) Celi turning up late in the game as one of her would-be conquests, a politically minded newspaper editor.

A Man for Emmanuelle is shockingly downbeat and depressing, but it’s also thoughtful and realistic.  It’s definitely not the sort of thing you’d expect from Cesare Canevari, the director of Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler.  He gives the early scenes a feel reminiscent of Repulsion.  This stretch of the film is easily the most complex and interesting.  From there, it kind of fumbles around for much of the second act.  Then again, so does the character.  I did admire that they didn’t go for a storybook ending.  While it’s not your average happy Hollywood ending, it at least allows the character to find some peace, while still refusing to pull any punches.  I found that refreshing.

Rip-off or not, this is a nice addition to the list of countless Emmanuelle movies.  While it doesn’t always work, I was impressed with the way Canevari and Blanc were allowed to explore the concept of trauma in (what would be on first glance be) a typical sex film.  Thanks to their efforts, A Man for Emmanuelle is anything but typical.

THE BORROWER (1989) **

The Borrower was director John McNaughton’s follow-up to Henry:  Portrait of a Serial Killer, and it’s a big comedown from that classic.  With Henry, McNaughton took what was potentially a B movie and elevated it by not shying away from the brutality of the subject matter, allowing his actors to give realistic, natural performances, and capturing the events much like a documentarian.  In lesser hands, it could’ve been a forgettable exploitation item.  With The Borrower, it’s like he made a conscious decision to do the exact opposite of what he did with Henry.  The results are a sloppy, uneven, and only sporadically amusing sci-fi/horror/cop thriller.

An alien that looks like a giant cockroach passes sentence on a criminal in a white void.  His punishment:  Be turned into a human and sent to Earth.  There, he has trouble adjusting, and his head blows up.  The alien then takes to ripping the heads off various citizens to replace the void between his shoulders.  Naturally, he leaves a trail of bodies in his wake, and it’s up to policewoman Rae Dawn Chong to stop him.

This had all the potential to be a great flick.  Think a funkier version of The Hidden, but with a lot of exploding and/or severed heads.  It’s just a shame the script is so damned messy.  It’s admirable that the screenwriters tried to give Chong’s character purpose by having her wrestle with PTSD.  There’s even a long scene where she consoles a rape victim.  However, the subplot with her hunting down an escaped lunatic just feels like filler.  The various run-ins the alien has with society (like the time spent with a bunch of homeless bums) often falls flat too.  Sure, there is an occasional nutty moment, like when a rock video shoot is interrupted by the alien.  It’s just that these wacky moments don’t gel with the solemnly serious detective stuff.

The severed head effects by Kevin Yagher are pretty good.  I don’t know if the MPAA made them cut it down or what, but the film gets lighter on gore as it goes along.  Still, there are some nasty moments here and there, just not enough of them to make it worthwhile.

The cast is solid though.  It’s nice seeing Chong getting a leading role, even if the rest of the movie is subpar.  I don’t know who thought up pairing Chong and Don Gordon, but they have a lot of chemistry together.  Henry’s Tom Towles and Starsky and Hutch’s Antonio Fargas are fun as the Borrower’s first two incarnations.  Too bad his later alter egos don’t convey the otherworldly awkwardness Towles and Fargas bring to the role.

Maybe if The Borrower didn’t come out right after Henry it wouldn’t sting so bad.  Genre fans will probably want to check it out just for the cast alone.  As for me, I can’t say I was head over heels for it.  

AKA:  Alienkiller.