NATIONAL SECURITY (2003) **

Cop Steve Zahn is investigating the murder of his partner (Timothy Busfield).  Things get complicated when he is fired for using excessive force on a black motorist, played by Martin Lawrence.  Afterwards, the only job he can get is working as a security guard.  Naturally, he winds up being partnered with Lawrence, who reluctantly agrees to help him clear his name and find the murderer.

National Security is an odd duck.  The early scenes work well enough, especially the stuff where Zahn is accused of excessive force.  These scenes hit a little differently now than when the film was released, but they are still pretty funny.  The best sequence though details how Zahn is able to avoid being killed in prison.  I wouldn’t dream of spoiling it as it is easily the biggest laugh in the movie.  

Once Lawrence enters the fray, it kind of switches gears and becomes a Martin Lawrence action comedy.  His solo scenes aren’t bad or anything, but they certainly pale in comparison to something like Blue Streak or Black Knight.  At times, it almost seems like there were two scripts that became conjoined as the tone in Zahn’s scenes doesn’t quite gel with Lawrence’s stuff.  That probably wouldn’t matter much if the pair had any real chemistry to speak of.  

At least the supporting cast is interesting.  Colm Feore and Bill Duke are suitably intimidating as detectives, but it’s Eric Roberts who looks like he’s having the most fun as a white-haired assassin.  Sadly, like everything else in the movie, the script never quite figures out what to do with him.  

Another problem is Dennis Dugan’s direction.  His style might be perfectly suited for Adam Sandler movies, but he really isn’t the guy for the job when it comes to an action-comedy.  He also collaborated with Zahn for the much better Saving Silverman, which came out two years prior. 

BULLET TRAIN (2022) ***

I have no problem when an action movie cranks it up to 11.  The problem is when an action movie STARTS cranked up to 11 is that there’s nowhere for it to really go.  If the action lets up, the audience feels letdown, and if the action remains breakneck for too long, it can feel like a pain in the neck.  Luckily, director David Leitch keeps the momentum going at a zippy clip for much of the running time.  

Bullet Train feels like a throwback to those post-Tarantino post-Ritchie crime movies full of colorful hitmen who make pop culture references (mostly Thomas the Tank Engine), have lots of flashbacks, go by cheesy codenames (like “The Hornet”), and are introduced alongside an onscreen title card so you can try to keep up with all the assorted riffraff and miscreants that populate the film.  As far as these things go, it’s pretty entertaining, thanks in part to the wild action and bloody mayhem (most of which takes part inside the titular train).  

The biggest buoy that keeps things afloat is the game cast.  Aaron-Taylor Johnson and Brian Tyree Henry are fun as a team of brothers who go by fruity codenames.  Andrew Koji lends some dramatic depth to the proceedings as a father performing a hit in order to save his son.  Although most of the characters feel like they came out of entirely different films, any movie that features Michael Shannon as an insane Russian Mob boss/samurai is my kind of picture.  

It's Brad Pitt who holds it all together as the goofy, bumbling hitman, Ladybug.  With a film populated with so many eccentric oddballs, you need a character like this as a sort of palette cleanser.  He has a cool, laidback quality that may remind you of his roles in The Mexican and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and his Zen philosophy towards being a hitman often gets some of the biggest laughs.  There are also some great cameos along the way (which I wouldn’t dream of spoiling) that help keep the sometimes overly chaotic flick from flying off the tracks (literally and figuratively).

SWEDEN: HEAVEN AND HELL (1969) **

Sweden:  Heaven and Hell is an Italian Mondo movie about the sexually permissive Swedish lifestyle.  Droll narration (provided by Edmund Purdom, the star of Pieces) accompanies uneven scenes of mock titillation, pseudo-anthropology, and allegedly informative documentary sequences (like schoolgirls learning sex education and receiving contraceptives from the government).  Most of this stuff is rather ho-hum.

Naturally, the lurid scenes are the most entertaining.  One sequence involves a couple who learn they are brother and sister separated at birth and STILL decide to get married.  There’s also a quick trip to a nightclub where the headlining act is a topless rock band that I believe are The Ladybirds, the same group from The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield.  Other segments include a policewoman who moonlights as a photographer’s model, a club of beautiful women who go skinny-dipping in frozen lakes, a nightclub for women only, and Marie Liljedahl from Inga appears as a woman who is gang raped by bikers.  There are also sequences that focus on juvenile delinquents, alcoholics, and drug addicts.  If you can’t already guess, these interludes aren’t nearly as much fun as all the sexy stuff.  If they cut out all that hellish stuff and just called it Sweden:  Heaven and Heaven, it might’ve been a classic.  

Directed by Luigi Scattini, Sweden:  Heaven and Hell was one of the first wave of films that helped kick off the Swedish erotica craze here in America.  As such, it’s pretty tame, and doesn’t feature nearly as much nudity as you might expect.  (The most graphic sequence is probably the one that showcases the birth of a baby.)   The most memorable thing about the film is the soundtrack, which features the inescapable earworm “Mah-Na Mah-Na” which later was used on Sesame Street!  The rest of the incidental music is pretty good too.

Purdom also narrated Scattini’s next pseudo-documentary, Witchcraft ’70. 

AKA:  Sweden:  Heaven or Hell.

DC LEAGUE OF SUPER-PETS (2022) ***

The animated DC superhero movies produced by Warner Animation Group are usually just as good, if not better than their live-action DC Extended Universe counterparts.  In fact, The LEGO Batman Movie is my favorite comic book flick of all time.  While DC League of Super-Pets never comes close to matching those heights, it remains a solidly enjoyable superhero romp for kids and adults alike.  

When Superman (voiced by John Krasinski) proposes to Lois Lane (voiced by Olivia Wilde), it creates a rift with his pet dog, Krypto (voiced by The Rock).  Meanwhile, a demented guinea pig named Lulu (voiced by Kate McKinnon) acquires superpowers from a chunk of orange Kryptonite and sets out to take over the world.  After dispensing of Superman and the Justice League, she zaps Krypto of his super-strength with some Kryptonite hidden inside a cheese wedge.  Krypto then turns to a ragtag group of superhero shelter animals led by Ace (voiced by Kevin Hart) to help save Metropolis.  

There are a few genuine laughs here, but not nearly as many as I had hoped for.  If you go in expecting the satire of The LEGO Batman Movie or Teen Titans GO! To The Movies, you might be a little disappointed.  While we do get a little of that here and there, this is more or less aimed squarely at kids.  It’s basically The Secret Life of Pets, except with capes and superpowers.  

If anything, the celebrity voices are perfectly cast.  In fact, you might find yourself wanting to see them appearing in a live-action movie all their own, minus the wisecracking canines.  Keanu Reeves steals the show as Batman.  I can only hope we see more of his version of the Caped Crusader in the near future because he’s far and away the best thing about the flick.  I also enjoyed hearing Marc Maron as Lex Luthor (although it might’ve been funnier if Maron had just been playing a thinly veiled version of himself).  It’s McKinnon though who gets the best line when she sees the League of Super-Pets assembled for the first time and quips, “What is this?  Paw Patrol?”

SO SWEET… SO PERVERSE (1969) ***

Carroll Baker reteamed with her Orgasmo director Umberto Lenzi for this psychosexual thriller.  Jean-Louis Trintignant stars as a philandering husband who becomes obsessed with a battered woman (Baker) who just moved into his apartment building.  After some well-intentioned stalking, they soon become lovers, much to the chagrin of his bitter, jealous wife (Erika Blanc).  The couple’s future happiness is quickly put in jeopardy when Baker’s loose cannon ex (Horst Frank) begins lurking about.  

I’ve read several reviews that describe So Sweet… So Perverse as a loose remake of Diabolique, but it’s very much its own thing for a good chunk of the running time.  In fact, it doesn’t reveal any Diabolique touches until about the third act.  Curiously enough, it’s this stretch of the movie that’s the weakest, mostly because the big twist is kind of clunky.  

Fortunately, there’s plenty of good stuff in the first hour or so of the flick to make So Sweet… So Perverse a treat for fans of Italian sleaze.  Lenzi does an especially good job on the unsettling flashbacks of Baker’s sordid past.  The rape scene on the beach is particularly memorable as the rushing tide symbolically colliding with a large conch shell on the shore is a rather fantastic (if a bit twisted) image.  Heck, Lenzi even gives the romantic scenes are a hint of danger and makes to make them kind of suspenseful.  (I’m thinking particularly of the swinging dinner party where Baker and Trintignant play a variation on “Seven Minutes in Heaven” in front of Blanc.)  

Baker and Blanc’s performances further help keep the viewer involved in the twisty plot, even when it begins spinning its wheels in the late going.  They have a lot of chemistry together and participate in a handful of tastefully done nude scenes too.  The film also has the benefit of a great theme song, “Why” by Riz Ortolani, which is reminiscent in some ways of his classic, “More” from Mondo Cane. 

ORGASMO (1969) ** ½

Carroll Baker stars as a recently widowed socialite who moves into her dead husband’s Italian villa and starts boozing it up.  Before long, she’s banging the local stud (Lou Castel) who helps make her feel young again.  Trouble brews when he brings along his “sister” (Colette Descombes), who supplies Baker with a lot of pills, which don’t mix too well with all the alcohol.  Eventually, Baker catches onto their depraved blackmail scheme, but soon finds herself trapped in her own home with the two horny psychosexual maniacs.

Orgasmo (which shouldn’t be confused with the similarly titled Trey Parker porn comedy, Orgazmo) is a decent little thriller that, while predictable, moves along at a steady clip.  Only near the end does the film begin to lose its way.  Although the twist ending is kind of neat, the final scenes are way too pat.  It almost feels like a throwback to the old Production Code movies in which the villains MUST get their comeuppance, no matter how lame.  (I guess that makes sense as the plot is another one of those “Let’s Drive the Rich Lady Crazy to Get Her Inheritance” deals.)  

Directed by Umberto Lenzi, the film probably suggests a bit more than it delivers, but it remains thoroughly watchable throughout.  The reason for that has a lot to do with Baker’s hysterics.  She sometimes resembles Ann-Margret in Tommy, and some of her freak-outs and meltdowns are rather amusing.  Too bad Castel and Descombes, who play the brother and sister pair of tormentors are kind of forgettable.  They don’t really feel all that menacing, and the fact that Baker’s character is such a pushover doesn’t help matters either.  

Luckily, the sex scenes, although relatively tame, offer some sizzle.  The sequence where Baker gets it on in the shower is particularly steamy in both senses of the word.  If there were a couple more scenes of this caliber, Orgasmo might’ve been a top-notch thriller.  As it is, it’s a solid, if unspectacular effort.  

AKA:  Paranoia.  

ELVIS (2022) ****

If you go into Elvis expecting a by-the-numbers biopic of America’s greatest entertainer, you will no doubt be disappointed.  It’s less a conventional biopic and more a dark, melancholic examination of mental and psychological abuse.  It's about how the abuser will use any tool at their disposal to control the narrative and insert themselves into it.  How the cycle of abuse begins, is perpetrated, threatens to curtail, and then starts back up again.  It is the story of Col. Tom Parker (Tom Hanks) and Elvis Presley (Austin Butler).

Parker is a carnival huckster who knows how to sell a show.  When he witnesses firsthand the reaction to Elvis’ performance at a county fair, he sees dollar signs.  Parker is able to move Elvis out of the county fair circuit and soon makes him the biggest pop culture artist of all time.  It doesn’t take long before the Parker’s control pushes Elvis to rebel, but somehow, he always winds up crawling back into the Colonel’s clutches.

Elvis is a tragedy.  It is about how a good-natured mama’s boy with unfathomable talent is commoditized, monetized, and controlled by a shrewd businessman.  It is the story of American business, and the way businessmen exploit their workers past the point of exhaustion.  It is about the American Dream and how the dreamers often become distracted, manipulated, and just plain taken advantage of along the way. 

Many will want a straightforward Elvis movie.  I get that.  This is not it.  What is amazing about the film is how firm of a grasp the Colonel has on the story.  He is in control of the narrative from the very first frame, manipulating the audience, just as he manipulated The King.  Elvis goes along with the Colonel’s shady business practices, mostly to provide for his family, but even then, he eventually tires of the Colonel and tries to wriggle out of his iron grip. 

What is fascinating about the film, is that when Elvis temporarily defies the Colonel, the movie soars and becomes an intoxicatingly dizzying spectacle like only Baz Luhrmann could make.  Like when Elvis goes behind the Colonel’s back to make his comeback television special.  We see Elvis totally in his element without the Colonel’s meddling, and he is firing on all creative cylinders.  The moment when he ignores Parker’s mandate for an old-timey Christmas number to deliver the passionate “If I Can Dream” is especially triumphant.  In these moments, Elvis (both the movie and the man) literally and figuratively finds his voice, and we can see what he could’ve accomplished if he wasn’t shackled to the sleazy Colonel. 

The Colonel’s manipulations don’t stop with Elvis.  In the end, when he laments The King’s death, he says it wasn’t the heart attack or the pills that killed him, but “His love for YOU!”  He’s projecting the blame of Elvis’ descent into drugs not on himself, but the audience… US.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie that blamed the death of its title character on the viewer like that before.  It just shows the lengths Parker will go to in order to make himself out the be the hero.  He has his claws in the audience just as much as he does Elvis. 

This is a special movie.  One of the best of the year.  It has all the bombast and fun an Elvis film directed by Luhrmann could have.  However, it’s the dark dynamic between the Colonel and Elvis that gives it so much power.  I can understand why people won’t like it.  If you want a safe Elvis bio, there are plenty of them out there.  (The John Carpenter one is probably the best.)  If you want something braver, riskier, and darker, this will be the way to go.  It is bound to leave the viewer all shook up.