Showing posts with label action movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label action movies. Show all posts

Nov 9, 2021

PRISONERS OF THE GHOSTLAND (2021)


Spoiler: This review does not serve any purpose.

Nicolas Cage has made the most interesting movies of his career over the last ten years. I didn’t say good, mind you, although there have been quite a few of those—I said interesting. Even his failures, like 2018’s low-rated Between Worlds, a metaphysical erotic thriller that breaks the fourth wall and recognizes Cage’s character as actually being Nicolas Cage during a sex scene, is far more interesting than the last highest-rated Hollywood Marvel tentpole you saw. Despite his reputation as being a quirky, rubber-stamping performer saying yes to every offer that comes his way, well…broken clocks and all that: saying yes to a lot can yield occasionally awesome results, and it’s given us horror fans a handful of terrific titles during this period. Though it’s impossible to keep up with Cage’s movies at this point, I feel confident in saying it’s been a while since I’ve seen a particular movie where he slept walk through his role. Cage is always trying, and always giving it his all; he’s quite possibly one of the bravest actors from the old guard still taking chances with wild abandon, unafraid to ascend to the most manic heights if it serves the movie. (See the binge-drinking, underwear-clad bathroom freak-out scene from 2018’s incredible Mandy.) This was something I always knew, but of which I was reminded following an impromptu double-feature of two Cage flicks brand new to video: the understated, beautifully made Pig, in which he offers a tragic, brokenhearted performance as a man seeking the last remaining thing on this planet he loves, and Prisoners of the Ghostland, in which he plays a criminal forced to go looking for something he couldn’t care less about, screaming his face off and gnashing his teeth and contending with roving desert threats the whole time—ghostly or otherwise. His range across those two random examples was remarkable, the first bringing tears and the second bringing wide-eyed astonishment. Very few actors can do this, and Cage is one of them, though his genuine talent is often forgotten thanks to his internet folk hero status as a meme, those “crazy reel” YouTube compilations, and his doppelganger in that old-timey 1800s photos that suggests he is, in fact, a vampire. (Insert scene from 1988’s Vampire’s Kiss which sees Cage running down the street screaming, “I’M A VAMPIRE, I’M A VAMPIRE!”)

Cage himself has described Prisoners of the Ghostland as “the wildest movie [he’s] ever made,” a quote wisely utilized in the film’s marketing, as anyone considering watching a movie with a concept as wild as this one would likely be enticed by his presence alone, so once you see that quote, well, holy shit—strap in. Such a proclamation is a very ballsy boast, as by now I’m sure your own choices for Cage’s craziest are playing in your brain like a powerpoint presentation. Could Prisoners of the Ghostland out-crazy the Hellraiser-meets-Death Wish vigilante horror-thriller Mandy, or the stone-faced supernatural comedy/horror hybrid Willy’s Wonderland, or Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, which has a scene where Cage’s bad cop sees the breakdancing figure of a thug his goons just killed and says, “Shoot him again—his soul is still dancing,” before breaking out in wild, unhinged laughter? Directed by Japanese filmmaker Sion Sono (Cold Fish, Suicide Club), Prisoners of the Ghostland is a mish-mash of genres; not content to borrow influence just from Yojimbo or just from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, it’s instead both—a collision of Japanese samurai warriors and the lone American western about a gunman looking for redemption, creating a nonsensical world of imagery that feels more like a boardwalk sideshow where tourists stop to put on garish costumes and take novelty photos with their families. Cage, of course, is the film’s man with no name—a leather-clad cowboy known only as Hero, or sometimes Nobody, yanked out of jail following a botched bank robbery in a sandy nowhere called Samurai Town and forced into a rescue/retrieval mission across the desert at the behest of the villainous Governor (Bill Moseley). Yes, it’s a direct riff on Escape from New York, or, technically, Escape from LA, but also contains elements of Dances with Wolves, Mad Max, Book of Eli, and the spaghetti western of your choice. Yet, in the face of these largely American and Japanese inspirations, something about Prisoners of the Ghostland feels strangely Australian; though that might be explained away by the Mad Max influence, it almost seems to be echoing the work of cult directors Brian Trenchard-Smith (Dead End Drive-In, The Man from Hong Kong) and Russell Mulcahy (Razorback), leaning on crazy color schemes, an unrelenting quirkiness, and a driving identity only Australian cult cinema is capable of. While I can’t say Prisoners of the Ghostland’s puréed influences all get along, I can say that it’s enchanting, allowing moments of genuine artistry, and, of course, moments of obligatory Cage freak-out scenes. (Cage’s Hero bellows “TESTICLE!” at one point with so much operatic gusto that I swear to Bale’s Batman you can see his tonsils.)  

Though both actors have been dabbling in smaller productions that skip mainstream theatrical debuts altogether, it seems strange to see Cage sharing the screen with character actor Bill Moseley, who has been playing unseemly characters in under-the-radar horror flicks since the 1980s, perhaps most infamously known as Chop Top in Tobe Hooper’s 1986 sequel to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Otis Driftwood in Rob Zombie’s Firefly trilogy. Moseley’s career is filled with as many movies you’ve never heard of as Cage’s…but they’re a different variety of films you’ve never heard of, and likely stocked with other character actors who make most of their living traveling the country for various horror conventions. Really, the whole cast is a combination of different worlds, from the appearance of Cage’s Face/Off co-star Nick Cassavetes as Hero’s former partner in crime and current desert-dwelling ghost (he’s best known as having directed The Notebook) to Sofia Boutella, mainstream sweetheart of Hollywood fare like The Kingsman and Atomic Blonde. How all these people managed to come together and collaborate on a movie that feels like it transcends each of them as individual personalities, I’ll never know, but it only adds to Prisoners of the Ghostland’s indefinable identity.

Prisoners of the Ghostland isn’t a movie so much as it is a dare. It’s a challenge to cinemagoers everywhere, but especially a gauntlet for those like me who are tasked with writing about it. “Dare to make sense of me,” Prisoners of the Ghostland says. “Go ahead and find meaning in the madness.” It’s why this review opens with that spoiler tag: Prisoners of the Ghostland is critic-proof. I’m sure many have tried to bring forth some kind of thoughtful analysis, whereas some others simply threw in the towel and dismissed the title out of hand, tucking tail and fleeing from the carnival of lunacy—from the strange plot, the in-and-out moments of broad humor, the ambiguous sense of whether or not anyone involved in the film’s making is taking it seriously, and what it’s supposed to mean…if it’s supposed to mean anything. If there’s any one thing that Prisoners of the Ghostland isn’t, it’s subtle. Even when the flick takes a break from the fight scenes and ghastly gore, its smaller moments are still peppered with that perceptible sense of “what is this?” It’s so broadly played and relishing in its over-the-topness that it becomes one of those movies where it can either be about nothing at all, or whatever you want it to be. You could walk away claiming it’s an allegory for manifest destiny and I sure as hell wouldn’t argue with you because you’d still be closer to the true “meaning” than I’ll ever get. One thing is for sure: if you’ve ever wanted to see a flick where Nicolas Cage wears a full body leather suit covered in boobytrap explosions while screaming, “I’LL KARATE CHOP YOU!” and “HI-FUCKING YAH! HI-FUCKING YAH!,” well, I’ve got just the one…

May 19, 2021

ATOMIC BLONDE (2016)

When the trailer for John Wick was released, no one expected much. It didn’t particularly sell that film in the way it deserved to be sold, focusing more on the dog and goofy carnage rather than the exceptional choreography and the clever world building. I was in from the start because Keanu—I’ll watch him in anything (I even somehow sat through Knock Knock)—but I wasn’t expecting the well made, sincere, and very fun film that John Wick was.

Its two directors, former stunt men Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, soon split off in diverging paths: Stahelski committed to John Wick: Chapter 2 and Leitch to Atomic Blonde. If there was ever any doubt that one director was the secret weapon of John Wick's success, John Wick: Chapter 2 was step one in dispelling that notion. Atomic Blonde is step two.

Atomic Blonde has been meticulously designed and Leitch proves he can absolutely hold his own as a director working solo. Despite how it was marketed, it’s not the female response to John Wick, instead taking its page from paranoid spy thrillers of the ‘70s but reinvented with the neon-loving flamboyance of Nicolas Winding Refn. David Leitch directing Confessions of a Dangerous Mind instead of George Clooney offers a pretty broad but helpful means of warning the audience what kind of film they’ll be getting. Don’t get me wrong, Atomic Blonde does have a handful of extremely impressive action scenes on display—one in particular is presented in the form of a minutes-long unbroken take and rivals anything seen in either John Wick flick—but the film is more interested in cloak-and-dagger espionage, double- and triple-crosses, political Cold War unrest, and hewing at least a little closer to reality by presenting Lorraine Broughton as a bad-ass but entirely human and fallible character. Even after rolling down a hundred concrete steps, John Wick can get up and have a drink. Broughton doesn’t bounce back so quick—her body, which Theron isn’t shy about showing off, is her personal roadmap of pain.

And speaking of Broughton, between the obvious Mad Max: Fury Road and now Atomic Blonde, Charlize Theron is having a grand old time kicking everyone’s asses. On top of looking good while she’s doing it, she excels at it. She looks well suited to this kind of material, and even when she engages in the most painful of action set pieces, it’s evident she’s having the most fun out of everyone. Atomic Blonde tries to strike a similar tone to the Craig era of the Bond franchise by injecting a cheeky sense of fun into an otherwise serious story, but where Bond’s generally light tone was more conducive to that kind of balancing act, Atomic Blonde can be very dark at times, and also violent, even grisly, so when the film opens with a John Wick-ish chase scene set to an iteration of Blue Monday, but later on a minor character is violently beaten in the face with a skateboard, Atomic Blonde can seem very tonally confused. Despite that, it’s extremely well made, and all the actors commit, obviously including Theron. It’s still undecided if Atomic Blonde, based on the graphic novel Atomic Blonde: The Coldest City by Antony Johnston, will birth a second franchise for her, but it’s certainly worthy of one.

May 7, 2021

13 HOURS: THE SECRET SOLDIERS OF BENGHAZI (2016)

A Michael Bay film about the Benghazi attack and subsequent death of Ambassador Chris Stevens sounds like one of those things that shouldn't work. In a satirical skit about the dumbing down of America, a character would joke about wanting to go see Michael Bay's new film, "9/11: The Movie," in which a CGI American flag destroys every evil terrorist from sea to shining sea. And while that's perhaps a bit unfair, it's also kind of not, because this is the reputation Michael Bay has created for himself, all while working for the same Hollywood system that's entirely open to taking a real-world tragedy and turning it into profitable exploitation. We've had Twin Tower films, Osama Bin Laden assassination films, hijacked 9/11 plane films, and with 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, we have the Benghazi film – the worst terrorist attack the United States has suffered since September 11, 2001. And the mere idea of Michael Bay announcing such a film was the stuff of cynical eye-rolls and immediate dismissals.

In Hollywood, there’s an understanding that directors with prestige are, and generally should be, the ones to bring such real-life tragedies to life; i.e., Steven Spielberg with Schinder’s List or Paul Greengrass’s United 93. Though whether or not such true-life horrors becoming fodder for movie theaters is a tasteless move is constantly up for debate, but if they’re going to be made, it’s best they’re helmed by people with a history for quality output and adept at presenting real human drama.

Using his money-printing Transformers series as clout, Michael Bay – the director of five films (so far) about robots turning into other robots and fighting evil robots from outer space (all while destroying Chicago) – elbowed his way to the front of the line to helm 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. Though it does contain the same kind of violent, operatic destruction for which Michael Bay has been known since his directorial debut, it also contains something a bit unexpected and absolutely welcome: a bit of restraint from the director of Bad Boys 2, as well as a bit of maturity.

Make no mistake – though screenwriter Chuck Hogan (The Strain) was the one to adapt the nonfiction book by Mitchell Zuckoff and the Annex Soldiers, the script still manages to fall victim to the usual Michael Bay-isms. Though based on very real men, characterization falls by the wayside. Played by lesser known actors (which works to the film's benefit), each soldier is given a modicum of background and some personality quirks to differentiate who everyone is, but except for lead soldier (as presented by the film) Jack Silva, played by The Office's John Krasinski, the men's identities are tough to distinguish. 'Boon' (also The Office's David Denman) reads books. 'Tanto' (Pablo Schreiber) cracks jokes. 'Rone' (James Badge Dale) seems to really like war. These could very well be close to the real men, but their translation to the screen filters out much of their needed characterization. Bay, to his credit, does manage to include a handful of scenes in which the men either talk about or communicate via Skype with their wives and children (one of these instances, taking place at a fast-food drive-thru is actually one of the best and most human moments Bay has ever directed), but once shit hits the fan and everyone is covered in soot, it's legitimately confusing at times to see through the black faces and heavy beards and figure out just who is who at any moment.

And again, being that this is a Michael Bay film, scenes striving toward drama can border on the overwrought, overly patriotic, and emotionally manipulative. Silva hasn't been at the annex for five minutes before he's sitting alone on his bed and thinking about his family in flashback form. We can fault a somewhat clunky script (which sports no less than six sarcastic uses of the word "fun") containing some truly heinous dialogue, as well as an odd amount of jokes that never seem to gel with the very serious conflict in which the soldiers soon find themselves engaged. (I wasn't there so I can only speculate, but if the real soldiers made at least half these jokes during the actual firefights, then I am speechless.)

Still, the shortcomings of the script are counteracted by Bay's extravagant yet restrained – and at times, downright graceful – direction. His quick-cutting style is severely dialed down, replaced by gorgeous sweeping exterior shots of the conflict as it's unfolding. He also resurrects his “bomb POV” shot from 2001’s recklessly stupid Pearl Harbor, in which the camera tracks with a bomb released by its aircraft and follows it down, watching it whirl through the air until landing near its intended target. It’s less Bay cribbing from himself and more his acknowledgment that whether here or abroad, war has to begin and end somewhere – and that includes conflicts we understand, like World War II, or those still mired in questions and controversy, much like our unending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The cinematography by Dion Beebee eschews Bay's normal living painting style in favor of ground-zero witnessing, relying on scurrying handheld cameras to put the audience directly in the middle of the fight. It's been done before, of course, but not by Bay, and seeing him employ its use forces you to examine him as not just a director, but a filmmaker.

Did you see what I just said?? 

It's a shame that 13 Hours didn't do well financially at the box office, as not only was this a film that more people needed to see, but it just seems like one more nail in the coffin for directors leaving their comfort zone to make something "important" before heading back to their franchises and brand names that print money while killing brain cells. Better than your typical Michael Bay fare, but not in the same league as other relevant modern films The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty, or United 93, 13 Hours presents a refreshingly Michael Bay-lite take on a very true story. As to be expected, the action scenes are phenomenal (while thankfully managing to skirt political agenda), a somewhat clunky script and uneven tone are what holds back 13 Hours from the kind of prestige its colleagues have gone on to earn. Removing the mindset that this was a true and horrific thing which really took place and examining it only as a piece of entertainment, 13 Hours makes for a thrilling, visceral, and unrelenting experience and perhaps even one of the best action films of the 2010s.

Feb 5, 2021

ASSASSINATION (1987)


When it comes to an actress's legacy, I don't think there's ever been anyone as maligned as Jill Ireland. She might even be less popular than Talia Shire (who, if we're being honest, suffered because of the parts she played, not the performances she gave). The real-life spouse of Charles Bronson, Ireland and the celebrated action icon appeared together in sixteen films (seventeen if we count her cameo in Lola), the first being 1968's Villa Rides. Not necessarily one who married an actor and then became an actress, she'd already worked fairly steadily in film and television for more than a decade before meeting Bronson on the set of 1967's The Great Escape. However, out of politeness, it's not commonly discussed that it was through Bronson's stipulation for many of his films that if the studio/director/producer wanted him, they had to have her, too. This was likely a chagrin for said filmmakers, being that, well, Jill Ireland was kind of a lousy actress.

Sure, it's all subjective and it's all just one person's opinion. But, after marrying Bronson in 1968, she made seventeen more films. Fifteen of them were Bronson pics. Their last was 1987's Assassination, considered to be the worst offender of the Bronson/Ireland pairing.

Despite the involvement of both Bronson and Cannon Films, Assassination is a surprisingly light-hearted offering from a pair of collaborators more well known for violent, stark, "adult," and at times even ugly films. Calling it a screwball comedy would be going too far, but there's a definite It Happened One Night vibe, even maintaining the "aristocracy meets working class" aesthetic, but Assassination swaps the snappy dialogue and sexual tension for rocket launchers and a lunatic plot, which sees Bronson's secret service agent single-handedly taking on an unending squad of hitmen bent on taking out the First Lady, who may or may not have been sent by the President himself. (In 1987, this was considered a wacky plot. These days...)

Assassination is oddly dated in certain aspects--beyond the frizzy hair of every female lead, that is. The most glaring example of this is the character played by Jan Gan Boyd, an Asian actress saddled with the hilariously offensive character name Charlie Chang, who spends most of the film begging Bronson to sleep with her. Over and over. In every exchange the characters share on screen, it involves the request that Bronson take her home and give her the ol' heave-ho (which he does). For someone like Bronson, who was probably the only person on Planet Earth to suffer from both superiority and inferiority complexes simultaneously, this attractive woman half his age pleading for sex was likely a machination on behalf of the filmmakers to coax Bronson into signing on to the film. (No joke: Bronson suffered a real-life lack of confidence, to the point where he'd refuse to work with actors who were taller than him.) Take all that, add the press conference scene where a reporter flat-out asks the First Lady if the President was responsible for giving her that black eye, which she'd actually suffered during a botched assassination attempt, and you've got a weirdly inappropriate action film which, if remade today, would have to be gutted and rebuilt from the ground up to avoid storms of political incorrectness.

There's nothing the least bit realistic about Assassination's conflict, and even though Bronson and Ireland were real-life husband and wife, their chemistry isn't anything to write home about, but when the film involves scenes of Bronson firing rocket launchers at fleeing motorcyclists or into entire barns to take out one dude, it's really hard to care about Assassination's shortcomings. It's a fun, light, Bronson-having Cannon film that will undoubtedly entertain the legions of fans the craggy-faced superstar left behind following his death in 2003.

Assassination is not exactly bottom-barrel Bronson, but it's nowhere near his most celebrated, either artistically (Walter Hill's Hard Times) or ironically (Michael Winner's masterpiece Death Wish 3). Still, it's a very watchable and consistently entertaining nonsensical romp with some decent stunt work and a healthy amount of casualties, but most importantly, it's Bronson doing what Bronson does best: kill men, make wry comments, and be effortlessly bad-ass while wearing a suit.

Feb 1, 2021

SKIN TRADE (2015)

Film fans are very discerning, and very segmented, which is something that can be as advantageous as it can be detrimental. But the most important thing these film fans need to realize, or maintain, is that there’s a difference between a film being good in general, and a film being good for what it is. It’s when one comes to define what “it” means that things can get complicated.

Skin Trade is one of the better limited-release/direct-to-video actioners starring Dolph Lundgren who in the course of ninety minutes kills a LOT of men. Much like his character of Andrew Scott in the original Universal Soldier, Mr. Lundgren, too, must be part machine, as Skin Trade marks his seventh feature film in the last two years. (He also somehow managed to fit in an entire season of a television show.) While Lundgren has built himself a steady and loyal fan-base over the years (your reviewer counts himself as one), and except for nostalgia, it’s sometimes tempting to ask why: simply put, the busy action icon’s output lacks, how shall we put this…consistency. At least, not in the positive sense. Though it may be painful to say, a large portion of Dolph’s post-Rocky IV career is inundated with forgettable titles destined for video store shelves (and in the post-millennium, the Redbox). While it might be relieving for the curious to report that Skin Trade is Dolph’s best action vehicle, as a lead, in quite a while, let’s also keep in mind what we’re utilizing as a basis for comparison. Let’s also discuss how accidentally hilarious so much of it plays out.

Dolph plays New Jersey detective named Nick Cassidy, who one night on the docks of Newark kills the son of Serbian crime boss Viktor Dragovic (Ron Perlman) and inadvertently invites the wrath of the Dragovic family down upon him, leading to the explosive deaths of his wife and daughter. Now on the run in Thailand, he is pursued by Thai detective Tony Vitayakui (Tony Jaa, in his shaky English-language debut), who believes Nick is responsible for the death of his partner. Though initially at odds (meaning, violence is committed upon each other), they begin to work together in an effort to bring down Dragovic for good and put an end to his human trafficking operation. All during this, Nick is relentlessly pursued by FBI Agent Eddie Reed (Michael Jai White), who wants to take Nick down – at any cost.

When your film stars Dolph Lundgren, Tony Jaa, Michael Jai White, and Robocop himself, Peter Weller, let’s just say it’s clear the filmmakers are attempting to appeal to a certain faction of their potential audience – an audience that wants to see brutal violence, impressive stunts, and face-smashing fight choreography, all committed by men they have come to idolize. It’s an audience who wants to see Lundgren land cannon-like blows upon his enemies, Jaa take out a room full of men with nothing more than his belt, and Jai White make every living breathing man on Planet Earth feel like an utter waste of gooey skin. In that regard, Skin Trade is massively entertaining. Whether violent shootouts or man-on-man fisticuffs, every icon on the marquee shares a scene with the other, and does what they do best. Lundgren is brute force, Jaa defies every natural biological and physical law, and Jai White…well, god damn, you shit your pants just looking at him. Every confrontation is more thrilling and well-executed than the previous, and it’s during these moments that you won’t be questioning why you’re watching the film in the first place. But while those things aren’t occurring…

Skin Trade first falters with its script, which comes dangerously close to bordering on parody. The dialogue spewed by our characters at no point comes close to realistic and often results in unexpected laughs. Dragovic’s son grasping an MP5 and rushing into a shoot-out while bellowing “I AM MY FATHER’S SON!” only to be immediately cut down is the stuff of Zucker, Zucker, and Abrahams. Lundgren stepping into the interrogation room and staring Dragovic hard in the eye, only to throw down a file folder and demand, “How do you sleep at night?” ain’t helping. But perhaps the best belongs to the scene in which Dolph lies near comatose in a hospital bed following the explosive attack that stole the lives of his wife and daughter. Lundgren, his face half-bandaged, looks up at Costello (Weller), his superior, and asks if his wife and daughter survived the attack. Costello looks down, stoically, emotionally, and shakes his head, confirming Dolph’s worst nightmare…leaving Jai White’s Reed to step up and unnecessarily say, “Your wife and daughter are dead.”

Wha... HE KNOWS. COSTELLO JUST DID THE SAD HEAD SHAKE THING.

The interaction between many of the character seems half-baked, as if written by an automaton trying to mimic human behavior. Cassidy comes home to his teenage daughter and awkwardly ruffles her hair, as if she were instead his ten-year-old so, before she stands up and recites Shakespeare by heart. Dolph, a father in real life to two beautiful teenage daughters, for some reason seems entirely out of his element interacting with who is supposed to be his child, and appears to want the scene over as soon as possible. Once this discomfort ceases, Cassidy’s attractive wife reminds him that it’s actually their anniversary, which he has completely forgotten; watch as she grins big and peels off her robe to reveal a fiery red negligee to pleasure him with, anyway. Anniversary-schmanniversary – let’s bang!

Weller and Perlman appear in very limited capacities, with the latter showing up only during the first act and the last ten minutes, and the former in two scenes in which he's saddled with an awful lot of unconvincing exposition. Weller, even though he's playing a traditional character, seems rather uncomfortable with what he's doing - and this is a guy who once masturbated a giant bug-typewriter on screen. Based on Perlman's performance, it's evident he assumed the film would hardly be seen and didn't expect a label as prominent and respected as Magnet/Magnolia to secure distribution, because except for trying on a lazy Russian accent, he can barely be bothered to appear present. He's capable of far better, which he's already proven with his six-season run on Sons of Anarchy (on which he worked under the eye of director Weller for several episodes).

The direction by Ekachai Uekrongtham, too, shows the kind of dangerous confidence expressed by the overly confident. Editing choices meant to be shocking and unorthodox simply come across as confusing, even disorienting at times. Scenes will begin with the unmistakable feeling that the audience didn't arrive for them in time, and are interrupting something that’s long been in progress. Other scenes will include spliced single shots of characters looking forlornly down at the ground or off into the distance for no real reason, other than to invoke reactions of, “Boy, is HE sad!” Much like national public radio, at times it feels like Skin Trade contains a lot of dead air, leaving it feeling awkward and unfinished.

Perhaps the most telling that Skin Trade was going more for of an Expendables-like casting extravaganza is confirmed by its half-baked ending, which less seems to be promising a sequel and more seems to be suggesting that because the bad guys are dead, and the good guys have no one left to blow away with shotguns or violently pummel about the body, there’s really no reason for the film to keep happening. The last lingering conflict that needs to be resolved is addressed in a casual voice over tantamount to, "Yeah, I'll get to it."

Ultimately, everything above is for naught. It's window dressing. Details. To potential audience members of Skin Trade, look at the poster. Look at those names. Lundgren. Jaa. Jai White. Does that appeal to you? Do you want to see these guys share the screen and commit bloody pain against each other? Do you want to witness these demigods lay to waste dozens of bad guys? Then at the very least, you’ll have a great time.

If you’re intrigued by Skin Trade for any other reason, then I don’t know how you sleep at night.

Oct 4, 2020

LETTING OFF STEAM: AN INTERVIEW WITH THE HENCHMEN OF 'COMMANDO'


[The below interview originally ran on Cut Print Film in October 2013 to celebrate Commando's thirtieth anniversary. It is reprinted here with only minor updates.]

Commando, written by Steven E. de Souza and directed by Mark L. Lester, turns exactly thirty-five years old today, and yet enthusiasm for the film has never diminished. Perhaps that’s because fans who worship Commando are smart enough to know that John Matrix is not the only bad-ass worth celebrating. It is the film’s array of henchmen and the ensemble of character actors who gave them life that elevate Commando to new heights of pure enjoyment.

Joining me for a very bad-ass discussion are three of the greatest henchmen to have ever worked incongruously to exact the scheme of the evil main bad guy: the big Green Beret Cooke (Bill Duke; Predator, Action Jackson), the very mellow Diaz (Gary Carlos Cervantes; Scarface, Wild Wild West), and funny guy Sully (David Patrick Kelly; The Warriors, John Wick). These three men graciously took the time to reflect on their Commando experiences, including their (death) scenes, their memories of the departed Charles Meshack, who played fellow henchman Henriques, and what the film has come to mean to each of them.

So get ready, Commando fans: all hell is about to break loose.

Let’s party.



Q: Let’s start at the beginning. How did you end up working on Commando?

BILL DUKE: I auditioned. Joel Silver saw my work. He knew me from my film Car Wash and he liked what I did, so they took it from there. And after that, we worked on Predator together. He liked what I’d done on Commando, so that’s how that got started.

DAVID PATRICK KELLY: The producers were my guys, Joel Silver and Lawrence Gordon, who had done The Warriors and 48 Hours with me. So Joel called me up and asked me to do it, and that’s the way it happened. It was a great deal of fun.

GARY CARLOS CERVANTES: It was a question of perseverance, and making the right connections and having the right friends. A friend of mine, Luis Contreras (Last Man Standing), is an actor. We did about ten things together. He’d been up for the part of Diaz and he called me up one night, drunk as a skunk, crying. “I think I blew it. The producer, Joel Silver, doesn’t like me. But you should go after the part.” So I sat there thinking about it, and I got a picture from my scene in Scarface – of me and the other guy in the Babylon Club and we’re shooting up the place. I sent it to [Jackie Birch] the casting director [for Commando] and I wrote, “Dear Jackie, You’re my favorite hit – Carlos.” The next day my agent called me and said, “They want to see you for Commando.”

I walk into the office and Jackie Birch says to me, “I got your picture, it’s clever. We’re still looking for Diaz.” So she read me for Diaz right then and there in the office, and then [after a couple hours] I met Mark Lester, the director and read for him. He said, “Thanks very much,” and I walked out. I didn’t hear anything for two weeks, and then my agent called me – something about them wanting to know if I can put some kind of toupee on or something to match the stunt guy. And I’m thinking, “What the hell is that? You don’t get an actor to match a stunt guy, you get a stunt guy to match an actor.” But my agent said they wanted to see me again, so I go in, and Jackie’s there, and she says, “Carlos, I want you to meet the stunt coordinator.” And he asks, “Have you shot machine guns and guns?” I go, “Yeah, I was in Scarface,” and this and that. And he nods to Jackie. And just then the director walks in and says, “Carlos, what are you doing here?” And I said, “Well, you guys called me and said you wanted to see me again.” And he said, “No, no. I saw fifty guys. When you walked in, you had the part. You got the job.”

So right then and there I had the job.


Q: What was it like working with Arnold?

DUKE: He’s a great dude, man. No ego. Totally professional. Prepared. Just committed. It was one of the best experiences I’ve had, on both Commando and Predator. He’s a good person.

KELLY: Arnold was really great. He was a wonderful guy who gave me a lot of advice about stuff. He was very humble about his acting. He would go to the dailies and then he’d talk about the different scenes [with me]. I remember he used to talk of meeting Maria Shriver, and he used to talk about his mother, who I met, actually. I met Arnold’s mother, and I also met his best friend from childhood, who was still around and part of his posse.

CERVANTES: I remember meeting Arnold up at the cabin. We filmed up at Mount Baldy in the mountains. I saw him standing across the way with his buddy, Sven[-Ole Thorsen], that big, giant stunt actor. Huge guy. Much bigger than Arnold. And I thought, “Arnold doesn’t look that big.” The assistant director wanted to introduce us, so we’re walking across the set, getting closer to Arnold, and yeah man, he is big. He’s huge! He’s standing next to Sven, who was like a foot taller, and maybe 270. So yeah, I got to meet Arnold and he was great. Making Commando was a real special time. And he took off, man. Who would’ve thought he would become such a huge star and accomplish everything that he did?

Q: How did it feel to die at his hands?

DUKE: The only reason he kicked my butt is because I got paid [laughs].

Q: [laughs] Good answer.

CERVANTES: Oh, it was great, man. I was so into that. I was so high just watching it. I remember when they printed it, the producer and director looked at Arnold, and he said, “Terrific!” You could tell that was it – that we’d nailed it.

When we shot it, they had me in the rocking chair and they hooked a wire to it, and the wall behind me wasn’t a real wall. We shot that part in a studio, so it was made of balsa wood, just in case I hit it. They shot a pellet at my head, and three or four grips just yanked that rocking chair I was in. They’d cut the back legs off. When they pulled me back, boom – I hit the wall. I got up and they started talking about another take, and I said, “Guys, you got one take. That was it [laughs].” 

I didn’t want to do stunts, man. I wanted to act. But we did it in one take, and it ended up in the trailer, so that was it. And it was just awesome, man.

Q: When you really think about it, the death of Diaz is actually one of the most important deaths in the film. Even though he doesn’t have a lot of screen time, his death signifies that John Matrix isn’t messing around. Diaz is so cocksure in front of Matrix and taunting him about his daughter; he feels safe from reprisal, only for him to get his head blown off. That really goes a long way in summing up Matrix’s motivation as a character. He’s not going to negotiate, and he’s not going to mellow out. Diaz basically tells him, “We don’t need guns” and Matrix replies, “Yeah, we do.”

CERVANTES: Yeah, it was great because it was so unexpected. It was a total change from the standard, like [instead of Matrix asking], “Okay, what do I have to do?”

You know, I was in the gym once doing bench presses, and a guy walks up to me and goes, “You died too early in Commando.” That was it. And he walked away.

Q: [laughs]

CERVANTES: I was like, “Wait, come back, man!” I couldn’t believe it. “Yeah! I did die too early!” Son of a gun…


KELLY: [Sully’s death] was a great scene, and it was well prepared. I was on a big cable. I had a harness that went up my leg. It took a long time. I give a lot of thanks to Bennie Dobbins, who was a great stunt man at the time – he passed away [in 1988] – but he harnessed me up there. It was just him, and another guy down below on the cliff who caught me after we did it two times. It took about six hours to film that whole thing.

Q: David, I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but Sully has become such a popular character. At times he even surpasses John Matrix in popularity—

KELLY: [laughs]

Q: —and so the death of Sully is a highlight for all kinds of reasons. Were you aware that Sully had such a rabid cult following?

KELLY: No! I’m just kind of hearing about it now. I knew that people responded to the movie and remembered it. They say that line to me quite often – not as much as “Warriors, come out to play!” but they say, “I promised to kill you last.” I’ve never done autograph shows or those kinds of particular venues. I prefer venues like this to talk about these things, because I understand that people are interested in them on a deeper level. I respect those autograph shows and the fans that come, but it’s not my thing.

I based Sully on two former mercenary guys who were charged with protecting Robert Vesco, who died a few years ago in exile, in Cuba. He was a fundraiser for Nixon, but he had done these financial shenanigans. He made millions before Bernie Madeoff did. This guy was doing it way back in the ‘70s, and maybe earlier than that. He was doing these shell-game financial things and he ended up being pursued by the government, and he ended up in exile – first in Costa Rica, and then in Cuba – and he had this mercenary squad who protected him. I had seen an interview on 60 Minutes with these guys, and I thought that was a fascinating backstory for Sully – to be hired by the dictator guy. That’s where that came from; that’s who he’s based on. There’s an important book written by Christopher Dickey about Nicaragua and the contras [With the Contras: A Reporter in the Wilds of Nicaragua], and the CIA’s work to fight against them. In the 1980s, there was the Freedom of Information Act, and so you got to see manuals that the CIA put out to help overthrow the rebels in South America. These were really interesting to read as background for possible scenarios in Commando. So, as cartoony as it was, it was based on real stuff that was going on in the Reagan America at the time.

Q: Within the context of the film, Sully’s background makes a lot of sense. When you look at the group of guys they got together to play the villains, most of them were pretty much the brawns, but Sully was the money guy. He didn’t need the brawns, because he was more of the intelligence gatherer.

KELLY: Yeah, and there’s the scene where he makes the deal for the illegal passports before the big chase scene with Arnold – before Sully meets his demise – so you’re right. Though you never find out what Sully was going to do with those passports, it was for some kind of terrorist something or other! [laughs]


Q: Do you all have a favorite line from the film, whether it was one of yours or that of someone else?

CERVANTES: [Impersonating Arnold] “Sully, remember when I promised to kill you last?” “That’s right, you did!” “I LIED.”

DUKE: “I eat green berets for breakfast!”

Q: I was hoping you’d pick that one.

KELLY: Steven E. de Souza and the director, Mark Lester, let me improvise a lot of my dialogue that Sully says, especially with Rae Dawn Chong, and at the deal-making session where Sully is buying the illegal IDs.

Q: David, I have to ask you: during that scene in the mall when you’re buying the illegal passports, you sort of offhandedly mention to the guy you’re meeting, “This used to be a great place for hunting slash.” Was that improvved?

KELLY: Yeah, that was me. I put that in. I always have music on in the background for my characters, and the song that was sort of everywhere at that time was Sade’s “Smooth Operator.” That’s who this guy thought he was. He just travels around, does his business, and gets what he can on every level. So that was his worldview, which is pretty demented and perverse.

Q: You can tell just by the way Sully saunters around on screen that he’s sexually aggressive, and he thinks very highly of himself.

KELLY: That’s right. So we put that one in, and then the dialogue with Arnold when Sully meets his demise at the hilltop. That was at Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, which is famous because that’s where Rebel Without a Cause was filmed, with James Dean and Dennis Hopper. It was the same place where they had the big knife fight – where Arnold was holding me by the foot. That was near another cinematic shrine.


Q: Looking back on Commando, whether at the finished film or of your time on set, what do you first think of?

DUKE: That Commando was one of my first real bad guys. It was an opportunity to work with Joel Silver, who went on to do incredible things, and so did the director. Everyone went on to do great things, you know? It was an experience that I felt very fortunate to be a part of.

CERVANTES: Oh man, it’s Arnold. I remember I was smoking a cigar on the set – just a regular cigar. And he goes [imitating Arnold], “Oh, you smoke?” And he tells some guy on set to bring him a cigar, and he brings back this giant cigar. The thing looked like a stick of dynamite. And he had a cutter that looked like pliers. So that was cool, sitting with Arnold and having a cigar with him.

KELLY: I think of that Porsche – which wasn’t really a Porsche, since they had to wreck it. It was a Volkswagen, I believe, with the shell of a Porsche over top of it.

CERVANTES: I also remember I was supposed to do the Cadillac scene in the car dealer. That’s what I read for. And Joel Silver changed it on the day of the shoot, and I was like, “Aw man, what are you talking about? That was like…my scene.” And he goes, “Well, you know: a black guy…Cadillac.” Aw, jeeze.

Q: [laughs] Oh no. That’s so, so bad, but you almost have to laugh because that’s perfectly typical Hollywood rationale.

CERVANTES: Yeah, and he tells me this on-set! It was a six a.m. call at the Cadillac set to film it. So I had to sit there and watch them film the scene, because I was needed for something later that night – the trash truck stuff. And my stunt guy, who was going to be driving through the window, ended up doubling the guy who was on top of the car. Yeah, Joel… “What the? Are you kidding?” But I couldn’t rock the boat.

Q: From now on, every time I watch that scene, I’m going to picture Diaz sitting in that Cadillac instead.

CERVANTES: Yeah, Diaz, with that puffy jacket!

So that was a total bummer, because that was such a great scene. But I still got to do what I got to do. It turned out to be a great experience.

As it turned out, I got lucky, because Joel Silver put me in the trailer. “You’re gonna cooperate, right?” “Wrong.” Boom. And that little commercial got me so much work. Suddenly I was a hitman in so many movies, getting killed, killing people, getting beat up. It was fun! And I made good money.

Thirty years later, I’ve done a hundred movies, and it all goes back to Commando. I think, “Wow, if I hadn’t put that stamp on that envelope and mailed it…”


KELLY: Because you were talking about the fans and the people who appreciate it, I’m going to share something very personal now. For a period of time, from the time Commando first came out until about ten to fifteen years afterward, I had a little fan named Jamie, from Philadelphia, who had spina bifida, a very serious spinal nervous disorder – you’re always in and out of the hospital – and he was just an exceptional fan. And like you were saying, and I’m very humbly grateful to you for saying it, he saw me as the lead in the movie, and he talked about how Rae Dawn was Sully’s girlfriend. He was just a little boy. His father just cherished him – took him to things, and showed him Commando because Arnold was just an amazing heroic figure. But Jamie really became enchanted by Sully. I have to think there was something in Arnold holding me up in that way, which is so mythic, and so in his own disorder, his own disease, he identified with that somehow. So he came to visit me – his father brought him all the way to New York City – we had lunch at the Plaza Hotel. He wore a little suit, which looked like Sully’s suit, and his father bought him a toy yellow Porsche. To see that there is something in your work beyond the horrific characters that can touch someone – that means something to them, that there’s something they can take away from it – that’s what I think of when I think about Commando. I think about Jamie. Unfortunately, I think it was about ten years ago that he passed away. I went to his funeral and I sang an old Bob Dylan song, “He Was a Friend of Mine.” It was very moving.

Q: That’s amazing.

KELLY: People, over the years, have identified with that and recognized that, and saw beyond the horrific characters – and they are terrible, terrible characters – that we were trying to reflect something of the world that exists and tell the story of how someone can be heroic in the midst of that. If you can help do that, and if people identify with that, it really is just the whole reason for doing this.

Q: The shooting of the film made it look like everyone was having a great time. Everyone on screen had great chemistry.

DUKE: Commando was fun. It was – it was a good time. We had a good director and good people. It’s hard enough to do anyway, but it’s ten times harder when there’s drama. But there was no drama.

CERVANTES: Times like that, and even now when I’m on a big movie, it’s like going to Disney World. It’s so nice to be part of something that you know is going to last through the decades.

KELLY: I really enjoyed the crew: the late Bennie Dobbins, the great stunt man, who worked with me on 48 Hours; the great Matt Leonetti, who did the cinematography on 48 Hours; [composer] James Horner, who eventually won the Academy Award for Titanic – he did both 48 Hours and Commando; Mark Lester, who was very gracious.

I just think about those times, you know? Arnold was the id monster for the Reagan era. He was the dream of “We’re gonna solve the problems around the world, and if we have to do it ourselves, we’ll do it.”


Q: Charles Meshack, who played Henriques, died in 2006. What are your memories of him?

CERVANTES: I never met him on the set, but I did meet him later on at something. Maybe it was at the studio or at the screening, I don’t remember. But no, I never got the chance to work with him on set, unfortunately.

DUKE: Talented, funny, and committed. Very clear and committed to his craft. He’d joke around, but when the camera came on, he was a totally different person. We’re losing a lot of good folks, you know?

KELLY: He was a very quiet fellow. We were filming in 1985 at the LAX airport – that’s where we filmed our scene together – and it turned out that Charles Meshack was a decorated Vietnam War veteran. And it was in 1985 when they finally had a parade in lower Manhattan to welcome home, all these years later, all the Vietnam veterans. And he was very moved by that, so he started talking to me about it. We were filming the scene where Arnold gets on the plane when we saw on the TV that this parade was going on, and he said, “I was there, and there were some really terrible, terrible things that went on.” And he told me about some of those things. It was really a watershed for those veterans. I always felt really amazed by him – how he’d survived and gone into acting, so…it’s all props to Charles Meshack.

Q: I was reading up on Charles beforehand and there is very little information out there about him, so I wonder how many people knew about his history beyond those who were close acquaintances of his.

KELLY: I wanted to personalize our relationship in the dialogue [we shared]. I give it to Steven de Souza – he gives you the opportunity by writing this script and putting all these situations together so you can improvise a little bit within them. Shakespeare has these little subplots that sort of echo the main plot, so I improvised a little bit about my “old war buddy, Henriques.” I don’t quite remember the exact line, but it was something like, “there’s nothing like old war buddies,” about the two of us when we’re walking into the airport. I wanted to build up our relationship a bit and I remember Charles being really happy about that – about the fact that we weren’t just bodies walking through there. So we talk about “old war buddies,” but then you see that [kind of relationship] blown up to when it becomes Bennett and Matrix. But Sully and Henriques were at least on the same side.

Q: What was your impression of the film while you were working on it? Did you think it would be just another action film, or did you have a suspicion that it would go on to amass such a huge appreciation and still have people talking about it thirty years later?

DUKE: I guess the business people knew, but I don’t think any of us knew it would go on to become what it became. As actors, we’re there to do a job, but we’re not the editor or the director or the producer. We’re just there doing our job – it’s another gig. But the studio did a good job of marketing it. They did a good job with the music. All aspects of it, really. The feedback we got was incredible – from friends and everyone else. It was one of those experiences that an actor lives for, because, not only for that film, but it helps you get work in other things.

But nobody really knew. Everybody hoped, but nobody really knew.

Q: I think when you’re working on a film, you can tell that it’s special, but no one can ever really know if something is going to capture the kind of lightning in a bottle that most artists hope for.

DUKE: That’s right. That’s the truth. You can speculate, right? You can do your best, but… If it hits at the right time with the right audience, that’s a whole other situation.


CERVANTES: Well, Arnold had just taken off. The Terminator, I believe, had just come out and was going through the roof. I’d seen Arnold’s other films – the Conans and all that. I hadn’t seen The Terminator yet, but I’d heard the buzz. The buzz was huge. I remember Joel Silver running to the set with a Variety and saying, “Look at these numbers! Arnold’s going to be a huge star! We gotta finish this movie!” And I remember them at night doing dailies – I could hear it through the wall, it was on the other side of my dressing room. And I could hear Joel Silver talking about it. “We gotta wrap this up. Cut this scene and cut that scene.”

So I thought, “I think I’m on to something here.” Just from the way everyone treated me, and the atmosphere on the set, I thought, “This is going to be big, man.”

We finished shooting in June of ’85 and it was theatrically released in October of the same year – and they never do that. They were just pumping it out to jump on Arnold’s notoriety. And Commando only made $35 million in the United States, but it made $70 million overseas [$151 million adjusted for inflation]. It established Schwarzenegger as a major international star.

They had the screening at Fox Studios. It was funny, my brother-in-law, wife, and sister-in-law were there. Afterwards, [my brother-in-law and I] go into the bathroom and we’re at the urinals. There’s maybe ten of them in there. Some guy steps up in between us…and it’s Clint Eastwood [laughs]. Clint Eastwood, man! He must’ve been [at the screening] checking out the competition.

Q: Oh, wow.

CERVANTES: Yeah! But I didn’t ask to shake his hand. [laughs]

Man, I remember when the DVD first came out – just the DVD. I was at Walmart and they had this big cardboard cutout of Arnold from Commando, with all his movies on DVD. I was standing there looking at it and this little kid walks in with his mom and says, “Oh man, Commando! I want it!” So his mother gets it and puts it in her cart. And someone else comes over. “Oh, Commando! I gotta have that!” I thought, “Wow!” Two people bought it during those two minutes I was standing there. It was amazing.

That movie, thirty years later, people still play it over and over again.


KELLY: I think there are a lot of reasons why people relate to it still. There are some really great performances. Rae Dawn Chong was such a charming leading lady. It was the first movie that, I believe, tried to humanize Arnold, like in John Wick, that offered just a basic story that everyone could relate to. And who can’t relate to someone wanting to rescue their child? So it’s this really elemental thing that continues to make people watch it and be interested in it. I know the style was cartoony – well, Arnold is kind of cartoony anyway, just because of what he’s achieved – but there are other reasons, too. [Writer] Steven E. de Souza was very much into political conscience and scenarios of things that could possibly happen, you know, so it pre-stages a lot of stuff that’s still important to the world, whether it’s about mercenaries – and mercenaries are just everywhere these days. And Sully and his gang are these ex-guys and Matrix was a former Special Forces guy. And all these independent armies are doing things for these mercenary reasons around the world now. So I think that’s one of the reasons people still think about it.


Q: Rumors have persisted for a while that 20th Century Fox has been pursuing a remake of Commando [which most recently had Sabotage director David Ayer attached]. How do you react to that?

DUKE: Well, I’m old school and old fashioned, and to me, there are certain things…

I understand the business component of it. There are all kinds of things being remade now, you know? But like I said, I’m old school and old fashioned, and why remake it? You know, why remake It’s a Wonderful Life? Why remake The Godfather? I guess that’s just old-fashioned stuff, but I believe in classics.

Q: It’s easy to remake a film, but you can seldom recapture the kind of magic that makes that film special.

DUKE: Yeah! I feel that. I think there’s something that happens at a point – the right combination of people, the right actors and producers and the director – you shouldn’t touch it.

My daughter, and her generation, thinks I’m crazy. [laughs]

They think, “Why not? Why not redo it?”

CERVANTES: [A remake would be] kind of weird, because Arnold was so much a part of that movie. If you remake it, it’s not Commando. Walter Hill, the director, told me once that he was going to remake The Magnificent Seven, and I was going to have a nice part in it. But later on he said, “I’m not doing it. I can’t do a better job [than the original], so I’m letting it go.”

I mean, who would you get [for Commando]? A karate guy? The Rock? It would be more of the same.

DUKE: It’s almost like [the belief is] anything can be replicated and that’s not my particular belief. There are certain things… Take Miles Davis, or take Tony Bennett, who is one of my favorite singers of all time. He’s in his ‘80s or something and he’s still got chops. When Tony Bennett goes, there’s not going to be another. There’ll be other singers, but how do you replicate Tony Bennett or Whitney Huston or Frank Sinatra or Pavarotti? They have a certain magic, and how do you explain that magic? How do you replicate it?

There are certain things…leave ‘em alone.

KELLY: I think it has been remade, in many, many forms, for thirty years. I think the Bourne movies and the Transporter movies owe a bit to it. Some of Tarantino’s. I think a prequel would be interesting. Where did all those guys come from before the story of Commando?

CERVANTES: There had been rumors, a long time ago, there was going to be a sequel, but it never happened. I don’t know why, because Commando made money.

Q: What do you all have coming up next?

DUKE: I’m directing a number of things now. We just finished a TV pilot called Blexicans, which you guys will hopefully see on TV in the next year or so. I was in Chicago for a while working on that. I’m working on developing my own content and those kinds of things.

CERVANTES: Well, I did [season two, episode two, of] True Detective, where I get my ass kicked, and I just did an episode of Murder in the First. It’s the last episode of season two. It should air either late August or early September. It’s on TNT; I think they did twelve of them. There’s a chance I could come back. I play a fat cat political guy in a suit. I’m doing a lot of suit guys now. I wore a suit in True Detective, even though I was getting my ass kicked.

Q: David, Lionsgate is going ahead with John Wick 2. Will we see the return of Charlie the clean-up man?

KELLY: I hope so! There’s a lot of work to do for John Wick. He takes care of business, and he’s got to have his reliable team there. It was a great deal of fun with those guys. No one has called me yet, but Charlie survived, and I still have the gold coins in the other room, so I hope so.

Q: Last question: If I were to tell you that I’ve watched Commando more than a hundred times, what would you say to me?

CERVANTES: [laughs] Well, I would say that I understand how you can, because I have movies that are personal favorites and I could watch them a hundred times. And I probably have. Like Scarface. Christmas Vacation. I’ve seen Commando at least a hundred times – maybe not in its entirety, but my kids, they loved it, because when I did it, they were young. And they watched it, and got older and watched it again. It’s always on TV, man, and I’ll stop and watch some of it. So I understand.

KELLY: Watching it a hundred times is amazing. It makes me happy that people can find interesting details and appreciate the work that goes into movies. All of those involved go their separate ways developing their skills and when it all comes together to make something people want to see again and again, well, that’s wonderful. It’s like a painter whose work can be appreciated and grow in value as time goes on.

DUKE: [laughs] I think you have good taste! And thank you. Thank you.


Sep 6, 2020

FORCE OF NATURE (2020)



By now, whether we want to know or not, it’s become depressingly clear the industry that produces the movies we love, which enables us to lose ourselves in worlds of fantasy and engage with other like-minded movie fans, is filled with closets, and those closets are filled with skeletons, and those skeletons are hideous. Some of the most revered people in Hollywood have had their falls from grace become very public, becoming a hashtag on Twitter or a criminal charge that eventually leads to litigation. Sometimes these people escape mostly unscathed, and after a few years of chemical and reputational rehab, they can return to us and re-obtain both greatness and the respect from audiences and colleagues they lost. For others, their past misdeeds seem damn near unshakable, and no matter how many apology tours they make and teachable moments they profess to learn and movies they make to widen the time between their unfortunate past and their hopeful present, those misdeeds won’t vanquish. I speak, of course, of Mel Gibson.

For the record, I hate having to include this journey back down Shitty Memory Lane, and normally I abhor any other article or review that feels the need to shoehorn Gibson’s past misdeeds into said article or review and make it a talking point. Separate the artist from the art, as people often say, and ideally, that’s the way it should be. After all, Polanski still gets to make films that win Academy Awards, and Robert Downey Jr. still gets to play Iron Man 37 times and make 37 billion dollars at the box office. (For the record, I’m not equating them for their past misdeeds, as they're not even in the same league. I’m more pointing out that our favorite artists have engaged in varying degrees of terrible behavior and should be judged accordingly.) Which brings me back to Mel Gibson, and his newest endeavor as an actor, Force of Nature, which also brings me to my point: had Gibson not so dramatically, offensively, and disturbingly fallen from grace a decade ago, there’s no way in bloody hell he’d be appearing in something so ham-fistedly stupid and incompetently made as Force of Nature. Somehow directed by Michael Polish, who developed somewhat of a small, underground following after his two quiet and quirky indy dramas, Twin Falls Idaho and Northfork, Force of Nature feels like a script that would’ve been politely rejected by Gibson somewhere in the late ‘90s following his string of his warmly received thrillers Ransom and Conspiracy Theory. The reason I say that is they already made this movie in the late ’90s. Hard Rain, with Christian Slater, Morgan Freeman (his first of what would be many forays into mediocre genre entertainment), and the crazy Quaid brother, became legendary during its production and following its release because every single person creatively involved never missed a chance to describe how miserable a time they had making it. As far as’90s action flicks that don’t star Van Damme go, it was...a movie. The genre was kinda on its way out by then and would soon be revamped by The Matrix and Universal’s long-running Cars Go Fast series, and when genres die for a little, they go out neither with a whimper nor a bang, but a long and sustained whine that you wish would just shut the fuck up. That’s where stuff like Force of Nature belongs.


Emile Hirsch plays a cop named Cardillo too young to be burned out and cynical, but we know he’s burned out and cynical because he discourages his new partner, Jess (Stephanie Cayo), from responding to calls on the police band and also says “fuck” a lot. Following a meat-related disturbance call at a local grocery store (I’m not lying), Cardillo crosses paths with Gibson’s retired cop, Ray, who seems to be dying of cough and not that likeable. The Boston accent he’s trying on and the stories he tells about being a cop that don’t exactly paint his past in the best light immediately establishes that he’s going to be stubborn, violent, and tough as nails. You also know that he’s an asshole, because at one point he mutters to himself, “I’m such an asshole.” In the face of a growing hurricane, Cardillo and Jess force-evacuate Ray from his apartment and naturally run afoul of some pretty bad men, led by John “the Baptist” (David Zayas, playing a villain almost as boring as the one he played in The Expendables), attempting to pull off a heist of some rare black-market artwork. Naturally, Cardillo, Jess, and Ray are the only ones who can intervene, save the day, uphold the rule of law, and yadda yadda yadda – rest assured, had Gibson said no to this movie like he should’ve, Force of Nature would’ve been a Nicolas Cage vehicle through and through, because that’s exactly the kind of thing you’re getting.

The script is dreadful, finding ways to split up all the different occupants of the Puerto Rican apartment building where the majority of the film unfolds, which means that – yep, Gibson’s face prominently displayed on the cover isn’t as prominent as his role in the movie – leaving the film’s other bland characters to have heart-to-heart conversations about sad things which is supposed to make them feel like real people. The machinations of these well-worn tragedies feel so trite that you halfway expect Gibson to break down in a sad monologue about that one time on the force when he accidentally shot a kid and he’s been looking for redemption ever since. That doesn’t happen. Instead, Hirsch’s Cardillo takes the reins of the tragic backstory, which comes damn close to killing a kid, while Gibson’s Ray mutters about being poisoned by his own shit (literally), hence all the coughing. Meanwhile, in another apartment, a man named Griffin (William Catlett) is recovering from the wounds inflicted by his real lion named Janet he keeps locked in his closet and being cared for by Bergkamp (Jorge Luis Ramos), who may or may not be an escaped Nazi, and if you’re reading all that and thinking, “how on earth could Force of Nature be boring?,” well, my friend, that’s because you haven’t seen Force of Nature. (And if you think Janet the lion doesn’t figure into the bad guy’s comeuppance at the end, you’ve never seen a movie in your life.)


One would be tempted to think, and I wouldn’t blame them because I was hoping for this too, that Force of Nature might be good, at the very least, for watching Mel Gibson be old and irascible and shoot lots of bad guys in violent ways. While that does happen, it doesn’t happen nearly enough to make the overall experience any more than tolerable. Not as engaging or suspenseful as Dragged Across Concrete, nor at least as consistently if vapidly entertaining As Blood Father, Force of Nature, let’s hope, is the worst movie Gibson makes between now and the end of his career. Whether or not he deserves better than something like this kind of dismissible bilge is for you to debate, but what I can say, conclusively, is that audiences definitely deserved better.

FYI, the 1999 Sandra Bullock movie Forces of Nature is currently available via HBO On Demand. I’ve never seen it, but it’s gotta be better than this.