The Pummeling Thrill Ride That Is THE RAID 2: BERANDAL

THE RAID 2: BERANDAL (Dir. Gareth Evans, 2014)

Gareth Evan’s 2011 Indonesian hit THE RAID: REDEMPTION was a high-voltage ultra-violent martial arts masterpiece that pitted an unsanctioned S.W.A.T. team against a 15-story apartment block full of murderous mobsters. Its fast paced gory spectacle was all contained within the dark, dank, crumbling walls of the tenement building – one of the grittiest backdrops of an amped up thriller in recent memory.

In the less gritty, more colorful sequel, THE RAID 2: BERANDAL (Berandal is Indonesian for “Thug”), opening today in the Triangle, the sole survivor of the first movie’s mayhem goes undercover to infiltrate Jakarta’s biggest, baddest crime syndicates resulting in a series of savage action sequences set all over the city.

As the rookie cop turned police mole, Indonesian martial arts champion Iko Uwais returns as Rama, who’s back to wow us again with his mad fighting skills. Uwais undergoes a two-year prison stay in order to integrate himself as a foot soldier for the powerful crime boss, Nagun (Tio Pakusodewo). Our hero does this by befriending the gang boss’s only son (Arifin Putra) in the slammer, by way of saving his life in a wild, bloody, and extremely muddy prison yard rumble.

Elements recalling INFERNAL AFFAIRS (remade by Martin Scorsese as the 2005 Oscar winner THE DEPARTED), and DONNIE BRASCO form the unevenly paced plot, but it just serves as a clothesline to hang one ferociously relentless set piece after another on.

Intense choreographed fist fights amid rampant gunfire take place in a variety of locations including a warehouse, a restaurant, a fancy kitchen, a glitzy nightclub, even in moving cars (in one of the best car chases since THE FRENCH CONNECTION), carting Uwais closer to his goal of bringing down both the evil organization and the corrupt cops on the syndicate’s payroll.

Foes such as Hammer Girl (Julie Estelle, using only two hammers as her weapons), Baseball Bat Man (Very Tri Yulisman, whose weapon ought to be obvious), and Yayan Ruhian, as a different brutal long-haired assassin than the one he played in THE RAID, attempt to thwart Uwais’s efforts, but I bet you can guess how they end up.

I felt more than a little beat down by the end of the film’s bloated 150-minute running time, as Evans and star/choreographer Uwais seem to have fit every single stunt they could think of within the film’s chaotic framework. Its exhausting length is the only thing that keeps it from being better than the first one, but not by much.

It’s hard to imagine how a follow-up would top it, but since it’s the second of a proposed trilogy, it’ll sure be fun to see them try. With its insanely brutal bravado, rendered in a viciously vivid visual style, the pummeling thrill ride that is THE RAID 2 kicks the ass of just about every American action movie out there. 

Indonesia: fuck yeah!

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New Release Drama DVD Round-Up

When it comes to Netflix I'm what is considered "a heavy user". I view many DVDs and often send them back the same day I get them writing about them as I go. Since I realized that most of what I've seen lately have been dramas I decided to round 'em up for this post. I also noticed that all of these movies have funerals in them but that would make for a pretty depressing blog post title so I'm going with the drama angle. Okay! Let's get to 'em:

GONE BABY GONE (Dir. Ben Affleck, 2007)



Ben Affleck's directorial debut is everything his run aspiring to A-list leading man status (in such blockbuster wannabes as PEARL HARBOR, PAYCHECK, THE SUM OF ALL FEARS and DAREDEVIL) wasn't - it's assured, multi-layered and extremely entertaining. 

Affleck doesn't appear on camera here *, which is surprising considering his many bit cameos throughout the years, and yes it would be easy to take a pot shot by commending him for that alone but the weight and power of his Boston based crime drama cancels that immediately out. 

Brother Casey Affleck does the protagonist duty as a small scale private detective who works with his girlfriend (Michelle Monaghan) out of a tiny Boston apartment. When the young daughter of some neighborhood low-lifes goes missing and a media circus ensues, they are hired by the girl's Aunt (Amy Madigan) to help find her. 

The police (particularly Ed Harris as a police detective) are skeptical of the inexperienced but intrepid couple and the dangerous battered barfolk they encounter when they go snooping are little help as well but C. 

Affleck and Monaghan plug away. Morgan Freeman as a police Captain lends his reliable folksy demeanor (glad he's not narrating for once) also talks down to our heroes - indeed it is often pointed out how young and green Casey Affleck appears: "he just looks young" Monaghan remarks to Freeman's scolding. 

As you should know by now I'll give no further spoilers but I bet you can see how the couple gets in other their head in a world where nobody can be trusted - Man, that ought to be the tagline!                                    

Hate to call them twists because they are displayed with more class than in many standard thrillers but the turns of the second act are surprisingly successful because of the refreshing lack of gloss or flash. A tad high in melodrama maybe but GONE BABY GONE doesn't overreach. 

The supporting cast all bring it - Harris and Madigan (who are husband and wife in real life) both have some standout scenes and John Ashton (who many will remember as a cop in the BEVERLY HILLS COP series) gets in some good gruff gestures. Amy Ryan as the lost girl's mother plays a messed up "skeezer", as one drug dealer character calls her, was nominated for Best Supporting Actress and she's pretty dead on but some of her line readings seem a bit forced so I'll be pretty shocked if she wins it. 

Casey Affleck really should have been nominated for this performance over his part in THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES..., as much as I liked him in that flick, because he really gets it right in his manner and tone here. On the cinematic chopping block MYSTIC RIVER comparisons are inevitable but Ben Affleck's moving film makes a case that Clint Eastwood doesn't own the terrain - I believe a new up and coming director dog has just marked his territory. * Actually Affleck can be seen moving through a shot in a dark bar but you could blink and miss him. On the DVD commentary co-writer Aaron Stockard calls it his "Hitchcock moment." 

WE OWN THE NIGHT (Dir. James Gray, 2007)



The opening with black and white archive photos (by still photographer Leonard Fried) of '80s era New York cops brings to mind the grainy real-life riot footage that opened THE DEPARTED.

Scorsese's Best Picture winning crime classic again rears its head as once again we have a premise resembling a good cop/bad cop scenario and Mark Wahlberg as the blunt good cop doesn’t call foul on such accusations. But let's get past that and see what we've really got here in James Gray's period-piece police Vs. Russian mobsters flick that slipped through the cracks in its release last Fall. 

With Wahlberg we've got Joaquin Phoenix as his druggie nightclub managing brother and Robert Duvall as their grizzled police chief father trying to recruit Phoenix to be a mole. Duvall is one of the few actors that can convincingly pull off such a cliched line as "Sooner or later, either you're gonna be with us or you're gonna be with the drug dealers."

Phoenix is indifferent to his Pop’s war on drugs plight as he posits himself as a future “king of New York”. His club El Caribe is obviously modeled on Studio 54 with its clientele selected by bouncers, scantily clad dancing girls on the bar, and non-stop Blondie blaring on the sound system. When Wahlberg gets shot and Duvall's life is threatened by the drug running gangsters, Phoenix changes his tune and starts singing like a canary. He even agrees to be wired in order to lead the cops to the bad guy's lair. 

Phoenix's girlfriend (Eva Mendes - looking like a supermodel in a magazine photo spread) is a possible target too but she is disapproving of Phoenix's new law enforcement involvement. The dialogue is repetitive and too often spells out every action. The story is full of predictable rote elements and the villains appear to be sent by central casting. 

It is set in the '80s not for any interesting premise reasons like the opening implies but possibly because the filmmakers knew they were unable to write any cool modern cellphone trickery plotpoints. Which once again brings up the inferiority of this to Marty's previously mentioned movie. So yeah, when it comes right down to it - skip this slickly produced pap and watch THE DEPARTED again.

ROMANCE & CIGARETTES
(Dir. John Turturro, 2005)



This is a very odd movie.

Co-produced by the Coen brothers, and made 3 years ago, but only now making it to DVD, (perhaps because the studio didn't know how to handle it), Turturro’s “down and dirty musical comedy,” (as he calls it) is certainly ballsy, but it’s more often baffling.

James Gandolfini is an adulterous NYC construction worker whose wife (Susan Sarandon) knows about his mistress (Kate Winslet). They have three daughters (who all look too old to be believable as Gandolfini and Sarandon's offspring) - Mary-Louise Parker, Mandy Moore, and Aida Turturro who have a riot grrl punk band and are constantly banging away for their piece of the soundtrack. 

Then throw in Christopher Walken, Steve Buscemi, Bobby Cannavale, and a strangely subdued Eddie Izzard and you've got a faultless cast but a weird musical mix. 

I did mention it was a musical, right? That's what makes it so odd - the cast members sometimes lip synche to classic songs and sometimes sing on top of them; rarely does the song feature the actor's voice alone. When it does have Gandolfini or Sarandon or Winslet sing by themselves it seems to be to make a particular point. I just couldn't figure out what that point was. 

I really couldn't for the life of me really get into this movie but I did appreciate quite a few moments. Gandolfini and Sarandon have a great scene, done in one take, sitting at their dinner table where he admits to her for some reason that he never liked Ethel Merman with her "foghorn of a voice."

Gandolfini excuses Ernest Borgnine's abuse of Merman in their marriage that only lasted one week back in the day by concluding "'You Can't Get A Man With A Gun' would drive any man crazy." Somehow this amounts to one of the only warm exchanges between the couple. Winslet really goes at her role with gusto especially in her introductory dancing scene wearing a scorching red dress in the window of a burning building. She and Sarandon have a ferocious cat-fight while Walken sings along in the background to Bruce Springsteen's "Red Headed Woman". See what I mean? Weird. Turturro's directional sense does comes through - a shot of cigarette butts littered all over a patch of snow is exceptional and it is obvious he has a good collaborating relationship with everybody in this movie; it may have been a mistake to cast his sister Aida though - she just ends up recalling her Sopranos character Janice. Mary Louise-Parker appears again in a movie she is barely used in - this is a shame as anybody who has seen Weeds knows, she can do better. 

At one point Gandolfini says when trying to reconcile with his wife: "Maybe I don't know how to show it like they do in the movies or in books but I love. I have love to give." Maybe Turturro doesn't know how to show it either but this film if nothing else is definitely a work of love. Just why did it have to be love of the weird variety?

SHOOT THE MOON (Dir. Alan Parker, 1981)

It’s easy to forget that in the late '70s and early '80s there was a genre that held its own against the science-fiction blockbusters that dominated that era – the divorce drama. KRAMER VS. KRAMER, of course, was the leader of the pack but close behind were such families getting torn apart tangents like AN UNMARRIED WOMAN, TWICE IN A LIFETIME, and ORDINARY PEOPLE. Long out of circulation but now newly re-issued on DVD is a pivotal player from those ranks - SHOOT THE MOON which features Albert Finney leaving wife Diane Keaton for a younger woman (Karen Allen).

As the film opens we are introduced to the couple with their four daughters (Dana Hill, Viveka Davis, Tracey Gold, and Tina Yothers) and their creaky old house on the outskirts of Marin County in California (many misty shots of the house and valley are throughout the film).

We see as acclaimed novelist Finney and his former student now wife Keaton prepare for an evening at an awards ceremony that their marriage is on the outs. Finney calls his lover and the oldest daughter (Hill) picks up the phone to eavesdrop.

On their ride there and back to the televised event their car is full of tension as we realize the gravity of what's not being said and strongly feel the giant gap between the tortured pair.

The next morning Keaton confronts Finney, while doing dishes mind you, and he responds not by owning up to his affair but by leaving with a bag that she had already packed in anticipation. The couple attempts to sort out the rubble and move on with their lives but they keep on hitting emotional roadblocks.

Finney moves in with Allen, who except for one signature scene basically has little to do but stand around looking pretty, while Keaton takes up with a contractor played with just the right tone by Peter Weller (ROBOCOP!) that she hired to put in a tennis court on her (actually legally still her and her separated husband's) property.

The film seethes with energy that explodes from underneath in a few surprisingly violent scenes. Finney is compelling as always as he stalks the screen in a manner exposing his stage roots and Keaton displays that the keen quality she can bring to dramatic roles is equal to the comedic skills she is better known for.

Dana Hill (who died in 1996 from complications due to diabetes) has perfect poise as the oldest wisest daughter who knows her parents' faults as well as their habits - she knows her mother smokes pot for example - and she has a great scene in the third act that among other things explains the movies title.

It's interesting to see Tina Yothers and Tracey Gould as sisters for as students of pop culture know they went on to be daughters in competing '80s TV sitcom families - Yothers in Family Ties and Gould in Growing Pains respectively.

A flawed but stirring drama with an absolutely shocking ending, Alan Parker's SHOOT THE MOON is an oft overlooked film that deserves a place in your Netflix queue. 

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Oscars 2007 Recap!

"Could you double-check the envelope?" - Martin Scorsese at the 79th Academy Awards, March 25, 2007


Last night Martin Scorsese won the Oscar for Best Director for THE DEPARTED and today the word in all the papers, TV coverage, and online wrap-ups is "finally."

Minutes later backstage he looked like he was in a state of shock when it was announced that THE DEPARTED won for Best Picture as well. I am truly happy to be wrong about that one. 

I had predicted Alejandro González Iñárritu's BABEL and was even going to change the name of this blog to film babel for a day if it won (glad I don't have to do that). Out of the 24 categories I got 13 right. More than half but still a failing grade. 

Let's look over my predictions highlighting the ones I got wrong : 

1. BEST PICTURE: BABEL WRONG! THE DEPARTED

2. BEST DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese THE DEPARTED

3. BEST ACTOR: Forest Whitaker (THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND)

4. BEST ACTRESS: Helen Mirren (THE QUEEN) 

5. BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Alan Arkin (LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE)

6. BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jennifer Hudson (DREAMGIRLS)

7. ART DIRECTION: THE PRESTIGE WRONG! (PAN’S LABYRINTH)

8. CINEMATOGRAPHY: CHILDREN OF MEN WRONG! – PAN’S LABYRINTH 

9. COSTUME DESIGN: DREAMGIRLS WRONG! – MARIE ANTOINETTE 

10. DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

11. DOCUMENTARY SHORT: REHEARSING A DREAM WRONG! –THE BLOOD OF YINGZHOU DISTRICT 

12. FILM EDITING: BABEL WRONG! – THE DEPARTED 
13. MAKEUP – PAN’S LABYRINTH 

14. VISUAL EFFECTS: SUPERMAN RETURNS WRONG! – PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN : DEAD MAN’S CHEST 

15. ORIGINAL SCORE: BABEL

16. ORIGINAL SONG: “Listen” (DREAMGIRLS) – WRONG! – Melissa Etheridge for "I Need To Wake Up" THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH 

17. ANIMATED SHORT: THE LITTLE MATCHGIRL WRONG! - THE DANISH POET 

18. LIVE ACTION SHORT: WEST BANK STORY 

19. SOUND EDITING: LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA 

20. SOUND MIXING – DREAM GIRLS 

21. ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE 

22. ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: THE DEPARTED 

23. ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: CARS WRONG! – HAPPY FEET 

24. FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: PAN’S LABYRINTH – WRONG! – THE LIVES OF OTHERS

I was very surprised I was right about Alan Arkin winning. 

Also the other attendees of the Oscar party I watched the Awards at all gasped when Melissa Etheridge won for best song (for AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH) in your face DREAM GIRLS!

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Exile On Mean Street - Or Scorsese & The Stones Together Again

“He could stay up for days on end talking about movies and music, more about music than movies. He had this rock 'n roll head, knew every lyric and every title. He understood that the music was really a critical aspect of the zeitgeist of the times.” - Don Simpson (Warner Bros. Producer) on Martin Scorsese *

Okay, so I loved THE DEPARTED as did the majority of the critics, but I didn’t want to write a formal review for it so I decided to do a piece on the notable reappearance of the Rolling Stones on the soundtrack of a Martin Scorsese film.

I know, it’s far from surprising. Scorsese has made many movies that are chock full of ‘60s and ‘70s classic rock. I mean he got one of his first movie gigs editing the movie WOODSTOCK (arguably the sunny flipside to the Altamont Hell of GIMME SHELTER). And, of course, Scorsese made the seminal concert film THE LAST WALTZ and the definitive pre-motorcycle crash Dylan bio NO DIRECTION HOME, sure, but it’s his telling cinematic relationship with the music of the Stones, one song in particular, that is the theme of this post that I call:

EXILE ON MEAN STREET: Scorsese and the Stones Together Again

Martin Scorsese’s THE DEPARTED opens with a gruff Jack Nicholson voice-over monologue taking us through archival news film of violence during Boston’s anti-busing protests in 1974.

Eerily winding its way through the grainy footage comes Keith Richard’s stinging guitar intro to “Gimme Shelter,” the all-too familiar but still potent 1969 Rolling Stones classic.

The film shifts to the present with shots of Nicholson’s character, Irish mob boss Frank Costello, shrouded in a darkness that remains even when he enters a fully lit store-front. The piercing familiar strains of Richard’s guitar fade as the scene is set. The song has done its job of setting the ominous tone and spooky feel and can exit.

Thing is, Scorsese has played this tune before, twice before as a matter of fact. Several Scorsese soundtracks have been peppered with Stones tracks, always from the ‘60s, and early ‘70s era, and always as scene carrying tone-setters.

MEAN STREETS, Scorcese’s 1973 breakthrough, has an early scene in which the 2 main protagonists each respectively get stamped with their own Stones songs. A barroom jukebox blares the soulful “Tell Me” to present a cool, calm and collected Charlie (Harvey Keitel) as he glides half-dancing through the smoky red-lit tavern.

A few minutes later wild rough unpredictable Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro) gets the jarring rollicking “Jumping Jack Flash” to greet him at the door. We assume back stories, identify the moods, and form some sort of a connection to these guys just from these songs doing their thing.

The Stones don’t show up in a Scorsese film again until GOODFELLAS (1990). Rightfully considered a return to form and probably his most popular film, the soundtrack was an amazing mesmerizing ride. It’s mix-tape moviemaking at its finest with three Stones songs (or bits of) in the mix.

When the era defining icons (Tony Bennett, the Moonglows, Johnny Mathis, Bobby Vinton) of Henry Hill’s (Ray Liotta) ‘50s childhood fade into a crime-filled adulthood which dissolves into an unglamorous ‘70s downfall, we have “Gimme Shelter” make its Scorsese film debut.

Only a minute of it appears and it’s from the song’s second half when Jagger and guest vocalist Merry Clayton’s wailing is at its peak. It defines the shot of Henry cutting cocaine at his girlfriend on the side Sandy’s (Debi Mazar) apartment. The jump-cut montage masterpiece finale sequence features bits of the Stones “Monkey Man” and “Memo From Turner” mixed in with snatches of the Who (“Magic Bus”), Muddy Waters (“Mannish Boy”), Harry Nilsson (“Jump Into The Fire”), and George Harrison (“What is Life”).

These jarring song excerpts give a frantic jagged heartbeat to that one fateful day when Henry is on the run trading guns, setting up a major coke deal, hiding from helicopters, and trying to get a proper meal made at home (“keep stirring the sauce!” he yells on the phone to his wheelchair bound brother).

Scorsese’s CASINO (1995) presents the same tone, tension, and some of the same cast (Robert Deniro, Joe Pesci, Frank Vincent, Scorsese’s Mother Catherine) as GOODFELLAS, with this time four Stones songs on the soundtrack, “Gimme Shelter” among them.

CASINO does offer some good film making and an involving narrative drive, but even for this hardcore Marty fan it has too much of ‘been there, done that’ feel. “Sweet Virginia,” “Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’” and “Heart of Stone” make their brief snatch cameos, and its five Stones songs if we count Devo’s cover of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” Which I have to admit is an inspired choice here considering.

With the intro to “Gimme Shelter” setting off THE DEPARTED it’s almost as if Scorsese could argue that he’s never used the same part of the song in a film.

Not sure if that’s true. I didn’t want to watch CASINO again but maybe someone will edit together a version of it from all three films and Youtube it. The new Stones addition to the Scorsese canon is “Let It Loose” from the 1971 album Exile on Main Street, possibly the most obscure Jagger/Richards composition to be chosen for his soundtracks. Appearing in a crucial scene it underscores the fear and intensity of boss Costello (Nicholson) roughly intimidating undercover cop Billy Castigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) in a barroom backroom.

The Stones sound best playing on some sleazy jukebox in a run-down dive you understand. The scene is timed to "Let It Loose" - the entire song plays never dropping out or fading away. An searing effect that lingers comes off this standout scene. It makes the case for Marty to continue digging up, polishing off, and setting to visceral action whatever Stones song he wants (‘60s to early ‘70s era only, mind you).

So why has Martin Scorsese used the Rolling Stones “Gimme Shelter” in three different films? Probably the same reason Woody Allen has used Benny Goodman’s “Sing Sing Sing” (more than once: it’s an effective, exciting and historic piece of music.

“Gimme Shelter” was born out of the same era that Scorsese was being born as a filmmaker. No other song captures the darkness that came when the ‘60s Utopian dream went deadly wrong with such wicked passion. It is a depiction of a floodgate of war, rape, and murder threatening to break violently open and drown us all.

The song seemed to be talking about Vietnam, reacting to race riots, and somehow foreshadowing Altamont (the documentary concert film of which was named GIMME SHELTER), all at the same time, illustrating everyday life in that scary era.

While writing this I learned that one of Scorsese’s next projects may be a concert film of the Rolling Stones current tour. According to the info circulating Scorsese will be following the aging rockers between two shows at New York’s Beacon Theatre on October 29 and 31. The shows will be part of former US President Bill Clinton’s birthday celebrations.

Ah, well it all makes sense now. Very good chance we’ll have “Gimme Shelter” in a fourth Scorsese film. Maybe this time he’ll really nail it. I mean, in our current scary era, a live in-the-moment performance of this dark scorching song (with a former President in attendance no less) might get the real cinematic treatment that the previous appearances of the songs were mere auditions for.

Scorsese might just yet capture the true force and nature of that rock classic beast and tame it with his camera and later master editing. I mean as the song says “it’s just a shot away.”

* This quote was taken from Peter Biskind's excellent book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls (Simon & Schuster 1999)

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