The Raid: Redemption
Plot: A SWAT team led by Rama (Iko Uwais) infiltrates an apartment complex run by crime lord Tama (Ray Sahetapy). He allows fellow crooks to occupy the complex, as long as they do his bidding. On this day, they must fend off a cavalcade of police.
Review: “The Raid: Redemption” is an action fan’s wet dream. I wouldn’t be surprised if Gareth Evans (who wrote, edited and directed) simply had a wet dream and combined it into one script. The fact the film takes place in an apartment complex compliments that theory well. He’s able to throw everything against the wall and have it flow together nicely. How? By setting it in the complex, he’s able to have a wide variety of villains taking refuge that can pop out and serve their need when the time is necessary.
The best way to describe the action in this film is it being the equivalent of a video game. I don’t mean that in a derogatory fashion. It’s high praise. I’m a mild gamer, usually only picking up wrestling or shoot ‘em up games. Simply put, my gaming skills are piss poor. Being able to watch what a successful walkthrough would be like is tantalizing.
Even avid gamers won’t feel like they’re watching someone else play. They’ll bask in the glory that is the violently creative genius Gareth Evans‘ work. He uses any nook and cranny he can get his hands on. Guns, knifes, machetes, blades, rope, wire, cutlery and even a refrigerator. Heads get smashed, bullets fly, roundhouse kicks are a many and the blood flows like wine.
Evans sets out to make a highly entertaining action film and he’s done just that. He does overdo the slow motion and occasionally revels in the shaky cam that I loathe. It can be a bother, but not much of one. You find yourself salivating over the action taking place on screen to forgive the minor flaws the film has.
Final Rating: A-
Saving Private Perez
Plot: Mexican crime lord Julian Perez (Miguel Rodarte) collects a group of ragtag mercenaries to track down his brother, Juan (Juan Carlos Flores), who went missing in action in Iraq. If he succeeds, his mother will finally forgive him for his actions.
Review: Beto Gomez knows how to do a parody. He’s studied the classics such as “Airplane!” and “The Naked Gun” and applied their formula to his own product. He’s thrown in a dash of his own goofy humor to make this his own chattel. He simply uses the wise tips David Zucker incorporated. Those being to mock the genre, not the pop culture.
There’s nothing wrong with making references to other films and current fads. Zucker himself used it successfully. It’s when the likes of Friedberg & Seltzer bombard a spoof with constant riffs on pop culture and film that it stops being a parody and becomes a late night monologue (one that’s not funny, I may add). Gomez pretty much skips past this element and crafts his own material. The only jabs he’s taking are at genre clichés.
As you can tell by the title, this is a parody of rescue films such as “Saving Private Ryan”. Gomez sets his sights on the platitudes of the action and war genres, poking fun at the many holes found. He encounters a few of his own, mainly dealing with inconsistencies. While the action genre falls into dramatic flaws, “Saving Private Gomez” slips into some lulls where no laughs are being summoned. Most comedies fall into this trap, so it’s not a rookie mistake. At the very least, these lulls are sufficient.
When the laughs do strike, they get mighty guffaws. A lot of them using the sight gag well. Men dressed as lobsters in a shoot out; a grown man having a standoff with a teenager; mercenaries laughably performing stealthy maneuvers. Gomez even makes a running gag get a laugh every single time it appears. That being nobody in the film knowing where Iraq is.
The jokes that connect make this film well worth a watch. Not only do they produce hearty chuckles, but they’re done so in a serious backdrop. The plot itself is taken seriously. Both the director and actors play it straight-faced, which makes the farce much more conducive. It certainly makes up for any lulls you have to sit through.
Final Rating: B
Pariah
Plot: Alike (Adepero Oduye) is a Brooklyn teenager dealing with a multitude of problems. Her parents (Charles Parnell and Kim Wayans) are having marital issues and taking it out on her. They also don’t want to believe that their daughter may be a lesbian. This forces Alike to hide her sexuality and confide in Laura (Pernell Walker), a high school dropout who’s working for her GED. Believing she’s a bad influence, Alike’s mother forces Bina (Aasha Davis), a local teen girl, onto her which only complicates matters.
Review: What Dee Rees does best is directing her actresses to portray human characters, not film stereotypes. She’s found a great talent in Adepero Oduye, who delivers a raw and honest portrayal of a lesbian in hiding. She never feels ashamed for herself, but is frightened of coming out to her parents. Her overbearing mother and neglectful father already have enough on their plate. She doesn’t feel they would handle this correctly. She never screams and shouts in “normal” teen angst fashion. She broods and fights back her emotions, eliciting fake smiles whenever she must.
The only times her true form shows is when she’s writing poetry or hanging with her best friend Laura. Pernell Walker is another fine actress turning in a splendid performance thanks to Dee Rees letting her do so. She’s not a caricature of the lesbian dropout friend. Alike’s mother may see a bad influence, but we don’t. We (briefly) see a woman whose own problems with her parents drive her away from school and into the harsh workforce. She pulls herself back up and does her hardest to attain a GED. She’s actually a good influence on Alike.
Gina seems like she’d be a good influence, but she’s not. She’s still finding her own identity. The reason Alike’s mother finds her better suited for her daughter is because she acts like a normal teenager. Admittedly, she does. Which is why she’s not the best influence. Her opinions and feelings change drastically, which only confuse and enrage Alike.
What Dee Rees doesn’t do best at is hooking the viewer from the start. It’s a slow burn to the dramatics. This isn’t necessarily a problem, as it does nicely build to the drama. She just cruises a bit too long in neutral and restrains the story from fully breaking out. Considering other films have tackled this subject matter, it becomes too easy for a viewer to write this off and never fully invest into the story.
Once it does kick it into high gear, so to speak, Dee Rees proves her worth. The ending may sour some, but I found it to be sufficient. It doesn’t live up to the middle act, but does fit in nicely with the flow. “Pariah” may not be the best film to address teen angst and exploration, but it’s a relatively good one with terrific performances!
Final Rating: B
High Road
Plot: Fitz (James Pumphrey) has been having a bad few months. His friends Richie (Matt L. Jones) and Tommy (Zach Woods) have quit their band and moved on to bigger and better things. He’s been reduced to selling weed and living with his girlfriend, Monica (Abby Elliot). When one of his customers gets caught, he hightails it to Oakland to see his father. Tagging along is Jimmy (Dylan O’Brien), a local teenager who’s running away from his father, James Malone Sr. (Rob Riggle), who plans on sending him to military school.
Review: I believe Matt Walsh’s main goal with “High Road” is to make stars out of James Pumphrey and Abby Elliot. The latter is already becoming a star due to her gig on “Saturday Night Live”, while the former is basically an unknown. By making him the lead in a film with actors such as Ed Helms, Rob Riggle, Horatio Sanz, Kyle Gass, Andrew Daly and Joe Lo Truglio, he’ll get more exposure. This is a good plan, but would have been better had his character been more likable.
The most we get from Fitz is whining and complaining. He has a few reasons to do so, such as his band falling through and his father being a bad role model all of his life. However, he seems to live a stable life and is dating the gorgeous Abby Elliot, so his complaints fall on deaf ears. The fact that Jimmy, the teenager that’s hitching a ride with him, is more mature than him is kind of sad.
That is the point, I understand. It’s a film about having to grow up and face your demons. That message doesn’t come about until closer to the end, making it somewhat of a moot point. Since neither Fitz or Jimmy are that amiable, it’s hard to get behind them.
Thankfully, we do get a good bundle of funny scenarios involving the upper tier stars. Ed Helms makes his short appearance as Monica’s boss worthwhile, Horatio Sanz is funny as a doctor who uses a bad choice of words to describe his profession and Rob Riggle & Joe Lo Truglio get the best material as the father and his semi-cop friend who believe Fitz abducted Jimmy. The back and forth they have on whether or not Jimmy is being abused is hysterical.
Some jokes do fall flat. One in particular involves a rude hooker who continually insults Fitz. It comes out of nowhere and feels forced. Since the script (written by Matt Walsh & Josh Weiner) is totally improvised, that makes sense. Sometimes, that improvisation works. Other times it doesn’t. It tends to fall flat when the less experienced Pumphrey and O’Brien are tackling the material.
As far as stoner comedies go, “High Road” is a cut above the average. It has some funny sequences and a who’s-who of the comedy underworld. It simply stumbles due to the main character not being entirely likable. Walsh balances this by making his girlfriend, Monica, the most pleasant character in the film. Even so, that gives the film a topsy-turvy feel. Still worth checking out, but there was more potential here.
Final Rating: B-
Into the Abyss
Plot: Werner Herzog’s documentary examines the death penalty and it’s purpose. He does so by detailing the triple murder in Texas, which put Michael Perry and Jason Burkett in prison. Burkett faced life, while Perry was put on death row. Interviews with these men, their family and those affected by the murder highlight the story.
Review: “Into the Abyss” promises to be a documentary examining death row. Technically, it is that. However, it’s more of a documentary on the Perry/Burkett triple murder. The fact that Perry is on death row seems to be the only true reason it’s examined. I know Werner Herzog is against the death penalty and it’s why he made this documentary. It just never comes across as the true message.
For me, a documentary on the death penalty would be feeding the viewer information on the history of it. Cut in between the story would be interviews with experts and those on death row. It would be a sprawling analysis, not a concealed assay. This came across as another documentary on a murder that would appear on the ID channel. Which is fitting, considering they’re producing it.
It’s not that it’s necessarily a bad documentary, either. It’s a standard effort that has a few heart wrenching interviews that would be perfectly fine being aired as a forty-five minute special. It’s not that, however. It’s an hour and forty-seven minute documentary that loses steam at the forty-five minute mark. Go figure. It begins to repeat itself and linger quite a bit. By the end, it seems to drag on and on.
It doesn’t help that Werner Herzog is an awkward interviewer. He’ll ask questions that may slightly pertain to the subject at hand, but didn’t need to be brought up. A good example would be when he was interviewing a man who knew one of the criminals. He brings up at one point that he’s illiterate, which Werner becomes discussing. He tries to be friendly with the man and share the joys of reading, but it comes off as extremely maladroit and pointless.
If “Into the Abyss” ran for forty-five minutes, I’d be perfectly fine with it. It’d be just another special on the ID network, but that’s not a bad thing. Those can be informative and satisfying. That’s usually because they don’t overstay their welcome and beat you over the head with their message. “Into the Abyss” does both of those, unfortunately.
Final Rating: C