Well, a little yellow birdie flew down from the Warner's water tower and whispered in Father Geeks ear the following tidbits on 3 hot topic films we've been covering on AICN.
Reading the recent Bud Rose and Moriarty posts, I thought I should weigh in on the three movies above, all of which you've been writing about lately and all of which I've seen.
First off, SOLDIER. I have to agree with Bud Rose on this one. While I don't think I liked it QUITE as much as he did, I have to wonder what the hell Hallenbeck was smoking that night in Burbank when he saw the movie. It's a solid, entertaining popcorn picture. Kurt Russell kicks butt (as per usual -- has he ever given a bad performance, not counting the infamous "Captain Ron"?). Granted, he doesn't have much to say (the role must have been written with Stallone or Ah-nult in mind), but he's a bad-ass while managing to inject some humanity into the proceedings at the same time. Paul Anderson does a great job with the atmosphere and action (like he did in "Event Horizon") and this time has a solid script to work with. Some people in the audience seemed to think the movie was too violent, and the studio might too, as that was one of the questions they asked on the preview card, but I dug it and I'm sure all the other Snake Plisken fans will, too. Believe me, I would love nothing more than to see WB fall on their asses in order to hasten the badly-needed head-rolling over their, but this time they have made a decent picture.
CLAY PIGEONS -- I think Moriarty was being too kind here. I saw the picture a few months ago and thought it was an unmitigated piece of shit. The biggest problem with the movie is its inept tone. The director doesn't know if he wants to play the violence and brutality for laughs or suspense and the result is one of those neither/nor concoctions that lays there like a stale fart. The movie is shockingly glib and, some decent performances aside (Vaughn, though over-the-top and sporting some trouble with a Texan accent, gives hope that he might be just right for "Psycho"), I found the whole thing very unpleasant and uninspired.
Now, before you think I have a problem with violence or something, my final review is of the movie that "Clay Pigeons" wishes it could be, namely, VERY BAD THINGS. While I don't think it's quite as good as all the advance hype it's been getting on your site (Hallenbeck again, if I'm not mistaken), it's still pretty damn good. It starts off rocky. The situations seem familiar, the editing is headache-inducing in the early scenes and the direction seems clunky. But then, about a half-hour into the action, something remarkable happens -- the movie actually takes you by surprise and continues to do so until its very last shot. The comic tone is dead-on -- things keep getting worse and worse and Peter Berg, to his credit, never pusses out. He makes the grotesque stuff SO grotesque that one can't help but surrender in laughter. The script's very clever twists help a lot, too. Overall, this movie works for the same reason that "Something About Mary" and "South Park" do -- nothing is sacred here and Berg is admirably unafraid of offending the audience. The more extreme the movie gets, the better it is. Now, this said, the movie is still pretty thin. It's enjoyable as hell, but if you want to see similar material dealt with in a way that is TRULY affecting, then I have to defer to "A SIMPLE PLAN". THAT movie is a masterpiece of complex tone. There's no pathos in "VBT" -- when push comes to shove it's basically an "anything for a laugh" kind of movie, but I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't admit that I was laughing my ass off.
Until next time... Birdie Num-Num
