Flat out, Shaun of the Dead is one of my favorite films of the past couple of years. It was creative, funny, scrary… and single handedly created a new genre of film making: The Rom-Com-Zom (also known as the Romantic Comedy with Zombies). So imagine the great excitement when we heard this team was brining us a new film… Hot Fuzz.

Here’s the gist of it.

“Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is the finest cop London has to offer, with an arrest record 400% higher than any other officer on the force. He’s so good, he makes everyone else look bad. As a result, Angel’s superiors send him to a place where his talents won’t be quite so embarrassing - the sleepy and seemingly crime-free village of Sandford. Once there, he is partnered with the well-meaning but overeager police officer Danny Butterman (Nick Frost). The son of amiable Police Chief Frank Butterman, Danny is a huge action movie fan and believes his new big-city partner might just be a real-life “bad boy,” and his chance to experience the life of gunfights and car chases he so longs for. Angel is quick to dismiss this as childish fantasy and Danny’s puppy-like enthusiasm only adds to Angel’s growing frustration. However, as a series of grisly accidents rocks the village, Angel is convinced that Sandford is not what it seems and as the intrigue deepens, Danny’s dreams of explosive, high-octane, car-chasing, gunfighting, all-out action seem more and more like a reality. It’s time for these small-town cops to break out some big-city justice.”

THE GOOD

Nick Frost, who was great in Shaun of the Dead, absolutely SHINES in this film. His pure comedic talent is allowed in this role to really show, and the results are hysterical. He plays the “lovable, yet bumbling” part so well, but at the same time endears the character to you. You don’t just end up liking the chubby little cop… you actually BELIEVE in him, cheer for him, and laugh with him all along the way.

This is a funny funny film. No, it’s not as funny as Shaun of the Dead and doesn’t have the same amount of laughs… but that doesn’t change the fact that you’ll grin a lot during this film. Most of the top laughs come from Frost himself, but the dialog is sharp, and director Edgar Wright’s use of situational humor and how he takes advantage of mood, context and atmosphere in the humor of the film is exceptional.

One of the things that surprised me about Hot Fuzz was its good use of action. No, this isn’t Pirates of the Caribbean, but as a cop action tribute, they really utilize some of the great standard action sequence formulas of the cop action films of the 90’s. The diving through the air, the duck and cover… great stuff.

One of my favorite things about Hot Fuzz was its direct homage to some of those action films. Films like Point Break (a truly fun movie that more people need to get out and see. Easily my favorite Patrick Swazye movie of all time) and others. As a film fan geek boy, it filled my empty heart with love to see.

THE BAD

The one deadly flaw to this film was its occasional decent into the corny, and when I say “corny” I don’t mean silly little things that some characters will do… I mean from time the time the film changes genres and thinks it’s AIRPLANE or HOT SHOTS and just gets totally bloody ridiculous… and it just doesn’t fit and pulls you out of the film. There is a fine line between “silly” and flat out “slapstick spoof”. Hot Fuzz works best with it boarders on the silly… but is at its worst when it crosses over to the Slapstick Spoof. Fortunately, that only happens a few times in the film.

Sigh, I know I can sound repetitive saying this… but it’s true: At just over 2 hours this film is too long for what it was. There was at least 15-20 minutes of stuff that could have been edited out which would have given us less lag time between laughs, a tighter pace, and cut out a couple of the more pointless scenes. It would have cured the film from feeling a little dragged out from time to time.

Bad ending.

OVER ALL

Do not go into this film automatically wired to compare it to Shaun of the Dead (which is tough not to do admittedly) and I believe you’ll walk out of Hot Fuzz having laughed a bunch and enjoyed a fun night at the movies. No, not quite as good as Shaun of the Dead, but who cares… it’s still a fun, at times exciting movie night out.

On the scale of 1-10 I give Hot Fuzz an 8. On the scale of No, Go and Routh… I give it a very solid GO.

It’s been over a year since we first hear whispers of a possible “Vikings vs. Indians” movie that got a lot of internet movie fanboys (myself included) frothing at the proverbial mouth. Pathfinder is that movie, and when you add in there a talent like Karl Urban (Lord of the Rings, Bourne Supremacy, Doom) there was almost a fevered frenzy over it.

But then came along the first trailer months ago… and I remember expressing some doubt over the project. I couldn’t really put my finger on it at the time… but as Doug recalls I said it felt “thin” to me. Still, I was enthusiastic about seeing the film, and off we went the other night.

The story begins (according to the film) 600 years before Columbus. A Native woman stumbles across a wrecked Viking ship with frozen bodies polluting the inside. All dead, except for one young boy. The native woman takes the boy back to her village where he is adopted as one of their own. The story then picks up years later… and the boy is now a man (Karl Urban). The Vikings have returned to plunder and kill all the native inhabitants and only Karl Urban can stop them and save his new adopted people.

Right to the point, I was VERY disappointed with this film on several levels. First and foremost was the dialog. Oh my goodness. At least 6 or 7 times in the film me and the people I was with turned to each other and (quietly) said “he didn’t just really say that did he?”. Wow was it ever cheesy.

The “story” itself and the characters where thin as paper itself. Although it is an admittedly unfair comparison, let’s look at Conan The Barbarian for a second. Although on it’s surface Conan was a simple hack slash Barbarian movie… there was actually much more to it. Great unspoken character development with Conan himself… a life long quest for revenge culminating with the confrontation with Thusla Doom. Along the way he meets companions and falls in love. All developed on screen, and often without dialog. Pathfinder had no such development, nor any layers beyond its surface. Things happen, and you’re just supposed to accept it. Urban’s character falls in love, but they never show us how or why. A bald mute joins Urban on his mission of vengeance… but we never know why. Nothing is developed. I’m not saying a movie has to spell everything out for us… but develop the story. Pathfinder fails to develop for either the story itself or its characters.

There was plenty of action in the movie… unfortunately is was poor action. Come to think of it, it was more like “Hostel” than an action movie. We see lots of gross things happen to some people in a violent way… but that’s all it was. Violence for the sake of violence. Never a real taste of “action” that a lot of people went in thinking there was going to be. A guy crushing another man’s head with a hammer isn’t “action”. Not all movies need action… but when that’s what your film is supposedly centered around… and you don’t have much of a plot or any discernible character development, you better have action there to pick up the slack. Pathfinder fails to do that. The closest thing to a legitimate action scene was…. are you ready for this… a toboggan fight. No I’m serious. And yes… it looked as silly as it sounds.

Add on top of that a horrible ending that has most of us scratching our heads and looking at each other wondering how the director could make such a massive leap (you’ll see what I mean). It was a cop out ending, plain and simple.

Now, on the positive side the Vikings were terrific. Everything from their look… their language… their sound… their movement… all of it was menacing and filled with horror. They were some of the best Vikings I’ve ever seen in a movie. They instilled terror at the sight of them, and the director (Marcus Pispel) used that terror well to let us feel how the villages of the Native Americans would have been gripped at the sight of these armored and fierce strangers. They felt like an enemy that was hopeless to fight against. Nicely done.

Sadly, there’s not much to say about Karl Urban here. Neither good nor bad really. The man was given a hollow character with some terrible lines that Alec Guinness himself would have had a hard time with. Still… even with the little he was given, he didn’t sell me on anything at all. He’s capable of better, and I’m sure we’ll see better from him in the near future.

Overall, I’m giving Pathfinder a 3 out of 10. And on our scale of No, Go and Routh… I’m giving it a “no”.

DOUG’S THOUGHTS ON PATHFINDER:

When it comes to movies with vikings and or swords I am biased, because I live for them. Pathfinder pretty much started like I wanted it to - lots of Native elders talking about spirits and prophecies and then the Vikings attack. It seemed to get into the action right away with a raid on the hometown of the lost viking Ghost (that looked very similar to the intro of Conan). He then seeks revenge and the movie looks to be set up perfectly for a kick ass viking film.

What follows is a chase scene, followed by a cave battle and this portion of the movie starts to drag, the dialogue starts to get annoying and the vikings are invincible to all but snow. I was hoping for a massive amount of natives vs vikings but that is not to be.

By Thor’s hammer the last act of this film is a lot of walking. Way too much walking and not enough sword play. The romance began to get really bothersome for me but an amazing quote was delivered during a very cheesy moment. “Every man has 2 wolves in his heart” that is right folks - 2 wolves - in your heart. The ending was super weak for me. What started out to be an awesome viking assault movie ended like a National Film Board of Canada documentary on Native Americans for grade 3 school kids.

I wanted to like this movie, I yearned for it, I liked it up front, everything looked amazing, and it certainly had cool stuff in it. Overall I would say GO if you are nuts for vikings, No if you are indifferent.

I would give this a 6 out of 10, - probably due to my respect for the all-father Odin.

So here comes her new film with Bruce Willis (who I always enjoy seeing) “Perfect Stranger“. Unlike most people, I thought this movie showed some promise.

Berry plays Ro, a highly successful newspaper reporter who writes under a male alias (for reasons that I don’t quite understand). One night, Ro is approached by an old friend, Grace, who tells her that she had a secret affair with one of New York’s most famous Ad execs, Harrison Hill (Played by Bruce Willis), but that he has subsequently kicked her to the curb and doesn’t return her calls anymore because he’s married. Grace want’s revenge on Harrison and wants Ro’s help. Ro pretty much ignores Grace’s request, until Grace turns up dead a week later. Now Ro is out to prove Harrison killed her friend.

The idea and premise of the film is promising enough. A bit cliche and done before… but not bad as a starting point for an idea for a film, and for parts of the film it’s executed pretty well… but not enough of it.

The two biggest weakness of this movie are its beginning and its end. Much of the narrative in the middle is actually pretty good… but not good enough to compensate.

The beginning of the film shows us Ro at work trying to bust some powerful guy… but it’s basically nothing more that political point making for no damn reason with HORRIBLE dialog that I cant believe anyone actually wrote. It’s difficult to explain without giving too much away, but it’s enough to say it was such a terrible and cheesy beginning that you almost wrote the movie off right from the start, and suddenly now the movie has to fight to win you back.

The main body of the film isn’t too bad… but like I said in the previous paragraph, it took nearly 15-20 minutes of it just to get me interested again. It should be pointed out that the performances of both Halle Berry and Bruce Willis were pretty good. Willis in particular plays that suave charming dude with a mean streak role that he’s done a few times… but pulls it off well.

The film tries to compensate for its lack of any real mystery with tension and intensity, and it should be said that they almost pulled it off. The cinematic tension is done pretty well in a couple of scenes and a couple of the exchanges between the character had a palatable intensity to them that I thought were done with an almost “Fatal Attraction” flavor.

However, mystery in a film (this isn’t a rule… just a generalization) builds when the director begins to drop hints, clues and facts that allows the audience to develops its own theories and ideas about the mystery at hand. Drawing us in and making us a part of puzzle in a sense. Unfortunately, Perfect Stranger just seems to feed the audience self-evident yet often inconsistent pieces of information that doesn’t bring the audience along for the ride. That leads to the biggest weakness of Perfect Stranger…

The ending. This next thought MIGHT seems like a spoiler of sorts (but it’s really not) so read ahead with a little caution. “Surprise” or “Twist” endings… or really any ending to a film that relies on some big “reveal” at the finish, works best when the audience can sit back and say “oh yeahhhhh” as they reflect on all the hints and tips the director has given along the way. The best ones are the ones where you COULD have guessed it, but probably didn’t (like Sixth Sense did so perfectly).

However, Perfect Stranger hits us WWAAYYY out of left field with an ending that you could never have truly guessed because of the earlier mistakes of failing to bring us along for the ride by giving relevant pieces of information along the way. So when the big “Reveal” hits us at the end… instead of making us say “Oh yeahhhh” it leaves us saying “What the F*ck?”

Overall, Perfect Stranger is a well paced, decently performed, sometimes intense movie that sadly loses itself to periods of ridiculous dialog, a failure to get the audience engaged in the “mystery” and a terrible ending that leaves you feeling like watching the whole film was a waste of time because the director never gave you the information or hints you would have needed to guess the ending until the “Reveal” itself happens. Very unsatisfying

I give Perfect Stranger a 5 out of 10, and out of “No”, “Go” or “Routh”… I say “No”.

Year of the Dog is a film about Peggy (Molly Shannon) that is a shut in dog lady. In a short time the stage is set beautifully for us to understand how fucking bananas she is about dogs; and we then follow her life after the cataclysmic event of her dog’s death that begins the character’s descent onto woe. At the screening I was surprised to see how much people were enjoying the very dark nature of the comedy; it was a testament to the ability of Shannon’s comedic timing.

The movie sets out fast and strong as a delightful dark comedy. Friends push her to try human interaction which fails miserably. That man that is interested in her - she doesn’t like, the man that she is interested in - doesn’t like her. When she adopts another dog you hope above all hope that her problems will end, but things just get worse with hilarious results.

The character keeps trying to fill the gap in her life that the dog left but nothing fits, and you see her delve further and further into dismay as each direction she turns, she is knocked down again and again (all the time causing you to laugh or cry). The closest placebo she finds is becoming enveloped in the cause of animal rights, which in turn spurns a vegan diet and an obsession with pet adoption. The concern of her friends and family increases as this obsession grows to dangerous levels.

I am a fan of dark comedy and thought this movie was brilliant most of the way

through (we will get to that later). I enjoyed the heavy use of the first person camera work and thought it was appropriate for the film as it made you sit in the seat of the character for this disastrous ride. The climax is a showdown with her neighbor Al (John C. Reilly) who was set up masterfully to become her nemesis. The climax of the movie was perfectly appropriate for someone who had one bad thing after another just beat her down into madness; and a logical turn to the story. and then..

The flaw with the film as far as I am concerned is the ending. I wanted the darkness to follow through and have the movie end with the character in a lunatic asylum, prison or eating dogs on the BBQ. Instead we are given an ending that felt like it did not fit with the rest of the movie. The whole movie seems to set her up for disaster or freedom (from her demons) but we are given neither, instead she is just the crazy dog lady and I left the film feeling that she was just a fucking loser.

Perhaps that was the point, perhaps the movie is an attempt to try show the rest of the world that even losers have a story - and it’s usually thanks to a life of woe.

Do not let my problem with the ending fool you. This movie is very enjoyable, I thought that for a first outing as a director Mike White did a wonderful job. The acting was second to none and each character was chosen perfectly. The story was focused, entertaining and delightful; It simply did not end in the direction that I would of liked to have seen it go.

I give it a GO, or 4 goats out of 5.

This evening we were invited out to the Los Angeles premiere of the new documentary “The Prisoner or: How I Planned To Kill Tony Blair“. The story behind the movie is a very simple one… an Iraqi journalist and his brothers are falsely accused of planning to assassinate British Prime Minister Tony Blair and sent to various US military prison camps where he endured some of the most horrible conditions imaginable, watching friends die, for 9 months without ever being given an explanation as to why he was there or whatever evidence they supposedly had against him.

On the surface, some people may mistakenly think that this is some kind of anti-war movie, and perhaps on a couple of levels a quiet anti-war message is a by-product of the story… but NEVER the point or the reason for the story. This is just an amazing story about a man and his ordeal plain and simple.

The documentary is a refreshing one in the sense that it doesn’t feel the need to flash you with constant images in an attempt to keep you interested. For the most part the whole film is just this man, sitting down and telling his story. The film let the subject (this man) tell the story, instead of relying on reenactments or flashy animated sequences. Just some simple graphics here and there, and some superimposed text. Other than that, it’s just Yunis Khatayer Abbas (that’s the guy’s name) telling his story. And the story, is gripping.

Doug and I both loved this film for what it was, and I think you will too. A moving, attention grabbing tale that most of us would rather stick our heads in the sand about and ignore. It’s opening in LA this week, but it’s already available to put in your Netflix list. Do it! You won’t be disapointed.