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Reviews
A Dangerous Man (2009)
Godspeed you Steven
It all starts out with Steven beating the crap out of a guy in the first scene of the movie, inflicting a devastating brutal beat down in order to apparently, protect his wife. And now he is wrongfully accused, and sent in prison for a good 6 years... until they finally find out that the DNA to the killer and his wrongfully accused for victim didn't match. Tough luck Steven, 6 years is a long time, especially when after the 6th you receive a letter from your wife that she has to move on, just before your release! What a tease! You definitely convinced me when your portrayed your attachment to her with gratuitous scenes of awesome bare-naked breasts! Now you've lost everything, and on top of that, you decline the courts offer for tons of money to get you back on your feet (That bag full of dough you just so happen to find later, will do the job, besides, it's a faster, more efficient way of piling it up, and it involves killing lots of bad Asian American's to get it). Anyway, Steven doesn't need the court's help, he's an ex special ops. Military agent, and he can do things on his own. Nothing spells tension like the past 6 years of your life spent wrongfully accused in a prison. It's a good thing that on the way to a convenience store, Steven gets to liberate some of his anger on unsuspecting gangsters, by turning one of the two's faces into "pâté-chinois".
Things pick up quickly as Steven is caught in a pit stop turmoil, with angry Asian dudes who drive around with lots of money and a chick in their trunk. Thing's also go from bad to a lot better, when Steven absolutely obliterates a Chinese guy, and run's of with the girl, the money, and this Sergei fellow, who apparently has no emotions, because his friend just got raped with bullets and he never seemed to notice or care. Oh! and he just so apparently happens to be a big Russian mafia boss's son (Didn't look Russian to me).
So Steven has a meet and greet with the Russian mob boss, and in a minutes time (after Steven has a flawless victory over his Russian barman buddy), become brothers, to the dept he owes in exchange for the life of his son. Steven has the option to move out of the country, but chooses the path of "I never leave a fight unfinished ", and quickly ops to recapture the girl's uncle being smuggled into the country (Surprise!). I can understand him though, the girl and he, seem to harness such a chemistry together... she could even guess Steven's name ( Shane ) before he even told her (motel scene).
What follows is a brilliant brew of Russian versus Asian American violence, with a few cops involved, who fancy being openly crooked, cooperating with gangsters, all the while running around in a police cruiser and in uniforms (Makes sense to me). Steven's rampage leaves no thirst unquenched,involving a few Steven Seagal Special Moves (SSSM), such as, spawning a rope out of nowhere to defend himself from a sharp knifed attacker, using chop sticks to defeat a Chinese opponent (I always knew those things we're better at killing then eating) and of course, last but not least, beating an opponent to near death, but finishing him off by blowing up an entire building, instead of putting a bullet into his unconscious body.
Immediately following the glorious final battle(in which Steven is left completely unscathed yet again ),which included no less then : 13 times "The Face", 10 broken bones, 12 brutal beat downs and 15 kills, the movie wastes no time to roll credits, in fact, it takes exactly 51 second's for the movie to end after the fighting is over. We are treated to a sight of a nice resort in the mountains, to which the scenery looks to be cleverly taken out of a post card, and to Steven in a kick ass looking suit.Amen.
Bless you Steven Seagal, may god speed you on your way to your next movie, for I will be waiting.
Emmanuel
Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
Little to go on...
I went to see Repo! The Genetic opera, at the fantasia world premiere in Montreal... while many enthusiastic fans we're waiting for the movie to start, and massively applauding ( at the start and finish ), I couldn't help but feel very disappointed once the movie was over.
To elaborate; The film Repo, takes a very simple plot, and somehow makes everything incredibly complicated to follow. By adding so many characters, and so little time to develop on them. Some are more interesting than others ( I quite liked the grave robber, and Luigi Largo ), but none of them come back often enough for you to feel anything for them. And as soon as you start feeling amused about a scene, or a certain character development, the scene is cut to make room for another song, in another setting...add a lot of songs, and a lot of scenes, and you get a lot of confusion.
The songs themselves are decent enough, some are catchy, some are less, some are musically interesting, featuring odd time signatures and such, but most of the time, lyrics are simply placed, which creates a sort of resemblance in most of the songs, making it very redundant near the end ( Don't get me wrong though, nowhere as bad as in Sweeny Todd ).
A point to mention also, is that this movie was set to be violent from the beginning, don't get me wrong though, I enjoy violent flicks, but most of the violence in this movie was absolutely unnecessary, simply put, it felt like they added a few really gory scenes here and there for shock value, but the movie could have very well been made without it. Which also left me feeling kind of stale, it almost felt like watching another sequel to Saw.
The strong point in this movie to me, was the artistic setting, Repo has a grim Gothic feel throughout the whole movie, with a very dark ambiance, and a lot of great costume designs and idea's, which is enough to keep one somewhat amused throughout all the confusion.
To conclude, Repo offers some interesting idea's in a interesting concept, but the lack of soul and consistency spoiled what could have been a good movie.