Change Your Image
ken_ramsey
Reviews
Thick as Thieves (1999)
What a hidden gem!
This is an excellent movie. Alec Baldwin puts in one of his best efforts, but he's upstaged by Michael Jai White who just runs away with it in the colorful role of Pointy Williams. Pointy is one of the most refreshing film characters I've stumbled across in quite a while. He's a gangster who is trying to improve himself socially and take on upper class and intellectual airs. He's surrounded of course by rough and tumble urban ghetto thugs and the realities of running a brutal criminal enterprise, so Pointy is constantly frustrated at this by every turn. The film is not a comedy, it's crime drama, but a infectiously quirky one with lots of laughs, especially when Pointy comes around.
The film, and especially Pointy, are extremely quotable. This is a great film in every way. I'm surprised it does not have a bigger following.
Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
Meh
I have no idea why they called this Bram Stoker's Dracula. It has very little to do with Stoker's novel. So if you come to the film like I did, hoping to see an interpretation of the story that's faithful to the original, you'll be very, very sorely disappointed. You're going to have to simply forget all that and try to take the film on its own terms.
It's hard to do so. The acting of Winona Ryder's and Keanu Reeves' acting hits their low points here. I think the problem is that they had to speak using British accents which are unnatural to Americans, and they seem to have been always instructed to speak in heady hush-tones. The Englishmen in the film do fine - even Anthony Hopkins even though he's not using his standard British accent but rather trying (and succeeding) to sound like a Dutchman speaking English. Whatever the case, the Americans' performances here are belabored and flat.
The film is mostly concerned with a timeless love plot line (again, this plot line is entirely absent in Stoker's original). This focus is abundantly evident from the very start of the film and informs all else that happens. In the service of this goal, the film's almost unconcerned with generating horror. What you get is the base amount that you'd expect to derive from any story involving a Count Dracula.
Well, the sets are good. The cinematography is dark, but that's expected given the content. It does move along at a fair pace, so it's not too boring.
But it's just not that memorable.
Serpico (1973)
Highly Overrated Movie
Serpico has very little going for it. It is an extremely boring and tedious film. It is noteworthy for its grittiness, but that's not compelling enough to invest the time.
A great deal of the film is devoted to characterizing the main character, Serpico, with many subplots and scenes that lead to nowhere in particular. And, surprisingly given all the energy and effort to breathe life into this character and given Al Pacino's talents, the character remains rather flat and one dimensional throughout. He's an honest cop caught up in a corrupt system that views him as a threat. You probably knew that going in. A good chunk of the film has us watching him having girl trouble, having fun with pets, going to a big party, strangely doing ballet moves in the precinct, riding a motorcycle, exploding in rage, etc., for no clear reason. He's not terribly likable by the end, either, having alienated what few friends he does have, again for no clear reason. His actions are almost entirely emotive, primitive, and illogical plus tinged with childish motives.
Supporting characters come and go, a lot, and some of them are engaging at first. But they are routinely discarded and left undeveloped.
There are very few action scenes, unless you count a raging Pacino as an action scene. One of the action moments (the fire-escape caper) is hilariously improbable, poorly written, and executed with shockingly badly direction. The movie is very slowly paced. Boredom abounds.
The film ends in bizarre fashion that undercuts Serpico's tenacity, which is one of the few admirable qualities he does carry throughout the film. He basically punches out. Why now? After all this drama?