Year:  2002
Genre:  Drama, Gangster
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jude Law, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Stanley Tucci, Daniel Craig, Ciaran Hinds, Tyler Hoechlin, Liam Aiken
Director:  Sam Mendes
Run time:  116 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I won’t go into a long diatribe about Road To Perdition.  It’s out on Blu-Ray now, and you’ve either seen it or you haven’t.  You either own it or you don’t.  What I’ll do here is ask you to consider watching it if you haven’t, or buying it if it is not already on your shelf.  No point in upgrading from regular DVD to Blu-Ray, but Blu-Ray is a nice option now.  So that’s it.  Rent it, purchase it, order it, just watch it.  Here’s why.

     Tom Hanks never misses, but Road To Perdition is by far his most underrated movie.  Jude Law is good, but he has never been better than he was in this film.  And Paul Newman is the cherry on top of the already outstanding cast, which includes Stanley Tucci, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and a pre-Bond Daniel Craig.  This was Newman’s last real starring role in a movie, (except for a little voicework here and there), and that might be a good enough reason to see it.  I have seen every Tom Hanks movie and there are about five I can do without.  (Angels & Demons being the most recent one.)  I have also seen every Paul Newman movie.  Of those, there are none I can do without.  Even the worst Paul Newman movies still star Paul Newman!  And this was his last one.  So watch it.

Years:  1972
Genre:  Crime, Gangster, Drama, Classic
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, James Caan, John Cazale, Diane Keaton, Sterling Hayden, Richard Conte, Talia Shire, Al Lettiere, Al Martino, Lenny Montana, Abe Vigoda
Director:  Francis Ford Coppola
Run time: 177 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment
Related reviews:  Godfather trilogy on Blu-Ray

     Although I absolutely love The Godfather, and it is certainly one of the great movies in the history of the world, and all that…it is with certain caveats that I bestow the 10/10 rating on this Blu-Ray edition.  Yes, it’s on Blu-Ray.  And it looks unbelieveable, and it’s still as great as it ever was.  What gives me pause is simply how necessary I think this edition is.  There are few noticeable differences between this Blu-Ray and the one that came out a few months ago with the rest of the trilogy. 

     I would simply suggest that if someone already owns the trilogy on Blu-Ray, there is little reason to purchase the individual Blu-Ray as well.  Also, there is something incongruous and almost sad about putting The Godfather, the greatest most manly tough-guy movie of all time, into a collection called The Sapphire Series.  That’s kinda weird.  Then again, the Sapphire Series also involves Braveheart and Gladiator.  Go figure.  I am giving the Blu-Ray Sapphire Series edition 10/10 because I will never rate The Godfather at less than that.  So it’s certainly worthwhile if all you want is the first one.  But I hope you want the second one too, and the third is under-rated.  Buy the trilogy.

“I rob banks.”

Year:  2009
Genre:  Gangster
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Channing Tatum, Marion Cotillard, Giovanni Ribisi, Billy Crudup, Stephen Dorff, Lili Taylor
Cameos:  Diana Krall, Leelee Sobieski
Director:  Michael Mann
Run time:  143 minutes
DVD extras:  Feature commentary with Michael Mann, Larger Than Life: Adversaries, Michael Mann: Making Public Enemies, and On Dillinger’s Trail, a featurette about the real locations.  All very good stuff.

     It’s tough to think about Public Enemies without drawing comparisons to Michael Mann’s other, very similar movie, Heat.  Both are cat-and-mouse stories about a determined cop trying to hunt down an equally determined and dangerous bank robber.  Both have two enormous stars who share precious little screen time and are badly underused.  And both rely on crazy shootouts to fill their overly long running times.

     I do have a soft spot for Heat, however, whereas I don’t have one for Public Enemies.  The crazy shootout in Heat was awesome.  The shootouts in Public Enemies are not the same.  In this movie, the shootouts are pure Hollywood, with thousands upon thousands of bullets flying, but rarely hitting their targets except at the exact moments where a gunshot wound can create a dramatic scene.  You know no one important is going to be killed in that cabin in the woods during the crazy shootout.  But you know that when they are alone, running through the woods, there will be a dramatic scene where one major player dies in another’s arms.

     The biggest difference between the two movies is that Public Enemies is, as far as a Hollywood movie can be, a true story about a really famous criminal.  I think most people are aware of the existence of John Dillinger, many of those people know how he was finally apprehended, and even a few know the name of the man who got him, Melvin Purvis.  So with a run time of almost two and a half hours, I would like to think that Mann could have found a way to connect me with the two main characters.

     Especially when those two characters, Dillinger (Johnny Depp) and Purvis (Christian Bale) are being played by two phenomenal actors who could easily provide each man with humanity and character.   Then again, Mann had DeNiro and Pacino for Heat, and neither one of them really created a character in that film either.  Instead, we get to see Dillinger as a fun-loving, charming rogue who robs banks.  And that’s about it.  He falls for a woman (Marion Cotillard, who is also terribly underused), but I never knew why.  I didn’t get what he saw in her, and I didn’t understand why she loved him so desperately.

     I would get it if it was just an infatuation – he’s a dashing, dangerous bank robber, she’s an idiot – or something like that.  But instead this is a Hollywood functional romance only.  They meet.  He decides he wants her.  He gets her.  Then they are desperately in love.  For some reason.  Who cares why, the point is they are. 

     I had the same problem with Bale’s Purvis.  Pressured by J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup) to catch Dillinger at all costs, Purvis has some scenes where he appears to be conflicted about the methods he is using to bring the bank robber to justice.  Even the title of the movie, Public Enemies, is pluralized, indicating that perhaps Purvis is as dangerous as Dillinger himself.  But aside from a few winces and sighs, I never really saw that inner conflict within the man.  And when the postscript came up on the screen after the film, explaining what happened to Purvis after his pursuit of Dillinger came to an end, it made little sense in the context of the film.

     That being said, Public Enemies is nice to look at, and it’s well shot and it’s slick.  And it’s Michael Mann.  If you want to actually learn about Dillinger and Purvis and the era in which they operated, the Blu-Ray comes with some excellent special features that explain far more than the movie does.  The special features, in fact, are so good that they might make the DVD more worthwhile than the film itself.

     With Inglourious Basterds coming out next week, Alliance Films is hoping that Quentin Tarantino will be top of mind with you, the folks who buy DVDs.  And so they have put Tarantino’s six big movies together in a package so you can re-familiarize yourself with the genius of this unique director before watching his latest masterpiece.  And that’s a good thing.  A brief recap, for those of you who have forgotten what Tarantino has done over the course of his remarkable career:

     Reservoir Dogs (**********10/10):

  “How many dicks is that?”
  “A lot.”

Year:  1992
Genre:  Crime, Gangster
Country:  United States
Languages:  English
Starring:  Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Quentin Tarantino, Chris Penn, Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, Randy Brooks, Kirk Baltz, Edward Bunker
Cameos:  Steven Wright, Linda Kaye
Director:  Quentin Tarantino
Run time:  100 minutes

     I don’t think I can say anything about Reservoir Dogs that hasn’t already been said.  It is a phenomenal movie, an all-time classic, that slow-motion shot of the guys coming out of the restaurant at the beginning is a high-water mark in cinema, the dialogue turned movies on their ear, and every single actor involved with the production was better than top-notch.  The violence (although not as graphic and shocking as we thought it was in 1992) was stylish and had a substantial impact without being too cartoonish, and the finale was incredible.  The narrative style (jumping around in time) was a revelation, and the pop culture references were amazing. 

     Reservoir Dogs borrowed heavily from City on Fire, a classic Chow Yun-Fat Hong Kong movie.  I think at this point Tarantino fanatics are well aware of this fact.  The reason to revisit the film, however, is the little things that (perhaps knowingly, or unknowingly) reference Tarantino’s later work.  The discussion Roth and Buscemi and Penn have in a car about Pam Grier and who starred in Get Christie Love! is neat when you realize Pam Grier later starred in Jackie Brown.  Tim Roth and Steve Buscemi later appeared in Pulp Fiction, Madsen later appeared in the Kill Bill movies, and Harvey Keitel has been all over Tarantino’s later work, if only in strange and unbilled cameos like the one in Basterds.

     The addition of Steven Wright as the radio DJ doing K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the Seventies is a magnificent touch – he is an integral part of that “Stuck In The Middle With You” scene that became the most famous in the film.  One other little thing of note (at least, I think it’s kinda cool) - Linda Kaye appears in Reservoir Dogs as “shocked woman”, and then in Pulp Fiction as “shot woman”.  Linda Kaye starred in the 1960s TV comedy series Petticoat Junction, but is probably best known today as the woman who gets shot in the hip by Ving Rhames as he aims at Bruce Willis thirty years later.  All of this is cool.  To me, at least.  But the real reason to watch Reservoir Dogs again is that it kicks ass and it’s amazing.

     Pulp Fiction (**********10/10):

  “Describe what Marcellus Wallace looks like!”

Year:  1994
Genre:  Crime, Gangster
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta, Bruce Willis, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel, Christopher Walken, Ving Rhames, Phil LaMarr, Peter Green, Paul Calderon, Steve Buscemi, Linda Kaye, Maria de Medeiros, Kathy Griffin, Julia Sweeney, Amanda Plummer, Angela Jones, Tim Roth, Alexis Arquette, Rosanna Arquette, Frank Whaley, Eric Stoltz, Quentin Tarantino
Director:  Quentin Tarantino
Run time:  160 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     It took me a while to choose a quote from Pulp Fiction to kick off this review.  Because just about every single line in this movie is entirely quotable and entirely memorable.  It’s tough to think about that.  How good is the dialogue in the movie when every single line is that good?  That, more than anything else, is what makes this movie utterly brilliant.  What do you choose?  “I’m a get medieval on yo’ ass”, “Royale with cheese”, “maybe your method of massage differs from mine”, “pretty please.  With sugar on top.  Clean the f** car.”  Or how about “any of you f** pricks move, and I’ll execute every m**f** last one of ya!”  Frankly, most of the quotes from Pulp Fiction that have become part of our pop culture ever since 1994 have too much swearing in them to be mentioned here.

     But it’s not just the dialogue that makes Pulp Fiction great.  Look above this review, and check out the list of stars.  Pretty impressive list, right?  Some big names in there.  But it’s not impressive just because Quentin Tarantino was able to get that many amazing actors to appear in his film.  No, Pulp Fiction is amazing because it created, or in many cases resurrected the careers of so many of those actors.  Uma Thurman is famous because of Pulp Fiction.  Same with Samuel L. Jackson and Ving Rhames.  The movie brought John Travolta back from career death, and introduced Christopher Walken to a whole new audience. 

     Harvey Keitel was already established at the time – he had done Mean Streets, Bad Lieutenant, and other classics.  But I would wager that more people know him as “The Wolf” than anything else.  I would also wager that Phil LaMarr, despite a long career on MAD TV, gets called “Marvin” more than anything else, and that Frank Whaley is pretty sick of people approaching him to say “check out the big brain on Brett!”  These are just guesses, of course.  But when I need to describe an actor to someone – if I’m talking about the new movie where Tim Roth stops aging or something – I can’t just say “Tim Roth”.  Not everyone knows who he is.  But if I say “Pumpkin from Pulp Fiction“, they know right away.

     Then there’s Bruce Willis.  The year before he did Pulp Fiction, he did a movie called Striking Distance, where a cop is a serial killer, there are several boat chases, and the love interest chick is Sarah Jessica Parker.  He had just come off The Last Boyscout, Die Hard 2 and Hudson Hawk.  He was a bona-fide movie star, but he was spinning his wheels somewhat in terms of creativity.  Pulp Fiction helped to change his image somewhat, and launched a second phase of his career.  After playing Butch Coolidge in 1994, he went on to star in 12 Monkeys, The Fifth Element, The Sixth Sense, and one of the most entertaining movies of his action career, Die Hard With A Vengeance with…Samuel L. Jackson.

     Pulp Fiction, though, was more than just a quotable movie and a career-maker for so many actors.  It was also a marvel of structure, of filming, and of art-film-meets-action movie-meets-comedy.  It is genuinely hilarious, it crackles with suspense and action, there are some suddenly and remarkably brutal scenes, and yet it is artistically incredible as well.  What makes Pulp Fiction so terrific artistically is that it is open to interpretation in so many ways.  There is a remarkable theory out there that suggests that what is in the never-seen case is actually Marcellus Wallace’s soul, and that the bandaid on his head and Jules Winfield’s acknowledgement of having witnessed a miracle are all part and parcel of returning the soul to its owner.  It’s an amazing theory, and who knows if it’s true.  I won’t go into great detail here, but google it.  It’s fascinating.

     More than anything though, Pulp Fiction was, and remains, the coolest movie ever made.  It’s one of the few movies that bears up under several viewings (in my case, about two hundred viewings).  And it’s also perhaps the second-most influential movie of all time.  Not necessarily second-most influential in terms of movies that followed it, although that is certainly possible too.  But second-most influential in the wider culture outside movies.  Nowhere near as many people have seen Pulp Fiction as have seen Star Wars, and perhaps that’s why it’s only #2.  Hopefully, however, even more people will see this absolute classic as it gets released yet again.  Pulp Fiction.  A must-have.

     Jackie Brown (********8/10):

  “Is she dead, yes or no?”
  “Pretty much.”

Year:  1997
Genre:  Crime, Gangster
Country:  United States
Languages:  English
Starring:  Pam Grier, Robert DeNiro, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Forster, Michael Keaton, Chris Tucker, Sid Haig
Eye candy:  Bridget Fonda
Director:  Quentin Tarantino
Run time:  155 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     Jackie Brown was considered by many to be Tarantino’s worst movie when it came out.  And they were right.  Following on the heels of two of the greatest films of the 90s, it was a little disappointing.  And until Death Proof came out many years later, it was the low-water mark of Tarantino’s career.  But if a movie as good as Jackie Brown is your low-water mark, you have done something exceptional with your career, haven’t you?  Fewer memorable lines than Pulp Fiction, not as many cool action sequences as the Kill Bill movies that were to follow, and the characters were simply not as memorable.

     However, Jackie Brown was still as cool as movies got.  Pam Grier, brought back from career death.  Robert Forster, who had been long-forgotten thanks to movies like Maniac Cop 3, Robert DeNiro still at the peak of his career, Bridget Fonda, Michael Keaton and others made up an amazing cast, and is there a better scene in movies than the one where DeNiro shoots Bridget Fonda?  Maybe the one where DeNiro has sex with Bridget Fonda.  Jackie Brown isn’t Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs or Kill Bill or Inglourious Basterds.  But it’s darn good anyway.

     Kill Bill Vol. 1 (*********9/10):

  “Leave your limbs behind.  They belong to me.”

Year:  2003
Genre:  Kung-Fu
Country:  United States
Languages:  English, Japanese
Starring:  Uma Thurman, Sonny Chiba, Gordon Liu
Director:  Quentin Tarantino
Eye candy:  Vivica Fox, Lucy Liu, Daryl Hannah, Chiaki Kuriyama, Julie Dreyfus
Run time:  107 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     One of the great movies of the past ten years, Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill was a revelation when it hit the big screen.  A tribute to kung-fu movies, to old western movies, to Japanese samurai epics, and just about everything else you can imagine, Kill Bill feels terrifically familiar while still bringing something entirely new to the movie world.  Buckets of blood, filthy fun dialogue, and incredibly creepy scenes played for laughs, you can tell right away who made this film.  But never has Tarantino made such an adrenaline-fueled badass action movie. 

     “We’ll have us a knife fight.”

     Uma Thurman plays “The Bride”, who has been shot in the head and left for dead by an elite team of international assassins.  Thurman was once a member of that team, and when she finally emerges from her coma, she goes off to seek her revenge.  And…that’s about it, as far as plot goes.  Now, it’s knife fights and sword fights and all kinds of blood.  The first victim of The Bride’s wrath is Vernita Green (Vivica Fox), who is now a suburban homemaker with an adorable little daughter.  The scene where the two women put their knives away as the child gets off the school bus is priceless.

     Then the Bride needs a sword.  This sword must be made by Hattori Hanzo, the world’s greatest sword maker.  Hanzo is played by Sonny Chiba, a legend in Japanese martial arts cinema with his series of bloody, violent, morally questionable Street Fighter movies.  And in order to make Kill Bill even more bloody and violent and morally questionable, Uma Thurman needs a sword fashioned by Sonny Chiba.  It makes sense.  The addition of Chiba to the cast is a nice touch, but I would have liked to see him throw down at least a little.  Gordon Liu, another martial arts movie legend, was cast in the movie too, but he at least got to kick a little ass. 

     Then it’s Lucy Liu, whose creepy, bloody and brutal back story is told in Japanese animation.  I guess because it would have been too brutal and violent to show, and the movie wanted to maintain the “R” rating and not cross the line to NC-17.  I think there are a few other scenes that have been edited differently for the same reason (some black-and-white sword fights, for example.  I don’t get the reasoning there – if there is a ton of blood, does it really offend people less if it’s in black and white?)  Liu has an army of bodyguards called the “Crazy 88″, led by the aforementioned Gordon Liu.  And Uma Thurman must cut them all down to get to her target.

     Of course, there is a Kill Bill 2, so we know she will slice her way through the entire team of bodyguards, and we know that it will be badass, and we know that she will end up murdering Lucy Liu in the final act of revenge in Vol. 1.  But nothing can prepare for the carnage and the mayhem, and the leaving behind of limbs.  When this movie ends, even though it’s almost two hours long, I always need to watch the second movie, right away.  Which is why this single-disc edition of both movies works so well.

     “That woman deserves her revenge.  And we deserve to die.”

     Kill Bill Vol. 2 (**********10/10):

  “Gross.”

Year:  2004
Genre:  Kung-Fu
Country:  United States
Languages:  English, Japanese
Starring:  Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Madsen, Gordon Liu
Eye candy:  Daryl Hannah, Helen Kim
Director:  Quentin Tarantino
Run time:  137 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     It’s an amazing feat, but Kill Bill Vol. 2 actually manages to be better than Vol. 1.  The scenes with Gordon Liu playing the badass old warrior Pai Mei, as Uma Thurman undergoes his “cruel tutelage” would not be out of place in a classic kung-fu movie from the 70s, except that it’s more stylish and more badass.  The swordfight between Uma Thurman and Daryl Hannah in a tiny trailer is one of the best-choreographed fight scenes I have ever seen.  There are several moments, in the desert, that are either direct tributes to classic western movies or inspired scenes of western myth.  And the characters in Vol. 2 are a step up from those in Vol. 1, in a big way.

     First, there is Budd (Michael Madsen), Bill’s brother and a broken-down, regret filled strip club bouncer who has given up the professional killer lifestyle in favour of anonymity and a booze-soaked existence in the desert.  When he (of all people) manages to get the drop on the Bride (now named Beatrix Kiddo), and buries her alive, it’s one of the most frightening and claustrophobic scenes in all of Tarantino’s oeuvre.  Daryl Hannah, playing the evil (”evil” being a relative term in these movies, but she is the worst of the worst) bad girl, is both smoking hot and frighteningly creepy as she stalks the Bride.  The scene where she leaves Budd’s trailer and gets Thurman’s two feet in her chest is one of the few real “oh yeah!” moments in these films.

     It’s almost sad that Elle Driver (Hannah) kills Budd, leaving the Bride’s quest for revenge slightly less satisfying.  But the scene between the two women is so immensely satisfying that it eclipses any disappointment I felt at not seeing everyone brutally murdered by Uma Thurman.

     And then there’s Bill.  Given the recent and sad passing of David Carradine, this is the most recognizeable and important role he ever played in a movie.  And it’s the best acting performance of his life.  And he is one of the most badass characters in any Tarantino movie.  And he’s still rather cheesy.  In fact, Carradine’s Bill in Kill Bill Vol. 2 is almost a Steven Seagal character.  The silly philosophizing, the almost-phony mysticism, the soft-spoken yet badass sense of his own wisdom.  And of course the kung-fu.  He is what Seagal could be in the hands of Tarantino.  And here’s me hoping those two hook up for a movie some day.  A guy can dream.

     Of course, Tarantino made the two movies as one movie.  Kill Bill was supposed to be one, super-long, crazy badass movie.  But not a lot of people would have sat through four hours in a theatre, so it was split into two films that people might actually go to watch.  I, though, am one of those people who would have sat through four hours of this in the theatre.  And I have, often, sat through all four hours of this in my house.  And now, I can do so without getting up.  There are no special features.  But who needs them?  After two Kill Bill films, I am too exhausted and satisfied to care.

     Death Proof (*******7/10):

  “Ladies, we’re gonna have some fun.”

Year:  2007
Genre:  Horror
Country:  United States
Languages:  English
Starring:  Kurt Russell, Quentin Tarantino, Eli Roth, Michael Parks
Eye candy:  Rosario Dawson, Zoe Bell, Rose McGowan, Vanessa Ferlito, Jordan Ladd, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Tracie Thomas, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Helen Kim
Director:  Quentin Tarantino
Run time:  114 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     True to Quentin Tarantino form, he packs Death Proof with as many references to other movies as possible. The whole film is a campy and terrific throwback to the days of drive-in cinema, and most of it is wonderful. Kurt Russell, perhaps banking on Tarantino to resurrect his career just as he did for John Travolta and David Carradine, plays a stunt driver who gets his kicks by murdering hot young women with his car. He also does a really great John Wayne impression.

     Throughout the movie, Tarantino makes reference to Zatoichi, the blind swordsman, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Convoy, Junior Bonner, and a few of his own films, as well as a ton of old car movies like Smokey and the Bandit, the original Gone in 60 Seconds, and in a big way, the 70s classic Vanishing Point. The dialogue is as great as you would expect in a Tarantino movie, and does a wonderful job conveying the spirit of 70s B-movies. The only problem I have with the film is the first hour seems pretty unnecessary once the second half begins. It’d be better if the film started almost an hour in.

     Death Proof is not Tarantino’s best work, but it is a fantastic movie for anyone who is interested in cars, cheesy 70s film, or B-movie classics.  And having it with the Collection is better than having it without.  Tarantino: The Ultimate Collection comes out December 8th from Alliance Films.

“Colin’s as much a son to me as you are.”

Year:  2008
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Jason Isaacs, Jason Clarke, Annabeth Gish, Fionnula Flanagan, Kevin Chapman, Fiona Erickson, Brian F. O’Byrne, Ethan Embry
Creator:  Blake Masters
Run time:  7 hours, 6 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

    I am still upset that Brotherhood never got the recognition that was given to The Sopranos.  Not that Brotherhood is that good.  It’s terrific, but it isn’t The Sopranos because nothing is that good.  But it was certainly good enough to have a nice, long run on television.  I was totally into this show.  I was desperate to find out what happened at the end of Season Two, and I was therefore thrilled when I received Season Three on DVD, out September 22nd from Paramount Home Entertainment.  I sat down with my girlfriend, as I did for Season Two, and watched the whole thing beginning to end.  The thing is, this time the end of Season Three was also the end of the show.

     And because it was canceled after the end of Season Three, there is no real closure.  I have read a lot on the internet suggesting that the people making the show knew it would be canceled and therefore they created a sense of closure to the show.  In the sense that Colin has now run off with Michael’s girlfriend, and Tommy has been named Speaker of the House, perhaps.  But I got the sense that a lot more was going to take place.  The dynamic between Freddie and Michael shifted in a huge way over the course of the third season, with Freddie now becoming subordinate to Michael.  But toward the end of the season, Freddie appears to be making a play to get back on top, and Michael is self-destructing with violent insane behaviour.

     I felt as though this was merely a lead-up to some crazy action that was to take place in a potential fourth season, and I would have been very excited to see that fourth season had it aired.  But it didn’t.  And if the producers did know that the series was about to end, they did a pretty poor job of wrapping it up.  It wasn’t even an open-ended, make-of-it-what-you-will Sopranos ending.  It was just the ending of a season story arc.  The culmination of one story line, and the beginning of another.  But it doesn’t matter now, does it?  What remains is this third season, which is as excellent as the rest of the show, and stands up there with the best TV has to offer.

“Smoove wuz drillin’ her ass like he was workin’ for OPEC”

     There is something that really bugs me about a movie that tries to incorporate topical, smart dialogue into the story without having a story that is either topical or smart.  I suppose the plot of Dough Boys could be considered “topical” in the sense that it is the kind of movie that has always existed, and will always exist, because it depicts characters that are drawn from real life.  In this case, a group of small-time hustlers on the mean streets who bite off more than they can chew when they cross a local gangster boss.  I have seen this story a thousand times, and it rarely resonates any more.  Dough Boys is no exception.

     Two of the four central characters are decent actors.  Cory Hardrict is solid as “Smooth” (although no one ever calls him that.  His name is clearly “Smoove”.)  Smooth is the gangsta-talking tough guy of the group with the standard self-esteem issues and gangster complex that we see so often in these movies.  (Think, a watered-down version of Ice Cube’s character, actually named Doughboy, in Boyz N The Hood.)  And Arlen Escarpeta is pretty good and convincing as the main character and narrator, Corey.  He is the “good guy” in the group – the one who is faithful to his steady girlfriend, who has plans to go to college and escape the ghetto, and so forth.  Of course he is still a petty thug and a criminal.  But he’s the nice one.

      Corey and Smooth have two buddies, Long Cuz (the fat one) and Black (the skinny sketchy one).  Long Cuz is kind of a pointless character, but he gets killed early on so it doesn’t matter.  In fact, the killing of Long Cuz is a very well set up and very shocking moment that is without a doubt the best single moment in an otherwise tedious movie.  Black ends up being a very important character, but he is so poorly written that nothing he ends up doing to become that important character makes any sense.  There was one other guy I thought was a pretty good actor – Wood Harris as the bad guy gangster Julian France.  He was suitably charming and ice-cold and deadly at first.  But during one big final shootout (because these movies must end with one of those), he fires his guns in such an alarmingly sissy way that any tough guy cred he had built up to that point evaporates.  Also, I was laughing at him.  I mean, he may as well be throwing the bullets at the cops.

     One more actor ought to be mentioned.  The local neighbourhood tough guy, Deuce, is played by an actor billed as Kirk Jones.  Kirk Jones is actually Sticky Fingaz from the rap group Onyx.  Remember Onyx?  Slam!  Duh duh duh…anyway.  I know that Kirk Jones and Sticky Fingaz are the same person because I have his solo CD, Blacktrash: The Autobiography of Kirk Jones.  I mention that only because it’s a good CD.  You should pick it up.  It’s certainly better than this movie.  Anyway, Jones (or Fingaz, depending on how he wants to be billed) is that neighbourhood tough guy who proves how tough he is by shooting a seemingly innocent man in cold blood, in a dispassionate sort of way.  I think this may be a clause in the contract of any rapper – they must be made to look like the toughest, baddest, most gangster character in the movie whenever they are acting.

     This applies even to rappers who work with Steven Seagal.  Now, to Sticky’s credit, he does have a moment toward the end of the film where he drops the tough-guy facade and is revealed to be something else entirely.  He even does a pretty solid acting job in that scene.  But like so much of the rest of the movie, it’s all so badly written that it makes no sense, and I just didn’t care about his transformation.  Or, more accurately, I didn’t believe it at all.  I should take the time out here to give kudos to Mos Def, for never ever being the toughest badass in any movie, ever.  And, he’s a good actor.

     So, back to Dough Boys.  Or maybe Doughboys.  The DVD case and imdb and other sources don’t make it clear which is the correct spelling.  But I digress.  The movie is basically what I’ve said.  Small-time hustlers, caricatures of better characters in other movies, get in over their heads and have to pay the local gangster.  There are a lot of really, really long montages of the boys falling in love with the gangster lifestyle, or worrying about their lives, or being sad.  This appears to be time filler in a movie that just doesn’t have enough substance to last an hour and a half.  And there is a sex scene where it looks like for the purposes of filming, the guy and the girl are actually on opposite sides of the blanket.

     There are a lot of really painful sequences of dialogue where characters are supposed to be smart.  Like a scene where two girls in lingerie are talking about colours and a book they’ve read, and Smooth inserts himself into their discussion by talking about the same book and waxing eloquent about the virtues of yellow…I’m not even making this up.  The problem is, the dialogue is written solely in order to make the characters sound smart.  But the actors don’t seem to understand the words they’re using.  Those two girls on the couch might be the worst actresses this side of porn.  That is, assuming they are not actual porn actresses.

     There is a lot of sex in the movie, but basically just lingerie and no boobs.  There is a fair amount of violence, but most of it is ultimately irrelevant, or silly looking.  And the bond between the four petty thieves, which is the central point of the movie, seems to fall apart rather easily when they’re faced with adversity.  And just about every character (Deuce, Julian France, Smooth, Black) ends the movie doing something so out of character that it makes everything they have done up until that point useless.  Only Corey stays consistent from the beginning of the film to the end.  But he’s really cardboard cutout anyway.

     I feel like I’m being too harsh on Doughboys.  Because really, it isn’t that bad.  There are certainly moments that are entertaining, there are exchanges between characters (mostly Corey and Smooth) that are actually compelling.  And there are a couple of shocking murders which are pretty unexpected.  But the movie is so lackadaisical in going through the motions of so many similar films that there is nothing in it to really recommend a rental.  Dough Boys comes out June 16th on DVD from Paramount Home Entertainment.

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“You’ll help a dog, but you won’t help me?”

   Usually, it is pretty difficult to figure out a movie based on the cover of its DVD.  Generally, the cover does not depict the scenes in the movie, and the write-up on the back is done by someone who has perhaps not even seen the film.  (Take a look at the cover of the DVD for Logan’s Run – it shows Michael York, which makes sense, pulling Farrah Fawcett behind him.  Which doesn’t.  Fawcett is in that movie for about nine seconds, and she certainly doesn’t get dragged anywhere by Michael York.  The actress who actually starred in the film gets dragged by Michael York, but she is not nearly as big a name as Farrah Fawcett.  Which is sad in itself.)

   At any rate, enough about  Logan’s Run.  I’m talking about the DVD case for Protege now.  It depicts the star, Daniel Wu, holding a gun.  I’m not sure that, at any point in the movie, he is ever carrying a gun, much less holding one.  But that’s not the most misinformative thing about the DVD case.  The back of the film has a little laurel that indicates an award nomination.  Protege was nominated for nine Hong Kong film awards, the equivalent of the Oscars or Canada’s Genies.  One of those nine nominations was for Best Picture.  And yet the little laurel that advertises this movie to North American audiences…I quote directly…NOMINATED “Best Action Choreography” HONG KONG FILM AWARDS.

   Yes, apparently the only reason North American audiences will purchase or rent a Hong Kong flick is for the kung-fu action and the blazing gunfights and the acrobatics of Jet Li and Jackie Chan.  Best Picture?  Who cares?  Best Action…well, okay!  This is akin to advertising No Country For Old Men in Sweden with the caption “NOMINATED for Best Sound Editing Oscar, ACADEMY AWARDS”.  How about, instead of advertising the action sequences, advertise that Protege is a very, very good film?  How about that?  Because Protege is, in fact, a very very good film.  Not only that, but there are almost NO action sequences to speak of.  At all.  There is a scene where three guys jump from one balcony to another on the eighth floor of a building, another where a few people ride very slow elephants, and that’s about it.

   There are no crazy martial arts moments.  There is one beating, of a suspect by police, and there is one punch thrown, where a cop punches a junkie.  That’s it.  There are no crazy gunfights.  I think two guns are actually fired, both by police at a locked, impenetrable steel door, with comic results.  There IS a dismemberment-by-hammer, which is both brutal and humorous, but that’s about it for action.  Instead, we get the other thing Hong Kong does extremely well – the undercover-cop police drama.  Remember Infernal Affairs, that spawned two sequels and was remade as The Departed?  Well, you should.  It was great.  And Protege is almost at that level.  Almost.

   The film opens with a beautiful woman doing hard drugs with her kid in the room, and some cops losing the van they’re tailing in a sting operation.  Soon we learn that Nick (Daniel Wu) is a member of the drug gang, is actually an undercover cop, and lives across the backyard from the gorgeous junkie.  The leader of the gang is Kwan, played by Andy Lau.  I am a big Andy Lau fan, ever since the amazing Fulltime Killer.  In this movie he is a sympathetic character – although he is a major crime lord, and a distributor of heroin, and a killer, there is really only one short scene that shows his bad side, just to remind us that he really is a bad dude.

    As Nick becomes more and more involved with the drug gang, he also becomes more and more involved with the junkie Fan (Zhang Jinchu) and her little daughter.  There are now three facets of his life that he must keep separate at all costs.  He doesn’t want Kwan to know he is taking an interest in a junkie, and he doesn’t want his police bosses to know either.  At the same time, of course, he can never let Kwan know he is a cop.  Nick has spent seven years working undercover in this gang, and has worked his way into Kwan’s inner circle, to the point where he is now the heir apparent to the entire drug empire.  Of course, as with all movies of this ilk, there are conflicting emotions leading to a big showdown final scene.

   But the final scene in Protege is better than most – at least, the final showdown is.  The movie goes on about three minutes too long, and the postscript is pretty hokey and a little contrived.  Also, it’s unnecessary.  The rest of the film is taut, tense, and exciting, despite the lack of gunfights and action.  There are some close calls with Nick and Kwan, and some freaky moments where we see Fan using drugs.  The camera work in those scenes is terrific, director Derek Yee using brief shots of clouds and shots of Fan to really convey the rush of the drug and the dependance.  The same camera shot is repeated later on, this time in a slightly different context.

   There are a few problems with the film – the vaguely schmaltzy coda after the movie is over being only one of them.  The biggest problem is the addition of another character, Fan’s junkie loser violent husband.  Of course, this sets up a few confrontations between Nick and him, but they aren’t essential to the story and they sometimes get in the way.  And the final fate of Fan’s husband is a little out of character with the rest of the film.  Overall though, Protege is an excellent Hong Kong film, well acted (especially by Jinchu and Lau) and the camera work is top-notch.  Well worth checking out, it hits DVD March 24th from Alliance Films.  Just don’t be fooled by the guns and the Action Awards.