skjam

Starship Troopers (1997) dir. Paul Verhoeven

John D. "Johnny" Rico (Casper Van Dien) is a jumpball star at his local high school in Buenos Aires in the 22nd Century. But he has decided he doesn't want to go professional, and he's having second thoughts about simply working for his wealthy father's (Christopher Curry) company. Instead, he's thinking of going into government service, which guarantees citizenship, the right to vote. He's been influenced in this by his civics teacher, Jean Raszcak (Michael Ironside) who flatly states that most civilians can't cut it in government service, and his girlfriend Carmen Ibanez (Denise Richards), who is signing up herself.

Despite his parents' strong objections, Johnny signs up right out of high school, as do Carmen, Dizzy Flores (Dana Meyer) who is a fellow jumpball player and attracted to Johnny, and Carl Jenkins (Neil Patrick Harris), a "sensitive" with some psychic abilities. Carmen gets a prestigious flight academy posting, Carl is sent off to military research, while Johnny and Dizzy, not exactly being mental powerhouses, have to "settle" for the Mobile Infantry, the grunts of the future military.

At boot camp, Johnny meets tough but fair drill instructor Sergeant Zim (Clancy Brown), new best friend Ace Levy (Jake Busey), and a number of other recruits. Johnny's skillset and personality give him potential as a soldier, and he's soon a temporary squad leader. Then a fatal training mistake shatters Johnny's confidence. He's about to quit when the conflict with an alien species called the Bugs goes hot with the destruction of Buenos Aires. A war's on now, and Johnny is going to do his part!

Would you like to know more?

This sci-fi action movie is loosely based on Robert A. Heinlein's novel of the same name. And by "loosely", I mean that the director read the first couple of chapters, bounced hard, asked the scriptwriter to summarize the plot, then decided to make a satire of what he thought the book's themes were, completely missing the actual social commentary contained therein.

Which is not to say it isn't a great movie. You just have to catch that it's an in-universe propaganda film made by a fascist regime to sell an ill-thought-out war to its populace. There are plenty of hints. The Buenos Aires characters might have Hispanic names, but are conspicuously white-looking and don't show any signs of Hispanic culture. Buenos Aires might be a city from the little we see of it, but the high school sure looks feels like a small-town school. Once we get into the military portion, there's a lot of echoes of fascist symbology. The tactics are laughable, and some of the propaganda blurbs are outright silly.

And of course, to make a good satire, it also has to work as an actual example of the genre. A likeable hero, relatable struggles, awesome action and reasonably plausible plot twists.

Instead of the book's single narrative following just Johnny, we cut to Carmen's story every so often, making her an actual character in the story. This also allows the filmmakers to introduce romance subplotting that was almost completely ignored in the book.

The special effects are top-notch for the time, and haven't aged badly at all.

Will we ever see a reasonably faithful adaptation of the book? Probably not. It's very much a reaction to American (and to a lesser extent global) conditions of the 1950s and so would need updating to deal with current cultural touchstones. (For example, a Filipino as the protagonist would be seen by conservatives as "woke" rather than the mind-blowing reveal it was when the book was first published.)

In the meantime, we have this twisted adaptation to enjoy.

Content note: Lots of military violence, often gory and/or lethal. Quite a bit of mutilation and severed limbs. Torture by whipping. A cow dies with minimal censoring. Extramarital sex just off-camera. Male and female nudity, including the infamous mixed shower scene. People with bug phobias might want to skip this altogether. Vomiting. Some rough language. This is an R-rated movie and fully earns that.

People who prefer their science fiction serious should read the book instead. Also, if you see the movie I recommend reading the book so see what Heinlein was actually talking about. Still, this is a good movie, and recommended to people who understand where the director is coming from.

Goldeneye (1995) dir. Martin Campbell

Nine years ago, MI6 agents 006 Alex Trevelyan (Sean Bean) and 007 James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) infiltrated a Soviet chemical weapons plant hidden inside a dam. A alarm was tripped early, and 006 was caught and shot by the base commander, Colonel Ourumov (Gottfried John). Bond shorted the timers on the explosives he'd planted and managed to escape by the skin of his teeth. The plant was destroyed, but James has been haunted ever since by the death of his colleague and friend.

In the present day, things have changed. There no longer is a Soviet Union as such. And MI6 has a new "M" (Judi Dench) in charge. So there's an evaluation of 007 going on to make sure he's still fit for service. After an exciting car chase with a mysterious woman (Who will turn out to be Xenia Onatopp (Famke Jannsen)), James is able to seduce his pretty evaluator into giving him a passing mark.

Onatopp is suspected of working for Janus, a new organized crime group working out of the Russian Federation and named after its mysterious leader. Bond investigates, but is unable to prevent her from murdering an admiral and stealing an experimental helicopter shielded against radiation and electromagnetic pulses.

This turns out to be part of a plan to steal control of "Goldeneye", a secret Soviet space weapon capable of creating EMPs on demand (once); because it was super-expensive and violated treaties, only two were ever placed in orbit. They're controlled from a Space Weapons facility in Northern Russia.

This is where we meet our female lead, Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco), systems engineer and computer programmer for the base, paired with Boris Grishenko (Alan Cumming). Boris is a genius hacker, but alas poor in social skills, creating a hostile work environment for Natalya with his juvenile sexual jokes and crude innuendo. She puts up with him because he's sometimes genuinely funny and also she doesn't have a lot of choice in her career field.

Colonel (now a general, apparently) Ourumov arrives at the facility for a surprise inspection. Once having secured the Goldeneye key, he and Onatopp kill everyone except Boris, who was outside for a smoke break, and Natalya, who'd gone for coffee and tricked Onatopp about her hiding place. The criminals then use the first Goldeneye to destroy the base itself and any evidence that might have been there, but Natalya manages to survive that too.

Shortly thereafter, James Bond is in St. Petersburg, investigating leads to Janus. He learns that part of the gang leader's motivation is revenge against the Soviet and British governments, due to the Brits sending refugees back to the murderous government they were fleeing. (Topical!) Bond admits, "not our finest hour."

Natalya is able to get to St. Petersburg as well, and uses her computer skills to try to locate help. She's surprised to learn Boris is still alive, but when they meet she's bitterly disappointed to find out he was working for Janus all along. Fortunately, James is there to rescue her, but she is understandably suspicious of him. And the leader of the gang, Janus, also is revealed and it's someone 007 has met before.

Can James Bond convince Natalya that he's one of the good guys and prevent Janus from using Goldeneye on London?

This was the first Bond movie for Pierce Brosnan--it had been delayed by legal difficulties and other issues, so Timothy Dalton had asked to be released from his contract. The script still was tuned to Dalton's darker take on the character. The fall of the Soviet Union did require some major changes to the story, and it became focused on "what do we do now that our main enemy is defeated? Is James Bond still relevant?")

Janus helps ease this transition. He's not just a random bad guy that 007 is fighting because that's his job, he's one of the few people James Bond considered a close friend. That makes it personal, and Janus takes advantage of his knowledge of Bond's vulnerable spots to score some nasty emotional blows. The backstory makes Janus' bitterness and betrayal understandable, though he loses any sympathy points by his greed and willingness to kill innocent people.

Onatopp is also memorable, as her character type was still rare at the time, a fighting woman who gets off sexually on violence and killing. And crushing men with her thighs. Ahem.

Boris is the comic relief for the villains, a nerd who suddenly finds himself very much in demand for his computer skills and gloating about it. His sexism and immaturity make it satisfying when he declares himself "invincible" once too often.

Brosnan is an acceptable Bond, though he's still not completely into the role. Natalya gets to be pretty darn competent, somehow managing to get from the destroyed base all the way to St. Petersburg without getting caught, and her computer skills being actually just as good as Boris'. (Bond does have to solve a password for her.)

As always for Bond movies, exciting, well-staged action scenes, stuff blowing up and nice scenery (including actual footage of St. Petersburg, the first time a Bond film had actually shot inside Russia.)

This film is perhaps best remembered by fans as having inspired the best tie-in video game for a James Bond movie, but it's a good installment in the series, and recommended for action movie buffs.

Coogan's Bluff (1968) dir. Don Siegel

Deputy Sheriff Coogan (Clint Eastwood) is sent from his native Arizona to New York City to extradite escaped felon James Ringerman (Don Stroud). He expects it to be a quick process, but Ringerman had a bad trip on LSD and is currently under observation at Bellevue. NYPD Lieutenant McElroy (Lee J. Cobb) explains a bit of the bureaucratic process in a rather dismissive fashion (he's got his own worries.) While at the police station, Coogan becomes interested in parole officer Julie Roth (Susan Clark) though they start off poorly due to his misunderstanding of how her job works.

Despite Julie warming up to him a bit, Coogan is generally unimpressed by New York City's people and culture, becoming impatient to pick up his prisoner. He bluffs (thus the title) the Bellevue staff into thinking he's got the releases needed to get Ringerman out of the hospital. But his carelessness and rush to be done results in him losing Ringerman and his gun. Despite being warned off by the New York police and taken off the case by the Arizona sheriff's office, Coogan's pride has been damaged, and he will not rest until he's personally recaptured the criminal.

This was Eastwood's first go-round as a "cowboy cop", before the much better received Dirty Harry series. It's notable here that Coogan's antics make life much more difficult for himself and everyone around him, and are ultimately a big waste of time. He could have accomplished just as much by taking Lt. McElroy's advice and waiting it out, with much less personal injury and property damage. Yes, New York City is disgusting in this late Sixties setting, with its permissiveness and criminal coddling and chiseling, not to mention the hippies. Ringerman's girlfriend Linny Raven (Tisha Sterling) is a particularly rancid example of the Love Generation gone wrong. But if he'd just held on, Coogan would have gotten what he wanted. Heck, there's even a moment where Julie suggests an activity that would have shortcut his search by Ringerman by a day by coincidence if he'd been able to turn off his pride for a moment.

At the beginning of the film, we see Coogan in his native territory, ignoring orders from his sheriff to apprehend a fugitive in his own way, then chaining the man up so he can visit a girlfriend before taking the man in. Coogan repeatedly shows a tendency to not listen to instructions or suggestions, defy protocol and violate privacy laws, and will gladly seduce women and betray them to get what he wants. (Apparently he does make some apologies offscreen at the end of the movie, since McElroy and Julie act as though he's mended fences.)

A highlight of the movie is one scene where Coogan tries to get information out of Ringerman's mother Ellen (Betty Field) only to be outmatched by her brazenness. (He did have a follow-up plan but he'd screwed up the NYPD's investigation in the process, canceling out both.) There's a nifty scene in a psychedelic nightclub, and general glimpses of New York City in the late 1960s, like the Pan Am helipad. (No scenes of the actual Coogan's Bluff, though.) Oh, and the motorcycle chase is pretty good.

Content note: Gun violence and fisticuffs, hospitalization but no deaths. Female nudity and male shirtlessness. Sexual assault. Extramarital sex. Drug abuse. Coogan breaks a lot of laws and ultimately faces no legal consequences. Older teens should be okay.

This is a lesser Eastwood film, to fill in checklists for his fans, or for fans of the cowboy cop subgenre in general.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) dir. Steven Spielberg

Shanghai, 1935. Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones (Harrison Ford) is in town to swap the ashes of a Manchu emperor for a large diamond of historical and personal interest to him. Unfortunately, gang boss (and shipping magnate) Lao Che (Roy Chiao) wants to keep both items and poisons the famed archaeologist so he will swap back the diamond for an antidote. Except that the criminal decides to keep that too. Mayhem ensues, and Indy barely escapes the nightclub with the antidote and singer Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) who'd gotten caught in the crossfire because she too wanted the diamond. They are driven to relative safety by Doctor Jones' young sidekick Short Round (Ke Huy Quan).

Unfortunately, the airplane they take to escape Shanghai turns out to be owned by Lao Che, who orders the crew to bail out over the Himalayas to doom the passengers. Quick thinking allows the trio to survive using an inflatable raft (yes, this stunt is probably impossible in real life, roll with it) and they are able to float downriver to India.

The village they arrive at is dying. It seems there is a new maharajah at the long-abandoned Pankot palace, and the minions of the maharajah have stolen the lucky rock from the village shrine. Oh, and the children. The villagers prayed to Shiva for relief, lo and behold, Indiana Jones has arrived. Indy's not initially interested, but soon learns that the "lucky rock" may in fact be one of the legendary Sankara Stones of Shiva, the possession of which will bring fortune and glory.

As the trio approaches Pankot palace, there are various clues that something's not right, including that the day skies are filled with bats instead of birds. (Indy misidentifies these fruit bats as vampire bats--he's an archaeologist, not a zoologist.) Even though they're given a warm welcome to the palace by the prime minister Chatter Lai (Roshan Seth) and child maharajah (Raj Singh), the weirdness continues with a banquet of things no orthodox Hindu or Muslim would ever eat. Not that fellow guest British Captain Blumburtt (Philip Stone) seems to notice.

That night, circumstances lead Indiana, Short Round and Willie to discover that the palace is built above a mine/catacombs which include the titular Temple of Doom, home to a somehow surviving sect of Thugee led by the sinister priest Mola Ram (Amrish Puri). Time for the action to move into high gear!

This second Indiana Jones movie was made a prequel so that there would be a break from Nazis as villains, and to avoid having to follow up on some plot threads from Raiders of the Lost Ark. This does create a bit of suspense as while we know Indy will survive, none of the other characters are around in the future and are thus possible casualties. On the other hand, the events here make Dr. Jones' rock-hard skepticism about the supernatural in the first movie seem a bit weird.

Good: After the Broadway musical-style opening number, we get action and plenty of it. Amazing stunts and practical effects make for a movie that will please the excitement junkies in the audience. The mine cart chase is very much a thrill ride.

Ke Huy Quan is very good as child actors go, and it's obvious that he and Harrison Ford have good chemistry. Short Round is in the tradition of pulp kid sidekicks and performs his duties admirably.

Kate Capshaw does the best she can with Willie Scott, who spends most of the movie being dumped on and mostly useless, between passive-aggressive flirting with Indy.

Amrish Puri is top-notch as sinister Mola Ram, and went on to be one of Bollywood's favorite villain actors.

Less good: There are reasons scenes were shot in Sri Lanka rather than India. The movie tends towards a Thirties pulp treatment of natives of India, which can come across as kind of racist. (Especially since there are deliberate missteps in cultural portrayal.)

The flirting between Indy and Willie is painful. I can see why they didn't stay together even a full year.

Content note: Lots and lots of violence, often lethal. Most parents might be especially concerned about the part where Mola Ram pulls the heart out of a man's chest while he's still alive, and then the man is burned alive. Child endangerment and abuse. Slavery. Torture. Indy is poisoned and drugged. There's a scene that will freak out anyone with insect phobias. Male shirtlessness. The banquet is deliberately designed to gross out Western (and Indian) viewers. Dubious religious practice for the Kali cultists.

Odd: Mola Ram has a personal grudge against "the Hebrew God" and there's a painting of the Ark of the Covenant on one of the Temple walls. Hmm.

This was the darkest of the Indiana Jones movies, a deliberate choice by producer George Lucas. Afterwards, both he and director Steven Spielberg admitted that they'd maybe gone a bit too dark. (Between this movie and Gremlins, the MPAA was inspired to create the PG-13 rating to have a step between PG and R-rated films for just such movies.

It's still a very good movie; you just might want to watch something lighter afterwards to cleanse your palate. Recommended to Harrison Ford fans and lovers of pulp adventure.

For Your Eyes Only (1981) dir. John Glen

James Bond (Roger Moore) is visiting his wife Tracy's grave when he's informed that a helicopter has come to take him to "the office." This turns out to be a trap, as the pilot is murdered by his own headphones so that a man who is clearly Blofeld (John Hollis), having survived the end of Diamonds Are Forever though with severe permanent injuries. The villain flies the helicopter by remote control, taunting Bond with almost-death, but gloats too long and 007 is able to disable the remote and turns the tables. Blofeld is probably really dead this time.

Meanwhile, the St. Georges, a British Navy surveillance ship disguised as a fishing trawler, is sunk in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Greece. It happened to have on board the ATAC, a device for controlling Britain's ballistic missiles. The Soviet Union in the person of General Gogol (Walter Gotell) would be very interested in obtaining the device, and commission "our Greek friend" to pick it up. Marine archaeologist and crossbow champion Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet) witnesses her parents being assassinated by Cuban hitman Hector Gonzales (Stefan Kalipha). She does not know that this is because they were helping the British locate the sunken ship.

Bond is called in to investigate the murder of the Havelocks and find the ATAC. While he's surveilling the pool party Gonzales is hosting in Spain, he witnesses someone hand the killer a suitcase full of money. He then allows himself to be captured, but before he can learn more, Melina in disguise murders Gonzales and they're forced to escape together.

James and Melina argue about her revenge plans, as her bloodthirst has temporarily left Bond without solid leads. She's focused on her personal loss, while 007 sees a slightly larger picture, but won't at this moment tell her about it.

Using a fancy identikit-type program guided by Q (Desmond Llewellyn), Bond is able to determine that the payoff man is Belgian mercenary Locque (Michael Gothard). He jets off to Italy and the former Winter Olympics site of Cortina. There he meets with his local contact Luigi Ferrara (John Moreno), who introduces him to wealthy Greek businessman and informant Aris Kristatos (Julian Glover). James is also introduced to Bibi Dahl (Lynn-Holly Johnson), an aspiring figure skater sponsored by Kristatos, and her exacting coach Ms. Brink (Jill Bennett). Kristatos suspects his former partner in the Greek resistance, now his business rival and smuggler, Milos Columbo (Topol) of employing Locque.

The baddies have figured out who Melina is, and lured her to Cortina with a faked telegram from James. This sparks several winter sports-themed assassination attempts by Locque and his associates, including Eric Kriegler (John Wyman) East German bi-athlete and KGB agent. Bond and Melina survive, but Luigi does not, and that man's body has a dove pin on it, symbol of Columbo's organization.

So it's off to Corfu, Greece, where Columbo owns a casino. Columbo's mistress, Countess Lisl von Schlaf (Cassandra Harris) and Bond seduce each other for information. As they walk along the beach afterwards, the "Countess" (she's actually from Liverpool) is assassinated by Locque, and then Bond is captured by Columbo's men. The smuggler claims that Kristatos, not him, is Locque's employer!

Now James Bond must figure out who's telling the truth, recover the ATAC, and make sure that Malina's revenge doesn't kill the wrong people.

Roger Moore plays 007 with more humor than his two predecessors, not just hardboiled one-liners, but as aware of how silly some of the situations he gets in to are. By this point, his fifth or so Bond movie, he was beginning to feel his age, and James very pointedly does not sleep with Bibi, who's depicted as too young for his tastes.

After a couple of very flashy films, including outright science fiction in Moonraker, it was decided to dial back the stakes and the use of gadgets in this movie. The tricked-out car is blown up very quickly, and the climax involves Bond using standard climbing gear and improvisation to get up a mountainside. We're back to the Cold War with the Soviet Union as the larger scale villains, but they're not planning to destroy the world, even if they do get the Macguffin of the plot.

The opening song is cool, sung by Sheena Easton, who actually appears in the opening credits.

As always with the Eon series of James Bond movies, excellent action and chase scenes, with a good variety of locations. The hockey assassins are very silly, but make Luigi's death just afterwards more of a gut punch.

Oh, and there's also a silly bit with (unnamed) Margaret Thatcher, who is depicted as a housewife who just so happens also to be Prime Minister. Your mileage may vary on just how much of a mis-portrayal this is.

Content notes: Women in skimpy outfits, implied nudity. Bond and several other characters have extramarital sex. Bibi mentions she's not a virgin, but specifically doesn't do it with Bond or Kristatos. Lots of murder and violence, as per usual, some bloody. Sex trafficking is mentioned.

This isn't one of the great James Bond movies, or the most memorable. But it's still plenty interesting and

Zatoichi's Vengeance (1966) dir. Tokuzo Tanaka

Let's look at one of the Zatoichi films! This Japanese series ran for 26 films from 1962 to 1989, all starring Shintaro Katsu as the titular blind masseur. Plus a five year TV series, and a couple of modern remakes. From the relatively scanty hints of backstory in various films, we know that Zatoichi (not his birth name) lost his sight in early childhood due to illness. His father abandoned him and his brother soon after. Zatoichi was taught the skills of an aman masseur, a profession by law only allowed to the blind. But he also obtained training in swordsmanship and other combat skills. For a while he turned to crime as a yakuza and did things he's now ashamed of, but he still gambles when he gets the chance, and is on friendly terms with some of his old colleagues. Now Zatoichi wanders the land, trying and usually failing to stay out of trouble. There are just so many people who need help!

This is the thirteenth movie, not to be confused with Zatoichi's Revenge, which was the tenth movie. The Japanese title is more distinctive, Zatôichi no uta ga kikoeru, roughly "Listen to the song of Zatoichi."

At the beginning of the movie, Zatoichi (Shintaro Katsu) stumbles across an act of highway robbery. He dispatches the robbers, but it's too late for the victim, a man named Tamakichi. The dying man entrusts Zatoichi with a money pouch to deliver to "Taichi." The masseur is not sure how he's going to do that. Shortly thereafter, Zatoichi meets a blind, biwa-playing priest (Jun Hamamura), who mentions he's headed towards a nearby peaceful village that's having a "thunder drum" festival. After considering for a while, Zatoichi decides to visit that village as well.

Sure enough, the first person he meets in the village is a boy named Taichi (Masanori Machida), who has a missing father named Tamakichi. Zatoichi delivers the pouch to Taichi's grandmother (Kanae Kobayashi) and fibs about Tamakichi's current status. It's noted that the village is not as peaceful as it used to be. A yakuza gang led by Boss Gonzo (Kei Sato) has moved in and has been taking over the local businesses to turn this into a den of vice.

Zatoichi tries to avoid getting involved, especially as the biwa priest warns him against setting the impressionable Taichi on a path of violence. But Boss Gonzo's gang just won't stop doing evil in his vicinity. Further complications arise when hooker with a heart of gold Cho (Mayumi Ogawa) is tracked down by her estranged husband, impoverished ronin Genpachiro Kuroda (Shigeru Amachi). Desperate to raise enough money to buy out Cho's contract, Kuroda accepts a job killing Zatoichi.

At the end, the village is free of yakuza domination, but not everyone's story ends happily. Zatoichi cannot stay, as he knows violence will once again find him.

This is a pretty representative entry for the series. The biwa priest is the most interesting twist on the formula, a foil to Zatoichi because he is also blind, but has dedicated his life to music and wisdom rather than to vice and violence. He gets a nice musical number. Zatoichi considers the priest's points, but is unable to turn away from people in need, and does not have the tools to solve problems without killing.

As always, there's exciting sword fighting action, with the most exciting setpiece being a fight on a bridge as the yakuza try to block Zatoichi's keen hearing with taiko drumming.

Kuroda's subplot seems a little crammed in to provide the one really tough opponent required by the formula.

Content note: Several swordfights, usually lethal. Gonzo's goons bully various characters, focusing early on Zatoichi because he's blind and thus theoretically easy to bully. Zatoichi lies to spare people's feelings. Prostitution is mentioned, but we never see the women at their actual job.

Overall: This classic series is a lot of fun, but the formula can wear a bit thin, so maybe space them out. This one is perfectly good, but perhaps the most famous is Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo which guest stars Toshiro Mifune. Recommended to fans of samurai movies with a gimmick.

Bangkok Dangerous (2008) dir. Oxide Chun Pang

Joe (Nicolas Cage) is very good at his job. Very professional. He stays anonymous, doesn't ask questions, doesn't get personally involved with people, and erases all traces. This is very important to be a successful international hitman. How did he get into the business? How do his clients hire him? How do his clients even know he exists? Not important. We see him complete an assignment in Prague, then murder his go-between, the one person who's seen his face in this country, with a drug overdose.

Still, the profession's beginning to get to him, and it's time to get out. He's got a contract for four hits in Bangkok, Thailand, and this one last job will net him enough money to retire on. Wait. Dangerous occupation? One last job? Action movie? I think I know where this is going.

After some scouting, Joe picks out local pickpocket and street grifter Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm) as his courier to make contact with the client. Kong...means well, but is a bit of a weak link. He gets the hots for Aom (Panward Hemmanee), the exotic dancer who acts as the client's go-between. She's not entirely resistant to his charms. But he also owes money to bad people who mug him. He manages to get away, but the case is damaged and Kong realizes Joe is an assassin, and the very bad man whose picture is inside is the target.

Kong, who despite his entire life to this point is still something of an idealist, asks Joe to train him. Joe knows he should just kill Kong now, but takes pity on the young man and starts treating him as a protege. Joe also starts a relationship with Fon (Charlie Yeung), a deaf-mute pharmacist he meets. It turns out to be harder to keep his professional and personal lives separate than he had hoped.

Meanwhile, mob boss Surat (Nirattisai Kaljareuk), the client, knows that the final hit will be too hot for Joe not to be a liability afterwards, and plans a double cross with the aid of his lieutenant Aran (Dom Hetrakul). Who, if anyone, will be left standing?

This movie is a remake of the Pang Brothers' 1999 Thai film of the same name for the American market. Sadly, I have not seen the original to compare. From descriptions, it appears quite a bit was rearranged, starting with making the lead a hearing and speaking American rather than a deaf-mute Thai man.

Good: Excellent pacing, use of scenery and action sequences. I can see why Oxide is considered an outstanding director.

Nic Cage is mostly well-used in an underacting manner--a man who's largely made himself dead inside in order to be able to do his horrible job at peak performance. But he's fraying at the edges, and the cracks in his emotional armor keep getting wider. We also learn that political assassination isn't normally in his wheelhouse. As discussed in Suddenly, it's easy to kill major politicians, but almost impossible to get away afterwards.

Yamnarm is also quite good as Kong. He's not a good person, but would like to be. He jumps to the conclusion that Joe only kills bad people, (darkly humorous since we know that Joe fully intends to kill him) and is hopeful that maybe the politician he likes will be the one person in government who isn't completely corrupt.

Yeung is charming as Fon, who needs to use body language, facial expressions and sign language (which is not translated well) to communicate her feelings. The romance gives the director a chance to show off some of the nice touristy parts of Bangkok in addition to the sleazy areas usually seen in Thai action movies.

Less good: Cage and Yeung have no chemistry as a couple, and I found Fon being willing to give Joe the time of day the least believable part of the movie. Aom is basically eye candy, rather than a character in her own right.

Silly thought: Given the complete blankness of his background, one can imagine this Joe being an alternate universe version of the one from Joe; there are certain echoes in their characters.

Content note: Lots of violence, often lethal, sometimes gory (including a severed limb.) Suicide. Extramarital sex (on screen, no genitals), nudity, mention of human trafficking. Physical abuse, implied torture. Drug abuse. Rough language (you can learn some Thai obscenities.) This is a hard "R" so not for younger or sensitive viewers.

Overall: This was apparently a box office bomb, I think rather unjustly. (Nic Cage had a career slump afterwards that may have made this disappear down the memory hole.) The action bits are good, the romance bits don't quite work. Recommended primarily to Nicolas Cage fans, and to action fans (but the hardcore action fans who are okay with subtitles might want to see the original instead.)

48 Hrs. (1982) dir. Walter Hill

San Francisco police detective Jack Cates (Nick Nolte) isn't having a good day. He started it with fighting with his bartender girlfriend Elaine (Annette O'Toole). Then he invited himself along when two fellow detectives were trying to do a simple credit card theft/fraud bust (they weren't too keen on this due to his loose cannon reputation.) Unfortunately, the thieves are actually murderous escaped convict Albert Ganz (James Remar) and his henchman Billy Bear (Sonny Landham). Both the other cops were killed in the ensuing conflict, though one might have survived if Cates hadn't foolishly allowed Ganz to get his gun. Cates is in hot water, putting it mildly. And the next forty-eight hours of his life are only going to be worse.

Cates learns that Ganz also murdered one of his old gang members and the one surviving associate the police know the location of is in prison. Reggie Hammond (Eddie Murphy), an affable fellow with only six months left on his sentence, is initially uncooperative until he learns what Ganz has been up to. He says he can help, but only if he's on the outside for a while. At a loss for other leads, Cates forges another officer's name to get Hammond released in his custody for 48 hours. The clock is ticking. Will they be able to track down Ganz and Bear, satisfy Hammond's secret agenda, and survive each other's company?

This was Eddie Murphy's debut feature film. He was already a successful comedian, but he was not the first or even the fourth choice for the part, and Nick Nolte was the box office star. Turned out Eddie Murphy could in fact act, and recycled some of the Hammond and Cates characters into Detective Axel Foley in his solo vehicle Beverly Hills Cop which made him a box office star in his own right. Nolte does carry the movie for the first twenty minutes before Murphy's character is introduced, but the film really does improve the moment they're together.

The movie's also notable for its time in having a larger portion of its cast, including major characters and the musical acts be black people in a film that wasn't primarily marketed to the black audience. (This would rapidly change over the 1980s.)

Good: This was one of the first major "buddy cop" (despite Hammond, y'know, not being a cop) movies; two people with very different attitudes/cultures forced to feam up by circumstances, hating each other at first, but slowly growing to respect each other and even perhaps be friends, in the context of a police investigation. It does this very well, and was a major influence on later films in the subgenre. Nolte and Murphy both shine in their parts.

The music is excellent (save a grating rendition of "Roxanne" by Hammond), and the stunts are solid.

Less good: This is one of those "cowboy cop" movies where "rules" and "procedures" just get in the hero's way, and cops that do try to follow the rules are stupid at best, and an obstacle to justice otherwise. We keep hearing that Cates will file reports, but we never see him do so. Cates routinely skips getting warrants.

A reminder of how things have changed since the 1980s; there's a lot of casual racism, sexism and homophobia, mostly in the language. (Could you get away with a Confederate flag-themed bar in San Francisco these days?) Cates does apologize a bit for the racist slurs, indicating it's partly performative as his "tough guy cop" role.

Content note: Violence, mostly lethal. An extended fistfight. Female nudity, offscreen extramarital sex. The aforementioned racism, sexism and homophobia, plus some general rough language. Alcohol abuse.

A mostly excellent movie, with some aspects that have aged badly. Recommended to Eddie Murphy fans who have somehow never seen it, and action fans in general.

Universal Squadrons (2011) dir. Mark Millhone (also released as "Minuteman.")

Captain Lance Deakin (Riley Smith) has returned to his Texas ranch after a second hitch in Iraq as a quartermaster at an isolated supply depot. During his absence, his lover Becca (Willa Ford) and hired hand Corky (David Born) have been trying to keep the place afloat, but the money just hasn't been coming in, so there's been no cash for repairs as the ranch falls apart and the bank's getting pushy about their loan repayments. Becca's on edge because Lance had promised to marry her, then put it off when he got called to active duty.

Which is all stressful enough, but Lance is having violent outbursts and what appear to be hallucinations, as well as sporadic superhuman speed. Some of his symptoms seem to resemble Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but since he supposedly never saw combat and spent most of his spare time just playing the violent videogame "Minuteman" with his squad, he shouldn't have that much trauma. Right? And although he doesn't realize it for a while, he's being watched.

It turns out that Lance is part of a top secret super-soldier project codenamed "Minuteman." He's being observed by the head of the project, Dr. White (Marshall R. Teague) who has a cover as a neurologist at the local VA hospital. Lance has been brainwashed into thinking most of the events involving the project were part of the videogame. But if he breaks that conditioning, or becomes irreversibly unstable, then it will be up to enforcer Peacemaker (Christian Kane) to terminate him.

After an opening that makes it look like this will be a horror film where "if you die in the game you die in real life", the movie makes an attempt to look like a realistic film about the problems of small farmers and veterans. This part drags, though Barry Corbin as Lance's disabled veteran father who has an alcohol problem and looks down on Lance for not actually being in combat livens up his scenes.

In general, the cast is much better than the material they've been given to work with. The film's a bit of a slog, with bits of violence and bloody corpses about to try to keep up interest.

The videogame effects get a fair amount of play, and the shoddy computer graphics are fitting for this particular plotline. The superspeed, on the other hand, is criminally underused for budget reasons. A fight scene between two soldiers with superspeed should not be that underwhelming.

The ending makes me think this started as a pitch for a continuing action show.

Content note: violence, sometimes lethal. Bloody corpses. Medical torture. Becca has a shower scene (no naughty bits) and it's made clear she and Lance are having extramarital sex. Hallucinatory sequences make it unclear whether certain events really happened.

Overall: Not good enough to be fun, nor bad enough to enjoy. Most recommended to fans of the specific actors filling out checklists.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) dir. George Miller

It has been a number of years since Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) somehow evaded the remainder of Lord Humungus' raiders at the end of The Road Warrior. How many years? Uhh...look! He's got camels now! And a monkey! But not for long, as an aviator named Jedediah (Bruce Spence) hijacks his wagon and leaves Max for dead. This being the beginning of the movie, Max survives, and makes his way to the nearby desert settlement of Bartertown. At first, it seems like he will be barred from admission because he has nothing to trade, but his quick reflexes impress the Collector (Frank Thring). Perhaps they can do business?

The nominal leader of Bartertown, Aunty Entity (Tina Turner), is in a power struggle with Master Blaster (Angelo Rossitto & Paul Larsson), a brains & brawn duo that control the town's energy supply. The town needs Master's engineering know-how, but he's become arrogant, and without his powerful symbiotic ally, he'd be more...manageable. It can't be a straight up assassination, Max is going to have to get Blaster to fight him one on one in the Thunderdome.

Max infiltrates the Underworld, where pig droppings are turned into methane fuel. He meets affable prisoner Pig Killer (Robert Grubb), who was sentenced to serve the pigs after he slaughtered one of them to feed his family. He also discovers Blaster's secret weakness, while making an enemy of Master Blaster. Armed with this, it's easy to goad Master Blaster into asking for a duel in the Thunderdome, where all violent disputes are settled.

"Two men enter, one man leaves." Sounds simple, but the fight itself is much tougher than Max had thought, and when it comes right down to it, Max isn't able to murder a helpless opponent. Aunty Entity considers this a violation of their contract, and the Wheel of Justice sentences Max to exile into "Gulag" without supplies.

On the verge of death, Max is found by a tribe of orphaned children, who'd been stranded in a gully that has enough water and vegetation to support life for a small group when their passenger jet crashed nearby. Most of the surviving adults, led by pilot Captain Walker, went off to look for help, promising to return for the children. (Any adults left with the children swiftly died themselves.) The kids think that Max is the long-awaited Captain Walker, who will take them to Tomorrow-Orrow Land.

Max makes it clear that he's not, in fact, Captain Walker, there's no better place waiting for the children, and he'd be just as happy staying in this nice safe gulch, thank you.

Frustrated, a number of the children, led by late teens Anna Goanna (Justine Clark) head out into the wilderness anyway. Max is forced by the remnants of his conscience to go after them with a few more tribe members. By the time the rescue party catches up, it's too far to safely go back, so they will have to visit Bartertown. And that's when things get particularly sticky.

This third Mad Max film started its script life as more of a children's post-apocalyptic story about a man finding a lost tribe of orphans before director George Miller suggested Max as the lead and the more violent opening and closing parts were bolted on. This gives the movie an uneven tonal feel and the plot is even more vulnerable to falling apart if you think about it than the rest of the series.

That said, the Thunderdome fight is awesome, the vehicular combat portion is decent for the amount of time it has, and Tina Turner is excellent as Aunty Entity. She also contributes two nifty songs at the opening and closing credits.

The lost tribe of white children does again make me wonder if the aboriginal Australians are living comfortably somewhere off camera and avoiding getting caught up in all the plot nonsense.

I can understand why Miller and Gibson moved on from this series (though Miller returned some decades later), the ending of this third movie echoes the ending of the second just a little too closely, and it would have been hard to come up with a new story right away that would work. Plus Mel was beginning to want to be more in control of his movies.

Content note: Violence, often lethal, children in peril (at least one dies), the disability representation is iffy, pig shit.

Especially since Fury Road came along, this is the black sheep of the series, but if you can avoid thinking about the plot holes, it's a decent watch for fans of Mel Gibson, Tina Turner, or the post-apocalypse setting.