Thriller

The Most Dangerous Game (1932)

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mostdangerousgameFrom the makers of King Kong the following year, 1932’s The Most Dangerous Game is one of the most influential and imitated movies in history, and for good reason: It’s a splendid, Prohibition-era adventure with a concept that transcends time. And that concept is that, unequivocally, rich people are assholes.

Based on Richard Connell’s excellent 1924 short story of the same name, the RKO Radio Picture begins with a ship capsizing in shark-infested waters. The only survivor, Bob (Joel McCrea, Alfred Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent), washes ashore on an island and arrives at the only home around, belonging to one Count Zaroff (Leslie Banks, Hitch’s The Man Who Knew Too Much of 1934). As if the host’s name isn’t scary enough, his door knocker is a demon holding a woman. In life, we call such things “a red flag.”

mostdangerousgame1Zaroff is crazy, all right. Having lost his love of life, the man has resorted to big-game hunting, but hunting humans. Bob and another “guest,” the alluring Eve (Fay Wray, King Kong), are to be his latest prey. If they can survive from midnight to sunrise in the jungle, Zaroff will give them keys to the boathouse so they may float their way to freedom.

Bob and Eve believe staying alive is a swell idea, so they build traps in the hopes of turning the tables. And therein lies the fun. Utilizing a mix of backlot sets and rear-projection tricks, co-directors Irving Pichel and Ernest B. Schoedsack pull off an exciting exercise exploring man’s inhumanity to man, via swamps and caves and dogs, and waterfalls for those dogs to tumble down. It’s not politically correct; it’s not meant to be. —Rod Lott

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Horror

My Soul to Take (2010)

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mysoultotakeWes Craven’s My Soul to Take arrives with such a preposterous premise: that seven premature babies born the night of the death of a serial killer grow up as mirrors of his personality. (Granted, the dude did expire at midnight sharp, but c’mon!)

However, his kitchen-sink prologue makes me think the ludicrous nature of it all is intended, like a self-parody that was perhaps two notes too subtle for mass audiences to notice. Scream, it is not — but it is better than what would be Craven’s follow-up, 2011’s Scream 4.

mysoultotake1Sixteen years after that over-the-top opening, the so-called Riverton Ripper — he of the cruelly curved blade emblazoned with the word “VENGEANCE” — is back. This time, his targets are those birthday boys and girls, including the asshole jock, the blind minority, the Jesus freak (“If things get too hot, just turn on the prayer conditioning”), the abused misfit and our protagonist, the unpopular and possibly schizophrenic Bug (Max Thieriot, TV’s Bates Motel).

The Ripper is easy to spot: He resembles a prematurely bald Rob Zombie and soup-kitchen hobo. It’s an unsettling and decidedly odd choice for a villain, but the misunderstood My Soul to Take is nothing if not a picture that bops along on its own unusual, discordant rhythms. Love it or hate it, you haven’t quite seen this film done this way before. It’s wildly imperfect, but interesting in its insanity, which is enough for me. —Rod Lott

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Action

Double Team (1997)

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doubleteamHey, remember Dennis Rodman? No? An NBA star for 15 minutes, he made his name partly through athleticism and far more through “outrageous” hair colors, various body piercings and dating Madonna.

The makers of Double Team believed Rodman’s brand would last eternal. How else to explain the plethora of basketball-related puns despite basketball having nothing to do with the story? Rodman shoves a gunman through a window and exclaims, “Two points!” The Rod throws another henchman through the air and yells, “Nothin’ but net!” There’s a bizarre parachute shaped like a basketball. What does it all mean? Nothing.

The galling thing is, there’s plenty of cheese on display to enjoy. A sometime-clever riff on The Prisoner, Double Team stars B-movie legend Jean-Claude Van Damme as a superspy abducted to a mysterious island where spies long considered dead work in solitude on world affairs. After nicely MacGyver-ing his way free, he tracks down Mickey Rourke (Iron Man 2), the baddie who has insinuated his way into JCVD’s wife’s life.

doubleteam1So far, so good. Asian director Tsui Hark (the Once Upon a Time in China trilogy) never got a fair shake in Hollywood, but he brings flair and verve to admittedly ridiculous action scenes. Rourke was in a career death spiral at the time, but he at least hams it up amusingly.

JCVD is JCVD, meaning energetic-but-wooden acting and putting balletic fight moves on anyone in his path. Unlike fellow man-kicker Chuck Norris, Van Damme never forgets it’s his fighting skills that made him a star, not his talent at holding guns in his hands (although there’s a goodly amount of that as well, usually in tandem with a spiral death blow of some kind). There’s also an ending involving a coliseum, a minefield and a tiger that must be some kind of classic.

And there’s Rodman, the arms dealer named Yaz who aids JCVD. It is not a performance; it is simply putting a camera on him and hoping the audience will never forget he was once a shining star in the firmament. It is a sad reminder of one of our first reality stars, a ballplayer with ego far bigger than talent.

Double Team is goofy fun, but Rodman is a foul shot, a missed free throw. See, I can make sports puns, too. But in context. —Corey Redekop

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Horror

Legend of Horror (1972)

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legendhorrorPurportedly based on an Edgar Allan Poe short story, this film is just about as much Poe’s as some scoutmaster spinning tales around a campfire. The Argentine/American patchwork oddity Legend of Horror throws the young Pierre — he of the Elvis sideburns — into a dank prison cell with the wacky-ass, hygiene-neglecting Sidney. This Sidney fellow cackles like a hobo on ripple and has forged an unhealthy friendship with a mouse, predating The Green Mile by a good three decades.

As the two cellmates plot their escape, Sidney entertains Pierre with a story about how ended up in this good-for-nuthin’ place. Switch to a “flashback” (really a dubbed, sizable chunk of another movie altogether, 1960’s Masterworks of Terror) in which a then-strapping Sidney visits his uncle, a clock salesman with a bad eye and a piss-poor attitude toward customer service.

legendhorror1In due time, Uncle Freaky-Eye pushes Sidney to the breaking point, whereupon young Sid smothers the bastard with a pillow. As the cops interview him regarding his uncle’s disappearance, Sidney is driven to a confession by hearing the heartbeat of the corpse. (All ties to Poe begin and end in that one scene.)

Jump back to our prisoners, who have busted out of the joint and seek refuge. Sidney kills a couple of guards who come after them, but to the delight of the audience, does so via the magic of “Magicmation” — a fancy cinematic term for “stop-motion!” At the end, all the people Sidney has killed come back to life and cause him to be impaled in a graveyard. For no discernible reason, the film abruptly ditches the black-and-white format for a splash o’ color. Never you mind — it just makes it that much more of a hoot. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Something Weird Video.

Action

Jack Reacher (2012)

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jackreacherOne fine day in Pittsburgh, a sniper perched in a parking garage fatally shoots five people at a park before driving away. The man hauled in by police, Barr (Joseph Sikora, Safe), enacts his right to remain silent, but does scrawl on a notepad, “GET JACK REACHER.”

Who’s Jack Reacher? A former military policeman for the Army, Reacher (Tom Cruise) is an off-the-grid drifter who just wants to be left alone. He knew the accused from the service, and has no intention of helping the guy get away with murder, but does want to know just what the hell is going on.

Barr’s defense attorney, Helen (Rosamund Pike, Wrath of the Titans), convinces Reacher to be her lead investigator. She also doesn’t want to see Barr go free, but does want to see him get a fair trial. Needless to say, Reacher’s sniffing around opens up an enormous can of worms — plot twists, really.

jackreacher1Based on One Shot, the ninth novel in Lee Child’s best-selling thriller series, Jack Reacher didn’t get a fair shake upon release. For one, the violent pic arrived in theaters less than a month after the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre, when the nation wasn’t exactly in the mood to see a bunch of big-screen gunplay. And that’s understandable.

What’s not is Reacher fans’ outcry over the 5-foot-7 Cruise being cast as the series’ 6-foot-5 hero. Cruise conveys 100 percent of Reacher’s attitude; he’s intimidating and bone-crunching believable in the ass-kicking department. To his credit, he also plays the role far differently than Mission: Impossible‘s Ethan Hunt.

Written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie, who previously teamed with Cruise by scripting Bryan Singer’s Valkyrie, the film chalks up many positives: a truly exciting chase, dialogue that replicates Child’s rhythms to a T, an acidic wit and a real stroke of genius in casting potentially insane German director Werner Herzog (Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans) as a villain minus a few fingers because he ate them. Reacher would’ve twisted them off anyway. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

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