On DVD and Blu Ray -
"Passion"- Though there's a good deal of his trademark camera tricks and Hitchcockian nostalgia, this psychological suspense thriller should be labeled as "Brian De Palma-lite" - cut out about 2 minutes of (bloody) footage from this film's runtime and you'd have yourself what feels like a Lifetime Channel Original. A strangely unnecessary remake of 2010's French-language Love Crime, Passion is a little too familiar and feels like a filmmaker bored with his craft.
Noomi Rapace (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo 2009) plays an advertising agent who becomes romantically involved with Rachel McAdams' (Morning Glory) playfully manipulative executive. After a series of head-games and double-crosses, one of the two women falls victim to the other's corporate cutthroat tactics and a murder occurs. I had seen it all before and would think that even the average movie-goer would have, as well.
Yeah, I found myself wishing the film would have gone full tilt boogie into erotic thriller territory with Rapace and McAdams spending ample time frolicking around in various stages of undress- perhaps then I would have found the experience more... titillating. As is, it's pretty stale and led me to wonder if it may be time for De Palma to hang 'em up.
5.5 out of 10
Director: Brian De Palma
Cast: Noomi Rapace, Rachel McAdams, Karoline Herfurth, Paul Anderson and Rainer Bock
Run-Time: 102 minutes
MPAA: Rated R for sexual content, language and some violence
"Sushi Girl"- Six years after a botched diamond heist, the sole crew member to take the fall for the crime is released from prison and immediately taken to be reunited with the other members of the diverse gang of thieves in an effort to figure out just where the missing loot went. A nice little sit down over sushi, served atop a nude "sushi girl", quickly escalates into a tension-filled showdown between the five men.
It definitely owes quite a bit to Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, but fans of that film should give this grindhouse-style revenge tale a chance. Yes, the vast majority of the story takes place in one room, the narrative is non-linear, there's torture galore and one of the men inside the group is a wire-tapped rat, but a delightfully exuberant Mark Hamill (Star Wars: A New Hope) is worth the price of a rental alone.
Tony Todd (Candyman) portrays the sinister (is there really any other kind of Tony Todd?) leader of the crew, while the very sexy Cortney Palm supplies the titular character- she's something to behold...
Expect cameos from Sonny Chiba (The Streetfighter 1974), Jeff Fahey (Planet Terror), Michael Biehn (Aliens) and Danny Trejo (Machete), while some may be floored to recognize Noah Hathaway ("Atreyu" in 1984's The NeverEnding Story) in a rare feature-film role as an unfortunate gangster.
It's an over-the-top guilty pleasure featuring a twist at the end that actually works well. The opening titles montage set to Shirley Bassey's Diamonds Are Forever is pretty damned cool too...
Worth a look.
7.0
Director: Kern Saxton
Cast: Tony Todd, Mark Hamill, Noah Hathaway, James Duval, Andy Mackenzie, Cortney Palm, Shin'ichi Chiba, David Dastmalchian, Jeff Fahey, Michael Biehn and Danny Trejo
Run-Time: Rated R for strong bloody violence, torture, language, nudity and brief drug use
MPAA: 98 minutes
"Trance"- This Psychological/Crime Thriller from Director Danny Boyle (Shallow Grave, 28 Days Later) is frustratingly contrived, spending way too much time setting itself up. James McAvoy (X-Men: First Class) portrays a high art auctioneer who finds himself involved with a small crew of thieves led by French actor Vincent Cassel (The Crimson Rivers). Naturally, the attempted heist of a valuable painting goes awry, leaving McAvoy's character with a case of amnesia and unaware of where he hid the MacGuffin.
Interesting visuals, Boyle's energetic Direction and a host of left field developments work to hold the dodgy narrative together for a while. There's a heckuva twist at film's end, though there are so many red herrings, second guesses and dream sequences along the way that, for myself, it simply lost it's impact by that point.
A sequence in which the gorgeous Rosario Dawson (The Rundown), playing a hands on hypnotherapist, makes a glorious appearance in her birthday suit sporting a full Brazilian (I hit replay several times in delightful disbelief) had a jaw-dropping effect on myself. Those who choose to check this out will surely remember one of the most memorably graphic gunshot wounds to the head ever put to film. There are a handful of unquestionably bizarre scenes throughout, which may work to cover quite a bit of ground towards placing this in guilty pleasure territory for those interested.
Worth a rental for McAvoy fans- then again, some may find the nature of his involvement a bit of a sucker punch...
6.5
Director: Danny Boyle
Cast: James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson and Vincent Cassel
Run-Time: 101 minutes
MPAA: Rated R for sexual content, graphic nudity, violence, some grisly images, and language
"Welcome To The Punch"- This Action/Thriller featuring James McAvoy as a damaged-goods Detective in Britain obsessed with bringing down a legendary criminal, played by Mark Strong (Kick-Ass), is light on substantial action and not very thrilling at all. There's several action scenes throughout this cat-and-mouse tale, though all but the climactic shootout at film's end are uninspired choke-jobs.
There's a damned good cast featured here putting in fine work, with Andrea Riseborough (Oblivion) as McAvoy's partner, David Morrissey (AMC's The Walking Dead) as a shifty police chief, Peter Mullan (Session 9) as Strong's right-hand-man and Jason Flemyng (Snatch) as a corrupt cop- all the more disappointing given the stale direction and lackluster script.
Shot with a bluish tint throughout, it's just plain dreary, mundane stuff that consistently serves up a strange case of fumble-itis when it matters most. It's pretty bad when the most memorable scene here involves our main protagonist draining his knee with a large gauged needle, expelling the syringe's contents in a wastebasket and dousing his cigarette out in the fluid...
5.5
Director: Eran Creevy
Cast: James McAvoy, Mark Strong, Andrea Riseborough, Johnny Harris, Daniel Mays, David Morrissey, Jason Flemyng and Peter Mullan
Run-Time: 99 minutes
MPAA: Rated R for violence and language
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