Kicking Ass And Not Taking Names

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆The Raid:Redemption, which had its North American premiere at New Directors/New Films on March 22, one day before hitting theaters,is an action film that doesn't waste time getting started. In a brief prelude, the main character Rama (Iko Uwais) is revealed to be family man who loves his wife who is expecting their first child. Promising to return, he leaves to go to work. Within minutes he is dispatched to an Indonesian S.W.A.T. team to wrest control of an urban residential building from the crime lord that is holed up there running a drug operation.

Tight and efficient camera work on high definition video, taut and well rehearsed direction, and creative production design that stretches a modest budget to its limits, The Raid:Redemption is a remarkable achievement. The first half of the narrative is a series of explosive machine gun exchanges between the dedicated police team and the merciless thugs who protect a monstrous criminal; the second half, after both sides exhaust their ammunition, features some beautifully filmed mixed martial arts fights that rival those in the classics of this genre. The tension increases as the police team learns that they were led into an ambush by a corrupt and ambitious commander, Rama learns that his brother is one of the evil henchman, and the ultimate enemy, Mad Dog, a brute that seems impervious to injury,is unleashed.

In the end, the film succeeds in what it set out to do, provide the pure and simple, an action film that mixes conventional shoot em up verve with mixed martial arts entertainment. What is particularly impressive is the finely polished result, given that the film is an independent feature with a modest budget.

Silent House

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ After her father is knocked unconscious by a malevolent and mysterious intruder, a young woman discovers she is locked in her family's summer home and must escape from what proves to be a terrifying ordeal in the new film Silent House. What progresses as a seemingly conventional horror house story where the evil that besets Sarah may prove to be either psychopathological or demonic, surprisingly transforms in the final act into an art house psychological thriller with a twist ending that may disappoint, even anger, some. Chris Kentis and Laura Lau, the husband-wife team who brought us 2003's Open Water based their story on the Urugayan film The Silent House which was shown at Director's Fortnight in Cannes 2009. One of the film's selling points is that it appears to the naked eye to be one continuous unbroken 88 minute shot. This is of course not true, the filmakers have admitted as much, and a trained cinephile's eye can detect the seams at different points in the film. What is, however, truly remarkable about this effort is Elizabeth Olsen's Sarah. As we join her in her ordeal in seemingly real time, we truly appreciate the wide-eyed fear and raw terror conveyed by her extraordinarily visceral performance.

Poltergeist (1982)

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ When I saw Silent House yesterday, I thought of this 1982 classic. In fact, whenever I see a horror movie, I think of it. Not because haunted house films today are strikingly similar to Poltergeist but because they are not. This fact will eventually weigh heavily on some production company and a reboot is inevitable.

I think it was David Ansen in Newsweek who called Poltergeist "a roller coaster ride of spills and chills" and,unlike any haunted house story before or since,this is true. But it is not the only thing that makes it unique. Unlike films of its genre, Poltergeist was not scary in the Gothic sense, and I am always amazed when people declare it was so scary, or it was the scariest movie they ever saw.

What made Poltergeist scary in a different way was how much you cared about the Freeling family in peril and how desperately you wanted to see them survive the demons that plagued them. This of course is Spielberg's creative stamp on a film he wrote, produced (and perhaps de-facto directed). Sorry Tobe Hooper, but it looks and feels like Spielberg.

Darth Vader

Are We Done With Star Wars Yet?

A few weeks ago I struggled with the question of whether I should shell out 14 dollars for a ticket to The Phantom Menace. After all, it was 13 years since I saw it on the big screen, I don’t belong to any rabid anti-Jar Jar societies, and it might look really cool, even in post-converted digital 3D.

This begs the question, however, is all of this just too much, a never ending vicious cycle? Even though Lucas announced his retirement upon the release of the less than impressive Red Tails in January, one wonders what his definition of retirement is. After making Star Wars in 1977 (and yes I’m calling it Star Wars) and reportedly suffering from exhaustion and declaring he would never direct again, he opted to turn over the helm to two British directors to complete the original trilogy. We were nevertheless excited, albeit ultimately underwhelmed, when 16 years later he returned to direct the prequels. It was after that that it became increasingly clear that he was not going to go away. We had already gone to see the original films with digital changes, now there was the pressure to see the films on DVD (seems so quaint now), then it was hi-definition Blu-Ray, and now the digital 3D format. If anyone had suggested to me at 11 years of age when I saw the Imperial Star Destroyer fill the screen at the beginning of the film that eventually I would tire of revisiting these films over and over again during the course of my lifetime, I would have declared them insane. Now I’m not so sure. And worse than that, maybe the saga always belonged where it started. Back in the day.

Project X

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ Another loser is egged on by his asshole friend to throw the epic party of all time so that they can make a name for themselves. Only this time, as word of the party spreads, the event devolves into total chaos resulting in an incendiary end to his parents home and half a block in North Pasadena,California. The house party destruction here is on a scale never committed before to film and perhaps for this reason, it is a noteworthy new benchmark for the genre. Less a found footage effort and more a slickly produced and expensive high definition video film, Project X, for all its ambitiousness, may survive the obscurity that plagues second tier studio efforts and find its place among the classics of what is a purely juvenile film genre. The kids in this film alternate between obnoxious and sympathetic. The leads,Thomas Mann, Oliver Cooper, and Jonathan Daniel Brown are almost identical to the boys in Greg Mottola's Superbad, a cerebral effort by comparison, but the runaway train that the party becomes is ultimately Superbad on steroids. In the end, the viewer may not feel anything for these kids, even Mann's Thomas who should evoke some sympathy. After all, who would want to be in his situation, one that was not entirely of his making?

Still The Best

Most Memorable Movie Performances 2011.wmv