Death and Androids: Explorig the Themes of Blade Runner (1982)

Blade Runner, like so many of Ridley Scott’s films, is an immersive experience. The world of Blade Runner is constructed in such an intricate and layered manner that you can’t help but get lost in the film. Aesthetically speaking, it’s one of my favorite films because it’s just beautiful to look at, those scenes with flying cars over a futuristic skyline filled with metal pyramids? Count me in! A lot has been said about Blade Runner as the quintessential cyber punk film because it’s about androids and because it’s set in a bleak future, like so many of William Gibson’s cyberpunk novels. Who is William Gibson you ask? Well, he’s the father of cyber punk that’s who; Gibson’s the guy who practically invented what we now know as 'cyber punk' through a trilogy of novels, the first of which is the seminal ‘Neuromancer’. If you want to truly find out what cyber punk is all about, I recommend starting there. But Blade Runner is based on Phillip K. Dicks ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’; a novel with its fair share of cyber punk elements, some of which bled onto the film. As a side note to this article, I'd like to mention that the book and the film are two different things all together, so you might want to try and read the novel, it’s an entirely different experience. Actually, you might end up being surprised just how different book and film are! How different is the book from the film? Well, the books main theme is religion! The film has nothing to do with religion! The book explores a whole different set of themes and has an entirely different tone to it. The book remains a special experience, I highly recommend checking it out! The difference between book and film points to one thing, what an amazing filmmaker Ridley Scott is. He basically took the world that Phillip K. Dick presented us with in his book and weaved a story that played with other themes  which though different, are equally relevant.   

Harrison Ford and Ridley Scott

For the longest time, I would just watch Blade Runner because I loved that world, the look, the feel. And you have to admit, the film is a lush production, it’s not a cheap looking film. But it wasn’t until adulthood that I started to appreciate the film from a whole other angle, I started to realize that there was a lot more to Blade Runner than flying cars and murderous androids. What was Blade Runner really about? What was it commenting on? The films central theme is mans own disillusionment with our short time on this earth. We come and go in the blink of an eye and when you really stop and think about it, it’s a really sad thing how short our lives are. I mean, our lives can be so rich, filled with so many memories and experiences, but as Roy Batty muses in the climax of the film, all of it just fades away when we die. When Roy Batty goes up to Tyrell, his creator to ask him for more life, Tyrell tells him it’s not possible, but not without offering a glimmer of hope to Batty’s preoccupations about death. Tyrell tells Batty “The light that burns twice as bright, burns half as long, and you have burned so very, very brightly Roy!” In this sense, the films offers us the only glimmer of hope when it comes to death, we have to live an amazing life, try and leave our mark in the world, to make what little time we were given matter.   Unless you lived an outstanding life and shined so brightly that your mark will be indelible for time immemorial, chances are, no one will even remember you were 100 years from now. So let’s make that time count my friends!

Now, taking all that in consideration, what would you do if you could go up to your god and ask him or her for more life? What if you could have a conversation with your creator, what would you say? I’d ask him why he allows decease, dictatorships and death. I’d ask him why he is so silent and apparently not even here. In Blade Runner, the Nexus 6 androids or ‘Replicants’  to use the term that they went with for the film get to actually talk to their creator, the “God of bio-mechanics” as Roy Batty calls him. They question him about why they die so soon, they want more life, they want for the god of bio-mechanics to let them into "heaven" so to speak. Problem is that the engineers who made the Nexus 6 androids gave them a four year life span. Why? Because if given any more than that, they get too smart, revolt and kill their masters. When given more than four years to live, the Nexus 6 would get too independent, volatile and unpredictable and that’s not what the powers that be want with a serving class; nope, they want the working class dumb and controllable. Here the film also offers us an interesting allusion to class issues. Should we take our given place in society? Or should we aim for more? The androids in Blade Runner want just that, they want to be like their creators. So, in order to keep the androids from rebelling or getting smarter, as a failsafe device, the Tyrell Corporation gave the Nexus 6 replicants only four years to live, after which they expire and die. In other words, the Nexus 6 are conscious of their mortality and they will fight it to the bitter end. 

So it is with some desperation that Roy Batty and his gang of androids manage to find Tyrell himself in order to ask for more life. Sadly Tyrell tells them that it’s not possible, essentially denying Roy and his crew of life. The frustration is so huge that Roy kills Tyrell, his creator, but not before telling him “I want more life fucker!”  To me this is the most pivotal scene in the whole film because it lets us know exactly what the film is about: our frustrations with death. At the same time, this scene offers some of the films most shocking and daring ideas. On this scene, Tyrell plays the role of God, the creator, while Roy Batty plays the role of the human, close to his death bed, asking god for a few more years. Again, what would you ask God if you were ever face to face with him? Well, Roy asked for more life and when he was denied it, he killed his creator, a shocking idea if you ask me, that of killing God. It’s not just any movie that will deliver the idea of anger and hatred towards God, but this one has the guts to do so. The films characters show certain contempt towards God for not having given us longer life. In this film God has created imperfect creatures with the ultimate decease: death! Not so different from the world we live in if you ask me! But, was Roy Batty justified to do what he did? Did his plea have any weight to it?

Well, if you ask me, Roy Batty may be the villain, but it feels to me like his plea is genuine, it has validity. To Batty, death just isn’t fair. He has seen and lived so much; he is frustrated that it’s all going to fade away “like tears in the rain” as he so eloquently puts it in the last moments of the film; which reminds me just how beautiful and poetic the ending of the film is. I mean, to be honest, I completely get the villain of the film, he may be a bit ‘batty’  as his last name implies, but you have to admit, his anger and frustrations are very real, it’s a cry out to life and death. Roy Batty is a desperate individual, but you have to understand, the guys body is freezing up! He can’t feel his fingers! His skin is turning white! He has to penetrate his fingers with rusty nails in order to make himself feel alive.  I compare this to those moments we’ll eventually get to in our life when we start feeling the aches and pains of old age and we start doing everything we can to battle it. We go to the gym, we eat better, we go to the doctor, doing whatever we can to fight what’s inevitably going to come. Yup, there comes a time in everyone's life when we simply won't run as well, when our resistance will be less, and we'll get tired faster. At some point in our lives, our energies will no longer be what they used to be. Our bodies will sooner or later start to show signs of wear and tear and we'll see death rearing its ugly head.  I find those last scenes in Blade Runner when Roy Batty is reminiscing about the beauty of life, when he starts remembering about that “he has seen things that you wouldn’t believe” just beautiful, like an old man remembering all those experiences he once lived and enjoyed; in many ways, Roy Batty has a lust for life, which is why death deeply saddens him. I have to admit, that scene always gets to me.

"All those moments will be lost in time...like tears in the rain"  

As an artist, Ridley Scott is obviously terribly concerned with death, which let’s face it, is kind of one of the big mysteries of life. What happens when we die? Where do we go? Do we truly just vanish? This is why inquisitive characters have always been a part of Ridley Scott’s films, so they can ask the big questions. Most recently in Prometheus (2012) he revisits the exact same themes as he played with in Blade Runner, but with a slightly more existential twist to them because in Prometheus characters aren’t just asking for life, they want the answers to the big mysteries of the universe, they want to know where we all came from as well. Prometheus is less subtle with its themes; it asks its questions louder. It proposes that our creators not only don’t like us, they also want to wipe us out like some failed experiment that has to be started over again. Hell, even Ridley Scott’s brother, director Tony Scott was obsessed with this theme of death as well; I guess it runs in the family? For example, Tony Scott’s The Hunger (1983) has David Bowie playing a half vampire who is searching for a scientific solution to old age and death. Again the idea is visited on that film, can life be expanded? Can’t we live just a little more? But going back to Blade Runner, this is a film that is extremely consistent with its death theme, for example, when Deckard is confronted by one of the androids in a fight and the android tells Deckard “Wake Up! Time to Die!” we are reminded that it’s not only old age that can kill us. And then again, in the ending of the film, when Gaff, who knows that Deckard has fallen in love with an android, tells him: “Too bad she won’t live. But then again, who does? “  And I think that ultimately, that is the films final message, that we should live our lives as passionately and as intensely as we can, because death will be a part of it, eventually.

   

Argento's Dracula 3-D (2012)

Title: Dario Argento’s Dracula 3-D (2012)

Director: Dario Argento

Cast: Rutger Hauer, Asia Argento, Thomas Kretschmann, Marta Gastini, Unax Agalde, Giovanni Franzoni

There’s this idea amongst film buffs that directors tend to make worse films the older they get; and I think it's true, with very few exceptions, as directors get older, they lose that magic that made their first films great. Case in point: Dario Argento who had his golden age back in the 70’s and 80’s when he made films like Suspiria (1977), Deep Red (1975) and Opera (1987). I remember those movies being awesome because of their atmosphere, the over the top violence and those special camera angles that Argento was so fond of. But somewhere around the late 80’s and early 90’s Argento was showing signs of fatigue, his films just weren’t the same. I guess when I started to notice something was off with Argento was around the time he made his version of Phantom of the Opera (1998) which was just a goofy, goofy film. Trying to be all serious and romantic, yet failing horribly at it. After that one, he’s never really ever given us anything as remotely good as his early stuff. Seeing Argento’s Dracula cements the idea that Argento is totally done for as a director. Sadly.

I get what Argento was trying to do with his take on Stoker’s Dracula; simply put Argento was going for a tribute to Hammer’s Dracula films, you know the ones that starred Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Specifically, Argento’s Dracula plays out a lot like Terrence Fisher’s Horror of Dracula (1958), the very first Hammer Dracula film, it even uses that idea that Terrence Fisher used in Horror of Dracula were Jonathan Harker travels to Dracula’s castle to function as a librarian. The film feels like it’s trying to be purposely old school, right down to this silly sounding Halloween soundtrack that it has. The film looks and feels pretty much like a Hammer film, the difference lies in the graphic gore which was something that Hammer films never dabbled too deeply into. I mean, Hammer films had their blood, but they were never too graphic, not like Argento’s Dracula which goes over the top at some points. That’s right my friends, on this one Argento amps up the levels of gore, which is always fun in my book. There’s this moment where Dracula goes nuts and starts slicing off heads like there’s no tomorrow, I have to admit, those were some cool scenes. But gore alone does not make a good horror film; we gotta have other things thrown in there, like for example some common sense, which Argento has always loved to throw out the window. Did you ever think you’d end up seeing Dracula transform into a giant Praying Mantis? No? Well, after you see Argento’s Dracula you can scratch that one off your bucket list!

So this film has enough gore and nonsensical elements to get the fan boys talking on the net, what else do we need to make this one stand out? Oh yeah, how about some good old fashion nudity? Well, there’s tons of it as well. I mean, five minutes into the film two young lovers are making out in a barn and there’s flesh everywhere! If you ever wanted to get a good look at Asia Argento’s nakedness, this is your chance! Don’t worry about it, her dad is okay with it, he’s the film’s director! So yeah, this one has all the shocking elements necessary to get fan boys attention. Problem is that along with all these ‘goodies’ we get some really terrible elements to this film, which sadly brings it really down or makes it cheesier, which some folks don’t mind. For example, the computer animation is just freaking terrible. God! How can a director like Argento look at this footage and say “were good to go”? I mean, the digital stunt doubles on this one? So laughable! But then again, even the real actors are terrible! There’s this actress that plays Mina Harker (Marta Gastini), she has these scenes where Dracula and her are all emotional about their love for one another and all that…you should see that scene, it’s the most shameless rip off! She’s imitating Wynona Ryder in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)! She uses the same facial gestures, the same everything, her performance was Xeroxed, it made me want to puke because it was such a shameless copy/paste! Asia Argento herself turns in a terrible performance, but she was never much of an actress if you ask me. Not even Rutger Hauer can save this one, sorry.

Overall, even though this movie isn’t what I’d call a good Argento film, I’d say that it retains a certain cheesy watchability to it which reminded me of another one of Argento’s goofy yet enjoyable films: The Phantom of the Opera (1998). Argento’s Dracula is a train wreck of a film, but it’s a fun train wreck. It has all the things you’d expect in a Dracula film, the full moon, the spooky woods, the mist, the castles, the big breasted vampire ladies, crosses, stakes, coffins and lots of blood! It really is trying to be an old fashioned horror movie, and I have to give it props for that. It’s kind of like a modern day Hammer film, but cheesy to the max, with bad dialog and acting, and Argento’s unique brand of weirdness. For example, Argento’s obsession with insects returns! I’ve already mentioned the giant Praying Mantis, but he also plays with some images he’d played with before in Phenomena (1985), namely, a horde of insects swarming outside of a house. Yup, on this one Dracula can also turn into a bunch of flies! In many ways, this is a fun movie, because hearing this dialog is a trip, but also because it’s trying so hard to be spooky and old school that it’s kind of endearing in that way. I’d say this one would make a fun watch come Halloween night, but that’s all its good for because no matter how hard it might try, Dracula 3-D won’t be reminding you of Argento’s glory days; those days are long, long gone.

Rating: 2 out of 5 

The Rite (2011)

Title: The Rite (2011)

Director: Mikael Hafstrom

Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Rutger Hauer, Alice Braga, Colin O’Donoghue

Review:

The Rite is a film that wants to remind you that faith is important, and that you should never loose it. It wants to let you know that “not believing in the devil does not protect you from him”. Barf; whatever! Spread that fear why don’t you! In yet another attempt at addressing the issue of exorcisms, once again, they’ve gone and made this film that, though well made, feels like an onslaught of clichés seen in other exorcism films. And speaking of films about exorcisms, there’s been a lot of them! Though most of them are hardly convincing, yet they keep getting made. And they keep hitting us with cliché after cliché. For example: is it just me or is every single priest on these films always loosing his faith? Is it me or is the ‘possesed’ person always bed ridden? And does the final exorcism in the film always take place with the possessed tied to a bed or something? Like I said, clichés. So here comes yet another entry into the exorcism films sub-genre, how was it?

It wasn’t all that bad. First off, the film is very well shot and directed, technically speaking, it’s a solid film. Its tone is a deadly serious one, it doesn’t come off as goofy or anything like some exorcism films do. On this one we meet young Michael Kovak the son of a mortician, who by the way is played by Rutger Hauer. A bit underused if you ask me, but hey it's always a pleasure to see Mr. Hauer on screen! Will somebody give Hauer more roles that are worth a damn? Pretty please with vanilla on top? So anyways, on this family you are either a mortician or a priest, and so young Michael Kovak has decided to become a priest. Though to be honest, he really doesn’t seem to be the priest type. You see, Michael Kovak is a young man with very little to no faith at all. But he goes to priest school none the less and becomes a priest. Weird thing is that just as he is about to send an e-mail saying he doesn’t want to be a priest and that he is giving up on the whole thing, a priest decides to send Michael to Rome to train himself in the ways of  exorcism. Michael accepts the offer, willingly giving the whole faith thing one more try. Will Michael see anything that will convince him of the existence of the supernatural? Will Michael’s faith ever return?

The Rite is very similar to The Last Exorcism (2010) because it is also about a faithless priest who doesn’t believe in the supernatural. He thinks that possessed people are very disturbed people whose perception of things have been altered by all their religious beliefs. I enjoyed that about the film, how the character Michael Kovak serves as a means to voice the plea of the Unbeliever, same as the priest character in The Last Exorcism. For most of the film you’ll find Michael Kovak saying things like “It gets complicated when proof of the devil is no proof of the devil” Right on brother! He hit the nail on the head as far as faith goes; at the root of the matter is believing in things that you cant proof or see.  

My take on these kinds of films is that they are no longer scary, audiences just don’t get as spooked as they used to by these films. It could be the ever growing number of non-believers out there; it could be that people know too much about how films are made and nothing amazes them anymore, so the illusion and magic behind the whole thing is no longer there. We got dvd special features to thank for that. The Last Exorcism for example was a successful film, but only because it cost about 2 million dollars to make. Had it cost more, it might have flopped. Case in point: The Rite which cost 37 million dollars but only made 33 million in the U.S. It came and it went from theaters without much of a fuzz. To the world, it was just another horror movie. No big deal. In comparison, when The Exorcist (1973) was first released, people passed out while watching the movie, people walked out of theaters because they couldn’t take what they were seeing. It was an experience to watch; an event. This latest exorcism movie  (The Rite)  failed to capture the attention and imaginations of the audience. This was not a ‘shit in your pants’ scary film, but did it work on any level?

Well, I did enjoy the fact that the film didn’t come off as hokey, the way a lot of these films do turn out. It seems to me that for The Rite they were trying to do a film that wasn’t exactly a horror film. They were apparently trying to do a realistic depiction in the life of an exorcist, so goofy it aint. This is the kind of film that the catholic church would be proud of.  A good example of a goofy exorcism film is Lost Souls (2000) with Wynona Ryder and even goofier was The Unborn (2009), if you want to see a laugh inducing exorcism sequence check that one out. The Rite made an effort to make things a bit more credible and authentic. A lot of that could have something to do with the fact that the film is based on a book called The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist by Matt Baglio. In preparation to write his book, Mr. Baglio actually went to the Vatican for a seminar on exorcism. There he met Father Gary Thomas, the actual person on which the character of Michael Kovak is based on. In addition to that,  director Mikael Hafstrom actually went to a couple of ‘real life exorcisms’, a couple of which he heard from afar because they wouldn’t allow him to see them. So there is a level of authenticity to the film.

But when it comes right down to it, no matter how ‘authentic’ the film is, there’s no such thing as the supernatural. No one has ever seen the things that happen on these exorcism  films in real life. All these priests have seen in their ‘exorcisms’ is people screaming, and twisting and cursing profusely, but supernatural events? Real life supernatural activities that we could see with our own eyes or document with a video camera? Nope; never happened. Don’t you think if these supernatural events ever really happened a priest would have already caught something on tape? Or on their cell phones? Yet no actual evidence of the supernatural exists outside of a couple of hoax pictures that somebody altered on Photoshop in their home computers. Still, films that are ‘based on real life’ try and make us believe that events such as these actually occured. To that I say ‘phooey!’  Of course, if ask the catholic church they’ll tell  you that they loved the movie. And loved it they did, the catholic church gave this one glowing reviews. They loved it as much as they loved The Exorcist. Why? Because these films spread their fantasies around, and after all that’s all the church really wants, to dig themselves deeper into peoples consciousness.

What we got here ladies and gents is a decent exorcism picture. It is well photographed and acted, the locations are beautiful looking (most of it was shot in Hungaria) and the visual effects are decent. It plays everything deadly serious, not a smile to be seen. These characters seem to really believe that they are dealing demons, or perhaps even Satan himself? Oooh spooky! Everything is augmented by Anthony Hopkins performance, and may I send kudos his way for throwing himself so completely into this physically demanding role. This film is one big catholic fantasy brought to life in the only way that in can be brought to life, through the wonderful alternate universe of movies. And as such, it works. I thought it needed a few more creeps and scares, but the ending is really what it’s all about with this movie. Stick all the way to the end, for the big exorcism scene, it’s worth it.    

Rating: 3 1/2

Blind Fury (1989)

Title: Blind Fury (1989)

Director: Phillip Noyce

Cast: Rutger Hauer, Meg Foster, Nick Cassavetes, Randall ‘Tex’ Cobb

Review:

Nowadays, when a film is released, companies already know what target audience they are making the film for. They do studies, they know on which television channels to promote the film and in which specific websites their promotional dollars will work the best in order to get their target audience in theaters. But once upon a time, the business of selling a film and knowing your target audience wasn’t as perfected as it is today. Back in the eighties, some films confused audiences upon their release to the point where the audience didn’t know what kind of film was being marketed to them. As a result, these films tanked at the box office. Two good examples of these types of films are Howard the Duck (1986) and Monster Squad (1988) to fun movies aimed at pre-teens/teens that failed to connect with them. Why? Well, for example Howard the Duck seems like a children’s film on the surface (we’re talking about a talking duck here for Christ’s sake) yet upon careful consideration it isn’t a children’s film at all. Howard smokes a stogie, carries a condom in his wallet, almost has sex with a human female, drinks beer, takes a look at a porn magazine (called Playbill) and finally, ends up working in a motel! And what about Monster Squad? Well, again, on the surface Monster Squad appears to be a film aimed at children, yet it was apparently perceived as “too scary” for them. I kind of agree, there is some disturbing imagery on this film, the kids shoot fire arms, say “bitch” and “shit”, read porn, take pictures of naked girls from their club house, stab vampire vixens with stakes through their hearts, you get the picture. The film was deemed to scary by critics, therefore parents didn’t let their kids see the film, hence, the films target audience never showed. Blind Fury, the film I will be reviewing today seems to fall under the same category of films that confused their audiences upon release.  

   

Blind Fury tells the story of Nick Parker (Rutger Hauer) a Vietnam vet who looses his eye sight during the war. He is taken in by the nicest Vietnamese ever portrayed on any war movie ever, and not only do they treat him and heal his wounds; they also train him in the ways of the sword. The training goes on and on for a while; long enough for Nick to become an expert swordsman. Fast forward twenty years and we have Nick, back in the United States, searching for his war buddy Frank Devereaux. What he doesn’t know is that Frank has been forcibly involved in the fabrication of a designer drug for a major drug dealer called McCready. You see, McCready owes a heck of a lot of money, and he needs Frank to create this designer drug for him so that he can sell it and pay off his debts. So McCready decides to kidnap Frank’s son and wife in order to force him to produce the drug. Unfortunately, the day the bad guys are going to kidnap Frank’s son, is the very same day that Nick decides to visit his old war buddy. One thing leads to another and Nick ends up saving Frank’s son from the bad guys, and soon finds himself on the road, running from the bounty hunters who are looking for Frank’s son. He is on his way to Reno, to save Frank and reunite him with his son. Will he make it to Reno without getting the kid or himself killed? Will he be able to save Frank?

Blind Fury is a couple of films all rolled up into one. First we have the Vietnam vet returning from war angle, not unlike the premise for First Blood (1982). On that film we first meet Rambo when is on his way to his war buddies house, same as in Blind Fury. Then we have a similar premise to that of the Japanese Zatoichi series of films; a series of films where the protagonists is also blind Samurai who in spite of being blind can kick anyone’s ass just as well as if he had his eyesight. We also have similar elements from Shogun Assassin (1980), a film in which a Samurai and his son are on the run from the Shogun who wants to kill him. And finally, this is one of those films where we have a father figure and his son going through a traumatic ordeal together, their bond growing as the adventure progresses. It reminded me a bit of Sylvester Stallone’s Over the Top (1987) or Tank (1984) a film about a soldier who tries to save his son, who’s been sent to jail for a crime he didn’t commit. You know, these are the types of films where father and a son bond. In Blind Fury, Rutger Hauer plays the role of the father figure, because Billy’s father is actually in a heap of trouble and cant be there for him.  

This must have been a difficult movie to market. From looking at the films poster, you’d think the film is a comedy about a crazy blind sword master, which it technically is. The film does have a slight comedy vibe going for it. But then there is the issue of little Billy, who tags along with Nick through out the entire movie, so then you get the idea that maybe this is a film targeted at that age demographic of 12 year olds. But then the movie is about a deadly sword master who slashes and dices he’s way through the bad guys like there’s no tomorrow, so then the film feels like it’s an adult film. So it’s a mish mash of genres which I’m sure ultimately made the film a hard sell for the studio. And when a studio doesn’t know who to sell a finished film to, it spells certain doom for a film project. This one tanked horribly, it cost less than ten million dollars to make, a reasonably cheap film. Yet it still didn’t manage to make more than 3 million dollars at the box office. So my theory is proven correct, when a film doesn’t have a target audience to sell to, it tanks horribly; unless by some miracle of the cinematic gods it connects with the audience somehow. And that didn’t happen with Blind Fury.

The films original poster  

The film is very lighthearted, in an interesting turn of events, Rutger Hauer isn’t playing the villain. Instead, he plays the blind swordsman with a heart of gold. I was expecting a hard hitting action film (and it kind of is at times) but instead what I got was a semi funny, lighthearted, father son bonding type of film with Rutger Hauer adopting Billy as his son for the whole film. And to tell you the truth, it was interesting to see Hauer playing this nice guy who cares for this little kid and will do anything to protect him, it was such a change of pace from what I’m used to seeing him play; so this movie is interesting in that way. I mean, you ever seen Hauer doing a bit of slapstick? You’ll see him here! Sounds weird don’t it? Hauer doing comedy, but strangely enough it works. We get to meet other funny characters as well, the villains in this film are a bumbling idiotic bunch who cant get anything done. At one point, a group of villains is chasing Nick and Billy through a corn field and one of them eats pop corn as he is chasing them down. Guess what that goons name is? ‘Pop Corn’! At another moment McCready sends a pair of buffoons after Nick, a pair of idiotic brothers called Lyle and Tector Pike. They are responsible for some of the funniest lines. One of them was played by Nick Cassavetes, the villain in The Wraith (1986) and the director of The Last Starfighter (1984). He is one of two bumbling brothers who say some pretty funny lines along the way. We also get Randall Tex Cobb a.k.a. the biker dude from The Coen Bros. Raising Arizona (1987), he plays the same character he’s always played in every single film. The tough looking gorilla type killer who’s always smoking something.

Nick’s abilities sometimes defy logic, I mean, I know blind people can augment all their other senses to compensate for their loss of sight, but come on, this movie gets ridiculous at times, which of course is part of the fun of this film. Hauer plays Nick in a goofy way which makes it endearing to watch. This film comes to us from Phillip Noyce, the director behind one of my recent favorite action films SALT (2010), starring Angelina Jolie. From this to SALT, you can definitely see how he’s improved as a director.  Noyce directed Blind Fury right after he had just directed Dead Calm (1989), a film that put him on the map as a director. He would go on to direct a couple more thriller/action films like The Saint (1997), Clear and Present Danger (1994) and Patriot Games (1992). The violence in Blind Fury is never really graphic or gory, which is another indicator that they were never really going for a hard ‘R’ film, and another indicator that this film was aimed at a younger audience. In terms of tone, this one reminded me a bit of William Dear’s If Looks Could Kill (1991), you know, nothing deadly serious, just a fast paced and fun film all the way through. Recommend it if you’re ever in the mood for those father/son bonding films, or if you just want to watch a film that’s lighthearted and funny.

Rating: 3 out of 5  

Nighthawks (1981)

Title: Nighthawks (1981)

Director: Bruce Malmuth

Cast:  Sylvester Stallone, Rutger Hauer, Billy Dee Williams, Joe Spinell

Review:

Most of the time a films production problems are completely transparent to the audience. A film will arrive to theaters, people will embrace it and make it a blockbuster; but how the film got there, and all the troubles it went through to get made are sometimes never known to the audience. This was the case for me with Nighthawks, a film I have liked ever since I first saw it many years ago as a kid. I wasn’t aware it had gone through a couple of problems on its way to the silver screen. It was one of the first films I saw with a truly evil and memorable villain, Rutger Hauers performance as Wolfgar is one that I have never forgotten, it made an impression on my young mind. What problems did this film face? Well, for one, the films orginal director was to be Gary Nelson, the director behind The Black Hole (1979) and Allan Quartermain and The Lost City of Gold (1986), looking back at his filmology makes me happy that Gary Nelson didn’t end up directing Nighhawks. But moving on, the first problem the project faced came when Gary Nelson abandoned the project. He was then replaced him with Bruce Malmuth, a director who had worked with Stallone before. Everything seems to be running smoothly when suddenly, on the first day of filming, Malmuth failed to appear! And this was the day in which the awesome subway chase was to be filmed! What to do? What to do? Here’s what was done:  Stallone himself stepped in to direct the scene! Interestingly enough, that was my favorite scene in the whole movie, such a memorable chase! Thanks to Stallone stepping in to direct the sequence, the production didn’t fall behind schedule. Stallone was already a director himself, having directed Paradise Alley (1978) and Rocky II (1979) before, so I’m sure he would have no problems in directing the scene himself, and even though the  Directors Guild of America has strict rules about having actors directing a film they are starring in, he was given special permission to do it and so the film moved on. But you wouldn’t know any of these problems from watching the movie because the end result was such a solid film.

 Nighthawks tells the story of Deke DaSilva and Matthew Fox two street cops that work the night beat. Their job? To stop crime by working undercover, in disguise. And they are pretty good at what they do! But things change when their military backgrounds get them chosen for a special task force that is being trained to stop an international terrorist known as Wolfgar. You see, Wolfgar is the kind of terrorist that works doing other terrorist dirty work. And like Deke and Matthew, he is the best at what he does! Unfortunately, when the police in England get too close for comfort, he moves his operations to New York City where he is looking to establish himself as the best damn terrorist in town. Good enough to play with the big guys. This is a terrorist looking to prove himself as the best. And as the tagline for the film says “One man can bring the world down to its knees, and one man can stop him”. And that man is Deke Da Silva!

"You talking to me? That's what I thought!" 

 As I was watching the film, I got this feeling like I was watching The French Connection (1971) for some reason. I guess it had something to do with the films grimy look and feel; it’s not every film that can capture this grimy 'New York in the 70’s' feeling as effectively as The French Connection did. Nighthawks starts out with a sequence in which Stallone chases a criminal up the steps of a subway station, echoing a similar scene from The French Connection.  So you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that Nighthawks actually started out as The French Connection III! That film was supposed to have Gene Hackman returning to his iconic Popeye Doyle character, and this time around he was supposed to have a wise cracking partner, who was going to be played by none other than Richard Pryor himself. But when Gene Hackman didn’t return to play Popeye Doyle for a third time at 20^th Century Fox, Universal Studios acquired the rights to the story and turned it into the film we now know as Nighthawks; a film that Sylvester got into as a way to get away from his Rocky character. He didn’t want to be type cast, so he was trying to play roles that were drastically different to Rocky, and that is the reason why on this film Stallone plays a cop with a beard and long hear as opposed to Rocky’s clean cut look. Stallone’s got a “hip” look on this movie, long hair, glasses, scarfs, jackets. He was looking all sorts of cool.

 Nighthawks is also special because it was Rutger Hauer’s first American film. In the opening sequences of the film he sports a beard, same as Stallone’s character does. I guess the idea was that Hauer and Stallone’s characters mirror each other. As Wolfgar points out to Deke at one point, they aren’t so different from each other, a theme that pops up through out the entire film. This mirror image idea between the hero and the villain carries itself even onto the films poster which is composed half of Stallone’s face and half of Hauer’s face. Speaking of Rutger Hauer’s performance on this film, it’s nothing short of awesome. As is to be expected from a Hauer villain, he exudes evil. I guess he was destined to play memorable characters from the get go. What makes this film special is that this is where Hauer’s long streak of memorable villains started.

"You people are never prepared, there is no security"

 Instead of Richard Pryor playing the comedy sidekick, we get Billy Dee William’s playing Matthew Fox, Deke’s partner. Matthew and Deke do sort of have a comedic back and forth between them, but it’s nothing overtly comical. They simply act as two buddy cops, I’m sure Matthew Fox would have turned out to be a completely different kind of character had Richard Pryor played it, certainly a bit more inclined towards the funny side of things. But not here, Nighthawks is a deadly serious film, the kind of movie that could have come out of the late 70’s early 80’s, where people where angrier and their anger bled into their art. Crime was certainly something that was annoying people to the max, it’s something that’s portrayed in films from this era as being a real problem. The Deathwish films are a good example of this. On Nighthawks we have Deke and Matthew dismantle a drug lab and save a woman from being raped in the first fifteen minutes of film! There is one scene in which Billy Dee Williams gets his moment to shine, where he finds these kids running a drug lab and he smacks the drug dealers around and tells them “I should kill you motherfucker! For all the lives you’re taking away with this shit!” He looks like he was going to do it too had Deke not stopped him! My only gripe with the film is that at one point they drop Matthew Fox and suddenly it’s all about Deke while Matthew is on the sidelines. It would have been cool to have them be together all through out the film, but it’s a minor hiccup in an otherwise great film. So we get a solid cast here, I mean Stallone, Hauer, Billy Dee Williams and we even get Joe Spinnell whom some of you might recognize from Maniac (1980) as the Police Lieutenant that screams and barks  orders at Deke and Matthew. So rest assured, we get a solid cast here.

 Some last words on the film: it has some great action sequences! Actually, I see this movie as going from one awesome sequence to the next. We get some cool street cop action when were introduced to Deke and Matthews every day job stopping crime on the streets, then were introduced to Hauer’s terrorist escapades in England, then we get to see him carry his terrorist work to New York City, and here’s the cool thing about this movie: it was shot entirely on location; something that adds to the realism of the film. The streets of  New York look just as grimy as they really were back in those days, nothing tops realism and shooting on location. This film was shot in 174^th Street, in the Bronx, in Queens, in Manhattan and the actual Roosevelt Island Tram System  Hell, if were going to get down to it, the film also shot scenes in England and France! So we got a film that’s infused with lots of realism to it simply because of the choice to shoot in the actual places the story takes place in. For example, there are a couple of awesome action sequences that take place in New York Subway System, wow, that whole sequence is fantastic! Deke and Matthew chase Hauer all through the subway, then the sequence carries on into a train! The whole sequence is very kinetic, very action packed. What makes these scenes special is that they where shot in an actual New York Subway with actual trains that were decommissioned, but look awesome. If you look carefully, you will notice the train they used for these sequences was so old that it had ceiling fans in it! The films most memorable sequence takes place aboard the Roosevelt Island Tram, when Wolfgar takes everyone in it as hostage! Stallone did his own stunts on those scenes where he was lowered from the Tram into a boat! Stallone was really gung-ho about doing his own stunts on this film, again showing us that the filmmakers were going for lots of realism with this film.

 So what we got here my friends is a gritty as hell cop flick with lots of realism infused into it and a solid, solid cast. I mean, this film is terribly underrated. It’s not a complex or “deep” film, but it’s a solid thriller with an extremely memorable villain. Sadly, audiences at the time didn’t accept Stallone in other roles that weren’t Rocky Balboa, which is why quickly after this one “bombed” at the box office, Stallone went straight for the safe move and did Rocky III (1982). I say “bombed” because even thought the film made its money back (it was only made with a mere 5 million dollars if you can believe it!) it still didn’t make as much money as the studio expected. Stallone himself has said that this film was ahead of its time, and that audiences weren’t really ready for it. To top things off, the studio itself didn’t believe in the film. The film has found its audience in thanks to the home video market, I consider it one of Stallone’s best films and certainly one of his most underrated ones, so if you haven’t seen it I’d recommend checking it out for a night of solid action and thrills with an extremely satisfying ending.

Rating: 4 out of 5  

       

Hobo With A Shotgun (2011)

Title: Hobo With A Shotgun (2011) 

Director: Jason Eisener 

Cast: Rutger Hauer, Brian Downey, Molly Dunsworth 

Review: 

Rutger Hauer has to be one of the coolest old actors on the planet. I mean, here he is 67 years old and the dude is making films in which he hides from his enemies inside of a rotting carcass. He is making films in which he blows every villain away with his shotgun and eats glass just so he could have a couple of bucks in his pocket. Not only is Rutger Hauer a talented actor (and criminally underused if you ask me) he is totally game for participating in gory and ultra violent films like this latest homage to revenge films; Hobo With A Shotgun. My hats go down to Mr. Hauer for still being so hands on in projects like this one where first time directors with promise like Jason Eisener, are given an opportunity to show what they are really made of.

Hobo With a Shotgun came to be when Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez were looking for a way to promote Grindhouse (2007), their homage to films from the 70’s and 80’s. They came up with this contest in which people would submit their short films; the winner would be shown along side the other fake trailers that appear in Grindhouse, like Rob Zombie’s Werewolf Women of the SS or Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving. Jason Eisener’s short film Hobo With a Shotgun won the contest, and here we are, a couple of years down the road reviewing the full length version of that short Eisener submitted for the contest. So basically, what we got here is an expanded version of that original short, expanding and exploring the premise presented on the original short film. Turns out, the result is an awesome revenge film that you will either absolutely love, or absolutely hate. This is the second fake trailer from Grindhouse to be adapted into a film; the first one was Robert Rodriguez’s own Machete (2010). Does this mean that we might see a full length feature of Rob Zombie’s Werewolf Women of the SS, with Nicolas Cage playing Fu Manchu? Here’s hoping! Now there’s a film I wouldn’t mind seeing either!

Hobo With A Shotgun tells the story of a nameless, homeless Hobo who hops off a train to wonder into a very rotten town. This is the kind of town where bad guys feed on the bad guys themselves. In a scene that was extremely similar to the first opening moments of Robocop 3 (1993), not even the villains are safe on the streets of this town. You might be a thief or a scumbag, but there is an even more desperate thief up ahead, so you better watch out! There isn’t a decent soul in this place, not one. So much so that Hobo suggests the cops of this god forsaken town to get a dumpster truck, so they could pick up all the bad elements in this town, throw them in and get rid of them. Problem comes when Hobo decides to save a prostitute from being beat up by a hoodlum. Unfortunately, this isn’t just any old Hoodlum; this is the son of ‘The Drake’, the baddest motherfucker in town. You don’t want to mess with The Drake, unless you’re a Hobo With A Shotgun of course! Hobo makes it his own personal mission in life to eradicate this town of every scumbag and sleaze ball that comes across his path, delivering justice and revenge “one shell at a time”; wich of course doesn’t go well with The Drake and crew!

Hobo With a Shotgun is an interesting film because it encompasses various film genres. First and foremost, this is a revenge film. Something along the lines of what Charles Bronson did with his Death Wish films back in the 70’s. In the Death Wish films Charles Bronson took the law into his own hands; a vigilante who is sick of it all and wants to deliver justice on his own terms instead of waiting around for the police to show up. Now those were the glory days of revenge films! In fact, there was a very cool homage to Death Wish (1974 ) in Hobo With A Shotgun in which Hobo fills a sock with loose change and whacks a bad guy on the head with it. Pretty cool, just like Charles Bronson did in Death Wish. On the other hand this was also one big, loud, colorful, gory, comic book of a movie. The color palette on this film is saturated with lots of reds, yellows and blues, lots of purples. The color scheme on this film is as saturated and loud as a comic book page, and the film itself is as over the top as a comic book as well. How over the top is this film? Well, we meet these two characters who call themselves ‘The Plague’ that completely shift the films tone right into sci-fi territory! These guys seemed to jump right out of a Judge Dredd comic book or something. These two stone cold killers walk around in black armor, basically, they look like androids! They even talk in this cool as hell robot voice, so get ready for a film that will shift in tone drastically and break your expectations for it, this certainly is not a film that adheres to reality at all! Hobo With A Shotgun is also a very gory film, almost functioning as a horror film with it’s excessive gore. The violence is extremely over the top and plentiful. We get juicy decapitations, bodies being split in half, feet being squashed to smithereens; trust me when I say that this one gets gooey.

The one weak link in the film is the actors they chose as the films villains. They don’t come off as evil enough. I mean yeah, they do really evil things (like chopping up bodies in half with razor blades and burning down school buses filled with kids) but in my opinion they didn’t convey that aura of evil well enough through their performances. The Drake (played by Brian Downey) comes off as an old actor playing an over the top bad guy, he doesn’t come of as an evil person at all. Same goes for his sons; they look too squeaky clean to be truly sick bastards. I mean, if these guys were as twisted and perverse as they are supposed to be in the film, I doubt they would speak and look the way they do here. In fact, to be honest, The Drake came off as kind of annoying. The acting on this trio of baddies was the worst part of the film, a pity since all the other elements of the film worked for me. My two cents on this matter are: if you put a strong actor to play the lead (like Rutger Hauer) then you should have gotten equally strong actors to play your villains. But alas, we got what we got. Speaking of the films villains, the film does introduce us to the ominous ‘The Plage’ a duo of henchmen who intimidate way more than The Drake and his two bumbling idiot sons do, so things are evened out in the villain department in this way. I think a whole film could be made out of ‘The Plague’; they looked and sounded so bad ass in that black armor and robotic voice. I guess we could say that everything that was missing from The Drake and his two sons, the film got right with The Plague.

This film comes to us from Jason Eisener, a first time director with an impressive looking and highly entertaining debut. I wonder what will come next from Mr. Eisener? Maybe a film based on The Plague characters? The extras on this dvd are a lot, and I recommend checking them out cause they really go into how this film was made. The extras show what a collaborative effort filmmaking is, especially when they show Hauer and Eisener working out a scene. Rutger Hauer will charm the pants out of anyone watching these extras; he was such a trooper. He comes off as such a collaborative and hands on actor. “Well get it Jason, don’t worry” he tells Eisner while trying to work out the logic of a scene. Hauer himself did some of the stunts, like jumping of a two story building into a bunch of garbage bags, now theirs commitment right there! And the dude is 67!? I hope I have as much stamina when I am that age! This is yet another memorable character in Rutger Hauer’s strong body of work. Like some of Hauer's best films, Hauer completely takes over the film, same as he did in The Hitcher for example; a film in which Hauer's character (the titular Hitcher) completely carries the film. Hobo With A Shotgun is a great revenge film, its gory, silly, fun, ultra-violent and an excellent example of what a Grindhouse film should feel like. In fact, if I am to be totally sincere, it is my opinion that Hobo With A Shotgun captured more accurately what a true Grindhouse film should be like, it really drenches itself in that 70’s revenge movie atmosphere, even more so than Tarantino’s and Rodriguez’s own Grindhouse features. I loved Grindhouse, but Hobo With A Shotgun captured the Grindhouse spirit more accurately, kudos to Jason Eisener and crew for achieving that on Eisener's first film. 

Rating: 4 out of 5