Tag: crime

Loss Prevention

  By

★★★½
“Missing this would be your loss”

After a series of recent films which… well, let’s just say, left a little to be desired, it was a real palate-cleansing pleasure to encounter this. Oh, make no mistake: this is no classic. But, considering the budget was supposedly under $20,000, this operates within its limitations very nicely. The makers sticks to what they can do, and what it does, it does more than adequately. In particular, the movie is populated with a good number of interesting characters, that are fun to watch. The central one is Nik (Uhl), a young woman who dropped out of college and is now scraping by, working behind the bar at The Soggy Weasel, the pub belonging to her father (former wrestler Snow).

However, her slackerish lifestyle is rudely interrupted when one patron drinks too much, and has to be separated from his keys. Unfortunately, the key-chain also holds a flash drive of industrial espionage data, which he was supposed to hand over to Boland (Wells), the operative of a rival company. Boland is unimpressed, and will go to any lengths to retrieve it, providing the bottom line is deemed sufficiently profitable. Fortunately for Nik, also on hand is Brooke (Albert), a thoroughly competent operative of the company who is the data’s rightful owner, and she takes on the defense of Nik and her father. Not that Nik is averse to getting her own hands dirty, as things turn out.

It does take a little while for things to kick off, as we get introduced to the characters. Nik is more than slightly sarcastic, so can only be respected as such, and also a thoroughly unrepentant lesbian – both combine in an entirely unrepeatable comment about breath mints. But Hollywood could learn a lot about depicting sexual identity from this, which makes absolutely no attempt at moral posturing in this area. Instead, it’s far too busy providing a fast-paced gallop around the city of Louisville, ending up in Brooke and Nik mounting an assault on the headquarters where Boland is holding her father hostage. Yet there’s a twist or two to come, with things not quite ending in the massive firefight you’d expect – another way in which this manages to confound expectations.

In its depiction of corporate warfare, this is rather sophisticated for a low-budget action flick. In particular, Boland’s actions are entirely determined by an accounting of the expected profits and loss. For instance, is it cheaper to buy someone off, or kill them, with all the resulting collateral expenses? It absolutely is not personal with him, just a question of what will balance the books most profitably. The same is true, to a slightly lesser degree, for Brooke – if I heard a late line of dialogue correctly, her surname in the film is Shields! This is an approach which plays into the unexpected finale, when Nik comes up with a solution which satisfies everybody. Well, almost everybody… This has not one, but two, action heroines who are fun to watch, and was considerably better than I expected

Dir: Brian Cunningham, Matt Niehoff
Star: Abisha Uhl, Al Snow, John Wells, Lauren Albert

Chained

  By

★★
“Puts the gang in chain gang.”

Jaz (Severino) gets arrested by the cops and hauled off to Rikers Island on… well, let’s say slightly bogus charges. Her long time pal, Trouble (Martinez) is on the outside and sets about raising bail for Jaz, by any means necessary. That involves putting together a crew of her own who will seize the opportunity to take over drug-running territory in part of their neighbourhood. Needless to say, this decision doesn’t come without perils of its own, both from the authorities and the others with eyes on the profits to be made. Jaz, meanwhile, is having to come to terms with prison life, and isn’t exactly making friends on the inside. Even when the money for her bond is raised, Jaz’s issues aren’t over. However, Trouble finds a solution, after discovering the cops who arrested her have a little side-hustle of their own.

Considering this was made for $15,000, it has its strengths, Most obviously, it feels authentic. The players here may not have much in the way of formal acting experience or training. But I sense they’re not particularly required to do more than be enhanced versions of themselves. The way they act, talk and behave seems legit. Admittedly, who am I to judge? I didn’t exactly grow up on the mean streets of New York. But I can still tell when there is Obvious Acting going on, and it’s a flaw you often see in this kind of low-budget enterprise. I didn’t have to endure that kind of fakery here, and on the whole, the individual scenes were generally fine.

What didn’t work, unfortunately, was the overall flow, with the various plot threads never coming together into a coherent and engaging narrative. I felt like it was taking place over the span of several decades, but there were points when this wasn’t clear. Any film which wraps up with a brief “Twenty years later” scene – in which nobody seems to have aged a day – is on shaky ground. There were also a lot of moments where the script outran the budget. The “police van” in the opening scene, clearly isn’t. Indeed, I genuinely LOL’d later, as the same interior shows up on a van, rented from U-Haul, used for a raid on another gang. If you can’t afford a police van, or at least a decent facsimile, don’t write a scene needing one. The police station and Rikers Island were also… less than convincing, shall we say.

It is likely a little over-stuffed too. For a movie running only 76 minutes, the story tries to cram a lot in, and some of the threads (such as a pregnancy) end up feeling like afterthoughts. More restraint in writer-director Cardona’s ambition would have been for the best. She’s clearly familiar with street life, its characters, and how they behave. When the story sticks to this, the movie is at its most effective, although there’s nothing particularly new or important being said. When it tries to be more expansive, though, the resources just aren’t there, and the shortcomings are painfully apparent.

Dir: Deborah Cardona
Star: Rosemary Severino, Sheerice Martinez, Tyhem Commodore, Lexie Jose

Jack Squad

  By

★★
“Considerably less would have been more.”

At 85 minutes, this might have been fine. For it’s a fairly simple tale, of three women who decide to escape their financial woes by drugging and robbing married men, banking on their victims not being willing to involve the authorities. While this initially works as planned, inevitably, they end up targeting the wrong guy, a minion of feared drug dealer Grey (Anderson). How evil is he? Grey appears to have an employee whose full-time job is to fan him. That’s some Evil Overlord style, right there. Grey doesn’t just want his stolen money back, he wants the trio to continue their activities – for his benefit. And that isn’t the only problem which the trio face, with Tony, the estranged other half of Dawn (Tares), unhappy at her having escaped their abusive relationship.

Somehow, in the hands of writer-director-producer Rankins, this uncomplicated story runs 128 minutes, which is way too long. If ever there was evidence that films sometimes need someone else to step in and say, literally, “Cut that out,” this would be it. You could go at the “director’s version” blindfolded, with a rusty bread-knife, hacking entire scenes out, attacking others with all the savage brutality of a starving man at a Vegas buffet, and would be incapable of doing any real harm to the end product. If you can’t see where half an hour couldn’t be excised, to the general improvement of the pacing, you’re not trying hard enough.

Which is at least somewhat of a shame, since this wasn’t otherwise as bad as I thought it might be. It is certainly an improvement over the director’s almost unwatchable, Chop Shop. The three leads are adequate, and the script gives them reasonably well-delineated characters. As well as recovering abuse victim Dawn, there’s fashion student Kennedy (Halfkenny), who has qualms about the whole endeavour. Though she’s also the one who triggers the escalating body-count, by robbing Grey’s underling. And then we have Mona (Williams) who develops a liking for the violence, and gradually becomes a fully-fledged psychopath. The three different personalities certainly provide plenty of scope for drama and conflict, as they try to figure out how to handle their increasingly untenable situation.

That said, some of the attitudes here are difficult to empathize with. For example, Kennedy ghosts the kind but poor fellow student, apparently preferring the lure of well-heeled “pharmaceutical” workers. And that’s how you end up in abusive relationships, folks, or having to chase down your baby daddy for child support, as recently documented in Sweet Justice. There’s also no getting over the low-budget approach, most obvious in “gunfire” which couldn’t be much more fake, if the people wielding the weapons were yelling “Bang!” and using their fingers as firearms. But the major problem is the one described above: a self-indulgent approach, almost as if Rankins believed everything filmed had to be included in the final product. When making a low-budget feature, like this, you may need to wear many hats. But that does not negate the need for external and neutral guidance.

Dir: Simuel Rankins
Star: Dawnisha Halfkenny, Onira Tares, Patshreba Williams, Benjamin Anderson

Debt

  By

★★
“In need of repossession.”

This is one of those cases where you can see what a film is trying to do. It just isn’t very good at doing it. In this case, the central character is Gina (Killips), who works as a collector of debts for the mysterious and reclusive “Max”. This is for reasons that become clear towards the end – yet, like a lot else in the film, it doesn’t actually prove to be of much significance. Her latest job involves locating a very large sum of money which went missing from his organization. Suspicion falls on Myles (Orille), and Gina is tasked with finding out whether he was indeed responsible and if so, what he did with the loot. To this end, Gina inserts herself into Myles’s life and comes under increasing pressure from her boss, Simon (Rumley), to get results for Max. But Gina is increasingly disenchanted with her profession, and also increasingly convinced of Myles’s innocence.

What this is aiming at, is depicting a “realistic” portrayal of an enforcer like Gina. This means meaningless chit-chat about whether Gina will or will not be able to make it to a neighbourhood barbecue. Guess what? We. Just. Don’t Care. It’s the kind of thing which could have been put over by a better film-maker in a couple of shots, without the need for characters actually to have a conversation about it. Still, this is what you expect from a man making his first feature, and also choosing not only to direct, but also write and edit the thing as well. Oh, yeah: while also acting as location manager and stunt co-ordinator. That’s spreading yourself perilously thin. Of all those areas, I’d say the editing comes off best, assembled together things in a way that’s coherent and does the most with what Fairman the director has given Fairman the editor.

The rest? Well… not so much. The fights are unimpressive at best, in particular a woeful one where Gina faces a drunk guy behind a bar. This, being the opening demonstration of her talents, should have established her bad-ass credentials. It looks like the result of five minutes of preparation, and even if nothing else is quite as poor, you only get one chance to make a first impression. On the location front, I was amused by the way the fights were very careful staged to avoid property damage; you’d think they could at least have brought their own coffee-table to go through. The script, as noted, tries to do too much, especially at the end, where it attempts a double-twist, but doesn’t stick the landing. The main positive is, I think, Killips. She hits the appropriately world-weary note for the character of Gina, and manages to handle even the chattier scenes in a way which kept them just interesting enough.

Credit is also due to Fairman for getting out there and actually making a feature, especially one with a strong heroine. Hopefully, next time, he’ll get the help he needs to deliver a more polished product.

Dir: Dave Fairman
Star: Ashley Killips, A.J. Orille, Phil Rumley, Eric Hergott

Lady Mobster

  By

★★★
“Because ‘Lady Accountant’ wouldn’t have sold as well…”

The salacious sleeve promises considerably more than this can deliver. For we are actually talking a TV movie from the eighties here, with all the limitations that imposes on content and execution. Yet, if sold a lot more on sizzle than steak, and it did come very close to not qualifying here – likely the last scene being when it finally reached the finish line – I can say I was never bored.

Long-time soap opera queen Lucci plays Laurel, the young daughter of a mob family, who witnesses her parents being killed as part of a war between Mafia groups, over whether or not to go legitimate. She’s then taken in by one of her father’s allies, Victor Castle (Wiseman), and grows up as part of his family, becoming a lawyer and eventually marrying his son, Robert (Born). Castle has never given up the dream of getting out of the mob world, and with Laurel’s help is working towards that goal. However, the more traditional families are no less reluctant than they were decades previously, and the resulting feud comes once again to Laurel’s house and loved ones. She ends up taking over as the head of the family, and is now determined to find both those who killed her parents, and those intent on perpetuating the beef now.

It does play like a low-rent version of The Godfather, with Lucci playing the Michael Corleone role of someone who doesn’t really want to get involved in the criminal enterprise, yet finds herself increasingly drawn into it. As such, she’s good in the role, exuding the necessary confidence to make her facing down a room of Mafia dons at least plausible, if still somewhat unlikely. There’s an effective scene early on, when she has a meeting with a prospective partner of the Castles, and rips him a new one for false accounting and fraud. This establishes her character as at least a financial bad-ass, even if there’s precious little gun-play for her to do over the first 85 or so minutes.

Still, director Moxey has been doing this kind of thing for what seems like forever – he directed the original Charlie’s Angels pilot – and keeps the story-line progressing consistently. Certainly, Lauren’s resulting character arc is the best thing the film has going for it, as we see her develop over the course of the film. If this does resemble a pilot episode for a series that never happened, the way it finishes makes it one I would be more than slightly interested in watching. It feels a bit like an eighties version of La Reina Del Sur, with its story of a woman whose family ties to organized crime prove eventually to be a critical formative influence in her life. At the time, that was positively radical, and even if the treatment here is undeniably milder than I’d have preferred, I wasn’t left feeling like I’d been too badly deceived by the cover.

Dir: John Llewellyn Moxey
Star: Susan Lucci, Michael Nader, Roscoe Born, Joseph Wiseman

Certain Fury

  By

★★★★
“When child stars grow up”

Child actors have a difficult challenge facing them when the reach adulthood. They are not the sweet kids anymore that everyone loves and wants to cuddle with. They can’t rely on the cuteness factor anymore that made them once so successful. That can lead to tragedy. How many former kid stars became drug addicts or committed suicide because they couldn’t return to that time anymore, when in a way the world was theirs? Others were smart enough to leave film business behind them and start a new career e. g. Shirley Temple. But a few of them are indeed lucky. they stay calm amidst all the thunderstorms of early successes and puberty, manage to stay relevant to audiences and even find a new footing and grown-up roles, that cement their careers as everlasting film stars. Actresses like Sophie Marceau or Jodie Foster come to mind.

The latter is a particular success story, making the transition from child actor to grown-up movie star. In the 70s she was the regular tomboy in Disney family comedies and at one point was even under consideration to play a young Princess Leia in what would become the first Star Wars movie. Her constant competitor in tomboy roles was Tatum O’Neal. the youngest ever to win an Oscar, for her performance in Peter Bogdanovich’s beautiful tragic-comedy Paper Moon (1973), next to her father. She also played a tomboy in The Bad News Bears as Walter Matthau’s daughter. Coincidentally, Paper Moon became a TV series in which Jodie Foster played O’Neal’s role! Unfortunately, O’Neal went through the usual teen-phase, then slowly disappeared from the screen. Later she made headlines for her troubled marriage and addiction. Just a couple of years ago again when she was taken in by police because she wanted to buy some drugs.

Why this long introduction? It’s because I think it’s kind of unjust how her career went – though everyone is responsible for their own decisions and you never really can plan to be in “successful movies“. But contrast the career of Foster who had a similar basis, but persevered after making some less interesting movies for much of the 1980’s. Her second career in films began with the Oscar for Accused (1988) and then moved on from there to bigger things. It just shows that you may have talent and get credit for some time in Hollywood. But if the right movie and role doesn’t come along, and you make some bad decisions, anyone’s promising movie career can just evaporate in front of your eyes.

There are movies that are crossroads that can lead to other – maybe better – things or open up a new role type for you, maybe an entire new genre. My feeling is that Certain Fury (title in German cinemas: “In the heat of New York”) could maybe have been that for O’Neal. It just wasn’t to be.

From 1985, it checks all the boxes for a typical 80’s action buddy movie, beginning with the story. At a mass trial of young girls, responsible for different criminal acts, two prostitutes start a shoot-out in the courtroom that has to be seen to be believed. A remarkable act of violence which you hardly would ever find in a modern action movie of today where everything is usually very neat and clean. Scarlet (O’Neal) who has killed a man – in self-defence as we find out later – and Tracey (Cara, who won an Oscar herself for her song in Flashdance shortly before; the title song here is also by her) are among those who take their chances in the ensuing chaos. They run from the court building into the streets, chased by the police.

They are more fortunate than one of the prostitutes, who gets shot into the back. Really, this movie could only exist in the 80’s, and would be unthinkable for today’s Hollywood. The pair make it into the sewers, and survive an underground explosion, caused by a cop’s lit cigarette igniting sewer gas. They eventually meet one of Scarlet’s lovers named Sniffer (Nicholas Campbell) who is an especially disgusting creature. He obviously makes porn and after Scarlet has left, tries to rape Tracey in the shower. While not a particularly graphic scene, it might well work against the possibility of the film being released in the US again. 

Scarlet tries her best to get help from another former lover, the arrogant, rich, criminal Rodney, who turns out to be played by Peter Fonda. Did he ever get an Oscar for one of his movies? I don’t think so. [Jim: no, just nominated for Ulee’s Gold] It’s so strange because he’s the most well-known actor in this movie. But he likes her as lttle as her other ex, and cuts her cheek with a knife. She just returns right on time to escape with Tracey before Rodney’s men arrive to get her after he made a deal with the police. Scarlet has taken some of Sniffer’s drugs and manage to sell them in what looks like a giant derelict house in the slums. It really is a movie from Reagan era! ;-)) Her persecutor arrives on the scene, injects Tracey with drugs, sets fire to the house and has a final fight with Scarlet before meeting a fiery death.

Police inspector Lt. Speier (Murdock) is meanwhile trying to find the girls, together with Tracey’s father, Dr. Freeman (Moses Gunn, e. g. a gangster boss in Shaft). The theme of Black and White working together is repeated in these characters, as in the girls themselves. This is a very positive, uplifting message but – unlike today where many movies have become a lesson about racism and discrimination – it’s not a lecture, it’s inherent in the movie’s story and characters. It makes this much more palatable for me than modern movies who lose the entertainment aspect in the background, while putting their lessons in your face.

As the two girls are believed to be dead (Tracey reads it in the newspapers; Scarlet can’t read) they consider a new life together, free in the mountains. But Scarlet doesn’t believe it’s possible, and in her brusque manner tosses Tracey away from her. When the police arrive, Scarlet still keeps on walking on a bridge, so they shoot her in the back. But the last shot shows Scarlet being hold by Tracey and Dr. Freeman saying it is not so serious, and was only into the shoulder. Guess that’s a happy ending… or something like that!

It’s all tough stuff. Certain Fury isn’t an “important” movie; indeed, you could even argue whether or not it is a “good” movie. As a matter of fact, I had a strong feeling when watching this movie that Charles Bronson might come around the corner any moment to “clean up the slums of New York“. It really looks like one of those cheap Cannon flicks that were such guilty pleasures in the video stores of the 80s (and might be even more now!). And, indeed, just a short time later, Cannon had Charlie handcuffed to a snotty teen, and sent on a similar road trip through gangster-land in Murphy’s Law (1986). Though that movie more or less dropped any social issues of the O’Neal-Cara-film and concentrated on the bloody action of Bronson versus the rest of the criminal underworld.

I note also obvious similarities to the Stanley Kramer-classic The Defiant Ones (1958) with Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier. Scarlet is not nice and understanding, she is street-wise, prone to anger and absolutely insulting. Heck, she even drops the N-word to Tracey. So the inspiration is arguably there. And who knows, maybe it wasn’t an accident that a year after this movie, The Defiant Ones got an update in a 1986 television movie with Robert Urich and Carl Weathers (also a very watchable movie). [Jim: there’s also Black Mama, White Mama, in which Pam Grier and Margaret Markov are another inter-racial pairing, who escape from prison handcuffed together]

While I mainly saw and enjoyed Certain Fury for what it was – enjoyable over-the-top action trash – the movie nevertheless put some fingers into social issues that may be as relevant today in America, as they were almost 40 years ago. Racism, social class differences, uncontrollable no-go areas, criminality, poverty, drugs and – yes – even police brutality can be witnessed in this movie. Though after the bloody mass shoot-out in the courtroom at the beginning, where hardly anyone is left alive, you can maybe understand the over-reaction of the police! I don’t think this  almost forgotten little movie offers any solutions to these myriad of problems. But it at least suggests that even very different people can understand and support each other, even if it needs an extreme emergency to do so. It’s a theme also mirrored in the very different duo of the white police inspector and the black surgeon.

Now, I wouldn’t recommend the movie if you want a high-quality social drama: too much Charles Bronson in it, if you ask me. But it’s enjoyable action trash, and interesting that at one point Tatum O’Neal could have become an action or thriller star. The latter genre was, after all, the one in which Jodie Foster found her greatest commercial success. O’Neal’s acting is very good, I think; there’s nothing left of that little brat she embodied in the 70s. Her Scarlet is an interesting character of the “hard shell, soft core” variety. She could maybe have continued in this manner; who knows? Instead of that she chose to marry tennis player John McEnroe, which obviously wasn’t the best move for her in any way.

Here’s a little confession: I feel a certain emotional connection to this movie as I discovered the trailer online and then suggested it to a German DVD label who promptly released the movie on DVD here in Germany (even with an audio commentary of two film historians!) – I think my ego is going to explode! ;-) And an interesting final tidbit: In the German-language version Tatum O’Neal is played by the voice artist who regularly dubs… Jodie Foster!

Dir: Stephen Gyllenhaal
Star: Tatum O’Neal, Irene Cara, Nicholas Campbell, George Murdock

Girl

  By

★★½
“Axe me another question.”

Thorne appears dedicated to destroying the wimpy image created by her role as the heroine in Twilight. A little while ago, we reviewed Chick Fight, in which she played the bad-ass nemesis at a female fight club. Now, she’s the unnamed heroine (whom I’m going to call Girl, as the credits do), who shows up back in her home-town of Golden after a prolonged absence. She has returned to protect her mother (Lavallee) from her estranged father, only to find someone beat her to the punch. Dad is dangling, lifeless, in the shed, and those responsible are after a stash of cash which he supposedly squirreled away. Not helping matters, those responsible are led by the local sheriff (Rourke), and they are convinced Girl knows where the money is. Fortunately, Girl has acquired some unusual survival skills of her own, in particular, throwing a mean axe, as suggested by the poster.

I would say though, the film would have benefited from more axe-tion, as it were. While it’s established early on that’s she’s packing in this department, you have to wait a good while before the payoff comes, and it’s merely adequate. Until then, there’s the feel of a modern Western, not least in the lack of people – if the streets here don’t quite have tumbleweeds rolling across them, they might as well have. Into this, moseys the lone gun-slinger (or axe-slinger) into a town both controlled and terrorized by corrupt leaders, seeking to right a personal wrong, with the side benefit of cleaning up this here territory. The locals give what support they can, yet are too scared to actively fight back, leaving the heavy lifting to Girl.

While a convincing depiction of small-town America as hell, there’s also a curious lack of tension here. Golden is the kind of place which feels like it would be ground zero for the opioid crisis, yet that seems to have infected the film, with most scenes feeling like they have taken Oxycontin. There’s just such a lack of energy in all the performances. Even Rourke, whom you would expect to bring a certain swagger to the role, as lord of his domain, opts for largely understated, to the point of gently soporific. Of course, as expected, deep-buried family secrets end up getting revealed, not least concerning the relationship between the sheriff and  Girl’s mother.

Thorne gives a decent performance, as someone who has clearly been through a lot, and come out the other side embodying the phrase, “That which does not kill you, makes you stronger.” It feels as if director/supporting actor Faust is aiming for Winter’s Bone, and probably comes up short, perhaps because Girl is too abrasive to be sympathetic. She’s the kind of girl whose sports the chip on her shoulder as ostentatiously as the piercing through her nose, and that’s probably not the kind of character with which I want to spend time. And similarly, if I never go back to Golden again, I’m probably fine with that.

Dir: Chad Faust
Star:Bella Thorne, Mickey Rourke, Chad Faust, Tia Lavallee

Vanquish

  By

★½
“Red, white and blew”

I want to like Rose, who seems to be making a concerted effort to become an action heroine. It hasn’t always worked out – see The Doorman – but she keeps plugging away. It’s against that background I watched this, which I knew going in ranked among the worst-reviewed action heroine movies, certainly of this year, and probably all-time. As I write, it’s at 4% on Rotten Tomatoes and 2.7 on the IMDb. For comparison, the latter scores both Barb Wire and Catwoman at a 3.4. Hell, even Bloodrayne comes in at 2.9. But surely Vanquish could not possibly be worse than that? Unfortunately, I am here to tell you: yes, it can. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a wax bowl of fruit. LOOKS like the real thing, but contains no nutritional value, and isn’t even a pleasure to eat.

Michael Caine famously said of his role in Jaws 4, “I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built and it is terrific.” I can only imagine Freeman needed a new home – or more likely a kitchen remodeling – for there’s no other reason for him to have taken this part, and he all but sleepwalks his way through it. He plays Damon, an ex-cop now confined to a wheelchair, from which he runs a crime empire. His career, Victoria (Rose), is an ex-soldier who needs help with the medical expenses of her little daughter. She agrees to carry out a series of collections for him, over the course of one night. 

There are so many red flags here, not least his threatening her daughter, a pointless bit of leverage. Then the first collection brings her face-to-face with the man who killed her brother. Really, what are the odds? Any normal person might go, “Hang on a moment…”, consider the possibility Damon might just have a hidden agenda, and turn their mad skills on him. But we need the movie to happen, and so Victoria ploughs on, through a series of non-escalating and largely uninteresting confrontations. She has cameras strapped to her, so Damon can follow her actions, and yell marginally helpful advice at sporadic intervals. It’s less than 15 minutes before the end, that any genuine sense of free will appears for the heroine.

I will say, it is framed and shot in a competent manner, with some nice use of colour palette. Otherwise, though, this is startlingly uninteresting. It is not, of course, the worst film I’ve covered here, by a long shot. But this clearly wasn’t cheap. I’ve not been able to pin down a budget, but I’d say $20 million seems a minimum figure, unless the producers had compromising pictures of Freeman. Among other GWG movies with eight-figure budgets, this does definitely need to be in the conversation for worst ever, possessing almost no redeeming features. Poor Rose needs to have a word with her agent, before her career goes the route taken by Michelle Rodriguez

Dir: George Gallo
Star: Ruby Rose, Morgan Freeman, Patrick Muldoon, Nick Vallelonga

The Lioness

  By

★½
“Yes, another strippers-on-the-lam flick.”

This will be rather shorter than my typical review. But then, the film is rather shorter than the typical movie. In fact, it only runs 46 minutes and 20 seconds between opening and closing credits. At first, I felt cheated. However, by the end, I was positively grateful for the makers’ economy in this department. A standard running-time, and I’d probably have been gnawing my own leg off to escape. It’s also an object lesson in not taking IMDb reviews at face value. There are currently eight for the movie: all very positive, averaging a score of 8.7. But when you look closer, you realize that every single reviewer has only reviewed this film, with all but one apparently signing up just before posting their reviews. That’s a red flag.

A bigger red flag is, the film sucks. That’s apparent right from the opening scene, where a trio of strippers are debating the stage name one of them, new arrival Megan (Hartselle), should pick. Approaching four minutes are spent on this, so we’re getting close to 10% of the movie’s effective running time in meaningless drivel. It ends with one suddenly proclaiming, “I heard that there’s this stripper, she goes from club to club, stays there a little bid, robs the place. No-one knows who the hell she is.” Cut to Megan looking extremely guilty, and I think a small piece of me died inside. This feeble effort on both script and performances continues the rest of the way, complete with Megan breaking the fourth wall repeatedly to speak to the camera. Which might have been okay if she had anything interesting to say.

Anyway, there’s an opportunistic crime in which another stripper, Goldie (Orebaugh), swipes the night’s takings and runs off, accompanied by Megan. Except, the haul turns out to be rather more than expected, due to the club being used as a front for money-laundering by owner Anna (Ivanova). Consequently, the resulting heat is also above expectations. Stuff subsequently happens, such as another employee, Linda (Gutierrez) wanting in on the take. but I will admit to having largely lost interest after it became clear these “strippers” were going to perform without ever taking their clothes off. They might as well have been nuns. It’s an appropriate summation of the movie: this lioness is more like a toothless moggie.

Dir: Richard Poche
Star: Lacy Hartselle, Gabriele Orebaugh, Giuliana Gutierrez, Desi Ivanova

Chameleon Assassin, by B.R. Kingsolver

  By

Literary rating: ★★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆½

This takes place in a mildly post-apocalyptic version of Toronto. Climate change and other global issues have helped trigger a sharp increase in mutations among newborn children. Some are positive; others… not so much. The social upheaval also occurring around this time has led to a sharp divide between the haves and the have-nots, with the former able to enjoy considerably more than basic essentials such as clean air and water. The latter struggle to afford these necessities, creating a vicious cycle of deprivation. Libby Nelson rides the razor’s edge between the two worlds. While a mutant herself, she has been blessed with abilities rather than cursed with ailments; she can change her appearance and also disrupt electrical currents.

These two talents have brought her a career as a hired assassin, thief and investigator, working on behalf of various commercial or business interests, as corporations have replaced governments. Her latest commission is working for the local Chamber of Commerce – not quite the charitable group they currently are! – to look into “luvdaze”, a new drug which has recently started to flood the market, both locally and across the continent. They want to find out who is behind its production and distribution. However, the deeper Libby digs, the more dangerous her mission becomes, as she approaches the murky ares where organized crime and corporate malfeasance cross paths, with both groups very intent on playing for keeps, and taking no prisoners.

It all feels rather contrived, right from giving the heroine not one but two positive mutations, as well as a remarkable array of skills, devoted friends and physical beauty. She is even literally kind to orphans, a revelation which you’ll understand may have provoked a derisive snort. There’s heroic, and then there’s positively beatific, y’know. On the other hand, given her ability to look like absolutely anyone, it seems oddly limiting, or shows a lack of imagination, that’s she’s working as a freelance security consultant. Five minutes thought about how to use the skill, and I imagine most people would easily be able to come up with more profitable – or, indeed, more interesting – ideas.

I can’t say this is badly-written. It is, however, remarkably “meh.” There’s no any particular progression or escalation, which would potentially lead to a building sense of excitement. Things happen, but they aren’t described in a particularly exciting way on their own, and nor do they combine in a way which is greater than the sum of their parts. I only finished reading the book a couple of days ago, and it has already all but vanished from my mind. For the purposes of this review, I had to look up basic information like the name of the heroine or the city in which it took place, such was the lack of impact. Like the creature in its title, this book has faded quietly into the background, and will soon be entirely forgotten.

Author: B.R. Kingsolver
Publisher: CreateSpace, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
1 of 5 in the Chameleon Assassin series.