Movie Review

  • Ging chaat goo si juk jaap [Jackie Chan’s Police Story 2] (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2022) Amazingly enough, my Jackie Chan binge-watching mania of the 1990s apparently didn’t include Police Story 2. I probably made the jump straight from the first to the third film, which makes sense – both of them are acknowledged Chan classics, whereas the second instalment is merely… good. This time, mad bombers are going wild in Hong Kong and it’s up to Chan to stop them. Let’s be blunt: there’s little here that competes with the glorious madness of the first film’s shantytown destruction, bus-catching or glass-smashing climax. But it’s impressive in its own lower-key way. Once again, the Chan team of stuntmen goes for broken bones in capturing great sequences and fights on-screen. The pacing of the film is generally slower but more controlled: there’s a better sense here of action progression, with the set-pieces becoming bigger and better until the (at last!) explosive finale. Chan gets to have a few fights taking advantage of his environment, always a trademark, and there’s even a distinctive enemy to fight against. Police Story 2 is a decent follow-up to the first film even if it’s not as impressive – you seldom go wrong with Jackie Chan films of the 1980s, and this one proves it.

  • State Fair (1945)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2022) As someone who comes from a semi-rural background where county fairs were quite a thing (all the way to my grandmother winning a fermière de l’année award), I can’t quite deny the nostalgic appeal of State Fair, a dirt-simple comedy in which a family travels to the Iowa State Fair for a few days, with the teenage kids falling in love and all family members experiencing an episodic succession of shenanigans. It’s not the 1962 version, which featured Ann-Margret in a supporting role. But it’s not the 1933 version either – this one is in colour, and has a handful of songs to keep things musical. Director Walter Lang plays up the good-old-time aspect, with nothing of great consequence happening throughout the end and plenty of folksy references. It’s not bad – not terrific either, but then again, I’ve never been much of a Rodgers and Hammerstein fan. It’s getting me curious about the 1933 version, though…

  • Masters of the Universe (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2022) I’m old enough to have been in the right age group when the Masters of the Universe toys came out (but never played with them), when the tie-in series was broadcast (but didn’t watch it) and when the film was released (but didn’t see it until now). As a result, I’m approaching Masters of the Universe without any sentimental or nostalgic attachment… and I strongly suspect that any reaction to the film hinges on that. From most perspectives, the film is flat-out terrible. The script is for kids (how could it be otherwise, trying to sell toys?), the execution is constantly hobbled by the state of 1980s special effects technology, the acting is unequal and the film doesn’t have much to keep adult audiences interested. If you’re in a generous mood, you can sort-of-see the elements of a cult film in the results: an obtuse mythology begging to differentiate between true fans and casuals; Dolph Lundgren muscling it up as He-Man but being outclassed by Frank Langella chewing universes of scenery as Skeletor. Courteney Cox has an early role here, and Meg Foster is often arresting as the villainess. While Masters of the Universe doesn’t do much to dress up its mercenary intentions, it’s handled with a blunt candour that’s sometimes disarming. Still, it’s weak sauce compared to the other fantasy films of the 1980s, and if you’re going to play in the overblown campy registry, then you’ll always lose a head-to-had comparison with Flash Gordon. Not coming to Masters of the Universe with a pre-packaged liking, I’m left underwhelmed.

  • Mass (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2022) If I had stopped watching Mass half an hour in, I would have hated it. Even forty-five minutes in, I wasn’t all that convinced that I’d like it. It is, after all, a film whose early moments are designed to make you uncomfortable. There’s meaningless chatter between people working in a church about organizing some kind of very touchy meeting between the two parties. Everyone is terrified of doing something wrong, and the rhythm of the film pauses on every single awkward moment. After a while, we meet our two parties – two middle-aged couples—and lock ourselves in the small meeting room in which most of the subsequent drama will take place. I would normally stop with the plot, but here’s the added touch that brings us to the crux of the film: One couple had their son die in a school shooting, and the other couple were the parents of the (deceased) shooter. To say that the two couples are uncomfortable with each other is an incredible understatement – there’s this sense that the film is constantly a moment or a careless remark away from one person strangling another. Much of Mass, once past the prologue, is strictly a theatrical performance taking place in near-real time, with the four people trying to understand each other and their kids’ actions. Credible personalities emerge from the dialogue, with a number of set-pieces enlivening a film purely based on dialogue (challenged for not knowing the details of their son’s death, the father of the shooter rattles off the names of every single victim and how they died). Writer-director Fran Kranz’s Mass remains a deeply troubling and uncomfortable film – no one will be blamed for heading for the exits at the earliest opportunity. But it eventually becomes quite effective at what it tries to do, and even ends on a note of… something better by the end of the film, once truths spill out and characters understand each other. I despise that school shootings are common enough that this film is in any way “relatable” (and I write this as the news relays details of another school shooting that will change absolutely nothing in the American psychopathy of gun ownership) but Mass doesn’t feel exploitative or sensational – it eventually puts everything together into an intense, claustrophobic drama that doesn’t get to blink or cut away from the tension building between its characters. Give it a chance to get over the initial hump, and the result may surprise you.

  • La mécanique de l’ombre [The Eavesdropper aka Scribe] (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, June 2022) There’s something subtle and almost constantly creepy about the thrills in La mécanique de l’ombre, a French thriller that takes a stylish and austere approach that underplays the violence inherent to the plot. It begins with the alcohol and stress-fuelled breakdown of a middle-aged professional (François Cluzet, very credible), who finds himself unemployed and apparently unemployable… until he gets a mysterious job offer transcribing phone conversations for a mysterious employer. All strictly low-tech. Fed only scraps of explanation, we eventually figure out that he’s been hired by a parallel intelligence service working for shadowy forces: deadly, ruthless and opposed to the state’s intelligence services. The rest of the film’s paranoia-fuelled plot you can imagine for yourself – although the scene in which he’s asked to transcribe his own “secure” conversation with a senior intelligence officer is the film’s biggest highlight. Clearly going for murky nihilism rather than any kind of heroics (although the protagonist does get a few shots in), La mécanique de l’ombre is executed with a cold stylish flair by writer-director Thomas Kruithof. The romantic sub-lot is perfunctory and the intentional lack of triumph will frustrate many, but that’s the name of this game – the film clearly owes much to the troubled Le Carré school of spycraft when the stakes are high and yet ultimately meaningless. La mécanique de l’ombre is not meant to be loved or even liked, but it’s an entertaining watch if you’re willing to play along with its glum tone.

  • Emma Mae aka Black Sister’s Revenge (1976)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2022) Well, isn’t this interesting. I’ve had the occasion, a few months ago, to write a thorough history of American Black cinema, and there was one section I wasn’t happy about: How did Blaxploitation turn into the social-issues-driven black cinema of the late 1980s? Well, Emma Mae offers at least part of the missing link, and unlocks a doorway to a less popular era of black filmmaking. Coming from writer-director Jamaa Fanaka, this is a glimpse into the L.A. Rebellion movement that offered a raw black alternative to Hollywood. A look at Emma Mae reveals a film almost perfectly balanced between Gordon Parks and Spike Lee, as a young woman from Mississippi ends up in Los Angeles and becomes a moll for a local gangster. When he’s locked up and in need of bail money, she takes matters into her own hands and starts planning a bank robbery. While this sounds like a straight-up genre exercise, there’s an almost neo-realistic quality to the way the film portrays life in black neighbourhoods – with terrific 1970s hairstyles and fashion. The film is also more socially-minded than most in ending on a note of futility for the heroine, as she berates the men for being involved in trivial criminal activities. Jerri Hayes is quite good as the titular Emma Mae, but the film itself is the revelation for me – helping fill out a period in black film history that doesn’t always get as much attention as the blaxploitation movement or the new social revindications of the late 1980s onward. I’ll be back for more.

  • And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself (2003)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2022) As much as the past decade’s boom in streaming services has been a boon for cinephiles, part of me wonders about the aftermath of such business model experimentation, especially when the services have every intention of locking up their own productions. No physical editions, no licensing agreements with other platforms or broadcast, and no way other than a subscription to see the films. (Or piracy, which becomes far more justifiable.)  What if there’s a genuine work of art (or entertainment) locked away behind a subscription? What if the services shut down? As evidence of how these fears are not unjustified, I offer films like And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself, a slick medium-budget effort developed and broadcast by HBO two decades ago. The HBO filmography is a case in point for my questions: it’s large, and it’s almost entirely locked up within HBO. There are a few DVDs and a few foreign-language licensing deals (all hail French-Canadian TV!) but these movies run the real risk of being buried forever. Have you heard about And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself? What if I told you that it stars such notables as Antonio Banderas (as Villa), Alan Arkin, Jim Broadbent, Colm Feore, Kyle Chandler and Saul Rubinek? What if I promised you explosive sequences of the Mexican Civil War? What if I lured you in with a credible portrayal of the 1910s cinema industry and the kernel that eventually led to modern Hollywood action movies? It’s a surprisingly interesting film – although it may take film nerds to love that opening sequence drawing back from a vintage silent film scene to its HD making-of in one seamless shot capped off by “Fort Lee, NJ: Movie Capital of the World.”  Similar care goes to the way it integrates historical fact: The portrayal of Villa is often sympathetic but ultimately not sugar-coated – And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself overtly acknowledges that he was a murderous revolutionary. It makes for a really interesting film – especially if you happen to have missed it the first time around and didn’t know about its existence. How many films will be buried behind a subscription, unable to breathe and find their audience? How many films will be unfairly forgotten behind those gates?

  • Army of Thieves (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, June 2022) All right, let’s go full fanboy mode: I was absolutely not interested in any sequel, prequel, interquel or whateverquel having to do with zombie heist film Army of the Dead – an overblown production that had a lot of ideas but very little discipline in executing them. But a romantic heist comedy starring Nathalie Emmanuel? Great genre, cute actress, say no more: I’m there with no questions asked. I’ve been crushing hard on Emmanuel since Game of Thrones (the fate of her character partially explains why I soured on the last season of the series), and seeing her get a good supporting role in the ongoing Fast and Furious series is an ongoing delight. But here, she gets nothing less than a full lead role – and, in a delightful bit of fan-service, a brand-new fancy hairstyle every time the film skips ahead a few hours. In this heist film, she plays the mastermind who seduces our nerdy protagonist (director-star Matthias Schweighöfer) into four daring bank robberies, each of them targeting vaults built by a near-mythical craftsman. (A fifth vault is the one tackled in Army of the Dead if you’re wondering about the link between the two films.)  The weakest aspect of Army of Thieves is the zombie background noise meant to make the film more interesting to zombie fans – considering that I didn’t want a zombie film, this was counterproductive. It’s far more interesting when it delves into this funhouse portrait of safecrackers and thieves thirsting for great scores for the fun and accomplishment of it rather than the money. With a joyously European setting, the film zips through a few set-pieces and character moments. It’s not that good – there’s a sense that it’s a good imitation of better films, but not anything more. There’s also a lessening of tension toward the end (culminating in a forgone but contrived conclusion) but it’s not a fatal flaw: if you’re a romantic heist comedy fan (and who isn’t?), the film delivers the goods. Emmanuel is superb from beginning to end, and she gets a run for her money from Ruby O. Fee as a tech expert. I’m more than willing to ignore Army of Thieves’ links with Army of the Dead and pretend that our lead couple will find a happy ending in an eventual sequel. (Considering the films’ mentions of time loops and precognition, I wouldn’t necessarily bet against it.)  Army of Thieves delivers exactly what I expected, and even throws in a few bonuses while it’s at it. There’s a lot to say about those breezy, unassuming mid-tier films if they strike their target audience’s fancy, especially if it means going fanboy for two hours.

  • Pagan Love Song (1950)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2022) As I’m wrapping up my filmography of legendary musicals produced by Arthur Freed, my overriding question is simple – why are those the last few entries? What explains that they’re not as often broadcast as Freed’s other hits? In Pagan Love Song, the answer is inappropriate casting (a chemically-tanned Esther William as a half-Tahitian girl, and the otherwise awesome Rita Moreno as a full Tahitian), far too much stereotypical exoticism, middling songs and humdrum execution. The story, as slight as it is, has a white American travelling to Tahiti to claim an inherited property, mistaking the heroine for a non-English speaker, and getting seduced by the island’s way of life. It’s not terrible, but much of the film’s interest consists in watching the result and wondering how bad it’s going to be in terms of native representation. To be fair, the colour location cinematography (in Kauai) does have its moments, and a few numbers are rather fun (most notably “The House of Singing Bamboo”). But the rest? Howard Keel is blandly bland man as the lead, while Williams’s performance feels perfunctory (she nearly drowned for such an ordinary role) and Pagan Love Song becomes increasingly nonsensical toward the end. The atmosphere can’t overcome the film’s more fundamental flaws, and the result, well, is almost deservedly forgotten today despite its big-budget production.

  • Over the Edge (1979)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2022) Teenage rebellion has long been a Hollywood staple, but I can see why it would take until the late 1970s to make something as glum as Over the Edge. Taking place in a synthetic Colorado town made for ever-growing property values and not much else, the film doesn’t waste time showing the teenage alienation coming from having nothing to do except petty vandalism. Troublingly enough for this middle-aged house-owning film critic, the film squarely takes the teenagers’ side, all the way to an extreme escalation of hooliganism. By the time the parents come together for a community meeting and spend their time talking about house resale value and not the state of their kids, well, we’re ready for the kids to lock them up inside the school and set fire to cars outside –which they do. That’s kind of the nihilistic point Over the Edge makes about its aimless teenage protagonists. (It’s enough to make you thankful for cell phones and video games.)  In presenting such a sympathetic portrait of its vandal teenage characters, Over the Edge doesn’t make for comfortable viewing even today – it’s an indictment of adult inaction more than the semi-hypocritical depiction of teenagers acting badly that had been Hollywood’s stock-in-trade until then. It remains a remarkably glum assessment of American ready-made suburbia in its violence-stirring ennui.

  • Kvinnodröm [Dreams] (1955)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, June 2022) Oh Ingmar Bergman, you big bore you. I’ll admit that this isn’t much of a criticism – I find Bergman to be dull and exasperating most of the time anyway, with only the very best of his films being conventionally interesting. But Dreams is something else – two couples heading over from Stockholm to Gothenburg to have or almost have affairs. That’s pretty much it in terms of plot – and the low narrative density does nothing to make the film any better. The melodrama is not heightened enough to be interesting, although the film does offer a look at mid-1950s urban Sweden through the lenses of two career women. Otherwise, this is really lesser-tier Bergman for fans or those intent on completing his filmography no matter how undistinguished it’s going to get.

  • Gaslight (1940)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2022) The best-case scenario for remakes is that they improve on the original in every way, making it look like a prototype for later, superior work. The worst case is that the remake is terrible and is quickly forgotten. 1940’s British Gaslight, on the other hand, is not that far away from the better-known American 1944 Gaslight. Oh, the American one is superior – better actors, better directing, substantially better production values. But the earlier film is no slouch: still faithful to the original novel, but perhaps less histrionic and more subtle. What’s perhaps more interesting is that, despite the very short duration separating both films, both –being from different sides of the Atlantic—do have their own specific flavour that makes even a double-bill viewing interesting on its own.

  • Black Moon (1975)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2022) If you’ve understood why every scene fits in Black Moon, you have a good career as a film vulgarizer ahead of you. Considering that even writer-director Louis Malle recognized that the film is more based on dream logic than anything else, explaining it would be quite an achievement. This is one of those films where the Wikipedia plot summary is a lifeline. Taking place in an indefinite period with hazy characters acting out in crazy ways, Black Moon is supposed to be a dream given form, with various elements just mixed in an experimental fashion. It’s clearly something – I mean, I don’t think there’s any other film going for those same images and there’s always something to be said for filmmakers who are able to just be as weird and personal as they can be under the constraints of a film production. (Malle reportedly shot most of the film on or near his own estate in the French countryside, with copious nature footage offered as proof.)  I’m really not the target audience for Black Moon – and I’m struggling right now with the impulsion to simply dismiss it out of hand. But if you’re in the mood for an oneiric, occasionally nightmarish fantasy, then this is for you. Maybe solely for you.

  • Soleil rouge [Red Sun] (1971)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2022) There’s an admirable blend of influences at play in director Terence Young’s spaghetti western Soleil Rouge, bringing together a cast as diverse as Charles Bronson, Ursula Andress, Toshirō Mifune, Alain Delon and Capucine in a vision of the Wild West quite unlike another. Consider that the plot gets going when a ceremonial samurai sword intended for American President Grant is stolen aboard a train heading east. Mifune and Bronson team up to get it back from the perfidious Delon, with Capucine and Andress providing further entertainment. There are a lot of cool ideas in here, so maybe it’s not so much of a surprise when the execution ends up being just about average. Sure, seeing an American gunman team up with a Japanese samurai sounds like the kind of revisionist western that would be a natural fit for a multicultural genre-blending twenty-first century. But as executed à la Italian western, it’s perhaps a bit more serious than expected and certainly more laborious than it should be. I’m sure that my limited attraction for westerns is at play here, but still – beyond the premise, Soleil Rouge is a far more average western than you’d expect, and that’s just too bad.

  • Deadly Friend (1986)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2022) I don’t think I would have believed in Deadly Friend’s existence had I not actually seen it myself. It’s as if a few 1980s movie genres had been thrown in a blender as a dare, and the most remarkable thing about it is that it’s not an ironic retrospective film. This was put together in the mid-1980s, and it would work as a satire… had it been any better. Consider a film that begins as a typical teen science comedy in which a newly-moved protagonist has a robot pal that does silly things. But then (wait for it) the protagonist’s girlfriend is killed by her abusive father and he transplants his robot buddy’s microchip in her head and she revives and turns murderously evil. I’m not sure you saw that coming, right? Suffice to say that Deadly Friend doesn’t work. A look at its production history reveals numerous changes to the film in post-production, an attempt to capitalize on director Wes Craven’s reputation for gory horror, and how the film was shifted from dark SF thriller to outright gory horror – completely ignoring Craven’s attempt to branch outside the genre he’s best known for. Kristy Swanson does just fine as the killer robot girl, but the film itself is a jumbled mess. An object of contemplation more than entertainment, Deadly Friend has largely been forgotten by history… and it’s not hard to understand why.