Reviews

  • Death Wish (1974)

    Death Wish (1974)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, April 2018) The mid-seventies really weren’t a cheerful time for popular entertainment in general, or New York City in particular—Hollywood was still churning out reactions to being unshackled from the Hays Code, whereas NYC was experiencing unprecedented levels of crime. People wanted quick and simple solutions, and so a vigilante character stepped in, incarnated by Charles Bronson. Death Wish itself has spawned so many imitators—the basic story is visceral and easy enough to do on a low budget—that it does feel dull by today’s standard: The story moves along at a plodding pace, and the film feels long even at 94 minutes. Bronson is too old (and far too menacing) to play the part, but who cares—it’s the idea that counts, or more specifically the fantasy of taking complete revenge upon irremediable criminals. It would be easy enough to regret the normalization of revenge fantasies in pop culture (so much so that the 2018 remake of Death Wish passed along almost unnoticed in theatres) but that’s shouting at a horse long after it has left the barn. What matters most is the film’s keystone place in the landscape of mid-seventies cinema, and how it acts as the apogee of a dark-gritty-violent trend that would create an appetite for escapist fare along the lines of Star Wars. In many ways, there’s no need to see the original Death Wish—it’s been redone so often since then that it’s almost superfluous.

  • The Italian Job (1969)

    The Italian Job (1969)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, April 2018) If you thought that having seen the 2003 remake of The Italian Job negated the need to see the original, think again, because the original is about twice as inventive and ten times as cool as its remake. It’s off to a roaring start as its protagonist (played with impeccably charm by Michael Caine) gets out of prison and straight into London’s Swingin’ Sixties: In-between the cool car, cool clothes and entourage of beautiful women, he’s living the dream and sharing it with us. The film gets more ordinary as it explains the subsequent caper and assembles the team of specialists to see it through. Noteworthy is the script’s emphasis on a primitive form of computer hacking, as traffic signals are trafficked as part of the caper by a computer expert (played by no less than Benny Hill). Cool scenes abound (“You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!”), culminating in a demented car chase through Turin featuring three of the original Cooper Minis and a spirited singing of “Getta Bloomin’ Move On.”  The only real flaw of the film comes at the ending, which famously ends on a literal cliffhanger and deprives the audience of a truly satisfying ending—although it does trade it for a heavy dose of irony. It doesn’t matter all that much, as The Italian Job remains great good fun from beginning to end. Heck, writing about it makes me want to watch it all over again. 

  • The Enforcer (1976)

    The Enforcer (1976)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, April 2018) Third entry in the Dirty Harry series, The Enforcer is clearly running on autopilot, much of the film being a copy of previous material bordering on self-caricature. Callahan himself is introduced in gosh-wow fashion, first ending a liquor store robbery through excessive property damage, and then having a few regressive choice words about affirmative action once he’s asked to participate in a board to hire female police officers. (One of them is assigned as his partner. You can imagine the rest.)  Once reassured that we’re dealing with the stock image of Harry Callahan, the film then goes through the motions of a stock plot involving domestic terrorists and half-heartedly ties it to a criminal project. There’s a detour through black militantism that feels just this ride of outright racism, although it’s often hard to distinguish between the series’ reactionary bend and the overall attitude of the time. The result, though, remains a half-hearted success at best—while the atmosphere of mid-seventies San Francisco is interesting, the film itself is by-the-numbers and leans too heavily on violence and dispensing of its most interesting character as a motivation for Callahan. Every film in the Dirty Harry series is a bit worse than its predecessor, and The Enforcer starts straddling the line between acceptable and forgettable.

  • Quo Vadis (1951)

    Quo Vadis (1951)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2018) I have dim memories of watching Quo Vadis as a kid (especially the last shot of the film) but watching it now is more an exercise in historical Hollywood than an enjoyable viewing in itself. Historically, Quo Vadis was the first big success of an era in film history where Hollywood headed to Rome in order to film epic movies on a smaller budget. You can see the result on-screen with a lavish production with countless costumes, credible historical re-creations and an ambitious Bible-related subject matter palatable to international audiences. Quo Vadis is a deep dive in Roman history in the decades when Rome fought the newly popular Christianity. It’s not particularly historically accurate, but it does revel in the imaginary imagery of the era, combining swords and sandals and political/religious conflict alongside a big dash of family melodrama. It’s tedious and impressive at once, especially when you try to keep up with the very large cast and equally long running time. It does help that the film features actors such as Robert Taylor and Peter Ustinov, alongside captivating actresses such as Deborah Kerr and Marina Berti. A long list of notables had small roles among the cast and crew, but the film’s biggest impact was financial, both in terms of revenues (it reportedly saved MGM from bankruptcy) and legacy (it paved the way for very similar epics). It’s not quite as good as many of the films it would spawn, though: the highlights are few and far between, while the film’s connection to the bible is tenuous at best. It does make for an impatient viewing experience—well-known but not particularly enjoyable, Quo Vadis is a bit of an imposed viewing … unless you like that kind of thing, of course.

  • Radius (2017)

    Radius (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2018) I’ve been watching so many high-budget movies (both new and old) lately that I had almost forgotten the particular pleasures of ingenious low-budget films. The small discoveries best exemplified by Canadian production Radius, for instance: An intriguing premise that makes the most of a limited budget in featuring unknown actors, next-door settings, an intriguing mystery and a premise that seeks to make the most out of its concept. The subject matter is grim enough that the film doesn’t exactly qualify as fun (an amnesiac discovers that everything that comes within a small radius of him dies instantly, except for a mysterious woman able to neutralize this effect), but there is an undeniable pleasure in seeing the film gradually illustrate then explore the consequences of its premise. As is tradition, the setup is quite a bit better than its resolution—by the time we’re down to the answers, a great deal of the infinite possibilities of the film’s first half-hour has evaporated to one single story, and it’s not quite as good as anything we may have imagined. Revealing an extraordinary secret about the characters also means robbing the film of its everyday man quality, to its detriment. The ending also takes the easy way out in addressing the problem, cutting off a number of grander-scope possibilities. Still, there’s no denying the ingeniousness of the low-budget approach (being Canadian watching a film shot in Manitoba means recognizing very familiar house styles and small-town settings) as well as some particularly well designed set pieces, such as the hospital sequence in which the characters have to surpass themselves not to be too far from each other. Radius isn’t a great film, but it does make for relatively entertaining genre material and a further entry in the “clever Canadian SF&F” ledger. 

  • Despicable Me 3 (2017)

    Despicable Me 3 (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2018) It’s never a good sign when you look askance at the screen and wonder why a specific creative choice was made. I’m not here to bury Despicable Me 3, which is more or less in-line with the series (including the Minions spinoff) so far: it’s a serviceable new entry in the franchise, not quite as interesting because it needs to move forward. If the three little girls were the heart of the first film, and the character of Lucy was the comic highlight of the second film, this film feels forced to expand the family a little bit and get an eighties-themed villain. And that’s when the askance glance at creative choices comes in: Gru’s new brother isn’t particularly funny, and neither is former child-star villain Balthazar Bratt. In fact, they’re so perfunctory that it’s easy to feel disappointed when it becomes clear that, yes, this is the direction in which the entire third film will go. The girls are relegated to the background, Lucy doesn’t get much to do and we’re stuck with a pair of new characters that are clearly less interesting than the filmmakers think. Oh, there’s still enough fast-paced comedic action to keep things interesting (although the amount of Minion stuff is appropriately kept in check) but the film suggests that the series is on a path of steadily diminishing returns, creatively speaking. Of course, finances trump creativity in this blockbuster age of film, so you can reliably expect Despicable Me 4 in three to four years. So it goes. No amount of askew glaring will change that.

  • Magnum Force (1974)

    Magnum Force (1974)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, April 2018) Considering how the first Dirty Harry movie made nearly everyone uncomfortable with how it glorified the vigilantism of its protagonist, there is something almost hilarious to see sequel Magnum Force try to distance itself from this position by pitting Harry Callahan against even worse rotten cops. From the first few moments of the film, with a credit sequence lovingly focus on the titular gun, it’s clear that this sequel regrets nothing and doubles-down on its assets. (Unsurprisingly, it was written by noted gun aficionado John Milius.) Here an entire group of killer cops is uncovered and while Callahan does get a few choice words about their methods, the film wants you to know and understand and appreciate that he’s nothing like those killer cops because reasons, that’s why. Or rather Callahan will gun down those that he determines to be bad rather than being told by some other guy. Or something. Perhaps it’s better to pretend that Callahan is the good guy and appreciate what he does in order to catch the designated bad guys. To be fair, Magnum Force does have its moments. The film isn’t as polished as the mean thrills of the original, but it does have Clint Eastwood (always an asset), Hal Holbrook as a no-fun superior antagonist, a detecting sequence that sees Callahan in a shooting contest with his enemies, and an interesting motorcycle chase climaxing on an aircraft carrier. The atmosphere of mid-seventies San Francisco is always worth a look even though the film itself is hum-drum. Magnum Force does build upon the first movie, though, so you might as well keep going through this one if ever you have the choice.

  • Knock Knock (2015)

    Knock Knock (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2018) There are stories that men tell each other in order to keep themselves in line. Don’t crush on crazy; don’t crawl inside the bottle; don’t run with criminals; don’t stray outside your marriage; don’t neglect your kids. Elementary life lessons, but worth repeating, often with maximal effect, in order to feel better about an ordinary life. When those morals are handled through genre methods, they become high-impact morality tales. Think Fatal Attraction. And if you give the story to a horror director like Eli Roth … well, you end up with something like Knock Knock, in which a good husband/dad finds himself powerless to resist the advances of two women when they show up at his doorstep when his wife and kids are away. What follows is a pair of steamy sex scenes. But what follows what follows is a merciless takedown of the man’s life using video and social media. The moral of the story here is clear enough: Destroy Facebook. Japes aside, does it work? Well, yes and no. Famously stoic Keanu Reeves is a curious choice as a good husband/dad, given that his innate reserve doesn’t really help him reach the emotional extremes required by the script. On the other hand, Ana de Armas and Lorenza Izzo are good picks as the ruthless temptresses—fortunately enough, since much of the Knock Knock’s credibility (or what passes for it given that it’s a quick-and-dirty exploitation film) depends on them—de Armas is particularly good, which explains why her career has taken off since then. Otherwise, though, the film does feel as if it doesn’t have enough depth to sustain its straightforward warning. It ends limply, in perhaps the tritest possible way. As a horror-erotic take on the home invasion genre, it sits uncomfortably between two very different genre—I wouldn’t be surprised if there was one (or fifteen) XXX-rated parodies focusing on the eroticism, and we’ve already seen an entire pure-horror home invasion subgenre come and go and come again. For Roth, who straddles the line between mainstream and extreme filmmaker, this is curiously tepid stuff—he’s obviously daring enough to feature two very explicit sex scenes, but the rest of the picture goes nowhere. As a result, Knock Knock doesn’t unnerve as much as it annoys, and that’s a fatal flaw in the kind of moral lesson it almost tries to be.

  • Fanny och Alexander (1982)

    Fanny och Alexander (1982)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2018) There may have been dragons, aliens, global conspiracies and vampires in Fanny och Alexander but I’ll never know because it seemed that I slept a thousand nights during the film’s running time and yet things never seemed to change. This is director Ingmar Bergman reflecting upon his childhood in a small Swedish village, and so you can imagine that the film is low on spectacle—while there’s some heavy drama involving kids being abused by their step-father, and someone being burned alive in an attempt to escape, the film spends far more time creating an atmosphere (most notably around a rather lovely Christmas celebration). To be fair, there are ghosts and nudity and violence here, but most of them come rather late in a duration time for more than three hours—at which point I simply didn’t care about much else than making it to the end of Fanny och Alexander even through brief comatic episodes. So it goes when I’m placed in front of much European art-house stuff—I’m easily bored.

  • Stir Crazy (1980)

    Stir Crazy (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2018) Gene Wilder was a fantastic comedian, and his presence elevated many of the otherwise unremarkable movies he starred in. Stir Crazy is, on many levels, a rather average film—two down-on-their-luck protagonists being jailed on some spurious charges and working their way out of there. But throw in Wilder and Richard Pryor in the lead roles and the film becomes much better than it feels on paper. Never mind the plot and how it ends up with prisoners entering a mechanical bull riding competition (!) when there’s Wilder’s character going in solitary confinement and emerging as serene as a man having come in touch with himself can be. Those moments, far more than the forgettable plot, are what sticks in mind after watching Stir Crazy. There is some similarity in tone here with the original The Longest Yard—kind of an underdogs-and-outlaws-are-cool outlook to unify otherwise very different films. Otherwise, there really isn’t much here to stick in mind, as pleasant as the film can be.

  • The Basketball Diaries (1995)

    The Basketball Diaries (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2018) Frankly, there isn’t much worth remembering about The Basketball Diaries than its cast and one dream sequence. One of those hard-hitting yet undistinguishable scared-straight stories of teenage drug addiction, this is a film that takes place in low-rent apartments, high-school classes, New York streets and basketball courts. It does have the good fortune of starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Wahlberg, plus Juliette Lewis, Lorraine Bracco, Michael Rappaport and Ernie Hudson—a cast that ensures that interest in the film will remain as long as they are known. The other claim to fame for the film is the dream sequence in which the protagonist graphically commits a high school shooting—you can bet that in the years since, that kind of material is ever controversial. Otherwise, unfortunately, there isn’t a whole to note about The Basketball Diaries. It is a powerful anti-drug movie. It does talk about what teenage boys talk about. It is, in other words, not particularly unique in a world where dozens of those movies appear (and disappear without a trace) every year. But, OK, if you want to see a black-clad DiCaprio mowing down classmates, then this is the film for you.

  • Dirty Harry (1971)

    Dirty Harry (1971)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, April 2018) A lot of baggage has been attached to the Dirty Harry character over the years, from the politics of the film and/or star, to Clint Eastwood’s iconic presence, to catchphrases and situations that would be introduced in the sequels rather than the original film. But the original Dirty Harry is quite a bit better than its modern perception would suggest. Executed at a time when Hollywood was getting grimmer and harsher as a response to the freed shackles of the Hays Code, Dirty Harry is still faintly shocking for its violence and gritty portrayal of early-seventies San Francisco. As a madman terrorizes the city, it’s up to Harry Callahan (a more than impressive Eastwood) to bring order back to the city … by all means necessary. It’s hard, in the current environment questioning police brutality, to watch Dirty Harry and be swept up by cheers for the hero. There’s a basic disconnect now between what we expect of heroes and what the movie delivers—and I certainly hope that the gap grows even bigger as time goes by. Still, the film does stack things up in favour of its protagonist, either by making the antagonist pure evil, or making it clear that the situation around him demands such extreme measures. Better-directed by Don Siegel than you’d expect from an early-seventies crime thriller (including two rather effective helicopter shots), Dirty Harry remains captivating largely due to good plotting and a character compelling despite obvious flaws. Eastwood is extraordinary here, but it’s worth noting that his character is flawed in many respects—beyond the vigilantism, he clearly loses focus on a stakeout and allows a situation to get even worse. Still, the film brushes much of these things aside in an effort to streamline the film’s impact on its audience. (It also multiplies contrivances to explain why the suspect is allowed to go free on those damnable “technicalities.”)  It’s certainly possible to disagree with much of the film’s message while being impressed by its impact, though, and ultimately that’s why Dirty Harry will endure even as it keeps being bothersome in its depiction of police violence.

  • White Christmas (1954)

    White Christmas (1954)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2018) While I liked watching White Christmas, parts of the film don’t resonate given a different social context. I live in Canada. I’ve never been part of the military. There wasn’t a World War less than a decade ago. So when much of the film’s plot hinges on WW2 veterans making extraordinary sacrifices to save an inn managed by their former commanding officer, there’s a basic difference in worldview that takes a while to understand. Fortunately, much of the rest of the film works much better. Bing Crosby is a likable performer, Danny Kaye makes for a capable foil, and then there’s Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen to round off the main cast. The romantic repartee isn’t too bad, with the songs and dance number filling in the rest of the movie. It’s all quite amiable, especially once the film’s second half moves into the “let’s put on a show!” mode that allows full-scale musical numbers to be “rehearsed.”  Fortunately, White Christmas does still work quite well as a Christmas movie, no matter where and when we come from.

  • Midnight Cowboy (1969)

    Midnight Cowboy (1969)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2018) In my ongoing understanding of Hollywood history, I’m not sure I’m all that keen on the decade-or-so that led from the end of the Hays Code to the beginning of the new blockbuster populism. The bleak years between those two eras were dark, grim, unsparing and they still carry along their own particular brand of ickiness. So it is that Midnight Cowboy gives us John Voigt as a young Texan would-be hustler freshly transplanted in New York City, and Dustin Hoffman as a conman friend of convenience that falls critically ill along the way. It takes place in late-sixties New York, sometimes in rich penthouses but usually in squatted apartments, dirty streets and disreputable bars. Our dull-witted hero gets his illusion shattered, and even a final escape to Florida proves fatal for one character. For modern viewers, envelope-pushing films such as Midnight Cowboy (which did win an Oscar and thus remains part of the canon even today) present a challenge: While the film brought something new to cinema, helped launched the careers of Voigt and Hoffman and normalized serious hard-hitting drama about the American underclass. Nowadays, such things are far more common, and Midnight Cowboy looks a bit dull compared to what has followed. It doesn’t help that such films are, by their very nature, almost impossible to enjoy in a conventional sense. You take in the drama, reflect on it but never have to see the film again. It has the good fortune of being competently made, though, and that goes a long way in ensuring that it remains watchable, if only as a period piece. But it is bleaker than bleak, and it could have been remade almost verbatim as an early-eighties AIDS story. But of course, and this may be one of Midnight Cowboy’s selling point still—modern studios would never develop such a film: too bleak, not enough superheroes, no chances at a franchise or shared universe. Hollywood may have evolved but it may not have advanced.

  • Girls Trip (2017)

    Girls Trip (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2018) The R-rated women-behaving-badly subgenre is now well defined: It may have started its latest streak with Bridesmaids, but there’s been one or two of them per year since then (Bachelorette, Bad Moms, Rough Night, etc.) and the sub-genre is becoming less and less remarkable with every new example. And yet, properly handled, they can allow female comedians to show what they can do once they’re unleashed. So it is that the single best reason to watch Girls Trip is Tiffany Haddish, taking a big character and making her feel even bigger. (Documentary accounts of Haddish’s personality suggest that she was a perfect fit for the role.)  Compared to her, even seasoned performers such as Regina Hall, Queen Latifah and Jada Pinkett Smith feel ordinary. Still, Girls Trip is decently entertaining—while it’s easy to quibble about its most outrageous moments, its wall-to-wall bad language, its occasionally repellent attitude, it does feel free to try anything and everything, getting a few chuckles along the way. It’s also difficult to appreciate, from my privileged white-guy perspective, how vital such a film must feel to a particular audience. It’s interesting to note a few moments here that would not attempted had the movie featured a cast of a different ethnicity—I’m specifically thinking about a prayer scene that feels organic even to the outrageous characters. So carry on, Girls Trip, for bringing something less frequently seen to the big screen, becoming a surprise box office hit and making Haddish an Oscar-presenting comedy superstar along the way. When everybody gets their own big-screen wish-fulfillment comedy, everybody wins.