Ray Liotta

  • Corrina, Corrina (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2022) It’s hard to be that critical of Corrina, Corrina when its heart is such in a right place—a nice fairytale of a 1950s white widower hiring a black nanny, then falling for her despite prejudices crossing racial, class and social lines. You get Ray Liotta as a rather likable protagonist, for once (a musical composer, even!), as well as a great-looking Whoopi Goldberg as the sweet yet sharp-talking romantic interest. It’s easily watchable, even when it runs across very familiar plot threads. Writer-director Jessie Nelson isn’t interested in a realistic drama, though: the sets are brightly lit as if in a nostalgic fantasy, the characters seem predetermined to be together and the script allows itself just enough expressions of prejudice to get the point across and nothing more upsetting. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it underscores the limits of feel-good anti-racism film often seen throughout Hollywood history in which white filmmakers make inclusive statements that don’t seem to fully engage with the subjacent problems and set up a comforting fantasy for their white audiences. It’s hard to be against that kind of material, but it’s important to acknowledge, especially in light of better movies since the 1980s, how limited it can be. That doesn’t make Corrina, Corrina a bad film, but watching it today only underscores who differently we would approach similar material nearly three decades later.

  • Campus Code (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2022) It doesn’t take more than fifteen seconds of footage to understand that Campus Code scrapes the bottom of the barrel of cinematic competence. Obviously shot with a low budget, a quick schedule, bare-bones special effects and a half-comatose cinematographer, it’s the kind of sub-sub-cinema that makes Razzie nominees look good. That ultracheap look doesn’t necessarily work against the film—if you can somehow manage to convince yourself that this is a student project made on a threadbare budget, you may even start feeling sympathetic to it all. Heck, there’s even one impressive shot that has a character jumping out of a window. But then Ray Liotta shows up as a bartender and Martin Scorsese has two scenes as a doctor and you may feel as disoriented and unsure of reality as the film’s protagonist. In order to ground yourself again, look up the name of the film’s director: Cathy Scorsese, daughter of the other Scorsese. That should explain the cameos, but it won’t do much to explain the deliberately confusing plot in which four characters discover that they have superhuman powers and that their campus is filled with oddities. If you’re thinking “computer game!” after a few minutes, give yourself no pat on the back—it’s rather obvious from the title. But you may want to stop thinking about the premise beyond that, because it’s increasingly obvious that the screenwriter hasn’t either: After Campus Code throws up all sorts of strangeness on-screen as prelude to a laborious revelation that “we’re in a game!”, the film stops right there. No payoff, nothing beyond a twist so obvious that it barely qualifies as one. The additional red herrings are not justified and in fact, the more you think about the explanations, the less it makes any kind of sense. But all too often, that’s ultra-low-budget filmmaking for you, no matter the parents of the filmmakers. Digging deeper into Campus Code’s production history suggests that the film is a mash-up of an attempt at non-traditional filmmaking for a now-defunct website—it was patched together from webisodes meant to follow an ensemble cast of characters. But while this explains a few things, it doesn’t excuse the very disappointing result. If you feel that it’s going to be a long slog only a few moments in the film, then stop there: Campus Code never gets any better.

  • The Rat Pack (1998)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, January 2022) In my continuing exploration of Hollywood history, I keep going back to the Rat Pack as something of a high point—which is really strange, because there’s not much in the Vegas lifestyle espoused by the Ratpackers—gambling, booze, womanizing—that I find admirable: they would have kicked me out of their group with no hesitation. But over the years, the idea of a few performers forming their own close-knit friendship does have its appeal: Circa-1960 Las Vegas is vintage these days, and the sins of past generations don’t appear so degenerate. It does help that the Rat Pack still exemplifies an appealing idea of cool: Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin are still references when it comes to looking good and being terrific performers. So, a fictionalized take on the Rat Pack was a can’t-miss proposition, even if the film itself is a made-for-cable biopic that overboils its subject matter to the point of almost missing the point of it. Largely focusing on the 1960 presidential campaign as a flashpoint, The Rat Pack is an interesting but often disappointing way to fictionalize a never-ending evening of song, game, drinks and women. The Rat Packers came together to party, and there’s a limit to how much of that you can fit into frame (although there’s a brilliant montage to “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head” showing the Rat Packers in various bedroom activities). No, much of the film is dedicated to the Rat Pack’s attempt to get into politics, and how the two worlds ultimately didn’t mix—the racism affecting Davis, the mob connections affecting Sinatra, and Dean Martin maybe being above it all. The biopic condenses years of events into a much shorter period and ultimately focuses on Sinatra (as the Chairman of the Board) far more than the others. It works in fits and spurts—I came away from it understanding a little bit more how Sinatra could have been seen as having mob ties (essentially: “I was a performer in their clubs; they helped me out”) and why he could have had aspirations to being involved in Kennedy-era politics. On the other hand, there’s so much dramatization going on that it’s difficult to trust the film on details. Ray Liotta has too-big shoes to fill as Sinatra and Joe Mantegna is limited by Martin’s low-key approach, but Don Cheadle is nothing short of terrific as Davis. Other actors get their chance to play past celebrities (perhaps the next-best being Deborah Kara Unger as Ava Gardner) and there’s some undeniable fun in seeing Hollywood turn the spotlight on itself like that. Director Rob Cohen was near the top of his career at the time, and that translates into a made-for-TV film that is slightly more ambitious than usual, and also held back by its limited budget. As a narrative, The Rat Pack ends up being less interesting than the myth, the stories and the fantasy of partying with the group in a more innocent Vegas.

  • Unlawful Entry (1992)

    Unlawful Entry (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, June 2020) Ray Liotta has made a career out of playing the crazy heavy, and there’s a fair case to be made that Unlawful Entry, in its caricatural ham-fisted exploitation, may feature the most Lay Liottaesque of all of Ray Liotta’s roles. He here plays opposite a young and charming couple (a young Kurt Russell and a lovely Madeline Stowe), coming into their lives as a policeman responding to a robbery call. But as seasoned Liotta fans can predict, he turns out to be dangerously obsessed with his new female friend, and violent enough to take out most obstacles in his path—including the husband. Murders and frame-ups follow, leading all the way to the usual violence-filled climax. It’s really not meant to be subtle. Watching it right as the United States is being consumed with anti-police-brutality demonstrations is a useful demonstration that rogue cops are clearly a cultural fixture. Otherwise, Unlawful Entry does have a pleasant early-1990s sheen of an L.A.-based thriller. Its decidedly Hollywoodish depiction of its antagonist as an over-the-top villain can go both ways—it’s either juvenile, or exactly the kind of over-the-top nonsense that this exploitation thriller needs.

  • Something Wild (1986)

    Something Wild (1986)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2020) Much of Something Wild feels like a film on autopilot, as long as you account for one mid-movie swerve into slightly different territory. It doesn’t take a long time for the premise to be established: here’s a straight-arrow corporate guy who gets snagged in the schemes of a flighty bohemian-type girl and—somehow—goes along with her on a road trip away from Manhattan back to her small town. Stuff happens, lessons are learned, characters revealed, cars crashed and chuckles obtained but that only takes us to the middle of the movie, as the last half gets significantly darker as the female lead’s dangerous ex-boyfriend shows up to make trouble for everyone. Jeff Daniels and Melanie Griffith are the lead couple, while Ray Liotta makes an early bid at his tough-guy screen persona with his role as the ex-boyfriend. The casting seems appropriate; Griffith, in particular, gets to play a few roles all by herself and her chameleonic character. Still, much of the fun of Something Wild is in seeing what else it has in store for the pair’s difficult trip and how they will deal with the unbelievable coincidences that keep complicating their lives. I’m not sure about the darker shift in tone toward the end, but it does feel as if it lives up to its “anything can happen” credo. Not a bad choice for fans of the lead actors or director Jonathan Demme, but there have been quite a few similar movies since then.

  • Heartbreakers (2001)

    Heartbreakers (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2016) Trying to convince someone to see this tepid crime comedy about a mother/daughter pair of con artists quickly takes us to the tawdry: How about twentysomething Jennifer Love Hewitt playing up her cleavage? How about Sigourney Weaver in a lace bodysuit? No? Yet Heartbreakers’ most playful moments are spent playing the naughtiness of its premise (entrap the mark in a marriage, then create an affair and get half his wealth in a divorce settlement), so it’s not as if this is coming out of nowhere. What’s perhaps most disappointing, though, is how restrained the film has to be in order not to offend the masses, play against its stars’ persona and avoid an excessive rating. As such, Heartbreakers often feels like a big compromise, torn between sexiness and prudishness. If it felt free to cut loose with more nudity and explicit references, it could have been better; had it restrained itself and refocused, it could have been better as well. In its weird middle-ground, though, Heartbreakers often feels as if it doesn’t know what to do. Much of the plot points are predictable long in advance, with the conclusion dragging on much longer than it should (past the point most people will care, actually). Weaver’s extended fake-Russian shtick drags on for much longer than advisable, while Hewitt’s prickly romance subplot feels like the same plot point repeated five times. Bits and pieces of the film are amusing: Ray Liotta isn’t much more than adequate, but Gene Hackman cuts loose as a frankly despicable man who falls prey to the protagonists. While the film is a bit too good-natured to be unpleasant, it’s not much more than a mediocre comedy. You’ll smirk a few times, but Heartbreakers could and should have been much better.

  • Revenge of the Green Dragons (2014)

    Revenge of the Green Dragons (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2016) I spent a fair chunk of my twenties watching Hong Kong action movies, so my expectations were pretty reasonable in approaching Revenge of the Green Dragons, a film that takes on Chinese immigrant criminal adventures in eighties New York City. Co-Director Andrew Lau, after all, is the director of the classic Infernal Affairs. Alas, the result is far more pedestrian than anyone could have predicted. The plot elements are stock, and their execution is perfunctory at best. Two brothers in a triad, a girl who disapproves of the thug life, drugs imported from China, gang wars … all familiar, and yet all mishandled. The fast-paced montages are more disorienting than energetic, the story either spends too much or too little time on its own plot points, and there’s not much here to distinguish Revenge of the Green Dragons from others of the same ilk. (The Chinese ethnicity of the characters would be noteworthy … if I hadn’t watched so many Chinese gangster movies a decade or two ago.) Seeing Martin Scorsese as executive producer generates even higher expectations that the result can’t match. While some of the direction has its moments, the rest of the film doesn’t distinguish itself. As far as the acting goes, Ray Liotta sleepwalks through a familiar supporting role, while Shuya Chang and Eugenia Yuan each provide some welcome counterpoint (in their own way) to the story’s male-centric muddle. Revenge of the Green Dragons, to put it bluntly, is a bore, and a substandard treatment of promising material. Maybe it’s shackled too tightly to its “inspired by true events” origins. Maybe it’s strapped for budget. Maybe it’s just a mediocre production, destined to be forgotten like so many other criminal dramas.

  • Street Kings 2: Motor City (2011)

    Street Kings 2: Motor City (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, December 2011) The trend toward “cheap but effective direct-to-video sequels related to their predecessor except in title only” continues with this follow-up to 2008’s corrupt-cop drama.  The only constant here is the theme of police corruption, as the action moves to Detroit (just like S.W.A.T.2: Fireight, in fact) and features an entirely different cast of character.  Ray Liotta headlines the picture as an aging police veteran, but the picture eventually revolves around Shawn Hatosy as an eager young cop trying to piece together the truth behind a few deaths in the police force.  It doesn’t turn out cheerfully, especially given what he has to lose.  The bleak conclusion is one of Motor City’s low points, but it caps a fairly average effort that seem well in-line with many recent direct-to-video thriller “sequels”.  The visual polish of the digitally-shot film is up to most standards, with a few directorial flourishes by DTV veteran Chris Fisher and stylistic touches that are a bit more ambitious that what the picture strictly needed.  Detroit, in its lapsed glory, has a large presence as the setting of the picture and this influences leads to some interesting choices as the film focuses on American muscle-car cinematography.  It’s a bit of a shame, then, that the familiar story deflates a bit after a promising first half: By the time the third act descends in increasing nihilism and abrupt ending, it’s unclear why, Motor City needs to be told or watched if it’s going to be so bleakly routine without any other redeeming qualities.  At least the film itself struggles to a certain level of competence, even though it doesn’t really know what to do once it has covered most of the basic requirements of an acceptable film.  The recent revival of DTV films to a level of quality roughly equal to the lower-tier of theatrical features is a welcome improvement over the historical standard, but there’s still a way to go before fully erasing the DTV stigma; it will start once the stories are just as interesting as what we can pay to see in theatres.  The DVD contains a large number of extra features that, by letting its filmmakers speak, make Motor City appear more pretentious than if you’d just watched the feature alone.

  • Date Night (2010)

    Date Night (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theatres, April 2010) There’s something refreshing in seeing a comedy for adults that delivers entertainment while avoiding the crassest demands of teenage audiences.  It’s not that Date Night is short on violence, profanity, sexual references and overall bad behaviour, but it refuses to indulge in them for their own sake.  The result is, for lack of a better expression, well-mannered.  Date Night is seldom mean or meaningless; it features two mature comedians (Steve Carell and Tina Fey) at the height of their skills and it’s obviously aimed at an older target audience of long-time married couples.  Date Night has too many plotting coincidences to be a perfect film, but it does end up better than average, and that’s already not too bad.  If the script logic is often contrived, it’s far better at making us believe that the lead couple’s reactions are what bright-but-ordinary people would say or do in dangerous situations, rather than what the Hollywood stereotypes may dictate.  There are even a few particularly good sequences in the mix, including a deliriously funny car chase through the streets of New York City, and a thinly-veiled excuse for Carell and Fey to dance as badly as they can.  A bunch of recognizable character actors also appear for a scene or two, from the sadly underused William Fichtner to an always-shirtless Mark Wahlberg and a pasta-fed Ray Liotta.  Add to that the somewhat original conceit of involving a bored married couple in a criminal caper (rather than using the thriller elements to make a couple “meet cute” as is far more common) and Date Night is original enough, and well-made enough to be noticeable in the crop of films at the multiplex.  A few laughs, a few thrills and a few nods at the difficulty of staying married; what else could we ask from a middle-of-the-road Hollywood action comedy?