Diesel stars as Sean Vetter a DEA agent who with his friend Demetrius Hicks are in the midst of taking down a brutal drug cartel led by Memo Lucera (Geno Silva); after busting him and taking down the crime ring that they’ve spent seven years investigating, Sean finally can take some off-time. Enter wife Stacy, the loving beautiful wife to the character of Sean. By now, if you haven’t seen the movie, you can guess what will happen next, and do I even have to tell you anything else besides the fact that she becomes a motivation for vengeance? Watch the trailer and you won’t even have to see the movie. Simply because the plot twist is predictable and formula.
Category Archives: Movie Reviews
Bringing Down The House (2003)
This movie presents a common comedy formula often ensured to bring laughs but hardly do they ever and “Bringing Down the House” tackles the formula head-on: upper class white family is intruded by hip black person, hip black person lives with upper class white family, teaches upper class white father to appreciate kids and wife more and upper class white family grow to love hip minority. In a star vehicle of this kind I expected what I’d heard of “Non-stop laughs”; sure someone who watches comedies lately knows to never listen to hype, and boy was this film hyped.
Bowling for Columbine (2002)
We’re raised at early ages to fear in America, and we’re also bombarded with images of violence and sex, so much so it becomes numbing. As many of us have periodic moments of violence, many of the people in this tend to look at violence with a sort of comfort, almost as if they perceive violence to be apart of life, almost expected of us. Such is shown when a man accused of aiding the Uni-bomber sticks a gun to his head to demonstrate the accuracy of his gun. In another part of the world, a young boy in kindergarten shot another classmate; why he did what he did is never explained, or perhaps it can’t be explained. When asked why he did so, he replied with an uncertain answer; perhaps he was angry, or mentally disturbed, but that seems too easy. No one is really sure why he shot another student, but it seems the young boy simply shot her; almost as if it was an expected course of action, a first response.
Phone Booth (2003)
Master horror director Alfred Hitchcock had a theory that continues to apply to thrillers even today, he theorized that if you take a tense moment and stretch it out as long as possible you can keep the audience on the edge of their seat, biting their nails and sweating at the thought of an oncoming jolt, that if you stretch it long, it will have more of a lasting effect on the audience than if you hit them with one instant jolt which they will inevitably forget. Many of today’s horror and thrillers prefer to use the latter which, despite always getting a reaction, isn’t always effective, “Phone Booth” uses Hitchcock’s method in the most purest sense and gives a fond remembrance of the days when a thriller actually used its title “Thrill”, and what “Phone Booth” does is surely thrill in rare form.
Das Experiment (The Experiment) (2001)
Based on a true story, the “Stanford Prison Experiment”, some of the scenes of which are featured are actually based on true events during the experiment, the German originated thriller “Das Experiment” gives a true glimpse into the human psyche. There’s this great Looney Tunes episode (aren’t they all?) in which a truck filled with hats falls off the back and scatters along the forest where Elmer Fudd happens to be chasing Bugs Bunny; while they’re in pursuit, the hats happen to fall onto their heads and they take on the characteristics of the hats (Ex: Cop hat: Policeman, Magician Hat: Magician); why I bring up such an obscure pop culture reference is that “Das Experiment” poses the question that that cartoon did, “If put in a particular role for a certain number of time will we act upon the role?”
Basic (2003)
Director John McTiernan, after directing the horrible “Rollerball” remake, displays a high energy thriller which is beautifully directed; there some great shots in the film and the right mood and tension but ultimately it’s all wasted beneath the muddled confusing story. Taking it’s lesson from the classic “Rashomon”, an infantry group witnesses a murder take place attempting to rescue some survivors that never returned from a mission; they soon learn there was a large incident that took place and attempt to discover what occurred. Finding no options they call in DEA agent Tom Hardy played by the energetic John Travolta to take the reigns and interrogate the survivors and unfoil what occured while assisted by the scruffy Lt. Julia Osborne who discover a plot involving sadistic Sgt. Nathan West and his soldiers who hate him with a passion, and soon find much more beneath what looks like murder and drug dealing within the troop.
Solaris (2003)
The film “Solaris” poses some interesting questions about life; How much of life is reality and how much is illusion? How much of life is illusion we’re not aware of, and illusion we prefer to endure for the sake of going on in life? When someone dies, how much of their memory that we store in our minds is real and how much is distorted by the way we preferred to see them as? And, finally, one of the truly provocative questions: Do we ever really know someone? Do we know their flaws and personality inside out or do we just create our own images of them.