Sure, it was a bit presumptuous on Kennedy and his agent’s part in spinning off a mildly amusing character from his rather obscure comedy show into a feature length movie, and while, once again, all of my expectations were down, I was pretty surprised to find this was just so entertaining. The movie no one has been asking for but came to theaters anyway, stars Kennedy as white rapper B-Rad who lives in the rough and tough notorious streets of–Malibu California with a large mansion he declares as small, and friends who are about as intimidating as gangsters as Britney Spears is talented, not.
Tag Archives: Gangster
Confidence (2003)
“It’s all confidence,” main character Jake Vig declares (Ed Burns), a slick and charming conman who leads an assembled group of conmen into some of the most brilliant cons. Taking a page right out of the classic “The Sting”, a group of professional conmen pull a fast job on a schmuck at a club, but when they discover that the schmuck they duped was about to deliver his money to mob boss Winston King, one of their men is killed and now they must confront King. King, a rather erratic but threatening boss makes a deal with them: if they pull a job on his rival Morgan Price he’ll give them a cut of the money and let them live, now with many uneasy partnerships with a few new conmen, a difficulties with an investigator who is on their tail, they must pull the con and not get arrested. But who is getting conned? And who can be trusted?
Gigli (2003)

Everything you’ve heard about “Gigli” is true, and then some. Much publicized and talked about, “Gigli” was said to be a blockbuster potential with a very high budget and the top notch cast, well, top notch depending on how you look at it. A mildly talented actor and mildly talented actress teamed together to form this piece of cinematic fecal matter. Larry Gigli is a brainless stooge for the local mobster who love what he does. It’s not pronounce giggly, no, not Hilie, no, but Geely, which, Gigli so eloquently states, “rhymes with really” which caused me to shout “So?!” It rhymes with really? What sense does that make? I guess it establishes the amount of brains he has, but the terrible screenwriters spawned that little tidbit in an attempt to garner a memorable movie quote and really was the only word they could think of.
Gigli, played by Ben Affleck whose Jersey accent mysteriously appears and disappears is ordered to take care of a mentally disabled guy named Brian. After the two exchange introductions in an obnoxious scene derived from “Rain Man”, Gigli takes Brian to his home and has to keep him there. There, the two’s relationship is hardly friendly and in walks Ricki ala Jennifer Lopez whose Jersey accent also appears and disappears and sometimes is exaggerated. Her introduction is an attempt at sexual but reveals she’s there to help him look after Brian. As would be expected, the two don’t take a liking to one another, but soon learn to like each other, as they do Brian. Now Brian would be a good character had he not been so obnoxious and badly performed by Justin Bartha who makes Brian a shrill and rather annoying character with no redeeming qualities.
With a really bad imitation of Dustin Hoffman from “Rain Man” he walks around bobbing his head and spouting little sentences while occasionally breaking into song singing old school rap music to himself, a plot device which was intended to be charming, but just adds to the obnoxious appeal to this character. However, the two equally obnoxious henchmen begin to admire one another and Brian but soon learn their liking for one another is getting in the way of the job, oh and did I mention Lopez’ character is gay? Anyway, the two engage in a lot of forced, trite, and overly analytical dialogue with one another as an attempt to get the audience either dazzled or confused within their nonsensical rants to one another.
Had this been a small budget film it would have had an excuse for its quality, but this is so bad but it looks so custom-tailored to be good, that its self-expectation becomes its downfall. Lopez seems to go all out with her dialogue which she spouts, but its obvious by her expressions that even she doesn’t know what in heaven’s name she’s talking about, so the delivery of her “intelligent” monologues and seven syllable words are very forced, and very trite. There’s even one very annoying and drawn out monologue in which the two discuss the intricacies of the female and male genitalia while Lopez flexes her body during yoga, maybe in an attempt to hypnotize the men in the audience to keep from noticing her wretched dialogue, but her dialogue is so self-indulgent and boring that hearing it almost makes no sense as she analyzes why she likes women and the female genitalia and so on, and on, and on that the scene is empty because not even she looks like she believes what she’s saying.
The dialogue is so god-awful with trite annoying one-liners and odd switches to long drawn out self-indulgent monologues as everyone analyzes everything despite the fact neither has a brain in their head. There’s even a really bad, forced, and ridiculous scene in which Gigli is confronted by a group of punks playing a radio very loudly to which Ricki steps to his defense and uses her brain, and big mouth to scare them out of walking away. She quotes Chinese philosopher’s, makes little jokes, the whole kitten caboodle to which they’d expect the audience to clap, while I was just rolling my eyes so much, I nearly got a migraine, not to mention by the worst line of the film in which Lopez spouts a truly obnoxious seduction line on Gigli, one I won’t type. It’s an awful line you can only hear to gasp in horror.
It’s safe to say neither of the characters have redeeming qualities, so we’re given a lot of body shots of the two including a lot of glimpses at Lopez’ legs and between her legs, and Affleck’s muscular physique, perhaps to draw attention from his ridiculous outdated hairdo which looks like a really bad imitation of a fifty’s greaser. Then the film gets desperate by slipping in three walk on cameos from Hollywood veterans, the first being Christopher Walken who I have no idea why he’s in the film in the first place. He pops into Gigli’s apartment, makes another monologue, and leaves never to be seen again. This movie is terrible. It’s a derivative, cliché awful film with terrible performances, embarrassing dialogue, and a plot that goes nowhere fast.
The Punisher (2004)
Let those who enter this film remember, this is nothing like the film which was released in 1988. A film that was very loosely based on this comic book yet was only used as a cheap vehicle for the fading acting career of Dolph Lundgren. Don’t get the two mixed up; for that one was a mindless action cheese fest, this one is far more superior and intelligent. For those who have read my reviews and noticed my high reviews for the comic book movies, you’ll notice I’m a comic book fanatic. I read “The Punisher” comic books when I was a kid; they were very violent but they were damn good and fun to read, and I wasn’t surprised to discover that Marvel has scored another hit with this loyal adaptation that respects its audience and readers. Hear that DC Comics? Marvel respects its audience.
A Man Apart (2003)
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.
Gangster No. 1 (2000)
In a film that’s an interesting hybrid of “Reservoir Dogs” and “Goodfellas”, we’re first given a glimpse into an aged and weathered mobster played by the immortal Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange) who gives the audience his origin of his rise to power. Played by Paul Bettany, he is a young McDowell who is recruited by the top gangster in the neighborhood Freddie Mays (David Thewlis) and takes on a job as one of his henchmen instantly adapting to his line of work. The young gangster is violent, determined and soon begins to eye Mays’ job despite the fact that Mays takes a special liking to him and takes him under his wing.
S.W.A.T. (2003)
Originally set in 1975, the iconic series “S.W.A.T.” is given a welcome modern spin with all the original characters back in tow. Director Clark Johnson does a good job selecting an all-star hip cast to portray the famous characters from the original series. What this movie manages to do that most modern action films don’t is successfully establish every character, their personality, and their background which is interesting and then pulls the audience into the action taking place with the story. It’s reported among the stars that they actually studied the real S.W.A.T. training sequences and also interacted in exercises which can be seen in the very realistic and steadfast depictions of the exercises used by the S.W.A.T. infantry.

