Police Story 2013 by Ding Sheng

Police Story 2013 by Ding Sheng

 

Mainland Chinese police Captain Zhong Wen tries to reconcile with his estranged daughter Miao Miao in a bar, which is interrupted by a group of criminals taking over the bar, turning it into a hostage situation.

It must be said that the anticipation for a Jackie Chan film has changed over the years. Chan himself had announced in last year’s Chinese Zodiac 12 to be his last film with major action in it. We cannot go in expecting to be wowed by death-defying stunts or exhilarating fight choreography anymore. Instead of fights, he has chosen to switch into the dramatic.

Police Story 2013 is not a continuation of the original Police Story series, the title is in name only. Chan’s character Zhong Wen is not Chan Ka-Kui, Jackie Chan’s Supercop character from the original Police Story series. Zhong Wen is not hotheaded, not prone to solving conflicts with violence or even a great hand-to-hand fighter. The only similarity both characters share is their whole-hearted belief of the law and their obligation to do the right thing. Otherwise, Zhong Wen is a dramatic character exploring themes of old age and dealing with the consequences of being a poor father, and therefore it is a role that the older Jackie Chan naturally fits into. In comparison to Chan’s dramatic turns in The Karate Kid remake and The Shinjuku Incident, this performance is the most honest.

The fights, which are not choreographed by the Jackie Chan Stunt Team, are shot close and choppily edited. And sadly, there are not that many of them. For Jackie Chan fans that are hungry to watch a good fight or a stunt will be disappointed. Originally there were not going to be any fights in the film.

Director Ding Sheng, who previously worked with Chan on Little Big Soldier, constructs some tense moments and keeps the audience guessing with red herrings. Liu Ye plays the villain in true scenery chewing fashion, the cat-and-mouse game between Liu and Chan is the price of admission. Jing Tian, having been played the most annoying female police officer in Donnie Yen’s Special ID earlier this year, fares much better in a more fleshed-out role. I’m curious to see what part she will play in the upcoming Chow Yun Fat-Wong Jing God of Gamblers rehash From Vegas to Macau.

As for the hostage situation itself, the bickering hostages are very annoying and it begs to question how they would be able to yak on the way they do without risking execution. The final reveal in the mystery plot is pedestrian, as one would expect a more epic conflict. Immense effort has been made to shift things to a ground level and while it succeeds at creating a gritty realism, it works against the film in terms of payoff. With a back catalogue full of dangerous stunts and action scenes, who could imagine a Jackie Chan movie made so humbly and low-volume?

Police Story 2013 ultimately is an incidental addition to the Jackie Chan canon and does not hold a close candle to the original Police Story series -though much better than the awful New Police Story-, but I did not expect it to be either. It was entertaining for its running time, but I won’t watch it again. The 3D is a shameless cash grab as minimal design has been put in and it is counter-productively dulling down its colorful cinematography. Overall the average Jackie Chan fan might be happier to see it as a rental. Nothing here is worth being angry or disappointed over.

You might be thinking, why am I being so forgiving? Why am I giving Police Story 2013 a pass? The answer: I am not ready to live in a world without Jackie Chan movies in it.

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Firestorm by Alan Yuen

Firestorm by Alan Yuen

Firestorm, the latest action thriller starring Andy Lau, is a character study trying to burst out of its commercial contraptions. The commercial aspects is a cops and robbers film with the volume turned up to eleven. Every moment is crucial. One can almost take the last frame of every shot, matte it and make a comic book out of the whole movie. The hidden arthouse aspects are the character study of its two leads and the morality play of right and wrong, which emanates later in the story. Director Alan Yuen keeps things moving along, artfully combining these two components in such a way that there’s never time for the audience to stop and think. For most of it, Firestorm is a fun ride.

Andy Lau leads the film sufficiently as the film’s righteous hero, but the heavy lifting comes with a cost. Senior Inspector Lui is mostly an action-oriented role. And he only gets interesting till the later portion when the Infernal Affairs-like morality play begins. It’s only then Lau holsters his gun and gets to chew some scenery.

It is great to see Gordon Lam, Hong Kong’s most versatile working character actor, finally play a lead role in a feature film. Out of the two leads, Lam has the more complex character. Andy Lau is billed as the lead on the poster, but the story is arguably more about Gordon Lam. He’s never given a bad performance and here he is the heart of the story. Yao Chen, who I thought would be a love interest for Andy Lau’s character (as it usually would), is the romantic love interest for Gordon Lam. I doubt a modern working woman in this day and age will tolerate a convict boyfriend to the level that she does, but Yao Chen brings a much-needed believability to the situation by reacting.

For what the film does for Gordon Lam, it falls short with veteran actors Hu Jun and Ray Lui, who are oddly undeveloped villains. This is not the way to use actors of their calibre; they deserve better. Michael Wong also has a cameo as Andy Lau’s boss. Does Wong treat Chinese film producers to dinner every week or has comprising photos of them? He tries to be subtle, which for him means trying to whisper his lines in a high-pitched voice as if he breathed vials of helium before each take. He is god awful as usual, but fortunately there is very little of him.

The action sequences are all entertaining and it is impressive how they are all set in in busy Hong Kong locales. There’s a sufficient amount of design going into the 3D for its action scenes; everybody uses tracer ammunition (which highlights the bullet trajectory) and there’s a noteworthy portion with birds. One particular high wire action set piece got too ridiculous. Let’s just say if I was dangling at a high altitude, I wouldn’t purposely slam the scaffolding that’s hoisting me. The finale shootout in Central’s Queen Street is the price of admission. Suffice to say, mayhem ensues. For any Airsoft fans out there, with all the Hong Kong police uniforms, SWAT gear, guns and muzzle flash that appears onscreen, this will be Disneyland for you.

To match its drama with an epic operatic grandeur, Firestorm‘s story is built around the metaphor of an oncoming typhoon blowing towards Hong Kong. As my creative writing teacher once said about one of my short stories, “Your pathetic fallacy is pathetic.” Sorry, it is too over-the-top at times. For example, Peter Kam’s bombastic operatic score is akin to a Final Fantasy game. It sounded like a choir of angels was chanting for Andy Lau’s survival through the gunfire. The work Peter Kam done on Isabella and Throwdown has shown subtlety and used music as a way to bring the audience into its world. I noticed that the quiet contemplative score sounded one octave away from the Infernal Affairs score. This is not Kam’s fault. I imagine this is the product of financiers citing references based on past box office success. Let’s face it, current Chinese and Hong Kong cinema is becoming a producer’s medium.

I was aware of how much commercial box ticking was going on throughout the film, but they were never overtly blatant enough to bother my enjoyment. Whenever Firestorm was being too loud and bashing my head, it was the hidden artsy choices, like Gordon Lam in a lead role, the undercover story arc with its morality play, which lifted it back up for me. It’s a fun time at the movies and if you’re going to see it, the 3D version will not disappoint.

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The White Storm by Benny Chan

The White Story by Benny Chan

An undercover narcotics operation against a Thai drug lord pits three childhood friends against each other.

The White Storm, the latest film from Hong Kong director Benny Chan is a undercover drug story, but it’s not interested in crime genre elements or in exploring the social issue of drug production in Thailand, but the onscreen chemistry between its three stars: Sean Lau, Louis Koo and Nick Cheung. The story reminded me most of John Woo’s Bullet in the Head in that it was about the disintegration of a brotherhood. The dramatic conflict between the three actors are the price of admission. It has a very interesting A story that could have made a great film, but The White Storm spends a lot of the 134-minute running time telling instead of showing its story. And also like Bullet in the Head, it executes it in the hammiest way possible under the guise of Hong Kong 80’s action nostalgia.

For example, in the story Koo, Lau and Cheung are lifelong friends. The film chooses to exposit this by having the trio reminisce about singing the theme song “Pledge to Join the War” by Adam Cheng from the classic TV show “Luk Siu Feng”, a classic song about brotherhood. And later on in the movie, Benny Chan plays the goddamn song. This is just about the oldest, hokiest joke in the book; they may as well have tied red headbands around their heads. People in my theater, including myself, laughed, not because it’s a funny clever reference but more in surrender of how shamelessly cheesy the writers were willing to go to highlight their bromance. Yes, they are very good friends, we get it!

Sean Lau is the subtle glue that holds all this cheese together. Something I observed about Lau was that he had all the best lines and was the only one out of the three protagonists who was not given a backstory. The lines of dialogue aren’t good in a cool quotable way, but it was exactly what the character would say in a given moment, no more no less. I suspect Lau rewrote a lot of his own lines. He gives a pronounced performance that’s as low volume and non-showy as this production will allow, but yet he comes out as the most engaging character. It’s really a testament to how underrated an actor Lau is.

Louis Koo and Nick Cheung, as good as they are and as much effort as they put in, overact compared to Lau. They are fine actors but are bogged down delivering a lot of expositional monologues stating how they feel. The romantic subplots Koo and Cheung are given almost dangerously dominate the A story. It’s not their fault though, Benny Chan directs with a heavy hand. It’s as if Chan and the writers constantly worry that the audience won’t be able to follow what’s going on, so they overcompensate.

Speaking of overcompensation, Lo Hoi-Peng shows up with crazy acting hair to chew up scenery, and boy, does he ever chew! It’s entertaining watching an old man act bananas but the hair does most of the acting. It’s hammy as hell. But despite of all the ham and cheese, Louis Koo, Sean Lau and Nick Cheung make very good company and are the price of admission. And at its core The White Storm is a good story about three friends, I just wished it wasn’t screamed at me.

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Days of Being Wild by Wong Kar Wai – A Tribute to 35mm film

Days of Being Wild by Wong Kar Wai

My decision to catch Wong Kar Wai’s Days of Being Wild projected in 35mm film, as part of the latest “A Tribute to 35mm” programme from Broadway Cinemas, was a last-minute one. At first it seemed pointless to relive the nostalgia alone and two previous attempts at finding a partner-in-crime had fallen flat. Time was running out and most of the best seats were already purchased.

But then I caught myself. Was I really going to miss out on a Wong Kar Wai film starring every Hong Kong movie star in 35 mm projection? No, of course not. It would be like rejecting an invitation to a trip on a time machine. So to make a long story short, I bought a ticket.

As I lined up to enter the cinema at The One mall in Tsim Sha Tsui on the day of the screening, the cinema staff handed me a set of souvenirs: a “Tribute to 35mm” plastic folder, four Days of Being Wild still postcards and a piece of 35mm film print as a bookmark. I couldn’t be sure if the 35mm print was a still from Days of Being Wild or not, it doesn’t look like it. It was a delightful surprise nonetheless. (See the gallery below)

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The front row seat in which where I sat became a secret blessing in disguise. People that arrived late failed to obscure my view. It was the perfect distance to the screen, and that made it easier to view the film emulsion and the artistry of Christopher Doyle’s cinematography. Now, on with the review…

Days of Being Wild is a character study of Leslie Cheung’s character York, a rich rebellious playboy in 1960’s Hong Kong who learns that the ex-prostitute (played by Rebecca Pan) that raised him isn’t his birth mother. She refuses to tell York the identity of his real mother throughout his life, which shapes York’s bitter selfish flippant behavior. York’s actions affect the people around him, particularly two women, a reserved shop clerk named Su Li Zhen (played by Maggie Cheung), and an insecure club dancer Mimi (played by Carina Lau); and also two men, a dutiful police officer (played by Andy Lau) and York’s underachiever best friend (played by Jacky Cheung).

Days of Being Wild is more structured in terms of narrative compared to Wong Kar Wai’s later works. It’s an easy story to follow and a great introduction to viewers who haven’t seen a Wong Kar Wai film. Major themes in WKW’s works are all explored here: time and space, unrequited love, and rejection. Having seen all his feature films, it’s a very satisfying bookend to see where all these themes began. This time around I particularly noticed the thematic construct of how a selfish act from one person branches out into other people making selfish acts, hurting other people in the process.

The film’s star-studded cast oozes movie star charisma. Everybody fits the role they play and never does it feel like anybody is acting. Leslie Cheung commands the screen as the lead character. York is selfish, spoiled rich boy but what’s fascinating is the audience is given an inside look behind his devil-may-care attitude, exploring the reasons behind his violent outbursts and his playboy approach with women. Cheung sells it and makes York an interesting spectacle to behold.

I recall Andy Lau being a showy actor who preened a lot for the camera early in his career. It wasn’t till later in his career where he started to master how to use a close-up. But here he removes his “Andy Lau-isms” and plays the truth of the scene as the film’s most righteous character. Hence I stand corrected. Sorry, Andy Lau.

Carina Lau as Mimi is the unsung performance, giving a lot of depth to an otherwise bimbo character. Mimi loves York deeply and blindly, never wanting to entertain the reality that he is no good for her. On previous viewings, I found the Mimi character annoying but surprisingly this time around Lau’s performance spoke deeper to me than Maggie Cheung’s. Like the film’s themes, I’m sure which actor I notice will continue to change on future viewings as well.

Christopher Doyle’s cinematography puts sex in the air. No nudity is ever shown but the passion and heat is sensuously implied. Doyle’s photography tells the story with the subtropical humidity of a Hong Kong summer. Beads of sweat run down the actors’ faces, of whom all look thirsty constantly strutting around in their underwear in small Hong Kong apartments. There are a few rain sequences in the film where the 35mm projection particularly stood out that added to the film’s dream-like nostalgic look.

Watching the film again reminded me of the common Hong Kong criticism stating that Wong Kar Wai totally ignores the commercial aspect in his films, but here Wong clearly demonstrates he believes in the allure of movie stars. I thought about the many times Leslie Cheung combs his hair to a mirror in this movie and questioning why I had the patience to sit through it. The film’s last scene with Tony Leung’s gambler character getting dressed in his apartment, a new protagonist teased at the end of the film for a sequel that was never made, is another example. It’s too bad, for the very same financial reasons, we will never know where the story with the gambler was going to go. (Though one of my souvenir postcards suggests Tony Leung was meant to be a new love interest for the Maggie Cheung character.)

At the end credits played the theme song sung by Anita Mui, a Cantonese cover of Jungle Drums by Xavier Cugat. Mui belted out a deep sorrowful vocal like a 60’s nightclub singer. The song was both classy and eerie at the same time as the audience sat in silence, in sheer awe and profound respect of an era past. I thought about how Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui are no longer with us, how Wong Kar Wai and Christopher Doyle’s falling out and also the current diminishing state of Hong Kong cinema. The credits then reached its end, and in a flash, the film grain was gone and the digital projection returned.

It’s a shame that this event is only screening one Hong Kong film for 30 days only. I am sure more screenings would have filled up just the same. I also sincerely hope there are more 35mm prints of other Wong Kar Wai films or Hong Kong films that Broadway Cinemas can screen in the future. But for now, Days of Being Wild in 35mm is a recommended experience for any Wong Kar Wai fans or cinemagoers nostalgic for reliving 35mm projection. Like I said, it was like going on a time machine. And as I’d imagine going on a time machine would be like, it was an exhilarating nostalgic ride that went by way too quickly.

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Blue Jasmine by Woody Allen

Blue Jasmine by Woody Allen

A New York socialite, deeply troubled and in denial, arrives in San Francisco to impose upon her sister.

To start off, Blue Jasmine has a tremendous cast. A lot of unsung credit belongs to Allen’s long time casting director Juliet Taylor, who’s assembled a cast that aptly plays the social distinction between the lower and upper class. Each character, whether it’s a glass-clinking socialite or a muscled tough guy builder, says the pitch perfect thing in the exact way they would say it. They all felt like real people.

As of right now, Cate Blanchett should win the Oscar for Best Actress.  She is the film’s main event. There’s no sense of where Cate Blanchett starts and Jasmine French begins, she simply was just the character. Her character, Jasmine French, is not a likable character in any traditional sense. But she in such immense physical stress and on the brink of complete mental breakdown, it is an awesome spectacle to be marveled. It was like Blanchett was suffering in front of me for the entire 98 minutes.
Sally Hawkins is a great partner to Blanchett as her onscreen sister Ginger. Hawkins provides the necessary counter balance for the audience to gain true insight into Jasmine. It is like watching a master class in acting watching them. Alec Baldwin makes a great slime ball. I couldn’t help laughing when Louis C.K. showed up as a sleazy boyfriend. His character reminded me how some of my male friends are with women. The real surprise was Andrew Dice Clay, who gives a heartfelt performance as Ginger’s husband Augie. I hope he gets a nomination.

Blue Jasmine is by no means the most audience friendly of Allen’s works. Actually, it may be the most uncomfortable film Allen has made. For some audiences, this might be too akin to real life to be truly entertaining. There are many laughs, however most of it is nervous laughter from witnessing an oncoming train wreck situation perpetually worsening. Woody Allen’s sense of irony and truth is so strong, even when he tries to be dramatic it still comes off funny.

Allen has masterfully written the script in such a way that it was hard to see where the story was heading. It was not traditionally written where one scene set up the next. Instead, it was more like I was looking into these characters’ lives. Whether you like Woody Allen or not, it doesn’t matter. Blue Jasmine fires completely on another level and it’s really something to behold.

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Gravity by Alfonso Cuaron

Gravity by Alfonso Cuarón

A medical engineer and an astronaut work together to survive after an accident leaves them adrift in space.

In my opinion, the key to making special effects convincing onscreen is designing the effect to look somewhere between real and unreal. When the audience can’t figure out what’s real and what’s not, they will believe it. This is what happened to me during Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity.

Since Children of Men, Alfonso Cuarón takes his love of the long take and brings it to new levels. I couldn’t figure out how these long shots were accomplished.  The camera floats freely around the astronauts in space in long takes, occasionally shifting from third person perspective to first person. The camera loops, twirls, corkscrews around space, completely forgoing the human sense of up and down. It looked like the cameraman was really floating around with the actors. I knew that wasn’t possible. But eventually I tapped out and let the movie spectacle just wash over me.

As science fiction thematically explores the extreme potential of mankind, awe is an important component to every science fiction story. I was in sheer awe through the entirety of Gravity. Firstly, outer space and the beauty of Earth from a distance awed me. Then there was the solemn beauty of witnessing the space stations being decimated in space. I began to marvel at the destruction and momentarily thought deep thoughts. It was as if for a second I was watching waves wash ashore on a beach while reading J. Krishnamurti. Finally, I was awed by the fragility of human life. After all, all astronauts are just little fishes trying to survive out of their own habitat. The experience was otherworldly, self-reflective and dangerous all at the same time.

I walked into Gravity mistakenly thinking it was a George Clooney vehicle. To my surprise, it’s a Sandra Bullock movie. Sandra Bullock has always had a natural personable quality onscreen. Whether it was pining for her crush to awaken from a coma in While You Were Sleeping or driving a bus that’s primed to explode in Speed, she’s always able to draw the audience into her plight with vulnerability. Bullock’s characters never feel above the audience. Often this quality of hers get overlooked from having to play cheerful funny characters in romantic comedies.

In Gravity, that quality is used to its full extent. We watch as she struggles to survive a series of obstacles. Her performance is as immersive as the special effects. She draws you in completely into her plight. I wish more depth were given to her character. By the beginning of the third act, the film starts to run low on its spectacle and it came to the moment where more character was needed for a bigger statement. Gravity elected to stay with its spectacle and jetted for the finish line. It had a good ending, but it was missing that final thematic punch that answers, “What is this story ultimately about?” and “Why am I watching this?”

And for that, Gravity is a great gem and one exhilarating thrill ride. I am even happy that it was a great role for Sandra Bullock. I just do not know if the thrills will be as compelling on subsequent viewings. So in the end, it is not a masterpiece, but very awesome nonetheless.

About Time by Richard Curtis

About Time by Richard Curtis

At the age of 21, Tim (played by Domhall Glesson) discovers he can travel in time and change what happens and has happened in his own life. His decision to make his world a better place by getting a girlfriend turns out not to be as easy as you might think.

As a story that involves time travel, About Time doesn’t even follow it’s established time travel rules. The most impressive part of it is, the movie is so charming with human warmth, none of that even matters.

I found myself not even caring about the broken rules. In fact, to be honest, I was so charmed and immersed into the story and characters I did not notice the rules were broken long after the movie was over. Plot hole zealots will have a ball nitpicking this film to oblivion but those who do will completely miss the film’s point. Curtis’ interest doesn’t lie in science fiction spectacle; the time travel explanation itself is as unscientific as it gets.

Curtis’ priorities lie upon human matters, which brings me to the characters. The film is well casted. As a romantic lead, Domhall Gleeson has an everyman quality that believably would have struggles dating women. That’s a common complaint I have with a lot of romantic comedies generally. Glesson seems like a normal bloke whose charm needs time to grow on someone as opposed to being immediately charming with practiced swagger. Rachel McAdams is adorable and shows good comic timing. She’s played a similar role before in Morning Glory, which was one of my favorites that year. Again, unlike a lot of romance stories, McAdams’ allure doesn’t hang solely on her beauty. The Mary character is smart, funny and an interesting person. More importantly, she is the type of the girl one would marry and take home to your parents.

Bill Nighy is Curtis’s secret ingredient and is the heart of the film. It’s a subtle minimalist performance, as if Nighy played the scenes as honestly as he could without adding any character quirks or anything an actor would do to purposely chew up the scenery. Nighy is an amicable presence, is effortlessly hilarious with his deliveries and inflections of every piece of dialogue he’s given.

There’s also a great cast of supporting characters that cover a variety of character quirks that I don’t even want to spoil here. They all have their little arcs and I think it’s probably a better experience to discover them while you’re watching the film.

The main point is that Richard Curtis used time traveling as a metaphor to say something profound about life. He captures moments of life’s joy and sadness. In doing so, the film is more than the sum of its parts. I was warmed by Curtis’ optimistic view of life and the sincere message he conveyed in About Time. For a guy that doesn’t cry at movies, I can say that other people will by the film’s end. Heck, I probably would have enjoyed it more if I could roll a tear.

This is probably the one of the best movies I have seen this year. If it doesn’t stay on my top ten by the end of 2013, it would be very surprising.

Don Jon by Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Don Jon by Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Jon “Don Jon ”Martello is dedicated to his family, friends, his apartment, church and one night stands with women. But none of these compare to the transcendent bliss he achieves with pornography. Dissatisfied, he embarks on a journey to find a more gratifying sex life, but ends up learning larger lessons of life and love from two very different women.

Don Jon marks as the debut film of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who is the writer, director and star of the film. What’s most praiseworthy about JGL’s direction is how he puts the audience into the world view of his lead character Don Jon. It makes a good cinematic explanation of how Don Jon prefers pornography over bedding real women, a character trait that can easily be viewed as unlikeable or disgusting if mishandled. We never really venture outside his world, but yet Don Jon’s views seem logical enough to keep the audience invested in what happens to him.

Directing duties aside, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s ability to transform himself amazes me. Having seen him in Inception, (500) Days of Summer and The Dark Knight Rises have familiarized me with the sound of his real voice, but I was still astounded by Don Jon’s macho New Jersey-accented voice. I was carefully listening to Don Jon’s dialogue and couldn’t detect any hints of Gordon-Levitt’s real voice underneath. It is artfully consistent and was the core element that sold me on the Don Jon character.

Scarlett Johansson has been said to be a wooden actress in the past. I think this was probably one of her better performances. This character felt like a real person to me. I have met and dated girls like Barbara. Furthermore, the allure of Scarlett Johansson is cinematically ramped up to eleven. She hasn’t been filmed to this level of sexiness since Match Point. For fans of the Black Widow, I’d even argue that this tops that. This is probably more to the credit of the direction. We feel Don Jon’s hunger for her. And like Don Jon, she too mesmerized me. And not just cause of her looks. She seemed like the ideal girlfriend at first and couldn’t really see her character flaws till late in the film. When I realized her character flaws, I was surprised I didn’t see them before. That was a very compelling moment for me in the theater. Honestly, Johansson’s character distracted me so much, I would need a second viewing to tell you anything about the Julianne Moore character.

Seeing Tony Danza as Don Jon’s father Jon Sr. takes me back to my childhood. He was the only man on TV who can make my dad cackle like a fiend in the English language. Danza’s presence adds warmth and makes for a convincing father. Brie Larson gets to do a Silent Bob type gag that is quite amusing.

The film’s brutally truthful display about the realities of men and women as a source for comedy, while handled tastefully with charm by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, hits a little too close to home. I have had discussions like this with a girlfriend similar to the Scarlett Johansson character. It accurately captures why it’s hard for men to explain the joys of pornography to the opposite sex. As Louis C.K. once put it, men just need to release so they don’t go out and murder somebody. That’s really it, but it’s not a pleasing satisfying statement to convince a girlfriend with. I’d argue that any girl that needs an explanation wouldn’t be convinced anyways because they probably have double standards. The film seems to take the same stance. All that said, the film managed to end on a poignant tender note.

In the end, Don Jon is somewhat of an odd animal. I wouldn’t personally recommend it as a date movie with your girlfriend, for the very fact that it might just open the awkward discussion of “How much pornography do you watch?” with your girlfriend. I still think people should see it as it is a competent debut film.

So on a more politically neutral note, I’d say guys would have more fun with it watching it with their guy friends and likewise with girls and their girlfriends. It’s probably better to be charmed by it separately than leaving the theater together primed for an awkward argument.

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2 Guns by Baltasar Kormákur

2 Guns by Baltasar Kormákur

A DEA agent and a Naval Intelligence officer find themselves on the run after a botched attempt to infiltrate a drug cartel. While fleeing, they learn the secret of their shaky alliance: they are both undercover agents.

2 Guns is reminiscent of buddy cop movies in the late eighties and nineties. Unlike a lot of recent throwback 80’s action films, it tastefully retains much of the fun factor by concentrating on character and dialogue and removing some of the modern tropes that have gone stale, like the oversaturation of pop culture references. With its setup and buddy dynamic, at times it actually reminded me of the 1996 Adam Sandler and Damon Wayons buddy cop movie Bulletproof.

What elevated 2 Guns from standard action fare were exactly the snappy dialogue and the buddy dynamic between Washington and Wahlberg. The two lead actors create a believable long-time friendship and it gave the movie a sizzling charm that you just can’t look away from. Watching Walhberg and Washington rapidly throw zingers back and forth alone made the price of admission. After seeing his facetious performance in this film, it’s easy now to imagine Mark Wahlberg taking over the role of Tony Stark in future Marvel films.

The film has a good supporting cast. James Marsden and Edward James Olmos seem overqualified for these supporting roles. It’s nice to see them but they have too little time to truly shine. Paula Patton is cast in a seemingly intelligent female role, but is ultimately there for her sex appeal. Bill Paxton is the only one who gets to properly chew up some scenery as a scary CIA agent with a flair for torturing his victims.

The story moved along fast like a shark, for fear that stopping for a thoughtful pause would ruin its momentum and shatter the illusion of how complicated the plot seems. The action scenes are fun. More importantly, they are visible and you can follow what’s going on.  When it came to the finale, the film said “Screw it!” to all the dramatic buildup from the first two acts and serves a lesser solution to its conflict.
 Had it been a slower moving story with less charming leads, I would have considered the finale a cop out ending and been pissed.

But this time, I just went with it. I’m a sucker for buddy cop movies. 2 Guns just oozes old school charm, and charm can go a long way.

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