Kelly's Heroes

Growing up, I always associated Memorial Day Weekend with the war movie marathons on TV that dotted TNT, AMC and Turner Classic Movies. I ate them up -- still do -- as I watched as many as I could. They're still some of my favorite movies, everything from The Dirty Dozen to The Devil's Brigade and one of my favorites, 1970's Kelly's Heroes.

It's fall 1944 and Allied forces are fighting their way across France, the German army slowly being beaten back. At the forefront of the Allied advance, a recon platoon, including Sgt. Big Joe (Telly Savalas), are worn down after months of fighting. One member of the platoon, Pvt. Kelly (Clint Eastwood), stumbles across an interesting tidbit of information while interrogating a German colonel. There is 14,000 bars of gold -- worth $16 million -- in a bank just waiting to be plucked. The catch? The bank is 30 miles behind German lines. Joe manages to convince both Big Joe and the platoon to navigate through the lines and get their hands on the gold. With a scrounger/supply sergeant, Crapgame (Don Rickles) and three Sherman tanks commanded by a hippie, Oddball (Donald Sutherland), along for the ride, Kelly and his motley crew of soldiers head out with a chance to net quite the payday.

What an appropriately timed World War II movie. By the late 1960s, the tone of war movies had changed from the big epics to the more cynical/comedic variety, movies like MASH and Catch 22 among others. Enter Kelly's Heroes, directed by Brian G. Hutton (who also directed Where Eagles Dare), one of the most entertaining war movies I've ever seen. Cynical with a dark sense of humor but also some lighter moments -- courtesy of Sutherland's hippie tank commander -- with some great action, memorable score, and one of those perfect tough guy casts. There's a reason it remains a fan favorite 40-plus years later, and much of it because it blends all those things together so effortlessly. Even an odd-sounding theme, Burning Bridges, fits perfectly in an odd way. It is one of my favorite movies and always will be, a classic war flick that I can sit down and watch whenever it pops up on TV.

Can you ask for a better lead quartet than Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Don Rickles and Donald Sutherland? Yeah, there has been casts with bigger star power, bigger name recognition, but it's more than that here. This is four tough guys having fun, on-screen chemistry that's just hard to describe. They all get their chance in the spotlight. Eastwood is Eastwood, the impeccably cool and man of few words hero. Savalas is a subtle scene-stealer as Big Joe, the unofficial commander of the recon platoon (Hal Buckley playing the clueless real commander Capt. Maitland), just trying to get his men through the fighting unscathed and a somewhat unwilling participant in the gold heist. Rickles is an out of left field choice to join the cast, but it works, his Crapgame a smart-ass New Yorker always with an eye for a profit. And then there's Sutherland as Oddball, the tank commander always talking about positive waves (No Negative Waves, man!), his Zen-like qualities, heading into battle with music blaring and shells filled with paint waiting to be unleashed on the Germans.

As a fan of guy's guys movies, it's simply hard to beat those four stars. They make it look downright easy. Much of that chemistry and success comes from the script written by Troy Kennedy-Martin, a script with too many great one-liners to even mention. We see familiar character archetypes, familiar war movie situations -- stumbling into a minefield, prepping for battle -- but there's a different energy to the whole thing. It's that tone that blends the drama, comedy and action so easily that makes it work. Carroll O'Connor too is excellent in a part that lets him ham it up as General Colt, the fiery division commander who's frustrated with the stagnant front lines, getting a jolt of energy when Kelly's screwball force unintentionally opens things up all along the front. There's something to be said for a movie that is non-stop fun. It never gets heavy-handed or obvious like some more message-oriented war movies.

When the platoon looks back on a field where some of their fallen comrades lay dead in the dirt, there's no words that need to be said. The looks on the surviving men's faces says it all. Showing he's putting on appearances for his men, Big Joe turns and raises his binoculars to check one last time. The dynamic is there from the lead quartet right down to the platoon, a group of recognizable character actors clearly having some fun. The platoon includes Little Joe (Stuart Margolin), Big Joe's radioman, Cowboy (Jeff Morris) and Willard (Harry Dean Stanton), two drawling best buds, Gutowski (Dick Davalos), the sniper, Petuko (Perry Lopez), the smooth, goofy ladies man, Cpl. Job (Tom Troupe), Joe's second-in-command close friend, Fisher (Dick Balduzzi), the platoon genius, and Babra not Barbara (Gene Collins). Also, you can't forget Gavin MacLeod as Moriarty, Oddball's mechanical genius and constant provide of negative waves.

Also look for Seinfeld's Uncle Leo, Len Lesser, as Bellamy, an engineer Oddball ropes into helping the cause and Karl-Otto Alberty as a German tank commander who goes up against Kelly's forces and Oddball's tank trio.

With a 146-minute running time, we've got plenty of chances for guys being guys and plenty of action scenes. We get lots of action -- escaping a minefield, a tank attack on a railway station, the platoon racing through a German crossroad under mortar attack -- but the best is saved for last as the platoon descends on Clermont, the town where the bank and the gold are waiting. It's an extended sequence that runs about 35 minutes that doesn't rush into it. We get almost 10 minutes of the men and the tanks sneaking into town while the German garrison slowly wakes up, composer Lalo Schifrin's score driving the action. The entire movie was filmed in Czechoslovakia, the action finale filmed in the village of Vizinada. It's an extended sequence that is hard to beat.

Just a great movie overall. Great cast, incredibly quotable, lots of action, memorable soundtrack (Quentin Tarantino is a big fan of the score, especially Tiger Tank), and even a nod to Eastwood's spaghetti western background with a three-way showdown with said tank. One of my all-time favorites and hopefully you'll enjoy it just as much as I do.

Kelly's Heroes (1970): ****/****
Rewrite of August 2009 review

The Mountain Men

Gunslingers, cavalry, wagon trains, settlers, stories and films of the settling of the west had them all in abundance. But what about some of the coolest, most interesting men who helped settle the American west. Those men? Mountain men. In film at least, they don't always get their due. There's movies like Jeremiah Johnson and a new one I can check off the list, 1980's The Mountain Men.

In the late 1830s along the Rocky Mountains, a veteran, very experienced mountain man named Bill Tyler (Charlton Heston) is coming down from the mountains with a pack mule full of beaver pelts. For the most part, Tyler likes to keep to himself, minding his own business, but when he meets a friend and fellow mountain man, Henry Frapp (Brian Keith), he decides to head to the yearly rendezvous. They want to sell their pelts, drink some whiskey and live it up a little. As the mountain man duo heads to the rendezvous, they run into trouble, a Blackfoot war party crossing their paths. Tyler rescues an Indian woman, Running Moon (Victoria Racimo), who just happens to be the squaw of the warrior leading the party, Heavy Eagle (Stephen Macht). Now instead of just looking to make some money for their winter work, Tyler and Frapp are now fighting it out with a Blackfoot war party.

The appeal of the mountain man is pretty obvious for me. Yeah, there's all those negatives -- impending doom around every corner, horrific weather, Indians trying to kill you, countless animals ready to rip you to pieces -- but is that such a big deal? Okay, sure, I guess. Maybe I'm thinking more of the romantic portrayal of the mountain men. These were the first white men to travel west into the American west, some of the first people to see some of our country's most beautiful features. They lived on their own, provided for themselves and lived among nature. Movies like this one and Jeremiah Johnson try to show that middle ground, the positive and the negative. From director Richard Lang, 'Mountain' is a beautiful movie that shows the epically big expanses of the west, filming on-location in several national parks and forests, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Shoshone, Bridger-Teton included. You really get a sense of 1830s America, what these men saw.

If you're going to cast two hard-edged, rough-looking mountain men, you'd better get it right. I didn't love this movie, but it's hard not to appreciate the casting here. Charlton Heston and Brian Keith are pretty perfect together, both for their similarities and differences. While they're not trapping partners, they have worked together in the past and consider each other friends. Heston's Bill Tyler is more quirky, more inward, more odd in his tendencies. Keith's Frapp is his polar opposite, a motor mouth who's always talking about one thing or another, always looking for his next drink of whiskey. That odd couple dynamic works from beginning to end, especially late when Frapp decides to go with Tyler on a dangerous ride into the mountains. There is an easygoing, friendly chemistry that helps tie the episodic story together throughout.

The best supporting part goes to Racimo as Indian squaw Running Moon, desperately looking to escape from her life. It's a good part if a little forced for the sake of the story. Her chemistry with Heston is solid, but their relationship seems to develop rather quickly. Macht gets to play the stereotypically angry Indian warrior, his Heavy Eagle a menacing villain but not really given any development. Longtime Hollywood veteran Victor Jory makes his last on-screen appearance as Iron Belly, an ancient Indian chief, only on-screen for one scene. Seymour Cassel and William Lucking play two less likable mountain men, a bit of a rivalry developing when the discussion of a lost valley of untrapped waters comes up. There's at least six or seven other parts I could mention, but none are on-screen for more than a minute or two. We meet an Easterner heading west, but he disappears quickly. We meet a vengeful warrior, but same thing. He Gone.

And that in general is why this movie struggles at times. It covers a ton of ground in its relatively short 102-minute running time. Too much ground if you ask me, as if 'Mountain' had a set list of things it wants to accomplish. Running time be damned, the story was going to hit these bullet points. Too many characters, too many episodic stops along the way for the story. I liked some stops along the way -- especially the finale -- but it takes a meandering road to get there. Decent, even good, but could have been much better.

The Mountain Men (1980): ** 1/2 /****

The Nut Job

I remember very clearly seeing the trailer for 2014's The Nut Job. I remember laughing out loud -- in a good way -- at the premise, so ridiculous sounding it had to be a spoof trailer, right? Right?!? But no, it wasn't. This was an animated heist movie....with animals. How could that not work? It just has to work on basically all levels. It just has to!!!

In the small city of Oakton, a beautiful little park with plenty of trees and creeks and rolling hills sits in the middle of the downtown area. All the animals that live there are prepping for a fast-approaching winter, the group led by Raccoon (voice of Liam Neeson) who's doing his best to help organize all the available food. A rebellious squirrel, Surly (voice of Will Arnett), is working on his own though to store up for winter, even finding a nut store near the park that will keep him fat and full all winter. Now, he's just got to find a way in without being caught. Raccoon catches wind of his plan and sends two brave squirrels, Grayson (Brendan Fraser) and Andie (Katherine Heigl), after Surly to see what he's up to. There's more to it though. A lot more. Something is going on inside the nut store that none of them had planned on.

Here we sit again. I feel absolutely ridiculous writing a plot description for an animated movie. At that, an animated movie about squirrels, mice, rats, groundhogs, a mole, and a power-hungry raccoon joining forces to rob a nut store. At the same time, that premise alone gets some points. This 2014 animated flick was backed by South Korean studios and did pretty well in theaters, earning over $76 million this winter, director Peter Lepeniotis' movie more than earning back its budget. I mildly liked it, but I wanted to love it. There are some laughs but not enough, and the story is lacking something. Maybe Pixar has just ruined things for everyone with all their unique, original, innovative ideas.

What does work? I loved the visual. Though it's never dealt with directly, 'Job' has the look of the 1950s as if the story took place in a little American town. It reminded me of so many classic Looney Tunes cartoons that I grew up watching. What exactly do Surly and Co. stumble into while trying to rob the nut store? They find themselves working around a gangster, King (voice of Stephen Lang), and his cronies trying to rob a nearby bank by tunneling in. That premise reminded me of several Looney Tunes adventures, Bugs Bunny working against some dimwitted gangsters doing their best James Cagney impersonations. While the animation has that crisp, clear look we've come to expect out of modern animated movies -- thanks again, Pixar -- there is also that throwback feel to the animation. It's colorful and detailed right down to the background and characters. It all adds up to a nice animated package.

What doesn't work? I came away disappointed with the voice work here. Will Arnett does his best as Surly the squirrel, but there aren't too many animated movies out there where the main character is so unsympathetic. He's mean, kinda a bully, and generally not very likable. Surly has his moments -- most with his mute sidekick, a mouse -- but I didn't like the character. Heigl is okay as Andie, the squirrel love interest. Fraser hams it up as the overly heroic and slightly nuts Grayson, but I didn't even realize it was Fraser, requiring a look-up. Neeson is cool because it's freaking Liam Neeson voicing an evil raccoon. The rest of the nut job heist crew include Precious (Maya Rudolph), a pug who teams up with Surly, Mole (comedian Jeff Dunham), the blind, dimwitted mole, Jimmy (Gabriel Iglesias), Johnny (Joe Pingue) and Jamie (Annick Obonsawin), a trio of groundhogs. It sounds cute, but in the end, it's just sorta meh.

So in the end, I think the idea is far better than the execution here. I really, really liked the premise, but as the story developed, it never really grabbed me and pulled me in. The potential was certainly there, but 'Job' doesn't pay off unfortunately. And let me tell you, I wanted it to pay off. It's a heist movie with animals for goodness sake!!! That has to be awesome, right?!?

That said, there is a quasi-saving grace in the finale. I wonder if the studio behind 'Job' has a hand in the studio behind musical artist Psy, known for his unbelievably catchy dance song Gagnam Style. Listen HERE. One of my favorite early scenes has Surly and his sidekick, Mouse, dancing in celebration to Psy's song. It's not the Gagnam Style dance, but it's funny. Very funny. The highlight for me was in the end credits, an animated Psy dancing as the credits roll, all the characters -- both humans and animals -- dancing along with him. It's gimmicky, a tad forced, pretty ridiculous, and it is FUNNY. It works, simple as that. Watch it HERE. Yeah, I'm a cheap date. It doesn't take much to entertain me.

The Nut Job (2014): **/****

Brubaker

Well, it may be time to add a new label and genre for the right-hand column. I've written double-digit reviews about prisoners-of-war stories but what about good, old-fashioned prison stories? Movies like The Shawshank Redemption, Cool Hand Luke, Papillon, and plenty others ranging from classics to good to just bad. It's official. I'll add the Prison movie to the list, and here's a new one, 1980's Brubaker.

A new shipment of prisoners is arriving at the Wakefield State Prison, among them a quiet, mysterious prisoner who puts his head down and minds his own business. The prisoner quickly sees how horrific prison life is from abusive guards -- both physical, mental and sexual abuse -- to cramped living quarters, insect-ridden food to corruption on all levels of how the prison is run. After several days though, the prisoner reveals himself as Henry Brubaker (Robert Redford), the prison's new warden who's been tasked with cleaning up the prison, both for the prisoners and as a government-funded location. His appearance scares countless people to death, their corrupt, nasty world about to get thrown for a loop. His methods are demanding and fast-acting, making many people incredibly nervous. With pressure from inside and out, can Brubaker clean up the prison? Or has he pushed too far and endangered his own life?

From director Stuart Rosenberg, 'Brubaker' asks some interesting questions. Prison reform is meant to make sure that prisoners are treated like decent human beings. They don't deserve to be beaten, abused, violated and treated like dirt. Or do they? As the movie points out in snippets, these men are criminals, found guilty of a variety of crimes from rape to murder, robbery to manslaughter and all sorts of pleasant stuff in between. How well do they deserve to be treated considering the crimes they've been found guilty of committing? Should we rehabilitate prisoners so they can reenter the world as better individuals or simply let them waste away in under-funded prisons? The answer is probably somewhere in between. And enough of the social commentary, on with the movie!

'Brubaker' is a good movie, a story featuring some social commentary that for the most part avoids getting too obvious with its message. It is based on the book Accomplices to the Crime: The Arkansas Prison Scandal, the warden posing as a prisoner made up for the sake of the film. This is dark stuff from the get-go, Brubaker's undercover mission incredibly uncomfortable to watch. Things only get worse as he undertakes his new job, so many people around him -- inside and outside the prison -- trying to stop him, or at least slow him down. 'Brubaker' was filmed at Junction City Prison (recently closed) in Ohio, giving the story a filthy, seedy look that adds to the tension and the reality Rosenberg was aiming for. It doesn't feel like some Hollywood studio posing as a prison. It is a prison, and that goes a long ways toward authenticity. Also worth mentioning is composer Lalo Schifrin's score, equal parts underplayed and quiet with fast-moving, adrenaline-pumping sequences. 

Who best to lead the way as a progressive prison warden who's not interested in whips, abuses, punishments and beatings? Why Robert Redford of course, at the height of his popularity. In his personal life, Redford has gotten behind and backed causes he believed to be worthwhile so this doesn't feel forced as an acting role. I would have liked some more background about the Brubaker character -- how did he end up here? What drives him? What's his motivation -- but an intelligent, thoughtful warden who becomes almost obsessed with accomplishing his mission is a great hero to lead the way. Redford was, is and will be a likable star to lead the way in a movie, and he's the best thing going here. Also look for Jane Alexander as Lillian Gray, his government connection, their background and relationship hinted at but never specified.

There's plenty of solid supporting parts to back Redford, starting with Yaphet Kotto as Coombes, a trusty who Brubaker counts on to help his reform get rolling while also questioning what's going on, and David Keith as Larry Lee Bullen, a lifer, a prisoner who's piled up three felonies and earned himself a life sentence. The scenes among Redford, Kotto and Keith are some of the strongest throughout the 132-minute movie. As for other trustees, look for Matt Clark, Tim McIntire, Everett McGill, Val Avery, and Joe Spinell. Murray Hamilton plays the evil Governor with Albert Salmi, M. Emmet Walsh, and Wilford Brimley also representing the evil System.

Just a good movie with a strong cast and an interesting story that takes some surprising twists as the it develops. The ending gets a little heavy-handed with a slow clap and all, but the movie as a whole is easy to recommend.

Brubaker (1980): ***/****

See No Evil, Hear No Evil

Ah, the gimmick. When it works, it can be great. When it doesn't, that blasted thing can ruin an entire movie single-handed. I was skeptical of the gimmick/premise from 1989's See No Evil, Hear No Evil, but the talent involved was too much to pass up. And throwing in that I've never heard of the movie and never heard anyone talk about it, I went in with a clean slate.

Running his newstand in a downtown NYC skyscraper, Dave Lyons (Gene Wilder) goes about his day-to-day work like nothing's going on. Well, there is. He's deaf, but Dave is pretty smooth as long as he can read the person's lips he's talking to. One day, he hires Wally Karew (Richard Pryor), the two having some struggle communicating almost immediately. Why exactly? Wally is blind. How can they make it work? They do, finding a way and a rhythm, but it is relatively short-lived. One morning, a man walks in demanding to see Karew but before anything can be resolved....the man is shot. Dave never gets a good look at the killer -- only seeing her legs as she walks away -- while Wally only smells her perfume as she walks away scot-free. That's one problem but just the start. The police walk in to find Dave and Wally perched over the body. They're suspects No. 1 and No. 2.

Okay, about that gimmick thing. There's more than one. A couple actually in this Arthur Hiller-directed comedy.  In the third of four pairings between Pryor and Wilder, the laughs are there from beginning to end in a 103-minute movie. Critics ripped it apart pretty good for those gimmicks. One works better than the other. The one that doesn't? A blind guy who's good friends with a deaf guy sounds almost sophomoric, but nope, that works. What doesn't work is the pretty forced, overdone way to get the duo into some kooky situations. The murder isn't even the dumb part, but what comes after it. None of it is a deal-breaker, but you can't help but shake your head at it at times, especially the MacGuffin that ties it all together.

It isn't something that kills the movie because, well, because Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder are a comedy match made in heaven. Having already worked together on Silver Streak and Stir Crazy, they team up again here with similarly successful results. Say what you want about the movie itself, but their on-screen chemistry and banter are above any criticism. Like the best comedy teams from Laurel and Hardy to The Three Stooges, the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello to Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, chemistry is key above it all. They make it look easy scene-in and scene-out, raising the sometimes forced story above its average roots. No matter how goofy or downright stupid the story is, it's fun to watch this duo do their thing.

Simply put, Pryor and Wilder commit to the gimmick, a blind man and a deaf man forced to work together. It works because it is simple. Pryor's Wally can't see, liking to pretend he can. Wilder's Dave can't hear, but he's an expert at lip-reading (except for some tough sound-alikes). There are too many great little set pieces and running jokes to even mention, but here's a few. Drinking at a bar, they get into a fistfight, the blind man punching while the deaf man calls out where to punch as if it was a clock. My favorite has the duo arrested and taking mug shots. Dave can't see the photographer's face (so he can't hear her), requiring Wally to tell him what to do, but he can't see that Dave isn't in the right position. Watch it HERE. Just more proof you don't need something big and obvious and over the top to be funny. Sometimes it's the littlest things that produce the biggest laughs. I don't want to spoil too many of the best bits, but know this. It's genuinely funny. I laughed out loud throughout, and hopefully you will too.

You don't really need too much else in the cast department, but there's some other parts worth mentioning. The beautiful Joan Severance plays Eve, the real killer who's working with her partner, Kirgo, played by Kevin Spacey sporting a well-manicured pencil mustache and a British accent. Both of them are working for a mysterious man, Sutherland (Anthony Zerbe), who has a twist/surprise of his own in the final act. Alan North and Louis Giambalvo play two NYC detectives forced to deal with our blind/deaf duo and progressively losing it while Kirsten Childs plays Wally's sister, Adele, brought into the craziness.

Downright dumb at times with plenty of laughs. You wouldn't expect anything else from a comedy starring Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder. Turn off your brain for a couple hours and sit back and enjoy the laughs.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989): ***/****

Chaos

I've got 30-plus movies on my Netflix queue, and I'm....in....a....rut. Last weekend, not one of them burst off the page. I didn't really want to see any of them so I did a sorta-random search and picked a movie. The end result....2005's Chaos, a movie that got an extremely limited theatrical release. Good cast, cool premise? Maybe we've got a rut-buster.

After a hostage standoff goes horribly wrong, Seattle detective Quentin Conners (Jason Statham) is suspended indefinitely from the force while his partner is fired. Just a few months later, Conners is brought back to the force when his supervisor has no other option. A bank is being robbed by five heavily armed gunmen with over 40 hostages taken. The leader of the bank robbers, Lorenz (Wesley Snipes), has demanded to negotiate only with Conners and no one else. Given a young, new partner -- really more of a watchdog -- Shane Dekker (Ryan Phillippe), Conners heads to the bank looking to get the robbers and save the hostages. Nothing goes right though, several hostages injured in an explosion that allows the bank robbers to escape as well. Inside the bank, no money seems to have been taken. What exactly was the purpose of the "robbery"? What did they hope to achieve? Can Conners and Dekker figure it all out?

Yeah, about this one......wow, what a stinker. This is not the rut-buster I was counting on for my Netflix queue. From director Tony Giglio (who also wrote the screenplay), 'Chaos' borrows liberally from a fair amount of like-minded movies about bank robberies and hostages, anything from Swordfish to Inside Man (heavily borrowed), Dog Day Afternoon to Heat and plenty other movies that are far better than this one. It was clearly made on a smaller budget, Canadian locations filling in for Seattle, and generally has the feel of a straight-to-DVD dud. It tries to be something better, something else, but it never creates enough of its own identity and is dead on arrival. 'Chaos' is only 106 minutes long but it drags badly almost immediately and never picks up any momentum.

The formula for cheap action flicks like this is usually cast two or three pretty recognizable actors/stars, get another actor who never quite became a star but is a recognizable face, and then fill in the rest of the cast with no-name actors and actresses. Here we get Statham (rising action star at the time), Snipes (past his prime star with some legal issues) and Phillippe (young star who never quite rose to stardom). The three lead performances range from decent to pointless to wasted and then just some plain old bad. Statham's cool on-screen persona is there, but his American accent drifts in and out at will. Mostly, he looks frustrated or has a smart-ass grin on his face. Snipes' part amounts to little more than a cameo, but he goes for it in the over-the-top villain department. Phillippe just struggles. He gets the big, explanatory dialogue scenes and it's just bad. Uncomfortably bad.

The only other recognizable face is Henry Czerny as Capt. Martin Jenkins, the higher-ranking police officer who speaks in cliches, questioning everything and demanding things be done his way. Or the highway!!! It's the same part he played in Mission: Impossible and Clear and Present Danger.

Bad is bad, but then there's just awful bad. 'Chaos' has more of those awful moments than any guilty pleasure should have. My favorite right out of the Jerry Bruckheimer/Michael Bay school of Action Movies goes like this. Phillippe is chasing a suspect down an alley in a foot chase and smashes right into a row of parked motorcycles. Shane yells "I'm a police officer! I need your motorcycle!" at which point he puts on a ridiculous helmet and chases after him, a ridiculously long action sequence starting up. The other goes down the Overtly Uncomfortable Sexual Tension Department. Investigating a crime scene, Conners and Dekker talk to a CSI investigator (Keegan Connor Tracy) who tells Dekker she'd like to ride him and she has a list of approved things he can put in her mouth. Oh, all the while she's sucking on a sucker. Subtle, this ain't. You'll think you've stumbled across a Skinamax movie late at night.

Then there's the twist and then another and then another. The movie's title is based on chaos theory which suggests that seemingly random occurrences are actually related in some fashion or another. Random eventually leads to patterns so in fact, nothing is in fact, chaotic. There are so many good movies out there like The Usual Suspects and Fight Club and The Sixth Sense with excellent twists, really well thought out revelations that seem ridiculous, but nope, when you really start to think about them it all comes together. This is not one of those movies. The twists are both obvious and stupid, and the ending goes for a "clever" finale that plays against genre conventions, but even that falls short. Just nothing to recommend here unfortunately. Avoid at all costs.

Chaos (2005): */****

The Shawshank Redemption

Sometimes you just have to shake your head at audiences and moviegoers. Some movies just aren't meant to make some money in theaters no matter how good reviews are, no matter how good the cast and crew is. It just isn't meant to be. Take 1994's The Shawshank Redemption, a movie that barely recovered its budget in theaters but has become a ridiculously popular movie in the 20 years since its release. How good is it? On the IMDB Top 250 (of all-time), it's currently rocking the No. 1 ranking...of All-Time. Not the most scientific voting, but still...

It's 1947 when banker Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is convicted of murdering his wife and the man she was having an affair with. Andy maintains his innocence but the evidence is overwhelmingly against him, and he receives consecutive life sentences as a verdict. He is sent to Shawshank Prison near Portland, Maine and settles into prison life as best he can. More than that, he just wants to survive. Days to weeks, weeks to months, months to years, Andy becomes close friends with a fellow prisoner, Red (Morgan Freeman), who is similarly serving a sentence for murder. Prison life is one step above hell itself, Andy carving out a niche for himself as best he can. Will it ultimately prove to be too much? Will it wear Andy down over the years? Can he somehow prove his innocence when on one else believes him and the evidence against him seems like a sure thing? In prison with life sentences on the line, only time will tell.

What a difficult movie to review in a somewhat concise plot synopsis. I tried to build this movie up to someone recently who had never seen it, and without giving too much away....well, let's just say it proved difficult. It's difficult, but it's for good reason. In the 20 years since 'Redemption' was released, it has gained quite the positive reputation, director Frank Darabont also adapting a screenplay from a short story by acclaimed author Stephen King. For about three years in the early 2000s, AMC and TNT and TBS seemed to show this movie EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND, and I probably watched it every other weekend or so. It had been years since I'd seen the movie straight through in one sitting, and not surprisingly, it holds up one basically all levels. Who knows how it will be remembered in years to come. Will it be a classic? A highly-regarded film? Maybe both, but for me, it's a personal favorite.

As I prepare to write some reviews, I try to identify some flaws, if I haven't already from during the viewing. So those flaws here....yeah, there aren't any. This is one of those perfect movies you can sit back and appreciate on any number of levels. The biggest strength is the story, a dark, unsettling story that is able to blend drama and comedy and even elements of horror effortlessly. The look of the movie reflects the story, colors washed out to pale shades of blue and grey, the Ohio State Reformatory serving as the backdrop for Shawshank. The immense prison walls tower over the prisoners, its hallways holding all kinds of hellish horrors. Another of the movie's strongest features is the soundtrack from Thomas Newman, my personal favorite score from an excellent composer. Listen to the entire soundtrack HERE, music equal parts emotional and moving with unsettling and uncomfortable.

Above all else, this movie rides on the shoulders of its stars, Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. Talk about an effortless chemistry. These two pros make it look downright easy. This isn't acting, just two very talented actors doing their thing. Natural doesn't begin to describe the power of their performances, the relationship between Andy and Red developing into a genuine friendship as the years pass. Their conversations crackle, two men talking because, well, because there's plenty of time to talk in prison. They talk about life, about their pasts, their likes and dislikes, but bigger things too. Andy and Red talk about hope -- check that, Hope -- and dreams, about something bigger, about finding your spot and persevering no matter what's thrown in front of you. I can't think of other films where Robbins and Freeman were better than this. Two great actors bringing two flawed, fascinating characters to life.

Who else to look for? How about evil personified as Shawshank's warden (Bob Gunton) and his lead guard and enforcer Byron Hadley (Clancy Brown), two of the most evil, despicable villains ever. James Whitmore, 73 years old at the time and having worked in Hollywood since the late 1940s, is a scene-stealer as Brooks, an aging prisoner who's become institutionalized as his sentence runs into its fifth decade. Other prisoners include William Salder as Haywood, an overbearing at times but generally likable inmate, with Larry Brandenburg, Neil Giuntoli, Brian Libby, Joseph Ragno and David Proval rounding out Red's clique of prisoners. Also look for Gil Bellows as Tommy, a young prisoner who comes to Shawshank in the mid 1960s with knowledge that could change Andy's life.

Maybe the biggest effect this movie has had on audiences is Morgan Freeman Narration Syndrome. Featuring one of the all-time great voiceover narrations, 'Shawshank' propelled Freeman into another stratosphere. It would be fun to listen to Freeman read a phone book. He's that good. The narration is what holds the movie together, almost 20 years of story packed into 142 minutes. There is a simple elegance to the narration, conversations about hope and fate, destiny and love, all of it giving a deeper sense of what's going on. It also features one of my all-time favorite movie lines, Red taking one of Andy's thoughts to heart. 'Get busy living or get busy dying....Damn right.' Just good stuff. Narration can be overdone, condescending, pretentious, but here? It's damn perfect.

There really isn't a weakness in this movie. Not a one. Now that said, the last 40 minutes or so is one of the strongest extended sequences in film history. This is a story that builds and builds, but you're not necessarily sure where. It doesn't drop hints so when a twist comes along, it genuinely shocks and surprises. One twist and surprise on top of each other -- all of them working effortlessly -- that don't feel forced. Thankfully, no 'Gotcha!' moments here. It leads to an ending that is beyond perfect. Moving, emotional and dramatic, including a beautiful final shot set to Newman's music. One of those great movies, a classic that gets better with repeated viewings. Sit back and enjoy it beginning to end.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994): ****/****

A Million Ways to Die in the West

Seth MacFarlane is one of the more polarizing personalities currently working in Hollywood. The creator of TV's Family Guy and man behind 2012's very funny and very wrong Ted, MacFarlane typically inspires a 'love him or hate him' reaction from audiences. I typically come down on the love him side, loving Ted and for the most part liking Family Guy. So when I read MacFarlane was working on a comedy film western....well, color me curious. Here's 2014's A Million Ways to Die in the West.

It's 1882 in Arizona and cowardly rancher Albert Stark (MacFarlane) is trying to make the most of his small sheep ranch in the desert. He's dating the pretty, young teacher, Louise (Amanda Seyfried), and even though the wild west life is pretty rough, Albert is pleased....and then he isn't. After he negotiates his way out of a gunfight rather than shoot it out, Albert gets dumped by Louise. He just sort of drifts along afterwards, eventually meeting a new woman in town, Anna (Charlize Theron), who he clicks with very quickly. It isn't long before Albert gets roped into another gunfight with Louise's new man, but that's the least of his problems. Anna isn't telling him everything about who she is and more importantly, who she's married to. Her husband? Clinch Leatherwood (Liam Neeson), a bandit and one of the most notorious gunfighters around. Now, Albert is really in for some trouble.

Released in theaters just this past weekend, 'Million' earned over $17 but was still dubbed a disappointment. Reviews were decidedly mixed to negative, and what little word of mouth I heard was....I'll say, less than positive. Nonetheless, I plunged on! It's a comedy western -- which I'm not a huge fan of to begin with -- but it certainly looked like the talent involved had put together a winning product. Andddddddddddddd, yeah, unfortunately that's not the case. This is not a good movie to the point I will even say it is really, really bad. Making it worse, it does have some potential but never amounts to anything other than a winning joke or bit here and there. It is painfully long at 116 minutes (it feels much, much longer) and simply tries too hard. Simply swearing in the wild west with vulgar sex jokes, pretty raunchy physical humor, some drug jokes, it isn't enough. There's got to be something more.

The parts that do work? It all goes back to the title. The wild west was a particularly nasty place, and as MacFarlane's movie/script points out in its strongest moments, there were a countless myriad of ways to die and to die graphically. The bits that work come from that simple premise, the west was almost trying to kill you. MacFarlane's Albert has a funny monologue pointing out all those ways people can and do die from. The payoff is priceless, Albert literally pointing out the town mayor's dead body that's been lying in the street untouched for three days. The bit comes back later with a great sight gag. The same for the county fair where people always seem to die gruesome, grisly deaths. Gags like that work and do it well, an intelligence to the humor. There isn't enough of those sorts of gags and bits. Instead, we get jokes about a retarded sheep, a gunfighter who can't join the gunfight because he has two (TWO) bouts of extreme and very public diarrhea, and a sheep peeing on Albert while he's hiding from Clinch's gunmen. Now, that's funny!

Some reviews criticized MacFarlane for casting himself in his movie. That's the least of my concerns. You may not like his humor, but he knows how to get laughs. His quick, random asides work well, and a cowardly sheep rancher is an interesting chance of pace for a lead in a western. The script does him no favors though, his Albert getting too many ranting and raving monologues that feel forced. His scenes are okay with Theron, but they tend to slow things down even more. Neeson looks to be having some fun as the dastardly Clinch, a bandit who's reputation precedes him, but even he is underused. SPOILERS STOP READING SPOILERS There are a couple surprise appearances along the way but blink and you'll miss them. They include Christopher Lloyd, Ewan MacGregor, Ryan Reynolds, Gilbert Gottfried, Jamie Foxx (stay for the credits), and then Patrick Stewart providing his recognizable voice for a quick voiceover. END OF SPOILERS YOU MAY CONTINUE READING NOW.

Who else to look for? Wes Studi is a quick scene-stealer in his appearance as Cochise, the wise Apache chief who guides Albert through his struggles. Giovanni Ribisi and Sarah Silverman don't fare so well as an engaged couple. Oh, and Silverman is a prostitute, but the couple is "saving themselves" for marriage. So yeah, we get lots of raunchy sex jokes that fell short one and all. You could have heard a pin drop in the theater with each passing joke. Repeated jokes about anal and oral sex and ejaculation can only take you so far. Neil Patrick Harris plays Foy, Louise's new beau, impressive mustache to boot. Screen veteran Matt Clark gets a quick part too as a gold prospector.

What I found disappointing was that MacFarlane was genuinely trying to do something different here. In one way, he's trying to make a comedic spoof western in the vein of Blazing Saddles. He's not making a generic, studio-forced sequel. At no point does it click though, a series of bits and one-liners that work at times on their own, but ultimately fall short. MacFarlane looks to be a western fan, even shooting on-location in Monument Valley, made famous by famed western director John Ford. Everything from the look to the throwback-sounding score to the credits scream 'WESTERN!' but it never gels as one cohesive picture. Struggles to find the right tone, the right comedy, the right rhythm, you can point to any and all of these problems as handicapping the final product.

Your call in the end. I love westerns and when a comedy western is handled correctly, I'll go along for the ride. This western most definitely tried, but it just doesn't happen. A few good bits don't amount to something worthwhile in the end. I didn't like this movie at all, and there were more than a few extended scenes that were painful to watch. Truly painful, made all that much worse by the fact that somewhere in all that mess is a potentially very good movie. As is though, steer clear. If you do go see it, definitely don't watch the trailer.

A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014): */****

Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies

When I think of the big roadshow epics of the late 1950s and into the 1960s, I typically think of historical epics, big period pieces with casts of thousands. There were the comedies out there too though, like the classic 1963 road epic It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, 1965's The Great Race and on a slightly smaller scale, 1965's Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. By 1969, the big road epic comedy had played out its course....almost. A quasi-sequel to 'Machine,' here's 1969's Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies.

It's the 1920s and the Monte Carlo Rally, a race across Europe ending in Monte Carlo, is fast approaching. Racers from all over the world are heading to several different starting points around Europe hoping to win the prestigious race. Among them? Sir Cuthbert Ware-Armitage (Terry-Thomas), an Englishman with a mean, devious streak up his back, looking to save his father's car company. His opposition and co-owner courtesy of a shrewd poker move? Fun-loving, kooky American, Chester Schofield (Tony Curtis), who has some big ideas about what to do with the far-more traditional English cars. The two men agree to race for it all, whoever beats the other in the Rally takes complete control of the company. But with racers from all over the world coming to compete, this will be one crazy race.

Dubbed Monte Carlo or Bust! for international audiences, 'Jalopies' is a sequel to 1965's air adventure, director Ken Annakin returning while also writing the screenplay with Jack Davies. It features an animated credit sequence, a title song sung by Jimmy Durante, and goes for that same stylish effect that previous road comedy epics went for. At 122 minutes, it's relatively short compared to its predecessors, Annakin forced to cut anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes depending on the market (and the source). What's left? A movie that's unfortunately a little lackluster in just about all accounts. It's not as funny as it wants to be, not as stylish and entertaining as it should have been. It's not bad, but it's not good either.

While it isn't my most original critique, all I can say here is that 'Jalopies' simply tries too hard for its laughs. The sped-up physical comedy sequences -- cars, drivers and spectators moving at ridiculously fast speeds -- are goofy for their own sake. Funny here and there, tedious when used time after time. The same for the BIG sequences, like two drivers navigating an iced-over lake full of hockey players. How many times can we see a car sliding/drifting and people jumping out of the way before you just want to turn it off? Well, I don't know the answer there because I lost track, and for the sake of the review, I finished the movie out, hoping at some point it would get better. It didn't really, a big disappoint because I enjoyed the other three previously mentioned road epics so much. They can't all be winners I guess. 

The cast is good and bad, some undone by uninteresting characters, others by the over-reliance on the physical humor, and some by a script that gives them little to do. A star of The Great Race, I liked Curtis as American racer Schofield (favoring 'Zowee!' as one of his go-to phrases) who commits to the goofiness but never really overdoes it. He's given a driving partner of sorts, Susan Hampshire's Betty, who may or may not be trying to slow him down. As his English counterpart, Thomas is good as Cuthbert (Thomas played Cuthbert's father in 'Machines'), the definition of an Englishman, this one so desperately trying to stop Schofield -- and all the other racers for that matter. Also returning is Eric Sykes as Perkins, Cuthbert's much-maligned and blackmailed assistant. This rivalry is the only one that was really appealing to me, the rest falling short here and there.

One of the other positives is Peter Cook (Major Dawlish) and Dudley Moore (Lt. Barrington), two British army officers driving together, Dawlish unleashing all his new-fangled inventions with every opportunity. Their very British demeanor provides some good laughs. Who else to look out for? Another star from 'Machines' but in a different part, Gert Frobe plays a convict look-a-like recruited to race as a famous racer (with Peer Schmidt as his partner)...and smuggle some diamonds for an underused Jack Hawkins (playing a sinister Count). There's also two Italian police officers (Lando Buzzanca and Walter Chiari), one looking for glory, one looking not to get married to an ugly woman, and a female racing team that includes Mireille Darc, Marie Dubois and Nicoletta Machiavelli who I don't believe are ever identified by name. They look pretty. That's their requirement for being there. Also, Bourvil plays the champagne-guzzling race organizer.

When 'Jalopies' gets down to it, there are some entertaining racing sequences. We see 1920s-era cars -- not exactly sleek racing cars -- bombing across Europe (with some great on-location shooting across the continent), especially the finale as the remaining racers gun it into Monte Carlo. There's just too little of it, and far too much use of miniatures and green screen work for a whole lot of sequences. In the end, a disappointment. If you want to be funny, just tap the brakes some and let it happen.

Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies (1969): **/****