The Expendables 3

I've enjoyed both the previous Expendable movies, The Expendables and The Expendables 2, knowing full well they're not particularly good movies. It's the rare franchise where things get better with each progressing flick. Then came the third entry...pretty much panned by critics and not embraced by audiences as much. Well, most of the audience. I happened to love it for all its insane goofiness and over the top everything. Here's 2014's The Expendables 3.

Having rescued a former member of the team from a heavily guarded train, Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone), Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) and the Expendables move onto their next mission, but there is far more awaiting them than they expected. Sent to knock off an international arms dealer, Barney is stunned to find out who the dealer actually is. His name is Conrad Stonebanks (Mel Gibson), a former member of the Expendables and a co-founder of the group with Barney who's long been believed dead after going rogue from the group. The team is all shot up and not in a good place to go after Stonebanks, but Barney wants nothing more than revenge on his former partner turned lunatic enemy. He sees the writing on the wall though and doesn't want to see his fellow mercenaries get killed in the process. Instead of going forward, Barney disbands the group and assembles a younger group of fiery mercenaries looking to prove themselves. Can they get the job done and not get killed in the process?

The first two Expendables movies are far from perfect, but the second one was definitely better than the first. Things were allowed to breathe a little bit and some fun characters were added to the mix. This third entry struggled at the box office, some attributing that to a PG-13 rating instead of an R-rating while others pointed to a bootleg getting a release weeks before the wide release. You know what? WHO CARES?!? These are movies meant for action-hungry fans who love over the top shootouts, a ridiculously cool cast, one-liner one after another, and villains you just love to hate. Nothing groundbreaking for director Patrick Hughes' film, but it is most assuredly not trying to break any new ground. Having written the screenplay for the first two, Stallone again handles that department and doesn't disappoint.

Stallone will never be accused of writing anything Shakespearean or all-time classic, but who the f*** cares? The man knows how to write a good, old-fashioned shoot 'em up, dammit! He tried to accomplish a lot with the first two flicks, but here? Here?!? It's like he challenged himself to amp things up to even more ridiculous levels. Much of the cast returns with quite a few BIG names joining the mix. It's a longer movie than its predecessors (126 minutes) and features a ton of action from the word 'Go.' It isn't a great movie, but 'Expendables' is damn entertaining. I watched it with a smile on my face and thoroughly enjoyed it from beginning to end. All Stallone wants to do is to put something out there that audiences WANT to see, and I love him for it. About as good as a movie like this can get.

The ensemble and action out of this world star power is at an all-time action high, but the guts of the movie remains that men on a mission, mercenary tough guy mindset. It starts of course with Stallone's Barney and Statham's Lee, bitching and moaning at each other like an old married couple. Those scenes provide some good laughs while also offering some background about the history of the Expendables. Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews and Randy Couture are back too with Jet Li only appearing in the final 20 minutes in nothing more than an extended cameo. I still feel like people were surprised by how well the Expendables movies did in theaters. For years before the movies there were rumors of all the 1980s/1990s action stars who were interested in starring only to drop out. Since then, a long list of stars have made appearances leaving Lundgren, Crews, Couture and Li with little to nothing to do. Oh, that Arnold Schwarzenegger fella is around too, chomping on cigars and even yelling "Get to the chopper!" How can you lose with that happening?

So Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme weren't enough, huh? The casting gets taken to crazy levels here. Gibson is a great addition to the series, his Stonebanks a perfectly evil, sinister, growling villain, injecting a ton of energy. I need more! Replacing Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford is an easy cool as Drummer, the team's CIA holder of sorts. Wesley Snipes and Antonio Banderas join the Expendables too because...well, why the hell not?  Both look to be having a lot of fun in parts that let them ham it up some (or for Banderas, A LOT). As for the new, fresh Expendables, there's Kellan Lutz (former Marine, favors a motorcycle), Ronda Rousey (hand-to-hand specialist), Glen Powell (tech) and Victor Ortiz (weapons). The younger group isn't as interesting, but their inclusion to the story is more of a means to an end. Kelsey Grammer plays Bonaparte, Barney's mercenary recruiter, the recruiting scene something right out of The Magnificent Seven or countless other men on a mission movies.   

Look, there's no point in analyzing the action. It's good, but obviously not as bloody or as graphic as an R-rated version would have been. Blood or not, the body count that piles up is downright gratuitous. The finale alone is ridiculous with every action cliche ever invented seemingly on display. Stallone vs. Gibson, thousands of bullets flying, Lutz doing his best Steve McQueen/Great Escape impression, Ford flying overhead in a helicopter with Schwarzenegger as his machine gunner, and that's just the start. As an action fan, it's almost too much....eh, not really. It's awesome and just a blast to watch. From the action to the cast, the mercenaries busting each other and seeing who's the best, the old vs. new school, the great villain, it is a hell of a lot of fun. An easy-going mess of a movie that I loved throughout. Here's a closing thought to process.

Late in the movie, a helicopter is loaded with some of the most iconic action heroes ever. We're talking Rambo/Rocky, Han Solo/Indiana Jones, the Terminator, Blade, the Transporter, Ivan Drago, and Desperado all flying along. Oh, and Braveheart is below chasing after them. It's just too much to take in! Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!

The Expendables 3 (2014): *** 1/2 /****

Air America

At some point over the last 15-20 years, both Robert Downey Jr. and Mel Gibson have had their fair share of "down" moments. The difference of course is that Downey has recovered from those moments, battling through drug addictions to become one of the most popular, bankable stars in Hollywood currently working today. One of the biggest stars of the 1980s and 1990s, Gibson has fallen on some hard times because of his off-screen antics, everything from an alcohol problem, brutal voice mails left for his kids' mother, and that whole not believing in the Holocaust thing.

When they teamed up for 1990's Air America though, they were both riding high. Downey Jr. was a rising star, and Gibson was the established star coming off the Lethal Weapon and Mad Max movies, among others. It is an oddity among Vietnam War films in that it has a comedic touch to it, something you wouldn't normally associate with such a dark time in American history. We're not talking obvious humor or even slapstick, just an odd attempt to be funny at times. It is based on a true story -- supposedly -- with some conspiracy theories and shady government dealings going on. I don't know. It could all be true, but mostly I'll recommend this movie for the cast.

It's 1968 in Laos, and the United States is officially not in that country at all....seriously, we weren't. Working for a company called Air America, American pilot Gene Ryack (Gibson) is several years into a job that has him dropping supplies, food, arms, materiel into Laos to help the locals fight the ever-present North Vietnamese. He is part of a small group of American pilots working for the company (CIA? Interesting...) who get a weird adrenaline rush from flying these highly dangerous missions.  A new pilot fresh from the U.S., Billy Covington (Downey Jr.), arrives in Laos to join the crew and immediately starts to question what's going on. Officially, none of these men are even in country because the government says they're not, but what's really going on? What are they actually shipping? A curious Billy wants to find out, and a weary Gene just wants to make some money.

A variation on the buddy picture, 'America' succeeds (or fails I guess, depending on your take) because of Gibson and Downey Jr. as the two leads. Besides both men dressing and having the look of someone from well...1990 and not 1968, they are an ideal ying and yang to work off each other. Gibson's Gene has thousands of hours flying under his belt with little to show for it. He has a little side business he hopes will prove lucrative while Billy is a bit of a thrill-junkie, an idealist at times and naive to what's really going on in Laos.  Not quite the Odd Couple, but close. Both actors are immensely talented which is on display here with characters and a story that isn't really anything new. You've seen characters like this before, and you'll see them again most likely. Gibson and Downey Jr. make it interesting in this light, comedic take on the Vietnam War.

Doesn't sound quite right, does it? A comedy about Vietnam? That description isn't completely fair, but director Roger Spottiswoode does keep 'America' at a certain light and happy level. While based in the Korean War, MASH satirizes Vietnam successfully, and that's the route to go. This isn't satirical, just a dig at a war and conflict that was and is hard to understand. The humor that does work is the out of left field, almost bizarre humor. Gene and co-pilot Tim Thomerson fight over crayons while they draw in a coloring book while Billy almost crashes in foggy weather. Gene, Billy and the American pilots go on a bender of sorts, playing mini-golf in the midst of  a war. Thomerson's Babo says when asked if they always go on benders like this "No, this is nighttime." There are some laughs here, but the story on the whole needed to go deeper and darker.

The potential for a story based in darker roots comes from the supporting cast and the very interesting parts they play. Burt Kwouk plays the Vietnamese warlord working with the Americans, ready to betray anyone for the right price. Nancy Travis is Corinne, an aid worker working at a refugee camp. Ken Jenkins and David Marshall Grant are perfectly cast as Major Lemond and his right hand man, CIA(?) officials running a drug operation with Kwouk and the American pilots. Lane Smith is very good as Davenport, a visiting U.S. senator looking for answers. Along with Thomerson, Art LaFleur, Ned Eisenberg, Marshall Bell and David Bowe round out the other American pilots. With so many characters, 'America' covers a lot of ground and from a ton of different perspectives. I felt like I got a good, detailed picture of a murky, shady situation. The picture just wasn't cynical enough. A hidden war with drug money supporting the effort is as dark as it gets, and 'America' doesn't truly capitalize on that darkness.

That is most evident in the ending, a finale that is too pleased with itself wrapping the story up nicely.  It goes for the generic happy ending that would have been better suited to so many other movies. But as I write this, I realize how negative this is all sounding. I did in fact, like this movie. It is a good story, no matter that it could have been better.  There is some crazy aerial footage from a variety of different planes, Thailand is an incredibly visual backdrop for the story, and a classic rock soundtrack from the late 1960s is never a bad thing. It's not a great movie overall, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Air America <---trailer (1990): ***/****   

Lethal Weapon 2

So a movie that easily stands on its own is a huge success in theaters, audiences coming out in droves to theaters to see what's going on.  It has a good cast, has some fun with a known genre while adding something new to it, but in reality just doesn't need to keep on going.  That first movie is good enough on its own.  So how should we proceed?  Why, that's easy. Let's make sequels!

I use that as an introduction only because I get sick of seeing more and more unnecessary sequels being released in theaters.  As I reviewed in February, I very much enjoyed 1987's Lethal Weapon, a fresh take on the buddy cop movie.  Not surprisingly, it was a movie that would have sufficed on its own.  In theaters in the late 80s, the original made over $120 million so it was only a matter of time before a sequel(s) was released. There would be three more sequels, but I shouldn't get ahead of myself.  Let's start with the first sequel, the one considered the best of the three, 1989's Lethal Weapon 2.

During a high speed car chase through Los Angeles, LAPD officers Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) and Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) stumble across a car trunk full of Krugerrands, South African gold pieces. Because of the damage caused in the chase, Riggs and Murtaugh are pulled from the case and reassigned to a witness protection job, looking after Leo Genz (Joe Pesci), a money launderer who cleaned millions of dollars for drug dealers, skimming some off the top for himself. With some help from Leo, the officers stumble into a drug case involving South African officials citing diplomatic immunity. It's obvious the diplomats are using their immunity for all sorts of illegal activities, but what can Riggs and Murtaugh do?  They put pressure on the diplomats, but with millions of dollars involved, it's only a matter of time before the South African "diplomats" push back with force.

My concern with any series that keeps going back to the well is that things will get boring, tedious, monotonous, and repetitive.  Just two years removed from the first Lethal Weapon, '2' isn't to that point yet, not by a long shot.  Director Richard Donner keeps things interesting throughout this 114-minute long buddy cop movie, leaning more on action sequences than story and character development.  Not a criticism, just an observation.  On the whole, it doesn't even touch the first one which still has something appealing about it that is hard to explain. It's a familiar angle -- two very different cops forced to partner up -- with a fresh edge. I get the feeling with '2' there was an assumption that if you're watching the sequel, you must have liked the first one so let's not waste time developing things. Instead, let's just have some fun.

The lone exception to this is Mel Gibson as Martin Riggs, the at-times off his hinges officer prone to bits of lunacy.  We do get to know Riggs a little better this time around as his backstory involving his deceased wife is explained.  Gibson's off-screen issues over the last few years have overshadowed the fact that he is a supremely talented actor, especially here with one of his most iconic, recognizable characters.  As the straight man to most of the shenanigans, Glover as Murtaugh matches Gibson scene for scene.  Some acting duos just have chemistry, and these two pros certainly have it. There is an ease to their scenes together that can't be explained. They're close friends, willing to always help the other one in need, but they'll also bullshit each other, rip each other whenever the opportunity arises, and generally make their partner's life a living hell.  A great pairing no matter the quality of the movie.

Not that the first movie was any slouch in the action department, but Donner's movie certainly takes it up a notch...or two or 10.  The opening car chase sequence is a mess, an orgy of explosions and crashes that gets the action going from 0 to 60 miles per hour in about four seconds.  There's plenty more though, including another chase on a mountain road that plays out like a Rube Goldberg device with a rather unique capper courtesy of an airborne surf board.  Also, a memorably tense scene in the bathroom ratchets up the nerves with a bomb strapped to Murtaugh's toilet. The best is saved for last though, Riggs and Murtaugh leaving their badges behind and going vigilante.  They go gunning for the conniving South African officials at a heavily guarded shipyard in a bloody, chaotic finale.  Speaking of, how many movies over the last 20 years have used a shipyard as an action set piece? I thought of maybe eight different movies just sitting through Lethal Weapon 2's credits. Still, done to death or not, the ending is a winner.

Hamming it up as the unbelievably evil baddies are Joss Ackland as Arjen Rudd and Derrick O'Connor as his enforcer, Pieter. They are the type of villains who probably laugh at the notion of a redeeming quality in a bad guy. You know from the second they're introduced that they will be dispatched in some gruesome fashion...and they are.  The best addition to the cast though is Pesci as fast-talking Leo, a welcome presence who works well with and fits in seamlessly with Gibson and Glover.  Just one more thing Donner did to keep his Lethal Weapon series fresh. Not on the same level as the original, but still an entertaining movie.

Lethal Weapon 2 <---trailer (1989): ***/****

Lethal Weapon

When thinking of celebrities who have fallen from grace, a good place to start is with Mel Gibson.  It's hard to think of another celebrity who was as universally popular as Gibson was only to fall hard and fast under a long list of embarrassing public incidents. The criticism started with his Passion of the Christ as questions arose about his message in the movie, and it went downhill from there.  The anti-Semitic issue came full front in some of Gibson's drunken rages in the years since, and for the most part he's disappeared from the limelight.

It's just hard to believe that someone as popular as Gibson could do something so stupid.  It goes to show you that as moviegoers and fans of celebrities, we can pretend all we want that we "know" these people, but if anything we know their on-screen personality and most often, not their real personality.  With Gibson, it is easier to think of Mad Max, William Wallace, and overall one of the biggest and most bankable stars of the 1980s and 1990s.  Of all his roles though, one recurring character stands out from the rest, his crazy cop Martin Riggs in the four Lethal Weapon movies, starting first with 1987's Lethal Weapon.

Sergeant Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) is a veteran cop in Los Angeles with a wife and four kids waiting for him at home.  Just having turned 50, Murtaugh is a good cop if a cautious one.  Sergeant Martin Riggs (Gibson) is a younger narcotics officer on the force struggling to cope with the recent death of his wife. Rumors throughout the LAPD linger that Riggs is suicidal so no one wants to work with him.  Unfortunately for Murtaugh, that's just what he gets as the two cops with very different styles are partnered together on a prostitute's murder.  Murtaugh and Riggs feel each other out, figuring out how the other one operates, all the while the evidence building up and the clues pointing to an immense drug and prostitution ring that dates back to some shady dealings during the Vietnam War. Can Murtaugh and Riggs work together to take the ring down?

If you have never heard of a buddy cop movie, this is the movie to start with.  And two, if you haven't heard of a buddy cop movie, what's wrong with you? Where have you been?  The formula is simple and was used before Lethal Weapon and has been used since LW, but it's rarely been handled as perfectly as it was in this 1987 action classic.  Pair two opposites together in some dangerous situation, let them fight things out as they discover all their differences, work together to solve a crime or case, let them bond through said differences, and let the entertainment values shoot up.  When handled correctly, the buddy cop movie is that perfect mix of action, drama and humor.  The 1980s were rampant with movies like this, but few are as good as the original Lethal Weapon.

For starters, instead of focusing on an overload of pointless shootouts, director Richard Donner focuses a majority of the movie on his two main characters. Without the development that comes out in these characters over the course of the movie, we're left with two cardboard cutouts of police officers.  One, the family man cop, and two, the livewire cop with a death wish.  Instead, Donner fleshes Murtaugh and Riggs out.  Yes, Murtaugh is a family man concerned about who his daughter's dating, the boat sitting in his driveway, and he complains about his wife's cooking.  Yes, Riggs is suicidal after his wife's death in a car accident.  But there's more than just that for both men.  By the end of the movie -- and into the three sequels -- we actually get a feel for who these two police officers are.

That's what separates Lethal Weapon from just about any other buddy cop movie you're going to see.  Amidst the humor and action, it's just a good, solid, well-written and well-made movie.  Gibson -- awesome 80s mullet and all -- was rarely better than he was here.  He's crazy, but he's a damn good cop too.  Glover isn't quite the straight man because he gets his fair share of laughs (his 'I'm getting too old for this shit' line is priceless) playing off of Gibson.  As separates, they're both great characters, but working together it takes the movie to another level.  For every scene where they bitch back and forth at each other, there's another endearing scene where they talk things out, realize they're after the same thing, and end up becoming not just partners, but friends.  It's not as sappy as I've made it out to be, but you get the idea.  Gibson and Glover carry the movie.

All the touches of a buddy cop movie are there though, not just the two leads.  You obviously need some particularly nasty villains, and Mitchell Ryan and Gary Busey certainly fill those shoes nicely as a former Special Forces general turned drug dealer and his head man, now working as a mercenary. The action is top-notch throughout, especially a Mexican standoff in the desert with Riggs and Murtaugh going toe to toe with Ryan's crew.  The finale between Gibson and Busey is epic, one expert fighter against another expert fighter in hand-to-hand combat.  I loved it all, the very 80s soundtrack, the action, the characters.  It's that perfect dose of action, drama and humor, and I look forward to seeing the sequels.

Lethal Weapon <---trailer (1987): ****/****

Gallipoli

Time to get a little deep, a little thoughtful with this movie review (or at least the beginning).  I don't believe there is a smart way to fight a war dating back through history.  For hundreds of years, opposing armies stood in open fields across from each other and fired point blank into the others' ranks.  How anyone stood there staring 100 yards away at a wall of rifle and musket fire baffles me.  That was the gentlemanly way to fight though, and no one thought anything of it.  But years passed and technologies advanced so in World War I with armies using automatic weapons and machine guns, the strategies didn't advance.  Waves of soldiers jumped out of trenches and charged across open fields into a living hell of bullets and explosions.

Maybe because visually trench warfare isn't the most visually interesting thing to watch there have not been many movies made about World War I.  The ones that are out there are typically very good, including 1981's Gallipoli. It's hard to peg this one as a war movie though because it does not focus exclusively on the fighting that took place.  It is a patient movie that takes its time introducing two characters before getting them into the army.  But once director Peter Weir gets where he wants to, the movie really picks up steam as it leads to one of the more memorable finales I've come across in a war movie, especially a striking last shot that catches you off guard in its execution.

It's 1915 in western Australia and young Archy Hamilton (Mark Lee) is training as a sprinter and quickly making a name for himself as he climbs up the ranks, winning race after race. But the constant news of the war in Europe has made an impact on Archy, and after a win at a highly touted regional race, he travels to Perth with another young runner, Frank Dunne (Mel Gibson), and joins the army, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC). The two friends are assigned different units, but after weeks of training their destination will be the same, the Gallipoli peninsula, where the fighting has bogged down into costly trench warfare.  The British, Australians, and New Zealanders have been cornered though against the defending Turkish forces, and both Archy and Frank know what could await them across the battlefield.

Directing less than 20 movies, Weir has nonetheless developed a reputation for making high quality, professional movies that typically deliver a message without hitting viewers over the head with that message.  That's why Gallipoli can be considered an anti-war movie, but not an obvious one.  For almost an hour, the war is mentioned and never seen, more of an idea than anything else.  Weir wants us to get to know these two main characters, and the story flows along at its best when they're together.  When separated, the movie bogs down a bit, including a long, unnecessary scene where Gibson's Dunne and his fellow soldiers explore Cairo that doesn't go anywhere.  The pacing can be frustrating at times because Weir clearly knows where he wants his story to end up, but not always how to get there.

Where Weir wants to end up is the Gallipoli campaign (a condensed version obviously) where thousands of lives were pointless wasted in suicidal charges that produced no tangible results.  Over the movie's last 20 minutes, Archy and Frank's unit is assigned one of these charges but thanks to some miscommunication end up having to go over the top of the trenches without artillery support directly into a line of waiting Turkish soldiers.  Assigned duties as a runner, Frank has orders that could halt the charge but only has seconds to do it in.  Watch the ending HERE with obvious spoilers. The race against time should have you on the edge of your seat, and that coupled with the images of soldiers preparing to die, leaving their prized possessions behind, writing a last letter is a striking contrast.  It builds to a final shot that stuck with me long after the movie was over, a tribute to Weir's ability behind the camera.

Two years removed from the first Mad Max movie, Gibson was on his way to becoming a huge star, but he wasn't quite there yet.  Besides that he looks like he's about 10 years old (he was 25 at the time), the part is a sign of things to come concerning his acting ability.  He's got a presence you just can't teach, and a charisma that has you on his side from his first introduction.  I wish I could say the same for Mark Lee, his onscreen counterpart.  It isn't a particularly good or bad performance, instead it's just there.  Lee never gives us a reason to have any interest in this character.  Translate that into any scene where he shares time with Gibson, and he's overmatched.  If they're together, you're watching Gibson and not Lee.  Other worthwhile supporting parts include Robert Grubb, Tim McKenzie and David Argue as three of Frank's friends who also enlist, and Bill Hunter as Major Barton, an Anzac officer caught in between what he owes his men and the orders he's been given from above.

One other thing particularly jumped out at me, the music.  It's an odd 1980s mix of electro synthesizers and classical opera, some of which you could hear in the ending clip provided before.  The odd combination really shouldn't work because it's just too different, but somehow it does.  It can sound out of place, but the music still somehow sets the mood and tone as needed.  Who woulda thunk it?  Not this guy, but it's another positive in an underrated WWI movie.

Gallipoli <---trailer (1981): ***/****

Signs

Bursting onto the movie scene like few other directors have, M. Night Shyamalan had a huge, surprise hit with his first movie, 1999's The Sixth Sense.  It was a movie that caught people off guard with its quality and especially the huge, twist ending that on repeated viewings seems painfully obvious, but that first viewing? About as complete a shock as a movie can produce.  But since Sixth Sense, Shyamalan's movies have gone progressively downhill for the most part.  The one exception seems to be 2002's Signs.

It's easier judging movies at the time they were made and not 8 years later because a lot can change in that time.  But with Signs, it's hard not to see how the mighty have fallen.  Shyamalan's four movies since have ranged from below average to panned and stars Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix have both hit some road blocks in their career, more on a personal level with personal choices than actual career choices. But at the time they were all near or at the top of their games in terms of fan following and a general popularity.  Since? Maybe not so much, but it's hard not to watch this movie and think about the departures from success this trio has gone through.

Living on his family farm some 45 miles outside Philadelphia, former reverend Graham Hess (Gibson) wakes up one morning to find huge crop circles in his cornfields.  What could they mean?  Are they elaborate pranks, hoaxes performed by teenagers, or just maybe, could they be something else, something other worldly?  With his brother Merrill (Phoenix) and his two kids, Morgan (Rory Culkin) and Bo (Abigail Breslin), Graham begins to question what's happening, and he's not the only one.  Similar crop circles start popping up in countries all over the world while strange, unexplained lights float over these cities. As the world questions what is going on, Graham remains focused on getting his family through whatever is about to happen.

From the moment the opening credits started and composer James Newton Howard's score kicked in, all I could think was how much the movie's style reminded me of an Alfred Hitchcock thriller. Playing on some Hitchcockian tendencies, Shyamalan makes an often unsettling thriller that for the most part keeps you guessing. He creates a very thick tension, a sense of the coming doom that is about to hit this little farm.  The story is almost entirely contained at the Hess farm with a few quick detours and a character here and there making an appearance.  But above all else, this is a story about the Hess family and their struggles and solutions for this unexplained phenomena taking place all over the world.

Through his handful of movies, Shyamalan has become typecast as the "ending twist director."  You go into his movies now thinking 'I wonder how he's going to trick us here' thanks to the con job he pulled in Sixth Sense.  Well, here's the twist...sort of.  There isn't a major, shocking slap you in the face surprise.  If anything the ending is a little weak in its execution.  Like a lot of thrillers that start off so strongly, Signs struggles to maintain that pace throughout.  It's like Christmas Eve.  You see the presents and wonder what's in them.  The wait and wonder can be half the fun.  The revelation here -- while creepy and well-handled -- falls short in a lot of ways, especially in its resolution.  This isn't a movie-derailing flaw, just one that prevented it from being a near-classic.  The ending is good, but not great.

In the news more for his anti-Semitic rants lately, Gibson shows here that as always, he was a very capable actor capable of pulling off incredibly dramatic roles.  His Graham Hess is a tortured soul, one struggling with an incident from the past that claimed his wife's life.  He tries to trudge on, to start life over again in a sense, raising his kids as best he can.  Graham struggles with the faith that carried him through even the roughest patches in the past and doesn't quite know how to handle this dilemma.  Phoenix has said he's retiring from acting -- a shame because of his epic talent -- and this is another quirky role for him.  I can't put my finger on Merrill, a middle-aged man who never quite lived up to his potential and knows it but is nonetheless a good man who moves in with his brother to help raise the children.  A very solid supporting performance.  Culkin and Breslin also impress on the child actor scale, never grating or annoying, just good actors.

The movie has its fair share of creepy moments with the sense of the unknown hovering over the world.  Shyamalan's shooting style emphasizes all this with camera work that is never invasive or over the top.  His camera isn't moving all around.  Scenes are long, unedited takes that put you on edge because you keep waiting for something huge, something shocking to come flying at the camera.  The fact that the huge surprise never comes? A complaint, but not a major one.  The build-up and tension is strong enough to carry the movie past some of its struggles in the last third.

Signs <---trailer (2002): ***/****

Attack Force Z

Can a movie having a cheap budget actually be a good thing? Maybe with less expectations heading in, moviegoers enjoy a movie more when a B-movie lives up to or exceeds the already low expectations. I know I look at big Hollywood blockbusters differently than I do a cheapie B-movie because it's unfair to compare the two. An Australian WWII movie, 1982's Attack Force Z, was clearly made on the cheap, and while not a classic, certainly provides some bang for your buck.

Relatively unknown in the U.S., 'Attack' has achieved a bit of a cult following since its release, not because of the quality of the movie, but because of the casting with Mel Gibson and Sam Neill having starring roles. Gibson had been in a handful of movies already but was not well known to audiences yet with and Mad Max not yet released in the U.S.. Neill similarly was an up and comer in the Australian movie industry. If you pick this movie up because you stumble upon these two names, like me, it's certainly interesting to see these two not-yet stars in an early role.

Based on an actual incident in WWII, 'Attack' tells one story of a Force Z, an Australian commando unit, stationed in the Pacific. It's late in the war in 1945 when a five-man commando team is dropped off by submarine at a Japanese held island. Their mission is simple; find a plane that crashed in the days before several miles inland. An important passenger that could quicken the end of the war was on board, and the commandos must either rescue him or make sure he's dead. With some help from the local resistance, the commandos start the search and rescue mission amidst Japanese patrols all around.

At a brisk 90 minutes or so, this is not a movie with a lot of back story about characters, plot, and the general context of the war. The objective of their mission isn't even revealed until almost an hour in. With little time to waste, a good share of war movie cliches are used to keep the story moving. From those cliches though, the movie doesn't pull any punches. Just minutes after the opening credits, one of the team is wounded and is killed by his own team so he won't fall into enemy hands. The message is clear...no one is safe and any one of the remaining four could be next.

Going to the cliches, we get a variety of characters in the team. Gibson is Capt. Kelly, an inexperienced officer leading his first mission and therefore trying to prove himself as a leader. John Phillip Law plays Lt. Jan Viech, a Dutch soldier joining the Australians who falls for a local girl, Chien Hua (Taiwanese actress Sylvia Chang in a solid part) with Neill starring as Sgt. Danny Costello, an experienced commando who is starting to question the actual effect these missions have on the course of the war. Rounding out the team are Chris Haywood as Sparrer Bird, the radioman, and John Waters (no, not that John Waters) as Lt. King. Chun Hsiung Ko plays Lin, the local resistance leader helping out the team who is also more than capable of handling himself in a fight.

Even in a situation ripe with tension -- five men moving through a jungle crawling with Japanese soldiers -- the movie lacks a certain energy early on. The commando team gets split up, but there's never a sense of urgency on the mission, and when the twist is revealed as to who they're trying to save there's never any explanation as to how the man's going to end the war, he just will apparently. Shot on location in Taiwan, the locations feel authentic with a sense of claustrophobia as the jungle seemingly closes in, but something is missing that I can't quite put my finger on.

With the mission though, the action starts from the beginning. With a smallish budget, these aren't huge battle spectacles, instead they're small skirmishes with the team shooting it out against roaming Japanese patrols. The finale is exciting and well-shot by director Tim Burstall as the commandos team with the resistance to fight the Japanese in the cramped, winding roads and alleys of a village near their getaway. The ending delivers another twist, and the shootout isn't a glamorous one. The commandos aren't superheroes who are invincible in battle, like in war these men can be shot and killed. Too often movies forget that, and make the characters Rambo-like heroes, but not here as the commando team dwindles down late.

Not a movie I loved but one I'd recommend to war movie afficionados. It's interesting to see up and coming actors like Mel Gibson and Sam Neill in early starring roles, and there's enough small-scale action to keep you interested until the shootout in the finale. I couldn't find a trailer at Youtube, but here's a couple scenes for your viewing pleasure, one and two, no major SPOILERS to worry about.

Attack Force Z (1982): ** 1/2 /****