Silverado

By the 1980s, the western genre had unfortunately gone by the wayside. The often white-washed entries of the 1950s, the spaghetti westerns of the 1960s and the revisionist westerns of the 1970s had done a number on fans, and the genre was never quite the same. I'm still not sure why dammit! Maybe I was meant to grow up during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s! After the 70s, the western became few and far between, like 1985's Silverado, a throwback western I've seen bits and pieces of but only saw all the way through...well, this time.

Having served a five-year jail sentence for a murder that was actually self-defense, a drifter named Emmett (Scott Glenn) is riding west with California as his ultimate destination. Riding deep into the desert, Emmett finds something his eyes just don't believe. Lying in long underwear in the sand is a man named Paden (Kevin Kline) who tells the story of how he was double-crossed and left to die with no water or supplies. The two pair up and keep on heading west, both with their own objectives. What awaits them? First, they'll find out Emmett's younger brother, Jake (Kevin Costner), is about to be hung for a murder that sounds fishy while also running into a man, Mal (Danny Glover), heading west to help his family run their small homestead and ranch. The trail ahead won't be easy though as a corrupt rancher and his equally corrupt sheriff are wreaking havoc on the town of Silverado, the town they're all heading to.

I caught the first 45 minutes of this 1985 western a few years back. I liked it, didn't love it, but never got back to it. Well, Encore Westerns tempted me once too often with it on its schedule. My biggest takeaway? Director Lawrence Kasdan (who also wrote the screenplay with his brother, Mark) loves westerns. LOVES them. He must have grown up watching countless westerns because in the same way Indiana Jones and Star Wars did, 'Silverado' plays like a tribute film to its genre predecessors while also creating its own identity. I guess it makes sense because Kasdan wrote Raiders, Empire and Jedi. Go figure! It feels familiar -- in a good way -- and the lines are blurred some, but from the start things are pretty clear. The good guys are good and the bad guys are corrupt, greedy and evil. Entertaining in the best kind of way.

What I remember struggling with was the almost complete lack of a story. There are characters. There are some vignettes here and there. But a linear story? No, not really. We meet a ton of characters, things are kinda laid out, and then eventually, the good guys face off against those dastardly bad guys. It can be frustrating, but the payoff is worth it. Just know that getting there can be a tad slow in a 133-minute flick.

If you've seen Kasdan's writing credits -- read it HERE -- it's clear he's at his strongest with ensembles, typically tough guy ensembles. That is the biggest strength here in 'Silverado,' specifically with his four main heroes, Kline, Glenn, Glover and Costner. These are archetypal western characters, and they don't disappoint. Kline's Paden is the former gunslinger with a checkered past, Glenn's Emmett the amiable but tough as nails drifter, Costner's Jake the fun-loving, hard-living, cocky youngster, and Glover's Mal the ice water in his veins rifleman and family man. Kline doesn't scream 'wild west gunfighter,' but he's the coolest character. Glenn and Glover are similarly strong with Costner the only relative weak link in the bunch. It's not his fault, but the character is just a bit too goofy. Still, the strength is in the group. By the time you see the gun-slinging quartet ride to the final showdown, you're fully on their side.

Who else to look for? Let's talk baddies. Brian Dennehy is Sheriff Cobb, an imposing, brutish man who used to ride with Paden and is now working with a local rancher to buy up all the land around the town. Jeff Fahey is solid as his enforcer of sorts, Tyree. Jeff Goldblum has some fun as Slick, a gambler who arrives in Silverado looking for some easy cash. I thought the best supporting part was Linda Hunt (later of NCIS: LA) as Stella, the diminutive but feisty owner of the Silverado saloon. And in the out of left field department, John Cleese plays a sheriff in another town who comes across our heroes' trail. Also look for Rosanna Arquette, James Gammon and Lynn Whitfield in other supporting roles. If there's a weakness in the cast, it's that beyond Dennehy the villains aren't developed much or even on-screen. The evil rancher is almost an afterthought. The depth of the cast is still very impressive.

So westerns, they like their guns. 'Silverado' is a movie for those with a gun fetish. Scene after scene bring these guns to life from the hard, metallic click of the Henry rifle being loaded to a six-shooter being cocked and fired. The guns end up becoming additional characters. The action is pretty violent but never overly graphic. In the throwback fashion, it's good, old-fashioned, rip-roaring action. A rare "cold" western with snow and the mountains instead of the dusty prairies, this is a western that truly appreciates the genre it's come from. An Oscar-nominated musical score (little too adoring at times), a fun cast, fun vignettes and entertaining throughout. One of those perfect 3-star movies, best watched with a big tub of popcorn.

Silverado (1985): ***/****

Backdraft

I grew up in Chicago, several classmates in grammar school with parents working as police officers and firefighters. I imagine there's a respect and admiration for police forces and fire stations in all cities, but even as a kid it was easy to see the regard in which many were held for putting their lives on their line for their jobs. Released in 1991, Backdraft delves into the lives of Chicago firefighters with some familiar family drama to keep things going.

Just seven years old, Brian McCaffrey is a frequent guest at his father's fire station along with his older brother, Stephen. On one fire call though, their dad is killed in a blast. Some 20 years later, Stephen (Kurt Russell, who also plays the Dad...albeit briefly) has followed in his dad's footsteps, becoming a respected lieutenant at one of Chicago's most respected stations. Station 17 has a couple new fireman to fit into the mix, Stephen's brother, Brian (William Baldwin), who did his best to avoid a firefighting career for years only to return to what his family knows best. The brothers have drifted apart over the years, both of them holding grudges that go back for years to when their dad died. With a career that hinges on life and death moments every single day, they have to learn to work together and put their differences aside. Meanwhile, an arsonist is starting fires all over Chicago with two dead already. Who is the arsonist? Does he have a different intention?

I was just six when this movie came out back in 1991. I remember my parents watching it at some point, and enjoying it. For me, there's a period in the late 1980s and early 1990s where because of my age, I just didn't see a lot of movies and never really caught up with them. From director Ron Howard, 'Backdraft' is a big one on that list. A box office success that picked up positive reviews while becoming a fan favorite, it's a solid, entertaining movie. It was filmed on location in Chicago -- never a bad thing -- and gives the developing story an authentic aura hanging in the air. It's not always familiar locations, "known" spots, but that works too in creating a grittier, more authentic feel. In the end, it is a good movie, even really good, that isn't quite great. Nothing wrong with that, but I didn't come away completely blown away like some reviews made it out to be.

The strongest aspect of the movie is one that treads a fine line. This is a film interested in showing the heroic actions of not only Chicago firefighters, but firefighters in general. It also delves into their personal lives, how the threat of horrific burns and wounds -- not to mention death -- hangs in the air with each passing fire. At times, the story gets a little too soap opera-esque, a little too familiar in terms of family issues and brotherly conflict. Still, the firefighting sequences are pretty insane. Firefighters watching the movie criticized Howard's film because these scenes were too clear, things too easily seen, but for the sake of making a movie, you can't criticize Howard there. You feel the fire, the heat, the warmth, the scorching flames nipping at your heels, blazing away at your face, with each passing sequence. Kudos in the reality department, transporting us into the fire with our firefighters. As a viewer, we get a sense of the hell that is these individuals' day jobs, avoiding too much hero worship.

A film archetype across all genres, the warring brothers formula is brought to life by Kurt Russell and Billy Baldwin. Both characters are a little too familiar, one rising above, the other not so much. Russell as Stephen gets the showier part, the gung-ho firefighter following in his father's footsteps. He's the best at what he does and isn't interested in too much career advancement. He puts out fires, wants to put out fires, and looks out for his crew. Look for Rebecca De Mornay as his wife, struggling to cope with the increasing dangers of his job, for her and for her son. Baldwin is okay as Brian, but the character just isn't interesting enough to merit much sympathy. His romantic subplot with Jennifer Jason Leigh's government assistant (a past fling/relationship) goes nowhere as well to the point their scenes become painful, especially the makeout session on a fire truck.....when the alarm goes off. Who saw that coming?!? 

Two supporting parts are truly worthy of mentioning. Along with Russell's Stephen, I thought Robert De Niro has the strongest part here, playing Shadow Rimgale, a fire inspector who helps determine if fires were accidental or the works of arsonists. It's that perfectly underplayed, more low-key part that De Niro could probably do in his sleep. Donald Sutherland is perfectly creepy too as Ronald Bartel as Bartel, an imprisoned arsonist who knows Rimgale all too well and may know what's going on around the city.  Also look for Scott Glenn and Jason Gedrick as fellow firefighters, J.T. Walsh playing a Chicago alderman who always has reelection on his mind.

A good, not great movie. I think it is a tad long in the tooth at 132 minutes, drifting along a little too much in the midsection before getting back to business for the finale. It is a tad cliched, too many slow motion 'Noooooooooooooo!' moments dotting the firefighting sequences. Composer Hans Zimmer's score is as solid as ever...in most scenes, sometimes reverting back to the hero worship that brings the movie down a notch. Big picture though, Backdraft has a lot going for it. An interesting story that did keep me guessing, a very solid cast, and a reveal that certainly caught me by surprise. An excellent look into the lives of Chicago firemen.

Backdraft (1991): ***/****

Wild Geese II

Stumbling across the DVD for 1978's The Wild Geese about five years ago, I was one happy movie fan. An all-star cast and wall-to-wall action in a men-on-a-mission movie, it quickly became one of my favorite movies. A sequel was made some seven years later, but it received generally negative reviews and hasn't even approached the cult status of the original. It is one hard to find movie, but I kept on looking just the same and found it, 1985's Wild Geese II.

A former soldier, Lebanese-American John Haddad (Scott Glenn) has become an effective if high-priced mercenary. Working out of London, he is approached with a seemingly suicidal mission. One of the last remaining Nazis, Rudolf Hess (Laurence Olivier), is wasting away at Spandau Prison in West Berlin having lived in almost complete isolation for 40-plus years. This group is willing to pay whatever it takes to get Hess out, basically offering Haddad a blank check for his services. Looking over the layout of the prison while also planning ahead for what he hopes is an easy getaway, Haddad agrees to take the job. He recruits an old friend and fellow mercenary, Alex Faulkner (Edward Fox), to help him with the job, but upon arriving in Berlin, the duo finds out that their mission isn't so secret. Several underworld types and other intelligence representatives are very aware of what they're up to. Can they still pull off the job?

If I love a movie -- maybe even just really like it -- I'm usually psyched to find out there's a sequel out there for my viewing pleasure. Without giving away any major spoilers, I can say that the original didn't seem to leave much room or storylines for a follow-up story. The only real link (other than an oddly pointless prologue showcasing the original) is that Fox's Alex is the brother of Richard Burton's character from the first movie. Other than that? It's just your typical mercenary action movie, this one from director Peter R. Hunt. While it is far from a classic action movie, I did enjoy it for what it is; a somewhat deliberately paced men on a mission movie with a unique location (the Berlin locations especially stand out). Maybe it's better if it was a stand-alone film, but it ain't so here we sit just the same. Don't expect too much and you should get some entertainment out of it.

Besides the differences in story, the biggest gap between the original and sequel is the lack of star power. Where the first movie had Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris and Hardy Kruger among others, the follow-up doesn't have many names that jump off the page. Glenn is solid if unspectacular as Haddad, the chiseled, efficient mercenary who hasn't met a job he won't take on. It's a good anti-hero part, but I never found myself rooting for him. Fox is more of a scene-stealer, hamming it up as the malaria-ridden Alex, a fellow mercenary who always seems to be in the right place at the right time. Robert Webber makes a quick appearance as McCann, the leader of the group who wants Hess with Barbara Carrera as his on-site specialist working with Haddad.

Enlisted to write a follow-up novel to his Wild Geese, author Daniel Carney turned around and wrote The Square Circle, the basis for this sequel. I've yet to read it (currently seeking out the novel), but I'm very curious to see how much the movie differs from it. For starters, the reasoning here for busting Hess out of Spandau seems forced to say the least. Webber's McCann works for a major TV news network who wants to interview Hess about people he worked with, people with higher up positions in other country's governments. Really? A TV network organizing a prison breakout? I don't buy it. There had to be a better choice to reason paying a mercenary to bust a Nazi war criminal out of prison. Second, the ending is brutal. It basically washes away the previous two hours, throwing it in the nearest garbage can. It is a lazy ending, wrapping things up because....well, because. It just ends. Weak stuff.

There is the potential here for a pretty decent movie, and I say that having liked it in spite of its flaws at times. All the intrigue and suspense works well as Haddad must elude hired Russian killers while also dealing with Russian (Robert Freitag) and English (Kenneth Haigh) officials, juggling it with how to manage the breakout and getaway. Even look for future Capt. Picard Patrick Stewart as a Russian general! The mission itself over the last 40 minutes is the high point by far, Haddad's intricate plan coming together detail by detail. Too bad the follow-up is just plain bad.

One other thing, more wasted potential as Haddad puts his team together to pull off the mission. Along with Fox's Faulkner, there's Ali (Stratford Johns), the well-connected underworld member, Hourigan (Derek Thompson), the hateful IRA gunman, Murphy (Paul Antrim), the drill sergeant, Michael (John Terry), the TV network rep, Pierre (Malcolm Jamieson), the driver, and Joseph (David Lumsden) and Jamil (Frederick Warder), two Middle Eastern men. Little background is given to any of these characters unfortunately, leaving more untapped potential.    

Wild Geese II (1985): ** 1/2 /****

The Bourne Legacy

With three movies over a five year span, the Bourne trilogy starring Matt Damon was a spy series with its own personal style, a James Bond for a new, younger movie-going audience. There was an odd perfection in those movies and all their frenetic, generally crazy pacing. But following the last movie in the trilogy, 2007's The Bourne Ultimatum, Damon said he wanted out. Never one to give up on a successful series, Hollywood did...well....um....uh...they basically remade The Bourne Identity. Anyways, here's 2012's The Bourne Legacy.

Working with a top secret program funded out of the C.I.A. called 'Outcome,' secret agent and killer Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) tests off the charts compared to the agency's other agents. A product of some medical advancements, Aaron is smarter, quicker and stronger. His superiors (Stacy Keach and Edward Norton among others) though are in some serious trouble, their operations possibly coming into the limelight because of Jason Bourne's "treacherous" actions. Rather than face serious legal repercussions if their own actions are revealed, they torch Outcome, killing everyone involved. Aaron is among the targets but escapes. Now he's looking for some answers, starting with another survivor of the burn, Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz).

I'm not sure where to start with this quasi-Bourne movie. I went in with some expectations if not especially high ones. The Damon trilogy is the rare trilogy that I thought improved with each passing movie. 'Identity' is pretty damn good on its own so that's saying something. Once Damon wanted out though, the series/franchise has to take a twist. I can't help but wonder how director Tony Gilroy's film would have done without the 'Bourne' moniker floating over its head. Knowledge of the first three movies will certainly help, but it's not essential going into this 2012 sequel. Sorry to say though I came away highly disappointed with this newest venture. Building off the Bourne name and success, sure, there's potential, but it ends up being one big, boring, repetitive mess.

Clocking in at a very long 135 minutes, 'Legacy' is 16 minutes longer than any of the previous three movies.....and that IS NOT a good thing. This is a story that needed tightening up. The first hour is sluggish even as we bounce all over the world in a convoluted circle of information, worried looks, and menacing stares. I suppose somewhere in there was an explanation for the story, but I missed it. Long story short? Treadstone, Blackbriar and now Outcome all top each other, one agency becoming more efficient and effective than its predecessor. On the whole, the issue is simple. This is a movie that drifts far too much. The three Damon ventures are frenetically paced to the point where you feel like running home after seeing them. Not here. I was bored, legitimately bored, and counting down the minutes until it was over.

So there's the issue. It seems that Gilroy (who also co-wrote the script) wanted to use the Bourne moniker to get people in the door but from there on in was going to distance itself from those previous films. Unfortunately, the story is basically a rehash of The Bourne Identity. Everything...everything feels like we've seen this before right down to the government war rooms, action scenes, and never-ending chases. In the process somewhere, there must have been an ending too, but it didn't make the final cut. Impressive action scene ends, Cross is semi-happy and cue Moby's Extreme Ways. Oh, oops, my bad. I guess the movie is over. There is no resolution, and not even a huge jumping off point for a sequel. The movie just ends. That's all.

Continuing to springboard off his success from The Hurt Locker, Renner is a very solid lead as Aaron Cross. First off and most important, he doesn't try to be Jason Bourne. He's his own man/character. Aaron's background seems wasted though. There's a layer in there about how he came to be an agent and why he's so driven now that is highly interesting, but nothing much comes of it. Either way, Renner is the best thing going for her. Weisz is a fine actress, but she's nearly unbearable here; shrill, loud and in full-on damsel in distress mode. Norton is the biggest waste here, given NOTHING to do, as Outcome's director while Keach has to look mean and growl. Previous Bourne actors Scott Glenn, Joan Allen, Albert Finney and David Straithairn are around for brief, blink and you'll miss parts. Louis Ozawa Changchien is very cool as Larx 3, an assassin without the glitches of previous agents while Oscar Isaac is memorable as paranoid Outcome Agent No. 3 who a curious Aaron meets early on.

The action for the most part is disappointingly and surprisingly kept in the background, much of it saved for the finale, a foot-turned-motorcycle chase in the crowded streets of Manila. While the stunts are impressive, they still have that rehashed feel to them. That's the movie. There are some very cool moments -- Aaron manipulating a tracker in a unique way via an animal, Aaron's explanation of his past -- but they never amount to anything. Very sorry to give this a low rating if for nothing else than the original three movies set the bar so high. Renner is a good choice to take the reins, but that's about it here.

The Bourne Legacy <---trailer (2012): **/****

Apocalypse Now

As a fan of movies, there are just certain films you have to see. When you haven't seen those movies, you typically get a reaction something like 'HOW HAVE YOU NOT SEEN THAT? IT'S A CLASSIC!' The reaction can be angrier or happier depending on the individual. I've gotten that reaction concerning 1979's Apocalypse Now. Well, check that one off the list.

Having already served at least one tour in Vietnam, special forces Capt. Willard (Martin Sheen) is wasting away in Saigon as he battles through some personal demons. He waits and waits for a mission, and finally gets one, but it's nothing like he expected. Across the Cambodian border, an American officer and Special Forces vet, Col. Kurtz (Marlon Brando), has gone rogue, and Intelligence things he's gone insane with his adoring command still intact. Willard's mission sounds simple but is anything but. Boarding a small patrol boat with its close-knit crew, Willard travels all the way up a river into Cambodia with one objective; terminate Kurtz with extreme discretion.

While director Francis Ford Coppola's highly controversial and much debated movie is typically grouped as a war movie, it is really anything but. It is based off Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, albeit based in a Vietnam setting. Not to sound pretentious -- the movie does enough of that -- but this movie isn't about war. It's more about the affects of war, how it hits people, how it impacts them. I watched Apocalypse Now Redux, the longer version Coppola released in 2001, and I feel safe saying it is unlike any movie I've ever seen before. Emotional, moving, existential, other-worldly, upsetting. It defies descriptions in so many ways.

The best I can do though is surreal. The Vietnam setting is a jumping off point for the weirdness. At 202 minutes (the Redux), it is a leisurely, slow moving story. It is one of the most incredibly visual movies I've ever seen, haunting in its beauty at times and upsetting at others. Working with his father, a composer himself, Coppola creates a musical score that is both classical and innovative. It uses an electronic synthesizer and lots of percussion, setting an eerie, unsettling mood to this trippy, even psychedelic trip up the river to Kurtz's compound. The feeling and aura of the movie is unreal and hard to put into words. Coppola creates a vision of a war -- Vietnam -- that I can only imagine was more terrifying than the actual war itself.

This is a movie about a journey though, both physically moving up the river and in one's mind, specifically Sheen's Capt. Willard. In a movie that runs three-plus hours, we get to see a lot of these bizarre, surreal moments in the journey. It starts with an opening set to The Doors' The End, and then we're off to the Intelligence community where the mission is explained, and then Willard is to to the Air Cav, a helicopter unit commanded by Col. Kilgore (Robert Duvall), more interested in surf conditions than objectives. That's just the start though. We see a disintegrating force of soldiers the further north the boat travels, officers in "command" long since gone. The patrol boat also runs into a USO show with Playboy playmates, the crew later running into them at an isolated Medevac station, and is also captured of sorts by French plantation owners (including Christian Marquand) still in Vietnam from the French occupation years before. The longer the journey, the stranger things get.

Through the good and the bad -- and there's a fair share of both -- are some moments of perfection. Kilgore's Air Cav command assaulting a Viet Cong coastline post is a brilliant sequence, one of the most realistic, intense, adrenaline-pumping action scenes ever. It's set to Wagner's Flight of the Valkyries, the music the attacking helicopters listen to as they fly into battle. Has to be seen to be believed and appreciated. Watch part of it HERE. Another highpoint is the patrol boat reaching the last American post on the river, a bridge under constant construction and under constant attack. Arriving in the dead of night during an attack with lights strung across the river, Willard and the crew find the semblance of what used to be a command in a dream-like, eerily beautiful sequence.

Onto the cast, and there's plenty to talk about there. Sheen nails his part as the tortured Capt. Willard. His narration fills in much of the movie's quieter gaps, treading the line between obnoxious and pretentious with genuinely heartfelt messages. His own descent into madness, his obsession to finish the mission is startling in its own right. Brando doesn't even appear until 150 minutes in, and his performance is almost a caricature of himself. It's all right, but a little much (more on that later). Duvall very much earns his Best Supporting Nod (but didn't win) as Col. Kilgore, infamously stating "I love the smell of napalm in the morning. The patrol boat's crew include Chief (Albert Hall), the no-nonsense commander, Clean (very young Laurence Fishburne), Chef (Frederic Forrest) and zen-like surfer Lance (Sam Bottoms). G.D. Spradlin and Harrison Ford have small parts as Intelligence officers giving Willard his mission. 

As good as parts of the movie can be, it also struggles to hold its momentum until the end. The story drifts along far too much, and by the time Brando's Kurtz actually reveals himself it's almost a disappointment. There is little energy in the build-up to the finale, an incredible ending that has stirred up controversy over the years in all its different variations. Dennis Hopper as a stoned-out photojournalist (Scott Glenn has a small part here as one of Willard's predecessors) and Brando spout off with lots of philosophical musings that mean nothing but sound good. Kurtz delivers one moving monologue about the horrors of war, but it's lost in a sea of drifting, pointless "messages." That's the problem with much of the movie. It wants to say something about war and man, but what exactly? 

Through everything though, this is an incredible movie. Even if you hate it, Apocalypse Now will almost certainly make an impact on you either negative or positive. I watched it two days ago and am still wrapping my head around it. It is unlike any other movie I can think of, and truly needs to be experienced.

Apocalypse Now <---trailer (1979): ***/****