A Week In Film #494: Nuevo duo

Lethal Weapon 3
By now thinks were getting a little tedious – the tetchy interplay between Murtagh and Riggs bringing to mind the ill-rendered freestyle bants of Dyer and Hassan in Dead Man Running (no, that’s not a compliment). Rene Russo’s character helps mix things up a bit, but it’s very much a retread, and a mish-mash.

Cardboard Gangsters
No, not the most original story – a young fella and his mates get drawn more and more into criminality by the lure of seemingly easy money, until it’s not fun anymore, its actually Really Fucking Dark – but it’s well executed by writer-director Mark O’Connor and co-scripter/star John Connors (him from Love/Hate).

A Week In Film #493: Newfers

Lethal Weapon
I’d never actually seen this 80s buddy cop classic, only ever known it through the prism of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia and Hot Fuzz and the like. Hardly Richard Donner’s directorial peak, but pretty watchable if unexceptional, with a nice rapport between Danny Glover and Mel Gibson as a pair of chalk-and-cheese LA cops thrown together by circumstance.

Lethal Weapon 2
A sequel that’s actually better than its parent movie – thanks in large part to the addition of Joe Pesci to the cast, and some cardboard cut-out Seff Efrican bad guys.

Garfield: The Movie
Crappy live action/CGI mash-up of Jim Davis’ lazy cat comic strip, with Bill Murray on feline voice duties, his fellow Groundhog Day alumnus Stephen Tobolowsky one of the few good things as a bad guy, and Breckin Meyer (the stoner dude from Clueless) as Jon.

A Week In Film #492: Sandy bollocks

The Desert Rats
So-so 50s war movie about the Battle of Tobruk, with James Fox reprising his star turn from Rommel biopic The Desert Fox in a distracting cameo, whilst Richard Burton tries to raise the standard of the film as a black dog-bearing British officer trying to lick a bunch of raw Aussie citizen-soldiers into shape in the face of German strength of arms. Robert Newton, Chips Rafferty and Bud Tingwell round out a decent cast. Irritatingly off-kilter name, given it’s about the Australian 9th Division rather than yer actual British 7th Armoured.

A Week In Film #491: XPERIMENTAL

Bridesmaids
Paul Feig directs from Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo’s script about women and friendships, and shit gags. With Rose Byrne, Melissa McCarthy, Chris O’Dowd etc.

Dying Of The Light
Dire spy shenanigans, ostensibly from the hand of writer-director Paul Shrader, but apparently a case of murder-by-studio. Nicolas Cage and Anton Yeltsin work hard as a mentor-mentee pair of CIA spooks on a freelance mission against a bin Laden type, with the older man constantly battling against the onset of dementia; but in the released version (as opposed to Shrader’s original, impressionistic vision) is just a hackneyed spy thriller minus any thrills.

A Week In Film #490: Yowsers

Copycat
Shlocky thriller, just how I like ‘em; with cop Holly Hunter teaming up with cob-up-her-ass agoraphobic academic Sigourney Weaver to hunt a serial killer. Directed by Jon Amiel.

The Hitman’s Bodyguard
Could have been great, with Samuel L Jackson and Ryan Reynolds fizzing off each other; but in reality a flat and poorly-paced plodder from Patrick Hughes.