This Is Spinal Tap (1984) * *

 

Directed by:  Rob Reiner

Starring:  Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Rob Reiner, Billy Crystal, June Chadwick, Paul Shaffer

Rob Reiner's sad and sudden death in December brought about nearly universal acclaim for his career.  He was a great actor and just as deft a director.  This Is Spinal Tap was his feature film debut in which he played documentary filmmaker Marty DiBerghi, who made a "rockumentary" about a fading British metal band whose glory days were clearly behind them but wanted to keep on rocking even if crowds were dwindling at their concerts.

As much as I hate to say it, This Is Spinal Tap is not among Reiner's best work.  It's sporadically amusing, but not a gut buster.  The humor is subtle, so much so that maybe I missed it.  There are long, droning interviews with the clueless band members, but they don't draw out many laughs.  Reiner's subsequent films like The Sure Thing, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally..., Misery, and A Few Good Men showcased his directing talents more effectively.  It was quite a stretch for Reiner, but I'd have to leave This Is Spinal Tap off of it. 

Spinal Tap pathetically attempts to remain relevant and reclaim their past glory, but a series of poor management decisions and subpar marketing have doomed Spinal Tap to a laughingstock.  One autograph session for their new album "Smell the Glove" draws zero attendees and the event organizer (Shaffer) can only lament what he thought would be a crowd-drawing spectacle.  The band's concerts contain sight gags like drummers simultaneously combusting and band members emerging from pods with bass player Derek Smalls (Shearer) stuck in one for the duration of the opening song.  

The band is unfortunately inept, not at performing necessarily, but about other aspects of the business such as marketing and interviews.  I've stated before that a British accent almost always makes someone sound more intelligent than he or she may actually be.  One could say "2 +2=6" and I'd halfway believe it.   The members of Spinal Tap push that notion to the extreme test.  But based on the movie's reputation, I expected a lot more.  Maybe this is why it took me over forty years to see it for the first time.  

Mercy (2026) * *

 

Directed by: Timur Bekmambetov

Starring:  Chris Pratt, Rebecca Ferguson, Annabelle Wallis, Kali Reis, Kylie Rogers, Chris Sullivan

Mercy sounds good on paper and for a while it leans into its whodunit premise effectively, but then it flies off the rails and becomes another in a long line of forgettable chase movies.  The movie centers on an LAPD detective who was a proponent of the new "Mercy Court" in which those accused are strapped to a chair and have 90 minutes to reduce their guilty quotient to 92% (which is considered reasonable doubt) by the AI judge who allows the defendant access to any online files, data, and assists with explaining the dizzying rules of the court. 

However, Chris Raven (Pratt) finds himself hung over and strapped to a chair accused of murdering his estranged wife Nicole (Wallis).  Raven swears he's innocent, but the evidence looks damning.  Of course, since he's the hero, we know he didn't do it, which is perfectly fine as Raven attempts to locate the real killer before his 90 minutes runs out and he's executed on the spot.  The AI judge (Ferguson) coldly provides Raven with advice, but soon maybe due to a program defect, she starts to sympathize with Raven, although it isn't made clear how or why except that the screenplay requires it.

I won't give away the ending of Mercy, except to say that it drifts into mindless action territory.  Mercy sounds like it should be a taut, clever thriller and on paper it is, but despite it's relatively short running time, Mercy starts to drag.  It's a concept that ultimately never flourishes into a film worthy of it.  

11.22.63 (2016) * * * *

 

Limited series starring:  James Franco, George MacKay, Chris Cooper, Sarah Gadon, Josh Duhamel, Daniel Webber, T.R. Knight

Time travel is utterly fascinating as a concept and in science-fiction.  11.22.63 explores its possibilities and its limitations and rarely fails to be involving and creative.  Based on Stephen King's novel, 11.22.63 centers around an ordinary man traveling through a time portal to stop Kennedy's assassination.  As 11.22.63 opens, Jake Epping (Franco) is a newly divorced teacher in his hometown of Lisbon, Maine.  He teaches adults at night to acquire their GED's and one story an older student writes about the night his family was murdered by his drunken father stirs Jake.  More on that later. 

Jake frequents Al's diner run by Al Templeton, who reveals to Jake that his closet acts as a time portal which will take him back to the same spot on October 21, 1960.  No earlier, and no later.  Jake tries it and finds he is deposited briefly back in 1960 before being shipped back to the present.  Al reveals some rules which go along with the portal.

*  The portal will only work in Lisbon, Maine and send you back to October 21, 1960.

*  No matter how long you're gone in the past, you'll alone be gone for two minutes in the present day.

*  Your actions create a butterfly effect.  I'm sure you know the theory.

Al used his time in the past to try and prevent Kennedy's assassination.  However, the trip came at a cost.  Al developed cancer in the past and is too sick to continue, so Jake agrees to go along.  Al prepares him for all possibilities, including providing him with cash, a small diary of sporting event outcomes which he can bet on for guaranteed success (a la Back to the Future II), and also information he found in his investigation of Lee Harvey Oswald (Webber) which only took him as far as 1962.  Jake asks why he didn't just kill Oswald.  What if Oswald wasn't acting alone?  Killing him would not solve the puzzle nor necessarily prevent the assassination.

Since Jake has three years to work on this, he is sidetracked by other adventures and people along the way.  Does he travel to his student's hometown in Kentucky to prevent his family's murder?  You bet.  By doing that, though, he gains an unlikely ally in Billy (MacKay), who stumbles across Jake's plan and agrees to assist.  The pair move to Dallas and begin their work.  Jake settles in as a high school teacher who falls for fellow teacher Sadie (Gadon), who is separated from a stalker husband (Knight) who doesn't intend to let go of her so easily.

Spread out over eight engrossing episodes, 11.22.63 plays like a Whack-A-Mole of thrillers.  One problem is solved, the next one pops up.  Franco is centered and focused.   Since he's trying to do what he thinks will be good for the future of the world, we hope he succeeds.  Another question which is answered is:  Will sparing Kennedy automatically bring about a better future?  Just because a horrific event is prevented doesn't mean the rest of history will improve.  

The series has a sense of time and place which never fails to be riveting.  As Jake struggles to keep his eye on his mission, one issue after another which could affect others' future pops up, especially with Sadie.  Why 11.22.63 succeeds so well is how it juggles its subplots and understands the paradoxes and even sets new rules for time travel.  

Runaway Train (1985) * * *

 

Directed by:  Andrei Konchalovsky

Starring:  Jon Voight, Eric Roberts, Rebecaa DeMornay, TK Carter, John P. Ryan, Kenneth McMillan, Kyle T. Heffner

Runaway Train is a prison break story married with a story of a runaway train speeding through the Alaska frontier on a route to nowhere.  The train has three unlikely passengers, prison escapees Manny (Voight) and Buck (Roberts), who think the train will take them to freedom, and Sara (DeMornay), the unfortunate railroad worker caught on the train and eventually in the middle.  Manny and Buck have essentially traded one prison for another, while Sara is herself imprisoned by the situation and by Manny and Buck.  

When Runaway Train opens, Manny is a prisoner at an Alaskan prison where he had just served three years in dark solitary confinement due to a previous escape attempt.  Warden Ranken (Ryan) hates him and releases him to general population in hopes that he'll try to escape again or start a fight, which will give the warden any excuse to kill him.  Buck is a champion prison boxer who hero worships Manny and wants to come along when Manny escapes from prison again. 

Manny and Buck trek through the freezing wilderness and nearly freeze to death before hopping on the train in which the engineer dies of a heart attack during the journey.  The dispatch team tries in vain to derail or slow the train down, but there is little hope of stopping it.  Meanwhile, Ranken wants nothing more than the opportunity to kill Manny himself, even if it means flying a helicopter over the speeding locomotive.  To Ranken, his hatred for Manny is so personal that it overshadows even common sense or self-preservation.

Runaway Train is at its heart an adventure story with the wounded Manny and Buck at the forefront.  Voight and Roberts received Oscar nominations for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively, playing generally unlikable, unsympathetic people but still allowing us enough room to hope they can grow or at least be better people.  Manny is more realistic about his chances on the outside than Buck, who dreams of a more fanciful life that likely won't come to an ex-convict, assuming he's not caught or killed.  We see the anger in them and each other, as if hopelessness is part of their daily routine.  

The movie concludes more or less as expected and it only reaches a certain level of power, but it works on the level of adventure which breaks up the bleakness. 

The Rip (2026) * * *

 

Directed by:  Joe Carnahan

Starring:  Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Steven Yeun, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Teyana Taylor, Kyle Chandler, Scott Adkins, Sasha Calle, Lina Esco

The Rip is a quickly paced suspense thriller with enough tricks and twists up its sleeve to cover two movies.  It relies on the star power and chemistry of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as Miami cops faced with a $20 million haul in drug money stashed in a Hialeah, Florida suburban home.  When Damon's Dane Dumars receives a tip of the stash, he assembles his team including Sgt. JD Byrne (Affleck) to search the home belonging to Desi (Calle) and finds much more cash than they bargained for.  Desi claims ignorance, but we know she may be lying.  

But let's backtrack.  The Rip begins with the murder of Miami police captain Jackie Velez (Esco), who is speaking to an unknown person on her phone promising to get the person out.  Velez' team is interrogated, including Dane and JD, who was in a relationship with Jackie.  Tensions are already running high when Dane receives the anonymous tip about the money, but soon as the crew is counting the stash and each undergoes temptations to steal some of the dough, more harrowing developments occur (none of which I'll recap here).  One of the joys of The Rip is watching its suspenseful reveals unfold.  

The Rip concludes as you would expect with chases and gunfire.  That's to be expected of the genre.  Damon and Affleck naturally have an unforced repartee, and they completely immerse themselves in their characters, making seemingly stock characters into something more.  The movie itself teems with energy and we care about the outcome.  Questions pop up.  Who can be trusted?  The cops here wouldn't be human if they weren't at least tempted to pocket some of the cash.  One of two packs could put their kids through college.  Then, we need to find out who murdered Jackie and why.  Was it a cartel or was it cops?  I don't know how much I buy the cartel telling Dane and JD that they want no parts of the $20 million nor their explanation as to why they don't.

With those minor quibbles aside, The Rip is more absorbing than you'd expect from a crime thriller.  It's not just a mindless starring vehicle for Damon and Affleck to reunite on screen, it works because it creates suspense and even a sense of dread especially when you notice the cul-de-sac where the house is located is eerily vacant.  But I won't bring up any more surprises.  

I Love You, Man (2009) * * *

Directed by:  John Hamburg

Starring:  Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Rashida Jones, JK Simmons, Lou Ferrigno,  Jane Curtin, Andy Samberg, Jon Favreau, Jamie Pressly

Pater (Rudd) is going to be married to Zooey (Jones) and all is well with their relationship.  However, the wedding is approaching and Peter doesn't have a best man on tap, mostly because he doesn't have any male friends.  He is a gay brother (Samberg), who I would think would be a serviceable choice, but I Love You Man tells the story of Peter's quest for a friend.  Zooey has numerous friends.  Peter is being set up on lunches with potential male friends which take on a gay vibe in some instances.

Then Peter meets Sydney Fife (Segel) during Peter's open house trying to sell Lou Ferrigno's Beverly Hills mansion.  Sydney doesn't want to buy the house, he just came for the free food and drink and openly tells Peter so.  Peter admires Sydney's honesty and the two hit it off, especially when Peter learns Sydney is as big a Rush fan as he is.  Zooey at first is happy that Peter found a friend, but then Peter starts spending a lot more time with Sydney than Zooey would like, causing expected conflicts and perhaps threatening the upcoming wedding.

Peter is a generally nice guy who just isn't cool.  He's just awkward albeit in an innocent way.  (Watch him playing poker, where he wins much to the chagrin of the more experienced players at the table).  He and Sydney are two peas in a pod, and the more we get to know Sydney, we sense he's a lonely man himself who doesn't make friends as easily as you would expect.  Rudd and Segel have comic chemistry and yes the movie delves into corny territory on occasion, but we find ourselves caring about Peter and Sydney and hope these lonely guys can stay friends.  

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026) * *

 

Directed by:  Nia DaCosta

Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Jack O'Connell, Alfie Williams, Erin Kellyman, Chi Louis-Parry

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple continues the stories of last summer's 28 Years Later with the focus on the two more interesting characters, the humane Dr. Ian Kelson (Fiennes) and the evil, twisted Jimmy Crystal (O'Connell) who cross paths although in a way which doesn't exactly compel the viewer.  The payoff isn't much to write home about, with occasional cameos by zombies who attack the living and wind up getting bludgeoned or if the zombie wins, detach the victim's head and spine from his body.

The zombies are more or less the video game portion of the movie.  However, Dr. Kelson's arc involves Samson (Louis-Parry) and his quest to use him as a guinea pig for his cure.  After injecting Samson, the two slowly gain trust in each other and Samson grows more human again.   Samson is still walking around naked with his Dirk-Diggler-esque manhood on full display.  The other story involves Crystal and his band of teenagers all of which are renamed Jimmy, one being Spike (Williams), the teen from the first film who was introduced to killing zombies by his father.  Spike, of course, witnesses truly horrific actions by Crystal and his group, and is soon traumatized and intimidated enough into joining Crystal's group.  

I admired the Fiennes and O'Connell performances and appreciated the irony that Jimmy Crystal saw Dr. Kelson as Satan, referring to him as "Old Nick" which the good doctor uses to his advantage at the movie's conclusion.  But The Bone Temple is now the fourth installment in this series and they aren't getting any more intriguing.  The movie and series are meant to be downers, which I can tolerate, but I've found them mostly boring.  Even the reintroduction of a major character from the first two films doesn't move the needle much.