R.I.P.D. (2013) *

Directed by:  Robert Schwentke

Starring:  Jeff Bridges, Ryan Reynolds, Kevin Bacon, Mary Louise Parker

R.I.P.D. flies at the screen, but it is still as dead as the people who are members of the R.I.P.D. (Rest In Peace Department).     What is the R.I.P.D.?    They are selected souls who don't have quite enough points to get into heaven, so are required to serve their purgatory as members of this police force that monitors evil souls who have managed to stay on Earth and elude their day of reckoning.    How they did this may have been explained, but I don't recall it.    

R.I.P.D. wants to be like Men In Black in every fiber of its being, but it is not.    There are grotesque monsters and CGI gone haywire, but the difference is in the attitude.    Men In Black kidded itself and had fun with how preposterous it was.     R.I.P.D. is an example of a film where so much is going on that it becomes as boring as a film where nothing is going on.     What can be said for the actors other than that they survived it and will move on to better things?   

The plot involves gold artifacts which will be used by the dastardly evil souls to destroy the Earth, or at least take it over.    Kevin Bacon plays a Boston cop who kills his partner Nick (Reynolds) in order to cover up his plan.    Unbeknownst to Bacon, Nick will be sent back to Earth as a member of the R.I.P.D. to thwart him.    Nick is partnered with Roy (Bridges), a grizzled veteran who in a previous life was an Old West sheriff.    Bridges' mannerisms and gruff speaking voice are not a million miles removed from his Rooster Cogburn in 2010's True Grit.   

The joke (?) is when Nick and Roy are returned to Earth, people will see them as an elderly Chinese man and a hot blonde model type.    Both can not speak directly to the living without their speech coming out garbled, except when the plot absolutely requires them to be understood.     There are no laughs generated from this development.     The filmmakers should've followed Warren Beatty's Heaven Can Wait's lead and simply present Bridges and Reynolds as themselves.    It is better to leave it to us to understand that the living are not actually seeing them.    Since there are no laughs anyway, what difference does it make?

R.I.P.D. is full of chases, CGI violence, and cartoonish characters, with some icky humor thrown in, such as Bridges explaining what happened to his skull after he was killed, as if we really needed to know that.    The actors try to avoid looking adrift, but they are simply just swept up into the morass of nonsense.     Even the tender moments, such as Nick communicating with his wife, are handled clumsily.    R.I.P.D. is full of ugly visuals loudly and relentlessly hurled at you.    How Nick is killed is also presented in a manner which makes you wince.    If there was ever a film that needed to dial down, this is it.  

Jersey Boys (2014) * * *

Directed by:  Clint Eastwood

Starring:  John Lloyd Young, Vincent Piazza, Erich Bergen, Christopher Walken, Michael Lomenda


Jersey Boys is an enjoyable film with strong performances and singing which recreates The Four Seasons convincingly.     It is not without its standard biopic cliches, but I didn't allow those to ruin my viewing experience.     However, I really could've done without the following:

*  The obligatory family dilemma for Frankie Valli in which his wife drinks and smokes all the while complaining about his never being home.    Since so little time is spent on Valli's home life anyway, I would've preferred they omitted the whole plotline. 

*  Sudden inspirations which come as quickly as a bolt of lightning.    A neon sign is fixed and gives the group its name "The Four Seasons", while someone offhandedly says, "Big girls don't cry" while watching Kirk Douglas slap a woman around on TV and, voila, you have the song.     I don't know if the inspirations actually came that quickly, but I've seen this done in many other biopics.   

With that out of the way, there are a lot of positives in Jersey Boys.    I admired the performances and the uncanny singing abilities of the leads, but a special mention for Christopher Walken is deserved as well.    He plays Gyp DiCarlo, a Newark mobster who looked out for Frankie (Young) and his friend Tommy DeVito (Piazza) as teens and supported them in their stardom.    In recent years, Walken has become a caricature of himself and seemed content to play "Christopher Walken", but his DiCarlo is a gentler don who prefers diplomacy over whacking.    He cares for the guys in the group, despite Tommy's penchant for running up a huge gambling debt which causes the group's breakup in the late 1960's.   Walken creates a three-dimensional character which could've easily been a cliche or just Walken phoning it in.   

However, this is not to say DiCarlo is a man to be trifled with.   He tells two local yutzes trying to scam Frankie out of money, "If you see Frankie, you cross to the other side of the street, but if he falls, you had better be there to catch him."   Walken dispenses advice and justice with an even-handedness not seen since Don Corleone.    He, like Corleone, is a man who does not need to remind anyone of the power he wields.

The members of the group break the fourth wall and address the audience as the story moves along.   The most colorful and talkative is Tommy, who knows the angles, but isn't necessarily as smart as he pretends.    He assumes control of the group's management, which turns out to be disastrous.    The smartest of the bunch is Bob Gaudio (Bergen), the group's songwriter who cuts a side deal with Frankie knowing that both have potential to have long solo careers.    Valli had nine top 40 solo hits, so Bob wasn't wrong.     The bass player Nick Massi (Lomenda) lets things slide in order not to rock the boat.    The "things" include Tommy using up all of the hotel bathroom towels and getting thrown in jail because Tommy neglected to pay a hotel bill.    He reaches a point where he can stands no more, which is handled in a serio-comic fashion, but results in him quitting the group.

Clint Eastwood may not seem the ideal director for this material, but he has directed musical biopics such as Bird and is a lover of jazz.    The movie has a good sense of time and place.   The musical numbers are staged well and appropriately in the context of concerts and performances.    It would be awkward to have Frankie Valli break into "Working My Back To You" while he talks to his wife, so Jersey Boys wisely avoids such theatrics.   

Something I didn't know was Joe Pesci's involvement in the group as they worked the clubs.    Pesci, who was in his late teens at the time, suggested his friend Bob Gaudio as a fourth member and songwriter.    The actor who plays Pesci is a lot older than Pesci would have been at the time, but it is interesting to know.    Also, Pesci's character in Goodfellas was named Tommy DeVito.   Was this a nod to his old friend who wound up working for him?    I will have to visit Wikipedia to find out. 

Non-Stop (2014) * * *

Directed by:  Jaume Collet-Serra

Starring:  Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, Scoot McNairy, Michelle Dockery

I feared that Non-Stop would be Taken aboard an airplane instead of the streets of Paris.     Thank goodness I was wrong.     I enjoyed Taken, with all of its implausibilities, because it tapped into every parent's fear that his child may one day be kidnapped.     Fortunately for Bryan Mills, he had a lifetime of CIA experience to rescue his daughter.     In Non-Stop, Neeson's air marshal Bill Marks begins receiving texts that one passenger will be killed every 20 minutes unless $150 million is wired to a bank account (which, in a twist, is opened in Marks' name).     With 150 passengers aboard and plenty of unforeseen obstacles, the task of finding the terrorist is difficult.  

Marks is no boy scout.   He is an alcoholic with a questionable past, but he is smart and observant.    Yet, somehow events are skewed to make it look like he indeed may be the hijacker.    With his past as a hindrance, his credibility with the passengers is at risk also.    In one funny scene, Marks is able to quell an increasingly hostile crowd with three words "Free air travel."    I wonder if the airline ever followed up on that promise.  

Non-Stop could have very easily stepped wrong, and maybe it did, but it focuses its efforts on suspense rather than violence.    There is a scene where Neeson disarms a suspect in the tiny airplane lavatory, which is inventive, but other than that Neeson is as perplexed as the rest of us.     Even after everything is resolved, we still may be a little perplexed anyway.    But Non-Stop is well crafted enough so we don't consider its implausibilites.    An airplane is one place you don't want to encounter trouble because in most cases there is nowhere to go but down in a heap of flames.    Non-Stop touches on those fears for its effect.  

A good deal of the suspense depends on trying to figure out the identity of the terrorist.   We think we have it nailed down, only to be fooled repeatedly.     I even tried to use Roger Ebert's Law of Economy of Characters, which stated any character who seems superfluous must be the villain, killer, etc.     This applies to Julianne Moore's character, especially, who seems to be a kind business traveler who ingratiates herself to Marks.     Is she trying to set him up?   Or is she just attracted to the big lug and want a roll in the hay?    Even Ebert's law doesn't apply here, but when the terrorist is revealed, it makes sense and isn't thrown in from left field.    Non-Stop is by its nature silly and preposterous, but I enjoyed it.   

Sex Tape (2014) *

Directed by:  Jake Kasdan

Starring:  Jason Segel, Cameron Diaz, Rob Corrdry, Jack Black

You won't find too many comedies as bereft of laughs as Sex Tape, in which a long-married couple makes a sex video to spice up their marriage, only to accidentally distribute it publicly.     The second half of the film involves the couple's desperate attempts to retrieve the video.    The film tries doggedly to create any sort of laugh, but there are none to be found.   

I'm almost tempted to ask what Jason Segel and Cameron Diaz saw in the script, but Segel co-wrote it so he was blinded by what he thought was his own comic genius.     If Cameron Diaz doesn't read scripts before accepting roles like this one, then she should.     If she does read the scripts, she should have someone else read them and decide on her behalf whether to accept the role.

Sex Tape is one of those movies in which our married couple lives in a gorgeous suburban Los Angeles home on Segel's income as a guy who works at a radio station.     The movie doesn't even bother to explain what he actually does.     Diaz writes a blog which captures the attention of a major company that offers her obscene amounts of money to write the blog for them.     Her work sounds like the poor man's Carrie Bradshaw as she writes about how the spark has gone out in her marriage.     I would love to know how to become an instant millionaire blogger too while we're at it.

We don't actually see the video until near the end.    What happens on it is neither funny nor sexy, yet another disappointment considering the buildup surrounding it.    My guess is viewers of the video would quickly grow bored and move on to something else.     The unfortunate souls who see Sex Tape in a theater won't have the same opportunity.   

Cameron Diaz is rarely nude in films and here we see a shot of what is supposed to be her shapely bottom, but the editing is so clumsy that we know it is a body double we're seeing.     Sex Tape can't even get that right. 

Escape Plan (2013) * *

Directed by:  Mikael Hafstrom

Starring:  Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Amy Ryan, Jim Caviezel, Vincent Donofrio, Sam Neill

Escape Plan is the type of movie that works if you completely accept its absurdities at face value.     Some are able to and bless them.     I, however, am not always able to do so.      It is both a blessing and a curse.     I tend to start asking questions and looking for logic when none is warranted.      Does that hamper my enjoyment of this film, which otherwise is a well-made action film with Stallone and Schwarzenegger elevating the material?     Yes, I'm afraid so.

The film opens with convict Ray Breslin (Stallone) escaping from a Colorado prison even after being placed in solitary confinement.      It turns out Stallone is not a prisoner at all, but a security company agent who works undercover for the Federal Bureau of Prisons.  He escapes from prisons to point out their security flaws.      Why someone would want to expose themselves to the horrors of prison for this line of work is puzzling.    Stallone does provide an explanation later, but it doesn't necessarily illuminate us.     Besides, is he even held accountable for the prisoners he assaulted to land himself in solitary?  

Anyway, we accept the premise as best we can and move on.     Ray and his partner (D'Onofrio) are offered a high paying job from the CIA.     Ray will be placed in a prototype prison designed to hold prisoners who are unwanted by their governments.      The prison is run by a private corporation under no country's jurisdiction.     It is designed to be inescapable by Warden Boggs (Caviezel) who used Ray's book on securing prisons as a reference guide.     Boggs, as played by Caviezel, is a cold, evil prick not unlike Donald Sutherland's Drumgoole in the Stallone vehicle Lock Up (1990), which I liked better than this film.     If I were Boggs, though, I would inquire as to who I pissed off to be assigned the warden of this hellhole prison in the middle of nowhere.     Based on his personality, probably many people.

Ray is soon befriended by another prisoner named Rottmayer (Schwarzenegger), who helps Ray in his quest to escape.     Also assisting Ray is a kindly doctor (Neill), although I may need to refer to Wikipedia's plot summary for Escape Plan to determine how Ray was able to nudge him over to his side.     Something about the Hippocratic Oath and page 88 of his book, but I'm not quite sure.     It seems Boggs is also tasked by his superiors to locate the whereabouts of a guy named Manheim, whose very existence threatens the corporation's profits.    The whole Manheim thing is immaterial anyhow. 

Aside from a couple of spells in a state-of-the-art hot boxes, Ray and company freely roam around plotting their escape.    Boggs watches them through security cameras that are very easy to disable.    I suppose Boggs skipped that chapter in Ray's book.     I won't proceed further to prevent plot spoilers, although once they are sprung, I couldn't help but ask about their logistics.    Stallone and Schwarzenegger rise above the dreck with humor and a wink.     They have to know they are involved in a silly premise, but they manage to involve us more than we should expect.     If they weren't in the film, it might be close to intolerable.      Plus, if you reflect on the actions of the person who set all of this in motion, you would be tempted to ask why that person made this harder on himself/herself than necessary.     Sorry, but I am just the type of person who asks those questions.