Love Story (1970) * * * *

Directed by:  Arthur Hiller

Starring:  Ryan O'Neal, Ali MacGraw, John Marley, Ray Milland, Tommy Lee Jones

People may simply remember Love Story for "Love means never having to say you're sorry."    This line was even kidded in another Ryan O'Neal film, What's Up Doc? (1972).    Barbra Streisand says the line to O' Neal and O'Neal replies, "That's the dumbest thing I ever heard."  

Love Story, however, is not a dumb movie.   It is moving and perceptively sees Oliver (O'Neal) and Jenny (MacGraw) as interesting individuals with their own personalities.    They aren't two knuckleheads who fall in love because the story tells them to.    They are smart, witty, and not above using "god damn preppie" as a term of endearment.    We come to know them and their journey.  We  share in the sad, almost heart wrenching conclusion which everyone by now should know, unless that person has had no access to civilization in the last 45 years.

Love Story is a simple story told with passion and stirring performances.    O'Neal is Oliver Barrett IV, a Harvard student and son of a wealthy business tycoon whom he can't stand, mostly because of mutual misunderstandings about each other.     He meets Jenny, a working class Radcliffe student who works in the Harvard library.    They argue over a book, but then quickly date and become lovers.    Their different backgrounds creates a relationship that never becomes dull.     Star-crossed lovers become boring.   Oliver and Jenny are two distinct people courtesy of real, full performances by MacGraw and O'Neal.    I also enjoyed John Marley, Jenny's father who insists on being called Phil even by his daughter.    Ray Milland takes a character we think we have all figured out and creates complexity with it.    He loves his son and cares for him.    Their emotional distance weighs on him.    All you need to see is his eyes after each time they meet.      We see Oliver is right about him...and is also wrong.

Then, of course, comes the ending, which is so effective because we have come to care about Oliver and Jenny.    We wish they had more time together.     Life is like that too.   

Hot Pursuit (2015) *

Directed by:  Anne Fletcher

Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Sofia Vergara, Matthew Del Negro

There is nothing about Hot Pursuit that we haven't seen before in much, much better movies.    It contains no surprises and nothing to care about.    Witherspoon and Vergara are talented comedic actresses.   Witherspoon is an Oscar winner.    What about Hot Pursuit attracted them enough to be away from their loved ones for weeks and months to film it?    The mind boggles. 

A buddy comedy by definition is not original, but it can be freshened up.    I can't fault Witherspoon or Vergara.    They try mightily to breathe life into Hot Pursuit, but their dialogue consists mostly of screaming at each other in high, shrill voices.    Midnight Run (1988) covered the same ground as two guys on opposite sides of the law go on the lam from seemingly everyone.    But Midnight Run was filled with delightful dialogue and an undercurrent of morality.    Each guy thought he was ethical despite evidence to the contrary.    It is what drives them to do what they do.   Hot Pursuit has no such lofty goals.    It is only interested in throwing its heroines into one inane situation after another at a frenetic pace.    It doesn't slow down enough to develop its people or even take a breath.

Hot Pursuit stars Witherspoon as Cooper, a second-generation San Antonio police officer forced to toil away in the evidence locker after she overreacts and tases an innocent citizen.    I won't describe how or why she overreacts, but it is the only laugh in the movie.    It happens early on, so if you wish to bail on the movie after that I would not try and dissuade you.     Cooper doesn't seem to have a first name.    I looked it up in the imdb.com credits and found nothing.     Maybe she and the Cooper from Interstellar are related.  

She is ordered by her boss to accompany a federal marshal to pick up a federal witness and his wife Daniella (Vergara).    Cooper and Daniella take an instant dislike to each other, but are forced to go on the lam after the marshal and the husband are conveniently gunned down.    Daniella grieves in a Lucille Ball type of loud cry, but that is about it.    Hot Pursuit isn't concerned with such trivial matters as grief.    Hijinks ensue.    The pair of pretty ladies falls into one bad situation after another as they try to make their way to Dallas for the trial.    Not one of these situations is funny.

Hot Pursuit, like anything else, could have been funny if the writers took any pains to make it so.    It is a comedy that feels like it's on autopilot and for very good reason:  It is.    Witherspoon and Vergara will survive this, although Witherspoon has also made dreadful comedies like This Means War and Legally Blonde 2, so maybe she should get a second opinion when choosing which comedy scripts to star in.  

Die Hard With A Vengeance (1995) * * * 1/2

Directed by: John McTiernan

Starring:  Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Irons, Graham Greene

I could just as easily cut and paste my reviews for Die Hard and Die Hard 2 to this screen and voila, my review is done.     Die Hard With A Vengeance (or Die Hard 3) is the third installment in the series and like the previous two contains wall-to-wall action and slimy villains you can't wait for John McLane to eradicate from the face of the earth.   John McTiernan returns to direct after skipping Die Hard 2, but he once again gives us quite a ride.

John McLane is not alone in his quest to destroy a bomber named Simon (Irons), who is setting off bombs all over New York City and playing games of Simon Says with McLane over the phone.    Why Simon has it in for McLane is explained later, but this is just the warm up.  A Harlem shopkeeper named Zeus (Jackson) saves McLane from certain death during an incident there perpetrated by Simon.  Let's just say McLane is forced to wear a sandwich board with words written on it that no one would want to parade around Harlem with and leave it at that.    Zeus becomes McLane's unwilling partner as they race through the city diffusing bombs and solving Simon's riddles.    Of course, there is much more to Simon's plans, which slowly begin to come into focus after a huge bombing of a New York subway stop.    

Jackson and Willis have an easy, unforced chemistry, although the dialogue in which each accuses the other of being racist is largely unnecessary.    Irons is a sly villain who takes great joy in playing games with McLane, although at some point he could have saved himself a great number of headaches by simply shooting him.   His job is to be the target we can't wait for McLane to dispose of, which he does very well.   

The plot more or less unfolds as logically as possible in this type of movie.  The goal is to make us care about it.  Die Hard 3 (I'll call it that to save my fingers from more typing.  You get the idea anyway) makes us care about the stakes involved.    We don't want Simon to win and McLane sure doesn't either.    Late in the film, when it appears Simon has escaped with a nearly priceless bounty of gold bars, McLane is upset more because he feels he lost the game.    Then, of course, there is a nice comeback.  It was an instance in which Simon could have gotten away if he had just shot McLane, but maybe he'll remember that next time. Oh, but there won't be one, not for him, but certainly for McLane. 

Die Hard 3 is an action thriller that delivers.    That is all one can really ask for with a movie like this.   As long as Willis doesn't get bored and the writers create a decent plot, Die Hard movies could last forever.    Or at least until number 5. 

Die Hard 2 (1990) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Renny Harlin

Starring: Bruce Willis, William Sadler, John Amos, Bonnie Bedelia, William Atherton, Dennis Franz, Fred Dalton Thompson. Art Evans

Despite that I gave Die Hard (1988) three and half stars and this sequel the same star rating, I feel Die Hard 2 is the best of the series.   It is a relentless action thriller, starring Bruce Willis once again as the undaunted John McLane, who is bloodied and beaten, but refuses to surrender.   When he finally destroys the villains in a spectacular sequence, he screams and laughs in heroic glee.   John McLane 2, Terrorists 0.   Three more Die Hard films would add to McLane's win total and body count.

I don't think I gave away a spoiler that McLane was successful in his fight against an American terrorist group of former black ops specialists.   No Communists or foreigners, unless you count the dictator for which the group hijacks Dulles Airport in order to rescue him from justice.   These smug, smart, and dangerous baddies were homegrown here in the good old U.S. of A.   They're led by Col. Stuart (Sadler), a lean, mean fighting machine with zero qualms about altering sea level via a computer to crash a plane on purpose.   McLane's wife Holly (Bedelia) is once again in danger, as her plane is one of many that are, in effect, hostages when Stuart takes over the airport.   

Stuart, via a remote computer system, is able to shut down Dulles' air traffic control tower and render it virtually deaf and mute.   The tower can not communicate with the planes and vice versa.   His mission is to hijack the plane carrying a Latin American dictator being flown in to stand trial on drug charges (a la Manuel Noriega).   Is such a thing possible?   Maybe not, but who cares anyway?    It's a great setup furthered by even more thrilling action.    McLane, like in the previous Die Hard, is outnumbered and outgunned, but continues winning.    He becomes more than a thorn in the side of the terrorists, who didn't expect him to be on the scene.   

Willis is likable and credible.   He isn't blessed with a Schwarzenegger-like physique and when he is pricked, he does bleed.    What he lacks in physicality, he makes up for in intelligence and spirit.    We don't expect Arnold to lose against anyone in a fight.    We find ourselves pleasantly surprised to see John McLane rid the world of another baddie after a fistfight or a gun battle.

Sadler is not as smooth and cultured as Alan Rickman's Hans Gruber from the first film, but he is every bit as ruthless.    He is the type of guy we would be very surprised to see John McLane defeat mano y mano.    McLane doesn't, but he finds another way to beat him.   Somehow, the stakes seem higher and the tension a bit more ratcheted up in this sequel.     There are many moving parts in play, and director Renny Harlin makes sense of it all.    We know who is doing what and why.    

Die Hard 2 is twenty-five years old now, but is still fresh.    Action thrillers these days don't take the time to work on the suspense that should accompany all thrillers.    We see lots of bullets, blood, gore, and broken limbs, but why should we care about guys like John Wick or Ethan Hunt?    Sadly, John McLane himself entered this territory in the last Die Hard.    This is sad.    We root for John McLane because of his tenacity and grit, not because he is an indestructible robot.     Movies like Die Hard 2 remind us of that.

Unfinished Business (2015) * *

Directed by:  Ken Scott

Starring:  Vince Vaughn, Tom Wilkinson, Dave Franco, Sienna Miller, James Marsden

Unfinished Business isn't a terrible comedy, but one, like many recent comedies, that takes the low road unnecessarily.    We see detours into gay nightclubs, naked saunas, and car accidents which made we wince and ruin any marginal goodwill that was introduced.     What exactly is funny about glory holing?    Or taking clothes off in a sauna?    Or the wheelbarrow sex position, which is brought up several times and leads to a lame payoff?     Unfinished Business is about an underdog, floundering new company trying to close a deal which will save its very existence.     If it were more thoughtful and based on human comedy, we could've had a small gem here.  

I said to myself when the film was over that I've seen worse films, but that's hardly praise considering the dearth of decent comedies released recently.     Unfinished Business had potential to go somewhere and mean something, but it bogs itself down.     As the film opens, salesperson Dan Trunkman (Vaughn) is immersed in an argument with this boss Chuck (Miller) over his immediate 5% reduction in salary in order to save the company money.    What is Chuck short for?   Charlene?   Charlotte?    It is one of many unanswered questions.     Chuck is a cold, company-minded boss whose tactlessness was likely mistaken for good management skill.     Dan leaves the company in a loud and public way, promising to start his own company and asking others to leave with him...a la Jerry Maguire.    

He finds recruits in the newly fired Tim (Wilkinson) and a rejected job applicant named Mike Pancake (Franco), who Dan instructs never to reveal his last name in a business meeting.    Roger Ebert wrote that names in comedies are rarely funny unless used by W.C. Fields or Groucho Marx.    The use of Mike Pancake does little to refute Mr. Ebert's assertion.     The character of Mike Pancake is even more annoying.    He speaks barely loud enough to be at the level of audible speech.    His vocabulary would be scoffed at by a four year old.    The idea that this moron could be useful at all to Dan or Tim is likely the most unbelievable thing in the movie.  

One year later, the trio is working out of a Dunkin' Donuts and barely skating by.    They fly to Portland, Maine to close a deal which would bail the company out of closing, but soon they find themselves having to fly to Germany to close the deal with the CEO of the company.    I think there was an explanation of what the deal consists of and what product was being sold, but maybe I missed it.    Figures, margins, and percentages are thrown around, but I suppose the idea of the deal is more important than the deal itself.

Unfinished Business was a fairly interesting comedy until the trio of goofballs travels to Germany.    Since they don't even have enough money to work out of even a small office, how do they get the money for three last-minute round trip tickets to Germany?     In order not to drive myself crazy, I'll assume Dan has a credit card with a limitless line of credit and an optional, flexible pay schedule.    The film goes from a story about being an underdog to a corporate world to just being silly.    In Germany is where the naked sauna, the gay bar, glory holing, massive amounts of drinking, and even a rally in which people are shot at with paint balls occurs.    

Aside from Franco, whose performance will make you welcome the sound of fingernails across a chalkboard in comparison, Vaughn and Wilkinson try their mightiest to elevate Unfinished Business, but ultimately it's a comedy aimed straight for the routine.    Vaughn can play characters with plenty of verbal skills and depth to match.    Tom Wilkinson has been nominated for Oscars for In The Bedroom and Michael Clayton and is among the most well respected actors on the planet.    Sienna Miller looks great, but is given a one-note character.     Her job is to show up, be cruel, and leave the scene.    It is a pity that Unfinished Business cast good actors to perform in a mundane film. 

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015) * * *

Directed by:  Guy Ritchie

Starring:  Armie Hammer, Henry Cavill, Alicia Vikander, Hugh Grant, Jared Harris, Elizabeth Debicki

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is a throwback to a kinder, gentler spy thriller, if there is such a thing.    There is violence to be sure, but there is also style and beautiful art direction.    Its trio of heroes are brutish KGB agent Ilya Kuryakin (Hammer), suave and unflappable CIA agent Napoleon Solo (Cavill), and German chop shop mechanic Gaby Teller (Vikander), who may be able to help the agents track her nuclear scientist father held hostage by rich Italian terrorists.   

Based on the 1960's TV series and set in the early days of the Cold War, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. isn't full of choppy editing and guys like Ethan Hunt wearing masks to fool his enemies.     Its villains' goals are modest.    They want to manufacture a nuclear warhead to blackmail other nations and enrich themselves further monetarily.    How early in the Cold War?    John F. Kennedy was still making speeches on TV.   

The Cold War,in my estimation, was a humungous waste of resources and money sparked by fear and hubris.    Organizations like the KGB and CIA were more concerned with what their enemies might do as opposed to what they are actually doing.    They kept each in business for decades and in the end the Soviet Union fell anyway without a single shot being fired or a single bomb dropped.     Then, attention was turned to the Middle East and has stayed there ever since.    Like George Carlin said, "We couldn't wait for the Cold War to be over so we could go play with our toys in the sand."

The Man From U.N.C.L.E., like numerous Bonds and Mission: Impossible films, has its heroes chasing a computer disk.    An early disk, but a disk nonetheless.    What they are after doesn't matter anyway, but even then so much time and energy was poured into possessing a disk which would stop a nuclear war.    Weeks later, someone else will come up with another one and the chase begins again.     This doesn't occur to any intelligence organizations in this film.    Their focus was one-upmanship in an ever escalating international pissing contest.

Guy Ritchie directs The Man From U.N.C.L.E. with plenty of style and transports us back to early 1960's Europe in every way.     The destruction of World War II still casts a pall over rebuilt Europe and former Nazis were recruited to help either the Soviets, the Americans, or both.     We see flash and glitz just beyond the Berlin Wall.     The overall tone is one of amusement.     Solo and Kuryakin clash with their personal and professional styles.    Solo never seems to be worked up over anything, while Kuryakin would be the type of guy sentenced multiple times to anger management classes once his KGB career was over.    Gaby can only shake her head watching these guys, but she isn't just around as window dressing.    She has skills and a purpose that is revealed later.    

Hugh Grant also lends sly sarcasm as a British operative who plays a key part in the film's final 45 minutes.    He is not a villain, but he sure could be.    The Man From U.N.C.L.E. isn't thrilling or pulse pounding.     It maintains a nice rhythm and feels no need to pound us over the head with a chase a minute.    I only counted one fistfight in the whole movie, so thankfully we were spared arms being bent in ways they were not intended.     There are shootouts, but not bloodbaths.     The Man From U.N.C.L.E. feels like a spy film made in the early 1960's that was kept in a vault until 2015.   That's a compliment.   

Irrational Man (2015) * * *

Directed by:  Woody Allen

Starring:  Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Parker Posey, Jamie Blackley

Abe Lucas (Phoenix) does not rank highly in the annals of memorable Woody Allen characters.    He is an alcoholic, impotent philosophy professor who begins teaching at a small Rhode Island college.    He is content to be alone and miserable, until his soul is reawakened not only by an affair with a student (Stone), but with a desire to murder a corrupt judge with whom he has no connection.    He overhears a conversation in a diner in which a woman sobs because this connected judge will take her kids from her in custody hearing.    Abe decides then to tip the scales in her favor by killing the judge.

In Allen films like Crimes and Misdemeanors and Match Point, the amoral protagonists attempt to pull off "the perfect murder" only to find themselves in moral or situational quandaries after the deed is completed.     Abe has no moral qualms to be sure, but somehow it starts to unravel for him anyway.

Before Abe has his eureka moment in which he determines that murdering this judge will bring his soul back from the brink, Irrational Man was a plodding film trying to fight its way out of the quicksand.     Kind of like Abe himself.     His reputation of being brilliant and tragic quickly spreads around the campus before he even arrives.     Jill, the aforementioned student, develops a crush on him before meeting him and continues it once they do meet.     Abe, however, is a bore and maybe even a bore to himself.     He halfheartedly recites philosophy quotes as part of his everyday conversation in between gulps of scotch.    He has a bulging belly which made me wonder aloud when his baby is due.     A fellow teacher named Rita (Posey) also likes him and is willing to divorce her husband to be with him.     Why?    What is it about Abe that attracts these women?     Are they broken too?    Or did Jill have to like Abe because the script told her to?   One of the detractions of the film is the fact that Abe is a zero and no one else seems to notice that 

Yet, why do I recommend the movie?    Because the idea of seeing someone plot, execute, and then try to get away a perfect murder remains a tried, but true plot device.     We become co-conspirators in a way.    We can not look away, even though we know Abe is morally repugnant no matter what his justification.     However, he truly becomes happy for the first time in a long time.    Perhaps it is just a relief not to have him spewing out lines from philosophizers about morality.    We can not deny that we are interested to see if he can get away with it.  

Phoenix is saddled with quite a load with Abe Lucas.    To his credit, he is able to find some sort of character in Abe.     The camera loves Emma Stone.    She is the picture of intelligence but is naïvely and idealistically attracted to Abe.    She falls for his act hook, line, and sinker.    Her doe-eyed expressions make us want her to get away from Abe as quickly as possible.     We can even forgive her for dumping her perfectly loving, doting boyfriend, mostly because we like her so much and because she is a doll like, well, Emma Stone.

Is Irrational Man one of Allen's great works?    No.   But it turns into a worthwhile view of a similar Allen theme, which is how someone thinks he can get away with the perfect murder and worse yet justify it.  

Mission: Impossible- Rogue Nation (2015) * * 1/2

Directed by:  Christopher McQuarrie

Starring:  Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson, Alec Baldwin, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Sean Harris

Like the previous four Mission: Impossible movies, I doubt I could pass a test on the plot and the characters.    Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is the one constant in each film.    The plots are pretty much interchangeable.    Hunt and his crew must stop a terrorist/rogue agent/madman from getting his hands on a disk/list/hard drive which contains the names of agents/list of potential targets/plans for doomsday.    While carrying out his objective, Hunt and his crew will encounter car chases, a hailstorm of bullets (none of which ever hit them), leap from high places, and eventually have to break into a place that seemingly could not be broken into.     Whatever Hunt and his crew earn as a salary, it is not nearly enough.    Oh, and Hunt must also dodge the bureaucrat from his own government who wants to shut him down.     In this movie, it's Alec Baldwin, who for reasons I can't fathom wants to shut down the IMF (the intelligence organization Hunt works for) and annex it into the CIA.    Who exactly is Hunt's boss anyway?

Mission: Impossible movies have become like James Bond movies.    They are technically superior and introduce neat gadgets with each passing film, but I don't really need to see any more of them.    How many variations on a car chase can be dreamed up?     I'll be honest.     Car chases and gunfights don't really do it for me anymore.     No matter how new and sleek the cars are, they still wind up in a chase and many of them get blown up.     In Rogue Nation, the chase is on motorcycles, but the same rules apply.     What good are the newest, coolest guns if you can't hit what you're shooting at?    These organizations spend endless dollars on the latest weapons.   Why go through all of the trouble?    They don't make the person firing them any better of a shot.

In Rogue Nation, Hunt and his crew are after The Syndicate, a terrorist organization that crashes planes and assassinates heads of state to bring about change.    The Syndicate is run by a raspy-voiced, bespectacled former British agent named Solomon Lane (Harris).    The Syndicate, like the organizations that came before, all make the mistake of not simply killing Hunt when they have him tied up and in a compromising position.    Don't they know that he will escape?    Hasn't word gotten around about Hunt's uncanny ability to stay alive?    

Rebecca Ferguson is on hand as a double agent who may or may not be working with or against The Syndicate.     One thing I do know is she is stunning and can hold her own in a fight.    She is a beauty with hypnotic eyes; more than a match for Hunt.    The Mission: Impossible movies introduce female characters for Hunt only not to develop them much.    There is smoldering sexual tension that is not acted upon for reasons only the screenwriters know.     Ferguson stands on her own as the most interesting person in the movie and boy can she fill out a bikini.

Mission: Impossible- Rogue Nation delivers a certain satisfactory level of fun and thrills, but it never rises beyond that level.    Cruise is certainly a convincing action hero, but I've seen him in Magnolia, Born on the Fourth Of July, Jerry Maguire, and Rock of Ages.    He can stretch himself when he wants to beyond the secret agent/alien fighter he has primarily become in recent years.    Watching him play Ethan Hunt and performing a lot of his own stunts is like watching a classical pianist play Chopsticks.    We know he can do it blindfolded, but shouldn't he be doing more?    The box office grosses may dictate otherwise.