Author Archives: abcsofaction
S is for… Sudden Death
I was so excited to watch Sudden Death for this website. I remember watching the movie several times with my mom when I was a teenager and loving it. I do enjoy Van Damme, and at the time we’d been watching a lot of hockey, and it’s overall a fun movie. Sure, it’s “Die Hard in a Hockey Arena,” but what’s not to love about that?
In Sudden Death, directed by Peter Hyams, Jean-Claude Van Damme stars as Darren McCord, a fire marshal working during Game Seven of the Stanley Cup playoffs between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Chicago Blackhawks. He brings his kids with him, Tyler and Emily (played by Ross Malinger and Whittni Wright), to celebrate Tyler’s birthday. Also at the game is the Vice President (played by Raymod J. Barry). As the countdown to face-off progresses, an obvious terrorist plot reveals itself as there are bad guys killing people and taking a woman hostage in her own home. Ultimately the terrorist is revealed to be played by Powers Boothe, though I honestly can’t recall his character’s name being given during the movie, or if it was it was over the phone and easy to miss. For what it’s worth, is name is Joshua Foss.
Foss is taking the Vice President and the other people in the owner’s box hostage in order to get money transferred into other bank accounts for him to acquire; specifically one third of the money must be moved by the end of each period of the game. McCord stumbles across the terrorist plot when Emily is kidnapped and brought up to the box. He learns enough of the scheme from a henchman he kills to go around the arena and start disarming the bombs placed around it by Foss. He’s able to reach outside help in the form of Secret Service agent Hallmark (Dorian Harewood), only to have it be revealed that Hallmark has been working with Foss the entire time.
Foss knows of McCord’s presence due to Emily saying something about her dad being “the boss” and a fireman, but doesn’t take the threat of a lone man very seriously. McCord is chased through the arena, and some hijinks ensue as he inadvertently plays goalie for the Penguins, but then the movie gets back on track as he devises a plan to get to the owner’s box from above, rather than below.
McCord is able to open the dome and swing on a camera down to the box and blow a hole in the roof with a homemade bomb. In the chaos he is able to rescue Emily but loses Foss, though Emily is later able to recognize Foss because of a stamp she had placed on his hand. Foss kidnaps her and drags her up to the roof of the arena, but McCord follows. There’s a fistfight and ultimately Foss dies in a helicopter crash. McCord is put into an ambulance with his kids, and all is well again.
…except the game is never finished because of everyone fleeing because of the commotion and explosions. Who wins?!
Not all the criteria were hit, but that is A-Okay because what was hit got hit quite a bit.
A is for… Accents
Jean-Claude of course has his Belgian accent. No one else in the film has a noticeable accent. Foss actually speaks as if he’s trying to hide an accent; he’s very precise and enunciates clearly.
B is for… Bad Guys
Joshua Foss is pretty much pure evil. We don’t know a whole lot about him except he used to work in the Secret Service (or still does, according to him) in the counterfeit division. He’s quite fancy looking in his tux and clearly has pure loyalty from his henchmen. He has no doubts as to whether his demands will be met and also absolutely no compunction about killing any and all people who get in his way. Anyone who has zero problems killing a little girl in cold blood is surely heinous. Clearly he is also intelligent, as his scheme is very detailed and well-planned. He’s also very sarcastic and sardonic, and most of the one liners in the film come from him.
As far as the henchmen go, they quite literally kill everyone who gets even a little bit in their way. It’s kind of ridiculous, actually, considering how loud their guns are when they don’t use silencers. Everyone is shot; there are no broken necks or blunt trauma. While effective, these are not stealthy people.
As one henchmen tells McCord, they truly are everywhere inside and outside the arena, so McCord doesn’t know who to trust.
It’s pretty apparent who they villain is before things even get rolling, considering his silence, the dramatic music, and the smarmy smile.
C is for… Chases
Because most of the film takes place in the hockey arena (specifically the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh), there aren’t any traditional chases. Most of it is henchman chasing McCord on foot. The only notable chasing is when McCord is running down the backs of the chairs from the mezzanine area down to the level of the ice.
D is for… Damsels
The only female characters with any real roles are Emily, who is of course McCord’s reason for fighting the battle, and Carla (Faith Minton), the doomed kickboxing female henchman.
E is for… Explosions
For some reason, either to show the power of the bombs or let the viewer know how the bombs were smuggled into the arena, a Pittsburgh Penguin plushy is blown up.
Foss blows up cars in the parking lot as a warning for the Secret Service to not try to come inside the arena.
Similarly, even though he said no helicopters, the Secret Service sends helicopters, and Foss has one of his henchmen blow one of them up with a rocket launcher.
When McCord uses the outside billboard to try to send a message to Hallmark, the same henchman uses the rocket launcher on the billboard.
When the henchman falls and lands on the scoreboard towards the end of the film, the scoreboard explodes.
McCord uses a homemade bomb to blow a hole into the roof of the owner’s box.
As the helicopter trapping Foss crashes into the ice, it explodes.
F is for… Flashbacks
There are no flashbacks, just a short opening scene that takes place two years before the film and establishes McCord’s character.
G is for… Guns
Check out the list here at the IMFDB.
Basically all the henchmen have machine guns, and use them without any concern for who might see or hear. It’s not until partway through the film that they even have silencers on them.
There’s a shootout between McCord and a goon in the locker room/weight room.
McCord doesn’t have his own gun, so he can only use those he’s acquired off of goons. However, he seems to prefer using his hands and feet as weapons.
H is for… Helicopters
The Secret Service sends two helicopters to the arena, and one of them gets blown up.
At the end of the film Foss’s men have a helicopter and prepare to leave with him by picking him off the roof using a rope ladder. He’s even able to get inside, but ultimately McCord is able to destroy the helicopter and Foss inside with the use of some well-placed bullets and gravity. It’s certainly a chilling use of a helicopter in a final sequence.
I is for… Improvisation
It seems like McCord improvises his weapons the entire movie because he doesn’t have a gun or doesn’t feel comfortable using them.
In the kitchen fights he uses various things as weapons including hot French fry grease, a fan, hot peppers, a dishwasher, and a broken chicken bone to the throat.
He’s also clever enough to send a message outside to Hallmark using the billboard marquee on the outside of the stadium.
He uses an air compressor/fire extinguisher to project darts.
Tyler’s water pistol is filled with lighter fluid and used as a flamethrower.
When it runs out of bullets, he uses his gun as a club.
McCord makes a bomb in a mason jar from household supplies.
McCord is pretty much making it up as he goes along throughout the entire movie because he is out of his element (fire marshals don’t usually take on terrorists).
J is for Jumping Through Solid Objects
There’s some falling, but really the only time someone goes through something is when McCord smashes a henchman’s head through a window.
K is for… Kill Count
McCord’s kill count is pretty high considering there’s no reason he should be used to taking such measures.
He kills Carla, the Icee impersonator, and shows absolutely no remorse. Granted, she did kidnap his daughter.
He kills the henchman disguised as a security guard with a chicken bone to the throat.
He shoots a dart into the throat of another henchman.
He sets Hallmark on fire.
He throws a guy off the domed roof of the arena.
He drops a guy down onto the ice from the roof.
He snags a machine gun and kills Foss’s henchmen, and finally Foss himself.
L is for… Limitations
As Hallmark points out, McCord is all alone, with no chance of outside help, especially once Hallmark is revealed to be crooked.
McCord also has the added stress of one of the hostages being his daughter, and knowing his son is still in the arena.
As far as the viewer knows, McCord doesn’t have any sort of training in taking down hostiles or negotiating for hostages.
M is for… Motivation
It’s no surprise at all that Foss wants money—and lots of it. He also seems to want to prove how terrible all of the Secret Service agents are at their jobs.
McCord’s goal is to save Emily, though by the end he knows he has to kill Foss, too.
N is for… Negotiation
Foss orders the Vice President to have one third of his money moved by the end of each period in the game or he’ll kill one hostage at the end of the first, two at the end of the second, and everyone in the arena at the end of the third. There will be no attempts to storm the box, no helicopters, no threats of any kind, or he’ll do a lot of damage, as he proved by blowing up the cars in the parking lot and the helicopter.
McCord, once he’s able to communicate with Booth by taking Hallmark’s phone, tells Foss he’ll be going after the bombs, and if Foss touches Emily, he’ll go after him.
O is for… One Liners
Emily: I want to go with Icee.
McCord: So does Tyler.
The head chef’s wife, as the terrorist holding her expects her to make a move while getting out Fig Newtons: I keep my machine gun in with the produce.
Vice President: Are you Democrats or Republicans?
Player: Neither, sir. We’re Canadians.
Hostage: Please, he needs a doctor.
Foss, after shooting the guy again: Not anymore.
*hostage makes a move to attack him*
Foss: Go ahead. Heroes get the best funerals.
Vice President: What kind of lunatic are you?
Foss: The best kind. But you can keep calling me names if it makes you feel better.
Foss: I’m not sure if I like you. When I find out, I’ll let you know.
Foss: I think you can all agree that the mayor’s wife has been most annoying.
Carla: Mr. Icee’s a woman, jerk-off.
Hallmark: How did you kill that guy?
McCord: Magic.
McCord, while playing goalie: Stay down there… Stay down there…
P is for… Profession
McCord was a firefighter until having a young girl die in his arms traumatized him to the point that he couldn’t work anymore. He’s been out of work likely since then, because Tyler is excited that his dad is back to work. Tyler’s stepdad explains that McCord is working temporarily as the fire inspector at the arena.
All of this is well and good, because obviously McCord is in shape and has a reason for knowing his way around the arena, but it doesn’t explain how he’s such a good fighter, or has no problem killing people. Most firefighters/former hockey players don’t know how to kick box, and they’d likely have a hard time killing someone, no matter if they attacked first or kidnapped a loved one. Most action films have a main character who is in law enforcement or worked “special ops,” and having a throwaway line about McCord serving in the military between hockey and being a firefighter would have made his actions and abilities easier to accept.
Q is for… Quagmire
There isn’t really a point where it seemed like McCord wouldn’t get out alive. He was never taken hostage or severely injured.
R is for… Reality, or Suspension of Disbelief
The film starts off fine, a typical lone-wolf-fighting-terrorists-unexpectedly sort of film, but then when McCord is kicking the crap out of people and killing them, without having had a history doing that, it gets kind of hard to believe.
However, his abilities can be hand-waved as “just go with it” until McCord dons Tolliver’s uniform and actually plays in the game. The locker room would have been better guarded, or the trainer would have been in there, or McCord wouldn’t have been so stupid as to actually go back to the bench. The scene as he’s playing is cute, and fun for hockey fans, but it’s just really weird and slows down the pace of the film.
For a fire marshal, McCord sure knows a lot about non-fire-related things, such as how to open the dome, use the billboard, or manipulate the skycam. Maybe these were all perks of learning the fire safety stuff, but it seemed weird that he would know everything that’s so specific to an arena.
S is for… Sidekicks
Secret Service Agent Hallmark is established as McCord’s outside sidekick until he reveals himself to be working for Foss.
T is for… Technology
This film is dated by phone cords and the row of payphones.
The terrorists monitor the transfer of funds using computers in suitcases. These are also used to access McCord’s file once Emily gives Foss her dad’s name.
U is for… Unexpected Romance
Sudden Death is one of those great action movies with no ridiculous tacked-on love story. There is no romance whatsoever.
V is for… Vehicles as Weapons
Because the film mostly takes place inside, there aren’t many vehicles. The bad guys do rear-end the security team they kill. And they also use a Zamboni to deliver the bodies of their victims to the police outside.
W is for… Winning
The climax is kind of drawn out because it starts as McCord is scaling the outside of the dome. He has to fight a henchman, swing down towards the owner’s box, blast his way in, and then face the bad guys in a shower of bullets. But Foss escapes and dons a disguise. However, Emily is able to recognize him because of the stamp she had put on his hand earlier. Foss for some reason snatches Emily away and runs with her back towards the roof, and why he doesn’t just let himself blend into the crowd—McCord isn’t paying an ounce of attention to Emily at the moment—is a mystery. McCord chases them to the roof where a fistfight breaks out. Foss does have a gun and levels it at Emily, and McCord dives in front of it. With that distraction Foss is able to climb onto the waiting helicopter by using the waiting rope ladder.
McCord is able to recover enough to pick up the gun Foss had dropped and also climb aboard the rope ladder, even though he appears to be injured. McCord fires a bunch of shots into the underside of the helicopter, killing Foss’s henchman and the helicopter pilot. As he dies the pilot squeezes the throttle, forcing the helicopter to rotate until its tail is pointed at the ground. McCord watches as Foss slowly falls to his death. The helicopter falls and crushes in on itself as it connects with the ice. Where it proceeds to explode.
The last scene is a narration of Emily saying, for the fifth or so time, “My father is a fireman” as McCord gets loaded into an ambulance.
X is for… X-rays, or Maybe You Should See a Doctor
McCord pretty much gets the crap kicked out of him throughout the film, but no worse than any other action movie hero. The only time it seems bizarre is when he gets shot in the shoulder while protecting Emily and then he uses the same shoulder to cling to the rope ladder from the helicopter.
Y is for… Yesterday’s Problem Becomes Today’s Problem
McCord and Foss don’t know each other, so there isn’t a history there.
Z is for… Zone, In The
I love the little montage of McCord searching for weapons and making his map of the arena and where he would place bombs. He’s using what skills and knowledge he has to face an opponent he’s never seen and who has nothing to do with him except the villain has his daughter.
In Summation
While not as good as I remember the movie from the last time I saw it many moons/revolutions around the sun ago, Sudden Death is still a fun movie. I really think it helps to like hockey, otherwise it might be kind of tedious with all the hockey stuff. The action is good, McCord is likeable, the villain is extremely creepy and particularly evil, the real players like Robitaille add some great realism, and the twist with Hallmark is unexpected. The main problems were some pacing issues and some questions that arise throughout.
Particularly, there’s no evidence in the locker room scene that Tolliver is sick, yet it becomes an important part of the film. They could have had him act sick or have someone make a comment.
I didn’t notice until the second watch-through, but the on-screen title where it says that it’s 20 minutes until face-off comes on when it’s dark outside. Unless it’s a particularly late start-time, it would still be at least a little light out.
Can you even see the game from the owner’s box? They’re watching it on TV because you’d have to be right against the glass to see the actual game below them.
Emily is downright annoying. There’s something about the way she delivers her lines—or maybe it’s the lines themselves—that is grating. Tyler isn’t so bad, but he isn’t in it as much.
Carla kills the concession worker in the bathroom, and no one notices. Wouldn’t a murder during the game prompt a shut-down of the game and a massive investigation? Or, because no authorities are allowed inside, won’t more people notice they can’t call out? Or is the body found, and no one can call out? Or there’s nothing that can be done because no authorities can go inside? There is absolutely no reason for Carla to kill that woman and risk everything.
Why isn’t Emily killed? Obviously Foss and his people don’t care that she’s just a girl. Is it really only because Carla doesn’t have bullets, and the Vice President makes a threat to Foss? Just seems weird, and even though she’s a kid she’s a loose end Foss likely wouldn’t tolerate. Maybe the terrorists really aren’t comfortable laying their hands on people to kill them, which is why they use so many guns the whole movie.
Regardless, the movie is still good for rewatching. It’s a lot of fun and has a good hero and, more importantly, a good villain, one of those you love to hate.
R is for… Rambo: First Blood
I have finally seen Rambo: First Blood (okay, okay, First Blood, but calling it “Rambo” means it can be my “R” movie; I could have just done the fourth Rambo film from 2008 but it would have been viewed out of context). It was… not what I had expected. Granted, I went in with absolutely no preconceived notions outside of “action movie.” The only sort of Rambo anything I’ve seen before is the short clip in Gremlins 2: The New Batch (“To survive a war, you gotta become war”) that inspires Gizmo to fight, but that’s obviously from a different film. I absolutely hadn’t expected First Blood to be so serious, and Rambo so damaged.
First Blood, directed by Ted Kotcheff, starring Sylvester Stallone as the titular character, and based on the novel First Blood by David Morrell, begins with John Rambo attempting to visit an old friend from his military unit. Upon learning of his friend’s death, he becomes upset and continues his wandering. He wanders his way into the small town of Hope, Washington and manages to anger the local sheriff, Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy). Teasle drops him off outside of town, not wanting a dirty drifter vet in his town, but Rambo heads back. Teasle arrests him on charges of vagrancy and resisting arrest. The other cops treat Rambo horribly and he gets flashbacks to Vietnam, causing him to not quite realize where he is and fight back. He manages to escape and Teasle chases him into the woods.
The middle part/second act of the film is basically a manhunt through the woods as Rambo escapes and sets traps for the cops that are chasing him. Officer Galt (Jack Starrett) dies in an accident, which enrages Teasle even further and changes his motivation from personal affront to revenge for his fallen comrade. Rambo is simply fighting, and his former commander, Samuel Trautman (Richard Crenna), tries to explain to Teasle just who Rambo is and what he can do, and that he should be left alone.
The film’s third act has Rambo making a focused assault on the town and Teasle, as he rolls back into town in a stolen truck. He blows up a gas station and fires his stolen rifle into storefronts, and ultimately shoots Teasle. Finally Trautman catches up with him and keeps him from killing Teasle. Rambo breaks down at that point, explaining that he had a place in the military and Vietnam, but now he’s supposed to be a regular civilian and he can’t be one of those. He faces protests and people judging him and doesn’t understand how anyone can be judgmental if he or she wasn’t there, didn’t face what he did. He’s tried living in the regular world and he simply can’t.
The film ends with Rambo being led away in handcuffs.
To the criteria!
A is for… Accents
No one has an accent, unless regional American accents are counted.
B is for… Badguys
Sheriff Teasle is painted as the bad guy from the start, with his cop bodies filling in as his goons. Granted he might have been trying to save Rambo from himself by leading him out of town after recognizing him as a drifting vet, but he didn’t have to be rude. If he’d simply helped him out, or at least explained his reasoning, perhaps Rambo wouldn’t have turned around to head back to town. By pushing Rambo and arresting him, Teasle invited problems.
The other cops, minus Mitch (David Caruso), are complete jerks who beat, tease, and kick Rambo, and not only that, they seem to be incompetent. They’re all surprised when Rambo doesn’t want to be fingerprinted, they don’t understand why he doesn’t want to give them his name, or why he resists pretty much everything they try to do to him. It’s almost like they learned how to be cops from watching movies about cops, and were never actually trained on how to handle difficult perpetrators.
The cops actually open fire on Rambo when he’s unarmed and offering to turn himself in.
However, as the film reaches its conclusion, it’s no longer the cops chasing Rambo, it’s Rambo damaging the town. By the end it’s unclear if the viewer should be cheering for Rambo or wishing the cops would apprehend him so he stops blowing things up.
C is for… Chases
Rambo escapes from the police station and steals a motorcycle, and Teasle chases after him in his cop car. The chase includes slow motion and crazy jumps. Interestingly, the chase has no music over it. The chase ends with Teasle rolling his car down a cliff face as Rambo continues up into the woods, though ultimately he can’t continue on the bike.
Most of the rest of the film is a sort of chase, as the police engage in a manhunt through the woods to find Rambo.
There’s a short chase between Rambo in an army truck and a cop car chasing him, but Rambo is able to get out of it by forcing the cop car off the road.
D is for… Damsels
Outside of Delmar’s relative and later on the waitress, there are no women with speaking parts at all.
E is for… Explosions
For some reason, the National Guard guys lug a rocket launcher into the woods in order to hunt down Rambo. They use it to fire at the mineshaft he’s taken cover in, and of course the place explodes.
At one point in his stolen army truck, Rambo forces a cop car off the road into a parked car, causing an explosion.
Rambo takes it upon himself to blow up a gas station in town, and the army truck. This move might have been made to send a signal to Teasle, who can see it from the police station. Later Rambo blows up a hunting goods store.
F is for… Flashbacks
In the police station Rambo has two flashbacks—one of him in a pit having something thrown on him, and another of him being strung up on some sort of rack. At this point it’s clear to a modern audience that Rambo is suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I don’t know what a 1982 audience would have thought about the flashbacks, or about Rambo’s actions and motivation throughout the rest of the film.
G is for… Guns
Check out the complete listing at the IMFDB.
The cops of course have their rifles, and the National Guard guys have their machine guns.
Rambo is eventually able to steal a gun. He also steals a jacket, but he doesn’t seem to ever wear it.
There’s a shootout at the mine, before the rocket launcher is used.
Rambo steals am M60 from the army truck.
He also uses the gun to ignite the gun powder in the sporting goods store.
He seems to just shoot randomly around the town. He shoots out the electricity, okay, but then he shoots into storefronts and the police station. He hunts down Teasle and shoots him.
H is for… Helicopters
The police first try hunting for Rambo using a helicopter, which leads to the death of the really jerky officer, Galt, who beat and kicked Rambo in the station. He falls out after Rambo throws a rock through the windshield, but his fall was foreshadowed by the unsteady helicopter, which couldn’t stay still in a thermo updraft.
A medical helicopter is flown in after Rambo damages more of the cops.
There’s a yellow helicopter that takes a veeeeery long time to circle around and land.
I is for… Improvisation
Rambo is very resourceful, as he uses a tarp to make a shirt, and his beloved knife for about six different things including a torch. He uses a rock to attack the helicopter. He uses branches and mud as camouflage. He builds several traps in the woods, including one with sharp wooden stakes. He makes a spear to hunt.
J is for… Jumping Through Solid Objects
Rambo throws a cop through an internal window in the police station.
Rambo also pushes a cop through an exterior window at the police station.
Teasle falls through the skylight at the police station.
Rambo himself takes a fall through a tree.
K is for… Kill Count
Rambo specifically points out to Teasle that he is not killing his men, even though he could.
L is for… Limitations
Rambo is alone in the war he manufactured. He can’t go forward because there’s nowhere for him to go, but if he goes back Teasle will probably kill him. Certainly everyone is against him because of lies Teasle tells. Because Teasle isn’t a clear villain, there’s no real way for Rambo to “win.”
M is for… Motivation
The motivation aspect of the film is what is very challenging to parse. In the beginning Rambo turns around to defy Teasle, even though Teasle clearly has it out for him. Why challenge that? After that, Rambo clearly wants to avoid arrest, which is understandable. Then, rather than run as fast and as far as he can, he sets up camp to face Teasle and the other cops. He’s given chances to give himself up, especially once Trautman arrives, but he still doesn’t give in. As he tells Trautman, there are no friendly civilians, and there wouldn’t be trouble for him except for the “kingshit cop.” The cops “drew first blood.”
Then Rambo destroys part of the town for no discernible reason other than to gain Teasle’s attention.
As far as Teasle, he wants to keep a sketchy drifter vet out of his town, but he goes about it in all the wrong ways. After his fellow officer falls out of the helicopter, he wants Rambo back to face justice. Or be killed, either way. Teasle specifically says he wants to “pin the Congressional Medal of Honor to [Rambo’s] liver.”
N is for… Negotiation
Any negotiation is pretty much to just get Rambo in police custody. Trautman does tell Teasle to just let him slip through and someone else will pick him up later, but no matter what Rambo has to be taken into custody.
O is for… One Liners
The film is fairly devoid of humor due to the nature of its themes and content, so most of the lines here are somewhat amusing due to delivery or intent, or are relevant to those dark themes.
Mitch: Can’t you see this guy’s crazy?
Galt: Can’t you see I don’t give a shit?
Teasle, and later Galt: What do you hunt with a knife?
Random cop: Jesus. He’s got a gun.
Rambo: There are no friendly civilians.
Rambo: Don’t look at me, look at the road. That’s how accidents happen.
Trautman: You’re gonna die, Teasle.
Teasle: Everybody dies.
P is for… Profession
John Rambo is a Vietnam War veteran, and eventually is specifically labeled a Green Beret, winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, and a war hero. He’s a “real [bad ass].” He’s the last surviving member of his unit, which seems to be what pushes him over the edge. He obviously needed any sort of comfort Delmar could have given him. He wants to be in Fort Bragg, but Trautman wasn’t there when he looked for him. Rambo lives under the mantra of, “When in doubt, kill.”
Trautman pretty much sets Rambo up as being a killing machine, by describing him as, “an expert in guerrilla warfare, with a man who’s the best, with guns, with knives, with his bare hands. A man who’s been trained to ignore pain, ignore weather, to live off the land, to eat things that would make a billy goat puke. In Vietnam his job was to dispose of enemy personnel. To kill! Period! Win by attrition. Well, Rambo was the best.”
Q is for… Quagmire
Especially after Trautman’s description, it’s hard to see Rambo as being in any sort of real danger. The cops have already been depicted as incompetent, and Rambo as skilled and crafty. Especially considering there are now three sequels, the viewer knows Rambo is going to be alive at the end of the film. If he can take on enemy soldiers with a lot better training than the cops in “Jerkwater, USA,” he should be fine.
Of course, there is the more practical aspect of just how deeply he’s digging himself in. The viewer is obviously supposed to root for him over the jerky cops, but after he keeps fighting, and especially after he starts destroying the town, there is nowhere for him to go. The cop falling out of the helicopter was an accident, but the property damage and injuries to the cops were intentional. He is definitely going into police custody. The emotional quagmire of Rambo’s pain and helplessness is really at the forefront, not his physical conflict with the cops.
R is for… Reality, or Lack Thereof
The film is simple in its set and action pieces, so as far as one man causing a lot of damage, especially a well-trained man, the film is quite realistic. Especially if the cops are so incompetent. It’s just unlikely.
However, the problems that Rambo faces are real. Are vets and special ops guys just released from the military with no support, left to fend for themselves in a world they don’t fit into?
S is for…Sidekicks
Rambo is utterly alone except for Trautman, who isn’t so much a sidekick as just trying to keep the cops from killing themselves by Rambo’s hand. Trautman recruited, trained, and commanded Rambo, and is the closest thing Rambo has to family, so Rambo trusts him.
T is for… Technology
Another ‘80s movie that focuses on real plots instead of made-up ones related to technology. The most high-tech thing in First Blood is a CB radio.
U is for… Unexpected Romance
Haha, no.
V is for… Vehicles as Weapons
Rambo uses the army truck he stole to force the cop car chasing him off the road. He later blows up the army truck.
W is for… Winning
Due to the film’s nature, there really isn’t any “winning,” per se.
Rambo does come back in to town in order to get Teasle. He hunts him to the police station, and, knowing he’s on the roof, shoots through the ceiling, catching Teasle in the legs with his bullets. Teasle falls through the skylight, and Rambo hovers over him, readying for the kill.
But Trautman intervenes, telling Rambo he can’t kill Teasle. He tells him the mission is over and he needs to stop.
Rambo then has a breakdown, letting Trautman know why he’s got so many problems: “Nothing is over, you just don’t turn it off,” “It wasn’t my war,” “Who are they to protest me?” He explains he has no place in civilian society, because he can’t do what he was trained to do, what his life purpose became in the war. He tells Trautman that civilian life is nothing.
Trautman eventually leads Rambo away in handcuffs.
X is for… X-rays, or Maybe You Should See a Doctor
Rambo slams through some tree branches, but sews himself up. It looks realistic, actually, as blood pumps out of the wound.
If anything, Rambo needs a psychiatrist who can help him through his mental issues, not a medical doctor for physical problems. (yes, I know psychiatrists are medical doctors, but you know what I mean)
Y is for… Yesterday’s Problem is Today’s Problem
Clearly if Rambo had been treated for his PTSD—if it had been recognized and he had been provided help to adjusting to the regular world—perhaps he would never be in that town and facing Teasle.
Z is for… Zone, in the
Clearly Rambo is in his own sort of zone most of the movie, and it’s worth noting that even though he’s trained to kill, he goes out of his way to not kill his attackers.
Well, that is Rambo: First Blood. I hadn’t expected a PTSD-suffering vet waging a war against people who don’t really deserve it, but I think the film is really important for the way it provides a look into what vets can suffer. Especially Vietnam vets who received little support assimilating back into society, and didn’t receive the mental help they needed. It’s really a sad movie.
Miscellaneous thoughts:
The long opening take sets the pace of the film nicely. I knew immediately the film would have a lot of long takes and move relatively slowly compared to today’s films.
Delmar died from cancer from Agent Orange. One job I had involved transcribing veteran hearings as veterans tried to get medical benefits to cover injuries or illnesses caused by being in the military, and hearing what Agent Orange can do to people… It’s horrible. I can easily picture Delmar and how sick he was, and how his family suffered along with him. Having that experience gives me a bit of an inside look at Rambo’s PTSD, too, knowing that vets suffer real pain that they cannot escape.
There’s some strange homoerotic tension in the film upon first viewing that isn’t as obvious in the second viewing. For example, the way Teasle tells Rambo to put his hands on the car and “spread ‘em,” then the fire hose as Rambo is naked (which would be a different scene if Galt wasn’t watching so gleefully and asking Mitch if he likes water sports), or Teasle’s line about “[wrapping] your arms around him and [giving] him a big sloppy kiss.” It’s completely inappropriate to view the movie this way, but it was there. The sheriff’s name being “Will Teasle” certainly didn’t help.
It’s interesting that Rambo’s weapon of choice is a knife. Killing with a knife is more personal and visceral than killing with a gun, or maybe he was trained to not need a gun in case he couldn’t find one. Knives also don’t run out of ammunition.
As I said before, to today’s audience, Rambo clearly has PTSD. But what did audiences in 1982 think? Maybe they just viewed him as crazy, like Mitch, rather than suffering from a clear actual DSM-IV condition.
Rambo doesn’t really have all that many lines, mostly because he’s alone, but it kind of forces Stallone to do a lot of eyeball acting the way Schwarzenegger does.
The torch Rambo makes in the mineshaft seems to be the only light illuminating those scenes, which is awesome. Too often scenes at night or in dark rooms have some sort of extra light coming from no discernible light source, so it was nice to see some realism.
As I mentioned before, the film has a lot of looooong takes and even long shots, with the focus far into the distance. I think it would be hard to have a film made like this today accepted by today’s audiences. Surely they are made, but I don’t think they’d qualify as “action” or “thriller” films. Today people want explosions and quick edits and fight scenes that don’t involve actual choreography, not shots that last for 20 seconds with a static camera. It’s a very noticeable difference in styles.
Like Lethal Weapon, the film’s end credits feature a terrible song. Let’s hope that’s left to the ‘80s as well.
Overall the film kept making me think of other films, but since First Blood was made before those films, obviously those films are taking their cues from or paying homage to this movie. For example, Rambo’s love of his knife made me think of Machete in Machete, and the concept of a guy fighting his enemy in the woods and setting traps made me think of Predator. Talking over radios is reminiscent of Die Hard. Rambo’s perfection as a soldier made me think of Forrest Taft in On Deadly Ground. Walking through water filled with rats made me think of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Obviously the character of John Rambo and films made about him set the stage for the lone-wolf-hero action films, and I’m glad to have finally seen the first one.
Miscellaneous Post: A Comparison of Die Hards
I’ve seen the Die Hard movies numerous times, and McClane McCLane is my hero, so why not compare and contrast all five movies?
I’m analyzing/comparing the films based on the following categories:
Who is McClane McClane?
What is at stake for him?
What’s up with the villain?
Who’s McClane’s side kick?
What’s up with the government?
What’s the action like?
Final thoughts.
Die Hard
Who is McClane McClane?
McClane is a 30-something (33 or so) New York City cop of 11 years visiting his wife in Los Angeles. They are separated enough that McClane doesn’t seem to expect to stay with her, and Holly has her housekeeper set up the guest bedroom. His fight against the terrorists is to save the hostages, including Holly. He’s clever, witty, and mildly annoying to the terrorists until he really makes Hans angry. He expresses a fondness for Roy Rogers. He’s afraid to fly. He smokes.
What is at stake for him?
His opinion of himself, sure. But mainly Holly. Clearly there are issues between the two of them (her using her maiden name, and putting his picture facedown), but his main focus once he takes out a couple of terrorists is to save Holly.
What’s up with the villain?
Hans Gruber is an exceptional thief using the hostages as a way to hide his actual purpose, stealing millions of dollars from the vault. He’s suave, well dressed, and actually extremely likable because he’s so well put together. I also really like listening to his accent. He and McClane have a lot of good chemistry together, even though they’re only in a couple of scenes together.
Who’s McClane’s sidekick?
McClane’s main assistant in this film is Al Powell, LAPD desk jockey who was on his way home when the call came in to check out Nakatomi Plaza. He and McClane communicate entirely by radio, and Al doesn’t even know McClane’s name until Hans says it. The moment when they finally meet is usually the one where if you’re going to get teary-eyed, it’s here. There’s mutual respect and admiration, Al towards McClane because he just saved 30 hostages and took out a terrorist group, and McClane towards Al because Al believed McClane when no one else would and gave him moral support.
You can also count Argyle here, as I did in my complete Die Hard entry. Argyle does help McClane in the beginning, and knocks out Theo the terrorist. McClane later keeps Argyle from being shot when he bursts out of the parking garage.
What’s up with the government?
Every law enforcement person other than Al Powell is depicted as a complete moron. Dwayne Robinson is a jerk. Agents McClaneson and McClaneson of the FBI are useless. One Fed is seen pricking himself on some thorns. The Feds do everything by the book which is what the problem is the whole time, because Hans expects them to run “the terrorist handbook step by step,” thus leading to them cutting the power and releasing the locks on the vault. To quote one of the most fantastic lines in the movie, Hans explains “You want a miracle, Theo? I give you the FBI.”
What’s the action like?
Pretty much non-stop from the second Hans takes over. McClane gets involved in a lot of one-on-one and one-on-two scuffles. There are various explosions, including the one when McClane throws the C4 down the elevator shaft, and then the end when the roof explodes. There’s a lot of gun work as McClane kills all the terrorists one by one.
Final thoughts.
Classic film, of course. It doesn’t get much better than this. The acting is great, the effects are great, the pacing is great. I love it. Tainted a wee bit by the ‘80s (77 cents for gas? McClane wears his gun holster on the airplane?) but it still stands up.
Die Hard 2: Die Harder
Who is McClane McClane?
McClane is a New York City cop currently transplanted to Los Angeles to live with Holly. To celebrate the holidays he’s in DC a day ahead of her, with her parents and his kids. He seems to be generally upbeat though cynical like he was in the previous film. He still smokes, though comments that he needs to quit. Comments “How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice?” Both Holly and Al imply McClane and technology don’t mix, and he struggles with a fax machine. He’s afraid of flying.
What is at stake for him?
Again, McClane’s main focus here, above the airport, is to save Holly, who is on one of the circling airplanes. Through a phone call, his general concern, and their connection at the end, it is clear that at least tonight they are very much in love.
What’s up with the villain?
Honestly, one of the reasons I think I’ve not liked this movie as much as the others is that I don’t care what’s up with him. Anyway, his name is General Stewart, and he’s hijacked the airport to set free the cocaine dealer Esperanza. The only interesting thing about either character to me is the way Stewart is introduced, doing tai chi while buck naked. Neither villain is particularly memorable, which to me is the main failing of this movie.
Of course there’s also Major Grant, who of course we don’t know is bad until he slits that poor young guy’s throat. He’s the most compelling bad guy, I think because of this twist, and also he and McClane also interact in person, first not liking each other, then Grant stands up for McClane (“I’m an asshole, I’m just your kind of asshole.”).
Who’s McClane’s sidekick?
McClane works most closely with Marv, the seemingly mentally challenged janitor who lives in the basement, and Barnes, one of the higher-ups at the airport. They’re both okay, but McClane winds up doing a lot of stuff on his own like he did in the first movie. It’s just weird when McClane gets an idea, has them give him something, then runs off and does his idea by himself when they could probably help (Marv might have had the key for the lock on the runway grate, and Barnes could have joined McClane when trying to save the London plane).
McClane briefly uses Al Powell again, which was nice to see. Perhaps they work together a lot on LA. They had some good chemistry together on the phone.
What’s up with the government?
Well. Colonel Stewart: bad. Major Grant: bad. And I’m going to include Airport Police captain Carmine Lorenzo here, because he’s an incompetent jerk for the entire movie until the last minute, maybe minute and a half.
What’s the action like?
More than I remember there being, having not watched it in a while. There’s the gun fight in the luggage room, a plane crash, the gunfight in the Annex Skywalk, the gunfight at the church, and then the absolutely fantastic climax scene, where McClane fights Stewart and Grant on the wing of the plane, then he blows it up! Okay, so, yeah, apparently it’s physically impossible for this scene to happen for like five different reasons, but unless you research it, you don’t really know it doesn’t work, so it’s just awesome.
Final thoughts.
This movie gets ragged on a lot for being terrible, but having watched it twice in three days, it’s a lot more enjoyable than I remember it being. The story is tight, the action is good, the good guys are good. The failings are that McClane doesn’t have chemistry with anyone but Holly, who’s on a plane most of the movie, and the villains are almost entirely uninteresting and unmemorable. I really think the lack of a compelling villain is the main problem with this movie.
Also, the film is also tainted a bit by the ‘80s, such as with people smoking in airplanes, faxes being new, phone booths… It’s like another world.
Die Hard With a Vengeance
Who is McClane McClane?
At the start of this movie McClane is a wreck. So much of a wreck, in fact, that he’s not in the first scene the way he is in the first two films. He’s back in New York City, divorced, hung over, suffering from a headache, and “two steps shy of becoming a full blown alcoholic.” He still smokes, but not in a chain like in the previous films. But that might be because he’s literally running around the whole time. He hasn’t been with a woman since he and Holly split. He calls Holly towards the end, but lets her go. He doesn’t seem to have a problem flying in the helicopter at the end.
What is at stake for him?
Nothing personal seems to be at stake for him. It of course finally comes down to him being the terrorist’s target because he killed his brother, so it’s more about saving face than saving someone/thing personal to him yet external to him.
What’s up with the villain?
Simon (Peter Simon Gruber) is Hans Gruber’s brother. At one point McClane says Simon is older, and there were a number of threads on the imdb asking how he knows this, and of course he most likely read their files and saw their birthdates. Simon creates an elaborate game designed to scare, weaken, challenge, and ultimately kill McClane in retaliation for Hans. Simon is clever, doesn’t like to be pushed, and suffers from migraines. We hear him from the first scene, yet don’t see him until 47 minutes into the film. Even with that, he’s so charismatic and has such a sexy accent it’s upsetting to see him die.
Who’s McClane’s sidekick?
Zeus Carver is a Good Samaritan who got caught up in McClane’s “wrong guy at the wrong place at the wrong time.” He doesn’t trust white people. His motivation for saving McClane wasn’t to save McClane, it was to keep white cops out of Harlem. I think one reason this film is so appealing is because of the chemistry between McClane and Zeus. They argue, they don’t like each other, yet they work well together. McClane clearly cannot work without Zeus, as Zeus solves the puzzles Simon comes up with. Zeus even offers to give up his life to save McClane’s, to which McClane replies that he can’t live with that on his conscience. Zeus even convinces McClane to call Holly again.
What’s up with the government?
Actually, the government isn’t totally inept here. There aren’t any Feds, just McClane’s cop coworkers. And Simon does a good job of distracting all of them. Of course, in the alternate ending that didn’t make it to screen (see here) it’s postulated that the Feds thought McClane had something to do with the robbery and get McClane fired.
What’s the action like?
There are numerous bombs, and some gun fire, but compared to the first two, there isn’t that much going on action-wise. My favorite sequence is the race to get from the first pay phone (St. Ives riddle) to the Wall Street subway station. McClane and Zeus driving in the car is hilarious and tense and awesome. From there there’s a lot of time spent talking and on the school thing and watching the terrorists talk a lot. Then the final helicopter battle, which is pretty interesting yet a little short.
Final thoughts.
This one used to be my favorite Die Hard, which I’m attributing to Zeus and Simon and their individual chemistry and their chemistry with McClane. But the first one really does trump it, considering part of the appeal of Die Hard is its claustrophobic feel and one-against-them-all conflict. However, this third one is extremely entertaining, and I think overall more people enjoy it because it’s got a great cast and great lines.
Live Free Or Die Hard
Who is McClane McClane?
McClane is a 52-year-old senior detective for the NYPD. He lives in Brooklyn and has a mortgage and a 401k. He’s finally bald/shaven, and isn’t seen smoking. He took flying lessons to fight his fear, but skipped some lessons, and he’s still afraid. He’s depicted as completely techno-phobic. He has a poor relationship with his wife and kids, which doesn’t stop him from spying on Lucy. He seems more crazy here; he’s crazy in the other films, but he does that crazy-sounding laugh more, I think.
What is at stake for him?
Nothing personal is at stake for him at all (unless you count his country, which you really can’t) until Gabriel kidnaps Lucy. This puts his personal stakes right in the forefront.
What’s up with the villain?
Thomas Gabriel is a former government employee who “shut down NORAD with a laptop just to prove a point” when they didn’t listen to him. He’s oddly charismatic in a quietly neurotic way. I love the way he stares at people like “How are you really the best I could come up with to help me?” And the way he talks to people cracks me up, like he’s so unable to comprehend what’s wrong with people. “You got her? You sure?” His main helpers are Trey, who I’m pretty sure has a crush on him, based on the way he looks at him, and Mai, his “Asian hooker bitch” as McClane describes her. Trey is part brain and part hands, while Mai is brains and muscle. Oddly, since she’s so small. Like the other villains, he believes he’s infallible, which is of course his downfall.
Who’s McClane’s sidekick?
McClane works closely with Matt Farrell, a computer hacker he’s instructed to bring to Washington, DC. Matt provides the tech know-how that McClane completely lacks. They make a good team, though Matt begins the journey as completely hopeless, but he eventually comes into his own. He and McClane have a touching exchange about heroism and being “that guy.”
Other than Matt, McClane also enlists the help of Matt’s stereotypical computer geek friend, Warlock, and communicates with Agent Bowman of the FBI.
Interestingly enough, Matt is the only main sidekick who’s white, and the only one discounting Marv from Die Harder. I have no idea what this means. Actually, aside from Bowman and Mai, there aren’t any non-whites in this film that I can remember (oh, and Tim Russ playing a Fed briefly—on the commentary Len Wiseman says he’s some sort of Star Wars guy, which made me embarrassed for him, as Russ played Tuvok, a Vulcan on Star Trek: Voyager), while each of the other films has numerous non-white characters (well, in DHWaV, I’m counting Zeus more than I maybe should just because he has such a prominent role in the film).
What’s up with the government?
Well. I’m pretty sure the whole movie is one big PSA for “The American government sucks.” It’s the government’s fault that this all happened, and they do nothing to help. Bowman really just sits around and provides information once in a while, and the other guys don’t do jack except sit around on their hands. If they had spoken up about Woodlawn from the beginning, the whole problem could have been avoided.
What’s the action like?
Though there’s a lot of sitting around/driving, there are also numerous action sequences. There’s the shootout in Matt’s apartment, the helicopter chase scene and tunnel sequence, the fight between McClane and Mai in West Virginia, McClane and the French circus guy in the chilling tower, and then the ludicrous but totally-made-of-win jet/semi sequence at the end.
Final thoughts.
I know people refer to this one as “Die Hard Lite,” but actually, analyzing the action points more toward DHWaV as the lite one, this one just doesn’t have as much profanity. If it had more profanity it wouldn’t be light at all. McClane isn’t as snappy, but he’s also older and tired since he doesn’t sleep for two days. There are a few computer effects in this, but they’re done so well and sparingly that they’re barely noticeable, which is very refreshing in this day and age. The lovely claustrophobic feeling is missing entirely, except for the endless scenes of McClane and Matt driving around.
A Good Day to Die Hard
Who is McClane McClane?
McClane is a cop—he’s seen in street clothes on the shooting range, talking to another cop—who is likely near retirement, or should be soon. He seems tired and somewhat resigned, though whether that’s intentional for the character or a sign of Willis being tired is unknown.
What is at stake for him?
McClane heads to Moscow to learn why his son Jack is in jail. He and Jack haven’t seen each other in years, and apparently the last time they did, it didn’t go well at all. For once the threat isn’t in America, and there isn’t an American hostage, so family is the sole focus here. Once he has Jack and they are working together to save their lives, he has to keep Jack safe and also works on repairing their relationship, similar to the way McClane and Lucy are able to patch things up during the Fire Sale.
What’s up with the villain?
Another Die Hard movie where the villain is almost a non-person; I can’t even remember his name. But then, in a spy movie twist, the guy Jack and McClane are trying to protect, Yuri Kamarov, is actually pulling the strings on the “bad guys.” He and his daughter manipulated various parties in order to free him, and now they have weapons-grade uranium. Well, they would if Jack and McClane didn’t kill them both. The problem is that Yuri isn’t interesting, isn’t well-developed, and has zero chemistry with McClane. It’s also strange that their communication and relationship isn’t developed over the radio/phone the way McClane learns about and communicates with the villains in the other films.
Who’s McClane’s side kick?
Jack, obviously. He and McClane are able to put their father-son dysfunction to the side in order to team up and help each other fill in the other’s missing skills. Jack is a spy, and had been on a mission of three years when McClane showed up and screwed everything up.
What’s up with the government?
Because the film takes place in Russia, the American government doesn’t exactly have a presence. However, after McClane delays Jack, the CIA pulls back from the mission, leaving Jack to try to get to the safe house. The safe house itself gets attacked, and Jack’s partner dies. McClane mentions going to the embassy, but Jack points out the safe house was compromised and the same thing would happen at the embassy.
What’s the action like?
For a movie that’s only 98 minutes long, there’s a lot of action. There’s the assault on the courthouse, the interminable and ridiculous car chase through Moscow, the shootout at the safe house, the shootout at the hotel and McClane and Jack’s following escape down the side of the building, and then of course the final Chernobyl scene. The problem with all of big action sequences is that they are completely over the top and unrealistic, which takes away some of the fun. McClane especially is not immortal, and between being flipped in a car, falling down a building, and thrown through a window, he should barely be able to walk if he doesn’t die right there. I love the guy, but even in Die Hard he barely makes it out alive, and that was 25 years ago.
Final thoughts.
Unlike most action films I’ve reviewed for my site, A Good Day to Die Hard is very short, yet has numerous big action scenes. It also manages to squeeze in a pointless scene or two, specifically the scene with McClane chatting up the cab driver. I fully believed that the scene meant McClane would have to work with him later in the movie, but we never see him again. Yes, because of their conversation McClane knew the highway was always busy, so Yuri’s daughter couldn’t have taken the route, meaning she’s lying, but still. There could have been a short exchange to provide McClane with that information. My other main gripe is the endless handheld camera work. I know it’s an effect used to convey tension and immediacy, but it also forces the viewer to constantly adjust himself in space. It’s also easier to get lost in the film when not constantly reminded that you’re watching through a camera that’s bouncing around. So, while A Good Day to Die Hard has some good points, like McClane and Jack working together (Jack overall is very fun to watch) or the return of the R rating, there are some decisions, such as pacing and cinematography, that I think should have gone a different direction. But I do love the helicopter being part of the climax!
I’ll also point out that A Good Day to Die Hard is the only movie that doesn’t end right after the final scene, with McClane in or near an ambulance or having just received treatment. The film ends oddly happily, as McClane is reunited with both of his children. It’s almost possible to imagine this is the beginning of the final chapter for McClane, and that perhaps he’ll retire and spend time with his family. But isn’t there a Die Hard 6 in the works?
Conclusion
So, the Die Hards overall. They’re very enjoyable for a variety of reasons. But what makes a Die Hard? McClane’s quips, improvisation, and attitude. Action. Liberal use of profanity. Chemistry between McClane and his sidekicks. Compelling and even sexy villains that have good chemistry with McClane, which is possibly the most important facet after action. And helicopters!
P is for… Predator
Ah, Predator. You’re a film that blends action and science fiction seamlessly, and you take a fairly straight-forward story and make it interesting with your intensely-trained-and-yet-crazy crew of soldiers, beautiful scenery, and excellent special effects.
In Predator, directed by John McTiernan, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Major Dutch, leader of said crew of soldiers. His group is selected to go on a retrieval mission for the cabinet minister and his aide. Once they finally land in the jungle, they discover the helicopter carrying their targets crashed, and eventually find some of its passengers skinned. They also determine that the cabinet minister was taken hostage, and track the guerilla group to a camp they then destroy.
Also at the camp Dutch realizes that they aren’t after the cabinet minister at all, and that his old comrade Dillon (Carl Weathers), who now works for the CIA, was lying. Dutch and his men are actually doing Dillon’s mission for him, and Dutch’s men are “expendable” should something go wrong.
They manage to secure a hostage to bring back with them (Anna, played by Elpidia Carrillo). It’s when they start heading to their rescue chopper that it becomes apparent that something is hunting them. Whatever it is seems to be invisible, and enjoys picking them off one by one, and violently. Twice they set traps, and twice it manages to escape. It’s when it’s apparent the hunter is humanoid that the hunter allows himself to be seen, likely a psychological ploy.
Finally the group gets narrowed down to Dutch, Anna, and Poncho (Richard Chavez). Poncho gets shot by the Predator, Anna flees to the rescue chopper, and Dutch prepares for a final stand. Through luck he realizes that the Predator can’t see him when he’s slathered in mud, and while covered up he devises yet another booby-trap. Though he isn’t able to quite outwit the Predator, Dutch is still able to catch it in his trap. The Predator self-destructs, and Dutch is able to make it to the chopper.
Though on the sci-fi end of potential “P” action films, Predator still hits most of the criteria. Away we go!
A is for… Accents
Dutch, though some sort of US military man, has Arnold’s Austrian accent.
Anna has some sort of Spanish accent (one of the characters comments that she isn’t Central American, unless he was talking about the guerrillas or other hostages).
Various members of Dutch’s crew have slight accents or strange speech patterns, including Blain (Jesse Ventura).
B is for… Bad Guys
Though Dillon is the human villain for lying to Dutch and getting them all involved and ultimately getting them killed, the obvious villain is the eponymous Predator. Dillon points out that whoever it was that killed his man Hopper from the helicopter killed several Green Berets, so it would have to be a strong, smart person. The Predator also doesn’t seem to leave tracks, but Dutch later points out that it seems to be using the trees.
The Predator’s vision is based on heat signatures, and Dutch surmises that maybe it can see his team’s trip wires, but maybe not the vines they’re using. When it gets shot it finds a safe place and pulls out a med kit with surgical tools, the first indication that whoever is hunting Dutch’s men—even if the viewer goes in knowing the villain is an alien—is sentient and intelligent.
In addition to a med kit, the Predator is equipped with several guns that seem to be energy weapons like the phasers in Star Trek, and also has stealth camouflage that renders it nearly invisible. It manages to get right on top of people before killing them.
It’s also creepily capable of mimicry, which may be another tool used to attract prey. When it does manage to kill, it skins its victims and collects their skulls as trophies. Dutch realizes it won’t attack anyone if he isn’t armed, yet none of his men ever lower their weapons, and eventually he gives one to Anna. Dutch also surmises that it’s hunting them all for sport.
During the climactic fight scene with Dutch, the Predator drops it weapons and fights Dutch mano-a-mano, possibly another testament to wanting a fair fight and more sportsmanship. It’s kinda hard, though, to think of the human equivalent of a man or woman fist fighting a deer or a bear.
C is for… Chases
Hawkins (Shane Black) chases after Anna after she escapes, and the rest of the team chases after them.
Technically the film is a slow chase as the Predator hunts Dutch and his men through the jungle to the helicopter.
D is for… Damsels
The only female at all in the film is Anna, the hostage. She’s plucky and tries to escape several times, and pretends she doesn’t know English. She speaks barely-accented English and tells the soldiers about how sometimes people in her village find men slaughtered, without their skin, and it happens during the hottest years. She ultimately escapes to the rescue helicopter.
E is for… Explosions
Once the crew attacks the guerrilla camp, there are countless explosions as they demolish it while the guerrillas fight back.
At the climactic fight scene between Dutch and the Predator, an exploding arrow sets off the entire trap.
Dutch uses another explosion to escape.
The Predator ultimately blows himself up with a very powerful self-destruct mode on its wristband/arm guard.
F is for… Flashbacks
No flashbacks in Predator. The whole film seems to take place over the course of only a day or two.
G is for… Guns
Full list here at the IMFDB.
Dutch and his soldiers each have huge machine guns that they lug around with them in the jungle. I know they are on a rescue mission in enemy territory and the guns aren’t as heavy to them as they would be to me, but it seems a little overkill.
The crew (usually Mac or Blain) is also carrying around a minigun named “Old Painless.”
The guerrillas have handguns.
The shootout as they take out the guerrilla camp is quite impressive; both sides have a lot of firepower in the jungle.
The Predator has an energy weapon like a Star Trek phaser that leaves no powder burns or shrapnel, and the wound is cauterized.
As Mac loses his composure after Blain is killed, he unloads the minigun into the jungle, as the other guys fire their weapons. Trees and nature destroyed: immeasurable. Predators injured: zero.
Amusingly, after all the macho overkill firepower throughout the film, Dutch’s final weapon is a bow that he rigged together himself from branches and vines.
H is for… Helicopters
The first real shot in the movie, after the Predator is launched to Earth, is of a military helicopter as it lands on a beach.
Two choppers carry Dutch and his men to the extraction site in guerrilla territory. It is very red inside, and the scene is used for character building as the viewer is slowly introduced to Dutch’s men.
The crew investigates the helicopter that had carried the cabinet minister and his aide, but it gets recognized as a surveillance bird, not one used for transport.
The guerrillas have a helicopter, but Dutch blows it up. In hindsight, maybe that wasn’t the best plan, if they could have figured out how to fly it back.
The rescue helicopter is the goal Dutch and his men strive to reach as they get picked off by the Predator. And, of course, this helicopter is the subject of the film’s most famous line: GET TO THE CHOPPER! (or, “CHOPPA”)
I is for… Improvisation
To start the attack on the guerrilla camp, rather than fire a gun or grenade into it, Dutch lifts up an idling pickup truck and lets it roll into the camp.
The crew sets two elaborate booby traps for the Predator, using vines as trip wires.
When Dutch realizes the mud camouflages him from the Predator, he slathers his whole body with it.
For the final fight, Dutch uses a machete to fashion a stake trap and a huge log trap—more of a tree trunk, really. It brings to mind a brief memory of John Matrix.
Dutch manages to fashion a bow out of branches, with vines as the string. He also builds an exploding arrow.
Dutch uses his machete as a spear blade.
J is for… Jumping Through Solid Objects
Considering the entire movie takes place in a couple of helicopters and the jungle, it’s amazing there’s an entry for this category at all, but a guerrilla manages to fall through the thatched roof on one of the camp’s huts.
K is for… Kill Count
Dutch and his men kill all of the guerrillas, or at least wound them severely and leave them for dead. But of course the guerrillas aren’t in league with the film’s main antagonist, so I’m not sure if they count.
L is for… Limitations
Dutch and his men face an unknown adversary, they have limited resources (not that this is at all evident by how much ammo they waste, but they aren’t in a videogame), and though it takes a while for the Predator to demonstrate it to them, they are outmatched and outgunned by the Predator’s tech.
M is for… Motivation
Dutch and his men believe they are on a mission to rescue the cabinet minister and his aide, but once evidence of Green Berets is found in what turns out to be a surveillance helicopter, they realize they are just pawns trying to complete Dillon’s mission. Dillon manipulated them so the guerrilla camp would be destroyed, and perhaps his CIA agents could be found. After that, Dutch and his men only want to get to the chopper, with Anna in tow.
Once all of his men are killed, Dutch makes it his mission to kill the Predator.
The Predator’s motivation isn’t explicitly stated, but Dutch surmises it’s hunting them for the thrill of the hunt. The Predator doesn’t speak, so the viewer doesn’t get anything other than that.
N is for… Negotiation
Considering the Predator doesn’t speak or bother to try to communicate with Dutch and his men, it’s not surprising there isn’t any negotiation with it.
O is for… One Liners
Dutch, to Dillon: What is this fucking tie business?
Dutch, as the mission gets more complicated: This is getting better by the minute.
Blain: This will make you a goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus, just like me.
Dillon: Never knew how much I missed this, Dutch.
Dutch: You never were that smart.
Mac, to Dillon: You give up our position one more time, I’ll bleed you real quick, and leave you here.
Dutch, after impaling a guerrilla: Stick around.
Dutch, while entering a hut: Knock knock.
Blain: Son of a bitch is dug in like an Alabama tick.
Poncho: You’re bleeding.
Blain: I ain’t got time to bleed.
Poncho: Oh…okay.
Dutch: My men are not expendable. And I don’t do this kind of work.
Blain: You lose it here, you’re in a world of hurt.
Mac: Nothing on this Earth could have lived. Not at that range.
Billy: There’s something out there waiting for us, and it ain’t no man.
Dutch: If it bleeds, we can kill it.
Anna, describing the creature her village elders discussed: The demon who makes trophies of man.
Dillon: So what are you going to try next, cheese?
Dutch: You’re one ugly mother fucker.
Dutch: What the hell are you?
(Likely there’d be more one liners—it is Arnold, after all—but most of the last half hour of the movie has no dialogue at all; there seem to be more subtitles for sound effects than spoken words)
P is for… Profession
Unlike other action films where the hero happens to be a military man or law enforcement professional in the wrong place at the wrong time, Dutch is actually on a professional mission. He’s a Major, and has been “accused” of being “the best.” His men are better than the “regular Army.” They are described as “a rescue team, not assassins.”
After that we don’t have too many details, but it’s clear Dutch and his men are good at their jobs and are well-equipped to fight guerrillas, but not alien predators.
Q is for… Quagmire
It’s Arnold and he’s alone on the cover of the DVD, so the viewer can’t be too worried about Dutch’s fate, but as he plots against and battles the Predator at the end of the film, Dutch is alone, chased, in the dark, and at one point is trapped in the Predator’s actual grip as it tries to kill him. There is definitely some level of “how is he gonna get out of this one?”
R is for… Reality, or Suspension of Disbelief
While the overall plot could happen—an alien life form will no doubt outgun us without a problem—it’s a little hard to believe a seasoned soldier will waste all of his ammunition on a fleeing adversary, and that the other soldiers around him will also waste their ammunition without having a clear line of sight. Vines are also pretty thick to be using as trip wires, even against the jungle backdrop.
Dutch explicitly states he believes the Predator only fires at a person who is armed, yet does not encourage his men to drop their weapons, and eventually gives Anna a gun after trying to keep her away from them earlier.
S is for… Sidekicks
Similar to a horror movie, Predator features a group of people wherein each member gets killed off one by one until there’re only a hero and a couple of injured people remaining. Dutch’s crew consists of:
Blain, who is big, wears a cowboy hat, chews tobacco, and is clearly there for muscle. He gets shot from behind with a projectile that explodes through his chest.
Billy, who is evidently the tracker because he reads the scenes and can tell how many people were around the helicopter, who they were, and the directions from which they came and went. Yet, the Predator eludes his senses in that he can’t see evidence of it, yet somehow knows there is something watching them from the trees. He for some reason sacrifices himself to the Predator by cutting his chest and waiting for it, after stripping half naked and tossing his weapon away.
Mac seems to be the big gun expert, but he slowly goes crazy, and finally gets shot in the head by the Predator.
Hawkins makes a few off-color jokes, wears big glasses, seems to be put in charge of the hostage Anna, and ultimately gets skinned.
Poncho is injured by one of the booby-traps and eventually gets shot by the Predator.
And Anna, of course, the one with the information, and the one who is able to get to safety.
Dillon gets his arm blasted off, and then he seems to get strangled. The movie is pretty violent, yet there are weird censoring choices made regarding the deaths.
T is for… Technology
I really like the way ‘80s action movies don’t find a need to rely on technology like computer discs and communication networks and encrypted crap. Dutch and his men have only their military gear.
It does, however, set up a nice contrast with the Predator, who has superior technology that he uses to outgun them. Which, of course, makes the viewer wonder about how if the Predator has superior weapons, then how is it fun to shoot the primitive prey? Shouldn’t it be using, like, muskets or something?
U is for… Unexpected Romance
Thankfully there is no romance at all in the film, because the only woman at all is a hostage and the men have other things—like a Predator—on their minds. (Which, I admit, might not stop romance from happening in a lot of movies made today. How much time gets wasted on drippy tone-ruining romance when the bad guy is right there?)
V is for… Vehicles as Weapons
Even in the jungle Arnold finds a vehicle to use as a weapon, the pickup truck that Dutch sends rolling into the guerrilla camp.
W is for… Winning
Certainly it is not much of a victory for Dutch, considering his men are all dead, but he of course does emerge victorious from the jungle.
After setting up his elaborate final booby-trap, all built with seemingly nothing but a machete, Dutch is able to fight the Predator a little, and eventually they get stripped down to a fistfight. Dutch lures the Predator through his trap, but the Predator doesn’t take the bait so Dutch has to think a bit backwards. He is able to reach the stick holding the tree trunk in place, which crashes down on the Predator. It is injured and bleeding, and Dutch almost takes its defenselessness to heart. But then the Predator sets some kind of self-destruct mechanism, which even in an alien language Dutch recognizes. As the Predator laughs its creepy mimicked laugh, it explodes in a huge cloud as Dutch flees.
Dutch stands victorious, and awaits the chopper, where once he’s finally aboard it, he seems to allow himself to grieve.
X-Rays, or Maybe You Should See A Doctor
Dutch has that general bruised-and-tenderized look of most action film heroes even before he gets beaten nearly to the death by the Predator. What can he even tell the doctors, “An alien beat me up”? Hopefully he doesn’t get, like, dysentery or hepatitis from crawling around in that mud. Considering everything that happens to him, Dutch is completely intact as he sits in the chopper.
Y is for… Yesterday’s Problem Becomes Today’s Problem
Not technically a “problem,” perhaps, but clearly Dutch’s past relationship with Dillon is what gets Dillon to send Dutch and his men on the mission. Dutch even know the mission was suspicious but went along anyway.
Z is for… Zone, in the
Even after his crew is killed, the chopper nowhere nearby, and while fighting a literally alien enemy in the dark, Dutch makes it look easy as he builds his bow and his traps. He is a man on a mission to kill the thing hunting him, and somehow comes up with a decent plan that ultimately works.
Final Comments
Predator spends a lot of time building up the plot—the rescue mission of the cabinet minister—that clearly has no purpose other than to get Dutch and his men into the jungle where the Predator happens to be. Maybe there was no other way to get these soldiers fully geared up and into those woods, but either way the original extraction mission is a MacGuffin that drags on a little too long before the Predator starts doing its thing.
For a film released in 1987, the special effects—explosions and gunfire, lasers, lightning, Predator heat vision, and the cloaking outfit of the Predator—truly hold up. I can imagine they were astonishing in 1987, which is why the film was nominated for an Academy Award for best visual effects.
It’s unclear at times if Dutch has a five-o’clock-shadow or is wearing war paint.
Possibly because Dutch’s adversary doesn’t speak, but even before it’s just the two of them in the film, Arnold does a lot of eyeball acting. He does it often in his films, but it’s really obvious here, as he rolls his eyes, shifts them slowly to the side, widens them in surprise, et cetera. Just part of his style.
Blain is wearing an MTV Music Television t-shirt, which is fascinating considering MTV was still in its infancy then, so where does this soldier get a t-shirt, and also because of the recent dropping of “music television” from the MTV logo because they don’t actually have music videos anymore.
Arnold’s haircut is similar to that of his haircut during Commando, only not quite so long and so almost mulletish, but it must clearly have just been his style in the ‘80s.
That is a beautiful jungle in which the film takes place, and I’m curious as to where it was filmed, how much is real jungle, and if it’s real how much of the jungle did they actually use versus just switching up the camera angles. Wikipedia tells me the film was completed on location in Mexico, and also that it was a very physically demanding job for everyone.
Throughout the film Dutch and his men are shown applying war paint and wearing it, and at the end Dutch uses the mud as his war paint.
Most of the final battle between Dutch and the Predator has a strange look of “this was filmed during the day but made to look as if it takes place at night,” similar to the way old movies have that funky blue filter when the scene is supposed to be at night. But I’m not sure if that’s the case, or it really was dark and the lights necessary to illuminate the scene at all make it look as if the camera was manipulating the light levels and exposure.
Anyway, Predator. A little more sci-fi than this site was supposed to go, but it’s Arnold at his action heroing peak simply fighting an alien rather than a human. The film’s got action, adventure, and is pretty scary at times, especially if a person starts watching it without knowing who/what the bad guy is.
O is for… On Deadly Ground
So, I have finally seen a movie starring Steven Seagal. It was… pretty much what I was expecting.
At least now Will Sasso’s parodies on Mad TV make a whole lot more sense. (Anyone know what I’m talking about? Remember Mad TV’s first few seasons? Hilarious.)
Anyway.
On Deadly Ground, directed by Seagal, stars Seagal as Forrest Taft, who works for Aegis Oil, which is run by Michael Jennings (Michael Caine—for some reason). He is shown putting out a huge fire, which another employee, Hugh Palmer (Richard Hamilton), blames on faulty preventers. It is evident to Forrest that there is something wrong with Aegis Oil’s rigs, and he figures that Jennings knows something about it. Jennings is shown explaining how important it is to get the new rig up and running in 13 days, or the land reverts back to the ownership of the Eskimos. Forrest meanwhile taps into the system at the rig and learns that there are several weak components of the rig mechanics, with the primary one being the faulty preventers. The faulty ones were used because another shipment would take 90 days, way over the limit to have the rig functional to maintain ownership of the land. Meanwhile, Hugh has evidence of the faulty preventers in the logbooks that he has both in hard copy and on computer disk. At this point, you may be wondering what the heck a “preventer” is, and so am I, because it’s never explained beyond the implication of maintaining pressure levels.
Jennings and his team, led by MacGruder (John C. McGinley), try to trap Forrest in another explosion (after they kill Hugh while trying to find the logbooks), but he is able to escape. He gets rescued by Eskimos, and they help heal him. The rest of the film up until the ending is kind of one long chase as MacGruder enlists mercenaries led by Stone (R. Lee Ermey) to help him track down Forrest and eliminate him. Forrest and Masu (Joan Chen), daughter of the chief of their village, plot how to take down the rig to ensure Aegis Oil loses control of the land, and stops polluting it.
The climax of the film involves a long sequence of fight scenes and explosions as Forrest destroys the rig, despite MacGruder’s and Jennings’ best efforts to prevent that from happening. After blowing up the rig and killing everyone on it, pretty much, there’s an extremely long scene of Forrest explaining how awful oil companies are, as the Eskimos get back control of their land.
It’s really quite more plot than I was expecting, which is impressive considering nothing really seemed developed throughout the film. Fortunately it touched on almost all my criteria, so let’s delve in to the list.
A is for… Accents
Interestingly Michael Caine’s accent seems muted somehow. He’s still British, but the accent doesn’t seem as pronounced. Perhaps, though, I’m more used to him playing characters that are extremely British (Ebenezer Scrooge in A Muppet Christmas Carol, Alfred Pennyworth in the Dark Knight Trilogy), so I notice it more in those roles, or maybe he embellishes it for those sorts of roles.
The native/Inuit peoples in the film have accents, for the most part.
Jennings’ thug Otto (Sven-Ole Thorsen) only has a couple short lines, but he seems to be German.
B is for… Bad Guys
Jennings seems to be the stereotypical horrible oil executive who will destroy anything in the name of getting more money for himself. He seems to be the CEO of Aegis Oil, though his title isn’t explicitly stated. He’s not really given a lot of depth.
MacGruder is Jennings’ number one guy, or maybe his security. It’s kind of hard to tell. Let’s say he’s his right hand man. He has no problem killing people for Jennings. He’s given even less depth, and if it weren’t for the fact that he’s played by the mean doctor from Scrubs, I’d likely not have paid too much attention to him at all.
C is for… Chases
There are very few vehicles in the film, and too much ground gets covered for a chase on foot, but there is a very lovely chase on horseback through the Alaskan wilderness, as MacGruder and Stone lead the mercenaries in a chase after Forrest and Masu. Truly, the Alaskan scenery is beautiful, and Forrest’s horse is amazing.
D is for… Damsels
The only female in pretty much the whole movie is Masu, daughter of the chief of their village. She translates her father’s words for Forrest, and helps him get back to civilization. She then helps Forrest with his weapons and explosives, and infiltration of the refinery and rig.
Liles (Shari Shattuck) is Jennings’ corporate publicity/public affairs person, or maybe something to do with legal, and she is extremely on-the-ball and just as slimy as Jennings is.
E is for… Explosions
The opening scene introduces Forrest trying to put out a fire at an oil substation. He uses some sort of drum that, when it explodes, retards the fire. The explosion is pretty large but Jennings doesn’t duck, which is notable only because all of the oil workers do and MacGruder hits the deck after them.
At the second substation, 101, MacGruder detonates an explosion to both cover up the evidence of his murder of Hugh, and also kill Forrest.
Forrest has been stockpiling explosives in a cabin on a mountain, and uses C-4 to totally destroy the place. The helicopter that had been carrying the mercenaries gets caught in the explosion, and it’s genuinely an impressive bit of cinematography as the helicopter catches fire and explodes. It’s so nice to see practical effects and not CGI.
Also during the chase, Forrest sets up a booby trap for the mercenaries, which involves military grade explosives, wire, and a mousetrap.
He also uses an explosive to both take out more mercenaries and also blow up part of the cliff-side, so that the mercenaries’ horses can’t make the jump the way his and Masu’s can.
At the refinery he uses the phone system to call in an explosion, which causes many explosions and fires afterwards.
Forrest detonates an explosion in an elevator. Where he and Masu are at this time, because they were last scene in the elevator, is up to viewer interpretation.
In the control room, Forrest fiddles with the buttons, levers, and knobs, which manipulates the pressure throughout the refinery, which culminates in an explosion.
Forrest sets up a shaped charge to cause the preventers to implode, which will prevent an oil spill.
Ultimately the oil rig explodes in a series of chain reactions, and it appears that small fireworks were used to add to the visual drama.
F is for… Flashbacks
There aren’t any flashbacks in On Deadly Ground, though their use may have served to develop Forrest a bit more, but there is a vision quest dream sequence thing. In the vision quest Forrest kills a bear and becomes “reborn” through some unsubtle water imagery, though it becomes somewhat confusing as to what exactly is a vision and what might be real.
G is for… Guns
Full list at the IMFDB.
There aren’t any guns for quite a while in the film, with the first notable guns being the handguns and machine guns MacGruder and Otto and crew bring with them when they storm the Eskimo village looking for Forrest. Of course MacGruder winds up shooting the chief and blaming him for what happened, though it was MacGruder who needlessly shot him.
Forrest has a bag of weapons stashed away at Hugh’s house, which MacGruder and Otto don’t seem to find as they ransack the place looking for the logbooks. Forrest specifically says he has a .45 stashed away.
Hugh has a handful of shotguns displayed, and Forrest and Masu take them, but not before there’s a shootout at Hugh’s house between them and the mercenaries. Hilariously, one of the mercenaries chucks his machine gun at Forrest.
Along with his military grade explosives, Forrest also has guns stockpiled in his cabin.
While the booby trap is enacted during the chase, MacGruder fires his gun randomly at nothing until Stone tells him to knock it off. What the heck is he doing? He just saw Forrest and Masu above them on a cliff; they aren’t going to have come back down!
Improbably, Forrest uses a 2-liter soda bottle as a silencer on his gun.
There is of course a shootout at the refinery, which was inevitable so why bother with the silencer? They all knew Forrest was coming.
H is for… Helicopters
There is an Aegis Oil helicopter that Jennings and MacGruder use to get around. The first shot of the movie as the opening credit montage ends is the helicopter flying over more scenery. What’s notable about this helicopter is that it’s an actual set piece, not just a tool for transport or to establish a scene or carry gun-toting men. Actual conversations happen inside of it.
The mercenaries travel in a creepy-looking-by-comparison black helicopter.
I is for… Improvisation
In the interminable bar scene that served no point other than to demonstrate what a bad-ass Forrest is supposed to be, Forrest uses a coil of rope as a weapon.
His booby trap during the chase seems improvised.
Blowing up the cliff so it can’t be jumped is genius.
Forrest uses a 2-liter bottle as a silencer on the refinery.
He uses his machine gun to detonate gasoline.
A room is rendered flammable so no guns can be used, forcing Forrest to come up with another weapon: a pipe ripped from the wall, which he uses like a bo staff.
Also at the refinery, he uses a wire cable as a lasso to catch Jennings.
J is for… Jumping Through Solid Objects
Forrest throws an oil worker through a glass window during the bar fight. It appears to be real glass, not the safety stuff that always looks fake.
On the refinery Forrest uses his pipe/staff to fling a guy through a window. Not through the open door next to it, or to the ground, or the wall, or past that little room entirely, but through the small window.
K is for… Kill Count
Forrest kills one of the mercenaries at Hugh’s house by shooting him twice in a row, then a third time later on.
It’s unclear how many other mercenaries are killed versus wounded, except for the guy impaled on the tree branches after being thrown off his feet by the booby trap.
Many more mercenaries, Aegis employees, and who knows who else are killed on the refinery and rig.
Stone is killed in a memorable fashion, as he taunts Forrest with his rifle, and Forrest rips it out of his hands and shoots him with it.
L is for… Limitations
Forrest has absolutely no limitations, as is basically stated by both Jennings and Stone. He is described as virtually god-like.
M is for… Motivation
Jennings’ motivation is obviously money. He needed to rush construction on the Aegis-1 rig in order to maintain the rights to the land and the oil underneath it. He explains the rights are worth billions of dollars a week.
Forrest, of course, wants to stop Jennings and his greed from harming the environment. Other than that there’re no personal reasons for him to fight Jennings, other than Jennings wanting him dead. But there was no reason for Forrest to engage in battle initially, other than checking out what was wrong at the substation from the beginning. Pretty much if Forrest didn’t have it out for Jennings, Jennings wouldn’t have it out for Forrest.
N is for… Negotiation
There really isn’t any room in the film for negotiation between Forrest and Jennings, as they don’t share too many scenes once the plot gets going, and neither one would be willing to compromise anyway.
MacGruder does torture Hugh and eventually kills him because he won’t reveal the location of the logbooks.
O is for… One Liners
Forrest, sounding “deep” during the bar fight where he’s playing slapsies: What does it take to change the essence of a man? (The answer apparently being slapping his hands then hitting him in the stomach. Public humiliation may be part of that, too. The idea, while meaningful, doesn’t seem to play a part in the rest of the movie, as the bad guys all die and Forrest doesn’t seem to have needed to change his essence, unless it’s some sort of foreshadowing of his spirit quest and rebirth as a bear warrior. …I could be thinking too much about this. …but not as much as some people over in a particular discussion thead on the IMDB here.)
Jennings, somewhat disgusted: You didn’t find Taft… But you managed to kill an unarmed Eskimo.
Stone: How do you want him delivered?
Jennings: *angry stare*
Stone: I see.
Stone: Whatever he is, he’s a damn problem.
Masu: Doesn’t look like anyone is expecting us.
Forrest: Nothing could be further from the truth.
Liles, in Poltergeist-girl voice: He’s ba-ack.
MacGruder, while escaping: I am not that stupid.
Jennings: Oh yes you are.
(MacGruder escapes)
Kennings to Liles as she inches towards the door: Where are you going?
Liles, clearly lying and trying to follow MacGruder: …To the bathroom…
Stone: I want you to protect this like your sister’s cherry.
Forrest, to Jennings: I wouldn’t dirty my bullets.
Masu: Dirty one for me, Forrest.
P is for… Profession
And here we finally get to my main problem with the movie: what does Forrest do, and what is his relationship to Jennings?
He puts out the fires on the oil rigs/substations/refineries, whatever. Hugh says he sold out. Forrest has his full name printed on his truck (a Suburban, which is not terribly environmentally friendly). He has access to confidential files, but his name is flagged when he searches. He clearly works for Jennings, but doing what and why, since he doesn’t seem to like him very much? If Forrest is such a loose canon, as Jennings implies by being afraid of him, then why do they have a history of buying hookers in Bangkok together? Nothing makes sense, and if I’m questioning what the heck someone is doing in a particular place, it makes it hard to care about what he’s doing there.
His spirit warriors are a bear spirit and an eagle spirit, for what that’s worth.
Jennings describes Forrest as the “ultimate fucking nightmare, and that doesn’t come close to this guy when he’s pissed.” So… why does he work for you, Mr. Jennings? Is it a “keep your enemies closer” kind of deal? Because it’s just really confusing.
Stone describes Forrest as “patron saint of the impossible,” and as being unknown in databases until 1987. Everyone throws out a guess as to who he used to work for: CIA, NSA, DOD. Stone eventually also lists a bunch of weird “Chuck Norris-style praises” that make no sense considering he doesn’t even know who the guy is. Seriously, how can he know that Forrest fits the bill of, “Any time the military has an operation that can’t fail, they call this guy in to train the troops,” and, “He’s the kind of guy that would drink a gallon of gasoline so he could piss in your campfire” if he can’t find anything about him in the computer? During the chase he seemed disappointed that Forrest didn’t live up to whatever expectations he had, and after a few booby traps he’s suddenly a god? Shoving perfection onto a character doesn’t make that character have those traits. Show, don’t tell.
So aside from doing something unspecified for Aegis, and loving the environment, the viewer doesn’t really learn much about Forrest. Though he does have an oddly appropriate name.
Q is for… Quagmire
Again, especially considering Jenning’s fear of Forrest and Stone’s awe of him, there is no situation in which Forrest seems to be outmatched, outgunned, in danger, at risk of failing, nothing. He doesn’t even seem to break a sweat, despite his leather jackets.
R is for… Reality, or Suspension of Disbelief
I know nothing about oil rigs, so I can’t say anything about that aspect of the film.
I do, however, find it strange that Forrest would stock a teeny cabin up on a mountain with all of his weapons, however he acquired them. Wouldn’t you want something easier to get to? What if he couldn’t get a horse, or didn’t have a helper?
And, of course, if Forrest is so scary, why would Jennings employ him? If he doesn’t know Forrest’s history, how does he know how good he would be at his job?
S is for… Sidekicks
Masu counts as a sidekick, though she doesn’t seem to do much after they get back to civilization other than carry stuff and follow Forrest’s orders. Her motivation is two-fold between fighting Aegis and getting revenge for her father’s awful death. Perhaps she’s already started to develop a thing for Forrest, too. Other than being proficient at riding horses, there doesn’t seem to be a reason for Forrest to bring her into such a dangerous place at the refinery. The viewer isn’t treated to her firing guns or doing anything useful other than translating what her father says.
T is for… Technology
Hugh has the log books for the substation on his computer and on a 3.5-inch floppy, so they must be really tiny log books. The logbooks provide a weak excuse for MacGruder to come in and torture him before having Otto kill him. MacGruder does a crummy job of ransacking the house and looking for them anyway.
Forrest uses a comm unit in his cabin of weapons so that the mercenaries can track him there.
The refinery doesn’t seem to have any sort of fancy security system, so maybe Jennings was cutting corners there as well.
U is for… Unexpected Romance
It’s not exactly unexpected, nor is it even explicit, but during the end credits Forrest and Masu are holding hands in a canoe.
V is for… Vehicles as Weapons
Overall there aren’t too many vehicles in the film aside from helicopters, Forrest’s giant truck, and horses.
A la Indiana Jones, Forrest uses a helicopter propeller to kill MacGruder, though unlike Indy and the giant goon he faced, Forrest shoves MacGruder into it, or at the very least holds him in place.
W is for… Winning
Forrest and Masu make it to the refinery, and Forrest enacts his plan to destroy the place. He kills and injures a lot of people while simultaneously causing a lot of damage and explosions. As he systematically makes his way through the refinery to the rig, he does away with his enemies:
MacGruder dies a bloody death as Forrest lets a helicopter blade cut him up.
Liles drives a truck into a gas tanker, and the spilled gas ignites.
After tying Jennings up, Forrest shoots the cable holding him, so he falls into a vat of oil and apparently drowns, or something, as the viewer never sees him again. Nothing happens for a while, but the place does eventually explode. However that doesn’t stop me from thinking this feels an awful lot like an origin story for a Batman villain.
So, the refinery and the rig are completely destroyed.
The final looooong scene has Forrest preaching about clean energy, and explaining the Eskimos have their land back.
X is for… X-Rays
Like I said before, I don’t think Forrest even breaks a sweat, let alone gets hurt. Too bad John McClane doesn’t have his luck.
Y is for… Yesterday’s Problem Becomes Today’s Problem
There are vague comments that Jennings and Forrest have a history together, but it never gets developed. Perhaps Forrest works for Jennings to keep an eye on him, and vice-versa? If Forrest had reason to suspect Jennings was corrupt, wouldn’t he have tried to expose him earlier? His actions here to kill all these people and destroy Aegis-1 cannot be simply because of faulty preventers in the one substation.
Z is for… Zone, In The
The whole movie basically depicts Forrest as being “in the zone” on-top-of-things being awesome and perfect. It’s tiring, actually. If he always excels then he never truly does anything special. He also doesn’t seem to do anything particularly awesome or wonderful; there’s a lot of talk and minimal demonstration of his magical abilities.
~~~
So, yeah, wow. On Deadly Ground. What a mess of poor character development, a too-long first act that explains nothing, and weird choppy editing that just made the ludicrous dialogue stand out even more.
Other than the beautiful shots of Alaska that set the stage, there are no reasons to watch this movie. It doesn’t even really fall into “so bad it’s good” territory. The scenery really was gorgeous, though the opening shot of the eagle looked fake, like it was filmed at a zoo or something.
The beautiful wilderness contrasted perfectly with the sterile shots of Aegis-1; to go from natural grandeur to the cold, mechanical manmade structure subtly illustrated how horrible the oil company was.
Oh my God, what was with the fringed leather jackets? I counted four, not counting the shirt he borrows from the village. The jackets were totally distracting, like the cravats in The Day of the Jackal. They looked ridiculous and didn’t add much to the character, aside from maybe emphasizing he’s a man of the land. But that could have been done without fringe and beads. And the red one at Aegis-1! If you’re trying to blend in, a red fringy jacket is not the way to go about doing so.
That whole bar scene to set the stage for Forrest’s bad-assery just didn’t work. It was too long and didn’t add much. Maybe if the slapsies part was cut out it would have at least established Forrest as being good at hand-to-hand, but the scene just dragged on pointlessly. And if Forrest is a regular, as he seems to be since the owner calls him by name, and if he’s as bad-ass as the movie is trying to make him, why pick a fight with him? Seems like he’d be the last person anyone would want to fight with.
There’s a lot of racism in the bar scene towards Eskimos, which is interesting because they aren’t often represented in film so it’s not something an average viewer sees much of on screen. It’s sort of implied that Forrest is a Native American as well, but it might be a misinterpretation on my part.
It may have been just a problem of transferring the film to the DVD I watched, but the aspect ratio changed from 16×9 to 4×3. Most of the movie was in 4×3, but the opening credits, two scenes in the middle, and then the end credits again were 16×9. It was really distracting and weird, and I don’t know if it was a poor transfer, intentional to show more in those particular frames, or maybe the wrong lens kit was used those days of filming.
If nothing else, the film provides a nice glimpse into Inuit culture, from sled dogs to village life to throat singing and spirit rituals. What’s kind of strange though is that Forrest celebrates Eskimo culture but then basically says their spiritual beliefs are nonsense compared to the real world where spirits can’t help. So, a mixed message that may be a veiled attempt to convince any Inuit people watching to reconsider their cultural beliefs.
Forrest’s message about environmental responsibility and renewable energy at the end of the movie is just interminable. Maybe the ideas were all new in 1994, but here in 2013 the ideas aren’t new and as such the scene plays as extremely preachy and uninteresting. I kind of wanted to just shake Forrest and tell him to move on.
Anyway, to wrap this up, On Deadly Ground suffers greatly from a lack of actual character development. When it’s not even clear what the main character/god does and why he’s there, it’s a problem. The movie isn’t long; there’s time to add some development for all of the main characters and make them all less one-dimensional. A little bit would have gone a long way towards making the movie actually get its message across, rather than just confound viewers.
Though nothing can adequately clarify why Michael Caine agreed to do the movie at all.
Miscellaneous Post: H is for… Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters
Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is one of those films that’s an excellent example of “great idea, not so great execution.” Its release also seemed designed to capitalize on Renner’s Marvel/Bourne success, and the current market saturation of fairy tale reimaginings.
I enjoyed the casting; Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton are good, and who doesn’t love Famke Jannsen? The concept of witch hunters who are immune—mysteriously, to them—to witchcraft is really interesting, especially combined with the additional mythology about witches that is created, such as the idea of the rot showing on their bodies as they use the dark magic. Talk about two people (Hansel and Gretel) turning their imprisonment—a horrifying, twisting experience—around and making it work for them.
I loved Ben and Edward, and whether or not naming the giant ugly troll “Edward” is a sly kick to the knees of Twilight is unknown. Pihla Viitala was pretty and sweet and I’ve never even heard her name before. It appears that might be because she’s Finnish. I was upset when she wasn’t able to be revived, especially after the healing portrayed earlier in the film.
Though considering Hansel can’t seem to find a town in the middle of the day, making his way back to the healing pool is obviously too much to ask.
Special effects and fight choreography were very good; the fight scenes were a lot of fun to watch. The addition of guns and Tasers into a medieval sort of world somehow worked, possibly because reality is thrown by the wayside by the magic anyway. And making a house out of candy isn’t anywhere near practical. Delicious, yes, practical, no. The diversity of witches obviously took a lot of work, and the climactic fight scene with the entire group of them appeared to feature depictions of witch-like creatures from all over the world, or at least that’s how I’m interpreting it. Could have used more spells that weren’t just energy bolts, like that Curse of Hunger for Crawling Things. That was both gross and clever.
Do trolls actually serve witches, or is that something Edward is told to believe? I don’t recall there being other trolls around.
Some of the dialogue was fun, if a bit predictable: “Whatever you do, don’t eat the fucking candy.” “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” “Who the fuck is Edward?” Though the profanity was a little jarring for some reason, likely the medieval setting.
The film was also gorier than expected, but after the first couple examples it was easy to get used to, even if certain things made me wince (Edward smashing the Sheriff’s head, for example). It just added some grossness in with the action and magic.
My main problem with the film is that it was too short. Frankly it felt like it jumped from halfway through the second act straight into the third, which makes a big difference when it happens only an hour into the movie. The rush opened up a lot of needless plot holes, such as why did the witch let Hansel go and tie him to a tree rather than kill him? He’s just seen riding away and then it cuts to him hanging there, trying very unsuccessfully to look cool in front of Mina. How did Gretel get to their old house? We last see her calling after Edward, and then Hansel finds her in the basement. It’s like a reel was missing and no one bothered to find it.
And for the love of God, Hansel and Gretel didn’t recognize their old town or their old woods? They had to have wandered away from that initial witch’s home, with plenty of time to take in their surroundings. They really didn’t recognize anything at all around their home? Did they never go into town with their parents when they were kids? Did not make any sense. Maybe trauma could have caused memory loss, but they seem to remember everything else about their imprisonment. But why wouldn’t the older townspeople recognize the names ‘Hansel’ and ‘Gretel’ and realize these are the same people that lived in the house they burned down?
It seems that there’s an extended cut out there that was not what I watched through Redbox. Perhaps some of my concerns are answered in it.
I found the film dark, too, and I don’t mean that metaphorically or atmospherically. I mean as in I wanted to adjust the picture settings on the TV. Even watching it in broad daylight.
BUT, if you’re looking for a crash-and-bash movie with a pretty cast and nice effects/choreography, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters may be a good choice. Especially if you don’t have the time for something longer. It’s fun enough, and seems to have a sequel in the works.
Also, the opening credit sequence is fabulous. Really well done. Just…long, for such a short film.
N is for… The Negotiator
The Negotiator, directed by F. Gary Gray, is more of a thriller than an action movie, but it does have content for most of my categories, and stars Samuel L. Jackson, so it has to be included. I’m learning I may have an interest in hostage negotiations, as the film made me think fondly about Hostage (which I may review here at some point as I love that movie and it stars Bruce Willis), the short-lived but highly enjoyable Fox drama Standoff, and, oddly enough, Airheads (yes, the movie where Brendan Fraser, Steve Buscemi, and Adam Sandler take over a radio station).
In the film, Jackson plays Danny Roman, a hostage negotiator in Chicago. He is framed for the murder of his partner Nate (Paul Guilfoyle), who had just told him he had details about who was stealing money from the disability fund. Evidence against him includes he was seen standing over the body, the murder weapon can be traced to him, and there are receipts from an offshore bank account in his house. After realizing he has the support of no one as he argues his case, Danny takes the inspector for the Department of Internal Affairs (Niebaum, played by J.T. Walsh) hostage, along with his assistant (Maggie, played by Siobhan Fallon), a former thief (Rudy, played by Paul Giamatti), and his own boss (Frost, played by Ron Rifkin). Danny obviously knows how to shred his department’s training and get them all confused due to his familiarity with them, and he demands to speak only with the hostage negotiator for the other section of Chicago, Chris Sabian (Kevin Spacey).
As Danny negotiates with Sabian, it becomes clear that Danny isn’t lying or crazy; there is indeed something going on with his department, and so he may in fact be innocent (the audience knows he is, but no one in the film does). Sabian fights an uphill battle against Danny’s coworkers, including Beck (David Morse) and Chief Travis (John Spencer), and stops trusting them entirely once he realizes that there is a lot more going on than a disgruntled cop, especially considering the department seems intent on killing Danny rather than saving the hostages. His orders against full-on assault are entirely defied.
With Maggie and Rudy’s help, Danny is able to get the evidence he needs against Niebaum, but can’t act on the information before Niebaum is shot during an attempted infiltration. After realizing Danny was right and Niebaum’s death is the next step in someone covering up evidence, Sabian “allows” Danny to escape. He helps Danny get evidence to his department as Frost admits to stealing the money with three other cops in the department, and using part of it to frame Danny. The film ends with the guilty cops arrested, Danny free and clear, and a federal building in shambles on the 20th floor.
To the categories!
A is for… Accents
While there aren’t any actual accents in The Negotiator, certainly not any foreign ones at least, there is Jackson’s unique speech pattern and inflection.
B is for… Bad Guys
The film is a true mystery story, because the viewer has no idea “who the killer is” and only learns as Danny does. As such it’s kind of hard to label the “bad guys.” However, Niebaum, the Internal Affairs inspector whom Danny targets right away, just plain looks sleazy and bored and awful. Danny was right all along about him, as Niebaum eventually admits to “losing” his recordings with evidence of the guilty cops—Argento, Hellman, and Allen—when offered bribe money.
Throughout the entire negotiation, all of Danny’s coworkers are presented as sketchy and downright unlikeable as they try to get Danny to confess, except for Palermo (Michael Cudlitz) and Eagle (Carlos Gómez), and of course the fumbling Farley (Stephen Lee). Clearly this was to keep the audience in suspense, as I thought the suspicious-acting Beck was clearly in on the scheme and he actually had nothing to do with it.
Frost explains to Sabian that he used the stolen money to frame Danny, and that there isn’t much left. He names names, and overall seems rather unpleasant and self-righteous. Truth be told, I kind of suspected him from the beginning of the hostage takeover.
C is for… Chases
The film takes place mostly in one building, so there isn’t really any room for chases. There is one brief shot of a civilian helicopter that the police helicopter tells to move out of the air space, and it looks like a set up for a helicopter chase, but the civilian helicopter is never seen again.
D is for… Damsels
Linda, Nate’s wife, played by Rhonda Dotson, seems very nice and is friends with Karen, Danny’s wife. However, after Danny is blamed for Nate’s death, she is horrid and cold to him, which I suppose is to be expected. However, it’s frustrating that after he worked with Nate for so many years, she could so easily believe Danny killed him.
Karen (Regina Taylor) is Danny’s wife, and like every other movie wife married to a cop, she gives him grief about his job and how he performs it. She’s legitimately worried about him making it home alive every night, but their marriage is depicted as new and clearly she had to know what he did for a living before agreeing to marry him. She tells him not to be stupid.
Maggie is Niebaum’s assistant, and while intentionally not a ray of sunshine, so to speak, she’s an interesting character who must choose a side: support her boss, or help out the strange man keeping her locked up against her will. She seems very strong as she doesn’t cry or shy away from Danny, and later helps him unravel what a jerk her boss is.
E is for… Explosions
There aren’t any true explosions in the film, but there are many instances of flashbangs. Danny takes them from the vests of SWAT guys who tried to storm in and take him down, and uses them on his coworkers who try to infiltrate the office. He also uses one to start a fire that distracts everyone and allows him to escape.
F is for… Flashbacks
At one point there’s a brief flashback to Nate being shot, but that’s it.
G is for… Guns
There are plenty of guns in the film, though most of them are police weapons. Check out the full listing here at the IMFDB.
The film opens with Danny trying to talk down hostage-taker Omar (Tom Bower), and Omar has a shotgun. The same opening scene has a crowd of SWAT guys with their own assault weapons. Across the street, Palermo has his sniper rifle at the ready, awaiting Danny’s signal to fire.
Nate is shot with a handgun that is thrown into the lake. Danny is attached to the crime because the gun was one of a set of three, and he’d found and handed in the other two previously.
During Nate’s funeral, there is a 21 gun salute carried out by ceremonial rifles.
Danny takes a handgun to take Niebaum hostage and start his standoff.
Danny makes everyone in Internal Affairs hand over their guns, and a lot of them have revolvers.
The guns belonging to the SWAT guys that try to take down Danny have flashlights on them.
Shootouts include the two-SWAT-guy breach while Danny is out of Niebaum’s office, and the infiltration done by Argento to shoot Niebaum.
H is for… Helicopters
There are either multiple police helicopters flying around, or just one that keeps getting shown. Usually it’s shown depositing SWAT guys or holding SWAT guys as they try to take out Danny.
There’s the lone shot of the civilian helicopter that does nothing.
I is for… Improvisation
It’s somewhat unclear just how much prior planning Danny did versus making things happen with what he had. Either way it works, because there’s no shortage of guns for him to use nor non-lethal tools to work into his plan such as the flashbangs.
He also—after pretending to shoot Scott (Dean Norris)—is able to strip off Scott’s clothes and wear them himself to sneak out of the building to get to Niebaum’s house.
It’s also unclear as to whether or not he knew Maggie and Rudy were in Niebaum’s office at that exact time, or if he just got lucky that they were there and were also the key to him finding the evidence he needed.
J is for… Jumping Through Solid Objects
When Scott and his partner enter the office to try to get the hostages out, it’s unclear whether they shoot the windows out first or just smash through them.
K is for… Kill Count
Danny obviously tries very hard not to shoot and kill anyone, considering he’s a good cop that’s trying to prove his innocence. However, it’s unclear whether the SWAT guys trying to infiltrate the office are all either stunned, called off, giving up, or if Danny does actually shoot one or two. There’s a lot of chaos in those moments.
L is for… Limitations
Danny is fighting an immense uphill battle:
-He only has one day before he must choose to take the court’s deal or likely go to prison.
-Everyone thinks he’s guilty except for his wife.
-The people setting him up are cops, so they know all the tricks.
-He has to get his hostages to help him, which takes a lot of talk and work.
-Just as he knows the personal details of his coworkers and can manipulate them, they can do the same to him.
M is for… Motivation
Niebaum thinks Danny wants money, but the audience knows Danny wants to clear his name and save his life, avenge the death of his partner, and find out who stole the money.
Frost and the other cops, and of course Niebaum, just want money. It’s unclear why Danny is the one set up.
N is for… Negotiation
As Danny is a hostage negotiator, there’s a lot of negotiation in The Negotiator. (I know, you’re shocked.)
In the opening scene, Danny tries to negotiate with Omar: “I show you your wife and you let the girl go, but let me in first.”
The judge overseeing Danny’s case tells him he has one day to make a deal rather than go to court.
Danny argues with Niebaum, “You don’t feel like talking? We’re going to stay here until you do.”
Danny also says that if Sabian doesn’t arrive on the scene in 20 minutes, Rudy dies.
Sabian is introduced as he tries to negotiate with his wife and daughter—his wife to come out of the bedroom and his daughter to get off the phone. He fails on both accounts.
Danny, trying to both bust Farley’s chops and show he’s serious, argues, “You say no again, I’ll kill somebody.”
Rudy plays the “I’ve changed so don’t hurt me” card, and says he found a woman with a great kid.
Danny offers to his hostages, “We’re not leaving here until we find out who set me up.”
He also challenges, “I know the rules of engagement, so don’t test me.”
Danny tells his coworkers that he won’t give up until he gets back his badge, if he dies he gets a departmental funeral, he learns the identity of Nate’s killer, and learns the identity of Nate’s informant. He continues to say they have eight hours until he kills one hostage an hour, and he wants to talk to Sabian face to face.
Sabian argues, “We’re gonna do it my way, or I walk.”
Danny is told that if one more gun is fired, the SWAT guys are coming in.
After Sabian starts making the calls to force things along, Danny offers him one hostage if he gets the electricity turned on and brings food and blankets for the hostages.
Later he offers to Sabian that if Sabian can get the name of whomever Nate spoke to the night before he died, he’ll surrender one hostage.
Sabian argues, “Make one wrong move, I’ll take you down myself.”
After Danny vacates, Rudy and Maggie are interrogated, and when Maggie refuses to give up Danny’s next move, she’s told she needs to speak up or go to jail.
Argento and Danny tell each other to make a deal.
Sabian demands, “You want to deal? You deal with me.”
Frost and Sabian negotiate what cut of the stolen money will be given to Sabian to keep his mouth shut. They work down from 60% to 50% to 30% to 45% to 35%.
O is for… One Liners
Danny, illustrating how good he is at lying and sweet-talking hostage takers, after talking about being in the Marines and loving his pet dog: I was in the army and I fucking hate dogs.
Guy interrupting Nate talking with Danny: You girls blowing each other?
Danny: I was about to get a blow job till you showed up.
Beck: He’s one of our guys. We got this.
Fed: That’s fine. For now.
Sabian, failing to placate his wife after their daughter makes a remark: That’s not the word she used. She used a… much worse word.
Sabian: I once talked a man out of blowing up the Sears tower but I cannot talk my wife out of the bedroom or my kid off the phone.
Danny: You’re goddamn right this is serious. So why don’t you take me seriously?
Danny: I’m relaxed. I’m very fucking relaxed.
Rudy, to Farley, after Farley fails Danny’s “no” test: We’re all okay, just don’t be saying ‘no’ no more, motherfucker!
Sabian: So what’s this then, the exception that disproves the rule?
Danny, to Sabian: You’re much better at this than Farley.
Sabian: Mrs. Roman, you bring tension and emotion to a scene that already has too much of both.
Rudy: Do I look like I’m okay? I have a gun pointed at the back of my head.
Danny: When your friends betray you, sometimes the only people you can trust are strangers.
Sabian, angry with the department for not listening to him: Your chain of command just gave Danny Roman two more hostages!
Sabian: You want to shoot him on national television now?
Rudy: I’m very disappointed in all of you.
P is for… Profession
Danny, as depicted in the opening scene, is a hostage negotiator. Right away the audience sees how the process works and what tools are available to him, such as a list of the taker’s likes and dislikes, and cameras and mirrors being used for visibility. Danny smooth talks by necessity, and thus is very good at it. He’s also somewhat of a rogue, evident by the way in which he chooses to go in and talk with Omar face to face and unarmed, rather than storm in with the SWAT guys. At the chief’s party his coworkers say he’s “on the news again,” and the news says he “saved the day again,” so clearly he’s high profile and good at what he does. He is immediately vilified by his coworkers, which lends credence to the idea that some of them are in on the framing—there isn’t anyone at all willing to stand up for him?
Again one has to wonder if he planned to take additional hostages, those particular hostages, or if he just got lucky. He of course knows all the tricks used in negotiations, so he seals off the vents and exits, destroys the cameras (which is coworkers seem so disappointed about; obviously he’s going to find and destroy them!), and shuts the blinds to ensure zero visibility for anyone outside.
He’s also described as being an expert in explosives and tactics, and one of his coworkers uses “Stockholm” as a verb to describe Danny using his familiarity with everyone to get them on his side.
He’s been working there for twelve years, but Frost has known him for twenty years.
Q is for… Quagmire
The only time Danny seemed to be in true danger was during the fire fight where Niebaum gets killed, but he does a good job of defending himself anyway. Niebaum was the immediate and primary target.
R is for… Reality/Suspension of Disbelief
The Negotiator is an example of one of those tight but thrilling, high stress/stakes films that can actually happen. The theft itself is loosely based on a theft in St. Louis.
As far as the actual hostage negotiation process as depicted, there’s a featurette on the DVD in which an actual hostage negotiator is filmed talking about his craft, so clearly research and care went into how everything was put together.
S is for… Sidekicks
While seemingly tricky to collect sidekicks while taking people hostage at gunpoint, Danny manages.
Sabian, as the other negotiator, can be counted, for even though they’re on opposite sides, they ultimately want the same thing: everyone to get out alive. Sabian is also described as never forcing tactical action, meaning he prefers to talk out the situation rather than go in guns a-blazing. In five years he has had zero casualties on a case. He once negotiated for 55 hours. It’s unclear how Danny knows Sabian or how well, but it’s obviously better for Danny to negotiate with someone unrelated to his department. Sabian, once he starts getting suspicious, points out that even though he has nothing invested in what’s going on with Danny, he seems to be the only person not interested in shooting him.
Palermo can be counted as a sidekick because while he doesn’t actively help Danny, he refuses to shoot him when ordered to.
Maggie is brave and sides with Danny over her boss—or perhaps just knows giving Danny the information she has will get them all out of there faster and alive. She tells Danny about the files on Niebaum’s computer, and helps Rudy navigate the computer’s security system. She also tells Danny that Niebuam worked from home a lot and probably has the recordings Danny needs at his house.
Rudy is a ‘former’ criminal Danny apprehended. He’s able to use Maggie’s information to navigate Niebaum’s computer to find and play the audio files of tapped phones that Niebaum had been storing. He also—while knowing he will remain a hostage by providing the information—points out that Sabian is lying when he says he has Nate’s informant, because Nate himself is listed as the informant.
T is for… Technology
Remote cameras are used to provide visibility inside hostage scenes.
It is very distracting when Danny looks at his beeper, because in today’s age beepers seem to be associated with doctors and the mid-late ‘90s.
The files on Niebaum’s computer are wire taps.
Sabian “has” the evidence stored on two floppy discs, which surely can’t hold all that many taps.
Simple handheld radios are the final tool used to reveal Danny’s innocence, as Frost spells everything out for Sabian like a Bond villain.
U is for… Unexpected Romance
Fortunately, as Danny is married and Maggie is strong and rightfully angry, there is no romance at all in the film.
V is for… Vehicles as Weapons
There aren’t many vehicles at all, because most of the film takes place on one floor of a building and the police camp outside the building.
But, considering the police helicopter(s) has SWAT guys leaping out of it and brandishing weapons from it, it counts.
W is for… Winning
After Danny gets the information off of Niebaum’s computer and Maggie tells him there’s more at Niebaum’s house, Danny escapes the building (with Sabian’s help) and makes his way to Niebaum’s home office. Two of the guilty cops get there and try to talk Danny down. Eventually Frost shows up, and he shoos the cops out and locks the door behind him. It’s finally revealed that Frost was also involved in the theft.
Sabian reveals himself to be there, and says he wants part of the stolen money. Frost explains that there isn’t much left because he’s been spending it, and a lot was used to set up Danny. Danny comes out, and Sabian shoots him in the gut after trying to signal him by referring to a movie they’d discussed earlier. Sabian hands over the floppy discs with the evidence, and Frost crushes them.
Frost exits the house and informs the collected arsenal of police that Danny is dead. He then realizes that everyone had heard his confession of involvement in the crime on their radios, because as Danny and Sabian exit the house behind him Danny reveals he was using Sabian’s radio to broadcast Frost’s confession. The guilty cops are arrested.
Now clear, although shot, Danny is taken to the hospital, and given back his badge by Sabian.
X is for… X-rays, or Maybe You Should See a Doctor
Danny gets shot in the arm during the hostage scene, but is just fine.
Sabian shoots him in the gut to trick Frost into confessing. Somehow Danny seems okay enough to dramatically hand over his gun once Frost is down, and Sabian half drags him to the stretcher. Why the stretcher wasn’t brought to him, I don’t know.
Y is for… Yesterday’s Problem Becomes Today’s Problem
Literally if a day or two before Nate had been honest about what was going on, the entire framing situation could have been avoided. Danny could have pushed harder to get the information.
Z is for… Zone, in the
Throughout most of the film Danny is in his element; he’s a professional hostage negotiator who is just working the other side as the hostage taker. Because he knows everything that will be tried, he can easily sidestep and use whatever happens to his advantage. He also knows when to fold them, so to speak, such as offering Frost back in order to get the electricity turned on.
In Conclusion…
The Negotiator was very enjoyable, and while long it didn’t seem to drag like other films I’ve reviewed (Executive Decision, I’m looking at you). The concept is really interesting, and the execution is very good. Jackson and Spacey are great, and the supporting cast of hostages is excellent. The situation is very tense, but Rudy with his attitude and Farley with his hilarious inadequateness help to add some humor.
As I mentioned in my intro, the film is reminiscent of other films, but I neglected to refer to the film that kept popping into my head: Die Hard. Perhaps I’m unfairly associating Jackson with Die Hard because of his role in Die hard With a Vengeance, but I think the comparison is warranted.
-The film’s setting of one office and one trailer makes it very claustrophobic, which was intentional on the part of Die Hard.
-There is talk of western movies, though not of Roy Rogers.
-I found myself recalling the bits of conversation related to Hostage Terrorist, Terrorist Hostage.
-There’s reference to “the man upstairs,” an expression Gruber uses to describe McClane, and which McClane uses to describe God.
-There’s the inevitable “city versus federal” power struggle.
-Interestingly, there’s no mention of shutting off the heat in Die Hard, but that may be because it’s Los Angeles. It would still get chilly at night at Christmastime, though. And while off topic, there’s a lot of sweating going on in The Negotiator, considering it’s supposed to be cold out enough to need heat.
There’s a reference to AMC showing old westerns, which served as a reminder that AMC once upon a time actually aired American movie classics, not anything that fit the definition of a “movie.” And remember when it didn’t have commercials? /soapbox
The Negotiator is definitely something I’d recommend to people, even if it’s not a true “action” movie. The suspense and genuine mystery, however, and the chemistry between Spacey and Jackson, make the film really entertaining and not in need of more explosions or chases. There are plenty of guns, clever bits of dialogue, sidekicks, and negotiation to round it out.
M is for… Machete
Somehow I missed Robert Rodriguez’s Machete in theaters, even though I love Rodriguez’s directing. My favorite movie as a teenager was From Dusk Till Dawn; I loved the writing, the direction, and George Clooney looking extremely hot with the tattoo crawling up his arm. From Dusk Till Dawn was my first introduction to Danny Trejo, who stars in Machete as Machete. He only has a couple lines in From Dusk Till Dawn, yet like so many others they’re somehow memorable: “This bar is for bikers and truckers only. You… get out!” “Best food in Mexico.” There are, of course, a couple other familiar faces from From Dusk Till Dawn in Machete.
Anyway, Machete is introduced as a Federale, and he ultimately watches his wife get killed by drug lord Torrez (Steven Segal), and learns he was double-crossed by his chief. Cut to three years later and Machete is an illegal immigrant in Texas doing day labor. He gets accosted by Michael Booth (Jeff Fahey) who wants him to kill Senator McLaughlin (Robert De Niro), because of McLaughlin’s hardline attitude about Mexican immigrants. Machete prepares to shoot him, but Booth’s henchman sniper shoots McLaughlin in the leg and Machete in the shoulder, leading to Machete being chased through the streets. It turns out Booth is one of McLaughlin’s aids, and is going to use the assassination attempt to boost McLaughlin’s ratings and ensure his reelection.
Introduced concurrently is the mysterious Luz (Michelle Rodriguez), who runs a taco stand and may or may not be the vigilante Shé, who runs a Network that helps immigrants cross the border and get jobs. Luz is being watched closely by immigration officer Sartana Rivera (Jessica Alba), who also watches the day laborers and other suspected illegal immigrants.
Fortunately for Machete, he winds up at a hospital run by the Network, and though the henchman sniper guy (Shea Whigham) finds him, Machete is able to kill or maim all of the thugs with him. Machete is eventually able to get to Luz’s home, where he’s able to hide out for a while.
Also on the side of Booth and McLaughlin is Von (Don Johnson), a “vigilante” who shoots immigrants as they try to cross the border. Ultimately it’s discovered that even Torrez wants the border shut down, so he can charge more for the drugs he brings across.
Sartana is able to pull up Machete’s federal file and learns he was double-crossed, and therefore winds up protecting him and working with him, rather than taking him to immigration. She even turns her back to evidence of the Network, and the inevitable confirmation that Luz is really Shé. Meanwhile Machete goes to his brother, Padre (Cheech Marin) and enlists his help. Of course he also ignores him when he’s ordered to stay away, and brings Booth’s daughter April (Lindsay Lohan) and wife June (Alicia Marek) to the church.
Meanwhile Booth hires a hitman, Osiris Amanpour (Tom Savini), who tracks Machete to Padre and kills Padre with Booth’s help, only further enraging Machete. Luz’s home is blown up by the sniper henchman, but she escapes only to be shot by Von.
The film culminates with Machete and his team of Sartana and the Network—and eventually Shé, who was saved by the Network’s doctor –against Torrez, Von, and Texan citizens. McLaughlin, not wanting to side with Von and his men because they betray him, joins Machete’s team against Torrez. April also joins in to avenge her father, who was killed by McLaughlin.
The film ends with Machete staging a revolution, and afterwards he and Sartana ride off into the sunset, so to speak.
There are actually a lot of characters and variations of the same storyline (Machete versus Luz versus McLaughlin versus Torrez), so while that plot summary seems a little thin and confusing, I think jumping right into the criteria will be best.
So here we go…
A is for… Accents
A few characters have Spanish accents, which is to be expected in a film that features Mexican immigrants so heavily.
What is fascinating though is that for the first time I can recall, Robert De Niro doesn’t have his typical New York Robert De Niro accent. It was really interesting to hear him speak with what I always view as a “George Bush” accent, which is really a Texan accent. Perhaps he was channeling Bush to nail the part.
What’s really funny is that the accent slips later on, as McLaughlin says, “I can’t walk out of here like a fucking piñata waiting to get whacked.” It’s eventually revealed he isn’t even Texan and the accent is an affectation, as he laments, “I hate Texas. I hate the heat.”
B is for… Bad Guys
There are a lot of bad guys in Machete.
First up is Torrez, who explains to Machete that he owns the DEA and the Marshals, and doesn’t understand why Machete won’t succumb to bribes. Ultimately he wants to get the US/Mexico border shut down so he can raise prices on his drugs. He kills Machete’s wife right in front of him, and threatens his daughter (though if Machete is wandering around aimlessly, likely Torrez did kill his daughter).
Von shoots a pregnant immigrant, and clearly has zero tolerance for immigrants. Even when the pregnancy is pointed out, he explains he can’t let the baby be born in American and given the same rights as all American citizens. He shoots Luz in the eye. He’s described as a vigilante and it’s explained he’s financed by McLaughlin, but then he turns on him after.
Senator McLaughlin is a conservative Texan senator whose sole platform seems to be keeping immigrants out of Texas and building an electrified border fence. He’s first seen with Von, shooting immigrants as they cross the border. His campaign is being funded Torrez and his Mexican drug money. He shoots Booth twice in the chest and after he’s betrayed by Von he fights with Machete.
Booth is McLaughlin’s aid, and it should be obvious from the beginning that he’s a bad guy because of his slicked-back hair. He does confessionals at Padre’s church, and Padre explains Booth has impure thoughts about his daughter and is connected to the cartel. His businesses are a front for the drug trade. He engineers the assassination attempt on McLaughlin without explaining it to him first, and is the one to hire Osiris to kill Machete and Padre.
The henchman sniper at first seems to be merely Booth’s righthand man, but is really a sniper. He is killed for not killing Machete.
Osiris Amanpour is a hitman for hire (call 1-800-HITMAN). He literally crucifies Padre, and is not seen again after Booth says Machete is after them.
C is for… Chases
Not too many chases and they’re all on foot:
Machete gets chased through the building after the assassination attempt, and then through the hospital. He’s able to get away by swinging on a guy’s intestines.
D is for… Damsels
Agent Sartana Rivera is an immigration officer, specifically a special agent in charge of investigations after having worked her way up from taking out the trash. She’s first seen scoping out the day laborers and Luz’s taco truck. She’s apparently been borderline harassing Luz regarding her citizenship. She’s seen training for kickboxing using the Wii. After spending time with Machete, and learning about the human side of illegal immigration and the corruption resulting in his wife’s death, she turns a blind eye on Luz and her garage command center for the Network. She also starts developing feelings for Machete. She rallies the day laborers to join Machete by giving a speech ending with, “We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us!” Overall Sartana is smart and capable and doesn’t get kidnapped, so she’s a good person for Machete to have around.
Luz runs a taco truck for the day laborers, and shows compassion when she lets Machete take food he can’t pay for, either believing he’ll pay her later or not caring if he doesn’t. She explains to Sartana that she wanted to help people, and grew into fighting the immigration war. She knows the legend of Machete, and has been stockpiling weapons for the Network for when the time for all-out fighting comes. She is also smart and capable and deadly, even while missing an eye during the final melee.
April is Booth’s daughter, and is a drugged out oversexed aspiring model. She makes pornographic videos with her mother and a man and posts them online. After she learns of her father’s death she has some sort of awakening as she dons a habit (she’s naked in Padre’s church) and shoots McLaughlin in the chest.
E is for… Explosions
A light film for explosives, with only a police car Machete crashes exploding, a bomb being detonated in Luz’s home, and some sort of explosion that launches Machete’s motorcycle into the air.
F is for… Flashbacks
No flashbacks in Machete.
G is for… Guns
Check out a full listing here at the IMFDB.
The opening scene has three guys with machine guns firing at Machete’s car.
Machete’s primary weapon is obviously the machete; he even chooses it over a long-handled revolver and is quick enough on the draw to decapitate three guys before they can shoot at him. Throughout the film he seems to enjoy the versatility of both slicing people and stabbing them.
Torrez’s men have a flamethrower, which I bring up because not a lot of movies seem to have flamethrowers, even though they seem to be quite useful.
Von and McLaughlin enjoy firing rifles at immigrants.
It looks like Booth has an entire armory as he gives Machete a high-powered rifle with which to kill the senator. Machete of course chooses the machete for “backup.”
Booth goes to rescue April and kills everyone with a silenced handgun.
Machete is an excellent shot; he has a guy in a headlock and a pistol in one hand, and shoots three guys in the knee with three separate shots, all while the gun is actually in the other guy’s hand.
The cops have short-barreled rifles, but then it’s revealed they aren’t actually cops.
Osiris and Padre have huge guns for their standoff, though Padre’s are shotguns and Osiris’s are machine guns. Osiris still manages to not hit Padre, while Padre is able to kill two of Osiris’s men by shooting blindly behind a column.
There are, of course, various other guns used throughout the film, but the final epic climactic battle takes place between Machete and Torrez as Machete brandishes his machete and Torrez brandishes what appear to be samurai swords.
Sartana seems to have a flask shaped like a handgun.
H is for… Helicopters
Sadly, there are no helicopters in Machete. This is very disappointing.
I is for… Improvisation
Machete uses a mop handle as a weapon as he comes out of the elevator after the shooting of the senator.
As the henchman sniper is closing in on him at the hospital, Machete takes the belt from a nurse’s uniform and ties a ring of scalpels to it. He also uses an oxygen tank to propel the gurney on which he’s hiding.
After learning a person’s intestines are ten times the length of the human body, Machete slices a man open and uses his intestines to catch his fall after he jumps through a window. The intestines also allow him to swing onto the floor below.
Machete uses a weed whacker to force a henchman to keep his distance, then turns it around and uses it as a club.
Sartana impales a thug with an obelisk, then uses her high heeled shoes to both defend herself and stab a thug through the eye.
Machete again uses the weed whacker to gain the thugs’ attention, and then uses a nail gun to nail a thug’s hand to the wall. In the same scene he also uses hedge clippers to intimidate a thug, though doesn’t give in to the urge to chop his head off, regardless of the clippers straddling his neck.
J is for… Jumping Through Solid Objects
Machete throws himself out of a window at the hospital, and swings through the window on the floor beneath that one.
At Sartana’s place one thug bursts through a glass door, and another falls through a window after being shot.
K is for… Kill Count
The question almost becomes who doesn’t Machete kill, because he kills a lot of thugs in a lot of creative ways.
He stabs the fake cop through the seat of the police cruiser, and steers the vehicle by turning the machete.
At Luz’s house he machetes another thug through his skull, stabs a thug in the eye with a corkscrew, and jams a meat thermometer into another thug’s neck. He also grabs a cleaver to do something.
Machete kills an unknown amount of people during the climactic battle.
L is for… Limitations
Machete becomes part of a huge conspiracy regarding the shutting down of the border, totally against his will and while constantly being chased. He has no aid other than Luz, whom he thinks is dead, and Sartana, who should really be turning him over to the authorities.
Machete is also illegal, so he can’t just go get help and can’t expect it, until the Network gets called in.
M is for… Motivation
The film opens with Torrez killing Machete’s wife and implying he killed his daughter, which is of course all Machete needs to want revenge.
It’s explained that “Torrez wants to get Senator McLaughlin reelected so that he can build a border fence that he can control.” This secure border will limit supply and drive up prices. So, clearly, Torrez is in it for the money, McLaughlin for the money, Von likely for money and/or hatred of immigrants, and Booth because McLaughlin being in office means he still has a job, and because he’s such a big part of the drug trade.
Machete wants to end the bad guys because they’ll keep trying to kill him, and because of the way he was double-crossed three years prior. It’s unclear what his opinion is on illegal immigration.
N is for… Negotiation
Booth offers Machete $150,000 to kill McLaughlin, but then he says that Machete needs to do it or he’ll make “something” happen to him.
Sartana offers Machete papers if he lets her bring him in.
McLaughlin has to choose between fighting Von and being killed by Luz.
O is for… One Liners
Machete’s Partner: I’m with you, Boss.
Machete, holding up his machete: This is the boss.
Torrez: Which the fuck is it, puñeta? Dead or dying?
Doctor: If he hadn’t been shot before, he’d be dead now.
Sartana: Jesus Christ, Machete. You’re a walking shit-magnet.
Machete: Sounds like you’re still taking out the trash.
Torrez: Notoriously hard to kill. Believe me, I’ve tried.
Sartana: Why should I trust you?
Machete: Because we’re both cops.
Thug: You ever notice how you let a Mexican into your home just because he’s got gardening tools? No questions asked, you just let him right in. He could have a chainsaw or machete…
June: If your father ever saw me doing this…
April: Mom, everyone is gonna see you do this. It’s the Internet.
Padre, about April and June unconscious in the back of his hearse: I’ll make good use of them. The church can always use good people.
Machete: Machete don’t text. But Machete gets evidence.
Von, after Billy vomits a second time after Von kills someone: You’re gonna have to get better at this, Billy.
Padre: God has mercy. I don’t.
Booth: Blood of Christ. Tastes like Merlot to me.
Sartana: I thought Machete didn’t text.
Machete: Machete improvises.
Thug, after Machete threatens him with a weed whacker: I quit! (he also hands over his gun)
Sartana’s boss: Let me see if I hear this right. One of this city’s most prominent businessmen, a Texas vigilante, the most notorious drug kingpin of Mexico, and a state senator are all conspiring to enact stricter immigration laws?
Sartana: There’s the law, and there’s what’s right. I’m gonna do what’s right.
Booth: You forgot your cane, sir. Milk it.
Machete: Why would I want to be a person, when I’m already a myth?
P is for… Profession
Machete is a federal marshal in Mexico. He’s depicted defying orders and he doesn’t take bribes, or at least not from Torrez. When offered $500 to fight, he doesn’t even put down his burrito as he gets the other guy to break his arm. He knows of the Network that helps immigrants get across the border. He gives the money Booth gave him to Luz.
Torrez says Machete is notoriously hard to kill, which isn’t a wonder considering how well he can improvise and how skilled he is with both firearms and his machete.
He somehow isn’t recognized as being a federale until after Booth picks him up and he’s caught on camera in the fake assassination attempt. Considering his distinct face and tattoos, you’d think Torrez or law enforcement would recognize him.
Q is for… Quagmire
There really isn’t ever a sense of huge impending danger for Machete, resulting from a combination of Machete being depicted as unstoppable, and also the violence being so cartoony. Yes people are killed horribly and Machete is in grave danger, but the kills are played for laughs so the danger seems minimized.
R is for… Reality
I don’t know enough about immigration politics or Texan politics to comment on the story parts.
Maybe someone is that good with a machete, or in the case of Padre the blind gun shots.
Truly the excess blood makes it hard to believe the film was anything other than pure entertainment; through the cartoony violence there didn’t seem to be any real-world issues at stake, though obviously immigration policy is a hot-button issue for many people.
S is for Sidekicks
Sartana and Shé are obviously Machete’s sidekicks. Though Sartana initially wants to cut down on illegal immigration, she eventually sides with her opposite, Shé, as both of them help Machete fight McLaughlin and Booth.
Padre is a blasphemous priest, and it’s unclear whether he’s Machete’s actual brother or some sort of metaphorical brother. When he finds out how much trouble Machete is in, he throws him out and tells him not to come back because he’s afraid for himself. Machete does return with April and June, who are passed out in Padre’s hearse (part of his side business). Booth has been coming to Padre for confessional, and Padre has been recording the sessions, which are used to expose Booth and McLaughlin as being crooked. He is extremely adept with shotguns, but Osiris and Booth are ultimately able to crucify him and kill him.
T is for… Technology
Sartana uses face recognition software to identify Machete.
Torrez and Booth video chat.
U is for… Unexpected Romance
Machete and Luz kind of goad each other on, and during a kiss the scene fades to black. There’s no evidence if anything sexual happened.
Machete makes a pornographic video with April and June to get revenge on Booth. Both women only seem more turned on that this rough looking stranger shows up to be in their video.
He and Sartana lay down on her bed together, and there’s another fade to black. When she wakes up she seems relieved to be clothed and untouched.
The film ends with Sartana giving Machete legal papers and making out with him on his motorcycle, as he manages to drive it with her in his lap.
At least Sartana is a strong character and the relationship was somewhat hinted at during the film; it didn’t just come out of nowhere at the end, and it wasn’t drawn out or obnoxious.
V is for… Vehicles as Weapons
In the opening scene Machete uses his car to break through the door.
Machete pulls up the emergency brake on Sartana’s car to cause it to swing around, distracting her enough that he can grab her gun.
The end cavalry of the Network’s crew travels by modified car. One of them has rocket launchers attached to the hood. Another bounces up and crushes someone under the tire when it lands. Machete also attaches a Gatling gun to his motorcycle.
A truck is used to plow through the wall of the cell holding McLaughlin.
W is for… Winning
Obviously everyone but Booth is involved in the final climactic battle.
McLaughlin shoots Booth twice in the chest in his limo.
April shoots McLaughlin in the chest, but he’s later revealed to be wearing a bulletproof vest. He’s able to get up and escape, only to electrify himself on a border fence and get shot by Von’s henchman Billy.
Shé shoots Von.
Machete stabs Torrez with his machete, and Torrez then commits hara-kiri.
X is for… X-rays, or Maybe You Should See A Doctor
Machete gets shot in the shoulder by the sniper henchman, and is actually brought into the hospital. He heals well enough to fight, or doesn’t care that he’s in pain. He seems fine during the rest of the film, though this is possibly attributable to the egg Luz cracks under the bed as he sleeps.
Y is for… Yesterday’s Problem Becomes Today’s Problem
Other than Torrez and Machete not killing each other earlier, there isn’t a history to drive the story or provide material for flashbacks.
Z is for… Zone, In The
During the climax, Machete wields his machete as if it’s an extension of himself, slaughtering countless opponents. Same thing at Luz’s house; Machete disposes of thugs with improvised weapons in close quarters as if he were born for it.
To sum up, Machete is a heck of a lot of fun. There are a lot of characters to enjoy and enjoy hating, and the film brings attention to an important political issue. The deaths are over the top and blood splatters absolutely everywhere, but that’s what makes it fun. There’s more than enough action and humor for everyone, with a cast that really works well together to bring their characters to life.
A few more points I want to make:
The opening scene of Machete’s partner and wife and meeting with Torrez has a sort of “film look” filter over it, which seems characteristic for Rodriguez throwing it to the Grindhouse themes.
Likewise, the film is deliciously Rodriguez-esque violent, even with the co-director (Ethan Maniquis, long-time editing partner of Rodriguez). It would likely be possible to randomly channel surf into Machete and pin it as a Rodriguez film.
The film takes place three years after the opening scene, which is a long time for Machete to be wandering aimlessly as a day laborer. What happened during those three years, and why wasn’t he able to cross the border legally?
The film was a good chance for me to practice the Spanish lessons I’ve recently started. Maybe it’s silly to understand that Padre is Machete’s hermano and that the salsa for Luz’s tacos comes in red and green, but I will enjoy my small victories.
Hilariously, “Machete” is Machete’s birth name. Not sure what his parents were thinking.
The film of course has one of Rodriguez’s signature themes: a Mexican standoff. This time more literally than others, as Machete and the Network line up outside Von’s headquarters.
I give Machete two thumbs up for sheer entertainment and not succumbing to some of the problems with other movies, such as being too long and trying to do too much when really a simple story with some twists proves more satisfying. I’m looking forward to the sequel, Machete Kills.
Miscellaneous Post: I is for Iron Man: Launching a Cinematic Franchise
It’s not a question of whether or not 2008’s Iron Man launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
Obviously, it did.
What’s amazing is that it did it so spectacularly.
And this is coming from someone who had absolutely zero interest in anything Marvel-related at all.
Being a DC fangirl, I paid zero attention to Iron Man when it came out. I scoffed at it. I could not care less. Then Iron Man 2 was just as big a hit. But I still couldn’t care about Iron Man or Marvel or anything of the sort. I was sticking with Batman and Superman, despite various cinematic disasters and “realistic” settings for a guy who dresses in a bat costume, not to mention a bunch of comics in which my favorite characters were getting killed (and let’s not talk about the New 52).
Then, I was on vacation, the weather was drippy and cold, and there was nothing to do all day. Bored of staying inside, I suggested we go to the drive-in, because A) I love the drive-in, and B) the night’s double feature was Captain America: The First Avenger and Thor. No, I didn’t care about Marvel, but at least the films would have some good action and would also go together, unlike some drive-ins showing a kiddie movie and something R-rated, or two movies that don’t go together at all (District 9 and The Ugly Truth for example; that was a long night). I didn’t even know anything about the Avengers at the time, or maybe vaguely was aware that there was some sort of Marvel movie thing that was happening, related to those two movies at the drive-in.
Anyway, through the misting drizzle and thin veil of fog, we watched Captain America and then Thor best their adversaries. Sort of. If you’ve seen them you know what I mean.
I still wasn’t that interested in Marvel’s The Avengers but eventually did see it. And loved every second of it. It has pretty much everything a movie-goer could want, and nothing that he wouldn’t (Unexpected Romance, I’m looking at you).
So then I had to backtrack through the other MCU films, starting of course with Iron Man, which Redbox had so conveniently put back into its system. I was, shall we say, impressed. The film was tight with no extra nonsense scenes, not boring or drawn out, shiny without looking fake, fun without trying too hard, and again didn’t slow itself down with romance (which would be out of character for Tony anyway, except of course where Pepper is concerned).
Tony’s childhood is hinted at but not embellished, unlike many superhero origin stories (Batman and Superman, I’m looking at you), so all the audience has to go on is the portrayal of the character before the inciting incident. Clearly Tony is selfish, a womanizer, doesn’t care about money because he has so very much of it, and pretty much is all about the flashy toys his money can buy and his company can build. He even comments about peace being a bad thing because it will put him out of a job. Of course, Tony changes his entire purpose for existing after Afghanistan, throwing himself into becoming a hero and changing the focus of his company, and working to ensure his weapons don’t end up in the hands of the enemy.
It’s amazing that nothing seems forced; the film is entirely about Tony’s growth from within, even if the change is initiated by external factors. There’re no agonizing-to-watch personal demon battles; Tony’s actual personal demon, Obadiah, is fought and ended in a very clean-looking fight.
I’ve described the effects and fighting as “shiny” and “clean” because they truly are. If someone didn’t know better, the computer effects are easy to confuse for practical effects. Too many films do not properly integrate CGI, leading to the effects either popping off the screen unpleasantly or looking flat rather than appearing within a three dimensional space inside the actual film (and yes, motion capture is different than creating a monster or something, but still). Iron Man doesn’t have that problem, which really does put it a step ahead of so many films, be they superhero (Green Lantern), science fiction (Transformers), action-adventure (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), disaster (2012), fantasy (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey), or pure action (The Expendables 2). That isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy these films (give you a couple guesses as to which ones I truly did not enjoy), but my point is that there is clearly CGI at use in them. Things look fake or cartoony, and certainly if Iron Man is any indication, they don’t have to. I’m not even going to mention the seamless blending of effects in Jurassic Park, a 20-year-old film that runs circles around so many movies today. …okay, I mentioned it. But come on, dinosaurs!
All of this being said, my point is that Iron Man was designed to launch the MCU, as the after-credits scene with Nick Fury illustrates. If the film had flopped, Captain America, Thor, and perhaps even the Hulk wouldn’t have gotten their chances in the spotlight. Chris Evans would have had to stay Johnny Storm his entire Marvel career, and no one wants that. Robert Downey, Jr and Jon Favreau had a lot riding on their shoulders, and with their efforts and their teams’ efforts, the film was a huge success and deservedly so.
Remember, this is coming from a DC Comics person, who did not care less about anything related to Marvel Comics until after that soggy day on vacation coupled with Marvel’s The Avengers eight months later. Now I know more about the characters than people who’ve followed the movies for years. Clint grew up in a circus? Check. Thor uses Allspeak? Check. Loki has three kids? Check. I tell fans this stuff.
Anyway, Downey and Favreau really helped turn a DC fan into a MCU fan, though if we’re comparing DC movies to Marvel movies, there’s not much of a comparison (where is our Flash or Wonder Woman movie, hmm? Why do the Nolanverse films make less and less sense as the trilogy is explored? Are DC and Warner Brothers going to embarrass themselves by copying the MCU concept and then doing a terrible job of it?). I’m sure I’m not the only person who didn’t care a bit for Iron Man or anything Marvel but then was blown away by the movie. The film had to do so to save Marvel, and launch the other heroes and give the Avengers their chance.
It succeeded.
Iron Man 2 kept the momentum going, ensuring an excited audience for Thor and Captain America. Iron Man 2 is darker at times and more serious with respect to Tony’s childhood and current/future health, and it ends with Tony not being accepted into the Avengers Initiative. However, Justin Hammer is a villain fans love to hate because he’s just so horrible, Agent Romanoff has her excellent side role, and Happy has some good lines. The relationships of Tony and his friends—Rhodey and Pepper—are explored in more detail, helping the viewing understand why they stay with such a narcissistic person, and why they keep coming back even after they leave. The film certainly rounds out Tony’s character in ways likely intentionally left out of the first film.
With Nick Fury, Natasha, and Coulson, the audience is further immersed into what will be the Avengers, providing characterization and backstory to get it out of the way and keep Marvel’s The Avengers as lean as possible by not having to go through too many backstories. The means of creating the MCU—individual back story films to clear the way for a truly epic team story—was ingenious. It really is the only way to get it to all work and not have a four hour movie full of explication, or a two hour movie with a bunch of random people. Everyone knows who Batman and Superman are, but Black Widow or Hawkeye are far more vague. Though Hawkeye certainly doesn’t get his fair share in the MCU, or at least hasn’t yet (can there be a SHIELD-focused Hawkeye/Black Widow film please?). The Avengers movie has character introductions to set the tone in case people haven’t seen the other movies, but it knows it doesn’t have to spend too much time on it, thanks to the foundation laid by Iron Man.
As someone who did not care about Iron Man until a year ago, I have to credit the success of the MCU and its future projects to Iron Man setting the example as a superhero movie that isn’t cheesy, isn’t overly complicated, isn’t poorly written, isn’t bogged down with a needless love story, and doesn’t have cartoony special effects.
Good job, Favreau and Downey. Let’s hope the other teams can keep it going through the second Avengers movie and beyond. And maybe it’ll inspire DC to get their act together on a Justice League film and do it properly.
L is for… Lethal Weapon
Lethal Weapon, directed by Richard Donner, is the quintessential “buddy cop” movie, which makes it not quite the right fit for the theme of this site, but heck, it’s Lethal Weapon, so it had to be included!
Lethal Weapon stars Mel Gibson as Martin Riggs and Danny Glover as Roger Murtaugh, two LAPD sergeants who get teamed up to solve a drug/murder case. The film opens with a half-naked woman (Amanda, played by Jackie Swanson) leaping from a balcony. It then cuts to Murtaugh, who’s accepting birthday wishes from his loving family. Next up is Riggs, who lives alone in a trailer and is unstable enough to throw something through his television, and it’s eventually explained that his wife of eleven years recently died in a car accident. Riggs works on a few cases while Murtaugh investigates the woman’s death, which is determined to be a homicide. Riggs, unstable and dangerous, is paired with him on the case. The film indirectly focuses on the relationship between Riggs and Murtaugh, notably Murtaugh’s relationship with his family contrasting with Riggs’ suicidal loneliness.
Amanda’s father, Michael Hunsaker (Tom Atkins), had recently contacted Murtaugh to ask for his help getting Amanda away from the bad element into which she’d fallen, but obviously it was too little too late. Murtaugh and Riggs follow one lead from doomed prostitute Dixie (Lycia Naff) and a kid who saw a man with a Special Forces tattoo plant the bomb that killed her, and determine that Hunsaker must know more than he let on. Hunsaker explains to Riggs and Murtaugh that Shadow Company, a group of former Vietnam soldiers, traffics heroin into the United States. Amanda was killed because she knew too much.
Hunsaker gets shot by the guys actually pulling the strings—Joshua, played by Gary Busey, and the General, played by Mitch Ryan—and they later try to kill Riggs. Unknown to them, he survives, and soon Murtaugh realizes that his oldest daughter was kidnapped by Joshua. Riggs and Murtaugh plot a way to get her back, and Murtaugh agrees to meet Joshua in the desert and take his daughter’s place. Riggs is able to disrupt the exchange, but he, Murtaugh, and daughter Rianne (Traci Wolfe) all get taken anyway.
Cue Riggs being a badass and using some of his talked about martial arts skills to escape his bonds, and he’s able to free Murtaugh and Rianne. He proceeds to chase Joshua through the streets of LA, while Murtaugh focuses on the General. The General gets blown up, while Joshua makes it to Murtaugh’s house to go after the rest of his family. Riggs engages Joshua in a long, complicated fistfight on Murtaugh’s front lawn, eventually subduing him. But he tries to shoot Riggs, but Riggs and Murtaugh shoot him first. The film ends with Riggs and Murtaugh having a friendly relationship, in contrast to their antagonistic interactions in the beginning of the film.
Let’s check out the criteria.
A is for… Accents
This is the first film reviewed on this site in which no one—hero nor villain—has an accent. Everyone is American, without even a dialect to make anyone stand out.
B is for… Bad Guys
The introduction to the bad guys is pretty subtle because Amanda is seen jumping by herself. She’s obviously on drugs, but that’s all that seems to be going on. However, it’s revealed to Murtaugh that Amanda’s death was no accident when drain cleaner is found inside the pills she ingested. Even if she hadn’t jumped, she’d have been dead soon. Someone wanted her dead and made sure it happened. Ironically, had they been able to anticipate her leap from the balcony, perhaps they wouldn’t have laced the pills with poison, and thus the death would have been ruled a suicide.
“Mr. Joshua” and “the General” are first seen doing a heroin deal with a Mr. Mendez. Hunsaker explains to Riggs and Murtaugh that the “Air America” group in Vietnam, Shadow Company, run by General McCallister, killed heroin dealers they came across and started to traffic the drug into the States themselves. They do two big shipments a year, and the money looks good for Hunsaker’s bank. Other than this Joshua and the General aren’t terribly developed and don’t really have any memorable scenes.
C is for… Chases
Not too many chases in Lethal Weapon. One happens when Joshua’s helicopter follows Rianne as she tries to escape in the desert.
The other is longer and more entertaining, as Joshua attempts to escape in a car after Riggs and Murtaugh get free, and Riggs chases him down on foot. Riggs is able to shoot the car, which sets it on fire, and Joshua crashes it. He then steals another car. Riggs knows he’s going to Murtaugh’s house, though, so he can continue to follow him there on foot.
D is for… Damsels
There are a handful of female characters, but the only one who can be considered a “damsel” is Rianne, Murtaugh’s teenaged daughter. She’s a typical teen who’s currently grounded for smoking pot in the house, and is angry her dad won’t let her go out with a blonde boy with dimples (not because he’s blonde or has dimples, just because she’s grounded). She also has a very obvious crush on Riggs, and he’s flattered.
Joshua kidnaps her and Murtaugh and Riggs have to go get her back. She’s able to steal a car but gets chased down by a helicopter. In the bad guys’ custody she’s handcuffed, and hugs her father and almost chokes him while she cries. Riggs frees Murtaugh and Murtaugh is able to free his daughter.
Rianne is basically just kidnapping fodder and a means for Murtaugh to show off his age and parenting ability, but she’s not an annoying or pointless character, either, the way most of the women in these movies are.
E is for… Explosions
Dixie’s house explodes when a bomb blows it up. It has a mercury switch, which leads Riggs and Murtaugh to consider it was made and planted by a professional, likely special forces.
Murtaugh brandishes a grenade in the desert to Joshua and his men, threatening to blow them all up (even his daughter, saying he’d rather control her death than have the bad guys do it), but it’s just a smoke grenade that will buy Riggs some time to fire.
When the General is escaping in his car with his heroin, he crashes into a bus, and the grenades inside explode, killing him.
F is for… Flashbacks
There are no flashbacks in Lethal Weapon, though they might have proven a more dynamic method of telling the story of Rigg’s wife, his love for her, and her death, rather than Riggs staring at his wedding photos and crying.
G is for… Guns
Not surprisingly, there are a lot of guns in Lethal Weapon, but nothing that really stands out as memorable. Details at the IMFDB.
Riggs, Murtaugh, and the other cops have their service weapons, though Riggs points out that Murtaugh is old school with his use of a six shooter (a 4 inch Smith) as he brags about his own .9mm Beretta.
The sniper Riggs takes down has a rifle, and the SWAT guys that eventually storm the scene have rifles.
The drug dealers Riggs busts have handguns.
When Joshua does his drive-by helicopter shooting of Hunsaker, Riggs fires a lot of shots at the helicopter as it flies away. Not sure what he thinks his handgun can do against a helicopter, but considering how he treats bullets like water (see the sniper scene where he shoots way too many times), it’s in character.
Joshua then tries a standard automobile drive-by shooting of Riggs, which Riggs and Murtaugh pretend is successful. If Riggs hadn’t been wearing his bullet-proof vest, it would have been.
Riggs has a fancy-looking sniper rifle in the desert.
Shootouts include at Amanda’s pimp’s house, the desert, and the club.
H is for… Helicopters
Joshua buzzes by Hunsaker’s cliff-side home in a red and white helicopter, which provides him a very convenient means of escape after he shoots him. Really, it’s ingenious.
The same helicopter is used in the desert.
The final fight scene on Murtaugh’s lawn between Riggs and Joshua is lit by an overhead police helicopter.
I is for… Improvisation
Riggs and Murtaugh take advantage of the failed drive-by shooting to gain an edge over Joshua. They’re able to pretend Riggs is dead so Murtaugh will have an advantage over Joshua while trying to get his daughter back.
While chained on a hook, Riggs is able to use the leverage from the chains to break Endo’s (Al Leong) neck with his legs.
Rather than sneak up on Joshua in Murtaugh’s home, Riggs and Murtaugh instead rig up a police car to crash through the front window of the house.
J is for… Jumping Through Solid Objects
When Joshua shoots him, Riggs is thrown backwards through a store’s plate-glass window.
K is for… Kill Count
Riggs shoots Amanda’s pimp and kills him, much to Murtaugh’s chagrin. He also drowns at the same time.
Riggs kills probably a dozen or more of Joshua’s men, not even waiting for them to fire on him. He also kills random people at the club without knowing if they’re hostile or not.
Murtaugh is very much against Riggs shooting people, though likely feels differently once his daughter is at risk.
L is for… Limitations
Riggs is crazy. Suicidal, death wish, et cetera. While it means he has a certain extra ability to do his job (no fear), it also means he has a higher risk of getting killed.
Murtaugh has his family to worry about. He’s also “too old for this shit.”
Until they talk to Hunsaker, Riggs and Murtaugh have very little information to go on in Amanda’s case, to the point where they keep talking about how thin their theories are. Fortunately they do pay off.
M is for… Motivation
Murtaugh at first wants to find out what happened to his friend Hunsaker’s daughter, as a thank you for Hunsaker saving his life during Vietnam. Of course once the truth comes out he has to stop Shadow Company, and later rescue his daughter.
Riggs is brought in to the case to save himself, and by the end of the film it seems that he no longer has a death wish. He of course wants to stop Shadow Company, and help Murtaugh with his family.
As usual, Joshua and the General are in it for the money.
N is for… Negotiation
The General tells Murtaugh he’ll exchange his daughter for information.
Murtaugh wants to see his daughter is alive before he agrees to go with Joshua. He specifically says that if they don’t let her go he’ll blow them all up with a grenade.
Joshua, trying to get information out of Riggs about how much he knows, tells him, “Tell me everything and I’ll kill you quickly.”
O is for… One Liners
Murtaugh, after he learns of Riggs’ martial arts skills: I suppose we have to list you as a lethal weapon.
Murtaugh: God hates me, that’s what it is.
Riggs: Hate Him back. That works for me.
Murtaugh: You’re not trying to draw a psycho pension. You really are crazy.
Murtaugh: I’m too old for this shit.
Riggs: I saw this place on Lifestyles of the Rich and Shameless.
Murtaugh: You ever meet anybody you didn’t kill?
Riggs: I haven’t killed you yet.
Murtaugh: Don’t do me any favors.
Trish (Darlene Love): Roger, you’re being an asshole.
Murtaugh, after Riggs shows off his skills at the shooting range: You sleep with that thing under your pillow?
Riggs: I would if I slept.
Riggs: We got to get up, catch bad guys.
Riggs: I wonder if there’s an opening in the LA fire department.
Riggs: Two inches lower I’d be a falsetto for life.
Riggs: I never forget an asshole.
The General: There’s no more heroes left in the world.
Murtaugh: Get that shit off my lawn.
P is for… Profession
Both Riggs and Murtaugh were in Vietnam, Riggs in Special Forces in Saigon, and Murtaugh in Drang Valley. They are currently both Sergeants in the LAPD.
Riggs is very unorthodox, and it’s unclear whether he’s brave, crazy, or just doesn’t care about his life. He pretty much walks up to a sniper and waits to get shot (eventually taking out the sniper with far many more bullets than necessary), pretends to try to buy drugs with a hundred dollars and gets taken hostage by one of the dealers until he’s able to turn the weapon around on him, and he handcuffs himself to a guy threatening to jump off a roof, and eventually jumps with him into the air cushion. Murtaugh tells Riggs he’s a “psycho son of a bitch. But you’re good.” Riggs is clearly not a team player as he confronts the sniper alone, handles the drug dealers alone (with backup some distance away, anyway), and he enjoys Stooges’ slapstick. Another coworker describes him as a “real burn-out, on the ragged edge.” He’s self-described as martial arts expert and one of the best snipers in the world.
In contrast, Murtaugh seems very by-the-book, as he’s working cases with other officers, and dresses appropriately for work.
Q is for… Quagmire
Joshua has Riggs’ hands bound and looped over a hook, from which he’s hanging, and swinging, through a stream of water, while Endo does some shock therapy on him.
Meanwhile, Murtaugh is tied to a chair and beaten, and doesn’t know if his daughter is alive. She’s eventually brought in which may just distract him more.
Fortunately Riggs is able to break free and rescue them.
R is for… Reality/Suspension of Disbelief
Everything in the film pretty much seems plausible. There are no huge, outlandish action sequences to really question.
S is for… Sidekicks
Because Lethal Weapon is a buddy cop movie, Riggs and Murtaugh are each other’s sidekicks. Murtaugh is more sarcastic, but he’s also depicted as more wise. Riggs is younger, but has had a harder life.
T is for… Technology
Another movie that looks incredibly old because of the 1980s technology.
Murtaugh uses a portable phone that attaches to a huge battery.
He’s also sent a VHS tape of Amanda (which was high technology back then).
Riggs watches his tube TV, which takes up a lot of space in his little trailer.
No technology at all is used on their cases, which is interesting because you know in any movie made nowadays the computer is the first place anyone checks for anything.
U is for… Unexpected Romance
Other than Rianne’s crush on Riggs, there is no romance in the film. It wouldn’t make sense for there to be, considering Murtaugh is married and Riggs is obviously still in love with his late wife.
V is for… Vehicles as Weapons
The helicopter is used to nudge Rianne’s car off the road, or at least scare her into driving off the road.
As he’s making his escape, the General smashes into a bus, which causes his car to flip and its grenades to explode.
Riggs and Murtaugh rig a cop car to crash through Murtuagh’s front window to attack/distract Joshua.
W is for… Winning
Riggs and Murtaugh are able to escape from the clutches of the General and Joshua. The General tries to escape in a car, but crashes into a bus, and the grenades in the car explode, killing him. Joshua is also in a car, and Riggs chases him on foot. Eventually Joshua makes it to Murtaugh’s house, where he wants to cause more damage to his family, but no one is there. Riggs is able to get him outside, where they engage in a fistfight on the front lawn. The fight rages on as cops and Murtaugh show up, and Murtaugh tells everyone to let Riggs keep fighting. Eventually Riggs is able to subdue Joshua. However, when Joshua rises up to shoot them, both Riggs and Murtaugh fire back, killing him.
X is for… X-rays, or Maybe You Should See A Doctor
Riggs is shot while wearing a bullet-proof vest, and falls through the plate-glass store window. The bullets won’t kill him, but they’ll have left a bruise.
After he’s beaten, Riggs does tell Murtaugh he should go to a doctor. Murtaugh is even hurt enough that he lets Riggs drive, when he wouldn’t let the suicidal Riggs drive at the beginning of the film.
Yesterday’s Problem Becomes Today’s Problem
Hunsaker’s silence sets everything into motion, and by the time he asks Murtaugh for help, it’s too late.
Z is for… Zone, In The
Riggs takes obvious pleasure in his fistfight with Joshua, using him as a means to express all of his anger. Joshua puts up a good fight, but there’s no way he’d win. Murtaugh understands, and lets the fight rage on in his front yard.
So that’s Lethal Weapon. Obviously a classic. It’s got some fun scenes, some action, no useless characters to slow it down.
Unfortunately, the movie itself is very slow. Slow enough that it wouldn’t be acceptable to a modern audience expecting lots of gunshots and explosions and quick cuts. The opening scene alone, which consists of Amanda slowly moving around and leaping off the balcony, is three minutes long. The lengthy shots and tone definitely lend the film more of a “drama” feel.
The movie may as well have been called The Odd Couple Fights Crime, considering how different Riggs and Murtaugh are. Murtaugh is introduced with his family and home, while Riggs has his trailer and a dog that may or may not be his. Murtaugh seems content and happy, while Riggs seems to want to kill himself but is never quite able to do it. It explains why he’s always doing crazy things—he doesn’t care if he dies.
What’s interesting is that despite their differences, both characters are introduced nude, with Murtaugh in the bathtub and Riggs sleeping (then standing) while naked.
A lot of licensed television footage stuck out to me for some reason, such as Riggs watching Bugs Bunny and Family Feud, and shots of A Christmas Carol showing at one point.
There are many details in the film that make me think of Die Hard, which is strange considering Lethal Weapon was released a year before Die Hard. But it’s hard to escape: both films take place during Christmas; Al Seong (Endo) is the Crunch Bar eating terrorist in Die Hard, Riggs is shoeless at one point, there are references to Saigon, the musical score sounds similar, both films take place in Los Angeles, there’s a lot of language, and maybe there are others I didn’t catch. Not a bad thing of course, just interesting.
All that said, obviously Lethal Weapon will stay a classic, no matter how far into lunacy Mel Gibson descends. The film has just about anything a fan could want. It’s a little slow for my modern taste, but that’s not the film’s fault.
And I’m sure everyone can appreciate Mel’s mullet.
I also cannot finish the review without mentioning the song that plays during the end credits, Honeymoon Suite’s “Lethal Weapon.” I watched this two days ago and the song is still stuck in my head. Looking at the lyrics, it’s a pretty depressing song.
abcsofaction 