The Killer: A well-crafted slayride

The Killer (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity and frequent strong, bloody violence

Available via: Peacock

By Derrick Bang

I’ve of two minds about this film.

 

On the one hand, I respect the feelings of purists; goodness, I’m one of them.

 

On the other hand, we must acknowledge the march of time, and changing styles.

 

Onward, then:

 

********

 

Directors don’t often remake their own films, although notable exceptions exist: Cecil B. DeMille (The 10 Commandments, 1923 and ’56), Frank Capra (Lady for a Day and Pocketful of Miracles, 1933 and ’61), Alfred Hitchcock (The Man Who Knew Too Much, 1934 and ’56), George Sluizer (The Vanishing, 1988 and ’93), and Michael Mann (L.A. Takedown and Heat, 1989 and ’95) leap to mind.

 

Veteran cop Sey (Omar Sy) may think that he has the handcuffed Zee
(Nathalie Emmanuel) under control, but he reckons not with her cunning, quick wit
and lightning-fast resourcefulness.

Celebrated Hong Kong action director John Woo now joins their ranks, with this English-language remake of his 1989 classic: widely considered one of the greatest action thrillers ever made, and which strongly influenced filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. (And Woo’s 35-year gap tops all the others mentioned above.)

When asked about his two versions of Man Who Knew Too Much by fellow filmmaker François Truffaut, in the latter’s influential 1966 book-length interview, Hitchcock/Truffaut, the Master of Suspense immodestly replied, “Let’s say the first version is the work of a talented amateur, and the second was made by a professional.”

 

The same can be said of Woo’s two cracks at The Killer. This new version boasts Mauro Fiore’s vastly superior cinematography, and is a brighter, sharper “daytime experience,” as opposed to the original’s grainier, dingier “nighttime look.” The split-screen touches and cleverly presented flashbacks also are quite cool.

 

The new film’s gender switch is a novel touch. Scripters Brian Helgeland, Josh Campbell and Matt Stuecken also modified and expanded Woo’s 1989 screenplay, making the plot more relevant to real-world events, and altering interpersonal dynamics in ways that definitely improve the story. It’s easier to like these characters.

 

(Although ... should we?)

 

The original’s brooding, almost overwhelming atmosphere of Shakespearean tragedy has been replaced with a greater sense of fun and dark humor, which likely will play better with modern audiences.

 

However...

 

Woo’s longtime fans are certain to decry the loss of that relentless sense of foreboding, and with justification. More crucially, this new version lacks the breathless, chaotic energy of the first film’s multiple melees, chases, and mano a mano face-offs. The stunt work may be cleaner and more inventively edited here — credit for the latter to Zach Staenberg — but only a handful of sequences possess the thrilling, balls-to-the-wall mayhem that occurred more than half a dozen times in the original, which — let’s not forget — put Woo on the cinematic map.

 

That’s a shame.

 

(However, we do get a welcome reprise of the tense, straight-armed handgun pas de deux between the two primary characters, which is so iconic in the first film)

Arthur the King: Needlessly overcooked

Arthur the King (2024) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and occasional profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Director Simon Cellan Jones’ modest drama has three highlights: an extreme sport that’ll likely be new to most viewers, a really cool dog, and the benefit of being inspired by actual events.

 

The kayaking portion their race would be punishing enough under ordinary circumstances,
but Leo (Simu Liu, foreground) and Michael (Mark Wahlberg) find it even more taxing
with the large, water-soaked Arthur as an additional passenger.

That said, Michael Brandt’s script — very loosely based on Mikael Lindnord’s popular 2016 non-fiction book — leans too heavily on melodramatic macho nonsense, and also stretches truth to a degree that’ll lift both eyebrows. The result often feels like a TV movie with delusions of big-screen grandeur, but — even so — it’s family-friendly entertainment, which has gotten rather rare lately.

The sport in question is “adventure racing,” a multidisciplinary team activity that typically involves alternately running, hiking, climbing, bicycling and kayaking over hundreds of miles of wilderness terrain. The clock never stops; competitors must choose if or when to rest — and for how long — while restocking supplies at mandatory “transition areas.” Route decisions and GPS navigation are up to each team.

 

Mark Wahlberg stars as Michael Light, an Americanized version of Lindnord introduced toward the conclusion of one such competition. He foolishly leads his team to failure during a final leg, when the tide goes out, and strands their kayaks in mud flats. The resulting tirade leaves Michael estranged from teammate Leo (Simu Liu), and one choice image of the messy disaster erupts on social media, subsequently haunting Michael at every turn.

 

Several years pass, during which Michael continues to train in the gorgeous terrain surrounding the Colorado mountain home he shares with wife Helen (Julie Rylance), who has retired from the sport in order to raise their young daughter. Michael is the epitome of stubborn single-mindedness; he’s determined to take one more shot at the world championship that has eluded him thus far.

 

(We wonder, at about this point, what Helen and the under-employed Michael are living on. Air?)

 

Elsewhere, in the Dominican Republic’s capital city, a scruffy brown street dog does his best to survive. As the story proceeds, Cellan Jones frequently cuts back to this bedraggled mutt’s wanderings.

 

Adventure racing is expensive, and requires sponsorship: a complication, given Michael’s well-known reputation for being bull-headed. He nonetheless perseveres with the executives at the sports firm Broadrail, albeit with conditions: most notably, their insistence that his now-nemesis Leo be on the team. 

 

Cue more snarky posturing between Wahlberg and Liu.

F9, The Fast Saga: Blown head gasket

F9 (2021) • View trailer

1.5 stars. Rated PG-13, and rather generously, for relentless violence and occasional profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.25.21

Despite his popular presence in this series’ previous five entries, I note that Dwayne Johnson chose not return for this one.

 

Smart move.

 

No matter how much absurd punishment his car takes, Dom (Vin Diesel) always
manages to retain control. Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) counts on it.

And despite the otherwise welcome return of director Justin Lin — who helmed installments three through six — this newest Fast & Furious entry is yet another example of dumb, tedious, wretched excess (as also was the case with 2019’s Hobbs & Shaw). The idiotic script cobbled together by Lin and his co-writers — Daniel Casey and Alfredo Botello — overwhelms its one smart move with an increasingly ridiculous series of action sequences.

 

The smart move: Granting main man Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) a race track-hued origin story involving his tempestuous relationship with a hitherto unrevealed younger brother. Poor, put-upon Dom always gets the lion’s share of angst in these flicks, and Diesel excels at displays of anguish that slowly morph into tightly bottled fury, and then explode into uncontrolled rage.

 

Unfortunately, such moments of actual humanity are few and far between, overwhelmed by the efforts of visual effects supervisor Peter Chiang’s team. Nothing feels the slightest bit real in the resulting vehicular and mano a mano mayhem, which too frequently looks blatantly, howlingly fake. 

 

The nadir? The point at which this cacophonous mess goes way, way beyond jumping the shark? The point at which even Tuesday evening’s eager theater audience succumbed to disgusted jeers?

 

The moment when a 1984 Pontiac Fiero gets blasted into space — with two of our heroes aboard, in vintage, duct-taped bathysphere suits — courtesy of rocket boosters.

 

This waste of celluloid — which clocks in at a butt-numbing, self-indulgent 145 minutes — isn’t a film, it’s a clanging pinball machine. With about that much emotional impact.

 

So:

 

Ongoing mega-villainess Cipher (Charlize Theron), finally captured by CIA mastermind Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell), manages an improbable escape with the assistance of flamboyant aspiring autocrat Otto (Thue Ersted Rasmussen). These events occur elsewhere, while we eavesdrop on Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and Dom, living a quiet life off-grid while raising the latter’s young son, Little Brian (distinguished from “big” Brian, referencing the character played by the late Paul Walker).

 

The Fate of the Furious: Over-revved

The Fate of the Furious (2017) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, and generously, for relentless, excessive violence and destruction, and occasional profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.14.17

Well, here’s a reason not to get a car with computer-controlled ignition and navigational systems.

Dismayed by the realization that their buddy Dominic has gone rogue, the rest of the
gang — from left, roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Chris "Ludacris" Bridges), Little Nobody
(Scott Eastwood), Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) and
Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) — ponders the next move.

You just never know when an evil megalomaniac bent on world domination might hack the vehicle, to crash it — and hundreds of others — into a Russian ambassador’s armor-plated limousine, in order to steal a suitcase containing the launch codes for all of his country’s nuclear missiles.

(Hey. It could happen.)

Although there’s some vicarious delight to be experienced from this and the many other big-ticket sequences in director F. Gary Gray’s newest installment in this franchise, The Fate of the Furious is a textbook example of wretched excess: too little substance, too much spectacle.

Way too much. At 136 minutes, this gas-guzzling behemoth is at least one spectacular action set-piece too long. Probably the final one, which races on and on and on.

Something important also has been lost, since this series debuted in 2001. Back then, the stunt driving was awesome, the gear-shifting thrills delivering plenty of accelerated excitement. But the newer films — and particularly this one — make it difficult to admire the efforts of stunt director Spiro Razatos.

It’s patently obvious that all the vehicular skirmishes have been sweetened (or perhaps fabricated entirely) by CGI wizards. The spectacle feels no more real than the outer space battles in the Star Wars franchise. Granted, the result remains suspenseful ... but it’s a lot more fun to be impressed by golly-gee-wow stunt drivers, than by a gaggle of artists hunched over computer keyboards.

The adrenaline-laden thrill has been lost.

As has some of this series’ humanity. As several characters in this new film repeatedly remind us, the most important thing — the only important thing — is family. That means characters interacting with each other, at something beyond a superficial level. The banter may be droll in Chris Morgan’s script, but Gray too frequently cuts away from potential emotion, in order to showcase yet another vehicular chase or smack-down fist fight.

The one exception is poor Dominic (Dom) Toretto, who gets put through the wringer this time. To the credit of star Vin Diesel, we definitely feel the guy’s anguish; even within his limited acting range, he’s adept at quiet despair and seething, barely repressed fury.

Furious 7: Impressively audacious

Furious 7 (2015) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for intense action violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.3.15

Somewhere along the way, a modest, inner-city street-racing flick morphed into a turbo-charged, gleefully preposterous Mission: Impossible wannabe.

But with results this entertaining, it’s hard to complain. Even when things get silly.

A shadowy U.S. government agent (Kurt Russell, right) makes Brian (Paul Walker, left) and
Dominic (Vin Diesel) an offer they can't refuse: Retrieve a kidnapped computer hacker, and
in return gain access to information that will allow them to target the vengeful maniac who
keeps trying to kill them.

And rest assured: Things get very, very silly. This is a movie for folks who found the action sequences in 2010’s big-screen version of The A-Team too restrained. (Steering and “flying” a parachuting tank by shooting the big gun, anyone?)

Rarely have I seen so many laws of physics ignored, circumvented and utterly ruptured.

Rarely have so many human bodies demonstrated Superman-level invulnerability.

Rarely has a bad guy taken such a lickin’, only to keep on tickin’.

Rarely have I been less bothered.

But let’s establish our parameters. Furious 7 — newest, biggest and baddest in the surprise franchise built from 2001’s The Fast and the Furious — is by no means classic filmmaking. It’s a live-action Warner Bros. cartoon, with heroes and villains alike remaining as unscathed as the Road Runner’s Coyote, after one of his plunges to a canyon floor, miles below.

We’re talking Guilty Pleasure here, with heavy emphasis on the guilty. But it’s also a pleasure, because there’s no denying director James Wan’s ability to deliver one helluva great ride.

Wan’s predecessor, Justin Lin, reinvigorated the franchise with 2009’s fourth entry, then blasted things into action-flick immortality with his next two chapters. But Wan deserves equal credit for maintaining the momentum and giving us exactly what is expected: audaciously giddy action sequences, ferocious mano a mano fight scenes, and plenty of time with the characters we’ve grown to know and love.

Because yes: This series’ cast is its primo selling point. The brotherly bond between Dominic “Dom” Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) remains paramount, their mutual respect oddly poignant even during circumstances as absurd as these. Dom’s puppy-dog devotion to tough-as-nails Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) is equally touching, despite the soap-opera contrivance of the amnesia that has stricken her memory of their shared love.

Comparative newcomer Dwayne Johnson’s Hobbs — who entered the franchise with installment five — grants the team a thin veneer of respectability, with his DDS credentials. On top of which, the oh-so-perfect pairing of Diesel and Johnson is irresistible; they must spend all their time, between scenes, comparing pecs and biceps.

Nor should we overlook the comedy tag-team pairing of Tej (Ludacris) and Roman (Tyrese Gibson), both adept at the verbal comedy relief ... while also reminding us (as if that were necessary) that none of these events are to be taken too seriously.