Tag: Irma P. Hall

Vice City.


Although the swing is nowhere near as severe, Michael Mann’s Collateral also had a bit of a Code 46 problem: Highly promising at first, it ultimately backslides into a much less appealing and much more ham-handed film. Now, Collateral still ends up being a decently enjoyable night at the movies, but the flaws of the final third definitely hurt the overall experience.

All’s well that starts well…the film has a great sense of place, and both Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx are very good throughout. (Despite what many of the reviews say, by the way, Cruise has played a villain before…he was Lestat, and he actually turned out to be pretty good.) And there’s some nice supporting work by Before Night Falls‘s Javier Bardem and The Ladykillers‘ Irma Hall. (Mark Ruffalo seemed slightly miscast as the cop, and he may well be approaching the Stiller Threshold for overexposure in 2004, but he was solid enough.) For the first ninety minutes or so, as Max and Vincent discuss their respective philosophies while making their bloody rounds across the City of Angels, the film (much like Heat) feels like a strangely moody and contemplative Grand Theft Auto mission.

But, when Max’s cab stops for two Very Highly Symbolic Coyotes crossing the street, trouble bells started ringing. And sure enough, soon thereafter, Collateral lapses into over-the-top, nonsensical cheese. The eject moment came for me when Tom Cruise, previously unwilling to venture into one nightspot to retain his anonymity, starts firing away haphazardly in a Chinatown disco. (I guess this is the only club in America without video cameras.) And from then on, the movie takes too long to do too little…the last few set pieces unroll sluggishly, and could all have been cut down by several minutes. By the overblown final moments, I’m sorry to say, I had pretty much checked out. All in all, Collateral is definitely worth two hours of air conditioning, but as for its larger pretensions…Mission Failed.

Eyes, Spies, Tom, and Cat.

It’s Friday, and at the end of a grim-visaged week, the world needs more trailers. In the bin today, we’ve got a new view of The Chronicles of Riddick, Vin Diesel and David Twohy’s follow-up to Pitch Black (sadly, it still looks like a very expensive Sci-Fi Channel original movie), evil Tom Cruise in Michael Mann’s Collateral (The LA gunplay of Heat meets the visual style of The Insider), the first look at The Bourne Supremacy (Identity was a nice surprise, although this one seems very similar), and the teaser for Halle Berry’s embarrassing-looking Catwoman (The early buzz has been awful, and this blah clip won’t change it.)

Lady and the Tramp.

Well, a swing-and-a-miss by the Coen brothers is still more entertaining than a lot of movies out there…nevertheless, The Ladykillers is something of a disappointment. I was amused by the film throughout, and particularly in the early minutes at the sheriff’s office, but, frankly, Ladykillers never really takes off. In fact, given how thinly conceived and surprisingly one-dimensional all of the supporting characters turn out to be, you often get the sense the brothers are slumming it. (Jokes about Irritable Bowel Syndrome? C’mon, y’all…you’re the Coens, not the Farrellys.)

Perhaps most disappointing about The Ladykillers is the realization that Tom Hanks, an actor I normally root for, hasn’t quite found his rhythm in Coenland quite yet. While I’m not quite sure how it could have come off differently, his turn as Goldthwaite Higginson Dorr, PhD doesn’t really work here…he’s more distracting than anything else. (I think there’s hope for Hanks, though…George Clooney seemed much more at ease in Intolerable Cruelty than he did in O Brother.) And as for the lady in question, Irma P. Hall is fun for the most part, but she too could have benefited from better material from the Coens – once the gang of thieves shows up in her root cellar, she has little to do but act affronted. A relatively amusing time at the cinema, to be sure, and particularly if you’re already sold on their sense of humor, but all in all this is a hiccup for the brothers Coen. Here’s hoping next time around is a little more satisfying.