The Green Mile

The Green Mile is a good movie trying very hard to be a great one. It's Frank Darabont's second film from the 90s, and like The Shawshank Redemption, it is a period drama set mostly in a prison in early 20th century America, featuring a bond that forms between a white man and a black man, and based on a story by Stephen King. It also features a strong cast, and is undeniably well made even if you don't like the story. The film has an extremely stately pace and feel, almost to excess, and tugs very hard on your emotions, although it's not quite the same as Shawshank. One of the biggest reasons is that the plot actually has a supernatural element, one that would actually qualify the film as a kind of fantasy story, and one that I imagine would greatly surprise anyone who came into watching it blind, especially since this element doesn't actually surface until a full hour into the film. A lot of things are like that though, since it's three hours long when the story seems like it could have been told in two. I wouldn't say it was too long exactly, or that it ever really got boring, I just don't see what the benefit was to giving every single bit of story as much time as the producers would physically allow to develop.

So Tom Hanks is in charge of death row at a prison. Most of the prisoners are decent guys who did wrong, but the two that get brought in after the movie begins are different. Michael Clarke Duncan is a saintly giant, the ultimate version of the magical negro. Sam Rockwell is a deranged, freakish bastard. Hanks is the boss of several recognizable faces as the other guards, who are mostly good men like he is, except for Doug Hutchison's character, a privileged piece of shit with family connections who wants to watch a couple crooks fry before transferring to a better paying job. Sam Cromwell plays the warden, and Patricia Clarkson is his wife dying of a brain tumor. Those are pretty much all the pieces that will be shuffled around, as the guards learn more about Duncan's abilities and realize why he ended up getting sentenced to death for the rape and murder of two young girls. The acting is good all around, especially the two leads, with Hanks' weariness over what his job is doing to him and Duncan's otherworldly innocence, despite the stereotypical nature of the character. It really is a well produced film, and I liked the mixture of fantasy bits with an old fashioned southern drama. But it seems like the kind of thing I'd struggle mightily to ever watch again, and the whole movie is quite possibly just a bit up its own ass. Still, I liked it.

Con Air

I still don't really understand Nick Cage. He can be a really good actor when he wants to, but he seems to want to less and less these days. He'll pretty much be in any movie as long as he gets the lead role. Which is why he's here in Con Air, bulked up to hell and back and putting on one of the worst accents I've ever heard. Cage trying to sound southern is just... just an abomination of acting. For some reason though, it works with the rest of the movie. He's surrounded by colorful characters, and if the protagonist was taken too seriously, I don't think the film would be as enjoyable as it is. It's not perfect, but for what it is it works pretty well.

It's one of those slightly older big action movies that at least tries to have an interesting and clever plot - you know, something Hollywood doesn't really try anymore. So Cage is a military veteran who comes home from the service to his pregnant wife, only to kill a man while defending her that night. Because his training has made him a deadly weapon, they throw the book at him and give him 7-10 years for manslaughter. Way to support the troops, legal system. Anyway, at the end of his sentence, he is to be transported by plane to a location for release. Unfortunately there are a bunch of bad dudes on that plane and they manage to take it over, causing a hostage situation in the skies. The revolt is lead by an enjoyably evil John Malkovich, and he's got everyone from a black militant Ving Rhames to a serial rapist Danny Trejo helping him out. John Cusack is in charge of the plane on the ground and is trying to stop it, but he's antagonized at every turn by Colm Meaney as a DEA official pissed that one of his guys got killed, so it's more or less up to Cage to save the day while maintaining his cover as just another bad guy. Also, Steve Buscemi is a serial killer.

So there's a lot of menacing dialogue and somewhat interesting tricks to try to avoid the authorities, and some goofy one-liners from Cage as he sows discord and takes out anyone who might stop him. The plane itself is a major location, but there's also some fun to be had at an abandoned airfield and eventually in the middle of the Vegas strip. People shoot guns and beat each other up and things explode all pretty. There's quite a few holes in the script, but it's fairly solid for this kind of action movie, and it can certainly be a fun time if you don't take it too seriously. I still just don't understand how an Oscar winning actor could butcher an accent so completely. Or how it's wrong for a vet to defend his wife with deadly force but not to chase someone all around Las Vegas with murderous intent. Oh well. Pretty good.

Punisher: War Zone

I've noticed a slight trend on the Internet where occasionally, a shitty film will have a sequel that really isn't much better, but is at least more enjoyable because it wasn't trying too hard, yet the consensus will seem to be that it was actually worse. It happened with Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem, and it happened with Punisher: War Zone. War Zone is a very stupid movie. But unlike the Thomas Jane Punisher movie, it was stupid in a fun way. The 2004 version certainly aspired to be a bit better, but it failed pretty badly, while this 2008 film is just simply enjoyable over-the-top violence.

And man, there's a crap load of that. I loved Ray Stevenson as the jovial yet bloodthirsty Titus Pullo on Rome, and I have to say I liked his version of Frank Castle quite a bit. He's stoic and brutal, but has a heart under all that body armor and ammunition. He doesn't even have a line for like the first half hour of the film, letting his fists and guns do the talking for him. And any time he's on screen killing some dudes, it's probably going to be fun. He slits throats, shoots parkour douche bags out of the air with rockets (I don't understand the director's disdain for that particular action movie trend but still found the scene humorous), punches way harder than a human being should be able to, and fills dozens of guys with lead. If it wasn't so over the top it might be disturbing, but it actually comes off as carefree in comparison to the other movie's sadistic revenge plot.

The support structure around Stevenson isn't quite as strong. Like The Incredible Hulk, War Zone is a reboot that doesn't entirely ignore the contributions of the film it's overwriting. It changes the basic origin story to match the original comic (and actually make a bit of sense), but rather than tell that all over again it merely jumps forward and shows you what Castle's up to five years into his quest. Dominic West and his compatriots are almost too crazy as some New York gangsters who declare war on the Punisher, with the former star of The Wire hamming it up especially as Jigsaw. Julie Benz doesn't do a whole lot with the material as an obligatory female influence on the plot, playing the widow of an undercover FBI agent Frank killed unwittingly (is this a commentary on the last movie's idiotic premise? Probably not), and Wayne Knight of all people shows up as a gun supplier. The plot doesn't have much to it, and whenever violence is occurring without the Punisher around it tends to lack bite, but I definitely had a decent time watching it. If a movie's going to be kind of bad, it should at least be fun.