video review : Carlito’s Way

video review : Carlito's Way

This is the tale of a lifelong gangster trying to go straight. Released early from a 30-year prison sentence on a technicality, former drug lord Carlito Brigante returns to the free world a new man. The plan, his dream, is to take part in a legit car rental business with a friend, but of course life doesn’t always go according to plan.

Some of the characterization goes overboard; David Kleinfeld, Brigante’s best friend and lawyer, is particularly caricatural; but the plot is generally riveting. Even the sappy romantic subplot is handled with care. The one major flaw, in fact, is that the movie commits the crime of telling you how the story will end before it begins.

my rating : 4 of 5

1993
 

Lucky Luciano :

The way it shows the ending first is not uncommon in gangster movies, but in this case it doesn’t seem to do anything but leave a feeling of doom and tradgedy throughout the film. Which is fine, but it probably would have been more effective if that tradgedy came unexpected. Also, the overbearing love story sometimes gets in the way. Despite these shortcomings, it’s still a movie worth recommending for the performances and storytelling. If you want a film about a reformed man who can’t escape his past, this is it.

4/5

video review : Nancy

video review : Nancy

Nancy is a woman who, after watching a news report about a Girl Still Missing After 30 Years, makes contact with the parents to say she might be their long-lost daughter. The mother invites her into their home, even going as far as to refer to the daughter as “you”, as they await the results of a DNA test.

That last bit is the one thing this tedious tale has going for it. The wait brings with it a certain level of anticipation. Is she their kidnapped daughter or not? That’s the big question. Once the answer is revealed, a little too early and anticlimactically, the story has nothing interesting to do with its protagonist.

my rating : 2 of 5

2018

video review : Meadowland

video review : Meadowland

A man and woman lose their kid. That’s not a euphemism for death. They literally lose him at a gas station one day. The presumption is that he was kidnapped; the premise for a potentially engrossing story; but director Reed Morano ruins it by skipping to the boring epilogue. That means we’re forced to watch the parents mope as uneventful month by uneventful month goes by.

The movie focuses more on the woman, played by Olivia Wilde, as she goes down a spiral that is odd and a little absurd. Eating old cookie crumbs, smoking crack, having sex with strangers; her naked ass in the sex scene is the best part; and stalking little boys may be a part of her personality, but it seems unlikely simply losing a child of her own would make her do such things.

my rating : 2 of 5

2015

video review : Ride Along

video review : Ride Along

Ice Cube is cool as detective James Payton, but it’s pseudo partner Ben Barber, played by Kevin Hart, who steals the show. He’s funnier here than he is as an on-stage comedian, so, in a movie with such a hackneyed plot, the jokes are the driving force. This is essentially a loose parody of Training Day, a fact the script is clever enough to acknowledge.

my rating : 3 of 5

2014