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'Blazin '. Gangsters, martial arts, gun fights and actors whose acting is so over the top the performers could take place in the Olympic pole vault - this could almost be a Hong Kong film. That is both the strength and weakness of this effort. I like the fact that the film's main character isn't the average Hollywood he-man but an overweight kick boxer who has the charisma and looks of a slug (Joseph Bono). I also like it that the girls are given as much action as the boys and that they are just as ruthless and deadly in their actions. I didn't like the plot which seemed to be a sequence of set action pieces linked together by a lame plot about the daugther of a drugs baroness falling in love with a police officer's son - a bit like Romeo and Juliet. Most certainly I could have done without the over the top histrionics of the actress playing Langstrom, the crime baroness (Paula Roth).
Another distraction to me was the similarity between the characters. For most of the film I thought that the woman in the opening scene blazing away in her red leather suit was the same character as a henchwoman who appears later in the film. Once everybody started double crossing each other and the body count went through the roof I really was clueless as to what was going on and who the good guys were- maybe I'm just getting old and I should concentrate more. The appearance and demise of secondary characters throughout the film is also disconcerting Nevertheless the film does have a certain style and is compelling in a strange kind of way. If you are looking for the a USA version of a HK slugfest and lots of gun molls then you could do a lot worse.Film Rating 7/10 and Gun Moll factor 6/10.
'The Contract '. Hey, a film about a hitwoman - can hardly fail in my estimations can it? Well, yes unfortunately it can. For some inexplicable reason I have yet to see a Hollywood film which could match the hitwoman films made by the HK, Japanese or even the Europeans. 'The Silencer', 'The Assassin' and 'Supreme Sanction' are all films whose central character have been a female assassin and whose delivery on the subject has been pretty poor and unfortunately this film has to be classed alongside these.
The film opens well with the rather cliched scene of the woman using the old 'baby in a pram' trick to kill her mark.After that though the film goes downhill into a pit of mediocrity as the plot unfolds, one might even say unravels. Basically the hitwoman (Johanna Black) is double crossed by a crooked politician, she takes up with a guy struggling to keep up with her murderous but mellowing ways and the whole thing ends with an anti-climatic showdown between the woman and the politico (Billy Dee Williams earning himself a few bob). Somebody should have told the director that pulling back a woman's hair, hiding it under a beret and making her wear sunglasses doesn't mean she looks mean and moody - it just means we never really identify with the character. Film Rating 3/10 and Gun Girl factor 4/10.
'Safe House'. A rather strange film starring Patrick Stewart of STNG fame. Patrick Stewart plays an ex-spy who has some incriminating evidence on his former employers. He is also going downhill rapidly from Alzheimers Disease. Is he, as his daughter believes, imagining things as the disease takes over or are his carers, visitors and friends part of some plot to obtain the incriminating information? Well, I'm not going to spoil it for you. This isn't a major film and the puzzle maintains the viewers interest over it's modest running time. Patrick Stewart is rightly regarded as one of the UK's better acting exports and he easily shakes off his Captain Picard persona to deliver a rather touching performance as a man losing his grip on reality. Kimberly Williams is also fine as the carer who might or might not be part of some conspiracy. Film Rating 7/10 and Gun Girl factor 2/10.
