John Baddham's outlandishly entertaining "real-time" thriller
Nick of Time (B+) is the Johnny Depp movie that everyone seems to have forgotten about. The film's crazy premise -- an innocent man is plucked at random by terrorists and told that unless he kills the Governor of California his little daughter will be shot -- is handled in such a Hitchcockian B-movie way that it's hard not to enjoy the preposterous fun. Depp is fun to watch as always (interesting to see him here pre-Pirates), Christopher Walken makes for a nasty bad-guy, and Baddham's stylish direction keeps the movie running at a tight clip.
My Date With Drew (B+) could have come off as a stalker video, so it's a testament to the charm of the film's writer/producer/director/star Jon Gunn that it doesn't. This guy decided to try and get a date with his life-long crush (Barrymore) and film the entire process. It's funny, oddly touching in a few spots, and quite surprising in more than one instance.
I laughed out loud a few times while watching the wretched
Dance Flick (D-) so on that basis alone, it doesn't get an
F. However, this movie, despite the funny trailers, fails in almost every single scene; parody comedy doesn't have to be Shakespeare, but holy shit this film is incompetent. And how many Wayans's are there at this point?
Richard Shepard's
The Hunting Party (B+) is an odd duck; not quite a comedy, not quite a thriller, not quite a war satire, but something of a mix of all those parts. It bills itself as a "crazy true story" or something to that effect, and while the plot is involving (a group of thrill-seeking news reporters hunt for a war criminal), it seems a bit too convenient at times. Still, the three central performances from Richard Gere, Jesse Eisenberg, and Terrence Howard are all strong, the cinematography is impressive, and the script hits some seriously dark notes.
John Baddham's outlandishly entertaining "real-time" thriller Nick of Time (B+) is the Johnny Depp movie that everyone seems to have forgotten about. The film's crazy premise -- an innocent man is plucked at random by terrorists and told that unless he kills the Governor of California his little daughter will be shot -- is handled in such a Hitchcockian B-movie way that it's hard not to enjoy the preposterous fun. Depp is fun to watch as always (interesting to see him here pre-Pirates), Christopher Walken makes for a nasty bad-guy, and Baddham's stylish direction keeps the movie running at a tight clip.
My Date With Drew (B+) could have come off as a stalker video, so it's a testament to the charm of the film's writer/producer/director/star Jon Gunn that it doesn't. This guy decided to try and get a date with his life-long crush (Barrymore) and film the entire process. It's funny, oddly touching in a few spots, and quite surprising in more than one instance.
I laughed out loud a few times while watching the wretched Dance Flick (D-) so on that basis alone, it doesn't get an F. However, this movie, despite the funny trailers, fails in almost every single scene; parody comedy doesn't have to be Shakespeare, but holy shit this film is incompetent. And how many Wayans's are there at this point?
Richard Shepard's The Hunting Party (B+) is an odd duck; not quite a comedy, not quite a thriller, not quite a war satire, but something of a mix of all those parts. It bills itself as a "crazy true story" or something to that effect, and while the plot is involving (a group of thrill-seeking news reporters hunt for a war criminal), it seems a bit too convenient at times. Still, the three central performances from Richard Gere, Jesse Eisenberg, and Terrence Howard are all strong, the cinematography is impressive, and the script hits some seriously dark notes.
4 comments:
I really loved "My Date with Drew," so I'm with you on that.
Could've predicted your grade for "Dance Flick," really. Looks pretty much awful.
I'll check out the others at some point.
You've never seem Nick of Time?
Nope. You said "forgotten about" for a reason. :P I always wanted to, but then it fell of the face of the planet from my viewpoint. I do love me some Depp though, so I'll definitely see it.
Post a Comment