Gorky Park

When I find out that a film is set in Russia, especially Soviet Russia, I can immediately make a few assumptions.  First, it is not a comedy.  I know, I know...Soviet Russia was famous for their comedy, but all their jokes end with punching Yakov Smirnoff in the face.  You can't make more than (maybe) one movie like that, so any film set in Soviet Russia is going to be a drama.

Even his fist wants to hit him.

My second assumption is that the story will involve secrecy and deception.  That's just how it is.  When you're in a country that monitors its own people, Big Brother-style, that's going to play a part in the movie.  I had never heard of Gorky Park before watching it, but it has an okay cast for the period and didn't sound like a propaganda piece, so I thought I would give it a shot.

Moscow police officer Arkady Renko (William Hurt) is called to a crime scene in Gorky Park, which is kind of like Moscow's Central Park (I think...there's ice skating, anyway).  Three murder victims have been found, all shot dead in the chest and mouth, and all three are missing their faces and fingers.  That fits the description of KGB-type killings, where they just make people disappear; Renko knows this and assumes that the KGB will take the investigation away from him at the first opportunity, to "investigate" it themselves.  The KGB does show up with suspicious immediacy, but they let Renko keep the case for some reason.

With shattered teeth and no fingerprints, Renko enlists the aid of a professor (Emperor Palpatine Ian McDiarmid) to reconstruct their faces.  While he's waiting for the prof to slowly finish his work, Renko does his best to investigate the case.  He really doesn't want to, because he knows damn well that if he implicates the KGB in a murder, he will likely end up without fingers or a face, too.  His Chief Inspector (Ian Bannen) won't take him off the case, though; in fact, he promises to protect Renko's back, no matter what he finds.  While that is probably meant to be reassuring, it raises the hairs on the back of Renko's neck.  William Hurt may not have been in Lost in Space for another fifteen years, but he clearly heard the "Danger Will Robinson!" warning.

In the due course of his investigation, Renko meets an American detective (Brian Dennehy), who is in town to investigate his brother's recent disappearance.  The two warily agree to share some knowledge, which leads Renko to a tentative ID on the victims, which leads him to a beautiful Russian woman (Joanna Pacula) and an American sable fur importer (Lee Marvin).  The deeper Renko digs, the more he finds out about people in high places.  And in Soviet Russia, knowing too much about important people is hazardous to your health.  Maybe it's because he is devoted to his job, or maybe it's because he's falling in love with the girl, but Renko puts it all on the line to solve the case.  All he needs to get all the pieces to fall into place are some identities for his victims, so he can figure out why they were killed...

"Now witness the power of this fully armed and operational reconstructed face!"

This is a police procedural, so the acting is somewhat limited.  Just as we don't ooh and ahh over Sam Waterston or Marg Helgenberger as actors, there's nothing to see here, people, move along.  William Hurt is fairly reserved and emotionally detached for most of the film.  And that's appropriate for his character, really.  Brian Dennehy turns in yet another performance where he is in a position of power, despite having obviously poor decision making skills.  This is a fairly subdued performance from Dennehy, so he's fairly likable.  Michael Elphick plays the none-too-bright partner to Renko, and he's about as good as the role requires.  Lee Marvin probably does the least acting out of anyone in the cast; he basically just croaks out his lines and you instinctively know that he's up to no good.  I like Lee Marvin, and his presence here is welcome, but this wasn't much of a stretch for his talents.  The only actor who actually emoted much in this film was Joanna Pacula, and she does a pretty good job portraying someone who distrusts authority (with good reason), but needs to go against her instincts to survive.  The rest of the supporting cast (including a brief appearance by Richard Griffiths) is fine, with most everyone playing their roles simply and efficiently.  But that's just my Western attitude imposing value on Russian acting.  After all, in America, actors play roles; in Soviet Russia, roles play you.  Wait...what?

James Horner's score is worth mentioning.  I'm no music major (my mother assumes from my childhood singing that I am tone deaf), but Horner did a great job amplifying the "something's wrong" feeling of the film.  He used pretty standard musical score instruments, like strings, horns and percussion, but they were all discordant.  It was an interesting way to supplement the story.

Michael Apted directed Gorky Park with what would have seemed like efficiency, if the film had been less than two hours.  His focus was on the story, for the most part, and the story was told well enough.  I appreciate his choice to not have the actors assume Russian accents (not everyone can pull off a Russian accent like Harrison Ford), although it makes the scene where Brian Dennehy is identified as an American by his voice seem a little silly.  I wish Apted had put a little more flair into this movie, though.  Procedurals are, by their nature, pretty cut-and-dry.  This didn't feel like a mystery or a conspiracy, but like an especially long episode of Law and Order: Moscow.  If Apted had played with the camera a little more, used some symbolism, or used some interesting establishing shots of Moscow every so often, this movie might feel like it is more than a police procedural.

Maybe that is my problem.  I have seen so many police procedurals on American television that a film version just seems like overkill.  The case doesn't seem that complicated when you watch it, and there is absolutely no question that Lee Marvin is a bad guy, so it's not like viewers are going to be surprised much by the story.  Of course, the film is spiced up a little bit by having the eternally middle-aged William Hurt have a relationship with a Russian beauty, but even that is predictable.  Of course the cop is going to fall for the beautiful witness, and of course the Russian woman in an American movie is going to be gorgeous, because all Russian women in American movies are gorgeous.  It's not like that in real life, though; all those years of putting vodka in their cereal catches up with them eventually.

Russian beauty, age 31

But I digress.  This movie is made pretty well, and it certainly fits within the boundaries of your standard police procedural.  In doing so, however, it bored me.  The story was too predictable and the format was too familiar to me.  It's not a bad film, but I can see more concise versions of it on any Law and Order rerun.

And, because we all know that the Russians aren't funny, here are some jokes about Russia made by President Reagan.

Brick

I did not have a particularly scandalous high school career; it should come as no surprise that I spent a lot of time reading and watching movies.  When I did manage to poke my head out, though, I was surprised by all the drama I found my peers involved in.  Fights, dating, drugs, alcohol, sex, pregnancy --- high school has it all.  Most movies about high school focus on superficial social cliques, but Brick makes a deliberate and stylistic decision to focus on the seedy underbelly of high school.

Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is an outsider by choice in his high school.  He's cool enough to earn some respect from nearly everyone in school, but he is indifferent to his social status and chooses to spend his time alone, whenever possible.  His ex-girlfriend, Emily (Emilie de Ravin), called him in a panic one day, rambling on about a bad brick and the Pin.  What on Earth does that mean?  Brendan starts to nose around and finds that Emily is involved in the school's drug trade, although it is unclear how much trouble she is in.  That gets a little less mysterious when Brendan finds her dead body in a storm drain.  Instead of calling the police or talking to his principal or any other adult, Brendan decides to uncover the responsible party for Emily's death at any cost.  To do that, he must infiltrate the same dangerous groups that somehow got Emily killed, figure out who played who in this mess, and muddle his way to a clear answer, all without being hassled by his principal (Richard Roundtree) and the police.

Brick is not just another high school movie.  It's actually a neo-noir that just happens to be set in a high school setting.  A lot of your appreciation for this film will depend on how open you are to that idea.  Noir is not typically given unique settings; it typically has tough guys and dangerous women, where the only thing you can truly believe is that everybody lies.  That's a little more adult-themed than some people like their high schoolers.  Personally, I thought it was an inspired idea, although the setting did cause a few minor problems for me.

The acting in Brick depends heavily on Joseph Gordon-Levitt's performance.  The lead role in noirs is typically a guy who is smarter than everybody else, and the viewer realizes things at about the same pace as the main character; he just jumps to some conclusions a little faster than the audience, sometimes.  Gordon-Levitt does a really good job of filling those noir shoes.  This is a plot-propelled film, but his too-cool-for-school performance helped this fairly standard noir plot feel a little more special.  I'm not a fan of noir characters that show their feelings, but he also did a good job showing believable grief, when the time came.

Noir heroes take a licking, but keep on playing both sides against the middle.

The rest of the cast primarily just filled their roles, but there were a few parts that were odd and varied enough to stick out.  I thought Noah Fleiss did a surprisingly good job as the hot-headed Tugger, the muscle for the drug trade.  I also liked the absurdity that Lukas Haas brought to the table as the improbably powerful Pin.  Matt O'Leary was okay as the Brain, but it was kind of an easy role.  Of course, no noir would be complete without a few dangerous women.  I wasn't too impressed with Emilie de Ravin, but I thought Nora Zehetner did a passable job as a femme fatale.  As for Richard Roundtree's brief appearance as the school principal, it was almost like he was Reverse Shaft; he was the straight man, while Gordon-Levitt told him how it was going to be, and if he didn't like it, tough.  As a Shaft fan, that was a little hard to swallow.

Writer/director Rian Johnson managed to do a lot of things right with this film.  The pacing is crisp, and he is able to convey urgency and mystery with the story.  I liked the tone of the movie, and I liked his direction.  At times, it felt a little idiosyncratic, like a lightweight Coen Brothers ripoff, but only because he only hinted at quirkiness and never fully embraced it.  What I liked best about Johnson's writing and directing is that he actually pulled off a noir movie within a high school setting.  That's brilliant!  It takes all the adult issues that high school movies like to toy with, and amps up the seriousness without being morbid, like Kids.  Plus, let's face it, it's just nice to see a high school movie that isn't about fitting in.  Like most high school movies, it overly simplifies the social groupings, but that is a small price to pay for a compelling crime story.

Having said that, I have to admit that it doesn't always work.  By taking the serious tone of film noir, this movie has several scenes that are ridiculous enough to have rough juxtapositions with that tone.  In a hard-boiled crime story, do I really need a scene where the queen of the high school theater clique is talking trash while receiving oral sex from a freshman?  Um, no.  Do we need a scene with our hero being trapped by those that he is hunting to segue into a scene where the villain's mother offers the captured hero some cookies?  Again, no.  I'm not saying that I didn't find those scenes kind of funny, I just think the film lost more than it gained by their inclusion.  Another problem that the high school setting provides is the unexpected realization that noir is oftentimes absurdly melodramatic.  On the one hand, I know that real life isn't anything like a Humphrey Bogart movie, but this film occasionally makes the notion seem just silly.  It does feel intentional, but there are just too many moments in Brick where I had to admit that, while the dialogue might sound cool, it's pretty darned unlikely that anyone would act/speak that way.  The noir aspect of this movie also made the very end of the film more predictable, because there are some character types that simply must fulfill their destiny.

Despite undercutting itself, I really liked Brick.  Is it just because I am a sucker for noir?  Quite possibly, but they did a lot of things right.  Every character interaction for Gordon-Levitt was tough (except for those with his ex-girlfriend) and smart; my favorite was when Nora Zehetner's character was being nice to him, and his response was "You really are dangerous."  That's great.  You just don't get that type of response to romance in normal movies.  Is this movie great?  Probably not, but it is definitely good.  Brick makes the best case I have seen for Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a serious lead actor, and its old-timey noir charm hit all the right buttons for a noirista like me.

Batman (1989)

Is it too bold to call Batman the most influential film of the past 25 years?  Sure, Saving Private Ryan changed battle scenes forever, and Pulp Fiction popularized nonsequential storytelling and awesome dialogue, but I really think there is a case to be made for Batman.  For starters, this is the first "dark" take on any comic book hero; before this, you had the campiness of Batman: The Movie (1966) and Flash Gordon (aaa-AAA-aaa!!!)

This was the first big-budget comic book movie, the first one to make a controversial casting choice (Mr. Mom as Batman?), the first one to take something resembling a real-life look at superheroes (look ma, no spandex!), and the first superhero movie to get award recognition (it won an Oscar and had an acting Golden Globe nomination --- an acting nomination in a comic book movie!).  This is the film that allowed Tim Burton to do whatever he wanted for the next ten or fifteen years.  Heck, this is the sole reason they made the fantastic Batman: The Animated Series, and that alone is enough of a legacy for me.

So, even though you already know the basics, I'm going to run through the Bat-plot.  The movie opens with a couple of thugs robbing a family in Gotham City and making off with their spoils.  Naturally, they go up to the rooftop of a building to do this, because going to a hideout, alley, apartment, or their car would be much too private.  One of the thugs is nervous that "the Bat" will come after them; he heard that so-and-so got dropped off a building by the Bat.  Naturally, that's nonsense.  That is when Batman (Michael Keaton) suddenly appears.  He kicks the ever-loving crap out of one guy, but then takes a bullet to the chest and goes down.  But he doesn't stay down.  He get right back up and scares the remaining thug; Batman politely tells him to spread the word to all his hoodlum friends that Batman is protecting Gotham City's streets.  I detail this opening scene for a reason, but I'll get to that later.

Basically, this is a "Batman Begins" before Batman Begins.  Bats is a fairly new sight in town, more of an urban legend than a known entity.  The police are not sure what to make of him, either, but they've got other things on their plate.  Organized crime has Gotham City under siege.  Instead of doing the logical thing and calling Steven Seagal, Lawman, to fix their problems, Gothamites instead opt to elect a new District Attorney, Harvey Dent (Billy Dee Williams) to help Police Commissioner Gordon (Pat Hingle) in his war on crime.  Their "war" is not terribly effective, though, as local mob kingpin Carl Grissom (Jack Palance) and his number two man, Jack Napier (Jack Nicholson), are having their way with the town.  Things start to get complicated when Grissom realizes that Napier is sleeping with his fugly girlfriend, Alicia (Jerry Hall), and sets Jack up to get busted by the police. In the ensuing raid, the police (with the help of Batman) manage to back Napier into a corner, only to have him "accidentally" fall into a vat of dangerous chemicals.  Dangerous, but not apparently lethal.  Jack Napier survived his chemical bath with only a few side-effects: chalky white shin, green hair, his cheek muscles frozen into a big grin, and little to no sanity.  The Joker has arrived.

Meanwhile, a couple of reporters, Alex Knox (Robert "Arliss" Wuhl) and Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger), are trying to dig into the Batman story.  Does he exist?  Does he work for the police?  Why are there no photos of him?  Et cetera?  Et cetera?  Little do they realize that the mysterious and wealthy Bruce Wayne spends his evenings dressing up as a giant bat to fight crime.  If I was a reporter and saw all the customized and expensive equipment Batman had (Hello?  Batmobile?  He even has a Batplane!), I would certainly begin suspecting the nearest millionaire, but that's just me.  Can Batman handle these two muckrakers and still defend the city against a sociopath who has just upgraded to psychopath?  And what about love?  Does he have time for love?  Oh, wait...sorry...I got "love" and "beating the hell out of criminals" mixed up again.

This is a movie that changed the industry.  For better or for worse, there would be no Spider-Man, X-Men, or Watchmen without the success of Batman, much less any of the dozens of lesser-known works that have become movies over the past few years.  The first thing this movie does right is in the set design department.  Gotham City looks awesome.  It's big, tall, imposing, and dirty --- the perfect place for crime to breed.  Wayne Manor is perfect, too; it's big, imposing, and museum-like --- absolutely the last place you would want to eat soup.  The costumes are good, too.  It was nice to finally see a superhero that wasn't wearing his underwear on the outside of his outfit.  And, since Batman has no super-powers, adding things like bulletproof armor makes sense; his tools on his utility belt looked real and effective, too.  Of course, Batman's vehicles looked awesome, even if the Batmobile is impractical for city driving.

Right.  It's that easy to find street parking for this beast.

Once you get past the sets, costumes, and props, what are you left with?  Some surprisingly solid acting, actually.  I've always liked Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman, partially because he was able to convey both distraction and mental unrest separately, and also because he made a pretty good Batman.  Let's be honest, though --- his charming Bruce Wayne performance is what grounds this movie.  This is essentially the only action role Keaton ever played, so kudos to Tim Burton for having the vision to cast him.  Of course, you can't talk about Batman without mentioning Jack Nicholson's performance as the Joker.  I think Nicholson's work here has been diminished in the past few years by Heath Ledger's amazing performance in The Dark Knight, but that's a little unfair.  The key comic stories that inspired Ledger's performance had not been written yet when this film was being shot; I know Tim Burton often credits The Killing Joke as inspiration for his movie, but it was published a month before pre-production started for this movie, so I doubt it had much of an impact.  Despite this, Nicholson came off as a devious, dangerous loon, and he's a hell of a lot of fun to watch.  Besides, he manages to look good while wearing a purple suit.  He's no Prince, but he still looks good.  Heck, his Jack Napier performance alone was good enough for its own movie.  Aside from the powerful performances from the two lead actors, most of the supporting cast was only decent.  Michael Gough did a good job as Alfred, Bruce Wayne's fatherly butler, and Tracey Walter (who got the job just because he's friends with Nicholson) was awesome as the Joker's henchman Bob, but the rest were pretty dull.  That's too bad, because Billy Dee Williams is capable of a little more than that (but not much more).  As for Kim Basinger, Robert Wuhl, Jack Palance,  Jerry Hall and the rest...well, they played their parts.  I'll give Jerry Hall some credit --- I have trouble differentiating between her pre-Joker-deformed face and her regular one.  Wait..."credit" was probably the wrong term to use there...

Tim Burton's direction is pretty good, but it is a little dated.  Yes, Batman was surprisingly and refreshingly gritty in 1989.  Yes, he got good (even great) performances from his two lead actors.  The look and feel of the movie are great.  And yet, there is a lot more campiness in this film than I remembered.  Most of it deals with Joker's henchmen; they all have matching, custom-made uniforms, drive professionally detailed Joker-themed cars, and are willing to die for the Joker for reasons I cannot fathom.  As amazing as Bob's final scene is, if I was dumb enough to be a villain's henchman, that would have been the moment I decided to retire.  As for Burton's "dark" take on the characters, it has gotten comparatively lighter with time.  When Batman was first released, it was a revelation to the general public that wasn't nerdy enough to have studied The Dark Knight Returns already.  Over twenty years later, though, it almost feels quaint, especially when compared to Batman Returns and the Christopher Nolan movies.  Despite all that, I think this was a monumental effort by Burton to go against expectations and risk a lot of money on an idea that had no guarantee of success.  Is this Burton's best work?  No, it's not even his best Batman movie.  It is, however, the godfather of the new millennium's summer blockbusters, and it deserves some respect, dammit.

The story doesn't deserve as much respect, though.  I like that this isn't an origin story for Batman, but I wish it was a little less silly at times.  What's so silly?  In a word, the Batplane.  In two words, Joker's revolver.  Let's ignore the idiocy of characters that live in fear of the Joker when he poisons their groceries, but dance in the streets with him if he's giving away money --- that obviously won't have a catch, right?  By the way, Arliss, if there is poison gas killing people all around you, a paper face mask isn't going to protect you.  Thank goodness there are no police near this publicly advertised parade.  Am I the only one who wonders how Batman's identity remains a secret after this movie?  He crashed his custom-made Batplane.  Commissioner Gordon should be fired if he lets his CSI team investigate the wreckage and not track down a manufacturer.

And what about the scene where Bruce Wayne is trying to explain to Vicki Vale that he's Batman?  Man, this scene is a sign of the times.  Wayne tries to explain it to her by talking about personalities having different aspects, and sometimes it's almost like you have to lead another life to express yourself fully.  If this scene was shot today, we would naturally assume that Bruce Wayne is gay.  Instead, Vicki assumes that he is married.  I guess, with Robin out of the picture, there is a little more leeway in that discussion.

Back to the story.  Let's focus on that first scene, where Batman is introduced.  I don't like that Batman, who has been strictly a non-killing vigilante since the 1940s, has been rumored to kill random thugs.  Sure, it's just a rumor, but it still bugs me --- and I'm pretty sure he lets a few random thugs fall to their deaths in the chapel scene, too.  Not cool, Bats.  I also don't like that Batman lets a random street thug pull a gun on him, much less shoot him in the chest and knock him off his Batfeet.  Maybe I just have a little more respect for Batman than most screenwriters, but I think Batman comes off as occasionally amateurish in this movie.  I mean, he has the balls to dress up for Halloween every night and attack violent criminals; you would think he would be a smarter, tougher, meaner opponent than "you shot me, so now I'll scare you."  Even this horribly written comic book panel grasps the Batman idea better than these screenwriters.

Despite the story weaknesses, this is still a fun movie to watch.  I'll admit to nitpicking some of those problems; I just think Batman is an awesome character that deserves the best.  Batman changed what we expected from comic book adaptations and has led to dozens of awesome (and some godawful) action movies since.  It's cool, fun, and influential.  Sure, it's a little silly, but what do you expect from a movie about a guy who dresses up like a rodent to fight crime?

On a closing note, I can't resist mentioning the Batman soundtrack, which was composed by Prince.  I always giggle when I imagine how excited Warner Brothers was to have multi-platinum (and Warner Brothers property) Prince do the whole soundtrack...and then he turned in "Batdance."  Seriously, what the hell was that?

I love me some Prince (he is The Man, after all...well, he's The Kid, anyway), but the success of this soundtrack astounds me.  It topped the Billboard charts and had four legitimately successful singles, including "Batdance," which somehow became a Number One hit single.  That has to be one of the dumbest hit singles of the 80s, and I know there is a lot of competition for that crown.  The public did benefit from this soundtrack in two distinct ways.  First and foremost, we got to see that Prince could be a convincing comic book character (nice hair).  Second, "Batdance" was followed as a single by "Partyman," which means that the first two hit singles from this album were both over seven minutes long.  I dare you to find another album that pulls that off.  Prince is The Man!

Duck, You Sucker!

Duck, You Sucker!, a Spaghetti Western, is sometimes known as A Fistful of Dynamite and sometimes as Once Upon a Time…The Revolution.  Why all the confusion?  This is a film that never quite found a following during its theatrical release, despite director Sergio Leone’s past success with other Westerns.  In fact, the original theatrical version cut out about thirty minutes from the run-time and was advertised as a funny Western; if you’re familiar with Leone’s work, you will readily understand the idiocy of that move.  When it was re-released in theaters, along with the Man With No Name trilogy, the title was changed to A Fistful of Dynamite, to imply a relationship to the excellent Clint Eastwood-Sergio Leone collaborations.  In some European theatrical runs, they chose Once Upon a Time…The Revolution to imply a thematic connection (which Leone intended) with Once Upon a Time in the West.  International filmmaking was a different beast in the early 1970s, to say the least.

The title was supposed to be “Duck Your Head, Asshole!” which Leone swore was a popular catchphrase in America; it never was, but I think we can all agree that it probably should have been.  In fact, I think I’m going to bring it back.

In 1913, during the Mexican Revolution, Juan Miranda (Rod Steiger) is a bandit leader.  Since his gang consists primarily of his own young sons, he is a strictly small-time crook, but he has ambition.  When Juan’s gang runs into John Mallory (James Coburn) motorcycling by their latest crime scene, they open fire and force him to stop.  Their next move is to rob him, but John is not your ordinary gringo.  He is actually an IRA explosives expert, in Mexico to avoid British authorities.  Seeing John’s talent as an omen, Juan tries his best to convince John to help him rob the Mesa Verde national bank, a place he has dreamed of robbing since his childhood.  John eventually agrees to go to Mesa Verde, but makes no promises about the bank; when Juan arrives in Mesa Verde after John, he learns that John has befriended the local rebels; that worries him, because there is rarely money in revolutions.  Nevertheless, Juan agrees to go along with John’s plan.  The two of them, with help from Juan’s gang, will break into the bank while the other revolutionaries simultaneously hit all the other major targets in town.  Juan assumes that they will grab the loot and leave town in a hurry, leaving the revolutionaries on the hook for the robbery.  Little does he realize that John has intended to join the revolution from the start; once a revolutionary, always a revolutionary, I guess.  Even worse (for Juan) is the fact that the bank hasn’t had money in it in months; instead, it houses hundreds of political prisoners.  When Juan leads the break-in, he is flabbergasted to find no riches, but it hailed as a hero of the revolution by those that he frees.  Juan may have become a hero only by accident, but it’s harder to kick the hero habit than you may think.  As the film progresses, Juan is thrust into more and more important roles for the revolution.  But at what cost?

Kiss!

I wouldn't say that Sergio Leone gets the most out his actors, but he does a great job transforming minute movements and inconsequential glances into intense scenes.  Like his other movies, you get your fair share of impressive wide-shots and extreme close-ups in this film.  My favorite visual scenes (and Leone is a visual director, if nothing else) were the big shoot-outs, one involving the derailing of a train and the other had big guns taking out soldiers on a bridge.  This is definitely the most action-packed Leone film; while the action scenes are spaced pretty well apart, they are the largest scale and length that he ever attempted.

As for the acting...well, you've seen and heard better.  Rod Steiger doesn't play a very convincing Mexican, despite the right genealogy for the role (he's French, German, and Scottish).  His accent is cartoonish and his acting --- especially in the film's first act --- is pretty hammy.  He gets better as the film progresses, though, and I thought he was actually decent for the final attack on the train.  James Coburn fares a little better and a little worse than Steiger.  On the bright side, Coburn is always a blast when he plays anyone with somewhat compromised morals, and he has a lot of fun toying with Juan in this movie.  And he has a fantastic mustache.

To answer your question, he's not just happy to see you.

His Irish accent is about as subtle as the Lucky Charms leprechaun, though, and that gets embarrassing pretty quickly.  Another blow to Coburn's performance is the fact that he is involved in the worst scenes in the film, a love triangle set back in the Emerald Isle.  If you can get past Steiger's overacting and Coburn's awful flashbacks, though, you have two solid actors covering a lot of dramatic ground in a single movie.

And it is a long movie.  Loooooong.  The version that is currently available is over two-and-a-half hours long, and you feel every minute tick by.  Leone was never a concise storyteller, but this was unnecessary.  The only good thing about the running time is that it allows the film to shift its tone very gradually from an almost-comedy in the first act to a political piece by the film's end.  I appreciate a lot of what Leone has to say, as far as politics go, but I think he could have done better if he left a little more on the editing room floor.

Specifically, I would have cut every single flashback scene for Coburn's character.  They are shot in some Vaseline-coated camera lens style, often in slow-motion and are downright creepy at times.  I get it, John Mallory and his friend had a crush on the same gal.  Maybe they shouldn't have taken turns making out with her in front of each other.  These scenes are sappy, melodramatic, and add absolutely nothing to the character.  What a worthless waste of film time.

You can make other, very reasonable, complaints about this movie.  The comedy at the beginning isn't really very funny, unless you laugh at bad accents.  The shift in tone is unusual and a little uncomfortable.  It feels longer than President William Henry Harrison's time in office.  I totally understand your complaints, and I empathize with you.  This isn't Leone's best work, but it's pretty damn ambitious.  Overall, I think that it works, although it is far from a masterpiece.  My biggest problem with this movie is that I have spurts of boredom while watching it.  There are several scenes that I like, but it doesn't hold my interest overall.  It's not bad, though.  It's just trying to explain why revolution is not a part-time gig, and that gets a little tiresome no matter how true it is.  Duck your head, asshole.

Ocean's Eleven

Now this is how you should remake a movie.  Taking the basic idea of an eleven-man Vegas heist from the 1960 Rat Pack original, Ocean’s Eleven discards most of the other story elements in favor of presenting an overwhelming sense of coolness.

Danny Ocean (George Clooney) has a plan to do the impossible.  He wants to rob not one, not two, but three Las Vegas casinos at the same time; no one has ever successfully robbed a single casino, much less three.  Of course, it helps that he doesn’t like the owner of those three casinos, Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), or that Terry is now dating Danny’s ex-wife, Tess (Julia Roberts).  Yes, Danny has the master plan, but he needs help.  A lot of help, all of it talented, and each person playing parts in multiple cons that will all factor together to achieve the big prize of stealing $160+ million from Terry Benedict’s ridiculously theft-proof vault.  Can Danny rob the vault and win back Tess?  Do you really care?  This is a heist movie, and it’s all about the con.

When you're risking arrest and jail time, a tuxedo is always the right choice.

The cast in this film is ridiculously large and recognizable.  Aside from George Clooney at his wittiest and most charming, you have Brad Pitt as Rusty, the number two man on the job.  Like Clooney, Pitt exudes coolness here, and their scenes together are the best in the movie.  Julia Roberts is okay as Tess, although I wish her character had anything appealing about her to make her worth Danny’s risk.  The rest of the cast is less famous, but still pretty good.  Andy Garcia does a very good job as the uptight villain, Don Cheadle plays a surprisingly good British criminal with a surprisingly Mary Poppins-ish accent, and Matt Damon turns in a quality performance as the relative rookie on the job.  The rest of the cast was pretty decent, although many of their roles were little more than one-dimensional.  Elliott Gould was nearly insufferable as the comically stereotypical showbiz Jewish guy, Casey Affleck and Scott Caan were solid comedy relief as bickering brothers, Carl Reiner was surprisingly serious, Bernie Mac got to make a joke about racism, Eddie Jemison played a nerd, and professional acrobat Qin Shaobo played the part of a “little Chinese guy” like he was born into the role.   

"Say hello to the human Nuprin: he's little, yellow, and different!"  Brad Pitt is racist.

There are also a handful of cameos, including Wayne Newton (it is in Vegas, after all) and a cast of young actors, playing idiotic versions of themselves (Topher Grace, Barry Watson, Joshua Jackson, Shane West, and Holly Marie Combs).

The film’s pace is quick, the dialogue is clever, and the editing is very impressive.  There are a lot of things going on in this movie, many of them at the same time, and none of them are explained beforehand.  Despite all that, the movie is never confusing.  This isn’t the best work Steven Soderbergh has done, but it is probably the most fun, entertaining, and polished of all his films.

What truly makes this movie great is just how much fun it is.  Everybody clearly had a blast working together, and that shows in their chemistry.  Sure, some of the credit can be given to screenwriter Ted Griffin, because there are a lot of gems in this script, but the timing is impeccable on all the jokes and even the ones that are winking at the camera  ---like anything Elliott Gould says, or when George Clooney and Brad Pitt leave a club with Topher Grace and some other young actors, and Clooney and Pitt are the only ones not mobbed by fans --- still work because the actors play up the jokes with the utmost confidence.

If these two can play brothers,how about James Caan and Ben Affleck?

I could go on and on about all the cool little cons they perform in this movie, but that takes away from the fun of watching them in action.  There are an awful lot of details that are often overlooked in this movie because of its pace, though.  I really liked that each character had their own identifiable style, for starters.  Some of the details in those looks would have held deeper importance in other films, but not this one.  In most movies, a character that has a tattoo that reaches out onto the back of his hand, like Rusty’s does, has a story for that tattoo, or it gives insight into his character.  Here, the tattoo is never fully revealed, or even referenced once.  Similarly, you would think that someone would have pointed out that Casey Affleck looks like a pedophile when he has a mustache, but that’s not the point of this film.  This is about style over substance, people.

And that is actually the only problem with Ocean’s Eleven.   It is so stylish and cool and fun that it never bothers to slow down and make the audience care about its characters.  Of course, the filmmakers never try to do this, so it’s not like they did it poorly.  Let’s face it, this is a ridiculous movie.  How much of this was planned in advance?  How many people are friends with Danny Ocean?  Whatever, it doesn’t matter. This is just meant to be fun fluff, and it succeeds at that.  There are other heist movies out there that I think are better movies, but it is hard to argue that there are any that are more fun to watch.

On a personal note, I would like to call out one of my favorite film moments.  When George Clooney meets up with Julia Roberts for the first time in Ocean's Eleven, he sits down and orders "A whiskey [holds his thumb and index finger about three inches apart] and a whiskey [holds his thumb and index finger about an inch apart]."  That makes me smile every time.  And yes, if you go to a decent bar and give them that exact order, they will know what you mean.  And that is awesomely cool.