Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from this movie but since I'm a big fan of Donald Sutherland, I thought I might as well check it out. The main problem with Sutherland is that even though he has always been a fine actor, at least half of his movies were actually pretty much garbage, especially the ones he made in the 80’s and the 90’s and this movie was a fine example. In fact, I read somewhere that Jamie Lee Curtis actually really hated the damned thing. Eventually, I don’t think it was really so bad as the special effects and suspense scenes were decent but there is no denying that the whole thing was nothing very original or interesting either. I mean, if you don't expect too much before watching the damned thing, I guess you won’t be too disappointed though.  Basically, it was a very average B movie but I have never been a fan of the genre and I was pretty much bored by the whole thing. For John Bruno, a special effects specialist who had worked on such big productions like ‘Titanic’, it would be the first and last directing effort. To conclude, even though I have seen worse, it was still pretty weak and I don’think it is worth a look at all.

To be honest, it seemed to be a rather obscure feature but since there was a decent cast involved, I thought I might as well give it a try. Eventually, I really liked how the whole thing started. Indeed, it was dealing with a part of History which was really unknown to me. Unfortunately, the main story itself was not actually dealing with this interesting introduction (a little bit like ‘Saving Private Ryan’, a decent movie which is really overrated in my opinion). Eventually, instead, we got some supposedly inspiring true tale but, to be honest, I wasn't really blown away and it was not really fascinating whatsoever in my opinion. Indeed, it used the very old gimmick of the selfish ambitious lead character who somehow along the way grows a conscience and starts to care of a good deed instead of himself. I mean, sure, the directing was decent but, at the end of the day, the acting and the dialogues were not really convincing and the characters were fairly stereotypical and rather boring. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I think it was an interesting watch, especially the introduction, so I still think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

Even though I'm a big fan of Paul Newman, I have never managed to watch so many of his movies (only 15 so far)  so I was really eager to check this flick. This movie was in fact a sequel to his hit ‘Harper’ and it was pretty neat to see Newman playing this pretty cool character almost a decade later. Anyway, eventually, as usual, Paul Newman was pretty good but, unfortunately, the story was seriously convoluted and I kind of missed some details. On top of that, I saw this movie on the BBC without subtitles which didn’t help but, even so, I just didn’t care much for this story. On the bright side, I have to admit that it was pretty nice to see a very young Melanie Griffith who looked just lovely back in those days. Eventually, 40 years later, there is not much left of her good looks as she is one of the best example of how misguided plastic surgery can turned out to be. Anyway, to conclude, it was a well done but unoriginal detective tale but I still think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Paul Newman's work.

The title says it all... This movie has been directed by Uwe Boll, the Master of Crap himself. In fact, I think I’m pretty lucky that I have seen so far only 2 movies directed by this guy, this movie was probably his most ambitious project so far and I can’t imagine how bad the rest of his work must be. Anyway, where should I start ? First of all, I was amazed how it completely ripped off ‘The Lord of the Rings’ franchise. I'm not going to name all the similarities because it would take forever but if you see this movie, you'll see what I mean. The biggest surprise was eventually to see a rather decent cast involved in this crap (Jason Statham, Leelee Sobieski, John Rhys-Davies, Ron Perlman, Claire Forlani, Kristanna Loken, Matthew Lillard, Ray Liotta, Burt Reynolds...). What were they thinking?!? They had never heard of him before ?!? Why would you jeopardize your career by working with this guy? I hope at least that the money was good. Eventually, to conclude, the biggest problem was that the whole thing was so damn boring, I thought it would never end, and, as usual with this director, you should definitely avoid this. 

Since this movie had a decent reputation and since I always had a weak spot for Paul Newman, I was quite eager to check it out. Eventually, even though it was nothing really amazing, it was still a nice little movie. Indeed, in my opinion, it was nothing really spectacular but I have to admit it it was still pretty entertaining. I have noticed something rather funny with this movie is that it is apparently really popular among hockey players and fans of this sport which was rather odd in my opinion. Indeed, I don't really get it because, if you think about it for maybe a minute, there was in fact not one single proper hockey action in the whole movie, if I recall it correctly. Basically, the whole movie was about cheating and hustling (not to my dislike, in the contrary). They even won the damned cup without actually scoring or even playing !!! To put it simply, it is the most anti-sport movie I have ever seen and it is revered by sport fans all over the world... Go figure... Anyway, in spite of all this, it is definitely an original sport feature, I liked it and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this movie but since I always had a weak spot for Neil Jordan’s work, I was quite eager to check it out. Eventually, even though it was not bad at all, I still ended up with some mixed feelings about the damned thing. Indeed, even though the main character was quite fascinating thanks to an impressive Cillian Murphy, pretty much everything else in the movie didn’t work very well, I’m afraid. The main issue, in my opinion, is that there were just too many story lines that ended up being rather under-developed but I still liked the damned thing. What impressed me the most eventually was the great performance provided by Cillian Murphy. Seriously, back in those days, he was definitely one of the most talented actors at work. It’s a shame than he never really managed to confirm his tremendous potential during the following years. Anyway, in this movie, he was completely believable here and he carried the whole thing on his shoulders. To conclude, even though it was maybe a not masterpiece, I thought it was a decent drama and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Neil Jordan’s work. 

Basically, there was a time when I would go to a video game shop (which is now closed) and I would buy there on a regular basis 5 DVDs for 5 euros and, sometimes, since I would be missing 1 DVD, I would pick up pretty much anything at random just to reach 5 movies. Anyway, following this amazing process, I ended up watching some rather obscure movies and this one was definitely one of them. To be honest, it really seemed to be a  really cheap-ass serial killer and I thought it will be really awful but, eventually, I have to admit it, it was actually not that bad at all. Indeed, above all, I really liked the concept of this cop working so hard on a case, that she first gets obsessed and then mentally really f*cked up. Even if Eliza Dushku has never been a really strong actress, I really liked how her character evolved through this movie. Unfortunately, like any average thriller, they had to end up with a twist ending, I won't spoil it but those last 10 minutes were just really bad. To conclude, the whole thing was still pretty damned average but I think it's too bad because it actually had some potential.