Israel, 2002
Director: Nir Bergman
Score: ***

After the loss of a much loved father, a family spins into turmoil.  It is 9 months after the event, and mother Dafna (Orli Zilverschatz-Banay) has still not got over the death.  She balances her mid-wife job at the hospital with the raising of her 4 children, each given equal screen time by first time feature director Nir Bergman.  How they cope and interact forms the basis of this new intriguing Israeli film, BROKEN WINGS that has gone to win 9 Israeli film awards and the Grand Prix at the Tokyo film festival.

Bergman treats each of the 4 children with equal respect and tenderness.  The scene in the counseling room where the elder son argues with the well-meaning social worker is skillfully portrayed, displaying both sides eager and well-intentioned for progress but hindered by different values each has not control over.  The confrontation scene between mother and daughter is also expertly handled, with both views given, so that the viewer does not take sides.  The tears that flow from the daughter, Maya’s (Maya Maron) face, shown from a distant with her back towards the camera are effective.  As events unfold, Bergman slowly lets out how the father has dies, as a result of a freak accident which Maya feels guilty for.

BROKEN WINGS is an intelligent, and compelling watchable film, brimming with emotions and color.  The family members undergo the same problems western families undergo.  It is a universal theme – the need for more money, the attraction of leaving a hometown for a bigger city (in this case Tel Aviv) and the coping of budding hormones.  Even mother meets a new man.  Berman (who also wrote the script) blends these elements subtly with human family drama.

Bergman never resolves to clichéd endings.  He leaves his conclusions open.  At the end of the film, the boy is still in the coma while Dafna has not got together with her new suitor.  The problems faced by the family are only solved partly, but Bergman shows it is a step towards the right direction in pretty much the same way that he shows promise as a future director to watch.

Review by Gilbert Seah

USA, 2004
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Michael Madsen

The second – longer – half of Quentin Tarantino’s epic grindhouse tribute is not as good as the first, but still a genre-hopping good time.

When we last left The Bride (Uma Thurman), she was in the middle of her post-coma revenge rampage, having successfully offed two of her former fellow assassins who betrayed her by attempting to kill her after leaving the business for wedded bliss. In Vol. 2, her to-kill list is down to three: Elle (Daryl Hannah), Budd (Michael Madsen) and, of course, old boss Bill (a lisping David
Carradine).

The opening sequence details – and I do mean details, as it is long and sluggishly paced – the church bloodbath that got The Bride so pissed off in the first place. Like an old Western, it’s shot in black and white. Subsequent chapters riff off other film styles; her cruel training with an Asian monk (Gordon Liu) is all on-the-cheap kung fu, a harrowing encounter with a coffin is psychological horror and the scenes involving Budd and Elle are all ‘70s drive-in exploitation. Even the opening and closing credits tip their hat to film noir.

So what to make of the film’s final chapter, in which The Bride finally comes face to face with Bill and finds the daughter she never knew? I suppose it’s Tarantino’s answer to Kramer vs. Kramer, with emphasis on the vs. Amidst all the soul searching and motherly love, the parents do find time to spar with razor-sharp swords. After all, Bill’s the kind of dad who believes Shogun Assassin is acceptable bedtime viewing for his little girl.

As adept as Thurman was at kicking ***censored*** in the first installment, I think she’s even better here. The girl gets a chance to actually act and pulls it off with an intense believability. Carradine doesn’t suck like I thought he would, but he’s no career-resurrecting find like Robert Forster was in Jackie Brown.

After an initial slow start, Vol. 2 kicks into high gear with punch and panache. Not only does it feel like a different movie than Vol. 1, it feels like five different movies. That’s because Tarantino adheres to the conventions of the various genres he loves within a chapter, and then runs with them.

Review by Rod Lott.

USA, 2004
Director: Jonathan Hensleigh
Cast: Tom Jane, John Travolta

To help introduce cinema audiences to its Punisher – a relatively obscure character not on the household-name level of Spider-Man – Marvel Comics is giving away copies of the 1974 Amazing Spider-Man in which he first appeared to ticketholders. Quaint though the four-color comic is, it was more entertaining than the movie.

Even worse, it’s not half the movie as the first Punisher movie, the much-maligned, straight-to-video 1990 effort starring Dolph Lundgren. Hated by many, I’ve always admired it on a purely B-movie level and felt it was unnecessarily shelved. It’s violent, it’s fun and Dolph is a badass.

And Thomas Jane is not. At least not here. The hero of Deep Blue Sea is the antihero of The Punisher as Frank Castle, a FBI agent who calls it quits after too many grueling undercover jobs, the most recent of which resulted in the accidental death of the son of über-rich businessman Howard Saint, played by John Travolta, here fully ensconced in his honey-baked ham mode of Swordfish, Basic and, well, any role he’s overacted in the past 10 years.

As payback, Saint – oh, the irony! – orders the assassination of Castle and his entire family, conveniently assembled in one place for a family reunion. The entire Castle clan eats it – wife and son included – but Castle himself somehow manages to survive. Donning the black, skull-emblazoned T-shirt his son opportunely gifted him before dying, he calls himself The Punisher, outfits his car and apartment with weapons galore and sets out to take down Saint and all his expensive-suited goons.

There are so many things that feel wrong about The Punisher, it’s hard to know where to start. Making his debut as director, Armageddon screenwriter Jonathan Hensleigh gives his revenge tale an ugly grit that’s supposed to remind audiences of the pistol-packin’ ‘70s, but unfortunately, his story and pacing are reminiscent of ‘70s episodic cop shows. The dialogue is melodramatic and goofy; the score is overwrought and inappropriate. And Jane doesn’t get to do
much punishing.

Aside from the final office-building siege in which Castle doles out some ***censored***-kicking (and neck-penetrating and chin-stabbing), the action is subdued rather than exciting. The film’s big fight scene is supposed to be a mano y mano match between Castle and a mute walking steroid known as “the Russian,” but it’s hard not to laugh since he’s dressed like Baby Huey.

The Punisher is one of the last movies that needs comic relief, but lo and behold, it throws in not one, but two wacky neighbors! It also doesn’t need romance, but Rebecca Romijn-Stamos is there anyway as a heartbroken, downtrodden waitress who takes a shine to Castle. It’s not that the film needs eye candy with Mulholland Drive hussy Laura Harring bouncing across the screen, but what was Hensleigh thinking when he cuts away from her undressing to lingerie?

I’ll assume punishment, just in keeping with the theme of this disappointing film. This character deserves better – and got it, back in 1990. It may not have had John Travolta getting dragged by a car and set on fire, but it had stylized action, down-and-dirty thrills and Dolph, kicking ***censored*** for a good portion of the running time.

Review by Rod Lott.

USA 2004
Director: Guillermo Del Toro
Cast: Ron Perlman, Selma Blair

During World War II, the Nazis create a device that opens a portal to hell, through which they extract a baby demon whom they intend to use in their quest for world domination. But a kindly British professor rescues him, names him – wait for it – Hellboy and raises him to do good, battling monsters for the super-secretive U.S. Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.

And so goes Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of the quirky Dark Horse Comics series, with Ron Perlman headlining as the red-skinned, rock-handed, horn-filed, Baby Ruth-eating devil with a heart (and soul) of gold.

Like a supernatural mix of X-Men and Ghostbusters, the film has Hellboy and his fellow mutant pals – fishman Abe Sapien (voiced by David Hyde Pierce) and pyrotechnic Liz Sherman (the sour-faced Selma Blair) – battling slimy, tentacled monsters straight outta those old H.P. Lovecraft pulp stories. And, unfortunately, they fight and fight the same race of creatures over and over again, lending the movie a shiny sheen of repetition, offering only a half-handed attempt at a love story to bookend the action sequences.

Those action scenes are fun – after all, what fun is a comic-book movie if it can’t resemble a comic book, but they also serve to highlight the movie’s shortcomings. And, as with every del Toro film – including Mimic, Blade II and even The Devil’s Backbone – it’s the story, stupid. Though a fantastic
visualist, del Toro can’t quite seem to flesh out ideas into actual, A-to-B plot. Motivations float like MacGuffins, details feel like dressing.

With talking corpses and a sword-equipped, masked Nazi running via clockwork, all the elements for a cinematic ride are here. All that’s missing is the story to get us involved on an emotional level instead of strictly the visceral. In the role of his life, Perlman tries his hardest, imbuing the Hellboy
character with a tortured loneliness, but the movie fades to black just as his emotions come to the forefront.

For something with so little story, Hellboy is overlong at two hours. I’m convinced that if shaved by about a quarter, del Toro would have a true winner on his fat little hands. Instead, he has merely a slightly above-average contender.

Review by Rod Lott.

USA, 2004
Director: Christopher Erskin
Score: ***

JOHNSON FAMILY VACATION, the first full length feature starring the popular Black comic Cedric the Entertainer (BARBERSHOP and BIG MOMMA’S HOUSE), takes the stereotype of middle America - the family vacation on a road trip - one step further.  Nate Johnson (Cedric) sets out in a Lincoln Navigator with three unruly children and his estranged wife, Dorothy (Vanessa Williams) cross country to Missouri in order to win the much coveted Johnson Reunion Family of the Year award. 

Cedric, his face contorted to extremes by the strain of having to keep everything in control, encounters mishap after mishap such as being chased by an 18-wheeler, trapped in a hot tub by sex-craved fat women, hounded by a voodoo hitchhiker (Shannon Elizabeth).  But he is no angel either.  When not flirting with other women, he torments his son (Bow Wow) and daughter (Solange Knowles) disallowing them any freedom of any kind.  Director Christopher Erskin’s film, however, is funny enough, as Cedric and gang keep the visual gags coming fast and furious.  And if the humor on disasters is not enough, the jokes on family values, rap versus funk music and those on pure nonsense (Cedric also playing the womanizing Uncle Earl) add to the entertainment.  There are sections of the script by brothers Todd and Earl Jones that work clumsily, particularly those dealing with interaction among the family members like the re-conciliation between Nate and Dorothy or the part involving the youngest daughter, Destiny’s (Gabby Soleil) outgrowing her imaginary puppy phase.  The comedy works best and at its most outrageous when Cedric is allowed a free run doing his routines be it funky dancing or spitting out of one-liners.

The VACATION cast is fantastic.  Besides Cedric, gifted with the ability to make even the unfunny lines laughable, the much younger Bow Wow playing D.J., his son (the youngest solo rapper ever to hit #1 in the charts) makes perfect pairing as observed in the first 10 minutes of the film opening.  The film also celebrates the best of Black mores while simultaneously poking fun at religion and music.  Though VACATION may a few clichéd segments, the laugh-out loud moments and the ending combo funk/rap dance number are sufficient to make JOHNSON FAMILY VACATION worth a trip to the theatre.

Review by Gilbert Seah.