American Gangster (2009)

From Ridley Scott this film explores the life of Frank Lucas a drug kingpin from New York played by Denzel Washington and the cop that tried to bring him down played by Russell Crowe. You follow both stories separately with you seeing how Frank Lucas began in his career as a driver then taking over the empire and using his family to run everything he was involved in. Russell Crowe starts out by finding money in a trunk and you find out what sort of person he is and the sort of cop that he wants to be. You follow both stories as they come closer together and in the end how they meet up and what happens.

This is a biopic based on a true story and shows the two sides of achieving what you want, with the Frank Lucas character getting what he wants be it wealth and success however he can and Richie Roberts as the whiter than white cop whose home life is falling down around him and he is despised in his work as so many officers at that time were on the take and did not like the fact that Richie would not take the money. This shows a grimy world in the back drop of the Vietnam war raging overseas and the drug culture being flooded by good quality cheap drugs that meant more and more people could access the Heroin.

This film is another of these films that when it came out I was not interested in, Denzel Washington is never a bad performance but is not somebody I hear about and think I really have to see that film. Russell Crowe on the other hand is somebody that I actually try and avoid as I really do not like the man. However in this film both actors make you like and appreciate both the characters they play. There are also some good supporting roles played by Josh Brolin, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Lymari Nadal. This is a really good film and if you enjoy gangsters or crime films then this film is for you and I give it a strong 3 star recommend.

Jonah Hex (2010)

Film of 2012 #3
Spoilers

This film is so silly it is unbelievable, that is fine as it is a comic book, as I have no affiliation to any comic books I have no idea if it is a true and good representation of what the writer was looking to achieve. It is also a strange set up as it is an origin movie but also the main tale so fast and pushy and could have been done better with cleaner points and less forced in to the start.

You have Josh Brolin playing a scarred hero who came so close to death he can speak to dead people, well fun but used poorly in my thoughts, it seemed to be big enough of a point to mention and then they do use it but not as much as I thought as it really was his only super power as such. Megan Fox, I think had they got an unknown actress there would have been less screen time and less points for the character as really she was extra weight that was not needed, I did think she did what she needed to do quite well actually.

Overall though you have so much crammed in at the start that would have worked if Jonah Hex was like Batman, Spiderman or Superman, so well known everybody knows the source material and the origin story, they could have gone with the cut down, I just feel that they should have done something different with what is not a bad Steam Punk world. I would avoid this film and it only gets one star from me.

The Goonies (1985)

This is one of my favorite all time movies, I have seen it so many times that when re-watching it I am able to quote whole conversations and the jokes still work for me, i will say that there is a level of nostalgia and I think that the music the jokes and the setting just put me back to when I was a child watching this film repeatedly from a VHS we had taped from the TV. I had watched the tape so many times I used to know all of the adverts on the VHS. But back to looking at the film, the best thing about this for me is that it throws you into the middle of a situation, it is easy enough to pick up what is happening and they reference so many things that happened previously that I likened it to being the film at the end of a TV Series which shows that Chris Columbus really was a great writer and Richard Donner is a great director, everything in this film works.

Your main cast is a surprising in that so many of the child actors are well known for other things, Sean Astin in Lord of The Rings, Josh Brolin in No Country for Old Men and other things, Corey Feldman for being Corey Feldman and Jonathan Ke Quan as Short Round in Temple of Doom. The fact that so many of them are still around shows they had the chops and it was a dream cast. The baddies, thr Fratellies are played by the late great Anne Ramsey, she still scares me today and i would not cross her and teh fact that her 2 sons hate each other as the vye for her attentions. The set peice is the dream and realm of so many kids fantasies from that era, who did not go looking for treasure when they were younger?

This film is a 5 star masterpeice that I actually think people watching today for the first time will still enjoy, and if you have not seen it, you will see some really common pop culture refrences and where they originated so "Hey you Guys!" Make sure you have seen this film.

True Grit (2011)

This is the remake of the 1969 cowboy film, which I have never seen, the remake stars Jeff Bridges in a role I have heard he was very keen to play and put a lot into it. He was very good and the overall film was very enjoyable, I have heard from other people that have seen both of the versions that it is quite close to the original.

Now from the fact that it is quite close to the original there is to me very little point to this film having been made other than Jeff Bridges wanting to play a specific character and for the companies to cash in on the older film. It does nothing for the modern age as it is set in the Wild West and is not even a director telling a story in their words.

It is part of the problem that today all the films that come out are sequels, remakes and reboots, some original ideas would be nice. If the story is new enough and good enough it will work. Remakes can be good films and they can introduce an new audience to an old classic but for me the Western is a genre that does not need to come back in the modern age, I will give the film 2 stars and this is mainly for the good performances of Barry Pepper, Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin and Hailee Steinfeld. See it if you like Jeff Bridges or Westerns but it does nothing new, see the original instead.