There’s a reason this film disappointed me: Despite the amazing visuals from start to end and near non-stop action, it is essentially one battle scene stretched to fill a two hour movie. I initially thought it was a box office disappointment too, but Box Office Mojo reports it’s taken in over $200M in the US and $217M elsewhere as of last weekend. Even with a production budget of $65M and plenty of marketing support, that’s surely sufficient for a good profit despite Hollywood studio’s arcane accounting methodology.

300 is based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel retelling of the battle between the Spartans of ancient Greece and Xerxes, greatest leader of the Persian Empire. Directed and co-written by Zack Snyder (whose only major previous effort was the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead), the film is unsurprisingly similar to Sin City. Unsurprising because that was also based on a Miller graphic novel but not near as good, probably because the underlying material was meatier and the significantly greater participation by Miller.

If one can ignore that much of the stunning imagery is from blood spurting and body parts flying, which in the end I could not, then one might enjoy 300 more than I did. Gerard Butler is a mighty King Leonidas, Lena Headey is a match for Butler’s iron will and pure hardbodied sexiness as his queen, David Wenham (Faramir from The Lord of the Rings) and Vincent Regan are both quite good–especially Wenham’s storytelling, which Snyder uses to frame the entire film–as Leonidas’s captains, even props to my boy from The Wire, Dominic West, as a slimy politician and Rodrigo Santoro as a majestic Xerxes.

But in the end, there was far too much killing and nowhere near enough storytelling to justify spending $65 million making this movie.

not recommended

Is it even fair any more to bring up Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch? I suppose not (he he). Seriously, there can no longer be any doubt that Mark Wahlberg, after a few poor choices like the Planet of the Apes remake, Three Kings and Rock Star, has the chops to carry a film on his shoulders and an ego reasonably enough sized to enjoy smaller roles in important movies like The Departed. He certainly elevates what might have been a run of the mill political thriller above the noise.

Shooter is the tale of Bob Lee Swagger, a man of simple tastes and an excellent marksman who might have made a career in the military until he was betrayed by intelligence operatives in Afghanistan and his spotter killed when the cover for their retreat was pulled out early. Instead he retires to an isolated self-sufficient existence high in the Rockies until, three years later, Col. Isaac Johnson (Danny Glover) shows up with a request for his help, pushing all the right buttons.

Of course, Johnson and his masters–who are truly the ubiquitous “them” of consiparcy theorist nightmares–are setting our boy up to take a fall. The past connection revealed later on makes me dubious that Swagger would be chosen except that the conspiracists’ motives go even deeper then expected and Swagger isn’t supposed to survive the initial event. (All of this is shown in the trailers and commercials so I’m not giving any spoilers.)

Wahlberg really does make the movie by informing his acting with honest emotions well fit to the scene. The contrast for me is the far more highly regarded performances of Leonardo Dicaprio who I think believes that eye and eyebrow movement are important tools to be used as often as possible. Plus key tilting of the head.

Props also to director Antoine Fuqua, who gets back to the quality he had in The Replacement Killers and Training Day, and writer Jonathan Lemkin for focusing on the plot and not allowing superficial, extraneous action on to the screen (that is, the big bang explosions are pretty limited and neither Wahlberg nor his FBI pal show unbelievable martial arts skills). Fuqua uses locations especially effectively throughout, urban, rural, wilderness adding a layer beneath the action.

Michael Pena is the FBI pal, a special agent three weeks out of the academy who happens to be a couple of blocks from the Wahlberg when the assassination goes down and gets the blame big time when Bob Lee takes his car as the escape vehicle. Also turning in decent work are Glover, playing against type as a ruthless bad guy, and Rhona Mitra as another Special Agent willing to cut Pena some slack; there are also a couple of actors we recognized from 24: Rade Serbedgia, who plays Victor Gridenko on the current season and here is someone similarly co-opted years before for his killing skills, and Kate Mara from Day 5, the former girlfriend of Swagger’s dead Army pal.

recommended

PS: Shooter is based on a novel by Stephen Hunter and there are three or four more novels featuring Swagger, so I wonder if we’ll see sequels from them.

This 2004 Hong Kong flick explores what happens when both sides in a running battle between police and a gang of robbers turn to the media for help. Directed by Johnny To and written by Hing-Ka Chan and Tin-Shing Yip, Breaking News is an exciting, thoughtful drama that combines the massive gun battles made so famous in Police Story and Infernal Affairs (remade as last year’s Oscar winning The Departed) with insightful media manipulation for a very strong result.

The lead roles are Richie Ren as the intelligent villain, Kellie Chen as a police commander who seizes the opportunity presented to her and Nick Cheung as the hero and leader of a detective squad who were after Ren’s gang to start with. A street cop takes offense when one of Ren’s men backs a car intended to take them off for a robbery down a one way street the wrong way and, just as this mistake is almost evaded, the cop says the wrong thing and Ren’s crew open fire; Cheung has many men with him but are only able to take down one of the bad guys.

The rest escape into the post-modern urbanity that is 21st century Hong Kong, huge apartment blocks jammed in on top of each other–To gives us the real city rather than the usual polished and clean cinema fantasy. Working block by block Cheung finds the building in which the gang is hidden, and this is when Chen tells him to back off so she can bring a huge SWAT force to complete the capture. Cheung, of course, is pissed and not interested in stepping off after his men have been the target of gales of weapons fire.

Coincidentally a pair of hit men are on the same floor of the building as the apartment where Ren and one of his men have gone to ground, taking a goofy taxi driver and his two small children hostage. Coming together in the crossfire the four have little choice but to join up. Ren and the slightly older brains of the other pair, Yong Yu, find they have much in common and make a final stand together to get away from the cops. Ren, watching the TV coverage, uses his comic hostage family and the Internet to put his own spin on events each time Chen gives the media a police performance.

They do, but neither Cheung nor Chen have given up the pursuit of Ren (they don’t really known who Yu is, though he gets his own offscreen ending). The climax finds all three leads together for the first time and despite being reasonably predictable, the finish was quite satisfying. I didn’t realize until looking over his CV just now, but this is the second film directed by Johnny To I’ve seen and enjoyed in the last year; I wrote up my thoughts on his Full-time Killer last June.

recommended