By Roger Moore


FILM: Pound of Flesh
CAST: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Charlotte Peters, Darren Shahlavi, John Ralston
DIRECTION: Ernie Barbarash

In Pound of Flesh, Jean-Claude Van Damme (JCVD) wakes up in a Manila hotel in a bath of ice, with the water turning red. His bed is covered in blood. There’s no sign of the damsel he rescued the night before.
But there is a telltale scar. Somebody stole a kidney.
So he is understandably
insistent in questioning the barmaid.
His brother (John Ralston), who needs the kidney, blurts out that “I should have KNOWN something like this would happen”.
Pound of Flesh is a solid if occasionally silly B-picture of the sort that JCVD used to make, before JCVD suggested there might be more to him than mere “Muscles from Brussels”.
He’s 54, his ex-special forces character wears glasses, and his fights in this fists-and-firearms hunt for a missing kidney are a tad gingerly fought. That’s mostly because the character is supposed to be in pain and down one kidney. But these brawls, mainly with the late Darren Shahlavi, a tough Brit-villain who died earlier this year, seem a little tentative. This sort of martial arts movie is a young leading man’s game.
Deacon, Van Damme’s character, and George (Ralston) and Deacon’s old underworld contact (Aki Aleong) have mere hours to find the Irish tart (Charlotte Peters) who hustled Deacon out of a kidney, before that kidney is sold to some rich person who needs one.
But there’s little urgency to the proceedings. Director Ernie Barbarash cannot manage a decent chase scene.
The moral components of the movie — George is a college professor who doesn’t want others harmed in the hunt for this stolen kidney — are laughable.
And the plot, once it is laid out at about the 30 minute mark, is by-the-comic-book routine.
But you have to hand it to JCVD. He has found a fresh formula for a brawny action star’s dotage. –Tribune News Service

Too many blanks


By Colin Covert


FILM: The Gunman
CAST: Sean Penn, Javier Bardem, Jasmine Trinca, Idris Elba, Mark Rylance
DIRECTION: by Pierre Morel

The biggest contribution that star, producer and part screenwriter Sean Penn adds to the perplexing political action movie The Gunman is his guns.
It’s not how the film reflects Penn’s commitment to international activism as it chases trade exploiters from the Congo to London, Barcelona and Gibraltar.
It’s not his diving awards-show deep into the character of Jim Terrier, who atones for his history as a corporate sniper by killing a lot of guys.
It’s his guns. His new, abnormally inflated arms. If any element Penn brought to this production gives it a good box-office boost, it’s his remarkably beefy biceps. He makes Stallone look like a slacker. Penn resembles an Instagram selfie you would get from an annoying friend telling you he’s way into crossfit and tanning right now. His muscles transform him from a thespian not born to be an action star into an actor who would make a good Hulk if he were taller. The term “vanity project” has never seemed so descriptive.
The Gunman follows a trajectory remarkably similar to that of recent Liam Neeson films. Terrier is a former assassin with particular skills that are underestimated by everybody.
His relationship with his lady friend (Jasmine Trinca) ends badly when she marries a snotty entrepreneur (Javier Bardem). Then she’s captured by a large number of bad guys and it’s up to Terrier, who is interested in rekindling their romance, to rescue her.
More pretentious than riveting, The Gunman focuses a whole heap on political themes. It’s as if Penn is drawing realpolitik from his last starring role, in 2010’s CIA drama Fair Game, but taking it to more macho territory. In one of the numerous fight sequences, the riled-up Penn thrashes an ageing motherly type with a fist to her skull. She doesn’t die right away. It takes her a minute to collapse from the trauma, so French action director Pierre Morel revisits her with the camera at the end so we can see her fall like a stunned ox.
The film boasts a carefully-collected supporting cast, with Idris Elba, Ray Winstone and the acclaimed English stage actor Mark Rylance giving their all as good men or henchmen.
Morel’s direction is solid enough, keeping the camera’s cross hairs on heaps of well-choreographed conflict and mostly avoiding the too-fast cuts and too-close shots that turn fights into viewer guessing games. It takes several swings at the forceful, relevant subject of black ops contractors serving far-off financiers pursuing African minerals. — Star Tribune/TNS

Horror homage


FILM: The Town that Dreaded Sundown
CAST: Addison Timlin, Veronica Cartwright, Anthony Anderson, Gary Cole
DIRECTION: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

The original Town That Dreaded Sundown is an underrated horror film from 1976. It does everything right that a slasher film should do. The new film uses the original as a really interesting element that weaves its way into this new version.
When the killings start again in the small town of Texarkana after nearly 65 years of silence, the townsfolk wonder if the “moonlight murders” have resumed. Or is it a copycat? Or something more sinister?
The police use the original movie to try to predict the next moves of the phantom. But actually it could be a lonely high-school girl who has the key to catching him.
The use of the original movie here plays nicely for anyone who has not seen it; they don’t recap but rather add in brief snippets of the 76 film at the same time as its happening in this version.
The filmmakers are clearly paying homage to Carven and Cunningham’s work in the Scream movies as a lot of the time it does bear the same resemblances during these self-referencing scenes. But it’s fun and different and it feels fresh in a genre that needs a new leading light.
There is enough atmospheric fear during the entire film that it keeps a firm grip on proceedings even when the mood is lightened by some joviality, the cops watching the original film and making stupid comments is just one highlight or several.
A respectable cast, more you’ll know from face rather name, all ham it up in such an enjoyable way that it fits nicely into the trappings of the film. Addison Timlin brings enough to the lead character to make you root for her. She isn’t a scream queen, but she gives body to a person being mentally tortured by what she may know. - MS

DVDs courtesy: Saqr Entertainment Stores, Doha