By Rick Bentley


FILM: Run All Night
CAST: Liam Neeson, Joel Kinnaman, Common, Ed Harris
DIRECTION: Jaume Collet-Serra

Liam Neeson has settled into the action movie genre in recent years with hits like Taken. He handles the physicality of the genre with ease, and his acting skills give the movies a high-intensity punch.
But, if you live by the action film sword, you can just as easily die by it. Big car chase scenes and shootouts become redundant without some emotional meat in the middle. There’s enough emotion in Neeson’s latest action film Run All Night to nudge it closer to the hit pile.
Neeson again plays a burned-out killer. This time, he’s Jimmy Conlon, a professional hit man who now spends most of his days trying to bum money off his best friend, Shawn Maguire (Ed Harris). He returns to his killing ways when Maguire’s son (Boyd Holbrook) tries to cover up a double homicide. One of the witnesses is Mike Conlon (Joel Kinnaman), a part-time chauffeur/boxing coach who has been estranged from his father for years.
Although Jimmy’s actions are to save his son, that doesn’t stop Maguire from framing the pair and sending his own men to kill them.
Director Collet-Serra (who helmed Neeson’s Non-Stop) shows great skill at both staging eye-bending action sequences and heart-tugging emotional moments.
From a very realistic looking car chase to a fog-covered showdown in the woods, Collet-Serra keeps layering on the tension. He loses a few points for a scene at the start of the film that eliminates some of the tautness from the story. But it’s only a cinematic version of a flesh wound.
Where he gains back points is in clever camera use to jump between scenes. The director defies laws of gravity to have the point of view start in one area and then lift off and glide to the next scene. It’s a clever device because tension built in the previous sequence transfers to the new scene. There’s no blackout jump to give the audience time to recoup.
Brad Ingelsby’s script creates enough tension between old friends, father and son, plus husband and wife, to make the transitions between the action sequences meaningful. Neeson’s played the absentee father enough that he nails it here. It’s Kinnaman who takes that familiar role and adds energy because of his intense feelings about his father.
The film also features some strong supporting players, including Common as a relentless hit man. Someone should sign him up for the next big-action film franchise because he’s got that character down cold.
Vincent D’Onofrio returns to a familiar role as a police detective, but it works. And Nick Nolte’s brief appearance delivers a nice plot jolt. - The Fresno Bee/TNS

‘Green’ message

FILM: Delhi Safari
CAST (Voices): Jason Alexander, Cary Elwes, Brad Garrett, Christopher Lloyd
DIRECTION: Nikhil Advani

Though many Indian studios have tried their hands at animation in the past, Delhi Safari reaches the closest to a good quality animation entertainer.
Kids, who enjoyed the Madagascar series and even Jungle Book, will enjoy Delhi Safari.
Delhi Safari, directed by Nikhil Advani is a joy ride that will take you on a fantasy trail from Mumbai to Delhi. It also sends an important message of protecting animals, a message many NGOs and government agencies are finding hard to spread. And this is where the medium of cinema does the job best.
The story that starts at Mumbai’s National Park where a builder encroaches in the forest to construct a housing complex, promising homes close to nature. The close proximity to nature obviously comes at the cost of cutting trees and even killing animals.
Thus starts the journey of a leopard, her cub, a monkey, a bear and a parrot for justice. They decide to take on the builder by going to New Delhi and protest in front of the parliament in the presence of the media.
Despite the predictable song-and-dance and even the story, Delhi Safari works as the train journey from Mumbai to New Delhi has a few of stops and fun moments that fit well into the plot.
The film’s “green” message - that humans aren’t the only ones living on this planet and that nature should be protected, so animals may also have a home in it feels substantial and wholehearted.

Flying into trouble


FILM: 7500
CAST: Nicky Whelan, Jamie Chung, Christian Serratos
DIRECTION: Takashi Shimizu

Directed by Takashi Shimizu, 7500 details the chaos that ensues after the title flight begins experiencing a series of spooky happenings. It’s a promising setup that’s almost immediately employed to less-than-engrossing effect, as Shimizu, working from Craig Rosenberg’s script, has infused the proceedings with a dishearteningly deliberate and uneventful feel that proves disastrous — with the viewer’s ongoing efforts at connecting to either the narrative or the characters stymied on a consistent basis.
Shimizu’s inability to offer up even a single compelling figure is nothing short of staggering, and it goes without saying, of course, that the film’s talented cast is left floundering virtually from start to finish.
And although the director throws in a handful of admittedly effective jolts, 7500 suffers from a pervasive lack of scares that’s compounded by Shimizu’s oddly coy handling of the movie’s kill sequences (i.e. the viewer is never made privy to the horrific things witnessed by the various characters).
The nigh interminable midsection paves the way for a decidedly anticlimactic finale, although, to be fair, it’s hard to deny the effectiveness of the movie’s twist ending. (This is despite the fact that said twist has been employed in countless other, better films.)
It’s ultimately not surprising to learn that 7500 languished on the shelf for years before getting a perfunctory straight-to-video release. -DN

DVDs courtesy:
Saqr Entertainment Stores, Doha

Wolves on a road trip


FILM: Alpha and Omega
CAST (voices): Christina Ricci, Hayden Panettiere, Justin Long
DIRECTION: Anthony Bell and Ben Gluck

What makes for the ultimate road trip? Hitchhiking, truck stops, angry bears, prickly porcupines and a golfing goose with a duck caddy. Just ask Kate and Humphrey, two wolves who are trying to get home after being relocated by park rangers to an area where they are supposed to repopulate.
Humphrey is an Omega wolf, whose days are about quick wit, snappy one-liners and hanging with his motley crew of fun-loving wolves and video-gaming squirrels. Kate is an Alpha: duty, discipline and sleek Lara Croft eye-popping moves fuel her fire.
Humphrey’s motto – make ‘em laugh. Kate’s motto – I’m the boss. And they have a thousand miles to go. Back home rival wolf packs are on the march and conflict is brewing. Only Kate and Humphrey can restore the peace. But first, they have to survive each other.
Children of all ages should love it.

DVDs courtesy:
Kings Electronics, Doha