Efficient Blocks, Overrated Party, Wretched Watch
F.S./Movie Reviewer
Issue date: 3/8/06 Section: Arts & Entertainment
- Page 1 of 1
If you enjoyed Assault on Precinct 13 - either the John Carpenter original or the more recent remake - you should also like 16 Blocks (wide release), which is pretty much a stripped-down version of it, played outdoors on the street rather than in a besieged police station.
In this picture, Bruce Willis is a burned-out NYPD detective assigned to transport a fast-talking, irritating prisoner (Mos Def) to the courthouse to appear before a grand jury. Before long the pair are being chased by a bunch of dirty cops, led by Willis' old partner, against whom he fellow's going to testify, and the hero has to decide whether he should put his own life on the line to save the ne'er-do-well from his crooked colleagues.
16 Blocks requires a strong suspension of disbelief - the clever evasions and hair-breadth escapes come fast and furious, and an elaborate sequence involving hostages and a highjacked bus may strike you as way over the top.
But Willis and Def make a likable pair, veteran Richard Donner's direction is skillful, and the physical production is first-rate.
So while the movie might not be the best cinematic sprint you'll ever take, it's far better than the large number of big buddy action-comedy-dramas that miss by a country mile.
If you're a big fan of the titular comedian or hip-hop and rap music, Dave Chappelle's Block Party (wide release) may be your cup of juice.
Otherwise, however, you might find the concert movie - which documents a street "party" the stand-up comic held in New York in late 2004 - more endurance test than joy.
On the one hand, there's considerable vanity in the footage showing Chappelle handing out tickets to lucky people back in his Ohio hometown, being greeted by all of them with near-idolatry.
On the other, there's more than a touch of condescension in Chappelle's treatment of some of the invitees, particularly a couple near the concert site. They're a bit peculiar, no doubt, but the picture makes them look like a pair of gargoyles.
And the actual performance footage is mediocre: Chappelle's one-liners are far from hilarious, and the musical segments are sliced into such tiny pieces that one gets little sense of the whole.
The movie is also played at so high a volume that earplugs would not be amiss.
In Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (Angelika), Joan Plowright plays an elderly woman who befriends a young would-be writer when she moves into a London hotel that specializes in renting rooms to old folks.
In fact, she allows her fellow guests to take him for the grandson who never bothers to visit her.
Rest assured there's absolutely nothing untoward in the relationship between the two characters. This is a sweet story of inter-generational friendship that closes, as it must according to formula, with a tearjerking finale.
The result is the sort of old-fashioned movie that will appeal to audiences of ages similar to Mrs. Palfrey's, and there's nothing inherently wrong with such patently manipulative material, especially with somebody as deft as Plowright on board.
But it really belongs on the Hallmark Hall of Fame rather than in a theatre.
Another wild-eyed supernatural battle is on tap in Night Watch (wide release), which posits a complicated scenario in which some specially-powered humans (low-rent X-Men, if you will) police a truce, first reached in the fourteenth century, between two groups of vampires - those of the Dark and those of the Light.
Needless to say, there's plenty of action and very little sense to anything that happens.
The big difference between this and such rubbish as Blade and Underworld is that Night Watch has subtitles. It's a Russian production, set in post-Soviet Moscow, and the characters have names like Gorodensky and Svetlana.
But rest assured it's every bit as incoherent and ugly as the worst big-budget Hollywood dreck. Maybe even more so.
This is one Night you definitely don't want to watch.
In this picture, Bruce Willis is a burned-out NYPD detective assigned to transport a fast-talking, irritating prisoner (Mos Def) to the courthouse to appear before a grand jury. Before long the pair are being chased by a bunch of dirty cops, led by Willis' old partner, against whom he fellow's going to testify, and the hero has to decide whether he should put his own life on the line to save the ne'er-do-well from his crooked colleagues.
16 Blocks requires a strong suspension of disbelief - the clever evasions and hair-breadth escapes come fast and furious, and an elaborate sequence involving hostages and a highjacked bus may strike you as way over the top.
But Willis and Def make a likable pair, veteran Richard Donner's direction is skillful, and the physical production is first-rate.
So while the movie might not be the best cinematic sprint you'll ever take, it's far better than the large number of big buddy action-comedy-dramas that miss by a country mile.
If you're a big fan of the titular comedian or hip-hop and rap music, Dave Chappelle's Block Party (wide release) may be your cup of juice.
Otherwise, however, you might find the concert movie - which documents a street "party" the stand-up comic held in New York in late 2004 - more endurance test than joy.
On the one hand, there's considerable vanity in the footage showing Chappelle handing out tickets to lucky people back in his Ohio hometown, being greeted by all of them with near-idolatry.
On the other, there's more than a touch of condescension in Chappelle's treatment of some of the invitees, particularly a couple near the concert site. They're a bit peculiar, no doubt, but the picture makes them look like a pair of gargoyles.
And the actual performance footage is mediocre: Chappelle's one-liners are far from hilarious, and the musical segments are sliced into such tiny pieces that one gets little sense of the whole.
The movie is also played at so high a volume that earplugs would not be amiss.
In Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (Angelika), Joan Plowright plays an elderly woman who befriends a young would-be writer when she moves into a London hotel that specializes in renting rooms to old folks.
In fact, she allows her fellow guests to take him for the grandson who never bothers to visit her.
Rest assured there's absolutely nothing untoward in the relationship between the two characters. This is a sweet story of inter-generational friendship that closes, as it must according to formula, with a tearjerking finale.
The result is the sort of old-fashioned movie that will appeal to audiences of ages similar to Mrs. Palfrey's, and there's nothing inherently wrong with such patently manipulative material, especially with somebody as deft as Plowright on board.
But it really belongs on the Hallmark Hall of Fame rather than in a theatre.
Another wild-eyed supernatural battle is on tap in Night Watch (wide release), which posits a complicated scenario in which some specially-powered humans (low-rent X-Men, if you will) police a truce, first reached in the fourteenth century, between two groups of vampires - those of the Dark and those of the Light.
Needless to say, there's plenty of action and very little sense to anything that happens.
The big difference between this and such rubbish as Blade and Underworld is that Night Watch has subtitles. It's a Russian production, set in post-Soviet Moscow, and the characters have names like Gorodensky and Svetlana.
But rest assured it's every bit as incoherent and ugly as the worst big-budget Hollywood dreck. Maybe even more so.
This is one Night you definitely don't want to watch.