HOSTAGE / Florent Emilio Siri (2005)
February 28th, 2005 by Scott Marks
Hostage (2005)
Directed by: Florent Emilio Siri
Written by: Robert Crais, Doug Richardson
Cast: Bruce Willis, Kevin Pollak, Jimmy Bennett, Michelle Horn, Ben Foster, Jonathan Tucker, Marshall Allman, Serena Scott Thomas, Rumer Willis, Kim Coates, Robert Knepper, Tina Lifford, Ransford Doherty, Marjean Holden, Michael D. Roberts
Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1
Genres: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Rating: 
If only this film lived up to the standard set by its noirish opening credits. The duo-tone design, with cast and crew names embossed on buildings, resembled the opening of Panic Room.
The filmmakers didn’t stop there. Hostage is another film about three thugs terrorizing a family in an abode with duct space airy enough to sublet.
What could Bruce Willis possibly have seen in this cornball rehash to make it his comeback after a two-year absence? Acting as co-producer, did he really believe this formulaic mall fodder would mark a return to his action-hero heyday?
This time around, Willis plays a ten year SWAT veteran forced to take a less stressful position after a bad judgment call proves fatal. One year, and an above-the-neck shave later finds him anchoring a patrol car as the chief of police in a small California town.
Two clever touches: before the story kicks in, three thugs first encounter Willis at a stop sign. Without checking his rearview, the driver chucks a defective CD out the window. Directly behind them Officer Willis decides to ignore the litterbug and hang a left. It was a rare moment of subtlety not to be repeated.
Next, a CD containing mob info is hidden in the DVD case of the Ernst Lubitsch version of Heaven Can Wait. (Ironically, it’s has yet to be released on DVD.) Later on, the audience smiles as a character searching for the disc removes a copy of the Warren Beatty/Buck Henry remake from the shelf.
Pretty much everything else in the film is old hat. Willis’ wife and child are held hostage, psycho turns against psycho, while clichés and special effects form a narrative logjam. The imitation Bernard Herrmann score soon resembles imitation John Addison. Kevin Pollack lucked out by getting to play dead for two-thirds of the film. Unless it has zero competition opening weekend, this one is going to die hard at the box office.
Tags: Action, Bruce Willis, Film, HOSTAGE, Movie, Movie Review, ReviewFiled Under Reviews, Theatrical
DIARY OF A MAD BLACK WOMAN / Darren Grant (2005)
February 9th, 2005 by Scott Marks
Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005)
Directed by: Darren Grant
Written by: Tyler Perry
Cast: Kimberly Elise, Steve Harris, Shemar Moore, Tamara Taylor, Lisa Marcos, Tiffany Evans, Cicely Tyson, Tyler Perry, Terrell Carter, Carol Mitchell-leon, Avery Knight, Vickie Eng,Gary Anthony Sturgis, Bart Hansard, Chandra Currelley-Young
Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1
Rating:
What is it with contemporary black male comics who feel the need to don layers of makeup and padding to play obese women? The list is mushrooming: Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, Oprah.
Trampling in the footsteps of Murphy and Lawrence is playwright, actor and performance artist (?) Tyler Perry. After a couple of his works were transformed into direct-to-video releases, Perry now brings his drag character Medea to the big screen. Was anyone aside from Perry’s mother clamoring for the cinematic unveiling?
The statute of limitations on drag comedy ran out somewhere between Milton Berle’s Texaco Star Theater and Mel Brooks’ Roger Debris in the film version of The Producers. If only fat guys parading in drag was the film’s only drawback.
On the occasion of their twentieth anniversary, Charles McCarter (Steve Harris) decides to coldly gift his wife Helen (Kimberly Elise) with a divorce. Before the credits end we’re led to expect an old fashioned potboiler complete with a soon to be ex-wife being dragged across the marble floor before hitting the curb. Isn’t this supposed to be a comedy?
Charles’ emotional abuse should have resulted in Helen pulling a Farrah and setting him ablaze, but that’s not what Jesus would do. According to the film, even if your spouse beats and cheats or consumes enough drugs to deteriorate your family, it is your sworn duty to God to stand by them.
The story is nothing if not ambitious. Aside from the marital melodrama we’re shown all-too familiar snapshots of look-what-drugs-can-do-to-a-family, a courtroom drama, a musical number, crude sexual comedy, the blush of new love, and an Act III miracle.
There’s even a sadistic nod to Baby Jane brutality that, according to the screening audience, was played strictly for laughs. I tolerated the first hour much the same way a Film Tech I teacher does an end-of-class screening. The sheer audaciousness on the part of the filmmakers to throw every cliché our way found me mortified, but still hanging in there.
At the three-reel mark Jesus is brought into play and its not long before the film sinks under the weight of its own mixed messages. When Helen is confronted by Orlando (Shemar Moore), the most perfect representation of man (black or white) to hit the screen in ages, she must first finish getting even with Charles before she can join Mr. Right in eternal happiness. Was it the book of Matthew or Leviticus that preached the benefits of mentally torturing a man in a wheelchair as a path to revenge? While it’s refreshing to see a pot smoking senior go unpunished, in this context the hypocrisy is laughable.
Even before the ham-fisted climax, where a cripple walks and a drug addict is instantly rehabbed, the film was on a downward spiral. Perry’s latex tonnage and cartoon characterization take away from Elyse’s emotional transformation. The prosthetics are an unwelcome distraction that cushions the filmmaker’s anxiety over addressing the film’s more substantial topics. It will play, but only if the material is interrupted every ten minutes by flabby comic relief.
Cicely Tyson, that symbol of empowered black women everywhere, is on board to add credibility. She went from starring in Sounder and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman to winking out Viagra and fart jokes. The last time Ms. Tyson appeared in a theatrical feature was the equally dreadful Hoodlum in 1997. This is the vehicle she chose to make a big screen return. While she doesn’t embarrass herself, this uncomfortable blend of boorish yuks and Bible-belting is far beneath her talents.
Most distressing of all is watching a group of African Americans basically echoing and endorsing Bush’s ungodly use of God as a tonic. Given all the strides society has made in the past ten years on behalf of emotionally and physically abused women, the rationale behind this forgive-and-forget mindset escapes me. What would Oprah say?
Tags: DIARY OF A MAD BLACK WOMAN, Medea, Movie Review, Tyler PerryFiled Under Reviews, Theatrical
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