Browse Tag: drugs

RECAP: Live and Let Die

Live and Let Die (1973): Guy Hamilton

Connery, Lazenby, Connery, and introducing Roger Moore. That was the order of four straight James Bonds in the 1960s and ’70s. Turnover should indicate tension, dissension, or fatigue, by the producers or the public, but Roger Moore appeared in seven 007 movies, still the record, across fourteen years.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: James Bond follows the Prime Minister of Caribbean fake nation San Monique and his links to voodoo and the drug trade.  Continue Reading

RECAP: Lethal Weapon

Lethal Weapon (1987): Richard Donner

The 1980s were fun time to live it up in Los Angeles, and Lethal Weapon captured both the glamorous and deadly sides of that lifestyle. It also paired two actors you wouldn’t expect to work onscreen and made a classic buddy couple.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: Two cops at diametrically opposed moments in their lives team up to stop a team of ex-Special Forces drug dealers in Los Angeles. Continue Reading

RECAP: Crank

Crank (2006): Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor

Crank asks viewers to answer one question: if you had one day to live and were a hit man, how would you go out? Jason Statham answers: with lots of bangs, literally and figuratively.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: A Los Angeles hitman is poisoned by a rival, and only a constant flood of adrenaline will keep him alive.  Continue Reading

RECAP: Miami Vice

Miami Vice (2006): Michael Mann

Crockett and Tubbs, Tubbs and Crockett. Try finding a cooler, more decade-defining duo than those two Miami Vice detectives in the 1980s. They made Miami cool (cooler), pastels cool, and they made it possible to wear t-shirts with sport jackets.

What better way to adapt this hyper-cool TV series than a gritty filmmaker like Michael Mann? OK, a lot better. Mann makes a different movie, a Mann movie, but a good one. And yes, this Crockett and Tubbs are cooler.

Don’t shoot me!

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: When a federal drug sting goes awry, the FBI calls Miami’s top undercover detectives to bust a worldwide cartel operating in Miami.  Continue Reading

RECAP: Domino

Domino (2005): Tony Scott

A scene late in Domino shows the main characters imbibe spoonfuls of mescalin. For hours they endure insane hallucinations, emotions, and passions, and survive a horrific RV crash that should have torn their bodies in half.

I bring this up now because I believe the entire movie was made by people on mescaline. An intense, jittery experience for two hours, Domino tells a true story, sort of, about a model-turned-bounty hunter.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: A lithe bounty hunter is caught up in an armored car heist that involves a casino owner, the mob, Jerry Springer, and Beverly Hills 90210. Continue Reading

RECAP: Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016): Edward Zwick

Jack Reacher goes forward through a ton of bad dudes to investigate some crimes and stuff. There’s a woman imprisoned for a crime she didn’t commit. There’s a possible daughter situation. You get the idea.

Edward Zwick comes onboard to direct a tightly portrayed character-based thriller, not at all like his epic period pieces such as The Last Samurai (also starring Tom Cruise), Glory, or Defiance.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: Jack Reacher defends a colleague for a crime she didn’t commit, and both of them protect a teenage girl for some reason.  Continue Reading

RECAP: Red Heat

Red Heat (1988): Walter Hill

Buddy cops were all the rage in the 1980s. Beverly Hills Cop, 48 Hrs., and Lethal Weapon are three examples of genre-defining hits that resonate today.

Red Heat is decidedly in a second tier. It grossed $35 million, less than half of cop parody movie The Naked Gun.

The film has one iconic moment, a shot in which Arnold Schwarzenegger’s body is loving filmed from the ground up. Only the great statues receive better filming.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: A Soviet cop tracks a Soviet drug dealer through Chicago while a local cop attempts to ruin the investigation.  Continue Reading

RECAP: Sicario

Sicario (2015): Denis Villeneuve

What’s more dangerous, more convoluted than policing the drug trade? That question is raised by the 2015 drug update Sicario. What does “sicario” mean? According to the intro, it’s what the Jews called people who actively opposed Roman leaders. In Mexico, a sicario is a hitman.

Acclaimed cinematographer Roger Deakins picked up his 13th overall and fourth consecutive Oscar nomination, all of them losses. The visuals were terrific, but I found Johann Johannsson’s Oscar-nominated score the movie’s real star.

Deakins and Josh Brolin both worked on another movie focusing on the drug war around El Paso, 2008’s Best Picture winner No Country for Old Men.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: The US wages secret war against the Mexican drug cartels.  Continue Reading

RECAP: Robocop 2

Robocop 2 (1990): Irvin Kirshner

Robocop was a wonderful gift to Detroit. But in 1990, life is worse, so much worse that a corporation is offering to buy the city. Kirshner, ten years removed from directing another sequel featuring robots, helms the shoot of the second in the vaunted, untouchable Robocop franchise.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: Robocop struggles to stay human while hunting a drug-peddling robovillain and its corporate backers. Continue Reading