The Mechanic

Charles Bronson, a legendary actor in his times once plays as Arthur Bishop in the 1972 film, The Mechanic. And today, Simon West tries to bring the cult classic to the screen once more with Jason Statham casted as Arthur Bishop. The story itself roots from the original film and doesn't make any significant changes to the whole story except some part to make it not the exact rip-off of the original.

Arthur Bishop is a mechanic, a contracted hitman which specialized in making a hit without a trace. They can make it looks like an accident, suicide, or anything that doesn't lead the killing back to their contractors. One day, Bishop is told to kill Harry McKenna (Donald Sutherland), who is also Bishop mentor, because the company fears that Harry has sold their information. After finishing the mission, Bishop is confronted by Steve McKenna (Ben Foster), Harry's son, who asked Bishop to train him just the way his father taught Bishop. Later on, Bishop agrees to took Steve under his wings and starts to do his contracts.

The Mechanic plot is told in a very short duration thus making the plot swift quickly and putting a lot of gun blazing action, it makes us forget what is the real message of the story. One thing to be noted, Ben Foster delivered a strong performance on his character just likes what he did on 3:10 to Yuma and judging from here, I can tell that he could rose to become a promising star.

Although it will not be a cult classic like the first one, but The Mechanic can serves well as a weekend movie this month. If you miss gun-blazing scene, gore and blood (in the first month of 2011 we saw a lot of drama) well The Mechanic is the perfect medication. But of course, don't expect a spectacular film that deserves a place in the Academy Awards nominations (IMO, but who knows?)

The American

"A Very Private Gentlemen," a novel by Martin Booth which served as the story for The American directed by music video director Anton Corbijn and produced by Geroge Clooney, who also starred in the movie. Using the beauty of Italy and Europe's talent, The American managed to deliver to us what is called fine piece of art.

The first scene takes us to a cabin in Sweden where Jack (George Clooney) spent his day with Ingrid (Irina Björklund) his lover. As they take a walk on the frozen lake, a sniper opens fire at them. Quickly Jack sheathe his gun and eliminate the assailant. Shocked, Ingrid then told by Jack to go back to the cabin and call the police. Just as she turns her back, Jack put a bullet in the back of her head. After finishing the remaining killer, Jack took off to Rome and contact his friend, Pavel (Johan Leysen), who then told him to go to Castelvecchio and lay low. He decided not to go to Castelvecchio and instead move to Castel del Monte where he later befriend Father Benedetto (Paolo Bonacelli) and developed a romantic relationship with a local prostitute, Clara (Violante Placido).

Anton Corbijn made The American not in an American-style, instead European-style. Slow pacing, long cinematic shots and focused on the emotions. Although The American is a thriller, don't expect for a lot of action. Surprisingly, this kind of filming style made me wanting for more. Each scene shot beautifully and George Clooney really works on his character.

After my taste destroyed after watching the giant-in-liliput-island film, I found myself entertained by every aspects of The American. The small comune of Castel del Monte and Castelvecchio or the frozen scenery of Sweden really blows our minds. And so the acting of the casts, although there is not much dialogues but somehow they managed to delivered the messages.

After taste: The American keeps you wanting for more, maybe go to the cinema for the same movie over and over. (FYI, Anton Corbijn made this only with $20,000,000 which is a small amount of money to create masterpiece such as this.)

Gulliver's Travels

"Black is the new big." What kind of tag line is that? Sorry for the immediate sarcasm, but how come with $112 million budget ends up something like this? Rob Letterman directed Gulliver's Travels which is loosely based on the novel of the same name back in the 18th century. And using Jack Black as the main magnet, they think that they could do something cool.

Lemuel Gulliver (Jack Black) is a mail room guy who spent almost his entire time in the same position, while having a crush to Darcy Silverman (Amanda Peet) for five years. Darcy is a writer in the office, and she seeks for a new travel-writer. Trying to impress her, Gulliver tries his luck to apply. On his first job, he was tasked to go to the Bermuda Triangle to prove the theory. While on his way, his boat is capsized by watersprout and he wake up in the middle of nowhere. He then realized that he is surrounded by tiny people called themselves, the Liliput kingdom. And so, his adventures in the tiny people island starts where he meets new friends and also enemies.

The plot itself follows a small portion in the novel. Sadly, nothing good on it. Jack Black is pushing himself too hard, doing those kind of slapstick act. Seriously, dancing around with your body for sometimes is not funny. At all. But I'm not gonna put all the blame to Jack Black, as the entire crew contributed to the awfulness of this movie.

I don't know who is the movie is targeted for. But I think it is not suitable for children, teenager, young-adult, adult, or even the elder. If you want to see Jack Black in action, go watch Kung Fu Panda. It is much more hillarious. And nothing beats The Hangover in the comedy section.

Final words, this is the worst movie in 2010 as far as I know. I see a lot of movie this year, but nothing worse than Gulliver's Travels.

The Next Three Days

"What if you had 72 hours to save everything you live for?", well for me, I'll just contact some bad-ass mercenaries, round them up and blast our way to save everything I live for. Let me add something, you're an ordinary people with no military background or huge enterprise to wage off a full scale-war. You can say that's the general storyline of The Next Three Days, starring Russell Crowe and directed by Paul Haggis.

Based on a French film in 2007, Pour Elle, John Brennan (Russell Crowe) is a teacher in a Pittsburgh community college whose wife got charged for man-slaughter. He always believes that her wife, Lara Brennan (Elizabeth Banks) has nothing to do with the murder although the police found solid evidences and an alibi for her to kill. One day, he comes to an idea to break her off jail and ran off together with their son. He then contacted a book author, Damon Pennington (Liam Neeson), who managed to escaped jail seven times, to consult a way to get her wife escape the prison. Starting from that point, he prepares everything his family needs. Until on one visit to the prison, Lara tell him that she will got transferred in three days thus forcing him to start the plan right away.

I haven't watch the original French film yet, so I cannot compare the consistency to the original. But the idea is great, how an ordinary man risks it all to save someone he loves. Before, we watch a lot of prison-break theme film and tv series (still loves the Prison Break series.) but The Next Three Days offer something new.

Unfortunately, I don't think that this is the best work of Paul Haggis, as we all can see what he capable of in some of his film likes Million Dollar Baby. Especially that the movie is based something that already existed. So, some improvement could be done, Hollywood-style. Some of the scene is somewhat unimportant and slowing down the entire story. Considering of the talent Russell Crowe has, it should have been maximized to its full potential. Liam Neeson, although only appears in a small portion of the film, but deliver a good performance (also not his best performance.)

Conclusion, The Next Three Days whole idea is good. But the execution is not that smooth. It's kinda a waste to not dig the potential of all of the stars.

Unstoppable

"1,000,000 tons, 100,000 lives, 100 minutes," well after watched the movie, I'm still confused where is the 100,000 lives and 100 minutes themes? Oh wait, it should be the epilogue. It is Unstoppable starring veteran actor Denzel Washington and the new James T. Kirk, Chris Pine. The action thriller is directed by the one of the so-awesome director brothers, Tony Scott. Well, if you already watched some of his movie (Don't tell me you haven't seen it before. From Top Gun to Taking of Pelham 1 2 3? You've got to watched at least one of them.) you know what'll you get. A brilliant thriller. One more thing, Unstoppable also inspired by a real story, the CSX 8888 incident. All of the basic ingredients to an epic movie.

Frank Barnes (Denzel Washington) is a veteran train engineer who works at the Allegheny and West Virginia Railroad company stationed in Pennsylvania. One day, he got to worked with a new conductor, Will Colson (Chris Pine). They then both went off in a locomotive to grab Colson first job. In the mean time, another cargo train containing dangerous chemicals goes on unmanned with full speed. This is caused by the mistake taken by the engineer, who decide to leave the cabin to switch a lever without activating the air brakes. Back at the AWVR office, yard master Connie Hooper (Rosario Dawson), tries her best to stop the train before reaching Stanton. After several attempts to derail the train failed, Frank Barnes and Will Colson decided to go after the train and try to stop it.

Tony Scott, once again, did it. A brilliant thriller, you'll never get bored watching it. 98 minutes goes by packed with heart-pounding action and also emotional moments of how old worker' feeling when they're about to get laid off. Combined with the experienced actor Denzel Washington and also promising actor Chris Pine, this movie is awesome. The cinematic scene is wonderful, the cinematography section did it well. Not relying on heavy special effects, just pure acting. This is one of the movie that can set the parameter for action thriller.

Although, I still don't get the tagline. The movie runs for 98 minutes, the attempts to stop the train is more than 100 minutes, the population of Stanton is not 100,000 lives. And also, I don't really sure that the train contain 1,000,000 tons of goods. But don't mind of the tagline, maybe I get it wrong. But from technical aspects, storyline, acting,cinematography, soundtrack, simply great. You should spare your time for Unstoppable (especially if you never saw Tony Scott's works before.)

Eat Pray Love

"See you later, alligator," a memorable quote that is made even more memorable when it is said by Hadi Subiyanto, who played Ketut Liyer, in the book-adaptation Eat Pray Love. The way he pronounced it with Indonesian accent is very funny. Eat Pray Love, which is directed by Ryan Murphy and produced by Plan B Entertainment, owned by Brad Pitt. Julia Roberts portrayed Elizabeth Gilbert, the real writer of the book and also the one who experienced the journey.

Elizabeth Gilbert, or Liz, is a successful writer who loves to travel. One day, on a job to interview Indonesian herbalist (or 'dukun' in Indonesian.) named Ketut Liyer, he told her that she will have two marriages, the short one, and the long one. And also, she will lose all of her money, and finally, she will come back to Bali and teach him English. Then, it returned to New York where she lived, when she started to have trouble with her marriage with Steven (Billy Crudup) until she decided to leave and embarks on a journey to find her true self. The first country she visits is Italy, where she learns to enjoys life and find the pleasure of eating. After that, she went to India, to experience the spiritual life in an ashram. Along the way, she met a lot of new friends who help her to finding who she really are. Finally, just as Ketut Liyer predicted, she came back to Bali. In Bali, she also met a struggling single parent named Wayan (Christine Hakim) because that in Balinese tradition, if you're divorced you will be an outcast, leave you with nothing.

The actor and actress who stars in the movie done their job well. Especially for Julia Roberts. And also I found myself enjoying the cinematic view of the old city of Rome, the uniqueness of India, and also the beauty of Bali Island (well, I already see Bali many times, since I'm Indonesian.) How they managed to catch the scenery is just perfect.

Despite all of that, I feel kinda empty after watching this. I keep thinking why they must make it for more than 2 hours? If the story is like that, there is absolutely a waste to make it that long. I expect for the depth of the story, but for me, for 2 hours long the story is too shallow.

And maybe it will not attracts us who come from Mars. This movie is really for the one who come from Venus, as it is revolves around them. But if you want to enjoy the cinematography, you maybe find it interesting.

The Expendables

"Big is not always beautiful," that's my impression after I finished watching The Expendables. We saw the returns of Sylvester "Rocky" Stallone in the big screen, not only as an actor, but also as a director. The tagline sounds pretty awesome, "the most awesome action cast ever assembled." Yes it is. Imagine, all of the iconic action heroes, from Stallone to Jason Statham. Bruce Willis, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Dolph Lundgren, or from the newer generation, Steve Austin, Terry Crews. And also, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. What? He played in the movie? Yes he is. So it is a big guarantee that this movie rocks! (Don't stop reading, that sentence is not a recommendation yet)

The Expendables is the name of an elite mercenary team, which consist of well everyone I stated above except, Bruce Willis, Steve Austin, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mickey Rourke (Well, technically he's on the team, but sort of supporting guy, as he's an ex-member.) They are asked to do a mission on an island called Vilena. Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) also offered the job to Barney Ross's (Sylvester Stallone) rival, Trent Mauser (Arnold Schwarzenegger) but he refuse it. At this point, one moment really made me laugh. Go ahead and see it. So, Ross and Christmas (Jason Statham) go to the island to do a recon mission. Over there, they met their contact Sandra (Giselle Itié). But, their recon gone wrong, and they decided to leave immediately. Leaving Sandra behind, Ross decided to call it off and not doing the job. But after hearing the story of Tool (Mickey Rourke) about not saving a girl, he decide to save Sandra on his own. And the action began (it's already began since the first moment of the movie, FYI.)

Okay, since it already quite late here, and I'm starting to stare at the bed, I'll make it quick. The story is so predictable. Madam in distress, the bulletproof heroes, and bunch of explosions. Too bad, Stallone didn't manage to make the characters of everyone being digged. Seems pretty plain, and all we see is Stallone in his 60s still buffed up body. Maybe because it's a tough job to balancing the story to make a good use of every single actor. But, maybe he didn't need to try that hard to fit everyone to less than two hours duration. He could extend the duration if he wants.

Yes I know this is somekind of tributes to the action heroes from all generations. But at least makes the story more interesting, so all we know about action heroes not about those massive explosions.

Overall, I'm not satisfied, seeing the movie's potential to be awesome and not maximized. I hope someday, Mr. Stallone can create another giant ensemble cast movie, without ruining the awesome cast with straightforward story and lack of character development.