Ten Statements About....3 DAYS TO KILL (2013)

This film is actually as much about this kind of scene...

1) If you’re thinking this is a script where Luc Besson scratched out ‘Liam Neeson’ and wrote in ‘Kevin Costner,’ you’re kinda right....but then, Besson has been known to work with other Hollywood stars whose light had faded (i.e. Travolta in the unbearable From Paris With Love), and I don’t know if Neeson would have worked as well as Costner does due to the nature of the role and his relationship with the family he’s trying to reunite wih.  Plus working with a group other than his stock players sometimes revitalizes him.

2) Boy, Amber Heard--who is obviously assaying the role Besson would have given his beloved Maggie Grace--is having a ball playing Vivi.  Never showing up in the same outfit or hair color or hairstyle twice, Heard ends up playing the spy master as one part Mae West, one part Veronica Lake and one part Sigourney Weaver.  She’s a delight to watch every time she walks into a shot.

3) I was originally dismayed to see McG had directed this picture....but I have to admit that the man’s style has matured.  Instead of the ADD style of his earliest pictures, McG shows a newfound capacity to handle longer, subtler scenes of genuine human interaction with style and grace.  More importantly, he’s discarded most of his jittercam action style and is able to choreograph his set pieces much more effectively.

4) You know, I can do without the subtitles for the guy who may have a real thick French accent, but is speaking in English.  I mean, yeah his words are garbled, but they’re understandable.

...as it is about this kind of scene.

5) Since this is a Luc Besson penned action movie, the actual villians are little more than video game stage bosses...hell, they even have stage boss names like ‘The Wolf’ and ‘The Albino’ and ‘The Accountant.’  But that’s part of the point when it comes to being a Besson Bad Guy--you’re there to make the bad ass hero look good.

6) Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this version of the Besson thriller is how Costner’s Ethan ends up going to some of his quarry for advice on how to raise his daughter.  This even creates a strange, sympathetic-yet-sadistic relationship between him and Marc Andreoni’s Mitat that has a very Lethal Weapon 2 Mel Gibson/Joe Pesci vibe.  And the narrative arc between these two is so satisfying that the ultimate payoff makes total sense.

7) Perhaps the big problem with the film structurally is that the film’s twist, when it comes--and you know it’s coming the moment The Wolf mentions his partner--isn’t set up at all.  We never see the partner until the final set piece, although we have seen one of his relatives.  It’s a strange and puzzling choice.

8) I find it fascinating how the closer Costner gets to reuniting with his family, the more he begins to look like our concept of a spy--turning in his pseudo-cowboy outfit for a series of more stylish suits as the film progresses until, in the final act, he’s the very model of a superspy.

Yes, Amber Heard...you are Pretty With A Pistol...

9)  Luc, dude...what is it about you having people’s daughters run off to do something naughty and then get, I don’t know, grabbed by slavers or, in this case, nearly raped in a bathroom by three guys?  You got issues you need to come to grips with.

10) You know, as good as the action is at times, some of the best moments involve Costner and his onscreen daughter, Hailee Steinfeld’s Zooey going through some of the rites of passage a father and daughter have, albeit a few years too late.  While I was in no way a fan of Steinfeld’s performance, finding it strident at times (this was a case where the film would have benefited from a much younger Maggie Grace), but there’s a genuine warmth between the two actors which makes their narrative arc thoroughly believable.

Overall...a typical Luc-Besson-European-Set-Action-Thriller like the ones he seems to pump out every year, but with a surprisingly warm emotional center and much more subtlely directed than I ever thought possible by McG.

I ventured into Manhattan to visit The AMC Kips Bay this time.  Trailers included typical action fare as Brick Mansions (Besson’s attempt to Americanize District B13 that might be more interesting because it’s the first posthumous Paul Walker role); Sabotage (Could somebody please tell Arnold to stop...just..stop?); and Edge of Tomorrow (It’s the Annual Tom Cruise sci-fi actioner, only with the ‘what is he doing here?’ presence of Doug Limon behind the camera), plus inexplicably one for a romcom (The Other Woman, which continues to chronicle Cameron Diaz’ ongoing ungraceful journey towards old age).

Ten Statements About....MACHETE KILLS (2013)

Yep...Amber Heard is riding Danny Trejo.  Which proves
no virtue goes unrewarded...

"Machete don't tweet."

1) Boy, Robert Rodriguez really, really wants to direct a Star Wars movie, doesn't he?

No, seriously--there is a point in this film where the Star Wars tropes so overwhelms it that it forgets what made the original film so enjoyable, namely that this was a gory late 70's action film with Danny Trejo stuck in the role usually reserved for some white pretty boy.  Sure, the intention this time seemed to be to pluck the old Mexican in the middle of a spy movie, but the sudden turn into science fiction doesn't work.

2) ...but then, Rodriguez seems so excited by all these new characters he wants to introduce that he seems to forget this is a film about, you know, Machete.  Not that I'm saying that El Chameleon and Voz and Miss San Antonio and Desdemona The Maneater and Mexican Dennis Miller aren't fun characters; I'm saying that Rodiguez spends so much time setting them up and letting them play around that Machete and the characters already set up in his world almost seem like an afterthought.

3) Is it just me, or did it seem like Rodriguez was setting up Charlie Sheen's President Rathcock as either an ally of Mel Gibson's Voz or the ultimate mastermind behind him?  That political campaign ad in the middle of the film seemed to do everything but scream out 'bad guy in disguise'.  I suppose I should be grateful that he doesn't pull the trigger on that, but if you're just going to make Rathcock into a foul mouthed straight shooter, why bother muddying the water?

4) See, Hollywood?  It is possible to make Michelle Rodriguez smile and have fun in spots while still keeping her bad ass credentials.  Hell, we get her doing the big patriotic speech to rally the troops and kick Amber Heard's ass while blind.  Let's keep that in mind for Fast Seven, 'kay?

5) Okay, I give Demain Bichir major props for being a theatrical star in Mexico City, and for appearing in a Santo movie.  But I can't buy him as Mendez because every time he slips into his psychotic personality he

"Of course I have a heart!  It's right
here in this jar!"

becomes Mexican Dennis Miller and I keep expecting him to make Cop Rock references.

6) I know there are some people who have rolled their eyes in disgust ever since the first photos of Sofia Vengara's Desdemona showed up online....but I don't have a problem with her.  It's obvious that Vengara is having fun with this character who's the opposite of the one she plays in Modern Family, and she fits within the world that was set up in the first film.

7) Whether you think Mel Gibson is a racist, misogynistic pig dog or not, he gives a really amazing performance as Voz--which is even more amazing considering what a strange and wrongheaded character Voz is.  Gibson takes this messed-up bundle of science fiction and spy movie cliches and actually put real thought into it.  This results in a character with a level of realization that maybe doesn't deserve it.

8) The political content of this film is not only weird, it's contradictory to the political content of the original film.  Starting with the scene where President Rathcock gives Machete 'what every Mexican wants'--namely, U.S. Citizenship--and continuing with Michelle Rodriguez giving the speech about it not being about Mexico anymore, the film seems unconcerned with the immigration agenda the original embraced.  And given that it slides into cheapjack sci-fi James Bond-isms, well....

"You make one more reference I don't understand,
Mexican Dennis Miller, and I will so cut you!"

9)  Another thing that's missing here from the film is those 'what the hell' moments that infused the original.  There are plenty of attempts to do so, especially when we get to Voz's compound and he shows off his science fiction toys, but they don't have the impact of, let's say, Machete using a man's intestines as a rope or Lindsey Lohan dressed as a nun mowing people down.  Maybe it's because the 'oh shit' moments in this film are both calculated and centered around hardware instead of behavior.

10) I think it's indicative of how bored I was with the later half of the film that when Antonio Banderas shows up driving an evangelical tractor trailer (just go with it), my main thought was how cool it would be if this film was a Machete/El Mariachi crossover rather than the mess I was actually watching.

Overall...A thorough mess on almost every level that manages to undermine the strength of the Machete franchise at every turn.

And incidentally--Fuck you, editor of the Machete Kills television spots for ruining several of the major plot twists with that MMA/Ready To Rumble style campaign.

I was one of three people who were in the theater at Atlas Park to see this crumbling of a franchise first hand.  I have to be honest--none of the trailers appealed to me.  Hell, the closest thing to a promo I liked was the little behind-the-scenes stunt segment with Johnny Knoxville for Bad Grampa.