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OldSwede
Reviews
Judgment Night (1993)
One of the most underrated Action-movies ever!
I can´t believe, this film doesn´t get the credits it deserves. In my opinion, the plot is rather original and has NOT been used a hundred times before: Take the wrong exit and you land in the Ghetto. Hasn´t everyone considered this as a personal nightmare once a while?
The directing is pretty good, the movie sometimes fast paced, sometimes extremely thrilling. But the best thing is the cast. Emilio Estevez (always worth a look) as the new family father who has to realize, that his wild times are over. The yet unknown Stephen Dorff as his younger hot-shot brother. Award winning Cuba Gooding Jr. (good as always) and Jeremy Piven as the greasy, selfish, money-driven scumbag who gets what he deserves.
But even more interesting is the cast of the bad guys (I wonder why no one has noticed that before). Eric Shrody as "Rhodes" (better known as one of the few respected white Rap-Stars "Everlast") proves, that he can act, too and gives a beautiful Irish-styled Gangster. The infamous Peter Greene as "Sykes" plays once again a psychotic, blonde bad-ass. You wonder, were you have seen this guy before? Well, do you remember "Redfoot" in "The usual Suspects"? Or maybe "Zed" from "Pulp Fiction"?? ("Zed´s dead, Baby. Zed´s dead.") Now I see eyes open wide.
But last and definitely NOT least is Denis Leary as the super-villain "Fallon". Being one of the greatest stand-up comedians EVER (Check out his program "No Cure for Cancer"!), he is also one hell of an actor (Check out the hilarious comedy "The Ref"!!). Having a rather f***ed up sense of humor he has visibly fun playing the gang-leader and gives a few of the best one-liners in movie-history (after Esteves blows up the van, he says cool: "Shit, that was like the Hindenburg, man!").
And let´s not forget the blast-away soundtrack that combines Rap- and Metal-Superstars (e.g. ICE T & Slayer)! Unfortunately it is rather in the background of the movie, which I think is becoming a bad habit in movie-making (doing a super-hip soundtrack with songs, that doesn´t even appear in the movie at all!). In Germany, the soundtrack was in the TOP 40s for weeks, although the movie didn´t even make it to the cinemas here and went straight to video! Check it out or don´t, but if you don´t, don´t blame me!
Invasion U.S.A. (1985)
They Don´t Make Such Movies Any More!
This is an 80s Action-Movie you have never seen before. Of course, nowadays this flick looks ridiculous, but considering that in the early 80s there were no Action-Comedy-Movies (like "Lethal Weapon"), this is outstanding. I think, the plot is not very realistic but interesting. What if a bunch of crazy terrorists just blows up everything that is holy for the U.S.? Yeah, the Chuck-Norris-One-Man-Army is ludicrous but in the 80s we just didn´t have Jackie Chan. Besides that, the film is extremely violent. The scene with the two teenagers at the beach getting headshots for nothing but being on the wrong place at the wrong time is still giving me bad times. This is something, no other action-movie in the 80s had: They take no prisoners. The victims are all innocent and they even dare to kill kids! Last time this happened was when the little girl in "Assault on Precinct 13" got shot! Plus: If you like gunfights, this is the movie for you. I think, this film is underestimated. Not, because it´s good, but because it´s different. SPOILER ALERT! Memorable Scenes include: A Man gets shot in his nuts several times. A Woman sniffs cocaine and gets the straw beaten in her nose (after that she is thrown out a skyscraper-window). A Couple doing Petting on the beach earn headshots. Several houses get Bazooka-Shots during Christmas-Vacation. Hundreds of Immigrants from Cuba don´t get asylum but hot lead from an M-40.
Hamilton (1998)
A well done Swedish Action-Flic
This is an impressing Action-Movie from Sweden. Although I think "Den demokratiske Terroristen" is the best Hamilton-Film, "Hamilton" is a very entertaining and action-packed Movie full of suspense. Peter Stormare is nearly as good as Stellan Skarsgård and Mark Hamill does a good job fighting his "Luke Skywalker"-image and makes a really good villain you´ll love to hate. The book are in fact better because of the many details given about the different secret services and political conspirations, but - hey - this should be an action movie. Despite that, the beginning of "Hamilton" with the nightmarish execution-scene in the russian Tundra from "Ingen mans land" is one of the most intense filmparts ever made. It´s worth watching it.
Payback (1999)
One movie I´ve been waiting for
That was a great one! Dark, violent, funny. Mel Gibson seems to enjoy his role and it feels great to see James Coburn as one (not so) bad guy again. The film-noir-style is well done and the director manages to combine Raymond-Chandler-novels with 90s-gangster-movies like the early Tarantinos. The brutality (and sadism) is sometimes pretty graphic but so exaggerated and ironic that you are forced to laugh. The storyline is good to follow and logical (despite the fact how Gibson behaves, haha) and nearly everything is explained. (e.g. questions like: What happened to him? Where does he know her from? How did he know that? Why did he do that? and so on. Questions that most films leave unexplained) Superb actors, cinematography and script make this movie one of the best in the Action-Thriller(-Comedy?)-genre this year so far. More of this stuff!