Category Archives: Action/Adventure

Stingray (1978)

Posted on September 7, 2012 | 2 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: This car goes fast.

This film is being reviewed by request. It is the story of two young men named Al and Elmo (Christophe Mitchum, Les Lannon) who purchase a red corvette unaware that there are bags of cocaine stashed in the back put there by some criminals on the run. Eventually they find out about it, but are then chased by the bad guys who will stop at nothing to get it back.

I’m not sure if Retrohound, who is the one who requested that this be reviewed, really likes this movie, or simply has some nostalgic connections to it. Either way I found it to be poor at all levels. It starts out as a gritty southern tinged action drama and it might of worked had it stayed that way, but then it devolves into slapstick comedy and becomes a pointless mess. The humor is corny and borrows every cliché from every 70’s good ole boy car chase flick until it is mind numbing. Any tension or interest in the plot is sucked out. The music during the chase sequences sounds too much like it were made for a cartoon, or kiddie flick and sophistication wise that is where this production is at. This is the type of film that gives yahoo action comedies, which already on the bottom of the cinematic genre totem pole, a bad name.

The two leads are bland and cardboard. Christopher Mitchum, who is the son of Robert Mitchum and looks almost exactly like him except his eyes aren’t as squinty, is terrible. His acting ability wouldn’t even pass in a high school play and it is obvious that he managed to sneak into starring in B-movies based on his name and connections than on any talent. I also thought it was really dumb how the two boys pick up a sexy hitchhiker halfway through. The part is played by Sondra Theodore a former Playboy Playmate and all she does is sit there looking pretty without saying hardly anything, which carries the concept of eye candy too much to the extreme. The character is never given any name and she is billed simply as ‘The Girl’ during the end credits, which is pretty much all she is and although this was her film debut it is no surprise that her career did not last much longer after this.

I did enjoy Sherry Jackson as the vulgar and tenacious Abigail Bratowski who will do whatever it takes to get the drugs back and won’t be intimated by any man. With the exception of William Watson who plays fellow bad guys Lonnigan she seems to be the only one here that can act and the only reason I gave this film one point. She is also involved in the film’s one memorable moment when she lights an obnoxious guy’s crotch on fire. Her handling of a giant bulldozer is impressive as well.

Normally it is the stunt work that gives these otherwise low-grade flicks any merit, but I didn’t see anything here that hasn’t been shown a half dozen times in other car chase movies. The only exciting moment for me was when a camera was hooked up to the sides of the cars and you could view the chase at almost highway level as they streaked across the winding country roads at incredible speeds.

I liked that it was filmed on-location in St. Louis. A variety of interesting locales is chosen including a woodsy area for the motorbike chase as well as back alleyways featuring a lot of rundown brick buildings. The best is the final segment taking place on an old bridge overlooking the Mississippi. Great use is made of the bridge’s rusted, shadowy architecture and one also gets a great view of St Louis’s 1970’s skyline.

The opening credits, which glows in rhythm to a roaring engine is kind of cool, but otherwise I was unable to get into this movie at any point and really couldn’t believe how vapid and uninspired it was. A 101 minute runtime is much, much too long for something with such a paper thin plot. The only thing this film succeeds at is become increasingly more annoying as it goes along and it is too stupid to be even passably entertaining.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: September 28, 1978

Runtime: 1Hour 41Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Richard Taylor

Studio: AVCO Embassy Pictures

Available: VHS, YouTube

2 Comments

Posted in 70's Movies, Action/Adventure, Buddy Movies, Farce, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Low Budget, Obscure Movies

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Coogan’s Bluff (1968)

Posted on August 19, 2012 | 2 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Cowboy in the city.

            Coogan (Clint Eastwood) is an Arizona Sheriff sent to the Big Apple to extradite a convict back to the desert. The story focuses on the western lawman’s difficulties at adjusting to the big city ways.

One cannot help but compare this film to Dirty Harry. There are vast similarities, but the problem is that Dirty Harry is way better. This film lacks the edge is just plain bland and formulaic. The bad guy here (Don Stroud) doesn’t have the intriguing menacing quality of Andrew Robinson the memorable villain in the Harry film. The villain character is also poorly fleshed out and panics too easily and conveniently. The supporting characters are equally uninteresting and the whole thing seems too much of a showcase for Eastwood and nothing more.

The opening sequence where the viewer is given a bird’s eye view of the majestic desert as Coogan tries to ferret out a renegade criminal is by far the best part of the whole film. One almost wishes that the action had been kept here and not transplanted to the big city as the change of venue really doesn’t create enough intriguing situations.

Tisha Sterling’s performance helps as she does have a few good moments as the deceptive and conniving girlfriend of the convict. David Doyle is also memorable even though his part is quite small. His green corduroy pants is an amusing eye sore and when he unwisely thinks he can beat up Coogan in a barroom brawl it is pretty funny.

I overall like Eastwood and think he has made many superb films in his legendary career, but this one is his most undistinguished and it is easy to see why. It borrows too many elements from his other films without adding anything new in the process. It’s a tired formula the whole way.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: October 3, 1968

Runtime: 1Hour 33Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Don Siegel

Studio: Universal

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 60's Movies, Action/Adventure, Police Drama

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Busting (1974)

Posted on August 17, 2012 | 2 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Cops on a mission.

            Michael (Elliot Gould) and Patrick (Robert Blake) are two vice cops hauling in prostitutes and drug dealers only to find that are being let go without being charged. They eventually realize that local crime boss Carl Rizzo (Allen Garfield) has an inside influence with the police department allowing these criminals to get off. Michael and Patrick decide to turn-the-tables, but this proves dicey as Rizzo’s influence is strong and could cost the two not only their jobs, but also their lives.

The film has a gritty style that nicely captures the rugged street life of its characters. Director Peter Hyams uses his background as a news producer and documentary filmmaker to give the film an authentic quality. His tendency for natural lighting is perfect for this kind of material. The film lacks music at least at the beginning, which is effective as it gives you the feeling that you watching some sort of underground police video especially during the opening sequence. The pounding soundtrack during the chase scenes is okay, but what impressed me was the haunting melody used in some of the other parts that sounded like something you might hear in a thriller, or horror film, but it works because it is an unusual sound for a cop picture. The dialogue is great as it manages to be acerbic and insightful while still remaining realistic.

The first half is hampered by the two’s preoccupation with nabbing a prostitute. I remember watching the old ‘Cops’ TV-show where there would be many episodes detailing elaborate stings that the police would use to nab some otherwise harmless schmuck who was simply looking for a little action. Most who are arrested will go right back to doing it again after being given a light fine, or jail sentence, which to me always seemed wasteful both to the law enforcement’s time and the taxpayer’s money when there are far more serious crimes out there. When the Carl character mocks the two with the line ‘You arrest ten-dollar hookers and think you are Captain Marvel’ I had to laugh and agree. What is even worse is when Michael is off-duty he ends up paying for the services of a call-girl meaning I guess that when he is in the mood himself then it is alright.

The film improves during the second half and includes an exciting foot chase at night inside a sprawling inner-city fruit market. Hyams use of tracking camera shots helps build the tension and I found it interesting that an innocent bystander ends up getting shot and killed as I don’t think I’ve seen that happen in any other police movie. Another chase that happens at the end and involves two ambulances careening down city streets is equally well done.

The cat and mouse game that they play with the crime boss was intriguing enough to keep this viewer interested. Garfield plays the part with his usual hyper-style that makes the character both repellent and human at the same time. The best thing about the film though is that fact that it chooses a somber tone and then sticks with it. Too many times ‘statement movies’ with a downbeat message end up selling-out and become an audience pleaser at the most unlikely moment, but this film doesn’t. I’m not saying that it ends on a depressing note, but it does effectively hit home the fact that police are hampered by a lot of bureaucracy that limits their effectiveness. It also examines the boredom and monotony that can come with the job, which other police dramas rarely if ever touch on.

The film was controversial because of its over-reliance on gay stereotypes during a barroom scene. I was a bit surprised by this because the scene itself is short and the stereotypes shown weren’t too different from other films of the period dealing with the same topic. Michael does refer to them by using the derogatory ‘F-word’, but I am pretty sure that a lot of cops in 1974 used that very same word and since this film was intended to show how things were I was able to go with it. The two also get ganged up on and viciously beaten by the gay patrons that I found to be amusing.

I also have to mention Cornelia Sharpe a former model who had a brief 10 year film career in mostly grade B exploitation pictures. She looks her best here not only during a nude scene that she has with a doctor at his office where she pretends to be one of his patients while really being a prostitute, but also during her appearance in court where she wears a pink hat and dress. I also liked that despite being a hardened hooker she still gives a warm smile to a lonely child sitting in the waiting room.

My only real complaint with the film is that it features one of the tackiest make-up jobs in the history of movies and seriously affects the film’s realism. The scene I refer to is when Michael and Patrick get beat-up by some of Carl’s thugs. The ‘injuries’ to Patrick’s face clearly look like it was smeared on in two seconds with some light red paint.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: February 27, 1974

Runtime: 1Hour 31Minutes

Rated R

Director: Peter Hyams

Studio: United Artists

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Posted in 70's Movies, Action/Adventure, Buddy Movies, Gay/Lesbian, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Police Drama

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Johnny Cool (1963)

Posted on August 12, 2012 | 2 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Top of crime world.

                Johnny Cool (Henry Silva) is really Giordano a man who grew to mythical proportions as an outlaw in a small Italian village after killing off some soldiers who tried to rape his mother. His exploits come to the attention of  Colini (Marc Lawrence) who has been exiled to Sicily because of his gangster past. He stages a fake assassination of Giordano in order to kidnap him and train him to go back to the United States and kill off the men that ordered his downfall. Johnny does this, but then becomes even more powerful than Colini was and soon he is both feared and hunted by the crime world.

The film, which was directed by William Asher, is nicely paced. I liked the fast, gripping action, the pounding music, and raw approach. The black and white photography nicely accentuates the gritty subject matter. Although it may seem a bit tame by today’s standards I still found most of it to be intense and uncompromising especially the ending.

Lots and lots of famous faces pop up everywhere, which is fun for a bit, but then takes you out of the story as it seems to become more like ‘spot the star’. Some of the cameos are small and pointless while others are more interesting. Sammy Davis Jr. has a tense scene playing a man with an eye patch who must role a specific number with the dice or be blown away by Johnny’s gun, which is aimed directly at his temple. Joey Bishop is funny as a fast talking used car salesman and his feeble attempts at making a play at the beautiful Dare (Elizabeth Montgomery). John McGiver is equally fun as a perplexed store manager who brings in a woman to his office after finding that she has been writing a lot of bad checks. The exchange he has with her is a perfect example of why sexual innuendos where a lot more interesting and creative back in the old days when the standard didn’t allow them to be as crass and vulgar as they are now. Here the lady states “I can make those bad checks good.” And McGiver responds after eyeing her figure “Yes, I think you can!”

Telly Savalas is wasted. The man is a great character actor especially as a villain. Playing a tough crime boss from Brooklyn is his forte and he could have really gone with it had they given him a bigger part. Marc Lawrence is equally evil as Colini and showing him only in one scene and then disappearing was disappointing. Jim Backus’s appearance was a mistake. A funny, talented man for sure, but I didn’t like that he did his Mr. Magoo laugh several times here as it did not fit the gritty mood.

Henry Silva has proven to be a great villain throughout his career, but in this role it just doesn’t work. His eyes have a weird type of stare that makes it look like he has been drugged. He delivers his lines in a monotone fashion. The character becomes overblown and some may find his use of the karate chop to be a bit cheesy. He kills a man on an escalator amidst a crowded airport and is able to get away. There are several other scenes where he is able to somehow get into a secure area and kill off people without any explanation for how he was able to do it.

Elizabeth Montgomery, who was at the time the wife of the director, is fantastic. She plays a brunette and does well with a multi-faceted character that goes from helpless victim to conniving double-crosser. She is shown in several scenes wearing no make-up and I liked the naturalistic quality. My only quibble is the scene where she gets roughed up by some gangsters, but the only mark left on her is a bruise on a shoulder even though a few bruises, scratches, and cuts on the face would have been not only more believable, but visually more effective.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: October 2, 1963

Runtime: 1Hour 43Minutes

Rated NR (Not Rated)

Director: William Asher

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD, Netflix streaming

2 Comments

Posted in 60's Movies, Action/Adventure, Black & White, Drama, Gangster Movies, Movies Based on Novels

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Batman (1989)

Posted on July 30, 2012 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Where is Adam West?

The attempt at moving the Batman theme from the campiness of the TV series to a darker edge proves successful. Director Tim Burton’s vision of Gotham is terrific. It has a sort of weird mixture of the 1940’s and the modern day and the look is original. It is so gray and dark it seems almost like purgatory and having the citizens celebrate its 200th anniversary may be the best joke of the film.

The story nicely starts out showing how Bruce Wayne (Michael Keaton) became acclimated with this Batman character and how initially he wasn’t perceived as being a good guy. It also explains how as a little boy he witnessed his parent’s murder. Yet it doesn’t go far enough and questions still abound. Like who built the Batmobile and that very immense bat cave? Are we to believe that Bruce Wayne and his kindly butler Alfred (Michael Gough) did it all by themselves?! It would have also have been nice if they had shown what specifically inspired him to take the identity of the bat. Still it’s good that some actual bats are shown and in a brief frame even come flying right at you!

The story is slick, but nothing spectacular. Such a big budgeted and much hyped movie almost cries for a more expansive storyline. Something along the lines of a James Bond plot with some megalomaniac aspiring for world domination or destruction. Having the Joker (Jack Nicholson) simply kill people with his toxic make up seems both silly and tacky. The climatic finale in the bell tower borrows too many elements from other showdowns and is too rehearsed.

Keaton looks uncomfortable in the lead. He shows no energy or charisma and is absolutely stiff in his Batman costume. Nicholson has a little more spunk and in a way seems to be a perfect fit. Yet Cesar Romero from the TV series had a much better laugh and Nicholson’s laugh seems forced. Kim Basinger makes a nice addition as the love/sex interest. She creates a nice balance between the two adversaries. It is interesting to note though that while everyone else refuses to wear make-up (including the newscasters) because of the Jokers toxins she is still seen with plenty of it on.

Overall this is a nice attempt at keeping the theme more true to its comic book origins. It doesn’t come together completely though and is in desperate need of a more singular voice. The second feature in this series Batman Returns is far better.

Watch for Lee Wallace as the mayor of Gotham as he looks like an absolute shoe-in for former New York Mayor Ed Koch especially from a distance. Also William Hootkins has absolutely the best voice for any big city policeman character.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: June 23, 1989

Runtime: 2Hours 6Minutes

Director: Tim Burton

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Cult, Dry Humor, Moody/Stylish, Surreal/Fantasy

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The Drowning Pool (1975)

Posted on July 27, 2012 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Way too much water.

            Detective Lew Harper (Paul Newman) travels to New Orleans in order to help Iris (Joanne Woodward) an old love of his who has now married and living in a large southern mansion that is controlled by her husband’s domineering mother Olivia (Coral Browne). Iris asks Harper to track down a former servant who she has fired and is now sending notes to her husband threatening to describe one of her elicit affairs. Initially Harper thinks it will be a simple straightforward case, but finds many twists and turns including the presence of an oil company looking to buy the land the mansion sits on for drilling. There is also Iris’s over-sexed teen daughter Schuyler (Melanie Griffith) who is always present when there is any trouble as well as the town’s sheriff Broussard (Tony Franciosa) who takes an unusual interest in the well fare of Iris and her daughter.

By itself this is an okay mystery although it takes a while getting there and there are too many characters popping in out of nowhere threatening harm to Harper to point that almost becomes formulaic. Compared to the first Harper this film pales in comparison. It lacks the snappy dialogue that made the first one so fun. The supporting characters are not as well defined, or as interesting and the overall production values are not as slick. I was amazed that with a script written by Tracy Keenan Wynn, Walter Hill, and Lorenzo Semple Jr. that it could be so overall ordinary, but it is. That doesn’t mean it is not passable, or entertaining, but it lacks the zing from the first.

I also didn’t like the change of location. Harper with his very detached approach worked better with the jaded Hollywood types. Here he just seems out-of-place. The mansion setting is boring and predictable. However, the scene where Harper is taken by boat along a swamp and to a pit bull farm where the animals are trained for dog fighting is special.

As for the supporting characters Richard Jaeckel, who has appeared with Newman before in several good scenes including the drowning one in Sometimes a Great Notion, is good as ‘bullet head’ a corrupt policeman who is constantly harassing Harper. Harper later turns the tables playing a game of Russian roulette with him that is great. Murray Hamilton is also quite good as the evil oil baron Kilbourne and the all red jumpsuit that he appears in is something else.

On the female end you have to love Melanie Griffith as the devious, nympho teen. She plays that type of part so well that I don’t think there is any other actress that could ever do it better. I did not like Gail Strickland as Mavis who is Kilbourne’s wife.  When we first see her she is a conniving, cocky, flirtatious woman, but then in a later scene turns into a whimpering, whiny mess begging Harper for help when she barely knows him. This extreme contrast didn’t work with me and I thought that a woman who marries a rich, but shady businessman and has been involved in some underhanded maneuverings herself should have a little better ‘plan B’ in place and not sink to such a pathetic helpless level the minute things unravel. Woodward is wasted in a boring role that allows for very little range. I wished she had played Strickland’s part as I think she would’ve made it more interesting.

The one scene that really stands out and makes this movie special is the part where Harper and Mavis are trapped in a hypo-therapy room in an old, abandoned asylum. Newman does most of his stunts here including being sprayed by a fire hose while locked in a strait jacket. The sequence where they plug up all the drains and then turn on all the showers in an attempt to float up the pool of water and escape out the skylight is amazing as is the moment where the gallons of water comes rushing through the door toppling furniture and people. This scene is incredible on many levels and should make it into the top twenty of best movie moments ever.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: June 25, 1975

Runtime: 1Hour 48Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Stuart Rosenberg

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Action/Adventure, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the South, Mystery, Sequels

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Goodbye Pork Pie (1981)

Posted on July 23, 2012 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Minis are very durable.

A middle aged man named John (Tony Barry) whose wife has just left him and an unemployed nineteen year old named Gerry (Kelly Johnson) come together through circumstance and trek across New Zealand in a yellow mini while desperately trying to elude the police.

The film has a wonderfully carefree approach and anyone who has ever wanted to ‘drop out’ or stick it to authority will most assuredly enjoy this. There are some clever chase sequences involving the mini with the best coming at a Wellington shopping center. There are also a couple of good running bits including a stressed out vacationing couple dealing with their noisy kids and police officer doing a sexual role playing game with his wife while on duty. The vast age difference between the two main characters is refreshingly different from most ‘buddy’ movies and Johnson, as the younger one of the pair, is excellent. He shows a lot of star making appeal and it is amazing that his film career never flourished. Claire Olberman is gorgeous as a hitch-hiker that they pick up along the way and she closely resembles 80’s adult film star Stacey Donovan and it is a real shame that she doesn’t stay with them throughout the entire film. I also must mention the music score, which has a nice distinct quality to it.

On the negative side I felt Barry in the role of the middle aged man was a little too laid back in his performance. He needed to show more stress and tension, especially when he is put into such crazy and hectic scenarios. I felt his mellowness hurt the film’s believability and even to some extent the excitement. The ending is not very satisfying and seems like the screenwriter wrote himself into a hole that he didn’t know how to get out of. The police are made to look too hopeless and helpless and the film goes overboard in its attempts to mock them.

Despite some flaws this is a road movie the way all road movies should be. It is fun and engaging and will bring out the free spirit in anyone. Although small the minis are a durable and fast car and this film makes prime use of their abilities almost as well as the original The Italian Job did. It also features some great stunt work that most viewers should find impressive.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: February 6, 1981

Runtime: 1Hour 45Minutes

Rated R

Director: Geoff Murphy

Studio: Greg Lynch Film Distributors

Available: VHS, DVD

1 Comment

Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Buddy Movies, Comedy, Cult, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Foreign Films, Offbeat, Road Movies

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The Year of Living Dangerously (1982)

Posted on July 16, 2012 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Experiencing life in Indonesia.

      Guy Hamilton (Mel Gibson) is a reporter who travels to Indonesia in 1965 just as the government is ready to be toppled. He experiences all the chaos as well as the poverty of the people and apathy from his fellow newsmen. He falls in love with a beautiful diplomat Jill Bryant (Sigourney Weaver) who works with a dwarf photographer named Billy Squires (Linda Hunt in her Academy Award winning performance), and eventually finds himself reluctantly thrust into the middle of the turmoil.

     The film is great at recreating the environment and atmosphere of that period. One gets a very good understanding and feeling at just how poverty stricken and desperate the Indonesian people where. Linda Hunt is unique and memorable as the male dwarf. She also has a great line when a fellow photographer asks her opinion of a picture that he took of a naked woman. He wants to know if she thinks it is art or pornography. Her reply, “If it is out of focus it’s art, if it is in focus it is pornography.” It is also fun to see journeymen supporting actor Michael Murphy playing against type. Usually he is saddled with rather transparent types of roles, but here his character is quite obnoxious.

      It would have been better had the film given the viewers a little bit more of a historical background before it just plopped the characters into a very chaotic and confusing situation. Most people probably have no clue as to the history of Indonesia let alone finding it on a map. It would have also been more interesting had the film been based on real people who really lived through the situation instead of predictable prototypes. A very young Gibson seems a bit overwhelmed with his role. His character seesaws from being boring to exasperating. He gets a huge crush on the Weaver character and chases after her like she is the only thing on his mind and then when she gives him an important piece of information he pounces on it even if it means losing her and their relationship. The pace is hurt by having the film spend too much of its middle section focusing on the romance, which really isn’t all that interesting or diverting. The ending is much too pat for a story that takes place in such a dangerous and complex environment.

      This is a grand idea that becomes too muddled and doesn’t place enough emphasis on the historical background and context. The lead character is boring and the pace is not compelling enough.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: December 17, 1982

Runtime: 1Hour 55Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Peter Weir

Studio: MGM/UA

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Drama, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Actual Events, Movies Based on Novels, Movies from Australia, Romance

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Ice Station Zebra (1968)

Posted on June 17, 2012 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: It’s cold up there.

Commander James Ferraday (Rock Hudson) is assigned to head a submarine crew up to the North Pole to rescue stranded members of a weather station called Ice Station Zebra. He is told that there is another reason for the mission, but that is top secret and it will not be disclosed to him until he gets there. In addition to the crew he will be bringing along another man named David Jones (Patrick McGoohan) who is aware of the secret details. When they arrive at the location they find themselves amidst a major international crisis.

The photography is outstanding. This movie marks the first ever continuous filming of a submarine dive and the footage is breathtaking. The scenes showing the submarine trapped beneath the ice is incredible and some of the best stuff in the film. This was also done on an actual sub and the shots showing its interior are interesting. I had no idea how very roomy they can be and found it fascinating to realize how many different compartments there are. My only quibble here is that when Boris Vaslov (Ernest Borgnine) gazes at the nuclear power that propels the sub the viewer only sees the reflection of the orange glow that it gives off. The camera should have been pointed straight down, so the viewer could have witnessed the same thing as Boris.

The scenes taking place at the North Pole are impressive as well, but flawed due to the fact that it was all clearly done on a sound stage.  The snowy artic formations look like they were made from ceramic. The men are shown outside not wearing any hoods and it that bitter climate it would have mean instant frostbite. I didn’t notice it at the time, but other viewers have called to attention that their breath is not showing and in cold weather it always will. Still I was willing to forgive these small oversights because overall the production design is imaginative. The bird’s eye view of the weather station amidst the icy landscape is sprawling and the longshot of parachutes dropping from the sky is exciting.

Hudson would not have been my choice for the lead. He managed to give one really great performance, which was in Giant, but otherwise he is just a good-looking well-built guy with limited acting abilities. He always says his lines with hollow sounding voice and never any emotion. Pairing him with McGoohan, who is a much more creative performer and stronger personality, doesn’t work.

Legendary football player Jim Brown is great as Captain Leslie Anders. He may not be the best actor, but you have to love his badass stare. It has to be the best badass stare of all-time and helps give the proceedings an extra point. However, the character he plays is a bit of letdown especially when he loses in a confrontation to Borgnine, which seemed a little pathetic. Borgnine, who speaks in a Russian accent here, is fun as always.

The plot, based on the novel of the same name by Alistair MacLean, is nicely complex. The viewer is kept in the dark about the secret, which helps with the intrigue. There are some exciting moments, but it is never riveting. The movie is overlong and could have been trimmed substantially, which would have helped with the pacing.  Viewers should still find this enjoyable, but as a whole it is average at best.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: October 23, 1968

Runtime: 2Hours 28Minutes

Rated G

Director: John Sturges

Studio: MGM

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 60's Movies, Action/Adventure, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Drama on the High Seas, Movies Based on Novels, Spy/Espionage

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Convoy (1978)

Posted on June 15, 2012 | 3 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: The song is better.

Trucker Martin ‘Rubber Duck’ Penwald (Kris Kristofferson) battles corrupt Sheriff Lyle ‘Cottonmouth’ Wallace (Ernest Borgnine) by getting his fellow truckers to band together and form an unstoppable convoy that stretches for miles and soon creates a national media frenzy.

The film’s setup is weak and the ending even weaker. It has all the good-ole-boy/trucker clichés without adding anything new in the process and makes Smokey and the Bandit look brilliant and inspired. Kristofferson is much too laid back for a leading man role and cannot carry the picture. Borgnine’s character is portrayed awkwardly. At the start he is made to look like a real jerk of a sheriff who overacts to a minor contrivance that starts the whole thing rolling. Then at the end he turns more sympathetic and even secretly sides with Kristofferson, which doesn’t work at all. In either case Jackie Gleason is a much better actor for this type of role. The worst part about the movie though is director Sam Peckinpah’s attempts to throw in a ‘serious message’ into this silly action flick that does nothing but slow it down and bomb in the process.

The only good scene in the whole film is the fight sequence inside the truck stop restaurant. Peckinpah puts a funny spin to his trademark ‘slow motion’ violence and the result is amusing. Unfortunately he starts putting all the action into slow motion, which eventually becomes tiring. Ali McGraw as Melissa an attractive woman Martin picks up along the way is always a pleasure to look at, but unfortunately she is given very little to say or do.

If you’ve read the synopsis then you have essentially ‘seen’ the movie. The hit song by C.W. McCall that this movie is based on is pretty good and I would suggest listening to that instead and saving yourself 108 minutes of your time. This is all shockingly uninspired stuff for such an otherwise maverick director.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: June 28, 1978

Runtime: 1Hour 50Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Sam Peckinpah

Studio: United Artists

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Action/Adventure, Comedy/Drama, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Movies Based on Songs, Road Movies

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