Savages ★ ★ ★ ½

 

THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE DOPE BUSINESS

 

Release Dates

 

Australia:  18th October, 2012; USA DVD release 23rd October

Other Countries: Release Dates

Don Winslow's audacious 2010 novel, "Savages" must be a page turner, if the film is anything to go by.  Whilst Three-time Oscar®-winning filmmaker OLIVER STONE (Platoon, Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July, W.), famous for his idiosyncratic characters and ability to ‘savage’ performances from his actors, doesn’t always get it right in his latest offering, he does get it there enough to make an entertaining film.

Be warned, “Savages” is a reasonably apt description for where these characters fall on the scale of likable, including the unsympathetic leads.  Although Benicia Del Toro’s Lado, who is the nastiest and least redeemable character, is a highlight.  John Travolta also is magic onscreen reminding us he has the acting chops to carry a heavy weight bad-ass persona.

Narrated by ‘O’ (short for Ophelia) (Blake Lively) who is one lucky girl, she has two gorgeous men in love with her Ben (Aaron Johnson) and Chon (Taylor Kitsch).  They lead an idyllic life living in luxury on Laguna Beach funded by Ben and Chon’s hugely successful dope business.

When the Mexican Baja Cartel, run by Elena, (Salma Hayek) decide they want in on this successful independent business they force the reluctant boys to join them by kidnapping their love, O.  These are brutal people, who inflict their will by such charming disciplinarian measures as decapitation by chainsaw, whipping and burning, or sending the gardening crew around, headed by Elena’s enforcer Lado, to have a little talk. These talks usually end in torture and death.

Ben and Chon must find a way to recover O without alerting Elena that they are not in compliance with her idea of their new partnership.  Chon who is ex-Afghanistan Navy Seal, commands a mini-army of ex-veterans, who somehow have managed to get hold of mines, and all manner of weaponry to wage a cat and mouse war with Elena.   They make good use quite brutally of the dirty DEA agent (John Travolta), who provides some real comic relief.

All of the characters, including the supposedly good guys, Ben, Chon and O begin as morally bankrupt but as the story progresses Stone asks us to find an understanding of the degrees of morality.  You will enjoy this out-of-control ride if you are prepared to accept those degrees. 

 

 

 

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Review Roundup 15th October 2012

THIS WEEK'S PREVIEW REVIEWS

Too busy to read those long reviews? Try our minis… How should you spend your precious dollars when visiting the cinema? Read on.

To Rome with Love ★★★ ½

Opens in Australia: 18th October 2012

Other Countries: Release Information

OUR THOUGHTS

          ‘To Rome With Love’ is hugely anticipated after the wonderful, whimsical ‘Midnight in Paris’.  It does fall short in comparison.  However it is fantastic to see Woody Allen in this one himself as husband to hugely brilliant Judy Davis.  The one-liners zing as always and the characters are a mixed bunch as usual.  There’s nothing new but it’s a Woody Allen through and through and that’s always a good thing.

STORY

          To ‘Rome with Love’ is a kaleidoscopic comedy movie set in one of the world's most enchanting cities. The film brings us into contact with a well-known American architect reliving his youth; an average middle-class Roman who suddenly finds himself Rome's biggest celebrity; a young provincial couple drawn into separate romantic encounters; and an American opera director endeavoring to put a singing mortician on stage. -- (C) Sony Pictures Classics

Taken 2 ★
 

Opens in Australia: 4th October 2012

Other Countries: Release Information

OUR THOUGHTS

          If it was a comedy this would get 4 stars but as a thriller it’s a real dud.  Most of us were laughing through the bits where I think we were meant to be on the edge of our seat.  Terrible script, wooden acting and the most illogical set up for a rescue I have ever seen.  Footnote: to those who find themselves kidnapped, just send smoke signals.  I know you liked the first one but just keep it there.  If you see this you will begin to hate the film studios for throwing out their trash in your direction.

STORY

            Liam Neeson returns as Bryan Mills, the retired CIA agent with a "particular set of skills" who stopped at nothing to save his daughter Kim from kidnappers. When the father of one of the villains Bryan killed swears revenge, and takes Bryan and his wife hostage in Istanbul, Bryan enlists Kim to help them escape. Bryan then employs his unique tactics to get his family to safety and systematically take out the kidnappers, one by one. -- (C) Official Site

The Words ★★★★

Opens in Australia: 11th October 2012

Other Countries: Release Information

OUR THOUGHTS

 

          Despite this film receiving very poor reviews, I really enjoyed it, as did several of my fellow reviewers.  It’s a story within a story within a story so maybe it was a little confusing.  I loved the questions it posed.  Can you live with guilt?  What price do you pay in deceiving others?  I suggest you go and make up your own mind. And girls, Bradley Cooper is an absolute dish and there are loads of close up shots. What is not to enjoy?  PS. The movie is much better than the terrible poster.

STORY

          Starring Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Irons, Dennis Quaid, Olivia Wilde and Zoë Saldana, the layered romantic drama The Words follows young writer Rory Jansen who finally achieves long sought after literary success after publishing the next great American novel. There's only one catch - he didn't write it. As the past comes back to haunt him and his literary star continues to rise, Jansen is forced to confront the steep price that must be paid for stealing another man's work, and for placing ambition and success above life's most fundamental three words.

Lawless ★★★★

Opens in Australia: 11th October 2012

Other Countries: Release Information

OUR THOUGHTS

           This is bloody but brilliant, although it did receive some mixed reviews.  Those who didn’t like it found it unengaging. However, I was really drawn in and found Tom Hardy’s performance Oscar-nomination-worthy and Shia Labeouf’s best role yet (he can act without robots).  It’s a fascinating tale with a top ensemble cast.  Something about that era, just as in Boardwalk Empire, really rocks my boat, so I was always going to love it.  I did feel like having a bath afterwards. These people always look so dirty.  Warning, the violence is particularly nasty but they were rough and tumble days.

STORY

          Lawless is the true story of the infamous Bondurant Brothers: bootlegging siblings who made a run for the American Dream in Prohibition-era Virginia. In this epic gangster tale, inspired by true-life tales of author Matt Bondurant's family in his novel "The Wettest County in the World", the loyalty of three brothers is put to the test against the backdrop of the nation's most notorious crime wave. -- (C) Weinstein

 

Mental   ½ star (for Liev Schrieber's Aussie accent)

Opens in Australia: 4th October 2012

Other Countries: Release Information

OUR THOUGHTS

           One of the most appalling films I have seen in years.  Why the likes of Toni Collette, Anthony LaPaglia, Liev Schrieber and Rebecca Gibney would want to be seen in this is beyond me?  Apparently, they did it for very little $$ too.  Written and directed by P.J. Hogan (he’s the director of ‘Muriel’s Wedding’ and ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding.’) supposedly this is based on a true story of his childhood.  We are meant to be laughing at date rape, menstrual stains on white lounges and Toni Collette, naked from the waist down, lighting a fart and setting a doll on fire with the flame.  If there is a God of film, please do not let this gain distribution in many countries.  It will set the image of Australia back a hundred years.  We are not all idiot yobbos.  P.J. Hogan is just mental and misguided.  It’s labelled an art-house flick but I would say its closer to a crap-house flick.

STORY

          A charismatic, crazy hothead transforms a family's life when she becomes the nanny of five girls.

What have you seen this week? Did you find our comments helpful or do you disagree? Share your thoughts with us.

 

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Disney's Frankenweenie ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

IT’S THE HEART THAT BREATHES LIFE

Australia:  25th October, 2012; USA 5th October, 2012; UK17th October 2012
Other Countries: Release Dates




 

Just when you thought you had seen everything fantastical at the cinema, Tim Burton takes us to another level of superb in Disney's 'Frankenweenie'.  This film is so beautifully crafted I will be seeing it again as I missed so much due to the constant superlatives that spun in my head during my first viewing.

Why is it so good?  It’s foremost an engaging story (screenplay by John August), with incredible stop-motion 3D animation visuals that will have you truly wondering ‘How?’, and the music by Academy Award®–nominated Danny Elfman that is almost a character in itself.  Despite the technology, it still feels like you are watching one of those gorgeous old favourites that had you covering your eyes as the monster lurched after its victims. 

Tim Burton, arguably one of the most creative and eccentric Directors sometimes misses the mark, thanks to his penchant for extreme.  But in 'Frankenweenie' he has not just nailed it (excuse the pun) he has quite possibly created a classic as unique as the original ‘Frankenstein’.

Due to budget constraints the film began its life in 1984 as a live-action short for Disney.    The drawings Burton used in imagining his original characters have been used for this feature-length film alongside new characters.  Film buffs will recognize classic characters as many of the film’s leads are modelled on the look and traits of the memorable 1930 horror characters.  
 

'Frankenweenie' is the moving tale of a young science prodigy, Victor Frankenstein(Charlie Tahan) and his beloved dog Sparky.  Victor attends New Holland Elementary School where he is mentored by the misunderstood Mr Rzykruski (Martin Landau) who teaches him that “science can do both good and bad things and that if a scientist does not put his heart into his experiment, there could be disastrous consequences.” The first sign of trouble is heralded by the class ‘Weird Girl’ (Catherine O'Hara) when she delivers to Victor a prediction that something ‘big’ will happen to him because Mr Whiskers, her cat, has dreamt about him.  How does she know what the cat dreams?  Well, it’s quite imaginative and amusing.  The signs come from the kitty litter.

‘Big’ happens when Sparky is hit by a car and dies.  An inconsolable Victor hatches a plan to patch Sparky together and he then successfully brings him back to life, hiding him away in his attic.  Sparky’s resurrection does not stay a secret for long though and once the school creepy guy Edgar “E” Gore (Atticus Shaffer) discovers the truth, it isn’t long before word spreads amongst the other kids with monstrous results.  Along the way you will be captivated by the myriad of quirky characters voiced by other major talents like Martin Short, Robert Capron, Christopher Lee and Conchata Ferrell.
 

 

It took two years and 33 animators to film the stop-animation for ‘Frankenweenie’.  There are 24 frames per second in the stop motion for the film.  An animator, working usually alone, must stop and reposition the puppet 24 times to get one second of filmed action.  At its 82 minutes that’s 295,200 seconds and 7,084,800 movements.  That’s a study in patience right there.
 

The typical week for a stop-motion animator begins with being assigned a shot. He is then responsible for all the characters in that shot.  An animator must spend hours working with the puppets, tightening screws in their limbs and then placing them to get all of the movement that is required.  On average, one animator can only produce 5 seconds of animation per week.  So when you pay your theatre entrance you are certainly getting your money’s worth.

'Frankenweenie' is filmed in black and white and that choice only adds to the experience.  Parents may have to convince their retina-enhanced iPad children that watching a black and white animated film will be fun. However, from the opening sequence all complaints will be silenced as Burton’s ‘Frankenweenie’ takes parents on a trip down memory lane and introduces the young ones to what we mean when we say, ‘there was something special about those old black ‘n whites’. Just like Mr Rzykruski’s science, it’s not the special effects but the heart that’s put into it that makes all the difference.

 

See this one at the Cinema in 3D or you are really missing out on something special.

 

 

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Looper ★ ★ ★ ★

TIME TRAVEL FOR THE THINKING-MAN

Australia: 27th October, 2012 USA: 28th September, 2012; UK: 28th October 2012
Other Countries: Release Dates

 

      

Time travel is a fascinating subject.  The "what ifs" play with your mind, like going back to alter your future and the subsequent consequences. The most exciting ideas they pose are the difficult moral questions. If you had the chance to kill Hitler as a child, would you? Could you stare into the eyes of an innocent child and pull the gun trigger?

Then there’s the question of knowing your own timeline.  How would you live your life if you knew you had thirty years to live; no more, no less? Your choices at say twenty-five may look rather foolish when you’re fifty-five. 

  ‘Looper’, a very original film from Director and screenwriter Rian Johnson poses these very questions in an intelligent and thought-provoking way.  When you read the synopsis for Looper it sounds incredibly confusing but in reality it’s a simple idea.  Time travel in 2074 is invented and outlawed but still used by the mob to remove targets whose bodies are difficult to hide. So they send back their victims thirty years to a designated spot at an exact time, hands tied and their heads covered in a sack.  Waiting for them is a Looper, like Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), to kill them instantly with a blunderbuss and then dispose of their body. 

 

Loopers are paid very well for their services and run by an underworld boss, Abe (Jeff Daniels).  The only downside of a Looper’s life is that eventually the mob will ‘close the loop’ on them.  They will send back the Looper’s self from the future to he killed by his thirty-year younger version, who will be paid handsomely, after which he retires to live the rest of his thirty years knowing one day his time will come. 

If you dare ‘let your loop run’, which means letting your older self get away, then you are in a whole load of trouble.  This is demonstrated in a particularly nasty sequence when a fellow Looper Seth (Paul Dano) is tortured, with his older self’s body instantly reflecting the impact of his younger self’s punishment.  Think healed limb severing and you have the picture.

When Joe’s older self (Bruce Willis) escapes execution by his younger self, we discover he is on a mission.  He must find the 2044 child version of a powerful gangster nicknamed ‘The Rainman’ in order to save the future, or at least his future.   This search brings younger Joe into contact with Sarah (Emily Blunt) living on a peaceful farm with her son Cid.  It seems all roads will lead to this farm and it is here that the future will be determined.

A couple of things will strike you in this film: Joseph Gordon Levitt, who plays the younger version of Bruce Willis’s Joe, look very alike, despite being very different.  In fact, it’s uncanny and you will keep marvelling at Gordon-Levitt’s Willis-like mannerisms.  Secondly the crazy flying car chases that you normally find in these sci-fi films are not the centrepiece of the story. 

   “I had written the younger part for Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who, besides being my favorite actor, is also a good friend,” says Johnson.  “When the possibility of Bruce Willis to play the older Joe presented itself, I got so excited because Bruce is such a good actor and was so right for the part in so many ways.  It raised a problem, though, because they really look nothing like each other.  We had to find a way to bridge the gap, and the solution was two-fold.” 

“The first thing was makeup,” Johnson continues.  “Joseph Gordon-Levitt went through nearly three hours of makeup and prosthetics every single morning to adjust his nose, his upper lip and his lower lip.  There was no way we were going to make him look like a young Bruce Willis, but we decided we’d pick a couple of key features and alter them just enough to give the audience something to grab onto so they could decide to go with it.”

“The other part – 90 percent of it – is Joe’s performance,” says Johnson.  “It’s incredible to watch – he doesn’t imitate Bruce, he creates a character that feels like a younger Bruce.  He’s doing a very specific voice and he took on a lot of Bruce’s mannerisms.  Its great acting, and a pretty phenomenal thing to see come to life.”

‘Looper’ may not appeal to those who love their sci-fi action-packed.  There are thinking-man moments which require some patience.  But your patience will be rewarded with this haunting piece of cinema and storytelling which is certainly a cut above anything we’ve seen in recent time-line. 

 

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Review Round Up 16th September 2012

THIS WEEK'S PREVIEW REVIEWS

Too busy to read those long reviews?  Try our minis…  How should you spend your precious dollars when visiting the cinema?  Read on.

Beasts of the Southern Wild ★★★★

Opens in Australia:  13th September 2012

Other Countries:      Release Information

OUR THOUGHTS

          This is one of those films that will grow on you long after your visit to the cinema.  I can quite honestly say you will learn things about human nature you didn’t care to know.  Yet, by the end of the film you will imagine that for just a moment you shared a magical experience.  The little girl is so extraordinary, as are all the actors, that it feels more like a reality show than a work of fiction.  Don’t go expecting a big, budget blockbuster.  It is film about life from the depths to the heights told with subtlety that makes this a work of art.

STORY

          In a forgotten but defiant bayou community cut off from the rest of the world by a sprawling levee, a six-year-old girl exists on the brink of orphanhood. Buoyed by her childish optimism and extraordinary imagination, she believes that the natural world is in balance with the universe until a fierce storm changes her reality. Desperate to repair the structure of her world in order to save her ailing father and sinking home, this tiny hero must learn to survive unstoppable catastrophes of epic proportions.

 

Finding Nemo 3D ★ ★★ ★½

Opens in Australia: 30th August 2012

Other Countries: Release Information

OUR THOUGHTS

           I love all films Pixar.  And I know you have this at home on the DVD (all 1.99 million of you) and the kids and you have seen it many times.  However, you haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen it in 3D.  The colours and the depth are extraordinarily beautiful.  It is just as charming nine years later as it was in 2003 and well worth seeing on the big screen. Love, love, love it.  Did I mention that I love all films Pixar?  I did!  My memory isn’t what it used to be.

STORY

            Academy Award®-winning Best Animated Feature “Finding Nemo” returns to the big screen for the first time ever in thrilling Disney Digital 3D™. In this stunning underwater adventure, with memorable characters, humor and heartfelt emotion, “Finding Nemo” follows the comedic and momentous journey of an overly protective clownfish named Marlin (voice by Albert Brooks) and his son Nemo (voice by Alexander Gould)––who become separated in the Great Barrier Reef when Nemo is unexpectedly taken far from his ocean home and dumped into a fish tank in a dentist’s office. Buoyed by the companionship of Dory (voice by Ellen DeGeneres), a friendly-but-forgetful Pacific regal blue tang, Marlin embarks on a dangerous trek and finds himself the unlikely hero of an epic effort to rescue his son––who hatches a few daring plans of his own to return safely home.

Kath & Kimderella (★★)

Opens in Australia: 6^thSeptember 2012

OUR THOUGHTS

 

            Kath and Kim are quite the phenomena.  At the special preview in Perth we were graced with the presence of Kath and Kim and the cinema did not have a spare seat.  What surprised me was that these two, who are around the fifty years mark, looked so good—must be the laughter.  No matter what I say, Kath and Kim fans are going to flock to this.  It’s not my type of humour but those around me were laughing their curly blonde-wigged heads off.

STORY

Fountain Lakes' foxy ladies return along with many other original characters as Kath Day-Knight and Kim Craig take an overseas trip to Italy and find themselves being the centre of their very own fairytale.

 

Arbitrage (★★★★½)

Opens in Australia: 27th September 2012

Other Countries: Release Information

OUR THOUGHTS

            This is one slick drama with an even slicker cast.  It reminds me greatly of a 2002 film which I loved called “Unfaithful”.  It also starred Richard Gere.   As each moment unfolds I held my breath thinking, surely he’s going to come unstuck here. But Gere’s character, Miller, is slipperier than a slimy fish—which is what he is, despite his charm and still-gorgeous looks.  Can money buy you everything?  That is the question asked and answered here.  If you love intelligent films and fine performances you will enjoy this one. 

STORY

             On the eve of his 60th birthday, New York hedge-fund magnate Robert Miller (Richard Gere) is the portrait of success in American business and family life. But behind the gilded walls of his mansion, Miller is in over his head, desperately trying to complete the sale of his trading empire to a major bank before the depths of his fraud are revealed. Struggling to conceal his duplicity from loyal wife Ellen (Susan Sarandon) and brilliant daughter and heir-apparent Brooke (Brit Marling), Miller’s also balancing an affair with French art-dealer Julie Côte (Laetitia Casta).  Just as he’s about to unload his troubled empire, an unexpected bloody error forces him to juggle family, business, and crime with the aid of Jimmy Grant (Nate Parker), a face from Miller’s past. One wrong turn ignites the suspicions of NYPD Detective Michael Bryer (Tim Roth), who will stop at nothing in his pursuits. Running on borrowed time, Miller is forced to confront the limits of even his own moral duplicity. Will he make it out before the bubble bursts?

What have you seen this week?  Did you find our comments helpful or do you disagree?  Share your thoughts with us. 

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The Expendables 2 ★ ★ ★

Release Dates

Australia:  30th August, 2012; USA 17th August, 2012; UK16th October 2012
Other Countries: Release Dates

 

 

 BACK FOR A BIT OF FUN
 

Ex-action star and ex-Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character, Trench, fills the screen, and utters the words, “I’m back”.   And, yes they are people.  Hollywood action stars don’t retire any more, they just get parts in ‘The Expendables’ where they can lampoon their previous career, have a laugh and remind cinemagoers who they once were. 

Who would have thought two years ago that the first, ‘The Expendables’, with a flimsy plot, a bunch of old action stars and reasonably small budget,  would become a box office hit, going on to make $US274 million worldwide? Probably only Sly Stallone since ‘The Expendables 2’ was on the drawing board even before the first one was released.

We should learn to never underestimate Stallone, with all his faults (and I’m referring to acting here) he somehow knows how to turn what shouldn’t work into a success. Never one to hop off the train he’s shoved into motion a number two was always going to happen.

This time the team of wrinkly, but surprisingly buff action heroes, of Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Gunner (Dolph Lundgren), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), Toll Road (Randy Couture) is joined by newcomers, Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth), an ex-army sniper and Maggie (Nan Yu), a combat proficient, computer whiz.  Church (Bruce Willis), who we are really uncertain is a good or a bad guy, sends Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) and the gang to recover a package from a crashed plane in Bulgaria. 

There they encounter the very nasty, Jean Vilain, (Jean-Claude Van Damme).  During this meeting, amidst much chest beating, something goes wrong (I can’t say what or it will ruin the surprise) which turns the retrieval of the package from Vilain into a very personal vendetta for the group. 

Along the way, you will join the audience in solid laughter as each new action hero arrives on the scene, their characters written so that you will find yourself muttering the titles of eighties films and wracking your brain to remember which character had once said THAT line.

Of crafting the team of old-school mercenaries loved by audiences worldwide, Stallone has said that he was originally inspired by classic action films like The Dirty Dozen, The Wild Bunch and Dogs of War – movies that were defined by hard-hitting action and by tough yet sympathetic characters, “These guys harken back to a time when our heroes were flesh & blood. They didn't have any extraordinary abilities other than the desire to survive and to be victorious, even at the expense of their own lives. There's something that is relatable about that.”

As expected, ‘The Expendables 2’ delivers much knuckle crunching fights, machine gun shooting and kick-boxing action and if you don’t find yourself laughing then it will only be because you are too young to take this trip down memory lane.  You will lose count of the dead bodies and the myriad of ways they die but that’s okay because you are not meant to remember this movie for long.  I couldn’t repeat the plot of the first one if you threatened my life with a tank.

Stallone reflects on the film, “Maybe it’s the beginning of a revival. Or, maybe it’s the end of an era. But one thing is for sure; we’ll never see this again. To get all of us together at one time is a minor miracle. It’s never happened before and it will never happen again.”

‘The Expendables 2’ provides enough tongue-in-cheek fun, action and nostalgia to score another box office hit and I seriously doubt ‘The Expendables’ “will never happen again.”  I imagine there is a script already sitting in Sly’s out tray and a few emails to buddies, beginning with, “I’m back.  If you’re not busy...”

 

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Hit & Run ★ ★ ★ ½

Release Dates
 

Australia:  6th September, 2012; USA 22nd August, 2012; UK12th October 2012
Other Countries: Release Dates

 

SWIFT & FUN

 

          The actors were clearly having a good time. The audience was laughing around me and I had the occasional giggle, so if you are looking for a bit of light fun with attractive leads, you won’t be disappointed with “Hit and Run”.

The film is written, co-produced and co-directed by the lead, Dax Shepard.  He does a great job playing the laid-back Charlie Bronson, hiding away in witness protection living idyllically with his soul mate Annie (Kristen Bell).   These two have a real chemistry on screen and it is not surprising as they are a real life couple.

Shepherd appears to have a penchant for rounding up mates and making films and it was whilst doing press for ‘Brother’s Justice’ (a mockumentary film with many of this same cast) that the idea for ‘Hit and Run’ was launched. “We kept getting asked what we were going to do next, and we just started saying we were going to do a car chase movie,” Shepard recalls. “We had no script or premise – we just knew we loved car chase movies.  And because we had said it, we knew we would have to deliver.”

The film, in fact, had no casting director. “We didn’t cast any strangers,” Co-Director David Palmer explains. “They all got paid SAG scale for a low budget movie – because they all love Dax. There’s a friendship and trust and sweetness about him that just brings everybody together.” Notes Shepard, “This was pro ably the worst work environment that most of these actors have had in years.  It was chaotic, but everyone really had a good time.”

In ‘Hit and Run’, Charlie Bronson (Dax Shepard), a get-away driver for a bank robber gang is in witness protection.  He places his life at risk when his girlfriend, Annie (Kristen Bell) is offered an interview for her dream job in LA.  He decides rather than losing her he will drive her to LA despite his case worker Marshall Randy Anderson (Tom Arnold) forbidding him to leave.  There is an ongoing joke involving Randy’s inability to control his gun and his car which works very well throughout the movie.  In fact, Tom Arnold’s Randy is a standout character.

Unfortunately, Gil (Michael Rosenbaum) the jealous ex-boyfriend alerts Charlie’s old gang leader, Alex Dmitri (Bradley Cooper) and the rest is a car pursuit that evokes shades of the classic 1977 Burt Reynolds ‘Smokey and the Bandit’ but in our current era’s ribald style humor. There are many well known actors in bit parts; Sean Hayes, Kristin Chenoweth, Beau Bridges, Jason Bateman to name a few.

Whilst ‘Hit and Run’, isn’t going to drive away with any awards, as my companion commented, "its good fun, good laughs and at the end you feel good."  And if I think back to my first viewing of ‘Smokey and the Bandit’, I think I felt much the same way.

 

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