Furious 7

Review by Bob Ignizio

What can one say about FURIOUS 7? There's gallons of testosterone, plenty of talk about family, cool cars driving fast, hot babes in minimal clothing used as set decoration, bad ass ladies who are anything but mere set decoration (Michelle Rodriguez and Ronda Rousey) duking it out, ridiculous stunts actually being performed by real human beings in real danger instead of using CGI to fake it, Duane Johnson and Vin Diesel dropping one liners and bad guys with equal aplomb, and finally, a genuinely heartfelt and beautifully handled send-off for series star Paul Walker, who tragically died before the film was finished. It's big and loud and lots of fun. Looking for subtlety or subtext? Wrong movie, pal.

Homefront

Review by Matt Finley

HOMEFRONT, adapted by Sylvestor Stallone from Chuck Logan’s novel of the same name, and directed by Gary Fleder (THE EXPRESS), is about as tactlessly artless a film as I’ve seen. Convoluted, self-serious, maudlin and, worst of all, boring, the movie serves up scene after scene of inanimate meat slab Jason Statham amid a colorless broth of logy contemporary pop culture standbys including motorcycle gangs, meth cooking, and home invasion.

Statham plays Phil Broker, a former DEA agent who, after busting a meth-dealing biker gang and losing his wife to cancer (the biker gang of medical ailments) moves with his daughter to a small Southern town where he aims to nuzzle down into domestic torpor. It isn’t long, however, before nutty local meth chef Gator Bodine (James Franco), discovers Broker’s past. With the help of hooker-with-a-brain-of-cordwood Sheryl Gott (Winona Ryder), Bodine hatches a nefarious plan to secure statewide distribution for his product while eliminating Broker. Hint: the plan involves that biker gang from the beginning.

Parker

Review by Bob Ignizio

The antihero Parker first appeared in 1962 as the star of Donald Westlake (writing under the pseudonym Richard Stark)'s novel The Hunter . Parker eventually went on to star in 23 more books before Westlake's death in 2008 and has been depicted on screen a few times before, perhaps most notably in John Boorman's POINT BLANK (1967). Now veteran Hollywood director Taylor Hackford (AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN, THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE, RAY) has decided to try his hand at the character in PARKER, a film based on one of the later books in the series that stars Jason Statham as the titular criminal with a code.

Catching up with 2012: 'Lockout', 'The Raid: Redemption', and 'Safe'

Capsule reviews by Bob Ignizio

I'm trying to get caught up with the films I missed this year before making my obligatory “Best of the Year” list. Most were reviewed by other writers here on the Cleveland Movie Blog, but a handful slipped through the cracks for whatever reason. So to what degree I can, I'll be reviewing some of these films we missed the first time around that are now available on home video. First up, a trio of “B” action flicks: THE RAID: REDEPMTION, LOCKOUT, and SAFE.

LOCKOUT

Producer Luc Besson continues his quest to become the modern day king of Euro schlock cinema with LOCKOUT, a cheap but reasonably fun knock off of John Carpenter's ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK. Instead of Kurt Russell as Snake Plisken, we get once promising actor Guy Pearce as “Snow”. And instead of being sent into a New York City turned prison colony to save the President's daughter, he's sent to a space station to save the president's daughter, here played by Lost alumni Maggie Grace. LOCKOUT also has a subplot about Snow trying to clear his name for a murder he didn't commit. Vincent Regan and Joseph Gilgun are fun as the brothers leading the inmate revolt, but they can't compensate for Pearce, who's no Kurt Russell. Still, if you're in the mood for this kind of trashy old school sci-fi/action B movie, LOCKOUT should kill an hour and a half fairly well. 2 out of 4 stars.

The Expendables 2

Review by Bob Ignizio

How many action heroes can you cram into one movie before it becomes a cluttered mess? It seemed as though that question had been answered by 2010's THE EXPENDABLES. That film had its moments, but far too often it felt rushed and confusing. So how then to explain the fact that THE EXPENDABLES 2 beefs up the roles for two stars who had only brief cameos last time, adds two more of the biggest names in action hero history to its cast, and even manages to give us a pair of new, younger heroes, and yet still manages to juggle all these stars and their respective egos far better while only losing one major cast member (Mickey Rourke) from the previous film?