3 Days to Kill

Review by Pete Roche

3 DAYS TO KILL finds sickly super-spy Ethan Renner (Kevin Costner) trying to reconnect with his family after a botched mission lands him in the hospital—and at death’s door.  Eager to make up for his time away from home, the CIA “jobber” awkwardly adjusts to placating real people with real emotions instead of shooting them between the eyes.

Directed by action ace McG (CHARLIE’S ANGELS, TERMINATOR SALVATION) and produced by Luc Besson (TAKEN, LEON: THE PROFESSIONAL), the film endeavors to transform Costner the same way UNKNOWN and TAKEN remade Liam Neeson:  It gives an acclaimed-but-mature marquee star prolonged shelf life as a born-again badass hero. 

Pink Ribbons, Inc. (August 30th and 31st at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[PINK RIBBONS, INC. screens Thursday August 30th at 8:25 pm and Friday August 31st at 7:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Don’t know if you caught the latest Cleveland arts embarrassment, but this summer the Gathering Place, a Westlake institution for cancer patients and survivors, was supposed to host an acclaimed photographic chronicle by Angelo Mendino, a Cleveland native (like LeBron, he left the area) who used his lens to chronicle the grueling ordeal his late wife faced as they both confronted her breast cancer diagnosis and treatment together. But Mendino’s up-close-and-personal view of the dreaded disease proved too much for the suburban venue and they closed the exhibit within the week (a downtown Cleveland art gallery picked it up, at least).

Meditate upon that as you watch PINK RIBBONS, INC., a searing Canadian documentary which aims to toss mud on something many quivering journos would consider sacrosanct, the upbeat anti-breast-cancer campaigns as embodied in pink-tastic campaigns by major corporations, most partnered to the ubiquitous Susan G. Komen Foundation.