Showing posts with label thriller. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thriller. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

"Looper" Movie Review

"Looper" movie poster.
"In 2072, when the mob wants to get rid of someone, the target is sent 30 years into the past, where a hired gun awaits. Someone like Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who one day learns the mob wants to 'close the loop' by transporting back Joe's future self (Bruce Willis)." (Link below.)


Written and directed by Rian Johnson (wrote the screenplay for "Brick"), starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt ("Inception", "The Dark Knight Rises"), Bruce Willis ("Die Hard", "The Sixth Sense"), Emily Blunt ("The Young Victoria", "The Devil Wears Prada"), Paul Dano ("Cowboys & Aliens", "There Will Be Blood"), and Jeff Daniels ("Good Night and Good Luck", "Speed"). It's an interesting concept and the first time travel movie in the last few years that has nothing to do with romantic bullshit.

Also, Sourcefed's review of it convinced me to go and now, after having seen it, I agree with a lot of their observations (you can see their review below).

The makeup was very well done. They had Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis shot in profile in this one scene and they freakishly looked the same. I'm really glad they decided to make Gordon-Levitt look and act like Willis, because trying to make Willis look like Gordon-Levitt may have been impossible. But great work on their part.


One of the parts that I thought was well-done, but made me a bit squeamish, was when they got the one looper to come back by torturing his young, past self. So you could see him getting scars, losing fingers, his nose, his tongue, his feet, and basically every appendage until he gets close enough so that they can kill him. You couldn't see the actual torture, just the effects of it and that was more disturbing. 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (driving) and Paul Dano.
But it made me think that wouldn't that effect how the rest of that particular man's life would change and therefore he wouldn't be there to be tortured? Time travel is sort of a tricky subject like that. 

I also liked how they made the future more realistic than in previous science fiction movies. There are flying vehicles, but they are not quite up to speed. It seemed very messy there, like the world wasn't 'clean', which is probable with how people treat this planet. Everyone has solar panels on their houses and even their cars. They did a lot of good work with that aspect of it.

Bruce Willis.
I just couldn't completely feel for these loopers though. There were moments where I felt sympathy but then they usually involved somebody else. When things went wrong for them it really sucked, but they were still killing people and had a pretty good time doing it: cars, women, drugs, expensive getaways. I couldn't relate to them in that way.

I enjoyed it. There was gratuitous violence involving gunfire and torture. There was telekinesis, called TK. There was an interesting drug that you would drop into your eyes to get high. There was Bruce Willis yelling "Motherfucker!" which is always a treat. Also, there are boobies. 

Favorite Lines:

Found this awesome poster here.
Joe: Time travel has not yet been invented. But thirty years from now, it will have been.

Joe: Loopers are well paid, they lead a good life...

Abe: This time travel crap, just fries your brain like a egg...

[from trailer] 
Joe: I work as a specialized assassin, in an outfit called the Loopers. When my organization from the future wants someone to die, they zap them back to me and I eliminate the target from the future. The only rule is: never let your target escape... even if your target is you.

Older Joe: I'm going to stop this guy. 
Joe: None of this concerns me... 
Older Joe: It is going to happen to you! 
Joe: It's going to happen to YOU, it's not going to happen to ME!

Abe: I'm from the future, go to China.


I give this movie 4.5 out of 5 typewriters.

Friday, September 7, 2012

"Shutter Island" Movie Review


"Shutter Island" movie poster.
"Federal Marshall Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) travel to a government-run mental institution for the criminally insane on Shutter Island, near Boston, when there is a report that one of the prisoners has gone missing. Daniels has his own reasons for wanting to get to the island and carries baggage of his own. He is still traumatized from what he saw when his army unit liberated one of the Nazi concentration camps at the end of World War II and is still haunted by the more recent death in a fire of his wife. The head of the hospital, Dr. John Cawley (Ben Kingsley), treats him alright but others give the agents a less than warm reception. Daniels particularly wants to find out what is going on in one of the wards, reserved for the most serious offenders. As Daniels begins to peal away the layers of deceit, it becomes obvious that not all is as it seems." Written by garykmcd (Link below.)

Leonardo DiCaprio.
Based on the novel by Dennis Lehane and directed by Martin Scorsese, I really enjoyed this movie. (Book review found here.) I thought it was very well-done. The script was great. Someone had already told me the ending so I knew what was coming and could see the various ways the scene would look to the detective and to someone who knew what was really going on.

The ending makes me wonder though. I'm trying not to give too much away, but it seems as if he did it on purpose and he walked away with the orderlies just fine. Like he knew what was coming and was welcoming it. I can understand why he would not to live with what he knew. I don't know if I could.

Ben Kingsley.
I recommend this movie if you liked "The Machinist", "The Sixth Sense", or "Unbreakable".

I'm definitely gonna read the book now. I hope it's as good as the movie.

Script available here: http://screenplayexplorer.com/wp-content/scripts/Shutter_Island.pdf.

Favorite Lines:

[Daniels has asked the staff about Rachel's activities before her disappearance] 
Teddy Daniels: Anything unusual occur? 
Nurse Marino: Define 'unusual'. 
Teddy Daniels: Excuse me? 
Nurse Marino: This is a mental institution, Marshal. For the criminally insane. Usual isn't a big part of our day.

Leonardo DiCaprio.
Dr. John Cawley: [examines Rachel's note] Ah, this is definitely Rachel's handwriting. I have no idea... what the "Law of Four" is, though. 
Teddy Daniels: It's not a psychiatric term? 
Dr. John Cawley: No, I'm afraid not. 
Chuck Aule: [reads the note] "Who is 67?" Fucked if I know. 
Dr. John Cawley: I have to say that's quite close to my clinical conclusion.

Warden: Did you enjoy God's latest gift? 
Teddy Daniels: What? 
Warden: God's gift. Your violence. 
[Daniels looks at him blankly] 
Warden: When I came downstairs in my home, and I saw that tree in my living room, it reached out for me... a divine hand. God loves violence. 
Teddy Daniels: I... I hadn't noticed. 
Warden: Sure you have. Why else would there be so much of it? It's in us. It's what we are. We wage war, we burn sacrifices, and pillage and plunder and tear at the flesh of our brothers. And why? Because God gave us violence to wage in his honor. 
Teddy Daniels: I thought God gave us moral order. 
Warden: There's no moral order as pure as this storm. There's no moral order at all. There's just this: can my violence conquer yours?

An image from the film "Shutter Island".
Warden: If I was to sink my teeth into your eye right now, would you be able to stop me before I blinded you? 
Teddy Daniels: Give it a try. 
Warden: That's the spirit.

Dr. John Cawley: Why are you all wet, baby?

Teddy Daniels: After she tried to kill herself the first time, Dolores told me she... she had an insect living inside her brain. She could feel it clicking across her skull, just... pulling the wires, just for fun. She told me that. She told me that but I didn't listen. I loved her so much.

"Shutter Island"
book cover.
"Shutter Island"
book cover.
Teddy Daniels: So, what's our next move? 
Chuck Aule: You tell me. 
Teddy Daniels: I gotta get off this rock, Chuck. Get back to the mainland. Whatever the hell's going on here, it's bad. 
[pause] 
Teddy Daniels: [sotto voce] Don't worry, partner, they're not gonna catch us. 
Chuck Aule: That's right, we're too smart for 'em. 
Teddy Daniels: Yeah, we are, aren't we? 
[pause] 
Teddy Daniels: You know, this place makes me wonder. 
Chuck Aule: Yeah, what's that, boss? 
Teddy Daniels: Which would be worse - to live as a monster? Or to die as a good man?
[gets up and walks off]
Chuck Aule: Teddy?