Rain Fall
More like Rain FAIL. (I'm so sorry) The CIA is after a Hitman, John Rain(Rain Fall GET IT?!), who's after a minister that has a memory stick that he's about to give to the free media. Full disclosure, I picked this up mostly because it had Gary Oldman in it. And to my pleasure, he's back to his outlandish ranting Oldman like he was in Leon The Professional or The Fifth Element. But that's about the only good thing in this limp spy thriller. The movie can't decide if it's an espionage thriller, a badass action movie, or a love story, and it fails to do any one well. Most of the movie is spent trying to find a memory stick, but little reason is given as to why, and even when it is, there's little reason to care. In fact there's little reason to care about anything that happens in this movie. There's intrigue and action, but it's just so boring. Looooong and boring.
It's interesting that it's half in japanese and half in english, and there's some nice shots here and there, and some characters show some promise, but there's no payout to this long slog of a movie. It's confusing and boring and at the end, there's an infuriating copout. SPOILERS if you really care to watch, but there's a love plot between Rain and the girl he's protecting, and in the end he does a double fake-out before finally walking away. "Oh he's coming back! Oh no he's gone. Oh he did come back! Oh he disappeared? Oh no he's still there! Oh and now he's walking away." This takes about five minutes, while the girl just stands there, doing nothing. It is insulting and dumb after wading through so much crap waiting for any kind of payoff. It is really not worth it. $$ just for Gary Oldman who I hope got paid well. Also, no mercy for including the last scene of the movie in their trailer!
The Killer Inside Me
This is a weird movie. Casey Affleck plays a small town deputy Sheriff, Lou, that slowly turns into a psychotic killer. It's a bit of Southern Noir, so I hope you like southern drawls. It is incredibly brutal and violent, to the point where I find it hard to recommend to anyone but those in love with the most brutal of violence. And it's not even brutal in the vein of fake blood and over-the-top gore of say a Tarantino film or gonzo horror movie, it's just straight up disturbing harsh violence, especially against women. If you can't stand rape or violence against women, I would recommend staying far far away. If you like that sort of thing, well, it's disturbing and it at least has an explosive ending. It also includes Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson who should be commended for their roles of getting the crap beat out of them. Also Simon Baker plays the one not-dumb person, so there's that.
The most interesting thing is whether or not Lou'll get away with it, and how he will. You're always wondering if this is the detail that'll trip him up, if this is where he'll say it's taken too far, and just how farther down the hole he's willing to go(and who he's willing to take with him) just to get away clean. And in that, it's a fairly good noir. And Casey Affleck does an outstanding job playing a psychopath. It's hard to follow as there's no extraneous exposition most times Lou will just do something and you're not quite sure of his plan. The movie also holds a modicum of style. It takes place in the 1950's, and everything is glistening from the classic cars, to the clothing, to the colorful opening credits. Man do I really love the opening. And it has a stellar soundtrack. It's hard to watch, and it's not really fun, but you do constantly wonder how this'll all end, and really start to wonder where this good guy went bad, or if he was even a good guy to begin with. $$$. I can't really recommend it because of so much brutal, bloody, disturbing violence, and it's not THAT great a noir, but it is at least half-way interesting if you can power through it.
Oof. More like a double-downer, amirite?
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