Reviews

In 2002, April 3rd through 12th, the population OF Jenin, a Palestinian refugee camp and home to some 14 000 people living under strict military curfew, was exposed to a merciless assault by Israeli soldiers, tanks, armored bulldozers, and helicopters. Much of the camp was shot and blown to hell, while an area the size of several football fields in the centre of town was completely leveled, purportedly the gravesite of many hundreds of people. That is the clear aftermath. The exact details of the occupation are still debated, accounts varying from "the Palestinians asked for it" (Israel) to claims of generally bloodthirsty behavior on the part of Israeli soldiers (Palestinians, Red Cross workers, and just about any outsider who's visited the site). "Jenin Jenin" is a documentary lending voice to Jenin's survivors wishing to participate in that debate (which ended up costing it's director his life).

Through "Jenin Jenin", you'll take a stroll though the rubble. You'll listen to shattered people give accounts of brutal murder of their kin that are so horrid, you'll have trouble believing them because you cannot wrap your mind around such carnage being perpetrated by mere men. Except that at one point, you'll see footage apparently shot during the occupation -- footage of captives lined up on the ground and run down by an armoured vehicle. You'll see a young girl with a disturbing cold gaze, and come to understand just how deep her hate for Israel already runs. Ten years old at most, she pledges to do all she can to destroy Israeli lives.

In the end, you'll either declare it all bulls**t, believe the Israeli claims that whatever happened, the Palestinians asked for it, and I'll call you a flaming moron, or you'll want to do something about it but find you can't, your government won't, and you'll hate the world.

As the title suggests, the Hunted is essentially a chase movie. Starting off in Kosovo, among Serb ethnic cleansing efforts of 1999, we meet Hallam (Benicio Del Toro), one of the US Special Forces best of the best, plying his deadly trade. Despite working deep in thoroughly hostile territory with using a knife as his primary weapon, he completes yet another tour of duty intact. His mind, however, does not survive the trip. Seems that wading neck-deep among slaughtered civilians takes a toll on a man's mind. Before long, Hallam takes the custom-crafted knife (he probably named and sleeps with) to the wrong people. As one of the CIA "sweepers" sent to clean up the mess that is him puts it, he can't tell the sharks from the guppies any more.

After Hallam takes The Knife to a pair of hunters who offend him with their use of high-tech scopes ("They were quartered like you would a deer."), the Man decides to call for backup in the form of LT Bonham (Tommy Lee Jones), a professional tracker who once upon a time trained the US Special Forces in the art of stealth and dispatching your enemy quickly, quietly and by the numbers (whose character is based on Thomas H Brown Jr, a professional tracker who once upon a time trained the US Special Forces in the art of stealth and dispatching your enemy quickly, quietly and by the numbers). Hallam numbered among his former students. Hallam is briefly captured with Bonham's aid and brought to the foreground just long enough to set up the premise completely, but soon escapes custody and the hunt is on.

From this point, the movie doesn't let up on the tracking angle, for better or worse. Ebert put it well: "Here the whole movie is a chase, sometimes at a crawl, as when Hallam drives a stolen car directly into a traffic jam. What makes the movie fresh is that it doesn't stand back and regard its pursuit as an exercise, but stays very close to the characters and focuses on the actual physical reality of their experience."

The most fascinating thing about the movie is the way the characters are forced to think on their feet, in the moment. The next-most fascinating thing is trying to comprehend the discipline these characters possess toward accomplishing their tasks. Would you ever even consider upping the stakes on your punishment by refusing to give up a chase when faced with gridlock traffic and instead tried to violently bash your way through the pile of vehicles? Could YOU ever bring yourself to stick your hand infront of a blade, suffering a wound to IT just to keep the knife out of your neck's arteries?

Bonham's pursuit is sometimes furious and right on the heels of Hallam, at others subdued, patiently seeking out the vaguest of hints as to which direction Hallam is headed. This sections also seems to inspire the most viewers crying "Bulls**t!", but what I'm wagering is that they do not know anything about trackers or the Special Forces. The most important thing to note while watching this flick is that nothing these two characters do was cooked up in a doped up screenwriter's mind. Thomas Brown, the inspiration for the Bonham character, served as technical adviser on the film, and whatever you see the characters doing, he demonstrated to the producers. Tracking people from the vaguest of tracks (it is said he is able to deduce a person's emotional state from the tracks they leave), fashioning of weapons from scrap metal in a campfire, and last but not least, efficient killing with a knife.

From all the movies I've seen, this movie has paid the most attention to detail to the art and science of killing a person quickly and quietly. Whether or not you appreciate detailed research on such a subject will make or break this movie for you, because at the end of the day, that is what you are meant to identify with -- what it takes to be in the business of silent death -- not the wafer-thin story. Personally, I was immersed, and for that I give the movie

3/4

A lot of people bitch that "Bullet" is far from standard Hollywood fare, but what that means to you depends heavily on your personal opinion of Hollywood fare. If you, like myself, don't think too highly of it, then consider this your first boarding call.

The "Bullet" spoken of in the title is the film's central character, a 35-year-old Brooklyn heroin junkie (Mickey Rourke). The film begins with his release from the pen after serving an eight-year sentence, and then proceeds to closely follow the lives of him and those around him -- the parents, an eccentric little brother, a completely shell-shocked headcase of a big brother (Ted Levine, creating yet another standout psychotic), as well as various players in the substance supply industry (Tupac Shakur makes his last screen appearance as the druglord Tank, and does a decent job in a rather thankless role). I'd summarize the plot more clearly if I could, but the fact is, these people's lives just aren't that simple.

"Bullet" is one of those rare movies which somehow leak through the cracks and make it into production with their soul (or lack thereof) intact. One of the few who dare pay attention to the dregs of society. Worse still, actual dregs of actual modern day society. The REAL dregs. The "uncool" dregs which are far less likely to break out the one-liners after offing someone then they are to strip the corpse of all valuables and sell them for drug money.

"Bullet" wastes no time whatsoever on making it's characters presentable. I admit it, there's no way this film could ever have raked in the cash. On the surface, the majority of scenes depicted in "Bullet" are the furthest thing any decent human being would classify as entertainment. But below this poverty and violence is a complex and intriguing world filled with complex and intriguing characters.

The film's craft cannot be faulted. The direction is superb, the soundtrack appropriate -- at times eerily so -- but even despite all this, most viewers will recoil in disgust at the request to tune into the lives and minds of characters as genuinely vile, violent and emotionally unstable as these. Characters that would instruct packs of ten-year olds in mortal combat. Characters that can no longer see the future beyond their next hit. Characters that assault their own image in the mirror. This is ground most viewers aren't willing to tread, and why this film was doomed to fail commercially. But that by no means makes it bad. Those who can stomach the imagery and see beyond it will not be disappointed... with the *movie*. How you'll feel once it sinks in that these kinds of things happen on a daily basis in what is supposedly the most civilized country on the planet is anyone's guess.

Patlabor 2's material is complex and very promising, but when all is said and done, a hell of a lot more was said than done. After watching this and getting all the numerous relationships right, I still felt noteably unsatisfied.

Patlabor 2 is a very stylishly directed story of Japan in the near future, being held hostage by a terrorist who masterminds a breakdown of civil rule in retribution for the government's incompetence. At the beginning of the movie, his machinations are set in motion, and at the end, there is the lacklustre uninspired payoff. Inbetween lies the sprinkling of philosophical monologues of sporadic merit, all the while the plot somehow unfolds.

I say "somehow" because I really don't know how. I guess I'll have to take the characters' words for it because, for the better part of the picture, their blatant expositions are the only way the audience finds out that something really big supposedly just happened -- talk about phoned in. For all it's stylish direction and philosophising characters, Patlabor 2 leaves the viewer with very little to digest about it's characters and universe, and as such does equally little to justify being a motion picture.

2/4

I read somewhere that books/novels are about what people think, plays about what people say, and movies about what people do. Of all three, Ghost in the Shell's script is the least suited to be a movie.

Prior comments about the depth of Ghost's philosophical ideas are for the most part correct, but said ideas are unfortunately revealed through a near-continuous stream of expositional dialogue. It's almost as bad in that respect as Patlabor 2. I sat there marveling at the superb visuals and waiting for something to happen, but nothing of consequence ever did -- a few scenes cruelly tease you with some action, but the rest is one long, bland philosophical sermon.

It seems to me that a whopping lot of anime filmmakers have failed to grasp the fact that advancing plot and revealing character thoughts through direct exposition is VERY F##KING BAD MOVIE MOJO! Sure, the ideas involved may be quite interesting, but if you're gonna just TELL me your ideas instead of SHOWING me your ideas, why bother making a movie out of it?