Tag Archives: Bruce Willis

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The Hustler (1961)

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There’s a long legacy of sports films where the heroes are the starry-eyed, passionate lovers of the game, the athletes who play from the heart and, despite a lack of technique or formal training, still come out on top. Even Rocky emerges from his loss against Apollo Creed with the blood, sweat, tears and girlfriend to prove that, in the end, he’s the real winner. Robert Rossen’s The Hustler is not one of these movies. If you asked George C. Scott’s character, Bert, what those other heroes had in common, he’d tell you it was “character.” Paul Newman’s Fast Eddie, on the other hand, has none. The Hustler tells the story of how Eddie (our hero, if you can call him that) earned his character.

The opening scene introduces Fast Eddie, a drifting pool shark, as he executes his latest con in a small town billiards hall. Just as he’s about to put away the eight ball in a finishing move and claim all the bets, the camera decides to stay on his face, completely ignoring the action on the table. We know Eddie wins because of the sound of the ball landing in the pocket, but that’s not the sound Eddie lives for. He’s there for the shit-eating grin he gets to wear the moment he wins. For the groans of gamblers that have lost money on a rigged bet. For the wad of cash he gets to shove in his breast pocket. He’s good at pool, sure. Hell, he’s the best anyone’s seen. But there’s no indication yet that he plays pool for any other reason than that it’s a game that attracts the greasy, betting types with loose wallets. For Eddie, pool’s a means to an end of fame and glory. And this, somehow, is the protagonist we’re supposed to fall in love with.

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Director Series: Peter Weir

Witness (1985)

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Peter Weir’s first American film was the Harrison Ford vehicle Witness, released to commercial and critical acclaim in 1985. The Australian director was originally set to make his stateside debut with The Mosquito Coast, but a last-minute loss of financing would leave time for Weir to make a very different kind of picture first.

As a “Harrison Ford movie” — a label which immediately evokes Raiders and Blade Runner — Witness probably falls flat. John Book ain’t an adventurer, an action hero, or a possible cyborg (or is he?) and Witness ain’t a popcorn blockbuster. You can imagine the studio executives wincing as they reluctantly finance something that, frankly, looks excruciatingly boring as an abstract. Man goes to Amish country. Protects small boy. Woohoo.

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Film Review

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014)

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Lest anyone get too comfortable watching good movies, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For flawlessly and disappointingly checks all the boxes on the Sequel Checklist. Six smashed windows, fourteen severed heads, incalculable gory kills. A death from the first movie is a major plot device and a character says the subtitle of the movie in the movie. Eva Green has 42 minutes of screentime and is naked for 39.5 of them.

And while most of those stats are made up, A Dame to Kill For still ends up being one of those movies you want to like only because you liked the first one. Like the 2005 original, the sequel divides time between several main characters, most of whom are the same main characters from the first movie. Marv and Dwight are back with Mickey Rourke reprising the former and Josh Brolin taking over for Clive Owen on the latter; Jessica Alba is back as Nancy, out for revenge after the events of the first film; Bruce Willis comes back as John Hartigan, but he’s really just a ghost because he died in the first movie and cute little Haley Joel Osment hasn’t gotten around to telling him he’s dead yet.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is new as the gambling Johnny, who gets in deep with the villainous Senator Roark and provides the best scenes in the movie. Unfortunately, his story is noticeably shortened in favor of Marv’s, Dwight’s, and Nancy’s.

Basically A Dame to Kill For has the same ingredients as the first film and, despite the nearly decade-long gap between releases, it’s obvious no one spent the time to put those ingredients together. There’s probably a comparable number of death-by-sharp-thing moments, but no one we care about is ever the one being killed. There’s more than enough nudity, but it’s a blatant and tasteless display, and the kind that makes me feel the need to type it out as NUDITY because it’s virtually written in BIG NEON LETTERS. Eva Green is highly attractive but not that great of an actress, and the NUDITY very nearly distracts from that fact. NUDITY.

While the hyperstylized black-and-white occasionally lends itself to some brilliant imagery (especially in a night scene at the pool), the second Sin City just can’t hope to recapture the razor-sharpness of the first.