Pass the Popcorn, Please

It’s been a while since I commented on movies I’ve seen recently; binge-watching The Shield has taken up most of our TV viewing time. But, we have seen a handful, and I’m stuck for a blog post today, so here goes.

Pain & Gain. Didn’t know what to expect, adding this to the Netflix queue on a recommendation, and was pleasantly surprised. Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson play a pair of muscleheads who lust after The American Dream™ (no, not Dusty Rhodes) and decide to get it by kidnapping millionaire Tony Shalhoub. Loosely based on a true story, this is a comic noir of half-baked ideas and half-assed execution. The kidnappers lack discipline, experience, and a clue, and things go as badly as one might expect. Director Michael Bay plays it for laughs and gets the tone just right. (Yes, that Michael Bay. Thus might be my favorite movie of his.) Lots of fun. Wahlberg and Johnson are well cast; Shalhoub is as good as always. Ed Harris makes a cameo appearance, and, as usual, is as good as it gets. Not a timeless classic, but a couple of hours of off-kilter fun.

Ride the High Country. George Pelecanos got to program an evening of Turner Classic movies; this was one of his picks. (I hope to get to them all.) Randolph Scott and Joel McCrae play a pair of over-the-hill lawmen who team up to guard a gold shipment from the wildcat miners to the bank. Unknown to straight-arrow McCrae, Scott and his young sidekick plan to steal the gold. The kid falls for a farmer’s daughter (Mariette Hartley in her first role), and things go bad at the camp, leading to a hazardous trip down the mountain where you don’t know who to trust. The two old pros play it out to the end in a movie that could have been cliché-ridden but instead gives a new look that presages the new wave of Westerns Clint Eastwood was about to start. Directed by Sam Peckinpah, and hints of where he’ll go with The Wild Bunch are evident. Far better than I expected from a 1962-vintage Western.

American Hustle. Meh. Lots of good bits that didn’t add up to as much as they could have. Too long, and I have an impression the original cut was even longer. (The voice-over near the beginning jammed exposition down your throat like a freshman composition major summarizing Genesis.) The director seemed to want to make a Scorsese picture, and only Scorsese should try that. (Not even him, sometimes.) Christian Bale was good, though he often seemed to be doing an Al Pacino impression, which made me think of how much better Pacino would have been when he was the appropriate age. The women carry the movie; Jennifer Lawrence steals all her scenes, in a good way. Louis CK was perfectly cast. Not a waste of time, but not something that deserved bumping to the top of the queue. (As we did.)

The Seven-Ups. Another of Pelecanos’s picks. In the style of the French Connection (directed by French Connection’s producer, Philip D’Antoni), Roy Scheider leads a team of cops that investigates only crimes with a penalty of at least seven years. His snitch (Tony LoBianco) is playing both ends against the middle. Lots to like, but it never grips you like The French Connection. Not only does the whole not exceed the sum of its parts, it doesn’t quite equal it. Best car chase ever though, covering more ground, units coming and going, and all doing stuff cars can actually do. No jumping or flying or rolling and continuing to run or shit like that. Just serious driving, well photographed. (For those who wish to cut to the chase, here it is. The cop in the trunk is Ken Kercheval, who would go on to play Cliff Barnes in Dallas.)

Best August Reads

August was a good month for reading.

Clockers, Richard Price. Even better than Freedomland. Price writes crime fiction that makes the crime—especially its solution—subordinate to what happens to those even peripherally involved. If you like The Wire, get thyself to a bookstore and pick up one of Price's book now. I'm going to have to read them all.

Ghosts of Belfast, Stuart Neville. The original title (The Twelve) was better, as Gerry Fegan tries to exorcise the ghosts of twelve people he killed during The Troubles in Ireland and stirs up political turmoil all the way to London. Written in a style that resembles Adrain McKinty channeling John Connolly, Neville has written a tight, perfectly paced thriller that never disappoints or takes the easy way out, deftly avoiding what Hollywood would turn into a sappy (and inappropriate) ending.

Road Dogs, Elmore Leonard. The reviews were tepid at best; maybe that's why I liked it more than I expected. Leonard combines three characters from previous books (Jack Foley from Out of Sight, Cundo Rey from LaBrava, and Dawn Navarro from Riding the Rap) into a stew with a plot that ebbs and flows not unlike Get Shorty, though not as funny. The writing doesn't have the hard bark of his early crime fiction, but his voice is like finding snuggling into a favorite pair of sweats and slippers. Even the few self-referential asides work, winks toward long-time readers.

The Night Gardener, George Pelecanos. I'm still not sure what it is about Pelecanos that I'm missing. Like Ross Macdonald, I can appreciate everything that makes him great—and he is great—but he doesn't wrap me up like McBain or Leonard or Price. I've seen him speak and read his blog and like and respect him as much as you can anyone you've never actually met. The story, characters, and dialog are top notch, and the pacing is excellent, though his characters do occasionally succumb to a political speech. Don't be deterred by my lengthy list of caveats; this is a hell of a book.