CLOWN BOMBS AND COLD KILLERS (SMOKIN' ACES 2 AND WHITEOUT)

Water still falling from the sky. Afraid of the cold, damp world outside, so I retreat into my Couch World and recline. My eyes have been glued to screens and my mind speaks through fingertips, so here's two more movie reviews. These two just came out on DVD on Tuesday (Jan, 19, 2010).

SMOKIN’ ACES 2: ASSASSIN’S BALL (10):

This is a direct-to-video (DTV) sequel (well, actually prequel) to the cult hit from the mind of native Sacramentan Joe Carnahan. Carnahan was busy making the A-Team (yeah, a movie based on that ‘80s show with Mr. T) so he gave the directing reins to P.J. Pesce, so lower your expectations but not too much, because this is about as good as DTV gets.

It’s a crass, cartoonish exercise in gratuitous violence, but it’s a fine piece of trashy entertainment. If you seek something cerebral, get your big brain away from this low-brow cash cow teeming with messy mayhem and a few nuggets of delicious dark comedy. The premise is pretty much the same: the FBI catches wind of a hit on one of their own, agent/analyst Walter Weed, and tries to protect him from a handful of the world’s greatest killers.

There’s hardly a minute spent (or wasted) on character development, and there could have been a bit more background info regarding some of the assassins (they are hardly more than caricatures but at least they are interesting ones). Some of the acting feels a bit amateurish, but Vinnie Jones is fine in his typical tough brute role, Clayne Crawford is surprisingly good (though somewhat inconsistent), and Tom Berenger is the best among the bunch as Walter Weed, the marked man.

The action is a bit rushed, but often inspired. P.J. Pesce employs some stylistic flourishes here and there, and while his low budget shows, he did a damn decent job with a measly $7 million. Besides, any movie with an exploding clown is awesome, and here we get two (and they’re midgets!), so this gets major points in my book. The Usual Suspects-inspired ending is genuinely surprising and while it feels somewhat hackneyed and forced, it is a great twist (with an even more shocking twist that follows) and is handled deftly.

If you seek a bare-bones action flick this should suffice. Fans of the original movie will likely be a bit disappointed, but I found this rough-and-tumble slice of entertainment a mixed bag: half of the popcorn in the bag is soaked in delicious artery-clogging movie theater butter and half is undercooked. It’s a half-baked action flick that gets better as the film progresses. Check it out, but go in with the right attitude (as in get half-baked yourself, heh heh, just kidding). Just don’t complain to me about the lack of substance, because this is an action movie not a French arthouse flick. Worth a rent for action junkies or clown-haters.

6.5/10


WHITEOUT (09)

Russians, diamonds…plane crash…killer on the loose in Antarctica…blah, blah, blah. Most important lesson learned: Kate Beckinsale is still hot when she’s cold. Mediocre (at best) thriller that goes through the motions, but offers nothing we haven’t seen before in better films.

The screenwriters should have used Wite Out on some of the script. Or changed the title to Blackout, because a pitch-black screen with unseen characters journeying through utter darkness may have been more intriguing than most of this film. I’m being a bit harsh, because the movie really isn’t that bad: it just really isn’t that good.

Granted, there were some genuine thrills and chills (forgive me, I love bad puns) and I kept watching so it was entertaining enough to distract me from real life for the duration…but that’s not hard to do. I’ve caught myself staring at blank walls for about half this film’s length. I could stare at a monkey wearing a cowboy hat for a few days before I got bored or even thought to scratch my genitals (which would itch pretty bad by then probably).

Anyways, it starts out kind of well and gets progressively more generic and predictable. It’s like almost every other killer-thriller ever, except…it’s cold as ice (as the band Foreigner would say) because it’s freakin’ Antarctica. So, my advice is download it if you love thrillers (which I do) or carry a torch for Kate Beckinsale (which she would have appreciated ‘cuz of the coldness) or watch it if it happens to be on at your friend’s place but don’t say that I didn’t warn you.

5.5/10