Rambo Week!!! Review #3: Rambo III

Rambo III

Directed by Peter MacDonald

Written by Sylvester Stallone

Tagline: God would have mercy, John Rambo won't!


So last time we left John J. Rambo he was raging against the machine and left wondering why his country doesn't respect him. Well luckily for us he must have heard about how much success Jean Claude Van Damme was having fighting in Thailand in underground betting rings on shipping docks. Rambo has turned from a killing machine into a stick fighting machine! Woo Hoo.

This movie is so bad. So incredibly bad. Horrible at every moment. I originally thought the film was about Rambo taking on Afghanistan (it has been years since I have seen the film) but when I watched it this afternoon I realized that he is actually taking on Russia and helping out the Afghanistan rebels.

The plot is fairly simple. Rambo's superior officer and only friend, Trautman (played by Richard Crenna) asks him to go one more mission, to help with the aide of an Afghanistan village who is being slaughtered by Russian's. Rambo declines, even after a brief conversation with the head of the US embassy in Thailand played by Kurtwood Smith!!! Better known to action junkies everywhere as Boddinger from RoboCop (and known to other junkies everywhere as the dad from That 70's Show). Crenna tries to hard sell him on the idea that this mission will do some good, but Rambo isn't buying it as he tells Trautman: "My war is over."


Uh Oh. You know what happens now. Trautman is captured by the Russian's and Rambo must go over to Afghanistan and rescue him, in the process he grows to love the Afghanistan family he stays with and even gives a little boy the good luck necklace from his slain lover from the last movie (continuity!). Rambo then proceeds to fight two wars and learns that the Afghani people are not so bad. He helps them blow up Russian's, stab them, and shoot them all for their freedom. I mean after all, the film is dedicated to "The gallant people of Afghanistan." The film should be shown in as a means of diplomacy.

So the movie isn't serious at all. It marks the time when Stallone officially lost it. He turned Rambo, a pseudo-serious figure scarred by the Vietnam war and the war at home, into a one-liner toting, grimacing, 80's action star. The film, made in 1988, is also obviously influenced by the success of Lethal Weapon and the buddy cop genre. For the last 30 minutes of the film, Crenna and Stallone shoot people, blow things up, and spout horrible one-liners and jokey dialogue in the process. Ugh. Everything Stallone did to try and make this character deep and serious and someone who dealt with the issues of post war syndrome, he blows it all up (literally) with this film.


There are scenes where Rambo (as usual) is running from, into, and through fire. Once again there is fire all around Rambo in this film. As he runs through the flames and dives into a cave, Trautman is waiting for him, this is their exchange:

Trautman: How do you feel?

Rambo: Well done.

Yeah, it's lines like that as well as cheesy 80's action lines like when Rambo appears to be doomed and has a gun pointed at him, but Trautman shoots the guy from behind:

Rambo: Nice timing.

Trautman: What are friends for.

Damn you Stallone! I hate that producers gave you the green light on this movie and I hate even more that you think you are a good writer because the idiots at the Oscars decided to give you the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture for Rocky.

So he turned the film into a full blooded 80's action movie with all of the cliches. See, even the first two films of the series weren't this cheesy and this blatantly formulaic. The sole purpose of this film was the suck the Rambo well dry for the last time. They had a decent budget (it seems like it at least) but nothing much happens. The last hour of the film, most of the action involves Stallone on horseback out riding missiles from a big helicopter. And about that helicopter, you could tell they spent a lot of money on it because it has a bigger role than Stallone does. At the end of the film, the credit list for helicopter operators is longer than the entire cast.


Well...Stallone did dedicate this film to "the gallant people of Afghanistan" and even has a weird soul version of He Aint Heavy He's My Brother play over the credits...God bless you Stallone. But that doesn't mean he is done yet...because released, just this weekend...Rambo (aka Rambo IV) which grossed just 18 million, getting beat out by (yikes) Meet the Spartans.

I was hoping to write more on the movie, but there is really nothing else to write about Rambo III. It's just like any other generic 80's action movie, it doesn't even have moments that are so bad they are funny (with the exception of the horrible delivery of Stallone's one-liners). I was also hoping to see Rambo this weekend, but instead opted to see There Will Be Blood with Troy. So I will do a write up of Rambo next weekend when I see it.

Rambo week will continue through next week with a review of the new Rambo.

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Rambo Week!!! Review #2: Rambo: First Blood II

Rambo: First Blood II

Directed by George P. Cosmatos

Written by Sly Stallone and James Cameron

Tagline: What most people call home, he calls hell.

Well, John J. Rambo is back as the film opens with what seems like a Cool Hand Luke deleted scene. Rambo is hammering rock when Crenna comes back to him with a proposition. Rambo takes the deal and is pardoned from prison in order to save some POW's that were left behind during the war. And we're off and running in one of the worst (yet most popular, more on that later) action films of the 80's.

Of course we come to find out that the bureaucrats that have assigned Rambo to the mission are in it for something else and everyone is expendable. But Rambo has other plans and this time he wants to know if they "get to win." But of course he does...but Richard Crenna reminds him that "it's up to him." Oh good...all we need is an unstable vigilante fighting our international battles.

Yes, Rambo: First Blood II takes all of the good will the first film built (it really did try to be legit) and flushes it right down the pooper. It's amazing how awful this movie really is, how ugly and violent, and hilariously awful it is. I loved every minute.

It's a little slower than I remember (my roommates and I used to watch this every week in college) and the crazy violence doesn't really kick in until about an hour into the film. However, it's all preceded by some wonderful low key (seriously he is trying so hard to look like he is not not acting...sad) moments where we get to know the man, Rambo, not just as a killing machine, but where he grew up. Ooooh great character development. Maybe if James Cameron wasn't spending so much time writing Aliens (his good movie) than Stallone wouldn't have had to pick up the slack.

Oh sorry...the plot (I got distracted): Rambo must save POW's left behind in Eastern Asia, and with the help of his plucky Taiwanese sidekick (that of course he falls in love with in a hilarious scene shot in soft focus...get it, his soft side, so soft focus...yeah) and big ass gatling gun. Which reminds me, when I looked up the film on imdb.com the key words were: Torture, Python, Shot in the Head, Gatling Gun, Shot in the Back. Sadly, his new found love is the one that gets shot in the back. So much for the softer, more gentle Rambo --- he proceeds to grieve for about two seconds and then grabs her necklace (her good luck charm), puts it on, and becomes an unstoppable killing machine. And then we get this scene:


Awesome huh. Well...things don't work out so well for Rambo as he has another meltdown much like in the first film. And we get our obligatory lesson about people STILL don't respect veterans. Okay, that's enough about the plot.

Rambo: First Blood II is astonishing in its badness, yet the film is loved by many. In a recent Entertainment Weekly poll of the greatest action movies ever made, it ranked in the top 40! Yikes. It had a budget of 44 million and grossed over 300 million worldwide. There was even a Sega Genesis game to boot!


The movie is nothing more than an excuse to blow stuff up real good. And it's funny how no matter where Rambo is in the movie, fire is always around him. He plays chicken with a helicopter, takes on not one, but two armies (East Asia and Russia or South Africa, I couldn't tell the accents were that bad), and has to fight the suit and tie bureaucrats who push pencils and take orders rather than kill people. After all as Charles Nappier (the main bad guy ---he wears a tie, that's how you know) says "it's your war, not mine." Not the right way to kick things off with John J Rambo.

By the end Rambo takes his aggression out on the machine by dropping of the wounded POW's and then walking into a hangar filled with machinery and files and begins to shoot them with his big gatling gun. Screaming at the top of his lungs...this shot consists of him shooting the computers, shooting the files, cut to his bicep, cut to shells hitting the floor, cut to him screaming, cut to his pecs, cut to his biceps, cut back to his screaming. Yup, we get the metaphor...Stallone ever the minimalist eh?


The director is the hack-tastic George P. Cosmatos, who made Cobra with Stallone after this, Leviathan, Shadow Conspiracy with Charlie Sheen and Linda Hamilton (a rip off of No Way Out), and somehow got lucky and made Tombstone (although now that I think about it, that film was horribly directed, it just had great performances). He's a horrible director who believes every shot should either be a low angle, birds eye, or be seen through an obstructed POV. It's maddening watching the shots in this movie.

The speech at the end of the film definitely trumps the ending of First Blood. Here, Rambo gives a speech ala Steven Segal's infamous "oil speech" in On Deadly Ground, as he stares into the camera after Crenna has reminded him that "I know the war was wrong, but don't blame it on your country." HUH??? Yes, let's blame it on...the enemy? Certainly with Rambo taking out a whole fortress of East Asians (which is funny, if the war is over, why so heavily guarded? Oh, so things could blow up and catch on fire...gotcha.) they must be to blame. Or is it the stiffs who sit behind a desk and play war from their offices, using people like Rambo as pawns in their game? Yeah...too deep for a movie like this, although once again (like the first film) the film strives to be something bigger and deeper than it really is or is capable of being.

When Stallone...er...Rambo is asked what he wants, he replies: "I want our country to love us."

Ugh.

Didn't we just go through this Rambo?

Oh well...because at the end of the film we get the Frank Stallone masterpiece "Peace in Our Life" which I went ahead and found for you on youtube.

Watch all the way through as they show that final scene with Stallone's awful delivery and clips of the film (and oddly the first film...David Caruso though!) which completely contrast with the song. It's a soft piece of crap pop song that pleads for the listener to understand the struggles of our Vietnam vets...yet all of the clips are of Rambo kicking the crap out of people and blowing them up...hmmmm. God Bless America!





Up next, Rambo takes on Afghanistan. Yeah, it's too good to be true.

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Rambo Week!!! Review #1: Rambo: First Blood

Rambo: First Blood

Directed by Ted Kotcheff

Written by Sylvester Stallone

(based on the novel First Blood by David Morrell)

Tagline: One War Against One Man.

Well, Rambo week kicks off with what can best be summed up by one user's comments on IMDB: "The only good Rambo movie."

Yup. I agree.

The movie is as flawed as any 1980's action film, but it is actually pretty decent in setting up the story about drifter and Vietnam vet John Rambo. Brian Dennehy plays the slimy small town sheriff who doesn't seem to care that Rambo risked his life in a war he most likely didn't want to fight in. This current runs through the entire film and fuels much of the frustration felt by Rambo as he escapes from the town jail, flees to the woods, and then blows up a gas station (which then leads to the greatest monologue of all time..."I can't feel my legs!"

Okay...so the movie shouldn't be taken too seriously, I mean after all it was directed by the guy that went on to give us Weekend at Bernie's, but it is worth noting that Stallone wasn't COMPLETELY useless back then. I mean the movie was entertaining, he tried to get a valuable message across, that I am sure was very prominent at the time. But come on...it's a violent, post Vietnam War action movie and nothing more. It's hard to extract too many filmmaking elements from this film.

It's also interesting to note that is the last time until CopLand where Stallone tries to do some real acting, rather than just ooze machismo on the screen. Also, the great character actor Richard Crenna makes an appearance as John's superior officer from Nam. This leads to many preachy moments where we as the audience learn that we should respect our vets.

So...what's best about this version of Rambo is that never shows signs that it will lead to what the series has become. When you want to rent a bad action movie, First Blood usually doesn't make the list...because well, there really isn't that much to make fun of. I had some buddies in college who owned all three of them and oddly enough, we found ourselves only laughing at a couple of scenes from the film. The series gets so absurd and so exploitative and so perverse in its violence and portrayal of Vietnam vets that the serious tone of the first film is often forgotten.

There are some hilarious moments though. David Caruso(!!!)...yes THE David Caruso (look how serious he is in that picture...nothing changes), star of Jade and one of the CSI shows, plays a young idealistic patrol officer who is opposed from the beginning of the way they treat the new prisoner and subsequently how Dennehy goes about the man hunt, himself becoming more and more like a soldier at war (see the film REALLY tries to push serious themes on your plate and force you to swallow them). The fact that Dennehy would be so heard hearted as a sheriff is a joke. And the breakout scene from the town jail is hilarious as Stallone sweep kicks his way out of custody leading to a hilarious chase with Stallone on a motorcycle needing the help of a clearly visible ramp, to catch some air.

It's all build up (with very little violence, no one could have guessed the series would turn so violent) to the final scene where John Rambo takes over the police station and goes one one with Dennehy. It's all rather absurd, with the obvious metaphor that the cities, towns, and houses that the veterans of the war have to come back to, are just as much the war zone that Vietnam was.

Like I said, all well and good, and the intentions are good too, the filmmaking isn't horrible, it's an alright action movie (remade later as The Hunted a waaaaay more violent and hilarious film by William Friedkin) until Stallone gives his big speech about why it's so hard for veterans to find work and be respected. Look, I give Stallone credit, he is trying to make a serious point here, and he is trying his hardest to sound sincere...but his acting his soooo awful. Especially with his classic line about he can't even hold down a job "WASHING CARS!"

The film seems to have missed the party on this genre of film...it seems a lot like Christian Rock music (always behind the trends and missing out on the immediacy of what they are trying to cash in on). First Blood is about four years behind more innovative (The Deer Hunter already made this point in the late 70's) and better films about the affects of the post Vietnam era.

Held up to the films that would follow, First Blood doesn't seem all that bad of a film. It certainly isn't without its flaws, but the source material has good enough intentions at making a valid point about Vietnam veterans. Too bad Stallone had to go and milk the cash cow. Seriously...it's INSANE how popular Rambo: First Blood II is. More on that tomorrow.

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Random thoughts on random films

28 Weeks Later

One of the better films of last year and a genuinely scary horror film. It's also a sad meditation (when it actually slows down for you to meditate on things) on the secrets a father keeps and the feeling of loss and isolation. The scene in the subway is one of the scariest I have seen. Great horror film.

The Lookout

Scott Frank is one of the best screenwriters in Hollywood (Out of Sight, Minority Report) and with his first time directing, The Lookout is one of the better thrillers of recent memory. Interested more in the psyche of its characters rather than on bank heists, shootouts, and car chases, it was one of the biggest surprises of last year. It reminded me just how talented he is, as it ranks among his best film and is an intelligent thriller with a tremendous eye and feel for pacing and a great ear for dialogue (just like Out of Sight and Minority Report.) Check it out.


Talk to Me and The Hoax

I love biopics. Especially ones about people I didn't know much about. These two films are flawed, but have great performances surrounding them and offered insight into two lives of people I knew nothing about. Petey Green and Clifford Irving are extraordinary characters who talk fast and have to think fast. In Kasi Lemmons' Talk to Me Petey is one of the first FM morning DJ's and it is apparent that he paved the way for such shock jocks as Howard Stern and the countless morning shows now found on the FM dial. Also, the scene where the radio station learns of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination is both touching and a pitch perfect delivery by Don Cheadle in one of his best performances. The Hoax is a flawed film, but Richard Gere is so good and the material so intriguing that you forgive its shortcomings. Clifford Irving lied to everyone (even himself) in order to convince people that he was the main man behind the definitive Howard Hughes biography. The ending veers off into A Beautiful Mind territory, and that's too bad, because the film is at its best when it Irving is thinking on his feet and just barely being able to convince his publishers and himself that he is a successful writer, writing the book of the century.

The Simpson's Movie

My favorite show and the greatest show of all time hits the big screen in what is essentially an hour and twenty minute episode. Although the technique and the jokes play much bigger. Beautiful animation by the entire crew (most likely headed up by David Silverman and Jim Reardon) as they are able to do things they just don't have time for on television: Long shots, tracking shots, longer reveals leading to better pay offs for the jokes, etc. Is it worth 15 years plus of waiting? I don't know, sure. It's not as if it's as disappointing as say X-Files: The Movie. I mean I am not that big of a nerd right, I have only watched it three times (with commentary.) Now maybe Al Jean can get back to making the show consistently funny.

---- Movies I still haven't seen that I need to in the next couple of weeks: There Will Be Blood, Breach, and yes...Pathfinder (see post below.) Also, I want to check out the new Director's Cut of Zodiac (my pick for the best film of the year, again, see posts below.)

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10 Best Films of 2007: #1 - Zodiac

The best film of the year is not at all unlike No Country For Old Men (my number two choice, but really these rankings are arbitrary) in that Zodiac is a dark and nihilistic film that offers no simple resolution, answers, or reason for death. It excels on a frustrating and ambiguous narrative idea: not knowing who the Zodiac killer is, and never being able to find out. Or rather the broader, more overarching, theme that death is not only prevalent, but also constant, nonnegotiable, and impervious to our desire to understand it (or in the case of Zodiac decoding it.)

It is one of the most frustrating unsolved mysteries of all time, the Zodiac killer who went on a killing spree in San Francisco was never caught, and the film does a great job of capturing a city who wants to believe he has been so they can go on living their lives (the scene in the lobby of the movie theater is a perfect example). It is a film that doesn’t rely on the clichés of the thriller genre, jolting you with false scares and convenient clues, rather it invites the audience to join the process of the investigation through every excruciating detail and bits of minutiae, the audience is also invited to share in the frustrations of a city, and like them, knowing that we’ll never know who the killer is.

It is a film about journalism, isolation, and a police procedural that is unmatched by any other film of its kind since JFK. The film is mostly about the search for the Zodiac killer, and the film grasps at straws, and so do we as we try to figure out the mystery ourselves. The amazing thing about the film (aside from the detail in every single shot) is that nothing much happens, but it is easily the most fascinating film of the year. It steers clear of becoming any kind of conventional thriller, avoiding the potholes of cheap scares and chase scenes.

The manhunt spans a decade – giving cinematographer Harris Savides the opportunity to paint the landscape in multiple shades of gray against changing backgrounds only adding to the theme of uncertainty and ambiguity as always spanning time and always present in our lives (even though things change, death does not) – it is an uncertainty that not only haunts the city, but those determined (Jake Gyllanhal, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, and Anthony Edwards) to solve the mystery of the Zodiac's cryptic letters, which taunted the newspapermen and police officers. The film’s dark, dreary look and plodding storyline are perfect for the type of story director David Fincher is trying to tell. The case could not have been exciting and even though Mark Ruffalo, who plays inspector David Toschi, was the inspiration for the Clint Eastwood film, Dirty Harry and Steve McQueen's character in Bullitt, at this point in his career he just looks tired; tired of all the death and the ambiguity of the case.

Gyllenhal’s character, the newspapers comic strip writer Robert Graysmith, does come with a solution to the crime, and it appears that the authorities have the killer in mind, they just cannot pin that one piece of crucial evidence. Even Toschi by the end of the film, as he listens to Graysmith's findings, is too cynical and jaded to know that, even though Graysmith is probably right, there is nothing he can do about it now, too much time has passed. By the end of the film, there is a final confrontation that is spoken through silence, and tells the audience all we need to know. The San Francisco police department and David Toschi had their Zodiac killer, they knew who he was, and they just couldn’t pin anything on him.

And that’s what Fincher, in his most (thankfully) subdued film gets across: the frustration. Not only our own anxiety and frustration watching the film, but also that of the entire Bay Area at the time. This is not an action packed fast paced thriller, but it is a slow procedural that is authentic in its sets, costumes, even the photography seems to be something out of a 1970’s crime drama. It is this excruciating attention to detail that turned some off to the film, but I was thankful that Fincher went this route. With a case that spans almost two decades, with a killer who has never been caught, you cannot speed up the process. The film had to be slow, methodical, and accurate in its portrayal of the facts and the real life characters that poured their lives into this case, but that doesn’t mean Zodiac isn't boring or unengaging.

And it is that seemingly eternal frustration that haunts every frame of the film. Things had to be absolute and exact with the case, and they just weren't. Just when there seems to be some silver lining and just as death and evil is within the grasp of the “good guys”, it slips away on a formality. Death is everywhere and it plods along without a care in the world; as evasive as ever. This is what Antone Chigurh was in No Country For Old Men, and this is the feeling of every passing minute of David Fincher’s masterpiece.

Zodiac is a procedural unmatched by many. I mentioned JFK earlier which I think is still the best film of its kind, but Zodiac deserves a place right next to it (like 1a) and among other great procedurals like All the President’s Men and The Insider. That’s pretty good company.

Any of my top three films on this list could be interchangeable. They all share a common theme and they all refuse to give in to the Hollywood machine and try offer up easy answers and solutions to these films. We go to bed every night and there is always something happening away from our lives, some kind of evil, and even though we may be good people amidst that evil (Nikolai in Eastern Promises, Ed Tom Bell in No Country and Graysmith in Zodiac), it will always exist. But even as I tried to put No Country and Eastern Promises in this spot, no film left more of an impression on me than Zodiac.

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10 Best Films of 2007: #2 - No Country For Old Men

The Coen Brothers are truly two of the greatest filmmakers of my generation. Virtually every film is a masterpiece and although they have their shortcomings with the narrative arc of some of their films, they are never boring. They understand film language (which is to say, visual literacy) and when they are at their best, they are reinventing the genre they are working in. Like Blood Simple and Fargo, and now perhaps their greatest achievement, No Country For Old Men, the reinvent the genre again and raise the bar to new heights.

The film still has the classic Coen dialogue that makes you laugh in inappropriate places, but it may also be their most serious film since the grossly underrated, Miller’s Crossing (which still contains absurdist elements). Javier Bardem plays Antone Chigurh (like sugar) who is the epitome of the death. He has no pity, no remorse; he works on fate and fate alone. His character epitomizes the the fear we have as humans: uncertainty. The fear of not knowing what is to come or worse, not knowing when it will be coming. How can we predict what is unpredictable? How can we attempt to understand or rationalize what is irrational? There are character developments for Chigurh, no setting up of scenes, we enter the film in medias res, and are left wondering why? But isn’t that the natural response to death? To someone who embodies those characteristics and acts on fate alone? Chigurh is the thing we hate most because he lacks any answers. Any insight into his psyche. There are no answers you can give for Chigurh’s nature or what motivates him (it doesn’t ever appear to be the money or drugs) only questions as to why.

The Coen’s have made an ideal existential film based on the Cormac McCarthy novel, and the once scene that embodies this theme is the now famous “coin flip” scene. Much has been made of the “coin flip” scene so I will only add this, it is one of the most frightening and hilarious scenes I have ever seen – appropriate for this film that those two emotions go hand in hand, what else can one do when we don’t understand something besides laugh – I was on the edge of my seat awaiting the outcome hanging on every word spoken and trying to anticipate every action. The Coen’s walk a tightrope with this scene and they make it safely across with ease.

Silence and anticipation are prevalent (and key) throughout the film as there are many scenes that unfold without the aide of cheesy suspense music or an explanation of what’s happening from one of the characters. The characters know when the other is nearby, and the execution of these scenes are worthy of Hitchcock. A perfect example of this is the scene in the motel room where Moss (Josh Brolin) sits and waits for Chigurh to come to him room. The lack of cutaway, the silence, and the anticipation is masterfully done, and when Moss calls downstairs to the front desk for help, no cutaway is needed; we just hear the phone ring and ring and ring.

Chigurh is one of the great creations of modern cinema. He is the embodiment of death and as we all know death does not stop for anything. I think that that is the message of the film. As nihilistic as it is the film is a great entertainment, it just doesn’t have the tidiness of the Coen’s Fargo. At the end of that film Margie gives a beautiful monologue as the killer sits in the back of her trooper, she accosts him for killing over money where she says, “all for what? A little bit of money? I don’t get it, and yet here it is, and it’s a beautiful day”.

The final moments of No Country are quite different as retired sheriff Ed Tom Bell (great name), played by Tommy Lee Jones, remembers a dream he had the night before. The dream is crucial to understanding the film, but just like the “coin flip” scene, the end of the film has been much discussed. What most struck me about it was looking Jones’ face. Here is an actor who as he has gotten older, has made many great choices (okay not Man of the House, but we all have to get paid) and is one of those actors that can say so much with his face. Knowing this, I just watched his facial expressions as he was telling his dream, and his face made me think that Jones was saying that if Ed Tom Bell were younger, and not such an “old timer” (as explained in the opening voice over narration) he may have been able to go all the way in the Chigurh manhunt, but here he is at his kitchen table with nothing to do, and the payoff to the dream (and the end of the film) is about as perfect as it gets.

It’s a dark and nihilistic film, not offering a central character like Margie to point out that “it’s a beautiful day” but rather a character who sits around wondering “what if” and whether or not Chigurh is still out there, and if he will ever stop. Yes it’s dark, but it also contrasts that darkness with beautiful cinematography by the always great Roger Deakins and it’s simply a joy to watch all of these masters of their craft at work.

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10 Best Films of 2007: #3 - Eastern Promises

David Cronenberg re-teams with Viggo Mortensen to create one of the darkest, most bleak, and yes, interesting movies about the criminal underwold, I will not say organized crime, because these Russian mobsters don't seem all that organized. Family members kill important people without consulting their father (the head of the family) and alliances are made behind peoples back. Booze is not stolen, but purchased cheap, but possibly it could have been purchased even cheaper, and when they get the booze, they don't sell it for profit, they drink it. These quirks and undercutting of the traditional mobster film make this one of the better films on the subject to come along since Miller's Crossing.

The critics have been louder than the supporters for the film, claiming that Cronenberg is too interested in which bloody set piece he can set up next and not invested enough in the characters. I couldn’t disagree more. The film is meant to be cold. The film doesn't contain the family oriented scenes of the Corleone family of The Godfather. It doesn’t have the appealing mobsters from a film like Goodfellas. But what Cronenberg and Mortensen give us is a glimpse into a cold and methodical underworld where money or business, personal vendettas, and family, are not as important as looking out for yourself and maintaining the status quo in order to assure yourself you will be alive for the next meeting with the heads of the Russian mob.

I appreciated the coldness of the film, and yes even though the Naomi Watts character serves only one purpose, I didn’t seem to care. I was so enthralled by the vision of the Russian underworld and how cruel and matter-of-fact it is. And Mortensen’s performance as the driver Nikolai, is something that should be recognized with an Oscar nomination (if those awards meant anything anymore) as he creates a character that has no where to go and nothing to strive for, except wherever his bosses tell him to go and whatever they tell him to do. He is nameless and has no past (as well as no future), until he gets his one chance for a promotion within the family, and what follows is a scene that is so cold and calculated (and pretty awesome) that is might be one of the best things Cronenberg has ever filmed.

The typical themes are here for a Cronenberg film: the body as belonging to someone else, the decaying body, sex, violence, sex and violence together and many other of the classic Cronenberg touches that make this one of the best films of the year. It shares a common theme with the final two films on this list: the idea that life goes on beyond what we as audience members can see. An idea that brings no closure (and frustration for many) to the lives of these characters that we have invested in. By the end Nikolai is still immersed in the evil he has chosen.

(Spoiler alert!) As an undercover cop who has now gone all the way to become the head of the family, can he ever really go back? It reminded me a little of Donnie Brasco one of the more underrated mobster films. But Eastern Promises doesn’t offer up the tidy (although sad) ending of Donnie Brasco and we are not quite sure what the future holds for Nikolai, or if that’s even his real name. I liked that ambiguity and I liked the not knowing, I liked the coldness and the fact that the film makes you question the characters and tries to understand why as humans we make the choices we do (a theme prevalent in their previous film together A History of Violence) and then there is the not knowing, a theme especially shared by the final two films on this list.

Does Nikolai have to become just as evil in order to become head of the family, or do his actions by the end of the film show that he will still retain some of his conscience? The cold look on his face as the film cuts to black suggests otherwise, this is a man where going back is not an option. It’s a great film.

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