Harlem_Nights Reviews

Mayhem (2017)

So, so bad. With the most annoying main female character.

[1/10 · 27 December 2017]

Joy Lynch, I like you dude. I really like you, I like the Movie Crypt podcast and I like that you are a huge, huge film fan. However, this movie is beneath you. You deserve better. Better scripts, better actors, bigger budgets. I don't blame you for the end result. You did what you could with the limited budget.

At the end of the day, this movie was just a waste of time and talent. And this chick Samara Weaving. Ugh! I really can't decide whether it's her truly horrible acting or the way the chararcter was written, but it was extremely painful to watch her. There's really nothing more annoying than a chick who tries WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY too hard to look and sound like a badass. Every time she was trying to be a badass it was cringe after cringe after cringe. She comes across as a cheap, forced, utterly cringy, B-movie version of Margot Robbie in Suicide Squad. She was extremely fake in her delivery of the "badass" lines and Joe's attempts to shoot her by using "cool", sexy angles didn't help.

A real badass female character is Linda Hamilton in T2. Why? Because we have time to get to know her and the script doesn't force her "badassness" on the viewer. With a better actress and a better script, I'm sure Joe would've been able to create a REAL badass female hero.

In the end I'll say this: even though I hated this movie, I still like Joe and I will continue to support him. And I'm sure that next time he will deliver an infinitely better movie.

Knock Off (1998)

Solid, extremely well-shot action/thriller. Pure Hong Kong magic!

[10/10 · 14 September 2017]

The film follows Marcus Ray, a former denim knockoff artist who has moved on to work for V-6 Jeans. But as the film starts, the movie is more concerned with Russians in Hong Kong, who are not only dealing in knockoff jeans, but ones that have little explosives in them that are as powerful as a stick of dynamite, and emit green flames (yes, green flames). The movie starts in the middle of a sting operation where the Russians are trying to get their latest shipment, but something goes wrong and the cops move in. The film briefly sets up some of the Russian antagonists, mostly by giving them colorful looks, or in one case a cough. But when the cops arrive (led by Michael Wong), everything goes nuts.

And from this opening action sequence Tsui Hark decides he didn't want a single shot in the movie to be boring and so every place he puts the camera is interesting and surprising. In the opening chase sequence Michael Wong is in a boat chasing the Russians, and one of the Russians has a sniper rifle. He shoots one of Wong's men, but to show that death, Hark cuts to blood bursting in air. It's impressionistic, and the film borders on chaos, incoherence even, but every decision is bold and crazy. Right away he sets the tone, as the film stock seems to change in moments, and he'll use a fish eye lens for the hell of it.

"Knock Off" offers so much unique visual information that it's overwhelming. Which is probably why I went back and saw it again the next day, and made a point to see it five times in the theaters. The film spoke to me, and it continues to, I've probably watched it at least once every year, and love showing it to people who have no idea what they're in for.

As far as action genre is concerned, this movie is absolutely great. Action fans will be pleased.