Category: Action/Adventure

MAD MAX

By Marc S. Sanders

What is the fascination with George Miller’s original 1979 film, Mad Max?  I don’t get it.  I know this film shot in the Australian outback was made a on budget less valuable than even a shoestring.  The fast-paced camera shots of cars careening down long stretches of highway are high octane (pun, most certainly intended) and the crashes are completely in your face.  Yet, I need more than this. 

When the film pauses for albeit very brief moments of storytelling such as a motorcycle gang apparently out for revenge against dystopian future cop Max (Mel Gibson’s breakout role), how is this ever even learned among the characters?  When Max opts to resign from the police force and take his wife and young son on holiday, how does this motorcycle gang led by a savage named The Toecutter (great name) catch up with them, and then after a narrow escape, how do they catch up yet again with one another, while making a sudden appearance on the back of these noisy motorcycles?  Miller’s film never goes from A to B to C.  Rather it goes from W to S to Q and then Z.  It’s a mixed up mess.

I’m all for throwing logic out the window when watching a thrilling action piece…if it’s thrilling.  When it’s not, well then, I’m asking for the logic.  Miller’s film feels like a bunch of want ads cut out of old newspapers, and then scotch taped together into a film reel.  I’d be curious to see an original script.  I can only imagine it being no more than three pages long. 

The appeal in 1979 and the years thereafter when the Max character blossomed into a franchise must have come from Gibson on film.  Yes, the stunts in this film with quick edit action pieces are daring.  I still think so forty years later.  This wasn’t CGI after all.  This was all the crunched up metal, rubber tires and flames that Miller could muster.  Still, the one artistic achievement had to be Mel Gibson’s image.  He wears the costume well.  A blue t-shirt enhancing his blue eyes under all black leather with a sawed off shotgun in his right hand while driving a souped up black Pursuit Special automobile with the engine sticking out of the hood.  Just writing that out reminds me of how iconic that image is, and this is before the similar looking Terminator that came along a few years later. Still, that’s where George Miller’s inventiveness stops. 

There is nary a character to consider.  The villains are nothing more than leather clad with bleached hair and dark mascara under the eyes riding Kawasaki bikes.  I know this was made with next to no money.  These guys don’t have to look like Darth Vader, but could they at least offer up something interesting to say?  Max has a couple of partners in the police squad.  They have no camaraderie.  One of them gets burned to a crisp.  Max takes a look at him in the hospital.  Why should I care though?  It’s not like I saw these guys share a Coke together.  Max is married.  They lie side by side each other in bed and their toddler sits on the floor nearby.  So?  Anything else?  Could one of them start a pillow fight or kiss or something, please?  A shoestring budget can still allow relationships to happen.  Miller doesn’t care about that though.  John Woo may show a nonstop bloodbath in any of his films with next to no story.  His films can work however, because he won’t get sidetracked with showing two people in their bedroom doing nothing.  He’ll remain focused on the mayhem.  Miller is not doing that here.  He shows a house with a bedroom.  Yet he doesn’t show the story in that bedroom that’s in that house.  That’s the difference.

I know the subsequent films in the franchise vastly improve upon the original Mad Max.  I’m just amazed they ever saw the light of day.  I’m more amazed that this became one of the most profitable films in worldwide history.  How did 1979’s Mad Max have the legs…no…the wheels…to maintain this ongoing velocity of interest?  What do I know?  I guess I’m a Debbie Downer for wanting people to talk to one another before handcuffing them to a gas guzzling fiery wreckage.  Is it too much to ask for a little sensitivity?

BEVERLY HILLS COP II

By Marc S. Sanders

I know. I know. I SHOULDN’T like this movie, but I do.

Beverly Hills Cop II is a sequel that is really an opportunity to see a wide variety of close ups of an Eddie Murphy who was well in his ‘80s prime, releasing one #1 movie after another. Here the viewer is treated to Murphy’s Axel Foley blowing a kiss to himself in the mirror, laughing to himself, tucking his crotch in his tailor made suit, flipping sunglasses on and off, driving a Ferrari, and shamelessly plugging the Detroit Lions all while trying to stop an “Alphabet Bandit” criminal in Beverly Hills, CA.

So there’s really not much here when all the vanity is on Murphy. Well, then what’s to like?

Considering I’m a fan of director Tony Scott, who uses great cinematography in all of his films with quick, tension filled editing, it’s hard to resist.  Most especially here Scott’s film is accompanied with an exceedingly cool and dangerous soundtrack from Harold Faltermeyer. Just the opening scene alone (without Murphy in it) belongs in a better movie. A robbery at a City Deposit bank and then later at a horse track are so well edited that you might tuck your knees into your chest and chew on your thumbnail. Great stuff from Tony Scott that would eventually carry over in films like Crimson Tide, Enemy Of The State, and one of my very favorites True Romance.

There are other good moments in Beverly Hills Cop II, especially a great scene with Gilbert Gottfried, and a few with Paul Reiser as well as a smirk inducing scene with Hugh Hefner.

I shouldn’t like this movie but sue me. It’s a guilty pleasure for me. However, watch the far superior first installment over this one any day of the week.

BEVERLY HILLS COP

By Marc S. Sanders

Who actually wrote the Oscar nominated script to Beverly Hills Cop? Daniel Petrie Jr and Danio Bach, or Eddie Murphy?

Murphy’s lines are delivered so fast and so naturally that it seems impossible they could ever rest on a page. Eddie Murphy is an enormous talent of word play and delivery. I miss this Eddie Murphy. I’m reluctant to welcome the Eddie Murphy of PG related fare of recent years. He just doesn’t look comfortable in that garb.

One of the first R rated films I ever saw in theatres (not THE first, as that honor belongs to the Clint Eastwood classic, Sudden Impact) still holds with its hilarity, and the credit does not belong to just Murphy but the whole cast including John Ashton, Judge Reinhold, Ronnie Cox and even early in career appearances from Jonathan Banks, Bronson Pinchot, and Damon Wayans.

I still haven’t forgotten this theatre experience when I joined my older brother, Brian and his friend Nick at the movie theatre in Ridgewood NJ. Never had I heard an entire packed room of people in the dark on a Saturday night laugh so hard together. It’s likely a moment that impressed my love for movies going forward. Movies could bring all sorts of joy and happiness and escape. Beverly Hills Cop was altogether another thing entirely.

Yes!!!! A foul mouthed cop from Detroit who becomes a stranger in a strange land while visiting Beverly Hills to solve his friend’s murder. That’s a film that’s had a great impact on me. As a writer, director Martin Brest’s film (later to do Midnight Run and Scent Of A Woman) offers a very simple blue print to allow Murphy to run wild. It cuts out a lot of complicated red herrings to just stay on a straight resolution. As Murphy’s Detective Axel Foley (great character name) comes across another development, in walks another great set up.

I compare the frame of Beverly Hills Cop and Eddie Murphy to the first Mission: Impossible film with Tom Cruise. The Cruise film makes a huge oversight. Early on it introduces a huge array of characters for an M:I team and then eliminates them all to hardly be used. It was wall to wall Tom Cruise. He was a producer on that film with much creative control and it felt to me as if he insisted on owning every scene, every line, every moment. It turned me off a little.

Murphy on the other hand plays along with his ensemble. Ashton and Reinhold have great moments all to themselves. I still die laughing out loud as Reinhold tries to subdue a situation by ordering an army of machine gun toting bad guys to lay down their weapons only to be silenced with another round of gunfire. The banana in the tailpipe! Ashton working with Murphy to stop a random robbery at strip joint, and then helping to save him later on from arrest. What about Ashton trying to climb a wall during a shootout?

Then there’s Murphy and Pinchot discussing a weird art piece (“Get the fuck outta here!”). Couldn’t you envision Pinchot and Murphy in another film together?  A shame it hasn’t happened.  (No, I won’t count the dreadful reunion in Beverly Hills Cop III.)

Brest provides great showpieces accompanied by one of the best film soundtracks ever. I will never not listen to “Neutron Dance” by the Pointer Sisters on Sirius XM’s 80s on 8 while recalling this film’s opening scene double rig truck chase. Brest directs a symphonic high energy blend of sight and sound. Plays like an awesome music video. Same goes for Glenn Frey’s “The Heat Is On.” If I ever get an opportunity to visit Detroit, that’s what will be playing in my head.

Orchestrator Harold Faltermeyer’s electronic keyboard deserves much credit as well. His covert, sneaky 5 note tune shaped the Axel Foley character. Faltermeyer only made Murphy even cooler during the heyday of “Miami Vice MTV Cops.”

Beverly Hills Cop remains one of the best films with the longest staying power of the 1980s. It’s a comedy. It’s an action picture. It’s music filled fun with great characters. It’ll always be Eddie Murphy’s best film. I can watch it again and again. I’ll never tire of it.

GOLDFINGER

By Marc S. Sanders

If From Russia With Love offered a promising future for James Bond, Guy Hamilton’s direction of Goldfinger solidified it. This is Sean Connery’s best representation of 007, and yet the only triumphant thing the character does is win a golf match against the title character, Goldfinger, played by Gert Frobe.

As good as the film is, ironically Bond does not succeed in any effort to thwart the diabolical plans of Auric Goldfinger, who intends to invade the gold depository located at Fort Knox. Bond doesn’t deactivate the bomb. He doesn’t successfully get his CIA allies on the right track. He doesn’t even do away with Mr. Goldfinger. Everything happens to occur circumstantially. James Bond just got lucky this time.

So then why is the third entry considered by many to be the best in the series?

Well, the movie is immense in its charm, and it pioneers the flavor of nearly ever Bond film released from here on out, at least until the coming of the blunt, brooding instrument of Daniel Craig.

The vile henchman, Oddjob, with his razor bowler hat introduced a staple needed for a winning film. Every bad guy had to have an unusual trait. Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman) set a more defined precedent for the Bond Girl. Even Shirley Bassey’s dangerously pounding title song carried a threat of the most sadistic villains to come.

Plus the gadgets are exceedingly fun. How do I know? Because time and again Bond returns toward using his classic Astin Martin DB5 with tricked out machine guns, oil slick and (I wouldn’t joke about this) ejector seat. 007’s moment with Q became a necessary ingredient in every Bond film following “Goldfinger.” Actually, I think Q is only missing from 2 or 3 films following this entry.

The tongue in cheek theme couldn’t be more apparent in this film thanks to Sean Connery. “Manners Oddjob. I thought you always took your hat off to a lady.” 007’s casual response to any threat, or what follows after subduing a bad guy, is such fun. What else would you say after you’ve electrocuted a guy in a bathtub?

“Shocking. Positively shocking.”