Penitentiary (1979)

As a child I remember friends of my mother’s talking passionately about the Penitentiary movies; to hear the tales of these movies you would think they were the best films ever made. These friends were fairly middle class with aspirations to go higher in the class system, as a child our family worshipped this couple, but as an adult I come to realise that this couple had absolutely no class at all. Never have I been so sure about the low standards of these friends than after recently watching Penitentiary, undoubtedly one of the worst “cult” movies I have ever seen.

It’s hard to know where to start with this movie because to be honest with you it’s all kind of a blur. Following the story of Martel “Too Sweet” Cardone (Leon Isaac Kennedy), from the outside world into prison; once inside Too Sweet through bullying decides it’s important to fight in the prison boxing team, from here on out it’s all kind of….Yawn.

Read more: http://cinemaroll.com/action/penitentiary-1979/#ixzz1aOtp0TLR

No Man's Land: The Rise Of The Reeker

If my name were David Payne, sorry now the slightly more hip Dave Payne, I would be reading this with a little baited breath. For two years ago just prior to the movie Reeker's UK release I wrote a scathing review of the movie. Dave took considerable offense at this and threatened the websites I published to with the full weight of Fox/Pathe unless they removed the reviews I had written. Imagine, an internet nobody such as myself threatened with such action, however I stood by my guns and two of these websites allowed me to repost my review having previously been forced to pull them down. Things have changed since then, and it was the actions of Dave Payne that actually made me more confident to continue to write, review and literally make my living from the practise because when the words of one little person can make one of the world's biggest movie companies shudder, then I must surely be doing something right.

Reeker was a highly successful low budget movie, released in the UK under a stream of big hype, while I absolutely hated the movie, I do have to hand it to both Dave and Tina Illman (AKA Tina Payne) they pulled an amazing con trick, and must have achieved high profits from this movie. I guess with this in mind it was with no surprise that Dave and Tina would try to to replicate their success and this leads us on to...

No Man's Land: The Rise Of The Reeker

Beginning in 1978, the movie shows us the roots of the killer known as The Reeker, and allows us some insight into why the character smells so bad. And I have to commend the director here, this is rather like the original Reeker a fantastic opening, to what promises to be a good movie.
Promise however is a deceitful thing, and I did think to myself at one point that I really was going to enjoy this movie. But suddenly after much promise things went bad, I would go so far as to say worse than the original, now I appreciate that a sequel is rarely as good as the original, when the original is so bad where on earth is the story to go?

The cast are far better picked this time round, for me the most notable being Desmond Askew who I grew up watching in British kids school drama Grange Hill, here Askew delivers the best performance of the movie as a cocky casino robber, who meets with a rather unfortunate accident in his car, leaving him... Shall we say a little lacking upstairs? The movies Deputy Sherriff Harris is played by Michael Muhney who is probably best known as Sherriff Don Lamb in Veronica Mars. With star of television for 40 years Robert Pine the main cast is iced off. What is amazing, and I'm utterly thrilled about is that David has not tried to chuck the awful Tina into the mix again as is often the case with these sort of movies, instead she manages to stay on the right side of the camera, behind it.

Effects are pretty good; the make-up department really earned their cash here, with some fantastic scenes of gore; there are really good signs that this is not quite as low budget as the predecessor. While the CGI department do fantastic justice to Askew's head.

What I give to Dave is the fact that as a director he does have an incredibly good eye, his scenes are almost perfectly framed, some of the scenes in this low budget horror offering are as good as any big budget blockbuster. With cinematographer Mike Mickens close at hand the capturing of effects, action, and the desolation of Reeker's location is captured fantastically. What Dave cannot do however is work a script to his advantage, rather than let the characters develop as the movie progresses often their opening lines contain a nasty TV movie dialogue that gives the characters life story away, sometimes less is most definitely more. As for the story itself it's a little bit jumbled, Payne struggles to keep the movie franchise fresh by adding new bits, as well as trying to justify just how the Reeker appears, simply through a couple of explosions. There are also a number of "unexplained" incidents that no doubt if Payne was given an open mic on the subject he might imply that maybe "You just didn't get it!" Sadly for Payne this is not The Matrix, or anywhere near that quality. Payne's ultimate and I feel disrespectful final strike involving a child talking about his babysitter not only effectively defecates on Payne's work but gives sad promise that maybe Payne will ridicule us all again by returning to the franchise for a third instalment.

If by some freak incident you happened to enjoy the original Reeker, then I'm sure you will get a certain degree of satisfaction from this sequel, if however you enjoy life then head off out for a walk instead, there are better ways to spend your life than to watch this.

As for Dave, and I know that you'll be reading this, I take my hat off to you; in the previous movie it was pretty much all-round awful, whereas despite the deficits of the storyline you have grown and progressed far more as a director, obviously learning a lot since your last encounter with the Reeker. And while I criticise your work harshly you're a far cleverer man than me, and I commend your devotion to your trade. I sincerely hope that I'll be able to enjoy your next movie.

No Man's Land: The Rise Of The Reeker I suspect will greet European audiences in the form of a straight to DVD product.

Wanted

Joining the large amount of movies making the transition from comic book to the screen comes the highly anticipated Wanted. This is one comic book adventure however that is strictly for adults only, from the trailers that were used to promote the movie I really had no idea exactly how adult the movie would turn out to be.

 

Ex British TV star James McAvoy takes on the leading role as Wesley Gibson a loser who is seemingly on the wrong side of depression at all times, bullied by his employer, betrayed by his girlfriend and best friend; things really are at their lowest for Gibson. When Gibson heads to the pharmacy for anti-depressants he is approached by the stunning Fox (Angelina Jolie) who tells him the father he never really knew he had died the day before, and that the killer is in the very building. Gibson is immediately thrust into the bizarre world of the Fraternity a sort of underground agency that assassinates people who could affect the way the country operates.

 

What really threw me off about Wanted was the considerable violence that the movie contained, McAvoy spends much of his time upon entering the Fraternity in a bloodied state, nothing to do with enemies, and this state is enforced by the people who are on his side. For a big budget Hollywood movie that covers a genre without really becoming a “genre” movie, Wanted is very out of sorts with other movies of its type. This being said I cannot say I have seen the Wanted comics, but it seems that the transition from comic to movie has resulted in the movie being a heavily toned down version.

 

There were aspects of the movie I loved and aspects I hated, Gibson’s revenge on his boss, and best friend turned love cheat is something that I found most pleasing, there is nothing like seeing the bad guys get their comeuppance in seemingly normal circumstances, giving someone in a similar situation the opportunity to live in hope of one day getting their own upper hand, although I would not recommend the methods that Gibson uses.

 

What for me was the problem with the movie, is that after Gibson gets his training in pain management from The Exterminator (a weird sort of pest control guy), The Repairman (who does the reverse) played by award winning Hustle star Marc Warren, and meat and chopper freak The Buther; the story just sort of peters off into a load of old nothing. I’d go as far as to say that the movie becomes completely hollow, with no real rhyme or reason to the events and their outcome.

 

Angelina Jolie’s “Fox” rests just the wrong side of bland, her character is completely one dimensional, not only do you really not get to know much of Fox during the movie, neither do you care. There is almost this hidden sub-plot of potential romance between Fox and Gibson, but in order for this to work effectively you need to feel love for both the characters, and apart from the storyline involving Fox and her origins, you get to know little more about the character than when she first appears on screen.

 

Morgan Freeman’s character of Sloane has potential, but this is ruined by the considerably rushed movie finale. While the character of Cross is just a sort of hazy blur, a revelation about the character develops about 20 minutes before the movies climax, but again rather like Fox you really don’t care, there is not enough development to make this a suitably poignant moment. Then there is Terrance Stamps character Pekwarsky the only character other than Gibson who has any real potential, but his role is limited to the best part of five minutes, coming and going like a silent breaking of wind.

 

I really didn’t get Wanted, and that needs a little explaining; I got the story I just did not understand it’s purpose; a movie so incredibly adult, but built with a child’s mind. Having gone over the top with the violence, and wowed us with the phenomenal and very different special effects; the third part is the story which to be honest might not have enough legitimacy to entertain a five year old. Why was everything so horridly rushed? Why did none of the secondary characters get any chance of development? And why with the exception of effects and cast did the movie look so terribly low key, rather like it’s star James McAvoy had not actually progressed from what is a pretty standard low budget British movie, how on earth can a movie look so good quality and so low beat at the same time?

 

I guess after this you’ll not be surprised to hear that I don’t recommend seeing this movie. When it turns up somewhere that seeing the movie costs you nothing, like a television screening or a free DVD rental then maybe, just maybe it might be worth your attention, but don’t expect to be as impressed with the movie as you possibly were with the trailer.