The Sons of Katie Elder (1965)

The four sons reunite for the first time in years, returned to the town of Clearwater to pay their respects. The Eldest (Wayne) is the most feared. Upset at the changes he finds in the town, he digs for answers, but they aren't forthcoming and not everyone is happy with the questioning, particularly one shady ranch owner who hires a trigger-happy gunman to protect him.
It's an enjoyable couple of hours for fans of the Duke or Martin, but it's really nothing special as far as genre pictures go. The mystery is a nice touch but runs out of steam pretty quickly, and because the majority of the action scenes are held back until the last half hour the pacing may even leave some non-fans bored. In short, if you're not already itching to see it because of the cast, then you can probably live without it just fine.

3 brotherly punches out of 5

Transporter 3 (2008)

The third film takes us back to sunny France (Marseilles), where Frank once again has an actual package to deliver. However, he's not happy about it, and in order to complete the mission his rules will have to be broken smashed.
To make matters worse, he has additional baggage in the shape of an unwelcome passenger. Her name is Valentina (Natalya Rudakova). She's designed to be annoying, and, by Christ, she is! 100%.
Dir. Megaton's idea of what makes a good action scene is choreographed moves presented as a clusterfuck of badly edited scenes thrown at the viewer's eyes at breakneck speed until there's only one man left standing.
As the film goes on the abominable editing begins to extend beyond the martial arts scenes, but it's even more unwelcome there. Sitting to the closing credits of T3 was a kind of self-inflicted punishment for me.

1½ addendums out of 5

Khakee (2004)

A politically-charged Bollywood drama in which five Mumbai police officers, led by India's finest Bachchan, travel to Maharashtra to ensure that a well-known terrorist (Atul Kulkarni) is safely brought to trial, but an additional, intelligent threat (Ajay Devgan) violently attempts to derail the process.
The comedy scenes aren't much good, the action is rarely smooth, and the small number of songs feel forced, but there's enough quality drama stitching it all together to ensure that the whole is better than the sum of its parts.
This one's about the men, meaning Aishwarya doesn't get to do very much.

3½ accusations out of 5

Red Hill (2010)

A modern day Aussie Western shot in just twenty-four days on a modest budget, written, directed, produced and edited by Patrick Hughes.
Even though the actual story echoes works that many people will have seen before—a youthful city-boy police officer (Ryan Kwanten) relocates to the titular town and experiences a first day on the job that's more eventful (i.e. more blood-filled) than he was expecting—it's successfully tight and the love put into the production feels authentic, accompanied throughout by a no-frills musical score that does its job perfectly the majority of the time.
The most memorable player is the man with a score to settle (Tom E. Lewis), characteristically silent and looking as mean as all fuck.

3½ community dogs out of 5

Robin-B-Hood (2006)

Safe-crackers Thongs and Octopus (Chan and Koo) will rob anything of value to fund their expensive habits; gambling for Thongs, women for Octopus. Being in something of a rut means they can't pass up the opportunity when a big score comes along. The R2 cover doesn't give the game away, so I won't either, suffice it to say that the item in question is unlike anything they've looted before. The antics thereafter are hit and miss, as are the action scenes, inventive but making occasional use of wires and green screen. The finale is old-school Chan, though, and almost makes up for the other stuff.

2½ free falls out of 5

R-Point (2004)

A South Korean ghost story set in Vietnam during the war. A small platoon is sent to the R-Point location to search for a group of missing soldiers. The rescuers soon begin to feel as if something is amiss, a suspicion that's intensified by their own fears and the peculiar fog that covers the grassland.
The location is unusual for this type of story, the opposite of what we usually get, but Dir. Kong Soo-chang makes good use of it. It was his first feature; it's well-made, nicely shot, movement is precise, actors are good, editing is effective, etc, but the most memorable ingredient is the soundtrack, an eerie soundscape that does more than set the tone, it upstages everything else.

3 dead transmissions out of 5

The Philadelphia Experiment (1984)

A fictional story built around the real life belief that during World War II the US Navy carried out a secret experiment in which they made a very large ship invisible to enemy devices. The unwise tinkering with natural forces leaves two sailors (Michael Paré and Bobby Di Cicco) in sci-fi movie peril.
There's a lot of electrical activity in the film but not very much of it between the main characters, which is where it really needed to be. I watched it to the end because I always enjoy watching Nancy Allen. Plus, the peculiar special effects are a lot of cheesy fun - which translates to a load of cheap and unconvincing bollox if your tastes happen to be the opposite of mine.

2½ wrinkles out of 5

Tactical Unit: Partners (2009)

The last of five TV Movies set after Johnnie To's PTU (2003). The teams get lumbered with a new recruit who's eager to please but too inexperienced to rely on. A tense altercation outside a disco exposes his insecurities, which eventually leads to a shit-storm, as you'd expect.
A youth with both Chinese and Indian parentage features heavily. His story isn't bad, but overall it's the first of the TV movies to feel more like a standard weekly drama in which the PTU are a part, as opposed to an organic extension of the original film. May and Sam at the same table is a sight to see, though; and elsewhere, while on patrol, their ability to convey an entire scene's worth of dialogue while not actually saying anything is as good as ever.

2½ outside jobs out of 5

Penny Dreadful (2006)

Foregoing the true nature of the title, the film centers around Penny Deerborn (Rachel Miner), a fragile soul consumed by amaxophobia (the fear of riding in a car). While on a retreat to face her fear, her therapist (Mimi Rogers) picks up the wrong hitchhiker. Penny Dreadful is absolutely dripping with horror movie cliches, but instead of adding any kind of nostalgic flair, they instead hinder the film. Every time a character inexplicably trips and falls or a car engine stalls, you can feel the boiling ire from within. There really aren't any standout performances here. Miner is satisfactory as the 'final girl' who eventually fights back in the final few scenes, and the hitchhiker is as run-of-the-mill as it gets. The minimalist cast is balanced out by cannon fodder character actors who simply add to the body count. The concept of an amaxophobic fighting for her life within the very object she fears is sound, but in the long run it added almost no depth to the experience. 

1½ suicide attempts out of 5

Beowulf and Grendel (2005)

There's always a danger that any filmed version of the famous Anglo-Saxon poem will turn it into little more than a man vs beast action movie, but happily that isn't the case with Dir. Sturla Gunnarsson's B+G.
It establishes sympathy for Grendell (Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson) early in the running time, and then shifts much of the focus to the Danes and Beowulf (Gerard Butler) himself. The clash of accents is distracting, but the actual compromises made in the language used aren't too bad.
The real star of the show is the environments; the frigid, uncompromising landscapes are like something ancient and slumbering, the biting winds a reminder that what men do in their brief life matters only to other men, whereas nature's moods affect us all.

3 gnawing thoughts out of 5

The Usual Suspects (1995)

If you've not seen or been spoiled on TUS yet, do yourself a favour by not reading anything more and instead just watch it because a first viewing will give you something that cannot be repeated. Part of what separates it from its crime drama peers of the era is that it respects its audience's ability to keep up with the twists, and engages their willingness to go along for the ride.
Subsequent viewings will likely take a more analytical approach. It was during such an endeavour that I was struck by how much Dir. Singer valued both the language of film and its unique storytelling devices; his big budget films may attempt the same but often get swamped by spectacle. The flashbacks, v/o, timing and techniques used herein are modernised but familiar, a kind of revitalisation of cinematic tools that had worked their magic for decades.

4 probable causes out of 5