WolfCop - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The considerable promise inherent ina great concept only goes so far. It's got to deliver the goods - bigtime. The greater the concept, the greater the final product actuallyhas to be. That, however, is easier said than done. If a sequel looms,there's some hope it'll be done properly.

WolfCop goes wide across Canada on Friday the 13th of June on the night of the Full Moon in the following first-run cinemas: Toronto/Scotiabank, Winnipeg/Polio Park, Halifax/Bayer Lake, Hamilton/SilverCityMountain,Calgary/Chinook, Vancouver/InternationalVillage, Regina/Galaxy, Edmonton/SouthCommons & Saskatoon/Galaxy. Maybe Cineplex Entertainment will euthanize the Hollywood Dogs to put 'em out of their misery & give this hit Canuck picture even more screens. Its opening weekend that began June 6 in Western Canada played to sellout shows and there's every indication of potential cult status for this flawed, but crowd-pleasing horror-comedy.

Deputy Lou (Leo Fafard) & conspiracy theorist Willie (Jonathan Cherry)

Cinecoup's original artwork ROCKS!!!
Too bad the movie doesn't.

WolfCop(2014) **1/2
Dir. Lowell Dean
Starring: Leo Fafard, Amy Matysio, Jonathan Cherry, Aidan Devine, Sarah Lind, Corine Conley

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The world (at least my world) is full of B-movies with GREAT titles that don't deliver what I want them to deliver. Take, for instance, Zoltan: Hound of Dracula. Indeed, the movie serves up a hound, it's named Zoltan and yes, belongs to Dracula. So far, so good, mais non?

NON!!!

It's missing what I genuinely expected from its great title - a good movie. Sadly, the list of great titles that yielded bad movies is longer than the schwance of the giant Jack had to kill. WolfCop suffers a similar fate, but adds insult to my injury since it's got a lovely high concept within its magnificent title. In fact, the split second I heard that a WolfCop was on its way, I began to salivate like an eager Australian canis lupus dingo running across the outback from a campers' tent, a newborn clenched in its jaws and soon to be a tender, flavourful meal of succulent flesh, warm, sweet blood and delectable globs of baby fat.

Alas, all the slobber was for nought. WolfCop turns out to be not very good at all. Even worse is that it's not even a pile of crap. If it were truly awful, abysmal beyond all belief, I might be able to forgive and accept it for the dross it is - you know, kind of like Sharknado. Unfortunately, WolfCop's soul-crushing mediocrity, aimed squarely and unimaginatively at mere ephemeral marketplace needs, deserves no forgiveness. None! I realize this isn't an especially charitable stance for a former Altar Boy to be taking, but somehow, I'm certain my Lord Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter would accept my unforgiving inclinations, especially since He (via Lee Demarbre, the mad genius of Ottawa) delivered a terrific movie on all fronts whilst WolfCop delivers a great title, a few meagre pleasures and major-league disappointment.

The plot, such as it is, involves Lou Garou (Leo Fafard), his name being ludicrously close to loup-garou the French word for "werewolf". Lou is an alcoholic deputy in Woodhaven, a less-than-bucolic rural cesspool. His recent nightmares turn out to be real. At first, a wave of missing pets suggests some mysterious manner of foul play, but in no time at all, the carnage begins to escalate. Lou, it seems, has been afflicted with the curse of the werewolf. With the help of Willie (Jonathan Cherry) his conspiracy theorist and gun store proprietor buddy, Lou begins to investigate his, uh, problem and eventually uncovers an ages-old conspiracy which might actually lead directly to the town's corrupt Mayor Bradley (Corine Conley).

The Chief (Aidan Devine) of the local Sheriff's office has just about had it with Lou's drunken hijinx and exerts pressure on our hapless hero to investigate the mysterious murders - a bit of a problem, since Lou discovers his werewolf side is responsible. Luckily, none of the human victims are innocents, but are instead scumbags connected to the local gang of criminals. Still, murder is murder and it needs to be investigated and Lou's colleague Tina (Amy Matysio), the prim, proper and perpetual winner of the "Deputy of the Month" award also has her nose to the investigation grindstone. Amidst all the dark chicanery swirling around Woodhaven, Lou is quickly becoming the object of attraction for the comely local barmaid Jessica (Sarah Lind). Romance, as any horror fan will attest, is oft-impeded by lycanthropy.

All of the above swirls tidily - too tidily as the predictability factor is notched up too "high" - and we're treated to a mad night of crime-busting, mad passionate sex, the usual double-crosses from the obviously expected places and alliances formed from the least expected (though equally obvious) places.

There's a lot wrong with the movie, but it gets a few things right. First and foremost, the special makeup effects are out of this world. Eschewing digital enhancements, the werewolf look is achieved via real makeup and prosthetics. This is not only cool, but the movie kicks major butt during the transformation scenes. WolfCop has a lot of competition in the transformation department - most notably from The Howling, An American Werewolf in London and even the original Universal Pictures' The Wolf Man. If anything's missing, it's the underlying emotional resonance of the horrendously painful transformation sequences. This is not the fault of actor Leo Fafard, nor the F/X artists, but Dean's ho-hum screenplay.

The performances are uniformly fine. Fafard is a handsome, square-jawed hero with considerable humanity in his eyes and he works overtime to bring a semblance of believability to his role. Aidan Devine proves, yet again, why he's one of the best actors in Canada. Though he's saddled with a stock and underwritten role, he infuses it with his laconically sardonic qualities and one sits there wondering and hoping when he might get a few star-making turns that launch him into a genuine character lead not unlike that of a 70s anti-hero type such as rendered by Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider or hell, even Warren Oates. Amy Matysio makes for an intense deputy as Tina and I love how she sports a tightly-wound, semi-pole-up-the-butt crime fighter look, but lurking deep within is that hot babe itching to be free of her protective shell and let her hair down like the stereotypical and proverbial small town librarian type who's the sexiest minx this side of Bedford Falls. Matysio is also a terrific comedy actress and she delivers one of the funniest moments I've seen in any film in quite some time. All I wish to reveal is that it involves blood-dripping human flesh.

The man who comes close to stealing the show, though, is Jonathan Cherry. His conspiracy-theorist whack-job is broad, to say the least, but in all the right ways. He not only elicits huge laughs with the handful of good bits the script offers, but he even manages to bring a smile and/or a chuckle with some of the more egregiously on-the-nose humour. He's a great sidekick for Lou and I sincerely hope he's back for the film's already-announced sequels.

So, you're probably wondering why I'm bothering to kvetch about the movie. Well, let me tell you why. First and foremost, it's really disappointing that the film is set in some generic North American small-town. Given that the film is shot in two of Canada's cheesiest, sleaziest backwards cities, Regina and Moose Jaw, one wonders why the movie is simply not set there - in Canada! Canada is not only exotic to foreign markets, but can be really damn funny. It's a major cop-out to have seemingly bent to the boneheaded notion that Americans (especially) don't respond to anything that's not American. The major missed opportunity here is that in the province of Saskatchewan, the regional law-enforcers are the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Come on! Mounties are known all over the world and they're hilarious. Why, oh why, oh why the filmmakers didn't think to just set the damn thing in Moose Jaw (that's funny, too) and better yet, adorn Fafard, Devine and Matysio in faux-Mountie garb, is simply beyond me.

The prairies have long been home to one of the most beloved cinematic forces in WORLD CINEMA, the prairie post-modernist new wave of Canada (a perfectly-apt term coined by critic Geoff Pevere). In Winnipeg, this spawned the likes of John Paizs (Crime Wave, Springtime in Greenland, The Obsession of Billy Botski and Top of the Food Chain aka Invasion!) and Guy Maddin (Tales from the Gimli Hospital, Careful, My Winnipeg) and most recently, the astonishingly brilliant Astron-6 collective (Father's Day, Manborg and the upcoming The Editor).

Regina too has spawned a similar movement with the legendary Brian Stockton leading the charge (The 24 Store, which is essentially a much more intelligent and funny Clerks before Clerks existed and crossed with Slacker before Slacker existed, The Blob Thing shorts, his CFC short nod to George Romero The Weight of the World and his thoroughly whacked Wheat Soup that he co-directed with Gerald Saul). Other astounding prairie post-modernists from the Regina scene include former University of Regina professor (now at Concordia in Montreal) Richard Kerr (his The Last Days of Contrition is still one of the most powerful political head trips ever made in Canada) and Brett Bell who shocked the world with his stunningly hilarious and savage short Tears of a Clown: The Maredrew Tragedy, a film that totally beat Bobcat Goldthwait to the crazy clown sweepstakes when the comedian eventually made (the jaw-dropping) Shakes The Clown AFTER Bell's strychnine-laced gumdrop of sickness.

WolfCop had so much potential to mine this territory in its OWN way. One of the things that makes for great cinema (that can also be commercial) is to embrace one's regional culture in the telling of a story. God knows the SCTV nut-cases did this and even Americans did not shy away from the artistic bounty of the "regions". George Romero's greatest work was ALWAYS rooted in Pittsburgh, John Waters work was synonymous with Baltimore and Barry Levinson's finest films had Buffalo written all over them.

I LOVE GENRE PICTURES and know them like the back of my hand, but watching Dean's film made me so crestfallen over the fact that much of WolfCop felt stock and generic. On occasion, the clearly talented filmmaker seems to deliver just the right flourishes that the prairie legacy and its contemporaries are imbued with (the aforementioned hilarity involving Matysio's blood dripping flesh shenanigans being a perfect example), but by hiding the world he missed so many opportunities to make the screenplay, characters and narrative so much better.

On the flip side, the generic setting does seem to lean more towards America. We don't have Sheriffs in the traditional sense in Canada and though the supremely funny idea in WolfCop of a store devoted to Liquor AND Donuts could well be more of an American thing, it frankly feels far more rooted in the whacked Canadian prairie post-modernist tradition. Again, Regina and Moose Jaw are totally fucked places. Why not a liquor-donut store there? (*NOTE* I'm from Winnipeg. It's as big a hole as Regina or Moose Jaw and has just as many weird-ass locations. If WolfCop had been shot there instead, I would have been equally disappointed that the 'Peg's utter pathetic qualities weren't exploited.)

Canada - especially in rural or suburban settings - has also spawned some of the most sickeningly aberrant criminal behaviour in the world (Bernardo-Homolka, Dennis Melvin Howe, the pig-farming prostitute killer, the bus-riding cannibal, the cross-dressing Canadian Forces rapist-killer, etc. etc. etc.) and the notion that some kind of redneck Satanic league that spawns werwolves is totally Canadian - almost perversely and sweetly so. (God knows Astron-6 has been able to blend the tropes of genre with the country's revolting history of carnage.) Alas, what we get instead is a stereotypical attempt at satirizing small-town American culture with a parade of homeless alcoholics puking and spitting up all over the place. One series of quick shots of homeless drunks on the streets of the film's fake locale was nasty without being funny, though it was clearly supposed to register laughs. I felt more embarrassed and even ashamed for the actors having to play these bit parts. Homeless alcoholics are not funny when they're treated with derision as they are here. (Does anyone still remember the Toronto Film Festival promos from that idiotic insurance company that made fun of poor people living in trailers? Disgusting.) And I'm not saying disgusting CAN'T be funny, either. Just look at how brilliantly the Astron-6 collective tackled this in Father's Day.

WolfCop's low budget also seemed to render a potentially great action-packed, blood-soaked set piece involving our werewolf cop and the gang of criminals into a totally cheapjack, flat-on-its-face sequence. Endless closeups with no wider or medium establishers turn one of the major climactic moments of the movie into a geographically-challenged and lame sequence that disappoints big-time. I'm blaming the budget only because Dean's compositions and shot-lists generally feel on the money and the cinematography and aforementioned makeup effects are well above and beyond the call of duty. As such, I actually might be blaming the film's producers for not moving mountains to make sure this sequence kicked major ass. On the other hand, if Dean didn't plan for a series of wider shots to ensure a spatial sense, then he's the one who erred.

What we've got here is a great idea, a talented filmmaker, a terrific cast and a creative team who could well have lived up to the overall promise of the piece. Alas, the screenplay lacks punch and genuine edge. The decision to render the setting generic is clearly unwise and finally, too much stock placed in ephemeral market needs rather than trusting in the inherent insanity of the piece. I imagine and hope all the promise displayed here is not wasted on the sequel, but instead manages to take the wonderful route enjoyed by Sam Raimi when he essentially remade The Evil Dead in Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn by not holding back on ANYTHING and delivering a movie that's still a masterpiece of utter madness.

With the WolfCop franchise, I can taste it. Let's hope Dean's allowed to get it right on the next go-round.

WolfCop is currently in theatrical release in the following Canadian cities:

Vancouver
Calgary
Edmonton
Regina
Saskatoon
Moose Jaw

On June 13, the release widens to include:

Toronto / Scotia
Winnipeg / Polo Park
Halifax / Bayer Lake
Hamilton / SilverCity Mountain
Vancouver / International Village
Calgary / Chinook
Edmonton / South Commons
Regina / Galaxy
Saskatoon / Galaxy
A special one-night screening in Hamilton guest-hosted by Horror in the Hammer

In spite of my disappointment in the picture, I still think WolfCop is commercial (and possibly pleasing enough to audiences) to have deserved way more screens than it's getting. I hope the current platform release will include a much better expansion in the picture's third week. Someone needs to spend way more money on the picture's P&A and get this flooded into rural hardtops and drive-ins. In the Toronto market it should hopefully be widening out to include as many screens as possible in the suburbs and surrounding cities. It's a natural for expansion. Maybe Cineplex Odeon can boot a bunch of American Crap out to allow for more WolfCop screens.

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES - Review By Greg Klymkiw

In preparation for the July 11, 2014 release of
DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES,
let us remind ourselves how dreadful
RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES is and hope the new film has
a script not comprised solely of putrid faecal matter on toilet paper.
At least RISE has a real director unlike the 2011 debacle.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) dir. Rupert Wyatt
TURD DISCOVERED BEHIND HARRY'S CHAR BROIL AND DINING LOUNGE
Starring: James Franco, Andy Serkis, Freida Pinto, John Lithgow, Brian Cox, David Oyelowo, Tyler Labine, David Hewlett

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I have absolutely no knee-jerk prejudice against remakes, reboots, sequels or prequels as the number of good and/or even great ones is impressive. I do, however, have a problem with bad and/or mediocre and/or (worst of all) unnecessary movies - whatever they may be. Rise of the Planet of the Apes, save for the millions of dollars it bamboozled out of moviegoers, has no real reason to exist, at least not in the pathetic form offered up like so much slop in a soup kitchen..

The movie is about NOTHING and rife with long, dull scenes that go nowhere. The screenplay, such as it is, has not (I suspect) actually been written, but assembled with alphabet blocks by chimpanzees - not very bright ones at that. The chimps deserving the blame for their less than stellar work are Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver whose credits include - ahem - The Relic (a watchable monster movie), An Eye for An Eye (a watchable vigilante movie) and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (a watchable thriller). The accent here is clearly on "watchable" - an achievement not attained by Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Not only have these two simian scribes delivered an inconsequential plot that's about nothing, but they've populated the landscape with the dullest roles imaginable. Oh, and if anyone thinks I'm merely picking on the writers - I am. They're also the producers of this thing.

Bottom line: This movie is not worthy of the Original Five (kind of like the National Hockey League's Original Six), a tough act to follow as far as movies go (and clearly never attained by members of the NHL post-Original-Six either). In contrast to the work generated by the writers (and I reiterate, producers) of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the collective writing talents behind the five original Planet of the Apes movies wrote screenplays for the likes of Frank Capra, George Stevens, David Lean, Martin Ritt, William Wyler, Sidney Lumet, Franco Zeffirelli, John Frankenheimer, Roger Corman and Martin Scorsese.

This alone should be enough to rest my case.

In addition to the abominable screenplay, the writers (with their producer caps on) assembled a cast worthy of the monkey house of purported characters they created. Leading man James (Spring Breakers) Franco is one of my favourite actors, but here he sleepwalks through his part as a chemical manufacturing scientist who creates a drug meant to cure Alzheimer's that instead kills humans whilst creating a new super species of apes. John Lithgow goes through the motions of delivering a professional by-the numbers performance as Franco's addled Dad who is briefly revived by Sonny-Jim's chemical discovery before plunging into further madness and finally death. Frieda Pinto parades her vacuous beauty about whilst exuding intellect as blank as an unformatted floppy disk in the role of Franco's zoo veterinarian girlfriend; a real stretch unless one believes veterinary colleges are in the business of graduating animal doctors with less intelligence than their patients. Last, but certainly not least on this ship of fools is the non-entity that is David Oyewolo, who plays the least compelling corporate villain ever committed to celluloid. His performance is so bland that not even good writing would have saved him in the thankless role of the pharmaceutical company baddie who - wait for it - is more interested in profits than science.

Delivering exceptional work in spite of nothing resembling writing employed in the creation of his role as an animal shelter administrator, Brian Cox, one of the world's greatest living actors, might have actually benefited if something as unimaginative as a recognizable archetype might have been devised to allow for some virtuoso scenery-chewing. Alas, this was not to be. Then there are stellar performances from actors playing the supporting scum-buckets. They acquit themselves so well that one wishes they either had a better movie to be in (like Tom Felton as the vile animal shelter attendant) or David Hewlett as Franco's nasty next door neighbour who hates monkeys and berates old men with Alzheimer's. Hewlett's so good, he should have been cast as the central corporate baddie instead of the aforementioned bland loser they DID cast.

And Lest We Forget - Andy Serkis, the somewhat overrated CGI body double who previously and famously aped (as it were) the character of Gollum in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. Here he gets to play Franco's pet chimp Caesar who is more intelligent than Albert Einstein and leads a grand monkey revolt. Don't get me wrong, Serkis IS a good actor, but what he delivered for Jackson finally worked as well as it did because the writing was generally good and the CGI was stunning. In Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the non-writing, ho-hum direction and obvious CGI all conspire to give us so little to root for that the gymnastics of Serkis's apery is all for naught.

While a solid, simple plot can have considerable merit in providing a perfectly manufactured coat hanger to adorn with cool shit, this pathetic new sequel/prequel/remake/reboot or whatever the fuck it's supposed to be is so lacklustre that I struggled in vain whilst waiting for something - ANYTHING - of any consequence to happen. It didn't.

In a nutshell, here's the plot - or rather, grocery list:

Scientist discovers miracle drug to cure Alzheimer's.

Said drug turns chimp into Super Chimp.

Alas, same drug kills scientist's Dad.

Scientist raises chimp as own child.

Girlfriend pops in and out of movie to smile stupidly.

Chimp gets into all manner of shenanigans.

Chimp bites finger off next door neighbour.

Chimp is incarcerated in animal shelter full of apes.

Chimp leads ape revolt on San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.

Chimp leads apes to freedom amongst ancient Redwood trees.

Next door neighbour, afflicted with deadly virus, casually goes to work as airline pilot, finger miraculously intact and spreads virus worldwide.

What again, I ask you, is this movie actually ABOUT?

The original 1968 Arthur P. Jacobs production of Planet of the Apes was dazzlingly directed by the great Franklin J. Schaffner (Patton), superbly adapted by Michael (Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia) Wilson and Rod (The Twilight Zone) Serling from Pierre Boulle's brilliant novel "La planète des singes" and featuring a stellar cast that attacked their roles with relish. And what roles they were! The makers of Rise of the Planet of the Apes might have thought to take their cues from the original source for the necessary inspiration. In addition to having a great square-jawed hero in the form of the cynical, no-nonsense astronaut Taylor (Charlton "GOD" Heston) the original movie boasted a terrific array of colourful supporting characters that great actors like Roddy McDowell, Kim Hunter and Maurice Evans played to the hilt. The only thing the Rise team might have been influenced by was the role of Nova in the original, a staggeringly beautiful, but equally blank leading lady. Smartly, this character in the original was mute whereas this awful new reboot chooses to allow Freida Pinto to open her mouth - thus forcing the already leaden lines she's been given to thud to the floor with greater force than a body hitting the pavement from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Planet of the Apes was, still is and always will be a great picture. Let's forget, however, that the moronic Tim Burton remake even exists. Though dreadful as it is, it's fucking Rembrandt compared to Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

The first time I saw Schaffner's Planet of the Apes was as a nine-year-old lad, sitting in the front row of Winnipeg's long-shuttered picture palace the Metropolitan Theatre (where Guy Maddin eventually shot Isabella Rossellini in the stunning My Dad is 100 Years Old). It was the first time I got gooseflesh in a movie. So profound was my experience that it was, indeed, the movie that compelled/condemned me to a life of servitude under the pleasurable shackles of motion pictures. I have seen the picture well over 100 times since and made a point of watching it with my then-10-year-old daughter during an Ape marathon prior to seeing Rise of the Planet of the Apes when it first opened in 2011. If truth be told, I was really excited to see the new picture which I suppose is what added profoundly to my eventual disappointment.

Schaffner's picture is a genuine classic. It holds up as powerfully as any great piece of superbly executed populist cinema should. Mysterious, thrilling, funny, intelligent, propulsive in all the right ways and a movie replete with thought-provoking thematic elements including that of religious fanaticism suppressing both science and new ideas, the topsy-turvy look at humans fulfilling the role of "dumb beast", notions of time and time travel and the devastating effects of war. Neither these themes nor the picture has dated.

I have always maintained that its cinematic storytelling techniques are so classical and finely wrought and its technical virtuosity so ahead of its time that the movie could be released virtually untouched and I suspect it could/would be as big a hit NOW as it once was. Most tellingly to me was just how compelling the original movie was for my little girl. She remained stapled into the chesterfield, her eyes transfixed upon my hi-def monitor and nary one bathroom break. The discussion we had about the movie afterwards centred on the IDEAS as much as it did about the story and how entertaining it was.

No similar discussion occurred after watching Rise of the Planet of the Apes because, frankly, it's really about NOTHING. The stakes for the characters in the original film were always tied to the issues it explored, whereas the stakes for all the characters in Rise are rooted in not much of anything - save for James Franco's selfish, whiny and somewhat unconvincing need to prove that his new drug will work.

As a kid in the years between 1968 and 1970 when the first sequel Beneath the Planet of the Apes finally appeared, one of the things that haunted me - nay, OBSESSED me! - was a lingering question I had at the devastating ending to the first film. When Chuck (Jesus H. Christ) Heston rides deeper into the "Forbidden Zone" and discovers (thanks to the writing genius that was Rod Serling for coming up specifically with the ending) that he is NOT on another planet, but a nuclear-war-devastated Earth in the future, I was chomping at the bit to learn what our astronaut would find in the wasteland AFTER he discovered a half-buried Statue of Liberty in the sand.

What Heston finally discovered (along with James Franciscus, a new astronaut who follows a rescue-mission trajectory to the monkey planet) was a crumbling Manhattan beneath the desert populated by Doomsday-Bomb-worshipping mutants with telepathic powers who were about to be attacked by an army of war-thirsty gorillas.

Jesus Christ Almighty, indeed!

Just the plot alone as penned by veteran screenwriter Paul (Goldfinger, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, Murder on the Orient Express) Dehn was original enough to keep one riveted. More than the plot, though, was that - AGAIN - the movie was actually ABOUT something.

Even though the picture is a perfunctorily directed by Ted Post (Hang 'em High, Magnum Force and the genuinely wonderful Go Tell The Spartans) Post, Dehn's superb screenplay challenged us with notions of blind militaristic rage (including a peace march as reflective of the Vietnam War, which could have - in parallel contrast - provided a backdrop to the new picture with respect to America's idiotic "War on Terror"), religious fundamentalism justifying war (from both the apes AND the humans) and most terrifyingly, the whole notion of peace through superior firepower.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes has no such ideas. Though it's set in contemporary times and could have explored terrorism, blind militarism, rising fascism/fundamentalism, the financial crisis, the oil crisis - any manner of issues facing the world today, it chooses Instead, to focus upon the corruption inherent in pharmaceutical companies, Alzheimer's disease and cruelty to animals. These issues are not without merit, but they're just there to serve the non-plot, almost as a necessary evil to be touched upon and dropped quickly in favour of dazzling CGI.

Escape from the Planet of the Apes appeared a year after Beneath the Planet of the Apes and even at the tender age of 12 I remember thinking, "What is this shit? A sequel? They blew up the fucking Earth!" (I had a salty tongue even back then.) When I saw the picture - as a kid and even now after umpteen viewings - I was dazzled. The real star is again screenwriter Paul Dehn as opposed to actor-turned-competent director Don Taylor who, in fairness, DID direct a fine’ 70s version of The Island of Dr. Moreau with Burt Lancaster and the cult sci-fi classic The Final Countdown. But what a GREAT script! What first-rate sci-fi!!!

From a plot standpoint, Dehn delivered a perfectly plausible twist via a new character called Dr. Milo who, like Cornelius and Zira, was an ape scientist who defied the "law" of fundamentalism, resurrected and repaired Chuck Heston's spaceship and then all three simians of science followed a backwards trajectory just before the Earth is destroyed and wind up BACK in time. This was also a clearly fascinating way to utilize the notions of time and space and, in its own way, delve into quantum physics and the early postulations of parallel universe theory. This third official Apes sequel delivered up clever satirical goods, explored issues of women's' rights (plus animal rights - far more effectively than Rise), immoral interrogation techniques and most importantly studied the world of fanaticism/militarism within higher levels of government bureaucracy and how THIS is where the true power often lies and where sick, corrupt values run rampant.

What it does here so magnificently is how it offers up a great villain in the form of a German-born scientist/political advisor (a la Henry Kissinger) played by the wonderful actor Eric Braeden (who had a hugely successful career as a soap opera TV star, but most notably appeared in the great ‘70s sci-fi thriller Collosus: The Forbin Project from screenwriter James Bridges and the underrated director Joseph Sargent). Braeden is such a nasty, vicious, homicidal government bureaucrat and his great performance and superb characterization thanks to Dehn's writing puts the lacklustre aforementioned villain in Rise to complete and utter shame.

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, is as sharp a sequel as the third instalment - replete with great writing from Paul Dehn and the added bonus of thrilling direction from J. Lee Thompson, the man who gave us the brilliant, original, utterly chilling Cape Fear as well as some of the greatest action epics of all time like North West Frontier, Taras Bulba and The Guns of Navarone. This particular sequel tells us about the rise of Caesar, the ape child of Cornelius and Zira who leads the simians in revolt against their human oppressors.

Conquest is the film Rise of the Planet of the Apes most closely resembles, yet pales most mightily against. Conquest deals head on with the issue that plagued (and continues to plague) America most doggedly - that of slavery and, includes good dashes of America's susceptibility to right wing government rule. A thoroughly effective repellent performance from Don Murray as the fascist California governor racing to eventually become President of the United States (he and his minions always wear black-coloured uniforms hearkening to both Nazism and Italian Fascism) is so politically charged - not just for its time, but like all great classics, resonates in a contemporary context. Rise has no such villain and virtually NO political context. I'll not speak too much about Battle for the Planet of the Apes, the fifth official sequel and perhaps the weakest entry in the series, but even still, in its exploration of the early beginnings of the fundamentalism that eventually grips even the apes, it makes the new film look so puny in comparison.

Rupert Wyatt is a dreadful director. The pace of Rise is herky-jerky and the final action set piece on the Golden Gate Bridge - which should be spectacular - is yet another madly constructed action scene from a director who couldn't helm action to save his life.

The worst element of Rise of the Planet of the Apes is in its over-reliance upon CGI. The effects are relatively effective, but they're not there to serve the story, but to merely serve themselves. The stunning makeup effects for the apes designed by John Chambers in the ‘60s blow ALL the CGI totally away. The makeup allows great actors - throughout the original Apes series to actually deliver real performances and, thanks to terrific writing, inject considerable life into the proceedings.

Rise from the Planet of the Apes is, in contrast, moviemaking at its most dreadful - bereft of ideas, good writing and direction from someone who has a vision and/or the virtuosity to create popular cinema of the highest order. Perhaps the most disgusting thing about the new film is that it fails to acknowledge the author of the original novel and the screenwriters (primarily Paul Dehn and Serling) of the original series in the head credits. This is ultimately a disgrace.

Do yourself a favour and either skip Rise of the Planet of the Apes or, if you feel you must see the picture at all, try to watch the original films first.

You'll see the difference!

JODY SHAPIRO: A GUY FOR ALL SEASONS - By Greg Klymkiw - Visionary Canuck Producer/Director Jody Shapiro Launches BURT'S BUZZ @ TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX (the year-round home for all of TIFF's activities, including the Toronto International Film Festival) & several American Cities via FilmBuff (in addition to exclusive USA access via iTunes). Shapiro's Documentary on the legendary Burt Shavitz of the world-famous "Burt's Bees" health products opens June 6 in the US and June 13 in Canada. Mr. Shapiro receives the full-on Klymkiw myth-making body massage in an all-new feature profile exclusive to the UK's coolest online film mag "ELECTRIC SHEEP - A DEVIANT VIEW OF CINEMA" as part of Klymkiw's ongoing Jesuit Relations-inspired column, the "COLONIAL REPORT ON CINEMA FROM THE DOMINION OF CANADA".

JODY SHAPIRO: A GUY FOR ALL SEASONS - By Greg Klymkiw - Visionary Canuck Producer/Director Jody Shapiro Launches BURT'S BUZZ at the majestic TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX (the year-round home for all of TIFF's activities, including the Toronto International Film Festival) & several American Cities (in addition to exclusive access via iTunes). Shapiro's Documentary on the legendary Burt Shavitz of the world-famous "Burt's Bees" health products opens June 6 in the USA and June 13 in Canada. Mr. Shapiro receives the full-on Klymkiw myth-making in an all-new feature profile exclusive to the UK's coolest online film mag "ELECTRIC SHEEP - A DEVIANT VIEW OF CINEMA", part of Klymkiw's ongoing Jesuit-Relations-inspired "COLONIAL REPORT ON CINEMA FROM THE DOMINION OF CANADA".

Burt Shavitz, visionary bee-keeper & public face of the insanely popular
"Burt's Bee's" health products is profiled by filmmaker Jody Shapiro in the
feature-length documentary BURT'S BUZZ, which following its June 6
theatrical/iTunes release in America, enjoys a Canadian Theatrical Premiere @ TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX (the year-round home for all of TIFF's activities, including the Toronto International Film Festival) on June 13, 2014.

JODY SHAPIRO: A GUY FOR ALL SEASONS by Greg Klymkiw

can be read in Electric Sheep - a deviant view of cinema

by accessing UK's coolest online film magazine HERE

JOURNEY

with Jody Shapiro into the very heart, soul and mind of Burt Shavitz

DISCOVER

the special bond twixt two men from two generations

who share one object of affection

LIVE

the humble beginnings of a nice Jewish Boy

in the neighbourhood of Mel Lastman's North York

EXPERIENCE

Shapiro's post-secondary adventures at York University
and his STRICT tutelage under Niv Fichman

ENJOY

an ALL-EXCLUSIVE Guy Maddin pitch
for a highly-charged erotic scene involving
Jody Shapiro

BASK

in the glory that IS Jody Shapiro as the likes of
STEVE GRAVESTOCK + ISABELLA ROSSELLINI + GAY MADDIN
extol the Great Man's considerable virtues

DELVE

into Shapiro's most intimate personal fantasy
involving culinary arts and wildlife

SHARE

a rare fantasy with two men among men

ALL THIS AND MORE WHEN YOU READ:

JODY SHAPIRO: A GUY FOR ALL SEASONS

BY GREG KLYMKIW at ELECTRIC SHEEP

at http://www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk/features/2014/06/05/jody-shapiro-a-guy-for-all-seasons/

MULBERRY STREET - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Jim Mickle is unquestionably one of best horror directors of the new millennium and writer/star collaborator Nick Damici is right up there with him - a powerhouse combo!

Nick Damici should be the new Charles Bronson.
He's more handsome and he can act.
He writes screenplays too!

LITTLE CUTIE-PIE
UNTIL IT BITES YOU!

Mulberry Street (2006) ****
Dir. Jim Mickle
Starring: Nick Damici, Kim Blair, Bo Corre, Javier Picayo, Ron Brice

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Gentrification in Manhattan is about to force low-income dwellers from their tattered walk-up on the legendary Mulberry Street, but they face a far more formidable foe than greedy developers and upwardly-mobile scum. Rats, you see, are not only plaguing the area, but are biting people, their diseased fangs and saliva spreading a monstrous virus. The city responds swiftly by trying to isolate the plague, but as the scourge bursts out beyond the confines of the neighbourhood, the entire subway system is closed and all vehicular traffic, save for emergency vehicles, is banned. If the virus merely killed people, that'd be one thing, but horror movies aren't made to offer-up mere heart-stoppage to their victims. They need to suffer and in turn, cause others to suffer even more.

Welcome to Jim Mickle's first feature film, Mulberry Street, a nerve-shredding debut of the highest order and one which magnificently laid the groundwork for his stunning sophomore effort Stake Land and his third feature, We Are What We Are, the brave, creepy atmospheric re-imagining of Jorge Michel Grau's gothic Mexican cannibalism-fest of the same name. All of them feature screenplays by star Nick Damici and the pair's latest is Cold in July, a star-studded crime thriller based on Joe R. Lansdale's weird Dostoyevsky-Jim-Thompson-like novel which just debuted in the Director Fortnight at Cannes.

Mickle and Damici are hotter than hot and Mulberry Street is the one that demands to be discovered beyond its solid following of hard-core horror fans. The movie delivers the goods and then some. Produced on a budget of $50K after Mickle delivered his thesis film at NYU, it's a marvel of intelligent writing and stunning direction. The screenplay offers what could have been another hackneyed band-of-misfits against a virus gone literally mad and infuses it with terse dialogue, fully-fleshed characters, dollops of social commentary (albeit subtle) and within its world, a narrative that moves succinctly from one plausible plot point to the next. Thematically, the picture examines the meaning of family and does so with a greater resonance than one would expect from a low-budget horror film as its community of indelible characters - related by love, friendship, respect and, in some cases blood - face a 24-hour period of utter terror as they protect themselves from an ever-mounting army of hideously transformed bite-victims.

If you let that cute, little rat bite you, this is your fate.

Damici plays Clutch, a boxer who wisely left the world of pugilistic endeavours rather than suffer the inevitable punch-drunk effects of one-too-many roundhouses to the head. He's trim, sharp and welcomes each morning with vigorous runs through the mean streets of NYC. He commiserates with the denizens of the street regarding the recent eviction notices everyone has been getting for the inevitable gentrification of the apartment building and tough as he is, there's an overwhelming sense of futility Clutch faces with when the notion of fighting back comes up in discussion.

Cannibal down the chimney.

His best friend Coco (Ron Brice) is a drag-queen and surrogate Big Brother to Clutch's 20-something daughter Casey (Kim Blair) and the two men happily and excitedly prepare for her return home on this especially hot, muggy Manhattan day. Casey's been in a VA hospital healing from both the physical and emotional effects of her harrowing tour of duty during America's War on Terror in Iraq. Since Dad's a fit ex-boxer and daughter's a soldier, you can probably imagine the tag-team they'll make against any showdowns with mouth-foaming part-rat-part-vampire-flesh-eating-blood-drinking-zombie abominations of what was once human before the virus.

A Polish MILF w/a baseball bat!

Clutch, being a long-single widower, takes a liking to Kay (Bo Corre), an Eastern European immigrant, single Mom, MILF and waitress at the local bar down the street. He even puts in quality time with Mom's rebellious teenage son Otto (Javier Picayo), teaching him boxing on the roof of the tenement they all live in. The lovely lady is also going to need rescuing from a bar full of mutants. Carnage is guaranteed, if not romance. The virus comes home to roost in the walk-up when WWII vet Frank (Larry Medich), recently diagnosed with cancer, demands that the super Charlie (Larry Fleischman) deal with a plumbing issue. In the building, the rat-bites begin when Charlie is munched in the line of pipe-drainage-duty.

These fuckers mean business!

It's mostly through the super's slow, painful transformation that we get a sense of the sickening debilitations rendered by the virus. Damici and Mickle take us cleverly through a number of threads in addition to that particular POV which effectively give us a sense of greater Manhattan (via Carey's long trek home across the island sans public transit), the local bar and neighbourhood (mostly via hot Polish Kay) and through the residents, we get a fuller picture of the general state of being within the seedy, old but still homey digs our chief protagonists have made a life for themselves in.

This recipe is a perfect stew for terror, but it takes a great director to make the princely sum of $50k cook up real nice and Jim Mickle never disappoints. Compositions, camera movement and lighting are taste-tempting treats of virtuosity and Mickle's coverage during set-pieces and even quiet moments are full of variety.

Some of the suspense sequences are sheer pants-and-undie fillers: a few harrowing rescues, alleyway fisticuffs, a mad drive down Mulberry Street, a mutant slithering down a chimney like a cannibal Santa Claus, more fisticuffs in narrow tenement hallways, numerous door battering moments courtesy of hungry mutants, a tear-ass chase through basement corridors, and yes, rooftop fisticuffs.

Mickle never resorts to the usual fall-backs of endless closeups, whack-a-mole cutting, herky-jerky moves galore and all the other egregious directorial tropes of less-talented filmmakers (including some of those big-budget idiots like Sam Mendes, J.J. Abrams, Christopher Nolan, et all).

On two-cents, Mickle manages to capture Manhattan streets teeming with activity and even more, the same streets bereft of life or movement. Film after film since this debut, he's never disappointed us with his versatility and artistry.

The basement is no place to die.

There's nary a bad performance in the whole film and many of the actors were recruited from actual locals on Mulberry Street including those who were residents of the tenement slum they shot in. As an actor, Damici continues to dazzle. This guy could well have given the likes of Charles Bronson a run for his money in the 70s. He's not only more handsome, but his range as an actor is wide. In fact, Damici handles tenderness and humour with the same believable levels he brings to ass-kicking. He also never shies away from expressing fear when it's warranted. He's taciturn when he needs to me, but now and again, the man is purely, utterly and totally shit-fucking-scared.


Making use of real locations with a tight guerrilla team, this is a movie that pulsates with the naturalistic miss-en-scene of an authentic time and place, but splashed with the crimson of fantastical horror-hijinx and amidst the carnage, there's a sense of humanity, love and yes, the aforementioned family. Even more heart-wrenching is the notion of how families are often driven by selfless acts of sacrifice to benefit those they love. This is a theme and emotional core that began with this film and has been an integral part of every Mickle-Damici collaboration to date.

These guys make real movies. They put most studio pictures to shame and frankly. a lot of low-budget indies too.

Mulberry Street and other Jim Mickle pictures are available at Amazon. Feel free to order directly from the links below and in so doing support the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner.

IN THE BLOOD - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Gina Carano, Mixed Martial Artist and Hot New Action Babe Delivers

The Many Faces of GINA CARANO

Gina Carano CAT FIGHT!!!

In the Blood (2014) ***
Dir. John Stockwell
Starring: Gina Carano, Cam Gigandet, Luis Guzman, Amaury Nolasco, Ismail Cruz Cordova, Stephen Lang, Danny Trejo, Treat Williams

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Let's just get the obvious out of the way, shall we? Gina Carano, the longtime Mixed Martial Artist (MMA) is one ripe tomato - the girl is hotter than hot cross buns just out of the oven and certainly just as delectable. She's no pasty porcelain beanpole, though. This lady's a glistening, oily (of the extra virgin variety), olive-toned bearcat with a chassis that offers up more than a few handfuls of WOMAN. Oh, and WHAT a WOMAN!!!

She's the real thing, the sultry brown-eyed girl next door with a look that flips from "You're dead, motherfucker" to "Take care of me, Daddy." She's no whore-madonna, she's Little Orphan Annie dandling on your knee with an ambrosial smile that melts the coldest steel, but behind the adorable visage of sweetness and light is one kick-ya-where-the-good-Lord-split-ya Momma who's going to mince your meat if you so much as whisper an adversarial (or God help you, evil) utterance and/or display intentions less than honourable. She is danger incarnate and I for one, am delighted she's moved from professional fisticuffs in the ring, to tearing new assholes out of bad guys in movies like the new John Stockwell-directed action thriller In the Blood.

Many of us loved her Terminator-cool killing machine operative in Steven Soderbergh's Haywire (a clearly better film than In the Blood, but not quite as entertainingly B-picture-trashy), but what she displays here is a bit more range - not much, mind you, but enough so that she adds a considerable loveability factor to the mix. Basically, she gets to flash her smile a lot more and we're treated to a panoply of closeups that allow her facial dimples to work overtime. Damn, she's not only a babe, but cute as a button and there's nothing sexier than an adorable missy holding big guns, blades and anything she can get her hands on to maim and kill, but also marvelling at her hand-to-hand martial arts prowess.

The plot is pretty much your garden variety couple-in-foreign-country-on-honeymoon-get-into-trouble, but there are a couple of variations to keep things interesting. Ava (Carano) marries Derek (Cam Gigandet), the son of a well-heeled businessman (Treat "How The Once Mighty Have Fallen" Williams). The happy couple met in rehab (that's a nice change from the usual) and Dad thinks Ava's just a junkie gold digger, but he sees how calm and controlled sonny-boy is, so he tries to bite his tongue.

The couple head to Puerto Rico and we're forced to endure how happy they are together. They meet Manny (Ismail Cruz Cordova), a local party fixer for tourists who takes them to an out-of-the-way, but super-smokin' nightclub. The criminal element looms large here. We know this because Danny Trejo is hanging around with babes tending to his needs. When some of the macho lads try to put the make on Ava by beating up on her new hubby, she launches into the most astounding display of martial arts wizardry and clears the floor of a whole mess of bad dudes and even some dude-ettes.

Yup, cat fight action. This movie scores a few mega-points here.

Even though Manny led them to a dubious joint, they decide to follow him the next day to an insanely dangerous-looking extreme sporting park. Cam has a horrible accident and is rushed away by ambulance. Ava's not allowed to accompany him for "insurance reasons" and has to make her way to the hospital all by her lonesome. When she gets there - no trace of hubby. She checks all the hospitals and clinics and still no hubby. She visits the local police who are clearly corrupt as the Chief is played by Luis Guzman. The Chief is less than helpful and suspects Ava might have something to do with her husband's disappearance. This only intensifies when Treat Williams shows up. He's sure the little gold digger has something to do with his son's disappearance.

Things don't look too good for our heroine, but luckily, she's a champion mixed martial artist whose criminal Dad (Stephen Lang in flashback) has taught her to be a killing machine. It turns out that one of the gangsters in town (the slimily handsome Amaury Nolasco) is in need of a bone marrow transplant to save his life and is running a shady scheme to kidnap tourists and see if they're compatible matches. This is pretty stupid, but it gets points for being yet another oddball variation to the tropes this picture otherwise employs.

Director John Stockwell is no natural genre stylist, but he does, for the most part, keep much of the action clean, save for too many flashing lights mixed with occasional murkiness during the aforementioned set piece in the nightclub. The bottom line is this: we get to enjoy Gina Carano doing her thing. However, one only needs to place the best action direction from In the Blood up against the most dull action sequence in Haywire and there's no comparison. Haywire still wins in the bravura directorial sweepstakes of Gina breaking heads.

Few surprises are actually in store with this movie, but Carano is such a winning presence and the ass-kicking is so plentiful, that I can't imagine too many fans having a problem with the proceedings. I know I didn't, but then, I'm happy to watch Gina Carano engage in carnage any old time. She's even welcome to apply some carnage in my direction.

In the Blood is a Raven Banner presentation available on a Blu-Ray/DVD/Ultraviolet combo via Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada. Picture and sound are first-rate on the Blu-Ray, decent on the DVD and as-per-usual, not my cup of tea on the Ultra-Violet. Alas, the meagre extra feature - a better-than-average behind-the-scenes item - makes one wish there'd been more effort put into presenting added info and footage with respect to the first-rate stunt coordination and Gina's moves. An added feature-ette on her MMA career might have been a nice touch, also.

Feel free to order the film directly from the3 Amazon links below. If you love Gina, you can't go wrong.

TRACKS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Cuteness Galore available theatrically via Mongrel Media in Toronto, Montreal & Vancouver on June 6, 2014. Cuteness Abounds Down Under: Cute Babe, Cute Camel, Cute Movie.

Tracks (2013) **1/2
Dir. John Curran
Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Adam Driver

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Robyn Davidson (Mia Wasikowska) was an Aussie hippie chick who abandoned a formal post-secondary education and instead lived with a bunch of radical animal science types n Adelaide (where she learned a whole ton about God's creatures). She subsequently joined a left-wing organization of wanker egghead fruitcakes in Sydney (that included the likes of Germaine Greer) where she grooved the Bohemia electric. In the 70s she settled in the middle of nowhere and learned everything she always wanted to know about camels (and was, decidedly, not afraid to ask). Her first experience was with a brutal camel farmer who exploited her until finally, she met and worked for a kindly camel expert who taught her a great deal and partially bankrolled what was to become her biggest challenge.

Davidson's ultimate goal was to trek 1700 miles alone across the deserts of Western Oz from Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean. Well, she wasn't completely alone - she had her faithful mutt and a handful of ornery, but loyal camels. Since her trip was financed by the National Geographic Society, she was occasionally in the company of Rick Smolan (Adam Driver), a photographer who would add the pictorial materials to Robyn's eventual story in the famous wildlife magazine. The two enjoyed an on-again-off-again love affair and eventually Robyn wrote the full length memoir that this film is based upon.

This is by no means a dreadful film. Wasikowska is a pleasing screen presence and very easy on the eyes. When the film focuses upon Robyn and the camels, it's pretty engaging - especially in the first third of the movie. Unfortunately, something is off about the period detail in terms of the performance of the genuinely annoying Adam Driver who seems completely miscast and throws the picture off balance anytime he's on-screen.

Even the picture's sense of place seems off. The movie feels like a Walt Disney True Life Nature Adventure set in the wilds of Australia (with occasionally chaste boinking). Tracks certainly doesn't have the richness in both period and ethnographic detail that is so infused in works like Nicolas Roeg's Walkabout and Ted Kotcheff's Wake in Fright. We never really feel any danger or mystery in the proceedings and other than the early going, the central conflict has no real punch.

This is more than a bit surpising since John Curran's direction of the exquisite film adaptation of Somerset Maugham's novel The Painted Veil was so rich in period detail and observational attention to character nuance. Here, howeve, the leading actors wear everything on their respective sleeves and we're left with little more than a girl and her camels, doggie and an occasonal poke under the desert sky from an enormously unappealing actor.

The movie clips along amiably enough and the scenery is almost always a saving grace, but somehow the whole thing feels a touch inconsequential. While it might provide momentary and relatively inoffensive entertainment as a girls' adventure tale, Tracks doesn't stick to your cerebellum, but rather, sticks to your craw.

Tracks opens theatrically in Canada via Mongrel Media on June 6, 2014 in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. It premiered in the TIFF Special Presentation series at the Toronto International Film Festival 2013.

SMALL TIME - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Levinson-Lite Covina-coming-of-age tale on used car lot has merit.

Christopher Meloni, Devon Bostick & Dean Norris have a deal for YOU!

Dean Norris & Christopher Meloni:
All the right (shyster) moves.

Small Time (2014) ***
Dir. Joel Surnow
Starring: Christopher Meloni, Dean Norris, Devon Bostick, Bridget Moynahan, Xander Berkeley, Ashley Jensen, Amaury Nolasco, Ken Davitian, Gregory Itzin, Kevin Nealon, Carlo Rota

Review By Greg Klymkiw

It's a gas seeing a pair of clip artist pros hawking used cars to gullible dupes. It's even more fun watching a young man failing miserably on the same sales lot, but eventually absorbing the borderline conman routines and matching the elder statesmen of sleazy shark attacks. Long before Joel Surnow's feature debut Small Time, Robert Zemeckis claimed this territory in the 1980 black comedy Used Cars. That once-daring critical darling has not, however, stood the test of time and these days feels even more shrill and chaotic than when it first came out.

Surnow, the co-creator of the TV series 24, here delivers an amiable picture that has far more in common with the subtle work of Barry Levinson (Tin Men, Avalon) than the shake-you-by-the-lapels Zemeckis. His screenplay isn't as sharp and darkly-tinged though and often feels like Barry-Levinson-Lite. For much of the picture, this works just fine and dandy, but when it doesn't, the results are a trifle disappointing. If anything, it feels like Surnow's TV-pedigree rears its soft by-the-numbers head and yanks us too willingly into the kind of familiar territory that might be more palatable on a small screen, its stakes and eventual story morphing into the convenience and comfort levels boob-tube viewers are perfectly happy to accept.

Al (Christopher Meloni) and Ash (Dean Norris) are longtime friends and partners in Diamond Motors. They value their modest hustles as being just enough to live lives of laid-back comfort. They might be sales barracudas, but their teeth are self-blunted. They're slothfully ambitious in their goals and happily so. Al's been long divorced from his first love Barbara (Bridget Moynahan) who dumped him for Chick (Xander Berkeley), a conservative venture capitalist type who offered a far more stable, comfortable existence, especially for the ex-couple's son Freddy (Devon Bostick). It's a pleasant surprise for Al, but a shocker for Barbara and Chick when Freddy reveals he's more a chip off the old block than anyone imagined. Upon graduating from High School, the young man decides not to go to college and instead, wants to try his hand as a used car salesman to gain the life experience he so desperately craves, but mostly to re-establish the close relationship he hasn't had with Dad since early childhood.

For the most part, this is so far so good. The picture introduces us, through Freddy's eyes, the irascible existence of Al and Ash, on and off the used car lot. The latter activities are as equally engaging as the sales shenanigans - Freddy trolling sleazy singles bars with Ash and hanging with Dad at the old-style Covina, California transplanted Jewish Deli where we're privy to the rapid-fire schtick of other salesmen (magnificently acted by Ken Davitian, Gregory Itzin, Kevin Nealon), all of whom are equally devoted to the art of the legal con game.

Where things get a trifle by-the-numbers are the expected moments where Al becomes alarmed that his son is picking up far too many bad habits and a cynical worldview. Dad begins to imagine his fresh-faced progeny, ending up like himself, Ash and the guys at the deli. This is compounded further when Freddy begins to assert his own huckster ideas to expand the business. Al is faced with the realization that maybe, just maybe, his son should go to college and leave the life on the lot behind.

The events of the picture's final third are meant to provide added conflict and a more satisfying resolution for all concerned, but it's where the movie goes a bit off-kilter. At first, one assumes Al has an underlying element of jealousy creeping into his response to Freddy's desires to take a more active hand in shaping the next phase of Dominion Motors. Alas, this is not the case and a potentially interesting father-son dynamic is ignored for a more un-earned sentimental direction. It's hard to buy and even harder to take. Someone like Al would actually see the merits in Freddy's marketing ideas, but would in fact, respond negatively to them for reasons other than wanting a better life for the kid. Sure, that would be part of it, but not the be-all-end-all. Instead of a far deeper conflict, we get a TV dramedy-styled tussle and the results feel like they belong in another film and medium.

In spite of this ho-hum turn, many might well find it dramatically satisfying - a sort of spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down as opposed to the more natural direction a "cookie laced with arsenic" might provide. At the end of the day, Small Time is an intelligent, nicely acted and well-observed look at the world of men like Al, Ash and even Freddy. It falls short, however in taking us into the territory the aforementioned Barry Levinson might have plunged us into. It's a world I miss seeing on film. Given the near straight-to-home-entertainment life the picture wound up in, one wonders if it might have found a more happy home theatrically and then into home consumption if it had girded its loins and instead entered more dangerous territory.

Small Time is available on Blu-Ray and DVD via Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada (and Anchor Bay in the USA). The movie's southern California light and colours - inside and out - are nicely captured for both formats. The biggest disappointment is the commentary track provided by Surnow and his leading male actors. It is so utterly inconsequential and irredeemably jokey I'm glad I waited a few days to experience the film with it. In spite of the picture's flaws, I really enjoyed it, but might have soured to the experience if I'd listened to the nonsensical chatter following too closely on the heels of seeing the movie. Feel free to order the film from Amazon by clicking directly on the following links and in so doing, contribute to the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner.