Cry Havoc and Let Slip the Lawdogs.

Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson are THE HIGHWAYMEN, two old detectives past their prime, hired by the Texas Governor to join a manhunt – for Bonnie and Clyde. Ah, connection to popular culture! But this ain’t your granddaddy’s BONNIE AND CLYDE from 1967 with sexy Faye Dunaway and sexier Warren Beatty – we’re not gonna fall in love with Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow here – we hardly even see them – this is a tribute to the lawdogs who brought them down.

Set in 1934, when wiretapping and two-way radios were brand new, Costner and Harrelson play two real life Texas Rangers who really did hunt the pair. Costner is Frank Hamer – the most celebrated Texas Ranger in history – brought out of retirement because he has a particular set of skills. Harrelson is longtime partner Maney Gault, who gives us a chilling description of Frank’s skills, as he relates a story of how he and Frank once brought down a Mexican gang by Frank NOT following lawful protocol and NOT giving them warning, just shooting to kill. That’s the outlaw skill the state wants from him.

Kathy Bates is the Texas Governor. The great John Carroll Lynch is chief of police. At the time Hamer and Gault were called in, Bonnie and Clyde had been fugitives for two years, elevating their bank robberies to a murder spree including cops. With the governor and chief of police at wits’ end, when giving their orders to Hamer and Gault, they both leave so much unsaid about stepping outside the law – wink-wink – the only thing separating them from mob bosses are their cheaper suits.

I’m the dandy highwayman you’re too scared to mention / I spend my cash on looking flash and grabbing your attention…
— Adam Ant, “Stand And Deliver”

I like the twist on the title – because highwaymen usually means outlaws; in this case, these off-the-book detectives are literally driving the blacktop of rural America, pursuing their prey with a single-minded purpose, illegally crossing state lines out of their jurisdiction, which made them… uh, outlaws.

Best scene in the movie is when Hamer meets Clyde’s father, Henry Barrow (William Sadler), and we realize it’s not just about the hunt – it’s about a man coming to terms with his particular set of skills. Barrow implores Hamer to go easy on his son, because Clyde “wasn’t born with a dark soul,” showing Hamer a picture of the boy, saying it was just “one turn on the trail” that damned him – when he stole a chicken as a boy, with the cops on his back ever since. And Hamer, well, it’s a good thing he’s Kevin Costner because only Kevin Costner could turn the empathy tables on Barrow and tell his own sob story of wanting to be a preacher, including the “one turn on the trail” that damned him to a life of hunting people for the law. And Costner is so damn good at turning our sympathies that Barrow ends up begging him to kill Clyde and himself and his wife! Man, Costner: what an actor! Anything he does in his older years is just magnificent. Where does he go in his head to be so compelling?! He just has to be onscreen with that face – just BE that face – and I start weeping with the gravitas and empathy – Kevin, shoot ME, shoot ME!!

Authentic old-world cinematography, set dressing, costuming, with a climax so explosive, and a final death parade so chilling, it will compel you to look up exactly how Bonnie and Clyde were actually taken down. Amazingly – it’s all true!

Da-diddley qua qua…

END

When They See Us… they still won’t give a fuck.

WHEN THEY SEE US is a mini-series dramatization of the 1989 “Central Park Five” case, where five young boys were wrongfully convicted and incarcerated for the rape of a jogger in New York’s Central Park. In 2001, the real rapist confessed, precipitating the release of the Five, and their convictions “vacated” (a smarmy court euphemism which means, “We fucked up SO hard!”).

I wish I could say, as the filmmakers and exonerated men do, that this mini-series is about hope and redemption and righteousness winning out – but it’s not. It’s a horror carousel ride that will mortify any human remotely compassionate; it’s an indictment against the systemic racism in the New York “justice” system and its prejudiced treatment of lower classes; it’s a cry of chaos and anti-civilization and feral vengeance. And it was a fluke of fate that the truth was revealed, not any effort on the part of the city that was hell-bent on convicting the boys, knowingly, willfully and illegally making them pay for a crime they didn’t commit. And though this series shines a light on unethical police procedures, the inadequate judicial system, the downright futility of presenting a righteous argument against a mountain of lies told by people in positions of authority – nothing has been fixed!

Besides the one speck of good news that the supervising prosecutor in the case (Linda Fairstein) resigned from her college, and the trial prosecutor (Elizabeth Lederer) resigned from her teaching job, due to the spotlight cast on them via this film, the system chugs along oblivious to the cries of those too poor to afford representation. Or too black to be respected as humans. If anything, in the three decades since this perversion of justice, the xenophobia and class warfare prevalent in the American legal system has grown worse.

Co-written and directed by Ava DuVernay, WHEN THEY SEE US is artfully constructed, compelling and heart-wrenching, however, it sells itself as an inspiration to wrongly-incarcerated citizens, but it’s more like a jail nigger stabbing you in the shower after raping you, leaving you bleeding and crying and wishing you were dead.

episode 1

• Each of the four episodes in this mini-series focuses on one aspect of the case: Episode 1 focuses on the barbaric, illegal methods employed by the New York Police Department to convict the kids.

Of the many children (young boys and girls teetering on 14, 15, 16) who descended on Central Park on that fateful night of April 19, 1989, we meet the Five whose youth is about to be destroyed by the corruption of the New York Police Force – Antron “Tron” McCray (Caleel Harris), Kevin Richardson (Asante Blackk), Yusef Salaam (Ethan Herisse), Korey Wise (Jharrel Jerome), and Raymond Santana Jr, the only Latino amongst the African-Americans (Marquis Rodriguez). From different backgrounds and fractured families, they have one thing in common – they’re young and poor. Loud and obnoxious, they get caught up in the camaraderie of a massive exodus into the Park, for the express purpose of being loud and obnoxious.

The media would actually coin a term around this time, to describe the indiscriminate confusion created by hordes of teens – “wilding.” Cyclists would get accosted, walkers would get harassed, and we can’t discount that the Five may have taken part in these misdemeanors. Then the violence escalates, with three of the boys witnessing an actual mugging. Police arrive. Everyone runs. Some ask, “If the Five were innocent, why did they run?” Y’know, if a young black male doesn’t run every time he sees the police, his ma and pa didn’t raise him right.

This is America.

Childish Gambino say, “Don’t catch you slippin’ up.”

The next day, a female jogger is found raped and near-death in the park. Felicity Huffman plays the sadistic prosecutor with the blonde lioness locks, Linda Fairstein, who will stop at nothing to convict anyone Black And Nearby. She commands the cops, “I want every black male in that vicinity last night.” And the attack dogs sweep the neighborhood, sniffing out the boys and dragging them in with no parents or legal representation. (A civilian can’t really order the police to do anything. This scene is like the Annoying Kid ordering the military to shoot at Godzilla.)

A sympathetic prosecutor, Nancy Ryan (Famke Janssen – with so much plastic in her face now, she looks like a showroom dummy), tries to curb the foaming illegalities, but the police and Fairstein barrel forward regardless of law.

It’s very hard to watch. The cops are off the leash, brutalizing the kids, lying to them about their rights and procedures, illicitly keeping their parents at bay… If it seems like a one-sided portrayal to make the cops look bad, consider that nowadays we have bodycam and bystander cellphone footage – and the cops still behave like cowardly, unhinged, white-privilege lunatics; imagine those good ole days of zero surveillance.

The boys are terrorized, tortured and coerced into making false statements, to fit the narrative that Fairstein created: of this gang of youths descending on the lone jogger, Trisha Meili, and gang-raping her. Lead detective is Hartigan (Bruce MacVittie), who uses the tactic of separating the kids and telling each, “[Insert friend’s name] said you raped her.”

Vera Farmiga is lead attorney Elizabeth Lederer (with a tight jheri curl that makes me want to slap her goddess face). At first she pushes back on the lack of evidence, then she goes all in to destroy five lives… for politics, for career…

Featured parents are the great John Leguizamo, Niecy Nash (RENO 911!), Aunjanue Ellis, Kylie Bunbury, and Michael Kenneth Williams in an absolutely tragic portrayal of Antron’s guilt-ridden father.

Dumbo Donald is even featured, in actual news footage: “I hate the people who raped this woman.” Imagine that, coming from a rapist. Nowadays, we know that the only reason he was even on the news back then was not because he was a respected real estate raconteur (New Yorkers hated this blowhard with a passion), but because the insanely insecure Russian money-launderer wanted to remain relevant and so stuck his 3-inch mushroom knob into what he knew would be a nationally covered case.

Back then, Dumbo Donald could disguise his full-blown racism behind the facade of being an outraged citizen, but when it was discovered the Five were innocent in 2002, and he doubled down on seeking their deaths (“They must have been doing something wrong!”) there was no hiding his racism any longer; no facade required, because by then, it was obvious he was only talking to the racists and white supremacists in the United States, as one of their foremost spokespeople. (And yet he still got elected president in 2016. Somebody please explain.)

Performances from the boys are stunning; will have you literally gape-mouthed, on the edge of your seat, outrage coursing through your soul, living the existential horror with them.

episode 2

• Smalltime lawyers against the State of New York. The trial. The verdicts.

We feel the pain of the parents making poverty level wages having to hire lawyers, the only ones they can afford being attorneys out of their depth. Joshua Jackson plays Mickey Joseph, an amiable attorney for Antron, who takes the lead by default as the spokesman for the whole group.

To keep it interesting, film switches back-and-forth between statements from the defense and prosecution. But that doesn’t give us the sense of glutting doom that only listening to the prosecuting attorney would give anyone with their necks on the chopping block. Every time any good lawyer speaks (defense or prosecution), you are only hearing their side for a prolonged amount of time; imagine the terror of wondering how balanced a jury can remain when the opposing team has the floor. Especially when they’re lying.

Fairstein brings in – the jogger, Trisha Meili (Alexandra Templer). She limps slowly to the stand; a hot blonde, brutalized so badly her memory of the night is lost, and her speech and other faculties are degenerated. She doesn’t exonerate the boys, nor does she accuse them, but her appearance made it worse for them simply through her pathos.

The DNA never matched. We wonder, in this age of depending so heavily on technology, why the boys didn’t get released right then. The DNA tech drops an unexpected bomb, “We only tested the DNA from the cervical swab and the sock,” and all the defendants’ lawyers do a double-take and search their files: no sock was ever mentioned – an illegal omission by the prosecution. But it backfired. Lawyer Mickey took a giant gamble: Did the DNA in the sock match his client Antron? “No.” (Rule of thumb in court is to never ask a question that you don’t already know the answer to.) Then Mickey takes an even bigger gamble, “Did it match the DNA of any of the defendants?”

“No.”

The ensuing orchestra swell and shocked courtroom rhubarb is a false hope; this is not the magic bullet to freedom. Even though it should have been.

The detectives are grilled – and cannot answer questions on why they took no written notes during the interrogations. The trial seems to be swinging in favor of the boys – until the court airs the video confessions.

Though beaten, threatened, deprived of food and water (by the police!), and coerced to make the confessions, the videos are nonetheless damning.

Episode 2 ends with all the boys found Guilty on multiple counts, with rape at the top of the list. These scenes are beautifully staged, capturing the emotional devastation and claustrophobia of being trapped in an adult game where every way you turn is another trap that you don’t understand, waiting to be sprung.

episode 3

• Sentences served, four of the boys rotate back into a society aware of their infamy, that will not let them assimilate back into it.

Raymond is given extra packages of fake mustaches and beards, for when the glue on his current fake mustache and beard wears off.

Out of jail, yet the trial of life continues, as each boy discovers that ‘Once a jailbird, always a jailbird’ in the eyes of the society that convicted you.

Now a young man, Raymond Santana Jr (Freddy Miyares) returns home to find his father (Leguizamo) remarried to a snarky Latin woman, an infant half-brother, and a house full of noise and strangers. Due to his conviction, there is no way to get a job, get a house, get ahead.

Kevin (Justin Cunningham), Tron (Jovan Adepo) and Yusef (Chris Chalk) discover the hardest questions on job applications: Have you ever been incarcerated? Have you ever been a felon? Have you ever been a registered sex offender? And if you don’t check the box that you’re a felon, if you end up working alongside another felon, you are re-incarcerated. At every turn, the government making it impossible to shake the felon/sex offender tag; to shake the perception that you are worthless, dangerous, unsavory – and unemployable.

The mini-series also focuses on the guilt of each parent; how their suffering, though different, was probably as great psychologically as their boys’. We feel their trauma, how every millisecond of every day, the knife kept twisting.

Tron takes a girl out, and over a small disagreement, she turns on him: “You treating me like an inmate, you fucken asshole! I know what you did to that lady…” Ironically, even on the outside, there is no escape.

When Tron went in, his father (Michael Kenneth Williams) was a respected parent. To save his son, he told Tron to lie, and it compounded Tron’s doom; now, even though his father is feeble and dying, Tron ignores him in their home, until it is too late to reconcile.

Raymond, browbeaten at home, losing his job, unable to make ends meet in a societal maze that treats ex-cons as if they were still criminals, resorts to dealing crack. And makes money. And gets busted. (This plot point is simply dropped later, after the exoneration, like the filmmakers are hoping we forget about it. I’m sure real life Raymond also wishes it was just a pesky plot thread, but he had to do separate time for this crime, while his friends were being released.)

There is nothing uplifting in this third episode, and it ends on Raymond surrounded by cops, in slow motion, hands raised, blue and red flashing lights, utter defeat. It seems the boys are simply spiraling the drain of recidivism. Better than any “Scared Straight” programs, this series shows us the traumatic horrors of jail’s hellish embrace long after you’ve left the physical bars and stone.

episode 4

• Korey Wise solo, through the prison system, in granular, soul-shattering detail. At 16, he was tried, sentenced and incarcerated as an adult. Years later, his chance meeting with the actual rapist in prison would start a chain of events that would free the Central Park Five.

Jharrel Jerome is a revelation! Whereas all the other boys have two actors playing them, as youths and adults, Jerome plays Korey Wise as a 16-year-old, all the way up to adulthood, through the cunning stylings of hair and makeup, and a performance that stuns us with its diversity and layers! When we catch up with him  after a few years inside, he looks so much like a black Jake Gyllenhaal, I thought for sure he was another actor!

Korey is portrayed as simple and illiterate, the detectives exploiting his lack of education to their benefit. His coerced confession tape is the most damning, and unintentionally the most humorous, as he stutters away, “…uh, this is—this is my first rape, and I—I don’t intend to do it again…”

On his first day inside, four men beat and rape Korey, and one of the guards menacingly repeats to him, “Tell me if there’s anything you can do for me…” implying that the beatings will stop if Korey comes up with a suitable answer. And we can only pray to a non-existent god that the racist judges and cops and lawyers who sentenced this boy to adult prison will one day also experience the unimaginable mental and physical damnation Korey suffered through. His only lifeline is his mother, who visits rarely (due to distance and cost), and when she asks, “How you doing?” what can he possibly say?

By 1991, Korey was in Attica. After nearly being killed by Nazis, a guard named Roberts (Logan Marshall-Green) takes Korey under his wing, giving him survival tips, like requesting solitary so the crazies can’t get to him, then bringing him books and trinkets.

We delve into Korey’s hallucinations in solitary, which only deepens the sorrow, the unbounded regrets of his life. If only he hadn’t left that young girl at the diner and went howling into the dark with his friends… His mother stops visiting due to distance, and he writes letters requesting a transfer to a closer prison. Roberts advises against it, tells him it’s a crapshoot, that he might get transferred in the opposite direction. Sure enough, Korey ends up in Wende Prison, 366 miles further away from mom. At this point, I truly don’t know how he didn’t kill himself.

The parole board sees Korey every year, three lunatic privileged white snots who just want to hear – like Alcoholics Anonymous – that “you admit to your guilt” with the promise of freedom for your self-debasement. Korey staunchly denies them their pleasure.

The discovery of the real rapist, Matias Reyes (Reese Noi), is a flight of fancy for the filmmakers. Reyes probably never ran into Korey, let alone at two prisons, but the filmmakers make Korey the motive for Reyes’ confession. On their second encounter, Reyes asks Korey if he still denies raping that woman. And the story plays out as if Reyes confesses because he is “inspired” by Korey’s unwavering brave stance.

By that juncture, the guilt of the boys was so etched in stone, we wonder how the moribund judicial system even creaked into gear to reverse five of its hard-won (albeit illegal and unethical) convictions. Nancy Ryan (Janssen) is portrayed as the lone attorney who oils the gears into motion, against Fairstein and the presiding judges, who maintain the convictions were justified, the passage of time caressing all those privileged racist pigs into believing the lies they told the public during the trial.

Linda Fairstein – like Dumbo Donald – still maintains the boys are guilty, despite the evidence collected from Reyes that proves he is the rapist. So – like Dumbo Donald – she reveals her prosaic racist agenda. And can go to hell, bleeding painfully from every orifice, for all I care. How can we be expected to maintain a semblance of courtesy toward someone so obviously devoid of empathy, compassion or respect for justice and the law? (Same question directed at Dumbo Donald voters…)

In the final title cards, we see the actual Central Park Five as men, all successful at businesses they’ve grown from the ground up, with full families and grand prospects. Through the joy for their successes, I feel such sadness looking at their now-smiling faces. Yet, the hardest thing to admit is that maybe none of these men would have possessed the impetus to become the businessmen they are today without that horrifying chapter that scarred their lives as boys. One ponders on how their adulthood might have turned out far less extraordinary had they simply lived out their childhood in the projects, out of trouble, out of sight, out of hope…

They sued New York, and were awarded a $41 million settlement in 2014. And that brings a smile. No amount of recompense will extinguish the darkness completely, but that amount sure pushes it somewhat into the background.

The real life Exonerated Five: Tragedy in the past…
Also, tragedy in their future when they form that boy band.

The title, WHEN THEY SEE US, implies that when the authorities “see” the truth, when they “see” the innocence of the boys, the real evidence, the souls of these ravaged sons, that they will afford the boys the respect they deserve. Nope. There is NO metaphysical beauty in truth when it comes to a courtroom battle between one side paid to defend and one side paid to convict – both those attorneys will zealously represent their clients no matter the ethics, evidence or truth. And the attorney with the best presentation, courtside manner and golfing connections will win out, truth be strangled in the crib.

If we can take any lesson from this mini-series, it’s not hope or righteousness or even human decency winning out. As I’ve said, the exoneration here is a fluke of the highest order. No, the lesson of WHEN THEY SEE US is that the police force and the judicial system are working for the upper classes in American society. Ironically, no one “sees” that glaring subplot, because the focus is on the boys.

As we speak, hundreds of thousands of underprivileged kids rot in jails across the country for petty infractions or wrongful and illegal convictions, because – in the words of best-selling author Jeffrey Reiman – the rich get richer… and the poor get prison. There will never be an orchestra swell or redemption for poverty-stricken unfortunates wrongfully incarcerated; they are victims to the authorities – authorities that have been empowered by the politicians and judges who own them, to scoop up lower class perps for revenue; victims that the police, judges and politicians will never “see.”

If you doubt that the supposedly impartial police force is partial to the rich, ask yourself: If Robert Downey Jr. is pulled over for going 10 miles over the speed limit, would he get a ticket after the officers recognize him?… Now put yourself in that hot seat. And you’re out $500. When they “see” Robert Downey Jr. they see their employers, their meal ticket, a potential step up to a higher echelon; all they “see” in you is a collar, an impediment to society, a pain in the ass, a criminal, a bad end to their bad day.

WHEN THEY SEE US is powerful for the true story it tells, but the title is a gaslight, implying that if every wrongly-incarcerated criminal could only be “seen,” then the authorities would work their damndest to free them. But if and when they “see” the poor in chains… they still won’t give a fuck.

END

Die Lamer.

John McClane against terrorists at Dulles International in Washington DC. DIE HARD at an airport! That was the pitch. It sounded better on paper.

In DIE HARD 2, Bruce Willis returns in High Smug as New York cop John McClane, in Washington to meet his wife (Bonnie Bedelia) flying in. Why? Who cares? Writers Steven E. de Souza (DIE HARD) and Doug Richardson (his first feature, he would go on to BAD BOYS) seem to just throw cliché after cliché into this stunt-action-boy’s-movie and hope that director Renny Harlin keeps the shooting and explosions loud enough for us not to notice.

A terrorist leader, General Esperanza (Franco Nero), is landing at Dulles under heavy guard, to be transferred to American authorities. Esperanza’s military minions, led by Colonel Stuart (William Sadler in High Buff), take over the airport’s computer control system remotely to demand that Esperanza be handed over to them instead of authorities, also demanding a jumbo jet for their escape. While the airport authorities (led by Fred Thompson and his harried brow) fumfah over what to do, McClane is busy crawling through basements and elevators again throwing a spanner in the terrorists’ works.

The filmmakers are once again trying to isolate McClane and force him to be a lone unwilling hero, and we can understand he has to get to that place for the story to be compelling, however some of the plot points and reactions of the characters around McClane are idiotic. The lackluster directing and editing doesn’t help. Movie’s first scene loses our empathy as a beat cop tows McClane’s car, even though McClane identifies himself as a cop. What kind of cop does that to another cop? Later, there’s gunfire exchanged, McClane identifying specialized German guns on the bad guys, and again the cops (led by none other than Dennis Franz) refuse to shut down the area and investigate. And people wonder how 9-11 happened. (By the way, one-note Dennis Franz as an airport cop? All I can think of is Will Sasso’s impression on MAD TV.)

Silliness continues: McClane fights off bad guys in the conveyor belt room. He finds himself without a weapon – suddenly a golf bag goes by on the conveyor, complete with golf clubs all loosely hanging out of it. (Yeah, that’s exactly how people pack their golf clubs on planes, especially when they want John McClane to birdie a bad guy.) Later, a guy is running from McClane. McClane looks around and sees – a group of bicycles (none of them locked or packed or tagged in any way), one of which he steals to pursue the bad guy. I will stake my little cucumber booties there is nothing so contrived in the novel that inspired this story (Walter Wager’s 58 Minutes, 1987).

The terrorists force a plane to crash by recalibrating the ground level, so the pilots think the ground is 200 feet below where it really is. And not one fire truck or ambulance thinks to drive out onto the landing strip to signal the plane? Only McClane is out there like a battered lamb waving a burning torch. Yeah, we know he needs to be painted as the hero, but does everyone else need to be painted as dumbasses?!

McClane’s wife (Bonnie Bedelia) is on one of the circling planes – stakes up! Reporter from DIE HARD (William Atherton) also on that plane – plot convenience plus comic relief.

When McClane starts talking to himself, reminding us of DIE HARD, it’s pretty much over – and it’s only the second act: “I can’t believe this: another basement, another elevator; how can the same shit happen to the same guy twice?” It’s so unnatural and inauthentic, I expected someone to answer him from offscreen: “The box office, of course.”

Art Evans plays Barnes, a control tower supervisor who over-enunciates and over-emotes until even Fred Thompson tells him to dial it down to Yosemite Sam. Look carefully for Robert Patrick (the T-1000 from TERMINATOR 2, 1992) and John Leguizamo (ROMEO + JULIET 1996), both in one-liner terrorist roles. Sheila McCarthy  plays the annoying reporter who redefines the word vapid. Sergeant Al (Reginald VelJohnson), the cop on the ground at Nakatomi Tower, makes a cameo specifically to raise the level of smug. John Amos is a SWAT guy who brings the GOOD TIMES.

In this movie, we see the first intimations of McClane’s distrust of technology, as he can’t even understand a fax machine; a distaste that will be highlighted in LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD (2007).

Shooting, explosions, a snowmobile chase, fisticuffs on the wing of a plane, and the Tom Cruise Stunt Award goes to the scene where McClane ejects out of a cockpit just ahead of all the exploding grenades in there (which took so long to explode he could have actually thrown them back out of the cockpit… but who’s paying attention by now anyway?…) At least they kept the R-Rating. Yippie ki-yay, motherfucker!

END

Phallus Metallus.

Hmm, an IRON MAN movie without Iron Man…

Kiddies will fidget, parents will cringe, marketers will hit the roof, executives will cower, and fans of good storytelling will rejoice. Is IRON MAN 3 the best of the series? Maybe. Probably. If you could call this an Iron Man movie. All I know is, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) spends so much time outside his titanium-alloy armor, or in various incomplete stages of it, or in it with his faceplate off, that we wonder if we haven’t walked into a seminar on how to make a movie without its eponymous lead character. And sometimes, even when we’re seeing Iron Man, it’s not really Iron Man; it’s just the armor suit working remotely!

Which begs the questions: Exactly WHO is Iron Man? Is it the man or the metal? Or is it symbiotic? Intentionally or not, the filmmakers have pitted Tony Stark in a battle against his own suit over who owns the penis in the family. This question is answered in the movie’s final frames, and I’m going to tell you what it is – or at least, what the writers think it is. Then I’m going to tell you the REAL answer… But first…

If faithful comic fans can get past the weirdness of being fed so little Iron Man, IRON MAN 3 works on a storytelling level. Y’see, writer-director Shane Black and co-writer Drew Pearce are emphasizing the man within the machine, the humanity behind the supercool, planet-crushing timbre of the titanium; they’re saying the Iron Man armor is nothing without the man within. Whether he’s within or without.

Part Iron, Part Cucumber, All Hero

In IRON MAN 3, a nihilistic terrorist called The Mandarin (deliciously continental Ben Kingsley) rips everything from Tony Stark – his home, his technology, his armor, his girlfriend, even his supercomputer liege J.A.R.V.I.S. – and Stark must use his ingenuity (rather than his vaunted suit of steel) to claw back from the edge of oblivion and exact retribution.

Tony Stark and Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) are leading the idyllic life of a non-communicating couple, Pepper running the billion dollar Stark Enterprises firm while Tony tools away in his Iron Lab with his disembodied pal and computer go-fer JARVIS (voice of Paul Bettany), whose sarcasm modulator, we presume, has been dialed up to 11. Tony’s bodyguard Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) is now head of security at Stark Ent. (great to see him reprise his role, even though he is not directing). Stark’s colonel buddy James Rhodes (Don Cheadle), who assumed the War Machine armor for the U.S. military, has been renamed Iron Patriot and given a stars-and-stripes makeover (typical hypocritical U.S. re-branding snowjob).

The subplot, which jigsaws neatly into the Mandarin madness in ways which any canny moviegoer will see a mile away, involves a geneticist named Killian (Guy Pearce, who has been just waiting to pull out such a meatballs and cheese performance since PRISCILLA: QUEEN OF THE DESERT) who was scorned by Tony 15 years ago for not funding his DNA project, exacting revenge on Tony by coming on strong with successes in his field; re-petitioning for funding from Pepper, whom he would like to come on strong. Pepper gets the chance to prove she’s not just a pretty face by standing up and fighting for her man many times, and it is touching when Tony commands the suit to encase her instead of him to save her from falling debris. She then uses the suit not to cower in – like your average action movie chick – but to protect Tony. Tears edge the eyes… And the fact that Gwyneth’s over 40 and we can still see her ribcage when she’s cut down to a sports bra and tights helps vindicate that People Magazine Sexiest Woman Alive award. Not that I agree with the decision, but it helps.

Tony opens the movie by talking about how a man “creates his own demons.” It sounds like absolute amorphous hippie crap until we see exactly how Tony’s most benign actions create malign consequences. I’ve never thought of this before – probably because I’m as self-centered and arrogant as Tony Stark (like all of you, let’s not forget) – but any person whom you’ve stepped on offhandedly, or reviled or neglected out of hubris becomes one of your “demons.” The creation of the demon need not be as obvious as a plate-throwing argument, a national lawsuit or fistfight – your actions could be as seemingly innocuous as not calling someone back after an intimate encounter (lovely geneticist Rebecca Hall is Tony’s discarded squeeze here)… Another example of the movie depending on its storytelling finesse rather than its Pretty Orange Explosions.

Of which there are many, don’t sweat it, thirteen-year-olds. Director Shane Black, no stranger to action (he created the LETHAL WEAPON series, directed Downey in KISS KISS BANG BANG, and “the jungle came to life and took him” in PREDATOR) forges a respectful, riveting drama (based on the Extremis mini-series of Iron Man comics, 2005) that does not lack for suspense, romance, comedy and a wallop of jet-propulsive action – a fulfilling moviegoing experience. The thrilling scene where Iron Man saves a planeload of freefalling people is that clincher that makes you wish wish WISH that this technology existed and that YOU could be the one inside it.

How damn cool is that freakin’ suit?!

Tony’s Mk. 42 armor is most prominent in this movie, and fanboys will get a ferrous kick out of the final sequence where scores of Tony’s suits of differing designs turn up under remote command from JARVIS to punch bad guys. A phallic metallic paradise! Unlike IRON MAN 2, where a bunch of faceless armored suits chased Tony, these suits are all HIM. Not only are they damn cool to look at, it’s a thrilling sequence where he’s jumping in and out of them at whim, as they clack open and clack closed around his body in seconds.

But where did they come from? Didn’t his cliffside house (and Iron Lab) get blown into the sea at the end of Act I?

All I can say is: Lucky for Tony he had his Billionaire Credit Card in his back pocket when the Mandarin blew his house into the Pacific – which once again illustrates the juvenile thinking of supervillains and the writers who write them that way. These supposed evil geniuses can’t comprehend that you don’t destroy a man by blowing up his house and punching his metal suit – you destroy him by freezing his assets. The assets make the Iron Man. For whatever you say about “heart” or “courage” or “physics genius,” if you haven’t got the finances, all the heart, courage and physics genius in the world won’t design and build a multi-million dollar, weaponized, flying titanium-alloy suit. Can any one of us afford to replace the engine block in our car, let alone churn out 42 computer-interfaced Iron Man suits?

And by the way, the Mandarin supposedly only gets Tony’s home address when Tony blurts it out in a dare to the Mandarin on national TV. Shyeh royt!…. Correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t Tony thrown numerous irresponsible whore-parties at his house? You think not one of those strippers/hookers, waiters/actors and surfer boytoys who frequented those parties would not have leaked his address for a dimebag or an eight-ball or the promise of an acting career? You call yourself a supervillain and didn’t know where the world’s most prominent playboy billionaire lived until he told you?

At Tony’s lowest ebb, a little boy he befriends (Ty Simpkins) tells him, “You’re a mechanic – build something!” Firstly, he’s talking to Tony while Depressed Tony, who admittedly hasn’t got any suits left, is still sitting behind the wheel of a car that costs more than my house; secondly, Tony then visits a hardware store and plops whatever weapon-making tools he wants into his shopping cart. Thank Iron Christ for that Billionaire Credit Card, right?

So in answer to the question ” Who Is Iron Man?” at movie’s end, Stark – as he did at the end of the first movie – once again assures us of his identity, saying it loud and proud. He assures all the corporate dirt-piggies who will no doubt want to keep their cash cow alive; assures we the fans that even though he removed the shrapnel near his heart, negating the further need for his cool chest reactor, that even though all his gadgets are destroyed, that even with his new mature outlook on life, avoiding danger for his girlfriend’s patticake, that even though he just rid himself of everything associated with that golden avenger, Tony assures the audience and Marvel Studios alike, “I am Iron Man!”

Well, his credit card is.

END

Computer Bluesie, Computer Floosie.

The movie Shia LeBeouf makes when he’s in between blockbusters. Still as dumb.

EAGLE EYE. Kinda juvenile title, no? After watching the movie, it fits. Shia is Jerry, a shiftless copy boy (sorry, “copy associate”), who one day discovers boxes of CIA-type weaponry delivered to his shoddy apartment (that he is behind the rent on, of course). He has just returned from the funeral of his twin brother, who was the achiever, the military hero, the favorite son. The clichés mount as we discover Jerry’s directionless life took him backpacking around the world to end up at his dead end job. And if you think the clichés end there, you don’t know action movies….

Suddenly – a phone call. A woman’s voice telling Jerry to leave the building in 18 seconds before the FBI bust in – think Neo in THE MATRIX. Only dumber.

In another part of town, Rachel (Michelle Monaghan), whose son is on a train to camp, also gets a mysterious female phone call, threatening to blow up her son on the train if she doesn’t follow instructions.

Rachel and Jerry are thrown together by the monotonal female voice, as they evade federal agents, led by Billy Bob Thornton and Rosario Dawson, who is usually sparked, but here, as vapid as Ethan Embrey (playing Billy Bob’s overacting aide).

Set in Indiana, directed with verve and no feeling by D.J. Caruso (taking pointers from monotonal machines again, D.J.?), written by John Glenn, Travis Wright, Hillary Seitz and Dan McDermott (who have all had way too much caffeine), EAGLE EYE alludes to Asimov’s Robot Visions (where robots are always getting too darned cognizant for their own good) and is also a commentary on our surveillance-soaked society.

Nonsensical and action-packed, with great effects (car crashes have especially become very realistic in the last couple of years in cinema – but, being an American movie, cars simply MUST flip over while crashing), EAGLE EYE serves absolutely no purpose when we discover the truth behind the monotonal female phone calls.

Not another supercomputer that thinks humans are illogical and don’t deserve to live! When are humans gonna learn to unplug these things overnight so they don’t become sentient and get influenced by video games and heavy metal music?

The female voice emanates from a military supercomputer (made up of golden globes – hint hint… fat chance!) that is trying to put the world back into logical balance by making Jerry and Rachel assassinate the president – ironically, in the most illogical way possible. You see, the supercomputer has total control over everything – GPS, cellphones, security cams, ATMs, e-mail, all mechanical devices; it can locate Jerry and Rachel via anything electrical, it can eradicate pursuers, raise drawbridges, blow up trains, plan robberies… it even sends our heroes to that field with the telegraph wires in the finale of SE7EN and – like SE7EN – a truck drives out of nowhere and delivers a package to them, whereupon the supercomputer kills the messenger by downing power lines onto him.

So why doesn’t it assassinate the president on its own? Why go through the convoluted machinations of involving humans who bring with them the human element of screwing up royally?

The supercomputer keeps telling Jerry “No questions,” until it needs to answer questions for exposition, then it’s happy to belch information regarding Jerry’s twin, the CIA, the Marines, Ethan Embrey’s nil prospects for an Academy Award, and even Dick Cheney’s secret death squads, if gutless Obama would ever take notice and prosecute.

When the supercomputer exposits, showing off for no reason, pulling up info from Jerry’s birth to his present, I once again get infuriated that the Amerikan Military loves portraying itself as all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful – yet pretend they cannot find Osama bin Laden. Not that finding OBL is a feasible option – we all know the government knows where he is, but it is more politically judicious to retain his dynamic as a metaphor for fear.

In a movie this vapid and thoughtless, we can rest assured the president won’t buy the farm; we can also rest assured there will be plot holes that no romantic ending can cover, but which they’ll try to distract us into thinking they covered. Like the ending of I, ROBOT, the supercomputer is brought down by a black guy and a hot chick bodily throwing themselves against it with Fluffy Movie Sparks flying to signify damage, instead of working sensibly with a keyboard and the Geek Squad.

When Rachel and Jerry were trying to elude pursuit in their first scene together, Jerry berates Rachel on her untrained gearshifting, in a car which the computer told her to commandeer. So… the computer knows everything about everything – but it doesn’t know she can’t drive a stick?

I got my eagle eye on you, supercomputer…

END