The Gift (2001)
DIRECTOR: Sam Raimi
CAST: Cate Blanchett, Greg Kinnear, Hilary Swank, Keanu Reeves, Giovanni Ribisi, Katie Holmes
REVIEW:
Sam Raimi’s The Gift functions equally as a supernatural thriller, a murder mystery, and a character drama, wrapped up in a strong sense of Southern Gothic atmosphere and overcoming some of the tropes and melodrama inherent within with Raimi’s stylish direction and a first-rate cast.
Continue readingApt Pupil (1998)
DIRECTOR: Bryan Singer
CAST: Brad Renfro, Ian McKellen, Bruce Davison, David Schwimmer, Joshua Jackson, Ann Dowd, Elias Koteas, Michael Byrne, Joe Morton, Jan Triska
REVIEW:
WARNING: THIS REVIEW WILL REVEAL “SPOILERS”
Apt Pupil is a morbidly engrossing psychological thriller crafted with enough professionalism and ability to sometimes persuade us to overlook its questionable taste, even if the bad aftertaste lingers. An adaptation of a novella by Stephen King (a previous attempt at filming it was mounted in 1988, starring Ricky Schroder and Nicol Williamson, but fell through), it uses that ever-convenient go-to-guy of villains—Nazis—as a launching pad for a psychological character study. Those seeking a conventional “thriller” might be disappointed. Apt Pupil is disturbing, sometimes chilling, but the horror is not of the “boo!” variety. Apt Pupil is a slow-burn foray into the heart of darkness that resides within two seemingly very different men, and how they feed each other’s worst impulses. Continue reading
A Perfect Murder (1998)
DIRECTOR: Andrew Davis
CAST: Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow, Viggo Mortensen, David Suchet
REVIEW:
A Perfect Murder is a slick, stylish Hitchockian thriller that serves up plenty of diabolical twists and turns (in fact, it’s a loose remake of Hitchcock’s 1954 film Dial M for Murder, although much is changed). For fans of this genre, it’s a suitably devious little entry. Continue reading
Alien Resurrection (1997)
DIRECTOR: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
CAST:
Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Ron Perlman, Michael Wincott, Dominique Pinon, Gary Dourdan, Dan Hedaya, J.E. Freeman, Brad Dourif, Leland Orser, Kim Flowers
REVIEW:
Like many a film franchise, the Alien series started out strong, then didn’t know when to quit. Greed to make more money overrode the artistic integrity of stopping when the series was ahead and had fresh, original places to take the story. Alien Resurrection is at least not the dreary, depressing experience of the morbid Alien 3, but that’s damning with faint praise. Continue reading
Switchback (1997)
DIRECTOR:
Jeb Stuart
CAST:
Dennis Quaid, Danny Glover, Jared Leto, R. Lee Ermey, Ted Levine, William Fichtner, Leo Burmester
REVIEW:
Unlike most entries in the serial killer/thriller genre, Switchback moves at a leisurely pace, relying more on character development than jolts, but it’s a solid effort that sets itself apart from standards of the genre in some ways yet is a worthy entry among them. Continue reading
Kiss the Girls (1997)
DIRECTOR: Gary Fleder
CAST:
Morgan Freeman, Ashley Judd, Cary Elwes, Tony Goldwyn, Alex McArthur, Bill Nunn, Jay O. Sanders, William Converse-Roberts, Brian Cox, Jeremy Piven, Gina Ravera, Richard T. Jones, Roma Maffia
REVIEW:
WARNING: THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN “SPOILERS”
Crime author James Patterson is a bit like the dime novels you might snatch up at the airport; he doesn’t churn out the stuff of Shakespeare, but it’s a quick, easy read, brisk and compulsively page-turning. Likewise, Kiss the Girls is such a film, a decent little mystery thriller that provides a brisk couple of hours when looking for something reasonably diverting. It’s bolstered by a couple of strong lead performances, but one feels a more stylish, atmospheric director like David Fincher (who helmed the darker and more disturbing Se7en, also starring Morgan Freeman) could have done more with the material than the TV-movie look and feel of the comparatively nondescript Gary Fleder. Continue reading
Conspiracy Theory (1997)
DIRECTOR: Richard Donner
CAST: Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts, Patrick Stewart, Cylk Cozart, Steve Kahan
REVIEW:
There’s a tantalizing glimpse of an edgier indie thriller/dark comedy somewhere within the genesis of Conspiracy Theory, but it’s buried within a “safe” thriller/mystery/romance potboiler. The result is watchable, and mildly entertaining, but it’s no more than mediocre as an action thriller, with a love story that somewhat strains credibility. It’s the kind of movie where one can see the cliched thriller/action/romance beats ticking themselves off.
Continue readingAnaconda (1997)
DIRECTOR: Luis Llosa
CAST: Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Jon Voight, Eric Stoltz, Jonathan Hyde, Owen Wilson, Kari Wuhrer, Vincent Castellanos, Danny Trejo
REVIEW:
Much like 1995’s The Ghost and the Darkness, Anaconda is another hokey ’90s creature feature that tries to do for its designated “monster” what Jaws, the grand daddy of them all, did for sharks. With The Ghost and the Darkness, it was a pair of man-eating lions. With the simply-titled Anaconda (recalling the B-movie Piranha), its giant people-swallowing snakes in the depths of the Amazonian jungle. And much like the previous Jaws wannabe, Anaconda just can’t get the hang of this sort of thing. But unlike the lion movie, that was self-serious to a sometimes unintentionally comical extent, Anaconda at least has a goofy, campy element, and its level of intentional tongue-in-cheek humor, while not going all-out with it on as fun of a level as Tremors, has led to it becoming a “so bad it’s good” cult classic that can be enjoyed on a silly level as long as you’re not trying to take it too seriously.
Continue readingRansom (1996)
DIRECTOR: Ron Howard
CAST: Mel Gibson, Gary Sinise, Rene Russo, Delroy Lindo, Lili Taylor, Liev Schreiber, Donnie Wahlberg, Evan Handler, Brawley Nolte
REVIEW:
Ron Howard is on a roll, and for his latest venture, coming on the heels of last year’s docudrama Apollo 13, he’s turned to the thriller genre, with this loose remake of the 1956 Glenn Ford film of the same name. Ransom isn’t flawless, but Howard’s taut direction, a twisty-turny script by Richard Price and Alexander Ignon, and a capable cast add up to a slick thriller that provides a mostly solid couple hours of diversion. Continue reading
The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)
DIRECTOR: Stephen Hopkins
CAST: Michael Douglas, Val Kilmer, John Kani, Brian McCardie, Bernard Hill, Om Puri, Tom Wilkinson, Emily Mortimer
REVIEW:
The Ghost and the Darkness is obviously an attempt to do for the African tall grass what Jaws did for the water, with two lions in place of a great white shark, but it falls far short of Jaws’ classic status for a few reasons. One, director Stephen Hopkins is no Steven Spielberg. Two, Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer are not playing characters nearly as well-delineated as those played by Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw. Prolific author and screenwriter William Goldman (who’s written titles as diverse as The Princess Bride, Marathon Man, All the President’s Men, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) does not churn out one of his stronger works. As an example of the general level of subtlety, the big game hunter is named Remington, and it’s the kind of movie where people say painfully earnest wannabe profundities like “you build bridges. You have to go where the rivers are”. Continue reading