The Frame » film-suspense

Disturbia

Jandy — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 02:33:47 +0000

If you’re going to remake Rear Window, this is at least a good direction to go. The source material is clear to anyone who’s seen Rear Window, but Disturbia has enough of its own concerns and sensibilities to keep it from feeling like a stale do-over of a what is quite possibly my favorite film of all time. That doesn’t necessarily mean Disturbia is good, but it’s not bad. It gets pretty predictable by the end, and the police officers are rather stupid, which gets annoying quickly. Still, it’s an enjoyable waste of a couple of hours. But really. See Rear Window.
Average

Foul Play

Jandy — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 17:59:05 +0000

Goldie Hawn picks up a stranded stranger by the roadside, then meets him for a movie–only to have him die in the seat beside her. Unbeknownst to her, he is on the run with a precious role of film which he secretly deposited in her purse. Now his pursuers are after her, but she’s unable to convince laid-back police detective Chevy Chase that her life is in danger. Full of humor and suspense and silliness–not in the same league with a Thin Man or a Charade, but an enjoyable successor to the hybrid crime-comedy genre.
Above Average

Green for Danger

Jandy — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 20:15:58 +0000

Rather slight but entertaining British WWII black comedy/suspenser. Alistair Sim, as perfect as ever, plays a detective brought in to solve a murder committed among a group of army doctors and nurses, a task made more difficult by the suspects’ complex romantic involvements and friendships; basically, all of them have motive and opportunity. This film has a healthy reputation among fans of post-war British cinema, and it’s well-done; there’s just not a whole lot to it beyond its quintessentially British charm. And I love black and white films, but this is a rare case in which color would’ve really helped. Or else, completely ruined it. Now that I think of it, color might actually have given the mystery away–I’m not sure if that’s a positive observation on the cinematic side of the equation, or a negative one on the script side.
Above Average

Kiss Me Deadly

Jandy — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:26:08 +0000

This noirish detective film has a healthy reputation as a pulp classic (adapted from the king of pulp fiction, Mickey Spillane) that may overshadow its actual quality. It’s good for what it is, but it’s not great. In fact, I’m having difficulty remembering the exact plot, other than it has to do with a mysterious box which acts almost as a McGuffin in Hitchcock’s films–in other words, the excuse for all the action, but everybody wants it without quite knowing what’s in it. It plays into 1950s atomic paranoia, but the final payoff seems rather anticlimactic. Of course, it’s still enjoyable to watch, if you like noirish detective pulp fiction films. Just don’t try to make it more than it is.
Above Average

The Lookout

Jandy — Sat, 05 May 2007 18:54:12 +0000

A gem of a little movie that slipped under the radar…it might still be playing near you, and I suggest you give it a look-see if it is. The lead Joseph Gordon-Levitt was one of may great things about last year’s Brick, and he brings a similar quiet intensity to The Lookout. He plays a young man injured in a terrible car accident, and between the brain-damage from the accident and his guilt over causing the accident, which killed three of his friends, he’s kinda messed up. His attempts to live a normal life are interrupted when a man approaches him, claims to have known him in high school (this may be true, it’s hard to tell) and offers him the chance of a lifetime–get rich by acting as a lookout on a bank robbery. It’s much more focused on Gordon-Levitt’s character and his struggles to figure out who he is and where he fits in the world now than on the robbery itself, but the thriller aspects are definitely there. It’s really well-balanced and while it isn’t the heady experience that something like Brick or Memento is, it’s very good at being what it is, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Well Above Average

Where the Truth Lies

Jandy — Sat, 05 May 2007 18:51:04 +0000

Canadian director Atom Egoyan sort of has a niche in high-concept, eroticized thrillers, and this one fits in there pretty well. Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon play two performers/best friends in 1950s Hollywood whose friendship dissolves after the death of a young actress which may or may not have been a murder in which either Firth or Bacon or both may or may not be involved. Confused yet? Alison Lohman plays an author who is trying to write a biography of one of them (I forget which) and ends up playing the detective role as she tries to discover the truth behind the girl’s death. The film is made up of a series of flashbacks told from all three characters’ points of view, showing how memory and/or deception make it almost impossible to discover what actually happened to the doomed actress. That part is intriguing, and the mystery is well-done. The erotic parts fit less well and are rather distracting, I think, from the actual story. Not to mention the fact that they make thinking about Lohman playing the adolescent lead in the recent Flicka (which was made AFTER Where the Truth Lies) distinctly uncomfortable.
Above Average

The Wrong Man

Jandy — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 23:23:44 +0000

One of Hitchcock’s lesser works, The Wrong Man does have its points (which grew on me as I thought about it more), but nowhere near a masterpiece. Manny (Henry Fonda) is a mild-mannered bass player at a nightclub, barely bringing in enough money to support his wife and two young sons. Needing to collect funds to cover a medical procedure, he goes to his insurance agency to borrow against his wife’s policy–but the clerks mistake him for a hold-up man who had robbed the agency (and several other businesses) a few weeks earlier. This leads to his arrest and imprisonment, generating an almost Kafkaesque treatment of the justice system. Several things bothered me, mostly the complete failure of the police to do their investigatory jobs (they never even asked him if he had alibis for the dates in question) and the sense that this might be conspiracy rather than mistaken identity. Hitchcock isn’t usually given to overt red herrings, but this sometimes veered dangerously in that direction. After thinking about it more, obviously both of these elements are meant to add to the random pointlessness of the whole ordeal as seen from Manny’s perspective, yet they still bothered me because it seems Hitchcock gave in here to his own distrust of the police. It is, I think, an interesting film rather than a good one.
Average