THE CALL

TriStar Pictures

Rated R

Running time: 94 Minutes



Click below to watch The Call trailer.



In TriStar Pictures The Call, 911 operator Halle Berry receives a call from kidnapping victim Abigail Breslin and must find her.

In this high concept thriller, Berry works in a 911 emergency dispatch center - otherwise known among themselves as "The Hive" - dealing with various 911 calls, from the mundane to the intense. After making a mistake during an intense home intrusion call with teenaged victim Evie Thompson  - a distraught Berry gives up fielding calls and becomes a 911 trainer, giving a jaded view of what being a 911 dispatcher is like to her students. In the middle of the training, rookie operator Jenna Lamia gets a kidnapping call from Breslin - and is too overwhelmed and can not handle the call. Berry takes over the call, doing everything she can to help Breslin - who is locked in the trunk of a car.

After listening to the voice overs of the 911 calls at the beginning of the movie, I liked going behind the scenes of a 911 public-safety answering point (PSAP). I do not recall seeing this much detail with the 911 system before. These are real people dealing with intense situations, thus the necessity of a quiet room to decompress and the availability of psychiatric help if they need it. Berry herself was a wreck while during her research in watching them and said that she could never do this job. Berry having the support from 911 supervisor Roma Maffia in the movie was nice. I never realized that the not knowing of the results at the end of a call would weigh on an operator's mind - but when I think about it, not knowing would weigh on my mind as well.

What I did not like was that the movie went from an intense police procedural with the 911 and police resources - into a Hollywood thriller along the lines of the TV series Profiler during the last act of the movie. While by itself, the last act was good as a thriller and I was pulling for them, it was disappointing to watch stylistically after watching the technical aspects of the rest of the movie. I liked the idea of Berry using the resources of 911 - with the computer programs and communications with the first responders, like police officer Morris Chestnut - and wish that the movie would have taken the 911 resources to the ultimate level. Considering how ingrained cell phones are with people, especially with teenagers, this movie shows the much more important role that phones have in our society.

The manhunt for kidnapper Michael Eklund reminded me of the recent manhunt for former LAPD officer turned killer Christopher Dorner. The movie also reminds me that police officers are people with lives of their own too, especially with the relationship between Chestnut and Berry.

Rated R for violence and language. Running time: 94 Minutes.

Pancho 
All people smile in the same language.

G.I. JOE: RETALIATION

Paramount Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 110 Minutes



Click below to watch the G.I. Joe: Retaliation trailer.



In Paramount Pictures G.I. Joe: Retaliation, the G.I. Joe team has been wiped out and the few survivors, Dwayne Johnson, D.J. Cotrona, and Adrianne Palicki go underground determined to find out why.

In this sequel, G.I. Joe: Retaliation seems like a more adult version of of the prequel G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra - despite the James Bond type of plot. A crawl at the beginning of the movie introduces the concept of G.I. Joe with Channing Tatum in command. Tatum and Johnson's relationship was great, not just as Joes, but as friends as well. The ninja scenes with Storm Shadow - Byung-hun Lee - and with Snake Eyes - Ray Park - and Jinx - Elodie Yung -  were great, especially when compared with the military action scenes. My favorite scene was with Storm Shadow/Lee and Snake Eyes/Park when they first meet each other. While Snake Eyes is not supposed to talk, I am looking forward to when martial artist stuntman Park actually gets a speaking part.

After a mission in Pakistan to confiscate nuclear warheads from terrorists, the Joes are wiped out in a military strike by Cobra. Storm Shadow/Lee rescues Cobra Commander, Luke Bracey with the voice by Robert Baker, from prison - while Snake Eyes/Park and Storm Shadow/Lee's cousin Jinx/Yung go after Storm Shadow/Lee. The Joe survivors from the military strike seek help from the original Joe - General Joseph Colton, Bruce Willis, in order to stop Cobra.

I have always felt that with Jonathan Pryce as a Welshman, Pryce was not an appropriate actor to be President of the United States. Certainly, Pryce did not have the presence to be President and was a little goofy. It was hard for me to believe Pryce as the leader of the free world. There is a worldwide presence to the movie that gives the movie more of a scope than what you might think of when watching this movie and adds to the James Bond feeling of the movie. The use of orbital kinetic bombardment weapons is interesting, especially since the military concept has been around since the 1950's but has never been implemented as far as I know. After having just watched the movie Olympus Has Fallen, the Presidential scenes in G.I. Joe: Retaliation in comparison to that movie were very cartoony.

General Joe Colton - Bruce Willis - from whom the Joes were names after, was not as strong a character as I was expecting. I was really expecting him to take over command of the rest of the Joes when they contacted him. Especially since the Joes were named after him Joe/Willis, I was expecting some kind of possessiveness from Willis about the Joes - as well as a little history about the Joes. Johnson was still basically the leader of the Joes, even with Joe/Willis joining the team. With very few characters from the original movie making an appearance in this one, it would have been nice for Joe/Willis reminiscing about the Joes he has served with. And the friends that Willis supposedly brought in as support to the surviving Joe  team were not seen.

The Cobras were not the super-soldiers from G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, but just a military force and was not such a menacing force as you would think. The ninjas were more menacing, and frankly more fun to watch. Cobra Commander was not a major character in the movie either. The movie could have been made without him and would not have changed a thing. I felt the guards where Cobra Commander was being held were too old to be prison guards and made me glad to see what happened to them. The resolution between Snake Eyes/Park and Storm Shadow/Lee is interesting, and I wonder what will happen between them in the next movie.

The movie apparently did so well during it's opening weekend, that the studio has reportedly commissioned a third G.I. Joe movie.

Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 110 Minutes.

Click below to watch my favorite trailer of G.I. Joe: Retaliation.


Pancho 
All people smile in the same language.