FURIOUS 7

Universal Pictures

Rated: PG-13

Running Time: 137 Minutes

Click below to watch a movie trailer of Furious 7.



In Universal Pictures Furious 7, Vin Diesel and his crew must find Jason Statham - who is targeting Diesel's "family" after what Diesel did to Statham's brother, Luke Evans.

In the seventh movie in The Fast and the Furious movie series, Diesel, former LAPD Paul Walker and the rest of their crew, Michelle Rodriquez, Tyrese Gibson, and Chris "Ludacris" Bridges have returned to the United States to live normal lives after getting amnesties from Diplomatic Security Service agent Dwayne Johnson - until rogue special forces assassin Statham seeks revenge against "the team that crippled his brother."

The three previous movies of the Fast and Furious films were set between 2 Fast 2 Furious and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Furious 7 is the first film to take place time wise after Tokyo Drift.

The move was released in 3D internationally, which is the first for a film in the series to be released in 3D.

My favorite action scenes were the car drop scenes. These scenes were done for real using a Lockheed C-17 Hercules as well as a C-130 Hercules and various camera angles.

I was not crazy about the fact that Djimon Hounsou was a secondary bad guy in the movie. As much as I like Hounsou, his character distracted from the intensity of Statham's character being the main bad guy. It is also kind of disappointing that Hounsou is being typecast as a villain. I have lost track of how many bad guy roles he has played. I also was not crazy about the fact that the crew never used voice activated headsets, but instead used handheld radios while driving. Considering that their rides are under dangerous conditions, using the handheld radios were rather distracting.

I was expecting Johnson to be playing a major role in the movie, but his role was basically taken up by the leader of a covert ops team Kurt Russell. Russell's character was fun, and I was never quite sure which way he was going to turn.

This is my first Fast and Furious movie, so I am just getting to know these characters. I did not have to see the other movies to enjoy these characters and their relationships with each other. I immediately got that family feeling from them, with Diesel as the patriarch. Actually the whole movie had that family feeling in the film, especially with Jordana Brewster as Walker's wife. It was rather sad seeing Diesel dealing with Rodriquez loss of memory of their relationship together. I think this is a fun, and sad movie to watch.

This movie is mostly known as Paul Walker's final movie. Walker's name is not shown in the opening credits. I thought that I might have missed seeing his name while watching the credits - despite Walker being a major character in the movie, even if he only did half of the filming - and was disappointed in not seeing his name. I realized while watching the movie that the producers would have saved his name for the tribute in the end credits. The movie had to be rewritten and had the rest of the movie filmed with body doubles - including Walker's brothers Caleb Walker and Cody Walker doubling for Walker, with Walker's face CGI'd over their faces. The Walker brothers also provided voice over for Walker's character. The movie does have a logical reason why Walker will not be in any future movies of the Fast and Furious series and I was satisfied and sad with it. Actually with the loss of Walker, I would not be surprised if computer hacker Nathalie Emmanuel becomes a new member of the crew.

At the end of the movie there is a tribute to Walker, including footage from previous Fast and Furious films. You could feel that the filmmakers really wanted to honor Paul's legacy. The movie ends with the dedication - For Paul.

Rated PG-13 for violence and language. Running time: 137 minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

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PARKER

FilmDistrict

Rated R

Running time: 118



Click below to watch the Parker trailer.

 

In FilmDistrict's Parker, Jason Statham is a highly principled thief who wants revenge against the gang who reneged on his share of the booty and tried to kill him.

Based on the novel Flashfire written by Richard Stark, pseudonym of writer Donald E. Westlake, and Produced and Directed by Taylor Hackford, the movie is similar to the movie Payback and which was also a Parker movie/book written by Stark. That is why the two movies are similar as other reviewers have pointed out, although Parker is a different type of film for Hackford since Hackford does not want to get stuck in any type of genre.

After pulling off a heist at a country fair, Statham is betrayed by Michael Chiklis when Chiklis wants to use the money from the heist to fund an even bigger heist. When Statham refuses to go along with the next heist and wants his share of the money, Chiklis has his gang try to kill him. When gang member Michah Hauptman leaves Statham for dead, Statham recovers and plans on getting revenge against Chiklis and his gang.

While Jennifer Lopez was the female lead in the movie and the one promoted for the movie, Emma Booth was Statham's love interest in the movie - especially since Booth's character is a semi-regular in the Parker novels. With Booth as Statham's love interest, Statham certainly did not encourage any relationship with Lopez. As a result, since Booth was the love interest, Statham and Lopez had no real chemistry despite Lopez's efforts. I had mixed feelings about Lopez's character in the movie as she was both a street-smart realtor and a ditsy divorcee at the same time, who seemed desperate to have a relationship after her divorce to take her away from this life. Patti LuPone as Lopez's mother, and their dog, had larger roles than I thought they would.

Michael Chiklis was was appropriately scummy as the leader of the gang doing the heist, although the gang itself were not strong enough characters to really appreciate their individual talents. Nick Nolte as Booth's father was not a strong enough character either to be the central godfather-like character connecting Statham, Booth, and Chiklis in their business - especially since Nolte had such a minor role in the film. I almost pitied Nolte as he has gotten quite old instead of mature, and was rather rundown looking in the movie.

Palm Beach, Florida was a beautiful location for the site of the next heist as Statham checks out hotels, mansions, and beach houses with Lopez and did make me curious as to what kind of heist would be the target at such a rich location.

I liked that Statham's character was highly principled, who conducts himself with a certain moral code, so I could relate to this anti-hero character as he does become the hero after the first act of the movie. As a former diver for the British Olympic Diving Team, Statham performed all of his stunts in the film - including jumping out of a moving car.

I saw the movie at a matinee so there was hardly anybody in the theater, but the audience reacted to the action so I can imagine a larger young evening audience would have reacted just as positively to the movie and had as much fun. For a novel character that has been around for 45 years as of 2013, I thought this was a fun movie.

Rated R for violence, language, nudity. Running time: 118.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

The Expendables 2

Lionsgate

Rated R

Running time: 103 Minutes



Click below to watch The Expendables 2 trailer.



In Lionsgate's The Expendables 2, Sylvester Stallone and his team of mercenary Expendables are sent on a secret mission by CIA operative Bruce Willis to recover the contents of a safe - which holds the key to an abandoned Cold War Soviet Union mine of five tons of weapons grade plutonium.

This is a fun action-packed sequel to the 2010 first movie of The Expendables. The Expendables 2 includes an ensemble of 1980's action stars as well as current action stars which makes for an incredible cast. The Expendables 2 is directed by Simon West and co-written by Stallone and by Richard Wenk, with whom I used to work with. I did not know Richard wrote the movie until I saw the credits on IMDB. However, when watching the movie, I can recognize jokes that are obviously Richard's.

This group of action stars - both old and new - which includes names like Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Chuck Norris, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Terry Crews, and Randy Couture look to be having fun on this movie, including newcomers Liam Hemsworth as the next generation Expendable, and Yu Nan (or Nan Yu, I have seen two different postings of her name. Yu Nan is posted on the official website) as a Chinese agent sent by Willis to join their team. It was great that Lundgren's history of chemical engineering was written into his character, making Lundgren perhaps the smartest character of the Expendables. I liked the fact that they played up on Norris's urban legend facts in the movie, as well as playing up Schwarzenegger's character as Stallone's action rival. Charisma Carpenter of Buffy the Vampire Slayer reprises her role as Statham's girlfriend.

Jean-Claude Van Damme was great as the villain. Van Damme is even credited in the movie as Vilain. The final face off battle between Stallone and Van Damme is a great hand to hand battle, worthy to see between the two action stars. Although since they were both basically wearing the same clothes, it was hard to tell the two of them apart when they were battling in silhouette despite their different tattoos and logos. Director West captures the essences of all the other 1980's action films that made these action stars famous.

While I would have liked Van Damme as an Expendable - someone has to be the villain and be strong enough to stand up to the Expendables and Van Damme fits the bill, especially with Van Damme's fighting style. Scott Adkins was sufficiently sadistic as Van Damme's henchman as he executes the various village slave workers. It is a shame that Jet Li left the film early, so you could not really appreciate his character -  although Nan took over the token Asian character aspect of the movie and she does hold her own as an action star, and Statham's knife fighting abilities made up for the missing Li's hand to hand fighting scenes as well as Statham being Stallone's best friend. Liam Hemsworth is not as well known as an action star as his older brother Chris Hemsworth, but Liam made a nice addition as the Expendable's young sniper. I liked that Terry Crews was the cook of the movie, but I do not remember much of Randy Couture, even though he was supposed to be the glue that holds the dysfunctional Expendables together. Watching all the 80's action stars firing off the big guns was a lot of fun. The shootout at the airport reminded me of a video game my nephew was playing with recently.

Having a village full of mothers such as Amanda Ooms defending their children from the Expendables and Van Damme's men was both comedic and heartbreaking and added some humanity to the story. There is a great bit with a Smart Car which is especially funny to me as we have a fleet of Smart Cars at work for promotional appearances for our company and to see a Smart Car being used in the movie was great.

Rated R for graphic violence. Running time: 103 Minutes.

Click below to watch a Top Five list of Action films to prepare you for The Expendables 2 movie.



Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews

The Mechanic

CBS Films

Rated R

Running time: 93 minutes
































Click below to watch The Mechanic trailer.



In CBS Films The Mechanic, Jason Statham is a "Mechanic" - otherwise known as a hit man. When his mentor Donald Sutherland is killed, Statham reluctantly takes on Sutherland's hothead son Ben Foster as his trainee as they both go after the people responsible for Sutherland's death.

A remake of The Mechanic that starred Charles Bronson and Jan-Michael Vincent, this movie shows that being a Mechanic is a profession and the type of "hits" Statham is required to do is almost an art form. I like the quote that "the best jobs are the ones, nobody ever knows you were there." While I have never seen the original film - and granted one of the reasons I saw this current film was that someone that I have worked with in Hollywood, Richard Wenk, co-wrote the script - I liked how Statham trained Foster, stressing the homework and surveillance as well as the weapons training. Stathan and Foster basically become a professional choreographed team, despite Foster's rashness. There is also more characterization in the movie than I had expected for this film, as really the film is more about the almost father-son relationship between Statham and Foster. Sutherland is a memorable character as Statham's mentor, while Tony Goldwyn is not as smarmy as I wanted him to be as the head of the company that Statham works for - especially when you consider the many millions each contract hit is worth.

The direction by Simon West is typical for his action and seamier side of life - although putting both styles together is almost too schizophrenic for the film. The people getting shot in the film can also be rather graphic. Considering the amount of mayham and destruction that was carried out amongst the streets, it was unbelievable to me that no police forces were anywhere around to try to handle the situation. The climax is not as satisfying either - as the bad guy just basically runs away, instead of trying to fight Statham and Foster. The tag can also be depressing to see as it was for me, as you have grown to care about the characters.

Rated R for violence, nudity, and sexual situations. Running time: 93 minutes

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

 Pancho's Movie Reviews