BEFORE: I think it turned out that this film series slotted pretty well into my chain - I mean, a woman who kills her rapists is sort of a serial killer, just one with a focused list. And tonight I visit the same territory as I cross another franchise off of MY list.
THE PLOT: Dirty Harry Callahan must stop a sick secret contest to murder local celebrities, which includes himself as a target.
AFTER: Looks like Dirty Harry is single again, I guess he couldn't work things out with that woman. I guess once she killed all of her attackers, she became less interesting. Which leads to an interesting question, when is a serial killer "done"? Do they get old and just stop, can they put their urges on hold for a while - or, once they develop a taste for killing, does it just become part of their routine?
What do you figure Harry does, he just places a personal ad or something? "Must love spending time at the firing range, dispensing justice - dislikes include punks mouthing off. The mob's after me, so please bring your bullet-proof vest." Anyway, he meets a reporter after throwing her video-camera down the stairs - ain't love grand?
Harry Callahan probably deserved a better swan song than this - it's the equivalent of "Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull" in that sense. But the true legacy of this film is in the homages it created - like the character played by Bruce Willis in the "Sin City" movie, since Frank Miller created that character after viewing this film. Also the Marvel superhero named Deadpool, seen briefly in the film "X-Men Origins: Wolverine", I assume his name may have come from this film, though it's also a spin on DC's character Deathstroke. And one of the best features of the Grand Theft Auto video-games, the RC Toyz vans, which feature remote-control cars that allow you to blow up other cars.
That to me makes more sense - you get into a van and take control of the RC car, and then suddenly your perspective changes so that you're seeing the street through the "eyes" of the toy car. In this film somebody manages to drive the RC car while they're also driving a regular car, and somehow they're able to steer both vehicles at the same time. That's a pretty neat trick, also quite impossible.
It's one of the ways this film feels a little thrown together, also the major stunts are quite well telegraphed. I don't know if I buy the killer's motivation, either.
Besides, everybody knows that if you're betting on a celebrity death pool, if you cause the death of the celebrity yourself, that's cheating. Anyone setting up the pool should have created a rule against that. We had a CDP for a while at one of my offices, and I made sure to include that rule. It was a lot of work to maintain, though, and the novelty wore off pretty quickly. Plus it looked like one of those projects that was never going to end, because there are always new celebrities popping up to replace the old ones.
But speaking of lists, where does this leave my watch list? I've got 230 films left on my list - and that's pretty much where the number's been for the last two months. Every day I cross a film off, and I find a new one to add, so I haven't been making much progress. Ah, but there is a SECOND list, and that's a list of films that I don't have copies of, films which I would like to add to my list. Even though the main list remains at a constant number, that second list has been slowly shrinking, and that's a form of progress. Now that I've decided not to wait for more recent films to air on the premium channels and instead watch them via OnDemand or iTunes, there should eventually come a time when there are no more films to add.
Also starring Patricia Clarkson (last seen in "One Day"), Liam Neeson (last seen in "Les Miserables"), Jim Carrey (last seen in "Fun With Dick and Jane"), Evan C. Kim, David Hunt.
RATING: 4 out of 10 slasher films
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