BEFORE: Linking from "Doc Hollywood", Michael J. Fox carries over, and I'm setting myself on another cop/crime-related chain, which should dovetail nicely into action films and then superhero action films. I'm 2 weeks out from Comic-Con, which means I should be counting out our merchandise and checking to see if I have all the office and art supplies we'll need.
16 of the last 19 films have been about performers in some way - actors, singers, stunt men and painters. This will be the last word on that subject for a while - but after superheroes I've got musicians queued up again.
AFTER: Like last night's film, this is another study in contrasts. Pair the spoiled, pampered actor up with a tough, gritty New York cop, then just sit back and watch the hilarity. This baby practically writes itself, right? Well, not exactly.
For this to work, you have to believe in a deranged killer called the "Party Crasher", who enters NYC clubs and shoots people - but other than the fact that he's a psycho, we never learn much about him. Why those clubs, why those people? Is it completely random, or does he have some kind of an agenda. He claims to be doing the "same job" as the police - is he killing criminals, or just people who he believes are evil? We'll never know, because the police never seem to investigate his motives, they're only interested in shutting him down. So he COULD have been a great character (remember, villains never perceive themselves to be villains...) if someone had just taken the time to give him a backstory or motive. Nope, let's shoot first and ask questions later.
The actor, Nick Lang, star of the film-within-a-film "Smoking Gunn II", wants to shadow Det. John Moss, who's as real a police officer as he can find. But this in itself was kind of confusing, this is supposed to be research for a role, but "Smoking Gunn II" seems to be already in theaters - is he trying out for a role in a different franchise? Seems to me that a successful actor, with a film already in theaters, wouldn't need to do research, because the thing's already shot - and he's probably locked in to "Smoking Gunn III", so why would he even need to audition for that? I guess they made a half-hearted attempt to explain this when the film-within-a-film that they watch at the end is called "The Good, The Badge and the Ugly", but this seems like a late fix.
I feel like I've dug so far into my list that I'm mired in mediocre films - surely if these movies were more important, I would have watched them before now, right? So where are the hidden gems, the films that are really great but that I just never knew about for some reason? My guess is that they don't exist. I've got some new films (2013-2014) coming up that I'm really excited about, but it's very possible that the films from the 1980's and 1990's that are left on the list, I'm just watching them to be a completist, and I'm not going to find any buried treasure there.
Also starring James Woods (last seen in "Nixon"), Stephen Lang (last seen in "Tombstone"), Annabella Sciorra (last seen in "Reversal of Fortune"), Luis Guzman (last seen in "Snake Eyes"), LL Cool J, Delroy Lindo (last seen in "Congo"), with cameos from Penny Marshall, Christina Ricci (last seen in "Anything Else"), Kathy Najimy (last seen in "Sister Act 2"), Lewis Black, Bill Cobbs, Mos Def and Fabio.
RATING: 5 out of 10 frog dogs
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