BEFORE: It's the last movie for June, so let's check the stats. Once again, I added one extra movie during the month, as I did all year - so six months in, I'm six films ahead of the day count. That's fine, because I've hit all my benchmarks and holidays, but I'm just worried about running out of slots before I run out of year. I won't know for sure if squeezing in the extra films is to my benefit until I make that connective chain between July 31 and October 1. I should probably get on that soon, or at least try making some attempts - but I've been waiting to find out for sure if and when movie theaters are going to open in NYC, that's kind of important.
In June there were:
12 Movies watched on cable (saved to DVD): The Girl in the Spider's Web, Father Figures, Wonder, Drillbit Taylor, Shorts, Motherless Brooklyn, Lord of War, The Family Man, State of Play, The Company Men, Smokin' Aces, Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins' Ball
5 Movies watched on cable (not saved): The 15:17 to Paris, River's Edge, House of D, Fathers' Day, The Next Three Days
5 watched on Netflix: The Other Side of the Wind, They'll Love Me When I'm Dead, Between Two Ferns: The Movie, The Trust, The Last Thing He Wanted
6 watched on iTunes: Knives Out, Selma, Straight Outta Compton, Love Simon, World's Greatest Dad, Proof of Life
2 watched on Amazon Prime: Are You Here, Fathers & Daughters
1 watched on Disney+: Onward
31 TOTAL
Cable's back in a big way, after Netflix ruled May. Over half my films came from cable - also no Academy screeners this month, because the lockdown still prevented my second office from opening, and that's where they are. But the screeners' loss is a gain for Netflix and iTunes, though Netflix is still down from last month, and iTunes is up. Those are the films that helped me connect the cable movies, though, so they're still invaluable. The Netflix queue still has about 90 films in it, which is better than 100 but there's still a long way to go before it's cleared.
Christopher Michael Holley carries over from "Smokin' Aces", which appears to be the most significant carry-over plotwise, but so do two other actors.
THE PLOT: Insane assassins gather in or near a bar, waiting to kill an insignificant FBI pencil pusher, kept in a safe house surrounded by FBI agents, at 3 a.m. to collect $3M.
AFTER: Ah, I get it, this was a PREQUEL to "Smokin' Aces", only it came out 4 years after, so it's kind of both a prequel and a sequel. Right? I mean, they couldn't use most of the characters from "Smokin' Aces" again (for obvious reasons), or maybe they couldn't afford those stars again, or maybe the scheduling just didn't work out for some of them. Now, the bigger question I have concerns how all that affected the story, because some characters appear in both films, and some only in one or the other. If, say, one particular actor was game to appear in the sequel, does that mean he or she was automatically in? And if they said "No, thanks" or had a conflict, does that mean they were out? Was the availability driving the story, or the other way around?
That assassin that pulls the old "false face" latex mask trick, he's back - I mean, you've just gotta have him, I think. And that minor character I mentioned before who carries over gets a meaty back story, the only problem is that knowing his deal now changes NOTHING about his appearance in the first film (which is, umm, really the second now). They don't even really do much with him here, but if you think about it, he can't really get too involved with the action because we all know he's got to survive this encounter and appear in the other film - where he had almost zero impact, but the timeline must be preserved.
The fact that the Nazi/redneck/alt-right Tremor Brothers are back is somewhat more problematic, since only one actor from the first film appears here - so they created a new (bigger, dumber) Tremor brother, and also a Tremor sister. Hey, that's OK, go feminism (umm, I think?) and women can be Nazi rednecks, too (wait, do we really want that?) and let's throw in the Tremor father for good measure. So three Tremors in one film, four Tremors in the other, and only one character crosses over. Hmm, I thought they said in the first film that the three Tremor brothers had different fathers, but then would they all have the same last name? I must have misheard it, because that's not how last names work, unless they all took the mother's last name, or the "Brother" title is something of an honorific. If they had the same father but different mothers, wouldn't that make more sense? Maybe I misheard it, or some of them changed their last names? You know what, it doesn't really matter because I've already spent more time thinking about it than the screenwriters did.
(Ah, I get it, perhaps it's a joke. Maybe this is one of the only Tremor brothers who knew who his father was, because he's seen hanging out with him. And perhaps if all the other Tremor brothers had the same mother, and the last name Tremor, maybe Jeeves' mother and father share the same last name, and are related. A little brother-sister action, or perhaps cousins? That would fit with the stereotypes about southern rednecks.)
Oh, and there's a different director on this film, too. Mr. Carnahan couldn't hang in there for a second film, or maybe HE had a scheduling conflict, I'll have to investigate. But you can feel sort of a shift here, because the main focus is put on the FBI agents, instead of the vast array of colorful, quirky assassin characters. It's funny, I was complaining about that emphasis yesterday, but now that the Feds get higher billing, it seems like a shame, because most of the agents are so damn boring, always worried about procedure and securing the scene, doing surveillance for intel and.....sorry, I fell asleep for just a few seconds there. Can I change my answer about which characters should be the stars of this franchise?
For good measure, and to replace the assassins who couldn't or wouldn't be in the prequel, they added a hot Latino assassin who prefers to drug her prey with a toxin she wears on her lips, and one nicknamed "The Surgeon" who likes to play with his catch, test out a little bit of brain torture before he finishes them off. That's, well, it's approaching interesting at least - I remember some Marvel comics with the Punisher where he'd pull out a criminal's intestines and spread them around a bit to make him confess, or tell him what he needed to know. So there's something of a comic book feel to the "Smokin' Aces" franchise, I'll confess. But it's unfortunate that no one in this film is trying to "smoke" the character nicknamed "Aces", so the title no longer applies.
The assassins respond to a hit put on one of those FBI actuary types, somebody who sits at a desk and reviews files and crime scene reports and tries to figger stuff out, so the big question is, "Who would put a contract out on this guy?" and the bigger question is "Why does the contract stipulate that he has to be killed on April 19 at exactly 3 am? Without giving anything away, I'll brag that I figured it out very early, using the same logic that was seen in the first film (that's now really the second). I just imagined what the most ridiculous possible twist could be, and that turned out to be correct. Does it make sense? Of course not, but that's what I've come to expect from this franchise over just two days' time. This is why I haven't watched any of the "Fast & Furious" movies, because I'm betting the reveals are just as ridiculous, and I don't want to learn to anticipate them, because that would justify them. Maybe sometime in the future, but not this year. Or next year.
It's not really a NITPICK POINT, but it's curious that when the FBI learns that one of their agents is in jeopardy, they put him in a safe house (which is also a jazz club/restaurant? Weird...) and yet all the assassins still know exactly where to find him on the appointed date & time. Hmmmm.... Now, of course, if the FBI can wiretap the criminals, maybe the criminals can spy on the FBI. Or maybe there's a leak, or maybe they knocked on the door of every jazz club in town until they found one that wouldn't let assassins in.
Bottom line is, while the first film felt a bit like there was too much action to keep track of, this one feels like ten minutes of story stretched out to an 86-minute movie. All the conversations between the agents, and all the prep work they do just seems like filler material. They could have added two or three more assassins here and decreased the time spent on government agent chatter. At this rate, the last decent action movie I've seen was "The Next Three Days" - so I'm going to give the genre just one more chance and then I'm moving on. For now.
Also starring Tom Berenger (last seen in "The Big Chill"), Clayne Crawford (last seen in "The Great Raid"), David Richmond-Peck (last seen in "Pacific Rim"), Jason Schombing (last seen in "Two for the Money"), Jared Keeso (last seen in "Godzilla"), Hrothgar Mathews (last seen in "The Core"), Keegan Connor Tracy (last seen in "White Noise"), Sonja Bennett (last seen in "Where the Truth Lies"), Ernie Hudson (last seen in "Ghostheads"), Martha Higareda, Vinnie Jones (last seen in "The Magnificent Seven"), Autumn Reeser (last seen in "Sully"), Maury Sterling (also carrying over from "Smokin' Aces"), Tommy Flanagan (ditto), Michael Parks (last seen in "Tusk"), C. Ernst Harth (last seen in "Trick 'r Treat").
RATING: 3 out of 10 Mexican standoffs
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