BEFORE: Man, I'm really excited for my upcoming summer Doc Bloc / Rock Block. (working title, it's really just the usual Summer Music & Comedy Documentary Jam, and I could easily revert to calling it that.) Why am I so excited? Well, I've got a bunch of docs about musicians, comedians and other notable people who have all become documentary subjects in the last few years - I've listed some of them here already so there's no need to go through them again. But that's not why I'm excited.
I put 28 or 29 of them in order, and then when the linking seemed a little tenuous, I sort of "pre-watched" a few of them that seemed like they might be missing credits on the IMDB, particularly where archive footage credits are concerned. And I was right, a bunch of them were missing credits, I've made suggestions to the IMDB for additions, and the online credits have been updated properly, for the most part. AND I've got a solid chain with a start point and an exit point, which could easily be reversed, so that means there are TWO films to aim for, that doubles my chances of getting there this summer. But even all THAT isn't why I'm excited.
I've been concerned about my last film, which is a documentary about the Velvet Underground. It also doesn't have a lot of credits, which means I may have to WATCH it to figure out where to go next. There is, in fact, only one current film on my list that represents a solid next step. HOWEVER, I accidentally determined that with the addition of just one more film to the line-up (and it's not a film I'm crazy about watching, but that scarcely matters at this point) the end of the chain links back to the beginning. I've seen this happen before, with some February romance or October horror films, because the same type of people tend to be in the same type of movies. With documentaries, I can usually count on seeing newscasters, talk show hosts, U.S. Presidents and bands like the Beatles, again and again, I've come to rely on all that. But the END of the chain now links back to the BEGINNING.
Which means that the whole thing is a giant circle! I could get into this chain of 28 (OK, now it's 31) films at ANY valid link from ANY of my other films! Then I can move in EITHER direction to complete the list, and I'm almost certain to end up with a final film with better linking outros than the Velvet Underground film. Oh, yeah, THAT'S why I'm excited, my chances of getting into (and out of) this chain just increased about a hundred-fold, now I've got options over when this crazy chain starts, and maybe I can start it right after Father's Day and maybe the exact right PERFECT film can be scheduled for July 4. If it works out, that film will have a relevant title and subject matter for the holiday, of course, if I can swing it. Oh man, does this give me something to look forward to!
Of course, I have to get there first, I've got to finish this January chain of action movies, then there's the whole romance thing which will take up February and half of March, and then I think it's back to action movies in March, with Ryan Reynolds, Nicolas Cage and Dwayne Johnson. But, big fun things are coming this summer, can't wait!
Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson carries over from "The Frozen Ground", of course, and so do at least two other actors - that's kind of why I counted yesterday's film as a 50 Cent film and not a Nic Cage film.
THE PLOT: The son of a slain NYPD officer joins the force, where he falls in with his father's former partner and a team of rogue cops.
AFTER: OK, so far I've seen 50 Cent as a gang member in Long Beach, a pimp in Anchorage, and tonight he plays a rookie NYC cop. Well, as long as he doesn't get typecast, I guess. Or maybe he's OK with it, it's street cred no matter what. But even as a cop here, he doesn't claim to be a "good guy", I'm not sure there are even any "good guys" in the film. Again, street cred, but that makes it a little difficult to root for anybody here, if every cop is dirty.
I guess his character is a bit questionable from the start, when we first meet Malo and his buddies, A.D. and Lucas, it's right after their NYPD swearing-in ceremony, which apparently is the only time that cops can drink in a bar while in uniform (yeah, I'm not sure that's accurate...) and they make references to getting in trouble when they were kids, and going straight from juvie prison to the police Academy (yeah, I'm not sure that's how that works, either...) thanks to the influence of the wife of a District Attorney that apparently two of the three friends were having sex with on the side (OK, that's DEFINITELY not how you get into the Police Academy).
But that's all par for the course here, every cop depicted is either on the take, or has a drug habit, or is a very racist white cop. Look, I'm not saying those things don't happen, but EVERY cop is one of those things? Surely there must be some NYPD officers who are clean, sober and non-racist, right? RIGHT? Yeah, yeah, this is a work of fiction, and no resemblance to real events is intended, but come on, what is some writer trying to say about our boys in blue, it feels like somebody wants to suggest that they're ALL bad, and I can't wrap my head around that, it would mean that the "thin blue line" that protects society is a whole lot thinner than we'd care to believe. If I said that "all rappers are thugs" then I'd be way out of line, I couldn't possibly support that, plus it sounds racist. Sure, SOME of them may have criminal records, but I'm not in that world, so I can't speak as an authority. SImilarly, unless you have first-hand knowledge that every single cop is a bad person, I'd keep an eye on making this kind of generalization.
Of course there's a chain, and the chain leads up through two police detectives who knew Malo's father, when he was alive. And they feel some kind of responsibility to look after Malo, but at the same time, this means inducting him into their criminal organization, making sure his buddies get assigned to their precinct, and then showing them the "ways of the world", namely that every cop takes a little piece of the action as confiscated money gets turned in, or more often, not turned in. With all of these police officers on the take, getting their pieces, and paying up to some crime boss who's pulling the strings, jeez, what could POSSIBLY go wrong?
Malo takes it upon himself to play each faction against the other - he tells the lead dirty cop that his closest lieutenant went rogue and betrayed him (when it was really Malo) then he tells the
mob boss that the lead dirty cop is out to take him down, then he tells the lead dirty cop the reverse of that, so everybody is suddenly suspicious of everybody else, and the whole thing is like a powder-keg that's about to explode. But this sort of is almost the same plot as "Setup", and remember, those two films came from the same studio, so we're really back playing action movie Mad Libs, just change a couple of nouns, assign new character names and recycle the old plot. I think maybe somebody at EFO Films wrote ONE screenplay many years ago and it's served him well, he's used it again and again, just replacing a few key words each time. Which is another reason I'm anxious to get off of these cookie-cutter action movies and on to another topic, really, I'll take anything else at this point.
Basically, this movie is all over the place - I honestly can't tell if Maldonado was a "good guy" all along, like was he pretending to be a dirty cop trying to find out who in the brotherhood of dirty cops killed his father, or was he a "bad guy" all along, who joined the force just so he could get in on the action, since he felt it was his birthright? Then the movie defiantly refuses to answer the one question that we would need answered in order to determine this. In the end, does it even matter?
The best news here is that 50 Cent has made THREE movies with Bruce Willis - two I watched last week, the other one is "The Prince", which I've seen before - and THREE movies with Robert De Niro, the other two are "Righteous Kill" and "Last Vegas", and with this one, I've now completed both sets, so that's how you win gin rummy, I think.
Also starring Forest Whitaker (last seen in "Finding Steve McQueen"), Robert De Niro (last seen in "The Accidental President"), Malcolm Goodwin (last seen in "Run All Night"), Ryan O'Nan (also carrying over from "The Frozen Ground"), Michael McGrady (ditto), Matt Gerald (ditto), Anabelle Acosta, Beau Garrett (last seen in "Made of Honor"), Robert Wisdom (last seen in "Motherless Brooklyn"), Pedro Armendariz Jr. (last seen in "Casa de mi Padre"), Dana Delany (last heard in "Superman: Brainiac Attacks"), Vinnie Jones (last seen in "Fire With Fire"), Douglas M. Griffin (ditto), Andre Royo (last seen in "Beautiful Boy"), Roger Edwards, Cassie Shea Watson, Javier Carrasquillo, Jeff Chase (last seen in "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot"), Danny Abeckaser (last seen in "Marauders"), Ambyr Childers (last seen in "Setup"), Jesse Pruett (last seen in "First Kill"), Shantel Jackson.
RATING: 4 out of 10 tests of loyalty
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