BEFORE: Well, if Batman has the Joker and Spider-Man has Venom, then for a couple years back in the 1980's, I had my nemesis, Brett Ratner. We were at NYU Film School at the same time, and sophomore year, we were on the same crew, or we were supposed to be. That meant we rotated positions, I was assigned to his crew when he directed a short and he was supposed to crew for me when I directed, but he never showed up for me, not once. I don't know where he was or what he was doing, but honestly, I didn't care, I was better off learning how to make a film with one less person. His whole attitude disgusted me, he spent every possible moment hitting on women in the park, offering them gum - that was his move. It's the old law of averages, if you hit on 100 women then one's bound to be interested, it's a simple matter of volume - but that doesn't mean you have to hit on 100 women every day, like he did.
I held a grudge for a VERY long time - I may forget, but I don't forgive. So when he got caught up in the #MeToo and #TimesUp movement a couple decades later, I wasn't the least bit surprised. For a long while I boycotted all of his movies, I still haven't seen any of the "Rush Hour" films, for example, but I had to lift the ban when he directed one of the X-Men movies, and it was the worst one until "Dark Phoenix" came along. Today's film sort of slipped by me, I didn't realize he directed it until it was too late, it became part of the chain and now I don't have a replacement - but I'm not so petty that I can't give it a fair chance, even if it's terrible. We'll see.
Anyway, I got the last laugh, right? His Hollywood career is over, he's been boycotted and blackballed for his horrible treatment of women over the years, and I hope he saved his money so he can run out of it someday. I thought maybe if I'm in need of better employment I could try to get a job at NYU, but he's a big donor to that school, and I wonder why they haven't cut ties with him yet. I certainly wouldn't want to join any institution where he held any authority. I saw him on the streets of NYC one time in the early 2000's and regretted not punching his lights out, though. Still, I seriously doubt he even remembers me, I was just a little bump in his road, and he was a big pothole in mine.
Woody Harrelson AND Naomie Harris carry over from "Venom: Let There Be Carnage".
THE PLOT: What happens after a master thief achieves his last big score, when the F.B.I. agent who promised he'd capture him is about to do just that.
AFTER: Urgh, this isn't a terrible film, it's just completely nonsensical - this just isn't how FBI agents or jewel thieves or anything depicted here works in real life. Diamonds don't come in sets of threes, for example, that's not even a thing. And FBI agents wouldn't be involved in delivering a diamond to where it needs to be, that seems like a security firm would handle it. And don't get me started on the tech involved here in taking over a car's control systems by using the VIN and a cell phone, I doubt we have that technology NOW, and this came out in 2004.
So after stealing the 2nd diamond in a set of three (again, not a thing) thief Max Burdett and his girlfriend fly to Paradise Island in the Bahamas, and just start living there. So to finance this lifestyle, they must have SOLD the diamond, but then they don't have it. And if they don't have it, why would they be interested in the third one, because it's not like they could complete the set, they couldn't possibly have the second diamond any more... Jeez, I love when I can shoot down a film's whole premise in just a couple of sentences.
The third diamond goes on display in a cruise ship that's visiting the Bahamas - that couldn't possibly be a thing either, there are no museum-type exhibits on cruise ships. I've been on three, and while there was plenty of tanzanite jewelry for sale on the ship, there were no diamonds on display, just to look at. So, not a thing. Anyway, if cruise ships DID have a museum-type display area, which they don't, it would be limited to visits from JUST the passengers - they're not going to let random tourists from Paradise Island on board the ship, that's a security issue. They check your boarding passes when you get back on board to make sure you're a paying customer of THAT ship in THAT cruise line, I'm pretty sure nobody else is allowed on board, otherwise there would be the risk of stowaways - so another strike, this plot is just not feasible.
Still, the film continues - Max wants the diamond, but his girlfriend says it's not worth the trouble, or at least he shouldn't try to steal it without her help - she seems to go back and forth on this point, so which is it? Does she want to work with him to steal the diamond together, or for him to not try to steal the diamond at all? She can't have it both ways...
Then the FBI agent they stole the previous diamond from shows up, and he's been a laughing stock at the agency ever since their last encounter, so he's determined to catch Max in the act, even though Max still won't admit to planning another heist, or to being any kind of thief at all, even though that WOULD explain how they can afford to live in a beachside house in the Bahamas. Burdett actually befriends Agent Lloyd (or pretends to) and pays for him to have a fancy suite at the Paradise Resort, with massages and fancy food and everything. Then they go fishing together and a bromance seems to be developing, but is it all an act?
Then there's a local gangster who also wants the diamond, and a local police woman who wants to help the FBI agent, so another chance for romance there. But Max spends so much time obsessing over stealing the diamond, or NOT stealing the diamond, that he neglects his own girlfriend (geezus, WHY couldn't they work on this together?) and she eventually throws him out. But before that, there's an excessively complex sequence where Max DOES try to steal the diamond, while also pretending to be on a scuba diving trip with all the others. I couldn't even follow it, it was so ridiculous.
Thank God this film was a critical and financial failure - it broke even at the box office, which is considered a failure. And the director NEVER missed an opportunity to get women nearly naked in front of the camera, so it's good to see Brett Ratner staying true to himself, I guess. But just a few years later, look at all the trouble that caused him - you couldn't make this film today, there's just too many shots of Salma Hayek's tits nearly falling out of her blouse. Hey, write what you know, I guess. Women are sex objects, gay men are punchlines - and Brett Ratner is an extinct dinosaur.
Also starring Pierce Brosnan (last seen in "Some Kind of Beautiful"), Salma Hayek (last seen in "Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard"), Don Cheadle (last seen in "The Family Man"), Chris Penn (last seen in "Masked and Anonymous"), Troy Garity (last seen in "Steal This Movie"), Obba Babatundé (last heard in "All-Star Superman"), Russell Hornsby (last seen in "Creed II"), Mykelti Williamson (last seen in "Lucky Number Slevin"), Rex Linn (last seen in "The Hunted"), Robert Curtis Brown (last seen in "Cinema Verite"), Mark Moses (last seen in "Bombshell"), Michael Bowen (last seen in "Walking Tall"), Lisa Thornhill (also last seen in "The Family Man"), Joel McKinnon Miller (ditto), Alan Dale, Noémie Lenoir, Paul Korda,
with cameos from Paul Benedict (last seen in "The Goodbye Girl" (1977)), Jeff Garlin (last seen in "The Bounty Hunter"), Rachael Harris, John Michael Higgins (last seen in "The Ugly Truth"), Tom McGowan (also last seen in "The Family Man"), Kate Walsh. (ditto) and archive footage of Dyan Cannon, Phil Jackson, Karl Malone, Shaquille O'Neal, Edward Norton (last seen in "The French Dispatch"), Gary Payton,
RATING: 4 out of 10 rowdy Lakers fans
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