In the Line of Fire (1993) - Clint and co-stars on fire in one of the decade's finest thrillers

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Star Clint Eastwood runs alongside a motorcade on a security detail on this poster for Wolfgang Petersen's In the Line of Fire

Frank was serving in the Secret Service during JFK's assassination. He is not about to see a repeat, and so he is 100 % dedicated to the hunt for a new, very competent maniac, who wants to murder the current US President!

 

In the Line of Fire is written by Jeff Maguire (Gridiron Gang (2006)) and directed by German-born American master filmmaker Wolfgang Petersen (One or the Other/Einer von uns Beiden (1982)), whose 7th feature it was. 

It is a perfect piece of thriller entertainment with Clint Eastwood (Hereafter (2010)) in top shape as the old-timer protagonist, who doesn't take no bullshit. The dialog creates sparks, and Eastwood's romance with Rene Russo (Nightcrawler (2014)) here is both elegant and sexy.

John Malkovich (Being John Malkovich (1999)) is eerie. Ennio Morricone's (The Hateful Eight (2015)) music is subdued and effective. In the Line of Fire leaves you breathless with its sophisticated, realistic thrills.

 

Related posts:

 

Wolfgang Petersen: 2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

Poseidon (2006) - Petersen's disastrous disaster flick

Top 10: Best epic movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

The Boat/Das Boot (1981) - Petersen's awe-inspiring WWII epic 

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 40 mil. $

Box office: 187.3 mil. $

= Big hit (returned 4.68 times the cost)

[In the Line of Fire premiered 8 July (California) and runs 128 minutes. Eastwood was paid 7 mil. $ for his performance; Malkovich received 1 mil. $. Shooting took place from October 1992 - January 1993 in Virginia, Washington DC, Maryland, Colorado, Michigan and in California, including in Los Angeles. The film opened #3, behind holdover hits The Firm and Jurassic Park, to a 15.2 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 5 weekends in the top 5 (#2-#2-#2-#3-#5), grossing 102.3 mil. $ (54.6 % of the total gross). The film was nominated for 3 Oscars, winning none. It lost Best Supporting Actor (Malkovich) to Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive, Editing to Schindler's List and Original Screenplay to Jane Campion for The Piano. It was also nominated for 3 BAFTAs and a Golden Globe, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 3.5/4 star review, in line with this one. Petersen returned with Outbreak (1995). Eastwood returned in A Perfect World (1993). In the Line of Fire is certified fresh at 96 % with a 7.70/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of In the Line of Fire?

Lethal Weapon 4 (1998) - Pretty good last show for Donner's buddy-cop franchise

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Hollywood stars offered as something like your alternate universe movie friends (or bait, some might put it) on this firetruck red poster for Richard Donner's Lethal Weapon 4

Odd couple detective partners Riggs and Murtaugh are still driving around chasing bandits in Los Angeles, although they are getting older and children and grandchildren are popping out. Now they pick up the baton against a group of Chinese gangsters.

 

Lethal Weapon 4 is written by Channing Gibson (Civil Wars (1992-93)), with Miles Millar (Charlie's Angels (2011, TV-series)), Alfred Gough (Into the Badlands (2015-19)) and Jonathan Lemkin (Hill Street Blues (1986-87)) contributing story elements, and directed by New-Yorker master filmmaker Richard Donner (Salt and Pepper (1968)). It is the 4th and final film in the Lethal Weapon franchise (1987; 1989; 1992) and Donner's 18th feature.

The plot here is hysterically ridiculous ... There is a longer scene, in which the partners give themselves and an old Chinese man laughter gas, and it can't but strike one that the script also seems to have come together under the influence of something potent, probably not just laughter gas. 

Luckily Lethal Weapon 4 also offers a lot of entertaining scenes, both with screen darlings Mel Gibson (Braveheart (1995)) and Danny Glover (Sr. Pig (2016)), - but also with the hard-hitting Rene Russo (Ransom (1996)), - and Joe Pesci (Man on Fire (1987)) and Chris Rock (Down to Earth (2001)) are funny, meanwhile Jet Li (Kiss of the Dragon (2001)) makes a fine villain. One can wonder that the Chinese's role as this type of villain seems completely finished today, which is strange.

Lethal Weapon 4 is overlong, and especially some of the action scenes could have been shorter or fewer in number.

Related posts:

 

Richard Donner: 16 Blocks (2006) or, Heavy Traffic! 

The Goonies (1985) - Sweet child performances drive Donner's beloved, uneven adventure 

 

 

Watch a 2-minute clip from the film here

 

Cost: 100 mil. $

Box office: 285.4 mil. $

= Box office success (returned 2.85 times its cost)

[Lethal Weapon 4 premiered 7 July (Los Angeles) and runs 127 minutes. Gibson was paid 25 mil. $ for his performance; Glover 7 mil. $; Pesci and Russo 3 mil. $ each and Rock 2 mil. $, which comes to 40 mil. $ spent for the 5 star American cast alone. Shooting took place from January - May 1998 in Las Vegas, Nevada and in California, including Los Angeles and San Diego. The film opened #1 to a 34 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 2 weekends in the top 5 (#2-#3) and grossed 130.4 mil. $ (45.7 % of the total gross). 50 mil. $ was reportedly additionally spent on distribution and marketing. Roger Ebert gave the film a 2/4 star review, translating to a notch under this one. Donner returned with Timeline (2003). Gibson returned in Payback (1999); Glover with a voice performance in Antz (1999) and physically in Beloved (1999). Lethal Weapon 4 is rotten at 53 % with a 5.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Lethal Weapon 4?

Get Shorty (1995) - Sonnenfeld's Tinseltown flick is breezy fun

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Four stylish Hollywood stars in cool shades center this humorous poster for Barry Sonnenfeld's Get Shorty

A Miami gangster goes to Hollywood to collect a debt, but then he has an idea for a movie and feels like sticking around. But in Hollywood someone is always waiting for their money...

Get Shorty is written by Scott Frank (Dead Again (1991)), based on the same-titled 1990 novel by Elmore Leonard (Bandits (1987)), and directed by great New-Yorker filmmaker Barry Sonnenfeld (The Adams Family (1991)).
Great stars like Rene Russo (Mr. Destiny (1990)), Danny DeVito (10 Items or Less (2006)) and James Gandolfini (She's So Lovely (1997)) elevate this amusing gangster-in-Tinseltown tale, and Sonnenfeld's stylishly firm and simultaneously light direction is ideally suited for the cocktail.

Related post:

Barry Sonnenfeld: Men in Black 3 (2012) - Third MiB-chapter entertains the suits and shades off of everyone!

Watch a trailer for the movie here

Cost: Reportedly 30.25 mil. $
Box office: 115.1 mil. $
= Big hit (returned 3.80 times its cost)
[Get Shorty was released 20 October (USA) and runs 105 minutes. Shooting took place in California, including Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Nevada and Miami, Florida from January - April 1995. The film opened #1 to a 12.7 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed #1 for another 2 weekends and stayed in the top 5 another 2 weeks (#2-#5), grossing 72.1 mil. $ (62.6 % of the total gross). The film won 1/3 Golden Globe nominations and was nominated for a Grammy, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 3.5/4 star review, translating to a notch higher than this one. F. Gary Gray directed the flop sequel Be Cool (2005) with returning stars John Travolta (Look Who's Talking (1989)) and DeVito. Sonnenfeld returned with Men in Black (1997). Travolta returned in Broken Arrow (1996); Gene Hackman (Lilith (1964)) in The Birdcage (1996)); Russo in Tin Cup (1996), and DeVito in Little Red Riding Hood (1995, TV movie) and theatrically in Matilda (1996). Get Shorty is certified fresh at 87 % with a 7.72/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Get Shorty?

Nightcrawler (2014) or, Lou Bloom's Los Angeles

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A hip, artsy poster for Dan Gilroy's Nightcrawler

 

Nightcrawler is the much talked about directing debut of writer/director Dan Gilroy (The Bourne Legacy (2012)), a dark Los Angeles-set thriller character piece with some implicit societal and media-directed critique.

Lou Bloom is a young, ambitious entrepreneur, who one night stumbles upon the world of crime and accident video capturing, which he gathers is a profitable line of business and thus enters with keen enthusiasm and a ruthless eye for business.

Jake Gyllenhaal as the title nightcrawler [a term used in the film for these freelance video-recorders] heightens the film with a performance that is electric and demands attention. He lost 20 pounds for the role, making him appear eerily skeletal, and the fine actor hasn't been this good since Donnie Darko (2001). The cool-to-the-core sociopath that he portrays has some of the charm of Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho (2000), although that film was less successful with its source material (Bret Easton Ellis' great novel) and the character of Bloom also never becomes an actively misanthropic psychopathic killer as Bateman did, though one could certainly see him spiral out of control. Bloom is manipulative and lacks an ethical or moral compass; he also stands out as a capitalist shark version of the American dream, who from a certain advantageous angle may appear merely 'driven' and 'ambitious'.
Nightcrawler is disquieting, because Bloom is obviously so good at what he does; commanding people's attention and getting his agenda heard and pushed through, with impunity: He grows through determination and an undeniable rhetorical talent, - as well as an absence of any moral restraints, making him a potentially highly dangerous individual. Gilroy has written Bloom's venture into this guerrilla video-capture world so that his criminal behavior is laid bare up-front, but leaves it up to us to sanction this character flaw, saddled up with Gyllenhaal's charismatic performance. Bloom teams up with an easy subject of his manipulation, a desperate homeless man played terrifically by Riz Ahmed (The Road to Guantanomo (2006)).
Nothing in Nightcrawler seems exaggerated beyond realism, which also raises its level of suspense. In our digital, over-mediated world of today, we may think as we watch the film; what is to say that something like this isn't happening in our city right now?
The troubling success of Bloom comes from his relation to a TV channel executive producer played by Gilroy's real-life wife Rene Russo (In the Line of Fire (1993)) in what nevertheless seems a brilliant piece of casting. Russo has 'grown' one of those Hollywood-actress faces with obvious signs of unnatural meddling with nature that suits this character perfectly, - and, more importantly, she is still an excellent and sexy actress. Bill Paxton (Aliens (1986)) is also great as a tech-enthused competitor in some of Nightcrawler's many darkly amusing scenes.
The media critique of Nightcrawler may shortly remind folks of Network (1976), however, this film doesn't serve its point nearly as polemically as was done in the 1970's movie, as the focus lies on the character of Bloom primarily.
Nightcrawler becomes wildly exciting, as things invariably escalate. It is an excellent production, an adult story that creeps on you for all of its 117 minutes and stays there for a good while afterwards.
 

Watch the trailer for Nightcrawler right here

Cost: 8.5 mil. $
Box office: 50.3 mil. $
= Huge hit
[Opening 2nd in the US behind the horror flick Ouija (2014), Nightcrawler is sneaking its result up at domestic and global box office.]

What do you think of Nightcrawler?