Neo-Noir

Review: Still of the Night

bryancyr Movie, Neo-Noir , , , , ,

This film is from 1982 starring Roy Scheider and Meryl Streep.  Still of the Night is written and directed by Robert Benton.  This is not the best work of any of these three, but it is an interesting film to watch.  The story is a psychological thriller in the vein of Hitchcock, but falls a little short in the end.

This story starts with Scheider as a psychiatrist, whose patient is killed.  We have flashbacks of his patient telling him little tidbits of information through out the film.  This included a dream, which Scheider and his psychiatrist mother played by Jessica Tandy analyse in-depth.  This comes in handy later in the film.  We also meet the patient’s mistress, played by Streep.  Of course Scheider falls for Streep, even though he and the police feel she may be the killer.  The killer strikes again and our mystery thickens.  Yeah, it’s pretty cookie cutter psychological thriller 101.

I have to say that the story really let down the rest of this film.  The film is one of those that go along great for 7/8th of the film and then just falls apart in the end. The two leads are great, I personally think Scheider is an underrated actor and we all know that it doesn’t get much better than Streep.  The directing and cinematography are good, with some great scenes in Central Park and the old house which appears in the dream are stylish and interesting.

Benton is a great writer and has written some of the best screenplays in recent silver screen history.  Three noir favorites of his, which I absolutely love are Twilight, Bonnie and Clyde and The Ice Harvest.  If you are new to Benton or just want to watch his best, I would start with these three.  He also has worked on some non-noir films that are very good too(check out Nobody’s Fool if you haven’t seen it yet).  If you are a die-hard fan of Benton, you should check out this film and if you are a fan of the two big stars, it is worth checking out.  It’s not a horrible film, but there is much better work to choice from, when looking at this talent.

Review: The Girl Is in Trouble

bryancyr Movie, Neo-Noir , , , , , , , , , ,

The Girl Is in Trouble is a neo noir from 2015 and the biggest names attached to this film are Spike Lee as the Executive Producer and The 70’s Show’s Wilmer Valderrama as our dangerous gangster.  I do think someday soon the biggest name attached to this project will be the writer and director Julius Onah.  Onah made this film while still a graduate student at New York University’s Graduate Film Program.  He has already been attached to direct some big Hollywood movies in the next few years.

This movie was influenced by classic film noirs filmed in New York City.  This movie has a lot of the classic film noir traits:

Our main character uses a voice over to tell his story

The femme fatale

the main character is in over his head in a problem he didn’t create

Red Herrings

The story is told with flashbacks

The ending we know will not be a happy one no matter how it turns out

Our femme fatale is played by Alicja Bachleda and she is the girl in trouble.  We see her witness what appears to be a murder as she films it with her phone. She is on the run, afraid for her life.  When she can not find help from the people close to her, she calls an acquaintance who is a contact in her phone.  That acquaintance is played by Columbus Short and gets sucked into helping her, even though he knows from the start that things will not turn out well.

Other important characters are Jesse Spencer’s spoiled rich kid and Kareem Savinon’s young drug dealer.  We also have appearances from acting vets Mike Starr and Paz de la Huerta in minor roles.

This film’s most original idea is that it revolves around immigrants living in New York City and how they get by.  Our protagonist is from Nigeria, our femme fatale is from Europe.  Also our gangster and our drug dealer are brothers of Dominican descent.

Though this is not an instant classic or even that great of a film, for a first full length feature film from a young director it is a good outing.  Onah is a talented storyteller and I look forward to seeing what he can do with a bigger budget and more time.  This film seems to be fairly well received from critics, but not as well liked among the general movie goer.  I thought it was a decent film worth viewing.  A good choice for noir fans looking for something new to watch.

Re-watching for Review: The Bank Job

bryancyr British Noir, Movie, Neo-Noir , , , , ,

The Bank Job is a neo noir from 2008 directed by Roger Donaldson.  Donaldson has directed quite a few neo noir and crime films over the years, but I feel this is his best to date.  This has Jason Statham as our star, some may only think of Statham as an action star of block busters like Furious 7 and The Expendables films, but he has made a number of smaller budget crime and neo noir films throughout the years.  I find him always entertaining and he seems to pick pretty good projects.  I reviewed Blitz earlier on this site, along with the noir books in which it was based. I also rather enjoyed Wild Card which I reviewed a few days ago.  We also have Saffron Burrows as our femme fatale in this film.  Will Statham leave his family and go with our fatale?

This movie starts with a blurry scene of sex on a beach as somebody takes photos.  We then see Burrows getting busted in the airport for transporting drugs.  Then we find her recruiting her old classmates, who are on the shady side of the law, to do a bank robbery.  They eventually agree and start to put together a plan.  They are going to rob the security boxes instead of the cash.  This is because most people won’t report what they had stolen from the boxes.  The bank job is a tense scene, but goes well.  They find more than they bargained for and they soon have a porn king, the royal family, and MI5 all on their tail.  Will they get away?  Why is everybody after them?  What do they have that is so important?

This is based on the true story of the Princess Margaret sexual scandal from the 1970’s, and the evidence that was stolen in a bank robbery.

I really like the British neo noir films that have came out over the last 20 years and plan to review more of them soon.  These films have something that draws me, maybe it’s the writing, maybe the different culture, maybe it is the accents or maybe they have more original ideas in England for crime stories.  I don’t know what it is exactly, but I do find them entertaining.

I highly recommend this for anybody who likes good film.  Noir, crime or neo noir film lovers will all love it.  Statham fans for sure will love it. If you are not a fan of Statham, give it a chance anyway, it may surprise you.

Review: The Cat o’ Nine Tails

bryancyr Italian Noir, Movie, Neo-Noir , , , , , ,

The Cat o’ Nine Tails is a neo noir suspense film from Italian great, Dario Argento.  Argento is the Hitchcock of Italy, and I’ve seen some of his films and find I love some and hate some.  In recent years he has mostly done straight up horror movies, but in the 1970’s he made quite a few really good crime, mystery, suspense and neo noir films.  Argento says this is his least favorite of his films and has disowned it over the years.  Though this is not his best work, it is watchable and has an interesting story.

This film stars Karl Malden as a blind crossword writer, who used to be a journalist before he was blinded 15 years ago.  His intuition takes over on a case that looks like a simple breaking and entering, which happened across the road from where Malden lives, and a scientist who falls in front of a train a day later.  Malden thinks the two incidents are linked and recruits James Franciscus who is a current journalist to help him with the case.  More people are murdered and the plot thickens as our now serial killer may be coming after one of our heroes.  Catherine Spaak plays are femme fatale and gets involved with Franciscus.

This is Argento’s second film and his youthful sophomore experience is not his best.  He definitely cribbed some Hitchcockian themes and even some camera shots in this film.  Argento’s horror movie future does start to show in this film, with the death scenes a little more grotesque and violent than most suspense films.  Most of the death scenes are shot from the point of view of the killer, this was nothing new, but was still very stylish and different than most films from the era.

This would not be the first film I would recommend for Argento newbies, but if you are a fan of his, it is worth checking out.

Review: Wild Card

bryancyr Movie, Neo-Noir , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Wild Card is a neo-noir film starring Jason Statham and directed by Simon West.  West seems to be the go to director for a remake these days.  This is a remake of Heat starring Burt Reynolds.  I have not seen this film so I can not compare it to this updated version.  This is also the first screenplay from William Goldman in over 11 years.  This is also based on Goldman’s novel.  Goldman is one hell of a writer and has written many classic books as well as written screenplays for his and other great authors works.

This story takes place in Las Vegas where Statham plays Nick Wild.  Wild is a classic hardboiled muscle for hire.  We never really learn about his past, but hints throughout the film lead us to believe it was pretty epic.  The first part of this film is a little case he takes where he plays the bad guy trying to pick up a guy’s girlfriend in a bar.  If you seen the trailer you already know about this.  He basically takes a fall to make the girlfriend look up to and fall in love with her boyfriend.  Then we get a call from a girl who asks Wild for his help.  He looks into it a little and realizes this is way over his head and does not want to get involved.  Our beat-up femme fatale is played very well by Dominik Garcia-Lorido.  She sucks Wild into the case and he knows this will not end good.  Our bad guy who needs taken care of, for our femme fatale is played by Milo Ventimiglia.  He does very well as the spoiled rich kid with a bad attitude.

Wild is a hard drinker who likes to gamble and isn’t very good at it.  He is very self-destructive and this may be his downfall in the end.  The cinematography has some great noir style throughout the film.

This film has a ton of little parts played by pretty big actors, with the likes of Hope Davis, Michael Angarano,  Stanley Tucci, Jason Alexander, Sofía Vergara, and Anne Heche.

This film has not been well received by critics or the film going public and I’m not sure really why?  I rather enjoyed this film, though it starts out pretty slow and the action doesn’t really get started until the last 30 minutes or so.  I can see why people wanting a Jason Statham action film would have got to bored with the story before the action got good for them.  I rather liked the slow build up to our hero’s destiny.  I think if you are a neo-noir fan or noir fan, you will find this a very good film well worth your time.

Re-watching the Classics: The Usual Suspects

bryancyr Movie, Neo-Noir , , , , , , , , ,

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. And like that, poof. He’s gone.

I can’t believe this film is 20 years old this year!  The Usual Suspects is one of the great modern neo-noir movies and launched the career of director Bryan Singer into the stratosphere.

This film is known for it’s all-star cast, and it is a great cast, but where they all-stars when this film was made?  Kevin Spacey was a great actor before this film, but wasn’t in much you would have heard of.  Though I loved Swimming with Sharks, most probably never heard of this film.  This film gave him an Oscar win and made him a big name in Hollywood.  Benicio Del Toro did some T.V. work and few movies before this as well, but as the scene stealing Fenster his star meter went up drastically.  Kevin Pollak was already a star as a stand up comedian, but this movie showed his dramatic side.  Pollak has worked steady ever since, bouncing from comedic to dramatic roles.  Alec’s little brother Stephen Baldwin was doing well and may have been considered a big star at the time.  His star power has dimmed in recent years, but he showed some great presence in this film.  Gabriel Byrne was probably the biggest draw for this film at the time of its release, and was excellent as always.  Chazz Palminteri plays his usual Italian tough guy from New York in this film and it fits perfectly.

Our story starts out with our Usual Suspects all getting arrested in connection to a load of gun parts being hijacked.  They quickly become good friends and team up together on some more heists.  The whole story is told in flashback fashion from Kevin Spacey’s character Verbal being interrogated in a police station in Los Angels.  Our plot thickens as new evidence becomes available and they ask Verbal more questions on what happened.  As the audience we want to know the answers as much as the police do.  What is going on?  What was really on the boat?  Who got away alive?  and of course Who is Keyser Söze?

I’m not going to lie, I love Singer’s X-men films, but what would really make me happy is if he made another neo noir film.  This is a film you can watch over and over again and find little hints and clues to one of the greatest mysteries in movie history.

Favorite Tidbit: **semi-spoiler alert**  As this film was being made, all the actors were told “they are Keyser Söze.”  None of them learned the truth until the first screening of the movie.

Review: Talaash The Answer Lies Within

bryancyr Bollywood Noir, Movie, Neo-Noir , , , , , , ,

Talaash is a neo noir from Bollywood revolving around 3 characters with Aamir Khan’s Inspector Surjan Singh Shekhawat being the central character.  The other two are his wife played by Rani Mukerji and a prostitute and our femme fatale for this tale played by Kareena Kapoor.

Our story starts with a tour through the red light district as our credits role.  We soon come to a beach side road and a car swerving for an unknown reason and flying into the water.  Our hero gets the case and soon finds out the victim is a popular Bollywood movie star.  We find out the car was in good working order, he had no drugs or alcohol in his system and he died from drowning.  Why did he swerve off the road?  What was he doing down in the red light district at 4 in the morning by himself?  The plot thickens as we soon meet a pimp who was with the star that night and he soon disappears.  We learn from the  dead movie star’s girlfriend that he recently had his accountant give him a large sum of money that night as well.  Where did the money go?  Our main character and detective on this case, has recently lost his young son in an accident.  He blames himself for this and this causes tension between him and his wife.  He soon turns to our femme fatale for support and help with the case.  What is her part in this case?  What does she know?  What isn’t she telling our hero?  Can our hero resist her charms?

The more we go the more we question what is going on in this film.  It is well written and does make sense all in the end.  In fact this may be the best plot twist and writing I’ve seen in a while.  This movie deals with a lot of death and loss for all the characters and how they react to those loses.  The mystery is strong and the cinematography is very good.  I’m not going to lie, all the Bollywood movies I’ve ever seen feel a little campy and though in parts this one does too, it is the least campy film from India I have seen.(Not that I have seen a lot of Indian films.)  We don’t have anybody break out in song and dance, though there are some music montage moments.  There isn’t any over the top special effects, though there are a few that push the limit.

This is worth a watch for any foreign film fan and neo noir fans.  The twists and turns are hard to see coming and are well executed.  It definitely isn’t a traditional noir story and I think that is a good thing.

Review: Homicide

bryancyr Movie, Neo-Noir , , , , , , ,

Homicide is a neo noir from 1991 by modern film great David Mamet.  Mamet who wrote and directed this film has also wrote a ton of great neo noir and crime films over the last 4 decades.  He writes some of the best dialog around with a rhythm to it that is hypnotic.  It is street level crime poetry, and the flow and delivery from some of the best actors around.  This is the first time I’ve seen this film, but it won’t be the last.  I’m not sure how I missed this in the early 90’s at the video store, or never really heard much about it.  It popped up on a few neo noir lists and when I seen who stared in it as well as it being a Mamet film, I put it to the top of my Netflix Queue.

This film revolves around Joe Mantegna as our Homicide Detective lead.  He is tough, but tough in a different way than our normal hardboiled detective.  He uses his people skills and smarts rather than his fists and gun.  In fact we see a number of pivotal scenes where his physical strength is tested and he fails these tests.  We also see him get back up and keep trucking along.  This film has a lot of racial tension as well.  Our hero is Jewish and seems to shun this at first, but later is torn between being a great cop or a good Jew.

William H. Macy plays Mantegna’s partner and their dialog and banter is some of the best in modern noir.  Macy is always good and doesn’t disappoint here. He plays the sidekick who doesn’t question anything his partner does, because to him, his partner can do no wrong.  Will this be his downfall?

This story starts with an F.B.I. raid on an apartment, they kill an innocent black women and their suspect gets away.  It’s a mess the F.B.I. dumps on the local Homicide division.  Our two detectives take the case, with a lead they think will pan out.  On the way to apprehend the suspects brother to see if he will roll over on his brother, we come to some flashing lights and a cop in need of some help.  As Macy takes the car and goes on to the planned meet with the suspects brother, Mantegna stays behind to help the uniformed police officers.  An old Jewish women has been shot with a shotgun and her store robbed.  Mantegna catches the case and is taken off the more high-profile original case.  He continues to juggle the two cases.  On one hand he is helping his people solve the murder case of a Jew.  On the other he is trying to find the black man the F.B.I. is desperate to find.

This has some great actors in this besides our two leads.  Though all are great in this, the two small parts that stand out to me are Ving Rhames in one of his earliest movie roles as the black suspect the first case revolves around, and Ricky Jay as one of the members of the Jewish community the second case revolves around.

The movie isn’t just noir in story but also is filmed in a classic film noir style, using washed out colors and shadows through out.

I really loved this film and think noir lovers of the classic era as well as the modern neo noir lovers will like it too. This film has more to say then a simple murder mystery and touches on racial tensions not only between whites and blacks but the Jewish community as well. I look forward to watching and re-watching more from Mamet for this site in the future.

Re-watching the Classics: The Conversation

bryancyr Movie, Neo-Noir , , , , , , , , , ,

The Conversation is a neo noir film from Writer and Director Francis Ford Coppola.  This film may get lost in the mix of great Coppola films, but it is right up there with his best.  Honestly, the first time I seen this, I didn’t get what all the fuss was about, but after re-watching it, I think I get it now.  This is more of a slow burn that continues to turn up the heat as we go.

The cast is amazing with the movie revolving around Gene Hackman who plays somebody totally different than our hardboiled detective role we looked at in The French Connection and Night Moves earlier on this site.  He plays a surveillance expert, who happens to be a little paranoid, maybe he should be.  He is the best at what he does, but soon wonders if he should be doing it.  He also sees how easy somebody can do the same to him and this I feel drives his paranoia more.

The rest of the cast play small parts, but Coppola seems to have a knack of getting high level talent for these parts.  One stand out is Harrison Ford, this is one year after his break out performance in American Graffiti, but he wasn’t quite the biggest star on the planet yet, Star Wars was still 5 years away.  We also have John Cazale, Cazale only appeared in 5 films, all in the 1970’s, before his untimely death.  They just happen to be 5 of the best films of the decade.  We also have a young Frederic Forrest and Cindy Williams as our targets of the surveillance.  We see Terri Garr in an important scene and Robert Duvall and Billy Dee Williams in such small roles they went uncredited and didn’t even have lines!

Our story starts with Forrest and Williams in a square having what seems to be an innocent conversation on their lunch hour.  We soon see Hackman and his team at different posts around the square, using different recording devices to record the conversation.  We then have a scene where Hackman comes home, he has a number of locks and an alarm on his apartment and when he opens the door, there is a bottle of wine for his birthday.  You see how this drives Hackman crazy, even with all this security the land lord easily gets into his apartment to drop off the wine.  The next day he goes to his warehouse and starts working on piecing his recording together to get the whole conversation.  Once he is finished, he sets up an appointment to deliver the final product to the man who hired him.  That man is not in and his assistant, played by Ford, tries to pay Hackman for the tapes.  Hackman feeling paranoid again decides to wait to deliver it to the man who hired him.  The story takes off from there, as we meet some of Hackman’s competitors at a convention and he tries to figure out what is on the tape exactly and why do people want it so bad?

This movie is a statement on how technology is not always the best thing and can cause more trouble then it is worth.  I can’t imagine what Coppola would have to say if this film was made today, but I would love to see it.  Though the technology is primitive by today’s standards it still has something to say about our world.  Is too much information a good thing?  Are we becoming paranoid as a society?  Should we be?

This film should be seen by any film buff, whether you are a noir fan or not.  If you didn’t see why it is so great on your first viewing, give it a second chance.  I did and I’m glad I did.  This is a film that could be watched multiple times as little nuances can be found each time.

Review: Barton Fink

bryancyr Movie, Neo-Noir , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Even though I’m a big fan of the Coen Brothers, this is the first time I’ve ever watched this.  I guess the story never really appealed to me, but I always knew I would get around to watching this sooner or later.  This kept popping up on lists of neo-noir films, so I thought it was about time to watch it and give it a review on here.  Would this hold up to my Coen Brothers favorites like Fargo, Blood Simple, The Man Who Wasn’t There and Miller’s Crossing?  This was actually written when Joel and Ethan Coen had writers block while writing Miller’s Crossing.  I recently reviewed this often overlooked classic here:

https://everythingnoir.com/2015/02/15/re-watching-the-classics-a-fresh-look-at-millers-crossing/

Our story is about Barton Fink, played by John Turturro, a writer from New York who soon finds himself in Los Angles to be part of the Hollywood machine.  He check’s into a hotel where he meets his neighbor Charlie Meadows, played by John Goodman.  Fink is hired to write a script for a wrestling film and he has some writers block.  We meet a wide range of Hollywood types throughout the film.  It is a wild ride, but to be honest we don’t get into the noir part of this film until the second half and though we get a bit of a twist, its pretty minor.

On thing I noticed watching this, is the list of amazing actors in this film.  The other is we get no matinée idols here, just a cast of great performers who are their based on their talent and not on their looks.  This is something we don’t see very often.  Some of the actors we see here are Michael Lerner,John Mahoney,Tony Shalhoub, Jon Polito and Steve Buscemi.

This film has a lot of hidden meaning and almost feels more like a David Lynch film then a Coen Brothers film.  For instance the theory that the hotel is actually hell.  Keep that in mind next time you watch it and see what you think.  The ending also made me feel like something out of a Lynch film as well.

Even though it isn’t a pure neo-noir film like some of Coen Brother’s other films, it is a very good film.  The Coen’s make the hotel and old Hollywood look great, the story is interesting(you wonder how much of this film comes out of the Coen’s frustration with the Hollywood system), and it is a thinking man’s movie.  If you are new to Coen Brothers films, I would start with the four films I listed earlier.  If you already have seen most everything from these guys but haven’t seen this yet, you should give it a try.

Favorite Tidbit: John Mahoney’s character is based on William Faulkner.  Faulkner’s first work in Hollywood was for a wrestling movie.  Barton Fink was based on Clifford Odets, a screen writer in Hollywood in the 1940’s and 1950’s.  He wrote screenplays for some great films including everythingnoir.com’s favorites Deadline at Dawn and Sweet Smell of Success, as well as a few other great noir films we will look at.