Neo-Noir

Re-Watching Pathology

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So I was going down the list of movies classified as neo-noir on IMDb, to see if I can find any hidden gems I wasn’t aware of and to see what films I wanted to re-watch and review on this site.  Quite aways down this list I noticed this movie, Pathology.  I thought “I remember that movie!”  I originally watched this film back in 2008 when it came out on DVD for two reasons, fairly good reviews from horror fans and it had Alyssa Milano in it.  From what I remember I liked this film and thought it was an above average horror movie and Alyssa wasn’t in it as much as I would have hoped.  I would have never thought of this film as a neo-noir though.

On a second viewing I wanted to see why this would be classified as neo-noir and if I would agree.  So here are the elements I picked up on that would make it a neo-noir.  We have a lot of shadow and washed out grey scenes that look almost black and white.  There are a lot of shots filmed from a ground eye view, popular in noir.  We have a femme fatale played by Lauren Lee Smith that sucks our protagonist in.  Our main protagonist gets in a situation that is way over his head and very bleak.  This gives us the sense of doom that all good noir movies posses.  We have heinous crimes committed, though these crimes are not committed for profit like most noir.  There is not a very happy ending, just like most great noir.

This story starts with a gifted doctor, our protagonist, Ted Grey played by Milo Ventimiglia.  He leaves his girlfriend played by Milano to go study Pathology at an unnamed prestigious city morgue.  There he meets a slightly socially awkward Ben played by Keir O’Donnell.  Ben is an outcast and not accepted by the in-crowd led by Jake, played by Michael Weston and includes Smith’s femme fatale character.  Ted is slowly drawn into the popular group of gifted pathologists with nights of drinking and drugs.  They soon drag Ted into their sick game of killing people and then having the others in the group figure out how they did it.  This is just the start of the dark journey we go on.

A few great smaller parts played by Larry Drake and John de Lancie were very entertaining.  This is written by the writing team of Neveldine and Taylor who also brought us the Crank movies.

So is this film a neo-noir?  I think so, it definitely has horror elements, but mostly these are because of the gore, we are dealing with people who cut dead bodies open to see why they died after all.

I think this little film is worth watching for horror fans and noir fans alike.  It’s a pretty good story with a few like-able characters and a lot of unlike-able ones.

Review: Season 1 of Better Call Saul

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Better Call Saul is a comedy, drama, neo noir mash-up that is pure gritty fun.  Season 1 has just ended on AMC and I really enjoyed it.  Bob Odenkirk plays our main protagonist, Jimmy McGill, he is a lawyer, con-man, overall good guy?  Not how to classify him.  One minute he is conning some innocent bystander and the next he is returning almost $2 million dollars in cash to its rightful owner.

Our next most interesting character is Mike Ehrmantraut played by Jonathan Banks and he is a bad ass.  He is our normal noir protagonist, you know, ex-cop with issues that wants to get out, but seems to always finding himself in the middle of the mess.

We also have Jimmy’s brother,Chuck, a fancy lawyer who got Jimmy out of trouble before. Chuck is played by Michael McKean.  Chuck has an interesting disease that keeps him basically as a recluse now.

These three characters all have one thing in common, they have all left where they came from because something horrible has happened and ended up in New Mexico to get a fresh start.  Unfortunately a new start just means new problems, with some of their past problems hunting them down to boot.

Rhea Seehorn plays good lawyer and is always looking out for Jimmy and Patrick Fabian plays bad lawyer, always out to get Jimmy for some reason.  We also have minor characters of interest who are too numerous to talk about here.

The first season is only 10 episodes long, and hey I wish more American television would do this.  A good series could be great if it wasn’t forced to use sub-par stories to fill a complete 24 episode season.  All 10 of these episodes are great and even though it is a short season we have a lot of story.  The story starts out with a great looking black and white scene looking very film noirish, of Jimmy after the events of Breaking Bad, we then flash back to 6 years before the events of Breaking Bad, and even have flashbacks from there to tell more back story.

I honestly never got through all of Breaking Bad yet, still need to watch the last few seasons.  I look forward to doing so, but the reason I bring this up is you don’t have to have seen Breaking Bad or even know much about that series to enjoy Better Call Saul.

Better Call Saul is for anybody looking for great television in a sea of reality t.v..  If you like dark comedy, good drama, crime stories, and especially us neo noir fans need to see Better Call Saul!

Review: Where the Truth Lies

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Where the Truth Lies is a movie based on a book by Rupert Holmes.  Holmes is a bit of a talent, he writes mystery-thriller books like this one(I have not read any of his work), He has written plays and won Tony awards for doing so.  He’s produced music for the likes of Barbra Streisand.  He’s written songs for the likes of The Drifters and The Platters.  He wrote the short but well liked television sitcom Remember WENN.  Oh yeah and he’s written and sang his own material, you might know him for a little song Escape (The Pina Colada Song).  So he is a talented entertainer in a lot of ways, he has had success in every field of entertainment.  But can he write a great noir that translates to a great neo noir film?

The Canadian Director Atom Egoyan wrote this screenplay and directed it.  I really like his films and he has made a few really good neo-noir films in his career.

This cast is pretty amazing, especially looking at where some of them are 10 years later.  This film stars Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth as a Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin type duo.  Firth has gone on to win an Oscar for The King’s Speech and has become quite the star.  We have two femme fatale’s in this movie, Maureen played by Rachel Blanchard, who has shown up on the very good Fargo television series. The second femme fatale is Karen played by Alison Lohman who has done some amazing work but seems to have gotten married in 2009 and has disappeared from the movies.  Anybody know why she hasn’t been in anything lately?

This film starts out with our showbiz duo doing a telethon but we realize something is a miss right away.  Our team has a love/hate relationship for sure.  We than find our first femme fatale Maureen in a hotel room tub full of ice and long dead.  We than flash forward to our second femme fatale Karen who is a journalist and is writing a book about our entertainment team with an emphasis on the incident of the dead girl.  We continue flashing back and forward as Karen tries to find out what really happened that fateful night to Maureen.  Is she to close to the story?  Will the same fate fall on her?  Will she find out how Maureen died and why?

Favorite Tidbit:  Egoyan made many cuts to this to get it an R rating instead of the NC-17 rating, he failed.  It was later learned that the cut of the film American audiences eventually saw was the same cut that premiered at Cannes.

I really enjoyed this film as I have most of Egoyan’s films.  If you like your neo-noir on the thriller, murder mystery side, you will like this film.  Give it a try if you have not seen it yet.

Review: Go For Sisters

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Go for Sisters is a neo-noir from writer, director John Sayles.  Sayles directed a few big budget Hollywood films and then went on to make independent films.  He may be best known in noir and neo-noir circles for Lone Star.  I plan on re-watching and reviewing it in the future.

This film stars LisaGay Hamilton, Yolonda Ross and Edward James Olmos with a few familiar faces in small cameos like Isaiah Washington,Harold Perrineau and Hector Elizondo.

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This movie starts with Hamilton as a parole officer and one of her paroles is Ross, who we soon find out where childhood friends.  Hamilton has become estranged from her son, with no way to contact him anymore.  In her search for him, she goes to one of her son’s friends, Fuzzy, to see if he has seen her son.  We find Fuzzy has been murdered and soon find out her son is a suspect.  Hamilton recruits her childhood friend Ross to help her find her son.  They then hire Olmos, a ex-officer who has been terminated from his job and has lost his pension.  He needs funds and is willing to help our two ladies for a price.  The story crosses from Texas to Mexico where things really get dark with adult book stores, dirty cops, a China town in Mexico, and some illegal border crossing.

This border noir debuted at South by Southwest in Austin back in 2013 and made the film festival circuit but never really found an audience.  It got above average reviews from critics and was nominated for a few awards, including the Independent Spirit Award for Supporting Actress for Ross.  The film has recently been released on DVD and should find a wider audience.

For me this film was a little long at almost 2 hours for the story it tells.  It’s a good film and is worth viewing, but don’t expect something as great as Lone Star.

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Review: In Cold Blood

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In Cold Blood is based on the book by Truman Capote, that is based on the true story of the murder of the Clutter family by Perry Smith and “Dick” Hickock.  Smith is played by Robert Blake, later known for his role as Baretta on the T.V. show by the same name, and maybe more so for being accused for the murder of his second wife.  Hickock is played by Scott Wilson, who I know from The Walking Dead and look forward to watching him on the series Bosch.  I did not recognize him at all, as his older bearded self doesn’t look much like he did in his youth, and his voice isn’t as distinctive yet either.  The two actors looked remarkably like the real life killers that they play.

John Forsythe plays our lead detective on the case, Alvin Dewey.  Forsythe already had a pretty decent T.V. career going when he made this movie, but of course he would go on to great heights as the voice of Charlie on Charlie’s Angels and the prime-time soup Dynasty.

Though this is not a classic film-noir, I guess it is to new for that, it was made in 1967.  Richard Brook wrote this for the screen and directed it.  He used black and white and many shadows, it looks like any good noir made in the 1950’s to me.  It is a neo-noir in date alone in my opinion.  Brooks, kept this as close to the book as possible and as accurate as possible, using some of the same jurors and a lot of the locals for extras.  As well as going to the actual locations to film as many scenes as possible

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The story starts with Perry Smith getting off the bus in Kansas to meet his friend Dick Hickock.  Hickock has a plan for some big money, no witnesses and an escape to Mexico.  The plan doesn’t seem to go well and our duo is on the run, broke and not sure what to do.

The movies Capote and Infamous are both very good movies about Truman Capote and him writing the book “In Cold Blood.”  I have never read the book, but it is one on my long list of “Want to Read.”  This movie makes me want to move it up the list a bit.

Favorite Tidbit:  The character Perry Smith mentions the movie “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” twice, some thought this was written into the script because Smith was played by Robert Blake.  Blake had an uncredited role in the film as a child.  The real reason Smith mentions the movie in the film is because it was the real Perry Smith’s favorite film and he often referred to it.

This movie is for everybody that likes good film.  If you are a noir fan it is a must watch.  Fans of true crime stories should also love it.

Review: Son of a Gun

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Son of a Gun is a neo-noir film from Australia, this is the second film from Australia I seen this week.  This films biggest star is Ewan McGregor, but our main character is played by Brenton Thwaites who has already stared in a few big Hollywood movies and looks to have more to come.  He will be a name to watch in the future.  Our femme fatale is played by Alicia Vikander who is also an up and comer with roles in the impressive looking Ex Machina and big Hollywood movie Man from U.N.C.L.E..  Matt Nable plays a small but memorable role as one of the gang of thieves.

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Son of a Gun starts out with Thwaites getting thrown in prison.  He is taken under the wing of McGregor who saves him from other baddies.  Thwaites gets out of prison but soon finds he needs to pay back McGregor for his kindness.  A prison escape is the first plan and then a robbery spree ensues.  Thwaites is in over his head, like any good protagonist in a good noir story.  This story has prison violence, a prison escape, gangsters, double crosses, triple crosses, torture, murder, a heist, car chases, cheap hotels and femme fatales. What more do you want?

Though this isn’t an original story by any means, more of a mishmash of things we’ve already seen put together to make an entertaining film.  It’s worth watching if you’re looking for something new to see.

Favorite Tidbit:  Ewan McGregor’s character is based on real life bank robber Brenden Abbott known as the Post Card Bandit.  Abbott has escaped prison 2 times and is currently serving a 23 year sentence.

Gangsters in Movies from Jorge Luengo Ruiz

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I just found this and thought it was pretty cool.  After seeing this, can you name any great actors that have not played a gangster?

Gangsters in Movies

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AS FAR BACK AS I CAN REMEMBER, I ALWAYS WANTED TO BE A GANGSTER.

Movies than appear:

Little Caesar (Mervyn LeRoy, 1931)
The Public Enemy (William A. Wellman, 1931)
Scarface (Howard Hawks, 1932)
Angels With Dirty Faces (Michael Curtiz, 1938)
On the Waterfront ( Elia Kazan, 1954)
Some Like it Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959)
Bonnie & Cylde (Arthur Penn, 1967)
Get Carter (Mike Hodges, 1971)
The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
Mean Streets (Martin Scorsese, 1973)
Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)
The Godfather II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
The Long Good Friday (John Mackenzie, 1980)
Scarface (Brian de Palma, 1983)
City Heat (Richard Benjamin, 1984)
Cotton Club (Francis Ford Coppola, 1984)
Once Upon a Time in America (Sergio Leone, 1984)
The Untouchables (Brian de Palma, 1987)
Dick Tracy (Warren Beatty, 1990)
The Godfather III (Francis Ford Coppola, 1990)
Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
King of New York (Abel Ferrera, 1990)
Miller’s Crossing (Joel Coen, 1990)
State of Grace (Phil Joanou, 1990)
Bugsy (Barry Levinson, 1991)
Resevoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1992)
A Bronx Tale (Robert de Niro, 1993)
Carlito’s Way (Brian de Palma, 1993)
True Romance (Tony Scott, 1993)
Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
Casino (Martin Scorsese, 1995)
The Funeral (Abel Ferrara, 1996)
Donnie Brasco (Mike Newell, 1997)
Hoodlum (Bill Duke, 1997)
Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino, 1997)
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (Guy Ritchie, 1998)
Analyze This (Harold Ramis, 1999)
Snatch (Guy Ritchie, 2000)
Road to Perdition (Sam Mendes, 2002)
Una Historia de Violencia (David Cronenberg, 2005)
The Departed (Martin Scorsese, 2006)
American Gangster (Ridley Scott, 2007)
Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg, 2007)
Public Enemies (Michael Mann, 2009)
Drive (Nicholas Winding Refn, 2011)
Killing Them Softly (Andrew Dominik, 2012)
Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine, 2012)
Gangster Squad (Ruben Fleischer, 2013)
The Family (Luc Besson, 2013)
The Drop (Michael R. Roskam, 2014)

Review: Mystery Road

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Mystery Road is a neo-noir from Australian written and directed by Ivan Sen.  Sen is an up and coming director in Australia who was able to get an all-star cast to do this film with him.  Our lead is Aaron Pedersen as an indigenous detective who has returned to his home town after 10 years of working and training as a detective elsewhere. The two biggest names for American audiences will be Hugo Weaving and Ryan Kwanten. Hugo Weaving has a role as a hardboiled detective who has been on the force for a while. Ryan Kwanten plays a smaller role but it is a very interesting one.  Bruce Spence of Mad Max movie fame plays a small role of a coroner.

Our story starts with a trucker stopping along side the road, hears something strange…maybe a dog…a big wild dog?  He follows the noise and finds a body of a young girl.  Our detective comes on the scene to start the investigation.  He knows the girl as a friend of his young daughter.  As our story continues, he is worried for his daughter’s safety.  The mystery grows deeper as he uncovers drugs, corrupt cops and prostitution.

This movie shows a lot of the racism in Australia towards the Aborigines as our hero has to work with a white police force and try to gain the trust of his fellow Aborigines, all while he tries to solve the murder of this young girl.

This film has a great look with its desert landscapes, small town flavor, and ghetto like living of some of its citizens.

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This film starts out with a bang, and then slowly burns to an explosion of an ending.  I enjoyed this film with its very noir story where we never know what quite is going on and where it is going.  We may still feel that way when it is all over as well.  This film is worth a look for any noir fan or those that just want an interesting view of the Australian outback.

Favorite Tidbit:  Samara Weaving has a cameo as a police officer’s wife.  She is the niece of Hugo Weaving.  Looks like acting runs in the family.

Review: Bastards

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Bastards is a neo-noir from France written and directed by Claire Denis.  This is an idea ripped from the French headlines about wealthy, powerful men and a prostitution ring.  This is my first Denis film and it is supposed to be one of her darkest so far.  I hope so, because this is very dark!

Denis has teamed with Vincent Lindon before and wrote this movie with him in mind.  Lindon plays our protagonist who is a Sea Captain and comes back to Paris after hearing the news of his brother-in-law’s suicide.  Our femme fatale for this film is played by Chiara Mastroianni who is married to an older man and lives upstairs from Lindon’s recently rented apartment.

This has a slow pace and sparse dialog, but every little thing you are seeing seems to be important.  The story is told with a few flashbacks that show us what happened the night of the brother-in-law’s suicide.  The older man living up stairs is played by Michel Subor in a small but pivotal role.  He might be the performance of the film with his body language and how he evolves through out the film. Julie Bataille plays a widow, mom and sister to our protagonist.  She is in a desperate situation with an insurmountable amount of problems to overcome.  Lola Créton is our protagonist’s niece.  She is very troubled and as the film goes on we find little clues to why.

Our story starts with the suicide of the brother-in-law and his daughter walking down a side street naked and disoriented.  We see our hero getting the news on his ship and this is all before the opening credits role.  We flash forward a month where our hero returns to Paris to help his sister get her affairs in order and to help his niece who is still in a mental hospital.  As the film goes on we don’t really learn as our protagonist learns as we are used to.  We do learn as things go on, but the audience is left in the dark for a lot of this film.  It is worth watching to the end to see where all this goes, but be warned, it is disturbing and not for the weak of heart.  This movie will stay with you for a while after you see it.

Favorite Tidbit: This film is inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s movie The Bad Sleep Well.  I hope to watch and review this film soon.

This movie is for fans of Denis and other French films tackling tough subjects.  Neo-noir fans that can handle a little darker and more disturbing content then the norm will…I was going to say enjoy this film, but I don’t think this film is meant to be enjoyed.

Review: Le Cercle Rouge

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Le Cercle Rouge translates to The Red Circle in English.  The reason I wanted to watch this was a little tidbit of trivia from the film John Wick.  When I was looking at the background of that film, the night club in one of the scenes has a red circle neon sign and the club is called the Red Circle.  Someone said this was in homage to this film.  That was enough for me to watch and review this movie.   Here is my review of John Wick:

https://everythingnoir.com/2015/02/06/review-john-wick/

Jean-Pierre Melville wrote and directed this film and was his next to last film before his untimely death of a heart attack at age 55.  Melville wrote and directed many classic neo noir films from France and made some masterpieces, this being one.  Melville is an important influence on today’s neo noir and crime directors.  Influencing a who’s who of today’s talent.  John Woo, Quentin Tarantino, Michael Mann, Volker Schlöndorff, Johnnie To,  Martin Scorsese and fellow countrymen Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut all said Melville was a big influence on their work.  Needless to say we will be looking at more of Melville’s movies on this site as well as those he influenced.  Melville had the idea for this film in 1950 but shelved it until 1970 because of the similarities to the Asphalt Jungle that came out that year.  He held on to the idea 20 years, until he started working on this project in 1970.  Here is my review of the Asphalt Jungle:

https://everythingnoir.com/2015/02/08/review-the-asphalt-jungle/

Alain Delon plays our main protagonist and appears in a number of Melville movies.  Delon/Melville seem to be the French version of the USA’s De Niro/Scorsese.  Bourvil plays the police detective set on the case.  Gian Maria Volonté plays a recently escaped convict on the run and teams up with our hero for a big score.  Yves Montand plays a retired cop with chemical dependency issues and knows both our lead detective and our escaped convict.  He teams up with our thieves for the big score.

One of the things this film is famous for is the 25 minute heist scene.  There are no words spoken and had to be influenced by Riffi from 1955.  I will re-watch Riffi and review it later for this site.

Our story starts with our protagonist in jail and is visited by a money man that lets him know he will be getting out tomorrow, on one condition.  A job, one that is made for him and one that he will get away clean, as long as he doesn’t screw up!  Famous last words, right?  We also have our convict handcuffed on a train in the company of our lead detective, he escapes and is on the run.  Our two outlaws meet in a very unusual way and our adventure begins.

I already mentioned how John Wick gave a nod to this film, and I think there are many more.  I can’t help noticing this has many similarities in plot points to Heat, reviewed here:

https://everythingnoir.com/2015/03/12/re-watching-the-classics-heat/

And the scene in the forest reminded me of a similar scene in Miller’s Crossing, reviewed here:

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

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I also seen small similarities in Ocean’s Eleven.  What other movies do you think used this for inspiration?  Let me know in the comments below.

There has been a remake in the work for years, with Orlando Bloom and Liam Neeson rumored to be attached. From some reports this may be dead now.  A remake could be brilliant or it could be a big disaster.  How do you remake a classic of this caliber?  Worst case scenario is a remake will bring attention to the original.  This is a must see for neo-noir fans, and foreign movie fans alike.  It is a little long and the pacing deliberate, but is well worth your time.

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