Neo-Noir

Top 40 Neo-Noir Films of the 90’s

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I came across this video on YouTube and found it very interesting. There are a handful of films on this list I have not seen yet. Overall I liked all the films on this list that I have seen and the order seems to be pretty good. Sure there are a few films I would move up the list and a few I would drop down a few spots, but overall they seem to be in a pretty good order. I have no idea where this list came from or who put together this video, but it is a good one!

Is there any films from the 1990’s that did not make this list, that should be? Some I didn’t see that I felt should be on the list are Dark City, Miller’s Crossing, Le Femme Nikita, Point Break, Pulp Fiction, The Crow, Hard Eight, Fargo, and Bound. I look forward to revisiting some of these films soon, and hope to see the few I haven’t yet.

Review: Mirage

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Mirage is a neo noir film from 1965 starring Gregory Peck, directed by Edward Dmytryk.  This is based on a book written by Howard Fast under the pseudonym Walter Ericson.

This story starts with Gregory Peck in a high-rise where he seems a little confused.  The power is out, and he starts down a stairwell.  He runs into a women, played by Diane Baker, who thinks she knows him, but he does not know her. They get to the bottom of the stairwell and she can see him in the light and does know him.  He does not remember her and she runs away.  He goes outside and sees a body on the street, somebody just jumped from the high-rise.  We learn the body belongs to a well-respected man who is the head of a peace organization.  As Peck tries to figure out what is going on, he realizing he doesn’t remember anything from the last two years.  He finds thugs played by George Kennedy and Jack Weston chasing him.  He hires a rookie private eye played by Walter Matthau and runs into supposed co-worker Kevin McCarthy throughout his adventure.  He tries to get help from a psychiatrist, but that just makes things more confusing for us and Peck.  How does this all fit together?  Is everybody working against Peck?  What do they want from him?  Is Peck really just an accountant?

This film is a neo noir I believe by date alone.  This movie is filmed in black and white with a very noir style cinematography, from a director who knew noir.  This film came on the heals of the popularity of Charade substituting Peck and Baker for Grant and Hepburn and bringing Matthau and Kennedy over from that cast.  It was also cashing in on the popularity of Hitchcock’s suspense movies.  Sure this might be a little weaker substitute when compared to that company, but it is a good movie on it is own.  If you haven’t seen this yet, it is worth checking out.

Favorite Tidbit:  This film was remade only three years later and titled Jigsaw.  I have not seen this version, but can’t imagine why this movie would be re-made so soon after the original?

Review: Sleepless Night or Nuit blanche

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Sleepless Night is a neo-noir from France, filmed in 2011. Frédéric Jardin directed and co-wrote the film. This film stars Tomer Sisley as a hard-boiled cop, who we cheer for the whole movie, but we are not sure if he is a good guy or just another bad guy that made his own bed and now he has to lie in it.

This is an interesting premise and well thought out. The film starts with a high-speed car chase and we are in the pursuing car. There are two men putting on full face ski masks and they finally stop the car. There is a fight and one of the masked men gets cut with a knife. The other masked man shots and kills one of the men in the first car and starts chasing the other one, but not before our masked man with the knife wound looses his mask and we see it is our hero played by Sisley. There are people on the street that witness the chaos and could I.D. our hero. Sisley chases down his partner, who has lost the man he was chasing. They did get the bag they were after though. We find the bag contains a lot of cocaine, more than they thought. We also find out our two masked criminals are police officers.

The gangster who sold the drugs has found out who our hero is and has kidnapped his son. Sisley must return the stolen drugs to get his young son back. His partner is against this, but Sisley goes anyway. He goes to the gangster’s night club to do the exchange when all hell breaks loose. The rest of the movie takes place in this gigantic, very popular night club as our hero juggles illegal immigrants working in the club, the gangster who was selling the drugs and owns the club, the drug dealer who purchased the drugs, some internal affairs police officers, some corrupt police and an array of thugs, bartenders, chefs and club goers while trying to save his son. This is a wild ride and very exciting.

An American remake is being filmed as I publish this review. Jamie Foxx will play our hero and it will also star Michelle Monaghan, Dermot Mulroney, and Gabrielle Union. I can see from the brief description of the American version that we will know Foxx is an undercover cop in the film. This film is very ambiguous about whether our hero is a dirty cop that got in over his head, or if he is an internal affairs officer working undercover. I’m still not sure what to believe and I’m sure everyone that sees it will have a different interpretation. This is what makes this wild ride such a good neo-noir and by telling the audience he is an undercover cop, I think will make the film less interesting. I of course will hold judgement until I see it.

This original film is well worth seeing for fans of French noir and neo-noir films. It is also very action packed and will appeal to action junkies too. See it before yet another great foreign film get an American re-make.

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Beach Party Blogathon: Revisiting the Laser Disc Collection: Point Break

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It’s Beach Party Blogathon!  When I seen this, the first film that came to mind for this site was Point Break! Is there any better neo-noir or noir film where the beach is such a big part of the story?

So Kem Nunn writes a book called Tapping the Source(something I have on my to read list), it was bought for the movie rights, soon after publication.  After many re-writes and changes it finally became Point Break.  Because of all the re-writes there was not much left of the original story and Nunn was never given a writing credit for the film, but he started his own sub-genre, surf noir.

Before Vin Diesel took the adrenaline junkie genre film to the absurd in xXx and the Fast and the Furious franchise, this movie inspired a whole generation of adventure athletes to live their dreams instead of working for the man.

This film had a great cast including Gary Busey, Lori Petty and John C. McGinley as well as an uncredited appearance from neo noir regular Tom Sizemore. Lets not forget Red Hot Chili Peppers singer Anthony Kiedis as a surf nazi. Even with all that talent this film will be known for having two of the biggest stars of the 1990’s going head to head, Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves.  This film is directed by Kathryn Bigelow who hasn’t made a lot of movies, but she sure has made some great ones.

Our story starts with the most famous bank robbers from the 1990’s, The Ex-Presidents(how many times has this been reused in someway since this film).

They rob a bank, in and out in 90 seconds, clean, and they are professional.   Johnny Utah, played by Reeves makes his way to the F.B.I. Headquarters in Los Angles as a rookie agent.  Him and his 22 year vet partner played by Busey are on the case.  Busey has a crazy theory about the Ex-Presidents being surfers.  Soon Johnny Utah is going undercover as a surfer and befriends Tyler, played by Lori Petty, and is introduced to surf guru Bodhi played by Swazye.  Our adventure takes off from here with night surfing, beach football and sky diving.

This may be a rehash of movies where somebody goes undercover in a gang of outlaws, sometimes siding with the bad guys by the end or at least understanding why they do what they do.  This film is original because our outlaws are not doing what they do to get rich or own possessions or buy their next hit of drugs, they are doing it to finance their lifestyle, and it’s a healthy lifestyle if you will.   With the Ex-President masks, were they telling us we all are slaves to the system?  A system they are not willing to be apart of anymore?  Can we see why the All-American quarterback turned F.B.I. agent is seeing the light and does not want to be a cog in the system anymore?  Are the big bad bank robbers the bad guys in this or are the straight-laced suit wearing, living in the system guys, the real baddies here?

So everybody who is a fan of this film, and there is a lot of followers for this cult film, knows we are getting a remake soon. We have two lesser known actors playing the leads and Teresa Palmer playing Tyler.  I guess I’m getting old, because the first thing I thought was “Isn’t it to soon for a remake?”  Then I noticed this film was made almost 25 years ago.  I hope they keep the realism and concentrate on the relationships of our leads and not make a superhero movie, to wild to be believed in the vain of Fast and Furious or xXx, with lots of unbelievable C.G.I. and explosions for no reason.  Sadly based on the box office results of Furious 7, and the first trailer, I think that is exactly what we will get.  I guess I’ll hook up the old Laser Disc Player and pop this in again to get my adrenaline fix.

Re-watching: Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1983

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The Red Riding Trilogy’s conclusion wraps up the story but not quite all the loose ends.  This film is a little different then the other two, in that it concentrates on two characters instead of just one.  This entry is directed by Anand Tucker and like the first two, this one is also based on a book by David Peace and the screenplay is written by Tony Grisoni.

This film starts with a flashback to 1974 where a group of our corrupt cops and Sean Bean’s corrupt business man are meeting at a wedding.  They are taking about events that set in motion this whole trilogy.  This flashback is from David Morrissey’s character Maurice Jobson’s perspective.  Jobson is one of the cops that has been part of all these cases and now he is having second thoughts, after all these years another young girl has gone missing and he is rethinking his actions. In this film we flashback to past events from the first two films all from Jobson’s perspective.  This sheds new light on past events and gives us the audience some new information.

Our second main character is John Piggott played by Mark Addy.  Piggott is a lawyer or solicitor in England.  He is back in town and seems to be a pretty good lawyer.  He is asked to help Michael Myshkin played by Daniel Mays.  If you remember the first movie he was a mentally handicapped man who confessed to the murder of one of the missing girls.  He is also asked by another family to help their son who was just arrested for the murder of one of the other girls.  He starts digging into the story and between him and Jobson we hope to get to the bottom of what has been going on in Yorkshire.  Will we ever find out who the Wolf is?  Will the lawyer be able to help get Myshkin out of prison?  Will they find this latest kidnapped girl before it is too late?  How deep does this case go?

Like I said, this doesn’t tie everything up in a nice little bow for you.  Small characters have little pieces to the puzzle and we get most of that puzzle put together.  Characters like Peter Mullan’s Martin Laws and Robert Sheehan’s DJ who seem to be minor characters have big pieces to this puzzle.

Watch all three of these films in order and enjoy the ride.  Watch them carefully because some small detail in one film can turn out to be a big part of the next one.  Like I said at the beginning of my first review, this is a noir trilogy, based on 3 of the 4 books in a series by David Peace and all 3 films were made in the same year by 3 different directors.  A great story with some amazing talent from England.  To think this is what England is producing for their television is an amazing achievement.

Re-watching: Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1980

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This is the second in The Red Riding Trilogy.  This installment is directed by James Marsh.  This is based on the David Peace’s book and the screenplay is from Tony Grisoni as are all three of this series.

This film revolves around Peter Hunter played by Paddy Considine.  He is brought in from a different office to take over the Yorkshire Ripper serial killer case.  Our corrupt Yorkshire police force isn’t having any luck solving the case of now 13 murders.  Hunter was also brought in back in 1974 to investigate what had happened at the end of our last movie.  We find this out in flashback fashion throughout the film.  He had to end that investigation when he found out his wife had a miscarriage and left Yorkshire.  Now he is back in 1980 and he is not welcome.  He assembles his team to start looking at the old cases in the Ripper file to see if they can get to the bottom of this.  One of his team played by Maxine Peake finds a case that may not have been the Ripper.  She also has had an affair with Hunter and this has sidetracked both people throughout the investigation.

A lot of our recurring characters show up again in this one, those of note are Maurice Jobson played by David Morrissey,  BJ played by Robert Sheehan,Martin Laws played by Peter Mullan and Bob Craven played by Sean Harris.

Our story may seem like it is unrelated to the first movie, but we would be wrong.  At the end of this we have more questions than before.  This is another good film for neo noir and noir fans.  I would recommend watching the first film, Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1974, which I just reviewed.  You could watch this on its own but I don’t think you would find it as enjoyable as watching it after the first film.

Re-watching: Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1974

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The Red Riding Trilogy is an interesting concept, which I like very much.  This Trilogy is based on the books by the same name written by David Peace.  I’ve read the books years ago after watching these movies when they came out on DVD.  There is actually 4 books but they cut one of the books out of this series to make it 3 films.  The books are also very good and worth checking out.  The other thing about this trilogy is that all 3 films were made in the same year, by three different directors.  The directors all have a different feel and look for each of the films.  All three screenplays are written by Tony Grisoni so there is continuity throughout the films.  This works really well, since every film is from a different year and all look unique.

1974 is directed by Julian Jarrold and stars Andrew Garfield as our main character for this installment. As we go we meet what seems to be minor characters, but pop up in the next two films as key parts to the continuing plot.  This installment has a very distinct Yorkshire accent by all the characters.  This can make some parts hard to understand what they are saying and/or what the slang means.

This story revolves around Garfield’s Eddie Dunford who is a rookie journalist.  He is on his way to his Father’s funeral, but stops off first for a press conference for a missing young girl.  He gets assigned to the story and starts to put together that this may be a serial killer.  Two other girls around the same age have gone missing before this one.  He starts to link the three cases and is warned by a co-worker played by Anthony Flanagan to watch his step.  Soon this co-worker is killed in an auto accident, Dunford doesn’t think it’s an accident.  He starts looking into this story as well and finds the two stories may be connected.  The story involves corrupt cops, and corrupt journalists, as well as a business man, played by Sean Bean, that this all revolves around.  Dunford also falls for the mother of one of the little girls that has gone missing, played by Rebecca Hall.  She is definitely Dunford’s femme fatale for this film.

Some of the other character’s you will want to pay attention to in this first installment are Maurice Jobson played by David Morrissey, BJ played by Robert Sheehan,Jack Whitehead played by Eddie Marsan,Michael Myshkin played by Daniel Mays, Martin Laws played by Peter Mullan and Bob Craven played by Sean Harris as well as others.

This film and the other two are well worth your time.  A well sorted out trilogy always designed to be a trilogy and not just a good first film followed by two sequels.  This is something unique to noir, I can not think of three films designed to tell one big story like this in the noir genre.  I think all fans of noir will enjoy these.  They do take some effort to follow but that is part of the joy of these.  I will return with a review of the second film tomorrow.

Re-watching: The Lookout

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“Who ever has the money has the power.”

The Lookout is from 2007 and written and directed by Scott Frank.  Frank hasn’t done a lot of directing, but he did do this movie and A Walk Among the Tombstones.  Two really good neo noir films isn’t a bad start for him in the directors chair.  Here is a link to my review of A Walk Among the Tombstones:

https://everythingnoir.com/2015/03/03/review-a-walk-among-the-tombstones/

This film has a great cast with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a brain-damaged young man who has some memory loss issues.  Jeff Daniels plays his roommate who is blind.  Matthew Goode plays our top bad guy and leader of a gang of bank robbers.  Isla Fisher is our femme fatale as part of Goode’s crew.

Our story starts with Gordon-Levitt driving his Mustang down a country road, full of his classmates.  He turns off the headlights, doing what young people do, and wrecks into a combine.  We flash forward 4 years to Gordon-Levitt working at a bank as the night janitor.  We get a sense of his frustration with his memory loss.  He has trouble remembering things and writes them down in a notebook.  We meet our bad guys in a bar where Gordon-Levitt is having a beer.  He soon hits it off with one of the girls in the gang.  This is of course Fisher, being our femme fatale.  We soon find out our gang wants to befriend Gordon-Levitt because then know of his disability and job, he will be an easy mark to help them get into the bank.  Will our hero help our robbers?  Will he stop the robbery before it happens?  With his diminished brain power, will he still be able to out smart the bad guys?

This movie came 2 years after Gordon-Levitt’s other great neo-noir film, Brick.  I think that is why when somebody talks about one of these films somebody will always bring up the other one.  Both are excellent films, but Brick was something special.  These would make for a great double feature next time you want to see a couple of neo-noir flicks in one night.  Here is my review of Brick:

https://everythingnoir.com/2015/01/31/my-review-of-brick/

This is a film any neo-noir buff will love and most film buffs in general will enjoy.  If you have already seen this and Brick, what one do you like better?

Favorite Tidbit:  David Fincher and Sam Mendes where both attached to direct this film.  When both fell through, Frank decided to direct it himself.

Taste of Cinema has “The 75 Best Neo-Noir Movies of All Time”

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Taste of Cinema put together a best of list that will cause many to argue over what is on the list and what is not. Sure I have a few movies I’m surprised didn’t make the list, but I also found quite a few I have not seen yet. Worst case scenario you should find some films you want to revisit or some you’ve never seen that you may want to add to your queue. What is the one movie that did not make this list you feel should be on it?

http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2015/the-75-best-neo-noir-movies-of-all-time/

Review: Inherent Vice

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I’ve been waiting to watch this for months! I take that back, years! This first came on my radar when I heard Robert Downey Jr. was attached to play the lead role. I still would love to see that by the way. I went right out and bought the book by Thomas Pynchon, but I never finished it. I’ve tried to read three of his books now and have only completed one. He is a brilliant author, I just can never commit to the book long enough to get through them. I may go back and give this book another try. Paul Thomas Anderson directed and wrote this for the screen. I really like Anderson’s work and really want to re-watch his last neo noir, Hard Eight.

So we don’t get Robert Downey Jr. as our main character,”Doc,” we get Joaquin Phoenix.  Not a bad second choice, if you ask me. Supposedly Anderson thought Downey Jr. was a little to old for the character. Doc is visited by his ex-girlfriend who is our femme fatale for this tale and is played by Katherine Waterston. She has a new boyfriend who happens to be a real estate mogul played by Eric Roberts, worth a lot of money. Robert’s wife and current boyfriend have a plot to get rid of him and want our femme fatale to help. This leads us on multiple cases for Doc that all seem to be intertwined. Doc has a love hate relationship with his police connection, “Bigfoot” played by Josh Brolin. Doc is also dating assistant D.A. Reese Witherspoon while broken up with his femme fatale. He takes on a case for Jena Malone who is looking for her husband Owen Wilson. We have great actors cast in minor roles such as Michael Kenneth Williams, Benicio Del Toro, Martin Short and Maya Rudolph as Doc’s secretary. We also get an interesting scene with porn star Belladonna showing her acting chops and former MMA fighter Keith Jardine playing a Neo-Nazi bodyguard. There are to many great little appearances to list them all, but you get the idea.

This movie is long at almost two and a half hours, but it is worth it! We have no idea where it is going and how are hero will ever get out of this mess. This film is highly praised by critics, but is not well liked by the general public. I loved it! This is not a film you can be distracted while watching, because every little conversation is important to the story. I think people who really like great cinema will love this and those that don’t, won’t like it. I plan to buy this on Blu-Ray as it is one of those films where you will learn new things on each viewing. I highly recommend this to everybody. Maybe it is just me, but after watching this I think I will go get some pizza now.

Favorite Tidbit: According to Josh Brolin, Thomas Pynchon, who keeps a pretty low profile, appears somewhere in this film. There are a couple of theories on where in the film he appears, but nothing is verified yet.