Saturday, August 23, 2014
Ten thrillers in three lines each, plus a longer review of the tenth at the end
THRILLER THEATER
– 2011
THE DEEP
Looking for morphine and a
Spanish treasure in the sea around the Bermudas. Sharks added, but they are
just nice friendly meddlers.
JAGGED EDGE
A crime of money disguised as a
crime of passion, jealousy and love in the good rich society of San Francisco . How
surprising facts can be when you look at them with a twisted mind.
…AND JUSTICE FOR ALL
A classic for sure about American
justice: it is all rotten and unredeemable. Too bad for you the young! In
prison where you shouldn’t be you will be raped and whatever may happen next
and you will have to die, . . . because you’re innocent. Justice has to justify
its existence.
ABSENCE OF MALICE
The case of journalism as the
whistle blower about anything, any crime. What happens when the press-accused
person is innocent? What happens if the prosecutor is convinced beyond any
doubt he is always right? What happens if the accused has the means to repay
that press back for the service?
MONEY TRAIN
This one is funny and it is the
accusation of bureaucrats when they become endowed with any authority. They are
born tyrants and they will die tyrants . . . or in prison.
AGAINST ALL ODDS
The daughter of a rich family is
running away from her lover. He hires a football star who is being harassed by
some coach out of his team to look for her. The football star finds her in some
Maya ruins in Mexico ,
or near by. She comes back but the other characters of the story do not get it
that easy-going free-wheeling way.
TO DIE FOR
Nicole Kidman carries this pale
imitation of Twin Peaks , and so many other
stories about a town and their hidden secrets, otherwise it would not have gone
very far. She is great, that actress who was still very young.
A SOLDIER’S STORY
A nasty racial crime in an all
black (private and NCOs) unit in 1944 (all Commissioned Officers are white . .
. OF COURSE) brings an investigating captain from Washington . He is black. You can imagine the
situation in a small town in Louisiana
where they had never seen a black officer before and what’s more to investigate
a crime in which some white citizens and white officers are suspected. Gosh
things can go wrong at times.
RED ROCK WEST
Hobos, simple moneyless travelers,
criminals escaping justice, bounty hunters, hit men and sheriffs, all in the
same basket eating one another’s faces. All that for what’s left of a million
dollars. Going in and out of the little city of Red Rock , to finally hit the railroad, Jack,
west if possible. There might be one survivor after all.
UNDER SUSPICION
We move to Brighton , England Miami ,
the paradise of serial killers like Dexter. We were in 1959-60. That’s more
than half a century ago.
Enjoy the films. They are
entertaining and distractive, I mean they distract your mind away from serious
problems like ISIS and other terrorist crimes
like an English citizen beheading an American journalist with a butcher knife
in front of an Internet camera.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
LIAM NEESON –
UNDER SUSPICION – 1991
An English film on some thrilling
murder. Fascinating because of their strange system of justice. We are in the
1950s, just before the passage to 1960. The death penalty seems to still be in
practice then, by hanging of course. They dropped beheading several centuries
ago.
A private investigator, in 1959,
is arranging adulterous affairs for men who want a divorce. The law was strict
in those days in England .
A lot stricter than in Henry VIII’s times. He uses his wife as the necessary
actress for the deal and thus doubles the profit, and yet he is not rich, far
from it.
He has a bad past with a 1957
police business when he was a policeman. He did something not exactly
professional that ended up with the accidental death of a colleague. In other
words a pretty bad character. His last adulterous collage turns dramatic with
two deaths. The man is a very rich artist and he has an official wife from whom
he is trying to get a divorce with this particular adulterous affair, and a
mistress whom he wants to marry. What’s more he has just changed his will for
this mistress to get everything, particularly all the works of art, the
paintings.
We can think of at least four
possible suspects, persons of interest that could be put under suspicion. One
nearly gets hanged, not the one we may think is the real culprit, but who
cares. It ends up with a couple who have arranged everything and are selling
the paintings to be as rich as a gold mine.
It is not too badly done, and it
is even slightly dynamic. If you add the touch of English humor you have to
find in an English film taking place in Brighton, England, that even has a sign
for Christmas and the tourists that says “WELCOM” the first time you see it and
WELCOME” the second time, it is in a way funny Ah! Ah! I guess misspelling is
an English characteristic. They are just checking if we are not sleeping.
Good entertaining evening. And
welcome (with an E if possible) to Miami
at the end, the Homeland of Dexter and CSI. A predestined place.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
# posted by Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU @ 2:12 PM 
