Bad Lieutenant - not a remake (2009)

Last night I had the pleasure of watching Bad Lieutenant, not the original but also not a remake - mostly. Sure, it's about a drug addicted cop who does things his way -  accepts drugs and sex as bribes, steals from the property room and shacks up with a hooker - but only some of those elements are in the original and if the director of the flick says this wasn't intended as a remake, then that's good enough for me.

This is pretty much the expression he wears all movie

This movie is about a cop (Nicholas Cage in a rare good performance) with a bad back who takes a lot of drugs to deal with the pain - or at least that's his easy excuse for being consistently fucked up on coke, painkillers, crack etc. The great thing about this movie is that he remains the same character from beginning to end, fucking things up, making them right and putting the bad guys away. There were two ways I interpreted the ending; first it could be a drug induced dream and secondly it was the real deal. As shown, instead of being caught out and learning from his mistakes, he solves all his problems through the judicious use of drugs and know-how and in the end he's cruising along in his usual drug induced haze.

You can consider the ending real or a crack pipe dream, it's never clearly stated and the viewer is left to their own discretion. I liked it, it wasn't your usual bullshit happy ending.All things considered I believe the ending was real, if a bit jokey. Cage's character went on to feign sobriety in front of his ex-junkie ex-hooker wife as well as his recovered alcoholic dad and step-mum. These were the only people who knew or had an inkling of his secret life before they reformed, and he simply added them to the list of people he lies too. There's a glimmer of redemption in the final scene but that's how it stays. Just a possibility, then the credits roll.As a whole movie I think this worked. Ignore the naysayers clinging to their original cult classic (which I've never seen), this is a similar movie with a different story and worthy of viewing in its own right. Some of the cinematography was odd but I forgive that for the way the rest of the story was so well told, shot and wrapped up.

Snorting coke off your hand in a dimly lit toilet never played out so good - 7/10

ps. Still no nudie pics, none of the women in this movie appear to have removed more than an overcoat in their movie career. Sorry.

Dirty Harry (1971)

Quick one today because I'm sick with the flu. I watched Dirty Harry last night, the original genre reviving classic starring Clint 'I get more bad ass as i get older' Eastwood. I imagine back in 1971 that this was quite the eye opener. Violence, plenty of (really bright red) blood, some nudity (including full frontal though the longest shot is of a dead girl and she's supposedly 14).

The story goes like this, crazy guy is shooting people from rooftops around the city and Dirty Harry has to stop him. Dirty Harry DOES stop him, but he does so in a way that makes all evidence inadmissible. Bollocks says Harry. The killer walks free and Harry sets out to stop him, any way he can.

As mentioned, this movie was a sensation when released and audiences were polarised between those that enjoyed the gritty new cop out to serve justice even if it meant breaking the rules, and those who didn't like the violence or 'facist' way Harry did his job. Remember, this came out when hippies were still interesting and the age of Aquarius was going to do something something. Today it all seems a little quaint when compared to the shows we see on prime time television. The new age did not usher in a world of semi-nudity on our streets, freedom from shaving your under-arms and hordes of namby pamby do-gooders who are more interested in following the rules than punishing the bad guy. Instead we just got more movies like Dirty Harry.

Where was going with this? Oh yeah, Dirty Harry is a 1970s cop film that has aged moderately well but by today's standards doesn't do anything exciting.

5/10 for not boring me completely.

Dead Heat (1988)

Not pictured: nudity. Crazy, I know.

Dead Heat - starring Treat Williams, Joe Piscopo and Vincent Price (in one of his last roles) - is a horror/comedy vehicle from the director that brought you the 1989 version of The Punisher and also edited a bunch of pretty good movies. Mark Goldblatt in case you're interested.

In a nutshell, Dead Heat revolves around two cops and a machine that brings the dead back to life. From what I could understand the character played by Vincent Price was swindling rich old people into giving up half their fortune in exchange for eternal life, the catch being that those brought back to life only lived for 12 or so hours before melting into goo. Of course that part wasn't demonstrated to the captive and above all cashed up audience.

The movie zings along at a decent pace. Characters appear and are then slaughtered off screen, the action is okay, the jokes are horrendously bad and the acting is pretty abysmal. The one exception to this is Treat Williams, who I found far more believable than any of the others. Overall it was a budget 80s cop flick only with zombies instead of Colombians, Mexicans, Italians or whatever culture we're making fun of at the time.

What I did enjoy were the effects, prosthetics and general level of technical expertise. In particular the Chinatown butcher scene is awesome, well thought out and kind of horrific. Sadly though, an interesting premise and good effects were wasted with a crap script and horrible acting. Perhaps a remake should be on the cards using an all new script that exploits that central idea and builds a bunch of clever scenes like the Chinatown scene. Throw in some good jokes, decent actors and an underlying theme that explores the feelings of those brought back to life yet facing death again - and we have a winner. Someone send me lots of money and I'll get right on it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq90fHRJOiA - Trailer

5/10 - Dead Heat had some potential, but ultimately it's a dead duck.

Oh and the ending was fucking terrible. I think I had a 6/10 in mind until I saw the ending.