I’m always excited about the opening of a new Jason Statham action flick. A WORKING MAN is directed by David Ayer, who had just collaborated with Jason on last year’s excellent BEEKEEPER thrill-fest. It’s co-written by Sylvester Stallone, who (to my surprise) has 44 feature screenplay credits under his Rocky Balboa title belt, mostly for films he starred in. Them ain’t been none too high on brain fodder, but they reliably delivered the desired level of adrenaline boosting.
In this one, Statham plays a former super-soldier running a construction crew for a cozy family business owned by Joe Garcia (Michael Pena), assisted by his collegian daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas). When Jenny is snatched from a nightclub for unknown nefarious reasons, Jason has to kick-start his old particular set of skills to rescue the lass.
What follows is the accustomed path of working his way up the criminal food chain to save the girl while wiping out a slew of evildoers along the way. This entails deployment of feet, fists, some big knives, a helluva lotta guns, two grenades and a bomb. Unfortunately, the bomb isn’t IN the script. It IS the script.
For all the rounds of ammo fired, the bullets leave fewer holes than the plot. The details are too aggravating to enumerate. If you see this turkey anyway, take a note pad to keep track of them for some fun. Or wait for the streaming release, gather some pals and make it a drinking game. Down a shot every time something doesn’t make sense. No one will be able to drive home safely.
The action sequences were terrific in BEEKEEPER. But this one isn’t nearly as Statham-y as that was. Too much shooting, without his usual screen time of masterful hand-to-hand. Even worse, the choppy edits and dark settings made those clashes less exciting than one should expect from Ayers and Statham.
A couple of possible explanations come to mind. Perhaps Jason was ill or injured and they couldn’t find a stunt double who could adequately match his looks and moves. Or maybe the lighting crew went on strike, and they had to film without enough illumination. The sound was no bargain, either. Much of the dialog was hard to understand because of mumbling or background noises. That may have been a blessing, because the stuff one could hear wasn’t very engaging.
The structure of the story and the makeup of the eponymous hero were pure Statham – the elements that have made him a long-running star, thriving ever since his trio of TRANSPORTER flicks. But the execution here lets him and his fans down. Badly.
A WORKING MAN opens in theaters on Friday, Mar. 28.
Cecilia Han stars as the worried mother in the Donnie Yen rescue thriller POLAR RESCUE. Courtesy of Well Go USA
I’ve been a big Donnie Yen fan for years. This martial artist/actor has been a mainstay of Chinese action movies – comedic and dramatic – for decades. For Western audiences, he may be best known for his appearances in several films about China’s legendary real-life hero Ip Man. Besides Yen’s fighting skills, he invariably projects the calm integrity of a Gary Cooper. His latest high-profile role on our screens was the blind, yet super-lethal, and highly-principled assassin co-star in JOHN WICK 4.
Donnie is now over 60. So, like Jackie Chan, his time as a credible action hero may be waning. Preparing for the next phase of his career is the only reason I can imagine for his producing and starring in this rather uninspired family drama, POLAR RESCUE (a/k/a COME BACK HOME).
In POLAR RESCUE, Donnie Yen plays a dad on vacation with his wife and two young kids in the snow-covered mountains. Their bratty son petulantly insists they go to a lake with a “monster” he wants to see. Despite the weather being so bad that the main road to it is closed, dad dutifully tries another route. At a rest stop, the boy wanders off and winds up lost in the sparsely populated region during this harsh winter. Most of the running time covers the search.
Every trope is pulled out of the proverbial hat, from remorse to panic to anger to suspicions, plus media frenzy and various clashes among the principals to prolong the suspense of whether, and in what condition, they’ll find the little jerk… uh, I mean, the missing lad. Yen is sufficiently convincing as a father who variably feels guilty, frustrated and zealously determined to find the boy. Cecilia Han, who has won a handful of awards, is limited to typically marginal poses for a worried mother, alternating between hand-wringing and anger, apart from a few flashbacks to happier times.
The cinematography is excellent, with particularly fine set designs and enhancements of the exterior locations. The problem is the script. Characters and story arcs are too familiar for anyone who’s seen even a few such adventures to feel the desired level of tension. In the brief time before he disappears, the kid was so annoying that I found myself thinking the family might be much happier without him – almost a non-comic RANSOM OF RED CHIEF analog. In that classic tale, the kidnapped boy was such a pain in the ass that the guys who snatched him wound up paying the parents to take him back! That was certainly not the writers’ intent here but they still elicited that reaction in this viewer’s emotional mix.
Yen’s career will surely resume its accustomed quality, regardless of genre. This one unfortunately won’t make his highlight reel.
POLAR RESCUE, in Mandarin Chinese with English subtitles, debuts on Blu-ray and on digital from Well Go USA on Tuesday, Mar. 26.
When a Thai boys soccer team was trapped in a cave by flash flooding in 2018, the world was riveted as divers attempted to locate and rescue the teenage boys and their coach in the flooded cave, ultimately calling in volunteers who specialized in cave diving. Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farrell play two of those cave divers, middle-aged hobbyists who travel from their homes in the U.K. to volunteer to help save the boys and their coach. As the days dragged on, hope faded and it seemed only a miracle could save them. THIRTEEN LIVES dramatizes that 2018 rescue mission, and demonstrates exactly how miraculous it was.
This dramatic story was told previously in the documentary THE RESCUE, and while this dramatization follows the same facts, the visceral, emotional impact of this improbably rescue is even stronger. THIRTEEN LIVES depicts the risky events in a more detailed, powerful fashion, while still sticking to the already dramatic facts, but the drama allows a deeper, more rounded human story of the people involved in this astonishing rescue.
Director Ron Howard generally sticks to the facts in this true-story based drama, with Colin Farrell and Viggo Mortensen starring as John Volanthen and Richard Stanton, a pair of Brits with an unusual hobby: cave diving. John and Richard, who travel from the UK to volunteer their expertise, later joined by other cave divers, including Australian doctor Richard “Harry” Harris (Joel Edgerton) in the effort to find and save the soccer team and their coach.
When the boys are trapped in the cave by early monsoon rains, the Thai government calls in the Thai Navy SEALs. While the SEALs are experts in rescue, their diving skills are honed for the open ocean and the flooded cave, with its murky water, tight passages and rushing current, proved daunting. But it is exactly the experience the cave divers had, the authorities reluctantly allow these amateurs from half a world away to have a go at it.
Bad luck and good luck both play roles in this story. The primary bad luck aspect was the unusual early arrival of the monsoon rains. After their soccer practice, the boys wanted to go a nearby cave , a “tourist” cave that they frequently visited. The cave was considered safe in June, but closed in mid-July when the monsoon rains that usually arrived. A bit of good luck was that their coach went along, even though the boys knew the cave well and planned only a short visit before a birthday party for one of the boys. A sudden and intense downpour filled the cave with water, trapping the team deep within.
A stroke of luck was that the families quickly realized the boys were missing and recognized their bicycles outside the cave entrance. Another bit of luck was that an expert cave diver who lived in the area had mapped the cave extensively, and also was aware of other cave divers who might be able to help.
When this crisis arose, many of us were as unaware of the hobby of cave diving as officials in Thailand were. At first the Thai SEALs and other Thai officials were skeptical about these foreign amateurs and barred them from entering the cave. Eventually they were persuaded to let them have a try to locate the boys and their coach – at their own risk.
The need to find and rescue the boys before the cave entirely fills with water gives the film a ticking clock urgency, and the international mix of rescuers, along with the anxious parents, sets up potential for both conflict and cooperation. Although the documentary previously told this story, this narrative film depicts the risky events – particularly the astonishing final rescue- in a more powerful fashion.
While taking us through the events of the tension-filled rescue, director Ron Howard still gives the actors room to work so they can develop the characters, which deepens the human story aspect of this rescue. Although running almost two and a half hours, the film never feels that long, as the nail-biting tension of events, the dynamics of the characters, and a brisk pace keep us full involved.
The primary focus is on the British cave divers played by Mortensen and Farrell but Joel Edgerton gets his moment, as do the other actors. Mortensen’s Richard Stanton is a flinty, plain-spoken retired firefighter who has a risky hobby but goes about it in a way to reduce risk. Colin Farrell’s John Volanthen is a more easy-going person, an IT expert who finds cave diving a relaxing escape, but who is a family man particularly moved to help save the trapped boys.
The cast is fairly large and details the multiple fronts of efforts to save these boys. While the Thai SEALs and the cave divers battled daunting conditions searching for the boys, other teams pumped water from the flooded cave and volunteers, including a hydrologist, tried to block the sink holes on the mountain above that channeled water into the cave. The film does a good job conveying this multi-pronged effort in a cinematic way, with animated maps illustrating the various points in the long, complex cave, the fourth largest in Thailand, as we see the rescuers navigating the difficult passages, spiked with stalagmites and stalactites, and filled with rushing water. Fine cinematography by … delivers gripping visuals as the story written by Don McPherson and William Nicholson keeps us in its hold.
The result is a tense, suspense-filled drama, with memorable characters crafted by a strong cast, capped by a jaw-dropped rescue, for a truly uplifting film.
THIRTEEN LIVES opens Friday, August 5, in theaters in select cities and streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
A scene from season one of the Swedish rescue/medical drama series “First Responders.” Courtesy of MHz Choice
The first season of the subtitled Swedish TV series “First Responders” introduces us to a surprisingly diverse group of doctors, EMTs, firemen and police in a small, idyllic town, with a full array of professional and personal challenges to face. The setting is lovely, as we meet them during their summer off-season, in a village that apparently thrives on winter sports tourism. So this should be a less-pressured time for the crew. Not exactly the way it works out. Bad for them. Good for viewers.
Each episode presents a few crises calling for some combination of dramatic rescues, medical intervention and/or crime solving. Everyone in the ensemble cast gets his/her turns in the spotlight. Since they are mostly young and attractive (could it be any other way?), there is a fair share of romantic activity, as well, with some story lines unfolding throughout the season. Besides the main theme of their duties, a separate plot thread involves luring a big investor for economic growth that may, or may not, be good for the community.
Compared to our domestic network counterparts, like “911” and “911: Lone Star,” these events play out with relatively little splash. Background music highlighting major scenes is largely absent from “First Responders,” which keeps the focus more on the visuals, and lets viewers feel the urgency of their efforts without that audio prompt. Other than a couple of shockingly gruesome displays of medical yuckiness in Episode 3, the romantic encounters and assorted injuries are shown without much graphic detail. Or levity.
Viewer’s enjoyment of these 10 hour-long episodes will depend on the extent to which they bond with the characters. Everyone is presented in relatable human scale. No super-jocks or mega-villains, and nobody cast strictly for eye candy. The season ends with a few open questions, but without any cliffhangers that leave viewers in the lurch if Season Two never materializes. Overall, the series seemed engaging, though not riveting.
“First Responders: Season One,” mostly in Swedish with English subtitles, is streaming on MHz Choice starting Tuesday, May 31.
