Tag Archives: Caine

Get Carter

20 Mar

R: ARCHIVE, S: MOVIES, D: 10/12/2000,

Get Carter

Sylvester Stallone trying to fill the thespian shoes of two-time Oscar winner Michael Caine? That’s what this remake of the mod 1971 British noir is all about. Caine even gives it credibility by lending his mug to a supporting role. At least Sly doesn’t try out a cockney accent — the setting has been transposed to cyber-hip Seattle, where his Jack Carter, a heavy for the Vegas mob, has returned home for the funeral of his brother. The alleged car accident doesn’t play well with Carter’s instincts; he suspects foul play and starts poking around. Caught up in the gnashing revenge mix: Miranda Richardson as the widow in mourning, Rachael Leigh Cook as her punked-out daughter, Mickey Rourke as the porn king, Alan Cumming as the flamboyant start-up geek, and Caine as the avuncular overseer with a hidden agenda. The aged Stallone, robotic and thuggish, is almost admirable, and Stephen Kay’s direction is visually slick, but the insipid dialogue and inane plot development do him in. Why would anyone attempt a straight-up remake of one of the truly great British gangster films? I just don’t get it.

— Tom Meek

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Blood and Wine

20 Mar

R: ARCHIVE, S: REVIEWS, D: 02/20/1997, B: Tom Meek,

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Sterile ‘sequel’

Rafelson’s Blood & Wine runs thin

by Tom Meek

BLOOD & WINE. Directed by Bob Rafelson. Written by Nick Villiers and Alison Cross, based on a story by Rafelson and Villiers. With Jack Nicholson, Judy Davis, Michael Caine, Stephen Dorff, and Jennifer Lopez. At the Nickelodeon, the Harvard Square, and the Circle and in the suburbs.

Bob Rafelson and Jack Nicholson mesmerized audiences with Five Easy Pieces in 1970; two years later they struck again with the bitter, dark The King of Marvin Gardens. Pieces featured Nicholson as the kind of self-concerned, sardonic antihero that was so prevalent at the time (The Graduate, Easy Rider). In Gardens, Rafelson took a chance and cast him as the introverted, intellectual brother opposite Bruce Dern’s pie-in-the-sky shyster — a gonzo role that seemed tailor-made for Nicholson’s on-screen persona. Now, some 25 years later, Rafelson and Nicholson have reunited to conclude an unofficial trilogy that journeys through the veins of dysfunctional bonds.

For all that Blood & Wine is a complex and engaging drama, it feels contrived.Pieces and Gardens flowed naturally; here Rafelson seems to struggle with the standards of ’90 sensationalism. Nicholson’s Alex Gates, a Miami-based wine merchant, is a one-dimensional character: he’s on the brink of financial ruin, his marriage is in shambles, but he continues to indulge in a life beyond his means with a sporty BMW and a sultry mistress.  Continue reading →

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