A young gang member turns his life around in prison, thanks to the friendship he forms with a convicted murderer who becomes his mentor. From: IMDb.com
Directed by: Trevor White
Starring: Spencer Lofranco, Mary-Louise Parker, James Woods and others
There is of course not any doubt about it that this movie got made with
all of the right intentions and it had its heart at the right place.
That however doesn't mean that the movie is also being a powerful and
effective one as well!
It's one of those movies in which the 'comon' folk rises up against the
stronger, established bureaucracy. In this case it concerns some
parents and teachers who are trying to create a better learning
environment for the kids. They try to change stuff, while the
established powers are all opposed change of any sort and do everything
without their power to try and stop the ones who are trying to change
things for the good. And it's truly all as black and white as it sounds
unfortunately!
Thing with this movie is that in essence it's not wrong of course, with
any of its messages. You however still need to create a somewhat
believable situation, in order to let things work out effective and
engaging enough as well. This movie however completely fails at this,
by creating some unlikely and unrealistic situations and over-the-top
characters instead.
It's also strange to see how the movie itself seems to forget what it's
truly about. They say they do it all for the kids but the kids
themselves actually hardly play a role in this. It doesn't ever really
show stuff from their perspective and when it does, it's usually
concerning something highly unlikely and laughable. No, at a certain
point if feels like the parents/teachers are all making it about
something personal instead and simply want to 'win', at basically all
costs because they are all too deep and far into to still stop or turn
back.
And Maggie Gyllenhaal is just about the happiest protester you have
ever seen. She is smiling her way through this movie and is obviously
enjoying the whole 'fight', which for me certain also took away a lot
of the credibility and drama of this movie. Perhaps it's true that
otherwise this movie might had turned into something far more dry and
boring but it at least would had made for a more credible movie to
watch.
I'm not saying Maggie Gyllenhaal is a bad actress of course. As a
matter of fact, there aren't really any bad performances in this, just
some bad writing instead. You can't blame the actors for anything and
they truly give all they got! Some actors also certainly are wasted in
this movie, such as Holly Hunter for instance. I wonder, if her
character got perhaps played by a lesser known name, would she had
survived the editing process? Fact is that she plays a pretty wasteful
character, that perhaps was still more important in an earlier version
of the script but completely feels out of place and unnecessary in the
actual movie.
Instead of being an inspiring and engaging movie, it's a mostly
ineffective and instead, mostly due to its very forced, black and white
approach and storytelling.
Seriously, this movie could had been a lot worse. At least its not
being one of those cheap looking B-action movie flicks. It actually is
a technically pretty well made movie, with of course also one truly
great cast in it.
Believe it or not but this movie actually stars Sean Bean, James
Cromwell, Ving Rhames, Christian Slater and Dominic Monaghan all in one
special soldiers of fortune team. A cast list every movie would and
also should be jealous of. No idea why they did this movie but I guess
they need a paycheck like this, every once and a while. it was also
great to see Colm Meaney as in the villain in this movie. It's funny
but I was wondering not too long ago what Colm Meaney was up to now
days, since I hadn't seen him in anything for years now. And then boom!
His face popped up in this movie, still looking the same as 20 years
ago.
Storywise, the movie was really dropping the ball toward its end, which
was a shame since I really was with the movie at first. It has a
ridicules concept but at least it got presented convincingly enough,
also thanks to its fine actors of course. After a while you'll start to
realize the movie isn't going anywhere anymore with its story. It's as
if half way through they threw away the script and decided to put in
some simple action sequences instead. I truly think that this movie and
its story had far more potential in it, so that's truly a big waste.
It's not a particularly spectacular or involving genre movie to watch
but it at least isn't boring or offensively bad, in any way or form.
It's definitely being a better movie than just the average B-genre
movie attempt and I hope that director Maxim Korostyshevsky continues
making movies and who knows, maybe one day he'll have his big
breakthrough, which seriously isn't anything unlikely, since you can
definitely tell the right skills and talent are there. All he needs now
is a more decent script and a bigger budget to work with.
Not a great genre movie but a good guilty pleasure.
Combining horror with some serious drama is often a combination that simply doesn't work out all too well. It's extremely hard to do and to find and right balance but I think that this movie succeeded in this, by throwing in some good mystery that will leave you guessing and keep you watching, right till the very end.
I think the key to liking this movie is by knowing absolutely nothing about it, beforehand. Just let the story and all of its developments surprise you. The movie keeps throwing you around. The one moment it seems as if its going to be a horror, the other as if its going to be a drama and the other moment it's being a mystery-thriller, with also at times either supernatural elements in it and not. So basically the one moment the movie is being a realistic one, while the other its clearly being more than that. There is a lot going on but the movie never becomes a confusing one.
In all truth, this seems to be a movie that is being more common and similar to some of the genre movies that are made this present day. In that regard this movie seemed to be ahead of its time but it also has as a result that today's audience will probably see some of the twists coming from miles away already. About halfway through it already came apparent for me how the movie was going to end and without spoiling it, all I can say is that I wasn't wrong about it.
But having said that, that really doesn't mean that the movie won't keep surprising you with its moments and story developments. Even when you already figure out the ending way before the movie ends, you'll still have a more than great time watching this movie and it won't ruin the experience for you in any way.
I said before that this movie is quite similar to modern genre movies and this is true for its story but with its style and approach this movie perhaps feels more like a late '60's/'70's psychological horror movie, such as for instance "Rosemary's Baby" and to some extend also "The Exorcist".
It's quite funny. Tim Robbins of course has played plenty of leading roles but I don't remember him carrying a movie as much on his own as he did in this one. He truly is the one character this movie evolves around and I actually believe that he is in every single scene of this movie. He of course does a great job with it and the movie has a great supporting cast as well, with plenty of people in it that at the time were still pretty much big unknown ones but later became well known names, such as Eriq La Salle, Ving Rhames, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Jason Alexander and Matt Craven.
An especially at the time quite unique and definitely original movie, that successfully combines drama, horror and mystery!
At least he creators of the first movie knew what they were doing. The
makers of this film absolutely had no idea how to turn this into a good
and fun genre movie to watch.
It should tell you enough already that main cast and crew members of
the first movie are no part of this film. I like to believe that they
were smart enough to stay away as far as possible from this obvious
inferior sequel.
From a sequel to a movie like "Piranha", you would expect them to go
even more overboard with things, this time around. But instead of more
gore, more nudity and more fun, there is less of everything. Especially
the fact that there isn't really any good gore present is very
disappointing. And the gore that is present in the movie is just far
too fake looking for my liking. It prefers to use computer effects over
practical effects, which was a really poor pick, in my opinion.
But what makes the movie just bad to watch is the fact that the story
is all over the place. It doesn't really follow a good a clear main
plot line and none of the characters is fun or even likable enough to
care for.
This movie really has some bad and lazy writing in it. This shouldn't
always be a problem for a movie of this sort though. I mean, the first
"Piranha" movie sure had lots of big plot holes in it as well but the
fun of the whole movie compensated a lot. It actually was a part of
what made the movie so fun to watch. It made it a spoof of the genre,
by making fun of all the clichés and weaknesses, including lots of
nonsensical stuff and big plot holes. So really, deliberate bad written
can be fun but I feel that in this case it wasn't deliberate at all.
It's just incompetence and that's also what makes it bad and annoying
to follow all.
When the end comes, you suddenly also start to realize that everything
that happened before really didn't mattered and totally wasn't being
relevant for the movie at all. You could say that the movie only builds
up to its last 30 minutes or so, which isn't even being a good movie
finale. It was supposed to be one big bloodbath and orgy or gore but
let me tell you that compared to the first movie, this one felt like a
kids film.
Really, it all could had been saved with some good humor but that is
also incredibly lacking in this movie as well. They had no idea how to
make things fun and even when the movie is going over-the-top, it just
isn't being all that funny to watch.
It's just incredibly bad all and not in a good or fun way at all. Skip
it please! Or else they might make another one...
Of course the key to liking this movie, is to take it not too
seriously. It's also so over-the-top and ridicules that I just can't
imaging anyone taking this serious in the first place, though there are
still plenty of people like that out there, as it appears.
It's a B-movie that is very well aware of itself and actually strives
to be taken as a B-movie. Now, this is an approach that can work out
but more often does not, since it's too forced and the movies are too
slick looking to be taken as a B-movie. However in this case I feel
like it did work out well!
Throughout the years, I have seen plenty of just plain silly mankind
versus nature/animal type of movies. And as far as this sub-genre goes;
this is probably one of the better movies out there, that I have seen.
It's such an enjoyable film to watch that its story just simply doesn't
matter and neither does all of the crazy and just stupid stuff that
this movie comes up with.
But it's not like that the movie simply only goes over-the-top with its
story. It also does so with some of its characters but mostly with its
gore. It's an extremely gory film, that also has lots of nudity in it
as well. The gore gets so extreme at points that the movie actually
starts to turn into a comedy, which is one of the reasons why it also
becomes such an enjoyable movie to watch.
It's also such a clichéd movie but because of this, the movie actually
starts to turn into a spoof. The movie gets deliberately exaggerated in
about every way imaginable, such as with its gore, nudity, character
behavior and plot developments. When you get and recognize all of this,
the movie actually becomes a much more fun movie for you to watch!
Of course when you start over-analyzing everything and look seriously
at this movie, there is no way you could call this movie a great one.
But not all movies are made to be great. Sometimes certain movies are
just simply made for entertainment and not to win any awards or receive
lots of critical praise. This movie is a perfect example of that. It's
purely made for entertainment and it looks to me like the film-makers
also had plenty of fun creating it.
It also must be the reason why so many big name actors make a cameo
appearance in this movie. Lots of people wanted to be part of the fun
and madness that got called "Piranha". Richard Dreyfuss, Christopher
Lloyd and Eli Roth make cameo appearances, while also big name actors
such as Ving Rhames and Dina Meyer play bit parts.
It's just simple, silly, fun entertainment, that works out very well!
(Review originally written at 5 October 2008) This is a pretty boring jail-boxing-flick (yah, what a word!) that features very little story, uninteresting main characters and a concept that focuses purely on the boxing aspects and forgets basically everything else. There is one big problem with this movie; it's two main characters played by Wesley Snipes and Ving Rhames. Both are boxing professionals who got convicted, one for murder, the other for rape. Seems like the Snipes character got somewhat based on Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter and the Rhames character obviously on Mike Tyson. But fact is that both are tough criminals, who obviously are no choir boys. They are not really portrayed in a likable way and you just don't know who to cheer for. My guess is that it was the movie its intension to make the Snipes character the more likable one but he's portrayed in an incredible unsympathetic way and quite honestly I would always rather hang out with Ving Rhames than with Wesley Snipes, no matter what crime he committed. The movie features of course other characters, of which some got portrayed by some good and well known actors (Peter Falk, Michael Rooker) but you just don't ever care about any of them and most also feel rather pointless within the movie. So yes, the main characters are a problem but so is its story. Basically all the story does is build up to its inevitable end fight. It's makes the movie predictable but boring as well, since basically very little else is ever happening in the movie. Walter Hill was once a new promising action movie director but with movies like this he shows that he sort of has lost his touch. It's a very clichéd made movie that features all of the ingredients you would expect from it. The already bad and uninteresting story gets also told in a bad and uninteresting way within the movie. He tries to give the movie some style and pace but it really doesn't work out too well. Normally I'm still quite fond of boxing movies but this movie just has very little redeeming qualities. The movie just doesn't offer anything new or exciting to watch. The boxing matches within the movie aren't exactly anything adrenaline pumping, also because you already know in advance how they are all going to end. Not really recommendable... 4/10 Watch trailer
There are some movies I would had never heard of, if they weren't composed by a well know composers. Soundtracks are often a reason for me wanting to watch a movie. It's a lovely little soundtrack from maestro John Williams. It really helps to tell the story and enhances things.
The movie is a dramatic laden one that is powerful in parts but also filled with some big sappy sentiments. Such as the way the black-community gets portrayed. It's made to look like one big happy, perfect, peaceful, innocent community. It feels a bit too sappy and cheap and on top of that this introduction lasts a tad too long. does tend to make the movie melodramatic but luckily the movie doesn't ever really cross this line. Luckily the movie does get better as things start to go from bad till worse in the story. It becomes a more of an emotional engaging and powerful movie that provides the movie with a couple of effective moments, though the movie at the end also makes the mistake by becoming more of an action-movie. The actual ending itself also goes on for too long, which also causes it to be overly sappy.
It's a well directed movie that shows that John Singleton obviously has talent. Once thing gets started things flow very well and the movie becomes an effective one. It's of course an all the more shocking movie since its based on true events. But nevertheless the movie, because of its sentiments, feels more like a based on a true story made for TV movie, than a shocking, moving Hollywood-hit, worthy of Oscar-nominations. The movie also doesn't feel like its trying to send out a message or tell an important story.
The movie is also good looking with some nice cinematography and also the sets and costumes help to create the right atmosphere for the time period the movie is set in.
The movie has an impressive cast but not everybody seems happily cast. Such as Ving Rhames. He just isn't good enough for this serious and more carrying sort of roles. His character also feels totally unrealistic. No wonder, since his, unlike the other characters in the movie, are fictionalized ones. I don't know why but Don Cheadle and Jon Voight also feel quite out of place. I guess it's because their characters aren't really ever deepened out good and interestingly enough in the movie. But Don Cheadle is of course also always better in smaller supporting roles. This movie could had been a real good and powerful movie if it relied on its characters and became a real character movie but the movie its storytelling, that is more focused on the sensational and racial aspects of the movie, doesn't allow this. Michael Rooker does play a good role and so does Bruce McGill, who is about one of the most underrated actors in the business. Robert Patrick is also in the movie but his role is unfortunately far too small, though not insignificant.
A good, though certainly not perfect dramatic telling of some horrible true events.
