Movie Review: The Dead Lands

The Dead Lands(2014)
Director: Toa Fraser
Writer: Glenn Standring
Starring: James Rolleston(BOY, The Dark Horse), Lawrence Makoare(LOTR trilogy),Te Kohe Tuhaka

"...Death is not noble. Nor is life."

This came under my radar a few months ago when I seen some blog post with James Cameron & Peter Jackson praising it(or something like that), so I didn't even bother watching a trailer or even reading the post in it's entirety. I just put it on the watchlist. Not that I'm a Cameron or Jackson stan or anything, though Cameron has made some great films I admire. It's just that when I hear high praises for films that sound up my alley, I like going into them without knowing as much as possible.

This film starts out like a horror. A man, obviously scared as hell, is running for his life through the forest and is caught and promptly killed in the most brutal manner by another man who looks as if he's possessed. Then it cuts to a scene with two rival tribes convening to make peace. The old chieftain explains to the visiting tribe that they haven't hunted in the lands they last fought them in since the battle ended long ago and by doing so they've honored the visiting tribe's dead. They allow the standing leader of that tribe, a young man named Wirepa(Tuhaka), to go forth and give their dead a proper burial. The son of the chieftain & our lead, Hongi(Rolleston), follows Wirepa out of curiosity. He trails him to a cave in the forest where the remains of Wirepa's ancestor's out in the open. Wirepa picks up one of the skulls and speaks to it for a moment and then he put it down, turns and takes a dump on it. He literally takes a dump ontop of the skull and then licks it. Not even joking. There's a character in this film who only eats other people's flesh and this guy, to me, is crazier than him. Hongi sees this act and throws a rock at him. Wirepa chases Hongi down then takes him to his father and lies saying that Hongi defiled the remains of his ancestors. The chief offers to kill his son to make it right. Hongi denies having done wrong, but accepts his fate. Wirepa, glory hungry, says there's no remedy for what has happened and that there will be war and then they go their separate ways. Wirepa and his men come back in the night and massacre Hongi's village and take the chief's head.

After that Hongi sets out for the titular Dead Lands in seek of a flesh eating "monster" to help him reap revenge on Wirepa and his men. This is where the film really starts. Hongi finds the "monster"(Makoare), the man from(and only a man), from the beginning of the film and he agrees to help. What follows could easily be a western, in fact, the whole movie could easily be a good revenge western. Rolleston is good here, he plays the young innocent, but rising warrior well. But Makoare absolutely steals the show. He brings depth to a seemingly savage character displaying a deep vulnerability and wide range of other emotions at the drop of a dime. He & Rolleston play off each other very well and would not mind seeing them in a western together. Tuhaka is great as the villain, reminds of a young Dwayne Johnson looks wise with the charisma Johnson has now.

The script is good. Nothing complicated, but it does offer a refreshing take on this type of story with the demythologizing of the warrior's code/honor. I like how it offers good and bad examples of going against that way of thinking. You hear/see the words "gritty" & "dark" a lot today when it comes to action movies, comic book adaptations particularly, but this film genuinely merits those terms with true grit... see what I did there? No? Okay, I'll be moving on. I don't have anything at all against today's CGI-heavy action movies. I actually love a lot of them, but I can say those CGI spectacles can get tiresome. I can't speak for everyone, but as an action junkie sometimes you just wanna see two people hit each other and actually see blood. The fight scenes aren't extensive like The Raid or anything like that, but they're still pretty gory and the choreography is good. I'm not sure it was intentional, but some of the visual language is right out of a classic Kung Fu movie and it's absolutely awesome so if you're into old Wuxias, that's another reason for you to watch. The only problems I had with is the pacing at times, but that's me just wanting to get back into the chase more than anything. And the logic in how some of the fight scenes are staged is questionable, sometimes I'd be sitting wondering "why don't they all just attack at once?" But that's nothing untypical for any action movie that involves a lot of fighting. All in all, this is one of the most visceral action movie's I've seen in a while and it while it may not land it's punch with everyone, I'd recommend it to hardcore action junkies like myself that are looking for an alternative to the sanitized PG-13 action movies that are the norm now.

Movie review: Michael Jai White Falcon Kicks The Sh*t Out Of People

Falcon Rising(2014) (AKA: Favela)
Director: Ernie Barbarash(Assassination Games, 6 Bullets)
Writer: Y.T. Parazi
Starring: Michael Jai White(Spawn, Black Dynamite, Undisputed 2), Lateef Crowder(The Protector, Undisputed 3, Tekken) & Neal McDonough(Minority Report, Captain America: The First Avenger)

"You didn't wash your hands... that's nasty."

I think I read about this movie over on cityonfire.com some months back and just added it to the netflix queue. So this morning after compiling a 100 movie list of possible movies to review, I figure what better movie to start with than this? It's supposed to be the first of a franchise to be lead by Michael Jai White entitled "CODENAME: FALCON" that will run for god knows how long. It's about John "Falcon" Chapman(White), an all-around badass ex-marine with some hardcore PTSD that ultimately feels pointless in his whole character make-up, but he has to have some kind of quirk, right? From the jump we see him home alone in his apartment drinking like a fish, clutching old comrades' dog tags & playing Russian roulette. And as if that opening scene doesn't effectively illustrate to us how down in the dumps this guy is, the next scene is of him in a convenience store looking to stock up on more liquor to continue binge drinking. Two baddies come in to hold the store up and he just continues to casually browse the liquor shelf while one of the guys has a shotgun pointed him at shouting. Yes, the obligatory "I'll show you how much of a badass I am"-scene, right? Ehh, kinda. John turns around and almost begs the guy to kill him. When the guy freezes up he then disarms him, kicks his & his partner's asses followed by him paying for his liquor and walking out like nothing happened. The first twenty or thirty minutes of the film is mostly one big heavy-handed attempt to show us how tormented of a man this guy is.

After even MORE veteran's sorrow porn filled with pointless flashbacks John's sister, Cindy(Ali), flies in from Rio De Janeiro and back out of town so that means we can finally get down to some ass-kicking, right? Kinda. John gets a call from an old friend who works at the U.S. embassy in Brazil telling him that his sister's been found left for dead somewhere in the favela where she worked(Laila Ali getting beat up? You KNOW this is a movie.) They really don't give you reason to feel for what's happened to John's sister. In fact, the way she's just suddenly injected into the story seems pretty random because there's no indication that John has anything to live for before OR after we see her. They don't try to establish a connection between the two. She's just used as a means to an end to get the plot moving. Even when he flies down to Brazil and sees her laying in the hospital bed battered and bruised it doesn't seem like he's affected by it much, he just immediately goes into justice mode. I guess we can chalk that up to him military guy and the writer working under the assumption that viewers will naturally make the jump to believe any badass ex-marine in a movie will automatically go try to exact revenge on the baddies responsible for his sisters assault. I guess that's better than overwrought melodrama, though.


When the action kicks off the first bit of it has nothing to do with John directly or the actual story, but it was pretty cool. One of the cops, Carlo(Crowder), that's supposed to be investigating John's sister's murder randomly squares up with a hoodlum and showcases his fighting style that reminded me of Eddy Gordo from the game Tekken(turns out Crowder played him the in the 2010 adaptation.) This fight serves no other purpose other than to show this is the only other formidable fighter in the movie who will eventually match up with John later only for a disappointingly short fight scene that's also shared with two other foes. The stuff leading up to that is pretty cool, though, too. John beats up or shoots anyone who even looks like they know anything about his sister's assault. And when he kicks people, my god it's like a lightning strike. No wonder his call sign is Falcon. The shootouts aren't as good as the fights except for the one during the climax where John runs through a shipping yard a la John Wick jumping off of crates dishing out a combo of falcon kicks & headshots. Not good overall. Hollow script, weak cast, but a moderately entertaining footnote to an action vehicle to be with some flashes of pure badassery from Michael Jai White who's a vintage macho-man action hero that exudes absolute confidence when taking down his foes. There's plenty of room for improvement, but they've built a solid hero so I'll be on the look out the future installments.