Dream Home: Grade B

B

Dream Home (2010)

Josie Ho, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Eason Chan, Hee Ching Paw, Kwok Cheung Tsang; Director Ho-Cheung Pang (Cantonese Chinese; Subtitled).

There is a movie in theaters now with Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz called “Dream House.” A family becomes the target of a serial killer in that movie. I haven’t seen it.

This film is called Dream Home, and is from the point of view of a serial killer. A young woman has scrimped and saved for a lifetime to afford the perfect apartment by the sea. But alas, the building is fully occupied and nothing is for sale. Solution? Kill some occupants, creating instant vacancies.

In fairness, I need to say the victims are not just “killed,” for that sounds tidy. No, these victims are violently, bloodily slaughtered, using knives, boards, fists, and garrotes. This is an extremely violent, bloody, Hong Kong horror/slasher film. Nevertheless, I found it enjoyable.

One reason is that there is a balance between the young woman’s ordinary everydayness, at work, with her friends, with her family, versus her forays into serial murder, so you don't overdose. There is no attempt to provide psychological continuity between those two halves of herself. The movie plays it as if the gory murders were the most reasonable thing in the world for a person to do. There is no suggestion that she is a conflicted Jekyll/Hyde. So realism is out the window, but still, the story is marginally plausible.

Also, the murders are very creative, almost humorous. What I mean is that they are so gory and brutal, you can’t for a moment take them seriously. They are just real enough to make you gasp, and you will. For creative murders in the filmic art, you can’t beat these. I doubt that you have seen murder by vacuum cleaner, for example. Finally, the acting is better than not bad. So if you can get past some extreme violence and blood and guts, this is one of the better in the Hong Kong slasher/horror genre.

Frenemy: Grade C

C
Frenemy (2009)

Matthew Modine, Zach Galifianakis, Paul Adelstein, Callum Blue; Director Gregory Dark.

In this extremely low budget film, a porn video store in LA is held up and two customers (Modine and Blue) are temporarily hostage, along with the owner (Galifianakis). The chatty burglar (Adelstein) engages the hostages, in the funniest scene in the movie, in which the store owner objects to all the talk, “What is this, My Robbery With Andre?”

That is the best line in this off-beat comedy, and the allusion characterizes the rest of the film which is far less interesting and funny. The two customers are otherwise seen walking all around LA, having lunch, coffee, and parties, all the while talking about the meaning of life, love, fate, death, and so on. That dialog is very mildly amusing but not really funny or insightful. Woody Allen it is not. And the acting is mediocre, at best. However, overall, the movie is original, and well-photographed, and a respectable effort.

The Taking of Pelham 123: Grade C

C
The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009)

Denzel Washington, John Travolta, Luis Guzman, John Turturro, James Gandolfini; Director Tony Scott.

I never saw the 1974 original, so I took this remake on its own terms. Hijackers (Travolta and Guzman) take over a NYC subway car and hold 17 hostages, demanding 10 million dollars. Washington is the train dispatcher who becomes default hostage negotiator, a role he has played before. Turturro is the “official” hostage negotiator who tries to muscle in on Washington, but Travolta won’t have it. Gandolfini is hizzoner, who must come up with the money. The money is transferred, most of the hostages are saved, the bad guys almost get away, but not quite.

The story is extremely weak, with innumerable non sequiturs, absurdities, loose ends and contradictions. The basic plot, as described above, is basically boring. The obvious attraction of the movie is the spectacular special effects and great photography of New York City. The sound engineers obviously had collected tons of authentic train sounds, and they make sure you hear them. Pseudo-dramatic music, and traffic are equally deafening, triple the level of the dialog. This is a very noisy movie. You will need your mute button. The visuals are very good, for the most part, although some shots near the end plainly look like models. The stunts/special effects are the usual car crashes in the city with taxicabs flipping end over end. Happens all the time in New York, I’m sure.

Travolta plays an excellent psychopathic bad guy, enjoyable to watch despite the stereotype. Washington plays himself. Gandolfini turns in a sincere, believable, non-hammy performance. That’s the good part.

But the plot is so implausible, it is very difficult to stay interested. If Travolta is actually doing a stock market manipulation, what does he need the hostage money for? If he didn’t already have the money, how did he make the stock market bet on gold? Why does the money car coming from the federal reserve have a police escort? It is obviously useless for anything but bright lights, loud engines, and sirens, since the convoy has three spectacular fatal accidents on its short trip. Couldn’t the police have just turned all the lights red? How do the police identify two random-looking men on the street as bad guys and proceed to shoot them to death? Did they have “Bad Guy” stenciled on their foreheads? And so on.

The movie is obviously about car crashes and sparks flying from the wheels of trains, not plot development, not character exploration. It will be successful among children and child-like minds as yet another immature action movie. Just what we need.

Big Man Japan: Grade A

A
Big Man Japan (2007)
Hitoshi Matsumoto. Co-writer and Director Hitoshi Matsumoto. (Japanese, subtitled)

This bizarre film can only be recommended to the adventurous. The protagonist, “Big Man Japan” (Matsumoto), is a middle aged television actor in contemporary Tokyo. His terrible, low-budget sci-fi show, on at 2am, struggles to keep sponsors. In the show, a giant (“Big Man”) as tall as the buildings of downtown Tokyo, fights evil monsters just as big. The CGI effects are purposely clunky to recall classic Japanese sci-fi of the 1950’s. The monsters are the most creative you will ever see. Forget giant ants, lizards, and moths. These monsters are direct from the id but at the same time hilarious, more so, I imagine, if you were high.

Adding complexity, the premise is that the actor is being interviewed in documentary style, so a camera crew follows him everywhere, into his crowded apartment, a restaurant (where he only eats “super-noodles”) and on a visit to his estranged wife and beloved daughter. We learn that he endures large blasts of electricity which transform him into the superhero giant. He complains that he is getting old and the electric jolts are hard to take, but he is the only one of his type left. His ageing grandfather (Big Man the Fourth) has dementia, he believes, because he took too much electricity in his youth. The realities of the actor’s life and of his superhero character are so skillfully blended that we become unsure what kind of a movie we are watching. Is he really a superhero and not an actor? Or both? What is the deal?

Then there is a third layer of meaning in which we discover that as a child the actor was abused by his father (now dead), but was saved by his grandfather. The worst monster, a sort of red devil, thus represents the actor’s inner demon, his unforgiving memory of his father. In a final scene too strange to describe, a family of justice encourages him to find peace with the past. He does overcome his demon, but in yet another twist during the credits, we discover that coming to terms with the past is not a state of bliss.

Then we start to rethink the other monsters as symbols. Are they actually complaints about life in ultra-crowded Tokyo: crushed by the sheer press of people, stepping on them and being stepped on, having no privacy from peering eyes, enduring the stink of living so close, and so on? A whole new social meaning emerges to what we have been watching. Was this story a representation of the actor’s mental state all along, the monsters actually dream symbols? What is the reality? There are also historical and cultural dimensions I have not mentioned.

While reaching to the edge of delightfully, hilariously confusing madness, the movie demonstrates how to use the medium to its maximum capacity and not waste it photographing stage plays. The colors and effects are brilliant, exciting, and extremely creative as visuals. Photography is first class. The layers of allusion are dizzying. The music is terrific. However, if you like straight Disneyesque fables, you should skip this one because it will make no sense to you.

The Informers: Grade C

C
The Informers (2009)
Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger, Wynona Ryder, Mickey Rourke, Rhys Ifans; Director Gregor Jordan.

Four stories are about life in LA during the early ‘80s, that is, life of the rich and irresponsible, or criminal and irresponsible. The stories are intercut so we follow all four at once, but they are only tangentially related. In all of them, uneducated, undeveloped, egocentric characters drift along without self-awareness -- not very interesting.

Ifans leads a punk/rock band. Band members are enormously wealthy, stay only in luxurious hotels, smoke weed, snort coke, and engage in continuous orgiastic sex with all manner of youth, both male and female. What a life. But they are mean-spirited, cynical, bored, and clueless.

Thornton is a wealthy music producer, separated from his wife (Basinger), who is some kind of neurotic recluse who occasionally sleeps with one of the band members. BBT is having an affair with a news announcer (Ryder), who remains in mannequin mode even when not on TV. The producer is a generic self-centered bastard/asshole but we find out late in the movie that he also shoots up drugs when Basinger loans him her syringe after they attempt a reconciliation.

Rourke (pre-Wrestler) is a criminal lowlife who kidnaps a boy to make some quick cash for his heroin habit. He and his drifter girlfriend share needles too. The kidnap payoff does not go well and he has to skip town in a hurry.

The briefest story is of a young man who might have been part of the Informers or just a groupie, who inexplicably accepts an invitation to go to Hawaii with his estranged father, a conventional dimwit square. Between them is icewater that remains even in Hawaii.

The “ending,” if it can be called that, is that one of the band’s promiscuous groupies develops Kaposi’s sarcoma, a pre-AIDS condition and lays dying on a California beach in her bikini. The message seems to be wistful: ah, for the good old days, when there was unlimited sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, and nothing to worry about! AIDS was identified about 1980 and is not known to these characters. Therefore what? If only they had known about AIDS, they would have had a strong moral sense and been upright citizens? AIDS is their punishment for debauched lives? This movie doesn’t know what it is trying to say.

On the plus side I could watch Thornton, Basinger and Rourke all day. They’re great. Hard punk/rock music was beyond my taste. Otherwise, the scenes, the script, the directing, the cinematography are mechanical and cliché. Despite these serious shortcomings, the movie does give the sense of a rich, ignorant and aimless lifestyle that is interesting, and it does make you wonder how social life would have evolved without the AIDS epidemic.

The Soloist: Grade C

C
The Soloist (2009)
Jamie Foxx, Robert Downey, Jr., Catherine Keener; Director Joe Wright.

In this docudrama of a true story, Foxx is Ayers, a schizophrenic homeless man in contemporary Los Angeles. Downey is an LA Times reporter who does a story on Ayers’ skilled playing of a violin with only two strings. He befriends Ayers. In his research he discovers that Ayers was once a gifted cello player with the LA symphony before he succumbed to schizophrenia. The reporter provides Ayers with a new cello and takes him to a couple of classical concerts.

There is no plot beyond that. The man has schizophrenia, which means he hears voices, has delusional thinking and incoherent speech. The reporter is unable to get psychiatric medicine for Ayers, not that he would want it or take it. The movie is really a dramatization of the awful plight of the homeless in all big cities. Most are victims of drug abuse and/or mental illness and all are in financial ruin. They are abandoned by their families and friends, by the medical system and by all of society (except for a few dedicated but overwhelmed social service organizations). This movie demonstrates all that, and gives a fairly accurate portrayal of schizophrenia. I was pleased that Foxx’s character did not suddenly become “cured” in Hollywood melodramatic style, upon playing the cello again, or upon meeting his mother again, because schizophrenia is an incurable brain disorder. It can go into remission, and it can be managed, but there is no happy ending.

As a docudrama this film performs an educational service. Acting by Foxx and Downey is superior and well-worth seeing. But as a movie, it is a not very interesting or entertaining, and as a documentary, it is superficial. It takes two hours to give a 15 minute story on homelessness. Neither Ayers' nor the reporter's life is examined in meaningful detail. Schizophrenia and its treatment are not explored. Not even the tragedy of becoming afflicted is well dramatized. The camera swoops around dizzily as on a TV show, for no apparent purpose, although there are a few individual shots that prove a good photographic eye is behind the lens once in a while. The dialog is pedestrian. The characters do not develop over time. We never do understand the reporter’s motivation for getting involved. Catherine Keener is wasted in an incomprehensible character. The overall pace is far too slow. And, as mentioned, there is no plot. There are some interesting DVD extras on homelessness in LA, including interviews with the real life Ayers and the reporter, but these do not redeem the movie.

The Unknown Woman: Grade B

B
The Unknown Woman (2006)
Kseniya Rappoport, Clara Dossena; Co-writer and director Giuseppe Tornatore. (Italian, subtitled).

A young Ukranian woman (Rappoport) searches for work as a cleaning woman in northern Italy. Gradually we discover that it is not just any work she wants; she must work in a particular apartment building. Then by hook and crook, she wheedles her way into a position as a maid/nanny for a particular family. Why she is stalking this family, we do not know, but the tension is palpable. Through a series of brief but graphic flashbacks, we discover that she had been a sex slave in the Ukraine. She escaped by killing her boss in a gory, blood-soaked scene, and she took his stash of cash also. Inevitably, the Ukrainian bad guys are after her and the money. Slowly we learn why she is interested the Italian family, and at the same time is pursued by her old Ukranian boss, despite him being dead (she has to kill him again). It makes no sense at all. There are many other inexplicable non-sequiturs in the story and the ending is particularly unsatisfying. The brutal violence in the sex slavery scenes is hard to take, but it is integral to the story and not merely exploitative.

The pace is too slow, as European movies are for Americans. I could easily have edited 30 minutes out of the two hour run time. On the plus side, the movie is beautiful. It is very finely directed (Tornatore did Cinema Paradiso), and superbly acted. Sets and costumes are perfect. The story has just enough direction to carry us through the scenes, even if it does not add up in the end. You watch this movie for the exquisite acting, excellent directing, thoughtful photography, and lovely language. Overall, it is a worthwhile and memorable movie experience.

Saturday Night Fever: Grade A

A
Saturday Night Fever (1977)
John Travolta, Karen Lynn Gorney; Director John Badham.

This glorification of the disco era is much better than I remembered it. The acting is remarkably good, directing is good, and the story has a lot more subtlety and sociological complexity than I remember. New York sets are rich and authentic. Travolta is king of the Brooklyn disco hall, often opposite partner and romantic interest Gorney. Disco dancing (of the Travolta-esque kind) looks contrived and silly, but the killer Bee Gees music makes it infectious nevertheless. I always liked disco music and was sorry to see it fade away. None did it better than the Bee Gees. This is definitely worth a repeat look.

Grand Torino: Grade A

A
Grand Torino (2008)
Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang, Ahney Her; Director Clint Eastwood.

Eastwood is Walt, a crusty old Korean War veteran who lives alone in a run down section of Detroit that has been taken over by immigrant families including the extended southeast Asian Hmong family next door. He talks to himself and his dog so we can understand that he is still fighting the war, angry, alone, bitter, and an unrepentant racist. By chance, he saves the young neighbor boy from a group of Hmong gangbangers, so he becomes a neighborhood hero. He tries to reject that role, but gradually and grudgingly takes a liking to the young boy and his sister. The youngsters all speak English while the parents and old people do not, which gives ground for a good deal of humor. Walt voices some outrageous racist comments, which the Hmong youth accept with equanimity since he is obviously just an old fart who doesn’t know any better. That part is not exactly realistic, but it does show the audience the racism that is just under the surface in real life so it serves a social function. Walt teaches the young man some skills, and he gets a job, but the gang just won’t leave him or Walt alone. Walt realizes that the younger generation has no chance at all of making a decent life while the gang is around. His dramatic resolution to the problem invokes a complex of Dirty Harry and Catholic symbology in a predictable but effective ending.

The movie is a deft combination of serious drama, sociology, humor, history, tender feelings and “message.” For example, Walt gives the “Clint Eastwood Look” of intimidation several times and waves large guns while staring down bad guys, but never fires a weapon in anger. The only people who do are handcuffed and sent to prison. Yet the spirit of Dirty Harry is not lost. “You ever notice how there are some guys you just shouldn’t fuck with? Well I am that guy.” There are many layers and allusions to appreciate in this movie. I’d have to say it is as good, or better than Forbidden. Clint is nearly 80 now and we probably won’t see him on screen much more. If so, he goes out on a high note.

Secret Things: Grade D

D
Secret Things (2003)
Coralie Revel, Sabrina Seyvecou; Writer and director Jean-Claude Brisseau. French (subtitled).

Two out-of-work young women in contemporary Paris decide to use their sexuality to get good office jobs. But before they do that, they have to practice being sexy (of course!), so they make out with each other and do some public flashing. Then they charm their way into the same office, although it is not shown how they manage that. Once in, they plot to seduce the manager and the boss’s son. The younger woman (Seyvecou) arranges to have the manager walk into her office while she happens to be masturbating and that starts a romance, as of course it would. But the plan is to make him crazy jealous because men stick better when they are jealous, so the girls arrange to have this hapless manager walk in on them while they are having sex with each other (in the office again -- who knows what goes on after hours?) The manager naturally joins in the fun, but then the boss’s son walks in on the ménage a trois, feigns horror and fires the manager. But he also takes the two women for his own, to join him at his mansion with his beautiful sister for an incestuous orgy. In the end, the movie orgies-out and some metaphysical nonsense about the meaning of life is introduced, out of lack of ideas and perhaps to insert nominal redeeming social value.

Plenty of fine young breasts are on display, but the movie doesn’t succeed as pornography because the sex is unconvincing. Shiny women writhe and moan as if they were having orgasms, in a guy’s fantasy. There is no actual sexual detail shown, so the sexual tension, such as it is, is achieved only by suggestion. In the beginning, I thought the film would try to manage that fine interface between imagination and reality the way Catherine Breillat does (e.g., Anatomy of Hell), but I was disappointed there. Then I thought the story would be a delicious, bitter revenge story of women against male sexual and economic exploitation. But again I was disappointed. Could it be a sociological commentary about group nudity? Not that either. Nothing is going on here but prurient voyeurism, a terrible waste of opportunity. Acting is pretty bad all around. On the plus side (for a hetero guy), the women are beautiful, and the movie is well-photographed and directed. But as a movie, it has nothing to say and is misogynist the way the women evolve from determined individuals to brainless, passive vessels in the hands of men.

Blindness: Grade C

C
Blindness (2008)
Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Gael Garcia Bernal. Director Fernando Meirelles.

Inexplicably, people in a major modern city go instantly blind, one by one, until the whole city is blind. That’s the premise we must accept. Ruffalo is an ophthalmologist who examines a patient with the mysterious ailment, then “goes” himself. His wife, Moore, accompanies him to the quarantine, even though she remains sighted. Soon the quarantine is overcrowded, chaotic, filthy and surrounded by guard towers, so we have morphed from an allegory of social fear of biological pathogens, like an escaped virus or maybe HIV, to some sort of Holocaust metaphor.

Moore conceals her visual ability, for reasons unknown, and helps individuals and groups get somewhat organized. But the “bad” group gets hold of a gun, seizes the limited food supply and demands payment from the others for food. The dramatic situation could have been resolved in five minutes, since a gun is not that useful for a blind person, while sighted Moore could easily have overcome the lot of them. But instead the movie morphs into a Lord of the Flies theme to show the dark side of human nature. Finally someone thinks to check the front door, which is open and all the guards are gone and the city is empty of life except other starving and dying blind people. And so on. There is no resolution, no message, no point to the whole thing.

The strengths of the film include terrific (though terrifically bleak) cinematography, compelling acting from Moore, and some moments of insight. On the down side, the screenplay lacks any semblance of story arc or character development. Some scenes are thought-provoking, such as the realization that it makes no sense to segregate the genders for dressing and bathing, since everybody is blind. But in general, the movie is an insult to blind people, and over all nothing adds up. We could accept throwing reason to the wind for the sake of observing human behavior in a contrived crucible, but Lord of the Flies has already been done, so why do it again, badly?

The Match Factory Girl: Grade A

A
The Match Factory Girl (1990/2008)
Kati Outinen. Writer and Director Aki Kaurismäki. (Finnish, subtitled).

This new release of the classic 1990 film is a masterpiece of minimalism. A poor, urban young woman works in a factory that produces wooden matches. She gives her meager salary to her exploitative mother and ugly stepfather. There is virtually no dialog in the movie, few utterances of any kind. It's almost a silent movie, and eerie because of that. All the feelings and conflicts are illustrated visually, in a masterful use of the medium.

The woman is not depressive, despite palpably depressing surroundings, but she is withdrawn; not shy but with nothing to say. She plods through life without complaint, like the worn, functional machinery in the match factory. In an uncharacteristic one-night stand, she becomes pregnant. The baby’s well-to-do father rejects her and her parents throw her out of the apartment. Alone and defeated, she executes a childish revenge on the paternity offender and on her parents. It is a stupid plan and she is quickly caught by the police. What is striking is the woman’s flat, mechanical dullness. She is not unintelligent, but unknowingly oppressed by poverty, lack of opportunity and lack of imagination. In her vengeance she is not enraged but matter-of-fact. The effect is haunting.

This is the third in the director’s “Proletariat” trilogy, the only one I have seen. This release is an “Eclipse” edition, a line of classics like the Criterion Collection. Eclipse offers high quality versions of hard to find films like this one, at low cost, without the remastering and supplementary material of Criterion. I am grateful for Eclipse, because without it, this wonderful glimpse into the life and mind of lower class Helsinki would have never come my way.

Election: Grade B

B
Election (2005)
Simon Yam, Tony Leung Ka Fei; Director Johnny To. (Cantonese; subtitled)

This Hong Kong gangster film is one of the best of the genre. There is already an “Election II” sequel out (not yet on DVD). In this movie, a 100 year old triad (gang) elects its new chairman (Yam), but the loser, "Big D" (Leung) does not accept defeat. He tries kidnapping, bribery, and intimidation to get his way, but the “honor” of the gang’s tradition does not yield. Big D declares he will form his own organization (with himself as boss) declaring war on the others. But the police round up all the leadership, and there are meetings in prison. The winner and the loser agree to work together, sort of, for a while, maybe. The story is easily strong enough to sustain the action. The violence is brutal and shocking (as is the custom in this genre), but also very personal because there are no guns in the whole movie! Enemies are beaten, stabbed, run over with cars, bashed with shovels and hit with whisky bottles. I kept imagining guns that were not there. Three black Mercedes screech to a stop and 12 thugs jump out. Cue the ouzi’s! But no, it is a fistfight with knives, machetes, boxes, and steel barrels. It’s amazing how much more effective the violence is without the depersonalization of the gun. There’s no martial arts either, making every scene feel realistic. The sharp dialog and good characterizations also help us engage with the humanity of the characters. There is a real sense that these guys are like any society of people, with history, tradition, and alliances, dealing with their particular culture of violence, individual talents, social hierarchy, and even mental illness. The scene with a community of monkeys watching a violent murder is especially telling. You come away appreciating the breadth and depth of Triad life in Hong Kong.

In Bruges: Grade B

B
In Bruges (2008)
Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes, Clemence Poesy, Thekla Reuten, Jordan Prentice. Writer-Director Martin McDonagh.

This ultra-noir comedy is shot in Bruges, Belgium, a beautiful city. Two hitmen (Farrell and Gleeson) await instructions from their boss (Fiennes) about their next job. There is humorous back and forth as Farrell, exercising his Groucho Marx eyebrows, petulantly complains about being bored with “culture and all that crap” (“history is just a bunch of stuff that’s already happened”), while Gleeson drags him to medieval churches and takes him on cold, windy canal tours. We learn in a flashback the special rule that governs these hit men: if you kill an innocent boy, that’s wrong, and you must kill yourself. Makes sense, right? Whatever, that’s the rule that controls the whole story.

The story is utter nonsense, and any residual of realism is sacrificed when Gleeson falls from a tower, his head exploding like a watermelon on the sidewalk, but he isn’t dead! No, he still has time to give a few crucial words of advice to Farrell. When Farrell is shot five times through the abdomen with an automatic weapon loaded with dum-dums, he doesn’t die, either. There are some funny lines and some melodramatic moments too, but there is no realistic overall comedic or dramatic story so the character arcs are hard to take seriously. Farrell overacts; Gleeson does a good job, Prentice is fascinating, but Fiennes is super intense, even electrifying. His character should have been brought in much earlier. Cinematography is stylish and enjoyable, as is the music. A tighter story with more respect for realism would have made it an excellent film.

The Air I Breathe: Grade C

C
The Air I Breathe (2008)
Kevin Bacon, Julie Delpy, Andy Garcia, Brendan Fraser, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Emile Hirsch, Forest Whitaker; Co-writer and Director Jieho Lee.

Four mini-dramas are loosely connected in the style of Crash. Whitaker is a clerk who bets big on a horse that loses, leaving him indebted to a vicious shark (Garcia), so he does the only reasonable thing and robs a bank, but gets shot by SWAT. Garcia does a great hot-and-cold psychopath that channels Pacino. It is totally derivative but really a great imitation. Whitaker’s character is not well motivated but he gives a strong performance anyway. Fraser shows the best acting of the movie, and the best I have ever seen from him, as an emotionless debt collector for Garcia. Fraser gets glimpses of the immediate future so he knows when he is going to be attacked from behind, for example, very useful for a gangster. When his clairvoyance fails for the first time in his life, he becomes happy at his new freedom (a logic that escaped me), and falls in love with an emerging rock star (Gellar) who is “owned” by Garcia since her manager paid off his debt with the management contract. I’m no expert in contract law, but I don’t think that would be an enforceable agreement. Nevertheless, the girl is tyrannized by the evil Garcia, and Fraser can only protect her for a little while. Meanwhile, Bacon is a physician with a patient who requires an immediate transfusion but who has a rare blood type. He just happens to overhear a television interview with the rock star who just happens to reveal that she has that blood type! Rather than make a phone call, Bacon rushes downtown (conveniently same town, and staying nearby), to accost her in the street, which leads, predictably, to him being beaten up by her bodyguards. Somehow that unpleasantness is resolved (not shown in the movie), and the patient is saved. We don’t know what happens to Garcia.

It is difficult to understand what the writers were trying to achieve with these weak-to-ridiculous stories, or with the overused format of linking stories through common characters, no matter how implausible the linkages. What saves the movie from total disaster are strong performances by Garcia, Whitaker, and especially, Fraser.