BITE-SIZED REVIEW: The Cutting Edge 4 - Fire and Ice (Stephen Herek, 2010)

After winning gold, Alex Delgado (Francia Raisa) is back on ice - only these days she is teaching kids how to skate.

After her relationship broke down, so did her career. 

She thinks her ice-skating dream is over - until former singles star James McKinsey (Brendan Fehr) appears.

He has been banned from singles, and wants to make the transition to pair skating. 

Alex accepts the offer, even though she is weary of his reputation. 

Will opposites attract (for the fourth time)?

A sequel featuring Francia Raisa reprising her role as Alex Delgado, The Cutting Edge 4: Fire and Ice feels like compensation for all the problems of its predecessors.

That is really the worst thing about this movie because in every other capacity it is fairly solid romcom/sports amalgam.

In its favour, this movie benefits from her presence and Brendan Fehr is a more charismatic performer than her last co-star. His character, James McKinsey, is also a little more dynamic.

The building blocks for this installment are solid  - James is a singles star forced into duo competition because he is banned from singles competition. This gives him a good motivation for seeking out Alex as a partner, and also a reason for conflict when he is offered a chance back in singles competition.

 

This might be a controversial statement but Alex and James are the best cast leads of the franchise. For once the leading man is not a wash - Fehr and Raisa feel like two characters interacting with each other. 

And the script gives the characters reasons for sticking together, and some faultilines to give their road to romance some wobbles. 

It is not mindblowing, but after two movies worth of stakeless coupling, this movie is a model of scripting relationships.

James is this movie’s version of Kate from the original. He may not have her line with a withering putdown, but he is cocky and self-obsessed. Not enough to be a monster - Behr does not play James as being threatened by Alex - but this movie lays enough pipe so that his eventual downfall makes sense. 

His character’s arrogance also has a long payoff. This might just be the effect of having two actors with real chemistry, but it felt like James and Alex got together too fast. But I give the film credit for letting James destroy the relationship without jabbing the viewer in the eye with obvious foreshadowing.

When James sees Alex interacting with another man, he puts together a story in his head that she is not in love with him. It is a fairly simple scene without exposition - we just see James watching this interaction from afar, and it works. It is not new but it is a good use of visual storytelling.

Of course this leads to fissures in their relationship - but not bad enough that they cannot get back together before the third act.

And the script actually gives their final reunion a bit of tension. 

Because of their breakup, James returns to speed skating after they are made the alternates for the pair competition. This means at the pivotal moment, he has to make a choice between the two events.

Once more, Francia Raisa is the MVP of the movie. Fehr is good, but Raisa is committed. She gives energy, humour and fierce intelligence to what could have been a cookie cutter role.

This movie took a while to get going, but once the leads were together, the movie starts working.

The characters actually have wounds which they try to avoid sharing with each other. 

For once, the final skate has some emotional undercurrent - director Stephen Herek films their routine in a warm red colour palette, with slow dissolves. It is not mindblowing, but this fim feels more put together in a cinematic sense than its predecessors. 

This movie is no masterpiece, however as a sports/romance movie it puts the building blocks together efficiently. 

If you are stuck in lockdown and looking for something to marathon, The Cutting Edge is not the franchise to go for. But if you are interested, watch the original and Francia Raisa’s duology. 

Watching all four together, it still feels like a great concept waiting for a great execution. But if you scramble together the ingredients from ¾ of the movies together, you can assemble your own perfect version in your head.

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The Silent Partner (Daryl Duke, 1978)

After he figures out a robbery is about to take place at his bank, teller Miles Cullen (Elliott Gould) comes up with a scheme to use the robbery as cover for stealing his daily transactions. When the robber demands he pay up, Miles will hand over a small sum and claim that all the money from his transactions was stolen.

After the robber, Arthur Reikle (Christopher Plummer), flees the scene, Miles tells his bosses and the police his story.

He seems to have gotten away with it - the only problem is Arthur, who has figured out Miles' plan and now wants his cut...

At some point in the last decade, I got into Christopher Plummer. It helped that he always seemed to be working - when he would pop up in something like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or the pre-credits of National Treasure, it felt like a nugget of gold. Whatever my thoughts on the movie, there was going to be a baseline of enjoyment because Plummer was there, with a twinkle in his eye.

There is something so unnerving about Plummer’s eyes - there is a focus and a watchfulness that is ever present which always puts me on edge. It always feels like he knows something about whoever he is looking at.

 

Because of that uh, ocular slyness, I always wanted to see him play villains - I have seen his roles in Star Trek 6 and Up, but nothing has stuck with me. It felt like money was left on the table. A rare exception was All The Money In The World, which is solely powered by his callous, preening portrayal of J. Paul Getty. 

When Plummer passed away last year, I saw a lot of talk about this movie. I was lucky enough to catch a screening.

A Hitchcockian thriller about a regular joe who sees an opportunity to color outside the lines and finds himself in big trouble, The Silent Partner does not boast a great suspense sequence but it builds in an unpredictable way that makes it rather exciting.

It also features Plummer in good form as an unscrupulous criminal. But while he is the one unambiguous villain of the piece, Plummer’s role is small. The film is more interested in un-picking the hypocrisy of the law-abiding citizens who make up the rest of the cast.

There is a deep vein of moral relativism to the picture. Not only is Miles using the robber, everyone in his orbit is double-dealing - most of the bank staff seem to be sleeping with each other.

There is an unease about the general domesticity of the film - the way characters look and interact feels intentionally bland. It is as if everyone is wearing masks for when they have to take part in public life.   

Gould’s casting adds to the character’s ambiguity - he has a very staccato way of speaking that undermines any sense of sincerity that the character is trying to project.  

My one real quibble with the movie was the sound mix.

It was really odd - there were points where the music was mixed louder than the dialogue.

And then there is the ending. The third act makes such a choice that I am not sure how I feel about the movie - but it did make me want to watch it again. 

There is a subtext of sexual ambiguity running through the movie that this final sequence brings out into the open in a way that I was simultaneously uneasy about and yet retrospectively it enhanced my enjoyment of the movie leading up to it. 

It highlighted how bizarre the tone of the whole piece is. Hitchcock's thrillers are rife with mordant wit, and there is a specific tongue-in-cheek quality to parts of the movie which evokes his work. I am not sure the tone is as consistent as it needs to be, but it makes the movie weirder and more unpredictable than the rest of the movie would have you believe.

A fine thriller with an ingenious premise and some nasty surprises, The Silent Partner is worth a look.

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BITE-SIZED REVIEW: The Cutting Edge 3 - Chasing The Dream (Stuart Gillard, 2008)

After his partner is injured, Zack Conroy (Matt Lanter) is looking for a new partner for the Olympics.

He may have found a new partner in hockey player Alexandra Delgado (Francia Raisa).

Will they overcome their differences to win the gold?

The second movie was so dull - it felt like a bland retread of the original. This movie feels like a reaction to that.

For one, this film flips the dynamic - the prima donna is the male dancer and the working-class hockey player is a woman.

I was worried that the movie was going to be a carbon copy of the original movie, but Alex is completely different from Doug Dorsey. Different here meaning a character who you want to root for as an athlete and the lead of a romcom.

As Alex, Francia Raisa is a breath of fresh air. It is a low bar, but Delgado is the most likable protagonist we have had in this ‘franchise’, and a lot of credit has to go to Raisa for giving this movie a character with some sense of interior life.

Matt Lanter is a bit colourless in the lead role - this might have something to do with the character being a little hard to pull out. He seems to be a little aloof, but the movie does not go the lengths of the first movie in defining his flaws. One of my favourite aspects of the original The Cutting Edge is how much effort the film puts into making Kate (Moira Kelly) an over-privileged shithead. By contrast, Zack is too nice.

The movie is weird in its POV - Lanter is the focus and initiates the plot but I had trouble tracking his arc. Alex’s subplot does not get much screen-time but she feels like more of an anchor for the story. The film gives her a backstory that she trained as a skater as a child but was unable to continue. This gives her a bit more agency in deciding to switch disciplines, and that story has a clear arc. It is just a pity that the movie focuses on Zack.

It is no hidden masterpiece, but Cutting Edge 3 is a steep upswing from its predecessor.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

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BITE-SIZED REVIEW: No Mercy (Richard Pearce, 1986)

After his partner is killed, hotheaded cop Eddie Jilette (Richard Gere) follows his killer’s trail to New Orleans, where he becomes involved with a mysterious woman, Michel Duval (Kim Basinger), who was present during the murder.

A stranger in a strange land, will Eddie avenge his partner, or join him in death?

I have an affinity for movies like No Mercy - there are specific qualities about thrillers from the late 80s-early 90s which I enjoy. You can expect some action elements, some noir styling, suspense, horror atmospherics, as well as with some erotic thriller-style sexuality. It is the recipe for good pulpy fun.

I also like Richard Gere - he has an understanding of his affect on camera and his star persona, which I find fascinating. 

Gere’s presence with those genre ingredients made me keep watching, but No Mercy was not that engaging.

The movie feels weirdly unplugged - events happen, characters interact, but it never feels like it is building toward anything. 

But this is the strange thing about this movie. It lacks energy and pace, however it is never boring.

Every time my attention drifted, something wild would happen - cops make a drug bust in a working car wash; a character is assassinated with a bazooka; the final shootout involves a car going through the front entrance and Jerome Krabbe jumping through a wall on fire.

 

The movie is not an action movie but it feels a few degrees away from being one. The action elements are over-the-top and the violence is cartoonish. This movie wants to be more of a drama, but there is no real conflict in the film.

There is also a lack of a clear throughline for the central character. He is a rogue cop who goes rogue. Oh and he falls in love. Despite the poster and the star billing, it took me until the end of the movie to realize that the film included a romantic subplot.

Part of it is that the characters do not spend enough time together, and the time they do spend together, Gere’s character is so unlikeable that their arc feels unearned.

I like Basinger, but I never understood her movie stardom. In past viewings, I never found her to be a dynamic or charismatic performer. That being said, her unevenness worked for her performance in No Mercy. 

This movie is a collection of hardboiled cliches and her role is no different. She plays a kept woman who our hero figures as a culprit, until she is revealed as an innocent party. Going along with the genre, she is a fallen angel with a horrifying backstory. Basinger’s flatness and awkwardness worked for the character - she is a person who has never had her agency validated.  

If only the movie’s empathy for her extended further. While Basinger does well with what she is given, the character is just a catalyst for the plot and Eddie's motivation - she draws him to New Orleans, and then provides Eddie with someone to protect for the finale. Michel Duval is a figure to be pitied but the big turn in her character is that she breaks free from her abuser to Eddie. Her role is the worst aspect of the film and highlights how retrograde it ultimately feels.

Richard Gere is great as the loner cop with a hair trigger - he is so great he is off-putting. At no point is he sympathetic. He is the most interesting thing in the movie - but the movie wants him to be some kind of anti-hero. However the character is so abrasive, and his actions so extreme, the movie collapses around him.

What I found interesting about Gere’s performance is that he is projecting a completely different mode of masculinity, one based on violence and aggression. It is the inverse of something like American Gigolo, where his gender and sexuality are more ambiguous. That ambiguity is something that Gere has played with throughout his career - it is one of the most interesting parts of his screen persona. 

From this basis, Eddie Jilette is an interesting shift in direction, although the character lacks much dimension. 

That is the fundamental problem with No Mercy - it boasts some interesting elements, but there is nothing more to it.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

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BITE-SIZED REVIEW: The Cutting Edge 2 - Going for the Gold (Sean McNamara, 2006)

Following an accident in competition, Jackie Dorsey (Christy Carlson Romano) is determined to return to skating. 

As with her parents, she finds herself paired with Alex Harrison (Ross Thomas), a professional skate-boarder.

Will they work out their differences so they can win Olympic Gold?

The Cutting Edge 2 is not a good movie. It repeats the outline of the original and smooths out all the rough edges - this means no cruel put-downs.

Ironically, this movie fixes one of my chief gripes with the original - good skating footage. The filmmakers put the camera down in wide shots and let the action play out so we can watch the skaters complete moves. 

The character of Jackie Dorsey is a rough facsimile of her mom - fixated on skating, and a bit of a snob (her reaction when she sees Alex working at the hotel).

In an update that feels straight out of Airborn, her partner is a professional skater - as with the original, there is a class conflict, although that is dropped as soon as it arises.

This movie’s thesis seems to be that Doug (Scott Thompson Baker) and Kate’s (Stepfanie Kramer) union was not the garbage fire it seemed to be set up to be. Instead they have created a child who has repeated the same patterns of behavior as her parents. However since this is a TV movie, Jackie is not as caustic as that equation implies. 

It is worth emphasizing that Doug and Kate in this movie bear almost no resemblance to the characters from the original movie - they are both well-adjusted and understanding presences in the background, ready to lend a helping hand. ‘Almost’ until Doug tosses Alex into the shower when he finds him hungover and vomiting after an all-nighter.

The movie also continues the original’s trend of a soundtrack of crappy songs - the worst is a terrible ripoff of Sir Mixalot’s ‘Baby Got Back’.

This movie is bland and forgettable. However, when juxtaposed with the first movie, there are some elements that I felt improved on the original.

For one, the movie features more of a down beat before the third act: Alex catches Jackie give an interview in which she is evasive about returning to singles competition. 

Believing he is expendable, he thinks about quitting before deciding to sabotage their long program by forcing Jackie to perform the move which caused her injury over and over again. It is a bleaker turn than anything in the original. That being said, it is negated by how quickly they get back together.

As a sports movie, this is more successful - we get more coverage of their routines and Jackie’s injury provides an obstacle they have to work over.

So it has that going for it. 

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

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OUT NOW: The 355

A technological terror is loose and it is up to a ragtag group of intelligence agents (Jessica Chastain, Lupitia Nyong'o, Diane Kruger, Penélope Cruz and Fan Bingbing) to find it and defeat the parties interested in selling and using it.

This movie is a bit of a heartbreaker.

The cast are the best thing about it - and I mean their names on the poster.

I did not read any reviews going in, but I was aware they were not good. I decided to go anyway - maybe the movie would work on me and I could have something interesting to write about. 

Co-written by Theresa Rebeck and Simon Kinberg, and directed by Kinberg, The 355 is a weird experience.

It does not succeed at what it wants to be, but that failure to work is not enjoyable to watch. Rather than putting an original spin on the Bond/Bourne spy thriller template, this movie is bland, underwritten and shapeless.

It is not the kind of movie I like to review. 

The script does not really set up the characters and the situation never feels that bad. It also feels tired and cliche in such an obvious way - the line ‘the friend of my enemy is my friend’ is uttered without irony.

This movie also crystallised something I dislike about these kinds of action thrillers. I enjoy the escapism of undercover capers and global schemes, but I do not like too much connection to real world contexts (in this movie’s case, the War on Terror). Unless the movie is going to offer some kind of critique or satirical reading, I find it hard to get invested in pure jingoism. 

The movie (mostly) centres around agents from major powers and for the first half it felt like it was setting up the familiar dynamic of good Western agents chasing nefarious foreigners through world locales. 

 The movie’s early sequences ultimately set up a betrayal designed to undermine the main characters’ belief in their bosses. However the plot turn is obvious and the way the characters resolve the situation left me baffled as to the movie’s ultimate point. 

Have they seen the impact of their role on the world? Do they want to fight against the system they used to represent? At one point, a villain points out the CIA’s role in destabilising governments around the world, but the movie has no deeper point to make. 

This is a big budget movie from a Hollywood studio so it is ridiculous to expect a radical re-working. But filmmakers have made radical statements through popcorn movies before and it feels like there is a more subversive version of this movie that could have been made here.

While the movie has no dramatic or thematic originality, I was hoping that the movie would compensate with the conventions of its genre, primarily some interesting set pieces and sense of scale. 

But despite being a globe-trotting thriller, this movie feels small. The action and choreography veers between competent (some of the one take fight scenes) and confusing (the final shootout).

The editing in this movie is bizarre - shots are cut together in a way that frustrates geography or work against the pace. There is also a televisual quality to the visuals, with an over-emphasis on close-ups and mid-shots of characters, particularly during group interactions, when we are supposed to buy their growing rapport.

Weirdly, the main selling point - the cast - do not provide any compensation. It feels like the actors are miscast - what is worse is that they do not seem to have chemistry with each other. 

It seems like this movie wants to present characters who are pros and keep their inner selves behind a facade, but it does it wrong because these characters never come alive - Chastain is a boy scout, Nyong'o is a computer whiz; Cruz wants to go home to her kids; Kruger is hard as nails; Fan Bingbing is working 5 moves ahead. These characters seem defined by their jobs and never build beyond what little we know of them.

At the level of the story and how it is told, this movie feels dead - actors speak at each other with no real feelings and fire guns at targets we cannot see. The stakes never rise and the movie goes on forever.

The 355 is unexceptional in its failure to execute, and that is disappointing considering the talent involved.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

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