OUT NOW: Cocaine Bear (Elizabeth Banks, 2023)

Following a botched drop, bags of cocaine are scattered throughout Blood Mountain National Park.

When a black bear becomes addicted to the white powder, everyone in its vicinity, from park rangers (Margo Martindale) to a nurse (Keri Russell) looking for missing kids to drug dealers (O'Shea Jackson Jr. and Alden Ehrenreich), are fair game.

Will anyone survive? Will the Cocaine Bear find all the coke?

This movie sounds like a gimmick.

To its credit, the film just hangs together beyond a one- joke premise.

The movie is more of a slasher movie in structure, with various groups of characters stumbling into the bear, which is on its own quest to chow down on more of the white stuff.

There is a running theme of parents and children:

Keri Russell plays a single mom searching for her daughter who has skipped school to hike through the park; Ehrenreich is despondent over his wife’s death, and wonders how it will affect his son; his father (Ray Liotta) happens to be the drug dealer responsible for everything; and the cocaine bear is a mom with cubs.

The cast are great - Isiah Whitlock Jr and Margo Martindale play the tone perfectly. O’Shea Jackson Jr and Alden Ehrenreich have solid chemistry. Even the kids are good.

There are some shaky elements:

While the film has a decent sense of comic timing, the stabs at other genres are a little weird.

The film’s one fight scene is awkwardly covered and edited, and the movie botches some of the scares - they are staged and blocked in ways that are just off. There are scenes where characters are attacked from behind and dragged into the bushes which seem to have been shot from the wrong angle.

The film’s ultimate success lies in the bear itself - it is both frightening and surreal, and when the movie manages that juxtaposition, it really works. Whether it is - in one great moment - snorting coke in an anthropomorphic way; charging after an ambulance, descending a tree to climb another tree because the guy in the tree is covered in coke…

The set-piece involving the paramedics and the ambulance is solid stuff, with some great OTT gore. 

This is a silly movie which wears its silliness on its sleeve. Thankfully, it goes about its business with tongue in cheek but no winking at the audience. The movie knows that the title is enough.

There’s nothing much to it. Watch with friends and the right stimulants.

Mission: Impossible III (JJ Abrams, 2006)

There is a MacGuffin called the Rabbit's Foot.

Ethan Hunt needs to get it in order to save his new wife, Julia (Michelle Monaghan), who has been kidnapped by international arms dealer Owen Davian.

This movie is not good. 

I have watched it a couple times since it came out and it never resonated with me. This is often held up by a section of fans as the best or one of the best instalments. To me it is the worst.

JJ Abrams is a fan of anticipation and cool moments - but he has no idea how to construct narrative or build characterisation.

His movies always feel like a collection of fun ideas tossed at you for two hours. By the end - even movies I enjoyed, like Star Trek and Super 8 - I leave wondering what it was all about.

It was kind of shocking to watch this movie and see him repeat the same pattern: arresting opening, some likeable characters and then…

This movie does not even include any strong set pieces - the fall down the building in Shanghai is kind of cool, but it is shot in such tight shots (and on a stage) that I never feel any sense of peril. 

The only thing it has going for it is Philip Seymour Hoffman, and it seems like the movie's quality is based heavily on his dead-eyed villain.

While it is refreshing to have a charismatic, interesting performer as the villain, the movie does nothing particularly interesting with him.

The film's opening action sequence is terrific, the film is well-cast (Michelle Monaghan succeeds Thandiwe Newton as a great actress doing all the heavy lifting to make Julia feel like a living, breathing human being).

The best and most long-lasting legacy of this movie is that it brings the franchise back to its origins, as an ensemble spy thriller.

It would take one more entry for Mission: Impossible to finally come into its own.

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Mission: Impossible

Mission: Impossible 2

Mission: Impossible II (John Woo, 2000)

Ethan Hunt is back.

Another IM agent, Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott), has gone rogue - stealing a lethal virus and offering it to the highest bidder.

In order to get inside Ambrose’s gang, Hunt has to enlist Ambrose’s former flame, professional thief Nyah Hall (Thandiwe Newton). 

The mission turns personal when Hunt and Hall fall in love…

​​This movie is a great shampoo commercial.

 

Of all the Mission: Impossibles this one has gone back and forth in my estimation the most.

It is silly and most of it feels like an edifice to how big of a star Tom cruise is, but with five other movies in the series, this one feels like a breeze.

While I am a fan of his work on the series, I am not a fan of Chris McQuarrie returning as the key creative power over the back half of the films.

One of the exciting things about these rewatches was seeing how different filmmakers approached the series 

This movie feels like what it is - Notorious directed by John Woo with all of the stylistic and pop culture trends of the late nineties.

This movie has a very specific bead on its assumed audience - it carries through in the clothes, the music and the editing style. 

That being said, as a movie this sucker still works, in a melodramatic (soap) operatic kind of way.

 

General consensus puts this below M:I III, but on this viewing I have to disagree.

This movie is leaps and bounds better than its sequel - this one has a story and characters that make sense. It at least knows what story it is telling and completes it. Is it silly? Yes. Is it clever? Not at all.

Even if the love story ends up feeling like a bro’s take on a love triangle, there is a familiarity to the conventions it is built on and the filmmakers take it seriously.

 

This sincerity is one of the movie’s selling points because it is often laugh-out-loud ridiculous.

 

The one thing that really gets me every single time is how great Thandiwe Newton is as Nya - in the middle of this big silly movie, she is delivering what feels like a mature, complicated adult performance. 

She sells the early scenes, in her element as a jewel thief. She sells the romance (as much as that is possible). She sells the character’s anger at being betrayed, and the fear of her ex-boyfriend.

Even in the scene where she injects herself with the virus, her smile and turn on Sean packs so much power because she has built up to the character’s assertion - she is not Sean’s plaything, or Ethan’s pawn. She makes the movie.

Han Zimmer’s score is OTT (and sounds like his work on Gladiator) but I fall for it every time.

And unlike the sterile almost-romance of the last movie, this movie is actually sexy.

There are way too many mask scenes. The plot is simultaneously too complicated and too simple. The third act goes on way too long. And it really does just feel like a highlight for Cruise as an action star.

But taken as a hyper-active, sexy action movie, Mission: Impossible II does the business. 

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Mission: Impossible

Mission: Impossible (Brian De Palma, 1996)

When a list of undercover agents goes up for sale, an IMF team is tasked with retrieving it.

When the team is betrayed and killed, it falls to sole survivor Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) to find the list and clear his name.

Mission: Impossible was one of the most interesting ongoing franchises. It is still going strong, but I do miss the surprise of the pre-2018 instalments - when they would bring in a new filmmaker, new crew and supporting cast.  

They were like a more disposable version of the Alien movies - going from Brian DePalma, through John Woo, Brad Bird and Christopher McQuarrie. 

With these upcoming final instalments, the Mission: Impossible series feels more familiar. My heart did sink a little when almost the entire crew from Fallout were announced to return.

This is no shade on McQuarrie’s work, or that of his collaborators. There was an excitement to knowing that the slate had been wiped clean. Expectations from previous movies were almost irrelevant.

Back to 1996.

Mission: Impossible feels very Brian DePalma but minus the perversity 

Even the darker moments - the bodies against the gate, Jim’s nightmarish return as a bloody ghost.

It is fun but its success is a result of its set pieces.

The characters are sketches, and Jim Phelps’ final turn feels unnecessarily doubled.

Despite these elements, the movie is very enjoyable. I watched this movie so many times as a kid. 

I recall re-watching it quite a bit around the release of the sequel. Around that same time I was reading the James Bond books for the first time, and I remember wishing the Bond movies could be closer to De Palma’s film.

The opening embassy sequence in particular felt more like literary Bond than the movies of that time. I think I was locking on to the Grand Guignol elements of that scene. Even now, there is an atmosphere and tension to those scenes which is very effective. 

I am not the biggest De Palma fan - I have always been more interested in reading interviews and essays on his work than watching the films themselves - I used to find them too derivative of Hitchcock and overtly stylised.

 

Those aspects of his style are definite selling points, and I am more of a buyer now.

It took a few viewings but there is something so mechanical about the plot that I completely missed the attempts to flesh out Hunt's character, particularly in terms of his passion for Jim's wife, Claire (Emmanuelle Béart). 

The attraction is palpable from the first scene, where he delicately waits for Claire to wake up, but the movie never seems that interested in this element except as a set up for a heel turn at the end.

But when a main character's death is followed by an action sequence involving a high speed train and a helicopter, it is easy to overlook.

The one character that sticks in the mind is Henry Czerny as the odious IMF director Eugene Kittridge. He brings more smug malice than any of the actual villains, and it is a wonder they never brought him back earlier.

On its own terms, Mission: Impossible is a solid thriller lifted by some iconic visuals. It ignores the formula of the show, but taken within the wider context of the film series, that gives it a unique charm.

Commando (Mark L. Lester, 1985)

Bad people kidnap John Matrix's (Ah-nuld) daughter (Alyssa Milano). They demand that he assassinate the president of Val Verde. Matrix escapes his captors and goes on the hunt for his daughter. 

It may not be as iconic or as well-regarded as Arnold Schwarzenegger's other hits from the era, but Commando is, arguably, just as effective a film as The Terminators and Predator.

The reason is simple: 

Pound for pound, Commando succeeds at being the movie that it sets out to be. 

I love Commando. I love it so much I wrote about it for a post-graduate paper - and various other places. 

Ever since my first viewing, it has impressed me by its purity.

Commando is the archetypal 80s action movie. It takes all the ingredients and puts them together in just the right way: A muscle bound hero, an armoury of exotic weapons and an army of bad guys to kill them with.

Rambo 2 came out in the same year, but Commando is the movie which unlocked the key ingredient to making this kind of OTT concoction work:

Brevity.

Rambo 2 features a muscle-bound hero taking on an army but it seems almost embarrassed by it. The filmmakers want arrow grenades but they also want 

This movie is all about keeping everything as simple as possible: motivation? Bad men have my daughter. Conflict? All the people who do not want me to get my daughter.

The great thing about Commando is that it knows exactly what kind of movie it is, and every aspect of its production is laser-focused on being that movie. What that movie is is an over-the-top action movie. 

It also features a performer who cannot emote.

The filmmakers seem to recognise that it is silly and potentially bad. So the film avoids anything that will highlight their leading man's limitations.

It’s almost Bresson-like in its simplicity: Arnie’s boss warns him that bad guys are after him, leaves and said bad guys IMMEDIATELY pop out of the woods and open fire on him. It should not work. But the movie has such a sense of rhythm and awareness of its own absurdity that it never feels contrived.

To the leading man. At this point in his career, Arnold presented a conundrum. He is undeniably a screen presence but there is nothing behind his delivery. He can just about carry off Matrix's affection for his daughter and the stakes of the situation, but there is a blankness to his performance that stands out in comparison to his co-stars. 

In later films, Schwarzenegger would become more confident in front of the camera, but there is something magical about his wooden-ness and the no-frills brevity of the story-telling. It is almost like he becomes the avatar for the movie's tone. 

When I first watched Commando, I found Rae Dawn Chong a little annoying. Decades and endless re-watches later, she is essential to the movie's success.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is never going to be mistaken for an average Joe. A movie like Commando essentially works like a joke:

Set up: Matrix meets an obstacle 

Punchline: Matrix destroys it

While that formula is present throughout the movie, it works because Chong is there to provide an average person's perspective. You need a straight man for the joke to work, and Chong is the straight man that makes Schwarzenegger stand out.

Vernon Wells was a late addition to the cast of Commando. He looks nothing like Schwarzenegger. He offers nothing specific in terms of physical presence.

But what he does have is acting (and a chain shirt).

He fills the movie with acting - wild facial expressions, expansive body language, rapid shifts in volume. Through his skills, he fills the frame in a way that complements Schwarzenegger's sheer physical presence.

Topping off the whole confection is James Horner's score - a mishmash of steel drums, synth keyboards and a saxophone.

Commando should not work. It could have tried to be more realistic, or developed a more overt sense of humour. Either choice could have been disastrous.

But it finds its specific lane - ironic but non-winking, over-the-top but with stakes - and sticks to it. 

Black Cat (Stephen Shin, 1991): Better than La Femme Nikita?

In this season of The James Bond Cocktail Hour podcast, we are covering the six year gap between Licence to Kill and GoldenEye, covering everything James Bond-related, from books to comics to video games, to non-Bond properties which tried to fill the gap.

On the latest episode of the James Bond Cocktail Hour, we discuss the Hong Kong remake of La Femme Nikita, 1991's Black Cat.

Check out the episode at the link below, and let us know what you think!

Links to this season's episodes:

No Time To Die (review)

No Time To Die (commentary)

Pierce Brosnan - The Bond In Waiting 

GoldenEye & Spymaker - The Secret Lives of Ian Fleming

Nikita

Total Recall

Fire, Ice and Dynamite & Bullseye!

The Russia House

BrokenClaw

Lethal Weapon & Die Hard

If Looks Could Kill

Hudson Hawk

The Rocketeer

Black Cat

BONDIFICATING: John E. Gardner - the Roger Moore of the literary Bond?

John Edmund Gardner wrote 14 James Bond novels between 1981 and 1996. To date, he is the most prolific author for the literary Bond.  

He was the first Bond author I read, and when I was first getting into Bond, I devoured every Gardner book I could find. While I enjoyed them at the time, recent re-reads have left me cold. 

There is something lacking from Gardner’s Bond that I could never put my finger on. It was not until I read one of his own works, that I was able to figure out why his Bond books felt so cold.

The Liquidator was Gardner’s second novel, published in 1964.  

Boysie Oakes goes on holiday to France and finds himself in the middle of a Russian plot. What his paymaster and enemies do not realize is that the infamous ‘Liquidator’ is a fraud: he was enlisted as an assassin because of an error of judgment, and he has no desire to kill anyone. He is also afraid of flying - which might play into the finale...

This book is such a surprise. 

Gardner's Bond novels are so leaden, it was a shock to read a book so laced with irony and genuine wit.

I will not say that Gardner is a genius or a super stylist - but when left to his own devices, Gardner is great. 

Reading this book, I came up with a theory: 

I do not think Gardner can write Bond straight - if he had been given a freer hand, I think the books would be better and I think the literary character would benefit from reinvention. 

Call it a ‘Roger Moore’ moment - maybe Gardner could have been that for the literary Bond?

Take the M analogue: Boysie’s boss Moyston is terrifying - in any other book he would be the villain.

Unlike Bond’s desk bound relationship with M, Moyston gets his hands dirty - tackling Boysie in the forest; driving a car after the Vulture (even when he gets shot).

He’s also a dirty old man, always going on about women’s boobs - he is positioned as the real obstacle for Boysie.

The key difference between Gardner and Fleming is that while Fleming’s Bond is based in grit and doubts his job, Fleming romanticizes it. He romanticises the darkness - Gardner’s Oakes is a normal person who hates death and danger. Gardner emphasises the fact that all these people are dangerous because they do not care about other human beings - and are also incompetent.

The first half of the book is very subtle in terms of tipping its hand about Boysie - at first it looks like he is your typical Bondian secret agent who has a capacity for murder and sex.

But there are hints - he refers to hating flying, and he also shows discomfort at a spider in his room.

I found the slow reveal of Oakes’ true character is genuinely hilarious. And it still works on the re-read - the first half is filled with subtle foreshadowing, like his fear of flying, and one little moment where he is unnerved by a spider in his room.

The moment I caught on to the book’s true nature was Sheriek’s phone call with his unseen boss, when he has to let Boysie escape.

When Boysie returns to the hotel, we learn the truth - Boysie is the product of incredibly bad luck, and his own selfishness. Despite his hatred for death, he cannot give up the trappings of the lifestyle. 

The book is peppered with great comic moments and characters.

After Boysie hires Mr Griffin to do his dirty work, Griffin offers his matter-of-fact approach to death: 

'Don't you fret about that, guv'nor – I never ask any questions so long as the lolly's right: and I can promise you, sir, that everything'll be in the best of taste. I mean, undertaking taught me that. A bit religious, I am, guv'nor, on the quiet like.'

The big laugh of the book is the flammable maps in the meeting between Boysie and Quadrant - it turns farcical when the hotel staff and guests get involved to put the fire out.

The ending is hilariously bleak - mission accomplished, Boysie finds himself in his boss’s good graces and back on the job. His escape will have to be delayed for another day…

John Gardner was a writer with one hand tied behind his back. If you only know him from his Bond books, check out the Boys Oakes series to get a sense of his original ideas.