Suspense, Mystery, Horror and Thriller Fiction - Suspense Magazine

Movies
the expendables 2
2012
Genre – Action (R)
Ex-action star and ex-Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character,
Trench, fills the screen, and utters the words, “I’m back.” And, yes they are people.
Hollywood action stars don’t retire any more, they just get parts in ‘The Expendables’
where they can lampoon their previous career, have a laugh, and remind cinemagoers
who they once were.
This time the team of wrinkly but surprisingly buff action heroes of Lee Christmas
(Jason Statham), Gunner (Dolph Lundgren), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), Toll Road
(Randy Couture) is joined by newcomers, Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth), an ex-army
sniper and Maggie (Nan Yu), a combat proficient computer whiz. Church (Bruce Willis),
whom we are uncertain is a good or a bad guy, sends Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) and
the gang to recover a package from a crashed plane in Bulgaria.
There they encounter the very nasty, Jean Vilain, (Jean-Claude Van Damme). During
this meeting, amidst much chest beating, something goes wrong (I can’t say what or it
will ruin the surprise) which turns the retrieval of the package from Vilain into a very
personal vendetta for the group.
Along the way, you will join your fellow film patrons in solid laughter as each new action hero arrives on the scene, their
characters written so that you will find yourself muttering the titles of eighties films and wracking your brain to remember
which character had once said THAT line.
As expected, The Expendables 2 delivers much knuckle crunching fights, machine gun shooting, and kick-boxing action
and if you don’t find yourself laughing, then it will only be because you are too young to take this trip down memory lane.
You will lose count of the dead bodies and the myriad ways they die.
Stallone reflects on the film, “Maybe it’s the end of an era. One thing is for sure, we’ll never see this again. To get all of us
together at one time is a miracle. It will never happen again.”
The Expendables 2 provides enough tongue-in-cheek fun, action, and nostalgia to score another box office hit and I
seriously doubt The Expendables, “will never happen again.” I imagine there is a script already sitting in Sly’s out-tray and a
few emails to buddies beginning with, “I’m back. If you’re not busy...”
Reviewed by Susan May http://anadventureinfilm.blogspot.com.au/ for Suspense Magazine �
Hit and Run
2012
Genre – Comedy/Action (R)
The actors were clearly having a good time. The audience was laughing around me and I
had the occasional giggle, so if you are looking for a bit of light fun with attractive leads, you
won’t be disappointed with Hit and Run.
The film is written, co-produced, and co-directed by the lead, Dax Shepard. He does a great
job playing the laid-back Charlie Bronson, hiding away in witness protection living idyllically
with his soul mate Annie (Kristen Bell). These two have a real chemistry on screen and it is not
surprising as they are a real life couple.
Shepherd appears to have a penchant for rounding up mates and making films and it was
whilst doing press for Brother’s Justice (a mockumentary film with many of this same cast) that
the idea for Hit and Run was launched. “We kept getting asked what we were going to do next,
and we just started saying we were going to do a car chase movie,” Shepard recalls. “We had no
script or premise, we just knew we loved car chase movies. And because we had said it, we knew
we would have to deliver.”
In Hit and Run, Charlie Bronson (Dax Shepard), a get-away driver for a bank robber gang is in witness protection. He
places his life at risk when his girlfriend, Annie is offered an interview for her dream job in LA. He decides rather than losing
her, he will drive her to LA despite his case worker Marshall Randy Anderson (Tom Arnold) forbidding him to leave. There
is an ongoing joke involving Randy’s inability to control his gun and his car, which work very well throughout the movie.
Unfortunately, Gil (Michael Rosenbaum) the jealous ex-boyfriend alerts Charlie’s old gang leader, Alex Dmitri (Bradley
Cooper) and the rest is a car pursuit that evokes shades of the classic 1977 Burt Reynolds Smokey and the Bandit but in our
current era’s ribald style humor.
Whilst Hit and Run, isn’t going to drive away with any awards, as my companion commented, “it’s good fun, good laughs
and at the end you feel good.” And if I think back to my first viewing of Smokey and the Bandit, I think I felt much the same
way.
Reviewed by Susan May http://anadventureinfilm.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/bernie.html �
42 Suspense Magazine September 2012 / Vol. 038