REVIEW: A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas

A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (2011): Dir. Todd Strauss-Schulson. Written by: Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg. Starring: John Cho, Kal Penn, Neil Patrick Harris, Thomas Lennon, Amir Blumenfield and Danny Trejo. Rated R (An endless night of debauchery including drugs, cursing, sex and tasteless humor). Running time: 89 minutes.

3 stars (out of four)

In A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, Santa smokes from a bong, a claymation penis leaps off the screen and an infant tries every party drug your D.A.R.E. instructor warned you about, mercifully not all in the same scene. These are hardly the funniest moments in the movie nor are they even the most ridiculous, which should say something about the spectrum of insanity on display here. AVH&K3DC is ruder, cruder and in general escalates the crazy compared to the previous two installments of the stoner buddy comedy franchise. To say that the film was made to seen in a specific state of mind goes without saying, but the film, in its giddy willingness to do anything and everything for a laugh, gives off an intoxicating effect all its own. Just watching the movie gives you a sort of contact high.

Of course, none of the film’s THC-induced antics would work were they not funny. And AVH&K3DC is very funny. Its breakneck pace is a major asset to its success because no gag runs the risk of overstaying its welcome. Didn’t think that perverse twist on a classic scene from A Christmas Story was all that funny? Maybe you thought that bit about nuns crossed the line? Not to worry. That was already two jokes ago and the movie is onto something new. And unlike a lot of comedies that offer equivalent jpm (jokes per minute), the hit-to-miss ratio here is high in favor of laughter.

The manic pacing and style of the movie works also because the plot is pushed so far into the realm of the absurd that there is no chance anything will be taken too seriously. Writers Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg (who have written all three films) have wisely upped the stakes with each passing movie (from a late-night trip to White Castle to a brush-up with the government in Guantanamo Bay to this) and have successfully kept the franchise fresh rather than retreading familiar material.

What’s truly astonishing though is how our hazy heroes, Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn), remain grounded in reality even as the world around them careens out of control. There are some genuinely touching moments between the two (usually offset by a gross-out gag to avoid sentimentality) and the strength of their friendship lies at the heart of these films.

As is typical for a Harold & Kumar film, there is also a dash of social commentary, though this outing’s racial-political consciousness is far more muted than before. The movie pokes fun at racial stereotypes and the casual prejudices people harbor in modern-day America but these concerns do not pervade the film’s humor, which mostly prefers to indulge in the raunchy and juvenile. Of the film’s women I will not elaborate other than to say that they are merely marginalized rather than degraded; take that for what it’s worth. AVH&K3DC is smarter than your average male-dominated raunchfest but isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel; it’s still very much in love with its lowbrow self.

The use of 3D is a silly gimmick but in a way (and bear with me for a moment here) is kind of groundbreaking. The effect, often toted as an immersive technology is self-consciously acknowledged in both the dialogue and its actual execution. In one scene, for example, a traffic cone is hurled toward us only to crash against the camera and crack the lens. The movie calls attention to the artifice of 3D and then uses that as a tool to further its self-referential nature.

The Harold & Kumar franchise continues to reshape itself in new and unexpected ways and if there is a fourth film (Neil Patrick Harris, again playing a hilarious Bizarro version of himself, flat out announces in this film that there will be a fourth) there may need to be a more substantial story, but this episode should not disappoint fans of the previous two. It is a wild and reckless blur of a movie that defies my better judgment and admittedly made me a laugh a whole lot. It understands the importance of brevity, doesn’t try too hard and is a wholly satisfying, smoky affair.

- Steve Avigliano, 11/9/11

REVIEW: Machete

Machete (2010): Directed by Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis. Written by Robert Roderiguez and Alvaro Rodriguez. Starring Danny Trejo, Steven Seagal, Michelle Roderiguez, Jeff Fahey, Cheech Marin, Lindsay Lohan, Don Johnston, Jessica Alba and Robert DeNiro. Rated R (strong bloody violence throughout, language, some sexual content and nudity). Running time: 105 minutes.

3 ½ stars (out of four)

When the exploitation throwback double-feature Grindhouse came out in 2007, you got the sense that co-directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino were making the movie for themselves. They had seen countless schlocky B-grade and lower horror and action flicks in their youth and they longed for a day when such films could be appreciated again and maybe even return to cinemas. The final result was an over three-hour trip down their own memory lane, complete with fake trailers for upcoming releases that didn’t exist. The highlight of those faux-trailers was Machete, the story of a Mexican vigilante (Danny Trejo) with a penchant for the titular weapon.

Now Robert Rodriguez, along with his co-director Ethan Maniquis, have made that movie, even going so far as to insert most of the footage from the original trailer into the feature-length version. While Grindhouse had occasional moments of brilliance, it was also a good deal self-indulgent, but Machete doesn’t have that problem, partly because its allowed to exist on its own, free from the earlier gimmick and the double-feature running time. Machete commits to its exploitation roots more than either of those earlier Grindhouse features, and is more fun then them too.

Much of the film’s success rests with Danny Trejo as the title character. His performance is so commanding, it was already a classic three years ago in that first trailer. He’s the kind of unstoppable action hero where all questions (“How did he do that?” “How will he survive this one?” “Why does every woman want to sleep with him?”) are answered the same way: Because he’s Machete, duh. Trejo, who might have less lines of dialogue than most of the supporting characters, stomps around the film stone-faced, blade in hand. His mustache is curved in such a way as to give him the look of wearing a perpetual frown, and his face is riddled with scars from a lifetime of fighting. Trejo is so comfortable onscreen, it’s as though this is his fifth Machete feature.

In the full-length movie, Robert Rodriguez and his co-writer and cousin Álvaro Rodriguez give Machete a political agenda too. After losing his wife and daughter at the hands of the drug kingpin Torrez (Steven Seagal), Machete becomes a day laborer along the Texas/Mexico border where deportation is a constant threat for workers. There he befriends Luz (Michelle Rodriguez) who owns a popular taco truck and might just be the mysterious Latino vigilante, Shé (the accent is added over the ‘e’ for an extra nudge and a wink). Shé is said to have helped countless immigrants cross the border and so Luz’s taco truck is under the close watch of Sartana (Jessica Alba), an immigration officer looking to shut down the covert operation.

Looming large over them all is Senator John McLaughlin (Robert De Niro) who is running for reelection under a campaign that highlights a staunch opposition to immigrant rights. He wants to kick everyone out of the state who doesn’t speak English and build an electric fence along the border. Machete, meanwhile, is recruited by a man named Michael Booth (Jeff Fahey), a man who wears a nice suit, drives a limo and has some money to throw around. He wants Machete to assassinate the Senator. Of course, nothing is as simple as it seems and Machete quickly finds himself at the center of a larger conspiracy, one that may even go back to his old nemesis, Torrez.

While Trejo gets most of the glory here, Machete is populated with rich supporting characters. The indispensable Jeff Fahey is utterly convincing even in the film’s most absurd moments and Michelle Rodriguez is a lot of fun to watch in the gun-toting, skin-showing badass chick role. Alba, who has never been much of an actress, is perfectly suited to a role that requires her to look amazing at all times and occasionally scrunch her face when she’s working things out. De Niro’s character starts as an extended cameo and soon becomes a game to see how many ridiculous things the film make can the legendary actor do (a lot, is the answer). Steven Seagal camps it up as the archenemy and gets some deserved laughs, Lindsay Lohan shows up as the promiscuous daughter of Booth, Don Johnston is a militaristic border cop, and Cheech Marin reprises his role from the trailer as the priest who owns a pair of shotguns. 

Machete falls under the neo-exploitation genre that started with Grindhouse and here Rodriguez gives us another nostalgic tribute to a kind of movie that maybe never quite existed in the first place, at least not as he remembers it. No exploitation flick could have ever delivered the consistent entertainment offered here and so Machete functions as an action parody while remaining its own beast. This is a gleefully silly movie crafted for a niche audience and it succeeds in its goals, even compared to Grindhouse. The violence is excessive and wildly inventive, characters talk in corny exposition and cornier one-liners, and the editing has a deliberate sloppiness in certain scenes. The film plays everything for a laugh and yet somehow manages to deliver better action scenes than most major blockbusters even in its goofiest moments.

Near the end of the film, there’s an ingenious scene where a group of armed henchmen get together and discuss their thankless jobs. They’ve all been beaten, shot or stabbed by Machete and they wonder if it’s really worth it. “I’ve been watching the boss,” one says, “And to be honest, he seems like a schmuck.” It’s a conversation moviegoers have been waiting for years for nameless henchmen to have. Action aficionados and movie buffs alike have always wanted a movie like this, whether they knew it or not – one that recognizes its absurdity and only revels in its slashings and explosions all the more. Robert Rodriguez offers Machete like a present to those anticipating fans. He’s rewriting film history and giving exploitation flicks a better name than they ever could have made for themselves.

- Steve Avigliano, 9/3/10

REVIEW: Predators

Predators (2010): Dir. Nimród Antal. Written by Michael Finch and Alex Litvak, based on characters created by Jim Thomas and John Thomas. Starring: Adrian Brody, Laurence Fishburne, Topher Grace, Alice Braga and Danny Trejo. Rated R (strong creature violence and gore, and pervasive language). Running time: 107 minutes.

2 stars (out of four)

I’ve never seen Predator or Predator 2. I’m not sure how these pop culture gems slipped past me all these years – perhaps I spent too much time watching the Alien and Terminator movies instead – but I think I can infer enough from their titles and trailers to know everything I need to approach this film, which thankfully ignores the embarrassing Alien vs. Predator crossover movies in hopes to breathe new life into the franchise.

New hope means new blood and Predators begins by introducing a not-so-merry band of murderers and trained killers, led by an American mercenary (Adrian Brody) and an Israeli military woman (Alice Braga), who the camera sometimes catches looking at Brody long enough to suggest attraction, but there’s no time for romance when there are aliens to be killed, and these few shots are all we get of that subplot. The rest of the crew is filled out by a checklist of requisite minorities including a big Russian, a bigger Mexican, a samurai-slinging Asian, and an African who has a habit of starting his sentences with, “In my culture.” I won’t spoil who dies first.

The movie categorizes these characters by race and killing specialty, keeping them one-dimensional because ethnicities are more fun in action movies when a personality doesn’t get in the way of delivering cool lines in broken English. When Topher Grace shows up too in the jungle, they ask him who he is. He responds, “I’m a doctor.” Of course, the funny doctor. Yeah, we could use him too.

There’s a lot of grunting and threatening each other with guns, but the humans eventually realize their commonality: they’re all killers. But why were they dropped into the middle of a jungle? After cycling through a few seasons’-worth of LOST theories in under minute (This is an experiment! This is a dream! This is Hell!), they arrive at the conclusion that they have been brought here for the purpose of being hunted by the More Dangerous Game – those dreadlocked aliens known only as the Predators.

Everything up to this point is pretty tedious and carried out with dialogue that consists of either clichés or inane questions (“Who are you?” “Where are we?” or my personal favorite, “Wanna see something fucked up?”), but it’s just obligatory exposition before the action kicks in. Unfortunately, even the action feels as if it’s going through the motions. We get a lot faux-tension from gun reloading drama – don’t characters realize that when a spiky alien dog is running at them, they’ll always have enough time to reload before shooting it mid-jump? – followed by some post-battle pondering about whether it’d be better to find cover or search for high ground.

While these are hardly transgressions in an action movie, they become too much to bear without a single relatable character in the bunch. The aforementioned killers all have their cool moments, but they’re too flat to generate anything in the way of audience sympathy. When one dies, we shrug it off and get excited for the next action sequence the survivors will find themselves in. Worst of all is Brody’s character, the supposed protagonist who dismisses each death with such callousness we soon despise him when we should be cheering for him. The film seems to expect that we’ll champion his cold heart simply because he’s the first character we meet, but when a character is this morally devoid, I’d just as soon root for the Predators.

There is a glimmer of hope with the introduction of Laurence Fishburne as a military man who, after holding out on the planet for “ten hunting seasons,” has developed some clever survival tactics as well a split personality. His performance is a reminder of the actor’s charisma and in his limited screen time he brings some much-needed humor and intrigue to the movie.

Predators isn’t terribly interested in either, however, preferring to stack the movie with aimless action sequences. The characters are trying to survive and maybe even make it back to Earth, but we never get any idea of how many Predators they’re fighting against, so there’s no sense of their progress. With great difficulty, a few Predators get killed, but the death toll for humans is twice that and the aliens are barely trying. Finally, after all the shooting and stabbing and exploding, the film doesn’t even have the courtesy to end its narrative with a satisfying conclusion. Yes, the ending is a sequel set-up, but judging by who’s left at the end, I can’t say I’m all that interested in investing more time in their struggle for survival.

Somewhere in this film there’s an interesting parable about the inhumanity of violence, and you wouldn’t have to lose any of the action to turn it into one. When Adrian Brody solemnly decides to sacrifice the weaker men in the pack, director Nimród Antal expects us to nod in agreement. He’s just telling it like it is. But when our lead man has no discernible humanity, maybe we are better off rooting for the aliens. If in the mind of Predators, the last mud-slathered man standing is right and all his preceding decisions are irrelevant, then what the hell was the point?

- Steve Avigliano, 7/11/10