jraffile Reviews

Red Dawn (1984)

Sums up US feelings

[22 January 2003]

Man o man. This movie is great. As a history student its awesome to look back on these types of things and see what the buzz was around the time of the movie's release. The plot is insane, acting over-the-top, but the historical commentary is amazing. People actually believed that such a thing as this was possible in the mid-80s, pre-Gorbachev. This is not "low-level propaganda," its the most obvious pro-American movie I have EVER seen.

On the movie alone, the "film" shouldn't even rate. But as a Cold-War barometer, every interested person should see this to peer into the height of US-Soviet tensions.

Training Day (2001)

Worth my nine bucks

[6/10 · 6 October 2001]

I have this habit of praising movies, ALL movies, after just seeing them. Its been about 24 hours since I saw Training Day, and I hope I can offer some semblance of a good critique of this film.

Once again I fear, a movie has been hyped beyond its prowess. Going into this movie I had expectations (another bad habit I have) of seeing a "best picture nomination, and best supporting for Ethan Hawke." Not too smart of me. Hawke's performance was good, but nothing close to oscar caliber. If there are going to be any oscar nods for this movie (a far shot) would be for Denzel as best actor. The movie was good, one of the better ones I've seen this year. Direction by Fuqua was superb, getting across feelings of suspense and fear when it was needed. all in all, worth my inflated admission price of $9.00.

Go see it.

Hannibal (2001)

Sequel? I think not.

[4/10 · 15 February 2001]

The real weakness of this movie, only partially lies in the use of gratuitous violence and the lack of under development of the new characters. The real fault is that the movie seems to have been a sequel to Silence of the Lambs, when in reality the two movies are as different as night and day. Silence of the Lambs is a much better movie for what it is. Every scene in 'silence' is meant to be there, lending itself to the movie as a whole. Hannibal has scenes in which there seems to be no real reason for them. 'Silence' also gets its scare factor from the twisted mind of Hannibal Lector rather then the unecesary violence that 'Hannibal' depends on.

All in all, Hannibal would have been a much better movie without Clarice Starling. This tie to Silence of the Lambs simply over complicates the plot. This, combined with the scare tactics of the screenwriters makes Hannibal a disapointment.