It was a 2007 Renny Harlan thriller. Harlan has had such an odd Yo Yo career. His has made some really great movies that just didn’t get noticed and some really bad movies that did.

This movie stars Samuel L Jackson, Ed Harris and Eva Mendes. Jackson plays an ex-cop whose new business is cleaning up crime scenes. He gets a job to clean up a crime scene and that is when the fun begins. The movie has a really cool set up but sadly it gets very predictable as it goes along and just fizzles out by the end.

Rebel Ridge

I am not really sure what to say about this movie. It is pretty much remake of Rambo First Blood, but Rambo only uses karate/movie-fu and doesn’t kill anyone also the cops corruption is more fleshed out. The story is a bit messy and the corruption of the shithole town in takes place in is just too contrived. With that said, the action scenes and fight choreography were expertly done. I really do have to tip my hat to that.

It stars Don Johnson, AnnaSophia Rob and a guy name I have never seen before called Aaron Pierre. Johnson is a veteran actor who is a master of his craft and he plays the corrupt sheriff expertly. Rob’s character was what glued the over all town corruption to the actions of the lead character. She did the best anyone could but she had a tough hill to climb. The real stand out was the lead.

Holy shit Pierre is amazing and if this guy doesn’t become the next It thing in hollywood that would be our loss. Thy guy has it all, looks, build and is smooth AF!!!

I also took a trip down memory lane:

Escape to Witch Mountain.

God this movie was a hell of lot stranger than I remember. It is a Disney film and the set up is two orphaned alien kids who have “supernatural” powers. It is such a strange film. The kids are the main characters and it is basically a road movie that focuses on them trying to get back to their collective. It is very low budget and is loaded with the stock Disney offerings of the day, family friendly music, tamed animals such as bears, horses and a house cat with powers of its own, also plenty of shitty green screen effect … but the supporting cast is top notch and is composed of Ray Milland, Donald Pleasence and Eddie Albert. To illustrate the strangeness, at one point in the movie, Pleasence gets a corrupt sheriff to organize a massive hunting party to go kill the kids.

I really loved the movie as a kid and I still love it.

Return from Witch Mountain

It is the sequel to escape and it is just as out there. This time the supporting cast is just as mind blowing, Christopher Lee and Bette Davis!! Yes, that Bette Davis, the first person to ever get 10 Academy Award Nominations. It is also a road film and all about the kids trying to get home except this time they are separated from each other, don’t have their cat and are aided by a gang of kids that is on par with the Goonies. Along the way they almost steal millions of dollars of gold, almost make a nuclear power plant explode and make friends with a goat.

Next up I will have to track down Beyond Witch Mountain that was a TV pilot for a show that never happened.

[–] redhorsejacket@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

For some reason I had it in my head that Rebel Ridge was a product of The Daily Wire's attempt to "combat woke media" or whatever it is those hacks think they're doing. Something akin to 2020's Run Hide Fight, which dared to ask "What if we mashed up Die Hard with Gus Van Sant's Elephant?" (Spoiler alert: you get a reprehensible turd of a movie.)

Therefore, I had totally written this thing off and not thought about it since. However, now I'm realizing how off-target my assumptions were, and it's advancing to the top of the watchlist. Saulnier is an excellent thriller director, but "non-lethal" isn't typically his protagonists' MO, so that's an interesting wrinkle. Thank you for the recommendation.

[–] IWW4@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

The fight choreography is top notch, like i posted i am not sure what to make of it, but it was entertaining.