1993 - CLIFFHANGER, ridiculous action film but entertaining

A 1990's action film that doesn't really hold up despite it being a commercial success.  Cliffhanger is all about Sylvester Stallone in another action film which has lots of call backs to Die Hard and First Blood.

Stallone is a mountain climber rescue guy who scurries around the Rocky Mountains in shorts and a tank top in the dead of winter.  Stallone and his mountain climber buddies happen to get involved with a gang of thieves who have just done a midair heist of three suitcases full of money that ends up falling out of their airplane.  The gang forces Stallone and his mountain climbing friends to help them find the money which is lost somewhere in the mountains.

The main really evil bad guy is played by John Lithgow in yet another evil bad guy role who is such a psychotic nutcase it's a wonder he is even able to recruit guys to work in his gang. When they piss him off he shoots them, this includes his girlfriend. 

 

Unfortunately for Lithgow, Stallone escapes and now is in hot pursuit of this bunch.  Apparently there was no thought given of going to the police for help.  Then again it wouldn't be a Stallone action movie if the police just showed up and arrested everybody.  We would miss Stallone throwing guys over mountain cliffs, impaling them on stalactites or leaping between mountains like he is Superman.

Lots of the mountain climbing scenes were the real thing and the scenery of the Italian Alps which for some reason were used instead of the Rocky Mountains is impressive. The rest of the cast is a combination of character and TV actors who don't leave much of an impression.  Overall a very dumb story but with some decent action and climbing scenes.

The film was written by Stallone and Michael France, the running time is 113 minutes.

2016 - SKIPTRACE, action comedy from Jackie Chan

Skiptrace is the kind of film that Jackie Chan has been making since his big breakout successes which kind of started in the 1980's.  Chan once again plays his standard character of the Hong Kong cop taking on a major Hong Kong triad.  The film is loaded with a lot of action and Chan's typical physical comedy.  However time had started to take it's toll on this formula and on Chan himself.  Chan was 62 years old when this film was released and the years of stunts and tumbles had also taken it's toll on him.

There was apparently an attempt to bring some new blood to this film.  Renny Hardin an action director  from America was hired and for the second lead in the film American actor Johnny Knoxville was cast as Chan's humorous sidekick.  There is a lot of extensive on location filming in Hong Kong and more interestingly mainland China which is probably the best thing about this film. 

 

The film is loaded with Chan's usual stunts and he still goes through the fighting motions but he has definitely slowed down. This is hardly the same Jackie Chan of his classic film Police Story.  Nobody stays young forever and I sense a lot of stunt doubles were used during the action scenes in Skiptrace.  Chan being Chan he has also loaded the film up with lots of beautiful Asian and American women but never fear in Jackie Chan films all these relationships are very chaste.

 

Skiptrace clearly had a big budget and the director Renny Hardin probably staged the action scenes about as well as anyone could.  However Chan (who was one of the producers) has gone to the well one to many times with this setup and the whole film is kind of boring in spite of all the fighting and stunt work.

Written by Jay Longino and BenDavid Grabinski but it's essentially the same film Jackie Chan has been making almost his entire career.  The running time is 108 minutes.

1990 - THE ADVENTURES OF FORD FAIRLANE, possibly a comedy.

The comedian Andrew Dice Clay is the star of The Adventures of Ford Fairlane.  But before we get into the movie a few sentences regarding Andrew Dice Clay.  Clay was a comedian who was hot for a while in the late 80's and the 1990's.  The comedic character he portrayed on stage was a persona called The Diceman.  The Diceman was basically a character who offended people by telling dirty jokes and making up dirty nursery rhymes.  In essence Andew Dice Clay was a shock comedian.  He was extremely popular for a while but his jokes about "homosexuals" and women finally wore out their welcome as public tastes began to change.

While Clay was popular, the producer Joel Silver put him in a movie where he played his Diceman character called in this case Ford Fairlane. The Adventures of Ford Fairlane is about a rock and roll detective on the trail of the murderer of a heavy metal rock star.  Ford is Mr Cool,  a man who is quick with his fists and is good a bedding the babes.  Ford Fairlane spouts a series of one liners regarding the size of his penis, the size of women's breasts and lots of offensive material about "fags."  It's all supposed to be hilarious and maybe with a better approach could have been funny.

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Clearly the plan of the writers, the producer and the director Renny Harlin was to make a raunchy hip comedy.  But this kind of stuff takes a lot of skill to pull off.  You have to know the fine line between hipness and stupidity something the production team really couldn't get their minds around with their screenplay.  Andrew Dice Clay is kind of a "Johnny One Note," playing a lowlife New Jersey or Philadelphia "Guido."  After a while the sex jokes and the leering at women gets to be extremely tiresome.

 

Of note, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane has what could only be called a nightmare cast.  Wayne Newton, Priscilla Presley, Gilbert Gottfried, Morris Day and "Freddy Kruger" himself Robert Englund an amazing collection of oddballs gathered together in one unfunny movie. If anything The Adventures of Ford Fairlane is  a time capsule of a peculiar moment in popular culture in this country.

The film was written by David Arnott, James Cappe and Daniel Waters.  The running time is 102 minutes.     

1990 - DIE HARD 2, expected sequel to the first film

It's almost pointless to write something up about this film.  Die Hard made a lot of money for 20th Century Fox so of course they were going to make a sequel and this film showed up 2 years later. Most of the original cast is back, Bruce Willis as police officer John McClane or in this case they should have probably called him Superman since he defies the abilities of scores of terrorists to kill him.

Bonnie Bedelia is also back as McCane's wife in another thankless nothing part. William Atherton is the jerk reporter, Dick Thornburg.  Reginald VelJohnson is McCane's cop friend Sergeant Al Powell in what is essentially a cameo part.  The chief bad guys are Italian actor Franco Nero playing a South American General who is also a major drug dealer and William Sadler as a former army officer who is now a mercenary working to free Nero. Sadler works out in the nude but since this is a mainstream film no frontal nudity allowed.  There just aren't any great bad guy leaders in this film.  Alan Richardson from the first Die Hard film is sorely missed.

 

Die Hard 2 is essentially the same movie (duh) as the first one.  All of the major action scenes from the first film have been carefully studied and reproduced in this sequel. Willis is attacked by a lot of bad guys with machine guns and amazingly survives.  In fact they could probably have named this film "Machine Gun Porn."

 

The film is well made, the special effects and the overall production are at a high standard.  Renny Hardlin the director does a reasonable job putting this film together.  The film is in that category, decent time killer.  Die Hard 2 made lots of money as well.

Written by Steven E. de Souza and Doug Richardson.  The running time is 124.