Jason Patric can play a police detective as well as anyone can. Patric would have been excellent on a show like The Shield. Seeing Patric in a reoccurring role and watching him delve deeper and deeper into his character, regardless of which direction that character might have gone, would have been something special. But Patrick has always been, and probably always will be, a silver-screen performer. He is undoubtedly not an A-lister, and his role has become few and far between. But, outside of Speed 2: Cruise Control, he always brings his A-game. For Patric, that involves grit, determination, and a deep understanding of the character he will be portraying. In my opinion, Patric was born to play the roles of undercover detectives, police officers, narcs, etc. He’s got the look. He understands the lingo. He’s scuzzy enough to pull it off but can invoke just the right amount of sympathy for viewers to believe in him and know that he’s one of the “good guys.”
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Category Archives: Action
The Bourne Legacy (2012)
Fans of the Jason Bourne Trilogy (The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum) will, in all likelihood, enjoy The Matt Damon-less The Bourne Legacy. However, I’m wondering how many new fans this movie will attract. Director Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton, Duplicity) repeatedly references Jason Bourne in this movie. Those looking to enter the franchise and think that this is the right time because Jeremy Renner (The Town, The Hurt Locker) is cast in the lead role instead of Damon will be disappointed if they don’t do their homework ahead of time. I would have been very frustrated watching this movie without seeing the other three first. I would have wanted to understand better what was going on. In The Bourne Legacy, Gilroy doesn’t seem interested in recapping a story that has already been told. You are out of luck if you have not seen a previous Bourne movie or need to research. Gilroy feels it’s not his job to keep you informed. For those wishing to see this movie without seeing any of the predecessors or if it has been a while since you’ve seen The Bourne Ultimatum, I suggest you visit this site first. The Bourne Legacy Primer: Five Things to Know Before Seeing the Franchise’s Latest Flick – E! Online. Even if you saw The Bourne Ultimatum the night before seeing this movie, I’d recommend checking out this link. It won’t hurt to do so.
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The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Christopher Nolan’s (Inception, The Prestige) last chapter in his Batman franchise is the exciting but imperfect The Dark Knight Rises. This is an excellent movie and successfully concludes the best trilogy I’ve ever seen. However, if you go in with the idea that it will be better than The Dark Knight, you will be disappointed. With Hedge Ledger’s to die for performance as the Joker, The Dark Knight is as close to a perfect movie as you will get. It holds a place on my Top 10 Movies of All-Time list. The Dark Knight Rises is very ambitious, a little too ambitious. At 2 hours and 45 minutes, you’d think they have plenty of time to tell its story and conclude the franchise, but there is so much to the story, and rushing its development and racing to its conclusion would not have resulted in a successful movie. This is one of those movies where a review such as mine won’t persuade you to see it or not see it. You most likely have it in your head that you will either see this movie or not. So why do I write it? Because I committed myself to reviewing every film that will be on my Top 10 list at the end of the year. I am very, very confident there will not be ten other movies released in 2012 that will be better than The Dark Knight Rises.
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The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
Many critics and audiences agree that the Andrew Garfield-led (The Social Network, Never Let Me Go) reboot of Spider-Man occurred too soon after the completion of the Toby Maguire trilogy. Because it was a given that the reboot would generate hundreds of millions of dollars on name alone, many wondered how strong of an effort there would be to tell a great story. On the other hand, an uninteresting story and poor reviews from the critics that still resulted in $200 million would have devastated superhero movies. Heck, Ryan Reynolds’ disaster The Green Lantern earned a measly 27% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and still made $116 million at the box office. Fortunately, while there were many parallels to the Tobey franchise, this movie was much darker. This was my number one criterion going in. I just wanted it to be more adult-oriented. Some thought it was too dark, saying things like Spider-Man isn’t Batman, but as a guy in his mid-30s, I’d rather see any PG-13/R type superhero movie over a PG/PG-13 type one.The Grey (2012)
Hit or miss actor Liam Neeson (Taken, Unknown) strikes gold with Joe Carnahan’s (Narc, Smokin’ Aces) The Grey. This riveting survival adventure movie follows a group of oil riggers after their plane crashes in the remote northern Alaska wilderness. Ottway (Neeson) is a marksman for the company. His job is to shoot any wolf that comes near the workstation. He’s a depressed man, and his narration at the start of the film makes it seem like everybody who works at this isolated post is there because there is nothing better for them anywhere else. The bars are lively when the men aren’t at work. The small men work side by side with each other daily at this monotonous job but do not know each other at all. At least, that’s how Ottway sees it or perceives it to be.
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