The Drive Movie Reviews 12-5 Plus Ray Stevenson Interview!

Here are this weeks reviews from Drive "movie guy" Chris Bollini:

The new film, Punisher: War Zone may be another comic book adaption, but it’s definitely not about a superhero. The story follows Frank Castle (Ray Stevenson), an ex-marine whose family is murdered by the mafia; he becomes a vigilante driven by revenge.

The film begins with a bang…literally: a massive shootout gets the story rolling. The film has promise that it might give audiences a deeper look at a grieving, tormented man, so consumed with revenge that he has to struggle to keep from being overtaken by it. Unfortunately, the promise isn’t fully realized; the film only touches upon a few character revelations; it seems to dispense with them quickly in favor of more gunfights and explosions. That's not a horrible thing, but a better balance between the characters and the carnage would have been nice. Having said all that that, there are high levels of violence: heads explode, limbs are blown off, and chair legs are jammed through skulls. At least, the scenes seem to be a fresh approach to the standard action scenes in other films like Transporter 3. Further more, the tone of the film seems to flip fop between a dark and violent to comic and campy. Several scenes play out to be comical. Although
that may have been the filmmaker’s intention, the two different tones didn’t seem to reconcile very well with each other. At least not for me. This film is made for a certain audience; it’s made for the action starved masses looking for a little break for the current string of Oscar films. These fans will be pleased. There are a few good one liners and some grandiose scenes of violence to keep you involved. Didn’t love it. Didn’t hate it.

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Here is Chris Bollini's interview with Ray Stevenson



Base on a true story, Cadillac Records chronicles the rise and evolution of a Chess records, a record label based in 1950’s Chicago. The film follows many story lines but centers mostly around businessman, Leonard Chess (Adrian Broody) and musician, Muddy Waters (Jeffery Wright). These two put the new music company on the map. Along the way, Chess’s business sense and intuition lead him to foster the careers of music greats: Etta James (Beyonce Knowles). Little Walter (Columbus Short) and Chuck Berry (Mos Def).

Learning about how all these different lives intersect and about this little slice of music history was fascinating. At the same time, the film seemed to be jammed packed with so many chronological events on a timeline; it seemed to compromise the impact of some of some of the emotional moments of the characters. Overall, it was engaging even when it felt slow at times.
Of note, is a solid performance from Jeffery Wright. (You may recognize him as Felix Lighter from Quantum of Solace, the new James bond film.)

Personally, I found very interesting, but there was something missing.

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