Drive Movie Reviews 1-2-09

This week's reviews from Drive "movie guy" Chris Bollini:

“New in Town” is the romantic comedy starring Renée Zellweger and Harry Connick Jr.

Zellweger stars as Lucy Hill, a Miami corporate consultant assigned to the task of restructuring a Minnesota food processing plant. Unfortunately, this assignment will result in lay-offs. Enter the local union representative, Ted Mitchell, played by Harry Connick Jr. As you can imagine, these two develop a heated relationship both on and off the job.

This is a genre film which means it’s pretty predictable; there aren’t any ground breaking story-lines or surprise endings. For the most part, “New in Town” sticks to the formula. That’s not a bad thing. The film is fun, cute and mostly importantly, entertaining. It’s good to see Academy Award winner, Renée Zellweger, return to slapstick, situational comedy. Many critics have described her performance as "flat" and “phoned in”, but I disagree. I think Zellweger is having fun. And watching her have fun is a good time for the audience.

The film has more to offer than just a rehashed love story: it’s also about a town fighting for its livelihood, trying to keep their plant open; it’s about a widowed father (Harry Connick Jr.) trying to deal with the fact that his little girl is becoming a woman. Throw is some pratfalls, a scene stealing performance by Siobhan Fallon as Blanche, and you’ve got an entertaining movie. Sure, some guys won’t like this “chic” flick, but I think everyone can enjoy it.

Three tires.

"Taken", a new action thriller opens in theaters this weekend.

The story follows Bryan Mills, an ex-CIA operative, who has made a successful career out of traveling the world and making bad guys disappear. Of course, being fully committed to his job and his country, Bryan was never able to fully commit to his wife, Lenore (Famke Janssen) and his daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace).
Now, years later, he’s re-prioritized his life; he’s quit the business and dedicated himself to rebuilding a relationship with his daughter. As for his wife, it’s too late; she’s remarried and not very forgiving. Bryan’s plan has only one problem: when his daughter goes to Paris for vacation, she’s kidnapped by Albanian slave traders. And that’s not a good thing for the bad guys because Bryan takes his new found commitment to his daughter very seriously. In fact, he growls at the kidnapper, “I’ll will look for you. I will find you. I will kill you”. By the way, Bryan is a man of his word. The film is predictable, and there were a few minor issues I had, but I still really enjoyed it. It’s a straight up revenge story about a man driven to save his daughter. It’s very entertaining watching the bad guys getting what they have coming to them, especially, when it’s Liam Neeson dishing out the punishment. Neeson, an extremely talent
actor, brings extra depth to the character and is a pleasure to watch. There’s plenty of action and some memorable one liners. If you're headed to see this film, you won’t be disappointed.

Three Tires