Welshrogue

A tired old cop is asked to escort a witness 16 blocks to a courtroom in just under 2 hours. Pretty simple until we find half the cops in New York trying to kill the witness and therefore the cop.

This isn’t an amazing movie but it certainly isn’t a waste of time either. Bruce Willis plays a cop who seems to have lost the desire for anything but booze. Mos Def plays the witness, a young man who saw too much and has big plans to change his life.

Its enjoyable but the only thing that really bugged me was Mos Def’s voice, which sounded a little too annoying (although it did grow on me). Why they didn’t let him use is normal voice I don’t know.

A good movie and a great way to spend a couple of hours!

A salesman and a hitman meet up in a bar in Mexico. The salesman, down on his luck, needs his luck to change. The hitman, is a little off kilter and has time to kill. A friendship forms and lives change.

Pierce Brosnan & Greg Kinnear star as the hitman and salesman respectively. Greg Kinnear looks and acts like an everyday person. Mr Average. Brosnan on the other hand has a character that is so off the wall, and is rude, crude and tattooed. Hope Davis plays the salesman’s wife, and is so perfect you wish she was on screen more.

I found that the movie started slowly, but dragged you in regardless. You feel for Kinnear and Davis, you wonder what Brosnan is doing half the time, and with who. The script is cutting with many one liners that are more shocking or crude than funny but it wears you down until you laugh everytime Brosnan says something. The characters really do grow on you and in the end you want to see them do well.

Enjoyed the movie even though I didn’t think I would at the start! Funny and rude, what more could you ask for?

A woman who is planning to divorce her husband but before she can, he turns up murdered and every thing she owned sold. Just when it couldn’t get any worse a gang of men decide she knows where her husband put all their money and start to apply pressure. He only hope maybe a man who isn’t who he seems to be.

Probably one of the best Alfred Hitchcock movies, Charade features two of the biggest names at the time, Cary Grant and Audrey Hupburn in this romantic thriller with humour and thrills a plenty. Filling out the cast included names such as George Kennedy, James Coburn and Walter Matthau.

The movie is very 1960′s, starting right from the opening credits that both set the scene and impress with their style. With the majority of the action taking place in Paris, the movie doesn’t feel like the millions of Hollywood movies that were churned out one after the other.

The main characters are so wonderful to watch, and with the plot twisting this way and that, this is a perfect movie for anyone with a love of 60′s movies, romantic thrillers, comedies, pretty much anyone at all.

Two undercover Miami cops get pulled into an undercover operation that maybe over their heads.

A “re-imaging” of the classic, and some might say, kitschy 80s TV show that was almost as much about pastel coloured clothes and fast cars as it was about crime. That statement does do the TV show a dis-service as the show was great in its time, its just that now it looks very 80s, and that isn’t a good look.

Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx star as Crockett and Tubbs, undercover cops battling drug smugglers. Michael Mann, who produced the original series, as well as such great movies like Heat and Collateral directs Miami Vice. Straight from the first scenes, it is obvious that this is nothing like the TV show. Camera angles take in as much of the actors as the background. Long panning shots set the scene and with some of the filming taking place during hurricane season, some of the sky shots are truly spectacular.

The movie is a lot darker as well, both visually and content wise. Looking similar to Manns previous output of Collateral, most of the action takes place at night, often in the seedier side of Miami. Gone are the glamorous shots of Miami Beach, taking its place are the docks, a dirty, worn down area.

One of the things that made the original show such a hit was the music. Jan Hammer created a music score that helped each episode, and yes, while the music is heavy on the synths and so 80s, it did work. The soundtrack is by John Murphy and to my ears anyway, seemed to sound very similar to a lot of Hammers work. Yes it was updated with more natural instruments but it still worked the same way, and worked very well.

If there is one thing that Michael Mann does well, its action and gun fights and Miami Vice will not taint his reputation one bit. I have never heard a more realistic gun fight and man was it loud.

Its a long movie, well over two hours, but I didn’t once get bored or wonder when something was going to happen. I can’t wait to see the extended version on the DVD. I loved this movie, much as I loved the original series, but this movie will stand up the test of time a lot better than the show.

A footballer (soccer player) is convicted of a drunken assualt is asked to help coach the prison guards team. When he refuses he organizes a team to play against them with predictable results.

Yes, this is a remake of The Longest Yard, which was released in the UK as Mean Machine. This time the game is real football, not the NFL.

While this is not a Guy Richie movie, he can take credit for having setup the trend towards this movie with both Lock, Stock.. and Snatch.

As in both the previously mentioned Richie movies, Mean Machine stars, wait for it, Vinnie Jones as a violent psycho soccer player who’s time has passed and who finds himself in prison surrounded by other violent psychos. He is helped on the team by the biggest psycho in the prison, played by Jason Statham.

If you have seen the Burt Reynolds movie, or the Adam Sandler remake, you know how it goes. This version is funny as can be with a lot of British humour that is a little rough at times. The action is very well done and although the final game is predictable still good.

Probably my favourite of all the British Criminal movies, it contains more humour and wit than other movies and has some brilliant moments when The Broadhurst Monk (Statham) is standing in goal, daydreaming about killing everyone around him.

One of the best criminal sports movies ever.

Snatch is the tale of two small time boxing promoters who get in over their heads, lose their boxer, find a champion gypsy boxer to take his place, and then things get interesting! Throw in some Jewish jewelers, criminals, a bookmaker who likes to feed his pigs……with people, a large diamond that has just been stolen, oh and a pit bull.

The followup to Lock Stock…, Snatch is a wonderful confusion of plots, characters and craziness. Jason Statham in his first lead role, Vinnie Jones as, wait for it, a violent psycho, and Brad Pitt as an unintelligible gypsy boxer are just some of the great cast for this movie.

Brad Pitt is so different to any other movie you have seen him in that you just have to see it to believe it. When he talks, you know he has said something but you struggle to know what, which makes his character all the more fun to watch.

There are so many other known names in this movie such as Benicio Del Toro and Dennis Farina that the movie feels bigger than it actually is. As with Lock, Stock…, things appear to be set perfectly and then things starting going wrong for the main characters and before you know it, there is a lot of running around looking for a diamond, a boxer, and trying to avoid being eaten by pigs.

Another great movie, the perfect followup to Lock, Stock..

Three friends help bankroll a forth for a high stakes game of poker, but when the friend loses the fixed game, they have to come up with 1/2 mil in a week or the friends father loses his bar.

Guy Richie directs this tale of four small time crooks who get into trouble with a much bigger crook. Its a story about the criminal underworld of London and the characters that live in it.

While there are many recognizable names in the movie, two that stand out are Vinnie Jones in his first movie, and Jason Statham, also in his first movie. Both are utterly convincing, Jones as a violent psycho, and Statham as a shifty pretty criminal.

This is a violent, funny and witty movie. It doesn’t beat around the bush when beating up the bush is on the menu. With plot twists that spin back and forth, the viewer doesn’t know what is happening until the end.

A great gangster movie, one that started off a mini revival in the British criminal movie.

The movie remake of the much loved TV show of the 70s teams up two cops with different styles teaming up to take down a bad man.

Set in the 1970′s, S & H is  as much a tribute to the original series and stars as it is an original movie. Perfectly cast as the main characters, Ben Stiller as Starsky, Owen Wilson as Hutch along with probably the greatest bit of casting ever, Snoop Dogg as Huggy Bear, the movie looks like the TV show. The main characters look like their small screen counterparts and there are several moments that give a nod to the originals.

As a movie its more fun if you were a fan of the original rather than watching this afresh. It is funny, there are some great moments but it isn’t really a classic. If truth be told, it only becomes a good movie if you understand the in jokes and nods to the original show.

An ex-Ranger, released for parole after killing a man while protecting his wife finds himself on a plane with various dangerous criminals, which in hindsight was probably not the best idea someone has ever had.

Nicholas Cage yet again stars in a Jerry Bruckheimer action movie, and yet again with a great supporting cast including John Malkovich as the mastermind criminal Cyrus ‘The Virus” Grissom, Steve Buscemi as Garland ‘The Marietta Mangler’ Greene and John Cusack as the US Marshall Vince Larkin.

The plot is predicatable with the action spaced out between some fun scenes. Every scene with Buscemi as the Lector-esque Greene is enjoyable as he comes over as a normal sort of serial killer. Buscemi competes with Malkovich for the most overacting criminal.

Con air is also the source of one of my all time WTF’s…… more of which can be found here .

All in all, Con Air gives the viewer what they expect when they buy the tickets. Its a good looking movie with plenty of action, not too much in the way of challenging dialogue and some instantly recognizable movie stars. A good way to spend two hours.

A 10 year old black girl is viciously raped but when the father kills the two accused men, a white lawyer defends the man against a rising KKK and racial tension in the deep south.

Based on the book of the same name by John Grisham, A Time To Kill is a breath taking story of the court room battle set against the backdrop of racial violence and pressure. The book is brilliant, with moments that are sickening, thrilling, humourous and enjoyable.

The movie is a pretty straight transfer of the story from the book, and as such works wonderfully. The main characters are superbly cast with Matthew McConaughey, Sandra Bullock, Samuel L. Jackson, Oliver Platt, Donald Sutherland, Kiefer Sutherland & Ashley Judd all perfectly cast. You don’t disbelieve anything that you are seeing and that is important as the emotions are cranked up higher and higher by the climax of the movie.

In my honest, yet humble opinion, there have only ever been two perfect adaptations of books to movies. Both are racial drama’s set in courtrooms. One is To Kill A Mockingbird, the other is A Time To Kill. This is a movie that you must watch, no matter how some of the subject matter might make you feel, you owe it to yourself to experience it all.