A Walk Among the Tombstones (Movie)

Another Liam Neeson shoot 'em up action film ala Taken, Taken 2, and Taken 3?  Not really. Although he is in it, it's more of a slow thriller.  Although it's about kidnapping, so I guess technically it's Taken 4.  (BTW, is it still kidnapping if the napper takes adults?  The word has such evil connotations but the "napping" seems like such a prim and proper word. Like saying something is the bees knees.  Which is another phrase that makes absolutely zero sense.  And besides the parent of two young children, I actually look forward to kid naps.)

Anyway, this isn't a high octane explosions and gunshots type thriller.  It's actually very dark and moody.  No shit right?  I mean, look at the the title of the movie. That's a dark title.

Overall, I thought it was pretty good.  Some parts did seem a little forced though.  I didn't really get why the kid was needed.  Now don't get me wrong. I thought the kid (whose name, according to IMDB is "Astro."  Although it also says he was born as Brian Bradley.  Which also seems like a fake name.) was awesome.  He did a great job acting.  I just don't know why he was in the movie.

Is he going to live with the white, alcoholic ex-cop now working as an unlicensed Private Investigator now? Liam Nesson is a super hero in his eyes?  Why was this kid in the movie?  For redemption you say?  Well I say bollocks.  (Which is something I never say but it seemed like it would be funny after the whole "kidnapping" thing.)

Nesson's character needs redemption because he accidentally shot and killed a little girl while drunkenly pursuing and shooting at some robbers (one of whom was presumably a killer) around NYC one morning a few years back.  This leads him to quit the police force and get into the lucrative unlicensed PI racket.

But during his investigation of some kidnapping being done by some seriously creepy guys, Neeson rescues a young girl from the pair. She even looked to be roughly the same age as the girl he killed all those years ago.  Shouldn't that be the source of his redemption?  Or would that be too obvious?

The kid's main purpose, besides showing the Neeson's character cared about the little guy, was that he hid in the kidnappers van and helped figure out where they lived. Could the writers not figure out another way to have that happen?  Or maybe they could have just ended it in the graveyard, since that was the title of the movie after all.

Also, why did the drug dealer have to die? Was that some sort of "crime doesn't pay" message? It was completely pointless. The one drug dealer got to get his daughter back, while the one that actually helped find the kidnappers had his wife and brother killed by the kidnappers, and then they killed him as well.  Put that way, it almost seems unfair.

I have way more questions now, after writing this, then I did when I finished the movie.

My favorite part of the movie was the juxtaposition (if i'm review movies, I'm obligated to use that term at least once per review) of the 12 AA steps with the actions/activities at the end of the movie. Maybe it was a little obvious perhaps, but sometimes there isn't anything wrong with obvious. And I'm not familiar with the 12 steps, so it's not like I knew what was going to happen next because the 7th step in AA is "Humbly ask Him to remove our shortcomings."

San Andreas (movie)

I watched this movie in the morning while the family was still sleeping.  Technically, I watched almost the whole movie as I had about 10 minutes left when everyone else in the house started stirring.  (I finished later in the day.)

Overall, I was pretty impressed. Although I had heard decent things about it (and it can't be terrible if Dwayne Johnson is in it) it was still a big budget disaster type movie. And I think that those can be hit or miss.  But it turned out to be pretty decent.

I had one quibble early on though.  When the first meet Paul Giamatti's character (he's a seismologist) he is giving a lecture about earthquakes to students at CalTech. I couldn't help but notice that behind him on the chalkboard is a seriously complex looking math equation (s?).  The type of equation where there are weird symbols that make it look like some weird alien language.

But the lecture he's giving is basically "earthquakes cause damage."  He's showing the students footage from some of history's biggest earthquakes. One of the students asks him if something "that intense" could happen here and he tells her about the San Andreas fault.

Now I get it that the average movie watcher is not a seismologist.  I get that most people probably don't have any knowledge about some large historical earthquakes.  (I'm one of them.)  As I'm not originally from the west coast, I can also understand that there are plenty of Americans who don't know about the San Andreas fault.  (Not to mention the fact that movies are made for world-wide audiences now, and I doubt they teach much about American geology (? geography?) in international schools.

But this character was giving a lecture to college students in LA.  I GUARANTEE that they know a large earthquake could happen in Southern California.  And these are not just any college students. They're in a fucking earthquake class!  How did this student get into CalTech and not know that a large earthquake could happen in Southern California?  I mean, even if it's the first day of class.  And it seems unlikely that it's the first day of class because of that math on the board.  They don't leave that up all summer. Although, if Giammatti's character had written it, he'd be covered in chalk dust so maybe he didn't write it up there now.

I know exactly what the purpose of the scene was.  I know that they had to show us that historically, what they are about to show us is not totally unrealistic.  But why didn't they have him speak to a bunch of donors or something? In the movie Giamatti is working on a way to predict earthquakes. Have him give this speech at a luncheon for politicians. (Although I would hope that So Cal politicians would also know about the San Andreas.)

Anyways, this occurs fairly early in the movie so I was all set for a hokey disaster movie.  But I was mistaken.  The action is intense.  So much so that at one point, I caught myself thinking "I should call my friends back in California to make sure they're okay."  (Hey, it was early in the morning.)

It was also interesting to see the movie turn a disaster movie trope on it's head and have the "damsel in distress" actually be the guy.  The main heroine of the movie is a female who, after initially being saved by a cute guy (and his little brother) leads the trio through a destroyed San Francisco.  At the end, Johnson's character thanks the brothers for being there for his daughter. The brother says "You're welcome.  But it was more like she was there for us."  That was a little obvious for me, but a nice touch to point it out to viewers who had maybe missed. it.

Overall, a pretty good movie. Nothing that's going on my list of greatest movies, and I probably won't flag it as a re-watchable movie, but it kept me entertained for almost two hours.  And that's all I ask really.