Hudson Hawk (1991)

“If the Mario brothers weren't New Jersey's third-largest crime family, I'd say, "Kiss my ass." But considering your status, I will say, "Slurp my butt."”

            I love movies or TV shows that have to deal with heists or con artists or better yet art thieves. I know they are all fake yet at the same time based on some truths but I just love how smart the thieves and con artists have to be. I have mentioned the show Leverage time and again and how I love the fact that they are con artists who are the good guys and that my favorite character, Parker, is the thief and loves to steal art and diamonds. My love for Leverage lead me to watch this web series called Caper (it was created by one of the producers of Leverage and the actress, Beth Riesgraf, who played Parker, is in the series). Caper has a really interesting concept: it is about superheroes who live in our world and are totally broke, living in a crappy apartment and barely making enough to eat. The broke ass superheroes include Penny Blue aka The Machine (think Tony Stark/Iron Man), Alexia (think Wonder Woman), Luke Washington aka The Boy Scout (think Superman), and Dagr (think Thor). They come up with a plan to break into the company that Penny used to work for. The only glitch for the actual people with superpowers- they cannot use their superpowers. Penny does not want people to get hurt. Some of their plan comes from watching the movie Hudson Hawk. I heard of Hudson Hawk before Caper and after hearing it mentioned I definitely had to see it especially since it had something to do with a heist of sort. I thought the movie was going to be serious, I could not have been more wrong.

            A cat burglar known as Hudson Hawk (Bruce) has been released from jail after serving ten years. On his way out a cop tries to bribe him into doing a job for someone. Hudson wants nothing to do with burglaring he just wants to go home, have a cappuccino, and maybe do some community service and find a decent respectable job. His friend Tommy picks him up and takes him to what used to be a local dive bar that has turned into a hipster hang out. At the former dive bar are the Mario Brothers (no kidding they are called the Mario Brothers), a group of gangsters. The oldest brother forces Hudson to take a job or he will wind up in jail with no way out. All Hudson has to do is steal a horse from an auction house.

            The job seems simple enough. All Hudson and Tommy have to do is break in nice and quietly and no one will get hurt. Their plan starts off well. They put the security footage on loop and glide in kneeling on skateboards past the guards. The glitch in their plan is looping the security feed. A fat guard broke a chair in the main room and the guards in the office notice it. Hudson and Tommy make it out without getting caught. Hudson actually manages to crash in on the apartment where the deal for the horse is being made. The officer from the prison is killed and an English butler takes the horse from Hudson.

            In the paper the following day Hudson and Tommy read that the horse was not stolen and is ready to be sold for a record price. Hudson’s pride is hurt he wants to check out the horse for himself so he goes to the auction. At the auction a wacky, really weird husband called the Mayflowers bid on the horse for an insane amount of money.

            To make a long, very odd story short, Hudson finds out a man he used to work for is also working for the Mayflowers. The guy literally knocks Hudson out then drugs and literally sends him to Italy. In Italy a plot to find some crystals hidden throughout some of Leonardo DaVinci’s works and make a gold invention of his work is uncovered by Hudson. The Vatican actually knows about the plot and they use Hudson to their advantage.

            I got a little confused after a while but I think my attention span may have started to wander. Sorry about my ADD getting in the way. I do not do well when I get bored. 

            Hudson Hawk was not what I expected. I thought it was going to be a somewhat serious movie and it turned out to be really, really silly and I felt a little all over the place. I understand completely that it was supposed to be a satire I like satires but I think it tried too hard to be a real mystery and also be a comedy at the same time. There were some moments that were truly very funny but for the most part is just was not that good. Caper has a good sense of humor and I can see why they mentioned Hudson Hawk. After watching the movie I can see where Caper got some of its quirks from. Hudson Hawk is good for if you are in the mood for something totally silly and not serious at all. Just do not set your expectations too high.

           

            Definitely check out Caper. The concept is really good and totally different. The episodes are not long at all. They are all available on either Youtube or Hulu

Red 2 (2013)

 “What happens in the Kremlin stays in the Kremlin!”

            Not very often do movie sequels work out. It is very rare that they are good let alone better than the first one. Red 2 is one of those rare movies that is even better than the first. It takes all the fun exciting elements of the first Red and turns them up ten notches.

            Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is enjoying his nice quiet retired life with his girlfriend Sarah (Mary- Louise Parker) strolling through Costco when his old friend Marvin (John Malkovich) finds him. Marvin brings up the fact that Frank has not killed anyone in months. Frank likes that fact though, he is not looking for a fight or to kill anyone. Meanwhile, Sarah seems to be the one who wants all the excitement back in her life she seems to be bored in the quiet life. Marvin tells Frank that information leaked about an old Cold War weapon called Nightshade and their names are mentioned in the information.

            Their lives soon get turned upside down when Marvin “dies”. As Frank and Sarah leave the church Frank is taken in by federal agents. He is taken to a facility where he is being interrogated. While Frank is being interrogated a man named Jack Horton (Neal McDonough) comes storming through the building with a group of operatives who are looking to take Frank out. Of course Frank manages to escape and gets to Marvin (who is not dead he just faked his own death) and Sarah.

            As this is happening a hit is put on Frank’s life and the person sent to kill him is a Korean assassin named Han Cho Bai who has a big time grudge against Frank.

            In London, people are also after Victoria (Helen Mirren). MI6 rings her and tells her she has been assigned to kill Frank. She in turns rings up Frank and tells him about the hit.

            Frank, Marvin and Sarah travel to Paris to question a weapons dealer nicknamed The Frog. In Paris Frank comes across an old flame named Katja (Catherine Zeta-Jones). Katja is a Russian and she and Frank have a romantic as well as enemy relationship. Sarah is not thrilled when she sees how hypnotized Frank is by Katja and is constantly asking if they can kill Katja.         

            The team eventually finds out that the Nightshade weapon was developed by a man named Dr. Edward Bailey (Anthony Hopkins). He has been in an asylum for thirty-two years by MI6. Frank, Sarah, and Victoria bust him out. Bailey tells them his weapon that had been lost in Russia is hidden beneath the Kremlin. When they get the weapon they find out that Bailey was locked away because he wanted to activate the weapon not, as they had been told, because he was crazy.

            The cast is once again brilliant. And once again Mary-Louise Parker and John Malkovich steal the entire movie. Parker I was dying laughing with, again, because of her facial expressions they were so hilarious. I loved how jealous Sarah was with Katja and Parker just knocked those scenes out. Her funniest scene was at the end… and that is all I will say because it is too funny to give away. Helen Mirren I enjoyed more here than in the first one because she was just completely bad ass. She shot off more guns and killed more people than the first time. One of her first scenes was her cleaning up two dead bodies she had made and then destroying them in her hotel bathroom in the bathtub by dowsing them with chemicals and all without batting an eye. That is an awesome bitch in my eyes. Catherine Zeta- Jones is not in the movie for very long which is a shame because she and Bruce Willis worked very well together in their scenes. I hate seeing Neal McDonough as a bad guy but he was very good. I always enjoy seeing him in things. Anthony Hopkins was alright he did not make too much of an impression on me.

            From beginning to the end of Red 2 I was laughing and immensely entertained. Red 2 had a perfect balance of action, comedy, and drama. It is just all around a very well made movie from the acting, writing, direction, action to just everything. I highly suggest seeing this movie especially if you need to let go and have a good laugh. 

Red (2010)

“This used to be a Gentleman's game.”

            Twelve years ago I caught a marathon of the TV show Alias on ABC Family. My grandparents raved on and on about it and how much I would like seeing this girl kicking everyone’s ass wherever she went. So when I saw there was a marathon on ABC Family I started watching it and from the first episode I saw I was hooked. That night was the premier of Alias’s second season and from then on my life has never been in the same in many ways. Honestly, if I never watched Alias I would not be running this blog today. Anyway, to get to the point, since that time I have love watching movie and books about spies. I think the world of espionage is fascinating both in real life and fantasy. I always say if I was smart enough I would love to work for the FBI or CIA as an undercover agent. For the past three years my grandparents have been telling me I need to see the movie Red because they kick a lot of ass, shoot and kill a lot of people, blow up almost everything and most of all because it is hysterical. I watched Red and it was one of the funniest most enjoyable movies I have seen in a while.

            Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is a retired black-ops agent. He lives in a nice quiet neighborhood all by himself in a nice house. Every month he gets his pension from the government and when he does he likes to call to speak to his case worker Sarah (Mary- Louise Parker). Both of them are bored and lonely in their lives. Sarah dreams of traveling and lives vicariously through her romance novels while Frank wakes up at 6am everyday and works out and also reads the novels Sarah tells him about. At 3am one morning Frank gets up and walks downstairs. There are men in his house in combat gear looking for him. Frank easily takes them out. He takes out bullets in one of the guns he pulled off one of the bodies, puts them on a frying pan, and heats it up. The bullets go off and soon enough a barrage of bullets are unleashed onto his house by a whole fleet of men in combat gear. Frank manages to take them out as well and gets away.

            Sarah had a bad date. She comes home and Frank is standing in her hallway. Sarah screams her head off that Frank is in her apartment. He is there to take her away since people are after him they will be after her to kill her because she has been talking to him. He ties her up and sticks her in the backseat of his car.

            Frank takes Sarah all over the place to find his old black-ops buddies. He finds out they are all targeted because they were involved in a recovery mission down in South America years before and they now need to be eliminated. He rounds up Joe Matheson (Morgan Freeman), Marvin Boggs (John Malkovich), and Victoria (Helen Mirren) who all have their own special talents with weapons and information. They are all being chased down by an ambitious CIA agent named William Cooper (Karl Urban) whose job it is to get rid of people.

            The movie is too hysterical to give away too much detail other than what I have already written.

            The cast was perfect. They all interacted wonderfully. I was dying seeing Helen Mirren holding these huge guns and being a bad ass. To me Mary-Louise Parker and John Malkovich stole the entire movie they were the funniest to me. It looked like they all had a great time making this movie together. I like that whoever made this movie  did not just throw all these great actors in it for the sake of having names (well maybe they did) and only having them in the movie for like two seconds. Each actor had a wonderful amount of screen time and they were all perfect.

            Red is immensely enjoyable. I was cracking up with almost every scene because the characters were funny the dialogue was very sharp and witty. There are some scenes that you think “oh shit how are they gonna get out of this” and then boom they are out or something totally unexpected happens. Red is one of those action movies that just has everything that makes it great and enjoyable. Highly suggest seeing Red especially if you are like me and love watching spy movies.