First Among Equals

One of the great anti-heros of the 1980's, Kurt Russell’s Snake Plissken (John Carpenter’s Escape From New York) is a quick-thinking cynic; a cool, level-headed former Special Forces military man with a plan. . . and let’s face it, his combination of quick wit and eye patch makes him one bad-ass muthafuka. Quite the opposite, Jack Burton (also played by Russell), with his diction having a John Wayne tinge, is a cocky, brash American, a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants ‘in his own mind’ leader who lacks the brains, the skills or the know how to be in that all-important position. The main protagonist of John Carpenter’s 1986 fantastical martial arts action/adventure/comedy Big Trouble in Little China, Burton is a truck driver (his big rig named The Pork-Chop Express), spending those long days and even longer nights spouting his unique brand of advice to whoever is listening on their CB – a prime example, “when some wide-eyed, eight-foot-tall maniac grabs your neck, taps the back of your favorite head up against the barroom wall, and he looks you crooked in the eye and he asks if ya paid your dues, you just stare that big sucker right back in the eye, and you remember what ol’ Jack Burton always says at a time like that: ‘Have you paid your dues, Jack?’ ‘Yessir, the check is in the mail’”.

A rare example of a movie that is less known than (most of) its remakes, Luc Besson’s Nikita (also known as La Femme Nikita), released in 1990, has spawned an American big screen adaptation (1993's Point of No Return, starring Bridget Fonda and Gabriel Byrne), as well as two popular television series: Joel Surnow’s show, centred around Peta Wilson, ran for five seasons starting in 1997; while another version began airing on The CW in 2010, lasting four years, with the heroine this time brought to life by Maggie Q. The only version, hinted at above, that is lesser known than the original feature is a 1991 Hong Kong action remake titled Black Cat. An influential French/Italian co-production from one of the modern masters of action (think Léon: The Professional, The Fifth Element, and Taken – which he wrote and produced), Besson transports us into a strange world, feeling almost dystopic, with a Mad Max-of-the-city type feel. In this landscape we find four hoodlums walking the streets, breaking into a drug store to feed their drug fix. Challenged by a brave store owner (who lives above the shop) and the heavily armed police, the only one of the quartet left alive is Nikita (Anne Parillaud), a wild card punk – she is a violent junkie sociopath with the ear biting skills of Mike Tyson and the unflappable hand of a master marksman.

With a remake currently in theatres, it is the perfect time to revisit 1974's Death Wish. A film that was mostly panned by critics upon its release (a rare supporter was Roger Ebert), its raw form of vigilante justice captured the imagination of the American public – after all, it was an era when crime ran rampant in many urban metropolises. A pure example of a gritty, violent, anti-establishment exploitation piece, director Michael Winner (The Mechanic) introduces us to an architect named Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson – his star raised by this game-changing role), a happy man who is currently on vacation (in Hawaii) with his wife Joanna (Hope Lange).

Coming off like a combination of Oldboy, The Raid: Redemption, La Femme Nikita, Kill Bill, and the Jason Bourne franchise, 2017's The Villainess, a South Korean film co-written and directed by Byung-gil Jung, is an action packed adrenaline ride that carves out an interesting angle within the genre. Opening with a mostly first person action sequence, it is intensely claustrophobic, showing a supremely talented killing machine of a woman carving her way through a narrow hallway only to find herself in a room packed with another ominous group of villains. Setting the tone from the very beginning, the viewer quickly understands that there is a grace to the way the camera moves (a dynamic visual panache that is all the more impressive when you realize a good portion of it is done without computer generated effects) – though it is a very bloody flair to be sure.

It’s funny. As I chatted with my cousin while on the way to see Logan, I mentioned one of the most frustrating aspects of comic book movies – that it is somehow expected that the newest effort has to outdo the previous one, which is then interpreted by going bigger in the realm of special effects and mind-numbing final battles that end up feeling more than ludicrous (even for a sci fi fantasy). That is why I was so pleasantly surprised by James Mangold’s 2017 offering; a more personal, pared down feature that, at its heart, is about learning to live with your past, as well as recovery and redemption. Taking a page from the popularity of last year’s Deadpool, Logan does not hold back in the realm of violence, profanity, and one small moment of nudity. Set approximately a decade into the future, the opening shot may be jarring to some fans of the X-Men franchise. When we first see Hugh Jackman’s titular character – his big, bushy beard (not the perfectly trimmed mutton chops) and hair flecked with grey, it is an aged Wolverine like we have never seen. He more closely resembles a modern day Mel Gibson (perhaps after a lengthy bender) than the regenerative, sarcastic being we know and love. He is haggard, depressed and has lost a step. . . maybe even two. It is a world that has not seen the birth of a mutant in quite some time, and these gifted individuals are dying out.

A woman – bruised, battered and alone in a cool, sterile bathroom, attempting to lick her copious wounds (literally and figuratively) prior to being brought before an equally uninviting clandestine location filled with higher ups is the lead in (to clarify, it is the second scene) to the new David Leitch (co-director of the first John Wick) action thriller Atomic Blonde – based on the graphic novel “The Coldest City” by Antony Johnston and Sam Hart. Set during the last days of the Cold War, the female spy is Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron), an MI6 agent who, ten days previously, had been sent into Berlin to complete an unenvious mission. Retelling her tale to her twitchy superior, Eric Gray (Toby Jones), and the seemingly more daunting CIA agent, Emmett Kurzfeld (John Goodman), she is watched closely by Chief ‘C’ (James Faulkner), who sits just behind a one-way mirror – it feels like the dame is utterly alone, perhaps more fragile than she has ever been before.