Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2024.14

Read the explanation of method, madness, and spoilers.[1]

1. Live Free or Die Hard (2007) — 7/10
2. Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) — 8/10
3. Whiplash (2014) — 9/10
4. The Punisher (2004) — 8/10
5. Ein Schatz zum Verlieben (Fool’s Gold) (2008) — 7/10
6. Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015) — 8/10
7. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) — 4/10
8. Lost in Translation (2003) — 9/10
9. Bad Monkey S01 (2024) — 8/10
10. The Last Castle (2001) — 8/10

Live Free or Die Hard (2007) — 7/10

John McClane (Bruce Willis) is tasked with picking up a hacker Matt Farrell (Justin Long) who’s wanted by the FBI. He’s to bring Farrell to Bowman (Cliff Curtis) and Molina (Zeljko Ivanek). Simultaneously, Mai (Maggie Q) and her boss Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant) are trying to kill him. They’ve already killed all of the other hackers they’d been working with to set up their plan. Their first cyber-attack is to screw with the traffic lights in a dozen cities at once. It’s apparently called a “fire sale”, where the next step is to disable communications networks, and then power.

McClane and Farrell end up in a cop car in the Lincoln Tunnel but Gabriel drives all of the traffic in the other direction, wreaking havoc and causing mayhem. McClane drives their car out the other way, jumping out at the last second, aiming his car at the helicopter, plowing it right out of the sky. That is just ridiculous. Especially since Rand (Cyril Raffaelli) also manages to jump to safety out of the helicopter. We’ll be seeing him again later—he’s quite a parkour expert.

Things are getting pretty improbable already but the using-a-car-to-shoot-a-helicopter-out-of-the-sky somehow seemed less stupid than I’d remembered it being. Perhaps 16 years of intervening stupidity in action movies has inured me.

Gabriel and his crew manage to do most of what they wanted but McClane and Farrell thwart Mai’s attempt to shut down the power grid to West Virginia. Instead, McClane gets into a fight with Mai. She drops him first, then he drops her, smashing her ostensibly to bits. She is somehow a Terminator, though, and punches him right through a window.

He bounces off of a whole bunch of things, landing on a concrete floor, none the worse for wear. He is also apparently a terminator. Mai’s 97-pound self is also none the worse for wear as she forces Farrell to undo the changes he’d made to her setup. McClane drives up and right through the lab, hitting Mai at what looks to be about 40 MPH, which doesn’t even knock her out.

He drives her through a few walls and, finally, into an elevator shaft, where she finally slides off the hood of the car, grabbing onto a cable and hanging on. This woman is stronger and more resilient than a Terminator. She does finally die at the bottom of the elevator shaft in a fiery inferno. McClane informs Gabriel that his girlfriend’s dead—just like he’s taunted every other nemesis in every other film.

That whole scene breaks one of my cardinal rules, which is: I’m here to watch John McClane be unstoppable and amazing, not his enemies. The latest Mission Impossible and the last two John Wick installments made the same mistake.

Gabriel and his crew somehow manage to “overload” the gas pipelines, sending pure fire Farrell and McClane’s way. I have no idea how they think the mechanics of that would work. I have no idea why they don’t know about mechanical-safety mechanisms. Do McClane and Farrell survive? Of course they do.

The power is out all over a lot of the east coast. They can’t find Warlock (Kevin Smith), but they can fly there somehow? Somehow, they get there. In the dark. With McClane’s relatively raw helicopter-piloting skills. Warlock is initially not very cooperative, especially when he hears that they’re after Thomas Gabriel.

Gabriel shows McClane that he’s located his daughter Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and that he’s going to kidnap her. McClane shifts into top gear and starts getting even more “Die Hard” than he even was before. How does he show her? By commandeering a webcam and monitor at Warlock’s place. How is this possible? Doesn’t Warlock have security? And how can you make a webcam reposition itself without a motor? Magic?

McClane and Farrell drive to a data center that Warlock found that’s showing up as being in overdrive. It’s pulling down all of the financial data of the entire U.S.—a system that the NSA set up after 9/11, with Gabriel’s help. He knew it would be triggered when he started the fire sale. McClane is coming for his daughter. Farrell is on his way to undo the program’s progress. McClane takes care of Rand, then steals a truck. Farrell and Lucy are still being held hostage with Gabriel in a van. They’re all on the move.

McClane calls Warlock with his CB to ask him to connect him to the FBI. In the meantime, Gabriel has fooled the VTOL jet into attacking McClane’s truck as a terrorist. It’s just firing missiles into highway infrastructure willy-nilly. The funny thing is that they destroy about six interchanges and kill dozens, if not hundreds of civilians, presumably in order to prevent the terrorist attack from … checks notes … destroying infrastructure and killing civilians.

After it totals his truck, McClane jumps onto the jet, forcing the pilot to eject, then leaps off the plane again before it crashes, surviving the gigantic jet-fuel explosion. He emerges from yet another giant pile of rubble to see Gabriel’s van pulling up to a warehouse. Lucky that.

Gabriel is in there, forcing Farrell to enter his the codes he used to lock the money up again. Gabriel threatens to shoot Lucy. McClane shows up. Shots are fired. McClane is shot and falls. Gabriel gloats. He pushes his gun into McClane’s shoulder wound. McClane pulls the trigger for him, shooting through his own wound, right into Gabriel’s heart. Farrell takes out the remaining henchman. The end.

I watched it in German.

Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) — 8/10

John McClane (Bruce Willis) is back. This time he’s suspended. But Simon (Jeremy Irons) blows up Bonwit Teller and demands that the police bring him back. Simon makes him go to Harlem with a sign around his neck that says “I Hate Niggers.” Zeus (Samuel L. Jackson) saves him from the local gangs.

Simon calls again and starts sending McClane and Zeus all over the city, on a scavenger hunt of sorts. They have to solve a riddle. The bomb is fake, though. He calls back and tells them that the 3 train has a bomb on it and that they need to catch it to stop it. 90 blocks in 30 minutes. Impossible. Time to think outside of the box. McClane steals a cab and heads south through Central Park. He gives Zeus the cab and jumps on top of the 3 train as it goes past. He Indiana Joneses his way into the train, then starts searching for the bomb. Zeus gets to the station, ready to answer the phone.

The bomb goes off but McClane had managed to throw it out of the back of the train car. It still did a lot of damage to downtown, though. This is just the beginning of the whole trick, though. We next see Simon show up at the Fed Reserve Bank of New York, posing as a federal agent charged with verifying that nothing has happened to the bank. The cops fall all over themselves to help Simon and his henchmen get underground to assess the damage.

This is the real thrust of the mission: to steal $140+ billion from the Federal Reserve. They drive in with 14 trucks and start loading them up. There are no cops in sight. Why? Simon has sent them on a snipe hunt across the city to find a bomb in an elementary school. McClane and Zeus are tasked with running to a park where they have to solve a water puzzle. They have a 5-gallon jug and a 3-gallon jug. Figure out how to get exactly 4 gallons into the bigger jug. Spoiler:

1. Fill the 5-gallon jug.
2. Pour 3 gallons from the 5-gallon jug into the 3-gallon jug.
3. Dump out the 3-gallon jug.
4. Pour the remaining 2 gallons from the 5-gallon jug into the 3-gallon jug.
5. Fill the 5-gallon jug.
6. Pour 1 gallon from the 5-gallon jug into the 3-gallon jug.
7. There are now 4 gallons remaining in the 5-gallon jug.

Once they solve this puzzle, they start back to Wall Street but discover some kids stealing and shoplifting. The kids say it’s because there isn’t a cop in sight in the southern half of Manhattan. McClane realizes what’s going on—he and Zeus head back downtown to investigate. Zeus gives the bomb back to cops there—but they are actually working for Simon. McClane goes to the Fed and discovers Simon’s henchmen—he spots the badge number of a cop he knows on the lapel of one of them. So he knows his friend is dead and that all of the cops are fake.

After a giant shootout, McClane takes them all out and meets Zeus in the basement, where they discover that all of the gold has disappeared. They steal a Yugo to head north to find the fleet of trucks. They pull over a better car, whose driver has a phone, and hijack it. They leave the Yugo with a gold bar in the back seat for the driver.

They head north to the construction site at the head of Water Tunnel #3, Zeus continues in the stolen car while McClane takes a truck into the aqueduct, following Simon’s trail. Simon and his trucks get out the other side and then blow a dam to flood the tunnel. McClane first J-turns his truck, then climbs on top of it to catch a ladder on an escape shaft and is then ejected high into the air, luckily landing in a deep puddle. Also luckily, Zeus happens to be going by at the time and happens to see him and then picks him up to continue their pursuit.

They travel up the Saw Mill Parkway, getting into a shootout with more of Simon’s men in a truck. They take them out as well. Each one is carrying 10 quarter-dollars, Those are for the bridge tolls. They steal the truck and get onto the bridge. From there, they see the container ship with all of the truck containers on it. There’s nothing for it but to unwind the truck’s winch, hook the passing ship and then commando-line their way onto the boat, falling the last 50 feet or so. No real damage.

They split up, with Zeus getting to the bridge but not being able to shoot Simon because his safety was on. He’s taken hostage. McClane fights his way through a lot of henchmen, then is also captured on the bridge when he realizes that the bomb is on the boat, not in a school. Meanwhile, the cops also work through some tense moments, thinking that the bomb is going to go off—only to find that it’s filled with strawberry syrup instead of a liquid explosive.

Simon pretends that he’s trying to destroy the world order by sinking all of the gold at the bottom of the Long Island Sound—but he’s really going to sink a boat full of scrap metal. He ties Zeus and McClane to the giant bomb. They manage to free themselves with a metal splinter from McClane’s shoulder that he drops into Zeus’s nimble locksmith’s fingers.

“McClane: You know how to pick this lock?
Zeus: Is this some black-shit again?
McClane: Hey will you stop that racial shit? Are you a fuckin’ locksmith or not?”

They leap off the tanker as it explodes. Spectacular. They are picked up by the NYPD, whom they inform that the gold was not on board.

McClane is on the phone with his ex-wife when he discovers a clue to where Simon has disappeared—Nord des Lignes in Quebec, Canada. It’s written on the bottom of the aspirin bottle that Simon had thrown to him. Simon and his army are celebrating there when McClane, Zeus, and the entire NYPD and probably part of the U.S. military surround them (we don’t ask how the NYPD would have jurisdiction in Canada).

Simon and Katya (Sam Phillips) are caught in flagrante delicto and take off after McClane and Zeus in their own helicopter. They drive McClane’s copter to the ground, then hunt them with a machine gun. McClane lures them near power lines, then looses one into the rotor blades, ending Simon’s run. The end.

I watched it in German.

Whiplash (2014) — 9/10

Andrew (Miles Teller) is a fanatical drummer. He attends a prestigious school where band conductor Terrence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons) teaches. Fletcher is exacting and abusive. He is right about the music but his approach is wildly antagonistic. Andrew is promoted to be second drummer, then gets a chance to replace the first drummer, then loses it. Fletcher is manipulating him the whole way.

None of this discourages Andrew in any way; he practices more and more and more, to prove that he can do it. He breaks it off with his girlfriend Nicole (Melissa Benoist), almost without regret, simply because he’s so laser-like focused only on becoming the best drummer since Buddy Rich.

Andrew’s practice pays off when he wins an ad-hoc, five-hour, high-speed drumming competition put on by Fletcher, as he gets them to play Caravan correctly. Andrew gets the seat back.

On the way to the next competition, Andrew gets into a car accident. Injured, he leaves the scene, dragging himself to the competition, getting there late, covered in blood, and ultimately unable to play well enough for Fletcher, who dresses him down onstage and dismisses him from the band. He doesn’t express a whit of sympathy for Andrew’s having very obviously been in a car accident. He couldn’t deliver, so he gets rid of him. Andrew finally jumps Fletcher, tackling him and pounding him until people pull him off.

Andrew is expelled from the school.

It turns out that this isn’t the first time that Fletcher has tortured a student before; Andrew ends up testifying anonymously for another family’s lawsuit over their son, who’d committed suicide and had also been a student of Fletcher’s. Fletcher is fired.

This is Fletcher’s teaching style. He tries to form amazing musicians in a crucible, to make the art come from the suffering, to separate the wheat from the chaff by finding the ones who want it the most, who are willing to be the best no matter what. Only in this way can you bubble up above the masses.

Months later, Andrew meets Fletcher at a bar where Fletcher is playing piano with a band. They talk and seem to make up, with Fletcher explaining his philosophy of teaching and of life, explaining that every musician needs a moment of ultimate shame and discouragement to transform their carbon shell into a diamond of genius. He invites Andrew to play with his band because he currently has a shitty drummer. He says that the songs are all the same standards as they’d played at school, so Andrew should know them all.

Shortly before they go on stage, Fletcher tells Andrew that he knows that he testified against him. Instead of a standard, he has the band play a song that Andrew could never have heard of. He does terribly. Humiliated, he leaves the stage. He returns, though. He takes the drums and leads the band into Caravan, completely ignoring Fletcher. Fletcher eventually picks up conducting again, then watches as Andrew breaks into a 10-minute virtuoso solo. This is his moment; he has broken free of the chrysalis. Fletcher nods in approval.

Was Fletcher being petty by inviting Andrew to drum? Was he just hoping to humiliate him? Or was he actually practicing what he’d preached and was still trying to form a virtuoso drummer by forging him in fire? It’s kind of great that the movie didn’t come down, one way of the other, on whether this kind of teaching style is to be completely disparaged because of the psychological terror, or whether it must be at least partially endured because it works.

I very much enjoyed this movie. The music is great.

The Punisher (2004) — 8/10

Frank Castle (Thomas Jane) is a deep-undercover agent/cop who’s just finished his last job. During that job, though, the son of crime lord Howard Saint (John Travolta) was killed. He wants revenge. He sends consiglieri Quentin Glass (Will Patton) and his son (James Carpinello) to take care of it.

Frank is finally out, and he and his wife (Samantha Mathis) and kid visit with his entire family, including his dad (or his father-in-law?) (Roy Scheider). He’s relaxing with his whole family on an island/beach when Saint’s men show up to kill them all, as ordered by Saint’s wife Livia (Laura Harring), who wants revenge for the death of her son. The wife and kid get away briefly but their truck is towing a boat, so they’re too slow. The gunmen catch up to them. Frank’s in pursuit on a motorcycle. Their truck crashes; the gunmen pursue inexorably. Wife and son are run down on the dock like dogs.

Frank finds the perpetrators, but there are too many of them. They beat the shit out of him, especially the gay-looking brother, who shoots him point-blank before the other henchmen set the whole dock on fire, blowing Frank out into the water. They didn’t even make sure he was dead. Then, magically, their truck is OK and they just drive off.

Frank survives, of course, spurting gouts of blood. They had mentioned before that he was a great swimmer, though, so that was a nice touch. He is rescued and brought back to health by a local recluse. He returns to the island, then to the city. He sets himself with a tremendous amount of firepower. He takes up residence next to Joan (Rebecca Romijn) and her weird-ass roommates.

Frank makes his first forays in the revenge business, throwing a ton of Saint’s money out of his building and then killing a bunch of henchmen. He drinks a lot. Like at lot a lot. He drinks to forget.

Harry Heck (Mark Collie) shows up at Joan’s diner, where he serenades Castle, then hunts him down. Castle gets the drop on him, but not before Heck destroys his car. Castle steals Harry’s car instead.

Castle’s neighbors fool him into bringing his incredibly buff self to dinner. Thomas Jane really put in the work—he looks like he went to Hugh Jackman’s personal trainer. Shortly after dinner, a killer in a comical red-and-white-striped sailor’s jersey shows up. He’s twice as big as Castle. He’s tuning him up in a completely CGI-free, slightly comic battle during which Castle eventually gets the better of him, but not without cost. Joan sews him up. She and Frank hide under the floor while the other two neighbors are interrogated by Saint’s henchmen. They tear all of Dave’s (Ben Foster) piercings out of his face, but neither he nor Bumpo (John Pinette) gave up anything.

Castle keeps working on setting up Glass, who’s sleeping with Saint’s wife. Maybe he can get them to kill each other. Saint kills Glass but that wasn’t why Glass was sneaking around: it was because he was gay. Now Howard Saint is ready to kill his own wife. He throws her off of a bridge onto some railroad tracks. He puts out a hit on Castle for $50K, which seems like an absolutely adorable sum.

Castle takes the battle to Saint, blowing up the whole floor he’s on, taking hits in his bulletproof vest and taking out the last few henchmen in hand-to-hand combat. Saint tries to leave the building. He realizes something is wrong, but can’t stop his henchman from opening the door. Boom. Somehow Saint is still alive and running from the building when Castle catches up to him. The standoff isn’t even tense; he just shoots him.

Before Saint dies, he tells him,

“I killed both your sons. I made you kill your friend. I made you kill your wife. Now I’ve killed you.”

He hooks him up to the back of a car, sets it running through a field of other cars, all rigged to explode. As they go off like the Blue Danube, Saint catches fire and dies screaming.

Back at his apartment, Castle decides against suicide and for punishment.

Ein Schatz zum Verlieben (Fool’s Gold) (2008) — 7/10

Finn (Matthew McConaughey) is diving with a partner Alfonz (Ewen Bremner) when his boat catches on fire and sinks right next to him. He’d borrowed a lot of money for the boat. The guy he’d borrowed it from Bigg Bunny (Kevin Hart) has his henchmen (Malcolm Jamal Warner and Brian Hooks) try to kill him, but he survives. He’s rescued and gets back to the island just in time for his divorce from Tess (Kate Hudson).

Finn had found a shard of a plate from a treasure. He tries to keep Tess from divorcing him but he’s too late. He tries to convince her to rejoin him on a treasure hunt instead of getting her degree. She works for Nigel Honeycutt (Donald Sutherland), who gives her life advice. His daughter Gemma (Alexis Dziena) arrives by helicopter. Gemma is a spoiled dipshit. Finn rescues her hat and manages to lever his way into the Honeycutt’s lives. He is injured, so he stays on the boat; Nigel invites him to stay. He sees on Gemma’s phone that she’d written to her friends, “2 hole weeks on a boat with my Dad! Kill me now!”

Finn and Tess begin to tell Nigel about the treasure that they want to find. They sail to the island to begin salvaging the wreck of some Van Gogh scion’s ship—the Aurelia. They find an old coworker and current rival Moe Fitch (Ray Winstone) already there, setting up his own salvage. Finn takes apart the wreck site, then gets blown out of the water, gripping a salvaged sword. Gemma is super-impressed.

That night, he sneaks out to meet up with Bigg Bunny. He fights his way through henchmen Cordell (Malcolm-Jamal Warner) and Curtis (Brian Hooks). Finn tries to get Bigg Bunny on board by offering 10%. However, Bigg Bunny is now in business with Cyrus (David Roberts), who drives a much harder bargain. He wants 100% of the treasure and Finn gets to walk away.

Finn gets back to the boat, where Tess confronts him about his debt and his lying. His face is smashed up pretty good. I have no idea how he put a scuba mask on it.

They find nothing. They’re drinking in a bar. It’s pouring out. The captain of the yacht comes to tell them that they are moving the ship to the north shore of the island because there’s nowhere else to put in. Finn knows in a flash that the boat isn’t where they’d been looking for it—it’s somewhere else. He and Tess dive there at night to find the Aurelia—two cannons!

They continue searching on the beach. Tess realizes that they should be searching in the oldest building on the island—the church. She’s right. She gets pretty excited and jumps Finn’s bones. In the church.

They start checking tombstones for the location of Aurelia’s grave. Finn’s digging under the tiny headstone that Tess tripped over, while Tess sits on the Vespa with the headlamp on.

They find something: a barrel. It’s full of household goods, interesting from an archeological standpoint but not worth much. The book, though…that’s worth something. It tells them how to get to the actual treasure. It’s in a sea cave that’s only rarely open.

Bigg Bunny and his henchmen show up but Finn and Tess fight back. Tess manages to disarm even Cyrus. They flee on the now-headlamp-less Vespa. Finn lands in the water. Tess is captured. She thinks he’s dead.

This is nearly exactly like Romancing the Stone. That is a good thing.

They throw her down the sea-cave hole to get the treasure. She masks up, finds the treasure, and seems able to hang on indefinitely without air. The sea comes in, blowing coins and her shoes out of the hole. She’s alive though. Bigg Bunny sends in more divers: Curtis and Cyrus. Curtis gets out with a treasure chest. Cyrus gets blown out of the hole, in pieces. Tess and Finn have his scuba equipment and start to investigate the treasure.

Moe and the yacht crew are on their way to take out Big Bunny. They get the drop on him. He gets the drop on them. He loses his treasure. He kidnaps Tess and starts to take off in his plane. Gemma shows up on a jet-ski, picks up Finn, and they head for the plane. Finn jumps on the pontoon just as they’re taking off. Bunny opens the door to shoot at him. Tess wakes up and kicks him out. Bunny shoots out the motor. Tess doesn’t know how to fly. Neither does Finn. Well, he knows from his Playstation. He doesn’t know how to land.

Curtis pops out of the water with treasure but he’s caught by Nigel and the others.

Finn gets the plane down, but somewhat sideways. They face-plant, the plane disappears quickly, but Tess, then Finn quickly appear.

So many reversals!

Fast-forward to an opening ceremony for the giant museum. Moe’s there. Everyone’s there. It’s a happy ending.

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015) — 8/10

I watched and reviewed this movie in 2016. I don’t have much to add except that Rebecca Ferguson is an absolute smoke show. I’m not sure what my favorite part was; when she helped Hunt escape from the prison? When she was sniping people at the opera? When she rescued Hunt from the underwater data center thingie, riding him like a manatee?

The stunts are great in this: the car chase and the motorcycle chase are both top-notch. Ethan Hunt lowsiding his bike with no leathers and no helmet—this is after he already got into a car accident where the car flipped bumper to bumper to bumper and ended up on its roof. I’m saying he wasn’t feeling great when he started riding the motorcycle and then he crashes again, at what looks like at least 70mph. No bruises, no cuts, no whiplash, no muscle soreness … nothing.

I watched it in German this time.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) — 4/10

I reviewed this in 2022. It is still a terrible movie, but I watched it in French with French subtitles for practice.

I’d forgotten how terrible the “backstory” about Peter Parker’s famous parents was. They were apparently jet-setting, sexy, famous, brilliant scientists. What a crock. The story is that Peter’s parents were just like Harry Potter’s: super-famous and amazing at what they did. They even left him a completely intact laboratory that is still 100% functional 12 years after their deaths. It’s in a subway train car. I think I find this annoying because everyone is rich now, with endless resources. The tension of Peter Parker is gone, which I lament.

Now, let’s get to Electro: why is he wearing boxer-briefs? I mean … couldn’t he just materialize himself into a neutered humanoid like Doctor Manhattan?

The best part about watching it in French is that they call him “speeder-man”.

Lost in Translation (2003) — 9/10

Bob Harris (Bill Murray) is in Tokyo to shoot a commercial for Suntory whiskey. He is being remunerated $2M for being there. He is melancholy, jet-lagged, and bored. Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) is staying in the same hotel. She is there with her photographer husband John (Giovanni Ribisi). The only other recurring characters are some Japanese functionaries from Suntory and Kelly (Anna Faris), an utterly vapid action-movie actress who’s also staying at the hotel and who knows John.

Bob and Charlotte cross paths in the hotel again and again and eventually meet. They meet a few more times, once at the hotel pool, exchanging somewhat flirty witticisms. Charlotte invites Bob out with her friends for a long night of karaoke and intimate conversation about their respective married lives.

When Bob gets home, he calls his wife but the conversation is awkward and fraught by distance and long familiarity. Bob heads to the jazz lounge and succumbs to the wiles of the singer. Charlotte visits him the next morning and hears the woman singing in his shower. She’s a bit chuffed,

“Charlotte: Well, she is closer to your age. You could talk about things you have in common, like growing up in the ‘50s. Maybe she liked the movies you were making in the ‘70s, when you still were making movies.”

They make up but Bob is leaving soon. They part ways at the hotel but in a weird perfunctory way. In the taxi, Bob sees Charlotte in the street. He stops and runs to her, wrapping her in a hug and whispering something in her ear. They part and he returns to the cab, smiling for the first time in a while.

This is a beautiful film. I was entranced. I’d seen it before and knew the beats and it didn’t matter. It looks wonderful. It sounds wonderful. It is well-acted. It tells you what you want to hear, you take from it what you want.

Bad Monkey S01 (2024) — 8/10

Andrew Yancy (Vince Vaughn) is an on-again/off-again detective whose partner Rogelio (John Ortiz) is long-suffering but dedicated. He eventually gets on the trail of the ruthless scam-artists and real-estate developers Nick Stripling (Rob Delaney), who has a conscience, and his wife Eve (Meredith Hagner), who most certainly does not. The series takes place in the Florida Keys and the Bahamas. In the Bahamas, we meet Neville Stafford (Ronald Peet), who works with Yancy to take down the striplings, who have basically stolen his land and his shack on the beach in order to build a resort.

Yancy starts the show with the sociopathic Bonnie (Michelle Monaghan) at his side but ends up with the utterly gorgeous and delightful Rosa (Natalie Martinez) for most of the show, losing her only in the final minutes in what I’m sure that show-runners consider to be a cliffhanger but which (A) no-one cares about anymore because we’ve all forgotten the degree of buy-in we had to the show and cast, weeks later, and (B) we know she’s going to be back in the next season (if there is one) because we know they’ve run the numbers and there’s no way that they don’t bring her back.

This is a detective story with a lot of back and forth and twists and turns that’s done quite well, taking time to build characters that we care about and in whom we’re interested. I gave it an extra star for the occasionally clever banter and Vaughn’s ease in delivering it.

The Last Castle (2001) — 8/10

General Irwin (Robert Redford) is a three-star general who gets a ten-year stretch in Col. Winter’s (James Gandolfini) prison. Gandolfini is running what amounts to a personal psychological experiment. He is teaching Capt. Perez (Steve Burton) the ways of manipulation. For example, they force a fight in the yard by giving the convicts in the yard only one basketball instead of two. It’s delightful.

Aguilar (Clifton Collins Jr.) is a stuttering sad-sack marine, who got six years for five seconds of violence. Irwin befriends him, much to Winter’s displeasure. Winter idolizes Irwin, though, in a perverse kind of way. As Irwin and Yates get chummy, Winter punishes him by making him stand in the rain all day and night, saluting, an act for which he was punished. Irwin stops the punishment and is beaten for it. Winter marches into the rain to explain to Irwin who the boss is. Irwin responds by correcting him about how punishments are to be executed. He touched a guard, though, so now he’s to be punished, too. Punishments all around!

Irwin starts stacking rocks as punishment. He drinks nothing. He’s allowed to take off his shirt, to cool off a bit in the heat and humidity. His doctor colleague is worried. He’s Cool-hand Luke, though. He’s not going to give up. “Some men just can’t be reached.” This film does have a bit of a Cool Hand Luke vibe to it but Paul Newman was way cooler.

Irwin manages to stack all of the rocks, despite being almost knocked over. Which, c’mon now, would have been punished by all of the other guys who had bet on him. Yates (Mark Ruffalo) is taking bets. Winter orders that the punishment continue. Put the rocks back where they were before. When the siren sounds, Irwin goes in solitary. Winter visits him there, to tell Irwin how evil Aguilar is, and to tell him that he’s doing this for the other men. Winter desperately needs Irwin to kowtow. Absolutely unsurprisingly, he does not.

When he’s out, Yates brings him his winnings—Aguilar had bet on him. Irwin tells Aguilar to distribute it amongst the men. So selfless. Or is he currying favor?

Irwin talks to the men building the wall, telling them that they’re not building Winter’s wall—they’re building their castle. Irwin puts Aguilar in charge (his father was a mason); the other men accept this decision. They throw down the original wall and start rebuilding it, correctly. It’s a free-standing wall in the middle of the prison yard, much higher than it was before.

Winter is having a fit. He orders a bulldozer into the yard, making them all watch. Aguilar runs to stand in front of the bulldozer. The siren sounds. They all hit the ground. Aguilar stands at attention. Winter orders him sniped in the noggin. Down he goes. Down goes the wall.

Irwin gathers the troops into formation. They sing the Marines’ Hymn[2] to honor Aguilar. They salute, but then pretend that they’re simply swiping their hair back, so that they can’t be punished for it. Winter visits Irwin in his cell. Irwin informs him that he doesn’t think that Winter is fit for command.

“Irwin: [Winter is trying to compromise with Irwin, while in his cell] No. Not OK. It’s too late, Colonel.
Winter: It’s too late for what?
Irwin: For your offer. The men don’t want to salute. They don’t want to use rank. They don’t want better food, they don’t want more TV. They just want your resignation. And so do I.
Winter: My resignation?
Irwin: You’re a disgrace, Colonel. A *disgrace* to the uniform! You should not be allowed to retain your command.
Winter: Well, then, I guess I’d better go pack.
Irwin: I think you should.
Winter: Tell me, Mr. Irwin, what’s to stop me from just placing you in the HOLE, for say six months?
Irwin: Nothing. If that’s the way you want to win.[3]”

General Wheeler (Delroy Lindo) visits the prison and speaks with Irwin. Winter gets a letter from Irwin that says that he is to surrender his command or Irwin “and his men” will take Wheeler captive. Winter gets Wheeler out of the meeting, then lets water cannons loose on the prisoners in the yard, but deciding against deploying tear gas. Wheeler tears Winter a new asshole, telling him that no more prisoners can die, or he loses his command. Gandolfini is fantastic, dead-eyed, licking his lips nervously.

He responds as expected, letting his troops loose on several prisoners, beating them severely, and blaming it on Irwin. At lunch, no-one sites with Irwin, at first. Then a whole bunch of the prisoners who’d been beaten sit down. They’re not defeated at all.

Out in the yard, Yates tells him that he can’t beat Winter at poker—Irwin tells him that he’s playing chess. And Winter is bad at chess; he always plays the same moves. Winter calls Yates up to his office to try to turn him into a spy. Irwin talks to him to turn him. Yates rats to Winter…but does he? He returns the next day to inform Winter that he’d already stolen Winter’s flag, when his back was turned the other day, during a disturbance. In the hole he goes.

Winter sends out the troops to toss bunks. He’s desperate. He’s flailing. He’s going too far. The prisoners are walking with more confidence. The guards can’t find the flag. But that wasn’t the point; all of the guards are inside—there aren’t enough to guard the prisoners outside. They lock the remaining guards inside. Guards are sniping from the towers (even though Winter promised that he wouldn’t kill any more prisoners. The prisoners release more of their compatriots. The sniping continues. The prisoners dig in the ruins of the wall for slingshots. They fire Molotovs into the towers. They pull out a catapult.

Winter sends out the “red and blue” special units. They start beating mercilessly on the men’s shields. The prisoners push back. They fire the catapult again. A large rock shoots through Winter’s window; a Molotov follows it. Winter’s collection of war paraphernalia is gone. The large rock was the one that Aguilar had signed.

The special units fall back but then return with water cannons. The prisoners sacrifice a few soldiers, but only to buy time until another one can turn off the water. The prisoners take over the water-cannon tanks.

Winter calls out the helicopter. Soldiers are firing on prisoners on the ground. The towers are burning. The helicopter circles. The men fire a grappling hook with the water to the helicopter. Yates starts to climb the chain to the helicopter. He knocks out the soldiers and takes control of the helicopter. He attacks the tower with the tail rotor, taking out the most evil of the guards and the last tower. The copter crashes into the courtyard. Irwin rescues Yates from the wreckage just before it explodes.

Wheeler is on the way; he’ll be there in ten minutes. The prisoners line up in formation. The prison is a smoking ruin. Winter enters the courtyard. He and Irwin face off. Snipers appear on all sides.

Winter orders everyone on the ground. Anyone who refuses will be shot.

No-one drops.

Irwin orders them to drop.

They drop.

Irwin doesn’t drop.

He walks to the flagpole. Winter gives the command to fire. No-one does. Weapons up. Winter is losing it, just cracking visibly. He’s alone. He pulls his weapon and fills Irwin with lead as he’s raising the flag. Captain Perez disarms Winter while Irwin keeps raising the flag. The doctor tries to save him but guards pull him away.

The flag is up, but not upside-down. The men salute. Irwin breathes his last.

I watched it in German. I learned the word Einfaltspinsel, which means “dipshit”..