Welcome to the Movie Rental Finds blog. Don't know what to rent? Want to pick a good movie for your house guests? We watch, rate, and recommend them.

Bound

Sunday, January 17th, 2010

Bound is a crime thriller writ­ten and directed by the Wachowski broth­ers, the same guys who wrote and directed The Matrix. This movie is no Matrix but it is a great movie nonethe­less. It’s a noir kind of film and every­one in it is dirty. I say that to express that there are no inno­cents here. Jen­nifer Tilly and Gina Ger­shon pro­vide mul­ti­ple scenes of girl on girl action and at first I thought that was all the movie was going to be. I might have been sat­is­fied with that too but then the movie turned into this mob movie com­plete with money laun­der­ing, hit­men, blood, and Joe Pan­to­liano shout­ing and wav­ing a gun. I had no idea how it was going to end.

The sex between Jen­nifer Tilly and Gina Gershon’s char­ac­ters was intense but not out­ra­geous. Both women played their part well and their sex­u­al­ity seemed to ooze from the screen and believe it or not, with­out the sex, the rest of the movie wouldn’t have worked. Once it started being all about the money, the film leapt into sus­pense mode and never let up until the movie was all but over. It’s easy to know who to root for but since every­one in this movie is a bad guy of some sort, you just don’t know for sure until it’s over. Joe Pan­to­liano was at his mani­a­cal best in this film, almost as if the role was made  for him. I enjoyed this movie from begin­ning to end and give it an enthu­si­as­tic 4.5 out of 5 marks.

17.01.2010 Crime, Drama, Thriller No Comments

The Rainmaker

Friday, January 8th, 2010

The Rain­maker is not a brand new movie but it’s not quite old enough to be a clas­sic. The orig­i­nal story is by John Grisham who has given us a great deal of nov­els about lawyers that have been the basis for quite a few good films. This one is no excep­tion. Another feather in the cap of this movie’s pede­gree is that the screen­play is writ­ten and the movie is directed by Fran­cis Ford Cop­pola. Add to all that a few great actors includ­ing Danny DeVito, Jon Voight, Claire Danes, Mickey Rourke, and a young Matt Damon play­ing the lead.

This film is by no means an action flick. It’s pretty straight for­ward. Matt Damon plays a young law stu­dent named Rudy Bay­lor. He is moti­vated by his love for the law and the pos­si­bil­ity of doing amaz­ing work as a lawyer. First he has to get out of law school, and find a way to earn a liv­ing. His path places him in a posi­tion to expe­ri­ence a lot of the ugly side of being a lawyer and into a series of legal bat­tles in which he is way over his head. This includes a major fight against an insur­ance com­pany armed with highly paid, expe­ri­ences lawyers led by Jon Voight’s character.

I would have like a but more action in the film. It’s also not as much a thriller as I would have liked but I did enjoy the movie. It made me care about cer­tain char­ac­ters of the film and I felt sat­is­fied when the movie was over. I give it a 3 and a half out of 5 marks.

08.01.2010 Crime, Drama, Thriller No Comments

Street Kings

Saturday, December 19th, 2009

StreetKingsStreet Kings is the story of a vet­eran cop played by Keanu Reeves. This rogue cop is def­i­nitely not a good guy but he thinks he is. The prob­lem is his meth­ods. He’s a bad ass and will lie, tor­ture, mur­der, plant evi­dence and do pretty much any­thing else he thinks is nec­es­sary to get the bad guys. He’s good at it too and his ambi­tious boss, played by For­rest Whit­taker, always has his back and is not above a cover-up to pro­tect his best guy. Keanu’s char­ac­ter always goes too far but this time he finds his own lim­its as gets caught up in some­thing big­ger and deeper than he expected.

Street Kings must have been the com­ing out party for a bunch of TV actors. You can’t go 15 min­utes in this movie with­out see­ing some star of a TV show. It also stars a cou­ple of well known rap­pers and even a come­dian though lit­tle about this movie is funny. This is a man’s movie. There’ plenty of gritty action and killing and very lit­tle romance. The roles of the two women in the movie are only there to sup­port the man. Like the title says, this is a street movie com­plete with drugs, thugs, and ram­pant crime. Keanu plays the action hero like a woken up Neo in the Matrix.

This was a sur­pris­ingly good movie. There are parts that reminded me a lot of Train­ing Day. I had to get over my issues with Keanu play­ing a bad ass cop but after that I was pleas­antly suprised. I didn’t go to see this in the the­ater because no one said any­thing good about it but I liked it. It had plenty of action and while the plot wasn’t entirely hard to see through, I had fun get­ting to the end. I give this a 4 out of 5 marks.

19.12.2009 Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller No Comments

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

Saturday, November 21st, 2009

Pelham123The Tak­ing of Pel­ham 123 sets Den­zel Wash­ing­ton as a MTA oper­a­tor against John Tra­volta as an urban ter­rior­ist using a train (Pel­ham 123) to get money. These two big named stars do what they’re known to do. They tell you where and what to focus on which is manily them­selves. Like a train, while there are many things tan­gen­tially hap­pen­ing on and around it, this films goes steadily for­ward towards its end. The women here (was there more than one?) are only impor­tant to the point that they affect one of the main actors. No one will win an Oscar for this remake. It’s not that kind of flick. You can see the plot twist from miles away like a bend in the track.

The truth is there is noth­ing orig­i­nal here. Even the parts that would make it a wor­thy thriller are some­what dulled. What’s left are two charis­matic actors you want to see that keep your eyes and ears fol­low­ing them until the movie’s end. Isn’t that what a movie should do? Even with Tony Scott direct­ing had there been two lesser actors in the roles of the main char­ac­ters, this movie might have had a chance to go straight to video. That’s not to say the movie is bad. On the con­trary, mis­takes and all, it’s worth rent­ing. It’s just not worth own­ing. Wash­ing­ton and Tra­volta put on a good show, just not an overly mem­o­rable one. I give this a 4 out of 5 marks.

21.11.2009 Crime, Thriller No Comments

Awake

Sunday, October 25th, 2009

AwakeI rented the movie Awake think­ing it would be some kind of hor­ror movie. The tagline talked about the fact that there are some peo­ple who actu­ally wake up dur­ing surgery. I didn’t look any deeper and accepted that there would be hor­ri­ble scene after hor­ri­ble scene of this guy being cut up while he endured this unimag­in­able pain. Hay­den Chris­tensen plays the lead. His char­ac­ter is a rich and suc­cess­ful young man who is in need of a heart trans­plant. His mother is extremely over­pro­tec­tive and doesn’t know he’s been see­ing a beau­ti­ful young woman, (Jes­sica Alba’s char­ac­ter), and is in love with her. By the end of the first 30 min­utes of the movie you know most of the play­ers and he is already head­ing into surgery. The head doc­tor is played by Ter­rance Howard. I thought the movie would be over quickly but a major plot twist turned it into a mys­tery crime thriller. You still get to see the main char­ac­ter suf­fer while the doc­tors are cut­ting into him. Now, how­ever, the real agenda of cer­tain char­ac­ters comes to light and events unfold that turned this into a rel­a­tively inter­est­ing movie. I liked it. The act­ing here isn’t any­thing to brag about but a good por­tion of the mys­tery caught me by sur­prise. I give this film 3 1/2 out of 5 marks. Rat­ing: ★★★½☆

25.10.2009 Crime, Thriller No Comments

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