YOUNG THUGS: NOSTALGIA (1998)

Hey, what a better way to try and forget that boring original YOUNG THUGS film than by watching  a prequel telling an even equally boring story of the main young thugs as even younger thugs.  Once again Riichi is the main character and it's pretty easy to see why he's all fucked up.  Example: when he gets in a fight at school his teacher takes him home to talk to his parents.  After a few minutes of his grandpa flirting with the pretty teacher the father comes in and starts wrecking the joint, even kicking the teacher in the head, eventually the grandpa subdues Riichi's father and as a punishment for fighting sodomizes him with a broomstick in front of everybody!!!  What the fuck is going on here?!

The filmmaking style is in that Miike-style that I like so much, but man that story is fucking murder!  It goes nowhere.  When the film opens all of the kids are little shits with worthless families.  When it ends the kids are even shittier and the families even more worthless.  I wanted to like it, but I couldn't get into it at all.  Skip the hell out of this slow clunker.

Part 1 - Young Thugs: Innocent Blood (1997)

YOUNG THUGS: INNOCENT BLOOD (1997)

Four friends, three guys and a girl, graduate high school and based on their antics at the beginning of the film I don't know how they even accomplished that without going to prison!  Throwing furniture out of third story windows onto a teacher, shooting some guy with a spear gun then dragging him behind a motorcycle, assaulting Takashi Miike with a stick, cracking a guy's skull with a chunk of concrete, attacking a bunch of cops with a metal pole...oh, hahahaha what innocent fun!  Anyway, so these young thugs get out of school and carry on their cavalier lifestyle by being paid muscle to the highest bidder.  The chick continues working at a hair salon.

The remainder of the film is just a series of boring fights, arguments, branding, cheesy music, pants shitting, drunken hijinks, relationship dramas and some guy getting struck by lightning.  I love Miike, but I wasn't feelin' this one.  None of the main characters were likeable in the least, so I didn't care what happened to any of them.  Nice photography, too bad the story was so lame.  Skip it and never look back.

Part 2 (prequel) - Young Thugs: Nostalgia (1998)

THE DEAD POOL (1988)

Harry's up to the same old, same old again: getting shot at nonstop, killing people, wrecking cars left and right, going to a funeral attended by Axl Rose and ol' girl from THE VIDEO DEAD, getting chased by a RC car carrying a bomb, getting yet another new partner, visiting his new partner in the hospital, shooting people with a harpoon...you know, the regular.  Unfortunately though by the fifth time around Harry's regular is getting pretty stale.  Once again there's a new serial killer in town and once again Harry finds him and kicks his ass...to death.  Along the way he has some minor adventures including romancing a local TV reporter (Patricia Clarkson), verbally sparing with a cranky horror movie director (Liam Neeson) and investigating the drug overdose of a painfully horrible rock star (Jim Carrey) who tortures us with a cheesy lip-synced version of "Welcome to the Jungle" complete with a knockoff Regan (from THE EXORCIST) mannequin.

It's kinda fitting that this fifth and final Dirty Harry movie opened up against the original DIE HARD.  Out with the old and in with the new I guess you could say.  The RC car chase scenes was unbelievable as hell, but still the highlight of an otherwise by-the-numbers movie.  THE DEAD POOL isn't a bad movie, just average.  It would have been nice to see Harry Callahan put out to pasture in something better than this.

Part 1 - Dirty Harry (1971)
Part 2 - Magnum Force (1973)
Part 3 - The Enforcer (1976)
Part 4 - Sudden Impact (1983)

A guy dressed up like Kurt Russell from THE THING wearing a TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE 2 shirt.