HIGH RISK (1981)

Early 80's actioner about four Americans who think that it would be wise idea to fly down to South America and rob a drug lord (James Coburn) of 5 million dollars cash.  That makes absolutely no sense, but whatever, I'll watch it.  Who knows? Maybe it'll be exciting...it's not.  HIGH RISK is about on par with an episode of "The A-Team", except that it's 94 minutes long and lacks the chemistry of Hannibal and crew.

Within the first 25 minutes, our four have arrived in Columbia and successfully stolen the money, but now comes the hard part: getting back to their plane.  Not only do they have the drug goons after them but they also have to fight the harsh environment and a trigger happy group of rebels lead by Anthony Quinn.

Bland action scenes, silly story, mild pace...my biggest question is how they hell did the filmmakers get such an impressive cast for what turned out to be a pretty mediocre story?  If you're into these type of films then you might like it, but it just wasn't my bag.

If you need me I'll be in my room watching COMMANDO.

HOT SPELL (1958)

Wow!  What a powder keg this movie was!  I came by it completely by mistake and within the first two minutes I was hooked and I didn't turn away for the rest of the movie. Set during a sweltering New Orleans summer, housewife Shirley Booth is living in a delusional dream world.  Her husband, Anthony Quinn, still loves her as a person and a mother to their three children, but he's tired of her and goes off all the time boozing and sleeping with younger women.  Her children are another matter.  Both of the boys are old enough to move out on their own, but she still smothers them.  And her daughter, Shirley MacLaine, is in love with a shallow guy, but mother only worsens things by giving her well-intentioned advise that doesn't turn out too well.

If you're used to Shirley Booth as the spunky maid from "Hazel" you're gonna be shocked when you see her here cause she turns in a heartbreaking performance.  Her whole life since she was just a teenager she's dedicated to her husband and children, but now that they've outgrown her, she's lost.  She never developed a personality of her own.  Her family was her personality.

Lots and lots of screaming and arguing, blistering fast pace, excellent script with some brutal as fuck lines, award level acting by the entire cast, thought provoking story and an ending that actually caught me off guard.  Highly recommended.

CITY FOR CONQUEST (1940)

Hum.  Despite the fact CITY FOR CONQUEST came in TCM's "Greatest Gangster Films" DVD collection and the title implies that there's a conquest of a city going on, CITY FOR CONQUEST isn't a gangster film.  There are a few gangster's involved around the edges of the story, but the main story is about a simple man (James Cagney) who is in love with his childhood sweetheart (Ann Sheridan) and she with him.  Unfortunately, she has stars in her eyes and dreams of being a famous dancer with her name in lights.  Cagney has a knack for boxing but he doesn't want anything to do with it, but once it becomes apparent that the only way to make his girl happy is to make some dough he agrees to do some professional boxing.  At the same time, Ann is being lured into the clutches of dance floor stud Anthony Quinn.

There were a few moments that I really enjoyed CFC (the big fight, all the early tough guy scenes with Cagney), but for me the story was just too sappy and predictable.  There was a hobo/guardian angel character who did an intro, outro and a few commentaries in between that could have been completely left out since all he did was treat the audience like we were fucking idiots.  The whole thing about Cagney's sensitive friend (Arthur Kennedy) was forced and slowed down the story.  Also, the results of the big fight were so telegraphed that when it finally happened I had zero emotional feelings towards it.  Actually I kinda felt negative about Cagney since not only is Quinn making him look like a pussy by openly womanizing Sheridan, but now he's allowing the other boxing team to openly cheat and cause him great bodily harm!  Fuck that shit!

Good cast and a nice story idea that's severely hampered by a poor script.  According to Cagney's autobiography what they filmed was much better than the severely edited finished product.  Also, he was so disappointed in CITY FOR CONQUEST that he write a personal apology letter to the source material's author, Aben Kandel.

Not really worth watching.  Skip it.