CRISS CROSS (1949)

"I wish we'd never met."

Burt Lancaster and Yvonne De Carlo have been in a troubled on-again-off-again relationship for years. At one point they were even married!  The marriage only lasted for a few months though before they busted up and Burt hit the road (for over a year) in hopes of getting her out of his system.  It didn't work, cause now he's back and immediately looking for her.  Well, he finds her and quickly discovers that she's now the main squeeze of a local gangster (Dan Duryea), but that's not gonna slow him down though. Ohhh no, not this idiot.  He's head over heels for this chick, no matter how bad is gets.  He even goes so far as to agree to be the inside man on an armored car heist!!! Holy fook!

CRISS CROSS is a highly entertaining film packed into a tight 87 minutes and it has a lot of things going for it.  Most notably Burt Lancaster, director Robert Siodmak, a pre-"Munsters" Yvonne De Carlo, an uncredited appearance by a young Tony Curtis and nice photography by Franz Planer.

If you're into film noir, then I say check it out. I think you'll enjoy it.

TURISTAS (2006)

[This review is for the 96-minute "unrated" version.]

A small group of twenty-something tourists (who within 30 seconds of them being on the screen I wanted to beat them all to death in the worse possible way...that's right: while listening to a Will Smith album) are in Brazil for a fun-filled vacation of boozing and boozing. These motherfuckers are the most ready-to-party motherfuckers you will ever see. Immediately after their bus rolls off the side of a mountain, leaving them stranded...they go boozin' and swimming in the ocean instead of waiting on the replacement bus. Naturally, they are drugged and robbed by the locals, so now with nothing but the clothes on their back what do they do? Follow some random dude into the jungle so they can go party in the river! The party comes to an end though when their guide accidentally bashes his skull on an underwater rock. They carry the injured dude to a nearby house and act like they own the place: eating all the food, taking showers, stealing the clothes, drinking all the booze and raiding the medicine cabinet.  Anyway, it's Bad News Bears for them though because the house just happens to belong to a human organ harvester who, when he returns, is more than willing to let them repay the damages they did to his crib with their kidneys and livers.

TURISTAS might have a promising premise, but the execution is so lightweight that it's actually more of a dramatic thriller than a horror movie. There's nothing scary going on, just a bunch of annoying douchers being chased around by a non-scary dude and his boring helpers...and that's only during the final act of the movie! The first hour of the film is nonstop talking, walking, boozing, swimming and more talking.

I didn't hate the film. I just found the entire thing extremely pointless. Skip it with a vengeance and never look back. You will gain absolutely nothing by watching this by-the-numbers snoozer.  Go play Far Cry 3 instead.

NO MERCY (2010)

Baby buttfucking Jesus this movie needs an editor.  Clocking in at only 123 minutes, you'd think that'd be a perfectly reasonable runtime for a SEVEN / OLDBOY clone, but you'd be wrong.  Cause this sucker drags hard.

 

Kyung-gu Sol plays a medical examiner who is asked to join in the murder investigation of a young woman found dismembered on the shore of a local river. Kyung-gu Sol (like the viewer) thinks this is a routine murder investigation, but the murder is actually the first piece to a puzzle.  Things start out well enough (although the speed zoom accompanied by a loud whoosh sound during the opening scene was completely unneeded) with the autopsy, criminal investigation and introduction of the various detectives and police, but then the story starts spiraling out of control and before you can say "What the fuck is this guy doing now?!" Kyung-gu Sol is running around like a lunatic attacking people, chasing people, stealing a dudes sperm straight out of his balls, tampering with evidence, beating a disabled dude with his own crutch, cutting a dog with a scalpel, breaking into buildings, playing chicken with a police car, crying a lot, punching a mirror, getting a nail rammed in his back, crying even more, operating a fax machine incorrectly and openly admiring the nipples, navel and "perfectly shaped pubic hair" of a murder victim...oh wait, he did that before he lost his mind.

 

The basic story idea for NO MERCY is interesting, but they could have easily cut out 30 minutes of the movie.  And while they're at it, lose the annoying detective that yells all of his lines.  I hated that dude.  I understand his character was suppose to be annoying (I think?), but he genuinely was annoying and added nothing to the investigation (or movie).

 

Worth watching if you're a fan of murder investigation thrillers, but don't set your hopes up too high.

 

[As an experiment, I rewatched part of the film on 2x speed and it was definitely better, but then again, I already knew the story.]