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The Truth About Charlie, a review by Rich

Truth About Charlie



Jonathan Demme's THE TRUTH ABOUT CHARLIE is a swirling romantic suspense thriller, a remake of the 1963 Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn vehicle, CHARADE. Set in Paris, the film stars Thandie Newton as a British ex-pat whose art dealer husband is murdered while she's on vacation. Arriving home, she is met with an empty apartment, the French police, and an array of mysterious thugs who believe she knows where her husband stashed six million stolen dollars. Mark Wahlberg plays the handsome, beret-sporting stranger who comes to her rescue, but who may not be what he seems. Special mention goes to Tim Robbins as a shadowy American agent, and Christine Boisson as the cool-as-nails police commandant trying to get to the bottom of the matter.

Truly awful remake of Charade, Cary Grant and Hepburn would be spinning in their graves. The whole cast lacks chemistry despite some big star names, the writing is dreadful with a tired old plot full of holes, and every storyline and character twist can be spotted a mile off.
A dog of a film that should be filed under 'Trash'
 

(From Riches Random Reviews on April 23rd, 2009)

Kiss of the dragon, a review by Rich

23/11

Kiss of the dragon



The writers of THE FIFTH ELEMENT, Luc Besson (who also directed the Bruce Willis film) and Robert Mark Kamen, have teamed up again to deliver Jet Li in the action thriller KISS OF THE DRAGON. Li stars as Liu Jiuan, a Chinese agent so dedicated to his job that he has no friends, no family, no dreams. He is sent to Paris to help the French police capture a Chinese gangster, but France's top cop, Jeanne-Pierre Richard (Tcheky Karyo), has set Liu up to take the fall for a brutal killing he himself carried out. On the run in a strange city, Liu keeps a low profile until he unwillingly becomes friends with an American hooker, Jessica (Bridget Fonda)--who just happens to hold the key to his innocence. But Richard is always one step ahead of them--he has Jessica's daughter. Li and Fonda make a great team; their relationship is at the core of the film, as neither character has ever been able to put his complete trust in another person before. The action scenes, directed by Corey Yuen, are fast and furious and very violent, featuring mesmerizing moves by Li, especially one involving a billiard ball. Chris Nahon, in his directorial debut, makes excellent use of the location, including numerous shots of famous Parisian landmarks as the bad cops try to machine-gun down Liu in the streets and sewers and on the Seine.

Definately not Jet Li's greatest movie.
As opposed to the last film I reviewed I had high expectations, and although in essence I quite enjoyed the flick, the high praise I'd heard and read about Kiss of the Dragon set it up for a fall.
The Action, although atrractively relentless, is artificially sped up, occasionally to the point of being distracting, all the main characters are fairly uninspired and the dialogue was entirely functional, humorless and shallow.
Ill stick with Hero or Romeo Must Die in preference, but it justly deserves a 


(From November Alphabet Marathon - Discussion/Review Thread on November 23rd, 2008)

Tom's TV Pilots marathon, a review by Tom

Star Trek: Voyager: Season One (1995/United States) IMDb | Wikipedia Paramount Home Entertainment (Germany) Length: 802 min. Video: Full Frame 1.33:1 Audio: German: Dolby Digital 5.1, English: Dolby Digital 5.1, Italian: Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround, French: Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround, Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround Subtitles: Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish

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Star Trek: Voyager
1.01 Caretaker
Writer: Michael Piller (Screenwriter), Jeri Taylor (Screenwriter), Rick Berman (Original Material By), Michael Piller (Original Material By), Jeri Taylor (Original Material By)
Director: Winrich Kolbe
Cast: Kate Mulgrew (Captain Kathryn Janeway), Robert Beltran (Chakotay), Roxann Biggs-Dawson (B'Elanna Torres), Jennifer Lien (Kes), Robert Duncan McNeill (Tom Paris), Ethan Phillips (Neelix), Robert Picardo (The Doctor), Tim Russ (Tuvok), Garrett Wang (Harry Kim), Basil Langton (The Caretaker), Gavan O'Herlihy (Maje Jabin), Angela Paton (Aunt Adah), Armin Shimerman (Quark), Alicia Coppola (Lieutenant Stadi), Bruce French (Ocampa Doctor), Jennifer Parsons (Ocampa Nurse), David Selburg (Toscar), Jeff McCarthy (Human Doctor), Stan Ivar (Mark), Scott MacDonald (Rollins), Josh Clark (Carey), Richard Poe (Gul Evek), Keely Sims (Farmer's Daughter), Eric David Johnson (Daggin), Majel Barrett (Computer Voice (voice))

The first two seasons of Voyagers suffered a lot by poor writing and bad villains. But it picked up for me in season 3 and 4. But this may be because I became a fan of the Paris/Torres relationship (as you may know when you followed my Random Star Trek Episode Review thread). I was only mildly interested in the series during the fifth and sixth season though. My interest picked up again in season seven. A friend at the university was a Voyager fan and we started to watch the new episodes together.
The pilot is okay. The quality is about the same as for other early episodes. Too bad the beautiful original pilot had to die. I would have been interested to see her as a regular. Even though she would have replaced Tom Paris. But I wouldn't have minded if she instead of Paris started a relationship with B'Elanna

Rating:

(From Tom's TV Pilots marathon on July 25th, 2012)