Cheapo DVD Review: Brothers In Arms (2005)

The second of 12 DVD reviews I'm doing, as I work through the pile of DVDs I picked up on Friday.  

  Outlaw brothers Linc and Zane Malone put the gang back together for one final bank job: stealing a cool half-million dollars in railroad payroll. As added incentive, the bank at Driscollville is owned by man who had the Malone family farm burned and their kin murdered.

 Gathering their team - a beautiful bandit in the least convincing 1880s outfit ever, a lethal ex-preacher who gave up on 9 of the 10 Commandments, a suave gambler in a nice hat,  and a couple of other guys who don't matter because they're obvious cannon-fodder - the Malones quickly discover that this is one job that not everybody comes back from.

 I don't know why I bought this DVD.   As soon as I got it home I remembered that MoviesForMen show "Brothers in Arms" at least twice a week. For free. 

Whatever. I bought it anyway. I watched it . Here's what I thought. 

 In most respects, Brothers In Arms is a standard modern B-Movie Western. Evil town boss, bad guys trying to get out of the racket, bullets that do more damage to minor characters, a bit of bonding around the campfire.. all the usual stuff really. 

 The most obvious way "Brothers..." differs from the pack is that the good guys aren't your regular WASPs.   Having African Americans as the lead in a western has been done before but it is still unusual, hence the slightly  laboured title and some anachronistic hip-hop on the soundtrack. There's also some flashy,MTV style editing early on which adds nothing. 

  David Carradine was clearly having fun as the sneering, amoral Driscoll but manages to keep it on the right side of panto, while the other cast members mostly do a decent job. There's a conscious effort to make the Malones and their crew into characters the audience can root for, or at least understand.   How well the film manages to achieve this is debatable.  YMMV.

  There's a decent allowance of western gunfight action. Nothing especially cool but it's done competently, except for the climax which is a bit silly.  And interestingly the closest we get to a romantic subplot is very, very minor indeed and could be construed as a bit tacked-on. It makes the character involved a bit more human so I can forgive that.

 On the whole, "Brothers In Arms" is a decent stab at a B-movie with an unusual angle. I found myself getting into it more as the film went on, only to be let down by a finish that was overcooked and overseasoned. 

How much did I pay for it?  £1.50

Was it worth it? Yes. I  thought "Brothers In Arms" was sufficiently watchable to pass my time. You may disagree. 

 Next time it;'s on MoviesForMen, give it a try and see what you think. By my reckoning, it should be on again in a day or so.  

Cheapo DVD Review: Haywire (2011)

  On paydays I like to treat myself to certain things. One of them is a takeaway for my tea. The other is a fistful of DVDs from CEX.
 Personally I'd rather get 10 DVDs for a tenner than 1 DVD for a tenner.  It means I get 10 nights of entertainment rather than one, although whether I get an evening of good entertainment is another question entirely.

 This month I picked up 12 DVDs for £13 and I've decided that I will review each and every single one.

Hello Mr Rod. Meet Mr Own Back. You two will be seeing a lot of each other.

First up is...

 A backroads diner suddenly erupts into violence as the couple in the corner start trying to kill each other. One leaves the other in a groaning heap and makes her getaway by commandeering a car - and the driver too.
  As they drive away she starts telling her bewildered travelling companion a story. Her name is Mallory Kane, she's a Private Contractor that does certain things for the US Government and it all started with a job in Barcelona...

 If you look at the DVD cover you will recognise some quite big names. With the exception of Ewan Mcgregor and whatever accent he was trying to do, most aren't in for for that long. Meanwhile actual star Gina Carano appears to have been added to the cover as an afterthought.

  I will start by saying that Gina Carano does make a convincing action heroine and she's not bad in the bits requiring actual acting either. Maybe a bit "one-note" which makes it hard to warm up to her, but most action stars seem to suffer from that to some degree.

 I struggled to "warm up to" this film in general. Part of that is the structure - for the first chunk, the tale bounces between past and present as Mallory explains it all. For me, that made it a bit hard to keep track of events and I definitely struggled to follow why our heroine was doing certain things at certain times.
  Maybe the director was expecting his viewers to be smart enough to keep up, in which case he definitely gave me more credit than I deserve.

When it comes right down to it "Haywire" turned into the sort of movie where I wasn't exactly bored but wasn't exactly feeling it either.  There's nothing I can point my finger at and say "I didn't like that." but nothing where I can say " I liked this."

 The acting is the quality you'd expect from that cast , the fights and chases aren't bad, the story is making a decent stab at it. In the end the result result can only be described as "OK but..."

 How much did I pay for this: £1
Was it worth it? Maybe. It kept me occupied for long enough to eat my pizza but I can't exactly deliver a glowing recommendation. It's an OK thriller but there's plenty of films about that are  "OK"

 If you want to see Gina Carano in a thriller, get In The Blood instead. It doesn't have the name power but I enjoyed that film a lot more.