The Pelican Brief (1993)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1993
	Director: Alan J. Pakula (All the President's Men)
	Actors: Julia Roberts (Pretty Woman), Denzel Washington (The Book of Eli, Deja Vu), Sam Shepard
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 26.05.2020, VOD, 14" computer screen.
Synopsis: When law student Darby Shaw (Roberts) theorizes about the assassinations of two Supreme Court Justices, she is put in danger and turns to a reporter (Washington) for help.
Review: The four years between 1993 and 1996 delivered the four most-known adaptation to novels by John Grisham, very trendy at that time: The Firm, A Time to Kill, The Client and The Pelican Brief. No wonder that I was expecting more time spent in court in this movie and got none. I had forgotten many details of the 2h30 story but enjoyed very much watching it again. In particular, I had forgotten that it was a conspiracy movie going as high as the President himself. It is refreshing to watch a movie shot almost 40 years ago, once you pass the shock of seeing wired phones and people researching for hours for something we now find in two clicks. Indeed compared to more recent movies, this one takes its time to properly introduce the characters one at a time, and leaves its actors room to show their talent. Sometimes it feels like Julia Roberts is over-acting but in fact no, she just plays very well someone legitimately traumatized by the loss of a loved one. And the same goes for all the other actors, many of them A-list. The choice of the director, responsible for All the President's Men, is a bit obvious but I find pretty good more for his innate talent and long experience than for his previous success in that precise sub-genre. And such experience was needed to depict a pretty complex story. In a more recent movie you would have some simplifications and flashbacks to keep the modern distracted audience in the game. I am having a hard time finding reasons not to give this movie a higher rating; maybe it is sometimes too slow and theatrical (in the appearances of the hired killer). The fact that I like it very much after all those years speaks for itself. Easy to watch but not in a bad sense, this is probably one of my favorite movies from the 90's, a Cinema decade which excelled at Thrillers, if at nothing else.
Rating: 8 /10

Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1987
	Director: J. Lee Thompson (The Guns of Navarone, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes)
	Actors: Charles Bronson (The Magnificent 7, Death Wish 1-5), Kay Lenz, John P. Ryan
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller, Action, Polar
	Conditions of visioning: 02.06.2020, Full HD, 14" computer screen.
Synopsis: Paul Kersey (Bronson), ex-Vigilante, now has his own Architect studio in Los Angeles and a new love interest. When her daughter overdoses, Kersey's instincts come back to the surface.
Review: After the best movie of the series Death Wish and the most memorable Death Wish 3, the prospect of watching this one made me feel like they were stretching the concept a bit too long. but when you watch it to the end, it is in fact a valid addition to the franchise, if there is such thing. Exit the punks stealing and murdering for kicks, Kersey now goes against organized crime. The story justifies quite well his return to the streets, and the coincidence that plagues the beginning of the movie like the previous two is cleverly put back into context at the end. The way he returns to the streets is however different, as he has at his disposal a full arsenal of gadgets that he uses to decimate the two rival gangs. This often feels too much, culminating with the explosive bottle of wine, one reducing in particular to ashes the future star debuting in that movie: Danny "Machete" Trejo. As usual we follow in parallel the Police investigation, one of the better shown and including a nice twist. The whole story is in fact well written with the right balance of Action and twists and suspense... and it is well shot by a renowned director. Among the more annoying things are the big ellipse in the side story with Kersey's girl, and the Acting in general but what did you expect? I totally forgot it but I think I have seen this movie once because I was half-expecting the third act. Or I have seen the same story structure in another movie: (spoiler, highlight to read) the hero is tricked into eliminating two rival gangs by a third. Anyway, much better than I was expecting.
Rating: 6 /10

Death Wish 3 (1985)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1985
	Director: Michael Winner (Death Wish 1-2, Scorpio)
	Actors: Charles Bronson (The Magnificent 7), Deborah Raffin, Ed Lauter
	Country: USA, CDN
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 27.05.2020, Full HD, 14" computer screen
Synopsis: Paul Kersey (Bronson) is back to New York after losing his wife here and his daughter in Los Angeles. While visiting an old friend, he quickly dives back into the world of street punks and night Vigilantes...
Review: This movie is the whole reason why I watched the 2018 Death Wish with Bruce Willis and went on to watch the whole original series. It may be the reason for other things in my life as well, since I remember vividly seeing it several times on TV when I was young, far younger than I should have been to ingest concepts like rape, revenge, torture, bad cops, violence, etc as they are shown in 80's Action movies, especially in this one. It may indeed explain my later taste for Action and Horror films... Taken alone, Death Wish 3 is all I remembered. Straight to the point, Kersey is cleaning up the streets with the benediction of the Police, in a succession of brutal yet orchestrated executions, until the whole block burns and he gets a full revenge in a very satisfying ending. Watching it after Death Wish and Death Wish 2 makes you notice some details, and appreciate better the character's background, his mental state and his reactions. But it also makes the series repetitive, albeit for the new generation of ultra-caricatured punks, straight out of Mad Max 2. The murder at the beginning, this movie's motivation for the massacre, is too much of a coincidence, and the death of (spoiler, highlight to read) his love interest close to the end is quite useless. Just to introduce a female character in this very male movie. And in all honesty the actors are not very good and are really showing off, including Bronson. Still, I jiggled at several moments which I had forgotten but which are classics like the arrival of Kersey's friend Wildey or the final team-up with the cop. Objectively a purely exploitation not so good movie, but for me one of my first strong cinema memories, a movie I will never forget.
Rating: 6 /10

Scorpio (1973)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1973
	Director: Michael Winner (Death Wish 1-3)
	Actors: Burt Lancaster (Airport, The Island of Dr. Moreau), Alain Delon (3 hommes à abattre, Pour la peau d'un flic), Paul Scofield
	Country: USA
	Genre: Polar
	Conditions of visioning: 24.05.2020, Full HD, 14" computer screen.
Synopsis: Back from a mission in Paris, CIA operative Cross (Lancaster) and his partner Scorpio (Delon) are trailed, but don't want to report to the Agency.
Review: I am currently in the mood for 70's movies after watching Death Wish with Charles Bronson. The same director led me to this Scorpio which I thought I had heard about. Its peculiarity is that it stars two monsters of Cinema at the time, like there were in that period: Burt Lancaster in the USA and Alain Delon in France and a bit abroad. It is interesting that like their characters, one is at the end of his career while the other is about to reach the top. This cast doesn't lead to a fight of egos like I was expecting, although they do get all the screen time. The story is one like we don't see nowadays, one taking place during the Cold War and when the memory of WWII was still warm. And the depiction of spies from that time was not the same as we see now in any Mission: Impossible. In this movie the CIA seems all-powerful, while leaving a lot of freedom to mini-leaders in the Organization to fight their own wars, like is the case with this McLeod who wants the main characters dead. The motivation of everybody is a bit obscure, making the movie hard to follow (also because of many names not well introduced). The movie is ambitious, taking place in as many locations as Paris, Washington and Vienna. And it tries to make the characters relatable. It is good-looking in general, but in the end I found it too confused to me. Scorpio leaves many things unexplained to strengthen the Mystery, but this left me uninterested.
Rating: 4 /10

Death Wish 2 (1982)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1982
	Director: Michael Winner (Scorpio, Death Wish 1-3)
	Actors: Charles Bronson (The Magnificent 7), Jill Ireland (The Mechanic), Vincent Gardenia
	Country: USA, CDN
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 21.05.2020, Full HD, 14" computer screen
Synopsis: After his Vigilante actions in New York, Paul Kersey (Bronson) now lives in Los Angeles. Fate follows him when his house is attacked again and his daughter kidnapped.
Review: After the pleasant surprise of the first Death Wish movie, I waited a few days to watch this sequel because the first one made a strong impression on me and I feared that watching too many revenge/vigilante movies in a row would feel repetitive. Fortunately this didn't happen and I didn't have any nightmares after this one. Unfortunately, it is because the movie is pretty bad. It was released 8 years after the first one, comes from the same director but has all the characteristics of a sequel produced too late (see my discussion about that in the post about Bad Boys for Life) by a team not inspired. It is not as dark, it was lazily shot in L.A. close to Hollywood, the bad guys are not threatening but almost laughable (special mention to Laurence "Morpheus from The Matrix" Fishburne who is not so bad for one), the cinematography looks like the one of a tele-film (I had to look up to make sure it was not shot in a less wide format than the first), the music is too present and most of the time misplaced, the story totally predictable and boring and the characters as well. It gets slightly better in the second half with a more obsessed Paul Kersey behaving like I didn't expect. As I wrote, the soundtrack (by Jimmy Page, who did this one song with Puff Daddy for the 1998 Godzilla) is bad except for one theme (when Kersey is hunting) which I seem to know, likely not from the first movie but from the third. This is a bad action movie from the 80's playing on the success of the first and its main Actor. I predict that it will get better with the third movie which is the only one I knew, before it gets worse, or at least bad again.
Rating: 3 /10

Death Wish (1974)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1974
	Director: Michael Winner (Scorpio, Death Wish 2-3)
	Actors: Charles Bronson (The Magnificent 7), Hope Lange, Vincent Gardenia
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 17.05.2020, Full HD, 14" computer screen
Synopsis: New York City architect Paul Kersey (Bronson) sees his life changing when his home is attacked in his absence. Facing the inefficiency of the Justice system, he will start to take it in his own hands.
Review: I had to watch this classic movie right after discovering the 2018 remake with Bruce Willis. It shocks me that movies from the 70's, probably my favorite decade for Cinema, are now between 40 and 50 years old... like me. When I first saw them they were half that age, and me too. I thought I knew this movie but I learned that there are five in the series and I probably only know the third (from 1986), when he cleans up a whole city from gangs Robocop-style. This Death Wish, adapted from a best-seller novel by Brian Garfield, is much less extravagant but already sets the bases of the series of vigilante movies, in its story and themes but also style: many urban night scenes, rampant unpunished crime, background newscasts, almost post-apocalyptic settings... But it also has many deviations from what one would expect, like for example the trip to Tucson, the relationship with his son-in-law (who calls him Dad, that sounded strange to me), and the choices of his victims. Indeed in this movie he teases random people with his wallet or groceries, to simply execute them when they ask for it. Those are not even gang members or the worst criminals, but some guys who got tempted by easy money. This leaves a strange taste at the end of the movie, and put a different weight in the debate for or against his Vigilante Justice. Also the original crime happens so fast and is so gratuitous, and (spoiler, highlight to read) we never see the offenders again (including a young Jeff Goldblum) that it leaves you insecure at the end of the movie. I do not know if people felt that bad about safety in their cities in the 70's, but such movie doesn't paint a pretty picture of it. I found the acting to be not so good, Bronson plays a bit flat as the others, and the character's reactions are sometimes strange. But it may be normal for a movie from that period. The images however are stunning, from the first shot to the last. Be it beach, urban, interior or countryside, the sets are all beautifully detailed and the framing delicious. I really love that in the 70's and was delighted to see the movie in Full HD and uncompressed, not the soup that Netflix passed for HD. Definitely not a masterpiece, but Death Wish takes a stand that movies don't anymore nowadays, especially not his remake, and that leaves the audience with a strange feeling at the end, something that lingers for some hours. I like when movies do that and they are now all too rare. I am also looking forward to seeing more movies by Michael Winner like Scorpio.
Rating: 7 /10

Death Wish (2018)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2018
	Director: Eli Roth (The Green Inferno, Aftershock)
	Actors: Bruce Willis (Die Hard 1-5, The 6th Sense), Vincent D'Onofrio (Full Metal Jacket, Men in Black, Jurassic World, Daredevil TV-series), Elisabeth Shue (Back to the Future, Hollow Man), Dean Norris (Starship Troopers, Breaking Bad TV series)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 16.05.2020, VOD, 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: Paul Kersey (Willis), renowned trauma surgeon, sees his life changing when his home is attacked in his absence and his wife and daughter are brought to his hospital. Facing the inefficiency of the Justice system, he will start to take it in his own hands.
Review: This movie was released totally unbeknown to me, although I like the genre and know the director, main actors and movie of which it is a remake. I found it on Netflix and was soon curious about it. But let me step back a little. This is the remake of the 1974 Death Wish with Charles Bronson, itself adapted from a novel with the same title by Brian Garfield. I thought I knew the original movie, but in fact it has four sequels and I think the only one I saw when I was (too) young is Death Wish 3. A kind of sequel to the original novel was released and adapted in 2007 into Death Sentence with Kevin Bacon. So I had never seen the original when I watched the remake, but I did soon after and continued with the rest of the series spanning 20 years of releases. I am writing this review after seeing the original so that I can compare them. I know the director Eli Roth from his connection with Quentin Tarantino (he acts in Inglorious Basterds for example), but usually find his movies looking too gore and cheap (see The Green Inferno or Aftershock). With Death Wish he managed to make something more mainstream and worthy of Bruce Willis. He did insert some torture scenes that made me flinch but it was reasonable. Bruce Willis and Dean Norris are fine to watch, but Vincent D'Onofrio is something else as I have written before, and I saw sparkles when watching the scenes he has with Willis who I may not find so charismatic anymore but with an experience hard to match (see our article on the most prolific actors on JoRafCinema). It is remarkable that I find things better done than in the original while others not so, but it is not a total betrayal of the original material like remakes often are, it looks more like a heart-felt homage. The story is transported to our times and its cell phones and cameras everywhere but that's fine, it even makes fun of it when the cop asks for a witness not to post a video and she laughs saying she did hours ago and gets ton of clicks. The music is a bit too present. While I love the cinematography from the original movie, the one in the remake is totally forgettable. I can tell of 10 scenes in the original that I enjoyed watching for their framing, none in this one. The genre is changed from a Vigilante movie to a (Rape and) Revenge one which makes its message totally different. In this movie (spoiler, highlight to read) he hunts and kills all the responsible for his drama while in the original we never see them again which leaves us scared at the end. And this message is carried by a man with a different profession, the new one allowing him different actions which I find unnecessary. The difference in the injuries suffered by Kersey's family also changes the weight of the ending, making it more "happy" to conform to nowadays' taste. I prefer the look of the original, but I can't deny that it has some flaws in the story and character's logic, while this one is better put together and the ending makes more sense. In particular the last interaction with the police is for me much better written. Not bad for a modest remake.
Rating: 6 /10

Stranger Things - Season 3 (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Creators: Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer
	Actors: Winona Ryder (Alien Resurrection, Star Trek), David Harbour (Black Widow), Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown (Godzilla: King of the Monsters)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller, SF, Horror
	Conditions of visioning: April 2020, VOD, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: At the end of the summer holidays, the group of friends from Hawkins is learning to grow up when Joyce (Ryder) finds some strange things with magnets, Will feels the return of Mind Flayer and Dustin detects a radio message in Russian.
Review: After a first and second seasons that played with our 80's nostalgia, it was hard to imagine the creators of this successful series would find ideas for a third. It seems a bit exaggerated that supernatural events occur once again to the same people in the same small town and nobody else does anything about them, but as they are ripples of the first seasons it is somehow justified. What feels a bit more odd is that it is again the mission of our beloved characters to investigate the mysteries. Indeed they are all back, growing up quickly as teenagers do, and thus now having new preoccupations. To that respect the series does relatively well showing how the boys are slowly more interested in girls than in playing games, even though I hated watching the teen romance bits. The best thing in this season is that as the characters grow up, the inspiration for story-telling and film-making too, from E.T. and The Goonies to more adult movies (that the kids watch in secret) like The Thing, Evil Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Halloween II or Red Dawn which they even quote. The first seasons were scary, this one is Horrific. The series is still pretty generous, playing full-screen scenes from Back to the Future, playing the soundtrack from The Neverending Story, and showing lots of well-done gory CGI monsters. And David Harbour and Winona Ryder support all the scenes they are in. On the down side, as I mentioned I didn't like the romance scenes, was super-annoyed by the flickering neon lights in the hospital (this might be the worst use of that effect I have ever seen, it doesn't make any sense) and disappointed by the under-use of Jake Busey (Starship Troopers). I was fearing a much worse season when I saw titles of YouTube reviews like "Too much of a good thing" so I was pleasantly surprised. Still, it starts to be repetitive. I hope that season 4 in production will take use somewhere else, as promised by the season's ending.
Rating: 6 /10

Mortal Kombat (1995)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1995
	Director: Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil, Death Race, Pompeii)
	Actors: Christopher Lambert (Greystoke, Fortress), Robin Shou, Linden Ashby
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, Fantasy
	Conditions of visioning: 08.04.2020, VOD, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: Three unknowing martial artists are summoned to a mysterious island to compete in a tournament whose outcome will decide the fate of the world.
Review: Watching this movie at the time when the video game was a hit and the special effects recent was something, watching it now is very different. Fortunately I manage to keep the time period in mind when I watch this kind of movies. One interesting side of it is that you get to see the story of your favorite video game characters developed... well again, that works only if you are 17 years old and in 1995. I managed to remember some of them and could get a few winks in the movie, like the fatalities for which the original game was most famous. The rest of the story is vastly extrapolated from the game, in particular the characters are not all equal to fight one-on-one, but some are powerful Gods (like Raiden played by Christopher Lambert) while others are simple mortals. I managed to take enough distance to accept the loose story (until the predictable but unrealistic ending) and wait for the fight scenes which are in fact not the best part of the movie. The martial arts background, colorful characters and dated special effects are. Indeed, two years after the Jurassic Park revolution, Mortal Kombat was ambitious with a combination of optical, practical and digital effects. The whole mix was for me fun to watch. I was impressed in particular by the giant Goro which I thought would be limited to a few scenes to hide poor effects but was in fact often present and not so bad, in comparison to the rest. I am amazed by the number of (likely bad) sequels that were produced over the years, teaching me that new versions of the video game are still produced! An ambitious reboot of the movie franchise will be released in 2021, but I don't know for which audience and with which hopes of success.
Rating: 4 /10

Paradise PD - Season 2 (2020)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2020
	Creators: Roger Black, Waco O'Guin
	Actors (voices): Sarah Chalke, David Herman, Kyle Kinane
	Country: USA
	Genre: Animation, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: March 2020, VOD, 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: In the glorious Paradise Police Department, some believe that the Kingpin has been captured, some not.
Review: This second season is at least as outrageous as the first one and I was waiting for it, but I ended up being disappointed. I don't know whether the surprise effect has just passed, or if this seasons really contains less good ideas. Maybe a bit of both. Anyway, I already can't remember much of it, and in particular not any particularly good episode. In general it is OK to watch as we get to spend more time with the characters we know, and discover a few others as crazy as them. The story is not badly done in that it escalates until the final episode, while giving us more background on the characters. It probably works better if you watch it with friends or under influence or both.
Rating: 4 /10