Three Films Make A Post: Like a sudden, terrifying scream… Suspense shatters the Screen!

Foreign Intrigue (1956): Well, suspense certainly didn’t shatter my screen when watching Robert Mitchum’s European vacation as directed by Sheldon Reynolds, what with the total absence of suspense from the film. This certainly wants to be a Hitchcockian or Third Man style type of film, showing Mitchum travelling all over Europe to find out the secret of his deceased employer, but in practice, this is way too comfy an affair for that. Mitchum strolls through Europe amiably, kissing the girls and sometimes punching the guys, but Sheldon never manages to build up much actual suspense. From time to time, the director hits on an atmospheric shot or two, but the script is never bothering with making the mystery Mitchum chases actually interesting, leading to a slow and comfy kind of Eastman Colour chase. For certain moods, there’s something to be said for a leisurely amble, of course, just don’t expect much of an actual movie going in.

Mulan (2020): Of course, there’s slow and kinda likeably boring like that old Mitchum vehicle, and then there’s this remake of the Disney animation based on the Chinese tale as directed by Niki Caro. It’s slow, lacking in charm and visual imagination and does nothing better, or even just as well, as even a proper Chinese, Taiwanese or Hong Kong wuxia from the third line of that genre (let’s not even speak of the good ones), wasting Donnie Yen, Gong Li, Jet Li, and so on and so forth on things they could do in their sleep.

This is also a good example that simply throwing money at your blockbuster doesn’t necessarily make it watchable. Even in the highly commercial arena of the big loud film for international audiences, you need creative vision. If you don’t have that, you get a very loud version of what my brain does when my feet are falling asleep, or, as Disney called it, Mulan.

Congo (1995): Let’s not end this trilogy of films of dubious quality on a positive note this time around. Instead, let’s talk about Frank Marshall’s supposed love letter to the classic adventure movie and its serial siblings based on the insufferable Michael Crichton. It’s got a talking ape in it, and I’m half convinced it was also written by one (sorry to all talented writing gorillas out there). What it doesn’t have is dramatic tension, a script that’s more than a long string of nonsense, action sequences worth their name, or any enjoyment factor. I do appreciate that somebody involved in the production at some point (this is one of those films with a million script versions by dozens of writers, none of whom is in the credits, because US unions are weird about crediting the people doing the actual work) tried to update some classic adventure tropes, giving us Ernie Hudson as a tough and at least semi-competent leader, and Laura Linney getting to be a two-fisted adventurer.

Unfortunately, the rest of the film is still terrible, featuring mawkish sentimentality next to badly staged action sequences and dialogue I can only ascribe to a gorilla.

In short: Miami Vice (2006)

The least subtle undercover cops alive, Crockett (Colin Farrell letting his hair and whatever that stuff growing on his face is do the acting this time around) and Tubbs (Jamie Foxx, woefully underused despite being the more interesting character with room for a deeper character arc and being simply less stilted in his role) are roped into an investigation concerning a mysterious big time drug operator after one of their former informants gets killed working on the case. In between shoot-outs, shots of Farrell rubbing his neck and head ponderously, and various explosions, Crockett also falls in Instant Big Lust with Isabella (Gong Li), one of the leading heads of the cartel they are investigating.

Like all the mainstream film critics that heaped praise on this film, I’m a big admirer of most of the oeuvre of Michael Mann, but this movie version of Mann’s old stomping grounds, the 80s cop show Miami Vice, leaves me decidedly cold. For the most part, it is because most of Mann’s standard tricks don’t work for me here. He’s perhaps trying his usual thing of adding veracity to a highly improbable script by providing many layers of absolutely realistic feeling details, but all of these details don’t really add up to any reality here, but just add more mannerisms to an already incredibly mannered and over-stylized film, making things not less but more antiseptic.


It doesn’t help the film at all that its script (by Mann and co-TV-Miami Vice-veteran Anthony Yerkovich) seems to work from a “Miami Vice plot elements” checklist, where every big beat of the show needs to be included in some way, turning the whole affair clumsy and ponderous where leanness would probably have helped. But then, leanness has never been part of the Mann approach. This is also the kind of film that becomes basically paralyzed by all of the clichés and tropes it needs to somehow stuff into its running time, so Crockett gets to hear the “in too deep” speech about twenty minutes into the case, and he and Isabella basically jump each other the moment they lay eyes on each other. Who cares that it doesn’t make sense for the kinds of people they are supposed to be, or that Farrell and Gong have no on-screen chemistry whatsoever despite the film’s permanent visual insistence that this is The Big Thing. And don’t get me started on how stupid everyone in the film needs to be to let things play out like they do here. Again, these are not problems new to Mann’s work, but usually, he’s telling his tales of moody macho men embedded in what feels like a (not necessarily the) real world in which they and their troubles actually belong. Here, it’s just the posing of emotionally stunted assholes typical of bad high budget action cinema in front of slick backgrounds without substance or emotional resonance relating them to actual human feelings. And when it comes to high budget action, there are simply better choices for a viewer.