Escape to Athena (1979)

Greece during World War II, shortly before the Allied invasion. Major Otto Hecht (Roger Moore with a really weird accent) is not your typical Nazi, he only plays one to get what he wants, and tries to keep victims to a minimum. Having worked as a shady art dealer before the war, what Hecht wants is to plunder the ancient treasures of Greece, as he has done with those of other countries before. For this, he’s acquired his own little collection of POWs useful in this sort of thing, like archaeologist Professor Blake (David Niven), climber and all-around athletic wonder Nat Judson (Richard Roundtree), and non-cooking cook Bruno Rotelli (Sonny Bono, but don’t worry). The plus for these guys is that they are kept on a comparatively long leash by a man who’s not going to shoot or torture them for the smallest affront. As they well should, they use this to make the Nazis’ life in Greece as difficult as possible with repeated escape attempts and small and large sabotages.

Things get even more lively when Hecht acquires stand-up comic Charlie Dane (Elliott Gould) as his new scribe (don’t ask), and Charlie’s burlesque dancing partner Dottie Del Mar (Stefanie Powers) as the woman he wishes to convince of sleeping with him. These two bring with them even more anarchic energy then the rest of Hecht’s crew, as well as contact with the Greek resistance leader Zeno (Telly Savalas). Following various acts of repression by the SS, and because there’s a submarine station that needs to be destroyed before the Allied landing, Zeno and Hecht’s crazy kids decide to simply take over the Nazi base.

Afterwards, there’s perhaps time to steal some art treasures from a nearby mountain cloister, unless there’s something more relevant to the war effort there, of course.

At times, George Pan Cosmatos’s Escape to Athena has a tone comparable to the great World War II action comedy Kelly’s Heroes. It’s never quite as brilliant, mind you, but if you can live with a less than serious approach to World War II, this is still one of the better examples of the form. Particularly the film’s first half is full of off the cuff, often clearly adlibbed, humour that can get so bizarre to border on the nonsensical. House favourite Elliott Gould has some of the best absurd non-sequitur lines here, of course (and I’m pretty sure he’s come up with them himself). Those often make little sense but are outrageously funny as the man delivers them. In the more scripted feeling bits, Moore – at the height of being James Bond – actually manages to turn an art-stealing Wehrmacht officer into so charming a rogue, I’m even perfectly willing to buy into his later changing of sides to the good guys; whereas Powers really does the traditional role of the perhaps not quite as ditzy stripper with the best of ‘em.

Even in the early and lighter parts of the film, there are moments that are perfectly honest about the actual experience of Nazi occupation and resistance work. Cosmatos portrays cruelties and senseless slaughter matter-of-factly and with no misguided attempts at squeezing humour in there as well; these are the things that happen around them while our POWs are in their private little comedy, and this comedy, for one, is not going to pretend otherwise.

As little as it’s going to pretend that developments like finding that Dottie is an expert diver perfectly fit for the business of blowing up submarines, or the bizarre show our heroes put on to distract the Nazis once it’s time to take over their base, are anything less than great, goofy fun.

Eventually, everybody does land in a somewhat harsher bit of war action than they were before in scenes of action movie mayhem that late 70s style Cosmatos handles with the expected panache. The big battle in the town’s streets and the grand finale on the mountain are particularly great. So great that it seems fair to director and characters that they are allowed to go out like they came in with some hot dance moves by Savalas and various bits of funny business.

Why this extremely entertaining, goofy but not stupid piece of filmmaking has landed on more than one list of the worst films ever made, I have no idea.

In short: Cobra (1986)

Marion "Cobra" Cobretti (Sylvester Stallone) polices the streets of the City with all the finesse of a bulldozer, dropping dead bodies wherever he drives his show-off car with the "AWSOM" plates (seriously), and whines about the horrors of cops having to follow the Laws they're sworn to uphold at least sometimes whenever possible. Cobretti's special talents are needed when model Ingrid Knudsen (Brigitte Nielsen) witnesses something she'll only later realize is part of the Night Slasher serial killings terrorizing the city. If anyone would listen, Ingrid's testimony would also hint at the horrible truth about the Night Slasher: the murders aren't committed by a single man but by a veritable cult of maniacs who like to spend their killing-free time rambling about "the new order" (a much better band than anything on the soundtrack) and standing somewhere underground rhythmically hitting axes against each other. What's up with that? The film ain't tellin'.

Because the cult tries to kill Ingrid, Cobretti makes it his goal to protect her with all the lethal violence he clearly relishes as much as the bad guys. Things get decidedly more difficult for him because killing is really the only thing he's good at - he just sucks at actual police work. Plus, one female cult member just happens to be a police detective (perhaps driven insane by the stupidity of her colleagues?).

Ah, the 80s, when nothing was more predictable than movie cops showing no aptitude for actual police work but a real hand at sadistic violence combined with self-righteousness and whining being held up as ultra-cool heroes. So it comes as no surprise that director George Pan Cosmatos treats Stallone's character (hilariously outfitted with everything a twelve year old thinks is cool) in Cobra as an admirable hero throughout, notwithstanding the fact that he's clearly too dumb to get a job filling out parking tickets and is pretty fucking ineffectual too boot. On the positive side, there really isn't that much time for Stallone to mumble the usual fascist platitudes (they are more used for one-liners, as when he declares "you have the right to remain silent" before he burns an already helpless cultist alive), because there are cars to crash, guns to shoot, and things to explode, and really, the film's politics are as dumbly argued as its hero is, so there's little I can take seriously enough to actually get angry about here.

Of course, it would have been nice if the script had bothered to give its hero some sort of character development from - say - cop on the edge to cop over the edge, or had provided some kind of coherent motivation for the gang/cult/political party he wipes out, but that would have meant an actual effort Stallone's script just doesn't seem willing to make. This would also have improved the film quite a bit on an emotional level, for as it stands Cobra is a movie about an asshole I don't care about fighting other assholes I don't care about. The action scenes are well done, and Cosmatos knows his mid-80s grime well, but that doesn't automatically lead to a movie worth watching.

I know, I often enough champion films here which are just as dumb, just as mean-spirited, and just as shoddily written, but these films generally have something, let's call it soul, or personality, or charm, I just don't find in Cobra.

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,in short,action,sylvester stallone,george pan cosmatos,brigitte nielsen

In short: Leviathan (1989)

The crew (played by an ensemble consisting of Peter Weller, Amanda Pays, Richard Crenna, Ernie Hudson, Hector Elizondo, Michael Carmine, Lisa Eilbacher and Daniel Stern that isn't exactly challenged by the material) of an experimental deep sea mining project is looking forward to the end of their stay underwater in just three days; it's probably just early enough to keep people from kicking the shit out of each other.

Things take a turn for the unpleasant when the dumbest, most unpleasant and least long-lived of the crew stumbles upon a sunken Russian military vessel, the "Leviathan". Finding a ship and stealing its safe are one, of course. The safe doesn't contain much of value: there are the personal effects of quite a few dead Russians, a videotape speaking of some kind of plague on board, and a bottle of vodka. Personally, I'd abstain from drinking that particular stuff, even if I were into harder drinks, what with it coming from a plague ship and all, but then I'm not a character in a horror movie. It won't come as much of a surprise when the fittingly named Sixpack and his female buddy Bowman show fewer inhibitions toward suicide and soon come down with a lethal case of severe genetic mutations.

The dead crewmen don't stay dead, though, or rather, after some time their bodies transform into a single monster with too many mouths, tentacles and other fun appendages that then proceeds to go on a rampage. As if a deadly monster on board of a deep sea station weren't enough, the surviving crew members take their dear time before they decide to evacuate. Once they do, they learn why one shouldn't work for a company with Meg Foster in a leading position.

Leviathan is another film belonging to the small yet fun late 80s SF horror movie sub-genre that - probably trying to borrow some of the fire of James Cameron's Abyss (aka "be nice, or we'll kill you all, for we are space Americans") - puts either Alien or Aliens from space into the deep sea. While this isn't the height of creativity, I always do respect the willingness of certain producers to rip off more than one successful movie at once; it sure is more interesting than ripping off only one film.

In George Pan Cosmatos' (a director without a directorial personality if ever I saw one) Leviathan, the producers decided to borrow from the first Alien movie (and a bit of The Thing, too, for good measure), just without everything that could be read as feminist, and in general without much of that "subtext" stuff the eggheads are always talking about. That Cosmatos isn't as great at building a mood of dread even before the monsters appear as Ridley Scott was will come as no surprise. However, to be fair to the movie at hand, it's perfectly entertaining if you don't compare it with the film it's ripping off, and instead just roll with its ambition of being a decent monster flick taking place underwater.

Cosmatos is certainly competent competent enough when it comes to staging gory (and pleasantly rubbery) effects scenes. The effects themselves aren't works of genius but certainly do suggest that someone on the effects team liked his shape-changing anime creatures with heads and mouths at the wrong places well enough. Which does come in handy for me, as I do too.

I'm also bound to like a competently made traditional monster movie, no matter if it takes place in New York, in space or underwater, so Leviathan is fine by me.

 

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,in short,sf,horror,george pan cosmatos,peter weller,amanda pays,ernie hudson