Rhapsodies

Sometimes it’s really hard to think of new ideas during the holidays, and because of that I ended up doing the exact theme that I did last week with criminals on christmas. Though in my defense, this time we’re not talking about the lovable rougues. We’re talking about actual amoral criminals. These people are not even remotely funny… at least not on purpose… which makes it even funnier.

The first film on my list, John Frankenheimer’s Reindeer Games tells the story of Rudy Duncan (Ben Affleck), a convict doing five years for grand theft auto. Along with his best friend Nick Cassedy (James Frain), he is on his way out, just in time for Christmas. Three days before, though Nick is murdered in a cafeteria brawl. Still grieving, Rudy passes himself as Nick to Nick’s mail girlfriend, Ashley (Charlize Theron) 

For a barely twenty four hours things are great, until he is ambushed by Ashley’s psychotic brother, Gabriel (Gary Sinese) and his band of thugs, you see they think Rudy is Nick as well. They want inside information on the casino Nick used to work at. Nothing Rudy can say can convince them that they’ve got the wrong guy. 

 I don’t think this film is as bad as the Rotton Tomatoes consensus thinks it is. However,  I think when one of the modern masters, like John Frankenheimer directs something that is subpar it gets graded on a reverse curve. Having said that I think this film is very subpar for Frankenheimer. It has all of his craft, which is reason alone to watch it, but none of his art. Which is a shame because there are some great performances. Though, sadly, most of the plot, especially several of the reveals, in the end, don’t make any sense when you stop to think about it.

The second film on my list, Ted Demme’s The Ref, tells the story of Gus (Dennis Leary), a cat burglar who is working his way through a quaint upperclass suburban Connecticut town on his way to finish off what he thinks is his last score. However the safe is boobytrapped and soon he finds himself on the run and in desperate need to find someplace to lay low until his accomplice arranges a getaway. 

He finds this by hijacking a couple at the town market. Regrettably, the couple he picked were Lloyd and Caroline Chasseur (Kevin Spacey and Judy Davis) a couple who have been at each other’s throats and driving their marriage counselor to distractions. Now Gus finds himself the reluctant referee between the two who are so distracted by each other they almost oblivious to the fact they’re tied up with a gun pointed at them… and to make matters worse along with the cops looking for Gus the rest of the family is on their way for Christmas dinner. 

This was an okay film with lots of good comedy, dripping with cynicism, and Leary, Davis, and Spacey play off each other very well. However since it was trying to be one of those great scripts where everything comes together in the end, they dropped several of the threads. Also, I had a problem with the general level. It’s not that I have a problem with swearing. I’m fine with it being part of the language like in films like Good Fellahs. It’s when the script sounds like it has a quota to prove to everybody it’s a grown-up movie.