HALF PAST DEAD (PG-13)

Three things you can do that would be less painful than sitting through Steven Seagal’s latest film “Half Past Dead”: Cover your head in honey and stick it down an ant hole; Go clothes shopping with the Olsen twins; Sit through an IRS audit. I used to like Steven Seagal movies. They were mindless fun. Now they’re just mindless. Like all one-note action stars that came before and after, Seagal is no longer a lethal weapon at the box office, but his acting is still lethal. Seagal is too old and too fat to do what he used to do best: kick ass. Now he’s lucky if he can haul ass, lugging around a double chin that has more moves than he does. Director Don Michael Paul does Seagal a favor by keeping him in the shadows or in extreme close-up, which eventually backfires when we’re forced to appreciate Seagal’s acting up close and personal. Please click on title for complete review. (Columbia-TriStar)

QUITTING (R)

Hard hitting, provocative and gratifying drama from director Zhang Yang (Shower) emerges as an excellent piece of cinema verite. Using actual participants and locations, Yang tells the story of Chinese actor Jia Hongsheng (playing himself), whose heroin addiction took over control of his burgeoning career and drove him insane. We sit and watch in horror as Jia slowly slips into madness, giving up everything near and dear to him, finally landing in a mental asylum. His four year odyssey is mapped out with precision, exposing every painful detail of his descent and eventual rehabilitation. The director creates a sense of reality by employing the actor’s family and friends, who stood by his side during his anguish and desperation, plus the real-life asylum patients who became a major part of his landscape. (Columbia-TriStar Home Video)

THE RING (PG-13)

Not since the over-hyped “The Blair Witch Project” have I had the pleasure of sitting through (just barely) such a ponderous and preposterous thriller as “The Ring.” If you think that’s praise, look up facetious in the dictionary. Based on the Chinese thriller of the same name, “The Ring” is as annoying as it is cloying. Naomi Watts stumbles off “Mulholland Drive” to play Rachel Keller, a reporter investigating the mysterious death of her niece, who died after watching a mysterious video. Skeptical, Keller tracks down the video and pops it into her VCR. When the video ends, the phone rings, and a voice on the other end tells Keller she has seven days to live.

Please click on title for complete review. (Columbia-TriStar)

(DreamWorks)

THE WEIGHT OF WATER (R)

Slow to the punch mystery-drama features Sean Penn in one of his worst performances ever, playing the bored poet husband of an investigative photographer who gets dragged off to a remote island when his wife decides to uncover the mystery of an old double murder. Complications arise when a beautiful boat mate (Elizabeth Hurley) catches the eye of Thomas (Penn), creating tension between him and his wife Jean (Catherine McCormack), whose investigation turns up startling revelations and similarities in her own marriage. Director Kathryn Bigelow makes good use of the exotic locations, but has a hard time leaping over the emotional speed bumps of the weak script. (Lion’s Gate)

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 20th, 2003 at 11:34 pm and is filed under Film Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.