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“The Frozen Ground” got me burning mad. Nicolas Cage as cop. John Cusack
as serial killer. Shot and chopped up young women. Alaska. True story. 1980s.
The whole murky grisly movie works OT to condemn violence against and the
objectification of women ... And yet writer/director Scott Walker’s camera
stares nose close at Disney Princess Vanessa Hudgen’s stripper ass as she stage
grinds. Because one can’t make a film about strippers and hookers being
slaughtered by a loser kook without a little T&A stage action. At least if
everyone behind the camera is male. Maybe only women should make films about
cruel ways men treat women. Especially talking fact. Plot: Cusack’s
Robert Hansen has 20 girls in the grave, but Hudgens’ (“Spring Breakers”)
prostitute/stripper has escaped and can ID him. Her lone hero is Cage’s cop,
who works so hard on the job, his family is neglected. Nothing on screen
differs from an episode of “Law & Order: SVU,” so we only have stunt
casting to cheer. Cusack underplays. So
does Cage. The less said about 50 Cent’s pimp, the better. Recalling the victims to pop music: Ugly bad move. D+
Former-drug-dealer-turned-rapper-turned-film-actor
50 Cent aka Curtis Jackson III puts the last of those multi-hyphenates to regrettable
use in the awful “Freelancers,” a cops-gone-bad drama that thudded into
cinemas and rolled over for dead on DVD within one month. Upfront mystery: How
did Robert De Niro and Forrest Whitaker get wrangled into playing depraved NYPD
detectives who trade in drugs, murders, and whores on an hourly basis? Jackson plays
Malo, ex-crook turned policeman thrown into a corruption ring by his mentor/father
figure (De Niro), the former partner of Malo’s real pop, another officer killed
years ago. Not a single plot thread or revelation makes remote sense as
Malo plays a ridiculous game between police and mafia while balancing several
women on the side. Entire sections of this story seem cleaved out to fit
a 90-minute running time as we dead end at a finale that has Malo crowing on
top of a shit pile not only wholly implausible, but an insulting F.U. lobbed at all law enforcement. I can’t speak of his music, but as an actor here, Jackson
has a blank stare reserved for album covers, punctuated by line
readings so dull, he seems barely coherent. D-
