The Frozen Ground (2013)

“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+

Pain & Gain (2013)

Even at $26 million and without a trucker robot or asteroid in sight, movie wrecker Michael Bay can take what ought to be a simple crime tale and turns into an ordeal that is so painfully loud and soaked in obnoxious nihilistic testosterone that no sign of life or wit remains by the time the credits finally (finally!) roll. That’s “Pain & Gain.” A character has his skull crushed by a 50-pound weight, I thought, “Lucky bastard.” Mark Wahlberg, Duane Johnson, and Anthony Mackie play three lug head Miami gym freaks who crack a plot to kidnap a local millionaire (Tony Shalhoub) to rob him of fortune, home, cars, and boat. The crime goes sickeningly wrong, and the trio cannot even properly kill the man. Bay is pretending to make a film that satirizes the sick lust of the teen boy American Dream: Hot strippers, constant sex, fast cars, big homes, drugs, and guns, and forgiveness for all, because, hey this is America. But the sick prank: Bay believes this shit is the American Dream, and the right of every red-blooded, gay-bashing man. Even worse, he makes the victims more worthy of death than the criminals. Cinematic diarrhea. F

21 (2008)

“21” -– based on a true-story -– is a casino heist film of a different color, relying on card-counting for its anti-heroes to steal from the rich. Speaking of color, the characters onscreen are of a different color too, as the real suspects were Asian-Americans. On film, it’s WASPed up the nil. (Producers say they tried really hard to find college-age Asian actors.) But I digress. The story: MIT math geek Ben (Jim Sturgess) digs the class held by a snarky professor (Kevin Spacey) and is soon asked to join the man’s off-hours Blackjack Club. But it’s a con, and the prof has his students pulling down Vegas casinos in front of all seeing eyes, two of which belong to Laurence Fishburne. Will Ben, a good lower-middle-class boy with an hourly job and a wish to attend Harvard Med, wake up from his Gordon Gekko dive and do good? Put aside the race issue, we’re watching an Eagle Scout build a fire with flashy editing, loud music, and the lure of sex stewing faux suspense to make us forget the guy’s a freakin’ Eagle Scout. The ending is so upbeat happy, Ben could be Roy Hobbs. C+

The Untouchables (1987) and Gangster Squad (2013)

Double bill: Brian De Palma’s “The Untouchables” with Elliot Ness versus Al Capone, and “Gangster Squad,” with L.A. cops against Mickey Cohen. Both are true cops-and-mobs stories repainted with Hollywood final blowout action scenes. Why allow Frank Nitti his suicide when Ness can toss him off a building? “Squad” plays looser with truth. 

Such is film. Facts hit the floor faster than bodies. In 200 words, my take downs on these mob take-down films.

“Untouchables” –- also based on the rah-rah TV show – follows Eagle Scout/U.S. Treasury agent Ness (Kevin Costner) as he brings in three like-minded heroes (Sean Connery as wise old cop, Andy Garcia as hothead cop, and Charles Martin Smith as nerd cop) to nail Robert De Niro’s Capone. Smart casting and smart-looking film. 

It smells of Chicago and spent bullets. De Palma and screenwriter David Mamet put us in gorgeous locales -– trains station, courthouses, and filthy red alleyways. Dialogue pops like spent lead: Connery barking about knives at a “gun party” is classic. 

I was 13 in ’87 and this became my Instant Favorite Film. The violence, male bravado, scope, and that shoot-out on the stairs. It’s a stellar cops-and-gangsters fantasy for… teenage boys. I’m wiser now, and the red-blood love has waned. This is a sloppy-ass film riddled with dubious continuity errors -– moving corpses, that wondering elevator in the assassination scene, a terrible voice dub throughout, and logic tossed aside in a courtroom finale. Too many scenes make me cringe. 

Was De Palma so in love with his own (admittedly great) style, he forgot the importance of details? Hell if I know. Costner is too fantastic to care. B+

“Squad” whiffs fake as “Untouchables” feels immersed in Chicago lore. You can smell the wet paint. I read Ellroy. Call me biased. Josh Brolin is WWII Army Special Forces vet John O’Mara, now a cop assigned to stop New York-bred Cohen (Sean Penn) from becoming the West Coast Capone.

O’Mara is very Ness to the point I believe writer Will Beall watched “Untouchables” on repeat. Lines are lifted whole. O’Mara also has his three heroes: Robert Patrick as wise old cop, Ryan Gosling as hothead cop, and Giovanni Ribisi as nerd cop. Toss in retro-progression with Anthony Mackie as a black patrolman and Michael Pena as a Hispanic flatfoot named Navidad. (Cringe.) 

Plot: O’Mara’s guys shoot the shit out of Cohen’s guys, who do the same back. Penn is comically spittle-tossing evil, his performance falls into hysterics. I laughed my ass off when a ridiculously dickensesque shoeshiner gets whacked. I gather director Ruben Fleischer (“Zombieland”) wasn’t going for giggles among the blood and rape. 

As Ness says, “You aren’t from Chicago.” Do not pretend. C

Bernie (2012)

The greatest indicator the rhythm is off in “Bernie,” a dark comedy about a real-life murder that rocked a Texas town 15 years ago, comes when a playground set is seized during a criminal investigation. The audience, in unison, let out a heartfelt, “awww” as two young girls watched their backyard kingdom be torn down by police. Outside of laughter at the people and hijinks on screen, it was the only other sign of human emotion I heard or felt. 

That’s how thin “Bernie” is. The film. Not the man. Bernie Tiede, is quite thick in the belly, as played by Jack Black, and as seen in real-life photos and video during the closing credits. 

Tiede was an assistant funeral home director during the 1990s in tiny Carthage, Texas, (even the name is ironic). Clearly gay in his every manner, Tiede became a local celebrity, a mascot if you will, to the good ol’ GOP-voting Christian folk there. Not just for his artistry of making the dead look good, but in his endless dedication to church, the local theater, baseball clubs, and his undying loyalty to the town’s widows. He even came to befriend the town’s one Ms. Scrooge (Shirley MacLaine), a vile control freak badger, set off her leash after the death of her wealthy husband. This is where the thrust of the film kicks in. She became Tiede’s Sugar Momma, he her Errand Boy. Things got ugly, and Tiede shot her. Four times. The town stood strong: Behind Bernie. Old lady? Fuggedaboudit.

Shocking? Yes. But Richard Linklater, directing and co-writing, would rather laugh at the wild audacity of it all, and edits in interviews with real-life locals to the mix, showing the town as mentally lost as Tiede is in the “movie” portion. The tone is so broadly farcical nothing sticks. With Black’s eternal wink-wink personality and mincing gay lisp, I never grasped whether or not trapped-in the-closet Tiede was sincere and full of love, or playing people, full of rage, or some place between. Wearing a mask if you will, to go all Batman here. 

Person after person in those interviews dismiss Tiede as “queer,” or insists “he can’t be gay,” he’s too nice and decent. Surely he heard that awful talk, surely it hurt, and made him mad. Or did it? Did he bury his pain. We don’t know. As portrayed, Tiede has all the depth of Ziggy, to bring up another roundish guy. 

More so, there’s a strong, unpleasant whiff that Linklater, a Texan himself, is pulling a nasty fast-one on those interviewees, inviting them friendly-like to talk on camera and then editing their words to appear as rubes and hicks, or borderline senile. Were these people misled? I'd sure as hell would think, “Yes.”

“Fargo,” a far more dark comic tale of murder, had infinitely more emotion, and it’s fictional. The comparison is silly, that film is so sickly brilliant, and brilliant, but I shall not digress. In this tale, an old lady died, for real, and we get nothing. There’s no sense of loss here, mixed in with the comedy. Any sense of irony is lost. MacLaine, dropping a racist tirade as the old lady, makes it all too easy. Too neat. Ehhh.

Matthew McConaughey -- God bless him, is he becoming a character actor now, no more rom-coms? -- lifts the film as high as he can as a self-righteous, but right nonetheless, ADA who is dismayed at the turn of events. Yes, he’s also spinning comedy gold, but he’s also the only one asking, how would you react? Bernie, or the lady? C+

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2010)

Indie film god Werner Herzog directed “My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done,” a fictional take on a real San Diego man who slew his mother with a sword because God told him to, or so he thought. But David Lynch’s vibe is wholly present. He produced this low budget, quiet psychological horror film. There’s an unreal dream quality to the drama, an off-time click to the speaking roles, and yet the setting and actions strive to be realistic. When the killer (Michael Shannon of “Revolutionary Road”) apparently takes hostages, a SWAT team is called. These men are professional and calm, as they are in such cases. (As a reporter I went to a dozen or more hostage situations, I never saw Hollywood gung-ho theatrics.) More so, there is no violence. The death of the mother (Grace Zabriskie of “Twin Peaks”) is off screen. “My Son” focuses on cause and effect, and psychology, and character. Not gore. What a fine treat. Shannon again nails a man bent beyond madness, with no way to see right anymore. B+

In Cold Blood (1967)

No film can top or even equal Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood,” one of the greatest American nonfiction books ever printed. Yet in 1967, a film of “Cold” rattled America’s nerves with unprecedented harshness and profanity.

Writer/director Richard Brooks, using stark black and white cinematography, lays out an almost journalistic take on the massacre of a Kansas farm family by two low-level crooks (Robert Blake is Perry Smith, and Scott Wilson is Richard Hickcock). We follow the killers, the family and the police, with some vibrant editing as the actual shootings are put toward the end.

The movie is wildly faithful to the book except in one key area – Capote’s self-involved writer has been replaced by a crusty old alpha-male reporter. A homophobic slap against Capote? I don’t think so. As demonstrated in more recent films (“Capote”), the very short guy was larger than life. No, this film works. This needs a reporter to melt into the walls, not bang over the camera. This is about a senseless crime committed by two lost guys, who can just as easily give a ride to a stranded grandpa and a young boy on the road.

The performances are amazing, the judgments harsh all around, with violence that still shocks despite being off screen. A

Capote (2005)

Watching “Capote” is almost dizzying: It’s a film based on a nonfiction book that documents Truman Capote’s research and writing of the ground-breaking nonfiction book “In Cold Blood,” which was later turned into a celebrated 1960s film. The twist here: Not only was a Kansas farm family butchered in cold blood for roughly $50, but Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman) reported on the initial crimes and then manipulated the subsequent trials to his own liking, in (ice) cold blood. Capote is played as the ultimate self-centered artist: Everything and everyone is in service to his convenience. When he sees the farm family bodies in their coffins, the moment of horror is about his reaction; after he gets the killers new trials, he panics that he won’t have a solid ending by deadline; he scoffs at the success of friend/co-researcher Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.” This is a fascinating, layered tale of a man who, biblical cliché alert, loses his soul to the gain the world (or the world’s admiration) and seems to realize it. Or does he? That Hoffman manages to not only humanize Capote, but make him a victim of his own ego is a wonder. A-