Category: 2000s

Denzel Washington is an ATF agent sent to investigate an explosion that sunk a New Orleans ferry. Because of his skills at astute observation, he’s recruited to join a top secret unit that is able to see into the past in order to solve crimes. Added to the puzzle is a woman (played by Paula Patton) whose body was discovered in the river moments before the explosion. It’s a time-twisting action-thriller, solidly acted by Denzel, where he is trying to stop a criminal by observing the past. There are plot holes to be sure and the science is often hand-waved aside when it becomes too problematic. Tony Scott directs it similarly to The Taking of Pelham 123 with lots of super fast action and shiny, pretty lights, though to its benefit, it’s less frenetic than that later film. 

Robert De Niro is a mobster who seeks help from psychiatrist Billy Crystal. Story-wise, the first one is better than the sequel. It’s a comedy version of The Sopranos focusing mostly on the doctor-tough guy relationship with some mobster drama and Crystal’s impending nuptials thrown in for added tension. Acting-wise, it makes sense that De Niro made Meet the Parents in between these two comedies. He seems to have a better grasp on the kind of comedy required in these roles. Unfortunately the story is a mess with De Niro facing psychosis to get out of prison and then finding himself as a consultant on the set of what is essentially The Sopranos. There are dueling crime families that weren’t in the original and a heist that suddenly comes out of left field. Together, the two films are a pair of mostly harmless, mostly forgettable comedies.

A relatively low budget, Christian, time travel movie with a baseball theme, I didn’t have a lot of expectations for this one, but was willing to try it out based on the cast and the theme. I was mostly pleasantly surprised. Robert Loggia travels back in time to prevent a young baseball player from making a grave mistake that will adversely affect his future. Loggia is the strong point in the film. He admirably carries off the various moments of lucidity, despair, and desperation that are required of his character. The teen actors aren’t great and I wanted to fast forward through any scene involving the love interest, especially since for some reason she was costumed by a deranged lunatic. Craig T. Nelson was underutilized as the baseball player’s father. Sadly John Amos seemed to only be in the film to push various political points, like coerced school prayer. Despite that, there are some good ideas in the story about the potential costs of taking short cuts and has a fairly solid timeline development.   

This feels a lot like a movie version of Episodes where David Duchovny is a writer trying to get his deeply personal, semi-autobiographical TV show onto one network’s fall schedule. Sigourney Weaver is the executive who can make it happen, but not without suggesting a few changes. It’s an amusing look at getting a TV show to air and has Judy Greer playing his optimistic assistant and Justine Bateman his very pregnant wife. I wish it were a bit longer and some of the side stories fleshed out more.

Taking riffs from Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, here we have Paul Giamatti playing a fictional version of himself, an actor who has become so encumbered by the roles he has performed that he has his soul extracted. Unfortunately the soul business is connected to unscrupulous Russians and when Paul wants his soul back, it’s next to impossible to find. While having some of the humor of those other films, this is quite a bit darker and has little of the frivolity. The acting is splendid and includes David Strathairn as a soul-releasing doctor.

I’m glad I watched this film as I had never heard of the Deacons, an all-Black self-defense group formed during the days of the Civil Rights Movement. In this TV movie inspired by the real life Deacons, Forest Whitaker is a father and factory worker who is content not to make waves with regards to the white leadership at his factory and in his town until he witnesses a co-worker being brutalized for deigning to try to for something better and his daughter is terrorized for protesting. Finally enough is enough and the Deacons are formed with Forest as one of their leaders. This makes a nice companion piece to Bill Duke’s earlier TV film The Killing Floor. It seems that these are the stories that some are trying to suppress, keeping people from learning the complexities of the United States in all its failures, promises, and potential.