He has given us one of the greatest concert movies ever with Hail! Hail! Rock ‘N’ Roll, directed one of the most unforgettable romances in An Officer And A Gentleman, and he got an Oscar nomination for directing the acclaimed biopic Ray. Now with Parker, director Taylor Hackford tackles a genre he has not dealt with previously: the crime thriller.
Michael Chiklis went through a very dramatic actor transformation when he went from playing friendly and easygoing characters like Anthony "Tony" J. Scali on The Commish to the brutal and corrupt Vic Mackey on The Shield. That tough guy image that Chiklis earned through sheer determination has stayed with him through the Fantastic Four movies and the TV series Vegas, and it serves him well in Taylor Hackford’s crime thriller Parker.
Taylor Hackford’s Parker has a number of things going for it; Jason Statham playing the title character, a solid ensemble cast which includes actors like Michael Chiklis and Wendell Pierce, and taut action scenes that resemble anything but comic book violence. But despite the strong talent involved, Parker turns out to be a big letdown as it brings nothing new to the crime thriller genre, and it is not likely to stay with you long after the credits have finished. There are things about the movie worth applauding, but in the end it is largely forgettable.
Jason Statham is typically known for playing the same kind of character in each film he does: a tough and rugged antihero who is more than capable of defending himself, and a man who serves out justice in a most exquisitely painful way. As a result, Statham’s latest movie Parker seems like the same kind of role for him, but this one stands out in a way many of his other films do not.
Allen Hughes, one half of the Hughes brothers who gave us Menace II Society and The Book of Eli, goes solo with Broken City, a crime drama he directed which stars Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe. The film follows an NYPD cop named Billy Taggart (Mark Wahlberg) who follows the Mayor of New York's wife to find out if she is cheating and while doing so, stumbles upon a much larger scandal.
After hosting the Oscars for the umpteenth time, Billy Crystal returns to the big screen in the family comedy Parental Guidance. In the film he plays Artie Decker, who along with his wife Diane (Bette Midler), decides to babysit their three grandkids when their parents (played by Marisa Tomei and Tom Everett Scott) go on vacation. What results is a loving yet messy collision of old school parenting and 21st century children, and it proves to be as heartwarming as it is funny.
Parental Guidance is a family comedy like many you've seen before, but it's funnier than a lot of them and has a number of genuinely moving moments that movies like these don't always have.
Advertised as a “sort-of sequel” to Knocked Up, This Is 40 brings back the scene stealing married couple Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann), who have reached a certain milestone that no one is quick to celebrate, turning 40. In the film, Pete now has his own record label but is running into serious financial troubles, and Debbie fears that one of the employees at her clothing store (played by Megan Fox) may be stealing money from her. Although Pete and Debbie love each other very much, they are constantly rubbing each other the wrong ways as their neurosis over getting older keeps getting worse and worse.
One movie to keep an eye out for in January 2013 is Broken City, a crime drama starring Mark Wahlberg as ex-cop Billy Taggart. Now working as a private detective, Billy gets a chance for redemption when New York Mayor Nicholas Hostetler (Russell Crowe) gives him a call. It turns out that the Mayor’s wife, Emily (Catherine Zeta-Jones), may be having an affair and he’s concerned it will interfere with his plans for re-election. But in the process of investigating Emily, Billy ends up stumbling across an even bigger scandal that will lead him into a trap he may not be able to escape from.
The Guilt Trip brings together Seth Rogen, who is one of the funniest actors working in movies today, and Barbara Streisand, who is a bonafide screen and stage icon. In the movie they play Joyce and Andy Brewster, a mother and son who ended up driving together across America to help Andy sell a cleaning product and to reunite Joyce with a long lost love. It’s awfully similar to numerous road movies that we've seen in the past, but it has a genuine sweetness that will appeal to moviegoers of all kinds (especially Streisand fans).
