filmland / By Charlie Myers

Go South

Flawed Australia is the only decent film you’re going to get for a while

(Dec. 4, 2008) Previews

Somewhere people will be watching Milk or Frost/Nixon this coming weekend, or even Rachel at the Wedding, but in Movie Mudville (a.k.a. Humboldt County), we have one pathetic choice. Opening Friday, December 5 is Punisher: War Zone, a sort of follow-up to 2004’s The Punisher with Brit Ray Stevenson (Titus Pullo on the defunct TV series Rome) replacing Thomas Jane as vigilante protagonist Frank Castle. Apparently Castle has to take on some villain named Jigsaw. Rasp away. Rated R for pervasive strong brutal violence, language and some drug use. 107m. At the Broadway and Mill Creek.

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Reviews

FOUR CHRISTMASES: Someone must have thought this film was a great idea when it was pitched, and it may well have been, but Four Christmases got derailed somewhere along the way to release. I do need to admit that my favorite Christmas film of all time is 2003’s Bad Santa with Billy Bob Thornton and that most holiday films are throwaway tripe. For a while, though, Four Christmases seemed as though it might be on-track to be a minor league Bad Santa.

When we first see relentlessly happy unmarried couple Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon), they are arrogantly sure that their relationship is perfect: They make fun of couples who have children and think marriage is the ruination of an enlightened relationship.

Unhappily, beginning with their being caught on news camera at a fogged-in SFO while trying to escape spending the holidays with their four divorced parents (as usual), the promising satire degenerates into a series of gimmicky, predictable scenes. Brad ends up rolling around on the floor with his brothers at his estranged father’s (Robert Duvall) house, Kate has to suffer the slings and arrows of her mother (Mary Steenburgen) and pregnant sister (Kristin Chenoweth), Sissy Spacek is given short shrift as Brad’s mother, as is Jon Voight as Kate’s father, and so on.

The ending of the film sinks into the usual romantic relationship crap. Vaughn plows the same ground as always, but the film’s one accomplishment is that it almost totally conceals the fact that Witherspoon is an accomplished actor. That takes determination. Rated PG-13 for some sexual humor and language. 82m. At the Broadway, Mill Creek and Fortuna.

TRANSPORTER 3: And then there’s this film. There may have been worse films released this year, but happily I didn’t see them. I expect sequels to be on autopilot, but Transporter 3 completely lost any sense of direction. You could begin with the tired, recycled plotline but in actuality, the incompetent editing should be forefronted, consistently garbling scenes that may actually have made sense.

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