Review: Lola AKA Twinky - 1970

Lola

Director: Richard Donner

Aka: Twinky

1970

Drama/Comedy

Scott is in his middle ages, he’s thirty seven even if he on occasion claims he’s only thirty two. Anyway, he’s near his forties. He writes pornographic novels for a living. During a stay in London he meets this teenage girl that he falls in love with. She fall in love with him too of course and since the age of consent is sixteen in England they get married. Everyone says it’s a marriage bound to fail but they are both positive it’ll work out. When the couple moves back to New York they need to confront things they didn’t think about. She has to go to school for example. And when Scott gets arrested for hitting a cop and gets one month behind bars things really gets out of hand…

First of all… for me Richard Donner is the man that gave us the Lethal Weapon movies. To see such an early film by him is very interesting. It’s actually his second movie and it kind of shows. There are lots of very cliché ways to tell the story and it’s obvious that Mr. Donner has some way to go before he’ll make really good craftsmanship movies! After some TV series and TV Movies he started to make some very memorable movies though. But this is the Shrine of Charles Bronson and not Richard Donner so I won’t elaborate further on that!

Charles Bronson does the male lead in this very awkward story. It does not condemn the marriage despite their difference in age, and it does not encourage it either. It rather focuses on the problem of the marriage or the relationship altogether. The thirty seven year old porn novelist and the sixteen year old school girl do not have very much in common. And when the initial teen crush is over they have a very hard time. He needs to focus on his next book in order to get an income and she can’t help it but rants on and on about things in a teenage kind of way. To him the world is old and to her it’s a new place full of new thing to experience and to learn. In addition to that, she’s British and he’s an American.

Susan George did the part of sixteen year old Lola/Twinky. She was twenty at the time but is totally convincing as an adolescent. Charles Bronson on the other hand does one of his more strange roles here. I’ve seen quite a lot of his movies and I know that the revenge- and cop movies are just a fraction of what he did in his career. But still, this is a very odd part. I can’t say that he does something special with the opportunity, but he uses more facial expressions that usual and he seem to be genuinely in love!

This hasn’t gone down in history neither as a lost Richard Donner nor a Charles Bronson classic and it’s not hard to figure out why. But still, as a fan one Charles Bronson I found it uplifting to watch and even if the story is kind of naive it was very watchable. Not this particular release though, it sucks big time! There must be a better quality release out there! If not, someone better release one! I bet there are movie buffs out there dying to catch this obscure film already! It might not be a classic but it’s certainly a gem worth watching among some of us!

6/10

Review: Raid on Entebbe - 1976

Raid on Entebbe

Director: Irvin Kershner

1976

Drama/Action

A plane gets hijacked by Palestinian terrorists. After a few course changes they finally end up in Uganda. They demand that Israel comply and release some fifty imprisoned freedom fighters. Some of them are held in other countries than Israel of course but their main opponent remains to be Israel. Being in Uganda president Idi Amin seems to be protecting the hijackers. He claims to be doing everything he can for the hostages but his reasons are uncertain. About half of the hostages are released however and Idi Amin claims that it’s he doing, that he negotiated with the hijackers himself. Those who remain are all Jews and most of them residents of Israel. So what is Israel going to do about it? The official policy is not to negotiate with terrorists at all. They want the citizens back but are the price of letting all the “freedom fighters” out of prison – the who is who of terrorism – too high of a price to pay? A military action is initiated – operation Thunderbolt – the hostages are to be freed by force!

This is one of those “lost” Charles Bronson films. I may have been looking at all the wrong places but I haven’t been able to find in on DVD until quite recently. I’m glad it’s been released since it’s a real gem when it comes to movies made for TV. There are only a handful of them that reach the standard of “real” movies. There is Citizen X, this one and The Park is Mine but not so many more. I guarantee that I have forgotten some of them now but the general idea is that there aren’t many of them that reach this level of quality!

To be honest, Charles Bronson isn’t in it very much. He certainly does not have a major part, not even one of the bigger supporting parts. His role is quite small actually. And there are enough other stars to be sure too. There are people like Peter Finch, Martin Balsam, Horst Buchholz, John Saxon, Robert Loggia, James Woods and Yaphet Kotto to name a few. The latter’s interpretation of Idi Amin is fantastic. This might very well be Yaphet Kottos best performance of all time!

Apparently this is based on true events, I’m not too familiar with them but it makes a lot of sense. It seems pretty legit and as far as I’ve been able to dig the deaths of the named hostages and soldiers seems to be correct. One thing that bugs me though is that the lives of the higher ranking officers always seem to be worth more than the general soldiers, the privates. This isn’t anything that’s unique for this movie of course; it’s almost always portrayed that way. We have the officers and we have the cannon fodder. This might be historically correct in this case (no, I won’t get into details) but it still bothers me. I realize that it doesn’t have anything to do with the film itself really but I can’t help myself. This is the only negative thing I have to say about it!

So, this is a film very close to perfection. I’m kind of split when I’m about to grade it. Should I consider my problem with the ranking issues as such a major thing that I let it influence my grading of the whole movie or not? I really don’t know. It’s certainly an aspect of things that makes the viewing experience somewhat annoying. Well… I’d give this one…:

9/10

Review: Death Wish - 1974

Death Wish

Director: Michael Winner

1974

Drama/Action/Thriller

When Paul Kerseys wife and daughter gets attacked in their home, the wife killed and the daughter raped and left mentally disturbed, he takes the law into his own hands and become a one man vigilante army. He tests himself, where are his limits, can he actually withstand a mugger armed with a knife or a gun? At first he has grave problems with the violence but after a while he arms himself with a gun and goes out to provoke the scum of New York to attack him. He then shoots them down without mercy!

I first saw this years ago during the raids to my local video stores that I mentioned in an earlier review. This must be one of the best know film with Charles Bronson and most defiantly THE vigilante film! As I recall it  I didn’t think it was such a big of a deal back then but when I saw it again yesterday, the first time in fifteen or twenty years I realized how much to the point it really is. It’s not the violence that makes the movie, not the action. But rather the cover up. When Paul Kersey (Bronson) has shot several victims the police finds out who he is, mind you it’s done by some pretty far fetched methods, and the try to cover it up. They don’t want him to be arrested and definitely not killed. They don’t want a martyr.

Because if they catch him they will trigger even more vigilantes to start defending themselves i.e. killing bad guys, commit murder. The police must uphold the law but on the other hand, he gets rid of some of the scum that the police will never catch and the crime rate goes down during his reign of the dark night streets. Instead they try to force him to stop and get out of New York. A bit like an old western and there’s even a comment about it in the dialog. Kersey asks if he should be gone before sundown. Brilliant line really.

The acting is really nice and the direction is swell. I can’t say that it needs any improvement on those matters. It does feel a little bit dated though and it might have past it’s expiring date when it comes to the story. There are some many films which are more explicit nowadays and the political satire may have become obsolete, I don’t know. But on the other hand, the debate of gun control is still a pretty big issue as I understand it so maybe it’s still pretty accurate after all. In this film the scale turns from pacifism to quite the opposite when the need arise. It’s all about revenge and how people might think in a situation like that. I don’t think any of us would think rational if this happened to us. Yet this is what Paul Kersey seems to do. His plan is thought through, at least up to a point and he doesn’t panic once he got the hang of it.

It might not have the most fantastic story of all the Charles Bronson movies but it’s pretty realistic and if you look fast you’ll see Jeff Goldblum as a bad guy in the very beginning of the film. I can’t say that he’s fantastic or anything but this was his debut. That ought to count for something I think.

8/10

Review: Violent City - 1970

Violent City

Aka: The Family

Director: Sergio Sollima

1970

Thriller/Drama

Carles Bronson is the contract killer Jeff Heston. He has been deceived and left to die in his own blood. But he survives and craves revenge! He tracks down those he considers to be guilty of the treason against him. He also encounters Weber, portrayed by Telly Savalas, who wants Heston to be part of his criminal organization. Heston declines the offer but no one turns down such an offer from Weber and lives to tell about it. The plot thickens and soon he’s entangled in a series of events where the plans architect is kept a secret.

It was a long time since I saw a film with one of my favorite actors Charles Bronson in a leading role. Instantly I realize that I’ve missed seeing he films and that I need to re-watch the films I’ve already seen over the years and also to see more of those that I haven’t seen before. There´s a car chase scene that´s typical for the seventies and it’s very nicely shot! The cinematography makes it kind of exciting. It has the European feel to it and I love it. The next scene makes me think of classic western shoot out and I love it!

Charles Bronson was one of the big names in European film during the seventies and it’s such a pleasure to see him act together with his wife Jill Ireland which he frequently did! There’s real chemistry between them that cannot be faked. Something that bothers me a bit is that some of the scenes are only available in Italian. I guess the English sound has been deleted years ago during some editing or censorship. I guess it’s better to have them in Italian than not at all of course! Especially since the absence of these scenes would mean that the film would be a total disaster and impossible to understand. In other words, it’s annoying but essentially to make some sense out of the storyline.  

I think that Telly Savalas does a great job here too. His mafia boss character is magnificent! When Heston (Bronson) starts to get tormented by his own conscious, remorse and sentiment Weber (Savalas) equals this out with the attitude of someone in a powerful position. There’s some doubt about which one of them that’s really behind the plans. Who is a pawn and who’s really in charge of the events? Perhaps this is a little too obvious but since the score is written by Morricone – who cares?

As a whole this might not be a masterpiece but as a fan of Bronson flicks I like it! You get what’s expected from Charles Bronson and Telly Savalas, Jill Ireland is as beautiful as usual and that can’t make any film worse. She even shows us a bit of skin in a couple of scenes. That can’t be a bad thing!

7/10