The shortest, silliest and least successful of the five Dirty Harry films, 1988's THE DEAD POOL has one redeeming grace and that's Clint Eastwood in his iconic role as the take no prisoners San Francisco detective. This time around, Harry is assigned to a lightweight and odd case around an arrogant movie director and an on-set list called The Dead Pool. The film crew is betting on which celebrities will die first. When everyone on the director's list starts getting murdered, Harry goes into action. Liam Neeson has one of his first major roles as the arrogant director, Jim Carrey (billed here as James) plays an off the rails rock star named Johnny Squares who needs a lot of drugs to get through filming. Carrey's facial expressions and physical thrashing were a lot more funny when he used them as Ace Ventura a few years later.... Eastwood has MANY great one-liners and enough sarcastic facial expressions to fill ten movies and steals the entire movie. Patricia Clarkson (Shutter Island, The Green Mile) is dull as a ruthless reporter that falls in with Callahan but Michael Currie returns to play Captain Donnelly as he had hilariously in "Sudden Impact". There is one very cool but totally stupid action sequence with the killer chasing Harry's car with a remote control car loaded with explosives. It's exciting and well staged, but seems like an odd fit for a Dirty Harry movie. The ending sequence in a warehouse is great looking and suspenseful, but the film wraps up out of nowhere, ending a very short 91 minute running time. Maybe they should have waited for a story more worthy of Harry and the character's film legacy. While it made a small profit, THE DEAD POOL managed to kill off the terrific film series. After this and two other Eastwood films, Director (and Eastwood friend) Buddy Van Horn went back to directing the stunts on Clint's films, a job he did until "J Edgar" in 2011. THE DEAD POOL is DOA and gets a C.

One of the best film adaptions of Stephen King's novels, 1983's THE DEAD ZONE is a taut, terrific thriller. Christopher Walken stars as Johnny, a school teacher who falls deep into a coma after a rainy car accident. Awakening after five years, Johnny finds that his fiance has remarried, life has moved on and that he has a very special "gift". When he touches people, he can see major events in their lives, past, present or future. At first, the ability appears to be a gift. Johnny touches a nurse caring for him when he wakes up and sees her daughter at home, trapped in a fire. The nurse rushes home just in time to be save her. Soon however, the visions bring darker events to life and Johnny becomes part of the hunt for a serial killer in his home town. Martin Sheen is great as a slimy politician whose chance hand shake with Johnny drives the film's final act. Walken is very good as Johnny, portraying a good, quiet man with a dangerous power. Unsure how and when to use it, Johnny walks a dangerous and very fine line. Director David Cronenberg is a great fit for the material. It's a far more mainstream film that his other efforts like "Scanners" or "Videodrome" but he carves out a great movie. The Dead Zone is heaven for King fans and a fine thriller for any movie fan. It's aged well and Walken is superb. We'll give it an A.

In the early 80's heyday of Steve Martin's comedy stardom, he made some truly eclectic film choices. 1982's DEAD MEN DON'T WEAR PLAID is a goofy little black and white tribute to gumshoe films of the 40's and 50's. Using greenscreen (or maybe it was blue screen that long ago!) Martin inserts himself into film clips of classic detective movies starring Bogart, Alan Ladd, Burt Lancaster and a cavalcade of movie stars. Martin and the legendary Carl Reiner weave the film clips into a very loose story of Rigby Reardon (Martin) and his encounter with femme fatale Juliet Forrest (a stunning Rachel Ward). Her father has disappeared and she and Rigby search through many suspects, interacting seamlessly with stars in many famous clips. By the time Reiner pops up as a Nazi villian, it's all rather silly, but it's a lot more consistently funny than I remembered. Martin is at his best with both physical comedy and comic delivery. The black and white photography is crisp, the story convoluted and the laughs consistent. We'll give Martin's trip through film noir a B-.

1989's thriller DEAD CALM is the opposite of its title. Sam Neill (Jurassic Park) and Nicole Kidman are John and Rae Ingram. In the film's opening moments, they suffer a family tragedy that threatens to tear Rae apart. They escape to the sea on their yacht, seeking solitude to regain their footing after a devastating loss. When they come across a large tourist vessel taking on water, they take aboard its terrified lone survivor Hughie, played by Billy Zane (Titanic). John is an Australian Naval officer and the more he hears Hughie's tale, the more he grows to suspect that everything isn't what it seems. While Hughie sleeps, John takes a smaller boat over to the marooned ship, leaving Rae alone on their boat with the stranger. The following hour is pure tension and thrills as all three people prove themselves to be single minded in their determination. Neill is excellent as John and his many scenes alone on screen are terrific & resourceful, showing all the screen presence the world would come to know the following year in "The Hunt For Red October" and four years later in Spielberg's dinosaur epic. Nicole Kidman was only 21 when she filmed this, her first screen role. She's excellent throughout, busting the boundaries of a traditional "woman in distress" and holding her own against the invader. Zane is all twisted menace as Hughie, flipping on a dime like a sea-bound Sybil and flashing seductive danger at every turn. Producer George Miller, who directed the "Mad Max" series has his fingerprints all over DEAD CALM. It feels like a Miller film, from its imposing main title sequence and Graeme Revell's (The Crow) spooky music score to the crazy sweeping cameras that seem to hover around every angle of their yacht. At just over 90 minutes, DEAD CALM is a non-stop, fast moving thriller that will get under your skin. It's too bad it succumbs to slasher movie stereotypes for its final two minutes, but with all the great scenes that came before, we'll forgive the tacked on "audience-pleaser" ending. DEAD CALM gets an A.

Proof that its possible to have great performances in a questionable movie, DAYS OF THUNDER was a minor hit for young Tom Cruise that still oozes 1990 cool. Cruise is Cole Trickle (insert your Nascar joke here) a rookie driver looking for his break to drive in the big leagues. When he pulls into the pits on a motorcycle, wrapped in slow motion, Hans Zimmer's score and endless smoke and hairspray, Cruise is the epitome of 1990 cool. Robert Duvall gives an excellent performance as Harry Hogge, a wise, seasoned pit chief that becomes Cole's mentor. He always feels authentic, even as some cardboard characters move around him. Nicole Kidman is a doctor that falls for Tom (they have great chemistry that led to marriage off camera), Randy Quaid (Vacation) is the team owner, Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride) is a cocky young driver and Michael Rooker (Guardians of the Galxy) is Cole's rival on the track. This was one of John C. Reilly's first films and he's terrific as well. It's written by Robert Towne, who also wrote "Chinatown" and 'Shampoo". He's a fantastic writer, but his script is buried in an awful lot of 90's sheen from Director Tony Scott (Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop). Cruise has also said that most of the script was thrown out and that scenes were rewritten on the fly, which may explain some of the meandering story. Cruise is fine, the action on the track is well shot and the ending is undeniably 'Rocky"-esque and enjoyable. I also loved hearing a lot of those 90's songs on the soundtrack. If you take it all lightly, its still a hell of a lot of fun, cheesy dialogue and all. No one does everyday heroes quite as well as Tom. DAYS OF THUNDER makes left turn after left turn while never straying far from familiar roads, roaring its loud, guilty pleasure path to a C+.

Based on the best selling Frederick Forsyth novel, 1973's THE DAY OF THE JACKAL is one of the most suspenseful thrillers of all time. Edward Fox stars as The Jackal, a British assassin hired by French resistance to kill Charles de Gaulle. Cutting a fast, silent path on his way to the assassination, the Jackal leaves no witnesses in his wake. Michael Lonsdale (Moonraker) stars as Lebel, the detective leading a massive pursuit of the Jackal. With tight direction by Fred Zinnemann (High Noon, Oklahoma) this is an exciting film from start to finish, building throughout its nearly 2.5 hour running time to an explosive climax. Fox is perfect as the Jackal, oozing charm under disguise and cold blooded murder in the blink of an eye. The early 1960's setting is well captured. It's not easy to make the detective work behind preventing an assassination exciting, but like "In the Line of Fire", this delivers. Ignore the horrible, pale 1997 remake "The Jackal" with Bruce WIllis and Richard Gere, its a mess. Stick with this original. One of the best films of the seventies, in my all time Top 100, The Jackal is on target and gets an A+.

This interesting, if strange, thriller gets even stranger when you realize it is the third film collaboration of Director Mike Nichols and Writer Buck Henry after "The Graduate" and Catch-22". How do you follow up those two modern classics? With a thriller about talking dolphins that are beings used in an assassination plot against the President, of course. THE DAY OF THE DOLPHIN stars George C. Scott as Dr. Jake Terrell. Along with his wife Maggie (Trish Van Devere, Scott's wife in real life too) and a small crew, Terrell is running a well funded research institute stretching the abilities of two dolphins. When the dolphins start to communicate with speech, they gain the interest of the government and several mysterious factions that descend on their experiments. This is a bizarre film and it was a big budget, massive misfire at the box office. Mike Nichols made some of the best films of the 60's and 70's, "The Graduate", "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf", "Carnal Knowledge" to name a few, but he's a very strange fit for this material, taking everything very seriously. That isn't easy to do when you have talking dolphins involved. George C. Scott proves that he's a damn good actor no matter the material and Fritz Weaver and Paul Sorvino have good moments as conspiratorial suit types of varying allegiance. The music score by Georges Delerue is excellent, the photography under and above water is great and those talking dolphins will sometimes tug at your heart, but overall it's a bit of a waste of some serious talents. Buck Henry has told hilarious stories for years about the making of the film, Scott's manic intensity on set and Scott and Nichols legendary battles over the script. If only a bit of the humor from those stories had leaked into the movie. At the conclusion of filming, the two dolphins leap the fence of their pen per the script for three takes and on the last take, swam out to see never to be seen again. Based on the audience and critical reaction to the film, it turned out those mammals were very smart indeed. Dolphin sinks with a C.

Picking up ten years after the conclusion of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes", DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES immerses us in a San Francisco dominated by apes in the forests and a small enclave of humans in the city. Caesar (Andy Serkis) is the undisputed leader of the apes, who over the past decade have all learned sign language and are starting to learn to speak. He has a loving mate and a "teenage" son Blue Eyes, who is anxious to follow in his father's footsteps. The genetically evolved apes own the forest territory and are living in relative peace. In the city, a large group of survivors live in the vine covered remnants of downtown San Francisco, led by Gary Oldman as Dreyfus, their inspirational leader. As all power sources threaten to run out in the months ahead, Dreyfus sends a team out to try and reactivate the hydroelectric dam. Unfortunately it's located in the forest and the fragile peace between the apes and humans is soon threatened. Jason Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty, The Great Gatsby) is great as Malcolm, who sees the apes as evolved equals to be partnered with. He is unfortunately surrounded by less evolved humans, who want nothing more than to kill all the apes. Caesar and Malcolm bond, but soon that mutual respect is tested by challenges from both the ape and the human worlds. To say more would be to spoil some of the enjoyable directions that the film takes on its way to an action filled conclusion atop the skyscrapers of San Fran. Andy Serkis is brilliant as Caesar. The computer effects are so sophisticated that the apes generate as much or more emotion than the humans. We have come a very long way from the ape masks of the 1960's! DAWN serves as the "Empire Strikes Back" of the current Apes series, improving on the first and perfectly setting up the next film. The production values are first rate throughout. You film buffs of my age will have fond memories of the vine covered Washington DC of "Logan's Run" when you see the much more realistic vegetation smothered San Francisco. As a long time fan of the Planet of the Apes series, its great to see the franchise in good hands, avoiding the budget crush of the original series where each film after 'Escape from the Planet of the Apes" had smaller budgets and diminishing returns. By also avoiding all the eccentricities of Tim Burton's attempt at a reboot, the current filmmakers continue to build characters you care about. Oldman seems a bit wasted until the finale, Keri Russell and Kirk Acevedo are a bit stuck in one mode, but Serkis and Clarke carry the film so high on their shoulders, you barely notice. Apes riding horses and shooting machine guns could have been really stupid. Not here! This is a great action film with some interesting things to say about loyalty, racism and family beneath the bullets, chases and explosions. DAWN is even better than RISE and gets an exciting A. Already looking forward to what happens next.

There's rarely been a book that has captured the public's imagination the way Dan Brown's thriller THE DA VINCI CODE did in the early 2000's. Combining elements of a thriller, a drama, history and religion, the massive hit was bound to be adapted to the screen and would prove to be a difficult task in 2006. Tom Hanks is well cast as Professor Robert Langdon. An expert cryptologist, Langdon is drawn into a massive conspiracy when a friend he was schedule to meet in Paris is killed in the Louvre. Before he dies, the victim writes Langdon's name in blood on the floor, but it proves to be only the first clue in a fever pitched mystery that leads quickly into an abyss of centuries old deception and lies. The secrets weave a tangled path that are a lot of fun to solve here (not nearly as much fun as they were to discover in the book, but still well told) and Director Ron Howard (Apollo 13, Backdraft, Cocoon) keeps things moving along amazingly well, especially with all the exposition he needs to layout for the viewer. He's helped immensely by screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (The Client, I Robot, Cinderella Man) and a terrific cast, especially Audrey Tautou as Sophie, Ian Mckellen as Sir Leigh Teabing, Jean Reno as French police Captain Fache and Paul Bettany as one very twisted Monk. I loved the book and enjoyed the movie when it came out, but I just watched the Director's cut which has been expanded to nearly three hours. This will be bad news for those in the audience that thought the original version dragged, but I thought the extra time allowed the film to better lay the groundwork for some of the best secret reveals. Hanks is truly our generation's Jimmy Stewart, perfect at playing the everyman American caught up in a story much bigger than he is. Like Stewart in "Rear Window" or Cary Grant in "North By Northwest", Hanks creates a professor that rises to the occasion and does the right thing at all costs. Hanks and Howard would team up again to craft further film adaptions of Brown's Langdon novels, including "Angels and Demons" in 2009 and "Inferno" filming now for release in late 2016. THE DA VINCI CODE played even better for me today than it did ten years ago, perhaps I'm more removed from the book or the longer version was just that much better, but this rare commercial & artistic thriller would make Da Vinci proud in its intricacy and gets a B.

DAVE is the best doppelganger comedy of all time, filled with laughs, heart and a great cast led by Kevin Kline. Kline plays President Bill Mitchell, detached, unpleasant and cheating on First Lady Ellen (Sigourney Weaver) at every turn. Kline also plays Dave Kovic, kind-hearted temp agency owner and dead ringer for Mitchell. Kovic makes some extra cash appearing as the President at car dealerships and grand openings, spinning a kinder version of Mitchell. The Secret Service drafts Dave to double the President after a speech so the real Commander in Chief can meet staffer Randi (young Laura Linney) for a night of romance. When Mitchell suffers a debilitating stroke at the height of passion, Chief of Staff Bob Alexander (a perfectly despicable Frank Langella) and staffer Alan Reed (hilarious Kevin Dunn) concoct a plan to move Dave into the President's chair to further their own needs. Langella kills as the ultimate political insider, focused on manipulating Dave any way he needs to in order to sit in the Oval Office himself. But Dave surprises. There are plenty of laughs as every-man Dave finds himself enjoying the role and displaying quite a knack as the leader of the free world. Fans of "Veep" will enjoy seeing Dunn in an early role the resonates perfectly with his current role as Ben Cafferty on the HBO sitcom. Ving Rhames is terrific as Secret Service agent Stephenson, Ben Kingsley resonates as the Vice President and Charles Grodin steals every scene he's in as Dave's accountant at the temp agency making some late night visits to the White House. Director Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters, Stripes) and writer Gary Ross (Big, Seabiscuit) deliver some of their best work, filling Dave's term with hilarity and heart. Langella has a blast playing against his usual serious roles. His high speed, apoplectic walk through the Capitol when Dave calls his own press conference is hilarious. Langella's "I can kill a hundred ordinary people" line is flawless. Kline's great in both roles. No one does a double take quite like Kline. Kline and Weaver have great chemistry in their scenes as they discover that neither are exactly who they expect. And hey, that's my friend Tom Dugan in the opening and closing scenes as Jerry, Alice (Faith Prince)'s boyfriend. He's a fun part of the closing moments, which are guaranteed to make you smile. Love it, Tom! Warren Beatty and Kevin Costner both turned down the role of Mitchell/Kovic, it's one of Kline's best. It's loaded with cameos from real life politicians and news pundits, but the best cameo is from Oliver Stone, who appears on TV convinced that there is a conspiracy in motion and Mitchell is NOT really Mitchell. It's perfect. DAVE delivers a landslide of laughs and clever storytelling more than 25 years after it's release and gets an A.

Based on the New York Times article "The Lawyer Who Became Dupont's Worst Nightmare". 2019's DARK WATERS is a harrowing and enlightening tour through the deepest corridors of corporate malfeasance. Mark Ruffalo stars as said attorney, Rob Billott. After finally moving up the ladder at his law firm, Billott is approached by two farmers that know his grandmother back in West Virginia. He's soon drawn in by that connection, visiting farmer Wilbur Tennant at his decaying property adjacent to a massive Dupont plant. Tennant (Bill Camp of "Joker") has watched hundreds of his livestock turn mad or die as they drink from the stream that feeds onto his property. Director Todd Haynes (Carol, Far From Heaven) paints everything in West Virginia in dying grays and blues, making the cities seem malignant in every corner. The deeper Billott is pulled into the case, the greater the discoveries of Dupont's criminal intent and complete disregard for human life. Victor Garber (Argo) is excellent as a senior Dupont executive who can't understand why Billott has "changed sides". When he dumps hundreds of thousands of pages of docs into Billott's lap as pushback during discovery, he fails to understand that he's just given Rob everything he needs to pursue justice. Tim Robbins is very good as the senior lawyer at Billott's firm, at first hesitant but then pulled into Rob's quest for what's right. The weakest link in the cast is Anne Hathaway, horribly miscast as Rob's wife Sarah. Hathaway can't hold a candle to Ruffalo and disappears any time they're on screen together. Mare Winningham is great as one of the Dupont employees, she would have been amazing as Sarah. It's hard for me to believe this is the same Mark Ruffalo that plays the Hulk in the Marvel films. He is so rumpled and pudgy here, constantly pursing his lips or hiding behind a wall of silence that betrays his lack of confidence. Only when he's interviewing a witness or in a courtroom does he emerge with the power of his convictions. Watching this true story unfold over the course of many years is painful and exasperating. As the film concludes, you learn the fate of all involved and get glimpses of some of the real people who played small parts in the film. Powerful and loaded with suspense & discovery, DARK WATERS gets an A. Now excuse me while I go look through all my cupboards for Teflon. If the final statement written on screen before the credits start doesn't terrify every citizen of the world, it should....

Film buffs already know that Director Nikolaj Arcel can adapt a book into a great film. Anyone that's seen the original Swedish version of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" can attest to that fact. So what in the world happened to this hurried, truncated adaption of the first book in Stephen King's 8 book long "The Gunslinger" opus, THE DARK TOWER? You've got a great Roland in Idris Elba (Prometheus, Beasts of No Nation). He's terrific as the last of the old fashioned gunslingers battling to keep many worlds safe from evil. We have Matthew McConaughey in decent form as Walter, The Man in Black bent on destroying everything good in our world and every other. Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (I Am Legend, Fringe, The DaVinci Code) adapted the book and young Tom Taylor if a terrific choice as Jake, the young man who has a strong Shining that has him torn between, and important to two worlds. Moments of the film are very strong, including the final gun battle, Roland's opening moments in Manhattan and some of the scenes between Roland and Jake as they bond in purpose. But what happened to the rest of the story? It's as if the filmmakers delivered a coherent three hour movie and the studio decided to cut 50% of the film without regard to flow, plot points or coherency. Major events happen and you're left to figure out their motive or impact. Characters appear and vanish at will. The rules of traveling between the worlds seem poorly defined and create no suspense. A little backstory on Roland and The Man in Black might have provided some context, a word that seems lost on this effort. It feels like a movie begging for another 30-45 minutes to tell a story. With so much talent and money behind launching a major new tent-pole film and TV series, this hatchet job renders a great story nearly senseless. Hugely overshadowed by the FAR superior Stephen King adaption IT in theaters the summer of 2017, this flop feels like a brand killer. What a shame and a waste of talent. It's fantastic to look at, while it lasts. Which isn't long. It's okay to leave audiences wanting more, but not to serve them half a meal and then turn off the lights. This short story in search of coherence gets a C-. Surely Arcel has a three hour version somewhere that will be released in a couple years to acclaim....OR, this whole damn thing got lost in translation.