Ransom

Ransom

Director: Ron Howard

Cast: Mel Gibson, Rene Russo, Gary Sinise, Delroy Lindo, Brawley Nolte, Lili Taylor, Evan Handler, Donnie Wahlberg, Liev Schreiber

Released: November 8, 1996

WARNING: I AM GOING TO GIVE AWAY MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THIS MOVIE RIGHT FROM THE START, SO IF YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN RANSOM AND PLAN TO SOMEDAY, THEN STOP READING THIS!!!! SERIOUSLY, TURN BACK NOW! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! AND GOOD FOR YOU FOR NEVER BEING SPOILED ON A 20 YEAR OLD MOVIE IF YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN THIS!!

Alright, I can never be too careful with my spoiler warnings. I haven't gotten a complaint once, so I think my warnings help! I've seen Ransom twice in the past, but it's been quite awhile since I last saw it, it felt like I was watching it for the first time. These were the only things that I remembered (and now you will understand why I put that large spoiler warning above!): the scene where Mel Gibson dives into a pool to retrieve a key, that Gary Sinise played a cop that was involved with the kidnapping, and that the kid is reunited with his parents. Those three things were the only things I remembered, although, for some reason, I thought the reveal of Gary Sinise as the kidnapper was revealed much later in the movie, but I must be thinking when Mel Gibson figures out it was him. 

Mel Gibson and Rene Russo play married couple Tom and Kate Mullen who have a ten-year-old son, Sean (played by Brawley Nolte - he is Nick's son). They live in a penthouse in Manhattan as Tom is multi-millionaire owner of a successful airliner. Their son is taken when they're in Central Park at a science fair. Kate is a judge and Tom, who was with Sean, gets distracted and starts talking to people. When both parents realize their son isn't where he was standing a few minutes ago, they begin to get a bit frantic and start looking for him and Kate uses the intercom system to page him to the judges' table, but that doesn't work. When they get home, they have an e-mail waiting for them. So they logged on to their NETSCAPE (hahahah, remember Netscape? I personally never used it; I was using AOL back in '96...remember AOL? Remember IMing? Those were they days, I tell you!) and there's a video of their son laying on a bed, blindfolded and handcuffed to the bed. There's also an audio recording of a man with an altered voice telling them he wants a two million dollar ransom for their son that is to be delivered within 48 hours and he will contact them later on how to deliver the money. He tells them if they get the police involved, he will kill their kid. Naturally, Tom and Kate are very shaken up at this. Even though they are told not to get the police involved, they do get the FBI involved, which makes no sense to me, but whatever. And the thing is, the kidnapper KNOWS that the FBI is involved. But it turns out to be a good thing he has the FBI helping him. 

Special Agents Hawkins (Delroy Lindo) and his team trace the calls that Tom receives from the kidnapper. He thinks the kidnapper may be connected to a guy named Jackie Brown who is currently in prison. There was a whole side story with a shady business deal Tom did in the past and he paid off some people and somehow Brown was sent to jail, though he thinks it should have been Tom. I have no idea, but they just wanted to give the audience a red herring (even though the audience knows who the real kidnapper is long before Tom and everyone else does). 

The real kidnapper is a police officer named Jimmy Shaker (Gary Sinise). He has a team which consists of his girlfriend, Maris (Lili Taylor), who was also the waitstaff at one of the Mullen's fancy parties, so she was an "insider". And there's also three other guys played by Evan Handler (for all of you Sex and the City fans, he played Charlotte's divorce lawyer turned husband), Donnie Wahlberg, and Liev Schreiber. When we first see Shaker, we think he has found Sean and is going to rescue him, but surprise! He's the mastermind behind the whole kidnapping! Shaker calls Tom with a disguised voice and tells him how he's going to drop off the money which includes jumping into a pool with his clothes on to retrieve a key at the bottom (which also burns out the mic he's wearing) and changing into different clothes and driving a different car so the FBI can no longer follow him. Tom is lucky he didn't kill his kid since he didn't follow instructions about not getting the police involved. Actually, Tom changed a lot of the rules that Shaker had planned for him, so he is very lucky nothing happened to his son! 

After all this game of cat and mouse, Shaker instructs him to turn off a certain exit and give the money to Wahlberg, who, in turn, will give him the address. When Wahlberg demands the money, Tom demands the address, but Wahlberg doesn't seem to know what he's talking about. There's a big shootout as the police have located them and Wahlberg has died before Tom can get the location of where his son is out of him. He believes Shaker never had any intention of ever giving back his son because he could tell Wahlberg had no idea what he was talking about when he asked for an address.

Shaker decides to try another drop off for the money, but this time Tom has different plans. He tells the kidnapper to turn on his TV and makes a stop at the news station, as being a prominent business man, his story has made not only national news, but WORLD news. On live TV, he announces that he will no longer pay the ransom, but instead offer a bounty of two million dollars for whoever turns in the kidnapper and ups the offer to four million dollars the next day after Shaker personally threatened Kate. Tom and Kate know Sean is alive because the kidnapper put him on the phone to prove it. Tom also announces that if his son is killed, then there will be no money rewarded. His wife and Agent Hawkins are against this plan and tell him he just needs to pay the ransom, but Tom holds his ground. He thinks this is the only way he will get his son back alive.  

Shaker calls Tom, one last time and demands the money right then and now or else he will kill Sean. Tom still refuses and a gun shot is heard. This is the first time Tom breaks down, thinking his son is really dead and what has he done? But it was just a warning shot and instead Shaker has other ideas where he plans to be the hero and pretend he's the one who saved Sean. He frames his other accomplices and kills them, making it look like they were the masterminds behind the whole thing and that he has found and rescues Sean. After Sean is reunited with his parents, Shaker comes to the apartment the next day to collect his money. He and Tom were supposed to meet at his office, somewhere else on another day, but he tells Tom he couldn't wait any longer and needed the money right away. This turns out to be a very stupid movie for the criminal because Sean, who is hiding behind a door and only his father can see him, recognizes Shaker's voice and judging by his reaction, Tom knows he was the kidnapper. Shaker has figured out Tom knows who he really is, so he takes him by gunpoint and demand he drive him to the bank to get the money, then on to one of his private jets to fly to Mexico. Tom tells him he has to call the airport to fuel a jet and as we see him talking, we see he has called Agent Hawkins. They get his money at the bank, then there's a big shootout and Shaker is bloodied, but he has enough life left in him to lift his gun and try to shoot Tom, but Agent Hawkins kills him first. Shaker, I mean, he kills the bad guy. 

I like that it turns the table with the offering of the bounty, but it's a pretty run of the mill kidnapping movie. I haven't seen it in awhile, but I think I prefer Man on Fire to this one. This movie got a little intense at times, but that movie was WAY intense. I think if I were a kidnapped character, I would much rather have Denzel Washington look for me than Mel Gibson because Denzel gets things done! Sure, Mel Gibson got his son back, but things got a little iffy there for awhile. Although, now I can't remember if Dakota Fanning survived that movie...I think she does. :::makes mental note to watch and review Man on Fire soon::::

Cop Buddies

Lethal Weapon

Director: Richard Donner

Cast: Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Gary Busey, Mitchell Ryan, Tom Atkins, Darelene Love

Released March 6, 1987

Oscar nominations:

Best Sound (lost to The Last Emperor) 

Lethal Weapon 2
Director: Richard Donner
Cast: Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Joss Ackland, Patsy Kensit, Darlene Love
Released: July 7, 1989

Oscar nominations:
Best Sound Effects Editing (lost to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade)

Lethal Weapon 3
Director: Richard Donner
Cast: Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Rene Russo, Joe Pesci, Stuart Wilson, Darlene Love
Released: May 15, 1992

Lethal Weapon 4
Director: Richard Donner
Cast: Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Rene Russo, Chris Rock, Jet Li, Darlene Love
Released: July 10, 1998

I had never seen the Lethal Weapon series until just recently when I discovered they were all on Netflix Instant, but I know they were a big part of '80s and '90s action films. Besides being action films, the only thing I knew about them was that they starred Mel Gibson and Danny Glover and the oft-quoted line, "I'm too old for this sh*t!" is uttered by Danny Glover.

Glover and Gibson are Roger Murtaugh and Martin Riggs (notice how they have opposite initials!) When we first meet Murtaugh, it is his 50th birthday (although Danny Glover was 40 when he filmed this...I would be a little insulted if I were him!) He's married to a woman named Trish (Darlene Love - I mostly know her as a singer) and has three children: a teenage daughter named Rianne and a younger son and daughter, Nick and Carrie, who are probably 12 and 9, if I had to guess. I checked IMDb to see if all three kids are played by the same actors throughout the series and they are. In the first movie, Rianne plays a big role. Murtaugh is not very happy when he finds he has a new partner as he would rather work alone. He's partnered with Riggs, who's in his thirties. When we first meet him, we find out his wife died in a car accident and that he's suicidal. We see an early scene of him pointing a gun to his head, but this was a pretty anti-climatic scene for me knowing that there are three other Lethal Weapon movies and they all star Mel Gibson (and Danny Glover as well, so we know Murtaugh's never in any real danger either!) I thought maybe he would be interrupted by a phone call or the knock door, but he decides he can't go through with it.

It does take awhile before we actually see Murtaugh and Riggs meet (this is the origin story, after all!) and there is a funny scene where we see Riggs working on his own. He's working undercover and wants these drug dealers, who also work at a Christmas tree farm, to sell him all their cocaine and asks them how much. They tell him it will cost him "a hundred", but they'll throw in a tree for free. He pulls out his wallet and starts counting twenties and one of the guys slams his hand over the money and Riggs says, "Hey, man, I'm losing count" and the guys says, " One hundred THOUSAND dollars!" Riggs says that he has a better idea; that he'll "take the whole stash off their hands for free and that they can go to jail" and shows them his badge. Oh, yeah, I'm sure those guys think that's a much better deal!

Naturally, Murtaugh and Riggs don't care for each other when they first start working together, but that will change over the course of the series. They are investigating the death of a young woman who they thought committed suicide by jumping off the balcony of a high-rise. However, an autopsy report says that she had been poisoned before she jumped, so she would have died regardless. I don't know why they assumed she committed suicide because she was so jacked up on drugs, I just figured she was impaired and didn't know what she was doing when she jumped. The case is personal for Murtaugh because the girl was the daughter of a man he knew, Michael Hunsaker (Tom Atkins) when he was serving in Vietnam.

That's the main storyline, but there's also other unrelated police work they attend to, such as trying to stop a man from jumping off a building. They decide to send the suicidal cop up to the roof to stop him, for some reason. Riggs tricks the guy and handcuffs him to himself and tells him if he jumps, then he'll be taking a police officer with him and will also be committing murder. While all this was going on, there was a big air mattress being blown up below them. Riggs and the other guy had to have seen that, but when Riggs tells him they might as well jump, the guy starts freaking out and they both land on the mattress. Later that day, Riggs and Murtaugh get a tip about a man who may have sold the dead girl the drugs and Riggs ends up killing him after the guy pulls out a gun. Murtaugh yells at him and asks him if he kills everybody he meets which doesn't make any sense because this is the only guy Riggs has killed....so far! (Murtaugh was a little more than upset about the suicidal guy, but he didn't die!) There's also another scene where they're at the shooting rage and both are trying to prove they are a better shot than the other. Murtaugh shoots a bullet through the head of the target, then Riggs takes a target and moves it as far back as it can go and ends up shooting a smiley face on the target's face.

Murtaugh and Riggs find out that Hunsaker's daughter was killed by these guys he was working with. He was laundering money for their heroin smuggling operation called Shadow Company, but wanted out. It was run be a retired general, McAllister (Mitchell Ryan) and Mr. Joshua (everyone's favorite Apprentice, Gary Busey). As Hunsaker is telling Murtaugh about this, he is killed by Mr. Joshua who takes him out from a helicopter and Riggs runs after the helicopter and starts shooting it...does he really think that's going to work? Not surprisingly, Mr. Joshua gets away.

Rianne, the teen daughter of Murtaugh, gets kidnapped by the bad men. There's a big showdown in the desert and a lot of the bad men's henchmen are killed and Rianne manages to escape, but they capture her again along with Riggs and Murtaugh who are both tortured until Riggs escapes and rescues Murtaugh and Rianne and kills some more bad guys. Mr. Joshua has escaped and goes to Murtaugh's house (because every single bad guy in all these movies all know where Murtaugh lives...he really should have moved!) to kidnap the other members of the Murtaugh family, but they've all been taken to safety before he can do that. Riggs and Murtaugh end up driving a car through the house (and Murtaugh's house is going to get completely destroyed during the course of this series! Again, he really should have moved!) There's a big fight between Riggs and Mr. Joshua and Mr. Joshua is caught and being put in handcuffs but not before he tries to get the gun of the police officer, so Riggs shoots and kills him.

There was a small subplot in which Rianne has a crush on Riggs which was a little creepy since she's a teenager and he's in his thirties, but they quickly nix that in the following movies as he becomes like a cool uncle to Murtaugh's kids.

Seriously, what is this monstrosity? 

This movie is so ridiculously outdated and not in the fun way. You should have seen the "mobile" phone Danny Glover uses. In fact, I found a photo so you can see it! The saxophone solos just scream' 80s. There's even a scene where a man comes in Murtaugh's office and starts going off about "the '80s man" and how "guys in the '80s aren't tough, they're sensitive and show their emotions around women." It was just so cringeworthy and out of date. And don't get me started on Mel Gibson's awful mullet, but I guess only Riggs could pull it off.


This movie was the first screenplay written by Shane Black (who also wrote the screenplay for the last movie I reviewed, The Long Kiss Goodnight) who went on to become a hot commodity for action movie screenplays. I just assumed he wrote the screenplays for the other Lethal Weapon movies, but he's just credited for creating the characters and coming up with the story for the second movie.

In Lethal Weapon 2, which came out two years after the first, we are introduced to a few new characters, including new villains. They are trying to take down these South African drug lords who are hiding behind diplomatic immunity.

Murtaugh and Riggs are assigned with the task of "baby-sitting" a man named Leo Getz (Joe Pesci) who has been placed under protective custody and they need to watch him until he testifies. When they arrive at the hotel Leo is staying at, they meet a squirrelly little annoying man. He introduces himself as, "Whatever you need, Leo Getz. You get it?" He also says, "Okay, okay, okay" a lot. He's a very annoying character, but you kind of learn to love him as he's also in the following two movies (and, honestly, there really is no reason for him to be in those movies!) The bad guys have found out where Leo is and one of them, pretending to be part of the hotel staff as he brings in the room service, pulls out a gun, but Riggs attacks him and he, the bad guy, and Leo all go out the window....they are very lucky there was a pool to fall into because they were seven floors up...that fall would have killed them all if not for the pool to break their fall, and even that has to hurt hitting water from that far up! I loved it when Murtaugh gets there and Riggs says, "Why didn't you follow us down?" and Murtaugh goes, "We were seven floors up!" I don't blame him...I wouldn't jump out that window! Needless to say, the bad guy gets away.

They ask Leo what he did for that guy to want to kill them all like that and think he must have murdered someone. This surprised me because I would think they would already know why he's in protective custody, but I guess not. Leo tells them, "All I did was launder a half billion dollars in drug money, okay?" Dang, this guy needs to partner with Walter White...think of all the money those two could have made together...although I'm 100 percent certain Heisenberg would have killed Leo! I'm sure Saul Goodman would have loved to take him on as a client! Unsurprisingly, the bad guys who want to kill Leo are also the same bad guys from South Africa who Riggs and Murtaugh are trying to capture.

Riggs finds out that one of the men from South Africa was responsible for his wife's death...yeah, I'm just as surprised as you are. He has a short-lived romance with a woman who is the secretary of the bad guy (and doesn't believe in his politics), but the writers obviously thought they could find somebody better for him as she is quickly killed off by the bad guys. And this happens after she and Riggs are hiding under his trailer home after the bad guys hover over them with a helicopter and shoot at them. This happens while they are sleeping, but luckily Rigg's collie, Sam, barks and warns them to get out!

To be honest, this was my least favorite of the Lethal Weapon movies. Probably the most memorable scene is when Riggs and the other officers haven't heard from Murtaugh in awhile, so Riggs goes to his house to investigate and finds Murtaugh is on the toilet and he can't get off because he's discovered a bomb. He tells Riggs he doesn't want anyone knowing about this and the next scene shows hundreds of people outside his house. With all these guys from the bomb squad, you think they would be able to disarm the bomb, but no, all they do is put a heavy vest on Murtaugh (and Riggs who is going to stay with him) and tell them to dive into the tub. You think they would also give them helmets, but no. I think this is also the first scene of many where they argue when they're counting down to three, if they go ON 3, or AFTER they say 3. (You know, I've had that internal argument many times with myself). The bomb explodes and the toilet goes flying out the window. It was a pretty funny scene.

Lethal Weapon 3 came out three years later. We are now in the '90s! Murtaugh is about to retire soon and is keeping a countdown of when he will finally get to hang up his uniform for good. This one begins with an exciting action scene: Riggs and Murtaugh are trying to stop a car bomb parked in the parking lot of an office building. It's Riggs' idea to diffuse the bomb, but Murtaugh, the voice of reason, smartly says they should wait for the bomb squad to get there. Yes, Murtaugh, GREAT idea! Riggs thinks he can handle it, however when he cuts the wire he thinks will stop it, the timer just speeds up really fast. It really makes no sense for him to put Murtaugh in danger. Riggs has become pretty close to the Murtaugh family; he would never want to leave Trish and those three kids without a father. The two book it out of there and the entire building blows up. Luckily, this happened in the middle of the night, so nobody (that we know of!) was in the building.

Because of this incident, the two are demoted to just giving out tickets to civilians and just being on street patrol. While on duty, they see an armored van being stolen and pursue it. After a high-speed chase where one of the guys goes headfirst through the windshield of the van, Riggs tells him, "You have the right to remain unconscious. Anything you say, ain't got to be much." By the way, Riggs is from Australia, right? Because I detect some Aussie accent in his voice. They find out the man is in cahoots with a former police officer named Jack Travis (Stuart Wilson) who is selling smuggled guns. Riggs and Murtaugh are back in the field to work this assignment along with an officer from internal affairs, Lorna (Rene Russo) and a romance blossoms between her and Riggs.

There's a scene where Riggs and Lorna check out a lead, only to find the place that is housing the illegal firearms is being guarded by a seemingly viscous Rottweiler. Riggs, being a dog person, decides to try to make friends with the dog....one second the dog is growling at him, the next Riggs is feeding him dog treats and rubbing his belly! The dog also decides to leave and join Riggs and Lorna after they infiltrate the place. Speaking of dogs, I didn't even see Sam the collie in this movie.

They find out there are some cop killers on the loose and there's a special kind of bullet than can penetrate a bullet proof vest. It turns out one of these cop killers is none other than one of Nick's friends (the teenaged son of Murtaugh). Nick hasn't seen much of Daryl lately because he dropped out of school. A couple days later, Riggs notices a drug deal taking place and points his gun and badge at them and tells them to show their hands, but one guy starts shooting at him and as he hides behind a building, a couple of the kids drive away. A couple other kids run away and one kids hides in a latrine. Murtaugh comes to help Riggs and tells the kid to come out with his hands up, but the kid opens the door a crack and starts shooting at them. Murtaugh shoots back and ends up killing the kid...and finds out it was Daryl. He's very torn up about this and when he attends the funeral and goes to tell Daryl's parents how sorry he is, Daryl's mom only slaps him. Um, what the hell? He had to kill your son or else he would have died...and your son tried to kill a police officer. Great offspring you have there, woman. But of course she blames Murtaugh for her son's death and for her son having an illegal weapon.

Leo is back, annoying as ever, and for some reason, with platinum hair. He helps Riggs and Murtaugh by identifying Jack Travis for them at an hockey game because he did business with him. There is really no reason for him to be in this movie. He's also trying to sell the Murtaugh's house for them...since when did Leo become a realtor?

There's this scene towards the end where Riggs, Murtaugh, Lorna, and some 22 year old kid brand new to the force are on a shoot out with the bad guys...well, guess which of those four characters I just named ends up getting shot and killed? And the kid just turned 22 that day! Also, on the day of his supposed retirement, Murtaugh decides he doesn't want to retire. If I were his wife, I would be so angry. I'd be like, You've been a police officer for the last however many years and nothing has ever happened to you, so let's not push our luck and just retire now! But of course she and the rest of the Murtaugh family are very supportive of his decision and tell him the city will be a safer place since he's a police officer. I was wondering, before I saw this scene, if he would come out of his retirement for the fourth movie.

The longest gap is between the third and fourth (aka the final as I doubt there will be any others at this point!) movie with six years between them. I was prepared to absolutely hate Lethal Weapon 4 because whenever I listen to movie podcasts and the Lethal Weapon series comes up, everyone always talks about how much they despise that one. Perhaps since I had such low expectations, I didn't think it was that bad. It wasn't a masterpiece, but none of them are.

As we met Leo in the second movie and Lorna in the third movie, we meet yet another new character in the latest installment. Chris Rock plays Lee Butters, a new cop on their force. (And yes, every time they referred to him as "Butters", I thought of the South Park character!) He is married to Rianne and she is pregnant with his child, but Murtaugh doesn't even know any of this. (Apparently nobody told him because he would flip out if his daughter was married to a police officer, but doesn't he have the right to know?!) He does find out his daughter is pregnant in the very first scene when he and Riggs are trying to stop a guy in a flame-retardant suit setting fire to everything in his path. They are hiding behind their car and Riggs tells Murtaugh he needs to be safe because Rianne is pregnant, then Murtaugh, in return, tells Riggs HE needs to be safe because Lorna, now Riggs' girlfriend, is pregnant. Don't ask my why Riggs knew about Rianne and Murtaugh knew about Lorna before the other one knew. I guess they were both sworn to secrecy. I thought the fire-starter guy was going to be pivotal to the story of Lethal Weapon 4, but once Murtaugh distracts the guy by flapping his arms like a chicken in his boxer shorts (okay, maybe I can understand why people think this movie has jumped the shark!), Riggs shoots the guy's fuel tank and he goes flying into a gas station and explodes so obviously that was the last we saw of him!

The real plot of this movie is they discover a large boat with many Chinese immigrants who are involved in a smuggling ring led by a man named Ku (Jet Li). The immigrants are being brought to L.A. to be slaves. Murtaugh takes in a family of immigrants and lets them stay at his home. They are captured and taken by the bad guys who tie up Murtaugh, Riggs, Lorna, Trish, and Rianne and then proceed to set Murtaugh's house on fire (seriously, he should have bought a new house ages ago!), but luckily a young boy hiding in the house is unable to untie them from their restraints. There's something involving counterfeit money. Leo is back and he's a private detective so he helps the others hunt down the bad guys. As great as Joe Pesci is, there really is no reason for him to be in this movie just as there was no reason for him to be in the third movie. Yes, there is a funny dynamic between him and our two leading characters, but for the most part he's just there to be the comedic relief...which we don't really need in a movie like this since it's already a comedy. At least Leo no longer has his weird platinum hair! And I will admit I did feel bad for him when he told Riggs his story about his pet frog from childhood, Froggie, his only friend in the world who he accidentally killed when he ran over him with his bike...awww!

There are some great action scenes in this one, including one where Riggs and Ku are fighting inside a mobile home with one side covered in plastic so everyone driving around them can see them. There are also many scenes that don't need to be there. One is when Riggs, Murtaugh, and Butters try to talk to a bad guy who is at the dentist and put him on laughing gas and soon they are all on laughing gas and making jokes. This scene is only here to placate the audience as well as the scenes we have of Leo and Butters having stupid arguments so we can see Joe Pesci and Chris Rock going back and fourth. Amusing, but not relevant.

The movie ends with Riggs becoming a father and Murtaugh becoming a grandfather...how coincidental those two babies were born on the same day! They all take a family photo and everyone is happy. There is a finality to the credits with photo book snapshots from all the movies. There is no way they would ever make another one because Mel Gibson and Danny Glover are quite literally too old for this sh*t!

Hanging with the Coopers

Forever Young
Director: Steve Miner
Cast: Mel Gibson, Elijah Wood, Jamie Lee Curtis, Joe Morton, George Wendt
Released: December 16, 1992

OMG, you guys, eleven-year-old Elijah Wood is sooooo cute! Super cute! Someday I will tell you my Elijah Wood story, but that will go better with one of his other movies which I plan on reviewing soon. But before we get to eleven-year-old Elijah Wood in "modern day" 1992, we must first start with 36-year-old Mel Gibson in 1939 small town, California. Gibson plays Daniel McCormick, a U.S. Army test pilot. He has a best friend named Harry (George Wendt) who is a scientists and a longtime girlfriend named Helen who he plans on asking to marry, but keeps chickening out. I'm not really sure why because she seems to be just as into him as he is into her. But for some reason, he just can't get up the courage to ask her to marry him.

Right after his many (failed) attempts of getting up the nerve to ask the big question while they're at a diner, Helen tells him she has to go or she'll be late for work. While dashing across the street, she ends up getting hit by a car. She goes into a coma and six months pass without her waking up even though the doctors said she should have woken up two months ago. Because she hasn't woken up yet, the doctors are grim about her chances of recovery. A distraught Daniel stays at her bedside every night, not knowing what to do with himself.

Harry, his scientist friend, has told Daniel about his latest experiment: he plans to freeze somebody for a year in the chamber coffin he built to test cryonics on humans. His initial test subject has backed out and Daniel begs Harry to let him do it since he has no family and doesn't want to be around when Helen finally does die. A bit hesitant at first, Harry finally agrees since there isn't exactly anybody else volunteering for the job. Well, guess who dies in that year that Daniel is serving as a human popsicle? No, it's not Mel Gibson because then the movie would already be over. It's Harry. I guess he drank himself to death at the Cheers bar! And Harry was the only one who knew about the experiment...it's just like in Face/Off when the only people who knew John Travolta had his face switched with a mad man were the two FBI agents and the doctor...all of who were brutally murdered. The only difference is that in this movie, Harry isn't brutally murdered...he just died.

Fast forward 53 years later to the sumer of 1992 in the same small town in California. This is when we meet (super cute!) Nat Cooper (Elijah Wood) who lives with his single mom, Claire (Jamie Lee Curtis) and is spending the summer hanging out with his friend, Felix. (I guess he was named after a cat?) They're the ones who discover the frozen Daniel in his coffin chamber that is located in an old, abandoned warehouse. They accidentally open the chamber and think they've stumbled upon a frozen dead guy, only Daniel wakes up and grabs Nat's jacket. The kids run away, screaming, the jacket left behind.

When Nat gets home, he tells his mom the truth about how he lost his jacket, but she doesn't believe him. Where do you think this ranks in the "truths that nobody believes" Elijah Wood tells people in his movies? We have "a frozen guy in a chamber located in an abandoned warehouse took my jacket." There's "my cousin, who everyone thinks is a great kid, is actually a sociopath and is doing terrible, terrible things" and "the teachers at my school are being overtaken by aliens." Those are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head. I feel compared to the other ones, this is fairly tame and can be laughed away by a kid with an active imagination. To her credit, Claire does seem amused by her son's story. She probably wouldn't be as amused if he told her his cousin was killing everyone or the teachers at his school were all aliens.

I don't know anything about cryonics, so maybe it's possible for a human to be frozen for 53 years and not die from, oh, I don't know, lack of food? But Daniel "wakes up" and is exactly how he looked in 1939. Good thing he has that jacket because he is nude so he can use it to cover himself until he steals some clothes that are hanging on a clothesline. He sees a sign advertising the 1992 Air Show and mutters, "Oh, brother." Okay, that has got to be a callback to Sam Beckett and all his "Oh, boy!" exclamations he utters in Quantum Leap, right?!? It would make perfect sense since this movie came out while that show was on. Maybe J. J. Abrams is a fan? Yes, he wrote the screenplay! He's credited as Jeffrey Abrams, though.

He tries to look up Harry in the phone book (does he really think he would still be alive after all these years? He was older than Daniel!), but since he has a common last name, the task proves to be a little difficult. He goes to the military headquarters where he demands to speak to whoever's in charge and proceeds to tell his story to a man who clearly thinks he's a lunatic. Conveniently, he still has Nat's windbreaker which has his name and address on the inside label so he goes to his house where Nat and Felix freak out and try to defend themselves with a hammer. After he calms them down, Nat lets him use his phone and Felix offers to steal clothes from his dad's closet for him. They take him to the library where Nat shows him how to use the microfiche machine so he can look up old newspaper articles. When they learn of Daniel's occupation, Nat exclaims, "Oh my God, Felix, we found a pilot!" like they found a puppy. He is very into aviation although the film could have done a little better job of portraying this.

Nat sees the redhead girl from his class who he has a crush on and attempts to talk to her (because who doesn't love redheads, haha!). "Hypothetically" speaking, if I were an 11-year-old redhead girl in the summer of '92 I would be all over this kid because he is soooooooooooooooooooooo cute! I mean, who else is she going to like? His little friend from Don't Tell Mom, the Baby-Sitter's Dead? No, I don't think so. He's not cute! Nat tells her he likes her dress and that it looks like wallpaper, which it does. It's funny because it's true! At one point, Daniel looks over and Nat smiles at him and gives him a "Yeah, I got this!" look. Cracks me up every time. Unfortunately, he does not have this because the girl only shows interest in him for a second, then ignores him. Crazy redhead! He is the cutest! But she comes to her senses in a later scene when she smiles at him after he sings to her (and after I died from the adorableness!).

Nat lets Daniel stay in his tree house and brings him food and a history book. He tells him he has to go (perhaps to a junior Council of Elrond meeting?), but first needs validation about his tree house. Once he has Daniel's approval that it's nice, he seems happy and leaves. While he's gone, an ex-boyfriend of Claire's has stopped by and is being aggressive with her. Daniel enters the house and punches the guy. After the guy leaves, Daniel is smart to tell Claire that he was just taking a walk when he passed her house and heard the commotion. Good call not telling her the truth that he was actually camping out in her son's tree house. Cuz that's not creepy!

To Nat's delight, Claire lets Daniel stay for a few days and makes up the couch for him. Yes, she just lets a total stranger stay with them! It's so weird! What kind of mother is she? All she knows about him is that he's a pilot. I don't even remember if they explain why, duh, he can't stay at his own house. Maybe he said he was out of town? But they have hotels! They just need him to stay at their house to fulfill some plot lines like have a five second romance between Daniel and Claire (both are already spoken for so of course it doesn't go anywhere...oh, and he's technically 50 years older than she is!) and being a father figure for Nat.

Nat wants Daniel to teach him how to fly, but the pilot tells him he cannot because he doesn't have a plane or a flight jacket so Nat comes home one day and gives Daniel a flight jacket he apparently bought for him. Uh...where did this kid get the money to buy that? Maybe Jamie Lee Curtis has a secret stash of money in a cookie jar like she did in My Girl? (Which were found by Elijah Wood's evil movie cousin! "Hey, where are all the cookies?") They use the tree house as the plane and there's a Lite Brite (!!) involved with the airspeed indicator (uh...maybe?) made on it. After the "lesson", Daniel, being in his 80s, starts to get sick and falls out of the tree and Nat finds someone to take him to the hospital. This entire scene has some horrible continuity. When Nat comes in to give Daniel the jacket, it was raining outside and Elijah Wood's clothes and hair are soaked and he looks like an adorable drowned rat. Then when they're in the treehouse, his hair is dry! But it's still raining because you can see it! Then when Daniel drops out of the tree house and Nat is running to find someone to help him, he gets soaked again. Then at the hospital when he's telling his mom about Daniel (she's there because she's a nurse), his hair is dry again! WTF?

Joe Morton is highly underused in this movie. Show the guy some respect; he's the (would be) creator of Skynet, for God's sake! He's only in a couple scenes at the end. He plays a government official who finds out about Daniel's story and is trying to get to him, but Nat and Claire sneak him out of the hospital with the help of Claire's doctor boyfriend. They find another lead and this time it's Harry's daughter who tells Daniel that her father died before she was born (oh, yeah, Harry announced his wife was pregnant at the beginning of the movie so this wasn't a big shock). It is revealed, however, that Helen is still alive (and was even married but her husband is now deceased, whew!) and she lives on some island off the coast. Good job, Mel Gibson, you just wasted the last 50 years of your life in a coffin chamber when you could have spent it with your paramour. Although, that's really Harry's fault for dying (and not telling anybody about his project!!). I'd be a little upset if I were him. However, he's happy that Helen is alive and wants to see her so they drive to an airfield where there's a B-25, the kind of plane that he flew in the '30s. Guess who sneaked on board? Nat claims he did it because Daniel "forgot his jacket". Please, kid. You just want to be on the plane because it's cool. It turns out to be a good thing he's there because Daniel is physically aging and all the health problems of the last 50 years have seem to caught up with him. If you haven't already guessed, the treehouse plane lesson scene was foreshadowing and Nat has to take the controls while Daniel tells him what to do. He screams, "Oh, crap, oh crap!" which I highly doubt is the word of choice anybody in that position would actually say! He also pleads to Daniel, "Don't die, okay!"

But of course everything is fine and he somehow manages to land without crashing and Daniel is reunited with Helen and and they adopt Nat as their grandson (well, they probably did!). There's a lot (A LOT) of plot holes in this movie, but I find it enjoyable to watch. Have I mentioned how adorable eleven-year-old Elijah Wood is?

The Spirit of 1776

The Patriot
Director: Roland Emmerich
Cast: Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, Jason Isaacs, Joely Richardson, Chris Cooper, Tom Wilksinson
Released: June 28, 2000
Viewed in theaters: July 14, 2000

Oscar nominations:
Best Cinematography (lost to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)
Best Sound (lost to Gladiator)
Best Score - John Williams (lost to Tan Dun for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)

When it comes to movies about celebrating this country of ours, there's only one director you need to turn to for finding that perfect patriotic movie. I'm talking, of course, about Roland Emmerich, the German who gave us Independence Day and the movie I'll be reviewing in honor of Independence Day, and my favorite Emmerich movie, The Patriot. Now I know what you're thinking: Emmerich directs a lot of crap, crazy Mel Gibson is in this movie, this movie isn't the most historically accurate. Yes, it is true that Roland "let's destroy the world" Emmerich is a bit of a one-trick pony (director?) but to be fair, this is one of his few movies where the world isn't being destroyed and it's his highest rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes. Granted it's only 62% fresh, but it's still his highest rated. As for Mel Gibson, well this was before he became a punchline and honestly isn't the fact that both Heath Ledger and Jason Isaacs in this movie enough to make up for that? Plus there's a lot of other really cool people in this movie: (Oscar winner!) Chris Cooper, (Oscar-nominee!) Tom Wilkinson, Rene Auberjonois, Donal Logue (I'm one of the five people who watched Grounded for Life).

When I saw the trailer, I knew I had to see this movie. I'm usually not a big fan of epic war movies that are over two and a half hours, but when it comes to the 18th century and the American Revolution, I am a huge geek. It's my favorite era. If I could go anywhere back in time, I'd choose the 1770s. I think it would be fun! Well, maybe for like a day! The closest I've ever been to that time period is Williamsburg, VA (in 1994!)

Cinematic crush

Now as much as I love this movie as it's the only film about the Revolutionary War besides the one that's a musical starring Mr. Feeney, it does help that Heath Ledger is in it. I would still enjoy the movie even without him, but him being in the movie makes it so much better. I was a bit of a, ahem, Heath fangirl back in the day (and yes, I took his death VERY hard), but his character, who is the oldest child of Benjamin Martin (Gibson) is such a gem....which is actually what his initials are...GEM (Gabriel Edward Martin). He joins the war against his father's wishes and while he's gone, he writes to Ann, the (bland) girl he's courting and he's writing to her in his perfect calligraphy penmanship about how he's thinking of her and how he misses her and signs the letter "Eternally and forever yours." Awwwwww.  There's a lot of cute scenes between him and Ann like when she puts ink in his tea as revenge for when he did it to her when she was 11 and when they get married and he tells his dad that he must dance with her.

Plays an evil guy who hates a family with seven children..
sounds familiar! 

Jason Isaacs plays Colonel Tavington. The good news? No blond wig. The bad news? No pimp cane, although the furry hat makes up for it.  Let's just say Tavington makes Lucius Malfoy look like a kitty cat. When we are first introduced to him he finds out that Benjamin has been caring for wounded Red Coats at his plantation, and, thinking that Gabriel is a spy, demands for his hanging. His father tries to stop them, but he takes him anyway. Thomas, the next oldest Martin child, tries to save Gabriel, but is immediately shot and killed by Tavington who calls him a "Stupid Boy."

If you think just shooting innocent kids is bad enough, it gets worse. Just days after Ann and Gabriel get married, he gathers a bunch of the townspeople into the churching, including Ann and her parents, to hold a conference. After he gets information he needs from some blabber mouth, he demands for all the doors and windows to be shuttered and throws a torch onto the roof thus burning all the people inside. I didn't understand why everyone didn't just pry the pews from the floor and break the windows with them. Have they never seen Titanic? You know that event that happens about 130 years in the future and then a movie was made about it 85 years later? :-) But if Ann hadn't died, then we would have never gotten really hot Gabriel seeking revenge (he is really hot when he's angry!) So, uh, thanks, Tavvie. That's one of my favorite scenes when Gabriel and the others go after Tavington and his brigade after they discover the burned church. I love the scene where the priest (Auberjonois) has been shot and as he's falling in slow motion, he throws up his musket and Gabriel catches it to shoot Tavington with. It's just really cool and badass the way it's shot. It's just too bad that Gabriel had to get personal and stab Tavington himself. It's so obvious he wasn't dead after Gabriel shot him and when he drops the musket, I'm screaming, "What he hell are you doing? Shoot him again! SHOOT HIM AGAIN!"


Even after Tavington kills two of the main character's children and burns a church with a bunch of civilians inside, I still laugh at one of his lines during the final battle scene:
Tavington: "On my command, we charge!"
British solider: "But sir, we haven't been given the order yet!"
Tavington: "CHARGE!"

LOL! Tavington may be an evil SOB, but he sure can bring the funny.

Benjamin's youngest child, Susan, hasn't spoken since her mom died. She starts talking again when her father and oldest brother are out recruiting people to fight in the war. When the audience first hears her speak (along with Gabriel), she tells him that she hates their father and wishes he would go away and never come back. Later, Gabriel tells his father that Susan is talking and saying how much she loves him and misses him and understand why he's gone. That always makes me laugh how he just blatantly lies. When little Susan cries and begs the day after Gabriel's wedding when her father is about to leave again, I cried too! It  is so sad! I remember watching this in the theater and tears were streaming down my face! Did I cry when Thomas died? No. Did I cry when Gabriel died? No. (I was very disappointed though!) Did I cry when Ann and the others were burned alive? No. Did I cry when that one guy found his wife and  little red-headed son had been murdered? Yes, yes I did. But not as much as when Susan kept crying and saying, "Papa! Don't go! I'l say anything! Don't leave me!" OMG, it's sooooo sad! It just broke my heart.

Watching the movie now, there's no doubt that everyone would agree that the most famous Martin child is played by Heath Ledger, but when the movie came out 12 years ago, I would say there was probably someone else who played one of the Martin children who may have been a little more recognizable than Heath, who American audiences may have only known from Ten Things I Hate About You. Of course I'm talking about Gregory Smith, who played Thomas, from Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century. Haha, no I'm just kidding. Third-oldest son Nathan is played by Trevor Morgan who had just come off playing Tommy Tammisimo (perhaps you've seen his cough syrup ads?) in a little movie called The Sixth Sense. Yeah, you may have heard of it. I love that movie even more than I love this movie. I remember watching this in the theater and thinking, "Be careful, Tommy Tammisimo!" when he was hiding under the table from Tavington.

Besides the great cast and the era this movie is set in, I also love the score, the costumes, and the cinematography.

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY! In the words of another character from another Roland Emmerich movie, "Tonight we celebrate our Independence Day!"