How to resolve AdBlock issue? Arts & Life
‘THE RETIREMENT PLAN’ RATED R
Billing “The Retirement Plan” as an action comedy might be a stretch, but there is something quite amusing about the ineptness of so many henchmen of a crime lord unable to fulfill what seems an easy enough assignment.
As the story opens, a man and a woman are making a getaway from an apparent heist of what turns out to be the film’s MacGuffin, the object or device that serves merely as a trigger for the plot.
In this case, it happens to be a flash drive that belongs supposedly to Donnie (Jackie Earle Haley), a crime boss with a hair-trigger temper which might be the result of him having to report to his psychotic superior (Grace Byers).
Jimmy (Jordan Johnson-Hinds) and his wife Ashley (Ashley Greene) realize that they have just bought themselves a monumental pile of trouble with this theft and need an escape plan.
Ashley hides the flash drive in their young daughter Sarah’s (Thalia Campbell) backpack and puts her on a flight to the Cayman Islands with a note to locate a man named Matt (or Jim?), who turns out to be her estranged father (Nicolas Cage).
Holding Jimmy hostage, Donnie tells Sarah that she will be accompanied by his Shakespeare-loving henchman Bobo (Ron Perlman) and another thug to retrieve the flash drive unless someone or everyone will die.
Of course, Matt doesn’t realize that he has a granddaughter and he’s not well equipped to take care of her since he’s retired from his government work and savors the beach bum lifestyle.
Unknown to Ashley when she arrives at her father’s beachside home with Bobo and the goon is that Matt has been hiding his special skills, namely that he’s a retired special forces soldier trained as an assassin.
When Donnie’s goon ends up dead, Bobo kidnaps Sarah, which leads to the unlikely formation of a bond when the young girl’s affinity for reading “Othello” triggers an interesting dynamic with her Shakespeare-quoting captor.
Aside from Matt easily killing Donnie’s successive wave of goons showing up in the Caymans, other characters involve Matt’s old boss (Lynn Whitfield) and her seemingly duplicitous right-hand (Joel David Moore) getting in on the action.
Even some political intrigue comes into view when a mysterious powerful figure (Rick Fox) has a great interest in the flash drive that may propel his political ambitions for high office.
In many respects, “The Retirement Plan” is quite conventional as an action picture with Nicolas Cage channeling his inner rage in a most effective way of killing countless bad guys that would otherwise hurt his family.
At a nicely moving and relatively swift pace, this action film offers some welcome humor in unusual ways. Arguably, best of all is Bobo’s comically awkward phone calls with Donnie in which he’s always at a loss to explain how every attempt to kill Matt proves to be a failure.
If not easily found at a local cinema, “The Retirement Plan” seems almost certainly to end up on a streaming service in relatively short order. A pickup by Netflix or Amazon seems possible, and it will offer a fun diversion.
‘SPY OPS’ ON NETFLIX
An eight-part documentary series on Netflix, “Spy Ops” might be the thing for anyone interested in a perspective on real world events ranging from an assassination plot on Pope John Paul II to the initial intrusion into Afghanistan following the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001.
The first episode is “Operation Jawbreaker,” when CIA operatives land in the part of Afghanistan under the control of the Northern Alliance, the mortal enemies of the hated and ruthless Taliban.
The leader of the Northern Alliance is Ahmad Shah Massoud, the biggest enemy of the Taliban seen from archival footage since he meets an untimely death.
Narrator for a good part of the episode is the late Gary Schroen, the Jawbreaker Team Leader for the CIA. He reports that it was known that Osama bin Laden was the leader of al-Qaeda and hiding somewhere in Afghanistan.
An interesting part of this episode is the reminder that American withdrawal two years ago has resulted in the “horror of the Taliban enveloping the country” even more completely than it did before 9/11.
The second episode “Operation Just Cause” is the story of how America came to invade Panama in order to depose its strongman General Manuel Noriega, who was trafficking drugs and had once been on the CIA payroll for a long time.
Noriega, nicknamed “Pineapple Face” for his pockmarked facial features, is portrayed as a double-dealing opportunist working for the CIA and selling U.S. intelligence secrets to Cuba.
There’s a news clip of Dan Rather reporting on the United Nations General Assembly deploring the invasion of Panama as a “flagrant violation of international law.”
The “Operation Pimlico” tale of MI6 orchestrating the extraction of a Soviet double agent from Moscow is fascinating like a Jack Ryan or James Bond spy story.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
- Details
- Written by: Tim Riley
‘THE EQUALIZER 3’ RATED R
The one thing to know about “The Equalizer” franchise is that Denzel Washington’s Robert McCall is a retired government assassin who struggles with his past and seeks redemption as an avenging angel to provide justice on behalf of the oppressed.
“The Equalizer 3” opens with a bang, or more accurately the aftermath of a massacre of mobsters at a Sicilian winery, and the carnage of dead bodies is a bloody scene, including the gruesome shot of one with a hatchet planted smack in his forehead.
The winery is a front for a smuggling operation of dangerous drugs from Syria where the export from Italy of illicit contraband apparently goes undetected by the authorities.
Two gangsters show up with a child who remains in the Jeep (one can’t start too young in the mafia family business). After surveying the damage, the mafiosos end up in a cellar where McCall is being held at gunpoint.
Has our former CIA agent/assassin come an ignominious end? You can probably guess the outcome from the trailer alone, when McCall tells his captors they have nine seconds to decide their fate.
A righteous vigilante, however, may not always escape unscathed, and in this case, McCall is shot in the back and turns up being treated at a doctor’s home in a picturesque village on the Amalfi coast.
When the doctor asks McCall “Are you a good man or a bad man?,” and the answer is “I don’t know,” it may be an admission that the assassin is conflicted that his life of violence may not have been the absolute right path.
The story takes a slower pace for a time while a now vulnerable McCall recovers and forges a friendship with the doctor, Enzo (Remo Girone), and gradually immerses himself in the laid-back lifestyle of Southern Italy.
Unfortunately, not everything is peaceful in the town of Altomonte (not to be confused with the real city of the same name in the province of Cosenza). The first sign of trouble is when a fish seller is beaten for not keeping up with protection payments.
As McCall gets back on his feet with the help of a cane, he starts to enjoy the local culture. A favorite spot is a café run by Aminah (Gaia Scodellaro), who is puzzled by the American’s affinity for tea.
Aminah tells our favorite tough guy that tea is for old ladies and Englishmen, prompting him to eventually enjoy an espresso or cappuccino, or whatever is the local custom.
While McCall settles into life in the tranquil coastal village, he decides to go by the name of Roberto and becomes friendly with the townsfolk, and soon enough he takes a visceral dislike to the local mafia known as the Camorra.
The criminal element, run by brothers Vincent (Andrea Scarduzio) and Marco (Andrea Dodero) with a vicious streak that renders them easy targets for McCall’s retribution, seek to decimate the town to further their dream of building a casino, among other enterprises.
Having been rescued from the shooting by kind police officer Gio Bonucci (Eugenio Mastrandrea), a loving family man not in the pocket of the gangsters, McCall takes note of the brave policeman’s refusal to be threatened by the Camorra.
One night while having dinner at a local restaurant, McCall watches thugs harassing Gio in the presence of his wife and young daughter. At this point, McCall’s solemn gaze draws attention from the volatile Vincent.
McCall has grown fond of the locals, befriending merchants and citizens, and even a priest. As a result, he puts the cynical, sneering Vincent on notice by a most painful grip of his hand that extortion and intimidation of his friends won’t be tolerated.
A deadly beatdown of the mafia goons is inevitable, but a side plot emerges when McCall anonymously connects with CIA agent Emma Collins (Dakota Fanning) and enlists her help to deal with the broader conspiracy of the mafia’s criminal enterprise.
Even as he had become welcomed by the citizenry of Altomonte, McCall remains a mysterious figure who resorts to brutal violence against the mafia in the shadows and mostly out of the public eye.
The villains are so irredeemably vicious and cruel that the vigilante spirit captures an audience lusting for revenge that McCall dishes out with no reservation and no apology.
“The Equalizer 3” is billed as the third and final chapter of the franchise, and there’s no doubt that Denzel Washington has entered into the Liam Neeson realm of aging action figures who still pack a powerful punch.
The series may verge on the grindhouse territory favored by Quentin Tarantino, as director Antoine Fuqua has demonstrated a penchant for gritty crime thrillers, most notably in “Training Day,” one of his earliest films.
What makes “The Equalizer 3” rise, in large measure, above a routine thriller with plenty of gore and mayhem is that Washington’s charisma, toughness and earnest demeanor prove a winning combination.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
- Details
- Written by: Tim Riley
