Two more this week, two very, very different movies to make up for last week's themed double feature.
The Big Combo
Joseph H. Lewis, 1955
The Big Combo is a mostly empty movie at its core, a fairly standard police procedural in which a dedicated cop pursues a powerful criminal, despite opposition from all corners, until finally, in the end, he gets his man. To be honest, despite a few decent mystery elements, following the plot of this movie is quite dull.
The details, though, make it worth watching. For one, the lighting scheme in this movie is perhaps the most extreme example of the film noir style ever committed to film, with characters continually walking in and out of tiny pools of light. The character relationships are a bit more off-key and odd than one typically sees in movies of the era, with our hero, Lt. Diamond, seeming less like a dedicated cop trying to do his job and more like an obsessed madman our for personal revenge. Unfortunately, Cornel Wilde isn’t up to the task of conveying those contradictory elements, and the character winds up muddled and dull. Richard Conte’s Mr. Brown, on the other hand, is a smart, complex, magnetic villain. Although his quickly-spewed patter occasionally slips into caricature, he’s never boring and usually interesting.
There are also several interesting stylistic touches throughout, most notably the final moments of Brian Donlevy’s Joe McClure. There’s actually a lot to like about The Big Combo, it’s just unfortunate that it’s all hung on such a tattered frame, and supported by such a weak lead.
6/10
Stardust
Matthew Vaughn, 2007
The vast majority of reviews for Stardust suggest that it is a sort of lesser, modern Princess Bride. In many ways, this tells you all you need to know (although I have to admit to preferring Stardust over The Princess Bride, which I never saw when I was younger and, as a result, don’t have any strong feelings toward). In other words, it’s kind of big, kind of ridiculous, kind of romantic, and full of potions and spells and narration by a grandfatherly old guy. The climax does tend to drag on a bit, as climaxes in such films are wont to do, but it is still paced well enough to not get boring and has several rather wonderful bits of humor (the goat that becomes a man, the ghosts) which help it to overcome the occasional slip into schmaltz (Yvaine’s declaration of love to a transformed Tristan).
7.5/10
Progress: 9 (Par +1)
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