The Couch Potato Report – June 7th, 2014
In the film LONE SURVIVOR, the loner is Marcus Luttrell.
We first met Marcus in the non-fiction book “Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of Seal Team 10”.
Published in 2007 the real-lfe story takes place in Afghanistan, where we follow Marcus and a group of Navy SEALs as they set out on a mission to capture or kill notorious Taliban leader Ahmad Shah.
The movie, simply called LONE SURVIVOR, stars Mark Wahlberg as Marcus Luttrell, along with Kelowna, B.C.’s Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch and Ben Foster as the Navy SEALs in his team. After they locate the Taliban leader everything goes wrong for the men, starting when the team runs into and captures some mountain herders. They then have to decide what to do with them (kill them, or let them go).
LONE SURVIVOR is a very well made, very violent film with lots of great action and combat scenes and the cast is all exceptional.
Unfortunately after a very strong start, the film really slows down in the middle and doesn’t recover. I was even bored during parts of the film.
But I will still give it a mild recommendation as it does start off so strong.
Plus, the sacrifice of the loner and his sacrifices also make LONE SURVIVOR worthy of your time.
Back in 1987 director Paul Verhoeven gave us a great action flick called ROBOCOP, before he went on to also make TOTAL RECALL, BASIC INSTINCT, SHOWGIRLS and STARSHIP TROOPERS.
Set in a crime-ridden Detroit in the not-too-distant-future, the original ROBOCOP is about a human police officer who is killed in the line of duty and brought back to serve as a superhuman cyborg law enforcer known as “RoboCop”.
They have now done a remake of ROBOCOP and while it isn’t quite a pale imitation of the first one, it is only a few steps above pointless.
The original film was clever and full of some very interesting plot twists and turns. The made-in-Toronto remake is none of those things…but it isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, a few times, I actually thought it was okay.
So, while the original is still a much, much better film, the ROBOCOP remake isn’t a complete waste of time. It’s enough like the first one for me to give it a mild recommendation.
Former MMA fighter Gina Carano debuted in major motion pictures three years ago in a great action movie directed by Academy Award winner Steven Soderbergh called HAYWIRE. She followed that up with a supporting role in the blockbuster FAST & FURIOUS 6.
And now, she is back in the lead role again in the action crime thriller IN THE BLOOD.
When her husband goes missing during their Caribbean vacation, a woman goes looking for him and she isn’t going to stop until she finds him….no matter what.
Gina Carano is a beautiful woman who is a great fighter, and she’ll probably become a better actress one day, once she stars in more films, so while parts of the film are very predictable, and the ending isn’t as big a shocker as the filmmakers think it is, I still enjoyed IN THE BLOOD.
The movie may only be pretty good, but she is great!
Finally this week is the 1983 summer horror flick SLEEPAWAY CAMP, a cult classic that is mostly remembered by people for it’s then unique, but still super odd twist ending…which I won’t divulge here.
It came out in theatres at a time when slasher films were in their heyday, and it was also popular on video – where it was also called NIGHTMARE VACATION.
Whatever the title or format you saw it on, the story in SLEEPAWAY CAMP is about a very shy girl who is sent away to summer camp with her cousin, and not long after her arrival people start to die.
Available now in a great blu-ray version in a COLLECTOR’S EDITION, SLEEPAWAY CAMP has some great retrospective features that take us back to the summer of 1983.
I only hope we survive the trip!!
The still horrific and odd 1983 horror film SLEEPAWAY CAMP; the pretty good action flick IN THE BLOOD, starring the always great former MMA fighter Gina Carano; the step above pointless remake of the eighties action classic ROBOCOP; and the mildly recommended war movie LONE SURVIVOR, starring Mark Wahlberg and Kelowna’s Taylor Kitsch, are all available now, either on disc or on demand.
And that’s this week’s COUCH POTATO REPORT.
Enjoy the movies and I’ll see you back here again next time on The Couch!