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West End (2013)
A Pointless Exercise in Mob-Movie Clichés
First off, I'd like to begin by saying I support the Jersey Shore, and I want to see homegrown movies from the area succeed. But this movie is a waste of time.
The initial setup is promising. You've got Eric Roberts, playing a partially reformed mobster who has just been released from prison. Seems he was pinched after taking the fall for his brother's mob work.
Now that he's a kinder, gentler mobster, he only gently shakes down a local club owner for protection money (only 10%), and lets the guy continue to operate a once-a-week "teen night," which is presumably not the best way to make a buck. Eric Robert's brother is not happy about these developments. He is furious about "teen night!?!?! TEEN NIGHT!?!" and wants more money from the club owner. Or some sh#t like that.
So then Eric Roberts talks about wanting to move to Florida, quit the mobster game, etc. His wife does not seem that supportive. They talk about how their son Vic is down in Florida, busy not speaking to either of them.
And that's pretty much it for Eric Roberts. He goes to collect his 10% from the club owner, and he's shot by an unknown assailant. (unknown by only the most clueless people in the audience).
Vic, the son, comes home for the funeral, something everyone seems shocked by. His high school sweetheart has married his sociopathic former best friend, his mom is getting sexy with his uncle, his other friend is now a priest. It's all pretty boilerplate coming home from a long absence type of stuff. None of it really original.
As a Jersey Shore native, the best parts were the visit to Windmill and the brief mention of The Inkwell. I highly recommend both dining experiences.
Then there's a pretty ridiculous scene where the high school sweetheart greets Vic at the door and mentions that her husband is in the shower. They catch up a bit, get close, start having sex... and the fact that the husband is still in the shower doesn't ever seem to come into play during the very long scene. It's almost as if... no, it is exactly like, the screenwriter forgot that he'd put the husband in the shower, instead of out of the house. Otherwise, it's the longest freaking shower in cinematic history.
The movie starts to really fall apart from there. Lots of faulty logic, continuity errors. Mob movie clichés. West End barely resembles the actual West End, it's more like a weird conglomeration of far apart Jersey Shore towns. Vic turns out to be some sort of FBI agent/informant/... well, its never really clear what he is. And then there's some stuff about Eric Roberts being whacked because he was wearing a wire to bring down his brother, which doesn't really make much sense when you go back to the beginning of the movie.
I will say though, that there are a lot of guys in this film that look as if they actually are in the mob. So... I really hope they can take a critique and not kill me for this.
I write this review because it won the "Pick of the Flicks" award at the Garden State Film Festival... something it only won because the filmmakers are excellent promoters and brought out a large, supportive crowd--mostly family and friends of those involved with the movie.
Black Sea 213 (2000)
Perfect Latenight Showtime Trash
The plot makes no sense. Why the hell is a fashion photographer invited along on a weapons smuggling operation? It's never explained. But it doesn't matter.
The gorgeous and talented Jaqueline Lovell (Sara St. James) really steals the show here. As do all the frequently naked Russian-accented models that band together under Timothy Bottoms' leadership to smuggle weapons.
Timothy Bottoms. Geez, what went wrong in his career? From Last Picture Show to this? Did he have a drug problem? If there was a little less convoluted plot, this might qualify as softcore porn. The movie stakes its territory early on with a hot tub/bathtub scene involving the aforementioned model gun smugglers, two of which are lesbians.
One of the lesbians can't speak. Making her the perfect woman. She is appropriately called "Silencio," despite the fact that the word "silencio" is Spanish and the girl is supposedly Russian.
A lot in this movie doesn't make logical sense, aside from the plot. Is Lovell's character a whore, a gun smuggler, an American exchange student or what? But the nonsensical moments in the movie make for some great laughs, along the lines of Mystery Science Theater. For instance: To get rid of Lovell, the bad guys... leave her dangling by a rope while she stands on a (gasp!) REALLY STEEP SLOPING PLATFORM! They leave her alone, I guess figuring eventually she'll slide down? Is this how they thought walking the plank was supposed to be done? The cheap production values make for some giggles as well.
The "explosive" is obviously one of those cologne sample tubes. And when a bunch of girls get shot (by some random dude who looks very confused as to why he just shot a bunch of hot chicks) the bullet wounds on one of the girls makes it look like she's wearing a girl scout sash.
This is great entertainment. I'd give it a ten out of ten on the unintentional comedy scale. It gets a 7 because the good guy freakin annoyed me and there wasn't nearly enough nudity,