*Blog post started on October 27, 2020.
My prior vacation day, I felt I was clinging to my past. This most recent one(s), old is how I feel.
With
a three-day weekend, I think I got a lot accomplished. There is a new
tattoo. Peoria bars were fun with genuine interactions, and I made it to more of them than usual. I
paid my respect to Stacia Marie Hardin
and discovered a cool block of shops in Pekin. Who would not call
the last Co Op records in the Heart of Illinois being located by a
thrift shop and a used bookstore operated by TAPS No Kill Shelter
(featuring kittens and a polydactyl cats) a little slice of heaven in a
town whose mascot was once the Chink? To the town's credit, the appropriation of the dragon into their municipal logos is cool.
Since
I will end up at some point putting out an abridged version of this
post, let me fill up some space. Thanks Redbox for the reasonable
Blu-ray rental price and the inflated DVD rental fees. We as a society
need to rid ourselves of standard def. Screw those who hate change.
There is a good chance they will further ruin the country in a week. Let
me have this.
This left me with a dilemma. I had a movie to watch and I would not be back from the bank until 6:15 pm. There was still dinner to make. So apologies for rushing through about five minutes of this Ruby Rose feature. The feeling of victory getting it back to an appropriate vending machine with 10 minutes to spare warrants this action. And it at least gave me some good vibes from this film.
The Doorman
Ali Gorski has recently been honorably discharged from the Marines. She has returned to New York City with a Silver Star and PTSD after she was the sole survivor of a terrorist attack on the ambassador to Romania's motorcade. This may make it difficult to find employment, but fortunately, her Vietnam veteran uncle, Pat, has an in for her at the high end apartment complex where he is serves as the maintenance man. Unbeknownst to her, her late sister's family lives in the building. Her brother-in-law, Prof. John Stanton, is a pretentious Brit who holds himself responsible for the past strife between his wife and Ali and her subsequent leaving to join the military to begin with.
The building has been around since Prohibition, so it is currently undergoing renovation. It is about to kick off in full force, but the Stanton's have arranged to stay in over the Easter weekend before waiting out the updates in London. As for the other residents, only the nice elderly couple that have been living on the ground floor will be staying through out it.
The husband is a stroke survivor who does not like change (I wish I could get the names of these characters, but it appears both these performers chose to forgo being credited.). No one knows that this man has smuggled out priceless painting from East Berlin who has hid them in their original apartment that now belongs to the Stantons. No one except the other doorman, Borz, and his true employer, Victor Dubois.
A serendipitous mint sauce spill leads to Ali going to visit this couple to see if they had any leftover sauce to borrow. This means Ali is not present when her family has been taken by Dubois and his crew. Seeing that the elder's apartment had been raided and the couple murdered, Ali will use her particular set of skills to takedown these ruthless thieves and save the only family she has left.
Oh how the mighty have fallen. It is disappointing that "The Doorman" is the first leading role that Ruby Rose has had on film since she broke out with "Orange Is the New Black", but what makes this project even worse is that it was directed by Ryuhei Kitamura. Kitamura is the director who put one of my favorite goregasmic sequences on film in "The Midnight Meat Train" and helmed the innovative Yakuza zombie film "Versus". On the upside you get a chatty Jean Reno as a villain, but his French charms cannot polish the dialogue enough.
And recalling "Meat Train", are you telling me that there was not a spot for Vinnie Jones in this cast? "The Big Ugly" was good, but definitely not something you would release at an AMC. He is definitely an expense I think this film could have afforded. I am not asking him to be the lead, but set this flick in London and make this about an ex-sergeant in the royal army, you have a lot more talent in terms of action to pull from. It would be better than Aksel Hennie trying to impersonate Bill Burr from "The Mandalorian".
Could Rose not pull off an English accent? Her American is really solid.
The premise of a female-lead "Die Hard" has legs, but since I immediately went into how this project could have been saved, the misses make this film seem like it was directed by an Imperial stormtrooper.
There
is only one scene with any amusing dialogue. The close quarter action
sequences are shot horribly. It does not help that our villains cannot
die with any believability in there death throws. Any kind of exterior
makes it seem like Tommy Wiseau was in Kitamura's ear. I am just hoping
this was
a rush job in terms of direction or something was lost in translation
from the script. Any action sequence outside the finale is choreographed
well enough, but it feels like your brain is squinting to catch that.
"The Doorman" is a painful miss on many levels. After "John Wick: Chapter 2", I want to see Ruby Rose as the next action heroine (Angelina Jolie and Charlize Theron may only have a decade left in terms of spryness.). When you see Jean Reno on the poster, you expect a clever action flick. It is one thing to not deliver on either of those, but when you fail to present something watchable with those elements, that is damn near criminal, especially from a director whose prime may only be a decade ago.
CineMaterial.com - The Doorman (2020)
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