Warrior King (aka "The Protector") (2005)
The director of Ong Bak and Chocolate produces yet another wonderful action movie with fantastically inventive fight scenes, awe-inspiring choreography and a really sweet story behind it. There's a level of majesty in the early scenes which doesn't quite carry on through, but the portrayal of an elephant funeral was very moving.
I suppose I should explain. This movie is about a man who grows up in a community that greatly values elephants, so when his elephants are stolen by poachers, he sets out to do whatever it takes to get his elephants back.
The story isn't entirely unimportant, but its clear that the set-pieces are the main attraction here. I was actually randomly shown a scene from this years ago where there's a long continuous moving camera shot capturing a long involved fight sequence. It's quite incredible.
I know "Warrior King" isn't perfect, but it's still amongst the best action movies I've ever seen. Prachya Pinkaew is an absolutely incredible action director. I know there were people who were really impressed with "The Raid" last year, but for me it doesn't hold a candle to Pinkaew's work. You can absolutely amazing martial arts fighting, but unless you can find creative ways to portray it I'm going to be bored. This movie even involves martial arts fighter Tony Jaa being attacked by guys on skateboards. The camera captures everything and the director refuses to let things get repetitive. There is no way you are going to get bored.
I think the plot perhaps gets a little TOO silly in places, but this is a minor complaint compared to the majesty of the action sequences. And the storyline was still extremely entertaining. Petchtai Wongkamlao (who was also the comic relief in "Ong Bak") returns once again and is just as wonderfully entertaining as ever.
A-
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)
A cheesy 80s comedy starring Steve Martin and Michael Caine. I've long been confused by the appeal of Steve Martin. He over-acts to the extreme and I have rarely found anything he has done funny. The one exception would seem to be the movie "Bowfinger" with Eddie Murphy. Here in "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" Martin has his moments, but he is clearly playing second-fiddle to Caine. I wouldn't normally see Caine as a comic actor, but there's no doubting that he is absolutely hilarious here and wipes the floor with Martin. (A bit like how Joseph Gordon-Levitt was way funnier than Seth Rogen in "50/50" *oh snap!*)
The film "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" follows two confidence tricksters. One small time (played by Steve Martin) and one big time (played by Michael Caine). Caine's character has set up an area as his personal territory and does everything in his power to move Martin's character out of there. Eventually they decide to make a bet to decide who is allowed to continue fleecing the local women of their money.
The bet centres around one young woman played by Glenne Headly. I was convinced that I'd seen this actress in all sorts of things, but asides from perhaps "Mr. Holland's Opus" and "Dick Tracy" (seriously not a fan of either of those) the only other significant thing I seem to have seen from her filmography is the tv series "E.R." where she played Dr. Keaton. Clearly she made a big impression on me in that role, because I was really pleased to see her appearing in this, convinced that I knew her really well from all sorts of things.
Steve Martin gets a little over the top in places and I found those parts weren't funny at all. Michael Caine is consistently great, but the script is rather sweet and silly and it generally hasn't dated all that well. In the end "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" is just silly fun. It's entertaining, but it's not one of the best comedies even to come out in the same year. That same year saw the release of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?", "The Naked Gun" and I'd say the British comedy "Just Ask For Diamond" was better than this too. Whereas "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" is pretty run-of-the-mill.
C+