There are some weeks when watching the DVDs being released is like monitoring traffic during morning rush hour.
There are fender benders, manic driving, an occasional and inexplicable moment when everything flows, but mostly it’s just slow going.
Let’s start with “Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous” ($27.95). This is the film Sandra Bullock was said to be committed to when offered Hilary Swank’s role in “Million Dollar Baby.” The first “Miss Congeniality” was fun lightweight entertainment, but “2” isn’t armed with good jokes and is a long way from fabulous.
Bullock reprises her role as the graceless FBI agent Gracie – she snorts after she laughs – who had to learn charm when she went undercover at a beauty pageant. In “2,” after being dumped by her boyfriend, she becomes the “fabulous” face of the FBI. Life is fine until her friend and reigning queen from the beauty pageant is kidnapped.
No one in this film, even the intense Regina King, looks convincing enough to be doing anything but taking home a paycheck – even Bullock, who has a producing credit and of whom I’m a fan.
The film isn’t terrible, just lackluster. There are a few laughs, but not enough for the nearly two-hour run time.
Bruce Willis in an overwrought action flick? What a concept. In “Hostage” ($29.95), Willis is a former L.A. police negotiator who, after a botched case, has taken a job as a police chief in a small Ventura County town to escape the pressure.
But as you would guess, pressure finds him in a complicated plot in which a crooked accountant (Kevin Pollack) has crossed the mob. The bad guys send a couple of gangs to shake him out of his mansion to find a DVD that contains numbers for offshore accounts.
Things go awry, and Willis’ skills are put to the test when the gang kidnaps his wife and daughter, saying they’ll kill them unless he finds the DVD. Plausible enough? OK, maybe not, but if you like overwrought action flicks, “Hostage” delivers plenty of violence and impossible situations.
“Coach Carter” ($29.95) – starring Samuel L. Jackson in the true story of an Richmond, Calif., high school basketball coach – is sort of “Stand and Deliver” meets “Hoosiers.” In 1999, Carter benched his undefeated basketball team because they had fallen behind on their academics. After taking the job, Carter made the players agree to dress properly and maintain a bit better than a C average.
Not only did the team respond, they became winners. When some of the players got inflated egos, reneging on their pledge to study because they were winning, Carter took action.
Jackson is convincing but “Coach Carter” never finds an edge – something that takes it into the “Friday Night Lights” realm – where you really find yourself looking inside the the world of high school sports rather than watching the spectacle.
“The Jacket” ($24.98) – starring Oscar winner Adrien Brody – is a loopy time-travel mystery. Brody plays Jack Stark, a vet from the first Gulf War who somehow has recovered from what seems to be a fatal bullet to the head. Later he winds up in Vermont, where he is set up for a murder he didn’t commit and sent to a mental asylum run by a seemingly evil doctor (Kris Kristofferson). Inside his tiny cell, Jack can will himself into the future, where he meets a waitress (Keira Knightley) who tries to help him out.
“The Jacket” brings to mind films like “Jacob’s Ladder” and “12 Monkeys.” Like those films, “The Jacket” has its problems and is not as provocative as the Terry Gilliam film, but not as silly as “Ladder” either.
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The Pacifier * 1/2 Serbian terrorists, nuclear launch codes, North Korean intrigue – welcome to real geopolitics without much realism. “The Pacifier” is one of those movies that jams together two ideas that in the end don’t mesh. The kinder of the two stories has ramrod-straight Navy SEAL Shane Wolfe (Vin Diesel) babysitting the out-of-control but decent Plummer kids. It’s the action flick bookending the comedy that vexes. When Wolfe (who was in charge of researcher Howard Plummer’s botched rescue), arrives at the Plummer house, there’s not a lot of grief permeating the home. It’s the offshoot of a script too lazy to finesse the big issues it exploits. PG; 97 minutes (Lisa Kennedy)
Gunner Palace *** War isn’t merely hell. Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein’s time with the 2/3 Field Artillery in Baghdad makes it clear that war is filth and boredom; lethal and enlightened encounters with civilians; trash bags that could be improvised bombs; and rocket-propelled grenades. It can even be a rump-shaking poolside party held at Uday Hussein’s ruined mansion, rechristened Gunner Palace. Co-director Tucker has said the people he most wanted to speak to and for were soldiers. And the men and woman (Spec. Billie Grimes) repay this intention with bouts of honesty, contradictory riffs, as well as acts of performance art. PG-13; 85 minutes (Lisa Kennedy)
Diary of a Mad Black Woman * 1/2 Based on Tyler Perry’s 2000 urban theater smash, “Diary” tells the tale of Helen (Kimberley Elise), a jilted Atlanta woman. When her 18- year marriage to hotshot lawyer Charles (Steve Harris) implodes, she’s forced through denial, fury and resignation toward a Christian redemption. Helping Helen is her aunt Madea, a gun-toting, raw-tongued woman of size, played by author Perry in one of three roles. “Diary” provides lessons on Christian as well as romantic salvation. As directed by Darren Grant, “Diary’s” mix of drama and comedy is frustratingly off. PG-13; 116 minutes (Lisa Kennedy)
