THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (1924)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Action / Adventure / Epic / Fantasy

Director: Raoul Walsh

Cast: Douglas Fairbanks / Sojin / Julanne Johnston

Plot

A devil-may-care thief embarks on a death defying series of adventures in order to win the hand of a beautiful princess.

What I Liked

Among the most expensive films ever made to that point, there’s not a frame of “The Thief of Bagdad” movie that doesn’t include some kind of spectacle.  Built on the largest Hollywood set of all time, this was the premier special effects extravaganza of the silent era, replete with exotic costumes, elaborate sets, daring stunts, and giant monsters.  Its influence on adventure films for decades to follow is plain to see.  The various Sinbad movies, all of the Ray Harryhausen stop-motion effects adventures, "Aladdin," "Clash of the Titans," and the 1940 remake come to mind.

The film also has a marvelous sense of simple fun to it.  Douglas Fairbanks’ thief has a carefree zest for life and an arrogant self-confidence that bring a lighthearted charm without which the film’s 153 minutes would have been unbearable.  Even with the incredible production values, it is Fairbanks’ playful antics and stunts that form the true foundation for the film’s entertainment value.

What I Didn’t Like

Despite Fairbanks being one of the most famous movie stars of his day, “The Thief of Bagdad” was apparently a box office flop upon its release in 1924, presumably because it was just too long.  Looking back on this black and white silent film with a pair of twenty-first century eyes only exacerbates that length.  This is really a simple story and, once the plot’s conflict is introduced, there’s never any doubt as to how it will turn out.  Even in 1924, great spectacle alone cannot keep audience members in their seats for a full 153 minutes.

Additionally, despite the sense of fun he brings to the film and despite how much the film benefited from his considerable creative input, Fairbanks’ acting is just too hokey to have any sort of real impact on a modern viewer.  While silent films required a great deal of pantomime from its actors to convey the needed story and emotions, Fairbanks goes way over the top.  Even comedy actors of the day like Chaplin and Keaton, who one would surmise would embellish their own physical performances for the humor, don’t even come close to Fairbanks in hamming it up to ridiculous proportions.

Most Memorable Scene

Early in the film, the Thief finds, steals, and uses a magic rope which can be charmed into standing straight up in the same manner a snake would for a snake charmer.  The Thief (and the filmmakers) put the rope to use in a couple of marvelous sequences that, nearly 90 years later, still had me wondering “how did they do that?”

My Rating: 3 out of 5

PEEPING TOM (1960)

Country: U.K.

Genre(s): Horror

Director: Michael Powell

Cast: Karlheinz Bohm / Anna Massey / Maxine Audley

Plot

A serial killer obsessed with filming his victims in their last moments begins a romantic relationship with the young woman who lives downstairs from him.

What I Liked

Often referred to as the British “Psycho,” “Peeping Tom” was made the same year as that more famous Hitchcock film and it is hard not to draw comparisons between the two.  Both involve socially awkward young men who are in fact serial killers.  Both men were traumatized during childhood by domineering parents and are still obsessed with pleasing their now deceased parents.  Both men rent out rooms to guests while they live above, in self-imposed seclusion.  But there are also great dissimilarities and “Peeping Tom” deserves to be judged on its own.  Instead of the out-of-the-way Bates Motel from “Psycho” we have the urban landscape of London inhabited by Mark Lewis, the title character.  Karl Bohm plays Lewis as something of a man-child at times – idealistic and emotionally frail – and at other times as a cold egomaniac – bitter and manipulative.  That’s not to say Bohm’s performance is inconsistent, but rather that he makes the character seem truly disturbed, insecure, and unpredictable.

Though it is considered a precursor to the slasher films that would develop in the 1970s, the body count in this film is decidedly less than those of the movies that followed it.  Also unlike most of those films, the fear here is not generated by the fact that the killer is some huge or powerful figure who relentlessly stalks his prey, but rather that he seems by sight a rather normal, nondescript guy.  Through much of the film, Lewis is just someone who slinks around anonymously in the background, completely disregarded by those around him.  So here the killer isn’t the supernatural monster of earlier horror films.  Nor is he the hulking masked killer of later slashers.  He could be any one of the people we live and work amongst.

What I Didn’t Like

*spoiler alert!*

The guy kills with his camera?  Really?  He literally uses a spike on the end of one of the legs of his camera to impale the women through the throat.  While the filmmakers later on relate this to his motivation for killing, it still feels like a cheesy gimmick and not particularly frightening.

One of the scenes where this weapon is used was particularly ridiculous, but not exactly for that reason.  In one of the scenes, an ambitious actress dances in front of Lewis, thinking he is setting up a shot for a scene they are to film together in secret.  The whole thing is preposterous and seems contrived, simply put in for a gratuitous little dance number in the middle of this psychological thriller.  It was awkward and not at all believable.

Most Memorable Scene

The opening scene where we watch through the killer’s eyes as he follows a victim through the city streets, up a flight of stairs, and into her bedroom might seem slightly cliché today, but I doubt moviegoers of the period had that impression.  “Peeping Tom” was a very controversial film for its time and not in small part because of scenes like this that made the audience feel as though they were participants in the murder as sadistic voyeurs.  Watching it, I was  left with the impression that John Carpenter ripped off the entire opening sequence of “Halloween” from “Peeping Tom.”

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5

AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER (1957)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Romance

Director: Leo McCary

Cast: Cary Grant / Deborah Kerr / Richard Denning

Plot

            An international playboy and a lounge singer meet aboard a cruise ship and, despite both being engaged to other people, fall in love.

What I Liked

            Full of bright colors, perfectly groomed people, bittersweet melodrama, escapist locales, cutsey-wootsey kids, and unnecessary musical numbers drowning in melody, “An Affair to Remember” is in many ways the definitive example of the kind of movies that were most popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  Indeed, only “The Sound of Music,” a widely acclaimed masterpiece, could surpass it for these qualities.  In this sense, it is essential as a perfect representative of a now extinct brand of entertainment.

            Cary Grant is at his charming best, debonair yet sardonic as world famous playboy Nickie Ferrante.  Much of the fun of the film’s first half originates from the banter that ensues during his attempts to woo Deborah Kerr’s eloquent and elegant Terry McCay.  I fully admit the affinity and heartsick love between the two would be palpable to even the most critical observer, which should be credited to two actors who were given unbelievably perfect characters yet somehow still conveyed very relatable human emotions to the audience.

What I Didn’t Like

            There’s not much to read into “An Affair to Remember.”  It’s a straight-forward love story built around charm, sentimentality, and of course romance.  Most ridiculous are the scenes with the overly adorable children to whom Kerr provides singing lessons.  It’s all just so gag-inducingly sweet that it feels more awkward than charming to this modern viewer.   This reliance upon soppiness doesn’t hold up well against a critical viewing, but those who enjoy this film don’t look with a critical eye.  They’re looking for the weepy corniness and romantic innocence of a bygone era, or at least the romantic innocence that played well on the screen in a bygone era which was never as innocent or romantic as “An Affair to Remember” makes life out to be.

Most Memorable Scene

*spoiler alert!*

            Grant’s wait at the top of the Empire State Building is the classic and most enduring moment (see “Sleepless in Seattle”) of this film, not only because of the heartbreak he experiences waiting for all night in a thunderstorm for a woman who is not going to arrive, but also because of the sounds of an ambulance in the distance which, unbeknownst to him, is carriyng his love away.  Break out the Kleenex, ladies.

My Rating: 3 out of 5

SABOTAGE (1936)

A.K.A.: The Woman Alone

Country: U.K.

Genre(s): Crime / Drama

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Cast: Sylvia Sidney / Oskar Homolka / John Loder

  

Plot

When the owner of a London theater is suspected of sabotage, Scotland Yard’s detectives investigate, unintentionally getting the saboteur’s innocent family involved.

What I Liked

Perhaps the most common theme in director Alfred Hitchcock’s catalogue is how a normal appearance can disguise a less savory, even evil, substance hidden beneath.  It’s precisely this sort of fear of the “danger next door” that Hitch plays off of in “Sabotage.”  With Europe edging ever closer to war, that a local family business would be a cover for a foreign terrorist conspiracy must have been particularly disturbing and shocking to British moviegoers.

Perhaps most disconcerting to much of the audience was how relatable Sylvia Sidney was as Mrs. Verloc, the trusting and hard-working Englishwoman who is unknowingly the wife of a saboteur. That her own husband could be a puppet in an international conspiracy must have been unsettling to the female viewers of “Sabotage” who might have found Mrs. Verloc to be an all too familiar character.

As exemplified by the Verlocs, paranoia permeates many levels of “Sabotage.”  Hitchcock’s London is a city where movie theaters and aquariums are meeting places for terrorists, store fronts have back rooms that operate as bomb factories, and those bombs are carried through crowds and onto public transportation.  Considering this, “Sabotage” could just as well be talking about the same kind of fears that would consume post-9/11 America seventy years later.

What I Didn’t Like

Hitchcock was of course a master filmmaker and very adept at knowing how to play with his audiences.  So that he played on the pre-war distrust many Londoners felt for foreigners was not surprising from a business standpoint.  It was an effective method as a means to the director’s end.  However, one could also make the argument that he took a disgracefully easy and irresponsible route to that end.  With the world teetering on the edge of war, Hitchcock did nothing to alleviate tensions by making this film.  Every single foreigner in “Sabotage,” without exception, is up to no good.  In today’s era of political correctness, this fact would certainly have some people up in arms.  Worse yet, from a movie-making perspective, it just seems like lazy, simple-minded filmmaking.  “Sabotage” certainly displays many trademarks of Hitchcock’s signature style in development, but it is still a far cry from the complexity and psychological depth of his more accomplished later work.

Most Memorable Scene

One of the most interesting facets of “Sabotage” are the outdoor scenes, the candid footage of a busy urban environment that was London in the 1930s.  This is the backdrop for what is certainly one of the most disturbing moments in the entire Hitchcock oeuvre.  It is absolutely the centerpiece of the entire film, fraught with tension and horror.  Indeed it is a scene so upsetting that Hitchock himself apparently later expressed regret in making the scene – This from the man who made “Psycho”!  I will not give it away here like it was given away to me.  But even if you know what’s coming, the scene is still shocking considering this film was made in the 1930s.

My Rating: 4 out of 5

PLATOON (1986)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Action / War

Director: Oliver Stone

Cast: Charlie Sheen / Tom Berenger / Willem Defoe

Plot

A platoon of U.S. Marines is fractured by the dangers and moral ambiguities of the Vietnam War.

What I Liked

One of the great things about “Platoon” is that it doesn’t attempt to package the Vietnam War.  It neither blindly justifies nor wholly demonizes the American soldiers in Vietnam, nor does it solely try to portray the soldiers as innocents victimized by war and the military machine.  That writer and director Oliver Stone was himself there to witness many of the events he transferred into the film lends to its authenticity, making Vietnam feel like a real place with real people in real situations.

That basis on fact and the factual accuracies does not mean that Stone did not bring a great deal of artistic flair to the movie.  In particular, the characters of Sergeants Barnes and Elias feel larger-than-life, together representing a sort of duality of man that, for Stone anyway, characterized the war and at the same time transcends any war.  Those roles are played by Tom Berenger and Willem Defoe respectively in two tremendous performances.

Indeed all of the performances, from lead Charlie Sheen on down, are top notch.  Even actors who do not have many lines still manage to convey the anxiety and misery of the experience on their faces.  “Platoon” has to be considered one of the greatest ensemble casts of all time: Sheen, Berenger, Defoe, Forest Whitaker, and Johnny Depp, for starters.

What I Didn’t Like

Outside of those who dislike war movies or those who have some moral objection to its portrayal of the Vietnam War, I cannot think of any reason someone would not like “Platoon.”  I would have to say that some of the commentary by Sheen’s character was unnecessary.  The messages of the film don’t need to be explained to the viewer, they’re right there in the experience of watching the drama unfold.  But that’s still no reason to outright dislike the film.

Most Memorable Scene

There can’t be any debate about this one.  The scene where the platoon wreaks havoc on a Vietnamese village is one of the most intense and disturbing moments from a war film that I have seen.  Every time I think of “Platoon,” that is the first scene that comes to mind, although there are plenty of others that are moving, artful, or entertaining.  Sheen’s initiation into Elias’ “underworld” also comes to mind, as does Berenger’s confrontation with Sheen in the same location later in the film.

My Rating: 5 out of 5

BEAT THE DEVIL (1953)

Country: Italy

Genre(s): Adventure / Comedy / Crime

Director: John Huston

Cast: Humphrey Bogart / Jennifer Jones / Edward Underdown

Plot

When a team of professional criminals meet up in Italy with plans for a voyage to Africa for a joint Uranium swindle, they encounter a prim-and-proper British couple that unwittingly threatens their plot at every turn.

What I Liked

“Beat the Devil” is a terrific blend of adventure and comedy, making for moments of great fun for the audience.  The film never takes itself too seriously and provides some of film history’s best character actors with the opportunity to portray some wonderfully eccentric and amusing characters (written in part by novelist Truman Capote).  Meanwhile, lead actresses Jennifer Jones and Gina Lollobrigida play Humphrey Bogart’s love interests, both very seductive in very different ways; Jones as the wide-eyed trouble-maker and Lollobrigida as Bogie’s exotic and buxom accomplice.  In short, “Beat the Devil” is pure entertainment, a continent-hopping adventure packed with over-the-top performances, funny sight gags, and entertaining schemes.

What I Didn’t Like

Financed independently by star Humphrey Bogart and some fellow investors, “Beat the Devil” seems to have been shot on a budget that may have been too small for the filmmaker’s ambitious plot.  The film and audio quality is dreadful, making the movie seem like it was shot in 1933 and not in 1953.  With all of the various European, African, and American accents being thrown around, poor sound quality just makes it that much more difficult to follow what is being said.

Additionally, while this film is enjoyable as escapist cinema, it certainly didn’t come across to me as a particularly meaningful, groundbreaking, or influential film.  There are certainly other movies that were not included in the 1001 films in the book I am using as my subject that I feel are more deserving of inclusion than “Beat the Devil.”  It is a good movie, but never at any moment did I feel like it transcended to meriting a place among the greats.

Most Memorable Scene

While it certainly isn’t the most action-packed, funny, or dramatic moment of the movie, the scene where Bogart’s character first meets Jones and her husband is a pleasing encounter accented by dialogue that reveals a great deal about each character involved.  Bogart is at his confident, charming, and duplicitous best while Jones’ character comes off as spectacularly naïve and thirsting for adventure.  Meanwhile her snob of a husband (played with admirable gusto by Edward Underdown) thinly veils his disgust for everything happening behind pretentious manners.  It’s an exceptionally well written and acted scene and really works as the true jumping off point for everything that happens afterwards.

My Rating: 3 out of 5

DOWNFALL (2004)

A.K.A.: Der Untergang

Country: Germany

Genre(s): Drama / War

Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel

Cast: Bruno Ganz / Alexandra Maria Lara / Juliane Kohler

Plot

As the Soviet army invades Berlin, Adolf Hitler and his inner circle live out the final days of Nazi rule in an underground bunker.

What I Liked

With intriguing real-life characters, engaging performances, immaculate production values, and controversial subject matter, “Downfall” is one of the most fascinating dramas I’ve seen.  It takes a lot of skill, talent, and daring to make sympathetic characters of the Nazis in a major motion picture.  Yet the makers of “Downfall” do so quite effectively without ignoring or excusing the evils for which Adolf Hitler and his followers were responsible.  What the film does is give us the German people who, excepting for Hitler and some of his most ardent followers, were simply men and women swept up in history.  Some of them despise the Nazis but have no choice but to follow them obediently in the face of possible execution; others are in love with the ideal German golden age Hitler sold them, brainwashed into fanaticism; others are simply doing what they see as their duty, serving their beloved country, regardless of who leads it; most tragically, others are simply children who, raised with Nazi ideals and knowing nothing else, are anxious to prove themselves worthy of those ideals.  All of them, from Hitler himself to his most ardent enemies, suffer heartbreaking trial and disaster during the the collapse of Nazi rule.

Too often films simply take the easy route of portraying the Nazis as some kind of comic book villains, pure evil without reason or context.  To do so is not just historically inaccurate, it is ignoring the very true danger of fascism, dictatorships, and extremist politics; that very real and very good people participate in such movements with no bad intentions whatsoever.  Most of the people who lived, worked, and served in Germany under Nazi rule (even some of those in Hitler’s inner circle) were just regular people whose lives were shattered not just by the rise of Nazism but also by its fall.  In short, this film gives what feels like the first real and honest depiction Berlin and its leadership, teetering on the precipice of crisis at the close of the Second World War. 

What I Didn’t Like

If it’s no small feat to make the Nazis sympathetic, then it’s a genuine miracle to portray their Fuehrer as a human and not the dastardly, simple-minded caricature of so many other movies.  So I preclude the criticism that is to follow by stating that I fully realize that Bruno Ganz’s portrayal of a multi-dimensional Adolf Hitler is one of the finest performances in film history y.  The problem is, that never once during the entire picture did I see Hitler as a man who could inspire millions.  Even in his most well-behaved moments, he seems a broken, grumpy, delusional old man full of loathing for himself and the rest of humanity.  Perhaps this is really what Hitler was like by this point (the story is based on the accounts of people who were actually there, after all).  But its seems to me that for the film to have made better sense, we could have seen at least glimpses of the fiery, straight-backed, demagogue who inspired a nation to willingly destroy itself.

Most Memorable Scene

*spoiler alert*

There are so many moments of this film that make the mind wonder at the fanaticism of the characters.   But perhaps none of them is more poignant than when Magda Goebbels murders her own children because she refuses to let them grow up in a world where Nazism doesn’t exist.  The heart just charges right into the throat in this crushing scene where the true tragedy of it all really sets in.  Of course we feel such heartache for these wholly innocent children, but, horror of horrors, we even feel for Mrs. Goebbels, the woman whose moral beliefs have been so badly distorted that she whole heartedly believes that nothing but terror and suffering will come to future generations after the fall of the Nazis.

My Rating: 5 out of 5

A TRIP TO THE MOON (1902)

A.K.A.: Le voyage dans la lune

Country: France

Genre(s): Adventure / Comedy / Fantasy / Sci-Fi

Director: George Melies

Cast: George Melies / Brunnet / Henri Delannoy

Plot

A team of astronomers board a rocket to the moon, where they encounter a race of hostile creatures.

What I Liked

With its fantastic set design and simple but entertaining story, “A Trip to the Moon” was a special effects extravaganza before special effects extravaganzas existed as a concept.  It must have been a completely awe-inspiring experience for those of the period who witnessed it.  It’s not surprising that director George Melies was a magician.  A magician’s talents for directing the eye and dazzling the imagination are on display throughout the film’s fourteen minute length.  More importantly, the film presents a very unique vision, a proto-surrealist take on the universe and its mysteries that no doubt amazed audiences but also sets the film apart as work of original art in a time when many thought motion pictures a medium of ignorance or a fad.  The gorgeous set pieces, the whimsical backdrops, and outrageous events all contribute to a movie that remains distinctive, unforgettable, and essential to this day.  It is truly the work of creative genius.

What I Didn’t Like

I have to say the villains of the story (some acrobatic moon men) were unimpressively easy to kill, even if the deaths themselves were groundbreaking feats of special effects.  The conclusion was also disappointingly abrupt, but certainly a necessity for the budget and technology constraints of the era.  Other than that, what’s not to like about this wonderfully entertaining bit of film history?

Most Memorable Scene

What else? The scene where the rocket arrives on the moon and lodges itself directly into the eye of a none too amused Man in the Moon’s face is one of the most iconic scenes in cinema history, certainly the part of the film that has never been forgotten by anyone who has ever witnessed it.

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5

THE BICYCLE THIEF (1948)

A.K.A.: Ladri di biciclette

Country: Italy

Genre(s): Drama

Director: Vittoria De Sica

Cast: Lamberto Maggiorani / Enzo Staiola / Lianella Carell

Plot

After his bicycle is stolen, Antonio Ricci knows he will not be able to keep his job unless he finds it.  So he and his young son spend two days searching the streets of Rome in hopes of getting the bike back.

What I Liked

*spoiler alert!*

One definition of poetry that I happen to subscribe to is that it says as much as possible with as few words as possible.  “The Bicycle Thief” is poetry.

Movies do not need to be on an epic scale to move an audience.  As soulful and painful as any movie that’s been made, this film proves that in nearly every scene.  Here is an extraordinarily moving movie about everyday people for whom everyday circumstances are matters of great, even grave, importance.  Certainly there are plenty of movies out there about ordinary people who get caught up in  historic events that prove momentous for a great many people.  But, outside of being people of their time and place, the Ricci family in this film is not a part of history; indeed history and society are entirely ambivalent to the fact of the Riccis and their bicycle.  For the Riccis, however, recovering the missing bike could mean the difference between getting by and starvation.

One simply must root for Antonio Ricci, the father looking for any opportunity to find work and keep his wife and child fed.  Indeed the emotions go far beyond rooting for Antonio.  The heart breaks for the poor man when he finally gets a new job and, on his first day, after pawning the bed sheets for a bicycle (a prerequisite for the job), the bike is stolen on his first day at work.  If the heart breaks at that moment, it is slowly bled out as we witness the desperate search Antonio and son Bruno mount in an attempt to recover the bike.  The relationship between father and son isn’t a sentimental one, nor does it take the easy route on relying upon nostalgia from the audience.  This is a father and child out on the streets out of necessity, their hopes in a torturous cycle of death, rebirth, and death again.  It is a hard, uncaring city they are wandering through, as hard as the nagging truth that all the love they feel for each other will not put food in their bellies tomorrow.

      

     

What I Didn’t Like

*spoiler alert!*

There’s nothing I did not like, but I will say this movie doesn’t always conjure up enjoyable emotions.  It is certainly a work of beauty, but not the kind of beauty that is digestible by every taste.  Don’t look for happy endings or validation of traditional morality here.  You won’t find it.

Most Memorable Scene

*spoiler alert!*

As I indicated before, there are many scenes in this film that are devastatingly poignant.  There are still others that are masterfully directed to play with the audience’s expectations and preconceptions.  As artfully done as this film is the whole way through, the power of the scenes only increases as it progresses.  The final moments of the film, when the proud Antonio Ricci is finally broken before his son’s eyes, will never fully let go of your heart and mind once it’s been seen.  It’s about as haunting in every sense as anything that’s ever been filmed.

My Rating: 5 out of 5

DIRTY HARRY (1971)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Action / Crime

Director: John Siegel

Cast: Clint Eastwood / Andrew Robinson / Reni Stantoni

Plot

Ignoring the legal red tape and politics, San Francisco Detective Harry Callahan makes it his personal mission to bring a serial killing sniper to justice.

What I Liked

I’ve found “Dirty Harry” to be a difficult movie to write about.  So much about it is definitive about the modern police action film that it is hard to separate it from the constant parodies that followed.  It therefore becomes hard to separate what I like about this movie from what I didn’t like.  Clint Eastwood’s Harry Callahan is a tough-guy cop out to exact violent justice, ignoring legal constraints and political correctness along the way.  Callahan is a man of action, while most of his colleagues in law enforcement and government are worthless men of words; intellectuals and politicians.  The villain is an exact foil for Callahan.  He is an effeminate coward who hides behind the ransom letters he sends to the police and the castrated legal system that prevents his capture.  Even in the 1970s these were clichés.  Similar themes already pervaded cop films like 1968’s “Bullitt” and the entire Western genre.

What makes “Dirty Harry” stand out is the execution.  As action entertainment, the movie as a whole leaves little to be desired.  Eastwood is perfect in every way as Callahan.  So perfect there’s nothing really to comment on in his performance except that he is “tough-guy cop out to exact violent justice” personified.  The directing, camera work, and scripting keep the film moving forward at a steadily entertaining pace.  Meanwhile the story moves Callahan smoothly between the scummy streets and luxurious sky scrapers of San Francisco, accentuating the two worlds in which Callahan operates and at the same time keeping the scenery and suspense fresh.

What I Didn’t Like

As mentioned earlier, it is difficult to not view some of the positives of the film as also being representative of shortcomings; namely, the aforementioned clichés.  Likewise, the perfect casting of Eastwood as Callahan can also be viewed as typecasting in terms of the actor’s range.  Callahan could arguably be viewed as a modern version of the Man With No Name character Eastwood played in the 1960s Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone.

Most Memorable Scene

What else? “I know what you’re thinking. ‘ Did he fire six shots or only five?’ Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement kind of lost track myself.  But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky?  Well, do ya, punk?”  Macho monologues don’t get any better.

My Rating: 4 out of 5