F. Gary Gray
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Death Wish (1974)
Directed by Michael Winner
influenced Law Abiding Citizen (2009)
Characters Themes
Avid filmgoers, particularly from the baby boomer generation, may recall fondly the late Charles Bronson ("Death Wish"), who often starred in similar movies as a rugged, weather-beaten, tough guy who took the law into his own hands to right a wrong.
Charles Bronson may have passed away but the spirit of his Death Wish films lives on — albeit in an absurdly twisted fashion — in F. Gary Gray’s ( The Italian Job Be Cool ) gleefully over-the-top revenge thriller Law Abiding Citizen .
Take the Charles Bronson “Death Wish” movies, cross them with cable’s “Dexter,” and add just a soupçon of the depraved “Saw” series, and you’ve got a recipe for LAW ABIDING CITIZEN.
However, Bronson aims for and succeeds at showing stylized action, dark humor and surrealism, while Law Abiding Citizen aims for gritty reality along the lines of Death Wish and exploring issues about the justice system, but misses the bullseye by more than a mile.
Boyz n the Hood (1991)
Directed by John Singleton
influenced Straight Outta Compton (2015), Friday (1995)
Visuals Themes
At other times, it evokes an almost meta recreation of '90s dramas like “Boyz N The Hood,” which was shot in the same city with one of this film’s characters.
With the fallout from the Rodney King beatings building in the background, it’s a potent portrait of recent LA history, right up there with the Cube-starring Boyz n the Hood for its electric depiction of urban violence.
Boyz n the Hood director John Singleton was initially due to direct this NWA biopic, and he may have brought a more nuanced edge to the tale of the band’s controversial cultural status.
Boyz n the Hood director John Singleton apparently wanted all of the "black Beatles" to star in his '90s coming-of-age-in-the-ghetto classic, but only Ice Cube took him up on it.
Straight Outta Compton is built on these roles, and though the storytelling may not be fully capable of bearing the weight of so much plot, you’ll want to break out your old N.W.A. albums and re-watch Boyz n the Hood and Friday, especially after Jackson exclaims, “Bye, Felicia!”
Rap artist Ice Cube, who offered impressive acting turns in "Boyz N the Hood," `Trespass" and "Higher Learning" has decided to take his movie career into his own hands, co-writing and co-executive producing "Friday."
Ocean's Eight (2018)
Directed by Gary Ross
influenced by Set It Off (1996), The Italian Job (2003)
Plot Themes
Instead, the writers put a half-assed effort into making us emotionally invested, and instead land in an awkward middle ground between a revenge narrative with a satisfying conclusion (à la The Italian Job), and a broad comedy heist caper (à la A Fish Called Wanda).
This all-female heist film gets the feel of the fizzy end of this genre (like 2003’s The Italian Job ) just right.
Another stylish old heist movie, The Italian Job (1969), was remade in 2003, while a new version of Jules Dassin’s classic Rififi (1955) is allegedly “in development”.
The film’s patronizing nod to diversity — token thieves of assorted ethnic types — are insulting enough to make one nostalgic for the ghetto vulgarity of Set It Off (1996), a black feminist heist film in which Queen Latifah and Jada Pinkett belonged to a quartet of inner-city black chicks who committed robbery because of each one’s deprivation.
(Of the very few all-female heist movies in existence, none has aimed for this sort of gloss and glamour: they’ve been rougher, like “Set It Off,” or teen camp, like “Sugar & Spice.”)
Yet with the movie now having underperformed at the Box Office, even compared to Men in Black 3 (which a lot of people don’t even remember seeing despite it being one of the highest grossing movies of 2012), it seems that if trying to have a more forward-looking and less expensive approach it didn’t work out.
Then there are the ungoogleable nicknames: Will Smith’s J, Tommy Lee Jones’ K, and now, in Men in Black: International, Chris Hemsworth’s H and Tessa Thompson’s M. For some Men in Black, though, the agency’s erasure of its employees’ personal identities eventually becomes a bridge too far.
The feeling of disconnect — of characters who say they’re in conflict, but don’t have many real conflicts, of tonally diverse elements patched together into a loose quilt, of characters that don’t cohere and are just around to snipe in jokes — extends throughout every aspect of Men In Black: International, but it’s most prominent in the editing, which often feels as though entire scenes are missing, as if F. Gary Gray (Straight Outta Compton, The Fate of the Furious) hoped no one would notice as long as things moved fast enough.
Men in Black: International is the first installment of the franchise to not feature its two core cast members -- Smith and Jones -- or its original director, Barry Sonnenfeld .
All Eyez on Me (2017)
Directed by Benny Boom
influenced by Straight Outta Compton (2015)
Themes Plot
If the rapper’s fans were hoping for a feature that both honored the legacy of this polarizing figure and recreated some of the magic of the surprisingly entertaining Straight Outta Compton , this is definitely not that movie.
There’s nothing like that glaring gaffe in Straight Outta Compton where Eazy E’s wearing a White Sox hat from the wrong decade.
Making Knight the villain—a technique also incorporated by 2015’s Straight Outta Compton—All Eyez on Me has a convenient bad guy, but there’s very little tension or sense of tragedy as Shakur hurtles to his demise.
Our expectations of hip-hop biopics may have been elevated by Straight Outta Compton, but they come back down to earth with a heavy thump in All Eyez on Me, a ploddingly pedestrian dramatization of Tupac Shakur’s brief, tumultuous life.
It began with 2009’s Biggie Smalls bio, Notorious, and continued with N.W.A’s Straight Outta Compton in 2015.
All Eyez on Me is a loving tribute to Tupac Shakur, but its sloppy execution and scatterbrained story mean it will definitely not become the next Straight Outta Compton.
That deflating realization forced this critic to rewatch a classic (Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven remake) to remind herself that yes, this genre could be fun.
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Directed by Jonathan Demme
influenced Law Abiding Citizen (2009)
Themes Dialogue Plot
In combining all those procedural shows with “Saw’’ and “The Silence of the Lambs,’’ the director F. Gary Gray (“The Italian Job’’) gets to play with all kinds of weaponry (rockets, automatic machine guns, improvised explosive devices).
There are some stinging verbal exchanges between Clyde and Nick, but they pale in comparison with their likely inspiration, the Hannibal/Clarice interaction in The Silence of the Lambs.
Think of “Law Abiding Citizen” as a reanimated corpse stitched together from the bloody body parts of “Dexter,” “Saw,” “Death Wish” and “The Silence of the Lambs.”
Director F. Gary Gray (2005's " Be Cool ") and scripter Kurt Wimmer (2008's " Street Kings ") show precious little restraint as they tackle a project that tries to cross "The Silence of the Lambs" with "The Shawshank Redemption" while going so far over the deep end that it ends up making a mockery of itself.
The best part of the film is the series' first foray into New York City, a jaw-dropping sequence in which seemingly every car in midtown Manhattan is hacked and taken over, forming a herd-like line that reminded me of the dogs chasing Nicolas Cage in Raising Arizona.
Not exactly a remake per se, but based on the concept of the original 1969 film starring Michael Caine, “The Italian Job” is a fun popcorn action flick.
But do yourself a favor and resist The Italian Job, a lazy and in-name-only remake of 1969's G-rated Michael Caine heist pic.
It's the equally apropos tagline of The Italian Job, a slick, star-studded remake of the 1969 caper about a gang of jewel thieves out to avenge the death of their double-crossed accomplice, and while they're at it, steal back $35 million in ill-gotten gold bullion.
If The Italian Job seems familiar, it's not simply because it's a remake of a 1969 British caper flick.
Crisp, uncluttered and wildly playful, the new film The Italian Job -- a remake of the 1969 film -- sweeps along like Buster Keaton's The General.
The Italian Job is an update of the 1969 classic of the same name but unlike recent remakes it is fresh and thoroughly entertaining.
Mark Wahlberg wouldn�t exactly be the first choice to replace Michael Caine�s original role, but that didn�t stop Jonathan Demme from trying to dopplegang Cary Grant with Wahlberg in his Charade remake, The Truth About Charlie, or Tim Burton in Planet of the Apes.
The gold heist in Venice at film's opening leads to the most lifejacket-gripping, gondola-tipping speedboat chase since Geoffrey Reeve's 1970 thriller, Puppet on a Chain.
For instance, 8 Mile (2002) was shot in Detroit (the 313), and Eddie and the Cruisers (1983) had scenes shot in Somers Point, New Jersey (Tony Mart's).
Then, in 1996’s Set It Off , Queen Latifah, Vivica A. Fox, Jada Pinkett, and Kimberly Elise played hard-luck blue-collar women who become bank robbers to make ends meet.
For instance, 8 Mile (2002) was shot in Detroit (the 313), and Eddie and the Cruisers (1983) had scenes shot in Somers Point, New Jersey (Tony Mart's).
Indeed, that's how it plays and if it wasn't for Eazy-E's moving, if narratively inconvenient, demise (played strongly by Jason Mitchell), this would have been an 8 Mile-like fantasy of triumphant success over adversity.
If you ignore 8 Mile, the thinly veiled Eminem biopic-or-isn’t-it, and the TLC biopic CrazySexyCool, which was straight-to-TV, the most significant to date has been 2009’s mediocre Notorious, about the New York City legend Notorious B.I.G., which had a rather successful opening weekend before losing steam at the box office.
For comparison, the Eminem-starring “8 Mile” and the Biggie Smalls feature “Notorious” come to mind.
Although it earns its R rating in nearly every scene, the film’s vibe is closer to “The Social Network” than “Menace II Society,” choosing to romanticize the merits of the music and the relation between art and commerce, not the violence that was interconnected with the group’s rise and fall.
Crisp, uncluttered and wildly playful, the new film The Italian Job -- a remake of the 1969 film -- sweeps along like Buster Keaton's The General.
That sequence is the heart of the movie; the group is met before the show by a huge contingent of police, and they face off in a parking garage, echoing West Side Story .
Where The Town faulters is in its story (which is one that we’ve all seen before), the film that it most resembles is F Gary Gray’s 1996 all-female thriller Set It Off, to which is shares frequent identical plot turns and stylistic similarities.
Unlike “Walk the Line,” which only has to deal with Johnny Cash’s story, “Straight Outta Compton” manages to give equal weight to Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins), Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) and Easy-E (Jason Mitchell), at the same time giving supporting note to MC Ren (Aldis Hodge) as well as offering a barrage of character cameos from Snoop Dogg to Tupac.
To find a comparable evocation of American aspiration and excess, skip such musical biopic predecessors as “Walk the Line” and “Ray” and look at Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
The key to the best music biopics – Ray, Walk the Line, Sid & Nancy – is their willingness and allowance to portray their protagonists, as, well, assholes.
Den of Thieves (2018)
Directed by Christian Gudegast
influenced by A Man Apart (2003), The Italian Job (2003)
Visuals Themes
At times, the film feels like a grimy and mean cop drama in the vein of the better David Ayer films, while other sequences in the movie feel a bit more light-hearted and exciting in the style of The Italian Job or a Fast and Furious movie.
It wants to be a modern-noir crime drama in the vein of Michael Mann, but though director Christian Gudegast—taking up the camera after writing such movies as London Has Fallen and A Man Apart —has the chops to approximate Mann, he does not have the style to do something interesting with his homage.
For proof, look no further than “Den of Thieves,” the new film from screenwriter Christian Gudegast (“A Man Apart” & “London Has Fallen”), making his directing debut here.
Christian Gudegast, writer of A Man Apart (2003) and London Has Fallen (2016), makes his directorial debut with Den of Thieves , and it’s everything he’s been building toward as a creator of generic, testosterone-driven crime dramas that offer nothing new.
Following in the footsteps of Michael Mann’s 1995 classic Heat (not to mention coming quick on the heels of John Hillcoat’s Triple 9 released last February), director Christian Gudegast, the screenwriter behind London has Fallen and A Man Apart making his directorial debut, attempts to revitalize the cops and robbers melodrama with the testosterone-filled action-thriller Den of Thieves.
But the hulking, permanently disheveled Butler is no Pacino, Gudegast, the screenwriter of such previous gems as London Has Fallen and A Man Apart , is no Mann, and Den of Thieves is decidedly no Heat .