FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE: You Didn’t Give a Motherhunch About Me, Did You?

Force 10 from Navarone (1978) – Directed by Guy Hamilton – Starring Harrison Ford, Robert Shaw, Edward Fox, Franco Nero, Carl Weathers, Barbara Bach, and Richard Kiel.

FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE is one of the weirder sequels in cinematic history.

Ostensibly, it’s a sequel to THE GUNS OF NAVARONE, but while the story picks up shortly after the events of that movie and reunites the characters of Keith Mallory and John Miller, FORCE 10 was produced 17 years later and Gregory Peck and David Niven have been replaced with Robert Shaw and Edward Fox, actors with very different approaches to the characters than their predecessors. So while FORCE 10 is technically a sequel, functionally it’s entirely its own film.

That’s not wholly a good thing, but it’s not a disastrous thing, either.

FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE is a perfectly enjoyable action/war movie. All of the actors are good, the story is good, the action is good, and the final scene is fantastic. Ironically, while it’s the least of the four Alistair MacLean-based movies, it’s also the only one where I was immediately ready for a sequel. This is due not just to the ending – which sees our four heroes flush with the success of completely their mission but suddenly confronted with being trapped behind enemy lines – but to the chemistry exhibited between our four main leads: Shaw, Fox, Harrison Ford, and Carl Weathers.

Colonel Barnsby (Ford) and his Force 10 team are due to head into Yugoslavia to blow up a bridge, and he’s none-too-happy to have old times Mallory and Miller forced onto him. Right from the start, FORCE 10 overcomes one of the problems I had with (the otherwise superior) WHERE EAGLES DARE, which is to create some tension between our protagonists. Barnsby and Mallory clash repeatedly, the younger soldier’s fire clashing nicely with the older soldier’s calm. When the Force 10 unit is in the middle of stealing a plane (they steal one of their own planes in order to keep the mission a secret), a Jeep of MPs rolls up and a brawl ensues. Instead of getting involved, Mallory and Miller lean back against their transport truck and don’t get involved until they can be of the most use.

It’s during this brawl that Sergeant Weaver (Weathers) joins up with them, forcing his way out of MP custody and onto the stolen plane. Before they reach their destination the plane is attacked and almost everyone dies. The unit then has to hoof it through Yugoslavia, where they get embroiled with Richard Kiel and blah blah blah war stuff mistaken identity subterfuge penicillin Franco Nero prison break. I’m skipping through this huge middle section because while it’s pretty entertaining, it’s the film’s ending that I want to talk about.

Force 10 was sent into Yugoslavia to blow up a massive bridge but they lack the explosives to do it, so they devise a plan to blow up a nearby dam, believing the escaped water will wash the bridge away and keep the Germans on the other side of the river. Miller is the bombs expert, but it’s Mallory and Barnsby that sneak into the dam and travel all the way to the corridor at the base of the dam to plant the explosives. When they’re deciding on how long to set the fuse, Mallory recognizes they’ve run out of time and the Germans must, at that very minute, already be crossing the bridge.

Barnsby decides to set the fuse for 20 seconds, which is obviously not enough time for them to get out. He asks Mallory if 20 seconds is the right time and in a nice switch from GUNS where Miller forced Mallory to make the hard call, Mallory now tells Barnsby that the call is his. Barnsby balks even though he knows he’s right, wanting the older officer to give him confirmation. Mallory finally does, the fuse is set, and the two men shake hands and walk away. The bomb goes off and …

Poof.

Up on a nearby hill, Miller and Weaver are watching and waiting. When there is no massive explosion, Weaver freaks out, yelling that nothing happened and that after all they’d been through to get to that moment … NOTHING! Behind him, Miller puffs on his pipe, clearly unconcerned.

Back in the tunnel, Mallory and Barnsby dust themselves off. There was an explosion in the tunnel, but no real damage appears to have been caused. They’re furious but while hiding out from three Germans, a crack appears in the corridor’s ceiling and water starts to shoot down. Mallory and Miller pop out of hiding and run past the surprised Germans. Slowly, incrementally, Weaver sees the dam begin to crack and water begin to shoot through and his anger turns to such joy that he nearly dances with Miller on the hill and kisses the Brit twice on the cheek. (My admiration for Weathers continues to grow, and I love how Sergeant Weaver continually forces himself into the narrative.) The dam eventually breaks, Mallory and Barnsby escape, and the bridge is washed out, stopping the German advance.

It’s a wonderfully executed sequence by Guy Hamilton and his crew. There are moments here where a bit of Hamilton’s past comes in to add a bit of cheek to the proceedings (like when Barnsby and Mallory are escaping the dam and they both push the same German solider out of the way to climb up some stairs ahead of him) but for the most part they help, rather than hurt the movie. This last sequence, however, is mostly pure action goodness and it unfolds beautifully. Every shot is the right one and every shot last exactly the right amount of time.

The day is won but as the four men reunite on the hill, it’s the ever-practical Mallory who reminds them that they’re now on the wrong side of the river in an area that’s soon to be swarming with angry Germans. With no hope of reuniting with allies, he tells them it’s going to be a long walk to freedom as the camera is pulling away from them and the credits start rolling. It’s a really great ending, calling in mind films like the original Italian Job and The Thin Red Line in that even though the movie is over, the story (and the war) clearly is not.

FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE does not have the literary quality of the other MacLean films, as its intentions are clearly designed to be an enjoyable World War II romp, but while it may not reach the heights of GUNS OF NAVARONE, ICE STATION ZEBRA, and WHERE EAGLES DARE, this is still a darn good movie, thanks to the four leads and some fine directing from Guy Hamilton.

DIE HARD 2: Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

Die Hard 2 (1990) – Directed by Renny Harlin – Starring Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, William Sadler, Art Evans, William Atherton, Franco Nero, Dennis Franz, Fred Thompson, Tom Bower, Sheila McCarthy, John Amos, Robert Patrick, Colm Meaney, Vondie Curtis-Hall, and Reginald VelJohnson.

“What sets off the metal detectors first? The lead in your ass or the sh*t in your brains?”
- John McClane to Captain Lorenzo

Yes, the final 20 minutes or so of DIE HARD 2 stretches credibility. Seeing John McClane jump onto a moving plane and taking out two trained military soldiers on the wing as the plane speeds towards takeoff is a step too far because it superhumanizes McClane – until then, the stunts he performs are largely plausible. Yeah, sure, the amount of trained bad guys he kills is pushing it, but taking out four bad guys in an otherwise empty airport terminal isn’t something you can’t conceive of him doing.

Jumping on the wing of a moving airplane from a helicopter in the middle of a snowstorm, though? Yeah. Pushing it.

That’s only the final act in what’s otherwise a thoroughly satisfying sequel. DIE HARD 2, with Renny Harlin taking over the director’s chair from John McTeirnan, is a rock-solid action movie that manages to hit all the right beats from the original DIE HARD while twisting expectations just enough that the story still feels fresh and urgent, instead of stale and repetitive.

The first thing that DH2 does right is that it acknowledges the repetitive nature of McClane (Bruce Willis) once again finding himself in a crazy hostage situation. Since the film has a good humor about what’s going on, we are invited to laugh at seeing McClane again crawling through air ducts, stuck in basements, and arguing with authority. The film wisely doesn’t repeat all of its beats, however. Where the last film had McClane teaming with Sgt. Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson), the sequel has John calling Al early in the film because his “sidekick” cop this time around serves as an extra antagonist rather than an ally. Carmine Lorenzo (Dennis Franz) is the head of Dulles International Airport’s police squad and some of the films best smiles come from watching him and McClane verbally joust with one another. DH2 further inverts the McClane/PD structure by having Trudeau (Fred Thompson), Dulles’ Head of Operations, sympathetic to what McClane is trying to do. While Trudeau isn’t an ally who gives McClane free run of the airport, he is willing to listen to the semi-famous cop from the Nakatomi incident of two years previous, always to the consternation of Lorenzo.

DIE HARD 2 also makes an effort at the start of the film to humanize McClane. The first film showed that he was afraid of flying, and this time around he’s getting his car towed from outside of Dulles as he waits for his wife, Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) to arrive for the Christmas holidays. McClane is living and working in LA now, but they’re spending the holidays in DC with Holly’s parents. By putting Holly on a plane, it repeats the first film’s use of Holly as a hostage, though this time it’s because she’s trapped in a plane the terrorists refuse to let land.

I could have done without the plane angle in terms of having Holly and reporter Richard Thornburg (William Atherton) back for a second go-round in familiar roles. All of the plane scenes are effective, so they’re not a huge negative in the film, but it would have been nice to see an alteration of the formula. I thought it was coming. It’s Thornburg who realizes something is wrong when he sees a number of planes flying near the plane he and Holly are on and it’s Thornburg who gets his assistant to monitor radio frequencies, which leads to them learning the truth about why they’re in the air. It would have been a perfect opportunity to have Holly and Thornburg put aside their differences and work together, but the film is determined to keep Thornburg as a jerk, even if Thornburg does real reporting. Sure, he’s a glory hog, but he does his job and gets the story.

DIE HARD 2 introduces a new reporter that is cast as the “good” alternative to Thornburg. Samantha Coleman (Sheila McCarthy) is at Dulles to cover the story of the arrival of General Ramon Esperanza (Franco Nero). Esperanza is being extradited to the United States because he’s a drug lord, but for some reason the government agents in charge of the swap are sitting in the airport like they’re two chumps waiting for their flight to Charlotte and offer blah “No comments” to Coleman. (They could at least have said, “Merry Christmas.”) Coleman generally makes a pain of herself through most of the film as no one wants to talk to the press (the level of anti-press hostility in the first two DIE HARD movies is pretty extraordinary), but she redeems herself in the hand when McClane needs her help to get to the airfield, and then prevents her cameraman from filming more than a couple seconds of John and Holly’s reunion.

Through it all, though, it’s still John McClane’s show. His main ally this time around is Leslie Barnes (Art Evans), the airport’s communication director. Like Al, Barnes is lower down on the totem pole, but unlike Al, Barnes can affect real change in the narrative because he’s inside the airport and involved with the action. Barnes represents same common sense approach, however, that McClane demonstrates and it’s why the two men bond. Where Lorenzo sees McClane as a threat and Trudeau can’t fully accept McClane’s help, Barnes sees that McClane is their best shot for stopping the terrorists.

The terrorists are largely just here to give McClane someone to fight. Colonel Stuart (William Sadler) has none of the charisma of Hans Gruber, but he is coolly effective. It’s a smart move, to be honest, again varying up the formula. The political motivations of the terrorists are real this time, as Stuart’s group is attempting to rescue General Esperanza, and when he and Major Grant (John Amos) align with him, there’s … well, there’s still not much antagonistic personality.

There’s not as many great lines or even great scenes this time around, but it’s hard for me to think of DIE HARD 2 as a disappointment. I rewatched it the day after rewatching DIE HARD and at no point in the viewing was I bored. Renny Harlin keeps everything moving, and substituting McTiernan’s technical proficiency with Harlin’s frenetic energy works to the film’s advantage. I enjoyed little touches, too, like the abundance of snow naturally raising the stakes and changing up the visual palette, and I love behind-the-scenes sequences, like we get here in the baggage area and in the basement beneath the runway. Perhaps the scene that best represents DIE HARD 2 comes when McClane proves his point to Lorenzo that Major Grant was playing them. Lorenzo doesn’t want to hear it, so McClane “opens fire” with the automatic machine gun he took from Stuart’s mercenaries. Everyone freaks but no bullets are fired, and Lorenzo is won over once he realizes he hasn’t been turned into pulp.

That scene turns the movie’s main structure on its head: McClane is right, the people in power don’t listen, he makes a big scene. Usually that scene involves killing someone or blowing something up, but this time, it’s the lack of death and destruction.

DIE HARD 2 has aged very well. I did not buy the new Blu-ray box set because while I love 1 and 3, my memory was lukewarm on 2 and 4, so I settled on buying the original for $10. I kinda wish now I had bought the box set because I’m absolutely certain I’ll watch DIE HARD 2 more over the next 23 years than I have in the 23 years since it was released.

CARS 2: I Really Am Just a Tow Truck

Cars 2 (2011) – The 12th Pixar Animated Feature – Directed by John Lassater – Starring Owen Wilson, Larry the Cable Guy, Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Jason Isaacs, Thomas Kretschmann, Eddie Izzard, John Turturro, Joe Mantegna, Tony Shaloub, Bruce Campbell, Franco Nero, John Ratzenberger, Vanessa Redgrave, Bonnie Hunt, Cheech Marin, Katherine Helmond, Jeff Garlin, Edie McClurg, and Richard Kind.

They made an entire movie about the freaking sidekick.

Not a direct-to-DVD movie. Not a made-for-cable movie. Not an animated short that gets played before the real movie, but an actual, honest-to-goodness $200 million release about the …

about the …

… about THE FREAKING TOW TRUCK.

Maybe John Lasseter’s office at the Magic Kingdom is actually in the parking garage, because sucking on exhaust fumes is one of the only possible explanations I can come up with for making this movie revolve around the one-note (one-not-really-that-funny-note) Tow Mater.

I had heard a lot of negative reaction to CARS 2, and through the first 30 or 40 minutes of the movie, I was wondering what could possibly have caused such a negative reaction. The film opens with a fantastic action sequence on an oil rig that sees Finn McMissile (Michael Caine) doing his whole super cool British spy thing. There’s plenty of action and the top flight CGI animation that Pixar does better than anyone else.

From there we head to Radiator Springs, where Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) is returning home after winning his fourth Piston Cup championship. He reunites with best pal Mater (Larry the Cable Guy), his girlfriend Sally (Bonnie Hunt), and is about to enjoy some good ol’ fashioned time off when Mater gets him wrapped up in some international racing competition. Milex Axelrod (Eddie Izzard) has created this new alternative biofuel called Allinol and to prove how awesome it is, he’s going to stage the World Grand Prix, which will have race cars from all over the world, and from all different series. He’s on TV being interviewed alongside Francesco Bernoulli (John Turturro), a Formula One-styled racing car, who loves himself even more than the ladies love him. Francesco does a bit of trash talking and next thing you know, Mater is calling in to the talk show to talk up the awesomeness of Lightning. When McQueen realizes what’s happening, he jumps on the phone and accepts the invitation to the race.

We’re off to Japan for some really gorgeous CGI and engaging hobnobbing and racing and espionage as Finn and Holly Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer) show up to meet with an American contact. The contact is supposed to be Torque (Bruce Campbell), but the bad guys are onto him. Mater gets in the middle of their battle because Mater is hilarious and Mater in a Japanese bathroom stall is hilarious times hilarious, and Torque attaches his information device onto Mater without the tow truck realizing what’s happened.

And from there the movie rather begins to sink, as it becomes apparent that this is a Mater movie, with McQueen relegated to doing some racing stuff in between Mater being hilarious with Finn and Holly.

I lay the blame for the disappointing CARS 2 solely on the decision to focus on Mater. The story is fine, in and of itself, though the larger themes of friendship and how it’s okay to be a stupid American while in other countries falls a bit flat. The idea of a World Grand Prix is a good one, and the espionage plot is well-conceived, too. Finn and Holly travel by plane and train as they seek to solve the mission of who’s behind the Big Evil Plot, but that idiot Mater is sitting right in the middle of all their espionage stuff being Mater. I just don’t understand what Lasseter was thinking. It’s a classic sequel mistake of taking what was funny in small doses in the original movie and then loading up on it because, obviously, if a little of something is funny than a lot of something is going to be super funny.

Except it’s not.

I suppose it might be possible to say that one’s enjoyment of CARS 2 is equatable with one’s enjoyment of Larry the Cable Guy. Well, my enjoyment of his shtick is rather low, and so every time he does his “dum dum dum der der dum dum der” routine, I want to hit the fast forward button. In small doses, it’s fine, but in large doses it’s just … so … tedious.

It’s a shame because I love the idea of CARS 2. I love the racing angle. I like the idea of taking McQueen and Mater out of Radiator Springs, but Mater’s whole “Dumb American Abroad” routine is as tiresome to me as it is embarrassing to Lightning. I don’t even mind seeing the secondary characters I liked so much in the original CARS become almost non-existent because we get a bunch of new, equally cool secondary characters.

But to build this idea around Mater … Ugh.

CARS 2 certainly isn’t an awful movie. If nothing else, Pixar has created a gorgeous movie to look at. Rather, CARS 2 a pretty good movie with a really awful center. I suppose it’s a bit like enjoying a Tootsie Pop but hating the Tootsie center – it starts all awesome and then bogs down in chewy junk.