Renny Harlin’s The Bricklayer

Greece is situated smack dab in the middle of a sensitive geographic area, with easy access to the Balkans and Turkey. It also has a history of a particularly childish strain of leftism. (Remember their threats to leave the Eurozone, because they were shocked to learn they had to balance their budgets once they relinquished control of their monetary policy? Any econ major could have told them so.) That makes Greece the perfect location for a scheme to discredit the CIA in Renny Harlin’s The Bricklayer, which releases this Friday in theaters and on-demand.

Things got a bit messy while Steve Vail was assigned to Greece, so he resigned from the agency, returning to his blue-collar roots laying brick for construction sites. Unfortunately, Radek, the contact he supposedly liquidated, is alive and well, framing the CIA for the assassinations of leftist “journalists” with a history of investigating Agency operations. Ostensibly, he is extorting the CIA for 100 million in Bitcoin, but his vendetta runs deeper than that. Regardless, Kostas, a demagogic leftwing Greek politician is shamelessly exploiting the killings to undermine America and NATO.

Reluctantly, Vail secretly returns to Greece, along with Kate Bannon, a Jack Ryan-esque analyst, who gets her first field assignment, because her politically astute boss O’Malley wants to limit the circle of agency personnel with knowledge of the affair. Initially, the by-the-book Bannon clashes with the rogue Vail, but after they save each other’s necks a few times, they hash out a degree of mutual trust.

Hanna Weg and Matt Johnson’s adaptation of Paul Lindsay’s novel (written under the name Noah Boyd) has a sophisticated premise that is shrewdly realistic and incredibly timely. Unfortunately, their screenplay emphasizes routine action over international intrigue. Harlin was always an action-oriented filmmaker, so this plays to his strengths, but it is a missed opportunity for something smarter.

Skiptrace: Harlin Directs Chan, Knoxville, and Fan

This film was made possible by the global economy. It was directed by a Finn famous for blowing things up and stars a Hong Konger beloved for giving up his body and a Tennessean who made a name for himself getting racked in the jewels on MTV. As an added bonus, it also features probably the world’s most popular actress in a supporting role. Jackie Chan and Johnny Knoxville bring the buddy movie action-comedy in Renny Harlin’s Skiptrace (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Connor Watts is a conman who has no problem with the “ugly American” label. Unfortunately, he scams the wrong hotel casino in Macau. The business manager happens to be Samantha, the goddaughter of Hong Kong’s most obsessive cop, Benny Chan. Chan will not rest until he brings Watts to justice, but the Yank has good reason to keep his distance. As fate would have it, he happened to witness a murder committed by shadowy businessman Victor Wong, whom Chan has long suspected of being the drug lord who murdered Samantha’s father, his former partner Yung.

Watts even has potential evidence locked in the cell phone the murdered woman lifted from the so-called “Matador.” Of course, the cop and the robber have diametrically opposed goals and motivations, but Watts will eventually get with the crime-stopping program after a few close shaves. He would also like to impress the lovely Samantha, assuming he can avoid a Russian mobster’s shotgun wedding plans.

The pairing of Chan and Knoxville might not inspire much confidence, but they play off each other quite well. There is no shortage of bickering and bantering in Skiptrace, but fortunately there is just as much fighting. You could say both co-leads are unusually experienced when it comes to physical comedy—and have the scars to prove it. That flexibility and high tolerance for pain serves them well in some vintage Jackie Chan fight scenes. One sequence in particular choreographed around an assembly line clearly evokes Chaplinesque echoes.

Chan finds a terrific sparring partner in WWE veteran Eve Torres, playing Dasha, the Russian enforcer, whom his character ironically resists fighting because she is a woman (right, good luck with that). Eventually, Torres also quite entertainingly takes on Zhang Lanxin cast as the Matador’s chief henchperson. The luminous Fan Bingbing manages to elevate the underwritten role of Samantha through her sheer start presence. She didn’t get to be the biggest name in the business by sheer accident. Serious HK action fans will also enjoy seeing Eric Tsang and Michael Wong appear as Chan’s late partner and his crooked police captain (of course, he is corrupt, he is played by Michael Wong—no spoiler alert necessary).

We have been down this road of beatdowns and gags with Jackie Chan before, but it all works pretty well this time around. Harlin shows wise restraint in some scenes, like the Mongolian Adele sing-along, just going for a fun vibe rather than yuckety-yuck laughs. Fun really is the apt word to describe Skiptrace. It never transcends genre (would we even want it to?), but it just clicks. Recommended for martial arts and Jackass fans, Skiptrace opens this Friday (9/2) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

5 Days of War: While the World Looked the Other Way

In early August, 2008, the Russian military invaded the free and democratic country of Georgia, leaving death and destruction in their wake. They are still there, occupying the so-called breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a fact the media has yet to notice. Indeed, the journalistic establishment did its best to look the other way, except for a hardy band of foreign correspondents who risked life and limb to cover the Russian atrocities. Finnish filmmaker Renny Harlin (yes, that Renny Harlin) dramatizes Georgia’s struggle to preserve its sovereign integrity through their lenses in 5 Days of War (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili was elected President as a Western-oriented reformer, the exact opposite of Russian PM Vladimir Putin. So committed to strengthening relations with America and NATO, Georgia contributed military forces to Operation Iraqi Freedom. For war reporter Thomas Anders, it is a good thing they did. As 5 Days opens, Capt. Rezo Avaliani’s unit arrives just in the nick of time to save him from a terrorist ambush, creating a bond of friendship between the two men. As Russia starts massing troops on the border, the psychologically wounded Anders heads back into the field, where he will encounter the good Captain again.

President Saakashvili and his American advisor scramble to rally world support, but the media is not interested. When CNN bothers to cover the story (yes, the network is mentioned by name), they only present the Russian government’s spin. Even more frustrating, legitimate journalist on the ground, like Anders and his hard drinking colleague Laurens “Dutchman” Roemer, are not able to place their dramatic stories of Russian war crimes (unflinchingly illustrated throughout the film), because their outlets simply do not care. Unfortunately, the Olympics will soon start, crowding beleaguered Georgia out of the media spotlight.

It will come as a shock to many that Renny Harlin had such a serious and timely film in him. Yet, it is important to remember the Cliffhanger director’s Finnish roots. Indeed, Saakashvili explicitly references Finland’s resistance to Soviet invaders in his climatic address to the nation. The director clearly has a passion for the story, but his action movie roots also serve the material quite well.

Frankly, it is a bit of a misnomer to call 5 Days a war film, because it was never a fair fight. However, Harlin and cinematographer Checco Varese (a former news cameraman who saw action in Bosnia and Chechnya) convey a vivid sense of what it is like to have the Soviet Russian war machine bearing down on you. It is a scarily convincing sensation, never really captured on film so effectively before.

A surprisingly good physical match for Saakashvili, Andy Garcia invests the film with real dignity and gravitas. In fact, his delivery of the President’s stirring national address might just get you a little choked up. Indeed, the Georgian characters are all quite credible and compelling, particularly Johnathon Schaech as the resourceful Capt. Avaliani.

Shrewdly, Val Kilmer plays to his new degenerate out-of-shape image as the cynical Dutchman. Rade Sherbedgia, Kilmer’s former co-star from The Saint, notches another memorable heavy role, playing Col. Demidov with more nuance than the Russians deserve. If there is a weak spot in the cast it is Rupert Friend, who only digs into his character just so far, in between dodging bullets and getting the stuffing kicked out of him. Still, he is serviceable enough to keep the film on track and firing on all cylinders.

Tightly helmed by Harlin, 5 Days is absolutely riveting as cinema when considered only according to strict formalist criteria, but of course there is much more to take into account. One suspects it was originally conceived with an even darker slap-in-the-face ending. Regardless, the final film is blisteringly angry and honest. Yet, it is also inspiring, depicting a small scrappy Eastern European nation standing up against a vastly more powerful aggressor, championing the values we advocate. Conversely, for nearly everyone working for a major media outlet, the film is a long cold glass of shame. One of the year’s best, 5 Days opens this Friday (8/19) in New York at the Angelika Film Center.