BLOWN AWAY
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1995 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): *
A summer action movie with Tommy Lee Jones. How can it miss?
Tommy Lee Jones is an Irish terrorist and a mad bomber. Jeff Bridges is the most brilliant and daring member of the Boston bomb squad, but he is a burn out case who is retiring. Suzy Amis plays Jeff Bridges always about to be killed wife. Lloyd Bridges plays the wise old man.
This movie features lots of gigantic explosions. If you are from Boston, you will love the many nice scenes shot on location there. Very picturesque cinematography (Peter Levy). Other than as a guide to pyrotechnics or as a travelogue, the only compelling reason to see the show is Tommy Lee Jones. He tries his darndest to shine in a bad movie, and although it is one of the weakest acting jobs I have seen from him, he is still interesting to watch.
Jeff Bridges is an actor who can be pretty pathetic sometimes. This was one of them. He was either whining through most of the show or being mister macho - willing to put his family and crowds of hundreds of people at risk. If a mad bomber was after your family, you would not want to share credit in their rescue by asking for any backup would you? Of course not.
Lloyd Bridges's character was not much, and he did not do much with it. Suzy Amis played a caricature of the poor little wife who needed her husband to save her all of the time, and who could not see danger when it was staring her and her daughter right in the face.
The plot had few twists and could have been written as the term project by anyone taking screen writing 101 at their local community college. The script (Joe Bateer, John Rice and M. Jay Roach) features l-o-n-g slow parts followed by tedious action sequences.
The director (Stephen Hopkins) has the actors mumble most of the dialog. Jeff Bridges is especially good at this. This means that you will not have to bother hearing a fair amount of what they say. This is aided by having the sound editor make the background noise frequently much louder than the actor's speech. Listen to them pouring the wine at the restaurant; it sounds like they are filling a bathtub. Their talking however is very muted. Given the gibberish of the script you can look upon this as a real blessing of course.
The movie gets a well deserved R rating and lasts for a tediously long 2:00. For the brilliance of casting Tommy Lee Jones, I award it * and recommend you neither see nor rent this movie.
**** = One of the top few films of this or any year. A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = One of the worst films of this or any year. Totally unbearable.
REVIEWED WRITTEN ON: July 7, 1994
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
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