Word: hackman
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Gene Hackman is the thief, Danny DeVito is his financier, and for two hours they engage in an insanely complicated effort to rob a shipment of gold bullion and double-cross each other. Writer-director David Mamet has so many obligations to his plot that he has neither time nor energy to develop these or any other characters (played by the likes of Delroy Lindo and Ricky Jay) beyond the bounds of genre cliche. Or to dole out more than a few lines of his usually smart dialogue. The result is a well-tooled machine chugging coldly along a twisting...
...Gene Hackman plays Joe Moore, a master conman who is always prepared for any eventuality, (“I wouldn’t clear my throat without a backup plan,” he says). But he is getting old and would like to retire and live a calm, peaceful life with his beautiful wife and accomplice, Fran (Rebecca Pidgeon). This becomes an even better plan after he is forced to show his face on a security camera in order to complete a robbery without resorting to violence. But matters become complicated when his fence, Bergman (Danny DeVito), strong-arms...
...Pidgeon, though she delivers a serviceable performance, is simply too lifeless to be an integral part of the plot. Her role in the film is more decorative than anything else. Even less pronounced is Rockwell’s performance. His character is supposed to be an adequate counterweight to Hackman, a charismatic young man who makes up in energy and strength what he lacks in wisdom and experience. Rockwell, meanwhile, gets completely overshadowed by Hackman and is unable to project any kind of personality. Finally, DeVito is far too abrasive in his portrayal of Bergman. Hackman, Lindo and Jay generate...
...Replacements, starring Keanu Reeves as the quarterback of a pickup team during a pro players' strike and Gene Hackman as his coach, is dumb by any standard. But it does anatomize the prevailing view of unions in a country that was largely built by them...
...Replacements, written by Vince McKewin and directed by Howard Deutch, isn't wrong to make fun of rich jocks. But it never addresses the ethics of union busting. The replacement players don't agonize for a second about taking jobs from players who earned them. And at the end, Hackman elegizes the scabs: "They had been part of something great." Come on: these guys didn't dig the Panama Canal. They helped rich owners satisfy billion-dollar contracts with TV networks...