Word: ruthlessness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
PORT-AU-PRINCE: Haitians are openly skeptical about the ability of U.N. forces to deal with the ruthless gunmen who oppose the return of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, which is scheduled for Oct. 30. As 26 Americans and five Canadians, the first of 1,600 U.N. troops and police, arrived in the capital, Haitian hard-liners, led by the police chief, Lieut. Colonel Joseph Michel Francois, have launched a campaign to sabotage the international effort. More than 100 Aristide supporters have been killed by thugs since July 3. Said one Haitian: "Those blue berets look like powder puffs...
...gifted director of rapier-edged action films (A Better Tomorrow, The Killer) entitled him to any special dispensation. So they saw Hard Target and sent it back with a prohibitive NC- 17 rating. Seven times. He had been brought to Hollywood to make a John Woo movie, with its ruthless pace, choreographed gunplay and boredom-defying camerabatics -- and after he made it, he found that he couldn...
Both actors make it clear that their characters are upper-crust crooks. Though ruthless and determined, they have a foppish quality and a refinement surprising for someone in their line of work. In one nice mise-en-scene bit Henriksen plays a Beethoven sonata in the drawing room of his estate while another homeless man is recruited for the next hunt. Henriksen's crony questions the victim about his finances and relatives. Each answer is intercut with shots of Henricksen and his opulent estate...
...second villain appears from over another horizon -- that of the future, perhaps. He is Mox Mox, not so much a Western badman as a modern serial killer who likes to burn people. And Garza, the bank robber, is shown to be as shrewd and ruthless as Call in his prime, and much quicker. Ranger or not, Call is really too old for this kind of thing...
...Crichton's Sun novel drew fire for alleged jingoistic Japan-bashing and sour blame-laying. Actually, the novel dealt with how those very actions have paralyzed effective American response to organized, and sometimes ruthless, competition. Crichton even added an afterword to erase any ambiguities in his "message"--that American business should not cry foul every time it loses in a trade war and must end expectations of being coddled after decades of dominance. But a long line of critics, including Labor Secretary Robert Reich, saw only paranoid vendettas and tinges of racism...