The Usual Suspects is a fantastic crime-thriller which is expertly directed and acted. It’s a film of compelling characters, interesting interactions, and intriguing events that follows 5 criminals forced into a mission by a devious kingpin, who may or may not even exist. It’s a tightly woven yarn of double-crosses and slight-of-hand, with loads of unexpected developments unraveling before the audience scene-by-scene, resulting in a completing rewarding and fulfilling experience.

This is the type of film, that like The Matrix or Pulp Fiction, really cannot be explained appropriately. In order to get any sense of how good it is, one must watch it for him or her self. As you can see, I’ve been incredibly vague in my own discussion of it, because I really don’t want to ruin it for those who haven’t seen it. All I’ll say is that it is the type of film that I gain more appreciation for with each subsequent viewing, and that’s saying alot since I’ve probably seen it over a half-dozen times. I really, truly dig The Usual Suspects, and I give it a 7.

John Candy is funny. He’s large, and he’s jolly– he’s a big teddy bear. I feel like Uncle Buck is basically a movie that was written just to let Candy do what he wanted, and you know what, what he does is danged entertaining. The film is a very by-the-numbers comedy. You have your tragedy that forces one brother to call on another, you have the plucky kids who bring laughs, the rebellious teenager who learns to love her dirty relative, and even the mistaken assumption of cheating by the girlfriend blah-blah-blah. It’s a very bland and basic skeleton for a comedy.

Of course, once you add John Candy into the mix, and you put muscle on the skeleton, it becomes somewhat vibrant and alive. Yeah, it’s silly. Yeah, you can telegraph the ending from the beginning. Yeah, there are misfires, but John Candy…John Candy is awesome! Whether he’s being sadistic or goofy, he’s very, very funny.

Uncle Buck is a very basic movie that is elevated due to its on-screen talent, particularly John Candy–but I will give a shout-out to the young and adorable Macaulay Culkin. I am gonna give Uncle Buck a 4.

Unleashed is pretty good, particularly for those who want story and heart in their Kung-fu movies. It’s not completely my bag, but I did enjoy it. I think it’s the type of movie that some will hail as an amazing, story-driven action film with a great concept and adequate, if not excellent, execution. Others will say it’s too focused on story and somewhat annoying characters to be a good, high-octane action movie. I can see both sides, and I reflect them both to a point.

For those who have yet to see this Jet Li import, is the story of Danny, a young boy kidnapped at a young age and trained to be a ravenous fighitng machine by a bottom-feeding lone shark (played perfectly by Bob Hoskins, by the way). After a car accident, Danny wanders into the kindly and welcoming arms of a blind piano repair man and his daughter. Danny then begins life anew, only to be disvoered by his now heavily injured former owner and his army of henchman. Then things get messy.

The movie feels imbalanced to me. The first and third act are carried by highly-energized action sequences and bookend a contemplative middle section focused on chracter development and exploration. This was problematic to me simply because it makes the first and third acts FEEL much shorter than they are; and by contrast of style, make the middle portion seem to drone forever. It’s a sad structural problem with the screenplay that would have been difficult for any director to overcome.

Luckily, despite this plodding middle portion, the movie’s action sequences have enough energy to really suck us into the story at the beginning; and even if we don’t necessarily like the middle section all that much, we still care about the characters enough to bear it and see the scenario play out.

This type of action movie is a real gamble. it’s gonna be too actiony for the art crowd and too slow in the middle for the action crowd, making everyone feel a little “meh” about it, which is sad, because if you can see what they were attempting to do, you can appreciate the film despite its shortcomings–at least I’ve been able to. I enjoyed Unleashed. It would have benefitted from a more even structure and maybe a more charming lead actress; but I applaud the film-makers for what they were trying to do–rise above their genre to create something deep, cathartic, interesting, and entertaining. It was a lofty goal, and their attempt was adequate–in fact, the action portions they got done were fantastic.

For all of these reasons, I am giving Unleashed a very solid 5, well earned 5.