VOD/Digital/DVDebut: CRAZY FAMOUS, Farkas /Jarrett's nitwit ode to gaining fame at all cost

In these current times of, rather than Warhol's famous "15 minutes of fame," we get 15 million hits on the Internet, before the crowd moves on to the next big thing, the idea of a movie comedy based around someone so obsessed with getting famous that he'll do anything to achieve it sounds like it could be fun.

For a very few minutes a new movie called CRAZY FAMOUS, written and produced by Bob Farkas and directed by Paul Jarrett, might have you thinking that it will be just that.

Soon however -- after the noticeable lack of talent, creativity or amusement in the screenplay and dialog kicks in -- the movie becomes progressively worse as it plods along. TrustMovies suspects that most of the blame must rest, not on director Jarrett (shown at right), who does a professional job technically and simply gives us what his writer/producer, Mr. Farkas (shown below) has handed him to serve up: an interesting premise that begins goofily enough before quickly descending into a swamp of tired cliches, cutesy caricatures and, yes, more fart jokes.

This is particularly too bad for the actors on board because they are, to a man and woman, pleasant enough and probably quite talented under other circumstances that would show them to their advantage rather than making them grate on us something fierce. The obviousness and stupidity of the screenplay and dialog forces most of the actors to simply serve what's on the page, which thoroughly undercuts any kind of performance they might deliver. The single exception to this comes via the surprisingly smart and thoroughly professional job done by an actor new to me, Richard Short (shown below and at bottom, right), playing a mental patient named "Smith" who doubles as a secret agent with a nifty British accent. (Mr. Short is British, so that was not difficult to achieve.) Whenever the camera and microphone remain on him, the movie grows bearable.

Otherwise, this silly film, with its bent-on-being-famous-for-no-good-reason hero, played by the affable-but-little-more Gregory Lay, below, goes from its cute beginning in which Mr. Lay, accompanied by a trampoline, does a strip-tease and then bounces into a forbidden area, to being institutionalized in an asylum in which, yes, every patient (two of them are seen further below) is a walking-talking cliche.

From the asylum into a plot to assassinate an evidently still-alive Osama bin Laden, the movie lurches along, with all the characters piling on board to serve its nitwit cause.

Along the way there is a little would-be romance for our hero, a look at his younger days as a fame seeker (that's Ashton Woerz, below), a later visit to his parents for some worthless guilt-tripping,

and government bad guys, a car chase, bullets flying, and then Osama and his nurse -- all of this crammed into a mere 78 minutes that somehow seem much longer.

I hate to stomp on what was probably someone's labor of love. On the other hand, since I spent the time first watching and then writing about this film, I feel it might be worth warning others: Unless you've a very high tolerance for the ridiculous, maybe look elsewhere for your entertainment.

From Gravitas Ventures, Crazy Famous will hit VOD, Digital, and DVD this coming Tuesday, January 9 -- for purchase and/or rental.

Ryoo Seung-wan's THE BERLIN FILE: Korean cinema hits the bull's-eye yet again

Action fans, lovers of spy movies, aficionados of dark love stories, folk who can't get enough smart, fast-moving chase films: All of you can now praise heaven, South Korean version, for the first-class genre delight that opens this week. If THE BERLIN FILE sounds a little le Carré-ish, that's fine because it is, but better. (John le Carré's books, and most of the the movies made from them are intelligent and well-plotted but, with the exception of the recent Tinker,Tailor... rather slow-moving.) This film barrels ahead at such a pace that you'll barely keep up, relishing every fast-moving moment, lingering over nothing. Not, at least, until the finale, set in a field of golden wheat in which the sight of one of our heroes and the load he carries on his back may break your heart.

Once again, those Koreans do such a masterful job of combining, thrills, chills, humor, horror and heartbreak that no other country seems to come close. The filmmaker this time around is someone new to me: Ryoo Seung-wan, left, who directed and wrote the Korean dialog (the English dialog, surprise, was written by a fellow I actually know and respect, Ted Geoghagen). Mr Ryoo has been around now for some 15 years and in that time has directed ten films. Though this is the first I've seen, it's good enough to make me want to view the rest.

This spy movie plops us into what looks to be more or less present-day Berlin, where, within a few minutes, we've encountered everything from a secret room in the apartment behind the pantry, a coded message implanted in food from a local falafel stand, a very unlucky pickpocket, and a deadly hypodermic inside a... fish. Fun! The film's first heavy-duty set piece is an arms deal involving quite the international set: Germany, North Korea, some Arab country (or countries), with South Korea, the CIA and the Mossad viewing from afar but eventually getting noticeably hands-on.

There are lots of characters to keep straight, but the film does a decent job of differentiation, which helps enormously in movies like this. The two people we come to care most about are a husband (Ha Jung-woo, above, right) and wife (Gianna Jun, above, left), North Korean spies, based in Berlin, who come under suspicion of being traitors to the cause. The why and how of this does not come fully clear until more than halfway along, which makes the movie all the more interesting for our not really knowing for who we should be rooting.

The leading South Korea intelligence agent (Han Suk-kyu, above) rabidly hates the North and what it stands for: "A political deal with Commies? I don't even make left turns at intersections!" is how he puts it. (It's good to know the cold war is still alive and well.)

As our leading villain, whose actions grow scurvier as the movie proceeds, Ryoo Seung-beom (above) makes  a wily, creepy and very smart nemesis -- the kind of fellow for whom torture was invented (oh, no -- did I just say that?).

The plot, convoluted by follow-able, is great fun, and the action set pieces are as good as you'll see this year, I'd wager. In particular there's a superb and lengthy escape/fight/chase scene involving husband, wife and a most adept killer that will keep you on tenterhooks throughout.

Along the way, you'll pick up some interesting information. In the morgue for example, while trying to identify recently deceased killers, we learn that North Korean men are likely to be uncircumcised, while those in the South are evidently cut. Regarding defectors from the North, are they really given the choice  to go South or to some other U.N. sanctioned country? Interesting.

Coming in at just two hours, the film is on the short side of most South Korean cinema. Even at that length you will not be bored. And the film's lessons have less to do with politics and geography than with humanity and morality. "We're men; we betray" notes one character, whose words come back to bite him in the ass (or, in this case, the shoulder).

And once again we learn that, wherever in the world we find ourselves, Follow the money is always the best advice. The Berlin File, from CJ Enter-tainment, and as much fun as you're likely to find at the movies this month (maybe this year) opens Friday, February 15: in the New York City area at the AMC's Empire 25 and Bay Terrace; in New Jersey AMC Ridgefield Park, and Philadelphia at AMC Plymouth Meeting. It will also open simultaneously in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Seattle, Honolulu -- with more locations yet to come. You can view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters by clicking here.

SAFE is anything but -- and Boaz Yakin's "chase" thriller is one of the genre's best

SAFE is a knockout, better even than 2010's Taken, and if there's justice in the movie world -- hah -- the film will be this year's genuine sleeper. As good as anything coming from the Luc Besson stable, the movie is tight and swift, fun and funny -- and nasty as hell. It should also put its filmmaker, Boaz Yakin (shown below), permanently on the map as a first-class genre director, though I somehow doubt Mr Yakin, shown below, wants to be pigeon-holed quite like that. He's talented enough but too versatile. His career jumps from genre to genre (Death in Love, anyone?), with only a rare misstep (Uptown Girls), and I suspect that's the way he wants it. Safe should prove his most successful movie since Remember the Titans.

An action thriller, with emphasis on chase, Safe offers one of the best and most intriguing beginnings that the genre has given us. We're in a dank and dreary New York subway station, following a little Asian girl, who is clearly frightened. Something's amiss. Then we go back only a short time to the same girl being threatened by Russian mobsters. Then back even farther in time to her schoolroom in China, where she embarrasses her teacher and makes her class -- and us -- laugh. Then comes a kidnapping.

All this takes place in the first few minutes. But so cleverly has Yakin, as writer and director, set things up that by now we know fully well why this child is so important and why she's being sought by the Russian mob (below), Chinese gangsters (above) and dirty New York City cops. And it ain't, praise be to Boaz, all about human trafficking. At least, not in the manner we're most often served up.

Yakin understands how much more fun it is to have several sets of bad guys, and he's outdone himself here. These are some of the nastiest creeps you'll come across (that's Robert John Burke, below, as the cops' venal Captain), and the sense you get from the film that all -- and I mean everyone and everything -- has gone corrupt is very nearly enveloping and hard to shake. In any case, whatever happens to these villains down the line, Yakin makes sure that we won't give a shit. His actions scenes are crackerjack, and so are his (very few) quieter moments.

The filmmaker is also smart about how much carnage he should show us; he gives us more sudden shocks of violence, impressive in their spontaneity and terror (one such moment, as guests are being herded out of a swank restaurant by a Chinese crime lord, brought an audible gasp from the screening audience), but he never overdoes the blood and gore. The most horrific event is not shown at all. His star -- a very well-used Jason Statham (below) -- simply walks into a room, then comes out of it, broken.

Statham pretty much holds the action-hero crown right now, and he deserves it. He brings the usual and necessary reserve, strength and fighting skills to the table -- but he leaves his own, singular imprint on the proceedings. If I'm not mistaken, the guy looks a little pudgier in this role, but that's fine, as his character has been through a rough time and is only now starting to come out the other side.

Staham's co-star, who sweetly steals the movie without a moment of undue pushing, is a little Chinese actress named Catherine Chan (above). This is her first American film, but I can't imagine we won't see her again soon -- maybe in the sequel to Safe, which is set up nicely at the film's conclusion, so there surely ought to be one. Ms Chan combines intelligence, fear and humor in a unique combination that is as much of a knockout as the movie itself. She keeps nearly everything up her sleeve, giving us but a tiny glimpse now and then, and so we root for her all the more.

At 95 minutes, the movie seems just the right length. I don't know that I'd have cut anything here. And while there are no doubt a few things that don't quite make sense, so fast and furiously does the movie move that you'll have no time to question until it's over and you've caught your breath. If you're looking for solid, stylish, non-stop action tagged to an enticing plot, Safe is the best bet around.

We'll see how the movie, from Lionsgate, does with audiences and critics, when it opens tomorrow -- Friday, April 27, all over my town (NYC) -- and probably yours. You can check out the nationwide playdates by clicking here, entering your zip code, and accessing GET TICKETS NOW.