Home Video debut for Josh Pierson's noirish and nutty WHERE SLEEPING DOGS LIE

Honor among thieves certainly has a long and storied history in literature and film, even if, in most cases, you could as easily call it dishonor among thieves. It's one thing when the thieves in question -- two brothers and their friend since childhood -- are relatively smart but quite another when they're dumb-as-they-come. Which is the case with the poorly-titled WHERE SLEEPING DOGS LIE. There are no sleeping dogs lying around anywhere in this movie, even metaphorically speaking, with almost every character about as hyped-up, noisy and attention-deficit-disordered as you could possibly want.

The first full-length feature (after half a dozen shorts) from writer/director Josh Pierson (shown at left), the movie's noticeably lax and lank storytelling and style make it something of an effort to sit through. The plot: Three idiotic, would-be criminals mis-execute a robbery with even worse-then-imaginable results.

Initially, the movie seems a bit promising because it is told piecemeal via scenes that go back and forth in time, but eventually the scenes begin to feel like filler -- in particular those set in a bar, below, in which one brother (Jesse Janzen, above, left) tells the other (Dustin Miller, right) about his big plan.

While some of this seems played for dark laughs, the humor quickly curdles due to the sheer ugliness and stupidity of what's going on. Too dumb to make a decent noir and peopled with characters that pretty much defy credibility, the film simply moves ever forward on its crazy death march.

The third wheel here is played by Tommy Koponen (above), who might garner more sympathy if the script didn't have him constantly whining and at odds with just about everything and everyone. Dialog moves from the expected and mediocre to downright bad, so the performers are hardly given much chance, except to over-emote like crazy. (Some of the speechifying sounds suspiciously like improvisation, in which one of the actors has just discovered the word fuck.) Female roles, as is often the case in these buddy-boy movies, are mere fodder for cliché.

The most impressive role, along with the performance of it, is taken by David J. Espinosa (above, left), as the initial victim of the robbery -- perhaps because his mouth is taped shut for much of the movie so he can't spout too much dialog. (I hope this actor got double pay for having had all that duct tape placed around and then removed from his head and mouth, over and over again!) And what the hell -- even the special-effects fire here looks fake.

From 1091 and running a too-lengthy 96 minutes, Where Sleeping Dogs Lie will hit home video this Tuesday, July 7 -- for purchase (and maybe?) rental. Your move...

An Indonesian cinema artifact: Mouly Surya's pretty, silly, would-be feminist fable, MARLINA THE MURDERER IN FOUR ACTS

OK: TrustMovies admits that he's hardly any kind of expert on Indonesian film, or for that matter Indonesian culture in general. Given that, he's at a loss to find much more than very pretty cinematography and a weird kind of ersatz feminism in the just-released-here-theatrically road trip/slasher movie from Indonesia, MARLINA THE MURDERER IN FOUR ACTS. Directed and co-written by a filmmaker new to me named Mouly Surya (shown below), the cinematography is sometimes ravishingly beautiful, both interior

and ex, while the film's titular leading lady, played by an actress named Marsha Timothy (shown above and below), who is also very attractive but keeps her performance so close to the vest that, whether by design or talent level, very few emotions are allowed to be seen. In the film's beginning a man arrives on motorcycle to the little shack and farm owned by our heroine to inform her that six of his pals will soon be arriving on scene to steal all her livestock and then rape her. But she should not feel at all bad about this because: Imagine the fun and delight of begin able to have sex with seven different guys!

They arrive, Marlina is asked to prepare chicken soup for dinner, two of the younger men leave with the livestock, and the rest remain to dine on the soup and Marlina. Only one of them -- the gang's leader -- gets to have sex, however, for reasons you will soon observe.

From there the movie and Marlina hit the road to go to the local police station (quite far away) and report all this. Ms Surya's film is divided, as its title explains, into four acts: The Robbery, The Journey, The Confession and The Birth.

Yes, one of Marlina's friends (above), whom she meets along the way, is pregnant, and this allows us to partake of some interesting-if-oddball cultural assumptions about things like breech birth and adultery. To a fault, the males pictured here -- from the gang of robbers to a nasty husband to the single policeman (below) whom we meet -- are stupid, entitled assholes, reflecting, I 'm sure, Indonesia's brand of patriarchy as observed by the filmmaker.

But Ms Surya's attempt at plot machinations -- involving everything from beheadings to a psychologically-inspired ghost to a sweet little girl who misses her mother -- seem so alternately grotesque or sentimental that the movie hardly registers as much more than a silly-but-pretty little fable. 

Still, when it's pretty, it is quite something, so your eye will not mind the lovely scenery; nor, if you're a slasher fan, will you tire of the slice-and-dice swordplay. For me, however, the molasses-like pacing made the movie's 93 minutes seem like three full hours. The moral, I guess: Choose something other than chicken soup off the menu of a woman you're about to rob. Oh, and by the way, whatever happened to all that stolen livestock? Doesn't Marlina need it back in order for her farm to survive? Oh, well: I am probably just being picky....

An Icarus Films and KimStim release, in Indonesian with English subtitles, the movie opens today, Friday, June 22, in New York City at the IFC Center and on Friday, July 6, in the Los Angeles area at Laemmle's Monica Film Center. It is also said to be coming during a couple of days in August to Brooklyn's Nighthawk Cinema.

Toni Servillo in Francesco Amato's screwball comedy from Italy, LET YOURSELF GO

After viewing that great Italian actor Toni Servillo in everything from the fine films of Paolo Sorrentino to the delightful and/or ruminative political/economic satires of Roberto Andò to the pitch-black family comedy It Was the Son and so many more wonderful movies, it may come as a particularly bright surprise to see him in what can best be described as an Italian screwball comedy.

In Francesco Amato's new film, LET YOURSELF GO (Lasciati andari), Signore Servillo plays an up-tight Jewish psychiatrist who is saddled with at least as many problems as the fairly woeful clients whom he (sort of) treats. Of course, our shrink is able to hide his problems better.

The film's co-writer (with Francesco Bruni and Davide Lantieri) and director, Signore Amato (pictured at right), has created something we don't see all that much of these days, particularly featuring an actor in the lead role as fine and full-fledged-serious as Servillo.

That would be the screwball comedy -- something so goofy and ridiculous that you certainly can't take it seriously yet conceived and executed so well that you can't help but be royally entertained.

And when TrustMovies calls Servillo's character (shown above, center) a Jewish psychiatrist, don't go to this movie expecting anything in which religion plays much of a part (Catholicism is almost as important here as Judaism). Fortunately, more than anything else, the film is a very human and humane comedy. You end up rooting for just about every character in it. And since a couple of them are escaped felons and another in a con artist/scammer, this is something of an accomplishment for Amato, his cast and crew.

The movie begins with a very screwy-looking fellow (the scary/funny Luca Marinelli, above, right), having just buried something in the ground, trying his best to count off the paces from where his "loot" now resides. Clearly he is mathematically, maybe mentally, challenged. But he's oddly amusing, even so. We won't return to him again until perhaps the movie's final forty minutes. But when we do, the remainder of the "plot" suddenly begins falling into place, and the film grows more bizarre and hilarious right up into and including the end credits (which you really must sit thru to reap the full comedic benefits).

Along its meandering but wise and witty way, Let Yourself Go makes smart fun of everything from psychotherapy (above) to physical fitness (below), synagogues and Communion. To try to describe the plot would only give away too much and probably ruin some fun in the process.

Best to just mention how very good is the Spanish actress Verónica Echegui (at right, above and below, of My Prison Yard and Bunny and the Bull) as the young exercise trainer who gives our shrink his new lease on life.  Ms Echegui has been doing lovely work for fifteen years now. She does not seem to age much and just grows more charming and versatile with each new role.

As for Servillo, the actor proves he can handle a mainstream comedy as easily and well as he does those various "art" films. He knows how to simply be quiet, alert and on-the-mark and thus manages to pull in every bit of humor he (and his movie) needs. As the "straight" man around whom the satellite of comic performers revolve, he asks for neither laughs nor sympathy yet somehow gets both. What an actor this guy is!

A non-stop delight that grow better, funnier and crazier as it moves long, Let Yourself Go -- from Menemsha Films and running 112 minutes -- opens here in South Florida this coming Friday, March 2 in the Miami area at the AMC Aventura, in Boca Raton at the Living Room Theaters and the Regal Shadowood, in Fort Lauderdale at the Savor Cinema, in Hollywood at the Cinema Paradiso, in Tamarac at The Last Picture Show and at the Movies of Del Ray and Lake Worth.

Jay Martin's 7 MINUTES slices a heist into stylish, suspenseful, character-driven chapters

The heist movie is a cinema staple, but we haven't seen too many good ones of late. So even a pretty good one like 7 MINUTES, out on Blu-ray and DVD this coming week, may be be worth the time of those of you aficionados who appreciate this genre. Its writer/director Jay Martin, whom I think is shown below (Mr. Martin is hard one to find a photo of), has taken the heist theme, plunked it down amongst a group of real amateurs who imagine that it'll prove a piece of cake that takes only those titular seven minutes to accomplish, and then watches, dry-eyed, humanely and quite stylishly, as the whole thing goes very far south.

Style, in fact, is the saving grace of this fast-paced, 92-minute thriller in which the way the filmmaker chooses to tell his story is every bit as important as the story itself -- which is, of course, pretty typical of the genre. And while there is little doubt where the whole story is headed and how badly things will turn out, thanks to the fragmented storytelling skills of Mr. Martin, there is still plenty of surprise and suspense along the way. The filmmaker has divided his story into sections devoted to the various characters: a group of friends, acquaintances and relations who interact with each other and the event in question for both good and (mostly) bad. This fracturing allows us to see things from different perspectives and time periods until the entire picture finally comes together and makes sense.

The characters involved, as do so many in this genre, see a way out of their financial straits via robbery. They are not too bright, but they are also not evil. Unfortunately, others connected to them are.

The good cast includes  Luke Mitchell, Leven Rambin, Jason Ritter and Brandon Hardesty, with fine support from the likes of Kris Kristofferson and especially Kevin Gage (shown above, center).

It can be levelled against films of this sort that if the writer/director had told the story plainly and simply, start to finish, it would have been nothing special. Maybe. But Mr. Martin hasn't done this, and his fractured storytelling style, together with some good performances, has made all the difference. 7 Minutes, from Anchor Bay Entertainment, hits the streets on DVD and Blu-ray this coming Tuesday, September 1, for sale or rental.

Blu-ray/DVDebut: James Franco & Kate Hudson in Henrik Ruben Genz's thriller, GOOD PEOPLE

You might imagine that the combination of housing, home construction, the economic downturn, fertility, morality, robbery and murder would make for a fairly heady stew. Add to this an internation-al cast of Brits, Americans, Scandinavians and France's Omar Sy (of The Intouchables), all helmed by Danish director Henrik Ruben Genz (of Terribly Happy), with a screenplay adapted from Marcus Sakey's novel by Kelly Masterson (the Snowpiercer scribe), and you might think, "Wow." Or at least "semi-wow." Maybe this is just too much of a good thing, as GOOD PEOPLE (yes, this is a very ironic title) comes off as both a little too predictable and a lot unbelievable, though it does provide some genuine excitement and dumb fun along the way.

The filmmaker, shown at right, is adept at his action scenes, which begin and end the film, and he draws OK performances from his starry international cast. But Masterson's screenplay piles far too many charac-ters and events into too little time, and thus the plotting feels rushed and too pre-ordained for belief. That said, the movie begins with a knockout scene of drugs-for-money robbery and betrayal, which should have you glued to the screen and waiting for more. But then the actual plot and main characters -- played by James Franco and Kate Hudson -- kick into action and the movie begins immediately to stall.

This is less due to the OK work of the two stars (shown above, in fear, and below, with money) and their co-stars than to a screenplay that gives them so many problems that seem so insoluble that we want to run for cover. But of course we know that, if movie history be our guide, things will all come out for the best.

Money might solve our main couple's woes, but not that of the police inspector on the case (Tom Wilkinson) who suffers from guilt regarding the death of his daughter due to the same drug lord who is now on Franco/Hudson's case.

Toss in Anna Friel who plays a single mom with little baby in tow (guess who is going to be used as kidnap bait?), some scenes of torture-to-obtain-information (one of these is shown above), and the very cinematic M. Sy (below) and you've got a lot on your plate. If there were only some way to make it all coalesce believably.

The prolonged (but I must admit quite exciting) finale puts that home construction theme to interesting use, and adds to the violence on display (Mr. Franco gets beaten to a pulp in the course of things -- this happens so frequently on film to the poor guy that I am guessing it must now be an ironclad clause in the contract he signs for each new movie).

And that's about it. After a very brief theatrical foray, Good People -- from Millennium Entertainment and running 91 minutes -- makes its Blu-ray and DVD debut this coming Tuesday, October 28, for sale and rental.