[Movie Babble] John Q, Shaft, Random Hearts

Watched a few movies. Last night I started John Q, but couldn't finish it until today for various reasons. I also watched Shaft and Random Hearts.

These are all just movies I grab randomly from my dad's collection.

John Q:

I liked it, but I wasn't blown away. I felt it was pretty linear, and wasn't as potent as I think it wanted to be. But maybe I've become jaded, by watching so many movies. I've seen a lot of plots, man. I've seen too much.

Anyway, I did not like two of the decisions made in this movie. The first? Showing the car crash of the woman at the beginning of the film. It's like saying 'here's the heart! Remember this? This is important! Don't worry everyone, it'll work out!' Really, I didn't want to know that it would all work out. I wanted to be pissed at the hospital, to hate the world, to be fed up with bureaucratic bullshit, to rebel against the system. I wanted to hate the administration, the insurance companies, the doctors and everyone that seemed to be in the way of a boy and a new heart. But I could never really get that invested, because I knew that crash was important.

Still, I wanted to punch that hospital administrator in the baby. I know I was supposed to hate her, but this was a kind of vehemence I don't think they anticipated. I was just glad she was not on the screen for too long at a time. The small redemption of putting his name on the list was just not enough for me. And I liked that.

James Woods was hilarious as the doctor. He wasn't supposed to be, but I'm so used to having his voice attached to Hercules and Family Guy that it really took me out to actually... see him. And I have seen him in other things, which makes it all the more ridiculous. I did like his character, though. Even if he was responsible for the other thing I did not like about this film.

The suicide plot. 'I'm going to kill myself, and you're going to put my heart in his body'. I did not buy into it. It's not that I wanted the doctor to put up more of a fight against the idea, but... I don't know. The various reactions from the hostages just did not feel right. I just couldn't suspend my disbelief that far, for any of them.

Haha, Ray Liotta played an ass hole. Is that... really very surprising?

Shaft:

Not much to say here. I thought it was cool, but not cool enough. Like, Shaft is this licensed badass, right? So... why wasn't he more badass? I didn't think this John Shaft, Samuel L. Jackson's character, lived up to his uncle's theme song. Sure, he played some funny tricks on people and had some great stunts, but I felt like I wanted more. He seemed to be on the losing end of the game more often than not, and that's just not that badass in my book.

Christian Bale was great as the baddie, though. It's interesting, watching someone play a racist. He was pretty downplayed in it, save for his scene where he bashed the dude's head in. Oh, and in the jail cell. Yeah, that was pretty awesome. I would not want to mess with that white boy: he can keep his damn shoes.

Random Hearts:

It felt pretty long. The pacing was deliberate, but it still dragged on in places. I did like how the story was developed for the first half an hour or so. I wasn't actually keeping time, but the way it would cut between the cop, the politician, and the plane. I liked how the stories met, and the plot went on from there, though their becoming an item was not very subtle or... interesting. It felt like it had to happen.

So it did.

And that's all she wrote, for now. Getting dragged away, against my will.