Monday 8 January 2007

Where There's a Will (2006)

I very briefly considered reviewing "Revolver" (2005) which I sort of watched last night, but while this Guy Ritchie effort shows some much valued maturity in comparison to his earlier 'diamond geezer' gangster films, it was so convoluted and flashy that I quickly lost the plot.  Yet another anti-hero from Jason Statham, but despite Luc Besson's writing credentials and a weird turn from Ray Liotta as Statham's adversary, I was really past caring or even trying to make head or tail of the farrago.  So I'll tell you instead about the above Hallmark TV Movie which I was tempted to set since Sky described it as "drifter Keith Carradine goes to look after his wealthy grandmother".  Well, as is often the case, Sky got it wrong and Carradine plays the local sheriff -- but I'm not sorry to have viewed it.  The curmudgeonly grandma was played by Marion Ross (Richie Cunningham's mom from Happy Days) and the drifter was played by Frank Whaley, who was so very, very good in "Swimming with Sharks" (1994); anyone who manages to give Kevin Spacey his comeuppance gets my vote.  Of course having gone to his grandmother's Texas home for purely monetary ends, he learns the meaning of responsibility and love -- and that's what Hallmark movies are all about -- more or less.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I always seem to get Sam Mendes and Guy Ritchie mixed up.

I just remeber those diamond geezer phrases from his early films being repeated over and over by the diamond geezers I used to work with - that's always a sign of a classic. It'll be interesting to catch up with this one.