REVIEW: BLOWN AWAY
berardinelli,james
A film review by James Berardinelli
Copyright 1994 James Berardinelli
Rating (0 to 10): 6.0
Date Released: 7/1/94
Running Length: 2:01
Rated: R (Violence, language)
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Tommy Lee Jones, Lloyd Bridges,
Forest Whitaker, Suzy Amis
Director: Stephen Hopkins
Producers: John Watson, Richard Lewis, and Pen Densham
Screenplay: Joe Batteer and John Rice
Cinematography: Peter Levy
Music: Alan Silvestri
Released by MGM
Bombs detonate, debris raining down on streets as fireballs
explode skyward. A cop who makes a habit out of playing the hero
prepares for his latest mission, this one far more dangerous than
anything in his past. A woman, sitting in the driver's seat of a
speeding vehicle, can't put her foot on the brakes for fear of the
explosion that action might cause.
This may sound like the storyline for SPEED, but it's really a
thumbnail sketch of some of the highlights of BLOWN AWAY ... and that's
the problem. It's unfortunate that two movies with so much in common
have been released within a month of each other. Unfortunate for BLOWN
AWAY, that is. Because not only is SPEED the better movie, but it was
released first and, regardless of which film went before the cameras
earlier, Keanu Reeves' picture will be viewed as the original by the
movie-going public.
Actually, after sitting through the roller coaster ride of SPEED,
BLOWN AWAY is a disappointment. It's a little slow by action picture
standards, but in comparison to its forerunner, it's an absolute drag.
SPEED is a masterpiece of pacing and excitement; BLOWN AWAY is a talky
cat-and-mouse affair occasionally interrupted by bursts of
pyrotechnics.
The film opens in Ireland, at Castle Gleigh Prison, where lifer
Ryan Gaerty (Tommy Lee Jones) is making his escape using a homemade
bomb. Once out of prison, he heads to America, where he sees news
coverage of a daring bomb defusion by Boston bomb squad officer Jimmy
Dove (Jeff Bridges). That, however, is not the name that Ryan used to
know this man by.
Meanwhile, Jimmy has decided to retire from active duty to begin a
life with his new wife Kate (Suzy Amis) and stepdaughter. Ryan,
however, will have none of that, deciding that the best way to get back
at Jimmy for a past "wrong" is by turning the city into a raging
inferno, bringing "chaos" and "anarchy" to Boston, courtesy of his own
unique skills.
BLOWN AWAY tries to be more than an explosion-laced thriller by
attempting some character depth and originality. It doesn't work. All
the exposition about Jimmy and Ryan's past involvement is so much
window dressing and, considering the amount of time it takes up, ends
up hamstringing the action. On top of that, it's unnecessary. A
faceless villain, adequately portrayed, would be as effective as Ryan,
and there are dozens of other, equally-convincing motives that could be
supplied.
Jeff Bridges manages to add an extra layer of depth to his
character, but the actor's considerable skills are underused.
Similarly, while Tommy Lee Jones brings a suave coolness to Ryan, the
villain seems too restrained for this sort of movie. The sadistic
charm of an Alan Rickman or the scenery-chomping of a Dennis Hopper is
much preferred to Jones' internalized bitterness.
BLOWN AWAY is not a bad motion picture, and in any other summer,
it might represent an appealing box-office attraction. In 1994,
however, it comes in a distant second to SPEED, and the presence of the
other movie serves only to magnify BLOWN AWAY's faults. In trying to
build additional complexity into the script and characters, this film
has succeeded only in mangling its pacing. There are moments of high
tension, but the time spent on the edge of your seat is likely to be
outmatched by the time spent drumming your fingers on the armrest,
waiting for things to get moving.
- James Berardinelli (bla...@cc.bellcore.com)
Tak
A film review by Mark Takacs
Copyright 1994 Mark Takacs
MGM / rated R
Starring: Jeff Bridges Tommy Lee Jones Suzy Amis
Lloyd Bridges Forest Whitaker
Tak Classification: Drama / Action
Tak Rating: watch it on cable
One-Line-Summary
----------------
A vengeful mad-bomber torments an old friend, now on the bomb squad.
Tak Plot Summary
----------------
Jim Dove (Jeff Bridges) has been with the Boston bomb squad for
quite awhile. He's a hero. But now he wants out. He wants to settle
down with Kate (Suzy Amis) and her daughter Liz. However, a figure
from his obscured past comes back to haunt him in the form of Mad
Bomber Ryan Garrity (Tommy Lee Jones).
Tak Thoughts
------------
BLOWN AWAY sucked. I wanted to see lots of things blowing up.
Hoards of things. And, to be fair, they did blow up a bunch of
stuff--a toilet, a truck, a man, a bridge, and a boat-of-eternal-
shrapnel-that never-hits-anyone. They could have blown up more stuff
but our hero, played by Jeff Bridges, has this annoying tendency to
disarm the damn things. And they missed a damn fine destruction chance
in one scene, where they imply that some lurking news and police
choppers were in for serious shrapnel. But alas, no chunks-of-truck-
in-the-rotors. A bomb's just not a bomb if it doesn't blow up, as
pointed out by Dennis Hopper in SPEED.
Action. That's what I wanted. I've got a soft spot for mad
bomber movies, and SPEED hit the spot. But BLOWN AWAY just didn't do
it for me. Instead of lots of action, all sorts of PLOT gets in the
way. Jeff Bridge's character is haunted by his past, he's the best but
he doesn't like it, he accidentally blew up some people he loved, he's
in Bomb squad to repent, blah blah blah.
And the mad bomber? The angry, insane IRA bomber is kinda old,
and the U2 soundtrack playing in the background is a little much.
Plus, Tommy Lee Jones is now robbing his own crazy man skit from UNDER
SIEGE.
Oh, yeah. And there's BLOWN AWAY'S idea of suspense. It's called
"extreme closeups" and slow-motion. Dunno about you, but I though Jeff
Bridges' face looks awful stupid in extreme slow-mo. And although
there are no spring-loaded cats (as horror movies are fond of for a
cheap scare) there's a kitchen scene where they'd have you believe
everything possible is gonna blow. It works for the first grab at the
fridge, but the second? Then the stove? Then the light? And the
phone? And all five dials on the stove? one by one? There was
laughter in the theatre on the third extreme closeup of the stove dial
hitting "lite."
Any good stuff? Yea, I guess so. Let's see--the mad bomber has
a preference for Rube Goldberg type bomb triggers which make some
pretty neat scenes. The bomb lore is pretty fascinating--"bouncing
betty's," and distilling explosive crystals with coffee filters. They
killed a dog. I dunno. Read some other reviews for good stuff. I
don't wanna spend too much time remembering BLOWN AWAY.
Tak Rating system:
------------------
Bah. BLOWN AWAY took itself too seriously and got bogged down in
needless plot that didn't add anything to the experience. Go see SPEED
again if you want a mad-bomber action flick. Go rent IN THE NAME OF
THE FATHER if you want an Irish/IRA flick. But don't spend your summer
movie cash on BLOWN AWAY.
avoid at all costs see several times (w/friends) as matinee
X watch it on cable see once at full price
watch it on videotape see it several times - full and/or matinee
see once as a matinee see many times at full price
--
Mark Takacs mta...@netcom.com
Pasadena,CA
WWW <A HREF="ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/mtakacs/html/home.html">HomePage</A>
Scott Renshaw
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1994 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Tommy Lee Jones, Forest Whitaker, Lloyd
Bridges, Suzy Amis.
Screenplay: Joe Batteer & John Rice.
Director: Stephen Hopkins.
Sometimes, timing is everything. A few years ago, Kevin Costner
beat two other Robin Hood projects into production, forcing one to
television and killing the other entirely. This year, Costner is on
the other end, as his WYATT EARP was beaten into theaters *and* onto
video by TOMBSTONE. Now, in the mad bomber department, BLOWN AWAY
comes hard on the heels of SPEED, and suffers greatly by comparison.
SPEED's greatest asset was that it never took itself seriously; BLOWN
AWAY, on the other hand, takes itself far too seriously. Though there
are some nice moments of suspense, BLOWN AWAY sputters out in puddles
of melodrama.
Jeff Bridges stars as Jimmy Dove, a member of Boston's bomb
squad. What only Jimmy's Uncle Max (Lloyd Bridges) knows is that Jimmy
was once Liam McGivney, a radical in Northern Ireland who now sees
defusing bombs as a kind of penance for the crimes of his youth. But a
blast from the past comes to Boston in the form of Ryan Gaerity (Tommy
Lee Jones), Jimmy's former Irish cohort. Escaped from prison after 20
years in custody, Gaerity blames Jimmy for his incarceration and begins
targeting friends and loved ones with elaborate bombs, including
Jimmy's new wife (Suzy Amis). Jimmy, along with his new partner
(Forest Whitaker) must track down Gaerity before all of Beantown is
blown away.
There's no better way to describe the key problem with BLOWN AWAY
than to say that it's overblown but underdeveloped. Everything in the
screenplay by Joe Batteer and John Rice feels forced and artificial.
Nothing exemplifies this more than the attempt to ladle on the Irish
atmosphere. The characters in BLOWN AWAY speak in heavy brogues, drink
Guinness, dance jigs, even listen to us ... everything, practically,
but say "faith an' begorrah." Fine, they're Irish already; they're
just not real. The same is true of the Boston locations, which are so
omnipresent they cease to be atmospheric and become simply oppressive
(and there's no excuse for a television announcer calling a home run in
Fenway Park "over the Green Monster" when the ball is shown landing
over the right field wall). And the same is true of the big emotional
breakdowns, and the slow motion build-ups to the explosions, and the
length of nearly every scene. BLOWN AWAY simply never clicks because,
like Gaerity's bombs, everything is far more convoluted than it needs
to be functionally.
Meanwhile, two of the most talented actors in America are stuck
with underwritten characters and ineffectual direction. Jeff Bridges
is supposed to be haunted by his past, but instead he generally appears
simply dazed. He brings no energy and none of the intelligence he
usually brings to his roles. Tommy Lee Jones doesn't fare much better,
as there is never any clear sense of Gaerity's motivation or state of
mind. He's just plain weird, bouncing on beds and making bizarre
videotapes, but for all his supposed cock-eyed creativity he never
comes off as smart enough to be genuinely threatening. Forest Whitaker
is good as the cocky new guy on the bomb squad, but he is the only
bright spot among the actors. When two actors like Bridges and Jones
go wrong, it's difficult not to point the finger of blame at a director
who wasn't doing his job.
Though he fails his actors, Stephen Hopkins has other things
working. He manages to create a mounting tension with each subsequent
bomb, as we begin to suspect that at any given moment, anything could
be a trigger. This is nowhere better handled than in a great scene
where Bridges' wife and stepdaughter proceed through their kitchen
turning on appliances which may be set to blow. But the production
just isn't lean enough to sustain that energy. Watching BLOWN AWAY, I
felt that I had had slightly too much to drink: everything seemed a
step slow and Peter Levy's photography seemed slightly out-of-focus.
Oh, to be sure, there are lots of big explosions in BLOWN AWAY, but the
amount of cinematic heat generated could be measured with an oral
thermometer.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 hidden bombs: 4.
--
Scott Renshaw
Stanford University
Office of the General Counsel
Michael J. Legeros
A film review by Michael John Legeros
Copyright 1994 Michael John Legeros
Directed by Stephen Hopkins
Written by Joe Batteer and John Rice
Cast Jeff Bridges, Tommy Lee Jones, Forrest Whitaker, Suzi Amis, Stephi
Lineburg, Lloyd Bridges
MPAA Rating "R" (for violence, profanity, and well-cooked corpses)
Running Time Approx. 120 minutes
==
BLOWN AWAY is more blarney than blast--a bum 'boiler about a
brilliant bomber baiting a Boston bomb squad bloke. Jones is the joker
and Bridges the bluecoat and, if you believe the script, they're both
IRA buddies from before. At least they *were*, until a botched bombing
sent the set scurrying. Jones went to jail and Bridges went to
Beantown, where he changed his identity and became a policeman.
Forget the sustained suspension of SPEED, this "thriller" has
holes big enough to drive a city bus through. Here is a film that,
among other things, asks its audience to believe that someone with IRA
ties (and an Interpol record, no less!) could be hired as a police
officer! [Insert clip of author shaking his head.]
Taken "as is," BLOWN AWAY isn't even good escapism. Every
character talks too much, and, when the time comes to blow something up
(which isn't often enough), the film never shifts into high gear. The
filmmakers even botch *the* best set-up in the biz: a chance to cue a
scene to the finale of Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture!" Somebody check
the cemetery--Hitchcock *must* be rolling in his grave.
(And what about that stupid scene of a booby-trapped hard-drive?
Gimme a break! Do big-city bomb squads *really* face situations as
seemingly absurd as these? Rigged elevators I'll buy. But not this.)
The acting is all fine, with Forrest Whitaker a particularly
welcome addition as another bomb squadder. His presence may be a nod
to THE CRYING GAME, but the less said about the Irish angle, the
better. Especially in the wake of the just-out-on-video IN THE NAME OF
THE FATHER. And don't forget to listen for those great bad accents,
including (Jeff) Bridges' back-and-forth Bostonian.
The leads shouldn't fear the future. However badly BLOWN AWAY
bombs, Bridges will still be standing. As will Tommy Lee Jones, signed
to square off with Val Kilmer in BATMAN FOREVER. But what about
director Stephen Hopkins? He's a smart talent who hasn't been given
anything *exciting* to film since the vastly underrated PREDATOR 2.
Hopefully we haven't seen the last of him.
Grade: C-