Year: 2000

Amália Rodrigues was one of the most popular singers ever, and one of the best, apparently — in 1959 Variety called her one of the four best voices in the world. A veritable ambassador of Portuguese culture, Rodrigues took the “Fado,” a traditional form of sung lament, and brought it to a world that welcomed … more…

The one-sheet poster for Proof of Life is terrific, maybe even one of the best I’ve ever seen. A man and a woman are running, the world around them a blur. The expressions on their faces are grim, pained — their linked hands unite them in an us-against-the-world collusion. But are they running from something? To something? The image practically itches with danger and romance.

So it is with Ransom, a perfunctory psychological thriller that is made more than enjoyably watchable by a confident and able cast headed by Mad Mel Gibson. Frankly, I don’t think I’ll ever tire of Mel’s schtick, because he taps right into our fantasies of self-empowerment in the face of forced powerlessness, of getting mad and getting even. The ur Mel acts with the kind of virtuous fury with which we’d all like to imagine we would were our loved ones threatened, as those of Gibson characters are prone to be.

Cliffhanger is, according to the opening credits, ‘based on a premise by.’ It’s not something that inspires a lot of confidence in a film. It makes me think a guy at a bar somewhere who’d just gotten to the drunken point when you’re convinced everything you say and think is sheer genius was struck with enlightenment and hastily scribbled ‘Die Hard on a mountain’ on a cocktail napkin… and got a check with a lot of zeroes on it for this brainstorm. It seems like the ultimate expression of the menace of High Concept.

And now, thanks to Vertical Limit, I can spin off a new coinage: the ‘multiplex limit.’ This is the point at which painfully wooden acting, absurd plotting, horrendous scriptwriting, and blatant product placement starts to take its toll, and you begin to drool helplessly and may emit soft moans indicative of a generalized flu-like, full-body ache. As with the dangers of frolicking at high altitudes, the multiplex limit is also a result of oxygen deprivation, as your incoherent giggles of ridicule cause you to hyperventilate.