Andy4444 Reviews

The Dark Knight (2008)

The Joker is Real

[9/10 · 18 July 2008]

Watching the various Batman incarnations over the years, from the Adam West era, through the Superfriends, Tim Burton and Friends, and the very excellent Bruce Timm Batman: The Animated Series of the 1990s, we are faced with various versions of the Joker.

The Animated Series Joker was voiced by Mark Hamill, and is considered by many fans to be the best Joker up to now. He certainly is creepy, and in the film spin-offs he does actually murder people explicitly on occasion, but though he is good it's hard to imagine him existing outside of the art deco alternate universe of Bruce Timm. He's just not unpredictable enough. He has steady henchmen who trust him enough to turn their backs on him.

Jack Nicholson's Joker was well-received at the time, but he too suffered from a believability gap, in addition to being over the top and, while crazy, not quite creepy.

Enter the Dark Knight's Heath Ledger: the freak make-up, the crazy, but disturbingly lucid philosophy, the complete lack of empathy for other people, and the scary practice of killing people for fun and without warning, his fondness for knives. I can actually imagine running into a character like this in a city somewhere. Certainly, not quite as complete, the real-life version wouldn't have the smarts to pull off so many grand schemes along with all the pure evil traits (you hope), but there are a small number of people out there who share some of the Joker's characteristics, and that's what makes Ledger's character so creepy, so scary.

Every scene he is in, accompanied by music that would feel at home in any Hitchcock or horror film, is filled with a sense of tension and dread. What horror will he next bring upon the people standing before him? Who's next? Without a doubt the best Joker ever, Ledger's performance did not feel at all like a comic book superhero movie bad guy. I was thinking more like Hannibal Lechtur. Intelligent, lucid, menacing, and, I'm convinced, not really insane, but horribly sane, with a tendency to view life as pointless and thus amusing.

Oh, yeah, the rest of the movie? That was good, too. Eckhart's Harvey Dent was also very satisfying, with no campiness to bring it down. His trajectory from ace prosecutor to criminal Two-Face is very well-done. Bale, Caine, Oldman, Freeman, and Gyllenhall are all well-cast. The action is better than Batman Begins, with the fistfight scenes in particular being easier on the eyes, with less spastic camera motion. The writing and direction is more along the lines of a crime drama or an action film than a comic book adaptation, and the story starts off with action and keeps you going for the whole 2.5 hours.

Very dark, violent, and very well-done film all around.

28 Weeks Later (2007)

Well-done: Gripping and scary

[8/10 · 19 May 2007]

Having seen 28 Days Later I thought I was prepared for this, but I was not. Somewhere near the beginning of the film is a scene that goes from zero to psycho in about 2 seconds flat. The beginning of 2004's Dawn of the Dead also had a wildly chaotic kick-off scene, but unlike that film, which was a great film to laugh through while chomping your popcorn, this film is no laughing matter.

When there's no violence, there's fear and tension.

When there is on-screen violence, there is absolute shock and horror. Scene after scene shows ordinary people placed in impossible situations from which they cannot escape. This time, of course, there now two implacable predators out there hunting them down: the rage virus from the first film, and the military which is attempting to maintain control of any outbreak, but is willing to visit unspeakable horrors upon innocent people if they cannot keep that control. The horror and scale of the virus is so severe, that the plans the military implements are completely plausible.

The actions scenes are masterfully done, effectively placing the viewer in the points of view of both the victims and the crazed, but still scarily human, zombies. The portrayal of the violence pulls no punches; people of all age groups and walks of life are destroyed without remorse. No attempt is made to soft-pedal it. The fragility of human life on Earth and its vulnerability to just the right nasty virus are thoughts that stay with you after you've left the theater, and add a nice "after taste" of fear. The soundtrack, as with the first film, is amazing in conveying the tension and dread and sadness of the scenes. The story is fairly tight, as well. My only complaints might be with the acting of some of the soldiers, which just didn't feel authentic to me for some reason.

Overall I'd say this is one of the best zombie films I've ever seen, in fact, one of the most effective thrillers I've seen, as well.

Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)

The Electronic Dictator

[9/10 · 16 March 2007]

I had a dim memory of a movie I saw while very young in the 1970s about a computer called Colossus that tries to take over the world. I remembered only a few things about it: that it was out of human control, that it executes people, that it speaks through a very creepy spherical metallic speaker with a pre-Cylon computer voice, and that the movie SCARED THE HECK OUT OF ME.

So I recently buy the DVD, half expecting to be let down by my adult, cynical eyes. Fortunately, all the above-mentioned items are just as I remember them, and better, the rest of the film is well-done. The technical aspects of the story are questionable, as with all evil computer stories (ever hear of using wire-cutters, people?), but after reflection, not as questionable as I thought.

The setup for the story is a new supercomputer created by one Dr. Forbin (Braeden) which is placed in complete control of the U.S. defenses, including nuclear missiles and anti-ballistic missile defenses. The computer soon detects that the Soviet Union has a similar machine and wants to connect with it. Forbin talks the president into allowing it, and things spiral out of control from there very quickly.

But the best part of the movie is the moral of the story. Dr. Forbin, after activating his new computer, attends a party at the White House and publicly states his wish that not only will his machine prevent war, but that it will also herald a new age of human advancement, in which famine and disease and pollution and overpopulation will be eliminated with the help of Colossus' vast computer power. Later in the film, Colossus offers EXACTLY these very things, much to Forbin's bitter disappointment.

How many tyrants attain power promising these very things? "Give me unlimited power, and I will build a Utopian future! Along the way, many people may have to die, and you will lose your freedom, but in the end I will set it all to rights." The difference is that Colossus may very well be able to deliver on its promises, and this actually makes it MORE frightening than any bumbling human dictator. Human tyrants are driven by flawed ideology, thieves' greed, or psychotic motives, and they are guaranteed to die after a few decades, like any human. But Colossus' menace is its cold logic, lack of ideology, and it's ability to learn and survive almost without limit.

Forbin, in his struggle to contain his creation, is joined by his fellow scientists, including the beautiful Dr. Markham (Susan Clark), a professional scientist who stands in contrast to the roles played by most women of the time. She adds immensely to the human side of this story.

The film is timeless. The look of the 1970s technology may be dated, but it's appropriate for the Cold War era this film is a child of. If you are a sci-fi fan who likes to think instead of watching brain-numbing action, this film is definitely worth a look.

The Astronaut Farmer (2006)

Feels good if you don't dig too deep

[7/10 · 25 February 2007]

So I went and saw it today. Since we had so much snow lately the theater wasn't crowded, so I was nice and comfy.

I give the movie a B for effort when it comes to getting the technical stuff right. The Mercury-Atlas knockoff functions pretty much like the real one did, with a few notable exceptions, the main one being that the booster engines did not jettison but rode all the way to orbit, making this a true SSTO. Cinematic license, perhaps? Maybe the screenwriters were concerned about the people along the launch path getting struck with spent booster parts. The barn is in Texas, and the projected ground track is roughly north of east, making it reach the sea about somewhere over the Carolinas. Can I continue to nitpick? Sure I can! The LES tower doesn't jettison until after MECO. Minor. The "mission control" apparently can maintain contact with the spacecraft anywhere in its orbit. Since his ground station consists of his son in a converted Airstream camper trailer, it's unclear how he does this without a worldwide network. Hollywood. Also, there is an accident in the film that by all rights should have been far worse. Add to that all the things already noticed, like the difficulty of building such a thing, testing it, ground facilities, etc. So what. At least they got some physics right, and that's WAY more than you can ask of most moronic film makers these days.

In real life, someone who is not so strapped for cash will eventually launch a private spacecraft into orbit someday, so the basic premise of the story is semi-believable. The part that is not so believable is the fact that the government in this film is not believably ruthless enough. Time and again, the roadblocks the government throws in front of a backyard rocket launch are discussed by the characters, including the fact that building and fueling a modified ballistic missile before obtaining the proper paperwork is a good way to get sent to jail, but the federal agents in the film seem to be too lazy to stop this from happening. They threaten him with shooting him down or shutting him down, but he calls their bluff and gets away with it. That is the least believable part of the film for me. His barn would've been raided, his property seized, and he might have been shipped off to some prison somewhere as an "enemy combatant" and never heard from again. Charlie Farmer (yes, Farmer is his name, not his occupation) fights city hall and wins. Hard to swallow.

The FAA, on the other hand, is the main instigator of government road-blocking, and this is also a bit hard to buy. Perhaps NASA might not like being shown up by a Texas cowboy doing it on the cheap, but the FAA is not known for this nonsense. They write rules for flying and issue airworthiness certificates, but they usually encourage private citizens to advance the development of flight, rather than retard it. Yes, they would have objections about launching over populated areas, and for good reasons, but in this film they object not on safety grounds but because they think only government agencies should be allowed to fly in space.

Still, this would be a good film to watch while, say, on a long distance jetliner flight, and it keeps the insults to your intelligence to a lesser degree than I expected.

The United States Marine Band (1942)

Glimpse of the Old Corps

[8/10 · 24 February 2007]

This is basically a wartime recruitment film. But recruiting films and videos and commercials can sometimes fun to watch. In this case if you're a U.S. Marine, you'll enjoy this 10 minutes of motivation.

The film begins with the Band playing in Washington D.C. The band sings along to the first stanza of the Marines' Hymn. It moves along to Anchors Away! and various Souza marches, as expected, and Marines are shown marching in formation past a review stand with the 782 gear of the day: M1903 Springfield rifles and rimmed dough boy-style helmets and leggings. The Commandant of the Marines Corps at the time, Lt. Gen. Holcomb, is shown in one scene.

Images of old-school battleships plowing through the seas in formation come next, followed by Marines climbing into whaleboats for a pre-WWII-style amphibious landing. As they reach the beach and lay their water-cooled Browning machine guns, the battleships are shown delivering some whoop-ass fire support with their large guns. All the while the Band is playing.

Nothing of substance, but it's a fun short to watch before you pop in a Full Metal Jacket or Heartbreak Ridge DVD.

Semper Fi!

Children of Men (2006)

Scary vision with a little sci fi

[8/10 · 29 January 2007]

Children of Men is supposed to be about a future in which humans have become infertile. The youngest human is 18 years old, and the world is falling apart. Economies collapsing, governments turning ever more dictatorial, refugees running to countries that throw them out, and despair everywhere. Terrorist groups set bombs off in London cafés. Or maybe it's the government doing it and blaming terrorists. Who knows.

And then a pregnant woman is found, and Clive Owen's character gets drawn into a race to protect her and help her reach safety. Her friends are not very nice people, and the safe refuge she seeks may not exist, but she holds the future of mankind and must be protected at any cost.

And that is the real story; survival of a handful of people in a turbulent world, one filled with random (and not-so-random) death and violence and uncertainty. It's really an epic quest in a dystopian future, a future that looks all too possible. Certainly more possible than the fantasies of films such as Matrix. In this film, there are concentration camps, Islamic radicals, abusive treatment of detainees, immigration issues, sound familiar? The cinematography and action scenes rival, and possibly exceed, anything Spielberg produces. There is violent and truly frightening combat of various types, and the action scenes are shot with one camera continuously rolling for the entire scene and moving around, adding to the realism, calling into mind that of Saving Private Ryan's beach assault scene.

The acting is pretty good as well, I'd call this my favorite Owen performance.

There were some things about the film I didn't like, some scenes that could have been left out, but without spoiling it I can't say which. They wouldn't keep me from watching it again.

Some questions remain unanswered at the end. But perhaps these questions weren't really important? Perhaps the ambiguity is purposeful? In real life, as time goes by, some old questions and friends get forgotten as time moves on, and other people and ideas take their place, right? Or maybe you will die without learning the answers, and that was meant all along...watch the film and think about it.

The Good Shepherd (2006)

Like watching a robot for 3 hours

[1/10 · 24 December 2006]

After seeing the commercials for this film, I was eager to go see it. A spy thriller about the origin of the CIA, with DeNiro, Pesci, and the star of the Bourne Identity sounds like a good idea. Unfortunately it turns out to be 3 hours of boredom in which Matt Damon walks around like an expressionless robot for the whole film. Even the sex scenes were devoid of emotion.

The film chronicles a young Ivy League man's rise through the ranks of the Office of Strategic Services, and its successor, the Central Intelligence Agency, from his pre-war college fraternity days to the Kennedy/Johnson era. Along the way we meet lots of shady people who can't be trusted and so forth. DeNiro is the seldom seen godfather of both intelligence services. He's in the film for like 5 minutes. Pesci is in it even shorter.

Despite the exciting events Damon's character is involved in, including various hot spots from wartime Europe to revolutionary Cuba, there is no action. None. The film doesn't focus on the history of the CIA, it's really about how a young man loses his soul amongst the dark shadows, yada yada yada. There is a brief scene near the beginning of the film where Damon is yucking it up with his fraternity buddies, and then for the next 2.75 hours he has no expression, no smile, no emotions whatever. Couple that with the lack of action and the slow-moving story and I was more interested in the conversation the jerk in the seat behind me was having on his cellphone than I was in watching the movie. Even the supposed twists are uninteresting, "who cares" moments. There are many opportunities to see some cool spy craft, but they are lost, as is the opportunity to tell us something about the CIA's history, good and bad. Instead we are treated to scenes where the characters whisper to each other, even inside secure offices, so that I actually had to move closer to the speakers to hear what was going on.

"Godfather of the CIA"? Not hardly.

Casino Royale (2006)

Craig fits into Bond's world comfortably

[9/10 · 11 December 2006]

Alright, a new Bond film. Off to the cinema house, once again! But hey, now, here's this new guy. Everyone's worried he may not be 007 calibre. Not to mention this is a "back-to-roots" story in which Bond is a newly minted double-oh agent. No Q, no Moneypenny, according to IMDb's cast listing. What awaits us beyond yonder popcorn counter? Mediocrity? Failure even?

Not to fear, Craig fits right in! Even better, he creates new Bond lore all his own. Ever wonder where that whole vodka martini shaken-not-stirred thing came from? How Bond came to be a lover of fine cars? Where his charm and coldblooded attitude toward (most) women came from? Want a glimpse into what makes the man tick? Well, sit yourself down and give this'n here a look!

Down to tacks: Pros: -Craig is a grittier, more believable Bond. He looks like the kind of guy you hire as an assassin, and has to learn to be comfortable being suave. -Green (the lovely Vesper) is the classiest jewel to call herself a Bond girl since Diana Rigg, and for similar reasons; they both pulled off the impossible (watch if you don't know what I'm speaking of!) -M. Judi Dench continues to get better and better in this role. And when she gets angry, you are actually glad for a minute that you are NOT Bond (it passes quick, of course). -Lack of silly special effects and over-the-top explosions. There is plenty of good, rockin' action in this, mostly involving fists and foot chases. It's still a bit outlandish, but easier to suspend disbelief. -More believable bad guys. Usually we are treated with silly villains who try to take over the world with some Dr. Evil plot. This time, the villains are more believable: they want to get rich and keep a low profile, and they are ruthless. -just a good telling of a story overall. The plot is kind of complicated and forces you to pay attention, and there are little telling signs everywhere that you must remember later to get the picture. I find that enjoyable. -Awesome cars. British ones, too. No dorky yuppie-mobile Beemers here!

Cons: -length. The movie starts to drag in the second half, and about 10 or 15 minutes could've been trimmed. This keeps the movie just out of reach of a 10-star. But the ending more then makes up for it.

Some people wonder about continuity; clearly Sean Connery's films take place in the 60's and Bond is a Cold War figure, so how does that square with Bond starting anew in 2006? My only answer is that Bond films are like a comic book story. Whenever a new actor takes over, it's like a new comic book story arc. Batman started in the 1930s but now he starts in 2005, etc.

Look, folks, in case you're still wondering, films like this are why we pay to go to the movies, period. Just lots of fun.

Apocalypto (2006)

Sucks to be blue!

[8/10 · 10 December 2006]

Having seen previous Gibson creations, I was expecting a predictable and slightly cheesy revenge flick about a guy who goes on a killing spree to avenge or save his family, a la Patriot and Braveheart. Not that that's a bad thing, those were entertaining films, but this is a cut above. The expected over-dramatizing was missing, but there's good humor, the characters are believable, and even the bad guys have sympathetic personalities.

The main character had only one other work to his credit, and most of the cast have no acting history, whatsoever, and perhaps that is the reason they seem so believable. The acting is good, the pacing is good, the sense of increasing dread as the characters approach the Mayan city, the music, and of course, the action. It's all done very well.

Yes, it's gory, but after reading all the slam reviews I expected more gore than I saw. If you could sit through Braveheart this is a piece of cake.

Gibson is, of course, a lately controversial figure, and that has unfortunately colored the view of his films, but whatever you may have heard, this film comes off as being, if anything, anti-religious. The superstitions of the "civilized" American Indians drives them to acts of stunning and sickening aggression towards their wood-dwelling cousins, and as the film draws near a close, you get the sense that the approaching Spanish missionaries won't be any more civilized. The main character is portrayed as a man of courage and common sense who tries to escape with his family from dangerously irrational nonsense of both American and European religion. For a staunchly Catholic man like Gibson to apparently have a mind open enough for this idea, my hat's off to him.

BTW, don't let anyone smear blue finger paint on you. Ever.

Tales of the Gold Monkey: Tales of the Gold Monkey: Part 1 (1982) Season 1, Episode 1

Best TV adventure show

[10/10 · 29 August 2006]

I remember when this came out and it blew me away. I had seen Raiders of the Lost Ark and this was in the same genre. A former American Volunteer Group (aka "Flying Tigers") fighter pilot in the late 1930's has his own Grumman Goose flying boat and sets up shop on a fictional south Pacific island run by a cool Franch magistrate. He has a mechanic named Corky and a great sidekick, a one-eyed dog named Jack. His love-interest is a woman named Sarah, who is a covert spy for the American government. Surrounded by the Japanese military and their nazi allies, as well as remote islands full of lost treasure, it's a dangerous and exotic location and every "milk run" job Jake flies turns into a swashbuckling adventure (of course!).

The pilot was especially good, with lots of action, lovable good guys and a great twist at the end. In fact, with a bigger budget it could've been a fine theatrical film.

And if you love old airplanes, there's no question what the draw to this show was.

A final note: Bellisario concocted this show in the late 1970s, prior to the release of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but the networks suits wouldn't bite until they saw how well Spielberg's film did, so it's not fair to call this a ripoff. Spielberg wasn't the only film maker or writer rediscovering the magic of 1930s-era adventure stories.

And this was one of the best.

Miami Vice (2006)

Vice Reborn

[8/10 · 29 July 2006]

Miami Vice, was, for those of us in our teens or twenties at the time, THE TV show to watch. It took the style of the eighties, developed it, and amplified it. Music, clothes, palm trees, sports cars, drug lords, and automatic weapons. Coming on the heels of shows with lots of gun play but no blood due to censoring, such as the A-Team, the violence was shocking and refreshing for its time, and the main characters, Crockett and Tubbs, were a new breed of cool, gritty, antiheroes. So how does the movie stack up?

Pretty good, I must say.

Crockett (Farrel) and Tubbs (Fox) are drawn into an FBI undercover operation to take down a Latin-American drug lord, and try to isolate a leak in the Bureau. Nothing new, there, of course, but the sex and violence in a feature film is now free to move up several notches from 1980's television. Let's do the list:

Pros: -Main actors do a fine job of reinventing the characters without changing their basic nature. Fox, especially, is great as Tubbs, and the drug kingpin is immensely creepy and dangerous. -Film is set in 2006 Miami with 2006 styles, instead of turning into an eighties nostalgia fest. And yet the spirit of the old Vice remains. -Music is reminiscent of the original, but is in fact all modern and used tastefully. The sound track is on my gotta-have-it short list. -Action scenes are intense and use camera-shaking and other film techniques that did not exist in the eighties. Boats and planes are beautiful and fast, and the gunfighting scenes just rock.

Cons: -Some of the love..er..sex scenes just go on too long. Okay, these people look good naked, okay, it's a Mike Mann style thing, I get it. Please move on with the story... -The plot is a little hard to follow at times, and a few questions are left unanswered at the end, or did I miss it? -Sometimes the dialog is hard to follow; see above point. -Jan Hammer's recordings are not used, although remakes of some of his music are in the film.

This film is not a realistic portrayal of life in the Miami PD (giant explosions, company-size gunfights, a cop driving a Ferrari and wearing a $90k watch, etc.), but of course Miami Vice never was. It is a stylistic interpretation of the glamorous and sleazy drug world and the cops who deal with it. The film captures this well, and places it in modern day.

It's also a refreshing break from the standard modern fare, in which all bad guys are nebulous terrorists and it's okay for good guys to torture suspects who may be innocent. It's a throwback to the days when sleazy drug lords were all bad guys and the good guys squared off with them in a gunfight.

While dressed to impress, of course!

Battlestar Galactica (2003)

Cylons make Skynet look soft on humans

[10/10 · 9 July 2006]

As a little kid, I loved the old BSG, so I was a little fearful of what had been done to this universe. A female Starbuck? Cylons are human? Still, I got talked into watching it by some friends.

I have some great friends! Gone is the campiness of the 1970s, the silly lasers and haircuts and schlocky script writing. Gone is the annoying little kid. Gone are the clownish-looking cylons of old.

The Cylons are back, and they are completely menacing. They do to humans what the Terminator would like to do: they wipe out nearly the entire species on 12 planets, using thermonuclear weapons.

And they are now human. Or at least they'd like to be.

Among the many differences here: This series is low-tech looking, drab, and gritty, compared with the old show. You really get the impression that these people are on military vessels and that they are on their last legs, running scared and fighting just to survive. The Galactica looks much more like an armored warship. Dark grey, bristling with weapons, and plated with armor that can take hits from nearby nuclear weapons, and yet it is still recognizedly a version of the old series' Glactica. The filming of the spaceflight scenes is striking. The film makers state they were borrowing techniques from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Black Hawk Down, and it appears they have succeeded.

Adama (Olmos) is a warrior. He was born to kill Cylons. He is not cut out for shepherding unruly civilians, and yet he must do this or the human race will perish. He is joined, and sometimes opposed, by a civilian president, who took office because all other members of the president's cabinet were nuked. She is really just the education secretary, and must fight for legitimacy to prevent a military dictatorship.

Starbuck and Apollo are now very complex characters, but they pay tribute to their earlier versions. Starbuck is a hard drinking, hard fighting female pilot who has a more vulnerable side. Apollo blames his father, Adama, for his brother's death, and yet he loves the man and remains a professional officer.

Baltar is no longer a stock bad guy. He is a brilliant scientist who lets his passions get the better of him and the Cylons use his lust to trick him into betraying all mankind. And yet he is, at times, charming and likable, and you find yourself pulling for him to redeem himself.

And the Cylons, my, the Cylons have come a long way! Once a bunch of clownish guys in suits with video game voices, they have been reborn in a more sinister form. The robots are still around, but thanks to CGI they are actually scary, and suggestive of the Terminator film. But they are only the foot soldiers, and do not speak. The Cylons who run the show now have biologically human bodies, with some enhancements. For instance, when they die, their souls are transferred to replacement bodies, under the right conditions.

More importantly, the Cylons now have all the complexity of humans. They have a monotheistic religion, which they believe superior to the normal humans' polytheism. Their motivation for slaughtering billions of people is, for the most part, religious. And they long to learn how to love as normal humans do. It's difficult to determine exactly what makes them tick. Do they want to replace humanity with Human Version 2.0? Or are they trying to convert humans and get them to repent through thermonuclear punishment? You'll find yourself watching to find out more!

War of the Worlds (2005 Video)

Garbage

[1/10 · 10 June 2006]

I'm a huge War of the Worlds fan. I've got two copies of the book, a copy of the radio show, and a copy of all four (that I know of) versions of the movie, the 1953 film, Spielberg, the "Victorian" one which actually follows the book closest, and unfortunately, this turkey.

I like CT Howell, but he's stuck doing trashy movies, and this is no exception. Script, plot, special effects, they all suck, here. They couldn't even honor the original three-legged machines, instead substituting some cheesy crab-legged thing that looked like a 1980's Atari video game graphic. (Even the 1950's film had machines floating on three "anti-gravity legs" clearly visible in the atom bomb scene...). This DVD was on sale at the video store for $3 when Spielberg's film was out, and like the sucker I am, I'm the proud owner of this turkey.

Warning: stay away from it. It might break your TV.

Breakheart Pass (1975)

Westerns, trains, and Bronson...

[8/10 · 13 May 2006]

...all in one. What more to ask for? Well, the music could've been better, in between action and speech scenes there's a lot of "suspense" music, what I call TV-movie music, that the film could do without. But aside from that, I like this film.

A good story, good cast, great scenery, and something I thirst for in westerns: good iron horse action, with actual American rail equipment of the era (unlike, say, the European stuff in Sergio Leone's westerns). The setting is a railroad in the frosty cold weather of the Sierra mountains, with lots of "power" shots of the locomotive working hard on steep grades. Why, oh why, don't more western films take advantage of this great atmospheric effect? And let's not forget, this is one of Bronson's best films. He's a cool character and there's enough action to satisfy, including a great train roof fistfight. A good mystery in a western setting, and worth a rental.