Three Films Make A Post: Never have so few taken so much from so many.

The Great Train Robbery aka The First Great Train Robbery (1978): This Michael Crichton movie, also written by Crichton, and based on his own historical fiction bestseller, has a really fabulous climactic action scene in the titular robbery. To get there, the film slogs through what clearly is supposed to be a semi-comedic romp through mildly satirized Victorian period detail. Alas, the word that actually describes this is “dull”. Crichton, never a man to know which details to cut, shows no feel at all for pacing dialogue scenes – even a sure winner of an innuendo-laden scene between Sean Connery’s mastermind character and a married lady goes down like a lead balloon – or timing jokes, leaving the main cast of Connery, Donald Sutherland and Lesley-Anne Down to fend for themselves while they are crushed by all that – never telling – period detail. Even that trio can’t win against such odds.

Exist Within aka 사잇소리 (2022): This thriller by Kim Jung-wook about the noises a young woman hears from the apartment above her, and the nasty surprises that follow, is about as middle of the road as South Korean productions get. There’s not much of the subversion of tropes going on that most genre movies from the country eventually at least dabble in, the pacing is never quite as effective, and the tone never quite as surehanded as it could be.

However, making a thriller of this type entertaining can also be achieved by the simple virtue of technical expertise, and though that is not the way a classic is birthed, being a genuinely fun time is an achievement in itself.

The Old Way (2023): This revenge western directed by Brett Donowho manages something you don’t see every day – getting a performance from Nicolas Cage that makes the high energy thespian look unengaged. Much of Cage’s performance gives the impression of watching him doing a second run-through of the material rather than actually putting his full force into a scene. If you’ve seen Cage emoting loudly and sometimes quietly but distinctly, throwing himself into whatever a script has to offer for most of your movie watching life, this is a rather disquieting thing to watch, like a night sky turned hot pink for no reason.

There’s little else to distract here: the script is about as rote a revenge western as is possible, the performances are uneventful, and Donowho directs with the blandness of a shrug.

Death Wish V: The Face of Death (1994)

Somehow, vigilante serial killer Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) has ended up with a cosy place in the witness protection program. Even if we don’t ask ourselves if a guy with his body count can belong to the category of “witness”, he sure as hell won’t need any protection, for he has most certainly killed everyone who might be tempted to do him harm for the sins of his past, as well as anyone he could be a witness against in a court of law.

Anyway, even though every woman in his live has been killed off to motivate him to another killing spree, our thick-headed protagonist still hasn’t understood he’s cursed (or he’s happily hoping for an excuse for another spree), and has romanced fashion designer Olivia Regent (Lesley-Anne Down). This one’s even bringing a child for additional dramatic potential! Now, Olivia has an ex-husband who just happens to be a tough Irish gang boss named Tommy O’Shea (Michael Parks). Tommy really hasn’t let go of his former wife mentally, and has also insinuated himself into her business as his own private money laundering service. Once she realizes this, encouraged through some moral support by Paul, she’s willing to have a nice little chat or three with the local DA (Saul Rubinek).

Tommy does of course get wind of this, so Olivia first gets her face smashed into a mirror by Tommy’s only vaguely competent henchman (for reasons doing the deed in drag) and killed a couple of scenes later. You know what happens next.

Though, to be fair to Allan A. Goldstein’s only entry into the Death Wish series, which fortunately is also the final film of the series before professional talent void Eli Roth (alas) came along, just might actually surprise you with something. Too bad the surprise is in how boring the director manages to make Bronson’s little killing spree. As regular readers (imaginary or not) will know, I’m not a fan of the first two movies in the franchise, but Michael Winner did at the very least manage a consistent tone of nastiness and unpleasantness with them, whereas Goldstein can’t even shoot a scene of a guy in drag shoving Lesley-Anne Downe’s face repeatedly into a mirror in a way that makes a viewer at least a little queasy. It’s blandness taken to the level of high art.

If that whole scene, or the one where Bronson kills a guy with poisoned cannoli, do suggest to you the general inspired craziness of the very Cannon third or even just the in comparison to this one highly lively fourth Death Wish, you will alas be disappointed too. There’s a quality to Goldstein’s direction that makes even a cannoli-based murder boring to watch.


The director doesn’t get much help from anyone involved in this either: Michael Parks’s big bad and his henchmen are just not terribly interesting; Bronson phones his performance in; and the script by a cast of dozens (including Goldstein again) is disjointed and slow, wasting half of the film on setting up everything even the dumbest audience member understands is coming and is indeed waiting for, until Bronson gets to the – pretty mild – murdering. You’d think that by the fifth movie, at least the reasons for anyone to still watch a Death Wish movie would have been clear to anyone making it, but clearly, I am rather overoptimistic when it comes to the basic sense of some people in the film business.

In short: Sphinx (1981)

Egyptologist Erica Baron (Lesley-Anne Down) is on her first trip to Egypt to keep contact with shady antiques dealer Abdu-Hamdi (Very Egyptian John Gielgud) for her boss, and do a serious amount of sight-seeing.

Abdu-Hamdi has something quite interesting to show her: a hitherto unknown statue carrying the names of Tuthankamun and Seti I., as well as that of Erica's special person of interest, Seti's architect Menephtah (in random flashbacks of dubious use to the film to be played by Behrouz Vossoughi). Unfortunately, Abdu-Hamdi is murdered before he can disclose the history and provenance of the statue. Erica's interest is more than a little piqued, and, despite her temperamentally really not being cut out for the adventuring life, she starts to poke around after Abdu-Hamdi's business and the statue. This, after all, could lead her to the archaeological find of a lifetime.

Soon the same people who killed the antiques dealer are after Erica too, as well as a black market dealer (the inevitable John Rhys-Davies) and a guy with a gun who may or may not belong to either of the factions. Rather more helpful to Erica are charming (it's an assumed trait, for he is French and this is that sort of movie) journalist Yvon Mageot (Maurice Ronet) and Egyptian department of antiquities investigator Akmed Khazzan (Even More Egyptian Frank Langella). If only Erica knew whom to trust!

Franklin J. Schaffner's Sphinx's main attraction is that not little of it was shot in Egypt itself, leading to large amounts of high quality tourist picture postcard shots. In fact, Schaffner uses so much of this admittedly very pretty footage that it more than once gets in the way of the film's actual plot of "exotic" intrigue and Victoria-Holt-style romance. Again and again, said plot is put on hold for another round of Lesley-Anne Down posing in front of prettily shot tourist attractions.

It's not as if the "Visit beautiful Egypt!" parts weren't well done, or as if the film never used them to enhance its plot, but for long stretches of the running time it becomes rather doubtful if you're watching an ad for holidays in Egypt or a movie about the adventures of an Egyptologist (who, by the way, hasn't bothered to learn a single word of Arabic). When the movie decides to be a movie, it is very old-fashioned, quite silly, yet also effective if you're like me and like rather old-fashioned adventure movies. There's even a minor thematic thread doubting the moral correctness of the European and US plundering of Egypt's cultural treasures, though the film is too distracted by gawping at Egypt to make much of it.

Despite these shortcomings I mostly enjoyed my time with Sphinx, for if it often is more of a tourism ad than a movie, it is a very attractive tourism ad which, when it gets around to it, just happens to feature some competently staged scenes of mild adventure.

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