Thomas Jane

TV Review: HBO’s ‘Hung’ With Thomas Jane is Surprisingly Limp

BrianTT — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 06:00:00 -0600

CHICAGO – Pardon the obvious metaphors, but when you name a show “Hung” and feature a motivational speech about the lead character finding “his tool,” it’s damn-near impossible not to fall into the same pattern. Despite a clever set-up and talented cast, the new HBO comedy starring Thomas Jane, Jane Adams, and Anne Heche is missing that spark, that chemistry that elevates an experience from being just another TV one-night stand.

Television Rating: 3.0/5.0

“Hung” uses male sexuality to comment on the state of the economy today. What is the one thing they can’t take away from the unemployed, divorced, miserable modern man? His enormous pecker.

Thomas Jane.
Photo credit: Chuck Hodes/HBO

The funnier-than-you-think (don’t forget his amazing guest role on “Arrested Development”) Thomas Jane stars as the former high school sports legend turned middle-aged loser Ray Drecker, a Detroit high school basketball coach struck by a string of bad luck. His wife (Anne Heche) leaves him, his twin children Darby (Sianoa Smit-McPhee) & Damon (Charlie Saxton) take her side, he gets kidney stones, and his house burns down. Living in a tent in his own backyard, Ray is at the end of his line.

Thomas Jane.
Photo credit: Chuck Hodes/HBO

Ray attends a seminar, where he runs into an old one-night stand, hippie poet Tanya (Jane Adams). They decide to take another trip around the quickie block and get into a fight in which Tanya suggests that the only thing Ray has left is his huge dick and that perhaps that’s what he should use to make his fortune. She means it as an insult. Ray takes it seriously.

Before you know it, Ray is at the Motor City Casino meeting a client who answered his ad in the paper or happened across the picture of his penis online. He’s skipping out on the basketball game he should be coaching, but he’ll make the money so his son can go to the Goth concert he wants to attend by any means necessary.

The concept of “Hung,” created by the talented Dmitry Lipkin (“The Riches”) and Colette Burson, is undeniably clever. No matter how deep the recession goes, people will always want sex and a man with a giant penis might not think it’s that crazy to try and make some money with it. And Jane and Adams are well-cast and interesting. (On the other hand, Heche gets a thankless, shrill role as the ex-wife.)

Jane Adams and Thomas Jane.
Photo credit: Chuck Hodes/HBO

The great Alexander Payne (“Sideways”) directed the first episode of “Hung” and he has an easy-going, casual style that would fit the material if it had a first, second, and third act and was allowed to play out like a feature film. For a pilot of a comedy, something that needs to grab the audience’s attention, an audience used to seeing the incredibly briskly-paced “True Blood” and “Entourage” on Sunday nights, Payne might not have been the best fit.

I kept waiting for “Hung” to “kick in” and get to a climax. (Once again, sorry for the metaphor.) It drags when it needs to zip. And Jane is a little too dull. Where’s the righteous indignation of a man brought to his knees by a world that once put him on a pedestal? There’s no passion in this character outside of a few profanities in his narration and that decision leaves the whole pilot feeling kind of laid back.

For “Hung” to work, we need to feel Ray’s plight and want to see where his weekly sexual adventures will take him. We need to want him to dig his way out of the hole that life has thrown him in. We don’t after the pilot. Ray’s a blank, a non-character, and the script combined with Payne’s direction just don’t make him feel real.

Even with the flaws of the pilot, there is a lot to like about the potential of “Hung”. It doesn’t overplay its concept like a tawdry Fox sitcom and the cast is certainly talented enough to fix the pacing issues present in the pilot, but “Hung” could use a dose of creative Viagra.

‘Hung’ premieres on HBO on Sunday, June 28th, 2009 at 9pm CST. It stars Thomas Jane, Jane Adams, and Anne Heche. It was created by Dmitry Lipkin and Colette Burson.

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

DVD Review: ‘Killshot’ With Mickey Rourke, Diane Lane Finally Gets Released

BrianTT — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 07:30:18 -0600

CHICAGO – How does a movie with Oscar-nominated leads, a prominent director, beloved source material, and an excellent supporting cast get delayed for so long that it inevitably gets quietly shuffled off to DVD? Well, if history tells us anything, having a complicated and troubled project in the Weinstein Company archives doesn’t help a movie like “Killshot,” an action thriller that has its flaws but none so big that it deserved such an unusual and lackluster fate.

DVD Rating: 1.0/5.0

Mickey Rourke, Diane Lane, Thomas Jane, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Rosario Dawson started shooting “Killshot” with director John Madden (“Shakespeare in Love”) in 2005. Then the dreaded Weinstein test audience process began. Entire characters (including one played by Johnny Knoxville) were excised from the film and “Killshot” had more release date delays than nearly any movie in history.

Of course, everyone moved on and Mickey Rourke became a star again with “The Wrestler”. So, after a minor theatrical release, “Killshot” is being quietly released in what is essentially a straight-to-DVD release to bank off Rourke’s return to fame.

Killshot was released on DVD on May 26th, 2009.
Photo credit: HBO Home Video

It has to be horrible, right? Only a train wreck of a film would suffer a fate as awful as the editing out of complete characters, three years of release date delays, and a straight-to-DVD release with no accompanying Blu-Ray, right? Of course not.

Killshot was released on DVD on May 26th, 2009.
Photo credit: HBO Home Video

To be fair, “Killshot” has some problems. It’s not too hard to see what turned off test audiences and spooked the executives. Hossein Amini’s screenplay based on the book by Elmore Leonard doesn’t quite work and even Madden doesn’t seem to have the right grasp on the character-driven crimes of one of the best genre authors of the last century. It’s hard to tell how many of the problems with “Killshot” are directly related to the nightmare post-production and how many were there in the first place, but it’s not like this is a perfect hidden gem that was completely railroaded by the Hollywood machine. But while it may not be perfect, “Killshot” deserved a better fate.

I think audiences will take to “Killshot” on DVD. Action films always do well on the home market and Rourke is absolutely beloved by nearly everyone who saw “The Wrestler”.

Rourke plays a hitman named Blackbird, a deadly killer who leaves no loose ends. Blackbird gets pressured into a job with the psychotic Richie Nix (a movie-stealing Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and stumbles across a pair of witnesses (Thomas Jane & Diane Lane) who see his face. The struggling couple gets put in the witness protection program and the rest of the film is basically a ticking clock until the two pairs inevitably meet up again.

Killshot was released on DVD on May 26th, 2009.
Photo credit: HBO Home Video

The set-up for “Killshot” is interesting but the follow-through is dull and plodding. It’s hard to tell, but it’s unlikely that years of delays and editing did anything to help the final product. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Thomas Jane, and Rosario Dawson all do good work but Rourke and Lane are surprisingly dull. Both of these actors are capable of so much more when given better material.

The film itself might be a solid 2.5/5 but this is a “DVD review” and the home release for “Killshot” is absolutely pathetic. With all the editing, you would think there would at least be a FEW deleted scenes. And how amazing would it have been to hear a commentary by Madden or anyone else involved after all this time? Have they all forgotten they made the film?

The fact is that in today’s market of great technical transfers and hours of special features, a bare-bones DVD without a single bonus and standard video & audio just doesn’t cut it. “Killshot” deserved better.

‘Killshot’ is released by The Weinstein Company and stars Mickey Rourke, Diane Lane, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rosario Dawson, Thomas Jane. It was written by Hossein Amini and directed by John Madden. The DVD was released on May 26th, 2009. It is rated R.

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

Blu-Ray Review: Marvel Character Strikes Out Swinging With ‘Punisher: War Zone’

BrianTT — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:22:49 -0600

Blu-Ray Rating: 3.0/5.0

CHICAGO – It’s officially a strikeout for Marvel’s The Punisher, a character now featured in not one, not two, but three bad movies of his very own. Dolph Lundgren swung wildly and missed with his “The Punisher” and Thomas Jane nearly connected but went foul with his reboot of the franchise. Now, Ray Stevenson is the latest actor to fail to connect with this legendary character in “Punisher: War Zone,” now available on Blu-Ray.

There’s at least one thing that director Lexi Alexander and writers Nick Santora and Art Marcum & Matt Holloway get right with “War Zone” - they’re not kidding around. Gone is the attempt at a PG-13 like the Thomas Jane & John Travolta version and the hero is finally the dark, relentless killer that he should be.

Punisher: War Zone was released on Blu-Ray on March 17th, 2009.
Photo credit: Lionsgate Home Video

The problem with “War Zone” is that gore does not equal dark. Yes, there’s extreme violence in “War Zone,” but it’s never allowed to be effective because Alexander and his cast play the whole thing as broad as can be. Dominic West (“The Wire”) as the villain Jigsaw should be terrifying, but he comes off cartoonish, like a twisted, deformed version of Paulie Walnuts from “The Sopranos”.

Punisher: War Zone was released on Blu-Ray on March 17th, 2009.
Photo credit: Lionsgate Home Video

Ray Stevenson of “Rome” (it’s sad to watch two great actors from HBO in Stevenson and West reduced to paper-thin parts like these) plays ex-Special Forces officer Frank Castle, still seeking revenge for the murder of his wife and child. The Punisher is the target of both the mob he’s been decimating in vigilante crimes and the police forces trying to bring him down. After an undercover agent is killed in a Castle shoot-out and Jigsaw is born, The Punisher’s problems multiply.

Stevenson brings a chiseled, nearly-silent strength to the title role that I would actually just barely choose as the best of the three if I had to compare Ray, Thomas, and Dolph. And the action is appropriately R-rated. But the script for “War Zone” is horrendous and I could never shake the feeling that I was watching a relic, a film closer to the mindless action more prevalent in the ’80s.

Ultimately, “Punisher: War Zone” suffers from too many tone shifts, not enough interesting characters, and some of the worst dialogue in the history of Marvel movies. Hardcore action junkies may be satisfied but this is merely proof that this character doesn’t work on the big screen like he does on the page.

The 2-Disc Special Edition of “Punisher: War Zone” is an impressive release from Lionsgate, a company that always knows how to treat their action fans well. First and foremost, movies like “War Zone” depend on a great audio track. If the film works for you, it could only possibly work LOUD and the English 7.1 DTS HD Master Audio will rock your “Punisher”-loving world. The video isn’t particularly notable but also doesn’t register as flat.

Special features include a digital copy of the film, a commentary by Alexander and director of photography Steve Gainer, and the following featurettes - “Training to Become the Punisher,” “The Making of Punisher: War Zone,” “Creating the Look of Punisher: War Zone,” “Meet Jigsaw,” and “Weapons of the Punisher”. It’s a more-than-adequate collection for the film.

‘Punisher: War Zone’ is released by Lionsgate Home Video and stars Ray Stevenson, Dominic West, Julie Benz, Colin Salmon, Doug Hutchison, Dash Mihok, and Wayne Knight. It was written by Nick Santora and Art Marcum & Matt Holloway and directed by Lexi Alexander. It was released on March 17th, 2009. It is rated R.

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

‘Killshot’ Poster, Cast, Synopsis Information For Mickey Rourke, Diane Lane Thriller

BrianTT — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 07:55:14 -0700

CHICAGO – The Weinstein Company sent over the official poster for Killshot and information about the long-delayed release.

“Killshot”

Release Date: January 23rd, 2009

Cast: Diane Lane, Mickey Rourke, Thomas Jane, Rosario Dawson, Johnny Knoxville

Synopsis: From Academy Award nominated director John Madden (“Shakespeare in Love”) comes Hossein Amini’s wry adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s best-selling crime novel. The beautiful Carmen Colson (Diane Lane) and her husband Wayne (Thomas Jane) become entangled in a scam with a bumbling, small time con artist (Joseph Gordon Levitt) and his over-the-hill hitman partner the Blackbird (Mickey Rourke). Ultimately, it all comes down to one wife, one husband, two killers…and one lethal killshot.

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

‘The Mist’ Interview Transcript With Frank Darabont, Marcia Gay Harden, Thomas Jane, Chris Owen

HollywoodChicago.com — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 10:49:24 -0700

On Nov. 6, I joined a conference call on “The Mist” with director Frank Darabont (“The Green Mile,” “The Shawshank Redemption”), Marcia Gay Harden (“Rails & Ties”), Thomas Jane (“The Punisher”) and Chris Owen (“American Pie”).

Download the 51-page “The Mist” transcript here.
The first question posed started off without romance by going straight to the throat. The journalist asked Darabont about his “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” script involvement.

Refusing to be derailed, Darabont said: “That really is another conversation. Let’s stay on the subject. Do you have anything on ‘The Mist’?”

Forging on, Darabont delved into his being a “writer for hire”. Initially a “screenwriter first and a director on occassion,” he discussed why only recently he decided to “reverse that equation”.

The Mist
Photo credit: IMDb
At 48 years old, Darabont said: “I’m not getting any younger. I feel like I have more movies to make.”

As for Gay Harden’s involvement, she commented on how “it’s all about character” for her and quality opportunities don’t come along often. Interestingly, she said she hasn’t been one of the many die-hard Stephen King fans.

The film is based on King’s novella. Starring Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Andre Braugher, Laurie Holden, Toby Jones, William Sadler, Frances Sternhagen and Jeffrey DeMunn, “The Mist” opens on Nov. 21.

On ‘The Mist’: The Best Stephen King Quote Ever?

HollywoodChicago.com — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 14:52:55 -0700

In what could be the best Stephen King quote ever, I heard word Tuesday morning that he said the following at a press conference on Monday about “The Mist,” which is based on his novella:

(Director) Frank (Darabont) (“The Green Mile,” “The Shawshank Redemption”) wrote a new ending [I love]. It is the most shocking ending ever.

There should be a law passed stating that anybody who reveals the last five minutes of this film should be hung from their neck until dead.

The statement is designed to both be a blessing of the film adaptation as well as a chilling message to anyone who dares to give away the film’s ending.

Starring Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Andre Braugher, Laurie Holden, Toby Jones, William Sadler, Frances Sternhagen and Jeffrey DeMunn, “The Mist” opens on Nov. 21.