Movie Flashback: Blackjack (1998)

During a long shift working at Blockbuster Video, I was tasked with unpacking the following week’s new arrivals. That’s when I came  across a movie called “Blackjack.” I’d never heard of the movie, and the VHS cover wasn’t much to talk about. But the movie still caught my attention because on the cover it said it was directed by John Woo. Being a fan of his action movies, I decided to give the movie a shot and brought it home with me that night.

“Blackjack” starred Dolph Lundgren as Jack Devlin, a former US Marshall turned bodyguard for hire. It’s a job he enjoys and the money is so good that it allows him the means to keep up his expensive lifestyle that includes private butler and best friend, Thomas (Saul Rubinek). He also regularly sees  Dr. Rachel Stein (Kate Vernon) who helps him deal with some of the things he’s done in the past.

 One day he’s approached by two old friends to look after their daughter Casey (Padraigin Murphy). Jack knows the family well and considers Casey to be his niece. The couple tells Jack that since they own a casino, some mobsters have been threatening to harm their little girl. Jack takes the job and it isn’t long before the mobster sends a crew to kidnap Casey from her home. Jack then finds himself in a massive shootout with the would-be kidnappers with Casey in his arms. While Jack is eventually able to keep Casey safe, the shootout leaves him with a traumatic injury that makes him sensitive to the color white and anything bright.

Fast forward about a year or so and Jack now finds himself a stepdad to Casey after the death of her parents. The now-retired Jack suddenly needs to learn how to be a dad to a girl who’s world has come crashing down. Jack also has to earn a living again, but luckily he’s good friend Tim (Fred Williamson) may be able to help. Tim was working as a personal bodyguard to supermodel Cinder James (Kam Heskin). James is being stalked by an unknown individual and Tim was injured on the job. Now he wants Jack to take over the job of protecting Cinder.

When I saw “Blackjack” all those years ago, I was surprised by how low-budget the film looked. Everything in the film from the sets, to locations, and the action scenes looked cheap. Don’t get me wrong, the filmmakers were trying to make things look good but the execution fell well short. Meanwhile, John Woo is probably;y best known for his action sequences and the biggest one here is the shootout at Casey’s house and that happened early on in the movie. But even the shootout lacks that John Woo touch. I can’t explain what it is, but if you watch the sequence something is missing.

It wasn’t until years later that I found out that “Blackjack” was originally conceived as a pilot for a weekly television series that never realized. It was so obvious I’m ashamed I didn’t think of it. “Blackjack” being a tv pilot explains a lot of things: not casting an A list actor for the role of Jack, the low-budget look of the film, the cheesy elevator music used as the musical score and the lack of any memorable John Woo action sequences.

That being said, I have to admit that I liked the premise of “Blackjack.” Having a former law enforcement agent become a personal bodyguard is a simple premiere, but done right it could lead to many kinds of stories. As for the cast, Dolph Lundgren wasn’t as horrible in this role as you’d expect. Lundgren has some really sweet moments with Casey, especially when he shares some stories with her and when she tells him to ask Cinder out. Where Lundgren fall short is in the more dramatic scenes and in the scenes where exposition is required from him.

My favorite Character in “BlackJack” was Kate Vernon as Dr. Rachel Stein. Vernon is Dolph Lundgren’s psychiatrist and confidant. You get the sense they like each other but neither is willing to cross that line. At least not yet. Unfortunately, Dr. Stein is not in the movie as much as the other characters. But she does get one of the film’s funniest moments when Jack calls her for help with Cinder. Stein arrives at Jack’s place dressed to the nine because she was on a date. Jack’s reaction when he sees her is priceless as is the telling hin she’s going to bill him for the visit.

Meanwhile, leading lady Kam Heskin is okay as Cinder James, but I got the feeling she was very new to acting. Not to sound harsh but Heskin likely got cast for her looks rather than for her acting chops. It doesn’t help that Cinder James has little to no chemistry with Jack. But that may be on Dolph who doesn’t show emotion on his face.

The villain of the film (the guy stalking Cinder James) is played by Andrew Jackson. The character is so over the top that he seems out of place here. There are moments in the film where this guy would be right at home in a Joel Schumacher movie. And although I’ve seen “Blackjack” several times, I’m still not sure what his motivation is. I think he and Cinder had a past together, but it’s never really explored in detail. Then again, the villain is so vain that I always thought he was just jealous of Cinder’s good looks

In the end, “Blackjack” is a bad movie by a good director. I think the movie would have been better with a couple of classic John Woo action set pieces and a little more development in Jack’s relationship with the recently orphaned Casey. But despite its problems (and there are many), for some reason, this movie has become one of my guilty pleasures.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s “Blackjack” used to air on the USA Network a couple of times a year, and I would always tape it so I could watch it after work. Eventually “Blackjack” was released on DVD and I got a copy the day it was released. I guess this is one of those movies that is so bad it is good that will always find a place in my dvd collection.

I paid to see that: Paycheck (2003)

If you look back at the movies of 2003, there are not many that you would call classics. Oh there are a couple excellent movies like “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” and others, but for the most part 2003 was filled with clunkers.

Regardless of movie quality, I spent much of the year at the movies, usually seeing multiple movies in a day. Why? because it was a chance to see a variety of films and hang out with friends. But I can’t deny we saw some terrible movies that year.

One of the bad movies I saw in 2003 was “Paycheck” starring Ben Affleck, Uma Thurman, Paul Giamatti and Aaron Eckhart. Hmm, I never realized how many Batman related actors were in this movie. Just have Paul Giamatti play the Penguin in the next movie and then everyone can say they were in a Batman movie.

I almost forgot to mention that “Paycheck” was even directed by John Woo. So as you can imagine, with that cast and a good director, I had high expectations going in. Even if the acting didn’t live up to expectations, I figured the action would.

The film begins with a great concept courtesy of Philip K. Dick, but the film never really develops it. Instead we get a movie put together with parts from other thrillers: a vast laboratory, a cold-blooded billionaire industrialist, the hero in a situation that he doesn’t understand because he can’t remember, etc.

Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman have a strong presence as the leads, having some fun along the way and even shedding a few tears over the fact that they were deeply in love, but he can’t remember it. See, that’s a big part of Affleck’s job. He plays Michael Jennings, a brilliant engineer who hires himself out to reverse-engineer new computer breakthroughs. It makes more sense when you see the movie.

Anyways, he starts with impenetrable codes or uncrackable chips, then takes them apart, sees what makes them tick and reassembles them as way for his employers to sidestep copyright infringement.

Because big bucks are involved in what he does, and because the corporations paying Affleck wouldn’t want him to go babble about the job TV, they write a sneaky clause into his contract: After Batffleck completes a job, his memory is wiped clean, and he’s left with a gap of several weeks or months and a big paycheck.

For his next assignment Michael is hired by Rethrick (Aaron Eckhart), head of a company called Allcom. This assignment will take a little longer than any other, three years to be exact. His mission is to crack an invention that can see into the future. From what I can remember between eye rolls, Two-Face wants to steal a lens so powerful that it follows the curvature of space and time right back to where it started and then some. My head hurts just thinking about it.

For the movie the idea is, if you can predict the future, your stock price will go up. I can think of plenty of other things I’d like to know, like seeing if I’m going to enjoy lunch today or not. But the movie doesn’t thing to ask any other big questions.

“Paycheck” had countless fascinating possibilities it could have explored, and its sad all the filmmakers chose not to. Instead we got a lot of chase scenes and stuff blowing up. Oh well, at least we had dinner at Pizzeria Uno’s that night, so the evening wasn’t a total loss.