Max Payne & Burn After Reading

MAX PAYNE
Rating: PG
Consumer Advice: Some violence
Genre: Action-Thriller
Language: English
Subtitles: Chinese
Director: John Moore
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Chris O’Donnell, Beau Bridges, Ludacris, Mila Kunis, Donal Logue, Amaury Nolasco
Run Time: 100mins

Based on the legendary, hard-hitting interactive video game, MAX PAYNE tells the story of a maverick cop determined to track down those responsible for the brutal murder of his family and partner. Hell-bent on revenge, his obsessive investigation takes him on a nightmare journey into a dark underworld. As the mystery deepens, Max (Wahlberg) is forced to battle enemies beyond the natural world and face an unthinkable betrayal.

In CP's words:
This has always been in DC's movies-to-watch list. He was one game-lover and played this video game before. According to him, some of the scenes in the movie were from the game: the bullets dodge, the lab and the drug bottles Valkyr, etc. I find the plots familiar (e.g. the bullet time in Matrix and the winged creature looks like the god in Death Note) although there were suspense in the story. I also think that the tattoo of wings looks nice. :)

This is also the first show I could go washroom without fearing that I would miss out on anything. That's because there is an attached washroom in the Cathay threatre itself and I could hear the dialogues loud and clear inside! Cool!

Do also stay through the long credits if you are not in a hurry!


BURN AFTER READING
Rating: NC16
Consumer Advice: Some Violence & Coarse Language
Language: English with no subtitles
Director: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Main Cast: George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton and Brad Pitt
Runtime: 95mins

Osbourne Cox is a CIA operative struggling to stay afloat. His job and marriage are going nowhere, and he's got a drinking problem to boot. Harry Pfarrer (Clooney) is a Treasury Department marshal who can't stop tripping over his own vanity. His hobbies include internet-dating behind his wife's back and building homemade sex toys in this basement, not to mention sleeping with Osbourne's dissatisfied wife. When Ozzie gets fired from the Agency, he decides to write a tell-all memoir, blissfully unaware that he doesn't have much to tell. However, a draft ends up in the hands of Harry's other love, harebrained Hardbodies gym employee Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand), and her dopey colleague Chad Feldheimer (Pitt). Convinced they've tapped into classified information, they see this as the perfect opportunity to make some serious cash, and they bring their discovery straight to the Russians! Instantly, affairs of love and state become absurdly entangled, and nobody knows who to trust or what to believe - least of all, the "brilliant" minds at the CIA, who lead us to ask: just how intelligent is Central Intelligence?

In CP's words:
This is quite an arty film. It is rather funny too, with weird characters that makes the story interesting. Brad Pitt is soooo cute and cartoon in the film! He's such an idiot but I like! :P At the end of the show, the guys suffered miserably (all shot dead and one becoming paranoid and fearful of "spy") but the ladies were lucky to have "got away" unharmed with what they want (the divorces and plastic surgery I assume?)...

So, what can we learnt from the movie? "Intelligence is crooked, but stupidity is honest"? Just like what Joel Coen (one of the directors) had said, this film is "something big and bombastic, something important sounding but absolutely meaningless"!! That's how cleverly it is made - seemingly meaningless but yet bore a mocking statement about the dark side of human behaviour and about the CIA!