Yes, yes -- I know that the same thing can be said for roughly 90 percent of all men who have ever existed, what with the buying of expensive meals, trips to the ballet, and boring walks on the beach. However, in my case, it has a somewhat different dimension. See, for the sake of a hot chick that I don't even know, I'll watch lousy TV shows, listen to music of doubtful quality, and often see movies that suck...and by that, I don't just mean that I'll watch The Notebook with a date.
What I mean is that I'll actively support the projects of whatever actresses strike my fancy, simply for the sake of doing my part to keep them working. Yes, I realize that my purchase of a movie ticket makes about as much difference as my checking of a box on a ballot; but when I know that some female celebrity I like has a new film or other production on the horizon, I feel as though it's my duty to buy into it, in spite of all rationality.
The best example is probably that of Mortal Kombat: Conquest. It was a crappy syndicated TV series, loosely based off of the popular video game, which aired for one season back around 1999. See, one night, I happened to catch part of an episode which included some scenes featuring the actress, Kristanna Loken. Now, Mortal Kombat: Conquest was definitely NOT my kind of show, but Ms. Loken WAS definitely my kind of actress. So, I started watching (and taping) her TV series religiously, even though a part of me very well knew that it was pretty low-grade (a bunch of ninja fights, bad special effects, etc). I even became such a Kristanna fan that I set up a website in her honor, which was (not to pat my own back, ahem) the NUMBER ONE Kristanna Loken fanpage on the web for a few years there. However, when it was announced that she'd been cast as the evil futuristic robot in Terminator 3, my site's traffic increased so much that I was unable to afford it....
Anyway, as I was saying, I've been known in the past to drive as far as 90 miles to see some generic period piece in a drab art house theater just because it stars the oddly appealing Keira Knightley (I got burned out of 50 bucks for parking in Chicago once!); I'll listen to crappy lounge music just because it's performed by the bewitching Zooey Deschanel; and I'll watch a less-than-good television series like Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles just because it features former Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson -- who, incidentally, I believe could have been certified in the 90s as the hottest woman on Earth. (Seriously. I want to send her a coffee mug that reads, "World's Hottest Chick". She deserves it.)
All of this, of course, also applies to the perfect woman, Milla Jovovich, who has been in a handful of good movies, and a bucketful of lousy ones. She's so hot that I've even special ordered her CDs from various websites (Yup, Milla J does music on the side), even though I'm not sure if they're any good. My feelings about the below film are kinda similar.
.45 (2006)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0259822/
"Trapped in a dangerous life of crime, Kat (Milla Jovovich) wants to find a way out, but first, she'll have to escape from Big Al (Angus Macfadyen), a vicious drug dealer with a powerful hold over her. The situation becomes even more tense when Big Al's trusted henchman (Stephen Dorff) falls for Kat. Soon, the two devise a complex plot to take out the crime lord. This thriller is a potent mixture of jealousy, revenge and intrigue."
If anything, .45 proves that Milla J really DOES have genuine acting talent (I've always known this to be the case, but there are certain elements in the movie-going public that can only measure acting ability by how many gold statuettes an individual has been awarded -- sadly, Milla ain't got none, and ain't never gonna get none). Some of the violent scenes in this film are so gut-wrenchingly realistic that even I found myself cringing. Milla gets the living daylights beaten out of her by her insane petty criminal of a boyfriend, Big Al, and boy does she do a good job of making it seem authentic. If you wanna hear a woman shrieking in agony for ten minutes, then .45 is for you! Really, Milla is subjected to some serious poundings that seem to drag on for far too long. I'm not sure if these scenes enhance the film's realism or just make us uncomfortable. Either way, they're well-played.
Eventually, Milla decides to kill Big Al, and enlists the help of Stephen Dorff to pull it off. Things get more complicated when a lesbian social worker becomes involved, and other stuff happens. The plot, although simple, does keep us wondering most of the time what will happen next. In your average movie, the abused girlfriend would somehow solve everything and walk away, but from the get-go, it's pretty obvious that .45 is not your average movie, so it's difficult for us to predict until the very end how things will pan out.
What's really interesting here are the characters. I liked all of them -- Milla J, Dorff, the lesbian...heck, I even kind of liked Big Al. Some of the interactions we get to watch between Milla, Al and various gun runners can be a little ridiculous (come on, how tough can these people really be?), but they're also fun, and I enjoyed the clever flourishes of profanity that stream from each character's mouth for practically the entire 90 minutes of this film. Consider the violence, cursing, and graphic sex scenes, and one thing's for certain: .45 will never be shown on TV!
In the end, .45 is a well-acted, and even dramatically intense, little film that suffers from one major problem: it's just painful to watch. I mean, sure -- it's a well-crafted picture; but is there any reason to see it? What do we gain from watching a woman battered and bashed like this? The story here is fairly interesting, but really, the world's probably better off if it's just not told.
2 out of 5.
b.
DERP!
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