Movie Reviews Cont

Sweet revenge proves successful

From director John Singleton, who directed “Boyz N the Hood” and “Baby Boy,” comes a story about four brothers, Bobby (Mark Wahlberg), Jerry (Andre Benjamin, from the music group OutKast), Angel (Tyrese Gibson), and Jack (Garrett Hedlund, “Troy”), who come from different walks of life and were raised by their loving mother who adopted them and saved them from the mean streets of Detroit.

One tragic night, their mother, Evelyn (Fionnula Flanagan), isgunned down in a liquor store robbery. Police are on the scene investigating her killers, but the Mercer brothers unravel the death to be a set-up, execution style.

Despite their different races, they are bound by ties thicker than blood. They all come together to bury their mother and to bury her killers. The brothers are determined to fi nd her killers and will stop at nothing to fi nd answers.

While the movie revolves around a murder, it also focuses on how the brothers grew up together and lean on each other in their time of tragedy.

The boys were the worst of all delinquents. No one wanted to adopt these four troubled boys until one woman saw the goodness inside each of them. Bobby, the hot-headed big brother is an exthug, Jerry is the ex-hustler, Angel is the pretty boy and ex-thug of the family, while Jack is the baby boy rocker. Together for the fi rst time in years the four catch up on their lives while dealing with their mother’s death.

The four set out a mission to fi nd these thugs. Aside from police investigation, they decide to take the murder into their own hands. Their investigation intensifi es and they start to use methods outside the law.

Violence and bloodshed is showcased throughout this actionpacked fi lm, with gun battles, car chases and good old-fashioned fi st fi ghting.

Singleton once again brings out

40-year-old By LISAJOYCE VERGARA

For the Daily Titan

Paramount Pictures

The fi lm 40-Year-Old Virgin is about Andy Stitzer, a man who works in an electronic store, lives in an apartment fi lled with action fi gures and video games, and who is, big shock…a virgin! 40-Year-Old Virgin looked like a promising fi lm initially, with Steve Carrell from “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and the american version of The Offi ce playing the main character and Judd Apatow, director and cowriter with Carrell who has been a part of many entertaining tv shows and movies (Freaks and Geeks and Anchorman), it seemed like it was destined for comic gold.

The fatal fl aw is that all of these jokes have been done before: the over-sexed females that scare Andy, the co-workers who give horrible advice, and the stunted man who still plays with action fi gures.

Catherine Keener, plays Carrell’s love interest, Trish, who works across the street from him in her “We Sell Things on Ebay” store. Andy meets Trish when she comes into the electronic store to buy a VHS player. After a week or so, Andy fi nally gets the nerve to go over to her shop and ask her for a date. The relationship between the characters is fairly dull and as the story progresses you don’t really care if they stay together.

Hustle keeps it movin’

virgin star still

not getting any

By SUZANNE SULLIVAN

Daily Titan Photo Editor

The supporting characters are not developed enough to make them interesting. They try to assist Andy on a quest to get laid, but while they are experienced, they too have no success with women. Paul Rudd’s character, David, is obsessed with his cheating exgirlfriend, Jay (Romany Malco) cheats on his girlfriend, and Cal (Seth Rogen) doesn’t have a girlfriend either.

The minute a character comes into view, you know exactly what he is going to say. It’s not to say that predictability is what kills everything, but a fi lm needs to have a little imagination. What is sad is that the funniest scene of the movie is the last scene, once you have already given up on the movie.

No chemistry between characters, a plot that is annoyingly predictable, and jokes that are just not that funny.

the best in fi lmmaking with his signature action and drama fi lled sequences. The ethnically mixed cast gives great chemistry of different personalities. It was strange to me to see Andre from OutKast in this because I didn’t know he could act and he’s actually good! Watch this movie, it’s a must-see!

By DAVID BARRY

Daily Titan News Editor

Once the excitement of buying textbooks dies down and the endof-summer blues settle in, one may fi nd oneself browsing the comedy section of Blockbuster or Netfl ix, searching for that perfect distraction.

Fresh out on DVD, “Kung Fu Hustle” delivers the kick-ass martial arts spoof that its trailers promise. Surprisingly, it contains a bit more substance than most farces, action fl icks or combinations thereof.

Stephen Chow, who also wrote, directed and produced the fi lm, plays Kung Fu Hustle’s main character, Sing, a wannabe Kung Fu gangster. He desperately wants to join the violently successful Axe Gang, but his incompetence seems to doom him to the life of a petty criminal or a homeless person.

Sing’s wretchedness is somehow endearing – so much so that the audience is magically hustled into rooting for him to transform into a hero either a hero or anti-hero.

This transformation, hinted at in the opening title sequence which shows a butterfl y fl uttering along a Grand Canyon-like landscape, materializes in the strangest of ways.

More fumbling than fl uttering, Sing and his loser sidekick enter an impoverished district – Pig Sty Alley – and try to extort money from a barber who has just given the sidekick a reasonably good hair cut.

Sing complains that the haircut doesn’t make his friend look tough enough, and demands ‘protection’ money from the barber. This logic doesn’t work with the bumpkin of a barber, who’s genius is not noticing that his sagging pants reveal a bit too much cheek.

Sing’s sidekick also tries to intimidate the barber, but suddenly falls into a narcoleptic nap. When Sing continues to harass the barber, the other residents step up to defend him. Sing singles out people from the crowd who appear to be weak, but when they approach they are considerably taller or more muscular than they fi rst appeared to be. An older woman approaches Sing and gut punches him so hard he spits blood. She turns out to be quite sturdier than she appeared.

Several other Pig Sty Alley residents reveal unlikely strength and fi ghting skills. A cowering tailor, a reserved noodle cook, and a humble coolie deliver unexpected help to defend their Pig Sty from the Axe Gang that Sing desperately wants to join.

These unlikely heroes, and others, emerge from their masks of weakness and idiocy with strengths sometimes even unknown to them.

Like the bumbling, mumbling fool in “Offi ce Space,” Sing steps out of the rubble of his senseless life and into one neither he nor the audience imagined. In other words: this DVD is a perfect distraction from the start-of-the-semester stress.