Post by ronnierocketago on Jan 4, 2009 22:53:24 GMT
THE GLIMMER MAN (1996) - **1/2
"Two Good Cops. One Bad Situation."
Shit, I guess a flick is in trouble if that awful tagline is the best that Warner Bros. could come up with for THE GLIMMER MAN.
For the late 1980s and early/mid-1990s, the two most influential movies within Hollywood action cinema were DIE HARD and LETHAL WEAPON, if simply based on the countless knock-offs all produced within a short span.
In his career peak of both success and quality, Steven Seagal's own fighting-terrorists-on-battleship UNDER SIEGE was an open shameless retooling of DIE HARD, but it was pretty darn good, and the unquestionable king of the HARD rip-offs. So if UNDER SIEGE was Seagal aping DIE HARD, then his THE GLIMMER MAN I guess is supposed to be cloning the buddy cop LETHAL WEAPON. I mean it worked for RUSH HOUR, right?
You know what I'm talking about. Status quo cop who usually works alone is forced to pair up with an off-beat partner with an attitude, and they absolutely hate each other. Then they get involved in a major deadly case, where they both quickly respect each other, and eventually become buddies, thus we have the "buddy cop" movie. Not all such "buddy cop" pictures actually need both protagonsits to be police (48 HRS.) or actually either for that matter (THE LAST BOY SCOUT), but that term is still broadly applied to similar plot dynamics within Hollywood action cinema.
Well that description above is THE GLIMMER MAN. No I mean literally, it's so follows the owner's manual to a letter T that it never bothers with any colorful spin to such well-worn material. Remember those coloring books you had as a kid with a "paint by the numbers" scheme? You know, 1 is Green, 2 is Blue, and so on. Well GLIMMER MAN is a paint by numbers page, but without any kid wasting crayons on it.
Yes, It's that bland.
Anyway, mystical-practicing Seagal and straight-lace Keenan Ivory Wayans wins investigate a serial killer named "The Family Man," called so because he either murders whole families or he's a fan of the Nicholas Cage movie, I don't know. But that's just the start of a random mixed-up mushy plot that all involves the Russian mafia, the CIA, an evil corporation (aren't they all?), Serbian terrorists, all implicated somehow in a conspiracy to smuggle chemical weapons. I could try to explain how it all interconnects, but that would insinuate that I actually cared about what happened.
For villains you've got Brian Cox, going all X2 on us for his existence is simply to give exposition about how Seagal was once "The Glimmer Man," the most deadly assassin the CIA ever employed, for his victims only saw a glimmer before they died. (Ponytail?) Then there is the CEO Bob Gutton, or more known as the prison warden from THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION. He's mad at Seagal I guess for refusing to help cheat his junkie psychotic kid out of some jail time after he held his school hostage at gun point. Whatever. Gutton though is just always enjoyably ace as a douchebag baddie that (usually) gets with it, and to use 1990s slang, his shit-eating grin is money. The dude should have been a politician.
But like the heroes, GLIMMER MAN is in trouble, but with logic. There is a scene where Seagal at the morgue uses the serial number of a dead woman's breast implants for identification, but isn't that something the professional coroner would have done that already? Also, why does it take the police forever to identify one of the Family Man's victims as Seagal's ex-wife? I mean dear lord; these fictional LAPD cops are as incompetent as the real LAPD that botched the O.J, Simpson murder investigation.
Now sure GLIMMER MAN tries to be different and new by having Wayans be an obsessive afficiondo of CASALBANCA, but man it's so random and it absolutely goes nowhere constructive. The same with the running joke of Wayans buying by the truckloads bottles of masculine-supplemental deer penis from a Chinese herbal shop. On the plus side, GLIMMER MAN did beat BAD BOYS 2 by 7 years in joking about fake corpse tits, but what does that say about Michael Bay when he's ripped off a rip-off?
GLIMMER MAN is alot like Wesley Snipes' PASSENGER 57 which I reviewed long ago, in that it faithfully studies the Hollywood action formula and conducts it, and as a genre fan I can't help but a sucker and cut it some slack. But like 57, GLIMMER is just too damn lazy creativity-wise to shoot or kick itself to a higher level for which I can recommend it as popcorn fare to a general audience, like say Wayans's previous buddy cop venture THE LAST BOY SCOUT.
For action nerds, they'll dig the kinda cool scene where Seagal uses a credit card(!) to slash the throats of ambushing thugs, even if they have to sit through a bonehead Seagal line in "He's a little Country, I'm a little rock n roll." What the hell does that even mean?!? You watch and explain it for me, ok?
Or how about later when he and Wayans shoot up Cox on the city outskirts, tells him to "go hobble to a hospital," and leaves him bleeding there. That's cold. Also, I laughed at Wayan's one decent line at a mortician throwing around medical terms, "Can you put it in English before I beat you to death with a dictionary?"
What GLIMMER MAN also reminds me of unfortunately is that Jamie Lee Curtis monster picture VIRUS, which also suffered from being incredibly tired. Why is it so bored with itself? I gotta blame producer/star Seagal for picking such a lame script, hiring a director who's filmography consists mostly of Hallmark television specials and episodes of THE GHOST WHISPERER, shoddily editing this studio film worthy of a direct-to-video release, and for coasting on his well-defined "always calm under fire" persona here. It's a string of such unworthy drecks like GLIMMER, and his increasing waistline, why Seagal hasn't had an American theatrical release in 7 years.
I guess that is what differentiates the constant legends from those like Seagal, who simply are a flash in the pan. Clint Eastwood has basically played the same Dirty Harry/The Man With No Name shtick (with some variations) for the last 40+ years, but he has consistently been sly in picking which scripts to act or direct. At times in fact he's rather interestingly explored his own iconography like in the underrated TIGHTROPE. Unlike Seagal, he never took himself (or stardom) for granted.