terenceallen

This movie wastes the talents of Sterling Hayden (who obviously made this movie to fund his famous off-screen pursuits) and Ted de Corsia, who was a great Western villain. A movie about two bank robbers who escape, but one Reno, played by de Corsia, betrays and shoots Hayden's character. Hayden's character is rescued, recovers, and seeks vengeance. It was cheaply made in the coastal California area, and has beautiful scenery, but the script is horrible, and wastes the talents of everyone involved, including Lee Van Cleef, who is an additionally villain. This is a grade-Z Western. Don't watch unless you want a laugh.

Liberty Stands Still, even though it wields considerable talent due to having starts such as Linda Fiorentino and Wesley Snipes, is one of those kinds of projects that happens too frequently in Hollywood. The storyline is a blatant ripoff of the plot of the movie Phone Booth. It is very common, given the lack of secrecy and discretion in Tinseltown, and the necessity of promoting and publicizing scripts, for there to be competing projects with the same or very similar plots. The plot for Phone Booth had been much publicized, especially since Will Smith was originally pegged to star in the movie. Even with Smith not making the movie, and Colin Farrell becoming the lead, the plot was novel and well known enough for someone to write something very, very similar.

Both movies involve a lead character who spends nearly the entire film stuck on the telephone as a prisoner to a sniper who threatens to shoot the lead if they move. In Phone Booth, Farrell plays a PR guy who is as cuddly as a piranha. His caller is obviously seeking revenge against him personally. In Liberty Stands Still, Fiorentino plays Liberty, the wife of a notorious arms dealer. Her tormentor, played by Snipes, is seeking revenge for the loss of a child killed by one of Liberty's husbands' guns.

The only major differences are 1) we see Snipes throughout the movie, while Kiefer Sutherland, who plays the corresponding character in Phone Booth, is unseen, and 2) Snipes is using Fiorentino's character to get back at her husband, not seeking revenge against her personally.

Phone Booth is a much better movie, although on its own, Liberty Stands Still has some merit. But if you have to choose, see Phone Booth first or only.

The Lost Man is notable for several things, none of which includes it being a great example of cinema. Sidney Poitier's future wife, Joanna Shimkus. co-starred with him in this film. It's notable for being one of the first films of Poitier where he is trying to buck the system, rather than fit it. In most of his earlier films, he was always dealing with the problems of being a black man in a mostly white society, while living a respectable and useful existence. In this film, he plays a black revolutionary who is robbing "The Man's" bank in order to finance his group's activities. This group is a shadowy, seemingly monolithic entity that remains enigmatic throughout the film.

No one is horrible in this movie. It just doesn't stand up very well. If Poitier's black militant group had been more like the Black Panthers instead of what the Panther would have liked to have been, the movie might seem more of a product of its times. Instead, it comes like a black revolutionary fable. Interesting, but not compelling.