Phoenix

"Phoenix" is a hidden gem. I've seen it over five times. For some reason, it never gets old.

Harry (Liotta) is a cop with a gambling problem. He can't stop. He owes money to "Chicago" (Tom Noonan) and he if he doesn't pay up, he dies. Harry's partners Henshaw (LaPaglia) and Nutter (Baldwin) are dirty and are becoming "collectors" to bookie Louie (Giancarlo Esposito). Harry needs money fast and the only way is to rob Louie. Everybody goes along with the plan until there's a double cross.

There's not a lot of action in the movie until the end, but it's not needed. Ray Liotta is excellent in the movie. But the supporting cast steals it from him. LaPaglia is fantastic as Henshaw. He makes the character come alive. Baldwin, Esposito, Kari Wuhrer, and Anjelica Huston all get their time to shine.

"Phoenix" is a gritty crime movie that Liotta and LaPaglia fans must see.

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This is one of those films that somehow falls under the radar and languishes undeservedly in obscurity. In a fairly convoluted plot, Ray Liotta plays an honest cop with a gambling addiction who comes up with a plan to rob a loan shark in order to pay off his debts. He enlists the aid of three of his colleagues (Daniel Baldwin, Jeremy Piven and the unappreciated Anthony LaPaglia, who gives a film-stealing performance here) unaware that one is sleeping with another's wife and is under investigation.

Although the story unfolds a little too slowly at times, writer Eddie Richey's script has a lot of depth, lending some diversity to a bunch of what could otherwise have been genre-stereotypical tough guys. The quality of the writing is high, with some off-the-wall dialogue and unique insight into such diverse subjects as King Kong, Three-on-a-match, Looney Tunes cartoons, and Dostoyevsky's gambling addiction. Brit director Danny Cannon creates some arresting images (an alternately sun-scorched and rain-sodden Phoenix in monsoon season) and manages to create loads of atmosphere despite often selecting extreme close-ups to emphasise the thoughts and emotions of the characters. There are no weak performances but, together with LaPaglia, the ever-dependable Ray Liotta stands out in the lead role.

The ending is probably weaker than it should be because it takes a little too long for all the strands to be neatly tied, but this is still an impressive piece of entertainment that deserves to be better known.

Sometimes I question why one movie gets theatrical distribution while another does not. To be fair, I think things generally swing the right way. Movies that call video their home do it for sometimes a much deserved reason: they stink. This is not the case with Phoenix however.

It's a breath of fresh air to take a chance on a direct-to-video quickie and have it turn out this good. The story is tight and look at all the recognizable faces in the cast. That helps me out. The whole police officer-gambling junky angle is different - Liotta as the lead carries it off well and Phoenix is just all around better than most cop boilers I've seen in the last six months. It sure ain't lacking in clichés of the genre, but that has come to be expected. Phoenix is just a well filmed, nicely acted piece of work from director Danny Cannon who makes amends for the theatrical bomb Judge Dredd. Worth a look on a slow night or for Liotta fans.

I was expecting straight-to-video fodder here the kind you watch stupefied because it happened to be on late at night. It revealed itself to be a taut little thing that tries to create its own world.

It was caught in the Tarantino craze so we have small talk about cartoons, movies and music peppered throughout. It has, eventually, a heist in animal masks gone awry that makes poor sense and cookie cutter resolutions where we drive around to settle scores with a bunch of characters that were left hanging so that it's all neat by the end.

For a while it manages to strike some spark, most of it in the first half.

A man who we understand is trying to be upstanding while everyone around him is fickle, but he has a blind spot for gambling. It's not about the money, for him it seems to be a warped way of measuring himself up against the universe, challenging the fates to pave whatever way they have in store so he can have a mandate to abide by. He makes a mess, owing everyone in town, but won't take the easy way out because a bet is a bet; opportunity for self-worth.

So when the fates shuffle the deck and he's dealt the role of hapless stooge who loses everything, he goes through it with stoic persistence to settle debts. Ray Liotta is as good as he was for Scorsese in a similar twitchy role as fates conspire to crush him.

It's no Asphalt Jungle where the heist is the ritual that opens us from anxiety to dreamlike visions, but it beats Reservoir Dogs.

Noir Meter: 2/4 | Neo-noir or post noir? Neo

Once in a while you come along a movie that, even though it is already several years old, you have never heard of before. "Phoenix" is such a movie. The only reason why I gave it a try and taped it is because there is a famous actor in it who I usually like to see playing (Ray Liotta) and because I hoped that the story might be something nice (most of the time I like crime movies). And because I really didn't know what to expect from it, it's only good that I didn't see that cover photo first. That ugly thing doesn't really give a good impression of what this movie is like. When watching that picture, my first impression is that this will be a typical action flick, Stalone or Jean-Claude Vandamme style, while in reality that certainly isn't the case.

"Phoenix" tells the story of Harry Collins, a cop whose life isn't exactly going all too well. He's a hopeless gambler who only loses a lot of money and never wins anything. But that's not how he sees it. He considers gambling not as something to make money with, he sees it as as an honorable tradition which he has inherited from his father. He gambles on anything he can possibly think of and he really sees a hidden tip in everything: the name of a girl, a conversation with some people who he considers to be lucky... Pretty soon he has a lot of debts with a loan shark named 'Chicago', which he can't possibly pay. When his colleagues suggest that they could arrest or even kill the man, he is shocked. There is no honor in doing such a thing, but from one thing comes another and soon Collins and his colleagues find themselves in a downward spiral of corruption, deceit, murder...

A movie with Ray Liotta in it is always worth watching, no doubt about that. Even a movie that isn't that good can be saved by his appearance. But this movie didn't need to be saved at all. This was actually a very nice film with some well-developed characters and a nice storyline. I might even say that this entire movie was a big surprise to me, as it kept my attention from the first moment until the last. And not only Ray Liotta is worth mentioning. Anthony LaPaglia, Daniel Baldwin, Jeremy Piven,... all did a very nice job in this movie. Still, in the end I'm not surprised why so little people know this movie. OK, it has a cast with some famous people in it like Anjelica Huston, Jeremy Piven and Ray Liotta, but this is also the work of the same director who gave us movies like "Judge Dredd" and "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer". I'm really wondering what made that man decide to do this project in the first place and where he ever found so much excellent inspiration. Anyway, there is one thing that I'm absolutely sure of: I will definitely recommend it to everybody who wants to hear it. I give this movie at least a 7.5/10.