The Hitcher (2007)

I really liked the original Hitcher. Rutger Hauer was a truly frightening man, someone who has successfully scared me off of picking up even the most docile looking hitchhiker. The remake wasn’t nearly as scary, but I liked it a lot anyway.

The plot is pretty close to the original, only this time you have a boyfriend and girlfriend who are traveling across New Mexico for spring break rather than a young guy driving a car across country where he meets a waitress who is dragged into the Hitcher’s cross fire. The two kids pick up Sean Bean, a crazed, sadistic killer who torments them as they flee his murderous intent. The New Mexico police, despite how much the two kids try to convince them otherwise, suspect them of actually being the killers.

It’s pretty scary in parts, with lots of blood. I liked the two kids, Sophia Bush and Zachary Knighton, and Sean Bean was good as John Ryder, the crazy hitchhiking serial killer. The blank desert landscape of New Mexico is perfect for the story and it only helps increase the isolation the two kids feel and it only heightens the tension.

This version is nowhere as good as the original, but if you can separate the two and not hold this one up to that classic, you can find this one to be a pretty fun horror flick.

Rating: 4 Purrs for my favorite Sophia Bush and the beautiful New Mexico landscape

The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld

I am a huge murder mystery buff. I love mysteries, highbrow mysteries by Grand Dames like Agatha Christie or Anne Perry, silly serial mysteries like The Jane Austen series by Stephanie Barron, or even, sometimes, begrudgingly the whole time, mystery thrillers like James Patterson or Dean Koontz. The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld belongs in the first category. While I am sure he would rather not be called a “Grand Dame,” Rubenfled’s book is not just a mystery; it is literature.

Rubenfeld bases his book on Sigmund Freud’s first and only visit to America in 1909 and his comment that Americans were “savages." Despite his success while in America, he always talked of his visit as being an unhappy or traumatic one. From this kernel of an idea, Rubenfeld builds the story of a murder and the attempted murder of two socialites. While on their tour of New York, Freud and his apprentice Jung are called in to help diagnose why the young girl who escaped (but heavily beaten while being tied up in a very S&M fashion) is suddenly unable to talk. Our main character, Stratham Younger, is a disciple of Freud and is called in to help diagnose Nora, the fortunate (or unfortunate as her parents believe) girl. The police want to know what happened, and when Nora recovers her voice, Younger must put it all together to help catch the man who attacked Nora. He becomes his own detective, digging deeply into the high society relationships of Nora and her family to discover a twisted tale of sexual perversion, family relationships, and of course, blue-blooded intrigue.

While there are several subplots that do distract a bit from the meat of the story, I found them to be interesting and unexpected commentary on the New York or New England area of the US in the early 1900’s. The young society doctor is earnest enough and troubled when he feels his affection for Nora could get in the way of his treatment of her. Nora is a deeply convoluted and troubled girl who is wrapped up so much in her own lies it gets difficult to understand her motives after awhile, but when you see what is really going on in the story, you can understand why she is so confused and confusing. It is heavily mired in the interpretation of sex and sexual relationships of Freud, all of which seem very masculine to me. Of course, I have never studied that much psychology to really get into Freud, so maybe that is just my interpretation.

Overall, The Interpretation of Murder is a good first outing. It’s much better than some first novels I have read, and the mystery keeps you guessing quite a bit until the end. There are sufficient red herrings and twists and turns to keep you turning pages, and when you are finished with the book, you do feel like you picked up a bit of the flavor of what life might have been like in New York then. I have read better, but not often enough for me to lower this one to the second rung of the mystery ladder.

Rating: 4 Purrs for an engrossing and complex mystery with a bit of unexpected but a little disturbing kink.

Bandidas

Bandidas was a fun little movie about two women, one a spoiled rich girl, Salma Hayek, and a poor farm girl, Penelope Cruz, who end up running for their lives and robbing banks to get back at the men who crossed them and are terrorizing the people who live in their town. It’s not a lot of substance, but it is fun for a rainy afternoon.

Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz are obviously having a great time playing Sara and Maria. They pick off of each other, play up their lines, and complement each other really well. Both characters grow a bit in the film, but of course, there isn’t a whole lot of character development. It is a comedy/action movie, after all. Steve Zahn is quite fun as the agent sent to find the two bank robbers. Each lady tries to win him over, and he is obviously having a lot of fun seeing which one will win. Dwight Yoakam is Jackson, the murderous henchman who is after the bandidas. He was the only downside for me. His character was just way too much. Of course, I must say that I get the willies whenever I see him after seeing him in Sling Blade. He just makes my skin crawl.

If you are looking for a fun, light-hearted movie staring two beautiful women playing female Robin Hoods, corsets included, check out Bandidas. It is worth a rental.

Rating: 3 1/2 Purrs for fun, a surprise part for Sam Shepard, and two very lovely women shooting it up

Ronin by Frank Miller with Lynn Varley

I like Frank Miller, but I have mixed feelings about Ronin. I think maybe I thought I was getting into something else when I picked it up. I thought it was going to be parallel story lines, one with Ronin of 13^th century Japan, and a modern dystopic New York, but instead the two stories were meshed into one. Then, the story just felt too much like The Matrix (which I know was released afterwards, but it did affect how I saw the graphic novel).

Ronin is about Billy, a young paraplegic who works in a 21^st century utopia, a perfect bubble society. One day the demon Agat comes blasting out of the past, with the spirit of the Ronin on his tail. Ronin possesses and transforms Billy and goes after Agat, blazing a trail of destruction through the dystopic New York.

I wouldn’t count Ronin as my favorite Frank Miller. I loved Sin City but Ronin just didn’t wow me the way his other work has. I’m not sure why, but the story just didn’t seem up to par.

Rating: 3 Purrs because it’s Frank Miller.