'Bandits' wig out on heists and hair
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What do you get when you cross Butch and Sundance with "Jules and Jim" and the Hair Club for Men? You get "Bandits" (MGM, PG-13) with Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton and enough rugs to give Aladdin a nervous breakdown.
Director Barry Levinson's unremarkable but enjoyable buddy crime-comedy casts Bruce and Billy Bob as "Sleepover Bandits" — polite crooks who spend the night at bank managers' houses and go to work with them in the mornings for mellow heists. Their MO includes a cornucopia of wigs over the hair systems the boys are sporting for the film. Cate Blanchett plays a frustrated redhead who ditches a life of housewifery to join them, then gets romantic with both of them.
It's Billy Bob's, uh, part as a nattering hypochondriac that gets the laughs. He mentions his inexplicable real-life phobia of antique furniture, and flops on a barroom floor in an imagined seizure as Bruce and Cate slow-dance around his flailing limbs.
Not too hair-raising: "Thirteen Ghosts" (Warner, R), the overdone remake of gimmick-king William Castle's 1960 cheapie. The star is a nifty glass-and-metal clockwork-like mansion whose cogs and compartments imprison gruesome souls captured by ghost-hunting tycoon F. Murray Abraham. F.'s broke, widowed nephew (Tony Shaloub) inherits the place and brings the remaining family, including "American Pie's" Shannon Elizabeth.
Lots of noise and make-up effects ensue, but few real scares. The DVD includes back-story vignettes on the ghosts.
The cable remake of schlock producer Samuel Z. Arkoff's 1956 "She Creature" (Columbia TriStar, R) isn't half bad. Carla ("Spy Kids") Gugino plays an early-20th-century carnival fraud who bonds with a topless, carnivorous captive mermaid. You won't get that from Uncle Walt.
Nor did you get the monster in 1980 when Disney released its less-than-classic chiller "Watcher in the Woods" (PG), starring Bette Davis in one of her final roles. But Anchor Bay's special edition DVD includes long-sought footage of the laughable thing and its cheesy world.
Since we're dredging up so much old stuff, the Re-release of the Week is a slam-bang special edition of 1995's "The Usual Suspects" (MGM, R). The dark, character-driven caper flick has already been out in two DVD editions. Whoever Keyser Soze really is, he wants your cash.
This one has an informative new audio commentary with director Bryan ("X-Men") Singer and Oscar-winning screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie, and one with film editor John Ottman. Featurettes shed light on Soze's mystery, Benicio Del Toro's mumbling as Fenster, and the famous police lineup scene that brings the crooks together. Ottman had to piece together outtakes for it because the actors kept busting up. Turns out Del Toro was shooting off more than his mouth.
Getting back to hairlines, MGM's "Bull Durham" (1988, R) special edition is almost as good. The baseball classic features an entertaining commentary with stars Kevin Costner and Tim Robbins — at a time when few big stars will bother with those — and a second one with writer/director Ron Shelton.
But in a week of good audio commentaries, the one on Jackie Chan's 1978 "Drunken Master" (Columbia, not rated) is the best. The movie is nowhere as good as the sequel, "Drunken Master 2" a k a "The Legend of Drunken Master," but the geek chatter from two martial-arts film experts (one of them a bit of an egomaniac) is priceless, Grasshopper.
Getting back to bandits, don't miss "3:10 to Yuma" (Columbia, not rated), the outstanding 1957 Western based on an Elmore Leonard story. Van Heflin ("Shane") is a broke and emasculated rancher who takes $200 for the suicidal task of escorting a charming stagecoach robber (Glenn Ford, never cooler) to justice. If you liked "High Noon," you know a man's got to do what a man's got to do — even if that means wrangling himself a wild critter to put on his head.
Other new and re-released titles this week: Director Whit Stillman's "Barcelona" (Warner, 1994, PG-13); "Breakout" with Charles Bronson (Columbia, 1975, PG). Something Weird Video's exploitation double-bill, "Hitch Hike to Hell" and "Kidnapped Coed" (Image, R), includes some wonderfully disturbing archival shorts warning kids to beware of strangers. And three vintage "Vamps, Vixens and Virgins" features from Kino, all pre-ratings: "A Fool There Was" with Theda Bara (1915); Cecil B. DeMille's "Manslaughter" (1922) and "The Cheat" (1915); and "Parisian Love" (1925) and "Down to the Sea in Ships" (1922) with Clara Bow.
Mark Rahner: 206-464-8259 or mrahner@seattletimes.com.