This Week in Blu-ray / DVD Releases: Get Hard, The Gunman, Danny Collins

By John Law

June 30th 2015, 12:07am

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

This Week: Gettin’ hard with Hart & Ferrell, Criterion dishes up a Nicholson classic, and Sean Penn needs more bullets in The Gunman.

► In its own weird way, GET HARD was like a throwback to ‘Blazing Saddles’ – an entire movie of questionable race and gay jokes, flipping the bird to political correctness. Will Ferrell is a wealthy hedge fund manager about to go to prison for embezzlement. To prepare, he hires a random black dude (Kevin Hart) who frightened him in a parking lot to toughen him up for jail, not realizing he’s never been to jail. You see, he just assumed because he’s black. Now picture a whole movie of that. Some big laughs – there always are when Ferrell and Hart are involved – and it ended up being one of Ferrell’s biggest non-Anchorman hits.

► Sean Penn tries going the Liam Neeson route with the action flick THE GUNMAN as a retired Special Forces soldier with memory problems who finds himself targeted eight years after walking away. Javier Bardem and Idris Elba try saving things but this dead weight thriller just continued Penn’s brutal slump since winning that Oscar for ‘Milk.’

► Inspired by a true story, DANNY COLLINS has Al Pacino as a hard-living folk singer who tries turning things around when he’s shown a 40-year-old letter written to him by John Lennon. Christopher Plummer plays his manager while Annette Bening helps him make amends. Directed by ‘Crazy Stupid Love’ screenwriter Dan Fogelman.

► Though he already had an Oscar nomination by this point (for ‘Easy Rider’), FIVE EASY PIECES was the first real glimpse of Jack Nicholson’s greatness. An understated 1970 classic directed by Bob Rafelson, it has Jack as a former piano prodigy who reluctantly brings his trailer trash pregnant girlfriend (Karen Black) home to Washington to meet his dying dad. Criterion special edition blu-ray includes a new digital transfer, commentary by Rafelson, and an essay by critic Kent Jones.

► Oh, those innocent years of 1982, when the future was going to be ruled by either robots or psychotic gangs. The trashy Italian cult classic 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS was the most blatant of many ‘Escape From New York’ rip-offs. When a beautiful woman flees home into the lawless streets of the Bronx – officially declared ‘No Man’s Land’ – her daddy sends a mercenary (Vic Morrow, in his last complete film) to take on the bike gangs and retrieve her. Blue Underground blu-ray includes commentary by director Enzo G. Castellaro, who made a sequel the following year called – I shit you not – ‘Escape From the Bronx.’

► Noah Baumbach gets in plenty of jabs in his moviemaking comedy/drama WHILE WE’RE YOUNG. Ben Stiller is a struggling middle-aged documentary filmmaker on shaky ground with his wife (Naomi Watts). But they find a new spark when they meet a young couple (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried) who are a fan of his movies and are making a documentary of their own. Until he realizes they’re taking ethical liberties while filming. An intriguing cast includes Charles Grodin and Adam Horovitz of the Beastie Boys.

► Matthew McConaughey, Michelle Rodriguez and Kid Rock are among the interviews in Derik Murray’s superb documentary I AM EVEL KNIEVEL. A fascinating portrait of a guy who should have died at least 20 times before he was 40, it’s never more gripping than when it looks at Knievel’s painful failures – which actually made him more of an icon. From Caesars Palace to Snake River Canyon, the old footage will still have your stomach in knots.

► The legend of the 47 Ronin inspires another flick no one saw with LAST KNIGHTS. Clive Owen is a warrior ordered to kill his own master (Morgan Freeman) by a corrupt minister. As he falls into a drunken depression over the next year, solders are assigned to watch over him in case he takes revenge. Which, being a Ronin movie, you already know will happen.

Also out this week: