IR Film Review: SHOWDOWN AT THE GRAND [Shout]
"Showdown At The Grand" is an odd duck in many ways because it tries to be an ode to old time heroes and the cinema experience but the story it tells doesn't really have a sense of its own stakes despite a heartfelt performance by Terrence Howard. The reality is that the connection to his theater doesn't feel magical. The family story of its earning makes sense but without say a flashback to him as a boy, it doesn't carry weight (as much as he yearns to imbue his performance with one). The film in this way is very insular because the dialogue and its setting doesn't allow for the branching out of impact. It seems mostly that the filming was down in an old theater and maybe a ranch or two out in the Valley. Of all the participants, it is Dolph Lundgren as the aging action star who doesn't know how to speak in front of people who fares the best. His perspective, and playing a bad ass in the flashbacks that seem to be throwbacks to 70s exploitation movies mixed with westerns, seems to pay respect to Tarantino, who in "The Movie Critic" should do something similar but not.
Lundgren's character at the end retreats into tropes (again because the script doesn't really have that resolute nature in what it could be) but simply because that is where the script (which is meandering anyway) takes him. Howard, always able to be menacing and dark and yet has an empathy is not (as the character) where he needs to be. This is not "Last Action Hero" which had problems of its own bridging a similar premise. The aspect of bad guys trying to take over the theater has no merit per se because it is not clear what makes it so valuable. If this was most darkly tinged (as in if it was all in Howard's mind), that would be interesting. His friend (played by John Savage) who runs the pawn shop next door figures in but again there are no stakes. If Savage was actually Howard's therapist (and Lundgren was a figment of his Id or imagination) that would create a whole different view. Add on to that a newbie ( Amanda Righetti) with a love of cinema that holds the heir apparent and keys to Howard's castle of cinema has a trope that could be played but is not given a role that could have adjusted the narrative in a better direction. "Showdown At The Grand" is a mess of a movie with perhaps a good idea hidden within in its ranks and some talent actors but without any real stakes or place to go. D
By Tim Wassberg
