Sunday, April 15, 2012

FILM: Tribeca Film Festival 2012 - Films Ripe for Remake

This is a horrible, horrible thing I'm about to do, but I know as well as you do that Hollywood has inherently become a bastardization of contemporary literature and foreign films. Maybe it won't be next year or the year after that, but at some point in the future, a producer will get a hold of one of these indies and try to remake it for American or broader audiences. I'm just giving you the heads up, because they're that interesting. Looks like they've already remade Babygirl, an urban drama about a young girl who's forced to be a mother to her own mom, very much like Eva Mendes' upcoming indie Girl in Progress. Here's what else the festival has to offer:

Graceland (Philippines)
Plot: Family man Marlon Villar is the longtime chauffeur of Manuel Chango, a notoriously corrupt Filipino politician. One day as he and his daughter accompany his boss' preteen daughter home, their car is ambushed and, in the ensuing confusion, the wrong girl is kidnapped and held for ransom. Determined to rescue his child, but trapped between the competing motives of Chango and the kidnappers, the unassuming driver's life takes a sudden, terrifying turn that propels him into a horrifying downward spiral. As events unravel, Marlon, Chango, and their families become entangled in a game of deceit and betrayal that will leave no one innocent.
Remake: A father frantically searches for his daughter and goes up against criminal elements. Doesn't that sound like something Liam Neeson would coast through? He's, of course, reached his quota, but so many other leading men could easily fill this role, from Tom Cruise to Denzel Washington.

Headshot (France/Thailand)
Plot: When honest cop Tul seizes a drug den belonging to a powerful politician, his good days are numbered. Refusing to be paid off to keep the case quiet, Tul is set up for a murder he didn't commit and lands in prison, where he is offered a job by a philosopher who argues that evil must be weeded out if good is to survive. Out of prison and deeply disillusioned, he takes the job as a Robin Hood-esque hit man, targeting the corrupt and powerful in Thai society. After a job goes wrong and he is shot in the head, he wakes up to find that he sees everything upside down. Suddenly, nothing is what it seems, and Tul must exact revenge according to his own moral code.
Remake: Come on! You know you can totally see Jason Statham sprinting through this trailer like a jack rabbit on drugs.

Jackpot (Norway)
Plot: Terrified, bloodied, and clutching a shotgun, Oscar Svendsen awakes and emerges from underneath a dead body. He finds himself in the midst of a crime scene in what used to be a respectable strip joint, surrounded by corpses and staring down the barrel of a gun pointed at him by a detective with the National Criminal Investigation Service. Naturally, Oscar is taken into custody, and during his interrogation he timidly relates a bloody story of betrayal, murder, and a soccer lottery prize that was meant to be shared with three ex-con co-workers. But is this the whole story?
Remake: This just screams "Guy Ritchie production." He just loves throwing a bunch of buffoons into a zany criminal situation filled with enough twists and turns to make you feel like the movie is in a different language.

Sleepless Night (France)
Plot: Vincent is a well-respected cop, as well as a devoted husband and father. But below the surface of his idyllic life, Vincent is involved with a very dangerous group of gangsters and drug dealers. When Vincent and his partner are caught stealing a massive quantity of cocaine from a powerful drug lord, the darker side of Vincent's life threatens to destroy his family and career. In a race against the clock, Vincent must return the drugs in order to save his son's life. This proves to be easier said than done, as the world around him seems to conspire to keep Vincent from doing what is necessary to protect his son.
Remake: One of young Hollywood's up-and-comers could easily pull this off, whether it's Joseph Gordon Levitt or Channing Tatum.

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