favorite renny harlin flick?

blessingindisguise · Post by **blessingindisguise** » Tue Sep 14, 2010 2:57 am

to my knowledge he hasn't really been discussed on this forum much and im fully aware cutthroat island was one of the biggest box office bombs besides pluto nash. i'm wondering though what flicks of his people like here if any.

die hard 2-solid follow up. lack of hans gruber hurt though.

cliffhanger-decent flick, big hit, but a laughable plot. a mountain climber involved in a huge heist right. i can see why jim carrey parodied this in ace ventura.

driven-can't believe he was involved in this dud. this days of thunder minus romance dreck.

exorcist the beginning-pretty good imo. some good graphic scenes and a few hokey lines at the end that brought it down some but it was alright.

the long kiss goodnight-remember the one with samuel and geena davis a fun flick that was alright. well received critically.

nightmare on elm street 4-not touching the first 3 and had some lame parts where freddy thought he was a damn comedian as opposed to supernatural boogeyman but it was alright.

the adventures of ford fairlane-while i'm a fan of dice-clay's vulgarity this was b movie material trying to captilize off his 15 min. of fame. not a good film but some entertaining jokes and one liners. can't believe wayne newton got second billing.

the covenant-once again not a good flick. got obliterated by critics but yieled profit after marketing and production.

i never saw the cleaner despite the great leading cast or 12 rounds cause john cena provided too much skepticism. Harlin's next project Georgia shows alot of promise.

Any thoughts on this guy's work.

Spartan · Post by **Spartan** » Tue Sep 14, 2010 4:42 am

I would pick Die Hard 2. I do like the third movie more though and of course it goes without saying, the first Die Hard is a fucking classic and the best of the lot.

Some other Harlin flicks worth mentioning:

Prison - good 80's horror flick with Viggo Mortensen
Deep Blue Sea - great shark movie

Comedy Quaddafi · Post by **Comedy Quaddafi** » Tue Sep 14, 2010 6:23 am

Is Cleaner worth anything?

Mindhunters is pretty weak and I didn't like the Exorcist Prequel. Fun trivia, they redid the whole movie with him after deciding Paul Schraeders effort was too talky, not just certain shots. I think that's a pretty rare course of action.

Cliffhanger is his best from what I've seen. Loved Long Kisss but I have no idea how I would feel about 10 years later. He happened to marry Geena D as I recall.

Sankofa · Post by **Sankofa** » Tue Sep 14, 2010 7:09 am

Long Kiss Goodnight

Mercuthio · Post by **Mercuthio** » Tue Sep 14, 2010 7:11 am

Spartan wrote:Deep Blue Sea - great shark movie

you ate my bird...

Versive · Post by **Versive** » Tue Sep 14, 2010 4:25 pm

I never knew the same guy directed all of those. Just checked his IMDB... how does some Finnish director all of a sudden get handed the reins to the Nightmare on Elmstreet and Die Hard.

Long Kiss Goodnight is definitely the best.

That famous scene from Deep Blue Sea though...

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Om12IKHRego?fs ... ram><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Om12IKHRego?fs ... n_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

legend.

Spartan · Post by **Spartan** » Tue Sep 14, 2010 4:43 pm

Versive wrote:I never knew the same guy directed all of those. Just checked his IMDB... how does some Finnish director all of a sudden get handed the reins to the Nightmare on Elmstreet and Die Hard.

The answer to this was mentioned on the recent ANOES documentary, Never Sleep Again. Harlin managed to get the very low-budget horror movie, Prison made. While still living rough in LA, he basically begged New Line Cinema's Bob Shaye to make the next Elm Street film. After pestering him enough times, he managed to get The Dream Master made and it was the most successful movie in the entire franchise and a big box office hit at that time. Harlin managed to get his foot through the door in Hollywood and from there he went on to direct Die Hard 2 as the new wunderkid in town.

ThaJim2 · Post by **ThaJim2** » Tue Sep 14, 2010 8:01 pm

Great thread for a very underrated director. Have to go with Die Hard 2 though it appears I love this movie much more than others do. Deep Blue Sea though is also great and the idea of supersmart sharks is awesome. Long Kiss Goodnight is also fun as hell.

Henny The Dry · Post by **Henny The Dry** » Wed Sep 15, 2010 11:56 am

haha, i'm finnish so i have seen pretty much all of Harlins work.

Die Hard 2 is easily his most solid work as a director, but my pick would be his first movie Born American from 86.

it's low budget action movie made in finland targeted for international market. It was a fucking epic flop, that actually got banned in Finland for it's racism against russia.

Chuck Norris was signed to do the film, but dropped out. Instead his SON plays the main role.

The film is about 3 douchebag american students whom travel to Finland for a holiday (lol). They get drunk and illegally cross the russian border (lol x2). Soon they are in big trouble with the russian army and super evil mobsters.

Lot of shitty acting and action. Awesome 80's stereotypes about the russian people and their goverment. Laughable plot-twists. My favourite scenes includes our american heroes basically blowing up a whole village and a underground chess game in a russian prison that is played with humans!!

Versive · Post by **Versive** » Wed Sep 15, 2010 12:17 pm

THAT LOOKS FUCKING EPIC

Comedy Quaddafi · Post by **Comedy Quaddafi** » Wed Sep 15, 2010 2:04 pm

^Yep. Gotta watch it sometime.

drizzle · Post by **drizzle** » Sun Sep 19, 2010 8:09 pm

henny that shit looks great

i'd go with dh2, long kiss and deep blue sea as the top 3