I have access to a preposterously large number of movies. I’ve decided to take a random number generator, pick a movie, watch it, and write about it. Today’s film: Alex Cross (2012)
Last post was my first attempt at this feature. I promised myself that this would be an ongoing source of content and ensure I kept this entire thing going. I didn't manage to keep that promise, but here, today, I will pick up where I left off, commit myself to this project and create an ongoing stream of insightful and clever commentary on the world of cinema.
Anyway, let's talk about Alex Cross.
Ah crap.
The fact that I'm starting with this mild nothing of a movie is proof of my dedication to the behind-the-scenes conceptual framework that you don't see. You don't know what movie popped up on the list. You don't see the numbers generated, the complete list, what is playing on the TV in my apartment at any given moment. It could be anything! I could just lie to you and say it's something that is much more interesting and a lot easier to talk about. Some of them I might talk about anyway, because there's value in talking about ‘80s action, the way sequels are reactions to earlier films, and how monster movies have their strongest moments when the monsters are something else. But for the sake of conceptual purity, here's Alex Cross.
Directed by Rob Cohen, best known for launching the Fast and the Furious series and ending The Mummy, Alex Cross has all the panache of a Law and Order season finale. Matthew Fox gives a delightfully weird performance as an assassin with an easily bruised ego. Tyler Perry - branching out from his day job making Madea movies - puts in an incredibly bland performance as Alex Cross, the know-it-all detective from James Patterson’s series of novels. Cadillac plays the villain’s car, which can be tracked using OnStar and even gets its own theme song.
I don't want the police to track my car without my consent. I don't care if it's driven by a crazed assassin.
I'm already struggling to think of interesting things to say. But let's keep the attempt going.
Jean Reno is there, though he seems over-qualified for the tiny role he’s given. Cicely Tyson shows up to be Cross’ difficult mother, playing it so broad it might as well have been Perry’s Madea character. The rest of the female characters exist only to get murdered - one is even pregnant, which adds a note of bleakness. Edward Burns plays the other detective, a role so forgettable that I didn’t even remember his name (Detective Tommy Kane) until looking it up just now - seriously, the villainous Cadillac is a more interesting character. The climax is in a really neat crumbling theatre/parking garage - but the set itself is more interesting than any of the action on it.
That’s all I’ve got on this movie. Do I have to talk about Rob Cohen now?
To be blunt, according to his daughter Valkyrie Weather and actor Asia Argento, he’s a true piece of shit. This is light entertainment, so I’m not going to go into the allegations - which are incredibly awful - but this is why you haven’t heard from Cohen for a while. His last film was 2018’s Hurricane Heist, and that’s probably going to be the end of Cohen as someone in the film industry.
This makes it difficult to talk about him in the context of a piece of light entertainment like this. I wanted to talk about the unique position of the Rob Cohens of the film industry, and how they’re not really a thing anymore. But then there’s that stink of assault that hangs over everything he’s done. Can I talk about these lighter aspects without feeling weird?
Because Cohen is one of those rare directors who hasn’t done much interesting but still reliably made movies. Until the allegations came out, every three-or-so years he would have a movie in theatres, it was usually forgettable. He had very few massive hits, though there were some - the most notable being The Fast and the Furious, which eventually evolved into something wildly different without his help. He directed some real bombs, and that didn’t seem to affect him - Stealth was a disaster and then he was given more money to make The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, the worst film in that series. He was just there, making easily forgotten mediocrity. Half the time people didn’t even watch it.
When you look at his career you might wonder how he still had one. Most directors wouldn’t get a franchise film after a bomb like Stealth. While there are still largely mediocre action movies out in the world - often on Netflix - most of them are placed firmly within a franchise. In a world where Cohen wasn’t a predator, would he have been given the reins of a Marvel movie? And would he have wanted it? Say what you will about the rest of his career, he did seem to have a lot more control over the finished product than the average Marvel director gets. But even as we might yearn for a day when a mid-budget movie could get a wide release, Alex Cross reminds us that it wasn’t always a magical time, movies like this could still clutter up the multiplex.
When a movie is panned, I get curious. When a movie bombs, I am intrigued. Sometimes these failures are entertaining messes, intriguing failures, and sometimes even secret successes ripe for rediscovery. That’s why Alex Cross made it on the big list. But it’s none of those things, it’s just a forgettable movie that nobody has thought about in years. It’ll kick around on a server of a streaming service for a while before just disappearing into the ether. Nobody will say “remember Alex Cross?” If someone goes “remember when Tyler Perry played a detective?” people will think of Gone Girl - even though he played a lawyer in that film. And it will justifiably be forgotten, lost to the mists of time. It’s not a forgotten gem, it’s not an overlooked masterpiece.
It’s also incredibly hard to write about.