The Hire (BMW Short Films)

Has anyone else seen the eight short films made for BMW that were recently released on DVD as The Hire? The films and their directors are:

The Hostage by John Woo
The Ticker by Joe Carnahan
Beat the Devil by Tony Scott
Ambush by John Frankenheimer
Chosen by Ang Lee
The Follow by Wong Kar-Wai
The Star by Guy Ritchie
The Powder Keg by Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu

BMW had these films made for commercial reasons of course, and although their cars play an important role in all the films, these shorts easily rise above the level of commercials. The films range from around 7 to 11 minutes of length with most averaging about 8. Most of the stories in the films revolve around some sort of chase or race, and as a result the some of them feel a bit too similar. Nevertheless pretty much all of them are entertaining. In fact, the only one that Kong didn't like was the film by Guy Ritchie. Why in the heck does he insist on using Madonna in his work now? She sucks at acting! Oh well. Surprisingly enough Tony Scott's film about James Brown wanting to renegotiate his contract with the devil is one of the better films of the series. The best film of the bunch, however, is, without a doubt, The Powder Keg by Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu. In a few short minutes he is able to blend social commentary, tension, action, and sorrow into his film about a war photographer's race to escape from a ravaged country.

If you get the chance to check these films out, do so. If you live in the United States you can order the DVD from www.bmwfilms.com for less than $4! (It's completely free if you own a BMW vehicle.) Most are nothing more than entertaining, but that should be good enough reason.

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Kong's Reviews:
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I saw The Hostage. It was rather okay, and it managed to squeeze a somewhat decent plotline in less than 10 minutes. I heard the rest are similar, so I'll go DL 'em eventually.

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I watched these short films about a year or so ago by downloading them from the BMW site.

Really enjoyed the ones I saw and absolutely adored Clive Owen (Croupier) in the John Frankenheimer segement. Unfortunately I had my old computer crash and all the files were lost. Really would like to get a copy in Oz maybe I will order a Region 1 copy.

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******"The Majority Is Always Wrong" Steve Mcqueen in Enemy Of The People******

i think i saw 'the hostage' back when i was staying with mairosu a few weeks ago [you got me to sit still and watch it, no?], but i'm not a fan of woo and my response was i guess predictably bored. i must confess that it lost my attention by the time it ended, and consequently i dont remember much except that it had a car driving around, probably at a high velocity.
on the up side i guess it's better to be short and boring than long and boring.

For the most part these shorts are efforts in style and only give off a visceral level of entertainment. Quite a few of the films are just a variation on a theme really. Woo's, Carnahan's, Ritchie's, and Frankenheimer's are the more chase/race oriented of the bunch, and the other's (except for Ang Lee's which was a bit bland) are more interesting because they don't rely as much on the obvious idea of the car chase. So, if you didn't care for Woo's effort there will certainly be a couple others that won't strike your fancy as well, but there are also a few that you will probably like too.

They aren't movies you can't do without seeing, but you should really try to check our Inarritu's short. It's really quite good.

alright kong, thanks for the breakdown. at the very least i'll see if i can dl the ones you mentioned when i get back to school [and will probably have a faster connection.]

Nice try. You came into the house while I was watching and saw the lat 2 minutes. I didn't force you to sit and watch it

damn, you're right and now i feel like an ass for knocking another john woo masterpiece that i didnt even see fully, but the point remains: they were the most excruciating two minutes of my life, i reckon....