Simply Perfect

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

This silly thriller has a pre-Bond Pierce Brosnan having a battle of wits with a deranged terrorist who has devised an unlikely bomb, in water, which reacts with stomach acid and causes people to explode. This is a pretty bad film, coming across as a weak thriller with a few horror elements combined, but it may be worth watching just for the unusual premise and the fact that you get to see lots of explosions and people on fire - a somewhat morbid fascination for the producers of this film.This is a film which never, not for one instant, engages the emotions. From start to finish we never get to care about any of the characters. Brosnan is a disappointment here, going through the thing on autopilot and uttering a few curses here and there when things go wrong. Ben Cross has to be one of the weakest bad guys I've seen in a film for a long time, and as for being threatening...you'd be better off watching one of the pros like Alan Rickman to see how it should be done. Ron Silver is wasted in a nothing role, and the only interesting thing about him is his death (he falls from a building and gets impaled on some railings - ouch!).The best bits of this film are the various moments where people explode. Typically some poor fool is usually standing at the edge of the explosion when this happens and gets ignited, so it's pretty sadistic. The victims also have their skin split open and their eyeballs fill with blood, so the gross-out factor is played for all it's worth. Not bad at all...otherwise, this is strictly predictable fare.

Generally I have discovered that terrorist movies where terrorists place bombs everywhere are quite dull. They have been so dull that I can't even record their names. This movie promised to be such a movie and as such I was slow in wanting to watch it. In fact I was quite surprised. The bad guys were middle eastern terrorists and as such it promised to be even more dull. Then the main character was having problems with his wife and I was wondering when the clichés would end.Well, the movie wasn't all that bad. Three senators were promising to supply weapons to some Middle Eastern nations, but there were three who rescinded on their promise and had the influence to block this. As such the terrorists wanted to pressure them to fall into line, and had devised an explosive which activates when mixed with acid. One expects bombs to be devices that are activated with timers, but this explosive is simply activated through a reaction with acid - especially stomach acid and as such is disguised as water and the subjects drink it, then explode.The catch in this movie is that the FBI agent who is investigating these explosions has a problem with one of the senators - his wife was caught having an affair with him. Thus the agent is torn between his animosity towards the senator and his duty to protect him. There are a number of suspicions that the agent has towards him, but he is generally treated as being a decent chap. In the end though it is realised that he is corrupt and his death is very deserving.This movie is okay. It isn't one to rave about, nor is it full of action packed explosions. It is something to simply watch and enjoy while waiting for a movie of a decent caliber to come along.

This film can only be misjudged these days. "Live Wire" comes from a time when coming up with the most showy ideas and putting into a movie were something fun for our eyes to see and for audiences enjoy it as if it was the coolest thing ever created. And it has Pierce Brosnan a little before Bond, already showing up some skills when it comes to be a great action hero and a sexy ladies man.He plays Danny O'Neill, a bomb disposal expert with lots of trouble to deal (which includes the alleged love affair his wife is having with a Senator) when a maniac (Ben Cross) decides to eliminate political targets by using a liquid explosive that is practically invisible to eyes. And one of the targets is...the Senator (played by Ron Silver). I haven't said much but I guess you already can form scenes, situations, establish connections and see how this is going to end. Ridiculously predictable to make you feel sick.The biggest achievement of "Live Wire" is seeing the use of the invisible explosive that is easily ingested and later causes a lot of damages and deaths. It doesn't end without some shock, very similar to a heart-attack, then the eyes start to get read and boom! The courtroom scene is terrifying, just to give an example. It's fun to watch. The cast is good, they are suitable and comfortable in their roles and they save the script of being a whole mess. Speaking of the script, this had one of the worst plot holes ever presented on screen that even a kid can easily detect: the fighting between Danny and Tony Plana's character in the fountain scene. How come such writer comes up in developing such a tense moment with these two fighting, alternately drowning each other in the explosive water but only one pays the price and blow up to pieces? How does one expect to get away with this? With all those obstacles this manages to be thrilling, funny (specially the robot trained to find bombs who has a crush on Brosnan's character or the whole city knowing about the infidelities of his wife) and there's reasonable action sequences. Highpoint of the movie: the duel in the house where Pierce has the chance to demonstrate he knows everything about bombs, improvising explosive devices to kill the bad guys. Goofy, relatively dumb but who cares, this is good. Don't take it too seriously and you'll see what's so good about it. 7/10

I do not like Ron Silver. I don't like his politics and I don't like his characters. When he gets it, I am happy. This movie made me very happy for two reasons: he has the absolutely worst haircut in the world, so I get to laugh at him throughout, and he gets his just desserts.He plays a sleazy Senator who is on the take and screwing with Danny O'Neill's (Pierce Brosnan) wife (Lisa Eilbacher). O'Neill is an FBI agent specializing in bombs. Not a great job by Brosnan, but the bomb in the film is one of the best parts as it is an original and gruesome device.Did I mention that Silver gets what's coming to him? Yes!