LIVE FROM THE COUCH / Greg Walton

PUTZ N’ RUINS

Casing The Bank Job and The Ruins.

Jason Statham is a putz. One or two bad films you can chalk up to a bad agent, bad script or bad karma. But when you knowingly take a role in an Uwe Boll film (In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale) you’ve essentially announced to the world, “I don’t give a shit!” Lucky for Statham that The Bank Job (Lionsgate, 110 min) came along, giving him another chance to polish his head and sharpen his British slang in a manner more becoming of the star of Snatch. Based on the true story of a gang of amateur thieves duped into retrieving compromising photos of a British royal from a safe deposit box, director Roger Donaldson spits out characters like Guy Ritchie (minus the quirky names) and sprinkles in enough of the ‘ol ultraviolence to keep the kids entertained. But deep down he’s a “substance over style” sort of guy, so it’s no surprise the film’s focus is on how the plan comes together (and subsequently falls apart) rather than on the Hong Kong tomfoolery of Statham’s Transporter saga. It’s only one rung up the ladder, but here’s hoping the British Bruce Willis can keep the momentum going. Extras on Blu-ray include a commentary, deleted scenes and facts on the real robbery which went down pretty close to how it was portrayed in the film.

Then there’s Scott Smith, whose first novel, A Simple Plan, was a solid piece of neo-noir literature, receiving almost universal acclaim. His long-awaited follow-up, The Ruins, took more than a decade to write and jumped immediately to the best-seller list.

Did I mention it was about a man-eating plant that sucks the life juices out of some teenagers in the jungle?

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But should it really take anyone 12 years to write a Stephen King knock-off that King himself could have vomited out in an afternoon? The Ruins read like a bloated screenplay. So it’s no surprise that the author himself turned it into one for first-time director Carter Smith, casting relatively unknown actors (with great abs and tits) in what is essentially a survival story with monster-movie tendencies. The performances are strong and the set-up is suitably ominous. But once the foursome gets stuck atop their pyramid prison, the story becomes a grim, humorless endurance-test, mixing trendy torture-porn and intermittently unconvincing computer effects. When your bad guy is a multi-tentacled vegetable, dude, you gotta crack a smile now and then. Blu-ray includes three separate Making Ofs, a commentary and deleted scenes all in HD.

Straight outta the third most dangerous city in America—Saginaw, Michigan—Greg Walton writes from a basement bunker. His only window to the outside world is a sweet surround sound set-up and 65" inches of hi-def glory.