Jason digs back in his archives and finds "The Prodigy"

Which, coincidentally, is playing at the Roxie for one week starting this weekend, brought to you by the good people at Dead Channels.

I saw "The Prodigy" at Another Hole in the Head 2 years ago. What's playing at the Roxie is the new Director's Cut, so it's a version I haven't actually seen. It's also interesting looking back at my old reviews and seeing how movies have changed in my mind compared to what I originally wrote. I can't believe I didn't mention the excellent stunt work and fight choreography in my review. It's not elegant, it's brutal. The punches, kicks, throws, etc. look like they really hurt.

Anyway, I won't try to re-review it based on my memory of 2 years ago. I'll just post my old review (with some grammatical/typo fixes), then see it this weekend, and amend my review as I see fit. Let me just say, I recommend all my SF Bay Area readers see "The Prodigy", but go rent the original "Invisible Man" first, so you can get the Claude Rains reference.

We're now going back in time 2 years.....

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The Prodigy", [is] a solid and stylish crime action-thriller with just enough blood to justify its inclusion in a horror festival. It starts with the classic 'drug deal gone bad', or rather, 'drug deal about to go bad before a mysterious assassin cloaked in black bursts in and starts killing everyone.' The hero, a gang enforcer named Truman Fisher fights off the assassin and drowns him in the bathtub--or so he thinks. Some time later a mysterious assassin cloaked in black breaks into Truman's crime boss' house and goes nuts with a .45 and a baseball bat, kidnapping the boss' beloved nephew. He leaves behind a note signed 'Claude Rains'. Actually, one of the least believable points (but I suppose one necessary to educate some of the audience) is that [nobody knew that] Claude Rains is the name of the actor who played the lead in "The Invisible Man" (also, as an absolutely useless aside, Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault is the reason I keep rewatching"Casablanca"). So begins a battle of wits between Truman and Claude Rains. The movie can't quite avoid some cliches (surprisingly, the opening drug deal gone bad doesn't come off as too cliche, but the scene with the hacker girl watching a live webcam feed from Claude Rains as he sneaks up on her belongs in a different--and dumber--movie). But that's picking on an isolated scene here or there. Overall it's a well crafted, well written, well acted movie with good action and an engaging plot. I liked it.