Defending Your Movie: The Family

 

After years of producing some real garbage and directing movies way outside of his wheelhouse, BAFTA nominee Luc Besson (La Femme Nikita, The Fifth Element) establishes a fantastic cast for a return to his action/comedy/thriller roots. Why hasn’t this new film made the critical and commercial waves one would expect? No good reason. The Family is a funny, rivetting, expertly-made, and ultimately moving adventure that I will attempt to defend in six lengthy points.
Please feel free to skim the points: I didn’t mean for it to only be read word for word (hence its absurd length).
This article is spoiler-free (save for point number 6), but in order to understand it, one should be somewhat aware of the movie’s premise. Here it is:
Giovanni Mazzini was once a powerful New York mobster, but after ratting out his friends to avoid jail time he has joined the Witness Protection Program. Now named Fred Blake, the aging New York mobster, his wife, and two teenage kids are constantly having to relocate after his true identity is exposed. In a final attempt to find a safe haven, the “Blake” family is moved to Normandy; however, there inability to fit in could cost them their lives.

1. The acting is pitch-perfect.

It has always been, and will continue to be, one of the most important elements of a good movie: Do the performances ring true? The Family has one of the best casts of the year, and not a one of its phenomenal actors disappoints.
Robert De Niro, probably the greatest living actor, shines here (as the protagonist, Giovanni/Fred) by not over-doing anything. Despite playing a sadistic former made man, his performance is low-keyed. The nostalgic depression overwhelming his character is very clear, and De Niro crafts a man who seems exceptional at being a thug and utterly lost when it comes to understanding everyday life.
In a showier (and arguably more impressive) role is Michelle Pfeiffer as Fred’s wife, Maggie. Pfeiffer makes her character far more charming and personable than de Niro’s, but doesn’t hide the “crazy” part. What is more, her interactions with her family seem genuine. I actually believed that Maggie and Fred really were meant for each other.
For the roles of the kids, Besson got two very talented rising stars who are sure to become household names in the near future. John D’Leo is channeling the spirit of a young Ray Liotta as the cunning Warren, who manages to start a criminal empire made up of his classmates (by changing grades, supplying fake baseball cards, and blackmailing students who are selling cigarettes). His sister, Belle, is played by Glee star Dianna Agron, who just established herself as the next Emma Stone. (Yes, I’ve seen I Am Number Four; no, it doesn’t count). She plays a character who is utterly insane, savagely beating anyone who even remotely annoys her, but at the same time she comes off as girly, innocent, and surprisingly sweet. It is a weird combination and I don’t think many people could pull it off.
The rest of the cast is also fantastic. Tommy Lee Jones is Fred’s Witness Protection Program handler, and while he isn’t breaking new ground, he is always entertaining, especially when verbally sparring with de Niro. Jon Freda plays the primary antagonist, and brings a delightful menace to the role. And, if you didn’t know, there is a nice cameo from parkour inventor and District B13 star David Bell.

2. The actors are given characters worthy of their talents.

Every member of the Blake family is two-dimensional. Agron’s Belle is barbarically violent, but at the same time seems so naively hopeful that you end up really liking her. D’Leo’s Warren is simultaneously incredibly mature and childish. Pfeiffer’s Maggie is particularly interesting. She seems the most self-aware of the family--she is always amiable and charming, and she knows that it is best to try and adapt to her new environment. Maggie goes sight-seeing and tries to learn French, and she goes to church every day to pray because she truly does want to do the right thing. At the same time, she is insanely impulsive, lacking any foresight whatsoever. A great scene features Maggie earnestly attempting to chat with a store-owner in French, clearly caring enough about her new country’s culture to try and fit in. However, when the man makes a racist comment behind her back, she responds by literally blowing up the building.
Fred (the clear protagonist) is the most sympathetic and relatable, which is interesting as he is the most anti-social and corrupt. He doesn’t seem to feel any remorse for the awful things he did as a gangster or the way he back-stabbed his friends by testifying against them to avoid jail-time. However, he does genuinely care about his family, and is filled with remorse at the situation he has put them. At the same time, though, he keeps risking their safety with his violent antics. Fred isn’t just a hot-head: He always reacts to a perceived injustice, and seems desperate to find some kind of meaning to his life (or perhaps acceptance by others). The trailers have indicated his character is pure parody of De Niro’s most famous roles, but in fact it plays more like a sequel to them. What happens when those gangsters are old and their bad deeds are catching up?
These aren’t the only interesting characters. In fact, even some really minor roles are given multiple dimensions, kind of like this was a Quentin Tarantino or Guy Ritchie picture. For example, the gangsters chasing the Blakes seem like people with a moral compass, albeit compasses not strong enough to stop them murdering innocents left-and-right. A humorous exchange involves the thugs, surrounded by bodies, arguing with their boss about whether or not it is necessary to kill a dog. The guards for the Blake family also come off as professional and likable, not as buffoons waiting to be shot down by one or both sides. Even the snooty French villagers end up having way more to them than it first appears.
It isn’t every day that you get a movie that puts this much effort into creating unique, likable people even from the minor characters.

3. The humor is both funny and linked to the plot.

While I wouldn’t say this is an all-out comedy like the trailers suggest, The Family is definitely full of laugh-out loud moments. What is great, though, is that they are all linked to the plot and a larger theme, not just slapstick references to Scorsese films.
Take, for example, the constant fish-out-of-water antics, where the Blakes violently bring their mafioso ways to the (at first) unwelcoming French countryside. It is a great metaphor for the way Italian-American immigrants in the first half of the 20th Century brought about a crime empire. The Blakes clearly have wildly different customs from their neighbors, but that really doesn’t excuse the way that everyone is condescendingly elitist towards them. When the Blakes complain that their tap water is mud brown, they get nowhere through the proper channels--so they resort to their slightly-less legal ways. And, whattayouknow, they are more effective. There have been hundreds of pictures that try to explain the link between immigrant families and organized crime, but The Family is particularly good because, while never trying to justify their actions, it makes Americans relate to the immigrant criminals rather than just sympathize with them. If this took place in the US, I would automatically be more connected to the villagers: By transporting it to France, you end up in the outsiders shoes. It isn’t pretentious, though--In fact, it is vaguely patriotic: The Blakes clearly affirm the very American values of honesty and enterprising assertiveness. I am particularly surprised that this movie was able to create such a great perspective since Besson is a Frenchman who has never lived outside of Europe, but he managed to create a more American film than most American directors. This is picture is a fantastic look at organized crime and immigration, and it is done through laughs instead of tear-jerking.
Another source of comedy is the villains. They are intimidating for sure, but they are also funny because they are such clear story-book bad guys. Jon Freda’s mobster, Rocco, wears a fedora and trench coat, because he clearly isn’t a real gangster, he is a movie gangster. This intentional self-referential humor is great because it really gets the nostalgia Fred feels towards his old life. This is using the cinematic interpretation of the Mafia in the same way Man of Steel uses alien super-heroes--As a fantasy-oriented metaphor. Sure, this is a much more niche style of humor--It is clearly targeted towards cinephiles who are familiar with 30/40s crime classics like Angels with Dirty Faces. But who doesn’t love some good fanboy cliqueiness?

Note that this weird color tinting isn't in the movie; it is some mess-up with this photo.

4. The story is quite poignant.

Mixed with the laughs and action is a truly moving tale about isolation and nostalgia. Besson knows when to ease back on the jokes and action to allow for truly touching moments between his characters that feel genuine. The loneliness the characters experience and the way they overcome is actually quite moving, mostly because it is never forced or overstated. I don’t want to give too much away so I’ll keep this point short (I’m also going to elaborate on it a bit more later on), but I’ve got to say I was blown away at how touching this whole story is.

5. The suspense is killer.

It is always tempting for movies to jam-pack themselves with action scenes so as to constantly entertain. This isn’t a bad story-telling technique--many pictures are much better for it. However, if you do this you miss that breathless tension that comes from watching a great picture. The suspense in The Family, which has a dozen plot threads that slowly but steadily lead to the explosive conclusion, is even more entertaining to watch then the cathartic final battle. The film can be a little dull here and there, but it is all so as to lay down the plot threads that lead to a truly riveting final act.

6. The Goodfellas Scene

Okay, this final point is going to have some spoilers. In fact, it is a scene that might be best if watched without knowing what happens. However, if you still aren’t convinced to see The Family (or have already seen it and disliked it but are reading this in order to understand why someone would recommend it), then I guess there is no point in skipping this description.
If you talk to anyone who watches this movie, there is no way they won’t remember this scene. Towards the end of the movie, Fred and his handler (Tommy Lee Jones) decide to go to a film discussion group. There, they watch Goodfellas. We never actually see a clip from that picture--We just see De Niro’s face. There isn’t any dialogue, but the way Fred clearly sees his own life flash before his life is incredible.
After it ends, Fred is invited to get up and talk about it. For a long time he just sits there, but then he starts to tell a story from his own life in third-person. As it begins he is tearing up, but as he continues he gets more funny and into the story. Besson cuts away, and when we get back Fred has the whole room riveted to his excellent story-telling of his life.
In addition to being a truly moving testimony to taking risks, this is a perfect example of why I--and probably many others--love movies: Because of the way it can touch you and the way it can connect you to others.
I hope you’re convinced, because The Family is a great movie as well as a really fun one.

R.I.P.D. (C-)

The entertaining character of Marshall Roy Pulsipher, brought to life by a fantastic performance from Jeff Bridges, elevates R.I.P.D. from outright atrociousness to the very low end of mediocrity.

Officer Nick Walker (Ryan Reynolds) is a dirty cop who wants to reform so as to please his wife (Stephanie Szostak), but is instead shot dead by his even more crooked partner (Kevin Bacon, playing the picture’s primary antagonist). Before being pulled into the light, Nick is taken aside by a ghost (Mary Louise-Parker, funny as always) who recruits him to join the R.I.P.D., the Rest in Peace Department. The RIPD is dedicated to finding the deadoes--zombie/ghosts that escaped judgement--and either transporting them to hell or blasting them out of the cosmos.
Of course, there is a catch. To be in the RIPD, everyone must believe you are dead. Each RIPD agent looks like a completely different person to everyone else’s eyes except each others. I’m not quite sure how this works, as their other-looks are drastically different in height and build from their real bodies.

The Rest in Peace Department is a lot like the Men in Black, right down to being very loosely based on a fictional organization from a comic book series and having a passion for capitalizing conjunctions in acronyms. The big difference (aside from quality of movies) is their standards for admission. To get into the MIB, Agent J had to run down a cephalapod. To get into the RIPD, Nick Walker had to be a dirty cop who had done nothing impressive in combat except get shotgun-blasted off a three-story building without spilling any blood (this is a PG-13 movie, after all). Perhaps we are supposed to believe Walker is a capable cop or warrior, but if there was a scene indicating that in the script, it wasn’t deemed important enough to make the final cut. And I am not just talking about his actions prior to “death.” Walker continues his lackluster reasoning and combat skills after gaining immortality, continuing to be the guy not bad enough at his work to get fired but never good enough to stop making the boss regret giving them the job in the first place.

The story--and I use that term very loosely--was written by the duo behind 2010's Clash of the Titans, while the picture was directed by Robert Schwentke, who’s previous film was the first Red. It would be easy to blame them for all of the pictures shortcomings, but this is a movie that is so poorly made in so many different ways there is no way only three people could be responsible for the disaster. A giant production like this requires a studio to actually have a hand in the production, something Universal (which funded this mess) clearly didn’t.

The special effects are some of the laziest I have seen. Despite having a $130 million price tag, the visuals look cheap and slapped-together, presumably due to the artists being rushed along to meet a summer release date. The biggest issue, though, is that everything is so absurdly generic that it becomes insulting. Giant blue light-beams shoot into the sky, wall-paper warps in fast-motion, every New York City street--shot in unrealistic orange and teal color grading--looks the same. The make-up on the monsters is like something you would see in a seasonal Halloween store. The final transformation Kevin Bacon makes into his zombie/fiend form would provoke unintended laughs if anyone was still paying attention. The opening fight is in a dilapidated warehouse; the final one on the roof of a deserted office building. Many of the buildings interiors are just one blank color because neither the production designer nor visual effects supervisor had the budget, time, or initiative to actually make the locations look unique. I guess it doesn’t matter how generic the settings are because there is very little of a plot connecting these fight scenes to each other.
And yet, there is one thing that makes this movie watchable: Marshall Royciferus Pulsipher. Roy (a role that was originally given to Zach Galifianakis of all people) was a 1800s cowboy who, after his vicious murder, was recruited to the R.I.P.D and has now been assigned to be Nick Walker’s partner/mentor. A gonzo character who’s next action is impossible to predict, Roy is a spark of life and originality the movie desperately needs. Roy is consistently funny, charming, entertaining, and occasionally is quite touching; this is somewhat the work of the script (and maybe the comic), but is mostly because of a fantastic scenery-chewing performance from Jeff Bridges, who is clearly putting a new spin on his fantastic work as Rooster Cogburn that got him an Oscar nod in True Grit.
Due to Roy Pulsipher, R.I.P.D. isn’t quite the train wreck it could (and should) have been. If you are truly bored and it is in Redbox for $1, it could be somewhat enjoyable. However, this picture is still mediocre at best and disappoints far more than it entertains.

World War Z (B+)

Talented director Marc Forster has hidden almost all the problems of this film’s troubled production and created a taught, thoroughly entertaining adventure tale.

I’ve never read Max Brooks' critically acclaimed novel World War Z, but apparently that doesn’t mean much as this movie is wildly different from that story (or collection of stories), which were told from several different narrators as if they were talking to a journalist. Brad Pitt acquired the rights to the book swiftly; this has been a passion project for him as both a producer and a star. The film went through a very troubled production with the ending rewritten multiple times during filming. Shockingly, Marc Forster (Finding Neverland, Stranger than Fiction, Quantum of Solace) manages to edit everything into a coherent, tense thriller that rises above the so-so screenplay to create something that is a blast to watch.
The movie is about Gerry Lane (Pitt), a UN official who is brought out of retirement to help find some sort of vaccine for the zombie virus that had brought the entire world into chaos (kudos to this film for actually using the word “zombie”). Lane travels around the world, going to three different continents and numerous cities, all the while dreaming of being reunited with his family.
Pitt is fine as Lane, despite having a bizarre hairstyle that would be more fitting on a hobo than an international peacekeeper. His co-star, Daniella Kertesz, gives a breakout performance as Segen, the young but tough-as-nails Israeli soldier who accompanies Lane for most of his journey. Mireille Enos has a few scenes as Lane’s loving yet utterly useless wife, Karen Lane. The film contains several other noteworthy actors (including James Badge Dale, Fana Mokoena, and Matthew J. Fox), but Forster wisely chose to cut down their roles so as to keep the focus on the story.

There are a few moments where the production woes do show, most notably a sequence in South Korea where Lane interviews an ex-CIA agent (David Morse) in trouble for selling weapons to terrorists. It comes off as weird and vaguely anti-patriotic; it is pretty obvious this was a much more important plot point in the original draft. After all, you don’t cast a twice Emmy-nominated actor for a role like that. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if when the scene was originally shot it wasn’t supposed to take place in Korea at all--it lacks the landscape shots Forster uses to establish every other location in the film.
Still, these are minor flaws in what is overall a very engrossing film. While a PG-13 rating for a zombie movie brings some issues (mainly, much of the fighting has to happen offscreen simply because zombies are an inherently R-rated concept), a PG-13 budget (read: far bigger) has great benefits, especially when the picture is overseen by a talented director. I’m skeptical that any movie has really captured the scale and chaos of the fictional phenomena of a zombie apocalypse so well. While Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead (which, like World War Z, featured fast zombies) could show a small horde tearing apart a few unlucky humans in graphic detail, Forster’s Z is able to depict the massive wave of mindless carnage they create. Part of what makes zombies so cool is that they are a virus personified, continuously spreading and regenerating. It is something that really needs a big budget to be shown.

Forster has a penchant for shaky-cam, a technique I personally find annoying (though I don’t downgrade a movie for it, because I understand that a lot of people find it greatly enhances action sequences): Here, though, it is put to great effect. It captures the feeling of panic perfectly; coupled with some well-timed jump scares, this movie ends up arguably more scary than Snyder’s Dawn, though I would say both pictures are firmly planted in the action, not horror, genre. (A warning to parents: this is probably the most intense summer blockbuster this year and is not a great choice for younger children, even those accustomed to PG-13 movies). Forster and his team also create some incredible visual effects: The zombies’ hive-minded, ant-like onslaught where they climb on top of each other to get over any obstacle is original and really cool.
Of course, it isn’t a real zombie movie without a suspenseful, claustrophobic journey through a deserted building: that is something that must be crafted with skilled direction and a suspense, something all the money in the world can’t buy. World War Z’s final action sequence, set in a laboratory in Wales, achieves it. The scene is incredibly captivating (even if Lane does use surprisingly poor judgement); it is clearly the highlight of the film as well as the main reason the movie has been getting such an enthusiastic response from critics and audiences alike.
Forster’s exciting visuals, action scenes, and genre-mashing outweighs this picture’s flaws and make it one wildly entertaining adventure.

Defending Your Movie: After Earth

Overall, critics tend to get things right. But sometimes, they just destroy a movie that really doesn’t deserve any of that hate. So it was with After Earth, M. Night Shyamalan’s sci-fi adventure which opened to abysmal reviews and got steam-rolled at the box office by Now You See Me of all things. What started out as a normal essay has evolved into a list of seven reasons the film is good. Please feel free to skim the points: I didn’t mean for it to only be read word for word (hence its absurd length).
This article is spoiler-free (save for point number 6), but in order to understand it, one should be somewhat aware of the movie’s premise. Here it is:
In the far future, Earth has been abandoned and humans have moved to a new planet. Genetically-engineered alien creatures known as the Ursa were sent to try and wipe the humans out: The creatures are able to sense one’s fear and hunt without mercy. Cypher Raige is a decorated general who is able to “ghost,” or be so completely without fear that Ursa can’t see him. However, his distant demeanor, strict parenting, and grief over the loss of his daughter prevents him from connecting with his talented-yet-impulsive son, Kitai. Cypher agrees to take Kitai with him on a low-risk mission prior to his retirement, but their ship breaks in two and the father and son land on a deserted and dangerous planet: Earth. With both of Cypher’s legs snapped like twigs, Kitai must journey alone across several miles of dangerous terrain in order to reach the tail end of the ship and send a distress beacon. Cypher’s only means of aiding his son is through advice relayed with a high-tech walkie-talkie. To make matters worse, an Ursa is around as well.

1. After Earth is suspenseful and well-paced. The majority of the blockbuster movies in theatres, such as Star Trek into Darkness or Fast & Furious 6, are lightning-fast paced. They open up with a wild action sequence, have a few scenes to show the characters, and then have the rest of the story and interactions take place in the midst of one nail-biting scenario after another. This is a fine way to tell a story, but by no means is it the only way. In fact, in many ways it is inferior.
After Earth spends roughly thirty minutes just getting to the point where the ship crashes. We see Kitai’s skills and flaws so his impulsiveness and proficiency in combat don’t seem out of place when they come up later. We see the great respect people show to Cypher and from this pick up on what a revered leader he is.
When the action starts, it isn’t just one chase scene after another, either. There are long places where nothing happens, and we just see Kitai trudging through the gorgeous jungle. The sense of danger increases exponentially the longer we wait. Furthermore, we (the audience) get a sense of how impossible this journey is in that it feels like it actually takes a long time.

2. The challenges Kitai faces aren’t just various monsters to fight. After Earth is a survival tale. It doesn’t lazily thrust viewers from one fight scene to another. Over the course of the movie, Kitai has to do things like inject himself with anti-venom after getting bitten by a leech-thing despite being temporarily blinded, avoid predators instead of shooting them (since he doesn’t have a gun), and get through dangerous temperature shifts. One particularly gripping sequence has a gravely ill Kitai forced to spend a few hours completely paralyzed in the middle of a dangerous jungle as he waits for the medicine to kick in.

3. The characters are unique and likeable. Kitai is a moody teenager and Cypher is a strict military general. Seems like stock characters. Fortunately, they actually seem quite human.
Kitai isn’t perfect--we see his impulsiveness and his intense rage at his father--but he doesn’t do it by being sulky and making snide comments. He acts like a real soldier, answering everything with a sir; at the same time, though, he often does something reckless and stupid (such as not telling his father how much oxygen he has in his fuel tanks). Similarly, Cypher doesn’t storm around bellowing orders; he gives commands quietly and controlled, though Will Smith clearly conveys Cypher’s distant personality and all the pain and shame he feels over the death of his daughter.

4. The movie looks gorgeous...and real. With cinematographer Peter Suschitsky (A History of Violence), Shyamalan crafts a picture with a gorgeous color palette full of lush greens and blues. The beauty stands out in every frame and Shyamalan takes full advantage of it, using his trademark wide, distant shots. What is more, though, is everything looks natural. The trees and moss and sky and snow doesn’t look like something from Pandora or Oz: It is something you could see in your local forest preserve. I have no idea how much is digital and how much is real, but it looks like something from a Disney Nature film, not anything I’ve witnessed in blockbuster action films of recent years.

5. The film plays like a monster movie, and is all the better for it. There is a reason that the image above isn’t a still from After Earth, but one from the 80s sci-fi classic Predator. After Earth is the modern day equivalent to that film. Hear me out.
Most blockbuster movies tend to throw one enemy after another at the hero; the hero takes them on one at a time and then moves on to the next. Like a video game. In The Hobbit, Bilbo goes around Middle Earth like it is a Devil May Cry episode and fights one new beast or challenge after another in order to reach his final goal. Now don’t get me wrong--The Hobbit is a very good movie. I’m using it as an example precisely because it is so good. Bad films aren’t the only ones guilty of this. All the monsters and visual effects blockbusters throw at us are cool, but none of them seem particularly intimidating because they are clearly just stepping stones to get to the big boss.
In a monster movie, there aren’t a million different creatures after the protagonist: There is one. But the hero is more vulnerable than in a movie like The Hobbit and the monster is more deadly. Everything is a game of cat and mouse and the beast is the central attraction. It is what symbolizes the theme of the story. In Predator (one of the best monster movies ever made), Predator is the perfect representation of the two most basic (but opposing) human traits: Savagery and honor. In Cloverfield, the Cloverfield monster represents the thought that all of a sudden the world as we know it could completely be transformed by some awful disaster (read: 9/11). In After Earth, the monster--known as the Ursa--represents the crippling power of fear.
Shyamalan has gotten a lot of criticism for his lazy creature design on the Ursa, but I think those people who are attacking it are missing the point. The Ursa isn’t supposed to impress us while it is on screen, it is supposed to impress us while it isn’t. It is constantly on Kitai’s trail, an ever-present threat, but it doesn’t just attack all at once. Because that isn’t what fear is like. Fear is something that can follow us for days, waiting until we are at our lowest point to strike.

6. There is one truly powerful scene that is impossible not to touch you. This entry contains a bit of a spoiler.
Throughout the first half of the movie, Kitai is in constant contact with Cypher, who is able to see what Kitai sees through a camera on Kitai’s suit and converse with Kitai on a walkie-talkie. However, after Kitai semi-crash lands into an eagle’s nest, the camera and radio are destroyed and Cypher loses contact. When Kitai eventually reaches the remains of the ship, he is able to turn on a skype-like machine. But due to the fact that the ship crash-landed next to a volcano, Cypher can’t send a message back. Don’t say this is implausible: It isn’t. How many times have you been able to hear what someone is saying to you on their cell phone when you can’t communicate back?
Cypher is sitting in the spaceship, unable to walk, watching his son sobbing into the camera thinking that no one can hear him. At the same time, Cypher can tell on his radar that the Ursa is swiftly closing in on Kitai’s location. Cypher sees everything, and is saying commands to his son, but there is no way that Kitai can hear it.
It is a perfect metaphor for parenthood. Parents teach their kids the skills to succeed. They can see what the kids should do. But in the end, they don’t have any real way to get that information to them--They just have to trust that their children know how to implement the skills they teach.

7. All of the above points tie into a greater theme. We all know that panicking is bad. Giving into fear will accomplish nothing. But it is so freaking hard.
After Earth personifies this. Kitai is facing a foe that he knows cannot hurt him if he isn’t afraid of it. But it doesn’t matter what Kitai knows--He feels fear, and this makes him vulnerable.
After Earth shows us this paradox, and it makes us feel the sense of danger. But it also reassures us that when we finally ignore our feelings completely--when we just let all those feelings wash over us--we can’t be harmed.
And, most importantly, it does all this while being entertaining. Because it is really hard to be touched by a movie that bores you.

______________________________________________________________

So there you go. Seven reasons this is actually a fantastic film that is completely undeserving of its low reviews and poor box office performance. I hope that one day, like Predator (which was torn apart by critics on its release, though was later accepted by them), this movie will one day get the respect it deserves.

Mud (A+)

Always believable while tackling major issues, riveting without being showy, and deeply moving without being dull to watch, Mud is one of those rare films that is truly great.

Ellis

Ellis is a boy living in the swampy, bayou-y part of Arkansas that most people call the Louisiana Bayou (though technically, he isn’t in Louisiana). He lives with his parents alongside a river in a rural area. The movie doesn’t pound in the ideas of poverty, but it is clear that he is living a very low-class life. His father is a fisherman, but with his parents planning a divorce his father will have to lose his dock because it is owned by his mother. Chances are Ellis will end up moving to a more urban environment. This might actually be a better change for Ellis in the long-term, but it also means everything about his life is going to be upended in a way no one is happy about.
While all this is happening, Ellis and his friend slip away to visit one of the many small, deserted islands that surround his home. There they find Mud. Mud is a fugitive from both the police and a group of vicious gangsters. Mud is resourceful and charismatic, but it is clear that not everything is there. Not that he is dumb (in fact, he is quite the opposite) or delusional: But he is certainly missing something mentally. However, beneath his vaguely menacing--and rivetting--outside is a dreamer, a man who despite having done so much to screw up his own life and having a future that looks anything but bright still clings on to various superstitions, old wives tales, and stories that he has told himself so many times he believes are true.

Tye Sheridan, the young star of The Tree of Life, plays Ellis. Ellis isn’t as showy a role as that of Mud, but with the help of flawless editing Sheridan carries the movie by being able to show a number of feelings without saying a word. The supporting cast is all good as well: Jacob Lofland and Bonnie Sturdivant make great debuts as Ellis’s friends, Michael Shannon shines in a small role as Ellis's friend's foster father, and Sam Shepard is riveting as Ellis’s tough-as-nails veteran neighbor. Ray McKinnon is particularly good as Ellis’s flawed but loving father. Even Reese Witherspoon manages not to mess up her sizable role as a childhood friend and sometime lover of Mud.
Of course, the main attraction here is Mud, and the movie lives or dies on that performance. Fortunately, the role went to Matthew McConaughey. McConaughey knows not to try and ham up the performance too much, but his charisma is still always there in every scene. It is probably his best performance yet, which is saying alot considering that mixed in with his work in not-very-good romantic comedies are some pretty great performances in some pretty great films.

All of the acting would be wasted if it weren’t for the story, and fortunately writer/director Jeff Nichols is a master storyteller. Nichols, who previously made Shotgun Stories and Take Shelter, has long showed up on lists of directors to watch, and here he really shows his potential. With his unobtrusive camera work and flawless editing, Nichols makes sure to have a slow, deliberate pace that leaves ample opportunity to show every side to Ellis and Mud and their various relationships. All the time, though, there is a very clear sense that there is a point to this story and not once is the movie dull. The story is always entertaining and climaxes in a pulse-pounding shootout, but it never drifts into action/thriller territory: Everything feels oh-so-real. At no time does Nichols try and bring the story into surreal territory: There is not going to be a magical solution for Ellis’s problems and it is clear that Mud is often living a fantasy. However, Nichols does tackle such big issues as faith and hope while coming up with a satisfying ending.
In the end, it is a tale about optimism. Ellis and Mud’s futures are as muddy as the waters they live in and many of their hopes are clearly unrealistic; however, this doesn’t mean they have to (or should) stop living a life where numerous possibilities and wonders--and possibly even some sort of higher power watching over everything--are still always there.
This film is always genuine and never showy but is also deeply powerful.

The Great Gatsby (A)

Baz Luhrman does the near-impossible task of taking a tragedy for the modern age and elevating it into a big-budget, continuously engrossing spectacle that retains all of its source material’s depth and craftsmanship.

Nick Carraway, the protagonist of both the film and the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic novel it is based on, is a young, working class man who gets a small cottage in 1920s Long Island and begins a friendship with the J. Gatsby, the young, mysterious, fantastically wealthy man who lives next door. Carroway soon learns that Gatsby is guarding some pretty critical secrets, and tied up in them is Daisy Buchanan, the woman he loves who is married to one of the state’s most powerful men.
Tobey MaGuire is a perfect fit as Carroway, bringing a sweet sincerity to the role. Carey Mulligan is always fantastic, and as Daisy she is no exception, playing her as both endearingly attractive and infuriatingly petulant--we (the audience) completely see why Gatsby loves her, but we also see why she is a selfish child. The focus of the story is Gatsby, and it is a role Leonardo DiCaprio was born to play. Taking the dreamy charm he displayed in Titanic and the intense ferocity he showcased in The Departed (with a dash of the charisma he employed in last-year’s Django Unchained), he makes a Gatsby that it is impossible not to find utterly riveting, as he is both larger than life and painfully human.

Though opening in spring has brought The Great Gatsby one of the biggest opening weekends of the year (making about as much as GI: Joe Retaliation made in four days and Oblivion did in a week), it is a pity that it didn’t open during awards season as this is one of those movies that would sweep the technical categories. It is quite possible that out of all living directors, Baz Luhrman (Romeo + Juliet, the Nicole Kidman Moulin Rouge film) is the one who knows best how to create breathtaking images. With his life-time collaborator (and wife) Catherine Martin at production design, the set pieces are flawless: I think it surpasses anything I saw in all of last year. Cinematographer Simon Duggan--probably best known for creating that sleek, modern, and vaguely foreboding look of I, Robot that dozens of note-worthy directors have spent years trying to emulate--reaches new heights on this picture; it is impossible to look away from anything on the screen. And, of course, the costumes (also from Martin) are amazing.

What is particularly great about it, though, is that at no point does it feel like this imagery is merely there; it is always used to further the story. This is a movie that would only work if everything is surreally gorgeous, but Luhrman knows to make it all have an empty, soulless quality. That is an enormous risk to take, but it is one that pays off fantastically. With the 3-D (the format this picture should be viewed in) and intricately detailed visual effects (seriously, the CGI is on par with anything you will see in this summer’s super-hero adventures) it is an utterly enchanting, absorbing world; however, the constantly moving camera (done with a giant crane that gave Luhrman a concussion), the lightning-fast cuts (worthy of an Best Editing nomination), and pounding score (which is somehow modern without being glaringly anachronistic) makes none of it satisfying. It looks like you are watching a hallucination, or perhaps looking into a perpetually rotating china doll house. It is all perfect, it is all realistic, but it isn’t real. And Luhrman absolutely intended it to be that way.

Because in the end, this is a story about a good person who is completely captivated by an impossible dream based entirely around an illusion, surrounded by priceless treasures but utterly miserable, living a life with no true meaning.
Luhrman’s fantastic vision brings this unconventional story to life not as a stuffy indie film but in the massive spectacle that Fitzgerald intended--and Gatsby deserved.

Evil Dead (A-)

Director Fede Alvarez smashes onto the scene with a wildly entertaining picture that has pretty much everything you would want from a modern day horror film. He knows when the picture should be scary, when it should be funny, and--most importantly--he knows the importance of telling an actual story.
David, Eric, Mia, Olivia, and Natalie (their names are an acronym for “DEMON”) are five people in their mid-20s who decide to spend a weekend in a cabin deep in the woods so Mia has a quiet place to kick her drug addiction. Unfortunately, someone foolishly reads the text from an occult book and ends up summoning the Abomination, a fearsome demon that inhabits people’s bodies and causes them to do horrifically violent acts to themselves and others.

This isn’t a remake of the 1981 horror/comedy classic The Evil Dead; it is more of a reboot. It manages to retain the best elements of the original and please fans without being a retread. In fact, it was produced by Sam Raimi, the man behind the first three pictures (and the Tobey Maguire Spider-man films, because apparently one excellent trilogy that reinvented a genre wasn’t enough for him).
Horror movies aren’t exactly renowned for showcasing the finest acting talents, so it is a big surprise that the actors in this movie are very good. Lou Taylor Pucci as the nerdy high-school teacher Eric is particularly note-worthy and Jane Levy (star of TV’s Suburgatory) brings heart, depth, and true terror to the role of Mia. The job of the demonic doppelganger for her goes to Randal Wilson, who so convincing that his IMDB page lists him as an “Actress” despite the fact that he is male.

The most impressive work, though, comes from behind the camera with Fede Alvarez. Despite this being his directorial debut, he showcases artistic finesse that puts him on par with even the most renowned horror icons, albeit in his own unique style. Alvarez has a very fast pace for his movie and cuts from shot to shot swiftly and with confidence. This is not a Paranormal Activity-style tale where the scares are built very slowly and come in the form of quick moments; Evil Dead, like the original, starts out strong and terrifies by building a steady sense of relentless fear, one where viewers don’t even have enough time to think or rationalize it. Some would say that his pension for using absurd amounts of gore and how most of his scenes revolve around self-mutilation is a cheap trick: I would argue that it is no more cheap than using jump scares. Insidious is only scary because they suddenly pound a piano chord really hard and have something fly at the camera to make you startled.

About that gore: There is a lot of it. A lot. And, as said above, it mostly revolves around self-mutilation. The (in)famous tree rape scene is significantly toned down from the 1981 picture, but the blood and dismemberment that was rendered a little goofily in the very low-budget original is brought with stunning realism through a fantastic mixture of practical and digital effects.
Of course, really bloody violence gets silly after a while, and Alvarez knows when to switch from scary to funny. The best scares come fairly early on during a scene taking place in a marshy forest during pouring rain (and daylight, oddly); by the end, the film is all-out action-comedy. What is surprising, though, is how well it works--the transition doesn’t ever seem forced. This is mostly due to the very solid story Alvarez crafts.

Early drafts of the film (written by Alvarez) apparently showcase a more typical horror flick which adopts the Wan-ian style where story is secondary to scares. However, after rewrites (including an uncredited one from Diablo Cody) as well as the influence of the producers, like Raimi, the final picture is an engrossing study on addiction, family, and perseverance. It might not have the depth of Lincoln, but it is still a very good tale with actual morals where the scares advance its plot and themes rather than interrupt it.
Perfectly blending comedy, action, and horror, Fede Alvarez has made a new fantastic horror classic that uses story-telling rather than jump scares to constantly surprise and entertain.

The Host (D-)

This is one of the dumbest films I’ve seen. There is no logic, sense, or coherency to anything the characters do, both morally and practically. That also applies to the filmmakers.
In the near future, the Earth has been conquered by aliens that take control of people’s minds. Melanie Stryder was one of the last remaining humans. She was journeying to a safe haven in the middle of the desert with her kid brother and an expressionless wooden block, otherwise known as her boyfriend Jared. We, the audience, see Melanie really loved Jared because they kiss in the rain in slow motion. Ripped right out of The Notebook. Or Dear John. Or every Nicholas Sparks movie ever.

Anyway, Melanie is cornered by the aliens, and jumps through a glass window on the fourth floor to lead them away from her brother. An alien policeman who’s job is to track down people, named Seeker because what else would she be named, says that even though Melanie has “barely a bone not broken” she survived because she has a will to live. Apparently people who fall through glass windows and then drop four stories and then die are just whimps, because willpower totally trumps all that. Seeker heals Melanie and then infects her with an alien, named Wanderer. However, Melanie has strong willpower so she ends up still alive in Wanderer’s head, and can even control her body sometimes. After some events that make literally no sense and cannot be explained, Wanderer and Melanie end up escaping the alien utopia and go live in a cave in the desert with a small band of human survivors. But then Wanderer falls in love with a guy named Ian, which upsets Malanie because she likes Jared. As if there is a difference: Neither of them have any character traits, and they even look the same.

The Host is based on a book written by Stephenie Meyer, who also wrote the Twilight series. It would be easy to blame this train wreck of a film on her, but I don’t think that is entirely fair. Apparently, the book covers who Wanderer is and what makes Earthlings different hosts from everyone else (“she” is several hundred years old and, in theory, genderless). Also, it explains why Wanderer and Melanie team up, as most of the book is internal conversations between the two (or so I’ve heard).
None of this ends up in the movie. We learn nothing about what Wanderer and her race are like. Since the alien civilization apparently has no wars, famine, violence, or even lying, you would think the aliens might be a little different from humans. Not in the movie. Wanderer says she is a 200+ year old unisex alien, but she acts just like her teenage girl host. And she lies and punches things a lot, so obviously her race doesn’t really have a problem with all that.

The internal conversations are probably the film’s biggest flaw. This is something that is pretty easy to do in a book but near impossible in a film. Saoirse Ronan (who plays Melanie/Wanderer)’s readings of the voice over-work for Melanie are cringe-worthingly bad. It doesn’t sound anything like Melanie did before she got infected. Also, the director added some sound “enhancements” to distinguish it from the voice of Wanderer. I guess it distinguishes it, in that is sounds utterly ridiculous. It is impossible not to laugh when you hear these conversations, which is a problem because most of the movie is them (mostly while the camera pans over meaningless landscape shots). And it sure doesn’t help that the actual dialogue (what was written in the script) is rock-bottom terrible. Hollywood’s interpretation of Meyer’s vampire sparkle was not as dumb or unintentionally comedic as the Melanie voiceover.
The rest of the acting is terrible as well, with the exception of William Hurt as Melanie’s uncle, who is competent. Ian and Jared, played respectively by Jake Abel (the evil teenager in Percy Jackson) and Max Irons (Red Riding Hood), have no expressions whatsoever, which matches their characters, which have no traits whatsoever. Diane Kruger, who is generally a good actress, is awful here as the Seeker. I’m guessing that the actors should not be blamed as much as Director Andrew Niccol, since the odds of them all giving such terrible performances in the same movie when not following terrible directions is near zero.

Nicchol, who also was the sole writer on the screenplay, made two dystopian future sci-fi films before: Gattaca and In Time. Both were well-made and had exciting action, so I don’t get what happened here. Everything he does, except for the cool production design he did with Beat Frutiger (JJ Abram’s Star Trek), is atrocious. All the action scenes are done to a very slow, very soft score that completely drains any sense of tension. The eyes of people infected by the alien are supposed to glow white (the people hide this by wearing sunglasses, which the aliens are too dumb to find suspicious). In some scenes, the whiteness is very pronounced, but in others it is practically non-existant, because it would be distracting. Of course it is more distracting to see such a pivotal part of the plot be so inconsistent.
The plot is full of giant holes. Why do the aliens, who are said to be a species that can find a host on any planet with life, choose to inhabit people instead of, say, cats? Are they really genderless? How do the human characters get from their hidden fortress in a butte in the middle of a desert to the city without being scene? How is this idiotic story stretched to an excruciating runtime of over two freaking hours? Even the central plot of the film--the romance--makes no sense. It is presented as a love triangle, but it really isn’t. Melanie likes Jared but Wanderer likes Ian. They said in the first five minutes that aliens can leave one host to inhabit another, so we all know that this can simply be solved when Wanderer switches to another body. Why are they at each others throats like characters in Mean Girls competing over which guy to get?

The film’s final twenty minutes end up going in a shockingly offensive moral direction, where right after a laughably shallow explanation by Wanderer of how humans should learn violence is not as effective as kindness (because nothing in this movie is ever shown, it is explicitly stated with bad monologues), Wanderer says that she is going to commit suicide because she doesn’t want to take over another human but can’t imagine returning to her home planet without the guy she loves. This sends Melanie on a quest to find out how she can give Wanderer a way to stay on Earth with Ian. Not how Wanderer should learn that suicide is never something that should be considered. The movie just flat out accepts that with her only alternative being living in a world without Ian, Wanderer’s suicide is really the only option that would make sense.
This movie is stupid in every way a movie has ever been stupid, and then it invents new ways to be even more stupid. And it made me stupid by tricking me into paying to see it.

Olympus Has Fallen (A-)

Antoine Fuqua brings his fantastic skills as a director of gritty crime dramas to make a high-profile action blockbuster that retains the intense, R-rated, realistic, and believable vibe of his earlier movies. The result is a film that is tremendously entertaining while not being so far-fetched as to prevent audiences from caring about the story or relating to its patriotic themes.

Agent Mike Banning is a Secret Serviceman who was once one of the people protecting the president, but was transferred to a desk job after letting the First Lady die in order to ensure the safety of his commander-and-chief (this scene, a car crash sequence which opens the movie, is poorly executed: I can’t quite tell what, if anything, Banning did wrong). Banning ends up the only agent left alive in the White House after a band of North Korean terrorists attack it and take the president hostage. It is up to Banning to protect the First Son (Finley Jacobsen) and keep the nation from a nuclear attack.
Aaron Eckhart is President Benjamin Asher. Eckhart plays the character in much the same way he did pre-transformation Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight, which is a little weird, but it still works. Of course, since the President is captured for most of the movie the new commander-in-chief is Speaker of the House Trumbull, played by Morgan Freeman. Freeman is unable to play more than one character, but his character seems president-ly. One would expect the movie to mostly be about Banning, but in fact much of it is about Asher and Trumbull dealing with the crisis. Several scenes are West Wing-style political drama, which is a cool contrast to the Die Hard style plot-line with Butler. At no point do Asher or Trumbull make decisions that are irrational and the way they handle the situation is diplomatic, strategic, and like something real presidents would do. It makes the movie seem far more believable.

Gerard Butler (King Leonidas in 300) is Banning, and as usual he does a good job. His character is likeable but also a credible soldier. His antagonist is played by Rick Yune, who steals the show. Instead of commanding a vast army with superior technology like most movie bad guys, Yune’s character--Kang--is able to take down the White House with one rogue jet, a few suicide bombers, less than forty henchman, and a couple stolen army gadgets. Kang is funny, charming, charismatic, and smart, but also a ruthless pig who takes pleasure in torturing his enemies (in one surprisingly graphic scene he brutally kicks the female Secretary of Defense until the president reveals crucial information). When we get to the doomsday plot where Kang reveals how he plans to nuke the US, it is (mostly) plausible since everything up until then was tactically brilliant and realistic.
The movie has a noteworthy cast, with Ashley Judd appearing in a cameo as the First Lady, Melissa Leo taking on the role of the Secretary of Defense, Robert Forster playing a high-ranking general, and Angela Basset shining in her performance as Banning’s boss.
The film’s biggest flaw is the cinematography used by Fuqua and his Director of Photography (Conrad W. Hall, who did Panic Room). The movie was probably shot in the middle of the day, but in order to make it look like night-time Fuqua and Hall use weird camera lenses and hideous post-production digital color “enhancements.” It looks utterly unrealistic and distractingly stupid, especially if your theater (like mine) doesn’t have a bright enough bulb projecting the image.

Still, that problem is counter-acted by Fuqua’s ability to craft engrossing action sequences. The attack on the White House is truly thrilling, and none of the subsequent fight scenes take away Olympus Has Fallen’s momentum.
In the end, the movie is a great tribute to the American spirit. Banning represents the everyday man, who’s work behind the scenes is just as important to the country as the work of the President. This is one of the most patriotic movies I have seen in recent years, and I think the theme only carries because of the gritty, semi-realistic tone Fuqua and the writers (newbies Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt) bring.
Understandably, movies like Olympus Has Fallen are a tough sell overseas. It would be wrong to deny that this isn’t a movie meant primarily for Americans. But if people in the US were able to connect so well with Skyfall, which is very much a patriotic British film, I think that those in Europe and Asia will be able to relate to Olympus as well.
Olympus Has Fallen is a gritty, beleiveable, and engrossing action thriller that is able to back up its patriotic themes with a good story and stellar directing.
PS: Not that this detracts from the movie, but a comment must be made about the stupid title. It refers to a code used by the Servicemen in the film, where "Olympus Has Fallen" means "The White House has been taken." I think that any half-wit terrorist could figure out. If they aren't serious about using codes then they should just say "White House Down."

The Call (C)

Right up until the last fifteen minutes or so, The Call is a cool, plausible thriller with a Hitchcock-esque tone. It isn’t amazing or profound or even particularly original, but it was entertaining, engrossing, and believable. This makes it particularly frustrating that the filmmakers throw it all away with a ludicrous, semi-comedic, exploitative, and incredibly stupid final act. If the whole film was trash it would almost be better: Unfortunately, it started out pretty well.

Jordan, the protagonist, is a 30-something 911 operator who receives a call from a teen girl (Evie Thompson) saying someone is breaking into her house. When the phone gets disconnected, Jordan foolishly calls back. The rings alert the prowler (Michael Eklund) as to the girl’s location. He turns out to be a serial killer, so things don’t end well. Jordan is racked with guilt, but gets a shot at redemption when six months later the station she works at gets another call from another teen girl kidnapped by the same killer. This girl, named Casey, is in the trunk of a car and is using a disposable phone, so finding her will be no easy task.
Unlike most low-budget thrillers (and this movie is distinctly low-budget), the picture cast big name stars. Casey is played by former child star Abigail Breslin and Jordan is played by Academy Award-winner Halle Berry (Catwoman, Dark Tide, Movie 43). At no point is their acting outright bad, but it is never noteworthy. The movie would have been just as good if they had cast unknowns.

The Machinist director Brad Anderson helms the picture. The most notable credit among the three-man writing team is a script outline on the Bruce Willis bomb Perfect Stranger. Still, little past box office success doesn’t necessarily mean poor writing. And for a while, The Call impresses. Jordan relays advice to Casey (kick out the tail light; leave a paint trail) while a police helicopter and numerous cars search high and low for the missing girl. The killer avoids capture with a clever strategy known as “killing any and all witnesses.” There is no doubt that he will eventually be caught, but it is quite possible that won’t be until after Casey dies. Some of the dialogue is campy and there is no depth, but the film is still an engrossing game of cat-and-mouse, mostly because everything stays (mostly) believable.

Then we get to the final act, where everything falls apart. I’m not going to spoil anything, but I will say the picture throws out any notion of logic as a shirtless Casey (played by sixteen-year old Breslin) teams up with Jordan in a vicious battle against the killer, who has built an underground lair with electricity, multiple tanks full of chloroform, and working plumbing but never thought to buy a gun, taser, axe, knife, or anything else remotely useful in actual combat. Come on! The guy in Silence of the Lambs had a gun and night-vision goggles, and he was too dumb to put his weird dog on a leash.
The first part of The Call proves that the filmmakers had the ability to craft a well-structured, engrossing thriller. Couldn’t they do that for the whole movie?