Recently Seen - 4JUL13

I expect to return to writing more thorough reviews when I go back to the airline in the spring.  'Til then, here's another brief rundown of what I've been watching.

Iron Man 3

Much better than the series' second installment, Iron Man 3 features clever dialogue and unexpectedly wonderful turn by Ben Kingsley, whom I thought was taking an easy paycheck until I actually saw the film.

Lockout

Guy Pearce as Kurt Russell in Escape from Space.  That's actually pretty high praise.

Life of Pi

The best movie I've seen in some time, Life of Pi manages not only to film an unfilmable novel, but to create something magical of its own.  I wish I'd seen this one on the big screen in 3D.

Hour of the Gun

A fine telling of the Wyatt Earp Story.  Picking up moments before the gunfight at the OK Corral, it offers James Garner and Jason Robards as as fine a Wyatt & Doc as you'll ever see.

Jazz on a Summer's Day

I live in Newport.  I love jazz.  I fell asleep during this film.

World War Z

Despite a few extraordinary sequences, this film suffers from inexplicably slow pacing.  Recommended only for zombie completists.

The Visitor

A fine, carefully crafted film featuring a remarkable performance from star Richard Jenkins.  Well worth your time.

Prometheus

I have mixed feelings about Prometheus.  I love its look, its feel, its ambition.  I appreciate its casting of serious, high-quality actors.  However, its screenplay needed a few more passes before it was ready to go into production.

Prometheus weds a big budget to a high concept.  Its sets are magnificent, its world dazzling.  I saw this film in 3-D, mostly because an old friend of mine was one of the camera techs, and the effects were more immersive than distracting.  Add the casting of proven performers like Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Michael Fassbender, and Guy Pearce, and this looks and feels like elite work.  The concept, well, we’re talking about finding the origin of human life on Earth, and the film’s characters have the kind of existential questions director Ridley Scott tackled in his classic Blade Runner: “Where do we come from?  Why are we here?  Why can’t we have more time?”  While we have mixed feelings about the answers the film provides or withholds, we have to credit the production with going after them.

Prometheus gets so many things right that it’s a shame the picture can’t keep our suspension of disbelief alive.  As the audience in a science fiction movie, we walk in willing to believe in technologies that defy the known laws of physics.  We can’t, however, believe in people that don’t act like people or in organisms that can, say, grow without eating.

One of the great things about Ridley Scott’s Alien was that it took things a while to get going.  We go to know the crew of the Nostromo not by having them stand up and recite their bios, but just by following them around for a while.  Once we knew them, we cared about them and believed in their story.  Prometheus gives us an implausible roll call followed by a mission briefing PowerPoint set after the ship has reached its destination, and –bang- we’re into the action.  We in the audience are left thinking, “Really?  These people are just now meeting each other for the first time?  Did they not chat while they were loading their stuff aboard back on Earth?  Oh, and how is it possible that any scientist would sign up for a long, potentially career-derailing, mission without knowing what’s involved?”  So we’re left with thumbnail sketches:  there are Redshirt One, Redshirt Two, Redshirt Three, and Redshirt Four, plus the actors whom we recognize.  Once they’re on Planet Danger, they begin acting in ways that violate even what little we do know about them: the biologist who signed up for a space journey freaks out at the prospect of alien life, then actually tries to pet a scary space-snake.  The geologist runs away from someplace he finds terrifying, only to seek refuge in the exact same place for no real reason.  These examples come right off the top of my head, and the more I think the more I recall.  How can I believe in the plight of these people if I don’t believe they’re people?   (Note: Michael Fassbender’s android character is the most consistent and fully realized of the bunch.  It’s possible that the film’s saying the android is more human than the humans, but that’s the kind of thing you think of later.  While you’re watching the film, you’re thinking, “This doesn’t make sense.”  From there, it’s a short step to “I call BS.”)  And then there’s the funky biology: creatures in this universe appear to have the ability to metabolize thin air.  Humans in this universe can undergo massively invasive abdominal surgery, then run, climb, fight, and singlehandedly rappel fifty feet without tearing open the wound and bleeding out.  And the list goes on.

And that’s the thing about Prometheus.  Those big ideas?  They’re really cool.  That art direction?  That set, costume, and creature design?  Really really cool.  The performances?  The world-class cast acts the heck out of the material, and Michael Fassbender continues his steady march toward Can Do No Wrong status.

But the writing isn’t there.  The characters feel like characters, and the revelations provide more WTH moments than “Oh, wow!” moments.  Prometheus excels at all the “elite filmmaking” stuff, but it stumbles on the fundamentals.  This could have been a great, fascinating, entertaining and wonderful classic that melded the best of Alien and Blade Runner into a rousing, challenging, enriching whole.  Instead, it’s a beautiful failure.  I wanted to love Prometheus.  I was ready to love Prometheus.  I couldn’t love Prometheus.

Traitor

TRAITOR is an excellent film.

Don Cheadle plays Samir, a Sudanese-American working his way up the ranks of a terrorist organization. He's the textbook terrorist candidate: an immigrant caught between two worlds, smart, capable, devout, and with military training. As played by Cheadle, he's also deeply conflicted. He's a man who wants to do the right thing, but the people telling him what is and is not right don't seem to be any more enlightened than he (I'm describing the character instead of the performance because, hey, it's Don Cheadle. You know he nails it.).

Guy Pearce, Jeff Daniels, and Neal McDonough are among the Americans working his case. Saïd Taghmaoui, Alyy Kahn, and Raad Rawi are the major players in his cell. Each of these fine actors sells their roles, but it's a testament to Cheadle's ability that he blows them off the screen without even trying. There's so much happening behind this guy's eyes that he's always the most interesting person in the room, no matter how skilled the other players.

The movie itself is well shot and scored, though not particularly dazzling. This is more a character piece than a virtuoso production, and its exploration of the kind of guy who can rig a suicide vest or sacrifice innocents makes an excellent counterpoint to the more hero-oriented GWOT thrillers we've been getting recently. What a pleasure to get inside the mind of a guy like Samir, a guy wrestling with big questions with important consequences. This one is worth seeing.

The Proposition

Ray Winstone. Guy Pearce. Danny Huston. John Hurt. That spooky Aborigine tracker from RABBIT-PROOF FENCE. These guys are serious guys in a serious movie, THE PROPOSITION, written by Nick Cave and directed by John Hillcoat with brutal pitilessness. Winstone's the law in an arid Outback town that may as well be called Tombstone, and he's out to capture or kill Huston. Others will die, some by intention and some by accident, but it matters not: Huston's the rabbit, Pearce is the hound, and the rest, well, perhaps they'll survive.

But then things change. I won't say how or why, but I will say that they do so in ways I did not expect. That's the trick of this film, and its unique allure, though I'm not sure if it's enough to recommend a viewing. THE PROPOSITION is difficult to watch not because it's brutal, but because it's brutal to people about whom we come to care. Further, it's slow, reflecting a time during which patience wasn't a virtue so much as a requirement. The two combine to create a sense of dread that, while powerful, is far from pleasant. One can imagine that this is how people lived, and this is how they made the decisions they made, and this is how they came to regret them.

So, THE PROPOSITION. It's a well-made film, but I did not enjoy viewing it. Your mileage may vary.