The Croods; Rush; A Most Wanted Man

The Croods

The Croods is fine.  It’s pretty, it tells a nice story, and its voice cast includes personal favorites Nicholas Cage, Emma Stone, and Cloris Leachman.

That’s about all I can say for it, however.  I didn’t laugh.  I didn’t cry.  I just sorta rocked along pleasantly for an hour and half.  That ain’t bad.  It ain’t great, either.  It’s fine.  No, really.  It’s fine.

Rush

I spent the first hour or so of Rush not enjoying the movie.  Like Amadeus, the film sets up a conflict between a natural talent (Chris Hemsworth, a British Formula One driver) and a grinder (Daniel Brühl, his Austrian nemesis (the actor also appears in A Most Wanted Man, discussed below)).   Thing is, I identified with the grinder. Hemsworth’s character put my teeth on edge.

Then the movie took an unexpected turn, went in an entirely different direction than I’d expected, and made me hold my breath, tense in sympathy to the action onscreen, and hang on every twist and turn of the competitors’ races.

I feel like I started out with Days of Thunder and finished with something wonderful.  Rush is the most surprising movie I’ve seen this year. 

A Most Wanted Man

Some deaths get to you, even if you never really knew the person in question.  I still miss Phil Hartman.  I miss Philip Seymour Hoffman.

In A Most Wanted Man, Hoffman plays the Hamburg chief of a small German intelligence organization occupied with hunting terrorists.  The film, based on a John le Carré novel, occupies itself not with fast cars and gadgets, but with the nondescript, dedicated, and frequently exhausted people who actually make the intelligence community go.  Hoffman, overweight, disheveled, and brilliant, is a perfect match for this world.  His character belongs in dimly lit bars, crafting plans and making deals, and I believed in him every step of the way.

The plot?  Well, it’s a le Carré story, so it features twists and surprises and a kind of mundane weariness that feels all the more immediate because we can imagine it happening right in the next booth over.

The effect?  Well, mostly sadness.  Sadness for the characters in the story, but particular sadness for the loss of Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of our generation’s great actors and a talent that I’m sure to miss for a long time to come.

Bangkok Dangerous

Since every beat of BANGKOK DANGEROUS is predictable and everything happens on schedule, your enjoyment of the film will hinge upon how much you like Nick Cage and how much you like Thailand.

I like Nic Cage. I like Thailand. I like 'em so much that I overlooked the fact that BANGKOK DANGEROUS is not a very good movie and had a good time, anyway. Yeah, this is the kind of movie in which the hardened criminal kicks things off by telling you his rules of the game. That's just so you'll know exactly which rules he'll break on his way to redemption. And oh, yeah, it's the kind of movie in which the hardened criminal repeats the rules as he's about to break them, in case you walked in late or have poor short-term memory. And yep, it's the kind of movie in which the love interests don't say anything, making them empty vessels for the romantic fantasies of the (young male) target audience.

But it has lots o' great location shooting in the Land of Smiles, lots of stuff blows up real good, and Cage does that thing where he's holding a pistol in each hand and blasting away, a firing technique guaranteed to ensure that the shooter couldn't hit the sky if he were aiming at it. Of course, this is extra fun because Nic Cage is just not a dangerous guy. I don't care how silly his wig is or many weights he lifts - there's something about the guy that communicates that the worst thing he could possibly do to you is shark your wave or bogart your joint. I don't mind - Thailand looks great, the local talent is very talented, and the movie even surprised me when it came to the damsel.

Bringing Out The Dead

BRINGING OUT THE DEAD is one of those films whose premise didn't capture my imagination, and I gave it a pass upon its initial release. Judging by its box office and "stickiness" in the collective imagination, I imagine many others felt the same way and made the same choice. It was my loss, and it's theirs, too.

BRINGING OUT THE DEAD is an imaginative picture, presenting the viewer with sounds and images that make one think, "I can't believe this is the same guy who did THE AGE OF INNOCENCE Here, Scorsese and his team take us into the mind of Nicholas Cage's burned-out paramedic, a guy who hasn't managed to save a life in six months and who, through a combination of insomnia, guilt, and alcohol, is rapidly coming apart. To accomplish this, the movie plays with time,
perception, and illusion; and it imbues the viewer with a sense of hopeless desperation borne of one man's crisis and the larger crisis of the neighborhood crumbling around him.

Every single thing about this movie works. Cage works at his full potential, the supporting cast is first-rate, the music reinforces and strengthens the narrative, the photography is terrific, and the whole experience is like seeing a master conductor at work. BRINGING OUT THE DEAD is a technical and emotional success. Bravo.

Snatch; National Treasure

Hyperkinetic and fun, 'Snatch' tells the intertwining stories of midlevel thug, an unlicensed boxing promoter, a pawnbroker with a lousy mind for crime, some diamond thieves, and one unintelligible gypsy.

It's cheeky, it's unpredictable, and it's great, anarchic fun. I liked it. I didn't love it, but I liked it.

'National Treasure' is pretty much everything you want in a big-budget action movie. It has lots o' 'splosions, plenty of gunfire, a pretty girl, a car chase, and Nic Cage even swings like Tarzan at one point. It could've used some pirates and some ninjas, but I won't had that against it. 'National Treasure' is also fun, and just the thing for sitting around with your buddies, a pizza, and some beer.

I do, however, have two problems with 'National Treasure': first, I'm tired of seeing Sean Bean play the villain. I mean, I'm happy that this guy's getting work and paying his mortgage, but this is the "Sharp's Rifles" guy, for pete's sake! Somebody cast him in a hero role, already! Second, 'National Treasure' takes a a 'Quiz Show' approach to history. It thinks of history as a collection of interesting trivia, not a dramatic interplay of ideas, spread out over generations. Any history is good history, I suppose, but I'll take the slow development of the Human Race over factoids about who cast the Liberty Bell any time.