Kingsman: Secret Service; Creed; The Judge

Kingsman: The Secret Service

Andrew Ting said it best: Kingsman: The Secret Service is an amusing spy romp with an undertone of unsettling nastiness.  I’m still not sure whether that works for me or not.

Creed

Creed made me lose track of time.  Creed made me cry.  Creed didn’t move me in quite the same way as did the superlative Rocky Balboa, but you can’t blame a good movie for not being a great movie.  I’m ready for Creed II.

The Judge

There’s a scene in The Judge in which protagonist Robert Downey, Jr. tries to make an uncomfortable confession.  “This is going to be rough,” he says to himself.

This one line encapsulates my problem with the film.  At this point, I’ve already been watching for over an hour.  I know what he needs to confess, I know to whom he needs to confess it, and I can guess at the very serious consequences this confession will entail.  And yet, The Judge thinks I’m an idiot so it tells me that yes, this confession will be rough. 

This is just one of many ways The Judge thinks I’m an idiot.  It thinks I’m an idiot because it underlines the film with a score designed to inform me, in very clear terms, when to laugh and when to weep.  It thinks I’m an idiot because it’s compelled to show me, again and again, how unimaginably idyllic Indiana really is.  It thinks I’m an idiot because it expects me to believe that absolutely everyone in its protagonist’s life has been stuck in time, like mosquitos in amber, since the day Downey moved away some thirty years before.  [Interlude]Look.  I come from an idyllic small town.  My wife comes from an idyllic small town.  We each moved away from our respective idyllic small towns roughly thirty years ago.  When we return for the occasional visit, we may run into one or two people who remember us and are happy to see us.  But nobody’s accusing us of having run out, of having turned our backs on our roots.  We’re just nice people who moved away to another idyllic town.  Those old friends are happy to see us and chew the fat for a bit, but they’ve moved on.  That’s how life goes. [/Interlude]  It thinks I’m an idiot because it photographs its heroes in the golden light of hagiography, its villains in the harsh blues of villainy.  Basically, it thinks I’m an idiot.

All of which leads me to inquire: what kind of an idiot reads a script that’s basically My CousinVinny with all the jokes torn out and replaced with heavy handed family dynamics, “coming home”
mythology, and uncomfortable incest subplots, and thinks, “Bingo?”

I’m not sure, but I am sure that I’ll be very careful about investing the time to see said idiots’ next film.  I know they didn’t mean to crash the car, but that doesn’t mean I need to be in a hurry to climb back in.

Jack Reacher

Jack Reacher is a solid procedural with a strong lead, great supporting work, and the best car chase I've seen in recent memory.

I started out disliking this movie. It begins with a sniper picking off random innocents out enjoying the day in downtown Pittsburgh. It's a powerful scene, alternating between the sniper's cool professionalism and the panicked flight of people unlucky enough to find themselves in his kill zone. See, I lived in DC during the Sniper Autumn of 2002. I recall unpacking boxes in my new home as a police chopper orbited overhead a crime scene just a mile away, where the sniper had shot some poor lady for the crime of vacuuming her car at a local service station. And here was Jack Reacher, mining such a scenario for a Tom Cruise thriller. To heck with that.

But I plowed ahead, mostly because a friend and fellow film buff had endorsed the film. Just a few minutes later, the great character actor Richard Jenkins showed up as the DA set to prosecute the case, and I knew everything was gonna be ok. As a general rule, Richard Jenkins does not make bad movies.

[Digression]Richard Jenkins is such a wonderful actor. If you haven't yet done so, you really owe it to yourself to queue up TheVisitor. He can do so much, create such complete characters with just body language and the way he sets his eyes, that watching him is like watching a master's class in understated perfection. You also should see The Cabin in the Woods, in which Jenkins plays a crucial supporting role. This guy is, as my kids would say, awesomesauce.[/Digression]

Soon, Tom Cruise shows up as the kind of guy my teenaged boy thinks everyone in the Army must be: he's a retired Army cop who just happens to be a sniper, a black belt, a knife fighter, a combat driver, and an an all-around invincible dude with a great plastic surgeon, a personal trainer, and an HGH prescription. Since most of us only have enough time in our lives to get really good at one or two things, Cruise's character is basically Fantasyland. But hey, it's Tom Cruise: say what you want about the man's personal life, he's an incredibly magnetic screen presence. In the film, Tom smells a rat: the case against the accused, an ex-Army sniper with whom our hero has history, looks a little too pat. There must be more to the story.

And we're off, with Tom running and driving and shooting and fighting and Sherlocking his way through about two hours of big-budget pablum – he even gets a noirish monologue about halfway through that would've done Robert Mitchum proud. Jenkins shares supporting credit with a major icon of American cinema whose name I'll withhold because his appearance came as such a pleasant surprise, and both gentlemen class things up wonderfully. The aforementioned car chase, featuring a classic muscle car against a modern speedster, is exciting and inventive and a great deal of fun.

In short, Jack Reacher is pure entertainment – so much so that I forgot my initial revulsion and enjoyed the ride for popcorn-muncher it was. If you like guns and cars and watching some dude the size of a hobbit beat up 6'5” bodybuilders, Jack Reacher makes for an interesting proposition. Toss in Richard Jenkins being quietly awesome, and I don't see how you can pass it up.

Get Low

Get Low: it looks great, it sounds great, and you aren’t going to find better actors than Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, and Bill Murray.  Yes, the story’s thin, but you can’t always have it all.

In Get Low, Duvall plays an old hermit who lives in the woods.  He’s the man people fear, the one the kids whisper about around the campfire.  He’s tired of being whispered about, and hires funeral director Bill Murray to hold his funeral while he’s still alive.  He wants to give the townspeople a chance to tell their stories right out loud.  Could this be because Sissy Spacek, a presumed old flame, has returned to town after a long absence?

It’s no spoiler to say that Duvall’s character is more than meets the eye.  We wouldn’t have much of a film, otherwise.  As the drama unspooled, however, I found myself caring more about the actor than the character.  I felt like I was watching a great performer at work, and I dove into the film from that perspective.  In the film’s climax, Duvall gives us both barrels: I still recall this thing he does with voice and hands, and I challenge you not to be blown away.

This isn’t a great film, but it’s worth your time if you’re fond of these actors.  I am, and I walked away happy.

THX-1138

THX-1138 is solid, ‘70s experimental science fiction. It presents with an antiseptic Orwellian world and one man, THX-1138, who begins to realize that there’s more to life than he’s been led to believe. Robert Duvall plays THX-1138, and it’s a masterful, understated performance. THX lives in a society in which emotion is discouraged, and Duvall is a master of showing us the deep currents swirling beneath his character’s calm exterior.

Where THX-1138 triumphs in the performance of its lead, however, it flounders in its actual story. Though the film begins with an intriguing vision of a dystopic future, it ends as one extended chase, going from foot to high-speed vehicle to foot again. Nothing really happens during this chase, story-wise. THX doesn’t learn anything about himself, nor does he develop in any way. It’s as if the film didn’t know where to go, but figured audiences love chases and that would do as well as anything.

So, should you see THX-1138? If you’re a fan of George Lucas, whose first science fiction feature this was, then I suppose you should. If you’re a fan of Robert Duvall, then you definitely should. If you’re neither, it may be worth your while if you find it on cable. That’s good enough, I suppose.

The Godfather, Part II

Here's the problem with THE GODFATHER, PART II: it doesn't add to the story of THE GODFATHER. Michael ends THE GODFATHER well and truly damned. By the end of Part II, all he's done is find out what hell's like. Vito ends THE GODFATHER a man of honor, by his own lights. That's how he ends here. There is nothing that happens in Part II that hasn't already been done, and done more elegantly, in the original.

So why is it so riveting? I believe that Part II's performances overcome its screenplay. Al Pacino's Michael Corleone is so interesting that I don't mind that all his character does in this film is live out the consequences of his earlier choices. Diane Keaton's Kay Corleone is so heartbreaking that I nearly wept for her. Robert Duvall's Tom Hagen is the most scarily efficient man I've seen in film in a long time. And Robert DeNiro's young Vito is everything we might have expected young Vito to be: cunning, brave, charismatic; a man who commands respect.

It's damn hard for actors to rise above their source material and bring real art from mediocrity, but this cast pulls it off. They're what make watching THE GODFATHER, PART II time well spent.

The Godfather

You know you married the right woman when she says to you, "Let's stay up. I feel like watching a movie together." And she selects THE GODFATHER.
I hadn't seen THE GODFATHER since 1985, and I'd remembered it as an interminably long slog. But then "The Sopranos" came and went, and somewhere along the line we both raced through Puzo's novel, and this time, I was ready.

And this time, THE GODFATHER bowled me over. From the Swiss-watch screenplay to the career-making (or cementing) performances to the lighting to the music, this film puts down one sure foot after another. It breathes, it gives us time to learn about its people and place, and it fully invests us in the journey of Michael, a character who falls as he rises. The look in his eyes when, during the baptism scene, he announces, "I reject Satan and all his promises," is so thoroughly heartbreaking that the entire film is worth it for that moment alone.

THE GODFATHER is one of those films that's so well known it has become akin to cultural wallpaper. What happiness it gives me that it stands in its own right as a brilliant, captivating picture. Wow, my wife has great taste. What the heck is she doing with me?

Thank You for Smoking

I enjoyed the heck out of THANK YOU FOR SMOKING.

TYFS puts its message right out there, but don't see it for the message. See it for the delivery. The movie follows Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart), a smoking lobbyist who's so darned good at his job that he can't help but love it. Nick's the kind of guy who can appear on a talk show loaded with anti-smoking spokespeople and utterly blow them away. He's morally flexible, incredibly cunning, possibly evil, and so much fun to watch that the movie's 90-minute run time races by.

The movie maintains a satiric distance, but it holds true to its universe (and its protagonist's questionable worldview) throughout. By not winking at the joke, it builds both comedically and dramatically, with a conclusion that's amusing, satisfying, and arguable.

You may or may not agree with the politics or science of the film (Offshore oil drilling is morally equivalent to clubbing baby seals? Cell phones cause brain cancer?), but you can enjoy funny, well made satire no matter your predilictions. TYFS is just that, and it's a lot of fun.

Enjoy.

The 6th Day

THE 6TH DAY combines bad filmmaking with bad science fiction to make the worst film I’ve seen in months.

In THE 6TH DAY, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a charter jetcopter pilot who gets in the crosshairs of an evil corporate mastermind with a god complex. Thus begins your basic chase-thriller, but with a twist: the picture is set in the near future, and the evil corporate mastermind likes to clone people for fun and profit. Is Schwarzenegger’s clumsily named Adam a clone or an original edition? Will he live long enough to bring down the evil mastermind’s dastardly scheme? Have you ever been to the movies before?

THE 6TH DAY is bad filmmaking on so many levels that I’m having difficulty deciding where to begin. Do I start with the horrifically glaring product placements that make suspending disbelief impossible? How about the mechanical, by-the-numbers script that telegraphs absolutely everything that will occur in acts two and three in the first fifteen minutes? Of course, there’re always the wooden performances, ghastly set design, and glaring continuity errors, but that seems like piling on. Tell you what – let’s handle this by focusing in one bad judgment that’ll give you a sense of the wrong-headedness of the rest of the production. The evil corporate mastermind (Aside: Ever notice how studio films, which are paid for by corporations, love to use corporations as villains? Do you find the hypocrisy as insulting as I do?) needs a brilliant scientist to actually do his work. THE 6TH DAY employs Robert Duvall in the role, and it’s about the worst choice imaginable. Duvall is making an entirely different movie than everyone else involved in this train wreck, and his character’s pathos, humanity, and fundamental decency so overcome the weakness of his arc and dialogue that he single-handedly shows us what might have been. Like the men in the Plato’s Cave Analogy, we’d have been better off ignorant: Duvall’s brilliance makes everything around him look like nothing more than shadows on a wall, and his casting reflects the same kind of poor judgment that permeates every facet of the production.

THE 6TH DAY is bad science fiction because it steals whole concepts and conceits from other works without bothering to credit them or toss them a nod in any way. Additionally, it weasels out of crafting a compelling vision of the future by telling us that it's taking place in "the near future - sooner than you think." Of course, what vision it does muster looks just like everyone else’s vision of the future - silly wigs, but with more product placement. And its technology – well, it’s simply counterintuitive and unbelievable.

What a disappointment.

The Conversation

Much has been written about the logic of THE CONVERSATION, about its perspectives and its relationship with its own filmed reality. If you're interested in that kind of analysis, Google is a wonderful thing. I'm interested in how the movie feels.

THE CONVERSATION, set in San Francisco, is a wonderfully noir thriller with a hero unlike anything from Hammet's typewriter. Gene Hackman plays Harry Caul, a surveillance expert who suffers from insecurity, indecisiveness, and, crucially, inability to act at the key moment. Caul has recorded a conversation whose implications, he believes, may lead to murder. Since this is noir, his bumbling investigation leads him from clue to betrayal to doubt to clue to betrayal to doubt to, well, it's Chinatown, Jake.

The great thing about this film is its sense of the slow burn. This movie doesn't feature intimidating albinos, digital countdowns, or waving guns. Rather, it features a man who feels doors slowly being shut around him, villains who hold corporate positions, friends who can't be trusted, and more questions than answers. It's the kind of movie that builds dread and desperation in equal measure. By the time it gets to its devastating closing shot, we feel as lost as Caul.

Francis Ford Coppola has made some brilliant pictures in his time. THE CONVERSATION is right up there with them. I enthusiastically recommend it.