Considering the 20-year sabbatical he took between 1978's DAYS OF HEAVEN and 1998's THE THIN RED LINE, Terrence Malick has been surprisingly prolific since his return, especially in the last decade: his latest film, A HIDDEN LIFE, is his fifth feature since 2011. But it's been an increasingly divisive decade for Malick fans, and even his most devout apologists started turning on him after 2017's atrocious SONG TO SONG, where the filmmaker's embrace of rambling, ethereal voiceover and growing disdain for any semblance of narrative storytelling or forward momentum reached their absolute nadir. Perhaps even Malick felt he'd disappeared a little too far up his own ass with SONG TO SONG, as A HIDDEN LIFE marks a return to actual scripted narrative and conventional storytelling, displaying a side of Malick we haven't seen since 2005's THE NEW WORLD and parts of 2011's THE TREE OF LIFE. That doesn't mean he's completely changed his ways. He's still as meticulous and obsessive as ever: A HIDDEN LIFE, originally titled RADEGUND, was shot back in 2016 as Malick spent nearly three years tinkering with it and tweaking it in the editing room, during which time two of its cast members died (Michael Nyqvist in June 2017 and Bruno Ganz in February 2019). Set from 1939 to 1943, the film is based on the true story of Franz Jagerstatter (August Diehl), a farmer in Radegund, Austria. He's a good, honest man who's happy with his simple life, tending to his fields, doing handyman work at the local church, and spending time with his wife Fani (Valerie Pachner) and their three daughters. But Austria is in a time of turmoil. War is ramping up throughout Europe and able-bodied men are being drafted to serve under Hitler. Much of the Radegund locals--including its Hitler-loving mayor (Karl Markovics) pledge blind allegiance, while Franz, troubled by the Nazi ideology, dutifully goes to church for guidance but gets nothing from the Bishop (Nyqvist), all the while defiantly trying to remain in apolitical detachment.
He's conscripted and goes through the military training, and is then sent home until he's called to serve. That day comes, and he refuses the required oath of allegiance to Hitler. Franz going on the record as a conscientious objector quickly gets around Radegund, as former friends ostracize the Jagerstatters, and no one, not even Radegund priest Father Furthauer (Tobias Moretti) can convince him to simply go along to get along. Franz is eventually hauled away to prison to await trial, where he's regularly beaten and tortured, even refusing a request by a Nazi captain (Matthias Schoenaerts), who promises to dismiss the charges, end his incarceration, and give him a non-battlefield office job if he simply signs the oath to Hitler. Franz Jagerstatter never backed down and never gave in, and would eventually be found guilty before a tribunal and executed on August 9, 1943. As one expects, A HIDDEN LIFE is stunningly beautiful, especially the scenes around the Jagerstatter farm, shot in the mountains of northern Italy. This probably looked great on a big screen, but the film got lost in the shuffle of Disney taking over 20th Century Fox, and something that would've gotten a certain Oscar push in any other year ended up stalling on 151 screens at its widest release, grossing under $2 million. It's nice to see Malick meeting a weary audience halfway by embracing relatively standard storytelling again while still giving himself room to indulge his usual tropes and obsessions (slow walks through fields, long, contemplative, philosophical voiceovers, this time as epistolary narration in letters between Franz and Fani). But at a career-long 174 minutes, it's simply too long, especially when he keeps the bigger picture at a distance to get into the heads of Franz and Fani, and you can almost see Diehl desperately wanting to break out with an Oscar-caliber performance but Malick's methodology keeps him pinned down. He does what he can when it's allowed, and Ganz has a great moment later on as the head of the tribunal, his sad face speaking volumes after he privately tries to get Franz to just sign the oath and be done with it, maybe even silently admiring the young man's conviction even though he has no choice but to sentence him to death. After years of increasingly self-indulgent drivel, A HIDDEN LIFE is a step in the right direction for Malick, whose next film, the Biblical drama THE LAST PLANET (starring Schoenaerts) is currently in post-production, which means we'll see it sometime in 2023. (PG-13, 174 mins) THE SONG OF NAMES (Canada/Hungary - 2019)
Another barely-released prestige project that came and went with little fanfare during the 2019 awards season (Sony got it on 182 screens at its widest release), THE SONG OF NAMES is an earnest but empty period drama that jumps back and forth between 1939. 1951, and 1986. In London in 1951, 21-year-old Polish-born violin prodigy Dovidl Rapoport (Jonah Hauer-King) is set to make his much-anticipated debut performance before a sellout crowd that will be broadcast on BBC radio, but he never shows up, and neither his manager Gilbert Simmonds (Stanley Townsend), his son, Dovidl's best friend Martin (Gerran Howell), nor Martin's girlfriend Helen (Marina Hambro), know where he is. We learn that Dovidl has lived with the Simmonds family since 1939, when his Jewish father left him in the care of impresario Gilbert to let him study the violin and be safe as Hitler's Germany began its conquering rise to power. Young Martin (Misha Handley) is resentful of Dovidl (Luke Doyle), whose pre-teen arrogance, self-proclaimed musical genius, and the attention he gets from Gilbert is initially a source of conflict, though the two boys eventually form a bond and become the best of friends. In 1986, Martin (Tim Roth) is a classical music talent scout in London, and while judging an otherwise routine talent show at an area school, he sees a student using a very particular and unique way of applying rosin to the bow that is identical to what he watched Dovidl do countless times when they were children. Only then does he realize how Dovidl's disappearance has quietly gnawed at him for 35 years, and he switches to amateur sleuth mode--going from London to Warsaw to NYC--to find out what happened to him.
Second-billed Clive Owen's name is above the title with Roth's, so it's not really a spoiler to say that 1986 Dovidl will eventually appear much later, but the first hour and change is spent on Martin chasing a series of coincidental leads that get increasingly more contrived with each new clue. Based on a 2002 novel by Norman Lebrecht and scripted by Jeffrey Caine (a 2005 Adapted Screenplay Oscar-nominee for THE CONSTANT GARDENER), THE SONG OF NAMES telegraphs too many of its reveals so that nothing that happens is particularly surprising, especially in the way 1986 Helen (Catherine McCormack), Martin's wife of over 30 years, really doesn't want him to waste his time tracking down Dovidl. 1951 Dovidl grows more and more concerned over the fate of his family, from whom he hasn't heard in years, fearful that they were among the dead at Treblinka, and it's in these scenes that director Francois Girard (THIRTY TWO SHORT FILMS ABOUT GLENN GOULD, THE RED VIOLIN) fares best, with a devastating sequence that's diminished somewhat by the ludicrous way Dovidl gets to where he goes to discover the truth. The same incredulity applies to 1986 Martin just walking into a small violin repair shop in Brooklyn, where the owner (Saul Rubinek) just happens to still have the address of an anonymous caller who never gave his name but inquired about selling a particular violin four years earlier. That scene with 1951 Dovidl's discovery--and the origin of the film's title--is an emotional wrecking ball, but THE SONG OF NAMES trudges on for another half hour before its big soap opera reveal that isn't even a surprise by that point. The younger actors do a lot of the dramatic heavy lifting, as Roth essentially just plays detective and listens to people talk about Dovidl, while Owen really isn't onscreen long enough to make much of an impression. (PG-13, 113 mins)
THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT (Denmark/Sweden/France/Germany - 2018) Written and directed by Lars von Trier. Cast: Matt Dillon, Bruno Ganz, Uma Thurman, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Sofie Grabol, Riley Keough, Jeremy Davies, Ed Speleers, Emil Thorstrup, Marijana Jankovic, Carina Skenhede, Rocco Day, Cohen Day, Osy Ikhile, Yu Ji-tae, David Bailie. (R, 151 mins) When an ill-advised joke about "understanding" and "sympathizing with" Hitler understandably failed to land, professional provocateur and arthouse troll Lars von Trier was kicked out of the Cannes Film Festival in 2011 with his MELANCHOLIA in competition. His triumphant return to the festival earlier this year with the serial killer thriller THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT led to harumphing outrage and at least 100 walkouts. In other words, Mission Accomplished. IFC Films released von Trier's unrated, uncensored, 155-minute version for a one-night theatrical run in late November prior to the VOD rollout of the R-rated cut, shortened by four minutes. I don't really see why an edited version is necessary if it's mainly going to be seen on VOD anyway, and you can tell where the cuts are--the brutal murders of two children being a key point of repulsion at Cannes, along with one graphic scene of a woman's breasts being mutilated and sliced off. But even if you could see these few bits at full strength in the cut version, THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT isn't exactly the second coming of HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER. It is a tour-de-force for an all-in Matt Dillon as Jack, an odd, antisocial, obsessive-compulsive architect-turned-serial killer based in the rural outskirts of the Pacific Northwest, recounting five random murders over a 12-year period to an initially unseen man named Verge (Bruno Ganz). Verge scoffs at Jack's boasts and claims, sardonically taunting him with "Don't believe you're going to tell me something I haven't heard before." But by the end, Verge's snide dismissals and mocking tone will give way to legitimate horror and disgust, to the point where he finally deems Jack an "Antichrist."
Jack's murderous ways seem to have started as a spur-of-the-moment impulse decision. In "Incident 1," he happens upon a woman (Uma Thurman) stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire and a broken jack (sly foreshadowing?). She's pushy and abrasive, demanding more and more of Jack's time and telling him he "looks like a serial killer." That is, until she walks it back and says he looks like too much of a wimp to be a murderer, to which Jack's knee-jerk response is to bash her head in with the jack. Independently wealthy from an inheritance, Jack owns an empty warehouse space with a massive walk-in freezer, which he puts to use by storing her corpse. Jack's first attempt at premeditated murder comes in "Incident 2," where he awkwardly and unconvincingly tries to talk his way into home of a cop's widow (Siobhan Fallon Hogan), first by pretending to be a detective ("I'd like to see a police badge," she says. "So would I," replies Jack), and then only gaining entrance by playing on her greed by saying he's there to talk about a possible increase in her late husband's pension. After killing her, he's nearly caught by a passing cop (Ed Speleers) when his OCD and his obsessive cleanliness repeatedly force him to go back into the house and double/triple/quadruple-check to make sure he didn't miss a spot of blood, repeatedly scrubbing the floors and walls over and over again ("A murderer with OCD and to top it off, a cleaning compulsion?" needles Verge). In "Incident 3," Jack is a gun nut in a red hat taking a single mom (Sofie Grabol) and her two young sons, George (Cohen Day) and Grumpy (Rocco Day), to a vacant shooting range with predictably horrific results, including a macabre picnic where he forces her to feed bites of apple pie to her two dead boys ("This has been a good day," Jack beams with pride after this "family" outing). By this point, Jack has grown more confident in his abilities as a chameleon-like killer and begins sending murder photos to the press, calling himself "Mr. Sophistication," likely a reference to the grimly sardonic emcee at Ben Gazzara's seedy burlesque club in the 1976 John Cassavetes cult classic THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE). In "Incident 4," Jack is in full-on "bad boy" mode, manipulating and psychologically abusing Jacqueline (Riley Keough) by giving her the nickname "Simple" and boasting that he's killed 60 people and "in a couple of minutes, it'll be 61." "Incident 5" has Jack abducting five random people and taking them to his freezer--now filled with years' worth of collected victims--and lining them up for a full metal jacket to rip through all of their heads with one shot, only to be stalled by the fact that the guy at the gun shop (Jeremy Davies, twitchy as ever) sold him mislabeled ammo.
Amidst the horrors on display, there's quite a bit of dark, absurdist humor throughout, like Jack leaving one victim's severed breast under the windshield wiper of the cop who earlier issued him a parking ticket, and then using the other breast to make a wallet. And almost everything out of Verge's mouth is gold, with Ganz deploying a tone so incredulously mocking of Jack that you can't help but laugh (their conversations are reminiscent of Charlotte Gainsbourg and Stellan Skarsgard's framing sequences in NYMPHOMANIAC). But the film really loses its way after the fifth incident, and when we finally see Verge onscreen near the end, the magic of Ganz's vocal performance is lost thanks to von Trier's decision to turn him into a Chuck Palahniuk plot construct. Of course, the film was never meant to exist in reality, as Jack is the most unreliable of narrators (it's even possible that "Incident 1" isn't even his first murder, since he seems so testy and preoccupied from the start), and he gets away with his acts much too easily, but at some point, THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT stops being shocking and provocative and just becomes repetitive and exhausting, with a bloated running time that borders on loitering.
A walking embodiment of the DSM-5, Jack believes that his murders constitute "art," a sentiment stemming from his disputing the differences between "architect" and "engineer" when describing his profession. This leads to endless debates with Verge about art, iconography, and the nature of "masterpieces" that play over shots of revered paintings, museum pieces, newsreel footage of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Idi Amin, various massacres and genocides, and, eventually, in a grating bit of masturbatory self-adulation, a highlight reel of clips from past von Trier films. There's some political and social commentary to be mined from this (there's no slogan on Jack's red hat in "Incident 3," but the implication is obvious), and Jack very often comes off like a pathetic incel with some major issues with women (note how it's being called a "wimp" that initially sets him off). Dillon dives into this role with fearless abandon, and von Trier crafts some undoubtedly effective and haunting images, whether it's the positioning of the victims in "Incident 3," the taxidermy method in which he preserves Grumpy's body, or something like Jack's thumb and the tip of his index finger cleaning off a single blood-drenched blade of grass, and finally, the ultimate construction of his "house." But less could've been more with THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT, and von Trier is, as usual, so self-indulgently preoccupied with poking people with sticks to get a reaction that he disappears up his own ass. Few filmmakers are more divisive than Lars von Trier, and there's moments of greatness even in his lesser films. But his need to shock and provoke for a reaction too often feels like the work of an enfant terrible making a name for himself rather than a 62-year-old who's in his fourth decade of filmmaking.
Despite the title, this isn't a sixth installment of the long-running Tom Berenger action franchise. Instead, it's another "Steven Seagal" movie where the 64-year-old star and co-executive producer does as little as possible, is always shot solo and never directly interacting with his co-stars, and is obviously doubled in any shot where his face isn't visible. Indeed, there's several instances here of Seagal's double using props--and in one instance, actually holding up his hand--to obscure his face as he exits a room or walks away. Filmed on some still-standing sets from AMERICAN SNIPER at the Blue Cloud Movie Ranch facility in California, SNIPER: SPECIAL OPS is written and directed by exploitation vet Fred Olen Ray who, like his contemporary Jim Wynorski, almost could've had a big(ish) career in the 1980s but has instead dabbled in any number of DTV genres under a plethora of pseudonyms. On the commentary--yes, this actually has a commentary--Ray talks of this being a return to the style of his '80s action movies like ARMED RESPONSE and that it was a special project for him, but it's really just a blatant ripoff of ACT OF VALOR (Ray says his original draft of the script was titled HOUR OF VALOR). Seagal and pro wrestler Rob Van Dam have their last names above the title (I guess hoping to confuse Redbox rubes who don't follow wrestling and don't know how to spell "Van Damme"), but the real star is third-billed Tim Abell, a Ray regular who's been carving out a living on the fringes of D-list DTV since the early '90s when he headlined a number of erotic thrillers and the syndicated series SOLDIER OF FORTUNE INC. A gravelly-voiced and DUCK DYNASTY-bearded Abell is Sgt. Vic Mosby, the head of an Army special ops unit that rescues a US senator taken hostage by Taliban insurgents. Two of their unit--sniper Jake Taylor (Seagal) and his spotter Rich Cannon (Daniel Booko)--are left behind in the skirmish, with young Rich shot and unable to feel his legs. Back at the base, the commander (ex-Marine and go-to movie military advisor Dale Dye, who's had better assignments) assigns Mosby and his men, among them second-in-command Vasquez (Van Dam), to head into dangerous territory to retrieve a stranded military truck filled with explosives and fuel.
Of course, there's extensive firefights with terrorists, who aren't after the truck as much as they are the person in the truck, Jada (Rita Khori), the daughter-in-law of a major Taliban leader. Jada has renounced her terrorist ties and is trying to find safe passage with the Americans for herself and her infant son, which makes Mosby a bit more grumbly than usual, as does the presence of stowaway photojournalist Janet (Charlene Amoia). Mosby hatches a plan to use Jada as leverage to ensure the safe release of Taylor and Cannon, who are still holed up and under siege where Mosby was forced to leave them behind. In other words, what you have with SNIPER: SPECIAL OPS, is really a Tim Abell movie where he tries to rescue Steven Seagal. Seagal's laziness is rivaled only by Bruce Willis, and he's in SNIPER: SPECIAL OPS even less than he is his more recent "efforts." Seagal's amusing performance in 2014's GUTSHOT STRAIGHT was a good indication that he could have a credible career as a character actor if he gave a shit, but all the hallmarks of modern-day Seagal are on display in SNIPER: SPECIAL OPS: the barely-concealed double, the mumbling, fake N'awlins accent, the mid-film sabbatical where he's gone for somewhere around 20-25 minutes of screen time. I guess SNIPER: SPECIAL OPS isn't bad as much as it is by-the-numbers. Ray's handling of the action scenes is perfunctory at best, with a 15-minute opening sequence that should have you on the edge of your seat but never builds any momentum and just meanders on its way to nowhere. Abell does what's expected of him but none of these characters are interesting and we don't really get invested in anything they're doing. It's a standard, undemanding, streaming-ready, jingoistic military actioner with a lot of "Roger, sir!" and "Copy that!" and "Let's go!" and "You got it, Sergeant!" Seagal is practically a non-factor in what's being sold as a Seagal movie, and nothing sums that up more succinctly than Ray saying almost nothing about him on the commentary, probably because he has yet to actually meet him. (R, 86 mins) REMEMBER
(Canada/Germany - 2015)
The wildly inconsistent Atom Egoyan is so far removed from his 1990s EXOTICA and THE SWEET HEREAFTER heyday that it's best to approach his new films with diminished expectations. He's been working at a fairly steady pace the last few years, with 2014's pointless West Memphis Three misfire DEVIL'S KNOT and the same year's missing child thriller THE CAPTIVE, which started good but got increasingly goofy as it went along. With REMEMBER, it's goofy pretty much from the start, its story so distant from any plausible reality that, given its subject matter, it's almost admirably tacky in its execution, In a nursing home in New York, 90-year-old Zev Guttman (Christopher Plummer) is a recent widower suffering from early-onset dementia. Zev is an Auschwitz survivor, like fellow facility resident Max Rosenbaum (Martin Landau). Max has to remind Zev of a plan they intended to carry out once Zev's cancer-stricken wife passed: to find and kill the Nazi blockfuhrer who ran their section of the concentration camp. The blockfuhrer goes by the name "Rudy Kurlander," and though Max, who has dedicated his life to tracking down former Nazis, has located four elderly men with that name living in the US, he's now confined to a wheelchair, hindered by emphysema, and too ill to do it himself. He gives Zev a detailed letter and a pile of cash and sends him to Cleveland, where that Rudy Kurlander (Bruno Ganz) turns out to be the wrong guy. Zev will venture through Michigan into Ontario, Canada and back into the US to Reno on his quest for the other three Rudy Kurlanders, the second being surprisingly poignant and heartfelt before Egoyan and first-time screenwriter Benjamin August (a former casting director on the reality show FEAR FACTOR) hop on the crazy train, turning REMEMBER into a bizarre and strangely compelling exercise in discomfort and disbelief, sort of what you'd get if you dropped Simon Wiesenthal into a DEATH WISH or HARRY BROWN scenario. There's a twist ending you'll probably see coming, a sweating Zev getting trapped in a place he shouldn't be and pissing himself while blowing an anti-Semite's brains out, and the great Jurgen Prochnow (as a Rudy Kurlander) sporting what might be the least convincing old-age makeup ever seen in a movie.
From the moment a visibly scattered Zev walks into a Cleveland gun shop and effortlessly walks out with a Glock, REMEMBER is pretty much full of shit but scores a few points for chutzpah. On top of that, the specific reminders in Max's letter and Zev writing "Read letter" on his arm seem too indebted to MEMENTO and it doesn't seem likely that a frail Alzheimer's patient can Leonard Shelby his way across the country on a mission of vengeance. Committed performances give this a lot more class than the story can possibly offer, with an excellent Plummer apparently under the impression that he's in an old-school Egoyan film, carrying this on his shoulders and reminding us what a great actor he's been all these years. Landau is fine in his few scenes, and Ganz and Prochnow have little more than cameos, much like the second Rudy Kurlander (Heinz Lieven), who's memorable even with very little dialogue. Henry Czerny plays Zev's concerned son who spends the entire movie trying to find him, and Dean Norris has a small role in the film's darkest and most over-the-top segment, at least until the surprise reveal in the finale. Egoyan bungles things by adding one more scene after where it should've ended, almost like he didn't trust the audience to figure out the machinations of a key character and had to explicitly spell it out for them. I'm not sure whether that's a sign of Egoyan's slipping as a filmmaker or him recognizing that he needed to dumb it down for audiences that might not be as sharp as they were circa EXOTICA. REMEMBER is better than Egoyan's most recent films, but that's a pretty low bar. He hasn't made a recognizably "Egoyan" film since 2008's ADORATION, and REMEMBER finds him in what's best described as his "trashy pulp paperback" mode, along with the sleazy, NC-17-rated WHERE THE TRUTH LIES or the laughably dated CHLOE, a decade-and-a-half-too-late contribution to the 1990s erotic thriller cycle. REMEMBER is better than those films, for what that's worth, and that's largely because of Plummer, who probably shook his head at some of the scenes as he read the script for the first time, but still gives it everything he's got. (R, 94 mins) EMELIE
(US - 2016)
Directed by veteran live concert DVD director Michael Thelin and written by J.J. Abrams protege Richard Raymond Harry Herbeck (is all that necessary?), EMELIE works best in its ballsy early stages, where it seems like it's willing to go into some pretty dark places (there's also a cringe-inducing scene of young Christopher playing with Joe's gun that Emelie found in a closet and left out). But it starts collapsing midway through, with Emelie's motivation being traumatic but handled in a much stronger fashion in the very disturbing PROXY from a couple of years ago. Once the pieces are in place, it's ultimately nothing more than HOME ALONE re-imagined as an R-rated psychological/home invasion thriller, with the smart Emelie suddenly required to do stupid things in order to keep the story moving. But all that's just a warm-up for the climax, which kicks off with her accomplice doing something so impulsive and recklessly idiotic that it undermines all of the careful planning they've done, all leading up to a dumb non-ending that lands with a resounding thud. Bolger is terrific as the psychotic Emelie, and young Rush does a solid job as a pre-teen just starting to rebel (and explore other things, as Joe expresses concern to Joyce about the boy's web browsing history) and stepping up to protect his younger siblings. Thelin and Richard Harris Raymond Burr Tom Dick Harry Dean Stanton Herbeck offer an intriguing set-up (even though we're not sure how Emelie knows Anna or that she'd be filling in for her friend at the Thompsons, but it's not really a necessary detail) that becomes increasingly ordinary and dumb as it fizzles to its conclusion. (Unrated, 82 mins)
THE COUNSELOR: UNRATED EXTENDED CUT (US/UK - 2013)
Directed by Ridley Scott. Written by Cormac McCarthy. Cast: Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt, Bruno Ganz, Rosie Perez, Ruben Blades, Sam Spruell, Dean Norris, John Leguizamo, Edgar Ramirez, Toby Kebbell, Goran Visnjic, Natalie Dormer, Richard Cabral, Richard Brake, Andrea Deck, Giannina Facio. (Unrated, 138 mins)
Over the course of his lengthy career, Ridley Scott has been one of the key figures in the advent of the "director's cut," largely from his experiences with 1982's BLADE RUNNER. Scott famously clashed with the producers and for a decade, the version of the film that everyone knew was despised by both Scott and star Harrison Ford. Then, in 1992, the Director's Cut was released, only it wasn't a true "director's cut" in the sense that Scott, then busy filming 1492: CONQUEST OF PARADISE, wasn't directly involved in the project, which was assembled based on his notes and what was known to be his original ending. It was close, but not quite a director's cut, though it went a long way in establishing the film as the classic we know today and prompted many critics who dismissed the film in 1982 to reconsider it. In 2007, Scott was able to make subtle changes and "The Final Cut" finally provided fans with the BLADE RUNNER its maker always intended. Scott had similar, though much less drawn-out, experiences with Universal over the 1985 fantasy epic LEGEND. The studio sat on the film for a year and finally released it in 1986 with a different score and 30 minutes cut out.
Years later, DVD and Blu-ray editions of LEGEND featured both the uncut European version (Scott's cut) and the butchered US version, and the 2007 BLADE RUNNER set featured four (!) versions, with a deluxe box set containing a fifth, the pre-release workprint version. These two films are the prime examples of Scott's director's cuts being used to right what he considered a wrong. After the 2003 "Director's Cut" of his 1979 classic ALIEN, Scott refrained from using the term "director's cut" because he felt it implies that the director is unhappy with the previously released version. Scott still considers the 1979 ALIEN the definitive version, but only offered the "director's cut" because fans wanted to see the legendary cut footage of the cocooned Dallas (Tom Skerritt) and Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) being used as food for the alien. Both characters were simply killed off in the '79 version after Scott opted to ditch the "cocoon" feeding angle. On the DVD, Scott explains that both versions are being offered and people don't have to worry that their preferred cut is being "replaced." He basically says "They're both here...watch the one you want to watch." That's been Scott's philosophy with the DVD and eventual Blu-ray presentations of most of his work after that. GLADIATOR (2000), BLACK HAWK DOWN (2001), KINGDOM OF HEAVEN (2005), AMERICAN GANGSTER (2007), and ROBIN HOOD (2010) all have "extended versions" included alongside the standard editions. Sometimes, the changes help--KINGDOM OF HEAVEN's extended version adds 45 minutes that really do enhance and enrich the film--while other times, it's inessential. The 19 minutes added to AMERICAN GANGSTER add little to the film other than superfluous bloat. Scott doesn't offer these alternate cuts to illustrate dissatisfaction but rather, just as a bonus for fans. They're scenes or plot threads he decided not to use, but if you're so inclined, here's what the film looked like at one point. In most cases, Scott's extended versions serve as the cut before the final cut. Oddly, the one recent film of Scott's that feels compromised in its released version and really does warrant a director's cut is 2012's PROMETHEUS, and it has yet to materialize other than a handful of deleted scenes on the Blu-ray.
Scott's 2013 film THE COUNSELOR was just released on Blu-ray with both the 117-minute theatrical version (reviewed here) and a 138-minute "unrated extended cut." The film opened to some of the most toxic reviews of the year in what quickly became a ludicrous pile-on, culminating in numerous blurbs that it was the worst movie of the year, with Salon's Andrew O'Hehir going even further than that by declaring, in a stunning example of over-the-top hyperbole that should effectively prevent him from ever being taken seriously again, "Meet the worst movie ever made." Audiences despised it and the film scored a D on the witless CinemaScore. But then, something odd happened, and it happened quickly. Buzz started spreading around the internet that THE COUNSELOR wasn't nearly as bad as the reviews suggested and that, if approached with an open mind and an appreciation for the work of novelist Cormac McCarthy, making his screenwriting debut, it proved a rewarding experience. By the end of its second, and in most of the country, last week of release, it had already transformed from much-maligned box-office bomb to a genuine cult film that didn't get a fair shake from critics. I was discussing THE COUNSELOR with a friend on Facebook recently and someone commented "Were the critics watching the movie or were they watching each other?"
As I stated in my original review from October 2013, THE COUNSELOR is a mess but it's a fascinating mess. If you didn't like the theatrical version, then there's little chance that the extended cut will change your feelings. Given the verbose nature of what we've already seen, the bulk of the additional 21 minutes primarily consist of dialogue, something which the theatrical cut of THE COUNSELOR certainly wasn't lacking (some of the scenes in the late-going occur in a slightly different order as well). There's some additional dirty talk during the opening with Michael Fassbender and Penelope Cruz in bed. There's a long monologue for Bruno Ganz as the Amsterdam diamond dealer. There's a new intro for drug-running motorcyclist The Green Hornet (Richard Cabral), who tells a joke about dog food and "licking your balls." The already-infamous "Cameron Diaz fucks a car" sequence is augmented by some additional graphic details from Javier Bardem. The death of one major character is much gorier in the extended version. None of these scenes really add any depth to the film, and though Ganz is terrific in his additional footage, you can see it's one of those scenes that an experienced director of Scott's caliber could see wasn't really essential. The same goes for a comical throwaway scene of one of Bardem's cheetahs crashing a neighbor's backyard barbecue.
Aside from the additional 21 minutes (the extended cut is only available on the two-disc Blu-ray set, with the theatrical version on the other disc), the highlight of the second disc is the documentary/visual essay "Truth of the Situation: Making THE COUNSELOR." Described as an "immersive experience" and running a whopping 216 minutes, "Truth" covers just about anything a fan of THE COUNSELOR would want to know. It's part audio commentary with Scott, with the extended version of the film frequently intercut with corresponding behind-the-scenes footage and cast & crew interviews. Scott is blunt about what works and what doesn't (the extended cut contains a gratuitous and unconvincing shot of one character's severed head and Scott says "I think I'm glad I cut that"), and it's the kind of extra usually reserved for something along the lines of a Criterion release, a fascinating journey inside a film whose tattered reputation was already on the mend before it even left theaters.
Scott seems to be of the opinion that he's happy with the theatrical version, and I'd probably go that route on future viewings. It's a film of odd rhythms and heavy dialogue that requires patience, and with the 21 minutes added to the extended cut, things do get occasionally tedious. Admirers of THE COUNSELOR--a continually growing lot--will want to check out the extended cut and the absolutely essential "Truth of the Matter," which will only expand their appreciation of one of 2013's strangest and most misunderstood major-studio releases. And, like Scott has said in the past: both versions are here...choose the one you prefer.
Directed by Ridley Scott. Written by Cormac McCarthy. Cast: Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt, Bruno Ganz, Rosie Perez, Ruben Blades, Sam Spruell, Dean Norris, John Leguizamo, Edgar Ramirez, Toby Kebbell, Goran Visnjic, Natalie Dormer, Richard Cabral, Richard Brake, Andrea Deck, Giannina Facio. (R, 117 mins)
Though it's destined to go down in history as the movie where Cameron Diaz fucks a car, THE COUNSELOR is the kind of film that will probably play better on repeat viewings, when it's not hindered by trailer-generated, commercial expectations and its odd rhythms and reams of dialogue can be more closely studied and pondered. The film is directed by Ridley Scott, but like its protagonist, Scott is more of a middleman here in deference to Pulitzer Prize-winning literary icon Cormac McCarthy, penning his first original screenplay at the age of 80, though I suspect he's had this one lying around in outline form for a while. Past McCarthy works like No Country for Old Men and The Road were made into acclaimed films, but the author didn't have a hand in their scripts. McCarthy's prose is such that it doesn't translate well to the screen and needs a screenwriter to pare it down and make it more cinematic (Tommy Lee Jones' monologue at the end of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN being an exception). McCarthy's COUNSELOR script lets his characters talk and philosophize about sex, greed, the nature of manhood, and other moral and ethical quandaries for what are probably pages on end. It's frequently ponderous and pretentious, but with the camera fixated on the actors for long stretches while they speak McCarthy's prose, one can see the appeal for the A-list cast. Never mind that most people generally don't talk the way McCarthy's script has them talking. THE COUNSELOR has some rewards for the informed or for McCarthy disciples, but the impatient or those expecting a commercial action thriller will find it a frustrating couple of hours (I counted two walkouts at a weekday afternoon screening to an audience of about ten, both not long after the "Cameron Diaz fucks a car" scene at the midway point). The reviews have been overwhelmingly negative and while I concede that McCarthy's script probably could've used a neutral editor or at least an uncredited rewrite, it's not the dumpster fire that many have made it out to be. And like many misunderstood films, I'm convinced it will find some appreciation over time, probably sooner rather than later.
It seems like every fall, we get a major nationwide release with a cleverly-assembled trailer to make it look a bit like something that it's not. Last year, it was the criminally underappreciated KILLING THEM SOFTLY, a Brad Pitt vehicle where Pitt didn't even appear until a third of the way in (it's interesting to note that Pitt turns up in THE COUNSELOR in a supporting role). A couple of years back, THE AMERICAN was sold as an action-packed thriller when it turned out to be a somber, meditative, and very European, Jean-Pierre Melville-inspired character study with long, silent stretches of George Clooney looking glum, prompting quite possibly the funniest bit of moviegoer rage I've ever witnessed when an elderly woman shouted "Hang the director!" as the closing credits started rolling. Those are fine films that play even better once you know what to expect from them. THE COUNSELOR is undoubtedly a flawed work, and it hits and misses in equal measure. But it has its moments. And car-fucking.
That sounds like the plot for a kickass thriller, and in some spots, THE COUNSELOR really gets some suspenseful momentum going, especially when the shit hits the fan and the justifiably paranoid Counselor, who foolishly thought he could enter a business arrangement with a drug cartel and emerge unscathed (as Westray tells him, "You're involved!"), starts freaking out and Westray wants nothing more to do with him. The Counselor already has a spotty reputation as a lawyer (there's one scene where a bitter former client played by Toby Kebbell angrily confronts him and warns Laura that her fiance has a habit of throwing people under the bus), and can't handle it when he's the one being unfairly blamed and hung out to dry. But McCarthy isn't so much interested in that as much as he wants to explore the psychological motivation of guys like The Counselor and Reiner, which can essentially be summed up by "pussy." There's a lot of male insecurities being explored in THE COUNSELOR as well as some outright misogyny, particularly with the depiction of Malkina as a ruthless man-eater. So, a lot of the long conversations between the Counselor and Reiner deal with this sort-of self-analytical inadequacy masked as male braggadocio, with Reiner calling women "an expensive habit." At times, it feels like a drug cartel thriller written by Neil LaBute.
While McCarthy's dialogue is frequently cumbersome--Diaz's final monologue is ramblingly incoherent and some of her femme fatale talk a bit too pulpy (Reiner: "Are you really that cold?" Malkina: "The truth has no temperature"), there are some tacky one-liners that get some big, if inappropriate laughs--when Ruth asks the Counselor to pay her son's $400 speeding ticket and offers a blowjob as compensation, the Counselor replies "Then you'd still owe me $380," and Westray tells a joke that goes "How do you know Jesus wasn't born in Mexico? Because he couldn't find three wise men or a virgin." And regardless of whether you laugh out loud or are utterly appalled, Reiner's recounting of Malkina removing her knickers and spread-eagle masturbating against the windshield of his convertible with him in the front seat ("it was like a catfish...one of those bottom-feeders sliding down the aquarium glass") is one of Bardem's finest career moments.
After PROMETHEUS, Scott's often personal, reflective revisit to the ALIEN universe that felt a bit too studio-compromised in its second half, it's interesting that the famed filmmaker would take a sort-of secondary role in something like THE COUNSELOR. Sure, he brings a sense of style and composition to the look of the film, but this is ultimately more McCarthy than Scott. At 75, Scott is still cranking movies out on an almost annual basis (he directed eight films from 2000-2009, and THE COUNSELOR is his third since 2010, with a fourth, the Showtime movie THE VATICAN, set to air by year's end), and THE COUNSELOR is one of the least predictable and most difficult to categorize works in Scott's storied career. You could say THE COUNSELOR is a muddled mess and you wouldn't exactly be wrong. But it's a film whose rewards perhaps aren't as apparent after one viewing. Once the dust from the toxic reviews and the audience antipathy settles, this, like KILLING THEM SOFTLY, which is already enjoying an improved rep just a year after bombing in theaters, will find appreciation and respect on its own bizarre terms. Either that, or maybe I'm giving it too much credit and Scott and McCarthy are just a couple of dirty old men.
Update: review of the 138-minute Unrated Extended Cut can be found here.
