THE GENTLEMEN (US - 2020) Written and directed by Guy Ritchie. Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam, Hugh Grant, Colin Farrell, Henry Golding, Michelle Dockery, Jeremy Strong, Eddie Marsan, Tom Wu, Bugzy Malone, Jason Wong, Lyne Renee, Chidi Ajufo, Simon Barker, John Dagleish, Eliot Sumner, Samuel West, Gershwyn Eustache Jnr, Tom Rhys Harries, Danny Griffin, Mark Rathbone, Andrew Greenaugh. (R, 113 mins) After a decade of playing the big-budget Hollywood franchise game with Robert Downey Jr.'s two SHERLOCK HOLMES films, the underrated THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E., the costly flop KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD, and the live-action ALADDIN, writer/director Guy Ritchie returns to his LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS and SNATCH roots with the twisty, convoluted, and wildly entertaining THE GENTLEMEN. He hasn't revisited these sorts of "fookin' 'ell, mate!" British gangster shenanigans since 2008's middling ROCKNROLLA, but buoyed by a game cast and a gleeful willingness to offend everyone, THE GENTLEMEN manages to be a lot of fun despite Ritchie not really having any new tricks up his sleeve. You could call it LOCK, STOCK 4: ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT, as Matthew McConaughey stars as expat American Mickey Pearson, who came to London from trailer park America with a genius-level IQ and a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford that he blew off when he found being a weed dealer for his rich and spoiled classmates was more lucrative. And in the years since, he's set up a massive empire in the UK covering all facets from production to distribution. He's incredibly wealthy, has a ton of guys on his payroll to do any required dirty work, and he uses the property of lesser-ranking, under-the-radar royals to secretly house his dozen underground facilities in exchange for a cut of the profits.
But Mickey's been in the game a long time and he wants to retire, which brings everyone out of the woodwork in an attempt to buy out his operation, including unscrupulous American billionaire Matthew Berger (Jeremy Strong, reuniting with McConaughey after last year's SERENITY triumph) and Dry Eye (Henry Golding), an ambitious underboss with a Chinese mob outfit who's looking to break away from his boss Lord George (Tom Wu). There's also Fletcher (Hugh Grant), a sleazy private eye who's been hired by tabloid publisher Big Dave (Eddie Marsan) to dig up dirt on Mickey after he's snubbed by him at a swanky society gathering, to the delight of onlookers. And Big Dave knows Mickey has connections to distant Royal Family member Lord Pressfield (Samuel West), whose runaway daughter Laura (Eliot Sumner, youngest daughter of Sting and Trudie Styler) is a heroin addict. But Fletcher has his own ideas of taking the information he's gathered and selling it to Ray (Charlie Hunnam), Mickey's loyal right-hand man, occasionally embellishing his findings with some Hollywood bells and whistles in the hope that it could be sold as a script (Ritchie has some meta fun with this aspect, including a bit where the scheming Fletcher meets with a producer who has a 2015 MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. poster in his office). Double, triple, quadruple, and quintuple crosses ensue, with shifting loyalties and unexpected players--including Mickey's take-no-shit wife Rosalind (Michelle Dockery), and Coach (Colin Farrell), a tough Irish bloke who runs a gym for underprivileged kids, and who's pulled into the proceedings when a few of his ne'er-do-wells foolishly decide to steal some of Mickey's product.
In other words, it's pretty much business as usual for old-school Ritchie fans, but it's done with enough style and panache that you won't mind the familiarity, sort-of like listening to a new AC/DC album. It's exactly what you think it is, it strictly adheres to a carved-in-stone formula, and it doesn't fix what isn't broken (unless you really want Ritchie to make another REVOLVER). It's comfort food of sorts if you're a LOCK, STOCK fan...that is, as long as you can still laugh at insensitive jokes (at the expense of pretty much everyone, for instance Fletcher describing Dry Eye as "a Chinese James Bond...with a ricense to kill") and extraordinarily profane dialogue being rattled off by some very bad guys (this may set a new record for the number of times "cunt" is yelled in a movie). The cast is having a blast, particularly Grant, who seems to be doing a scathing Ricky Gervais impression and keeps not-very-subtly hitting on Hunnam's Ray. An underused Farrell gets a few moments to shine in the de facto Vinnie Jones role, but it's really more of an ensemble piece when it's all said and done, despite the focus on Mickey, and even then, McConaughey is offscreen for a couple of long-ish stretches. Twists and turns pile up at an absurd rate near the end, and THE GENTLEMEN is a really good time if vintage Guy Ritchie is what you're after. He also gives you one of the more blatant shout-outs to THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY that you'll ever see, and that's a nice bonus.
WIDOWS (US/UK - 2018) Directed by Steve McQueen. Written by Gillian Flynn and Steve McQueen. Cast: Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Liam Neeson, Robert Duvall, Colin Farrell, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, Jacki Weaver, Carrie Coon, Garret Dillahunt, Lukas Haas, Jon Bernthal, Kevin J. O'Connor, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Molly Kunz, Matt Walsh, Coburn Goss, Michael J. Harney, Adepero Oduye, James Vincent Meredith, Josiah Sheffie, Tonray Ho. (R, 129 mins) Following 2008's HUNGER, 2011's SHAME, and 2013's 12 YEARS A SLAVE, British filmmaker/video artist Steve McQueen's winning streak continues with the heist thriller WIDOWS. Though it's McQueen's most commercially accessible work yet, it's got more going on beneath the surface, mixing contemporary concerns into a story with a decidedly '70s aesthetic, one that manages to be a stylish, Michael Mann-inspired crime saga, an introspective, Robert Altman-esque character piece, as well as a chronicle of big-city political corruption that feels like vintage Sidney Lumet. Based on a British TV series created by Lydia LaPlante that ran in 1983 and 1985, WIDOWS has been both streamlined and expanded for its American incarnation by McQueen and co-writer Gillian Flynn, the latter quick to point out in interviews that the one whopper of a mid-film plot development is all LaPlante, despite it having Flynn's GONE GIRL style and execution written all over it.
McQueen opens WIDOWS with an initially jarring series of smash-cut snippets that quickly settle into a masterfully economic display of concise exposition. Chicago career criminal Harry Rawlings (Liam Neeson) lives a life of luxury in a penthouse apartment with his wife Veronica (Viola Davis), a former rep for the Chicago teacher's union. Veronica is as aware of Harry's "business" as she needs to be and seems to feign blissful ignorance while enjoying its many financial benefits. That comes to a screeching halt when Harry and his crew--Florek (Jon Bernthal), Carlos (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), and Jimmy (Coburn Goss)--are killed in an explosive shootout with police following a high-speed chase after their latest score. Immediately following the funeral, Veronica is visited at home by Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry), a well-known south-side crime kingpin who was robbed of $2 million by Harry's crew. That money burned up with Harry and the others and he gives Veronica a month to get it back, threatening to send his ruthless, attack-dog younger brother Jatemme (Daniel Kaluuya) after her if she fails to pay up.
It's a sign that Jamal isn't quite ready to let go of his past life, even as he's trying to go legit at the same time by running a high-profile campaign for alderman of the city's economically-depressed and predominantly African-American 18th Ward. It's a spot that's been held for three generations by the corrupt Mulligan political dynasty, currently being handed off by elderly and ailing Tom Mulligan (Robert Duvall) to his son Jack (Colin Farrell), the scion who's inheriting a storied legacy that he doesn't really want. With her back against the wall, Veronica reaches out to the widows of Harry's partners--Carlos' wife Linda (Michelle Rodriguez), violent meathead Florek's battered wife Alice (Elizabeth Debicki), and Harry's wife Amanda (Carrie Coon)--to carry out a haphazardly-sketched heist from a notebook of Harry's, one that will net them $5 million--$2 million to repay Jamal and $3 million to split among themselves. Amanda, preoccupied with a four-month-old infant, declines to take part, and when Jatemme kills Harry's loyal driver Bash (Garret Dillahunt) to send a message to Veronica that the clock is ticking, they need a driver. They find one in hairdresser Belle (Cynthia Erivo, so memorable in the recent BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE), a casual acquaintance of Linda's who's been babysitting her kids while Linda meets with Veronica and Alice to plan the heist.
All of these characters cross paths in unexpected ways, and WIDOWS manages to pack quite a bit into its brisk and relentlessly-paced 129 minutes. There are times where it feels like things are too simplified or convenient, most notably when Alice's gold-digging mom (Jacki Weaver) convinces her to become a de facto escort for some easy money, and her first "date" is David (Lukas Haas), who happens to be a big-time architect who spots a blueprint of the heist target on her bedside table and instantly recognizes it as a panic room and eventually helps identify its location. There's also Alice pretending to be a Russian mail-order bride at a gun show and effortlessly convincing a red-state mom to buy her three Glocks. And of course, Veronica's dog, an adorable little Westie that accompanies her everywhere, seemingly holding on to it in desperation as the last connection to a family that's been taken from her (she and Harry had a teenage son, whose death ten years earlier will prove to have a profound effect on the events that transpire), but is really there as a plot device that's instrumental in setting up that mid-film twist.
From the standpoint of commercial, mainstream storytelling, McQueen's handling of these sorts of things could use a little more polish, but WIDOWS makes up for its occasional narrative clumsiness with a stacked ensemble of award-worthy performances, the standouts being the always-galvanizing Davis, a terrifying Kaluuya, who makes Jatemme one of 2018's great bad guys, and Debicki, whose character gets the most surprising arc, revealing her unexpected smarts and ambition as the one who most transcends her lot in life as an abused doormat for her asshole husband and narcissistic mother. The political gamesmanship between Farrell's Mulligan and Henry's Jamal almost has enough going on that it could warrant its own movie, but it serves its purpose as part of a greater mosaic that McQueen is constructing, both thematically and artistically. There are several arresting visual touches ranging from the use of reflections in windows and mirrors (the final scene in the coffee shop!) to one long, uninterrupted take involving the younger Mulligan's limo that's a total knockout telling you all you need to know about his character. In the end, despite some occasional hiccups that might seem smoother on repeat viewings, WIDOWS is a terrific and compelling piece of grown-up filmmaking--the kind that can credibly and successfully coexist in the multiplex and the art-house--the likes of which we don't see enough of these days.
Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos (DOGTOOTH) reteams with his LOBSTER star Colin Farrell for this brilliant mindfuck that puts Greek myth and tragedy into modern American suburbia and turns it into a dark and disturbing arthouse horror film. Shot and set in Cincinnati, OH, one of the most quintessentially midwest American cities, THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER takes its time, building tension, and methodically tightening its grip. Farrell is Dr. Steven Murphy, a renowned cardiologist with a wife, Anna (Nicole Kidman, who starred with Farrell in last year's THE BEGUILED, which was shot after SACRED DEER but released first), teenage daughter Kim (Raffey Cassidy) and young son Bob (Sunny Suljic). Unbeknownst to his family, Steven frequently meets with Martin (DUNKIRK's Barry Keoghan), a polite but troubled 16-year-old. The nature of their relationship isn't revealed until much later, but it appears to be a Big Brother or a mentor-type situation, as Martin's father is dead and his mother (Alicia Silverstone) doesn't seem to be all there in the two years since his passing. After Steven invites Martin to meet his family, the boy's neediness escalates and he starts showing up at Steven's office unannounced, demanding he come to his mother's house for dinner, watch GROUNDHOG DAY with him ("It was my dad's favorite movie") and psychologically manipulating and slowly seducing Kim. Then Martin drops the hammer and Steven is forced to contend with the extent of what the awkward teenager has in store for him and his family.
To say anymore would involve far too many spoilers, but THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER is hypnotic in ways we rarely see since the loss of Stanley Kubrick. The shot compositions, the long, static takes, and the cold, antiseptic interiors of the hospital and the Steadicam prowling its endless hallways like some sort of Overlook Medical Center all cast that vividly Kubrick spell, at least until the third act when things take a more pronounced Michael Haneke-inspired turn. Lanthimos has fashioned a film that is stilted and awkward by design. These characters are recognizably typical American people but they often talk like they're from another world, effectively emphasizing and almost darkly satirizing the cold detachment so vital to Kubrick. People say inappropriate things with little or no provocation: everyone is fixated on Steven's "beautiful" hands and they're mentioned in practically every other scene. "Do you have hair under your arms?" Bob asks Martin. It's the kind of movie where Martin's mother will start sucking Steven's thumb after he declines dessert and when he's uncomfortable and tries to leave, she sternly intones "I won't let you leave until you've tried my tart." It's the kind of movie where Steven impulsively tells his nine-year-old son that as a child, he once jerked off his drunk, passed-out stepfather ("The sheets were covered in sperm..."). And what prompts Steven to tell a colleague (Bill Camp) at a swanky gala hospital event "Our daughter started menstruating last week..."? Dysfunction is everywhere and the perfection of the American dream is all surface. Steven and Anna love one another but their sex life is bizarre--she strips and lies motionless, almost corpse-like, while he gropes himself, and it's a technique Kim mimics when she tries to initiate her idea of sex with an uninterested Martin, indicating that she's probably watched her parents. The film pulls no punches with its harrowing finale, and like any Lanthimos film, THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER is decidedly not for everyone (it's closer in spirit to DOGTOOTH than the darkly comedic THE LOBSTER, the latter seeming downright commercial in retrospect). But it's filled with outstanding performances by actors tasked with difficult roles (especially the quietly remarkable turn by Keoghan, who's even better here than he was as the doomed George in DUNKIRK), spellbinding camera work and cinematography by Thimios Bakatakis, and a unique and uncompromising vision on the part of its creators. Lanthimos is one of the masters of today's cinema. (R, 121 mins) CROOKED HOUSE
(UK - 2017)
Kenneth Branagh's middling remake of MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS became a surprise hit in the fall of 2017, but another Agatha Christie adaptation arrived a couple of weeks later and no one knew about it. That's a shame because CROOKED HOUSE, while still flawed, is an overall better film despite Sony's apparent disinterest in promoting it, opting to dump it on 16 screens and VOD with no publicity at all (it wasn't even a theatrical release in the UK, where it premiered on Channel 5). Christie's novel, published in 1949, has fallen through the cracks over the decades even though it was one of the legendary writer's personal favorites of her work. She was especially proud of the incredibly uncompromising ending, which could be why there's never been a CROOKED HOUSE movie until now (there was a four-part BBC radio drama in 2008), and why this adaptation might've been a tough sell for mainstream audiences, even with the presence of some fine actors and a script co-written by GOSFORD PARK screenwriter and DOWNTON ABBEY creator Julian Fellowes. Fellowes' screenplay dated back to 2011, when Neil LaBute was originally attached to direct and Julie Andrews, Gabriel Byrne, and Gemma Arterton set to star. That fell apart in pre-production and the film eventually got made several years later with Gilles Paquet-Brenner (SARAH'S KEY, DARK PLACES) at the helm, reworking Fellowes' script (RAPA NUI writer Tim Rose Price is also credited) and losing all of the initially attached cast. Crooked House is populated by some of Christie's most loathsome characters, whose narcissism and misanthropy are obviously what initially drew LaBute (IN THE COMPANY OF MEN, YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS) to the project. Paquet-Brenner tones that down a bit, but CROOKED HOUSE still contains some of the most bitterly sniping repartee in any Christie work.
Charles Hayward (Max Irons) is a British spy-turned-private eye in 1950s London (the film moves the book's setting ahead about a decade). He's hired by former flame Sophia Leonides (Stefanie Martini) to investigate the death of her grandfather Aristide (Gino Picciano), an obscenely wealthy tycoon and diabetic who was poisoned when his insulin was replaced with clear liquid eye medication. The chief suspect is his young trophy wife Brenda (Christina Hendricks), a Vegas showgirl who's of course treated with disdain and scorn by his greedy heirs, all of whom stay at the gargantuan family mansion to form one of the most dysfunctional families in the Christie universe. There's Aristide's eldest son and Sophia's father Philip (Julian Sands) and his washed-up ham actress wife Magda (Gillian Anderson); their obnoxious teenage son Eustace (Preston Nyman) and already cynical young daughter Josephine (Honor Kneafsey); Aristide's pompous youngest son Roger (Christian McKay) and his wife Clemency (Amanda Abbington); and Lady Edith (Glenn Close), the spinster sister of Aristide's late first wife and the only remotely likable one of the bunch aside from the wise-beyond-her-years Josephine. Lady Edith knows the entire family is a scheming nest of vipers and tries to help Hayward in his investigation, which is eventually taken over by dogged Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Taverner (Terence Stamp), who decides Hayward's feelings for Sophia are compromising his ability to handle things on his own. Like THE LIMEHOUSE GOLEM, another recent British period mystery, CROOKED HOUSE starts out clunky and uneven but gets much better as it goes along, especially once Taverner takes charge and puts his foot down with this family of assholes. The film gets a big boost from Stamp, who still can still command the screen and is a much more interesting actor than the bland Irons (the dreadful BITTER HARVEST), who's just not believable as a former spy and has a way to go before he's on the level of his dad Jeremy. CROOKED HOUSE admirably doesn't cushion the blow of its ending, but part of me wonders how astonishingly mean-spirited this would've been in the hands of Neil LaBute. As it is, the film stumbles a bit in its first half, with uninteresting flashbacks to Hayward's romance with Sophia in Cairo (who cares?), but once an attempt is made on young Josephine's life and Stamp's Taverner has had it with everyone, it turns into a reasonably solid film that's worth seeing. (PG-13, 115 mins) BEYOND SKYLINE (US/China/UK/Canada/Singapore - 2017)
Offering further proof that anything can get a sequel in today's global market, BEYOND SKYLINE arrives seven long years after everyone instantly forgot about SKYLINE, a dismal Brett Ratner-produced alien invasion saga that nevertheless made back its paltry budget and was a big success in Asia, so here we are. Shot in late 2014 and into early 2015, BEYOND SKYLINE didn't enjoy the wide release, multiplex exposure its predecessor was given, instead bowing on VOD with the lowest possible expectations. But strange things can happen when nobody's looking, and while it's not a great movie by any means, BEYOND SKYLINE is a vast improvement, functioning as a de facto mulligan with the original film's writer Liam O'Donnell getting behind the camera (replacing veteran visual effects guys The Brothers Strause, still onboard as two of 29 credited producers) to do it right this time. You can almost sense O'Donnell's eagerness to wipe the slate clean since the two holdover characters from the original (played by different actors here) are killed off almost immediately, shifting the focus to the PURGE franchise's Frank Grillo as Mark, a lone wolf, alcoholic, widower cop (is there any other kind?) and his rebellious teenage son Trent (Jonny Weston) caught up in the alien invasion. Stuck in the underground subway tunnels, Mark and Trent team up with a few others, including transit employee Audrey (Bojana Novakovic) and homeless guy Sarge (Antonio Fargas), to evade the aliens but they end up being sucked into a hovering ship anyway, where Trent gets his brain ripped out and planted into an alien, thus reborn as an otherworldly species. While in the ship, Mark encounters Elaine, the pregnant survivor from the first film (Samantha Jean replaces Scottie Thompson) whose child is born with alien DNA after fiance Jarrod (Tony Black replaces Eric Balfour) was made part-alien after a brainectomy. Elaine dies giving birth, and Alien Jarrod sabotages the ship, which crashes in Laos, where Mark and Audrey meet a small band of resistance fighters led by Sua (Indonesian action star Iko Uwais). Oddball scientist Harper (Callan Mulvey) surmises that the alien blood of Elaine's child, who's growing at an accelerated rate and looks three years old after two days, might be the key to defeating the aliens, but in the meantime, Mark and Audrey team up with Sua, his sister Kanya (Pamelyn Chee), and eccentric warrior The Chief (Yayan Ruhian) for some one-on-one martial arts showdowns with the invaders, at which point the film moves from THE PURGE: SKYLINE to THE RAID: SKYLINE.
Considering its $15 million budget and a couple of dubious-looking CGI explosions, BEYOND SKYLINE looks as convincingly "big" as any over-budgeted Hollywood blockbuster opening on 3000 screens. Once again, Grillo is a believably hard-as-nails tough guy hero and things get pretty good once RAID stars Uwais and Ruhian turn up midway through. Aside from needing to look at SKYLINE's Wikipedia page because I had no memory of the Elaine/Jarrod storyline, BEYOND SKYLINE pretty much works as a standalone film, and one that's surprisingly engaging considering how needlessly convoluted it is and how bad SKYLINE was (have you ever met a SKYLINE fan?). O'Donnell takes too long getting to them, but anything goes once Uwais and Ruhian are introduced, and when you add Grillo into the mix (which is interesting since Grillo was at one time attached to the still-unmade American remake of THE RAID), along with some unabashed, over-the-top R-rated violence, BEYOND SKYLINE becomes something SKYLINE never was: entertaining. (R, 106 mins)
ROMAN J. ISRAEL, ESQ. (US/Canada/China/UAE - 2017) Written and directed by Dan Gilroy. Cast: Denzel Washington, Colin Farrell, Carmen Ejogo, Lynda Gravatt, Amanda Warren, Hugo Armstrong, Sam Gilroy, Tony Plana, DeRon Horton, Amari Cheathom, Nazneen Contractor, Niles Fitch, Elisa Perry, Annie Sertich, Esperanza Spalding, Just N. Time. (PG-13, 122 mins)
Veteran journeyman screenwriter Dan Gilroy made his directing debut three years ago with the critically acclaimed NIGHTCRAWLER, and coaxed a career-best performance out of Jake Gyllenhaal in the process. It was a challenge to base a film around one of the most repulsive protagonists in recent memory--Louis Bloom, a petty thief specializing in copper wire and chain-link fencing who makes a name for himself selling accident and murder footage to a desperate, bottom-ranked L.A. news station--and Gilroy explores similar themes with the legal drama ROMAN J. ISRAEL, ESQ. Played by the great Denzel Washington, the titular character is ultimately just as morally and ethically challenged as Louis Bloom, but he's not a bad guy. He's just as much of a misfit, though where Bloom was an unrepentant sociopath, Los Angeles defense attorney Roman J. Israel is a savant who eats nothing but peanut butter sandwiches and has the entire California legal code memorized. He works behind the scenes as part of a two-man firm, and his elderly partner--the face of the practice and the guy who appears in court--has just gone into a coma after a massive heart attack, leaving the abrasive and socially awkward Roman--in no way a people person--to handle his cases in front of a series of increasingly exasperated judges. Roman is a career civil rights activist with a borderline Cornel West afro, unfashionable eyewear, and mismatched, ill-fitting, ragged suits that look like they've been worn for 30 years (Washington's also wearing some padding to add a little girth to his midsection). He has a brilliant legal mind, which is why his partnership with his aged colleague has worked, but with the old man out of the picture, the practice has been handed over, per his wishes, to slick, high-priced criminal lawyer George Pierce (Colin Farrell), a former student and protege of whom Roman was completely unaware. The practice has been losing money due to its taking on a large of pro bono, social activism cases that Roman lives for, so with the blessing of the ailing lawyer's family, Pierce shuts it down and reluctantly agrees to take Roman on as an attorney at his own hugely successful firm.
With Roman's appearance and his dinosaur ways--he has a battered, ancient flip phone and hates computers, relying on index cards, countless Post-Its, and voluminous stacks of documents precariously clipped and rubber-banded together--Gilroy could've just as easily taken this situation and made it a mismatched, fish-out-of-water buddy comedy. Instead, it's a character piece and a morality play where Roman, who can't help but burn bridges at Pierce's office because that's what he does, snaps after nearly losing his job over his botched handling of client Derrell Ellerbee (DeRon Horton), a 17-year-old being charged as an accessory in the murder of an Armenian convenience store clerk. The shooter was Carter Johnson (Amari Cheathom), who's now a fugitive but Derrell secretly told Roman his whereabouts in exchange for the possibility of a reduced sentence. When Derrell turns up with throat slashed in the jailhouse shower the next day and Pierce informs him his termination is imminent since he angrily hung up on the prosecuting attorney and never conveyed her offer to Derrell, Roman decides he's had enough after nearly 40 years of "doing the impossible for the ungrateful." When an Armenian community center offers $100,000 for information leading to the arrest of the shooter, Roman anonymously provides the info and collects the reward money. He treats himself to a weekend vacation, buys some new suits, gets a new haircut and signs a lease at a posh apartment building. He plays ball and takes on some easy money cases at Pierce's practice and starts making friends, quickly seeing that playing the legal game and putting his hardball activist dedication aside--including an epic class action lawsuit he's been working on for seven years that he insists will redefine the nature of legal defenses and the concept of plea bargaining--means he can finally live the good life he's denied himself for decades ("My failures are self-inflicted," he tells Pierce). It should go without saying that Roman's impulsive actions will eventually blow up in his face, especially when a jailed Carter retains the services of Pierce, who hands the case off to...who else?
Washington is terrific as Roman, even if his actorly affectations indicate that the film can't seem to decide if Roman's spectrum-stretching issues are that he's Rain Man, an OCD case, a social anxiety sufferer, or if he has Asperger's (the film seems to conflate them all under one all-purpose special needs umbrella). He manages to alienate everyone he meets, with the exception of Maya (Carmen Ejogo), an earnest volunteer activist for a civil rights group who comes to appreciate Roman's dedication to the cause, and more or less serves as his conscience once he starts wearing expensive suits and dining at classy restaurants. Washington's performance is effective, but at the same time, it's pure Oscar bait, and Gilroy's story just doesn't have any real foundation at its base, especially once it veers into commercial thriller territory in the third act. Roman's character arc is obvious and simplistic, and Washington is required to go through several scenes where he looks in a mirror and regards his flashy new appearance and silently ponders What I've Become. If Maya is Roman's conscience, then Pierce is the Roman that might've been--a beloved protege to Roman's partner who had the interpersonal chops to be a successful lawyer both philosophically and financially. Pierce is a good lawyer as well as a good businessman. Ultimately, he's hardly the unscrupulous shark we expect him to be based on his high-priced suits and slicked-back hair, even though his demeanor changes from scene to scene, especially in his attitude toward Roman.
After ROMAN J. ISRAEL, ESQ--filmed under the generic title INNER CITY--screened to a middling response at the Toronto Film Festival, Gilroy recut some scenes and excised approximately 15 minutes to get it to its present, 122-minute length (Gilroy said much of the changes dealt with Farrell's character, which may explain why Pierce's attitude is so hard to pin down). Even now, its structure still seems off, especially after an opening that sets up the story as a flashback beginning three weeks earlier, which seems like an awfully short amount of time for this entire story to go down. NIGHTCRAWLER was a film that probably would've been a lot more scathing and hard-hitting if it didn't take place in such a cynical era, but it has a mesmerizing performance to make you look past it. ROMAN J. ISRAEL, ESQ doesn't even have the limited substance of NIGHTCRAWLER and even pilfers some of its ideas and observations, coming up just a bit short even though it gets a lot out of an expectedly outstanding performance from Washington.
THE BEGUILED (US - 2017) Written and directed by Sofia Coppola. Cast: Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, Oona Laurence, Angourie Rice, Addison Riecke, Emma Howard. (R, 93 mins) Based on Thomas P. Cullinan's 1966 Civil War-set novel A Painted Devil, THE BEGUILED was previously made into a film in 1971 by director Don Siegel. A departure at the time for star Clint Eastwood, who would have DIRTY HARRY in theaters later that year, THE BEGUILED was a badly marketed box-office flop though its reputation has improved significantly over time. It's especially interesting in hindsight when viewing it as part of the entire Eastwood canon, as it's a fascinating look at a masculine, archetypal Eastwood character having the tables turned on him by a boarding school full of women he's manipulated and betrayed (though it also shares a common theme with the later and far more sordid and sleazy TIGHTROPE, where once again Eastwood is a character surrounded by women--in that case, prostitutes and other sex workers--throwing themselves at him and he's never once shown paying). Sofia Coppola's remake, also called THE BEGUILED, approaches the story more from the POV of the women, though it hasn't been without controversy: a slave character named Hallie (played by Mae Mercer in the 1971 film) has been dropped, her absence explained in an early bit of a dialogue where someone says "The slaves all left." In addition, the character of Edwina, played by Kirsten Dunst, was biracial in the novel, but it's never mentioned here, nor was "whitewashing" brought up in 1971 when Elizabeth Hartman played the same role, but perhaps critics and film enthusiasts had more pressing issues to bitch about in 1971. Neither the novel nor the 1971 film had any big salient points to make regarding race or slavery, because it's not what the story is about. Coppola explained her reasoning being that girls and young women tend to be drawn to her films (THE VIRGIN SUICIDES, THE BLING RING), and she didn't want a black female to be portrayed in any negative way that distracted from the story.
The central premise remains the same: in 1864 Virginia, Corporal John McBurney (Colin Farrell), a Union deserter, is found injured in the woods surrounding a sparsely-attended girls school. Young Amy (Oona Laurence of SOUTHPAW) is out picking mushrooms and helps him back to the school grounds, where he's taken in and his leg wound tended to by headmistress Miss Martha Farnsworth (Nicole Kidman). Agreeing to give him time to recover before turning him over to Confederate soldiers, Miss Martha keeps McBurney locked in the music room and informs the others--teacher Edwina (Dunst), rebellious teen Alicia (Elle Fanning), and younger girls Jane (Angourie Rice of THE NICE GUYS), Marie (Addison Riecke), and Marie (Emma Howard)--that McBurney's room is off limits. With his smoldering looks and his Irish brogue, the charming, Dublin-born McBurney slowly endears himself to the women and the girls, who begin showing off by dressing in their best clothes, breaking out the jewelry ("You haven't worn that pendant since the Christmas party!" two different people mention to Edwina), and constantly finding excuses to go into his room. McBurney revels in the attention and it isn't long before the choking atmosphere of repression simmers into overpowering sexual tension as McBurney declares his love for Edwina while seducing Alicia and very nearly getting the prim, proper Miss Martha into his bed. Hell hath no fury like several women scorned, and things go south very quickly for McBurney.
A Southern Gothic that was as close as Eastwood ever came to starring in a horror movie, the 1971 BEGUILED took its time to let things boil over and when they did, it got seriously dark and unsettling. Coppola doesn't replicate that feeling here because her version seems to rush through the story (the closing credits roll before the 90-minute mark). Farrell's McBurney tells Edwina he loves her much too quickly, and whether Coppola's breezing past the details or it's intentional to show how lonely and desperate Edwina is for an escape from her dreary existence, it doesn't work. This new interpretation shows more gore in the surgical scenes and blood splattered all over Miss Martha's white dress as she emphatically orders someone to "Go to the smokehouse, bring me the saw!" before performing an impromptu offscreen leg amputation--a horrifying moment in the original film--but it's tame in other respects. Gone is the subplot about Miss Martha's past incestuous relationship with her brother (which led to one of Eastwood's best lines in the 1971 version) as well as any sense of tension and suspense at all. The shocking scenes where Eastwood's McBurney kills Amy's beloved turtle, and when he wakes up to find one of his legs missing are both ineffectively handled here to the point of being bungled. The subsequent psychotic rampage by Farrell's McBurney threatens to turn Coppola's BEGUILED into a Civil War-set "Houseguest from Hell" thriller, while the climactic dinner sequence loses all of its momentum thanks to Coppola's bizarre decision to have Edwina decline a helping of mushrooms. Farrell, Kidman, and the supporting cast are fine, but Kidman isn't given nearly as meaty and complex a Miss Martha as Geraldine Page got to play in 1971, and the only real improvement Coppola makes is with her Kubrick-like use of natural lighting throughout. Shot by cinematographer Philippe Le Sourd (THE GRANDMASTER) in a 1.66 aspect ratio--unusual for today's movies--THE BEGUILED '17 looks great. There's a dreamlike haze to the proceedings--not surprising to anyone who's seen THE VIRGIN SUICIDES--and you can feel the sweltering humidity, and with the BARRY LYNDON-like natural lighting, whether it's sunlight during the day or candles providing scant illumination at night, accompanied by the constant background noise of war and cannon fire and the sight of smoke from battle that's too close to the school for comfort, you really do feel transported back to 1864. But elsewhere, this BEGUILED doesn't seem to show much purpose since Coppola seems to have gone out of her way to render it as dramatically inert as possible. It looks stunning, but what exactly was the point of remaking this?
SOLACE (US/Switzerland - 2016) Directed by Afonso Poyart. Written by Sean Bailey and Ted Griffin. Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Colin Farrell, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Abbie Cornish, Marley Shelton, Xander Berkeley, Sharon Lawrence, Janine Turner, Matt Gerald, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Josh Close, Kenny Johnson, Luisa Moraes, Autumn Dial. (R, 101 mins) Completed over three years ago and arriving at the end of 2016 as a Lionsgate VOD dumpjob sporting a 2014 copyright in the credits, SOLACE is the kind of high-concept serial killer thriller that was commonplace in multiplexes in the 1990s, at least until the barrage of CSI-inspired network TV procedurals stole their thunder. Even as recently as a few years ago, it would've seemed impossible to believe this kind of movie could be completely abandoned by its distributor (part of the reason for its delay was the bankruptcy of Relativity Media, who sold it to Lionsgate), especially with a cast headlined by several name actors. Even more surprising is that SOLACE's script, credited to producer Sean Bailey (TRON: LEGACY) and veteran screenwriter Ted Griffin (RAVENOUS, OCEAN'S ELEVEN, MATCHSTICK MEN), had been in development for so long that it was initially reworked by New Line Cinema to be a sequel to SE7EN for Morgan Freeman, titled--wait for it--EI8HT. The idea was flatly rejected by David Fincher, which put the whole project in turnaround. It was eventually dusted off and given further uncredited rewrites by James Vanderbilt (ZODIAC) and Peter Morgan (FROST/NIXON) before ending up in its current state as one of the silliest thrillers to come down the pike in some time.
After a string of murders where the victims are killed instantly by a long needle piercing their medulla oblongota, baffled FBI agent Joe Merriweather (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) resorts to a Hail Mary against the wishes of his skeptical partner Elizabeth Cowles (Abbie Cornish). He reaches out to retired colleague Dr. John Clancy (Anthony Hopkins), a former FBI consultant who's also a psychic who helped Merriweather crack a number of cases. Clancy has been living like a hermit since his daughter died of leukemia and his wife (Janine Turner) left him, but of course, he's drawn to the case because...it's what he does. All Clancy has to do is come into physical contact with a victim to deduce the circumstances surrounding their death, and he can even see an entire person's life--past and future--just by touching them. Why this guy isn't solving every crime everywhere is the real mystery. The agents always seem to be one step behind in their investigation and eventually, Clancy comes to realize that the killer, one Charles Ambrose (Colin Farrell), is a super-psychic whose powers surpass even his own. Clancy must devise a way to outwit Ambrose, whose targets are those who are terminally ill and don't yet realize it (a child with an undiagnosed brain tumor, a woman unaware that her adulterous, bisexual husband has given her HIV that will become AIDS), thereby justifying--in his eyes--his murders as acts of mercy to save the victims from future suffering.
SOLACE, which opens with an onscreen definition of the word "solace" because of course it does, plays like the pilot of what should be a CBS procedural about a psychic cop. It starts out intriguing enough, especially with the way that Hopkins relies on familiar elements of his Hannibal Lecter persona (variations on that inimitable "Claaaarice..." purr), only this time as a good guy. He does get to spit out one great "...getting all the way...to the F...B...I!" takedown of an incredulous Cowles, running through every sordid secret of her past and thus, finally convincing her that he's the real deal. But once director Afonso Poyart goes all in on the psychic battle of wits between Clancy and Ambrose, SOLACE just becomes one eye-rolling contrivance after another. The highlight of the film is the psychic car chase, with Cowles behind the wheel and Clancy riding shotgun, barking "Turn left now!" and "Turn right now!" and finally "Stop right here!" when Clancy senses the other car in the vicinity, so they proceed to just wait until the guy they're chasing passes them, to which Clancy barks "There! Go!" In at least his fourth dumb thriller to hit VOD this year (you almost certainly missed MISCONDUCT, BLACKWAY, and COLLIDE), Hopkins isn't even pretending to give a shit anymore, but even though the movies have become junk, he's one of the very few actors in his age group--he'll be 80 in 2017--who's still getting lead roles. Farrell doesn't turn up until a little past the one-hour mark, with his role requiring him to do little more than speak in ominous riddles with a wide-eyed glare (yes, he gets the obligatory "We're not so different, you and I" monologue) and strike occasional Jesus Christ poses in Clancy's psychic visions. SOLACE is an absolutely inessential movie but it's always watchable, even if it's only for a few unintended laughs. I mean, come on. That psychic car chase is like a live-action FAMILY GUY cutaway.
THE LOBSTER
(Ireland/UK/Greece/France/Netherlands - 2015; US release 2016)
The English-language debut of Greek DOGTOOTH auteur Yorgos Lanthimos, THE LOBSTER is an absurdist, dystopian satire that's equal parts Stanley Kubrick, Lars von Trier, and Franz Kafka. Set in a near future where being romantically unattached is forbidden, college professor David (a schlubby Colin Farrell) is dumped by his wife for another guy. The authorities cuff him and escort him to The Hotel, a government-sanctioned facility where people have 45 days to find their perfect partner or they'll be turned into an animal of their choice. Accompanying David to The Hotel is his dog, who used to be his older brother until he failed to find a partner by the end of his last 45 days. The rules at The Hotel are ironclad and strictly enforced: you must have some similar physical trait with a potential mate, prompting a limping widower (Ben Whishaw)--even those whose spouses have died must report to The Hotel immediately following the funeral--to cause injuries that make his nose bleed when he's attracted to a chronic nosebleeder (Jessica Barden); sexual stimulation can only be provided by dry-humping the maid/sex therapist (Ariane Labed), and masturbation is forbidden, as a lisping man (John C. Reilly) learns when the punishment is having his hand burned in a toaster in front of everyone. The unattached can buy more days by going on daily "Hunts," where they find illegal loners in the surrounding woods and shoot them with tranquilizer guns and bring them back to The Hotel. Down to his seven days, David desperately attempts to bond with The Heartless Woman (Angeliki Papoulia), so named because she's the record holder at capturing loners and extending her stay. When that fails, he stages a daring escape and is welcomed into the woods by the Loner leader (Lea Seydoux), where he finds love with a similarly near-sighted woman (Rachel Weisz), only to find that the Loner philosophy is the exact opposite: love is forbidden.
Even that synopsis is just scratching the surface with everything going on in THE LOBSTER. Once out of The Hotel, the story takes some unexpected twists and turns, but Lanthimos also slows it down, and it isn't quite as effective as the absolutely brilliant first hour, which has some of the most bizarre and wildly inventive ideas in any movie this year. Lanthimos and co-writer Efthymus Filippou don't clearly lay out the rules of this unnamed society, though the characters themselves are aware and never seem shocked by the insanity of what's their "normal." Instead, they just drop one baffling revelation and rule after another on the audience, making David's predicament both nightmarish and darkly hilarious. It's laugh out loud funny when David turns into a total prick to convince The Heartless Woman that he's her guy, like kicking a little girl in the shin or not lifting a finger to help her when she pretends to be choking as a way to test just how much of a heartless asshole--like her--that he is. The same goes for The Heartless Woman's utterly robotic display of dirty talk ("Do you mind if we fuck in the position where I can see your face?" she asks David as she's bent over, face down on the bed). THE LOBSTER--so named because that's David's choice of animal to be turned into should he not find a partner in 45 days--loses some momentum in the "loner" half of the story, though there's interesting parallels in the way the Loner leader is just as totalitarian and barbaric as the people who run The Hotel (her ultimate revenge on the hotel manager, played by Olivia Colman, is quite good). A love it-or-hate it proposition, THE LOBSTER is a dark, disturbing, and often hysterically funny one-of-a-kind work from a consistently bold and provocative filmmaker (if you haven't seen DOGTOOTH, you need to), and an instant cult classic. I wish the second half was as strong as the first, but this is still one of the year's best films, and one that sticks with you long after it's over. (R, 119 mins)
I AM WRATH
(US - 2016)
Continuing his slide into the netherworld of VOD, John Travolta dons his CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES Big Boy helmet wig for this C-grade JOHN WICK ripoff, playing a seemingly ordinary guy avenging the murder of his wife. Shot and set in Columbus, OH, I AM WRATH has Travolta as Stanley Hall, a former auto plant manager who's jumped by three assailants, one of whom, Charley (Luis Da Silva, Jr) stabs his wife Vivian (Rebecca De Mornay) to death. Vivian was part of an independent team hired by Governor Meserve (Patrick St. Esprit) to verify the state's clean water percentages. Stanley isn't convinced it was a random attack when Charley is apprehended and useless Det. Gibson (Sam Trammell as Not Quite Colin Farrell) shrugs and lets him go with the explanation "Eh, people like him don't last long. He'll O.D. soon enough." Of course, Stanley happens to have been a lethal black-ops mercenary prior to giving that all up for Vivian, so he calls his old buddy Dennis (Christopher Meloni) to track down Charley for him so he can get to the reason Vivian was killed. Gee, is there any chance the corrupt cops are in cahoots with the governor, who didn't like the numbers Vivian turned in, therefore needing her to be silenced? Maybe, considering it's riddled with cliched lines like "This goes all the way to the top."
Written by Paul Sloan (who plays one of the villains), I AM WRATH is the kind of movie that has zero trust in its audience, overexplaining everything and flashing back to past comments as if its simple plot is too complex to follow. It's heavy-handed to the point of self-parody, such as the shot where an enraged Stanley throws a Bible across the room and it lands with the page opened to the Jeremiah passage about "the wrath of the Lord." Gibson is one of the most absurdly and obviously corrupt cops you'll ever see in this kind of movie. There's no subtlety to the direction of Chuck Russell (THE MASK, ERASER), helming his first film since 2002's THE SCORPION KING. Travolta and Russell came onboard late, as the film was originally pitched to Nicolas Cage with William Friedkin (!) set to direct. That would've turned out better than the thoroughly generic film I AM WRATH ended up being. It's so sloppy that it can't even keep the name of its villain straight--in some scenes, he's "Meserve" and in others "Merserve." Travolta has a few scenes where he puts forth some acting effort, though it's pretty obvious that the 62-year-old icon is doubled almost Seagal-style in the the action scenes. The one bright spot in I AM WRATH, which skipped theaters entirely and debuted on VOD, is Meloni, once again busting his hump to salvage a middling, forgettable actioner (though MARAUDERS was a bit better than this). Travolta's just at the "Who gives a shit?" stage of his career, but Meloni throws in enough wiseass asides and bizarre quirks that he's always interesting to watch even when he's just standing there wondering why he ever left LAW & ORDER: SVU. (R, 91 mins) SNIPER: GHOST SHOOTER (US - 2016)
The sixth entry in the SNIPER franchise--not counting the misleadingly-titled recent Steven Seagal vehicle SNIPER: SPECIAL OPS--SNIPER: GHOST SHOOTER is the third to star the almost-lifelike Chad Michael Collins as Brandon Beckett, son of original SNIPER Thomas Beckett, played by Tom Berenger in the first, second, third, and fifth films. Berenger, who wasn't in the 2011 reboot SNIPER: RELOADED, but returned for 2014's SNIPER: LEGACY, sits this one out, though Billy Zane, who co-starred in the first and fourth films, is back as Sniper Jr's commander Richard Miller. This time, they're on a mission in Eastern Europe, surveilling the Trans-Georgian Pipeline, a terrorist-targeted gas line stretching from Georgia into Europe. All the while, every move they make, coordinated by their commander (when Dennis Haysbert announces "I'll be quarterbacking this from the JSOC office in Turkey," that's straight-to-DVD code for "I'm barely going to be in the rest of this movie") and a civilian contractor/Sniper Jr. love interest (Stephanie Vogt), is anticipated by the nefarious Gazakov (Velislav Pavlov). Gazakov is the "ghost shooter" of the title, a lethal sniper who's able to pinpoint the exact location of the American military team, indicating the operation has a mole or he's been able to hack into their network. It's never really explained how he tracks them, but it hardly makes a difference, as veteran DTV sequel director Don Michael Paul (LAKE PLACID: THE FINAL CHAPTER, JARHEAD 2, TREMORS 5, KINDERGARTEN COP 2) is more focused on firefights, digital blood, and CGI explosions. Collins is as bland as ever, and Zane has little to do other than bark orders and tough-guy jargon ("There is no next time...there's only ONE time!"), while other characters talk like people who've seen too many action movies ("Say hello to my Russian friend!" cackles a Russian liaison as he blows some bad guys away, before telling Sniper Jr "Welcome to the wild, wild east!"). SNIPER: GHOST SHOOTER is pretty standard-issue, jingoistic, DTV, shot-in-Bulgaria military porn--with Paul repeatedly letting the camera linger on fetishized shots of empty shells as they spill out of weapons--and offers little that's new or interesting beyond killing 100 minutes. You could do a lot worse, but that doesn't mean you should expect much. (R, 99 mins)
Directed by Niels Arden Oplev. Written by J.H. Wyman. Cast: Colin Farrell, Noomi Rapace, Dominic Cooper, Terrence Howard, Isabelle Huppert, F. Murray Abraham, Armand Assante, Franky G, Luis Da Silva, Jr., Roy James Wilson, Jr., James Biberi. (R, 116 mins)
DEAD MAN DOWN is the Hollywood debut of Swedish director Niels Arden Oplev, reuniting with his GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO star Noomi Rapace. On the surface, it's a conventional mob/revenge thriller and the script by FRINGE writer/co-executive producer J.H. Wyman is frequently silly, but DEAD MAN DOWN is compelling and stylish throughout, bolstered by strong performances and Oplev bringing an offbeat sensibility and unexpected elements to some largely familiar proceedings.
Colin Farrell is Victor, a Hungarian enforcer who's part of the crew of NYC mobster Alphonse Hoyt (Terrence Howard). For months, someone's been offing Alphonse's guys and sending him cryptic handwritten messages accompanied by puzzle pieces of a photograph. He's got everyone on high alert after the latest member of his crew to be killed is found crammed into a freezer in the basement of his home. Victor is a dutiful soldier--he's relatively new but earns Alphonse's trust by saving his life during a drug den shootout with some turf rivals that Alphonse mistakenly blames for the killings--but lacks the ambition of his friend Darcy (Dominic Cooper), also a relatively new face but one who really wants to work his way up in the organization now that he's a husband and father. Loner Victor has no one except Beatrice (Rapace), a scarred young woman who lives with her mostly-deaf mother (Isabelle Huppert) in the neighboring high-rise and with whom Victor shares frequent nods and waves while both are looking out of their windows. Darcy senses great pain in Victor's past, but doesn't press the issue, instead passing on something his wife once told him: "Whatever it is, even the most damaged hearts can heal."
25-year-old Beatrice is still recovering from reconstructive surgery after her face was shattered a year earlier when she was hit by a drunk driver. She works up the courage to slip a card into Victor's mailbox with her phone number, and the two go out to dinner. But then Beatrice drops the bomb: she's got cell phone footage of Victor killing a man in his apartment--the guy stuffed into Alphonse's freezer--and she won't go to the cops if Victor agrees to kill the drunk driver who disfigured her. Victor reluctantly agrees but has other things on his plate: namely--and this isn't a spoiler--he's the guy killing Alphonse's goons and sending the notes and puzzle pieces, and he's been doing the same thing with a rival Albanian crime organization in an attempt to turn them both against each other as part of an elaborate revenge plot.
Oplev and Wyman fuse numerous genres and styles throughout: the film is equal parts noir, Hitchcock, chilly Scandinavian gloom, early 1990s Luc Besson, and vintage Abel Ferrara grit. Maybe it's the notion of a foreign filmmaker's take on NYC (most of this was shot in Philadelphia), but much of DEAD MAN DOWN reminded me of Besson's THE PROFESSIONAL (1994), another film that succeeds despite its many inherently absurd elements. Stripped to its barebones, the basic vengeance storyline is nothing new, but elsewhere, the film journeys down other, less predictable avenues. The tentative, baby steps relationship that Victor and Beatrice embark upon is very nicely-played by both Farrell and Rapace and suprisingly appealing in its own strange way, with added help from Huppert as the merrily oblivious mom who keeps trying to play matchmaker while looking for her hearing aids and badgering Victor into taking some cookies home with him (Beatrice puts some of her mom's lemon chicken in Victor's sparse fridge in one scene, leading to this odd bit of dialogue: "I'll just wedge it in here between the mustard and the plastic explosive").
DEAD MAN DOWN isn't the kind of film that's going to generate much business at the box office and, like THE PROFESSIONAL, it's being met by critics with general indifference at best to outright scorn at worst. But THE PROFESSIONAL has come to be regarded as a classic of sorts, and while I'm not saying DEAD MAN DOWN will be held in that same high esteem, I did find it highly entertaining and with enough off-kilter quirks and peculiarities to keep my interest, and it's the kind of film that will prove endlessly rewatchable during its long future life as a cable and Netflix streaming staple. There's also small supporting turns by reliable character aces like F. Murray Abraham and Armand Assante, an elaborately ludicrous sniper sequence, and one insane bit with an SUV driving into a house and down into the basement. It's not a film that's meant to be taken too seriously and it might even fall under "guilty pleasure," but I liked how Oplev presents a standard-issue revenge flick in non-standard ways, focusing on the actors and the performances and giving the characters room to grow and be established. Not everything in DEAD MAN DOWN works--Darcy is meant to be a conscience or beacon of some sort for Victor, but the character is mostly intrusive, relegated to annoying Victor by sucking up to Alphonse and doing some detective work that threatens to derail Victor's entire plan--and some might find the villain's comeuppance too abrupt, but the story ultimately isn't about that. It's more about two very damaged people dealt some extraordinarily shitty cards and finding a very strange--and incredibly violent--path to healing.
Written and directed by Martin McDonagh. Cast: Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Walken, Tom Waits, Abbie Cornish, Olga Kurylenko, Zeljko Ivanek, Harry Dean Stanton, Gabourey Sidibe, Michael Pitt, Michael Stuhlbarg, Kevin Corrigan, Linda Bright Clay, Long Nguyen, Brendan Sexton III. (R, 110 mins)
Writer/director Martin McDonagh's follow-up to his acclaimed IN BRUGES (2008) again demonstrates his deftness at mixing the comedic and the dramatic and doing so without jarring or uneven shifts in tone. SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS adds a "meta" element that's somewhat reminiscent of Shane Black's 2005 cult favorite KISS KISS BANG BANG (a great film totally abandoned by its distributor). With rare exception--KISS KISS BANG BANG, for example--self-reflexive meta films of this sort tend to exude a certain air of smugness about them, almost as if the filmmakers are too busy marveling at how preciously clever they're being. For the most part, McDonagh does a good job at keeping that element in check, but it doesn't always work as well as it should, or as well as McDonagh thinks it is. Contrary to what the trailers, TV spots, and poster art are selling, this isn't exactly the wacky comedy about a ragtag group of criminal miscreants that it appears to be. It's *A* film like that...just not the one being advertised.
In Hollywood, hard-drinking Irish screenwriter Marty (McDonagh's IN BRUGES star Colin Farrell) is having a hard time finding inspiration for his latest script, titled SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS. He's got one: the Jack of Diamonds serial killer, who happens to be going around wiping out mobsters and leaving a jack of diamonds card behind. Marty's best friend Bobby Bickle (Sam Rockwell) is an out-of-work actor who makes a living in a lucrative scam with aging, dapper, cravat-wearing criminal Hans (Christopher Walken), where Bobby kidnaps a dog and after a few days, Hans returns it to the owner for the reward. Things spiral out of control when Bobby kidnaps Bonny, a Shih Tzu owned by hot-tempered, trigger-happy crime boss Charlie Costello (Woody Harrelson), who thinks nothing of killing anyone who gets in the way of him retrieving his beloved dog.
That's the essential "plot," and that's where a typical Hollywood points A-to-B-to-C story would focus. But McDonagh takes things in unexpected directions with various sidetracks and detours as he cinematically demonstrates the stages of the writing process as Marty and Billy (who wants to help write the script) brainstorm and the film turns into a running commentary on itself. These are tricky waters for a film to navigate. If it's done right, it's brilliant. If it's not, then it's pompous and insufferable. SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS isn't brilliant as a whole, but it seems headed that way for the first half. It's filled with sharp writing, witty and profane dialogue, great characters, and inspired situations that often border on silly but are immensely enjoyable. McDonagh weaves together hilarious comedy, devastating drama, and some surprising scenes of shocking violence with confidence and energy, but once Marty suggests, instead of a big shootout, the characters in his script should just go to the desert and talk, that's exactly what McDonagh has his characters in the film do. While it's nice watching Farrell, Rockwell, and Walken explore these characters and give them added dimensions, there's no denying it kills the momentum for a while. There's certainly an argument that subverting that expectation of a big shootout (which we eventually get) is McDonagh's whole point, but it's the only time the film threatens to become one of those meta movies where the winking gets a little forced and you start to feel like the filmmakers think the material is beneath them. There's some good stuff after this section, but SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS never returns to being as entertaining as it was for that first hour.
Even if it doesn't quite hang together all the way through, SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS does boast a terrific ensemble cast. Rockwell has rarely been better, and Hans is easily Walken's best role in years. Whether he's doting over his cancer-stricken wife (Linda Bright Clay), making odd facial expressions, or saying things like "Fuck the cops! Fuck 'em!" in ways that only he could say them, Walken turns in a marvelously inspired "Christopher Walken"-y performance that's great fun to watch. Rockwell and Walken are the standouts, but Farrell and Harrelson do fine work, and there's also memorable supporting turns by Tom Waits, Harry Dean Stanton, and, of course, Bonny the Shih Tzu. SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS functions on multiple levels and is the kind of film that probably requires more than one viewing to catch and process everything. It's one of those films where subsequent viewings will likely bring other things to the surface to enrich the experience. I certainly enjoyed enough of it to pick up the eventual Blu-ray and spend more time studying it in greater detail. It's just that kind of film.
Directed by Len Wiseman. Written by Kurt Wimmer and Mark Bomback. Cast: Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Bryan Cranston, Bill Nighy, Bokeem Woodbine, John Cho. (PG-13, 121 mins)
Is there really any need for a PG-13 remake of TOTAL RECALL? Len Wiseman's (UNDERWORLD) take on the Paul Verhoeven/Arnold Schwarzenegger action/sci-fi classic from 1990 is even less faithful to its source, Philip K. Dick's short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale," and ultimately won't supplant anyone's fond memories of the original, but for a good chunk of its duration, TOTAL RECALL 2012 is surprisingly good. The script by Kurt Wimmer and Mark Bomback completely jettisons the Mars element, and instead focuses on a post-chemical warfare 2084 Earth where the only inhabitable regions are (for some reason) "The United Federation of Britain," and Australia, now referred to as "The Colony." I wouldn't be surprised if Wimmer, a veteran journeyman screenwriter (STREET KINGS, LAW ABIDING CITIZEN, SALT) best known to genre fans for writing and directing the excellent 2002 sci-fi cult classic EQUILIBRIUM, had a hand in shaping, or at least influencing, the very effective dystopian look of the futuristic Colony, which resembles a sort-of high-tech, Shanghai shanty town that's one big Red Light District.
Colin Farrell as Quaid
Doug Quaid (Colin Farrell, in his second summer remake in a row after last year's dismal FRIGHT NIGHT redux) is a factory worker who commutes daily from The Colony to the UFB on "The Fall," a seven-minute ride through the center of the Earth. He assembles "Synthetics" (robotic police officers) for the UFB by day, and at night, is plagued by vague dreams where he's some kind of secret agent. Other than feeling like he's stuck in a dead-end job, Quaid is happy with Lori (Kate Beckinsale), his wife of seven years, and despite warnings from his friend and co-worker Harry (Bokeem Woodbine), he visits the memory-implant company Rekall, thinking the implantation of a spy-type adventure will lift his spirits. During the procedure, the Rekall staff realizes that Quaid already is a secret agent, though he has no memory of it.
Farrell and Kate Beckinsale: "Conseedah
dat a deevawrse!"
Anyone who's seen the Verhoeven film is obviously familiar with the story so far. In one respect, it's a detriment because those of us who have seen TOTAL RECALL 1990 many times know about the characters Quaid (and his other identity, Hauser), Lori, Harry, Melina (played here by Jessica Biel) and the villain Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston), and that inevitably takes the element of surprise away from the plot twists (though the filmmakers do have some fun playing with the malfunctioning fat-lady disguise that Quaid used to sneak through Mars security in the 1990 film, and Farrell's Quaid is seen reading Ian Fleming's The Spy Who Loved Me at one point). TR 2012 keeps the characters familiar but changes their surrounding story significantly. Cohaagen is now the Chancellor of the UFB, intent on wiping out The Colony and "terrorist" Resistance leader Matthias (Bill Nighy) so as to eliminate the lower class--the factory workers, who he intends to replace with Synthetics--in order accommodate the burgeoning overpopulation issue in the upper-class UFB. The remake eliminates Cohaagen's right-hand man Richter (memorably played by Michael Ironside in the 1990 film) and instead combines that character with Lori, thereby allowing Beckinsale to do her action heroine routine. There's definitely the potential for seeing a political subtext here, but it's largely unexplored, instead focusing on action and some truly stunning visual effects. As familiar as the story may seem despite the many changes, TR 2012 really excels with some astonishing production design and CGI wizardry to create one of the most dazzling future dystopias that's been seen on the screen in quite some time. The budget for this was allegedly in the neighborhood of a ludicrous $200 million, but it shows (is it going to make that back? Probably globally). It's not just CGI greenscreen backgrounds. There's some innovative set design and some extremely well-choreographed action sequences throughout. Wiseman, directing his first film since the atrocious LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD (2007), does a commendable job throughout, which I believe is the first time anyone has said such a thing about Len Wiseman.
Jessica Biel as "Meh-leeeee-naaaaah!"
Is TR 2012 as good as TR 1990? No. But for a good hour or more, it seems like it might be. Only in the home stretch, when it starts getting louder and sillier and more illogical (would an evil, megalomaniacal supervillain like Chancellor Cohaagen really suit up and take part in a raid on Matthias' stronghold in the inhabitable No Zone?), and more derivative (utilizing elements of BLADE RUNNER, THE FIFTH ELEMENT, and even STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES), does it stumble somewhat. There was really no reason for a TOTAL RECALL remake, and while it's not a complete success across the board, Wiseman, the screenwriters, and the production design and effects team really brought their A-game to it. Perhaps it's a depressing sign of the times to resort to applauding filmmakers for not phoning it in and instead actually investing themselves in a project, but for the most part, TOTAL RECALL 2012 surpasses admittedly diminished expectations and is much more enjoyable and entertaining than it has any reason to be.
Farrell drops into this outtake from THE FIFTH ELEMENT
Earlier this week, to coincide with the remake, Lionsgate released a new Blu-ray edition of the 1990 original. Their previous Blu-ray was a shoddy HD transfer, while the new "Mind-Bending Edition" was supervised and approved by director Paul Verhoeven. The Verhoeven/Schwarzenegger commentary and the rest of the extras are carried over from the prior edition, along with a new "Restoration Comparison" detailing the process of restoring and remastering the film and doing a side-by-side comparison of the old vs. new transfers. It's quite an upgrade.
