A QUIET PLACE (US - 2018) Directed by John Krasinski. Written by Bryan Woods, Scott Beck and John Krasinski. Cast: Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, Cade Woodward, Leon Russom. (PG-13, 90 mins) Even in the most tightly-written screenplays, there's going to be things you can pick at and call a "plot hole," though most people using that term rarely do so correctly. A QUIET PLACE isn't exactly airtight in its execution, with a couple of head-scratching "plot conveniences" or "plot inconsistencies," let's call them, but it's a chilling, visceral, stomach-in-knots experience in horror moviegoing that we just don't see much anymore. It's PG-13 and the gore is minimal and fleeting, but A QUIET PLACE knows how to manipulate an audience and in the process, director/co-writer/star John Krasinski (yes, that John Krasinski) creates one of the most fascinating social experiments in recent memory. Can you recall the last time you went to a see a movie in a packed theater on its opening weekend and the audience--the entire audience--behaved perfectly? No talking, no phones lit up, no loud snacking, only an occasional cough and some relieved exhaling after any number of well-executed suspense set pieces (that bit with the nail will have you holding your breath with dread). I don't even think anyone got up to use the restroom. A QUIET PLACE dives right into its story in medias res (the opening title card reads "Day 89") and essentially conditions its audience to go along because no one wants to be the asshole who breaks the silence and ruins it for everyone. I won't go so far as to call Krasinski the DGA equivalent of Ivan Pavlov or Stanley Milgram, but let this film serve as proof that civility and courtesy can be part of present-day multiplex attendance. Nevermind the Oscars or the Golden Globes--Krasinski's accomplishment here practically qualifies him for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Produced by Michael Bay, of all people (Krasinski starred in his 13 HOURS), and set in what appears to be a post-apocalyptic America in the very near future, A QUIET PLACE opens with an unimaginable tragedy: a family witnessing the death of their youngest member after he's attacked and whisked away by a barely-glimpsed creature moving with lightning speed. In the minutes preceding this, we're introduced to the dad (Krasinski), mom (Emily Blunt), deaf teenage daughter (Millicent Simmonds), and pre-teen son (Noah Jupe) silently procuring supplies at an abandoned store and walking home barefoot. A toy rocketship grabbed by the youngest child (he's four) at the store--and he put the batteries in with no one looking--starts making noises unexpectedly, alerting the creature to their location, killing their third child before his father can save him. Cut to "Day 472," and the family has their survival routine down. It seems some kind of alien invasion wiped out much of America and, it would seem the world, with some bands of survivors in scattered rural pockets (from atop a grain silo, there's a few observable campfires in the distance, but with one brief exception, we meet no one else), and the common knowledge now being that you're safe if you're silent. They have paths made around the farm, paint marks on the steps to delineate where to walk to avoid creaking boards, and they're in the midst of constructing a soundproof room in anticipation of the next member of the family, due in two weeks and certain to generate a lot of noise (and of course, that water's gonna break at the worst possible time). The first third of A QUIET PLACE just shows the daily routine and how, with kids being kids, noise will be made regardless of how careful they are (especially a concern for the daughter, who can't tell if the floors creak as she walks). Because the daughter is deaf (as is young Simmonds, as Krasinski pushed for a hearing-impaired actress for the part), the family knows sign language. Conversations are conveyed in subtitles, and the first audible line of dialogue doesn't even occur until 40 minutes in, when father and son are able to have a regular conversation while hiding under a waterfall while out fishing.
Of course you may ask "Why can't the monsters hear the water?" Or "Why do they have picture frames precariously hanging on the wall?" A QUIET PLACE works as long as you go along for the ride, though it's one of those films where you're riveted while watching it but you're asking questions by the time you get to your car and have had time to think about it. In a way, it's a throwback to M. Night Shyamalan in his prime (SIGNS, especially), and like the good Shyamalan films, your first experience with it will be the best experience, because you're aware of everything on subsequent viewings. There's no Shyamalanian twist to A QUIET PLACE, and it's tense and involving enough to warrant repeat viewings, but some of the more plot-convenient cracks, structural flaws, and lapses in logic will be more apparent. It's tough to pull off a movie that's largely silent except for some infrequent whispers and some Marco Beltrami music cues, but credit to Krasinski and his actors for pulling it off. As a director (this is his third feature, after 2009's BRIEF INTERVIEWS WITH HIDEOUS MEN, which is about as watchable as you'd expect a David Foster Wallace adaptation to be, and 2016's little-seen drama THE HOLLARS), Krasinski graciously leaves the biggest dramatic moments to his offscreen wife Blunt and an impressive Simmonds, whose character is reaching that age where headstrong rebellion is innate and she's tired of the unintentional marginalization by her father due to her disability and his possibly passive-aggressive blaming her for the youngest child's death (she handed the toy back to him after Dad took it away, but this kid does at least three other things in the first two minutes that could've gotten them all killed). Almost every thought and emotion has to be communicated silently in A QUIET PLACE, and it's a gamble that pays off. The audience was with this from the first ominous moment until the crowd-pleasing final shot. Even in big tentpole movies that make $200 million in their opening weekend, you'll have people talking, texting, checking Instagram, Snapchatting, fidgeting, getting up, walking around, and being generally insufferable pains in the ass. In an era where the viability of cinemas is constantly in question due to streaming, VOD, and ever-changing distribution platforms, A QUIET PLACE is the kind of communal moviegoing experience that serves as a welcome reminder of how satisfying seeing a good, scary movie with a equally captivated audience can be.
SICARIO (US - 2015) Directed by Denis Villeneuve. Written by Taylor Sheridan. Cast: Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Victor Garber, Jon Bernthal, Jeffrey Donovan, Daniel Kaluuya, Raoul Trujillo, Julio Cesar Cedillo, Maximiliano Hernandez, Hank Rogerson, Bernardo P. Saracino, Edgar Arreola, Boots Southerland, Adam Taylor, Eb Lottimer. (R, 121 mins)
A dark and harrowing drug trafficking thriller that's still rather simplistic at its core, SICARIO is nonetheless a gripping and hard-hitting experience. In a horrifying opening sequence, an FBI raid on a Glendale, AZ house near the US/Mexico border results in the discovery of no drugs but 42 dead bodies hidden in the walls. Idealistic agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) is lauded for her work in the raid and offered a spot on a task force overseen by Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), the kind of character whose easy-going, smart-ass demeanor and dress casual look, complete with baggy khakis and flip-flops when everyone else is wearing suits, provides a nice-guy cover for a not-very-nice guy. A divorced loner with no children and nothing in her life other than her job, Macer is the perfect candidate, though it doesn't take her long to conclude that Graver is running some kind of off-the-books black-ops unit. That's confirmed once they're joined by Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro), a man of few words who comes from Colombia but "goes where he's needed." Alejandro's instincts and skills come into play at a traffic jam massacre at the border when the unit returns from an illegal run into Juarez to pick up Guillermo (Edgar Arreola), an associate of cartel boss Fausto Alarcon (Julio Cesar Cedillo). The more questions Macer asks, the more evasive Graver and Alejandro are, and she gets no answers from her own boss (Victor Garber). As Graver's operations put her at greater risk and the ruthless Alejandro seems to be addressing his own personal agenda, Macer is pulled into a moral and ethical quagmire that puts her career and her life at risk.
Directed by Denis Villeneuve, who's no stranger to moral and ethical quagmires with 2013's PRISONERS, and written by former SONS OF ANARCHY co-star Taylor Sheridan (he played Deputy Hale before being killed off in the third season premiere), SICARIO takes place in a world where everything is a gray area and the law is circumvented if it serves the greater good, which is why Macer's partner and seemingly only friend Reggie (Daniel Kaluuya), an Iraq War vet with a law degree, is purposefully kept at a distance by Graver. There's been some comparisons made between Macer and Jodie Foster's Clarice Starling from THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and it's a good analogy, especially in the way both films are seen through the POV of a strong, independent woman with something to prove in a male-dominated field that constantly underestimates her. It's also worth mentioning that both Foster and Blunt get their thunder stolen to a certain extent by the showier performance of a co-star with much less screen time, with Blunt's Anthony Hopkins being Del Toro as Alejandro, the mysterious angel of vengeance, a former cartel figure who lost his entire family and goes wherever his quest for revenge takes him. His allegiances are suspect and he won't hesitate to put a bullet in anyone who tries to stop him, but Graver is happy to have him along in an "enemy of my enemy is my friend" sort-of way. Del Toro keeps things pretty low-key throughout, never hamming but going for a less-is-more approach that makes Alejandro, the title character ("sicario" meaning "hitman"), utterly terrifying. While Macer is the central character, it's Alejandro who leaves the biggest impression, apparently on the filmmakers as well, as Blunt sits out most of the last 1/4 of the film as the focus shifts to Alejandro and his quest to find and execute Alarcon. It's a jarring move to make 90 minutes into a two-hour film, especially one that's been seen through Macer's eyes to that point, and it makes one wonder if that shift was in Sheridan's script or if it was a change that came about during the editing stage.
Boasting outstanding cinematography by the great Roger Deakins and with an effectively droning, tense score by Johann Johannsson, SICARIO works best in its crackling, edge-of-your-set set pieces like the opening sequence and the border shootout, and then later when a marvelously understated Del Toro takes center stage, his silent glare speaking volumes. Despite all the social, econimic, and legal issue lip service, SICARIO isn't as profound as some are making it out to be and is still largely a revenge saga, albeit a very well-made and intense one. It's a promising screenwriting debut for Sheridan, who directed a late-to-the-party SAW knockoff called VILE a few years back, right after he left SONS OF ANARCHY. VILE is one of the absolute worst horror movies you'll ever see and one couldn't blame Sheridan if he tried to distance himself from it now that SICARIO is earning worldwide accolades. Oh, wait...that's exactly what happened. In recent months, VILE has been removed from Sheridan's IMDb page by someone, and now is the lone credit on the page of a "Taylor Sheridan (IV)." Come on, Mr. Sheridan. You made a shitty movie before you were instrumental in the making of a very praised one. Just own it. Google "Taylor Sheridan Vile" and the ruse is exposed. You don't see James Cameron running away from PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING, do you? Do you see George Clooney sticking his fingers in his ears and yelling "La-la-la can't hear you!" at the mention of RETURN OF THE KILLER TOMATOES? You really think you're gonna just pretend VILE never happened?
EDGE OF TOMORROW (US - 2014) Directed by Doug Liman. Written by Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth. Cast: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson, Noah Taylor, Kick Gurry, Charlotte Riley, Jonas Armstrong, Tony Way, Franz Drameh, Dragomir Mrsic, Masayoshi Haneda, Terence Maynard. (PG-13, 114 mins)
Admittedly, the trailers for EDGE OF TOMORROW didn't look promising. Based on the 2004 novel All You Need is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, EDGE appeared to be another chance to show Tom Cruise running around and saving the world, this time in a GROUNDHOG DAY-meets-STARSHIP TROOPERS scenario. Yes, that's part of the plot, and the film makes no secret that it's a mash-up potpourri of other military sci-fi films. But even before it establishes its central conceit, EDGE is subverting your expectations in creative and unpredictable ways. Yes, it fuses GROUNDHOG DAY and STARSHIP TROOPERS, and also ALIENS and WWII movies and video games and Tom Cruise running and feels like the kind of movie James Cameron might've made in the late '80s and early '90s before he publicly unleashed his inner Insufferable Asshole for all the world to see. But it takes those elements and sends them in an unpredictable direction, and when Cruise runs, he doesn't run like a hero saving the world. He stumbles and bumbles like a guy who's skated by on his personality and just likes wearing a uniform and whose grinning visage is all a show for the cameras. Cruise has some fun toying with his screen persona here, and that's just the beginning of the unexpected highlights that this furiously-paced, surprisingly inventive, and often quite witty sci-fi actioner has to offer.
Set five years into a Europe-based war with an alien race known as Mimics, EDGE opens with military media liaison Major William Cage (Cruise) being ordered by United Defense Forces commander Gen. Brigham (Brendan Gleeson) to act as an embedded correspondent with forces launching a massive invasion of France to hold off and defeat Mimic forces. Known as a ubiquitous presence on cable news as the chief UDF spokesperson and PR/propaganda flack, the arrogant Cage objects to being sent into combat, and ultimately tries to blackmail Brigham by threatening to publicly blame him for any casualties in the next day's attack. An enraged Brigham has him arrested and branded a deserter, and the next day, Cage wakes to find himself on a military base, stripped of his rank, busted down to Private, and being read the riot act by gung-ho Sgt. Farrel (Bill Paxton, whose presence is an obvious nod to ALIENS). Cage, despite almost no training and with the extent of his service being a smiling face on TV encouraging young people to join the fight, accompanies the troops on the invasion, which immediately ends in disaster: the Mimics knew they were coming and wipe out the UDF in five minutes, including Cage and legendary warrior and the heroic face of the UDF, Sgt. Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), aka "Full Metal Bitch" and "The Angel of Verdun" after leading the first UDF victory against the Mimics at Verdun. But then something funny happens: Cage wakes up, back on the base, at the same starting point as the previous day. He goes through the same botched attack again, and each time he's killed, he wakes up at the previous original point. His ability to finish everyone's sentences and predict the outcome of the UDF invasion are summarily dismissed as parlor tricks and the ravings of a coward trying to get out of military action, but during one time loop, Vrataski tells him "Find me when you wake up." Only she knows what he's talking about and how he's reliving every day once he's "killed," and together, they try to devise a plan of attack, based on their previous failures, of defeating the Mimics in France and finding the truth behind what they are, what they're capable of doing, and why only they have experienced the time loops.
Like Sakurazaka's novel, EDGE is essentially intended to be one long video game, and it's one of the very few instances where that's meant as praise. Witness the constant "resets" from the same starting point each time Cage is "killed" and the way he and Vrataski strategize and memorize every Mimic movement during the failed invasion in order to survive and "get to the next level." Director Doug Liman (SWINGERS, GO, THE BOURNE IDENTITY) and editor James Herbert handle the potentially unwieldy time element in expert fashion. Most impressive is the way time loops come to shockingly abrupt ends when Cage is unexpectedly killed and how, when the time loops seem to stop, we only gradually realize that Liman is only letting us see certain developments for the first time. In other words, we discover that Cage has been living these time loops for an undetermined amount of time, and there's a subsequent implication that even the precise starting point is something that's questionable in the context of the narrative. Liman holds it together in masterful fashion, but EDGE OF TOMORROW could've easily been an incoherent mess considering the committee of writers involved and the fact that it didn't even have a finished script until shooting was about to start. The screenplay is credited to Christopher McQuarrie (who won an Oscar for his USUAL SUSPECTS script) and Jez & John-Henry Butterworth (FAIR GAME), but the initial work was done by Dante Harper, whose original script was reworked by Joby Harold (AWAKE). Liman tossed out most of the work done by Harper and Harold and brought in the Butterworths, whose work was then revised by Simon Kinberg (SHERLOCK HOLMES, ELYSIUM). Kinberg departed the project and Cruise pal McQuarrie (who worked with the star on VALKYRIE and JACK REACHER, two of Cruise's most underrated films, and is set to direct the next MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE entry) was brought in to write an ending and give the script one final polish.
EDGE OF TOMORROW's seemingly frozen-in-time Europe looks terrific (I skipped the 3D version) and the CGI creatures are very well-done. It never pretends it isn't constructed on a foundation of great films that came before it, but it wastes little time in becoming its own beast. Going in expecting a by-the-numbers CGI blur, you may come away pleasantly surprised at the relatively old-school feeling of the whole thing. But that may just be part of the Cruise experience at this point. Yes, he's a crazy Scientologist, but he's one of the few genuine movie stars left who can still draw huge audiences just on the basis of his name. For all their accolades and media ubiquity, how many blockbuster mega-hits have guys like George Clooney or Brad Pitt had? Not many. People don't go see "Brad Pitt movies." They go to "movies with Brad Pitt," and often, mainstream audiences don't like them (THE TREE OF LIFE, KILLING THEM SOFTLY, THE COUNSELOR). People still go see "Tom Cruise movies" regardless of what they're about. Sure, one could argue that the 51-year-old Cruise is entering the self-deprecation phase of his career with the way he slyly mocks his image here (the patented "Cruise running" shot comes very early, and it's clumsy, awkward, and hilarious), but the guy's still got it. Sure, EDGE OF TOMORROW has a couple of plot holes (at the point in the time loop where Cage and Vrataski's Jeep runs out of gas, why doesn't Cage ever consider taking some gasoline cans along with them on the next loop?) and it may suffer from coming so closely on the heels of another Cruise sci-fi epic with last year's visually stunning but somewhat empty (and seemingly already-forgotten) OBLIVION. That was another film that stood on the shoulders of giants, but unlike EDGE, didn't take things to the next level. Contrary to the ho-hum trailer and TV spots we've been seeing, EDGE OF TOMORROW is incredibly entertaining and far better than it has any right to be, and it may very well be the summer's biggest surprise.
