Opened 40 Years Ago: EXCALIBUR (4/10/1981)

 

EXCALIBUR opening in Toledo, OH on 4/10/1981

Retro Review: HUSSY (1980)

HUSSY 
(UK - 1980)

Written and directed by Matthew Chapman. Cast: Helen Mirren, John Shea, Paul Angelis, Murray Salem, Jenny Runacre, Marika Rivera, Patti Boulaye, Daniel Chasin, Charles Yates, Jill Melford, Hal Gallili, William Hootkins, Rupert Frazer, Sandy Ratcliff, April Olrich, Ric Young. (R, 95 mins)

A deep dive into the seedy underbelly of late '70s London, 1980's HUSSY was in regular rotation on Showtime's late-night "After Hours" in the early '80s, thus lumping it in with other legendary softcore staples like THE STUD (1978) and THE BITCH (1979). It's got a decent amount of skin but it isn't as relentlessly tawdry as those two Joan Collins potboilers. It isn't even the trashiest 1980 movie to star Helen Mirren, as she also had CALIGULA in theaters that same year. 1980 also found her co-starring in the British gangster classic THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY, and while the similarities pretty much begin and end with the presence of Mirren, HUSSY more or less abandons the T&A around the midpoint as things take a decidedly darker turn with sketchy criminals and clandestine drug deals. Mirren is Beaty Simons, a high-class London prostitute who works out of a cabaret called The Baron Club. She catches the eye of Emory (John Shea), an American expat who works sound and lights for the club, and on his night off, he makes arrangements for her services despite her insistence that "You're broke and I'm expensive." Though she makes good money, she has dreams of getting out of the life, moving to the country, and owning an antique shop, all part of a plan of establishing a more respectable existence and regaining permanent custody of her ten-year-old son Billy (Daniel Chasin). Emory is running from his own past as well--he's widower whose wife died under mysterious circumstances involving poisoned berries, for which he blames himself for letting her eat. It's a story so heartbreaking that Beaty's immediate response when he tells her in a parked car is, in true softcore fashion, "Make love to me. Right here."

As their relationship grows and Emory bonds with Billy on his Sunday visits and, predictably, has a hard time handling the realities of her job as she comes home smelling of booze and men, their plan of starting a new life runs into a couple of snags. Max (Murray Salem), Emory's shady, flamboyantly gay friend from the States, is in town to set up a lucrative drug deal and wants Emory to be a part of it; and Alex (a terrifying Paul Angelis), an unstable, anger-management case ex from Beaty's past, reappears to pick up where they left off after a stint in either prison or a mental hospital (his story keeps changing and asking for clarification only provokes him). Alex crashes with the two of them at Emory's place and refuses to leave, and even informs Beaty of his intention to kill Emory rather than let her be with him. Realizing that Max is only inviting him along on the drug deal because he needs a fall guy in case it all goes to shit, Emory decides to bring Alex in on it as well, which goes about as smoothly as you'd expect, especially when the perpetually obnoxious Max keeps aggravating and insulting an already volatile Alex.

It's around the halfway-point that HUSSY finally introduces its dual antagonists in Max and Alex. Until then, it focuses on Beaty and Emory, thus confining the "After Hours"-worthy content to the first 45 or so minutes. Mirren classes it up quite a bit and, as in CALIGULA, she isn't shy about disrobing and showing everything. It's too bad she more or less becomes a secondary character once the drug deal takes center stage, but she manages to create a somewhat complex character in Beaty, a woman with a dark past and self-destructive, self-sabotaging tendencies but who's a good person deep down. An acclaimed Broadway actor--he originated the role of Avigdor in the 1975 stage production of YENTL that would be played by Mandy Patinkin in Barbra Streisand's 1983 film--Shea did some TV work (most notably playing Joseph in the 1978 TV movie THE NATIVITY) before making his big-screen debut in HUSSY. He would go on to co-star with Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek in Costa-Gavras' 1982 film MISSING, but is perhaps best known these days for his stint as Lex Luthor on the 1993-1997 ABC series LOIS & CLARK: THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN. Cleveland native Salem had small roles in the 1977 TV miniseries JESUS OF NAZARETH and the same year's 007 outing THE SPY WHO LOVED ME. He would abandon acting soon after HUSSY to focus on screenwriting, selling several scripts to Hollywood studios but only seeing one of them produced--the 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger comedy KINDERGARTEN COP--before succumbing to AIDS at just 47 in 1998.

HUSSY also marked the debut of British writer/director Matthew Chapman, whose directing career never really took off (his only other notable effort being the 1988 Jennifer Jason Leigh psychological thriller HEART OF MIDNIGHT), but he found some steady work as a screenwriter on projects as varied as the 1992 wife-swapping thriller CONSENTING ADULTS, 1994's gonzo COLOR OF NIGHT, the 2001 Martin Lawrence/Danny DeVito comedy WHAT'S THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN? and the 2003 John Grisham adaptation RUNAWAY JURY. Just out on Blu-ray from Twilight Time (because physical media is dead), HUSSY suffers from a seriously abrupt ending, and while "After Hours" insomniacs and pre-pubescent boys probably didn't find it as consistently trashy as THE STUD or THE BITCH (sorry, Mirren doesn't go for a spin on the Joan Collins fuck swing), it does do an effective job of capturing a snapshot of a distinct time and place. The sordid atmosphere of The Baron Club and the denizens it hosts in its own way conveys that vivid sense of empty melancholy that permeated the sweaty, smoke-filled confines of Fontaine Khaled's posh disco Hobo in THE STUD.


This review is dedicated to film historian and Twilight Time founder Nick Redman.

In Theaters: ANNA (2019)

ANNA
(France - 2019)

Written and directed by Luc Besson. Cast: Sasha Luss, Helen Mirren, Cillian Murphy, Luke Evans, Lera Abova, Eric Godon, Andrew Howard, Jean-Baptiste Puech, Sasha Petrov, Adrian Can, Jan Oliver Schroder, Eric Lampaert. (R, 119 mins)

Managing to emerge generally unscathed from sexual assault allegations by a total of nine accusers after Paris prosecutors dropped charges in February 2019 stemming from Dutch writer and comedian Sand Van Roy's claims that he repeatedly raped her, French auteur Luc Besson is back with the throwback espionage thriller ANNA. The allegations against Besson broke just after ANNA finished production, and while watching it, it's hard not to think of the disconnect between the accusations and his recurrent theme of strong, ass-kicking women going back to 1990's highly influential LA FEMME NIKITA. ANNA is largely another retread of the same story, one that seems especially played out considering recent films like ATOMIC BLONDE and RED SPARROW, both inspired to some degree by LA FEMME NIKITA and mining very similar territory in the waning days of the Cold War. The star is Russian supermodel Sasha Luss, who had a small, motion-capture supporting role in Besson's megabudget 2017 sci-fi epic VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS. Luss' Anna is cut from the same cloth as Besson's first wife Anne Parillaud's title character in LA FEMME NIKITA and the kind of cult favorite badasses that his third wife Milla Jovovich played in the RESIDENT EVIL series and other actioners after achieving stardom in his 1997 film THE FIFTH ELEMENT. Luss has a similar background and career path as Jovovich and even resembles her at times, which only adds to the feeling of familiarity and wheel-spinning with ANNA.

Opening with a prologue where nine CIA operatives are killed in Moscow in 1985 and their decapitated heads sent back home to their boss Leonard Miller (Cillian Murphy), ANNA repeatedly jumps back and forth to various points from 1987 to 1990. In 1990, Anna Poliatova (Luss) is selling Russian dolls at a Moscow marketplace when she's spotted by a French modeling agent (Jean-Baptiste Puech) and whisked away to Paris. Her star soon rises and she gets involved with wealthy Russian Oleg (Andrew Howard), who deals arms to Syria and Libya. Just as they're about to consummate their relationship, she pulls out a gun and shoots him in the head. Cut back to 1987, when an orphaned, junkie Anna was recruited by KGB agent Alex Tchenkov (Luke Evans) and put under the stern tutelage of ruthless, unsympathetic, chain-smoking spymaster Olga (Helen Mirren, looking like Fran Lebowitz's stunt double). Under the guise of an up-and-coming supermodel, Anna is given assignments of escalating importance, rubbing out whoever Olga, Tchenkov, and KGB chief Vassiliev (Eric Godon) say, until the assassination of Oleg puts her on Miller's radar.

The time jumps and the twists and turns grow increasingly absurd and it gets more difficult to keep track of what is taking place when, though Besson does put it to clever use as all the pieces--eventually, finally--start falling into place. At this point, it's hard to take any thriller seriously when it uses chess as a metaphor (cue Anna gravely intoning "Checkmate!" as she blows someone's brains out), and Besson almost seems to be glibly winking at the audience, whether it's a long modeling-and-murder montage set to INXS' "Need You Tonight" or constant anachronisms that have to be intentional, like laptops and wi-fi in Anna's shithole Moscow apartment in 1987, and flash drives and cell phones in 1990. But then he strangely tosses in an era-appropriate pager for Miller near the end of the film, which seems peculiarly antiquated considering all the advanced technology everyone's been shown using to that point. Murphy and Evans are fine as flip sides of the same coin, both in their careers and in their simultaneous hot-and-heavy relationships with Anna, while Mirren is under no illusion that this is John Le Carre material and enjoyably hams it up for an easy paycheck. The statuesque Luss handles herself well in the action scenes, particularly where she takes on an entire restaurant full of goons in pursuit of a target, but she's a terrible actress otherwise, never once convincing you that she's capable of manipulating the KGB and the CIA. In the end, ANNA is nothing you haven't seen before and Besson is more or less ripping himself off. It's utterly insignificant but it's never boring and goes down like harmless junk food from Besson's EuropaCorp action assembly line, the kind of movie you'll stop on and end up watching on a lazy weekend afternoon a year from now when it starts running on cable in perpetuity for the rest of your life.

On Blu-ray/DVD: 211 (2018); THE LEISURE SEEKER (2018); and BORG VS. MCENROE (2018)

211
(US - 2018)

It's DOG DAY AFTERNOON on a Bulgarian backlot with 211, the latest Nicolas Cage walk-through in what's looking like a busy 2018 for the--hang on while I check to see if it still stands...ok, yes, right--Oscar-winning actor. Produced by Avi Lerner's Cannon cover band Millennium Media, 211 doesn't get much help in the credibility department with the familiar and thoroughly un-American-looking Nu Boyana facility in Sofia, Bulgaria doubling for a small Massachusetts suburb (even though most of the license plates say Louisiana), whose downtown features a posh art gallery called Art Gallery. Inspired in part by the North Hollywood shootout over 20 years ago--itself inspired by a legendary sequence in Michael Mann's HEAT--211 juggles more characters than it can possibly handle and tries to be both a generic B actioner and a shamelessly heart-tugging American Heroes saga like WORLD TRADE CENTER or PATRIOTS DAY. Set in the fictional town of Chesterford, 211 stars Cage as Mike Chandler, a cop who's just filled out his retirement papers (oh boy), even though all he knows is being a cop, so much so that he wasn't really there for his late wife when she was battling cancer. This is still a sore subject with his daughter Lisa (Sophie Skelton), whose husband Steve "Mac" MacAvoy (Dwayne Cameron) is Mike's partner. Lisa just found out she's pregnant and Mac shares the good news with his father-in-law but that joy is short-lived as a bomb goes off in a downtown coffee shop as a decoy for a robbery going on at Unity Savings & Loan, a bank so trustworthy that the Bulgarian art department guys couldn't even be bothered to make the letters straight on the mock-up sign. The guys orchestrating the heist are ex-black ops mercenary goons led by Tre (Ori Pfeffer) after $100 million in war profits belonging to a shady contractor they killed after a botched extraction in Kabul (did Bulgaria know it would be playing dual roles here?), which attracts the attention of dogged Interpol agent Rossi (Alexandra Dinu). A chaotic situation is made even worse since Mike and Mac have a ride-along in teenager Kenny (Michael Rainey Jr), a bullied high school student in a scared straight program after a teacher walks in on him sucker-punching a douchebag who was just trying to shove his head in a toilet.

Isaac Florentine has a producer credit, and one gets the feeling that 211 might've been intended at some point to be another of his collaborations with Scott Adkins. Director York Shackleton does what he can with trying to make a Massachusetts suburb out of a Bulgarian backlot that can barely even pass for Bulgaria. The script is riddled with trite cliches and clumsy exposition, especially in a cringe-worthy early scene where Mike's backstory is laid out in an argument between Lisa and Mac, with Mac defending him while Lisa, still angry that Mike wasn't there when her mother needed him  most, shouts "It was chemo and radiation and PAIN!" In relation to Cage's recent clunkers like LOOKING GLASS and THE HUMANITY BUREAU, 211 is a very marginal step up. Shackleton handles an extended shootout better than you might expect considering what's at his disposal, and Cage, wearing one of his better hairpieces of late, has moments where he seems to be giving a shit, along with some bits where he's Cage-ing it up for his YouTube highlight reel (his outburst at the SWAT team commander has some WICKER MAN-style histrionics). Its entertainment value lies mostly in its unintentional humor and the complete lack of effort in making the surroundings look (or sound, considering the extensive and sloppy ADR work on most of the supporting cast) even slightly American, but there's some unexpectedly competent bursts of action amidst the clock-punching apathy. (R, 87 mins)



THE LEISURE SEEKER
(Italy/France - 2018)

There's a few fleeting moments of raw emotion and brutal honesty in this adaptation of Michael Zadoorian's 2009 novel, and they come courtesy of a pair of cinema treasures in stars Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland. It's too bad that THE LEISURE SEEKER decides to squander them by spending too much time trying to be the geezer comedy that the more somber, serious novel wasn't. Making his English language debut, acclaimed Italian filmmaker Paolo Virzi (HUMAN CAPITAL) overcompensates and leans a little too much on the "America" thing, especially with its summer 2016 setting that allows for recurring, shoehorned-in political references to the Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump presidential showdown. The film even opens with a pickup truck driving down the street and blaring a Trump speech out of a large speaker, for no real reason at all. Married for 50 years, elderly couple Ella (Mirren, with a shaky on-and-off Southern accent) and John Spencer (Sutherland) take off in "The Leisure Seeker," their ramshackle 1975 Winnebago for a road trip from their Massachusetts home en route to her Savannah, GA birthplace to their ultimate destination: Ernest Hemingway's home in Key West, FL. John is a retired high school English teacher and is in the relatively early stages of Alzheimer's, still having stretches of clarity--especially when it comes to lecturing strangers about Hemingway and William Faulkner--but still frequently forgetting his wife's name or how old they are ("I start a sentence and by the time I get to the end of it..." John says, trailing off, suddenly lost). Ella keeps popping medication and grimacing, clearly in the midst of a mystery ailment that she seems to be hiding from John as well as their grown children Will (Christian McKay) and Jane (Janel Moloney).

Despite his condition, John is driving the Leisure Seeker, and the trip becomes a series of misadventures that range from improbable to wacky to patently absurd, whether they're getting the upper hand on a pair of knife-wielding teens trying to rob them while they wait for AAA to fix a flat or John waltzing into a nursing home with a shotgun looking for Ella's now-dementia-addled boyfriend from over 50 years ago (the late comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory, who died eight months before the film's release), and somehow not being arrested. A confused John even winds up accidentally attending a Trump rally, while classic rock soundtrack cues underscore various plot developments: Carole King's "It's Too Late" plays at the beginning and Chicago's "If You Leave Me Now" kicks in when John takes off from a gas station and leaves Ella behind, forcing her to get a ride from a guy on a motorcycle (how did Virzi not segue from Chicago to Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild" here?). THE LEISURE SEEKER never finds the right tone (you know the trip is getting off on the wrong foot when one of the first things out of John's mouth is "Did you fart?"), but Mirren and Sutherland manage to class it up, especially in a devastating scene later on where John's mind wanders and he thinks he's talking to their neighbor Lillian (Dana Ivey) and ends up confessing to Ella a brief fling from 48 years ago. It's a scene that packs a wallop, but then Virzi blows it by having Ella react in the most hysterically overwrought way possible, leading to a conclusion that just doesn't ring true. Such is the dilemma of THE LEISURE SEEKER, a well-meaning but aimless and uneven film that's worth seeing for fans of living legends Mirren and Sutherland (who previously starred together in 1990's BETHUNE: THE MAKING OF A HERO), even though both deserve stronger material. (R, 112 mins)



BORG VS. MCENROE
(Denmark/Sweden/Czech Republic/Finland/Belgium - 2017; US release 2018)

Neon planned on rolling this out wide until they flinched shortly before the release date, ultimately limiting it to just 51 screens and VOD. Maybe it was that half of the film is in Swedish, but even subtitle-phobes maybe could've been won over by the riveting story, as BORG VS. MCENROE really could've been a sleeper hit if it had a chance. Chronicling the 1980 Wimbledon showdown between Sweden's Bjorn Borg (Sverrir Gudnason, soon to be seen opposite Claire Foy in THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB), the top-ranked player in the world and going for his fifth consecutive win, and America's John McEnroe (Shia LaBeouf), the brash, ill-tempered anger management case who's ranked #2. Documentary filmmaker Janus Metz, helming his first narrative feature, and screenwriter Ronnie Sandahl delve deep into the psychology of sports and competition, flashing back to the formative years of both tennis greats and the ways they pressured themselves and were pressured by others. Young Borg (played as a pre-teen by Bjorn Borg's son Leo) finds a mentor in Davis Cup scout and retired player Lennart Bergelin (Stellan Skarsgard), who spends years conditioning Bjorn to internalize his anger and use it on the court, one point at a time. Meanwhile, young McEnroe has perfectionist parents who push him too hard (he gets a 96% on a test, finishing first in his class, and his mother asks him "What about the other 4?" and criticizes his obsession with tennis), slowly turning him into a powderkeg of nervous, uncontrolled rage. As McEnroe ascends in the world of professional tennis, his endless tantrums, meltdowns, lashing out at spectators, and arguing with line judges earn him little respect, but Borg has been watching him and sees himself in McEnroe, the difference being that Borg's fury manifests itself in his Zen/iceman persona and his obsessive-compulsive rituals that the loyal Bergelin understands, but prove alienating to Borg's fiancee Mariana Simianescu (ANNIHILATION's Tuva Novotny).

Borg and McEnroe's epic showdown unfolds over the last 30 minutes of the film, and even knowing the outcome, Metz's verite-style brings a suspenseful and exhausting immediacy to it. The actors are extraordinarily well-cast--Gudnason is a dead ringer for Borg and it doesn't get much more inspired than having LaBeouf play McEnroe. Much like McEnroe, the actor is a chronic bridge-burner who seems uninterested in making friends in his profession, which is why he's so ideal. It's probably his career-best performance thus far, even though nobody saw it. It has to play a little fast and loose with the facts at times (McEnroe's iconic "You cannot be serious!" outburst at an umpire is depicted here in a semifinal against Jimmy Connors, but in reality, he shouted it at the 1981 Wimbledon against Tom Gullikson), but BORG VS. MCENROE is a thoughtful, insightful, and riveting look at what tennis fans almost universally consider the greatest match of all time. This is an under-the-radar gem worth checking out. (R, 108 mins)

In Theaters: WINCHESTER (2018)

WINCHESTER
(US/Australia - 2018)

Directed by The Spierig Brothers. Written by Tom Vaughan and The Spierig Brothers. Cast: Helen Mirren, Jason Clarke, Sarah Snook, Angus Sampson, Eamon Farren, Bruce Spence, Finn Scicluna-O'Prey, Tyler Coppin, Laura Brent, Alice Chaston. (PG-13, 99 mins)

Located in San Jose, CA and now a popular tourist attraction, the Winchester Mystery House is an ideal setting for a haunted house horror movie. It was purchased in 1884 by Sarah Winchester, the heiress to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, in which she inherited a 50% stake upon the death of her husband William Wirt Winchester in 1881. Legend has it that the widow Winchester was insane, believing that she was forever cursed by the tortured spirits of those killed by the rifles and firearms manufactured by her late husband's company. She spent the rest of her life adding rooms and levels to the house, turning it into a memorial for those victims, and ordering more construction with news of every life ended by a Winchester product. The two-story home eventually became a maze-like seven stories by the time construction finally ceased upon Mrs. Winchester's death in 1922. It's filled with endless hallways, hidden rooms, secret passages, and stairways that lead nowhere. Building was said to have gone on non-stop, 24/7 for the 38 years between Mrs. Winchester's purchase of the house until her death. While construction did go on for 38 years, often at all hours of the day and night, historians now suggest that she sent the workers away for weeks or months at a time and the work wasn't quite literally non-stop from 1884 to 1922.

So, of course, the resulting movie is basically INSIDIOUS: WINCHESTER MYSTERY HOUSE. Directed and co-written by twin Australian siblings Michael and Peter Spierig, who first made their mark with the 2003 micro-budget zombie indie UNDEAD, followed by 2010's stylish vampire film DAYBREAKERS, 2015's acclaimed PREDESTINATION, and last year's SAW reboot JIGSAW, WINCHESTER benefits from some terrific production and set design, utilizing a few San Jose exteriors but largely recreating large portions of the Winchester house on sets in Australia. They also secured a ringer with the legendary Helen Mirren as Sarah Winchester, instantly giving an incalculable amount of class and credibility to a mostly rote, predictable, and by-the-numbers Blumhouse-era horror programmer that requires very little strain or effort on her part. In the 1960s, this sort of project would be Mirren's foray into the post-WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? "horror hag" subgenre that carved a lucrative niche for Hollywood greats like Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, and Olivia de Havilland after they hit their 50s and the studios had little else to offer them. In April 1906, Mrs. Winchester is being evaluated by visiting Dr. Eric Price (Jason Clarke), a widower and hard-drinking laudanum addict hired by the Winchester board of directors in the hopes that he'll declare her insane and allow them to seize complete control of the company. Mrs. Winchester lives with her niece Marion Marriott (PREDESTINATION's Sarah Snook), a young widow with a seven-year-old son, Henry (Finn Scicluna-O'Prey, a front-runner for 2018's Best Newcomer Name), who's still troubled by his father's death and prone to putting a potato sack on his head and sleepwalking through the labyrinthine house.

Mrs. Winchester believes the house is cursed and doesn't care what Dr. Price thinks. It doesn't take him long to turn into a believer thanks to various ghosts and scary faces jump-scaring into the frame and the fact that young Henry is clearly possessed, often displaying milky white eyes and trying to shotgun blast his great aunt at one point. It's here where the "inspired by true events" takes hold, as the rest of the film just takes a standard-issue possession/haunting story and dumps it into the Winchester house. Some of its early jolts are nicely-done (especially the first one, where the Spierigs delay the jump-scare well past the point of when a trained viewer expects it), but they soon grow loud and repetitive, jettisoning any sense of THE HAUNTING or THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE subtlety that the film's very 1970s title card might've suggested. The third act devolves into chaos and confusion as Price and Mrs. Winchester barricade themselves in an attic to hold off an onslaught of the ghosts of Winchester victims who've escaped from their boarded-up rooms in the house. It's hardly Mirren's finest moment when she goes milky-eyed and starts talking in a demon voice while malevolent spirits hurl her against the wall, but maybe she thought doing a junky horror movie would be a fun change-of-pace. At the end of the day, WINCHESTER isn't bad. It's well-made, the sets are meticulously-detailed, and Mirren, Clarke, and Snook are all quite good (ROAD WARRIOR fans will also like seeing Bruce Spence--aka The Gyro Captain--in a prominent supporting role as the Mrs. Winchester's chief butler), but you've seen it all before, and the allegorical allusions to today's gun control debate seem clumsy and ham-fisted.

In Theaters: EYE IN THE SKY (2016)

EYE IN THE SKY
(UK/Canada - 2016)

Directed by Gavin Hood. Written by Guy Hibbert. Cast: Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, Alan Rickman, Barkhad Abdi, Jeremy Northam, Iain Glen, Phoebe Fox, Richard McCabe, Monica Dolan, Francis Chouler, Michael O'Keefe, Laila Robins, Babou Ceesay, Armaan Haggio, Aisha Takow, Faisa Hassan, Gavin Hood, Ebby Weyime, Jessica Jones, Lex King. (R, 102 mins)

An excellent ensemble piece that examines the war on terror without ever resorting to preachy pontification and ham-fisted political stances, EYE IN THE SKY is razor-sharp and relentlessly-paced, the kind of film where you'll lose count of how many times you find yourself holding your breath in edge-of-your-seat suspense. Working from a screenplay by Guy Hibbert (SHOT THROUGH THE HEART, FIVE MINUTES OF HEAVEN), South African director Gavin Hood (TSOTSI, the 2005 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film) has explored similar areas before with 2007's RENDITION, but following Hollywood money gigs like X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE and the franchise non-starter ENDER'S GAME, EYE IN THE SKY is his most accomplished work yet. Not quite real-time but playing out over several hours, EYE takes place all over the globe but still feels confined and intensely claustrophobic, as drone surveillance over a safe house in Nairobi sets in motion a joint US/British/Kenyan military counter-terrorism operation. From the UK, Col. Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) commands Las Vegas-stationed US Air Force drone pilot Steve Watts (Aaron Paul) to observe the safe house, with Kenyan intelligence agent Jama Farah (Barkhad Abdi) on the ground near the location. Two new recruits from the UK and the US are meeting with three high-ranking officials from a Somali terrorist organization, among them Powell's chief target, British-born Susan Danford (Lex King), who ran off to join the outfit six years earlier and changed her name to Ayesha Al-Hady. When Farah flies a small beetle drone into the safe house and everyone involved--Powell in Sussex, her boss Gen. Frank Benson (the late Alan Rickman) in London, Kenyan military, and US military in Vegas and at Pearl Harbor--see prepped suicide bombing vests, the mission escalates from capture to kill, with Watts and fellow pilot Carrie Gershon (Phoebe Fox) awaiting the order to bomb the target.

The problem: collateral damage in the surrounding residential slum, in particular a little girl (Aisha Takow), who's selling bread on the street corner right outside the safe house. While Powell and Benson believe bombing the safe house will ultimately save more lives than it will claim, a decision corroborated by the US Secretary of State (Michael O'Keefe), they're stonewalled by everyone from the British Minister of Defence (Jeremy Northam), the Prime Minister's Foreign Secretary (Iain Glen), and other politicos present, who feel that the fallout from a drone strike killing a little girl, and the possibility of the footage ending up on YouTube, could be a PR nightmare for the British government. While the clock ticks and the terrorists begin donning their suicide vests, the battery on the beetle drone dies and a decision must be made, a decision that can't be made when all of the politicians keep "referring up"--passing the buck to the next person of authority up the ladder in an attempt to dodge responsibility and avoid being the one who gets thrown under the bus. It's like a feature-length, drone warfare version of the MR. SHOW "Change for a Dollar" sketch.

Alan Rickman (1946-2016)

There's potential for some DR. STRANGELOVE-inspired satire, but Hood and Hibbert keep it serious with only a few overtly, intentionally funny bits of cynical humor, like Glen's Foreign Secretary being hobbled by food poisoning and diarrhea in Singapore, where he's attending the opening of a conglomerate with the acronym "I.B.S." The absurdly evasive and frequently cowardly indecisiveness of the politicians, the seething outrage of Mirren's Powell (who sort-of becomes this film's Gen. Jack D. Ripper, if you want to make STRANGELOVE comparisons), and the exasperated, eye-rolling frustration of Rickman's Benson (the much-missed actor is superb in his final onscreen appearance; his voice will be heard in the upcoming ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS) provide scattered moments of mostly nervous laughter for the audience, but for the most part, EYE IN THE SKY is played FAIL-SAFE straight and is nerve-wrackingly intense, which is not something one can normally say about a war film where most of the characters are sitting around staring at laptops, sending instant messages, getting on the phone, and watching massive HD monitors on the wall. It also earns points for a pulls-no-punches ending that almost certainly would've been dumped and re-shot had a major studio picked this up instead of the upstart indie Bleecker Street Films. You don't hear the term "crackerjack thriller" used much these days, because so few thrillers are worthy of the label. EYE IN THE SKY fits the bill, a film for grown-ups that's smart, well-acted, tightly-plotted, fast-moving, and admirably uncompromising.

On DVD/Blu-ray: STEVE JOBS (2015); TRUMBO (2015); and FORSAKEN (2016)

STEVE JOBS
(US - 2015)

Just two years after the already forgotten Ashton Kutcher-starring biopic JOBS, Danny Boyle's STEVE JOBS arrived to tell the Steve Jobs story once again. Based on the book by Walter Isaacson and adapted by Aaron Sorkin in a very Sorkin-esque fashion, STEVE JOBS takes a more experimental approach than most films of this sort. Boyle's film is essentially three long scenes, all taking place before major Jobs product launches in 1984, 1988, and 1998, each shot in, respectively, grainy 16mm, cinematic 35mm, and digital. The opening segment works the best and could almost function as a standalone short film, 40 minutes of dialogue-driven intensity as Jobs (an Oscar-nominated Michael Fassbender) prepares to introduce the world to the doomed Macintosh. He's furious about the "Hello" greeting not working and berates designer Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg) in front of everyone; he barely makes time for his old buddy Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen), who just wants a shout-out to the Apple IIE that he designed; and he's incredibly cold and cruel to his ex-girlfriend Chrisann Brennan (Katherine Waterston) and five-year-old Lisa (played by Makenzie Moss in the first segment), the daughter that Jobs adamantly refuses to accept is his, even doing everything he can to avoid paying more child support even though Chrisann is going on welfare and he's worth $440 million. All the while, Jobs' long-suffering marketing manager and confidant Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet, also Oscar-nominated) valiantly tries to hold everything together.

The first segment works so well that Boyle and Sorkin essentially repeat it twice more. But as it goes, the dialogue becomes more forced and the Sorkinese more insufferable. The rapid fire delivery of the first segment turns into endless speechifying and pontificating and starts representing all of Sorkin's most grating tendencies. It's no secret that Jobs was kind of an asshole and that comes through loud and clear here, at least until the feelgood ending when he finally accepts Lisa as his daughter (played in the last segment by Perla Haley-Jardine, best known as young B.B. from KILL BILL, VOL 2) just as he's about to unveil iMac as he receives a standing ovation while a cloying, Coldplay-like song by the Maccabees plays on the soundtrack. Boyle should be above such manipulative horseshit. Why are tears streaming down Winslet's face in this scene? The 1984 and 1988 launches were total failures--Rogen's jealous Wozniak keeps wanting to know why Jobs gets all the glory, and frankly, you will too. STEVE JOBS is a film that keeps an impenetrable man at a distance and it's cold by design--the shift into crowd-pleaser territory doesn't mesh with what came before, and by the end, you realize the film is little more than a stagy THIS IS YOUR LIFE with echoes of THE GODFATHER in that Jobs is constantly pestered on the days of product launches by past associates coming to him like he's Vito Corleone doling out favors on his daughter's wedding day. Fassbender nails the "driven intensity" element even though he doesn't really look or sound like Jobs, and Winslet works some occasional magic with what's really a thankless role, but STEVE JOBS just fizzles after the dynamite opening 40 minutes, falling into a comfort zone and riding it out on autopilot. Not bad, but pretty overrated. (R, 122 mins)




TRUMBO
(US - 2015)

A much more traditional biopic than the repetitious STEVE JOBS, TRUMBO is a very entertaining--though undeniably softened and sanitized to varying degrees--chronicle of the Blacklist and the face of the "Hollywood 10," communist screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (1905-1976). Trumbo (Bryan Cranston, Oscar-nominated in a magnificent performance), respected Hollywood writer (KITTY FOYLE, THIRTY SECONDS OVER TOKYO) joins the CPUSA in 1943 and in the ensuing years, earns a reputation as a pro-working man troublemaker along with such Hollywood luminaries as Edward G. Robinson (Michael Stuhlbarg) and screenwriter pal Arlen Hird (Louis C.K.), a character invented for the film and a composite of five members of the Hollywood 10, the group of writers who were the first to be blacklisted and turned into industry pariahs at the dawn of the Cold War. Leading the charge against them before HUAC even calls them to testify are director Sam Wood (John Getz), Louis B. Mayer (Richard Portnow), John Wayne (David James Elliott), and the film's nominal villain, bitter, muckraking gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren). Cut to 1951, and needing to work after serving a year in prison for contempt of Congress, Trumbo offers his services to B and C studios and uses a variety of pseudonyms, often working on five scripts at once and popping amphetamines to keep going around the clock. Of course, it takes a toll on his family as devoted wife Cleo (Diane Lane) struggles to hold everything together until rumors abound that Trumbo was actually the uncredited screenwriter of the Oscar-winning ROMAN HOLIDAY (1953) and THE BRAVE ONE (1956), eventually leading to Kirk Douglas (Dean O'Gorman) and Otto Preminger (Christian Berkel) breaking the blacklist by hiring Trumbo for SPARTACUS and EXODUS, respectively, and defiantly giving him credit under his actual name.

Trumbo's daughter Nikola (played in the film by Elle Fanning) served as a technical consultant, so of course, Trumbo's hardline communist stance is toned-down significantly for the film, and while it may tap dance around certain issues, Cranston is so good here that it's easy to overlook it. Adapting Bruce Cook's book Dalton Trumbo, screenwriter John McNamara and director Jay Roach (the AUSTIN POWERS trilogy, MEET THE PARENTS, GAME CHANGE) keep things moving briskly and get superb work out of their ensemble cast, particularly John Goodman, who makes every scene count as a bombastic B-movie producer who secretly hires Trumbo. It may take a somewhat simplistic view of a complicated subject, but as popcorn entertainment, it succeeds and never seems to revel in a sense of self-importance like STEVE JOBS. One wishes it didn't treat its subject with such kid gloves, but Cranston inhabits the role to such a degree that he wins over any doubts you might have. (R, 125 mins)



FORSAKEN
(Canada - 2016)

Though they appeared in the same films on a couple of past occasions (1983's MAX DUGAN RETURNS and 1996's A TIME TO KILL), the Canadian western FORSAKEN marks the first co-starring pairing of Kiefer Sutherland with his dad Donald. A labor of love for the Sutherlands, with Kiefer bringing along his buddy Brad Mirman to script (he also wrote Kiefer's 1998 directing effort TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M.) and regular 24 director Jon Cassar to call the shots, FORSAKEN is an OK if undemanding western that almost plays like an old-fashioned '50s B oater with some modern F-bombs and a few enthusiastic blood squibs. Kiefer is John Henry Clayton, a Civil War vet, feared killer, and all-around bad guy who's put away his guns and is on his way back to his family home for the first time in ten years. Arriving to find his mother has since passed and his embittered reverend father (Donald) still resents him and everything he represents, Clayton tries to lay low, determined to live a peaceful life and prove that he's a changed man. Of course, that won't happen in a town where greedy robber baron McCurdy (Brian Cox, doing his best Al Swearengen impression) is forcibly buying up everyone's land so he can sell it to the inevitable railroad for a ridiculous profit. McCurdy's men, led by the weaselly Tillman (Aaron Poole), routinely bully and terrorize the landowners, much to the disapproval of the classy and sartorial Gentleman Dave (Michael Wincott), a more refined regulator who respects his adversaries, thinks reasoning can accomplish more and sends a better message than threats and cold-blooded murder, and only resorts to violence as an absolute last resort. Tillman and his mouth-breathing sidekicks never miss an opportunity to see how far they can push Clayton, despite Gentleman Dave's warnings that "You kick a dog enough, he's gonna bite."

Cliched dialogue like that abounds (Tillman when he first spots Clayton in the saloon: "Well, well, well...if it isn't John Henry Clayton!"), and the longer it goes on, the more FORSAKEN takes its cues from the likes of UNFORGIVEN and OPEN RANGE, and it can't help but feel like a lesser retread of both. Plus, it's extremely predictable and even by the standards of dumb underlings, the actions of McCurdy's men defy any kind of logic and reason, so much so that you wonder why McCurdy never dumps these clowns and lets Gentleman Dave do his dirty work for him in a much more diplomatic fashion. Still, it's a comfort-food kind-of western that goes down easy and doesn't aim for much more than straightforward entertainment. That may seem a little overly quaint coming on the heels of a revisionist genre assaults like BONE TOMAHAWK and THE HATEFUL EIGHT, but FORSAKEN seems content being what it is: a chance for a famous father-and-son to work together. Naturally, the scenes with Donald and Kiefer are what play best, and it's hard not to be sucked in when a distraught Clayton breaks down and his hard, stern father takes him in his arms, or when, later on, that hard, stern father tearfully admits "I was wrong about you." You see the scenes coming, but they carry some extra emotional resonance when you see a real-life father and son acting them out. They get some solid support from a supporting cast of friends like Cox, Wincott (who's very good here, playing an intriguing character who isn't a cardboard cutout and should've been given more to do), and Demi Moore as Clayton's one-time love who married another when he disappeared. Filmed in 2013 but only given a VOD and scant theatrical release in early 2016, FORSAKEN isn't even close to being the next great western, but it looks very nice and it's good to finally see the Sutherlands working together, and hopefully not for the last time. (R, 90 mins)

In Theaters: RED 2 (2013)

RED 2
(US - 2013)

Directed by Dean Parisot. Written by Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber. Cast: Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker, Helen Mirren, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Byung Hun Lee, Brian Cox, Neal McDonough, David Thewlis, Steven Berkoff, Garrick Hagon, Tim Pigott-Smith, Vlasta Vrana, Titus Welliver. (PG-13, 117 mins)

RED, the 2010 big-screen version of Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner's comic book series, was a surprise hit at the box office, a sort of GRUMPY OLD BLACK-OPS AGENTS, featuring an ensemble cast that seemed to be legitimately having a great time.  The Retired and Extremely Dangerous crew returns in this bigger-budgeted sequel that's lacking the novelty and freshness of the first film, but it's still quite fun, and you can have a great compare/contrast with the Bruce Willis in this film and the one who barely showed up for this year's earlier A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD.  There aren't many actors worse at hiding their obvious lack of interest in a project than Willis, but when he likes what he's doing, he's still got it.

Frank Moses (Willis) is still retired, living with Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), and seemingly spending most of his days shopping at Costco when he's ambushed by his eccentric old cohort Marvin Boggs (John Malkovich).  Marvin informs Frank that they're being hunted by agents from around the globe because of Nightshade, a secret 1970s operation involving the planting of nuclear device somewhere in Moscow.  After evading a CIA-sanctioned assassin (Neal McDonough), Frank, Sarah, and Marvin head to Europe, pursued by killers from around the globe, including their old colleague Victoria Winters (Helen Mirren) and Korean assassin Han (Byung Hun Lee), and a Russian femme fatale from Frank's past (Catherine Zeta-Jones) before springing Dr. Bailey (Anthony Hopkins), who designed the weapon and knows its whereabouts, from a London mental institution, where he's been stashed away by MI-6 for 32 years and is now completely insane.

RED 2 is pretty undemanding and you'll either go along with its silliness or you won't.  It sets out to be a fun summer popcorn movie and mostly succeeds.  Some jokes fall flat and, at 117 minutes, it runs a little too long.  Willis and Malkovich have a terrific camaraderie, Parker is as appealing as ever, and Mirren is enjoyable poking fun at her image, again playing a badass killer striking clichéd action movie poses while metal riffs rip on the soundtrack.  There's also an unexpected bonus in the form of a brief Hannibal Lecter summit, with Hopkins sharing scenes with Brian Cox (returning as Russian ally Ivan Simanov), who played Lecter in 1986's MANHUNTER.  The film also does a nice job with putting together action sequences (particularly a Paris car chase) that are completely ridiculous but always coherent, and there's a lot of amusing oddball touches, like Malkovich's wardrobe and facial expressions, Sarah opting to get an enemy agent (David Thewlis) to talk by appealing to his soft side instead of letting Frank and Marvin go straight to torture (Frank: "This is what we do!"), Ivan admiring Victoria's toes and taking a moment to take a deep whiff of the inside of her boot, and the RED team sneaking into the underground tunnels of the Kremlin via an adjacent Papa John's.  The enthusiasm of the cast does much of the heavy lifting during the film's occasional slow stretches, and if you liked the first one, this is mostly more of the same, though I imagine a third installment will probably belabor the point a little and increase the likelihood of that other Bruce Willis showing up instead.

 

On HBO: PHIL SPECTOR (2013)

PHIL SPECTOR
(US - 2013)

Written and directed by David Mamet.  Cast: Al Pacino, Helen Mirren, Jeffrey Tambor, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rebecca Pidgeon, John Pirruccello, James Tolkan, David Aaron Baker, Matt Malloy, Jack Wallace, Matthew Rauch, Meghan Marx. (Unrated, 91 mins)

What exactly was David Mamet's point in making this film?  It's hard to screw up an account of the Phil Spector murder trial, especially with a cast headed by Oscar winners Al Pacino and Helen Mirren, but with rare exception, writer-director Mamet makes one bad decision after another, starting with the opening disclaimer that the film is a work of fiction and not "based on a true story."  The legendary Wall of Sound record producer Phil Spector is currently serving a 19 years-to-life sentence, convicted in the 2003 murder of D-list actress Lana Clarkson, but regardless of how you may feel about his guilt or innocence, one thing is certain:  Mamet clearly thinks he's not guilty, and seems so intent on making Spector a Mumia Abu-Jamal or West Memphis Three for baby boomers that you'll wonder why the film isn't called FREE PHIL SPECTOR. 

Opening in 2007, just before Spector's first trial, famed John Gotti attorney Bruce Cutler (Jeffrey Tambor) has a huge caseload and brings in pneumonia-stricken Linda Kenney Baden (Helen Mirren) to help out for a bit, which soon leads to her taking over the defense for Spector (Pacino).  Spector, an eccentric with a penchant for waving guns around, be it in a record studio or to keep terrified women captive at his house, claims Clarkson (Meghan Marx) was goofing around with one of his guns and accidentally shot herself through the mouth.  Gradually, despite his general bizarre nature and his love of distractingly freaky wigs, Spector wins over Baden, starting with what's probably the best scene in the film:  Pacino's introduction as Baden arrives at Spector's castle-like mansion Alhambra and Mamet lets the camera snake through the many rooms of this museum of Spector's life while Pacino gets an epic monologue.  It's all downhill from there, as Mamet turns PHIL SPECTOR into one of the very few courtroom dramas with no courtroom scenes, other than mock practice ones.  The film ends with the opening of Spector's first trial, with the rest of the story (a mistrial, a second trial, and a conviction) covered in an onscreen post-script.

Mamet's directed some fine films (HOUSE OF GAMES, THE SPANISH PRISONER) and written some great ones (THE VERDICT, THE UNTOUCHABLES, GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS), but his signature rapid-fire dialogue sounds forced and over-rehearsed here, and from the directing end, he's going for a vintage kinetic Martin Scorsese feel a lot of the time--as well-done as it is, even the aforementioned tour through Spector's house feels like something Scorsese would do.  There's also heavy use of Spector's music, which Scorsese has used in his films, and though Mamet can't be faulted for using something like the Ronettes' "Be My Baby," it can't help but evoke memories of Scorsese's MEAN STREETS even if Mamet wasn't going out of his way to make PHIL SPECTOR look and feel overtly Scorsesian.  Pacino, Mirren, and Tambor are undeniably well-cast, though Mirren probably comes off best.  Pacino is granted a little bit of leeway to do his bellowing Pacino thing, but Mamet sabotages his best bit of acting with some distracting handheld that ruins the scene. Elsewhere, his Spector mannerisms seem to be channeling Jeff Goldblum.  We don't learn enough about Spector or Baden to care about either of them, but it's obvious Mamet wasn't interested in making a film with characters and arcs and a beginning, a middle, or an end.  He just wanted the world to know that he thinks Spector is innocent, or at the very least, was scapegoated for things like the O.J. verdict.  If he wants to make that film, then fine--make a documentary and present your case.  Don't waste Pacino and Mirren in the process.  There's a fascinating film to be made of this story, but the botched PHIL SPECTOR, which really feels truncated and incomplete at just 90 minutes, isn't the one.