OFFICIAL SECRETS (Canada/UK/China/US/Switzerland - 2019)
The saga of British whistleblower Katherine Gun is, at least stateside, one of the least-remembered chapters of the misguided journey to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In a way, it's oddly fitting that OFFICIAL SECRETS, which stars Keira Knightley as Gun, was barely released in theaters by IFC Films. That's a shame, because it's a well-done political thriller as well as a solid investigative journalism drama from director/co-writer Gavin Hood, who most recently helmed 2016's riveting drone strike nailbiter EYE IN THE SKY. As the film opens in January 2003, Katherine, who was raised in Taiwan by British parents, works as a Mandarin translator for GCHQ, the signals intelligence division of the British government. It's a largely uneventful job until her entire department is sent a mysterious e-mail from the NSA that goes into detail about an intelligence plot between the US and UK governments to essentially bully and blackmail the less powerful members of the UN Security Council into going to war with Iraq under the guise of Saddam Hussein having WMDs. As everyone has signed an agreement that every aspect of their work falls under the 1989 "Official Secrets" Act, none of Katherine's co-workers give the e-mail much thought and refrain from discussing it. But she's troubled enough by its implications that she passes it on to a trusted government employee friend (MyAnna Buring), who in turn passes it to a controversial activist (Hattie Morahan) who then forwards it to Observer staff writer Martin Bright (Matt Smith). The Observer is fully onboard with the coming war, much to the chagrin of their bad-tempered US politics columnist Ed Vulliamy (Rhys Ifans), who berates managing editor Roger Alton (Conleth Hill) with frequent tirades that they should be doing their jobs as reporters instead of regurgitating Prime Minister Tony Blair's press releases. Alton reluctantly lets Bright run with the story, which eventually blows up in Katherine's face, as she never thought anything would come of it, and now the intelligence higher-ups are calling in the interrogators and breaking out the lie detectors because they know the leak had to come from the GCHQ department.
The resulting shitstorm offers Katherine the usual Alan J. Pakula-esque paranoia of bugged phones, surveillance, and being followed everywhere she goes, and it very nearly gets Katherine's Muslim husband Yasar (Adam Bakri) deported to Iraq. She eventually retains the services of civil liberties attorney Ben Emmerson (Ralph Fiennes) when it becomes clear that the British government intends to prosecute her and send her to prison, with the added threat that even discussing any aspects of the case with a lawyer is itself cause for more charges of violating the Official Secrets Act. OFFICIAL SECRETS is a compelling drama that hits the ground running (it's not even 20 minutes in before we get a clandestine meeting in a dimly-lit parking garage), with a credible and restrained performance by Knightley that wisely avoids all the big awards-bait moments to keep her depiction of Katherine Gun as grounded as possible. The back end does suffer from a bit of some fawning Gun hagiography, and it may seem a little fashionably late as far as Iraq War-related movies go, but for the most part, OFFICIAL SECRETS is a fine film that deserved more attention than it got and probably could've been a decent word-of-mouth hit on the arthouse circuit (other familiar faces in the solid ensemble cast include Matthew Goode, Jeremy Northam, Indira Varma, and Kenneth Cranham). The closing scene, and particularly Fiennes' final line, would've been a real crowd-pleaser. (R, 112 mins)
MARY (US/Canada - 2019)
Remember when Gary Oldman won an Oscar for 2017's DARKEST HOUR? By any chance, does Gary Oldman remember? Just a few months ago, he appeared in the unwatchable support-group-for-assassins "comedy" KILLERS ANONYMOUS and he currently stars in the straight-to-VOD actioner THE COURIER (don't worry, I'm sure I'll get to it soon enough), where he's second-billed to Olga Kurylenko, currently third on the action heroine depth chart behind Milla Jovovich and Noomi Rapace. These aren't the kind of projects you tackle when you've just been awarded an actor's highest honor. They're the kind of jobs Nicolas Cage accepts to pay his bills for another month. And in the case with the moronic "possessed yacht" horror movie MARY, it's even worse as Oldman reportedly stepped in to replace--wait for it--Nicolas Cage. Dude, you're less than two years out from an Academy Award and you're taking Nicolas Cage's 2019 turndowns? To damn with faint praise, MARY is slightly better than KILLERS ANONYMOUS, but then, so are most new Nic Cage movies. MARY is a weak hodgepodge of at least a half-dozen underdeveloped ideas that are mostly abandoned amidst the incoherent mayhem that develops. Oldman phones it in as Dave, a Florida fisherman who impulsively buys a ramshackle old yacht called Mary in an attempt to set up his own boat charter business. It's also his way of trying to bring his family back together after his wife Sarah (Emily Mortimer) had a brief fling that put a strain on both their marriage and her relationship with their oldest daughter Lindsey (Stefanie Scott), while younger daughter Mary (Chloe Perrin) remains blissfully unaware of all the tension. I don't know...if Dave thinks buying a shitty old boat is gonna save his marriage, then I can see why Sarah stepped out on him.
They set sail on the Mary for a journey to the waters of Bermuda (uh oh), along with Dave's friend and business partner Mike (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) and Lindsey crush Tommy (Owen Teague), and it isn't long before strange shit starts happening: Mary has a new imaginary friend and is drawing creepy pictures and smashes a glass in Lindsey's face (the only genuinely shocking moment); Tommy carves a symbol into his chest and attacks Dave; a ghostly figure pulls some INSIDIOUS jump scare moves on Sarah; and Mike loses it and tries to throw the family overboard. The entire film is told in flashback by Sarah to Jacksonville detective Clarkson (Jennifer Esposito), who's been brought in by the Coast Guard after Sarah and her daughters appeared to be the only survivors of a shipwreck. Clarkson quickly recommends a padded cell and a psych eval after listening to Sarah's story of a possessed boat and that "Evil needs a body to exist...the body was that boat." Written by Anthony Jaswinski (THE SHALLOWS) and directed by Michael Goi (who's helmed several episodes of AMERICAN HORROR STORY), MARY revels in every hackneyed horror cliche in the book, like Sarah conveniently finding a scrapbook of old-timey news clippings--that look like they were quickly generated on a production assistant's laptop that morning--detailing all the crews that set sail on the Mary going back to 1883 and were never seen again, and that the ghost haunting the ship is that of the drowned daughter of the very first Mary captain. Who left the scrapbook there for her? The ghost? That was awfully helpful of her. And how powerful is this malevolent spirit when Sarah can incapacitate it with a flare gun? The closing credits roll at 77 minutes after a twist ending you'll absolutely see coming, and the only mystery is why Oldman (and Mortimer, for that matter) is wasting his time with junk like this. The guy pretty much swept the Best Actor category throughout the 2018 awards season. I'd like to think he could parlay that into something more substantive than "Gary Oldman's MOON IN SCORPIO." (R, 84 mins)
Attempting to patch up their ten-year marriage after he has a fling with one of his students, poetry professor Perry (Ewan McGregor) and his barrister wife Gail (Naomie Harris) embark on a holiday in Morocco. When Gail is forced to take a work-related call while they're at a posh restaurant, Perry is offered a drink by Dima (Stellan Skarsgard), a loud and boisterous Russian who seems to be entertaining an entourage. Dima cajoles Perry into accompanying the group to a wild party where the mild-mannered prof snorts some blow and gets involved in a tussle with a tattooed Russian who's forcing himself on a young woman. Dima then confesses to Perry that he works as the chief money launderer for powerful Russian mobster Nicolas Petrov, aka "The Prince" (Grigory Dobrygin). He gives Perry a memory stick with information about The Prince's business activities. He has the names and account numbers of a large group of British politicians, bankers, and other assorted movers-and-shakers who have accepted payments from the Russian mob in exchanging for funneling money through British financial institutions and businesses. Arriving back in London, Perry is questioned at the airport by MI-6 agent Hector (Damian Lewis), and figures his involvement is over, but Dima wants to defect, doesn't trust Hector and will only agree to give over the information if Perry and Gail are present and the safety of his family is guaranteed. Hector is especially interested in what's in Dima's documents since his own off-the-books surveillance operation reveals The Prince is quite chummy with Adrian Longrigg (Jeremy Northam), a former MI-6 official and current rising figure in British politics. Hector knows Longrigg is corrupt but has never been able to prove it, and even after he's ordered to shut down the surveillance, he proceeds anyway, further dragging Perry and Gail into a complex and dangerous web of intrigue and espionage.
Based on a 2010 John le Carre novel, OUR KIND OF TRAITOR is cut from the same cloth as 2011's TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY and 2014's A MOST WANTED MAN (which also featured Dobrygin in a supporting role), two superior adaptations that rank alongside 1965's THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD as the finest big-screen takes on le Carre. The author's specialty of old-school espionage in character-driven, dialogue-heavy stories seems better suited today to the TV miniseries format, where the story and its players have time and room to develop their many twists and turns. This was best exhibited by the BBC's landmark duo of 1979's TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY and its 1982 sequel SMILEY'S PEOPLE, both with Alec Guinness as aging, weary, and rather ironically-named spy George Smiley. Le Carre's works specialize in the nuts-and-bolts of the spy business, but OUR KIND OF TRAITOR, adapted by veteran screenwriter Hossein Amini (DRIVE), and directed by TV veteran Susanna White, whose credits include BLEAK HOUSE and episodes of BOARDWALK EMPIRE and GENERATION KILL, suffers from a too-familiar feel and seems to be going through the motions. It's not a particularly interesting story, filled with the usual modern-day le Carre standbys like funneled money and safe houses, and with clunky dialogue like "My wife is a successful lawyer," it doesn't feel as if it's working from top-shelf le Carre. Now 85, le Carre stays current with modern technology but there's a rote, stale feeling to the whole thing. How many thrillers centered on the Russian Mafia do we need? And honestly, if you sub in "KGB" for the Russian mob and "microfilms" for the memory stick, it's nothing but another dry spy melodrama with an innocent man in over his head and a Russian bad guy who grows a conscience and wants to defect that could've easily been made and set in the 1960s or 1970s. Skarsgard cuts loose and hams it up, and he does manage to earn your sympathy as the film goes on. Additionally, frequent Danny Boyle and Lars von Trier collaborator Anthony Dod Mantle's cinematography is a big asset as the story globetrots from Moscow to Marrakesh to London to Paris to Bern and other scenic locations throughout Europe. But in the end, this is about on the level of 1990's THE RUSSIA HOUSE, a perfectly watchable but unremarkable addition to the le Carre canon, nowhere near the heights of SMILEY'S PEOPLE or either adaptation of TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY, but not hitting the depths of the dreary 1970 misfire THE LOOKING GLASS WAR. (R, 108 mins) THE GOOD NEIGHBOR (US - 2016)
For much of its duration, THE GOOD NEIGHBOR is about what you expect from today's standard-issue, Redbox-ready suspense thrillers. It's not found-footage, but uses a lot of the subgenre's tropes, as two teenagers who wouldn't be friends anywhere other than in a movie--snarky dudebro Ethan (Logan Miller of THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT and SCOUT'S GUIDE TO THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE) and techie dweeb Sean (Keir Gilchrist of IT FOLLOWS)--embark a documentary they call "The Haunting Project." Using equipment purchased by privileged Sean's wealthy dad, the two set up a surveillance operation in the home of elderly Harold Grainey (James Caan), who lives across the street from Ethan. Known as the neighborhood's "creepy psycho hermit," alcoholic Grainey lives alone, is abrasive to anyone who approaches his property, was apparently abandoned by his battered wife, and is rumored to have poisoned a neighbor's dog years earlier. While Grainey is out for his weekly grocery run, they rig his house with hidden cameras and wi-fi-enabled devices to provoke sonic disturbances and electronic interferences to convince the old man that his house is haunted. Brainy Sean, who's likely headed to MIT, questions the ethics, but is interested in the psychological angle, while Ethan is just happy to see Grainey tormented. While observing Grainey over six weeks--Ethan's distracted single mom (Anne Dudek) is barely a presence and has no idea what's going on in her son's room--they notice that he frequently makes trips to the padlocked basement, which last several hours at a time, leaving them convinced that Grainey is holding someone captive.
Yes, it sounds like a half-assed mash-up of DISTURBIA, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, DON'T BREATHE, and GRAN TORINO, but writers Mark Bianculli and Jeff Richards and director Kasra Farahani, a veteran art director and conceptual artist/illustrator (he worked on films like SPIDER-MAN 3, AVATAR, and STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS, among many others) making his directing debut, pull a nifty and surprisingly poignant third-act bait-and-switch that completely changes your perception of everything. There's hints at this throughout in cutaways that may or may not be flashbacks and by the end, you realize that you've been just as manipulated as a certain character. It's hard to discuss the specifics of THE GOOD NEIGHBOR without going into spoiler territory, but it does suffer from an overly familiar first and second act, with a lot of obnoxious behavior from Ethan and Sean and too much time spent on them watching surveillance footage. This puts THE GOOD NEIGHBOR in the found-footage ballpark until it claws its way out and becomes its own film. It also shows its cards too quickly by flash-forwards that show various supporting characters testifying in court, which significantly undermines the suspense. It could also use more Caan, who's got his best role in years here as the angry, scary old guy that's a fixture in almost any long-established neighborhood, the object of all manner of rumors and innuendo. He dominates the third act but up to then, is mainly shown reacting to the faux-paranormal activity going on his house. I don't want to oversell THE GOOD NEIGHBOR--it stumbles at times and is not some under-the-radar classic or anything, but it's got word-of-mouth cult potential as one of the more ambitious straight-to-VOD titles to come down the pike in a while. It does something a lot of films in this genre don't--it tries. It subverts your expectations and it's certainly better than a lot of the paycheck junk that the legendary Caan's been doing for the last several years. (Unrated, 97 mins)
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.
