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.
DETROIT (US - 2017) Directed by Kathryn Bigelow. Written by Mark Boal. Cast: John Boyega, Will Poulter, Anthony Mackie, John Krasinski, Algee Smith, Jacob Latimore, Jason Mitchell, Hannah Murray, Kaitlyn Dever, Jack Reynor, Ben O'Toole, Nathan Davis Jr, Peyton Alex Smith, Malcolm David Kelley, Joseph David-Jones, Laz Alonso, Austin Hebert, Jennifer Ehle, Chris Coy, Miguel Pimentel, Chris Chalk, Glenn Fitzgerald, Dennis Staroselsky, Darren Goldstein, Jeremy Strong, Gbenga Akkinagbe. (R, 143 mins) A harrowing chronicle of the 12th Street Riots in Detroit in late July 1967, with a focus on the infamous "Algiers Motel Incident," DETROIT is the latest from the HURT LOCKER and ZERO DARK THIRTY team of director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal. It's pretty powerful--unflinching and disturbing, and difficult to watch at times. As a dramatization, it takes some liberties, changes a few names, and condenses some incidents for time and storytelling purposes, but according to those who were there who were either interviewed by Bigelow and Boal or, in the case of Juli Hysell, who was 18 years old at the time (played in the film by Hannah Murray), on the set as a consultant, it largely sticks with the events of the night, if not the aftermath. DETROIT's themes and imagery resonate today with seemingly endless police shootings of frequently unarmed suspects by inevitably acquitted cops and the resulting protests by groups like Black Lives Matter. Things haven't changed over 50 years, and while the more "woke" film cognoscenti argue, in their increasingly ludicrous pursuit of things to find offensive, that it's a film that shouldn't have been directed by a 65-year-old white woman, Academy Award-winner Bigelow again demonstrates that that she's one of the top American filmmakers going, something anyone in the know figured out back in 1987 with NEAR DARK, and one that you wish would work more frequently.
In an unusual prologue conveyed by a series of Jacob Lawrence paintings, white flight to the suburbs begins to take hold in post-WWII, leaving much of the Detroit area as segregated black neighborhoods left to decline, with increased police presence slowly ratcheting up the racial tension. That tension explodes on July 23, 1967 with a raid on a private club, without a liquor license, hosting a party for returning black Vietnam vets. The cops herd them out of the building like cattle, prodding them into paddy wagons as bystanders demand to know "What did they do?" Before long, bottles are thrown, windows are smashed, stores are looted, and a Molotov cocktail sets a gas station ablaze. Despite pleas from congressman John Conyers (Laz Alonso), his constituents continue destroying their neighborhood out of a sense of frustration that's only growing. Gov. George Romney (seen in archival news footage, used frequently throughout) deploys the National Guard, the US Army, and the state police to maintain a presence in the area in a virtual martial law-like state. The riots force aspiring R&B group The Dramatics, led by frontman Larry "Cleveland" Reed (Algee Smith), to leave a gig at the Fox Theater in downtown Detroit, but they're separated after a bus is hit by bottles, with Larry and his buddy Fred Temple (Jacob Latimore) venturing off on their own and ultimately checking into the nearby Algiers Motel to lay low for the night.
Larry and Fred end up partying with some people in a house on the Algiers property known as "the annex," where rooms are also rented. These people include hot-tempered Carl (Jason Mitchell, best known as Eazy-E in STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON), his friend Aubrey (Nathan Davis Jr), and Vietnam vet Greene (Anthony Mackie), among others, plus 18-year-old Hysell and her friend Karen (Kaitlyn Dever), two white girls from Ohio. Demonstrating what black men go through with cops on a daily basis, Carl shoots Aubrey with a blank from a tiny starter pistol, which provides a laugh for everyone. Emboldened, Carl fires more blanks out of a window in the direction of some National Guardsmen on patrol. This sends the Guard, some Army officers, and some local cops on the scene to raid the Algiers. Three Detroit P.D. patrolmen arrive and, under the leadership of bullying, racist Krauss (Will Poulter of THE REVENANT), the situation escalates into a grueling night of intimidation and torture as Krauss (who's already killed Carl and planted a knife on him to claim it was justified), Demens (Jack Reynor), and Flynn (Ben O'Toole) are set off by the sight of two white girls hanging out in a motel filled with black men and begin terrorizing everyone in search of the gun and the shooter.They play a "death game," a psychological tactic of taking someone into another room and firing a gun, tricking the others into talking, lest they be shot as well. Things get even worse from there, as Melvin Dismukes (John Boyega), a security guard working at a market across the street from the Algiers, tries to maintain some semblance of order by going along to get along, respecting the cops and deferring to Krauss with the best intentions for everyone's safety even though he's horrified by what he sees and feels too outnumbered to stop it.
DETROIT's midsection is bookended by a clunky beginning and a protracted finale that turns into a standard courtroom drama not helped by the distracting late-film appearance of John Krasinski, who's still too recognizably John Krasinski to play an asshole defense attorney more concerned with putting the victims on trial (Dismukes is also charged, along with the three cops, when the story breaks and ultimately three dead bodies and several seriously injured motel residents need to be explained). But the long, agonizing Algiers sequence that makes up the biggest chunk of the film is a masterpiece of sustained, visceral tension. You'll actually feel your heart racing and your stomach knotting as things quickly spiral out of control, with Bigelow and cinematographer Barry Ackroyd (THE HURT LOCKER, CAPTAIN PHILLIPS) creating an unbearably claustrophobic atmosphere with a lot of close-ups and a refusal to shy away from the brutality exhibited by the cops, whose power trip is abetted by the military and the state police looking the other way and leaving when they see Krauss' unhinged handling of the situation. Poulter is a big reason the Algiers section works as well as it does. Not a classically attractive leading man, the British Poulter scowls and smirks so much that he looks like an inbred Dylan Baker much of the time, vividly portraying what will probably go down as the most repugnant movie villain of 2017, and doing it so convincingly that it may actually do him more harm than good. Krauss is the kind of loathsome character that can be a typecasting career-killer for the actor who brings him to life, and Poulter (who never overdoes it, which makes it even more terrifying) is so good here that you may end up instantly despising him every time you see him in the future.
Top-billed Boyega is ostensibly the star as Dismukes, but his character arc seems like some scenes are missing, at least when it comes to the extent of his culpability in what happened. It's not really clear why he was put on trial or why Juli picks him out of a police lineup and gets him charged with the cops, beyond a knee-jerk need to pin it all on a black guy, which homicide detectives seem eager to do until too many people start telling the same story of three out-of-control cops. As presented here, Dismukes went along to get along. He was a passive observer who didn't take part in any of the violence or mayhem but felt powerless to stand up to Krauss, and may have been deemed guilty by association simply because of his security guard uniform. By the end, the emotional core of the film is Larry "Cleveland" Reed," a man with an incredible singing voice who was so traumatized by his night at the Algiers that it altered the course of his life. He walked away from a lucrative career with The Dramatics to live a quiet life in Detroit, where he leads a church choir to this day. Smith's performance is every bit as powerful as Poulter's in different ways, but despite a middle that's as brilliantly-handled as anything you'll see in a movie this year, along with convincing period detail that's right up there with ZODIAC, DETROIT falls short of greatness due to a cumbersome and unfocused start and finish that's kind of all over the place. Still a terrific film that needs to be seen, though one really must question the logic of releasing this in the summer.
Spellbinding and tedious in equal measures, French auteur Leos Carax's practically impenetrable HOLY MOTORS is, in a word, difficult. What you bring to it is a major factor in what you get from it, and the more you know about the history of French cinema, the more you can read into what's going on. In following the mysterious Mr. Oscar (Carax regular Denis Lavant) on a series of nine "appointments" over the course of a very long day, Carax is apparently conducting an examination of "the death of cinema" in a world where technology runs rampant and everyone is "acting" all the time. We never know the real "Mr. Oscar"--only the actor driven around Paris in a stretch limo by his dutiful assistant Celine (Edith Scob), donning makeup and disguises between appointments. Mr. Oscar is alternately a homeless woman begging for change; a banker; a motion-capture performance artist supplying the moves of a CGI serpent; the gnomish Mr. Merde, abducting fashion model Kay M (Eva Mendes); a father berating his teenage daughter; a dying old man; an assassin hired to kill his lookalike and then himself; a lonely, heartbroken man spending a few fleeting moments with a former love (Kylie Minogue) on the roof of an abandoned theater overlooking Paris. There's even an intermission where Lavant leads an accordion jam session through a church.
"Anarchic" is a word frequently used to describe HOLY MOTORS and Carax's films in general (he's best known for 1991's THE LOVERS ON THE BRIDGE; HOLY MOTORS is his first feature in 13 years), but this may be his defining statement with its endless references to French cinema going back to the classics (at one point, Scob is seen donning the same mask she wore in Georges Franju's 1959 classic EYES WITHOUT A FACE) and all the way up to himself (Mr. Merde was a character played in Carax's segment of the 2008 anthology film TOKYO!). At some point, you have to question whether Mr. Oscar is even a real person or if he's ever not playing a part (French screen legend Michel Piccoli has a brief role as what seems to be Mr. Oscar's employer). During one "appointment," he's running behind schedule and has to leave, and the person to whom he's talking mentions she has another appointment as well. Everyone is "acting." Life--and everything--is one big performance. Do we ever know our true selves? Or is there such thing? Or something like that. HOLY MOTORS is intentionally vague and ambiguous and it can be a horse pill at times. For every sequence as dazzling and stunning as the motion capture segment, there's one as meandering and plodding as Mr. Merde's, with the freakish troll showing off his monstrous, crooked erection to the mystified Kay M (Mendes does seem a little out of place here). Combining elements of nearly every movie genre from film noir to old musicals to thrillers to gory horror, with Mr. Merde's introduction accompanied by Akira Ikufube's GODZILLA theme, HOLY MOTORS is both brilliant and maddeningly self-indulgent, demonstrating the best and worst tendencies of a genuine auteur: it's both beautifully inspired and pompously smug. Love it or hate it, there's never been another film like it, and Lavant is quite wonderful in about ten complex roles that require him to do just about anything you can ask from an actor. (Unrated, 116 mins)
BORDER RUN (US - 2013)
It's hard to believe it's been over 20 years since Sharon Stone secured her spot in film history with cinema's most famous leg-crossing in 1992's BASIC INSTINCT. She'd been paying her dues and working her ass off for over a decade and she finally found fame at the age of 34, a relatively late bloomer by Hollywood standards. And almost immediately, she became someone that people loved to hate and wanted to see fail, so much so that when she got an Oscar nomination just three years later for Martin Scorsese's CASINO, it was viewed as a "comeback." Stone pops up in decent projects every now and again, most recently Jim Jarmusch's BROKEN FLOWERS (2005) or Nick Cassavetes' ALPHA DOG (2007), but she really hasn't been relevant since CASINO, and arguably was never an A-list box office draw at all, a point proven by 2006's truly sad and desperate BASIC INSTINCT 2. She can be a fine actress and she's done excellent work (she's great in CASINO), but it's possible that she was doomed the moment she uncrossed her legs in that interrogation room in BASIC INSTINCT.
Stone's latest film is the straight-to-DVD thriller BORDER RUN and sorry to say, it's an almost complete embarrassment, and Stone, one of twelve credited producers, is a major reason why. Stone is a bitch-on-wheels, right-wing TV reporter with a hardline stance on illegal immigration. Her views change when her relief worker brother (Billy Zane) is kidnapped in Mexico. When the INS and the government show no interest in Zane's disappearance, she heads down there herself and gets involved in a drug-and-human trafficking ring overseen by an overacting Giovanna Zacarias, who plays the part as a crazed, psycho lesbian prone to sticking her hand down a teenage captive's pants and declaring "She smells like a peach!" and is later seen stomping on a pregnant woman's stomach. Zacarias' performance still pales in comparison to the hysterical, frothing-at-the-mouth work of Stone, who goes off the deep end after she's drugged and raped and starts to genuinely care for those trying to sneak into the US for their piece of the American dream (gee, who didn't see that coming?). The film was shot under the title THE MULE, which actually gives away a late plot twist involving Zacarias and her cohorts pretending to be coyotes sneaking Mexicans over the border--it's all a cover for their smuggling operation and the drugs the illegals have unknowingly ingested while they were drugged. Stone's look of gastrointestinal distress when the MARIA FULL OF GRACE pellets start to break is a sight to behold. Not only is Stone's performance bad--her crutch seems to be to just start shrieking CASINO-style--but she's sporting a really hideous black Medusa fright wig and some very distractingly unflattering eyebrows that aren't doing her any favors in quieting her critics. I like Sharon Stone and I think she's capable of great work in the right project with a director who can keep her contained (which Gabriela Tagliavini does not do here, most likely because she answers to producer Sharon Stone), but for whatever reason (she has been labeled "difficult"), Hollywood has all but abandoned her and she just seems lost with no idea where to turn. She's 55, and despite the inexplicable ugly wig and bad makeup, she looks good and is still in great shape, and she even has a couple of topless shots here. She should look at how the still-stunning Susan Sarandon has gracefully moved into character roles and is busier than ever in a ruthless business that historically casts 60-and-over actresses aside, and follow her example. Though she's mostly culpable for it, Stone deserves better than BORDER RUN at this point in her career. (R, 96 mins)
NOBODY WALKS (US - 2012)
This low-key character piece was only on seven screens at its widest release despite being co-written by the much-hyped, divisive GIRLS creator/star Lena Dunham. It's on the more commercial, JEFF, WHO LIVES AT HOME side of mumblecore and though it meanders into typical L.A. ennui, it's well-acted and offers some moments of squirming discomfort. NYC visual artist Martine (Olivia Thirlby) arrives in L.A. to stay with Peter (John Krasinski), a movie/TV sound design specialist who's agreed to help her with sound effects on her latest short film project since his psychologist wife Julie (Rosemarie DeWitt) knows a friend of a friend of Martine's and got him to do the young artist a favor between assignments. Peter develops a crush on Martine, which doesn't go unnoticed by Julie, who simply says "Don't embarrass me." Martine also gets involved with Peter and Julie's young handyman David (Rhys Wakefield), who doesn't notice how much Julie's 16-year-old daughter Kolt (India Ennenga of TREME) by her has-been rocker ex-husband Leroy (Dylan McDermott), is interested in him. Julie also has to deal with the advances of a leering screenwriter patient (Justin Kirk). Obviously, none of this ends pleasantly. Directed and co-written by Ry Russo-Young, NOBODY WALKS boasts some very good performances, particularly by DeWitt (best known as Rachel of RACHEL GETTING MARRIED), who has an icy, withering glare like few others, but it's pretty slight and doesn't have much to say beyond "marriage is complicated," which is actually said by someone at one point. There's nothing wrong with NOBODY WALKS: it's worth a watch, and at just 83 minutes, doesn't overstay its welcome, but it's the kind of film that you more or less forget as soon it's over. (R, 83 mins, also streaming on Netflix)
