In Theaters: THE NICE GUYS (2016)

THE NICE GUYS
(US - 2016)

Directed by Shane Black. Written by Shane Black and Anthony Bagorazzi. Cast: Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Angourie Rice, Kim Basinger, Matt Bomer, Margaret Qualley, Yaya DaCosta, Keith David, Beau Knapp, Lois Smith, Gil Gerard, Jack Kilmer, Ty Simpkins, Murielle Telio, Daisy Tahan, Lance Valentine Butler, Hannibal Buress. (R, 115 mins)

It's one of the most egregious crimes of recent movie distribution that Shane Black's 2005 meta noir/private eye black comedy KISS KISS BANG BANG didn't get the exposure it deserved. Perhaps the most quotable movie of the last couple of decades after THE BIG LEBOWSKI, KISS KISS BANG BANG was the directorial debut of Shane Black, the screenwriter behind such wiseass, mismatched, "...if they don't kill each other first!" action/buddy classics as LETHAL WEAPON, THE LAST BOY SCOUT, and THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT. KISS KISS BANG BANG was nothing if not a mission statement for Black, encompassing all of his ideas and influences in one smart, razor-sharp, brilliantly executed package that Warner Bros. had no idea how to market. Showcasing a mystery with the labyrinthine complexity of CHINATOWN fused with the big action set pieces of producer Joel Silver and one of the all-time classic bickering, forced-together partnerships with small-time criminal Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.), gay private eye Gay Perry (Val Kilmer), and still-aspiring starlet-in-her-mid-30s Harmony Faith Lane (Michelle Monaghan), KISS KISS BANG BANG got rave reviews across the board but the studio still only gave it a limited release, topping out at just 226 screens. It became a bigger hit in Europe and eventually found a cult following on DVD/Blu-ray and cable, and it led to Downey getting Black a major directing gig with IRON MAN 3.

In a lot of ways, THE NICE GUYS is Black's chance at do-over of KISS KISS BANG BANG. It's another Warner Bros. release of a Silver production, though the studio is giving this one a significantly bigger push, opening it nationwide in the summer movie season. It's a similarly busy, intricate, self-aware Hollywood mystery filled with lightning-fast, hard-boiled, profane dialogue and a story awash in sleaze and corruption, only this time in the period setting of 1977. Opportunistic and hapless (he cuts himself with an electric razor) private eye Holland March (Ryan Gosling) is a widower raising his wise-beyond-her-years 13-year-old daughter Holly (a terrific performance by Angourie Rice). He's also the kind of guy who takes money from a deranged old woman to find her missing husband whose urn is on the mantelpiece ("I haven't seen him since the funeral!" the woman tells him). Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) is a fixer-for-hire, a guy who doesn't care to get an investigator's license and makes a better living getting paid under the table by clients who want the shit beat out of someone. He's been paid by a young woman named Amelia (Margaret Qualley) to do just that to March, who's been working for her aunt (Lois Smith), who thinks she's gone missing. Amelia's situation dovetails into a car-crash suicide involving porn star Misty Mountains (Murielle Telio), prompting Healy and March to set aside their differences and work together (with a lot of help from Holly, who in many ways is the smartest of the trio) when the case balloons into a conspiracy involving Detroit's Big Three auto companies, a Justice Department honcho (Kim Basinger), a psychotic hit man known as "John-Boy" (Matt Bomer), a corrupt auto industry CEO (Gil Gerard sighting!), and a missing film canister containing the lone print of Misty Mountains' final work, a porno film titled HOW DO YOU LIKE MY CAR, BIG BOY?

A lot of this will sound very familiar to any fan of KISS KISS BANG BANG: the way the trio of protagonists essentially serve the same plot functions; the Hollywood setting; the mystery kicking off with a car crash suicide; a scene where a hero happens to look over his left shoulder to find a dead body right behind him; the way Black has his heroes--and a little kid ogling a nudie mag in the opening scene--respectfully cover exposed areas when they find a dead woman's body. Anyone accusing Black of repeating himself wouldn't be wrong. But it's a formula that once again works beautifully, with the work of Crowe and Gosling perhaps even more surprising than Downey and Kilmer since neither are particularly known for their comedic skills (Downey, as good as he was, was essentially playing a very "Robert Downey Jr" character, and Kilmer had some comedies under his belt). With his gut the biggest it's ever been, Crowe is a burly attack dog as Healy, and while he's basically Gosling's straight man, he's still never cut this loose onscreen before. That's a surprise given his dismal performance during his recent SNL hosting gig, where he appeared in only four sketches for what would be the season's worst show were it not for the Donald Trump episode. Gosling, on the other hand, demonstrates a versatile flair for the comedic throughout, whether it's fast-talking bullshit, slow-burn reactions, his tumbling, Clouseau-like pratfalls, and an incredible impression of Lou Costello from ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN. A serious actor who's done some grim films in the past, Gosling is a revelation here, though it may not be a surprise if you saw his own SNL stint a few months ago, which was so infectiously fun that he couldn't stop completely breaking in nearly every sketch. While they're both funny as hell, there's a melancholy--and in March's case, tragic-- undercurrent to their characters and the ways they use their cynicism as a protective shield (if anything, the character development might be stronger here than it is in KISS KISS BANG BANG) as they make their living navigating the cesspool of Tinseltown depravity (one aspiring starlet to another as Healy walks by them at a party: "I told him if you want me to do that, fine...just don't eat asparagus first"). The leads are matched by a breakout performance from young Australian actress Rice, whose Holly is rebellious and fearless, getting herself into dangerous situations and using her wits to extricate herself. At the same time, she really grounds the mismatched detective team and keeps them on their toes. It's a huge accomplishment that she holds her own with guys like Crowe and Gosling and manages to steal scenes from dramatic actors of their caliber.

Though Paul Thomas Anderson handled it with a bit more obsessive attention to details with INHERENT VICE, Black gets the late '70s period look as right as he needs to, not overwhelming the audience with it but always cognizant of it, whether it's the cars; the chain-smoking in public places (around kids, even!); billboards for SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, AIRPORT '77, and JAWS 2; and songs like Earth Wind & Fire's "September," America's "A Horse with No Name," and Rupert Holmes "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)." It's easy to overrate THE NICE GUYS, simply because movies like it are such a rare commodity these days. It's noteworthy that eleven years after not knowing how to sell KISS KISS BANG BANG, a decade in which the power of word-of-mouth has diminished and everything is about breaking $150 million on the opening weekend, Warner Bros gives a nationwide release to something that could just as easily have been called KISS KISS BANG BANG II: THE NICE GUYS. A lot of this will be familiar if you've seen KISS KISS BANG BANG, but it's pulled off so well by Black and his actors that if you're a fan of that film, you won't mind seeing an equally enjoyable and just-as-quotable '70s pseudo-reimagining of it. Consistently laugh-out-loud funny, THE NICE GUYS is the best time I've had at a movie so far this year. If only Black had found a way to work in the name "Chook Chutney."

On DVD/Blu-ray: ROSEWATER (2014); PIONEER (2014); and BLACK NOVEMBER (2015)

ROSEWATER
(US - 2014)

ROSEWATER, a chronicle of Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari's 118 days of interrogation and torture at Tehran's Evin Prison, is the big-screen writing and directing debut of THE DAILY SHOW's Jon Stewart--viewers will recall John Oliver hosting over the summer of 2013 while Stewart made this pet project that has a direct tie to the show. A resident of London, Bahari (played here by Gael Garcia Bernal) was in Tehran covering the 2009 Iran presidential election for Newsweek and staying with his mother Moloojoon (Shohreh Aghdashloo) when he was arrested and held in solitary confinement. Initially, Bahari thinks he was arrested for filming some protests over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's questionable victory. But his interrogator (Kim Bodnia), referred to as "Rosewater" by the constantly blindfolded Bahari, who never saw his face but recognized the rosewater scent of his perfume, informs him that he's been arrested for being a spy. The proof? Bahari was interviewed in a DAILY SHOW segment by Jason Jones (playing himself), who was pretending to be an American spy incognito as a reporter.

Stewart occasionally flirts with black comedy but always pulls back, which is too bad, since he would seem to be a natural for exploring the absurdity of the situation with some satirical bite (early on, Iranian authorities label Bahari's DVD collection, with things like THE SOPRANOS and Pasolini's TEOREMA, as "porn"). Instead, Stewart fashions ROSEWATER as a reverent, inspiring, triumph-of-the-human-spirit saga that just never catches fire. There's little suspense or tension in Bahari's situation--not because we know the outcome that he gets released after 118 days and will be OK, but because Stewart tackles the subject in such a perfunctory and by-the-numbers fashion. Perhaps he wanted to be taken seriously as a filmmaker and be respectful of his subject but he erred too much on the side of caution, ending up with a film that's dull, plodding, and predictable. None of Stewart's personality comes through in a creative way and his voice is nowhere to be heard (and THE DAILY SHOW is never even referenced by name) and when he starts showing Bahari having imaginary conversations with and getting "hang in there!" pep talks from the ghosts of his late father (Haluk Bilginer) and sister (Golshifteh Farahani), ROSEWATER starts to look like something any hired gun director could've put together. In Stewart's defense, these conversations with his dead father and sister, both political prisoners, are in Bahari's memoir Then They Came for Me, and while it may have worked on the page and he wanted to remain faithful to Bahari's writing, it's a mawkish, eye-rolling cliche when put on the screen. Given his status as both a comedy figure and an astute political junkie, as well as his own indirect involvement with the situation, there's so many other approaches Stewart could've taken with ROSEWATER rather than going for superficial, transparent awards-bait. Open Road didn't really know what to do with the dry, tedious ROSEWATER, only putting it on 371 screens at its widest release for a gross of $3 million. It's doubtful it would've even gotten that without Stewart's name attached to it. There was a lot of potential here and the intentions are nothing but sincere, but all things considered, this is a major disappointment. (R, 103 mins)


PIONEER
(Norway/Germany/Sweden/Finland/France - 2013; US release 2014)

Set in the late 1970s and looking like it was made then as well, the nautical conspiracy thriller PIONEER is a throwback in every way, right down to an on-set mishap that looks like something out of the original GONE IN 60 SECONDS. Star Aksel Hennie's (HEADHUNTERS) character is being chased in his Jeep, and the actor insisted on doing his own driving. He lost control of the Jeep, flipping twice, windows shattering and top torn off before the Jeep lands upright, Hennie clearly visible in the driver's seat and looking terrified. Even as it happens in the film, it's attention-getting simply for the spontaneous and awkward way it happens...like a real car wreck would rather than one precisely engineered by stunt coordinators or pulled off with CGI. Hennie emerged uninjured but quite shaken, and even in a DVD special feature called "The Crash," he still gets emotional recounting it. It's left in the film as it happened, taking a rather humdrum car chase and making it unforgettable. The film itself has origins in fact, dealing with the installation of an oil pipeline along the floor of the North Sea off the coast of Norway. The job requires training professional divers to do the work and the project is a joint Norwegian-American venture, with the Norwegian divers, headed by Petter (Hennie) and his brother Knut (Andre Eriksen) at odds with the arrogant American divers, represented by Mike (a scowling Wes Bentley). Tragedy strikes when Petter blacks out on a dive, failing to close a valve that results in Knut's death. Aside from losing his younger brother, something doesn't feel right about what happened, and the more he presses for answers, the less anyone around him wants to talk. He begins to suspect that someone tampered with his oxygen supply. Anyone with answers turns up missing or dead, the videotape documenting the accident is nowhere to be found, the perpetually surly Mike speeds up behind Petter and tries to run him off the road, and the bottom-line-watching American oil company rep Ferris (Stephen Lang) is running out of patience with Petter's refusal to let it go.

Director/co-writer Erik Skjoldbjaerg, who helmed the original Norwegian INSOMNIA and came to Hollywood for his mandatory Horrible Harvey Weinstein experience--pretty much a rite of passage for foreign filmmakers at this point--with the four-years-on-the-shelf PROZAC NATION, really gets a solid '70s paranoia vibe throughout, helped a lot by the short, balding Hennie looking nothing like your conventional leading man. He really does look like an average, blue collar guy getting in way over his head with powerful people, but still bulldozing forward, not giving it up--even his widowed sister-in-law (Stephanie Sigman) seems content to take Ferris' fat settlement offer--and it's admirable that Skjoldbjaerg and the screenwriters aren't always concerned with making Petter appealing. Indeed, there's times when he's a bellicose prick. There's a doomy, palpable tension as the screws tighten and Petter realizes that somebody's hiding something and it could cost him his life, but Skjoldbjaerg shows his cards too soon and it's too obvious that the Americans are shady and untrustworthy. Bentley's Mike is a completely unlikable asshole, glaring, seething and yelling at the Norwegians from the moment he first appears, for no real reason. And it makes no sense when he stops someone from torturing Petter in a pressurized chamber ("I didn't sign on to kill anyone," he protests), only to resume the torture as soon as the other guy leaves the room. We've also seen Stephen Lang in enough movies to know that if he's acting altruistic and sympathetic, it's because his character is anything but. PIONEER has its glaring flaws and plot holes, and its ambiguities are such that they lead to an unsatisfying ending, but its positives still outweigh its negatives, generating significant suspense and establishing an effectively bleak, gray atmosphere, which gets an immense push from an occasionally Tangerine Dream-ish score by Air. (R, 111 mins)



BLACK NOVEMBER
(Nigeria/US - 2015)

BLACK NOVEMBER is a bad movie, but at least it's a bad movie with noble intentions. A feature-length lecture on the evils of Big Oil and government corruption, BLACK NOVEMBER opens with text explaining that Nigeria is the world's fifth largest oil supplier, while neglecting to mention that their top export is deposed princes who just need your checking account and social security numbers. A group of Nigerian terrorists led by Opuwei (Akon) and Timi (Wyclef Jean) are holding Western Oil CEO Tom Hudson (Mickey Rourke, looking embalmed) hostage in the 2nd Street Tunnel in Los Angeles. Unlike their needlessly complex plan of orchestrating a massive rush hour traffic jam, their demand is simple: arrange the release of activist Ebiere (a convincing Mbong Amata), currently in a Warri prison in the Niger Delta, where she's about to be executed. Flashbacks reveal that Ebiere attended college in America on a Western Oil scholarship, and Hudson would use her to settle disputes between Nigerians (irate that their land has been ruined by constant oil spills) and the corrupt military that acts at the behest of the oil company, frequently going over the line into atrocities like murder and gang-rape. In time, Ebiere is driven to a shocking act of violence when she realizes she's been set up by Hudson and the whole thing was a ploy to get the protesters arrested. Shockingly, the unscrupulous Hudson is one of those billionaire CEOs who cares more about profits than people, and back in L.A., he's about to pay for his misdeeds if he can't convince the Nigerian government to spare Ebiere's life.

Very sporadically enlivened by bits of action and some inexcusably crummy CGI explosions, BLACK NOVEMBER is essentially a 96-minute public service announcement disguised as a commercial movie. Characters don't speak naturally but rather, in hackneyed, exposition-heavy proclamations, almost like the script is just a bullet-pointed outline (Hudson's model-like daughter, just before he's abducted from his limo: "You always get nervous before you fly to Nigeria."). It's terrible, but that's only because Nigerian writer/director Jeta Amata (Mbong's husband--it's a family affair with Amatas everywhere in the credits, with Mbong being much more talented than the other Amatas in the cast) is more concerned with shouting his points than telling a story with any subtlety or nuance. It's too sincere in its intent to be dismissed as a mere vanity project (though Amata calling his production company "Jeta Amata Concepts" doesn't bode well), but that doesn't give it a pass. The backstory of BLACK NOVEMBER is much more interesting than the film itself. Amata took his shelved 2011 film BLACK GOLD--produced by Nigerian oil baron Captain Hosa Wells Okunbo--dumped roughly half of it and shot additional footage to restructure it into its current form as BLACK NOVEMBER. BLACK GOLD starred Mbong Amata as Ebiere, along with a veritable Who's Who of Redbox All-Stars including Tom Sizemore, Michael Madsen, and Billy Zane, the latter three nowhere to be seen in BLACK NOVEMBER. Conversely, Rourke, Kim Basinger (as intrepid reporter Kristy Ames, covering the L.A. hostage situation), Anne Heche (a virtual walk-on with maybe two lines of dialogue as an FBI agent), Jean, and Akon did not appear in BLACK GOLD. Footage of Vivica A. Fox as a US government official and former WALKING DEAD star Sarah Wayne Callies as a crusading cable news reporter comes from BLACK GOLD, as do most of Mbong Amata's scenes that take place in the Niger Delta (she looks noticeably different in NOVEMBER-shot footage with Rourke). Amata has a confused mess on his hands, but with the help of four credited editors, he almost makes the whole thing hang together, with the seams only slightly showing when Callies picks up a ringing phone in BLACK GOLD and it's BLACK NOVEMBER's Basinger on the other end of the line, and when Fox is seen at a command center that seemingly belongs in another movie, that's because it does. Jean and Akon put up some of the financing for Amata to transform BLACK GOLD into BLACK NOVEMBER, which was completed way back in 2012 and shelved after being screened for events at the Kennedy Center and the United Nations before getting its belated commercial release in early 2015. Regardless of its good intentions, BLACK NOVEMBER is still junky, cobbled-together DTV material (it's too bad the original cut of BLACK GOLD isn't included as a bonus feature for the masochistically-inclined), with Rourke, Basinger, and Heche looking especially perplexed over exactly how they ended up being Raymond Burr'd into a Nigerian protest drama. (Unrated, 97 mins)

On DVD/Blu-ray: THIRD PERSON (2014) and SPACE STATION 76 (2014)

THIRD PERSON
(Belgium/US/UK/Germany - 2014)

Is there a more reviled Best Picture Oscar winner in recent memory than 2005's CRASH? It has its effective moments and a strong performance by an Oscar-nominated Matt Dillon, but the film's preachy and simplistic messaging has made it a punchline over the last decade. CRASH writer/director Paul Haggis scripted MILLION DOLLAR BABY for Clint Eastwood a year earlier, and his earlier career triumphs included such landmark achievements as co-creating WALKER, TEXAS RANGER. But since CRASH, he's mainly focused on hired-gun scripting gigs like co-writing CASINO ROYALE (2006) and QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008). He wrote and directed IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH (2007) and the lackluster THE NEXT THREE DAYS (2010), but he's refrained from repeating his Robert Altman-inspired, "everything-is-connected" motif that spawned an entire self-important subgenre of similar films in CRASH's wake. That is, until his most recent film, the star-studded, little-seen THIRD PERSON, which only made it to 225 screens this past summer. Rather than lecturing us on why racism is bad, Haggis instead looks inward, and there are many moments throughout THIRD PERSON that reveal it to be a confessional of sorts. He gets surprisingly self-critical at times, practically acknowledging the complaints that have been leveled at him post-CRASH. At one point, the central character, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael (Liam Neeson, in a departure from his now-standard action hero persona) is treated with kid gloves by his publisher, who tells him that he rejected his latest book because "the business has changed...I don't know how I'd even market it." Michael calls bullshit on it, and his publisher lays into him: "Your first book was brilliant...it was dangerous. Your second, less so.  Then the third, and the fourth.  When I read your latest, I was just embarrassed for you." This is not to suggest that THIRD PERSON is Paul Haggis' 8 ½--the interweaving, multi-story structure is too gimmicky and Haggis doesn't have enough to say to justify the film's gaseous 137-minute running time-- or that CRASH was a brilliant and dangerous piece of filmmaking, but however self-aggrandizing it may sometimes come across, it does offer some unexpected soul-searching and harsh self-critiquing by its creator.

THIRD PERSON takes place in Paris, Rome, and NYC (the whole film was shot on sets at the legendary Cinecitta in Rome).  The Paris scenes focus on Neeson's Michael as he struggles to put his latest novel together while dealing with the erratic behavior of his much-younger mistress Anna (Olivia Wilde), an aspiring writer for whom Michael has just left Elaine (Kim Basinger), his wife of many years. The Rome storyline centers on Scott (Adrien Brody), a slick operator in corporate espionage who works for a company that specializes in cheaply-made knockoff fashions. He encounters Monika (Moran Atias), a Romanian prostitute whose young daughter is being held captive by her vicious pimp Carlo (Vinicio Marchioni). The NYC thread follows Julia (Mila Kunis), a one-time soap opera actress and perpetually unreliable screw-up in the middle of a protracted custody battle with her ex-husband Richard (James Franco), a successful artist. Julia harmed their son in an unspecified way and even her fiercely-dedicated attorney Theresa (Maria Bello) is losing patience with her. For the bulk of the film, Haggis cuts back and forth between the three stories, but then strange things start happening, like a note written by Julia in NYC suddenly appearing in Michael's hotel room in Paris, and bouquets of flowers delivered in Paris are seen in a similar room in NYC. Haggis delays the reveal of how everyone is connected as late as he possibly can, and when that reveal comes and neatly and conveniently explains away all of the various inconsistencies you've been mentally noting the whole time, it almost feels like you've been duped by a riff on one of the hoariest cliches in all of storytelling. If Haggis wasn't so focused on being clever, he might've had a Fellini-esque self-examination of how he went from Toast of the Town to the face of tone-deaf Hollywood sanctimony so quickly. The actors are generally good--Kunis is a standout and fans of obscure '70s counterculture cinema may be interested to see DRIVE, HE SAID co-star Michael Margotta in a small but pivotal role, and the horror nerd in me can't help but wonder if GIALLO's Brody and MOTHER OF TEARS' Atias spent their downtime on the set discussing the late-career decline of Dario Argento. The foundation of THIRD PERSON is a potentially interesting one, but Haggis takes a ridiculous amount of time to say what he has to say and ultimately shoots himself in the foot with a finale that pretty much obliterates any goodwill he might've accumulated over the preceding two hours and change. The clues are scattered throughout and the ending should induce "Whoa!"s but instead provokes an annoyed "Really?  That's it?" (R, 137 mins)



SPACE STATION 76
(US - 2014)

Opening on two screens a week and a half before its DVD release, SPACE STATION 76 has to be the oddest and most unmarketable release of the year. Directed and co-written by actor Jack Plotnick (a veteran of all three of Quentin Dupieux's films, which explains a lot), the film is rather difficult to describe but let's just say that it's approached from a 1976 vantage point and would seem to be a comedy at first glance, but it's a drama disguised as a kitschy spoof. It's like THE ICE STORM filtered through ANCHORMAN and shot on what look like leftover SPACE: 1999 sets. It's filled with all manner of 1970s conventions, from chain-smoking to self-absorption to pop psychology and new age therapy, with adultery, closeted homosexuality, and women's lib, all on a space station that's in the path of an oncoming asteroid. SPACE STATION 76 is not brazenly terrible. It's a well-made, good-looking film with remarkably dead-on production design but it's one of the most anti-entertaining pieces of cinema I've ever seen. It's a film that defies convention to a fault. What is the point of telling this story in this fashion? It's a three-minute Jean Doumanian-era SNL skit padded out to 95 minutes. It's the world's first dead-serious, straight-faced spoof.  Other than a robot shrink that resembles a tiny R2-D2, it's almost completely unfunny, and it's that way by design. Is this some kind of stunt?  Was it made on a dare? Is it some sort of psychological experiment? Was the goal to be so dark-humored and deadpan that it circles back to completely depressing seriousness?  Is it part of some newly-launched "post-spoof" movement? Though it will no doubt be lovingly embraced by the most consistently contrarian member of your cult film circle, this is one of the most jarring, baffling, and ultimately off-putting film experiences that I can recall.  That it only managed a two-screen theatrical release less than two weeks before its DVD dumping isn't the least bit surprising. What is surprising is that it was even made in the first place.

Jessica (Liv Tyler) arrives at Space Station 76 as the new second-in-command to surly, Harvey Wallbanger-swilling Capt. Glenn (Patrick Wilson), who's not happy about having a woman as part of his crew. There's also ship mechanic Ted (Matt Bomer), whose boozing, Valium-addled wife Misty (Marisa Coughlan) is having an affair with Steve (Jerry O'Connell), who's married to her friend Donna (co-writer Kali Rocha). Ted and Misty are only together for their daughter Sunshine (Kylie Rogers), who's routinely neglected by her mother and left in the care of educational VHS tapes and TV shows. Ted develops feelings for Jessica, who's always been career-focused since she's unable to have children. Glenn, meanwhile, plays up his hard-edged chauvinist act but everyone knows he's a closeted gay man getting over a relationship with his previous second-in-command (Matthew Morrison), who transferred to another space station when things soured between them. All the while, there's montages of misery, emptiness, and loneliness set to Ambrosia's "How Much I Feel," Todd Rundgren's "Hello, It's Me," and Neil Sedaka's "Laughter in the Rain," a cameo by Keir Dullea as Jessica's dad to remind you of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, along with '70s signifiers like waterbeds, feathered hair, wide collars, top-loading VCRs, and wood paneling on the space station interiors. The dramatic elements are things we've seen in countless other films, but what's here beyond the novelty of the setting? Sure, we already have GALAXY QUEST and since it's stood the test of time, we don't need another, but who in 2014 would possibly need an R-rated, outer space PEYTON PLACE set in a 1976 version of the future? What is this?  What is it supposed to be? Who is it for? Why? (R, 95 mins)

In Theaters: GRUDGE MATCH (2013)

GRUDGE MATCH
(US - 2013)

Directed by Peter Segal.  Written by Tim Kelleher and Rodney Rothman.  Cast: Robert De Niro, Sylvester Stallone, Kevin Hart, Alan Arkin, Kim Basinger, Jon Bernthal, LL Cool J, Anthony Anderson, Paul Ben-Victor, Barry Primus, Camden Grey, Griff Furst, Jim Lampley, Michael Buffer. (PG-13, 114 mins)

GRUDGE MATCH caps off a busy 2013 for stars Robert De Niro and Sylvester Stallone, but it's too bad they couldn't have teamed up on a more inspired project.  They worked together before, on 1997's underappreciated COP LAND, a film that's just gotten better over the years, but this finds them squarely in a safe, predictable, "geriatrics behaving badly" comedy that gets bogged down with forced, feel-good blandness and a plethora of jokes that fall flat due to lack of humor or just bad timing on the part of the actors.  And, my God, the montages!  "What Makes a Good Man" and "How You Like Me Now?" by The Heavy?  Check.  "Boom Boom" by Big Head Todd and the Monsters?  Check.  "Here I Come," by The Roots?  Check.  And sorry, but there's no excuse for a boxing movie with De Niro and Stallone to contain a montage set to Phillip Phillips' "Gone Gone Gone."  None.  Well, I guess it could be worse.  They could've used "Home."

30 years ago, two rival light heavyweights, Billy "The Kid" McDonnen (De Niro) and Henry "Razor" Sharp (Stallone) were about to square off in their third fight when Razor abruptly backed out and disappeared from public view and The Kid retired from boxing to open a bar and car dealership. When an HBO documentary sparks renewed interest in their story, fast-talking promoter Dante Slate, Jr. (Kevin Hart), the son of the crooked manager who screwed the two fighters over back in the day, talks them into doing some motion capture work for a boxing video game.  Still bitter enemies, the pair get into a brawl in the studio and the resulting footage goes viral.  Before long, the long-postponed title fight--now called Grudgement Day--is back on as Razor recruits his old trainer Lightning (Alan Arkin) from the nursing home, and The Kid, after being turned down by his now-retired protégé (LL Cool J), teams up with B.J. (Jon Bernthal), the son he never knew, who's grown up to be a high-school football coach.  The Kid fathered B.J. with Sally (Kim Basinger), who was Razor's girlfriend, but had a brief fling with the Kid while Razor was away training.  That's the source of the animosity, and it's something Razor's never been able to put behind him.

Oh, but there's more drama:  The Kid and B.J. finally get a chance to bond as father and son after 30 years (De Niro seems to be in physical pain uttering the line "I need you in my corner," and just as B.J.'s about to bail on him, the Kid pulls out a scrapbook filled with old photos of B.J.'s high school and college football days, showing that he's been with him all along!), and The Kid finds out he's got a grandson, Trey (Camden Gray).  They've only now connected but the script by Tim Kelleher (FIRST KID) and Rodney Rothman (a former writer for THE LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN) is so lazy that there's one scene where B.J. makes an off-the-cuff remark about doing something "like you used to show me."  Wait a minute...didn't they just meet for the first time?  There are some genuinely funny bits in the early going, and some winking nods to the past that fans will find amusing (Stallone repeats the "drinking raw eggs" bit from ROCKY, but worries about the cholesterol), but then the laughs start to get cheap, repetitive, and too easy, like Arkin, cast radically against type as "Alan Arkin," talking about far-east hookers and ping-pong balls and telling Razor he should be "getting some snapper" and "doing the bone dance" with Sally, fulfilling the mandatory "old guy being pervy" requirement as set forth by the Burgess Meredith Amendment.  Stallone, whose Razor is the perpetual underdog against the boorish Kid, gets a chance to do some serious acting and handles it nicely despite the hackneyed lines he's forced to read.  He's trying his best, but the main problem is that he's played this part and a similar enough (on his end, at least) scenario before in 2006's surprisingly solid ROCKY BALBOA.  He does the sad sack loner bit effectively, but does the script have to make him so befuddled and out of touch?  There's a running gag about Lightning being angry that Razor doesn't have a TV, but for a guy who, sure, is a bit of a loner, but works in the everyday world and isn't a complete hermit, is there any reason other than a cheap laugh for how Razor possibly couldn't understand how caller ID works?  How has he never heard of it before 2013?  He understands video games and iPads, but caller ID is just way over his head?

There's also too much time spent on The Kid coming to the realization that he's been a total dick, which results in one of the most nonsensical sequences in any film this year.  Wishing to bond with Trey (I know it's wrong to pick on child actors, but this kid is unbearable), he asks B.J. if he can take him out to dinner and a movie.  Using a 12-pack of beer as a car seat, The Kid instead takes Trey to his bar, leaving him in the care of his bartender buddy Joey (Barry Primus) while he hooks up with a hot young fan.  Later, a tired Trey finds the 12-pack in The Kid's office and takes it outside to sit in the driver's seat of his grandfather's SUV, where he finds the keys, starts the SUV, and shifts it into gear.  Cue The Kid and the hottie popping up from the cargo space of the SUV as it rolls into the street and Trey can't reach the brake.  OK, I have several questions about this comedic set piece:  1) where's the humor?  2)  how did The Kid and the girl not hear him open the car door, plop the heavy 12-pack down, climb in, grab the jingling keys, put the keys in the ignition, start the SUV, and shift it into gear?  3) Why, before getting laid in the cargo space of the SUV, would The Kid feel the need to take the time to remove the 12-pack from the seat and walk it all the way into his office inside the bar when he would just need to bring it back out again to get Trey home?  It's not like it was obstructing the path to the cargo space. None of this scene makes any sense at all, and it's all crammed into place to get Trey in the driver's seat of the vehicle.  And the less said about the forced, labored, beat-to-death gag about B.J.'s initials, using the term "butterscotch jellybeans" as a euphemism for blowjobs, and The Kid advising his grandson that "not all girls like butterscotch jellybeans," the better.

Naturally, director Peter Segal (TOMMY BOY, 50 FIRST DATES) tries to turn it into a feel-good man-weepie by the end, but the emotion and the character arcs are so perfunctory that it doesn't feel earned.  Pitting RAGING BULL against ROCKY could've been some late-career comedy gold for these two screen legends, but aside from some effort put forth by Stallone, who's written enough solid screenplays to know how shitty this one is, no one really cares.  De Niro coasts by on the expected De Niro schtick and mannerisms, though on a couple of occasions, he tries so hard to sell a gag that it's actually uncomfortable to watch (there's one excruciating bit where he's emphatically and repeatedly listing three options in a different order and it lands with such a thud that I'm shocked it made the final cut).  Arkin is a national treasure, but even his patented grouchy curmudgeon act is feeling pretty spent.  He gets some laughs and his banter with Hart isn't bad, but you've seen it all before.  GRUDGE MATCH is hardly the worst film for either of its iconic headliners (it's not even the worst De Niro film of 2013--that would be THE BIG WEDDING), and there's enough laughs that it's not a complete waste of time for completists, but it's among their most instantly forgettable, especially with the run Stallone's been on lately with the hugely entertaining EXPENDABLES franchise, BULLET TO THE HEAD, and ESCAPE PLAN.