ANGEL HAS FALLEN (US - 2019) Directed by Ric Roman Waugh. Written by Robert Mark Kamen, Matt Cook and Ric Roman Waugh. Cast: Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman, Danny Huston, Nick Nolte, Jada Pinkett Smith, Piper Perabo, Lance Reddick, Tim Blake Nelson, Joseph Millson, Ori Pfeffer, Rocci-Boy Williams, Michael Landes. (R, 121 mins) The third entry in a franchise so ridiculous that the only thing preventing Donald Trump from offering Gerard Butler a cabinet position is a presumed inability to correctly pronounce "Gerard," ANGEL HAS FALLEN dials down the raging "America! Fuck yeah!" boner of its two predecessors--2013's OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN and 2016's LONDON HAS FALLEN--which proved to be surprisingly popular mash-ups of the Cannon jingoism of the '80s with the dogshit CGI of the '10s. This time, Mike Banning (Butler), the head of Secret Service detail for OLYMPUS House Speaker, LONDON vice president and now President Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman), is in the running for a cushy D.C. desk job as a reward for his years of risking life and limb but is battling PTSD, chronic migraines, back pain, and a secret painkiller addiction that he's kept from his wife Leah (Piper Perabo, replacing Radha Mitchell). While on a routine detail on a presidential fishing trip in Pennsylvania, Trumbull's entire Secret Service team is wiped out by a drone attack, with Banning and the president barely escaping with their lives, the latter winding up in ICU in a coma. Banning awakens to find himself handcuffed to his hospital bed and informed by Secret Service director Gentry (Lance Reddick) and FBI Special Agent Thompson (Jada Pinkett Smith) that he's under arrest for the attempted assassination of the president and the premeditated murder of nearly two dozen Secret Service agents. His fingerprints and DNA were found in a van used to house the bat-like drones, and they've uncovered a secret bank account in his name with $10 million traced back to Russia.
With Trumbull incapacitated, Vice President Kirby (Tim Blake Nelson) is sworn in as acting president and, seeking revenge against the apparent Russian plot to assassinate Trumbull, immediately announces a return to the use of paramilitary contractors, namely Salient, a company owned by Wade Jennings (Danny Huston), Banning's old Army buddy who was really hoping that Banning could talk the anti-contractor Trumbull into offering him a lucrative deal. Meanwhile, Banning can't convince anyone he's been set up, and when Salient mercenaries take down his prisoner transport, he manages to escape and make his way to the isolated, rural West Virginia makeshift compound of his estranged father Clay (Nick Nolte), a grizzled, paranoid, anti-government mountain man who was so haunted by his time in Vietnam that he left his wife and young Mike and went off the grid. Realizing he's been set up by his old friend--and perhaps someone more powerful pulling the strings--and is now the most wanted fugitive in America, Banning reluctantly bonds with and gets some help from Clay before heading back to the hospital in Pennsylvania in an attempt to save the president's life and prove his innocence once and for all.
The last time Morgan Freeman played the US president was in 1998's asteroid-headed-toward-Earth opus DEEP IMPACT, and that was probably a more plausible film than ANGEL HAS FALLEN. The villainy of Wade is obvious from the outset, since he's played by Danny Huston, but the mid-film reveal of the real string-puller will only be a surprise if you've never seen a movie before. But relatively speaking, ANGEL is a bit less cartoonish than the two films that came before it, and is refreshingly devoid of Banning's smart-ass quips clanging to the ground, such as OLYMPUS' "Let's play a few rounds of Fuck Off...you're it!" and LONDON's "Why don't you boys pack up your shit and go back to Fuckheadistan?" That doesn't mean it's a gritty political thriller, but director and former stuntman Ric Roman Waugh (FELON, SNITCH, SHOT CALLER) has a knack for solid action and suspense sequences, including a striking late-film shootout over multiple stories overlooking a hospital lobby. There's also some--but not much--attempt at timely, nudging commentary with Banning being accused of Russian collusion and one key character being a dead ringer for (at press time and subject to change at any moment) Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, which should guarantee that actor's casting in the inevitable HBO miniseries chronicling the Trump presidency.
NOLTE!
Look, like the entire HAS FALLEN trilogy, ANGEL is dumb. But unlike OLYMPUS, it doesn't show a series of establishing second-unit shots of the Washington Monument, the Capitol Building, and the White House accompanied by the caption "Washington, D.C." (it was shot at London's Pinewood Studios and in Bulgaria, with the interstate highways of Pennsylvania and West Virginia looking strangely Eastern European). And it is amazing how Banning has managed to have the kind of career he's had, being the human shield for two presidents, with no one ever finding out about his crazy, off-the-grid, government-hating dad, or how every new-looking truck he manages to steal while on the run is somehow lacking in GPS or anyone reporting it stolen, or how Salient goons manage to get into Banning's house despite cops, Feds, and the media camped right out front. It is what it is, and the digital effects by the Bulgarian clown crew at Worldwide FX are as amateurish as ever, but Butler does his thing, Freeman's dignified presidential gravitas comes natural and is curiously comforting, and Huston is as smug and sneering as ever, which is the reason you hire Danny Huston. But never mind all that. What's really key in making ANGEL HAS FALLEN the most entertaining of the trilogy so far is Nolte. The 78-year-old living legend doesn't turn up until the midway point, but from his first appearance, he steals the film from everyone and instantly reminds you that he's a goddamn national treasure. Notoriously eccentric enough that his casting as a grizzled old mountain man seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy, Nolte gives this everything he's got, reveling in some hilarious one-liners ("You're welcome!") and back-and-forth bantering with Butler ("What is this, your manifesto?" Banning asks when he sees a stack of papers on Clay's table). Clay delivers an emotional, gut-wrenching monologue about how he felt chewed up and spit out by his country after his time in Vietnam that's so good that I wouldn't be surprised if Nolte wrote it himself. ANGEL HAS FALLEN is pretty standard as far as these formulaic things go, but it comes alive and steps up its game whenever Nolte is onscreen. When it's all over, you might ask yourself if every movie could benefit from having a madman-bearded Nick Nolte muttering, grumbling, and being a conspiratorial, cantankerous, and shotgun-toting old curmudgeon. The outtakes on the eventual Blu-ray have to be gold.
GRACE QUIGLEY aka THE ULTIMATE SOLUTION OF GRACE QUIGLEY (US - 1985) Directed by Anthony Harvey. Written by A. Martin Zweiback. Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Nick Nolte, Kit Le Fever, Elizabeth Wilson, Chip Zien, Christopher Murney, William Duell, Walter Abel, Frances Pole, Truman Gaige, Paula Trueman, Nicholas Kepros, Harris Laskawy, Denny Dillon. (PG, 87 mins) On the basis of its strangeness alone, the largely forgotten GRACE QUIGLEY should be better known, even if it's for the wrong reasons. It's not every day that one encounters an offbeat, dark comedy from Cannon about elder suicide that offers the unlikely buddy-movie teaming of Katharine Hepburn and Nick Nolte, with songs by The Pretenders. This was a long-gestating pet project for Hepburn going back to 1972 when, according to legend, screenwriter A. Martin Zweiback (whose credits include 1969's ME, NATALIE, notable as Al Pacino's film debut, and 1980's GORP) tossed a copy of his script over the security gate at director George Cukor's house when Hepburn (star of several Cukor classics, among them 1933's LITTLE WOMEN, 1940's THE PHILADELPHIA STORY and 1949's ADAM'S RIB) happened to be visiting. In its earliest planning stages, GRACE QUIGLEY was set to star Hepburn and Steve McQueen, with Hal Ashby directing, coming off of 1971's acclaimed HAROLD AND MAUDE. The project soon fell apart but was back in pre-production in 1979, minus McQueen but Hepburn managed to get the interest of Nolte, then the Next Big Thing. Again, it never came to be, and it was stuck in development hell until Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus came aboard and were only too eager to work with a Hollywood icon of Hepburn's stature, along with a bonus of Nolte being as bankable as ever following the blockbuster success of 1982's 48 HRS. With some pull that comes with being a living legend and following her Best Actress Oscar for 1981's ON GOLDEN POND, Hepburn got her old friend Anthony Harvey (who guided her to an Oscar for 1968's THE LION IN WINTER) to direct, and production got underway in NYC in the fall of 1983.
The initial result got a toxic response at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival, where another Cannon prestige project, the all-star Agatha Christie adaptation ORDEAL BY INNOCENCE, was also crashing and burning. The bad press at Cannes prompted producers Menaham Golan and Yoram Globus to have Harvey recut the film, chopping it down from 102 to 87 minutes. No one was happy with that version either, and GRACE QUIGLEY only managed a limited release in a few major cities in the spring of 1985 before turning up in video stores a short time later. A third version exists, assembled by Zweiback (who was hoping to direct until Hepburn's friendship with Harvey nudged him out of consideration), and retitled THE ULTIMATE SOLUTION OF GRACE QUIGLEY, clocking in at 94 minutes. With some scenes reinstated and others shifted around, the ULTIMATE version played in even fewer cities than the GRACE QUIGLEY cut and is reportedly the best of the three variants, though it's only the universally-panned 87-minute version that's on Kino Lorber's new Blu-ray (because physical media is dead). A comprehensive box set with the three versions of GRACE QUIGLEY would probably overkill with little in the way of a target audience, but it would've been nice for comparison's sake, especially since anyone who's seen it seems to unanimously agree that the Zweiback-supervised cut is the way to go.
So that leaves GRACE QUIGLEY being rescued from obscurity in its least-liked but, relatively-speaking, most-seen version. In its 87-minute incarnation, the film is done in by its schizophrenic tone and choppy editing, looking every bit like the begrudging compromise that a disgruntled Harvey felt it to be (it ended up being his last big-screen directing effort). The subject matter demands that the film find the right tone, which it absolutely doesn't do. Relying solely on social security, elderly widow Grace Quigley (Hepburn) lives with her parakeet Oscar and is about to be evicted from her tiny, rent-controlled NYC apartment by her shady, shitbag landlord (Harris Laskawy). No sooner does she wish him dead than it actually happens, via a bullet to the head courtesy of neurotic hit man Seymour Flint (Nolte). Grace witnesses the hit from a park bench across the street, runs away in a panic and hides in the backseat of a parked car that happens to belong to Seymour. Despite her joy over the landlord being out of the way, Grace is still lonely and depressed (Zweiback's cut apparently mentions that she's also outlived her children in addition to being widowed), and having already survived two failed suicide attempts, offers Seymour $1000 to kill her. His lowest asking price is $2000, so she manages to talk suicidal neighbor Mr. Jenkins (William Duell) into forking over the money and making it a twofer in exchange for not turning Seymour over to the cops. Before long, all of Grace's aging friends and neighbors decide they're ready to pack it in and end it all, as she eventually talks Seymour into offing them--at a "group rate"--and making it look natural or accidental.
Director Anthony Harvey with
Hepburn and Nolte on the set
With some seriously dark shit brewing at its core, the idea behind GRACE QUIGLEY has some terrific black comedy potential, but it just never quite comes together. The more it goes on, the more chickenshit it gets, opting to tug at the heartstrings, and getting maudlin and feel-good as Grace and Seymour bond over the voids in their lives, starting with Grace encouraging Seymour to get serious with hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold Muriel (Kit Le Fever) and culminating in a painful moment where orphaned Seymour asks Grace "Can I call you 'Mom?'" It even gets off to a bizarre start with periodically freeze-framed opening credits that seem to go out of their way to be as unflattering as possible to the 76-year-old Hepburn. Though Hepburn rode Nolte pretty hard about his excessive drinking and his wild ways during the shoot, they seem to be having a good time, with Nolte sometimes visibly in awe that he's working with Katharine Hepburn (he's never said anything good about the movie, but he wrote in his memoir they got along great and he loved working with her). To Hepburn's credit, she seems game for the subject matter and is even seen at one point eschewing a stunt double and riding on the back of a motorcycle sans helmet with Nolte. But there's just no sense of consistency with this version of GRACE QUIGLEY. It's filled with weird scenes that seem to come out of nowhere, like Muriel doing a striptease for Grace's elderly friends, several laborious sessions between Seymour and his prickish, twerpy shrink (Chip Zien, soon to provide the voice of the title character in HOWARD THE DUCK), or one embarrassingly heavy-handed bit where Grace talks Seymour into going along with the "suicides" by disguising themselves as doctors and touring a decrepit nursing home filled with depressed old people. GRACE QUIGLEY isn't very good, but any movie with Katharine Hepburn involved in a climactic hearse chase and earlier crouched on the floor of the backseat of Seymour's car while he flees a crime scene to the tune of The Pretenders' "Bad Boys Get Spanked" is simply too bizarrely surreal to dismiss. GRACE QUIGLEY would prove to be Hepburn's penultimate feature film appearance. She made several TV movies throughout the '80s and early '90s before returning to the big screen for a supporting role that saw her dropping an F-bomb as Warren Beatty's aunt in 1994's LOVE AFFAIR. Her final role came in the 1994 NBC TV movie ONE CHRISTMAS before her death in 2003 at 96.
As DIE HARD celebrates its 30th anniversary, it's only fitting that FINAL SCORE exists as a testament to its enduring influence. Entire scenes and situations are lifted completely, whether it's the hero listening in on the bad guys' walkies and jotting their names down or throwing a henchman off the top of a building with a message for the asshole police honcho who refuses to believe his story. The busy Dave Bautista gets a rare heroic lead as ex-Navy SEAL Michael Knox, who's in London to visit his dead combat buddy's widow Rachel (Lucy Gaskell, a second-string Sally Hawkins) and troubled 15-year-old daughter Danni (Lara Peake), who's always angry with her mum but appreciates "Uncle Mike" still being in their lives and looking out for them. Knox scores two tickets to the West Ham football semi-finals (he keeps calling it "soccer" like every American) at a nearby stadium, and--wouldn't ya know it--fanatical "Sokovian" terrorist Arkady Balov (Ray Stevenson) has packed the place with bombs and commandeered the power grid in an attempt to force the British government to turn over his brother Dimitri, who was presumed killed in a 1999 skirmish when Russia quashed a Sokovia rebellion led by the Balov brothers. Turns out Dimitri is very much alive, having turned himself over to the CIA after faking his death, getting plastic surgery, moving to London, becoming a huge football fan, and getting as much screen time as director Scott Mann (reteaming with Bautista after the better-than-average Lionsgate DTV thriller HEIST) could manage in Pierce Brosnan's two, perhaps three days on the set.
Like John McClane at the Nakatomi Plaza, Knox figures out what's going on and starts taking on Balov's goons one by one while the sellout crowd and the teams are oblivious to what's going on, which also gives FINAL SCORE a chance to rip off the 1995 Van Damme hockey actioner SUDDEN DEATH as an added bonus. After Danni gets separated from Knox, he finds an unlikely sidekick in lowly security usher Faisal (Amit Shah) while butting heads over the radio with both Balov and Steed (Ralph Brown), the bullheaded London police commissioner and this film's Dwayne T. Robinson. He also get in a couple of throwdowns with Tatiana (Alexandra Dinu as Alexander Godunov), Balov's most feral accomplice, who of course takes it personally when Knox dunks her lover Vlad's (Martyn Ford) head in a boiling concession stand fry vat, after which he bears an uncanny resemblance to The Toxic Avenger. As far as belated DIE HARD knockoffs go, you can do a lot worse than FINAL SCORE if it's a slow night and you're looking for a brainless action movie. Bautista (one of 25 credited producers) is an engagingly brutish hero who doesn't have much tolerance for bullshit ("Seriously? That guy's a dick," he scoffs when introduced to Danni's would-be boyfriend), and he's a better Bruce Willis than Bruce Willis is capable of being right now. There's nothing wrong with FINAL SCORE--it's better than a lot of DTV and Redbox-ready B action movies--but there's really nothing to make it all that memorable, either. (R, 105 mins) BEL CANTO (US - 2018)
One of the most inert hostage thrillers ever made, BEL CANTO is a lifeless and ultimately absurd adaptation of Ann Patchett's 2001 bestseller, itself inspired by a several-month hostage crisis at the Japanese embassy in Peru in 1996. Directed and co-written by an out-of-his-element Paul Weitz (AMERICAN PIE, LITTLE FOCKERS), the film also takes place in 1996, as wealthy Japanese industrialist and opera enthusiast Katsumi Hosokawa (Ken Watanabe) travels to an unnamed and politically unstable South American country with his interpreter Gen (Ryo Kase), where the president and assorted investors and diplomats plan to woo him into a building a factory by arranging a swanky dinner and intimate birthday performance by world-renowned American soprano Roxane Coss (Julianne Moore). The president bails, sending his VP (J. Eddie Martinez) instead, and Roxane is barely into her first piece when a group of armed rebels led by Comandante Benjamin (Tenoch Huerta, a last-minute replacement for Demian Bichir) storm the mansion and hold everyone hostage. They're demanding the release of a group of fellow guerrillas imprisoned by the president, as Red Cross negotiator Messner (Sebastian Koch) is called in to attempt to broker a peaceful resolution. Messner manages to convince Benjamin to release the women as well as Roxane's diabetic pianist (22 JULY's Thorbjorn Harr) but Roxane remains held due to her value as an American celebrity.
Weeks and months drag on as Benjamin refuses to budge and Messner comes and goes from the grounds as he pleases, and eventually Stockholm Syndrome-esque bonds form between the captors and their captives, especially with Gen falling in love with Carmen (Maria Mercedes Coroy), one of Benjamin's loyal soldiers. Romance blossoms between Hosokawa and Roxane as well, and as time goes on, the mansion becomes a sort-of idyllic paradise that no one really wants to leave ("This is where we live now," Carmen tells Gen). Call it DOG DAY AFTERNOON meets THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL as the outside world gradually ceases to exist. They play chess and soccer, they exercise together, they eat lavish meals, they teach Benjamin's soldiers English, Hosokawa learns Spanish, Roxane becomes a mentor to one of the rebels who's inspired to pursue his love of singing, and all the while, an incredulous Messner--perhaps a surrogate for the viewer--can't believe what he's seeing. There seems to be no urgency on the part of anyone--Messner, the president, various world governments (also among the hostages are Christopher Lambert as the French ambassador and Olek Krupa as a Russian trade delegate), and the hostages themselves--to bring this crisis to an end. When Messner finally loses it with Benjamin and shouts "You must release these people! Now!" it's hard to tell if he's talking about the hostages or the audience This sort of kumbaya utopia might've worked better in Patchett's novel where the medium allows the reader to get into the characters' heads, but it's absolutely ludicrous and deadening on the screen, and the abrupt shift in tone of the last ten minutes shows that Weitz had something in mind here, and I get it, but by that point, it's too little, too late. BEL CANTO is hobbled by wishy-washy politics and the bizarre intent of being a feel-good hostage thriller, leaving great actors like Moore (who doesn't even lip-sync Renee Fleming's vocals convincingly) and Watanabe completely defeated by the material, and even their presence couldn't get this barely-released dud on more than 30 screens for a paltry $80,000 gross. (Unrated, 101 mins)
THE PADRE (Canada/Ireland - 2018)
Some good performances and gritty location work throughout Bogota elevate this minor chase thriller/character piece slightly above the norm among the plethora of VOD and Redbox options out there. Disguised as a priest, British con man Clive Lowry (Tim Roth) is on the run in Colombia, picking pockets and running scams and doing whatever he can to keep moving. In pursuit is Nemes (Nick Nolte), a retired and still-obsessed US marshal hunting the man known as "Padre" on his own time and dime, even hiring local cop Gaspar (Luis Guzman) to be his guide and translator. Padre crosses paths with Lena (Valeria Henriquez), a 16-year-old orphan desperately trying to get to the US to find her 12-year-old sister, who's been bought on a black-market adoption web site by a family in Minnesota. But with Nemes and Gaspar never far behind, Padre and Lena only keep moving south, with a plan to rob a church and fence some priceless goods to secure passage to the States. It's obvious Nemes' quest is personal, in ways that are both poignant and predictable, as is the way that Padre seems destined for redemption, but Gaspar is quick to remind Nemes of that old adage "Those who seek revenge should dig two graves." Nemes is hesitant to get into specifics in the quest for what's essentially his white whale, telling Gaspar--in a way that sounds awesome when grunt-croaked by a grizzled, 77-year-old Nick Nolte--"I'm bound to him...I lashed my fate to a spear and I aimed it at his heart!" a line fraught with such heavy-handed portent that he repeats it verbatim later on. Henriquez carries much of the dramatic weight, and Roth and Guzman play characters similar to those they've played before (Guzman seems to be the same guy he portrayed in THE LIMEY), but it's great seeing Nolte get such a showy role that keeps him onscreen from start to finish, even busting through doors with his gun drawn and constantly grumbling like a geriatric Jack Cates. With a cast headlined by Roth, Nolte, and Guzman, THE PADRE would need to take a time machine back to 1998 to have any chance at a wide theatrical release. It's easy to see why Sony relegated it to VOD--it's slight and forgettable, and it gets a little sluggish in the second half--but it's a decent enough time-killer that's worth seeing for some frequent flashes of vintage Nolte. (R, 95 mins)
RUN ALL NIGHT (US - 2015) Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. Written by Brad Inglesby. Cast: Liam Neeson, Ed Harris, Joel Kinnaman, Common, Vincent D'Onofrio, Nick Nolte, Bruce McGill, Genesis Rodriguez, Boyd Holbrook, Holt McCallany, Rasha Bukvic, Patricia Kalember, Beau Knapp, Lois Smith, Aubrey Joseph, Daniel Stewart Sherman, James Martinez. (R, 115 mins)
Jimmy Conlan (Liam Neeson) is introduced as a booze-soaked butt of jokes among the other Irish mobsters in the neighborhood bar. He's a nickel-and-dimer, a flunky for Danny Maguire (Boyd Holbrook), the spoiled, coke-snorting, Joffrey-like son of NYC Irish mob kingpin Shawn Maguire (Ed Harris). It's Shawn's sense of loyalty and friendship that keep Jimmy around, with the boss regularly reminding the drunk Jimmy of all their glory days and how at the end, they'll cross that final line together. Jimmy was once Shawn's right-hand man and most ruthless enforcer, and now Jimmy can't sleep at night, haunted by the faces and the memories of those he's killed. While Shawn's affection for Jimmy is sincere, it's telling that he keeps him at a distance when it comes to business, instead opting to pawn him off as a gofer for perpetual fuck-up Danny, the kind of insufferable, sociopathic brat who expects to be given everything because of who his father happens to be. A disrespected sad sack reduced to dressing up as Santa for a Maguire Christmas party so Danny will loan him $800 to get his furnace fixed, Jimmy has seen better days.
NEESON!
He gets his obligatory One Last Shot at Redemption when a domino effect of plot conveniences force him to step up and take action to protect his estranged son Michael (Joel Kinnaman), his pregnant wife (Genesis Rodriguez) and the two granddaughters he's never met. Michael, an honest family man who wants nothing to do with his father or his criminal legacy, witnesses childhood friend Danny kill a powerful Albanian heroin dealer (Rasha Bukvic) over a deal that went south. Word gets out that Danny is after Michael, so Shawn sends Jimmy to make sure Michael doesn't talk to the cops. Danny tracks down Michael and is about to kill him when Jimmy walks in and shoots him dead. He immediately informs Shawn what happened ("He was about to kill Michael...I had to do it"), but no matter how justified it was, Shawn has lost his only son and will not rest until Jimmy loses his. Mobsters and corrupt cops conspire to frame Michael for the Albanian's murder, and as the media attention grows, Shawn's inner circle of gangsters, unstoppable freelance hitman Price (Common), and the last honest cop in NYC (Vincent D'Onofrio) close in on Jimmy and Michael, putting them in a position where they must set aside their differences and survive the night...if they don't kill each other first!
NEESON!
A major improvement over January's lackluster TAKEN 3, RUN ALL NIGHT is the busy Neeson's third teaming with director Jaume Collet-Serra (UNKNOWN, NON-STOP). Collet-Serra's key to success with Neeson seems to be that the stories are frequently as ludicrous as something Luc Besson would cook up for TAKEN, but he gives Neeson enough breathing room to flex his acting muscles. Whether he's presenting Neeson as an amnesia victim in UNKNOWN or a paranoid, alcoholic air marshal in NON-STOP, Collet-Serra understands that Neeson is a real actor and works some moderately challenging characterization into the actor's now-standard action-movie badass routine. There's actually a lot of similarities between Jimmy Conlan and Neeson's Ottway in THE GREY, and like THE GREY, Neeson is surrounded by a top-notch supporting cast--there's also Holt McCallany and Bruce McGill as Maguire mob guys, and a one-scene bit by a more-grizzled-than-usual Nick Nolte as Jimmy's older brother--but the most pleasure comes from watching him play off a steely-as-ever Harris. While he can bellow and rage like the best of them, Harris has always been one of those actors who can also speak volumes with just a look, and he does a terrific job of conveying that sense of friendship just with the way he looks at Jimmy with a combination of fond memories for days gone by and pitying sympathy for what Jimmy is today. They're both outstanding in their later scene together, where they have what's essentially their own version of the HEAT diner meet in a swanky restaurant, each vowing to do what they have to do regardless of the respect and love they have for one another.
HARRIS!
RUN ALL NIGHT's strengths lie with Neeson and Harris, and it's too bad they don't have more scenes together. The father-son issues and bickering between Jimmy and Michael are played well enough by Neeson and Kinnaman (THE KILLING, ROBOCOP), but you've seen it all before. The only major misstep with the casting is Common's high-tech hitman seemingly wandering in from the nearest TERMINATOR audition. He doesn't appear until over an hour into the film, but he never quite gels with his surroundings, and we don't learn enough about him for his showdown with Jimmy to have much resonance beyond the visceral thrill of watching Neeson do his Neeson thing. The script by Brad Inglesby (OUT OF THE FURNACE) errs in the way it abruptly makes Common's Price the chief adversary when the emotional impact lies with the broken bond between Jimmy and Shawn. One other major stumble is a badly-edited car chase early on, assembled in the now-standard way of entirely too much CGI augmentation in a quick-cutting blur with frequent close-ups of a grimacing Neeson clutching the wheel, making constipated faces like he's driving a car at high speed through Times Square. Nitpicking asdie, RUN ALL NIGHT is slick and satisfying entertainment for Neeson's base, the kind of undemanding but compelling actioner that you'll happen upon and end up watching several times as it finds its permanent home in constant rotation on the various HBO channels for the next two decades.
NOAH (US - 2014) Directed by Darren Aronofsky. Written by Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel. Cast: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, Douglas Booth, Leo McHugh Carroll, Marton Csokas, Madison Davenport, voices of Nick Nolte, Frank Langella, Kevin Durand, Mark Margolis. (PG-13, 138 mins)
Biblical purists aren't going to go for Darren Aronofsky's revisionist take on Noah's Ark, which is faithful to the point of including Noah and an ark. At times seeming like J.R.R. Tolkien's The Bible, Aronofsky's NOAH succeeds as epic cinema and as part of the bigger picture of the filmmaker's work as a whole. One of Aronofsky's recurrent themes, from PI (1998), REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2000), THE FOUNTAIN (2006), THE WRESTLER (2008) all the way to BLACK SWAN (2010), is the obsessive, frequently maniacal, and all-consuming nature of their protagonists. In that respect, Russell Crowe's Noah is cut from the same cloth as Ellen Burstyn's Sara Goldfarb and her diet pills in REQUIEM, Mickey Rourke's Randy "The Ram" Robinson in THE WRESTLER or Natalie Portman's Nina Sayers in BLACK SWAN. To some degree, Aronofsky's characters are perpetually in a head-on descent into self-destructive madness.
Such is the case with Noah, a descendant of Adam & Eve's third son Seth. Though "God" is never invoked, "The Creator" supplies Noah with a vision of the world's flooded end as punishment for man's sins. Noah is entrusted to build an ark, to which The Creator will direct all of the world's animals to begin life anew after its watery destruction. Noah spends ten years building the massive ark with his wife Naameh (Jennifer Connelly), their sons Shem (Douglas Booth), Ham (Logan Lerman), and Japheth (Leo McHugh Carroll), and adopted daughter and Shem's love interest Ila (Emma Watson), left barren from injuries sustained in a massacre of her people and rescued by Noah and Naameh years earlier. He also gets assistance from a group of fallen angels known as The Watchers, stone giants who resemble ancient Transformers with the voices of Nick Nolte and Frank Langella. As the animals make their way to the under-construction ark (and a steam potion puts them in a state of hibernation), warrior-king and Cain descendant Tubal-Cain (Ray Winstone) decides to kill distant relative Noah and orders his army to take control of the ark in an attempt to survive The Creator's extermination of mankind.
Winstone!
But the massive flood is just the beginning, as middle child Ham is resentful of his brother's love of Ila and angry enough to be privy to the manipulation of Tubal-Cain. And as the situation grows more dire, Naameh's request of a gift from Noah's grandfather Methusaleh (Anthony Hopkins) disrupts Noah's single-minded drive and pushes him to the point of homicidal mania. So yes, to say Aronofsky and co-writer Ari Handel take some liberties with the source material is an understatement. But a straight Biblical adaptation was never in the cards anyway, even before Paramount added disclaimers to the advertising that stated as much. Obviously, one's devotion and attachment to the story will likely dictate the response, but personally, as someone who has no commitment to the Bible and whose church of choice is the big screen, I found NOAH to be exciting, ambitious filmmaking. With THE WRESTLER and BLACK SWAN, Aronofsky kept things relatively low-budget after the brilliant THE FOUNTAIN proved to be a costly (and mismarketed) flop for Warner Bros. Given the power granted to bottom-line-obsessed execs and focus-group mouth-breathers, the fact that Paramount gave Aronofsky $125 million to make NOAH and largely left him alone to make the film he wanted to make and disregarded the test audience feedback and released the director's preferred cut is a major miracle itself. Aronofsky had been toying with the idea of helming a mega-budget epic, but turned down MAN OF STEEL and left THE WOLVERINE during pre-production, opting instead to wait until the time was right for NOAH.
"What a fool belieeeeeeves...."
Aronofsky takes a huge gamble in making Noah extraordinarily unlikable and practically deranged in the second half as he'll stop at nothing to follow through with The Creator's request (as the years go on, Noah's hair grays and at times, Crowe resembles a feral Michael McDonald). Utilizing CGI and some of the same sort of minimalist visual trickery seen in THE FOUNTAIN, Aronofsky creates a visually stunning world in NOAH. The sequence detailing the onset of the flood while the ark is under attack by Tubal-Cain's men is terrifying to watch and jaw-dropping in its scope and a must-see on a large screen. Some of the stuff involving The Watchers is a little goofy (but I'm always up for some Nick Nolte grumbling) and sometimes, it feels a little too derivative of the LORD OF THE RINGS, but in an era when most multiplex movies are bland, uninspired, and interchangeable, NOAH is unique even when it's borrowing an occasional element here and there. It's the strangest Biblical epic in years and so much of it could've gone so horribly awry, that even on those rare instances where something doesn't work, you're still admiring the chutzpah of the whole endeavor. Even if you vehemently disagree with the out-of-the-box approach Aronofsky takes--and nothing's going to change your mind--the fact that NOAH even exists is proof that Hollywood might still give a shit about artistic vision.
THE COMPANY YOU KEEP (US/Canada/Luxembourg - 2013)
Despite one of the most star-studded casts of 2013, THE COMPANY YOU KEEP only made it to 807 screens in the US, just over the threshold required to consider it a "wide" release. It's a rather sluggishly-paced thriller scripted by frequent Steven Soderbergh collaborator Lem Dobbs (THE LIMEY, HAYWIRE) and scored by ubiquitous Soderbergh regular Cliff Martinez (TRAFFIC, CONTAGION), and you wonder if perhaps Soderbergh could've brought more energy to the film than director/star Robert Redford. As has been the case in some of his more recent directing efforts like 2007's LIONS FOR LAMBS and 2011's THE CONSPIRATOR, there's a good story that gets bogged down in talking points and speechifying lectures. While THE CONSPIRATOR is a fine film nonetheless and LIONS FOR LAMBS a bit better than its reputation, THE COMPANY YOU KEEP never really catches fire. When former Weather Underground activist Sharon Solarz (Susan Sarandon) is nabbed by the FBI in Albany for a 1979 Michigan bank robbery that left a guard dead, her arrest prompts local reporter Ben Shepard (Shia LaBeouf) to dig into her past. He finds Albany-based lawyer Jim Grant (Redford), a widower and father to 11-year-old daughter Isabel (singing sensation and elderly America's fantasy granddaughter Jackie Evancho), who seems to have no existence before 1979. That's because Grant is really Nick Sloan, a prominent Weather Underground figure and one of eight suspects still wanted for the 30-year-old crime. Jim/Nick leaves Isabel with his younger brother Daniel (Chris Cooper) and goes on the run, searching the country for Mimi Lurie (Julie Christie), his ex-lover and the group's most volatile member and, through a convoluted set of circumstances, the only person who can clear his name and verify that he in fact had nothing to do with the robbery. All the while, Shepard is on his trail, digging up secrets of his past, and the FBI, led by Agent Cornelius (Terrence Howard) is in hot pursuit.
Look at that poster. Just look at it. Is there any way this movie could possibly be good? And really? Someone thought it was a good idea to cast Robin Williams as a wacky priest after LICENSE TO WED? THE BIG WEDDING, a remake of the 2007 French farce MON FRERE SA MARIE, assembles a huge cast of slumming actors and plants them in one unfunny, smutty situation after another before trying to go for the sappy, feel-good ending (writer-director Justin Zackham scripted THE BUCKET LIST). The problem is, nobody in this film's target audience wants to see post-Farrelly Brothers vulgarity and other hijinks of that sort. It doesn't quite approach the "jizz-as-hair-gel"-levels of outrageousness, but if you want to see Robert De Niro getting puked on by Katherine Heigl or going down on Susan Sarandon for a "poonjob," or Topher Grace getting jerked off at the table at a wedding rehearsal dinner, then you've found your movie.
Heading a cast that, for the most part, looks like they'd rather be anywhere else, Diane Keaton (who's already played this same role in SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE) is Ellie, who returns to artist ex-husband Don's (De Niro) Connecticut home for the wedding of their adopted Colombian son Alejandro (Ben Barnes, a British actor who doesn't look even remotely Colombian) to Missy (Amanda Seyfried), daughter of wealthy Barry and Muffin (David Rasche, Christine Ebersole), racists and anti-Semites who are appalled at the idea of "beige grandchildren." Don lives with Bebe (Sarandon), Ellie's best friend until she and Don had an affair. There's also Don and Ellie's daughter Lyla (Heigl), who can't have children and just left her husband, and their successful doctor son Jared (Grace), a 29-year-old virgin who's still waiting for the right girl. The comically dysfunctional family gets along great, but things fall apart when Alejandro insists that Don and Ellie pretend to be married to please his devoutly Catholic biological mother Madonna (Patricia Rae), who sternly disapproves of divorce. Of course, it leads to one comic mishap after another: Don and Ellie end up having sex, Jared wants to lose his virginity to Alejandro's impossibly hot biological sister (Ana Ayora), and then there's Williams, playing an alcoholic priest. You know the performances are grating when Williams comes across as the least obnoxious. Shot in 2011 and bounced around the release schedule for nearly two years, THE BIG WEDDING tries to be shocking with its rampant tastelessness, from the crude situations to the copious F-bombs, but it's merely boring. This sort of gutter humor can be funny but doesn't really work with an accomplished cast of aging legends that's collectively got double-digit Oscar nods and several wins and seems visibly appalled at the lowbrow nature of the project. Gag after gag lands with a complete thud: there's supposed to be something inherently funny about senior citizens talking dirty. Burgess Meredith screeching about "takin' the skin boat to tuna town!" in GRUMPY OLD MEN gets a laugh, but De Niro jokingly calling Keaton a "cunt" comes off as more uncomfortable than funny, and you can even see on his face as he says it that he knows it doesn't work. If nothing else, this is further proof that his brilliant work in SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK is the anomaly in De Niro's recent filmography and THE BIG WEDDING fits in perfectly with his current career plan of complete apathy and utter contempt for his craft. De Niro doesn't need to prove himself to anyone, but at what point do we start considering whether he's crossed that dubious line where his bad movies outnumber his good ones? And he still has four more coming out between now and the end of the year. (R, 89 mins)
Directed by Taylor Hackford. Written by John J. McLaughlin. Cast: Jason Statham, Jennifer Lopez, Michael Chiklis, Nick Nolte, Wendell Pierce, Clifton Collins, Jr., Bobby Cannavale, Patti LuPone, Carlos Carrasco, Michah Hauptman, Daniel Bernhardt, Emma Booth, Kirk Baltz. (R, 117 mins)
PARKER is notable as the first big-screen adaptation of one of the 24 Parker novels to actually call the cold-blooded antihero by the name given to him by author Richard Stark, a pen name for Donald E. Westlake (1933-2008). Past cinematic Parkers include Lee Marvin's Walker in POINT BLANK (1967), Jim Brown's McClain in THE SPLIT (1968), Robert Duvall's Macklin in THE OUTFIT (1973), Peter Coyote's Stone in SLAYGROUND (1984), and Mel Gibson's Porter in PAYBACK (1999). Regardless of the name chosen by the filmmakers, they're all "Parker," and while Jason Statham is a natural for the role, he still doesn't surpass Marvin's immortal interpretation from 45 years ago. PARKER uses establishing elements from the first Parker novel, 1963's The Hunter, but is primarily based on one of the later Parker books, 2000's Flashfire.
Parker is running the show on a heist of the cash room at the Ohio State Fair, with an independent crew recommended to him by his aging associate Hurley (Nick Nolte). The job is nearly botched by the incompetent Hardwicke (Michah Hauptman), but after a successful getaway, Parker is informed by the crew's hot-headed leader Melander (Michael Chiklis) that the take will provide the seed money for an even bigger job he's got planned in Palm Beach, FL. Parker says he just wants his cut and to be on his way. Of course, they shoot him and leave him for dead, but being that he's Parker, he's not dead and vows revenge (how many times has Parker been screwed out of his cut of a heist, anyway? Has he ever had any hassle-free jobs?). Hurley confesses that he didn't really vet Melander and his guys (there's also Wendell Pierce of THE WIRE and TREME as Carlson, and Clifton Collins, Jr. as Ross), and it turns out they've got ties to a powerful Chicago mobster. Hurley, whose daughter Claire (Emma Booth) is Parker's girlfriend, warns Parker to let this one go and even tries to compensate him for his lost cut of the Ohio State Fair job, but Parker declines, saying it's a matter of principle. Oh, and killing their asses.
When a Chicago hit man (Daniel Bernhardt, who turns in an overexpressive performance more suited for a silent movie) unsuccessfully tries to kill Claire, Parker sends her and her father out of town and heads to Palm Beach to find Melander and his guys. Knowing the ways of like-minded career criminals, Parker passes himself off as a Texas oil man named Daniel Parmitt, and enlists the aid of real estate agent Leslie Rodgers (Jennifer Lopez) to look at area homes on the market to narrow down where Melander is staying and what exactly this big heist will be.
Scripted by John J. McLaughlin (BLACK SWAN) and directed by Taylor Hackford, who was all over the place in the '80s (AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN, AGAINST ALL ODDS, WHITE NIGHTS), but has really slowed down in recent years (his last notable film was 2004's RAY), PARKER gets off to a terrific start and remains solidly enjoyable for the most part. It's on the more grounded end of Statham's work, not up there with THE BANK JOB, but straightforward and serious like THE MECHANIC or KILLER ELITE instead of cartoonish like the TRANSPORTER and CRANK films. It's not through any real fault of hers, but when Lopez enters around the 40-minute mark, the film shifts gears and it feels like the filmmakers are expanding a minor role in the book to accommodate a big name that they got to play the part. Lopez's Leslie character is in the book and does help Parker to some degree, but her presence and the need to establish her backstory (divorced, broke, living with her mother, jealous of her successful co-workers, tired of eating shit from rich and entitled clients who've never worked a day in their lives, estranged from her sister, lonely and unable to find a man, etc) and to remind us through several wardrobe changes and a strip search that Lopez has that ass combine to seriously drag the film down and much of the Leslie character development feels like the kind of material that would be among the earliest stuff ditched for a screenplay adaptation. We start with a tight, tough heist-turned-revenge thriller and that gets put on the backburner for the entire midsection so we can see Lopez playing a character pouting about how she doesn't have a boyfriend and acting heartbroken when she realizes Parker isn't on the market. To have Statham and Lopez in an OUT OF SIGHT-inspired situation is okay, but not when plays like it's shoehorned into the middle of another film that was working just fine.
Statham doesn't really strain himself acting-wise here. He's largely the same stoical, ruthless badass he always plays, but it's a formula that his fans enjoy and he does it well. He's surrounded by a solid supporting cast, most notably Chiklis' patented bulldog-in-a-china-shop rage and a restrained, paternal Nolte, whose wonderfully gravelly voice has become just fascinating to hear as he's gotten older. Despite the casting of Lopez to potentially bring in the chick-flick crowd, PARKER is still very much an entertaining Statham joint that loses its way for a time but pulls it together with no shortage of wry one-liners and over-the-top violence.
Directed by Ruben Fleischer. Written by Will Beall. Cast: Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Emma Stone, Anthony Mackie, Robert Patrick, Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Pena, Mireille Enos, Sullivan Stapleton, Holt McCallany, Troy Garity, Jon Polito, Jack McGee, John Aylward, Josh Pence. (R, 111 mins)
Delayed by several months for reshoots after removing a sequence involving a shootout in a movie theater out of respect for the victims of the Aurora, CO shootings at a midnight showing of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES last summer, GANGSTER SQUAD finds itself in the big-studio dumping ground of early January. Adapted from Paul Lieberman's non-fiction chronicle of covert cops taking on the mob in post-war L.A., the film, written by Will Beale (CASTLE), and directed by Ruben Fleischer (ZOMBIELAND), is sufficiently entertaining in a brainless kind of way, but it feels lacking, like it could've--and should've--been more. Fleischer, with two comedies to his credit (he also made 10 MINUTES OR LESS), might not have been the best choice to direct, as the film has a sometimes awkward time straddling the line between serious and camp and never coming down on either side. It threatens to become a spoof on several occasions, and not all of the actors seem to be on the same page with what the project should be.
When ruthless east-coast mobster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn, whose fake nose is currently the frontrunner for 2014's Best Supporting Actor Oscar) takes over the L.A. crime scene with a good chunk of the cops and judges in his pocket, frustrated police chief Parker (a grumblier-than-usual Nick Nolte) talks honest but hot-headed detective and war hero John O'Mara (Josh Brolin) into organizing a secret, off-the-books team of elite cops to take down Cohen's empire by any means necessary. Still shattered by his experiences in WWII, O'Mara is now only at home in combat-type situations, which immediately brands him an outsider with the powers that be at the L.A.P.D. Likewise, he assembles, with the help of his devoted and pregnant wife Connie (Mireille Enos of TV's THE KILLING), a ragtag team of misfit cops for whom the rules are optional: reckless ladies' man Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling), knife-throwing beat cop Coleman Harris (Anthony Mackie), wily old cowboy Max Kennard (Robert Patrick), methodical surveillance man Conway Keeler (a surprisingly calm Giovanni Ribisi), and eager Navidad Ramirez (Michael Pena), who joins essentially because Kennard vouches for him and no one else wants to be partnered with him because of his ethnicity.
GANGSTER SQUAD is never dull and, from the standpoint of its production design, looks terrific. The problem is that the film's tone is just all over the place, both in terms of script and style. Several action sequences, particularly a car chase, are dampened by the modern--and entirely too ubiquitous--reliance on blur-inducing shaky-cam and too much CGI (the explosions in this film are embarrassing). Performance-wise, Brolin plays it completely straight and is very good as the driven, obsessed O'Mara, but Gosling never seems comfortable in this period setting, and his glib, flippant character doesn't seem like a 1949 type. The other members of the Gangster Squad don't really get much room to shine but Patrick seems to enjoy playing a grizzled, big-moustachioed old-school lawman who never really blended in with the fancy ways of the big city. The show-stealer, however, is a completely over-the-top, borderline grotesque Penn, who plays Cohen as a foaming-at-the-mouth madman who's introduced having an underling's hands and feet tied to the bumpers of two cars facing opposite directions and subsequently ripped in half. Penn is one of cinema's great actors, but he's rarely cut loose and hammed it up to this degree (even his Spicoli from FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH wasn't played this broadly). Penn has clearly been instructed to turn it up to 11 and play to the back rows, and he's obviously having a blast. But therein lies the conundrum of GANGSTER SQUAD: Penn is entertaining as hell here, but his performance is so much that he's more funny than threatening. The three leads don't seem to be acting in the same movie: Brolin acts like he's in the next L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, Penn acts like he's in a live-action Looney Tunes, and Gosling acts like he's arriving fashionably late for a gangster-themed GQ spread. And poor Emma Stone, charming as usual, is stuck with a woefully underwritten character as Grace, Cohen's reluctant moll who, naturally, falls for Jerry, which also reunites the two actors from 2011's CRAZY STUPID LOVE.
GANGSTER SQUAD borrows elements from several better films, from the underrated MULHOLLAND FALLS (1996) to the great L.A. CONFIDENTIAL (1997), but most of all, it seems especially indebted to Brian De Palma's THE UNTOUCHABLES (1987), in its premise, some vaguely Morricone-esque music cues, the chief villain having an ominously creepy right-hand man (Troy Garity's one-eyed Wrevock is a bland stand-in for Billy Drago's Frank Nitti), and a finale that shares a few visual elements (minus a runaway stroller), like a long set of steps. There's a great story to be told here but, in the hands of Fleischer, it struggles to find a consistent tone and feels at times like it's an adaptation of a lighthearted graphic novel instead of a true crime account as Beale's script leaves no cliche unused (approximately how many badges do you suppose are at the bottoms of lakes, rivers, and other bodies of water, hurled in disgust by disillusioned cops fed up with the criminal-coddling system?). By no means is GANGSTER SQUAD a bad film and it's very often an entertaining one. But it's also an uneven and sometimes frustratingly empty one that seems content to cruise by, squandering its potential to sit alongside the films it's so openly emulating.
