WASP NETWORK (France/Spain/Belgium - 2020) Written and directed by Olivier Assayas. Cast: Penelope Cruz, Edgar Ramirez, Gael Garcia Bernal, Ana de Armas, Wagner Moura, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Tony Plana, Nolan Guerra Fernandez, Osdeymi Pastrama Miranda, Julian Flynn, Anel Perdomo, Julio Gabay, Amada Morado, Carolina Paraza Matamoros, Omar Ali, Carlos Leal. (Unrated, 128 mins) French auteur Olivier Assayas has dabbled in a bit of everything over his acclaimed career, from 1996's filmmaking satire IRMA VEP to the corporate espionage of 2002's DEMONLOVER and 2007's BOARDING GATE to heartfelt interpersonal pieces like 2008's SUMMER HOURS and 2019's NON-FICTION (both with frequent star Juliette Binoche), and a pair of dramas where he found a muse in Kristen Stewart, with 2014's CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA (also with Binoche) and 2016's PERSONAL SHOPPER. His latest film, the Netflix-acquired WASP NETWORK, finds Assayas mining tangentially similar territory as 2010's CARLOS, his epic, five-and-a-half hour chronicle of terrorist Carlos the Jackal, made as a miniseries for French TV but acquired for the US by IFC in both its unedited version on the festival circuit and a truncated 166-minute cut for its brief US theatrical run and VOD (the Criterion Blu-ray edition only has the long version). Based on the true story of the "Cuban Five," WASP NETWORK details--and not always in the most coherent fashion--a Cuban espionage ring that set up shop in Miami in the early '90s, posing as dissidents and defectors fed up with Castro's communist regime having expecting things to change after the fall of the Soviet Union. In fact, they were staunch Castro loyalists looking to infiltrate well-funded Cuban revolutionary groups based in Florida that were often working in conjunction with the FBI, and report their gathered intel back to government officials in Cuba.
The opening hour of WASP NETWORK follows two of the Cuban agents as they make their way to the US and settle in Miami. The first is pilot Rene Gonzalez (Edgar Ramirez, reteaming with Assayas after his career-best performance in CARLOS), who spends three months plotting the theft of a plane and flies under the radar all the way into Miami in 1990, leaving his wife Olga (Penelope Cruz) and their daughter Irma (Carolina Paraza Matamoros as a 6-year-old, then Osdeymi Pastrama Miranda as a teenager) behind in Havana. He doesn't need to worry about being granted asylum, since he was born in Chicago and his family returned to Cuba when he was a child. In 1992, Juan Pablo Roque (ELITE SQUAD and NARCOS star Wagner Moura, the Brazilian Mark Ruffalo) is a revered Cuban Air Force pilot who swims all the way to Guantanamo Bay to declare his intent to defect. He's an instant celebrity with TV interviews, a book deal, and glad-handing from the anti-Castro groups in Miami, and a whirlwind romance with Cuban-born divorcee Ana Margarita (Ana de Armas), who doesn't take long to realize something's up with all of his secrets, his expensive jewelry, and his $2000 suits. Rene keeps trying to get Olga to move to Miami, but his assignment was so top secret that she's still under the impression that he's a traitor and that his skills as a pilot are being used for drug trafficking.
Assayas jumps around quite a bit, and many of the details of the maddeningly confusing--apparently by design--first hour don't become clear until some extensive "get you caught up" narration by Carlos Leal, an abrupt "Four Years Earlier" card, and the midpoint introduction of Manuel Viramontez, aka "Gerardo Hernandez" (Gael Garcia Bernal), the spymaster behind the whole operation, which is codenamed "Wasp Network." The timeline is never really crystal clear--we just know some years have passed when Irma is played by an older kid--and much of the second half gets sidetracked with the machinations of rogue CIA agent and anti-Castro terrorist mastermind Luis Posada Carriles (Tony Plana), and a string of Cuban hotel bombings committed by Cruz Leon (Nolan Guerra Fernandez) that keep Cruz, Ramirez, and Garcia Bernal offscreen for long stretches, the latter two mostly confined to clandestine lunch meetings at Miami restaurants.
WASP NETWORK isn't really able to gain any momentum since Assayas lets scenes end abruptly and goes for frequent and seemingly random fade-outs, almost as if this was cut down from a longer, CARLOS-type project that was intended for TV at some point. Indeed, it more often than not feels like the two-hour Cliff Notes version of a ten-hour miniseries. Such a format might've been more beneficial, considering the amount of time the main stars aren't around and that both Moura and de Armas abruptly exit during the second act. Assayas also indulges in a little Scorsese worship with a brief "last half hour of GOODFELLAS" vibe when de Armas' Ana gets wise and realizes too late that her husband was leading a double life and her world starts falling apart and all that's really missing in Nilsson's "Jump Into the Fire." WASP NETWORK has a fascinating story to tell, but there's simply too much going on here for a two-hour movie to sufficiently handle and effectively tie all of its disparate plot and historical elements together. Months and years go by an in instant, characters appear and disappear, like Jose Basulto (Leonardo Sbraglia), the head of the Cuban exile outfit Brothers to the Rescue, who's set up as a major character but then doesn't really figure in at all. And can anyone explain the FBI agent played by an actor who has no idea how to pronounce the word "alias?"
MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (US - 2017) Directed by Kenneth Branagh. Written by Michael Green. Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Penelope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, Josh Gad, Derek Jacobi, Leslie Odom Jr, Michelle Pfeiffer, Daisy Ridley, Tom Bateman, Lucy Boynton, Olivia Colman, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Marwan Kenzari, Sergei Polunin, Gerald Horan, Phil Dunster, Miranda Raison, Hayat Kamille. (PG-13, 114 mins) The first big-screen Hercule Poirot mystery since Peter Ustinov starred in Cannon's little-seen APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH way back in 1988, MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS gives a mustache attached to the face of Kenneth Branagh the opportunity to play Agatha Christie's legendary detective. David Suchet enjoyed much success as Poirot in a series of PBS productions, including an ORIENT EXPRESS in 2010. The novel was also turned into a 2001 CBS TV-movie with Alfred Molina as a present-day Poirot. Suchet is often cited as the best Poirot, but the standard--at least as far as cinema is concerned--remains Albert Finney's Oscar-nominated turn as the fussy Belgian sleuth in Sidney Lumet's classic 1974 film version. While Christie adaptations were frequent (Margaret Rutherford played Miss Marple in several 1960s films, TEN LITTLE INDIANS was a big hit in 1965, and Tony Randall portrayed Poirot in 1966's THE ALPHABET MURDERS), it was the all-star MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS that got the ball rolling on a star-studded, big-screen Christie renaissance that lasted into the 1980s, including a 1974 remake of TEN LITTLE INDIANS, rushed into production by Harry Alan Towers to compete with Lumet's film; Ustinov starring as Poirot in 1978's DEATH ON THE NILE, 1982's EVIL UNDER THE SUN, the aforementioned latecomer APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH; and Angela Lansbury as Miss Marple in 1980's THE MIRROR CRACK'D, giving the actress an old-school test run before her long-running TV series MURDER, SHE WROTE.
All of this leads to the inevitable question: why does this 2017 remake of MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS exist? It brings nothing new to the table story-wise, with the mystery's solution being common knowledge to any older moviegoer who's seen the 1974 version and anyone who watched Suchet's run on PBS. Is it to give students something newer to stream when they want to skip the reading and have no idea who Albert Finney is and the quiz is tomorrow? Is that why Imagine Dragons' "Believer" was so prominently featured in the trailer? It's really just an excuse for director Kenneth Branagh to give star Kenneth Branagh some very wide latitude to ham it up. Boarding the Orient Express in Istanbul bound for Western Europe, Poirot makes the acquaintance of a diverse group of passengers: much-divorced, man-hunting Mrs. Hubbard (Michelle Pfeiffer); secret lovers Miss Debenham (Daisy Ridley) and Dr. Arbuthnot (Leslie Odom, Jr); missionary Pilar Estravados (Penelope Cruz); Princess Dragomiroff (Judi Dench) and her maid Hildegarde Schmidt (Olivia Colman); Count Andrenyi (Sergei Polunin) and his drug-addicted wife Countess Elena (Lucy Boynton); Nazi sympathizing Austrian professor Gerhard Hardman (Willem Dafoe); Marquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), a car salesman; Ratchett (Johnny Depp), a sinister American "businessman" in the art forgery game; Hector MacQueen (Josh Gad), Ratchett's nervous, hard-drinking secretary; and Masterman (Derek Jacobi), Ratchett's long-suffering butler. Poirot turns down an offer to work as Ratchett's eyes and ears on the journey, as the corrupt entrepreneur has been receiving threatening letters and is aware that people are after him over his shady dealings. The second day of the journey, the train is stopped by an avalanche and left precariously stranded on a bridge in the mountains. But it gets worse when Ratchett's dead body is discovered in his compartment, with twelve random knife wounds over his torso and neck area.
Christie's novel and its adaptations thus far have arguably the most famous and well-known reveal of any whodunit. Branagh and screenwriter Michael Green (who's had a busy 2017 with LOGAN, ALIEN: COVENANT, and BLADE RUNNER 2049, plus his work on the Starz series AMERICAN GODS) don't change anything about the structure of the story or its final result, instead adding some ethnic diversity and some racial tension with Hardman not hesitating to air his true feelings about Arbuthnot, who fears that his being a black man instantly makes him a suspect (also the case for "Spaniard" Marquez). It's a lavishly-mounted production that allows Branagh to show off--perhaps too much--some directorial flair, with an overuse of overhead shots, Dutch angles, and beveled reflections. There's a CGI avalanche that looks like something out of an Asylum production, and one really badly-edited foot chase outside the derailed train. When we're shown the "how" part of the whodunit--one of the most memorable scenes in Lumet's 1974 version--Branagh bungles badly, staging the murder of Ratchett as a quick, shaky-cam, black & white cutaway that looks like something out of a cheap horror movie. And when he solves the mystery and confronts the passengers, the action is taken out of the tense, claustrophobic confines of the train car and moved to an improbably long table set up in a tunnel outside the train, with the suspects all seated Last Supper-style, out in the freezing cold with no visible breath. It's one thing to make a straight remake that gets a bunch of A-listers together to have a good time with a classic story, but the few changes that are offered are, if not worse, then at least dumber. Why do they have to go to the trouble of finding a long table and a bunch of chairs to sit outside? And if you're gonna do that, at least make it look cold.
Even with Pfeiffer, Depp, Dench, and Dafoe onboard, the whole point of something like this is the blinding shine of star power. In comparison to Lumet's film, Daisy Ridley is no Vanessa Redgrave, Leslie Odom Jr is no Sean Connery, Tom Bateman (as railroad official and Poirot pal Bouc, who assists in the investigation) is no Martin Balsam, and Josh Gad is no Anthony Perkins. In the end, ORIENT EXPRESS '17 is another in a long line of pointless remakes (2013's CARRIE, 2014's ROBOCOP, etc) that's not terrible but does nothing to justify its existence. It comes perilously close to being a Kenneth Branagh vanity project, with his Poirot making snide comments, laughing uproariously as he reads Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, and often coming across like a Larry David version of the legendary detective, letting the mustache--presumably a spare MORTDECAI prop loaned to him by Depp or a tribute to Sam Elliott in THE BIG LEBOWSKI--do most of the acting for him. And of course, since everything has to be a franchise now, the film ends with Poirot being summoned to Egypt because, "there's been a death on the Nile!"
You could probably count the number of good comedy sequels on one hand and it should come as no surprise that ZOOLANDER 2 wouldn't be one of them. Arriving 15 long years after the original was a minor hit on its way to becoming a cult movie on DVD and cable, ZOOLANDER 2 has nothing new to offer except more noise and more cameos, feeling the need to repeat or reference nearly every gag from the first film before its threadbare plot kicks into gear. In the years since the first film, the world's top male supermodel and total idiot Derek Zoolander (director and co-writer Ben Stiller) is a hermit (or, as he calls it, "a hermit crab") in isolation following the death of his wife (Stiller's wife Christine Taylor) in a freak accident involving the giant, book-shaped Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good falling on her because Zoolander had the building made from the same materials as books (that joke lands even worse in the movie than it does in synopsis form). After having his son Derek Jr taken away from him when a viral video leaks of Zoolander melting down as he tries to cook spaghetti in a toaster ("How did Mom make make the noodles soft?" he screams), Zoolander retreated from the world much like LITTLE FOCKERS' Ben Stiller has retreated from comedy. Unfortunately for everyone, Zoolander and sidekick Hansel (Owen Wilson) are pulled back onto the runway by hipster designer Don Atari (Kyle Mooney), who needs them for the "Old and Lame" (Zoolander pronounces it "Laa-may") part of his Rome show. Zoolander and Hansel are soon drawn into an investigation by Interpol agent Valentina Valencia (Penelope Cruz, who followed this triumph with THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY), which leads to the return of evil fashion megalomaniac Mugatu (Will Ferrell, who doesn't even appear until an hour in) and his plot to find and kidnap Derek Jr (Cyrus Arnold), who carries the Fountain of Youth bloodline of "Steve," humanity's first fashion model, booted out of the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, and subject him to a "ritual fattening" to make him an embarrassment to the Zoolander name.
It's really difficult to describe how astonishingly unfunny ZOOLANDER 2 is. The only reasonably big laugh comes from one line Mugatu has as he holds a black mass over a lava pit to sacrifice Derek Jr (dubbed "the fat little Chosen One") so the world's top fashion names--Anna Wintour, Tommy Hilfiger, Valentino, Mark Jacobs, and Alexander Wang appear as themselves--can bathe in his blood Bathory-style: "Check out Tommy Hilfiger's spring line, brought to you by white privilege!" Elsewhere, nothing works. Stiller and his co-writers (including co-star Justin Theroux) really overestimated the level of sentiment we feel for these characters. Was anyone demanding a ZOOLANDER sequel? With nothing new to add, Stiller's Hail Mary is to pile on endless cameos, where the recognition of a famous person is, in and of itself, supposed to be funny. It's like a long SNL skit or Jimmy Fallon bit where someone just unexpectedly pops up and we're supposed to be entertained by the mere sight of a celebrity. Some of them play characters (Kristen Wiig and Fred Armisen have minor roles and Benedict Cumberbatch is an androgynously hermaphroditic supermodel named "All") or appear as distorted versions of themselves (Kiefer Sutherland plays himself as part of Hansel's dozen-person orgy collective; Sting plays Sting as an Obi-Wan Kenobi of the fashion world, who only speaks in Police or solo Sting-related song lyrics), but most just appear and that's supposed to be the joke: Justin Bieber, Billy Zane, Susan Boyle, Willie Nelson, Joe Jonas, Olivia Munn, Skrillex, Naomi Campbell, Ariana Grande, Katy Perry, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Susan Sarandon, Christina Hendricks, M.C. Hammer, John Malkovich, Kate Moss, A$AP Rocky, and others. It also might set the record for cameos by TV news figures, including but not limited to Katie Couric, Jane Pauley, Joe Scarborough, Soledad O'Brien, Don Lemon, Matt Lauer, Dan Abrams, and, my God...et tu, Jim Lehrer? You get to see Tommy Hilfiger quipping "Tommy likey" as he watches Valentina and Mugatu henchwoman Katinka (Milla Jovovich) wrestling in a 69 position, and there's rimshot-worthy groaners like Derek going undercover and saying "Every bathhouse I've ever worked at had a rear entrance." ZOOLANDER 2 is appallingly bad. It's ANCHORMAN 2 bad and it's Adam Sandler lazy. It's Stiller and a bunch of his friends fucking around on Paramount's dime. Movies like this are a special kind of bad. It would be one thing if ZOOLANDER 2 tried and failed, but all it does is show up because it doesn't come from a place of inspiration. ZOOLANDER did. ANCHORMAN did. But their sequels came from a far more cynical place. No effort was put forth because none was necessary. And because the movie was shot at the legendary Cinecitta Studios in Rome, it seems that the primary motivation was paid vacations all around. No one involved in this thing gives the slightest shit about it. You shouldn't either. (Unrated, 102 mins)
RISEN (US - 2016)
One of the few offerings from the faithsploitation scene to stifle the preaching and attempt to reach out to secular audiences, RISEN treats the days following Christ's crucifixion as though it's LAW & ORDER: RESURRECTION. This isn't an original approach--Damiano Damiani's 1987 film THE INQUIRY starred Keith Carradine as a Roman soldier sent by Pontius Pilate (Harvey Keitel) to investigate a missing persons case where the missing person happens to be Jesus. THE INQUIRY was remade in 2006 as THE FINAL INQUIRY, an Italian film picked up for the US by Fox Faith and starring F. Murray Abraham, Max Von Sydow, and Dolph Lundgren. RISEN is more or less another de facto remake of THE INQUIRY, with cynical, agnostic tribune and war hero Clavius (Joseph Fiennes) assigned by Pilate (Peter Firth) to find the missing body of the prophet Yeshua (Cliff Curtis), who vanished from his sealed tomb three days after being crucified. Clavius and Lucius (HARRY POTTER's Tom Felton), the rookie tribune assigned to accompany him, tear Jerusalem apart searching for Yeshua's missing apostles and other accomplices (including Mary Magdelene, played by Maria Botto), until Clavius goes rogue and accompanies the remaining eleven apostles on a journey to meet the resurrected Yeshua. Of course, the film is ultimately all about making Clavius a believer, but director/co-writer Kevin Reynolds has plenty of real movies on his resume (ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES, WATERWORLD, 187, and the acclaimed History Channel miniseries HATFIELDS & MCCOYS) to not let the sermonizing take precedence over the story. Shot on Spanish and Maltese locations, RISEN looks great, though some discount-rate CGI is an occasional distraction, most notably a boat ride that seems tragically reminiscent of the greenscreen work in IN THE HEART OF THE SEA. The biggest problem is the film's ponderous pacing and a one-note performance by Fiennes, whose voice barely rises above a mumble until he finally meets Yeshua, who's very charismatically played by veteran character actor Cliff Curtis. Fiennes (when's the last time you went to see a Joseph Fiennes movie?) just doesn't have the screen presence to carry this, and it really seems like he got the job because his asking price was the most Sony was willing to spend for their faith-based Affirm Films division. The sincere RISEN deserves some credit for being the one of the least sanctimonious examples of faithsploitation and it gets quite good once Curtis' Yeshua finally shows up, but it just misses the mark. (PG-13, 108 mins)
THE PROGRAM (France/UK - 2016)
Not to be confused with the 1993 James Caan college football drama that inspired dumb teenagers to lie in the middle of the road and get killed, THE PROGRAM is a well-acted but choppy chronicle of the Lance Armstrong doping scandal. Based on the book Seven Deadly Sins by Sunday Times sports reporter David Walsh (played here by Chris O'Dowd) and scripted by frequent Danny Boyle collaborator John Hodge (SHALLOW GRAVE, TRAINSPOTTING), THE PROGRAM too frequently feels like an adaptation of a Wikipedia page, glossing over details and assuming you know enough to fill in the blanks (shot of Armstrong getting married, wife never seen again). It also can't decide whether to focus on Walsh, Armstrong (a terrific performance by Ben Foster), or Floyd Landis (Jesse Plemons). Landis, a cyclist on Armstrong's team, enters the story midway through and quickly grows embittered over the way Armstrong gets all the glory, especially when trainer and chief Armstrong enabler Johan Bruyneel (Denis Menochet) has to sell a number of the team's bikes to pay for everyone's performance-enhancing drugs. They're all part of the "program" designed by dubiously sketchy Italian doctor Michele Ferrari (Guillaume Canet), and the film details all the ways Ferrari and Bruyneel pump the cyclists full of drugs and the elaborate methods employed to cheat mandatory drug testing. THE PROGRAM opens like a standard Armstrong biopic, then shifts to Walsh as he grows incredulous of Armstrong's seemingly superhuman abilities after a grueling battle with cancer. But it's the Landis subplot that more or less dominates the last third, with the perennially-sidelined cyclist busted in a random urine test while Armstrong smugly beats the system and uses his celebrity and his "cancer shield" to render himself untouchable.
For a while, it seems like Hodge and director Stephen Frears (once a great filmmaker, now a comfortably jobbing journeyman) might go in an ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN/SHATTERED GLASS/SPOTLIGHT direction as Walsh tries to expose the culture of doping, fighting his editors at the paper and everyone else seeking to protect Armstrong's heroic image, getting doors slammed in his face and getting the cold shoulder from his colleagues when Bruyneel bullies them and threatens to cut their access if they continue to associate with Walsh. But Hodge and Frears introduce him as basically a co-lead character, then almost instantly sideline him for much of the film. There's too much ground to cover, and it probably would've worked better as an HBO or FX miniseries, where characters and conflicts would've had time to build and be fleshed-out in a more organic way. The film's flaws don't negate the excellent work of Foster, who doesn't really look a lot like Armstrong (though he gets some help from minimal makeup and trimmed eyebrows), but disappears into the character to such an extent that he becomes Armstrong by the end, uncannily nailing his body language and speech patterns. THE PROGRAM doesn't shy away from presenting Armstrong as little else than an egomaniacal, narcissistic sociopath, but it also seems too rushed and lets the committed actors down (Dustin Hoffman also turns up for a couple of scenes as bridge champion and investor Bob Hamann, though he seems to have wandered in from another movie). Shot in 2013 and unreleased until early 2016, THE PROGRAM would seem like a talked-about, awards-season gimme but debuted on DirecTV before hitting VOD and a small handful of theaters, ensuring that Foster's award-worthy performance will be lost in an utterly average movie nobody's going to see. (R, 104 mins)
THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY (US/UK - 2016) Directed by Louis Leterrier. Written by Sacha Baron Cohen, Phil Johnston and Peter Baynham. Cast: Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark Strong, Penelope Cruz, Isla Fisher, Rebel Wilson, Gabourey Sidibe, Ian McShane, Barkhad Abdi, Scott Adkins, Tamsin Egerton, Sam Hazeldine, Nick Boraine, Annabelle Wallis, Ricky Tomlinson, David Harewood, Yusuf Hafri. (R, 83 mins) With his mockumentaries BORAT (2006) and BRUNO (2009), Sacha Baron Cohen displayed a razor sharp wit in his holding up a funhouse mirror to America seen through the eyes of outsiders. He continued in a similar vein with the narrative comedy THE DICTATOR (2012). But with THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY, his latest scripting and starring effort, Baron Cohen pretty much abandons any kind of social/political commentary and goes straight for the grossout/raunch crowd, displaying a positively Sandlerian level of crude laziness with gags that play like he stole them from the dumpster outside the Farrelly Brothers' office. Baron Cohen is too smart to confuse any of this for bold transgression. The sole saving grace is the seething slow burn of veteran character actor Mark Strong, who manages to maintain his dignity to a point--that point being when Baron Cohen's script has him drenched in elephant cum. Twice. In what must set a new standard in damning with faint praise, the best thing one can say about THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY is that it's marginally better than DIRTY GRANDPA.
28 years after being left an orphan and separated from his beloved little brother, Nobby (Baron Cohen) is a soccer-obsessed father of 11 (with names like Skeletor, Tsunami, and Gangnam Style) and grandfather of one (Django Unchained), with his nympho wife Dawn (Rebel Wilson) and living in the depressing industrial five-nuclear-reactor town of Grimsby, the "twin city to Chernobyl." He gets word that his little brother will be at a London reception (yes, the establishing shot of London, with the London Eye ferris wheel and the Thames is accompanied by the caption "London, England") to honor young, wheelchair-bound AIDS activist Schlomo Khashidi (Yusuf Hafri), hosted by actress and humanitarian Rhonda George (Penelope Cruz). The long-lost little brother turns out to be Sebastian Graves (Strong), a lethal superspy working for a covert division of MI-6, there to take out international assassin Pavel Lukashenko (Scott Adkins). Nobby surprises Sebastian, who compromises the shot and ends up shooting young Schlomo, whose AIDS-tainted blood lands in the open-sore-filled mouth of celebrity attendee Daniel Radcliffe (played by an impersonator), while Lukashenko's remote controlled gun takes out the head of the World Health Organization. With the mayhem pinned on him and MI-6 deeming him a traitor, Sebastian is forced to go on the run with the hapless Nobby and follow the trail all the way to South Africa and ultimately to the FIFA finals in Chile to find Lukashenko and clear his name.
Along the way, it's endless toilet humor--literally in some cases. Nobby is forced to pretend to be Sebastian after the secret agent accidentally injects himself with heroin Nobby bought from a Cape Town dealer (Barkhad Abdi, obviously unable to parlay that CAPTAIN PHILLIPS Oscar nod into anything resembling a career bump). Nobby is sent to seduce the wife (Annabelle Wallis) of an arms dealer, but confuses her with hotel maid Banu (PRECIOUS' Gabourey Sidibe, in a humiliating role), who's wearing a similar dress, which leads to an extended shot of Baron Cohen with his face buried between Sidibe's ass cheeks, with an insert shot of what's supposed to be the Oscar-nominated actress' extremely unkempt crotch area. Sebastian is shot in the scrotum with a poisoned dart, forcing Nobby to suck the poison out of his brother's ballsack, Baron Cohen wrapping his mouth around Strong's stunt sack as Sebastian teabags Nobby ("You came on my face!" Nobby yells, with Sebastian replying "It was a tiny amount of pre-ejaculate at most. Grow up!"). Horny Dawn goes commando and pulls a BASIC INSTINCT on Nobby, opening her thighs and queefing in his face ("That wasn't me bum!" she says), and then ripping a loud fart ("That was me bum!"). At a health spa, Nobby falls face first into some wax and then lands on a guy's crotch, emerging with a curly goatee except for where the guy's dick entered his mouth. A weakened, AIDS-stricken "Daniel Radcliffe" is later shot at the FIFA finals, with his tainted blood going into the mouth of attendee Donald Trump. But the biggest set piece, and the one where Baron Cohen's career may very well end, has Nobby and Sebastian fleeing psychotic MI-6 mad dog Chilcott (Sam Hazeldine) and hiding inside the spacious confines of a female elephant's vagina. Just as Chilcott and his men leave, Nobby starts crawling out only to be stopped by an aroused male elephant who mounts the female, with Nobby and Sebastian sharing the vagina with a giant elephant cock. "You stroke him and I'll cradle the balls!" Nobby advises, as Sebastian is soon drenched in gallons of elephant jizz. When they try to exit, they're again thwarted by a second male elephant about to have his way with the female, followed by a line of elephants forming for what Nobby deems "an elephant bukkake fuck party." And then Sebastian is covered in elephant cum again, while Nobby is anally violated by another male elephant.
It's worth mentioning that Baron Cohen and co-writer Peter Baynham got Oscar nominations for writing BORAT, and that their other co-writer here (Phil Johnston), co-scripted WRECK-IT-RALPH and the current hit ZOOTOPIA. The director is former Luc Besson protege Louis Leterrier (TRANSPORTER 2, THE INCREDIBLE HULK), and the second-unit action duties were handled by JOHN WICK director Chad Stahelski. There is some genuine talent here and the end result is so utterly embarrassing that as the credits rolled, the exiting audience members (both of us) didn't even want to make eye contact. It's lazy, it's beyond juvenile, and it's simply not funny, whether it's the recurrent anal fixation, the pointless AIDS jokes, and consistently unfunny grossout humor at the expense of plus-sized women. "Shock" doesn't necessarily equal "funny," and Baron Cohen is a smart enough writer and performer to know the difference (the only sign of vintage Baron Cohen that shows is when Nobby discovers the rush of firing a weapon, concluding "I can see why people love guns! It completely distances you from the guilt of your actions!"). THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY is a draggy slog even at just 83 minutes, and the fact that there are seven credited editors is indicative of compromised product with which no one really knew what to do (half the shots and lines in the trailer aren't even in the finished movie, and the set-up is so rushed and truncated that it's never really explained how Nobby finds out Sebastian will be in London). Baron Cohen is all about poking people with sticks to get a response, but what exactly was the endgame here? Whatever went wrong, let's just hope that he got it out of his system and can go back to being the bold provocateur he's capable of being, because THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY would be damn near unwatchable were it not for the heroic efforts of Mark Strong.
THE COUNSELOR: UNRATED EXTENDED CUT (US/UK - 2013)
Directed by Ridley Scott. Written by Cormac McCarthy. Cast: Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt, Bruno Ganz, Rosie Perez, Ruben Blades, Sam Spruell, Dean Norris, John Leguizamo, Edgar Ramirez, Toby Kebbell, Goran Visnjic, Natalie Dormer, Richard Cabral, Richard Brake, Andrea Deck, Giannina Facio. (Unrated, 138 mins)
Over the course of his lengthy career, Ridley Scott has been one of the key figures in the advent of the "director's cut," largely from his experiences with 1982's BLADE RUNNER. Scott famously clashed with the producers and for a decade, the version of the film that everyone knew was despised by both Scott and star Harrison Ford. Then, in 1992, the Director's Cut was released, only it wasn't a true "director's cut" in the sense that Scott, then busy filming 1492: CONQUEST OF PARADISE, wasn't directly involved in the project, which was assembled based on his notes and what was known to be his original ending. It was close, but not quite a director's cut, though it went a long way in establishing the film as the classic we know today and prompted many critics who dismissed the film in 1982 to reconsider it. In 2007, Scott was able to make subtle changes and "The Final Cut" finally provided fans with the BLADE RUNNER its maker always intended. Scott had similar, though much less drawn-out, experiences with Universal over the 1985 fantasy epic LEGEND. The studio sat on the film for a year and finally released it in 1986 with a different score and 30 minutes cut out.
Years later, DVD and Blu-ray editions of LEGEND featured both the uncut European version (Scott's cut) and the butchered US version, and the 2007 BLADE RUNNER set featured four (!) versions, with a deluxe box set containing a fifth, the pre-release workprint version. These two films are the prime examples of Scott's director's cuts being used to right what he considered a wrong. After the 2003 "Director's Cut" of his 1979 classic ALIEN, Scott refrained from using the term "director's cut" because he felt it implies that the director is unhappy with the previously released version. Scott still considers the 1979 ALIEN the definitive version, but only offered the "director's cut" because fans wanted to see the legendary cut footage of the cocooned Dallas (Tom Skerritt) and Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) being used as food for the alien. Both characters were simply killed off in the '79 version after Scott opted to ditch the "cocoon" feeding angle. On the DVD, Scott explains that both versions are being offered and people don't have to worry that their preferred cut is being "replaced." He basically says "They're both here...watch the one you want to watch." That's been Scott's philosophy with the DVD and eventual Blu-ray presentations of most of his work after that. GLADIATOR (2000), BLACK HAWK DOWN (2001), KINGDOM OF HEAVEN (2005), AMERICAN GANGSTER (2007), and ROBIN HOOD (2010) all have "extended versions" included alongside the standard editions. Sometimes, the changes help--KINGDOM OF HEAVEN's extended version adds 45 minutes that really do enhance and enrich the film--while other times, it's inessential. The 19 minutes added to AMERICAN GANGSTER add little to the film other than superfluous bloat. Scott doesn't offer these alternate cuts to illustrate dissatisfaction but rather, just as a bonus for fans. They're scenes or plot threads he decided not to use, but if you're so inclined, here's what the film looked like at one point. In most cases, Scott's extended versions serve as the cut before the final cut. Oddly, the one recent film of Scott's that feels compromised in its released version and really does warrant a director's cut is 2012's PROMETHEUS, and it has yet to materialize other than a handful of deleted scenes on the Blu-ray.
Scott's 2013 film THE COUNSELOR was just released on Blu-ray with both the 117-minute theatrical version (reviewed here) and a 138-minute "unrated extended cut." The film opened to some of the most toxic reviews of the year in what quickly became a ludicrous pile-on, culminating in numerous blurbs that it was the worst movie of the year, with Salon's Andrew O'Hehir going even further than that by declaring, in a stunning example of over-the-top hyperbole that should effectively prevent him from ever being taken seriously again, "Meet the worst movie ever made." Audiences despised it and the film scored a D on the witless CinemaScore. But then, something odd happened, and it happened quickly. Buzz started spreading around the internet that THE COUNSELOR wasn't nearly as bad as the reviews suggested and that, if approached with an open mind and an appreciation for the work of novelist Cormac McCarthy, making his screenwriting debut, it proved a rewarding experience. By the end of its second, and in most of the country, last week of release, it had already transformed from much-maligned box-office bomb to a genuine cult film that didn't get a fair shake from critics. I was discussing THE COUNSELOR with a friend on Facebook recently and someone commented "Were the critics watching the movie or were they watching each other?"
As I stated in my original review from October 2013, THE COUNSELOR is a mess but it's a fascinating mess. If you didn't like the theatrical version, then there's little chance that the extended cut will change your feelings. Given the verbose nature of what we've already seen, the bulk of the additional 21 minutes primarily consist of dialogue, something which the theatrical cut of THE COUNSELOR certainly wasn't lacking (some of the scenes in the late-going occur in a slightly different order as well). There's some additional dirty talk during the opening with Michael Fassbender and Penelope Cruz in bed. There's a long monologue for Bruno Ganz as the Amsterdam diamond dealer. There's a new intro for drug-running motorcyclist The Green Hornet (Richard Cabral), who tells a joke about dog food and "licking your balls." The already-infamous "Cameron Diaz fucks a car" sequence is augmented by some additional graphic details from Javier Bardem. The death of one major character is much gorier in the extended version. None of these scenes really add any depth to the film, and though Ganz is terrific in his additional footage, you can see it's one of those scenes that an experienced director of Scott's caliber could see wasn't really essential. The same goes for a comical throwaway scene of one of Bardem's cheetahs crashing a neighbor's backyard barbecue.
Aside from the additional 21 minutes (the extended cut is only available on the two-disc Blu-ray set, with the theatrical version on the other disc), the highlight of the second disc is the documentary/visual essay "Truth of the Situation: Making THE COUNSELOR." Described as an "immersive experience" and running a whopping 216 minutes, "Truth" covers just about anything a fan of THE COUNSELOR would want to know. It's part audio commentary with Scott, with the extended version of the film frequently intercut with corresponding behind-the-scenes footage and cast & crew interviews. Scott is blunt about what works and what doesn't (the extended cut contains a gratuitous and unconvincing shot of one character's severed head and Scott says "I think I'm glad I cut that"), and it's the kind of extra usually reserved for something along the lines of a Criterion release, a fascinating journey inside a film whose tattered reputation was already on the mend before it even left theaters.
Scott seems to be of the opinion that he's happy with the theatrical version, and I'd probably go that route on future viewings. It's a film of odd rhythms and heavy dialogue that requires patience, and with the 21 minutes added to the extended cut, things do get occasionally tedious. Admirers of THE COUNSELOR--a continually growing lot--will want to check out the extended cut and the absolutely essential "Truth of the Matter," which will only expand their appreciation of one of 2013's strangest and most misunderstood major-studio releases. And, like Scott has said in the past: both versions are here...choose the one you prefer.
Directed by Ridley Scott. Written by Cormac McCarthy. Cast: Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt, Bruno Ganz, Rosie Perez, Ruben Blades, Sam Spruell, Dean Norris, John Leguizamo, Edgar Ramirez, Toby Kebbell, Goran Visnjic, Natalie Dormer, Richard Cabral, Richard Brake, Andrea Deck, Giannina Facio. (R, 117 mins)
Though it's destined to go down in history as the movie where Cameron Diaz fucks a car, THE COUNSELOR is the kind of film that will probably play better on repeat viewings, when it's not hindered by trailer-generated, commercial expectations and its odd rhythms and reams of dialogue can be more closely studied and pondered. The film is directed by Ridley Scott, but like its protagonist, Scott is more of a middleman here in deference to Pulitzer Prize-winning literary icon Cormac McCarthy, penning his first original screenplay at the age of 80, though I suspect he's had this one lying around in outline form for a while. Past McCarthy works like No Country for Old Men and The Road were made into acclaimed films, but the author didn't have a hand in their scripts. McCarthy's prose is such that it doesn't translate well to the screen and needs a screenwriter to pare it down and make it more cinematic (Tommy Lee Jones' monologue at the end of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN being an exception). McCarthy's COUNSELOR script lets his characters talk and philosophize about sex, greed, the nature of manhood, and other moral and ethical quandaries for what are probably pages on end. It's frequently ponderous and pretentious, but with the camera fixated on the actors for long stretches while they speak McCarthy's prose, one can see the appeal for the A-list cast. Never mind that most people generally don't talk the way McCarthy's script has them talking. THE COUNSELOR has some rewards for the informed or for McCarthy disciples, but the impatient or those expecting a commercial action thriller will find it a frustrating couple of hours (I counted two walkouts at a weekday afternoon screening to an audience of about ten, both not long after the "Cameron Diaz fucks a car" scene at the midway point). The reviews have been overwhelmingly negative and while I concede that McCarthy's script probably could've used a neutral editor or at least an uncredited rewrite, it's not the dumpster fire that many have made it out to be. And like many misunderstood films, I'm convinced it will find some appreciation over time, probably sooner rather than later.
It seems like every fall, we get a major nationwide release with a cleverly-assembled trailer to make it look a bit like something that it's not. Last year, it was the criminally underappreciated KILLING THEM SOFTLY, a Brad Pitt vehicle where Pitt didn't even appear until a third of the way in (it's interesting to note that Pitt turns up in THE COUNSELOR in a supporting role). A couple of years back, THE AMERICAN was sold as an action-packed thriller when it turned out to be a somber, meditative, and very European, Jean-Pierre Melville-inspired character study with long, silent stretches of George Clooney looking glum, prompting quite possibly the funniest bit of moviegoer rage I've ever witnessed when an elderly woman shouted "Hang the director!" as the closing credits started rolling. Those are fine films that play even better once you know what to expect from them. THE COUNSELOR is undoubtedly a flawed work, and it hits and misses in equal measure. But it has its moments. And car-fucking.
That sounds like the plot for a kickass thriller, and in some spots, THE COUNSELOR really gets some suspenseful momentum going, especially when the shit hits the fan and the justifiably paranoid Counselor, who foolishly thought he could enter a business arrangement with a drug cartel and emerge unscathed (as Westray tells him, "You're involved!"), starts freaking out and Westray wants nothing more to do with him. The Counselor already has a spotty reputation as a lawyer (there's one scene where a bitter former client played by Toby Kebbell angrily confronts him and warns Laura that her fiance has a habit of throwing people under the bus), and can't handle it when he's the one being unfairly blamed and hung out to dry. But McCarthy isn't so much interested in that as much as he wants to explore the psychological motivation of guys like The Counselor and Reiner, which can essentially be summed up by "pussy." There's a lot of male insecurities being explored in THE COUNSELOR as well as some outright misogyny, particularly with the depiction of Malkina as a ruthless man-eater. So, a lot of the long conversations between the Counselor and Reiner deal with this sort-of self-analytical inadequacy masked as male braggadocio, with Reiner calling women "an expensive habit." At times, it feels like a drug cartel thriller written by Neil LaBute.
While McCarthy's dialogue is frequently cumbersome--Diaz's final monologue is ramblingly incoherent and some of her femme fatale talk a bit too pulpy (Reiner: "Are you really that cold?" Malkina: "The truth has no temperature"), there are some tacky one-liners that get some big, if inappropriate laughs--when Ruth asks the Counselor to pay her son's $400 speeding ticket and offers a blowjob as compensation, the Counselor replies "Then you'd still owe me $380," and Westray tells a joke that goes "How do you know Jesus wasn't born in Mexico? Because he couldn't find three wise men or a virgin." And regardless of whether you laugh out loud or are utterly appalled, Reiner's recounting of Malkina removing her knickers and spread-eagle masturbating against the windshield of his convertible with him in the front seat ("it was like a catfish...one of those bottom-feeders sliding down the aquarium glass") is one of Bardem's finest career moments.
After PROMETHEUS, Scott's often personal, reflective revisit to the ALIEN universe that felt a bit too studio-compromised in its second half, it's interesting that the famed filmmaker would take a sort-of secondary role in something like THE COUNSELOR. Sure, he brings a sense of style and composition to the look of the film, but this is ultimately more McCarthy than Scott. At 75, Scott is still cranking movies out on an almost annual basis (he directed eight films from 2000-2009, and THE COUNSELOR is his third since 2010, with a fourth, the Showtime movie THE VATICAN, set to air by year's end), and THE COUNSELOR is one of the least predictable and most difficult to categorize works in Scott's storied career. You could say THE COUNSELOR is a muddled mess and you wouldn't exactly be wrong. But it's a film whose rewards perhaps aren't as apparent after one viewing. Once the dust from the toxic reviews and the audience antipathy settles, this, like KILLING THEM SOFTLY, which is already enjoying an improved rep just a year after bombing in theaters, will find appreciation and respect on its own bizarre terms. Either that, or maybe I'm giving it too much credit and Scott and McCarthy are just a couple of dirty old men.
Update: review of the 138-minute Unrated Extended Cut can be found here.
