On DVD/Blu-ray: GOD'S POCKET (2014) and BORGMAN (2014)

GOD'S POCKET
(US - 2014)

The feature writing/directing debut of MAD MEN co-star John Slattery is an indie labor of love, based on a 1983 novel by then-Philadelphia Daily News columnist Pete Dexter, inspired by South Philly's Schuylkill neighborhood, known back in the day as "Devil's Pocket." In 1981, Dexter was badly beaten outside a bar by some Devil's Pocket locals who took umbrage with a column he wrote, and that incident is worked into GOD'S POCKET, a well-meaning but slight and flimsy slice-of-life saga that got a middling reaction from Sundance audiences and probably wouldn't have received any post-festival attention at all were it not for the unexpected passing of star Philip Seymour Hoffman in February, just three weeks after he was in Park City promoting it and A MOST WANTED MAN. GOD'S POCKET was commercially released before A MOST WANTED MAN but shot after, making it notable as the last film Hoffman completed before his death (he was nearly finished with his work on the next two simultaneously-shot HUNGER GAMES installments and will still be in both, due out in December 2014 and December 2015). But beyond that and being able to see the great actor in one of his final performances, GOD'S POCKET is pretty forgettable, the kind of film that usually gets accolades at festivals and is never mentioned again. But even the Sundance crowd didn't get that enthused about it. It's not a bad movie by any stretch, but it's rather aimless and has no real purpose. There's some interesting moments, Slattery and co-producer Hoffman were old friends (and they had a great scene together in 2007's CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR), and Slattery also brought along his MAD MEN co-star Christina Hendricks, but GOD'S POCKET is a film where the actors are having more fun than the audience. One is reminded of the old Gene Siskel quote where he would ask "Is this movie more interesting than the same group of actors having lunch?"  No, not really. Watching Slattery, Hoffman, Hendricks, John Turturro, Eddie Marsan, and Richard Jenkins bullshit over pizza and beers would be a far more interesting experience than the bland GOD'S POCKET.

One thing Slattery does right is expressing the period detail in a matter-of-fact fashion without beating you over the head with it. It takes place in the late '70s and he doesn't swamp you with disco hits of the era to make sure you realize that. Of course, a tired, late-film montage to Blind Faith's "Can't Find My Way Home" negates that, but still, the effort is appreciated. God's Pocket is the kind of proud, blue collar enclave where, if you aren't from there, you'll never belong. Mickey Scarpato (Hoffman) is such a guy. A meat salesman and very small-time criminal, Mickey is married to Jeanie (Hendricks), a cop's widow whose son Leon (Caleb Landry Jones of ANTIVIRAL) is killed at a construction site after mouthing off and hurling racial slurs at an elderly black worker. The workers all claim that he hit his head in an accident, but Jeanie isn't buying it and tells Mickey to dig further. But Mickey's preoccupied with paying for Leon's funeral, and he's stuck dealing with price-gouging funeral home owner Smilin' Jack Moran (Marsan), as well as trying to sell his refrigerated truck, which gets stolen while Leon's body--tossed out of Smilin' Jack's funeral home when Mickey couldn't pay the bill--is in the back of it. There's some fleeting moments where some dark humor earns the film some points, and things pick up considerably whenever Hoffman and Turturro (as his gambling-debt-saddled, bad-luck pal) are onscreen together, but too much of GOD'S POCKET just rambles along with no particular place to go, especially the subplot about an alcoholic newspaper columnist (Jenkins) ostensibly trying to dig for the details of Leon's death but really trying to get Jeanie into bed. The film's time element is also badly-handled, with it supposedly taking place over three days, but with entirely too much happening in that small window of time. While it was always a privilege to see Hoffman at work, this won't go down as one of his more memorable films or standout performances. (R, 89 mins)



BORGMAN
(Netherlands/France/Belgium/Denmark - 2013; US release 2014)

Dutch actor/filmmaker Alex van Warmerdam's BORGMAN is loosely inspired by Jean Renoir's 1932 film BOUDU SAVED FROM DROWNING, itself remade by Paul Mazursky in 1986 as DOWN AND OUT IN BEVERLY HILLS. BORGMAN takes the concept to a misanthropic extreme as the title character (Jan Bijvoet) has far more sinister, yet still vague, plans in store for the bourgeois family whose home he insidiously infiltrates. As the film opens, Borgman and several mysterious vagrants are being pursued from a small town by a group of men--including a priest--hoisting shotguns and axes. Borgman, sporting long, unkempt hair and a madman beard, is separated from his cohorts and ends up at the front door of Richard (Jeroen Perceval) and his wife Marina (Hadewych Minis). Borgman insinuates that he knows Marina, which is enough to set Richard off as he beats Borgman and accuses his wife of hiding something from him. Feeling sorry for who she believes to be a homeless unfortunate, Marina permits Borgman to bathe when Richard leaves for work, and allows him to stay in the guest house for a day or two if he stays out of sight. Of course, Borgman enters the house and interacts with the children (who call him a "magician") and the family's disgruntled nanny Stine (Sara Hjort Ditlevsen). Borgman seemingly casts a spell on all of them and phones his cohorts (van Warmerdam among them), who arrive and begin systematically murdering people associated with the family--the gardener, the doctor, anyone who may visit the house--putting their heads in cement and dumping the bodies at the bottom of a nearby lake so they can assume their identities and get on the property. Borgman leaves but returns, clean-shaven, well-groomed, and recognized only by Marina, as Richard hires him to take on the suddenly vacated gardener position. Borgman brings his associates along with him as they move in and slowly take over the household, already on shaky ground with unspoken tension between Richard and Marina. This tension is only magnified with the presence of Borgman, who crouches nude over Marina while she sleeps and somehow influences her dreams with imagery that violently turns her against her husband.

BORGMAN had some interesting potential, but it's heavy-handed and painfully obvious in its soapbox statement-making. Before Borgman inserts himself into their lives, Marina complains of feeling "a warmth that intoxicates but also confuses," all but spelling out that she'll be sexually drawn to Borgman and doing so in ways that no normal person would convey. Van Warmerdam also makes some ham-fisted points about class struggles, as Marina feels overwhelming guilt about their affluence and good fortune, with Borgman representing punishment for their success and upper-class privilege. Marina is also tone-deaf to her hypocrisy, secretly allowing Borgman on the premises early on while later chastising Stine, who politely requests that her on-leave-from-the-military boyfriend be allowed to stay overnight, with a firm "No...I've got to know who I've got under my roof." Bijvoet is OK as Borgman, but the more the film goes on, the more obscure his motives become and he's more or less just part of the scenery while the family--slowly being poisoned literally and figuratively--disintegrates around him. BORGMAN is essentially the Renoir and Mazursky films revamped through a Michael Haneke filter. We've been down this road before with Haneke's 1997 and 2008 versions of FUNNY GAMES and Yorgos Lanthimos' DOGTOOTH (2009), and the tedious BORGMAN brings little new to the table other than tame transgression and a ponderous sense of self-importance. (Unrated, 113 mins)

In Theaters: A MOST WANTED MAN (2014)

A MOST WANTED MAN
(UK/US/Germany - 2014)

Directed by Anton Corbijn. Written by Andrew Bovell and Stephen Cornwell. Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rachel McAdams, Willem Dafoe, Robin Wright, Grigoriy Dobrygin, Daniel Bruhl, Nina Hoss, Homayoun Ershadi, Mehdi Debhi, Rainer Bock, Herbert Gronemeyer, Vicky Krieps, Martin Wuttke, Max Volkert Martens. (R, 122 mins)

The late Philip Seymour Hoffman had two films in the can and he was nearly finished with his scenes on the next two HUNGER GAMES installments when he died of a heroin overdose on February 2, 2014. To say that modern cinema has lost one of its greatest actors isn't an exaggeration: a look at Hoffman's credits over the last 15-20 years brings back memories of so many unforgettable characters: the obnoxious, "shaka-laka-doobie-do" craps player in HARD EIGHT; the awkward, closeted production assistant pining for Dirk Diggler in BOOGIE NIGHTS; the obscene phone caller in HAPPINESS; dispensing sage-like wisdom as Lester Bangs in ALMOST FAMOUS; the gas-huffing widower in LOVE LIZA; the gambling-addicted bank manager in OWNING MAHOWNY; his Oscar-winning turn as CAPOTE; the scheming son orchestrating a robbery gone horribly awry in BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD; the theater director given an unlimited budget to create his life's work in SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK; the priest who may or may not be abusing altar boys in DOUBT; the L. Ron Hubbard figure in THE MASTER. Just 46 when he died, Hoffman already amassed a body of work that gave significant credibility to the notion that he was the best of his generation, but it's depressing to think of all the great performances he still had left in him.

Philip Seymour Hoffman (1967-2014)

Shot two years ago, A MOST WANTED MAN, based on the 2008 novel by the seemingly ageless John le Carre, grants Hoffman another memorable character into which he vanishes completely: Gunther Bachmann, a German counterterrorism agent based in Hamburg. Like most of the protagonists in le Carre's perpetually gray and dreary, Spy Who Came in From the Cold settings, Bachmann is weary, rumpled, jaded, and cynical. He has no apparent life outside of his job, he chain smokes, lives on black coffee, whiskey, and fast food, probably sleeps in his office most nights, and wears the same clothes several days in a row. He feels the Hamburg assignment is punishment for a job that went south on his watch in Beirut, resulting in the deaths of most of his team. Bachmann is the beaten-down-by-life doppelganger of Hoffman's bellicose Gust Avrakatos in CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR. But Hamburg is actually an important post, being the residence of 9/11 hijacker/ringleader Mohammed Atta prior to the terrorist attacks in 2001, and Bachmann believes he's on to something with respected philanthropist, Islam expert, and anti-terrorism lecturer Dr. Faisal Abdullah (Homayoun Ershadi).  Records of Abdullah's many charitable donations always show a discrepancy involving a mysterious shipping company based in Cyprus, through which Bachmann believes the doctor is funneling money to terrorist organizations. Meanwhile, Issa Karpov (Grigoriy Dobrygin), a Russian/Chechen fugitive, has escaped captivity and made his way to Hamburg. Believed to have terrorist ties that may involve Abdullah, Bachmann and his team keep surveillance on both men. Karpov is led to left-wing, civil-rights activist lawyer (or, as Bachmann calls her, "a terrorist social worker") Annabel Richter (Rachel McAdams), who agrees to oversee his collecting an inheritance from his late father that's being kept in a bank owned by Tommy Brue (Willem Dafoe). Having been tortured in Russian and Chechen prisons and renouncing all terrorist beliefs, Karpov wishes to take his inheritance and donate it to the worthy causes of the outwardly altruistic Abdullah. With the German government breathing down his neck for results and believing Karpov innocent, Bachmann instead wants to use Karpov to nail Abdullah, teaming with opportunistic CIA operative Martha Sullivan (Robin Wright) to set Karpov and Annabel up at a safe house while they put the complex plan in motion.

Like Tomas Alfredson's masterful TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (2011), A MOST WANTED MAN is a melancholy slow-burner for grown-up audiences. There's a lot of espionage machinations and what little there is in the way of action doesn't play at all like a typical spy-movie crowd-pleaser, with Bachmann gasping and wheezing after being on the losing end of a foot chase. The film is directed by Anton Corbijn, whose last effort was the glacially-paced, Euro-styled George Clooney mood piece THE AMERICAN (2010), a very good film sold as a commercial shoot 'em up actioner when it fact it was a somber, morose Jean-Pierre Melville homage that should've played the art-house circuit (still one of the funniest things I've ever witnessed in a movie theater: an older woman at a matinee of THE AMERICAN standing up and shouting "Hang the director!" as the closing credits rolled). A MOST WANTED MAN isn't quite as austere as THE AMERICAN, and it's forcefully driven by one of Hoffman's greatest performances. Again disappearing into a role, Hoffman's German accent is flawless from the start and you immediately forget you're watching Philip Seymour Hoffman. Hoffman was always an actor who committed regardless of how undignified he had to be, and his out-of-shape, overweight Bachmann, his belly hanging over his belt and his breathing labored with audible congestion between every drag on the cigarette constantly between his lips, is a vividly real characterization. Given his unexpected passing, most of the focus of A MOST WANTED MAN will be on him, but the rest of the cast does excellent work as well, particularly McAdams and Dafoe, both offering German accents just as convincing as Hoffman's. Scripted by Andrew Bovell, with an "additional writing" credit for le Carre's son and co-producer Stephen Cornwell, A MOST WANTED MAN is the kind of summer movie specifically engineered as counterprogramming for adult audiences, but at the same time, it's a bittersweet reminder that we've lost a gifted, one-of-a-kind actor whose absence will be felt for years to come.

In Theaters: THE MASTER (2012)

THE MASTER
(US - 2012)

Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.  Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Laura Dern, Ambyr Childers, Jesse Plemons, Rami Malek, Kevin J. O'Connor, Madisen Beaty, Christopher Evan Welch. (R, 138 mins)

Don't look for any straightforward storytelling in THE MASTER, easily the most impenetrable and difficult work yet from Paul Thomas Anderson.  Drifting away from the kinetic, propulsive, last-third-of-Scorsese's GOODFELLAS-style structure of BOOGIE NIGHTS (1997) and MAGNOLIA (1999) and feeling colder and even more stand-offish than his most recent film, THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007), THE MASTER is not something easily digested in one viewing or even five.  I'm not even sure if I like it, and that's never been a reaction I've had after seeing a Paul Thomas Anderson film (BOOGIE NIGHTS is probably my favorite film of the 1990s). There's a lot to admire in THE MASTER, but it's a film that never lets you in, and not in the way of needing everything explained to you.  It keeps you at a distance and really doesn't let you know entirely what's going on or what the stakes are or why some people behave the way they do. 

Joaquin Phoenix, in his first film since his I'M STILL HERE/"retiring from acting to become a rap star" prank/debacle that claimed James Gray's excellent TWO LOVERS as a casualty, stars as Freddie Quell, a disturbed WWII vet trying to adjust to postwar life.  He's belligerent, antisocial, drinks too much (making his own concoctions with distilled paint thinner), and seems to have an immature fixation on the female anatomy.  His unpredictable, often violent behavior gets him tossed from job after job, and by chance, he stows away on a boat that's hosting an extended wedding party for the daughter of Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman).  Dodd is a doctor, a philosopher, and the guru of a new religious belief known as The Cause (intended by Anderson to represent L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology, though the film isn't specifically about the religion itself).  With nowhere else to go, and with Dodd enjoying his unusual beverage concoctions, Freddie becomes Dodd's de facto right-hand man in his quest to legitimize The Cause, even physically assaulting those who dare to question Dodd's teachings.  From then on, the film focuses on the relationship between Dodd--"The Master"--and Freddie, and there's any number of interpretations to draw from it.  Are they two sides of the same coin?  Have they met, either in this life or in another?  Is Freddie a spy who might turn on Dodd?  Is Freddie welcomed into the Dodd family much like Mark Wahlberg's Dirk Diggler became part of the family of Burt Reynolds' Jack Horner in BOOGIE NIGHTS?  Is this all a complicated man-crush or is unrequited, or even forbidden love?

THE MASTER looks stunning, from the beautiful cinematography to the painstaking production design and period detail.  Hoffman is a commanding presence, and he's matched by Amy Adams as Dodd's devoted, controlling wife Peggy, who may be more in charge of The Cause than Dodd's devoted followers think. You've never seen Adams like this before, putting a disturbing spin on her inherent red-headed feistiness to where Peggy is either very brainwashed or she the one really calling the shots.  Is she jealous of Dodd's bond with Freddie?  Why does she tell him he can do whatever he wants as long as she or people they know don't find out about it?  And why does she do this while jerking Dodd off and calmly demanding "Come for me"? 

It's Phoenix who gets the film's most difficult and problematic role, and he too often succumbs to hamming it up and going overboard with the tics and mannerisms, but he has to keep up such a tortured intensity between Freddie's contorted stature and his weird body language that the actor looks like he's in constant physical pain.  It's a brave performance and an almost impossible role to play, and I'm still not sure whether my issues are with the character or with the way Phoenix is playing him.  But there's no denying how brilliant he is in his "sessions" with Hoffman's Dodd, or when Dodd makes Freddie go through an entire day of repetitively walking across a room and describing the wall and the window, or in one amazing scene of sustained, top-of-their-voice shouting from Phoenix and Hoffman as their characters argue in adjacent jail cells.

I'm still not sure what to make of THE MASTER.  On one hand, it's too original, bold, and inventive to dismiss, but on the other, it's the first time I've felt Anderson was being pompous and pretentious, and a "Slow Boat to China" serenade isn't quite "I drink your milkshake!"  In equal measures brilliant and overwrought, ambitious and aloof,  hypnotic and baffling, THE MASTER is like no other film you've ever seen (except maybe John Huston's long-buried 1946 documentary LET THERE BE LIGHT, from which Anderson quoted several lines of dialogue), which is what we've come to expect from Paul Thomas Anderson.  And like it or not, he's made the film he wanted to make.  I'm just not quite sure what he wanted.