Month: February 2013

I don’t know wrestling from NASCAR, so Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was an unknown to me before he started acting in movies. You may hear that in Snitch, his acting takes a newfangled turn for subtlety. Let’s not get carried away. While Snitch is far more enjoyable than it has a right to be, Johnson is only part of it. Vivid performaces by Barry Pepper, Michael Kenneth Williams and Susan Sarandon offset a creaky plot and a preachy theme. And, the film’s farfetched tomfoolery aside, a potentially star-making turn by Jon Bernthal seals it in the winner’s column.

The proverbially “based on true events” Snitch has itself in a huff about mandatory drug sentences for first-time offenders. Johnson’s estranged son receives a UPS package with enough Ecstasy in it to fuel a stadium-sized Rave, and Federal drug agents knock at his door almost instantly. Led by Pepper, who’s wearing comical facial hair reminiscent of Frank Zappa in his heyday, they arrest the frightened kid at gunpoint. A PBS Frontline episode told the original story of a man named James Settembrino agreeing to infiltrate drug dealers and turn in some suspects to save his son from serving a full 10 year sentence for possession of LSD. It’s no sin in itself that director Rick Roman Waugh blows up the real story into a yarn that has The Rock going after no less than a Mexican drug cartel led by Benjamin Bratt. While the climax of the film forays into weariness, getting there proves to be fun. Credit Wright for almost hiding more than a couple of plot holes while his actors do the rest.

On the way to paydirt, The Rock encounters a no-nonsense district attorney who’s running for Congress (Sarandon) and her savvy lead investigator (Pepper). His first foray into undercover drug-and-hood politics brings him to a steely, wackadoodle drug player, Michael Kenneth Williams (Omar from The Wire), who commands a heaping load of respect. Tension nicely substitutes for action and Bernthal’s vibrant presence as Johnson’s employee–an ex-con who wants to stay straight–provides the film a welcomed noir-ish tone. Bernthal gives in to Johnson’s demand to provide “an introduction” to the underworld and the two become partners, tiptoeing around Williams. Once we get into drug cartel territory, the tension simmers down some and the sluggish cliches become more frequent. Still, as a well acted tale of a desperate father looking to right a wrong, Snitch is an improvement on the largely deployable batch of January/February overwrought action flicks. It may be bumbling at times and former stuntman Waugh is often clueless in his framing of his shots, but Snitch manages to burnish a strange panache of sorts. Bernthal’s performance cranks things up enough to give you enough time to actually enjoy the film before you eventually scratch your head over the film’s culpable plot contrivances.

3 The Rock Steps Into An Acting Clinic Chokehold (out of 5)

The trouble with the hyper-action genre is that it is becoming virtually impossible to find plausibility while action sequences become more slick and over-the-top. Unremittingly senseless, A Good Day To Die Hard bum rushes its way to inanity before you’ve had a chance to open your popcorn. In a chase scene long enough to feel like a movie within a movie, the ever venerable John McClane (Bruce Willis) rescues his son, Jack (Jai Courtney) and a sprung-from-custody Russian political prisoner, Komarov (Sebastian Koch). They spend the rest of the film nominally pursuing an ultra important file locked away in Chernobyl of all places.

Two scenes vie for most ludicrous:
1) Willis, while car jacking a Russian motorist, wallops him when he resists, and spews out the ultimate American exceptionalist punchline: “Do you think I understand a word you’re saying?”
2) Komarov’s’s daughter Irina (a foxy Yuliya Snigir) strips off her protective gas mask at Chernobyl and actually SNIFFS the air to test it for toxicity, like a mother sniffing inside her toddler’s drawers for a sure sign of trouble.

However, unlike previous films in the franchise, Willis here offers few noteworthy one-liners. Oh, when he discovers Jack, his highly estranged son, is a CIA operative, he blurts out something about Jack being involved in some “spy shit.” But mostly John reverts to several repeats of “I’m supposed to be on vacation” as he gets further involved in fighting off a horde of bad guys supported by the Russian head of state. Sadly, the “vacation” line doesn’t have the impact of, say, the “I wasn’t even supposed to be working today” line uttered so effectively in the film Clerks. And if it’s a father-son dramatic theme you want in your action cereal, see the new Dwayne Johnson film instead. At least the acting in that is believable.
Rather, in A Good Day To Die Hard, a tsunami of silly, sedative-inducing action drowns out what little paint-by-number plot and character elements director John Moore has thrown in like so many reluctant croutons in a soup of sludge.

1 1/2 Bruce Willis Says His Family Comes First These Days–It Shows (out of 5)

Lucky Rooney Mara. First she gets to star in a David Fincher film (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo). Then, as if she’s searched far and wide for an equivalent film stylist, she finds herself working with Steven Soderbergh. Soderbegh’s love of his craft knows few boundaries. He regularly shoots and edits his works himself under clever familial pseudonyms (copping his dad’s names Peter Andrews as cinematographer and his mother’s maiden name, Mary Ann Bernard, as editor). His films exude craftsmanship even when they’re occasionally not very good (last year’s Haywire) or fall just short (2011’s Contagion). When he’s at the top of his game (Traffic, Out Of Sight, The Girlfriend Experience), his savvy with the camera and intuitive editing know few peers.

What a pity if, as he claims, he’s really retiring (at 50!), but Steven Soderbergh, after a winsome Magic Mike, has achieved an entertaining and thoughtful mindblower in Side Effects. To be sure, it’s one of those films (like 2011’s excellent Double Hour) where the less you know going into it, the better your viewing experience will be. Thus, I will reveal only minimal plot details. Let’s just say it touches on the pharmaceutical industry’s antidepressant drugs and their possible nasty side effects, and the treatments and talk therapies of Mara’s current and former psychiatrists (an excellent Jude Law, and Catherine Zeta-Jones). Then it sneakily evolves into a Hitchockian crime thriller. Yeah, I know. The term Hitchcockian often gets bandied about with careless abandon, but not here. The twists and turns in Side Effects are fun to behold. All the while Soderbergh’s direction maintains a quirky detachment. His cleverness seems innocent, as if he’s as surprised as the viewer at screenwriter Scott Z. Burns’ red herrings and detours.

Mara, thoroughly owning her character, plays a wounded bird of a woman whose fragility is palpable. Her depression seems an insurmountable problem when she meets Law, who treats her instead of commits her after she survives driving her car into a wall. That’s just the beginning of a wild ride into deception, revenge, and not a little satire regarding a fictitious miracle drug, Ablixa. Better living through chemistry meets $50,000 psychiatrist honorariums.

If these elements seem an unlikely stew, you’re getting warm. Highly original, Side Effects never loses its footing. Law deftly portrays a man who is, initially, always in control of himself. His responses when he believes he’s caught in a sting and begins to unravel are one of the highlights of the film. Has the shrink lost his mind? His compelling performance draws us into a labyrinth that doesn’t let up until the final scene–one which, side by side with its natural catharsis, felt a little bittersweet if this is really Soderbergh’s last theatrical feature. Why don’t we ever hear of the countless mediocre directors out there hanging up their cameras? Oh well, he says he’s likely to still direct in other mediums, possibly television, where his upcoming biopic of Liberace will air on HBO. Hollywood film studios all turned down the project. From a four-hour long bio of Che Guevara to Liberace, Soderbergh often goes where no one else dares. In Side Effects, he goes where many have gone. He just does it better.

4 There’s Something Happening here But You Don’t Know What It Is–Do you Mr Jones? (out of 5)

Identity Thief gains no bonus points by flaunting its idiocy. From an utterly inane concept to an essentially senseless execution, Seth Gordon’s follow-up to his infinitely funnier Horrible Bosses exists mostly on its own planet of ineptness. Do you like Melissa McCarthy? Check out Bridesmaids or This Is 40 for a more concentrated dose of her crude schtick without this film’s headscratching premise or its patronizing sentimentality. What, you like her enough you’re willing to be the masochist for this film’s sappy shenanigans and mannered malarkey? Just consider a guy (the hapless Jason Bateman) decides to travel from his home in Denver to Florida, where he’ll confront and basically kidnap the thief of his identity (McCarthy) in order to–what?–bring her back so she can confess to his boss (John Cho) and keep him in good standing at his new job. Seems his credit rating has dived “as low as a homeless person.” Then, the plan goes, he’ll sneakily bring the cops in and get her arrested.

McCarthy sucker punches guys in the throat numerous times in what can best be described as a Moe from the Three Stooges move. She effortlessly manipulates Bateman, dodges two different enemies who are looking to kill her and Bateman (don’t ask) and finally talks Bateman into joining her in credit card fraud by posing as a bigwig (John Favreau) who once treated him poorly. Of course, Bateman only decided to go along with the stunt because he lost all his money when he left his pants behind after getting attacked by a friggin’ snake when he and McCarthy, suddenly carless, were forced to take a shortcut hike deep in the woods. The film, meanwhile, goes deeper and deeper in the weeds.

The most ridiculous moment might be McCarthy and Bateman enjoying a 5-star hotel in St. Louis with the stolen credit card. It doesn’t take an ignoramus to figure out the phony card will be discovered pronto so the worst thing in the whole wide world is naturally to stay in one place and wait to get caught. No worries. McCarthy breaks out of a police car by smashing its window and the dynamic duo walk down some magic staircase to freedom while the cops are distracted by one of the pursuing killers (remember them?)….It gets worse. Bateman and the ever-normal Amanda Pete, as his wife, ultimately take a shining to McCarthy, allow her to ingratiate herself to their kids, and give her the utmost respect–all for no apparent reason other than she was an orphan who caught a bad break. Oh boy oh boy oh boy—McCarthy’s acting like a freaky chick again. Mere sputtering through the motions, I say.

1 Ugly Film Looking For a Way Out (out of 5)

Is it possible Al Pacino often selects screenplays that prove challenging in an all too unusual manner? “Let’s see if I can overcome even THIS stinker” he seems to be saying to himself as he acts up a storm in Stand Up Guys, which also boasts Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin for good measure. After seeing the film, close your eyes and try to imagine anyone besides Pacino in the lead role. The result, which isn’t unsatisfying with Pacino, would be plain ugly with just about any other actor taking on Valentine, an ex-con who gets out of jail after 28 years only to embark on 24 hours or so of amusing misadventures. Buddy Walken, who Pacino took the prison hit for, picks up Al as he leaves the jail, and, we soon realize, must slay Al to save his own skin from a comically vicious mob boss. Al catches on soon enough yet he’s surprisingly resigned to his fate. He’s so busy entertaining himself (and us) that he hardly seems to notice the gravity of his situation.

Before we know it, there are hookers, a stolen car, numerous retail break-ins, and a break out of a nursing home of fellow pal Alan Arkin, who loves driving the car they stole since that’s what he used to do in “the old days,” when they were all a team. Just to show the old guys can still do it, they even bust on a young gang who gave a young woman such a hard time she ended up in the trunk of the aforementioned stolen car. Throw in an impromptu funeral for sentiment’s sake, and a possible estranged granddaughter. Through it all Pacino soars like a pro who starred in a few of the greatest films of all time and can do Shakespeare in his sleep. Farcical comedy? No problem. He’s got the timing, the exact timbre of voice and the panache to pull it off and make you forget the script basically makes no sense. Not an easy feat. Go Al. Unlike genuine January stinkers Gangster Squad and Broken City, where good acting shaded lousy concepts and writing, here the acting takes on a life of its own, allowing one to question the need to assess solely on terms of credibility or logic. Unless, of course, you don’t particularly care for Pacino, in which case you’re screwed.

3 Al Pacino Fans Only (out of 5)