Author: Don Malvasi

Human Capital blends a razor-sharp depiction of Italian class tension with an engrossing mystery. Based on a novel by American author Stephen Amidon, the film unfolds in separate chapters, each of which repeats the same events from the different perspectives of various characters. The film, deriving its title from the world of insurance, boasts powerful performances all around, especially by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (sister of Carla Bruni) as the neglected, troubled wife of super rich Giovanni (Fabrizio Gifune). Matilde Gioli is also especially riveting as Serena, the morally torn daughter of the social climbing, loquacious and greedy buffoon, Dino (Fabrizio Bentivoglio). In this age of corporate golden parachutes, the milieu of persistent greed could not be better portrayed than here. By film’s end Human Capital provides not only a highly entertaining suspense yarn but also a cynical but spot-on warning of what rountinely happens when self-interest obliterates empathy and when human values take a backseat to ambition.

(4.5 out of 5 stars).

When Marieme establishes footing in a girl gang outside of Paris, she seems content to gain an identity she never was able to get from her traditional, broken family. A brother who treats her terribly eventually forces her to abandon her three girlfriends in the gang because she violates what he perceives as a cultural taboo. For every new life she embarks on, she makes a major hairdo change. By film’s end, she’s left with nothing, a victim of a nasty environment that offers no good choices. Forced by necessity to harden herself, she never gives up her right to be vulnerable, and eventually, however bleak her options, her own woman. Karidja Toure (Marieme) shows enough potential we may soon be hearing from her in a major way. And Rhianna’s “Diamonds,” sung with feeling by the girls wearing stolen outfits in a hotel room paid for with hustled cash, never sounded so (ironically) inspired

(3 out of 5 stars).

French Canadian wunderkind Xavier Dolan (he made and starred in I Killed My Mother at 19) seriously gets in you face with the extravagantly jarring Mommy. The brutal arguments between out-of-his-mind, tantalizing, violent-zero me, ADHD 15-year-old Steve (Antoine-Olivier Platt) and his tough yet unconditionally compassionate mom Diane (a great Anne Dorval) have to be seen to be believed. Dolan has an eye for marvelous shots and his use of the narrow 1:1 screen ratio, highly effective In itself, produced an anticipation of wondering when he was going to spring the change of ratio to full-blown wide screen. Technical marvels aside, Mommy is essentially about a mother’s love. After Steve, who’s also been known to wet his pants, expresses fear to Diane that she’ll stop loving him, she replies, “What’s gonna happen is I’m gonna be loving you more and more, and you’ll be loving me less and less. That’s just the natural way of life.”

(4.5 out of 5 stars)

A third act revelation either enhances or compromises the unique documentary The Overnighters–see it and decide. Pastor Jay Reinke opens his church and even his own home, to eventually thousands of migrant job-seekers, including some with criminal records, in the oil-boom North Dakota town of Williston. Reinke’s the kind of guy who would give you the shirt off his back and his cornball ways, if anything, add to his picture of sincerity. When he goes up against a town of resisters, it’s easy to root for him and reflect on his selfless altruism. Then the film sends you home scratching your head, the heroic deeds suddenly overshadowed. Or are they?

(3.5 out of 5 stars)

Lou de Laage excels as Sarah, the new kid in town in Breathe, the impressive, confident first feature directed by French actress Melanie Laurent (Inglorous Basterds, Beginners, Enemy). The story of an opposites-attract teenage friendship between Sarah and Charlie (Josephine Japy) that gradually turns abusive never feels fake. As secrets about Sarah are gradually revealed, it prompts her to recoil at Charlie in sickly inventive ways. Charlie then undergoes a noticeable change in her appearance and mannerisms. The push-pull manipulation of the weaker, more docile Charlie by the headstrong, unsympathetic Sarah would be a bit much for any kid in the normal range of self-esteem. With fragile flower Charlie, it looks more and more like something out of the ordinary is going to happen….

(3.5 out of 5 stars)

Imagine the chilling opening beach scene from Saving Private Ryan–only for an entire film. It’s no wonder since director David Ayer (the vastly underrated LAPD flick, End of Watch) is at the helm. No brutality, however gory and explicit, is spared. No doubt there will be cries of “war porn” with Fury but they would be misguided. If anything, the film should be charged with updating the classic World War II genre to a level of technical expertise commiserate with present day film technology–hardly a crime. Unlike the equally savage but one dimensional and ultimately monotonous Lone Survivor, there is plenty of dramatic rhythm in this film. What counts is whether the characters make the proceedings believable. Thanks to a very good Brad Pitt and a fine supporting cast, this five man crew earn the viewer’s empathy despite offering an essentially bleak, queasy film experience. War is hell, war is hell, war is hell–when’s it all going to stop for these guys. Pitt makes you care. He’s a total nutbag, as irrational as he is stern. When he takes pause to freshen up after breaking into the apartment of a vanquished pair of fräuleins, we aren’t sure what he is going to do. Instead of harming them, he hangs them a carton of eggs and protects them from the rest of his crew. What could have come off corny in the wrong hands, earns a very touching outcome as the youngest member of Wardaddy’s crew, Norman (Logan Lerman) a war rookie, gains a chance to briefly return to life’s tender side. He surprisingly sits at the girls’ piano and belts out a classical piece, while one of the girls joins in on vocals.

Such endearing moments are rare when it’s April, 1945, and you are manning an M4 Sherman tank in the middle of Germany. Ayer reminds us the Germans desperately got even crazier as the war was nearing it’s end. Women and children, some very young, were forced into battle. Along the way, parents who refused to cooperate and turn over their kids to The Nazi war machine are shown hanging dead along the roadway as reminders of what happens to those who could not bring themselves to be part of the madness. I don’t remember seeing that before from any of the 1950s and 60s war films I watched as a kid.

Wardaddy knows how to speak German, somewhat of a shorthand plot facilitator, but an effective one nonetheless. His crew respect him dearly. There’s the religious man, Bible (ironically played by gossip mag bad boy Shia LaBeouf), the earthy gunner, Gordo (Michael Pena), who, to quote Wardaddy, occasionally slips into “speaking Mexican,” and the rebellious loose cannon, “Coon-Ass” (character actor Jon Bernthal, who keeps getting better and better). The rookie, looking like an out of place choir boy when he first appears to replace a beloved, recently deceased comrade of the group, gradually catches on and assumes a fiercer persona. Ayer forces us to feel his fear. The scenes between Pitt and Lerman are mostly terrific. He instills in the kid what he views as the required zeal for the bloodthirsty brutality necessary for survival. When we look at the reverence the rest of the crew have for the tough-as-nails Wardaddy, we realize their admiration rises from their sharing of that view. However nuts it is, the only way to survive is to be sicker and more violent than your enemy, to want to kill the brutes even more than they want to kill you. Or, as Wardaddy puts it, “Ideals are peaceful. History is violent.”

4 Unspeakable Brutalities Circa 1945 Germany (out of five stars)

Jeremy Renner made a splash in the Oscar-winning Hurt Locker. After equally talented performances in supporting roles in American Hustle and The Immigrant, he’s back in a starring role in the well-intentioned, occasionally stirring Kill The Messenger. Renner plays Gary Webb, a journalist with the minor-league newspaper The San Jose Mercury News in 1996. Iran/Contra, around a decade earlier, is still fresh in the minds of many who feel Ronald Reagan severely overstepped his bounds. To refresh your memory, the Reagan administration was caught red-handed covertly selling arms to Iran to fund the Nicaraguan Contras in their effort to overthrow the democratically elected, but left-leaning Nicaraguan government. Where there’s smoke there’s often a far-worse fire.

Webb uncovers an even more insidious clandestine plot to fund The Contras. Using sources including a former drug pin (Andy Garcia) inside a Nicaraguan prison, Webb finds evidence The CIA either looked the other way or was actually involved in the selling of the newly emerging drug, crack cocaine, to unsuspecting victims in American ghettos. Monies were also turned over to the Contras. When the story breaks, California Representative Maxine Waters and other civil rights leaders go ballistic. Equally peeved for entirely different reasons are the CIA, who call in Webb for a little talk, and many in the establishment media, who felt scooped by a nobody on a huge story.

Kill The Messenger, based on Webb’s book, Dark Alliance, is largely about the taking down of a reporter. Director Michael Cuesta,who has directed episodes of the television series, Homeland, is good at getting close-up to creepily eerie developments. Shady men show up snooping around Webb’s house, The Washington Post goes after the accuracy of his story, and even his own wife (Rosemarie De Witt) questions his willingness to persevere despite enormous pressure. His own editors finally back down and retract a major portion of the story. Meanwhile, for every obstacle presented, Webb gains a level of intensity. Reassigned to what is the equivalent of a journalistic Siberia at a small town newspaper, Webb keeps on keeping on. Pressed to find a CIA source to support his allegations, Webb is surprised to find a mysterious Ray Liotta pop up in the motel room that Webb has been keeping himself. He walks in like he’s from a whole other movie but the scene, surprisingly, refrains from becoming ridiculous.

The film’s final scene of Webb standing at a lecturn in front of his peers ready to accept a journalism prize, seems discordant with the turn of events between Webb and his newspaper. It feels forced and Hollywood-blow up. Kill The Messenger’s coda provides a sad return to reality: Webb committed suicide in 2004. I have no idea if he used the same gun he pulled out to fire a warning shot at those shady guys lurking outside his house after his story broke.

Truth Teller Gets Tagged From Both Ends…3.5 (out of 5) stars

Hank, a slick, iconoclastic Chicago defense lawyer (Robert Downey Jr.) asks prospective jurors what message is on their bumper sticker. In the very first scene, he also pees on his opposing prosecutor while they both visit a men’s room. The wildly uneven yet ultimately successful The Judge constantly veers between a deep, estranged father/son tale and a bordering-on-mush TV-movie. The “good” flick wins out over the “bad” in a squeaker thanks to marvelous turns by Robet Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall.

Dad (Duvall) too, is a legal guy, a judge. In fact, everyone calls him “Judge”–including his own sons, which, besides Hank, includes Glen (Vincent D’Onofrio) and the slow-witted Dale (Jeremy Strong) Hank hasn’t talked to Judge in ages when he comes back to their southern Indiana hometown for his mother’s funeral. He’s ready to go back to Chicago when, as they used to say in a certain old sitcom, a revolting development occurs. Seems Judge struck and killed a man with his prized antique Coupe de Ville and there’s blood on the vehicle like so much potential proof. Oh, and the man The Judge allegedly killed was the same guy he once gave a light sentence to only to have the lucky bastard commit a ghastly crime soon after. Since that tarnished Judge’s fine reputation, there’s also motive. While we won’t find out for awhile just what caused the rift between father and son or exactly how Glen fits in, Hank goes nuts watching the local bumpkin lawyer attempt to represent Judge, and eventually throws himself into the case. Billy Bob Thornton, of all actors, plays the prosecutor. He’s by no means Bad Santa here–more like Good Lawyer, quiet-mannered but still with hus trademark smirk.

The Judge, directed by David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers) wears many hats: courtroom drama–check; family melodrama–check. In addition to coming around to some sort of rapprochement with his Dad, Hank also juggles a young daughter, a former girlfriend who never left the hometown (Vera Farmiga, very good, as usual), and her grown daughter (Leighton Meester), who may or may not be Hank’s, and who he may or may not tell mom he made out with before he knew who she was the first night he came back home. The Judge mixes these threads fairly well, but at 2 hour, 22 minutes, screenwriters Nick Schenk (the underrated Gran Torino) and Bill Dubuque might have better served themselves with a good trim.

Now for Duvall. At 83, he displays a command here that gives goosebumps. A cantankerous, merciless type, he nonetheless inspires an empathy. In a memorable scene where his failing health requires from Hank a dutifulness beyond the usual niceties, we catch the two consummate pros at the very top of their game. Their differences suddenly seem to pale once the two enjoy a laugh together despite th scatological challenging circumstances. Downey is best at the sardonic, rapid-fire wit-laden tirades that we come to identify with Hank. Yet he also shows he can do warm and fuzzy after a lot of years of nearly exclusively playing Tony Stark and Sherlock Holmes. In a film that wobbles a little too much at times, watching these two go at it should be quite enough to sustain interest until the real heavyweight fall films arrive.

Two Peerless Actors Save A Film…3.5 (out of 5) stars

The less said about the plot of Gone Girl the better. Suffice it to say it is a biting, grisly crime film equally concerned with the nature of secrets in marriage, public media image, and the criminal mind than with the nuts and bolts of linear narration. Yet the story is so mind-blowing it would cross over onto the outlandish we’re it not for the knowing hands of director David Fincher, and the faithful-to-the-novel screenplay adaptation by the best-selling book’s author, Gillian Flynn. (Cognizant, it was a story chock full of surprises, I chose not to read the novel beforehand, wishing to savor every twist and turn.)

Fincher (The Social Network, Seven, Zodiac, Fight Club, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) does not disappoint here. With his less-is-more manner of unveiling twists, he constantly plays with our heads. Edits are razor-sharp as time shifts occur without an iota of disruption to the proceedings. Regular Fincher collaborator Trent Reznor’s offbeat score is understated yet chilling. The casting is impeccable. In a star-making turn, Rosamund Pike is the real treasure here yet Ben Affleck holds his own, matching her every acting move. The movie gains an extra intensity with Pike’s presence versus an established star actress. In a role where we need to buy some pretty outrageous developments, she nails the role without proving to be a distraction and her lack of celebrity lends a just-a-regular-girl quality that gives extra immediacy to her most surprising character revelations.

Pike plays Amy Dunne, far wealthier and more sophisticated than her more submissive spouse, Nick (Affleck). Not long after Nick loses his job as a magazine writer, they uproot from New York City to his hometown in Missouri to be closer to his dying mom. Once the inspiration for her parents’ famous young reader book character Amazing Amy, Amy was actually a child who gave up the cello at age 10 while prodigy Amy became a world-class master of the instrument. At an early age, she develops a talent for role-playing that will extend to devising sophisticated treasure hunts for Ben. The film establishes the euphoria of Amy and Ben’s courtship, and aside from an unsettling opening scene, provides little else about the present-day couple when Amy suddenly disappears.

As secrets begin to unfold in rapid-fire manner, Ben takes solace with his twin sister, Margo (a very good Carroe Coon), trying to figure things out while a police investigation and seemingly omnipresent true crime TV coverage ensue. Ben eventually hires high-power defense attorney Tanner Bolt (an excellent Tyler Perry). In the film’s most amusing scene, Bolt hurls gummy bears at Nick while rehearsing him for an appearance on a Nancy Grace-style show. Yes, it’s one of those movie TV shows that seems to be “on” every time someone in the film turns on a television yet Fincher gets license here because he handles the whole larger issue of media saturation convincingly.

Gone Girl is so much more than a did-he-or-didn’t-he proposition. Amy is steadfast, cunning, controlling, the occasional crack in her armor revealing a profound sense of vulnerability. Nick is agreeable if in an often vexing manner, surprisingly anger-prone, yet sneakily self-assured. Things are not as they seem, then they change again. And again. By the end this viewer felt worn-out, practically battered–mostly in the same satisfied way after watching any perfectly rendered thriller. What’s different about Gone Girl is after it’s all over, a lingering uneasiness presents itself. Most good suspense movies work toward unfastening their knots. Gone girl concludes with the actual fixing of a noose around our expectations.

Some may criticize the film by projecting their ideology on what is perceived to be a statement on gender politics. Gone Girl actually goes for a far more universal flailing of human nature in all its frailty. While domestic hell hasn’t been portrayed this caustically since The War of the Roses, Gone Girl essentially doesn’t take sides. Always dark, Fincher is far more content with seeing just how deep his darkness can go. Deception, exploitation and accommodation have rarely been portrayed this bleakly. Or this deliciously.

A Must-See Daredevil Ride/One of the Year’s Best….4.5 (out of 5 stars)

Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader, playing estranged twins with depression issues, discordantly slip into Saturday Night Live mode once too often during The Skeleton Twins. At the film’s outset Maggie (Wiig) shows up in the hospital room of Milo (Hader) after he unsuccessfully tried to kill himself. The call to inform her of this event, incidentally, interrupted her own suicide attempt. He tells her to go back home. They haven’t conversed in ten years and he’s in no mood to rekindle things now. By the middle of the film the two are huffing nitrous oxide in her dental office (she’s a hygienist) and laughing themselves silly. If you think this scene goes on too long, wait’ll you catch Milo’s pantomime of Jefferson Starship’s “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now.” Maggie, a lot more uptight than her brother, eventually joins in while the film’s editor evidentially too a long break when it was time to cut off this scene.

There are moments of resonance in The Skeleton Twins but they are too few and far between to warrant serious praise. Wiig and Hader, who both prove they can be effective dramatic actors, do their best to liven things up but the film relies far too heavily on Luke Wilson as Lance, a stereotypical nice-guy husband. Where Maggie and Milo’s sensibilities seem decidedly urban and wise, Lance projects cornball All-American decent sincerity. And projects it and projects it.

Lance takes Milo, who’s gay, under his wing and gets him a job clearing brush for some sort of dam project Lance is running. When they both need to get away for “man time” he takes Hader out for wall climbing. Meanwhile, Maggie contemplates a dalliance with her young scuba instructor. At one point self-absorbed, blowy mom-from-hell (Joanna Gleason) briefly shows up before Maggie essentially insults her out of the house. We are reminded that Dad (who called them the “gruesome twosome”) offed himself when they were both 14. And just to show that not two but three comedians can do good drama, modern Family’s Ty Burrell plays Milo’s former English teacher, who, essentially, molested him while Milo was 15.

Before one of the least plausible finishes in recent memory, the film’s climactic scene takes place with Milo in full drag for Halloween. Despite this scene of the two siblings battling it out standing out as the film’s best, it manages to be emblematic of writer/director Craig Johnson striving too hard for irony. Nearly lost in the shuffle are the issues of trust and rapprochement between two lost, hurting, self-destructive souls who have each other as the last resort when things get bleak. Blood is finally thicker than desperation but Johnson’s message, contained inside so much unnerving folly and tone shifts, is a blunted one.

Two Outstanding Comedians Show Serious Dramatic Chops In A Less Than Stellar Film… 2.5 (out of 5 stars)