Author: Don Malvasi

Imagine a present day war where eight million Americans perish. That’s the scope of the devastation produced by our Civil War, where 600,000, or two percent of our population, died. Taking place only days after Lee’s surrender and while battles still raged, the Lincoln assassination produced a government crisis where the Union’s fragility was starkly tested.

Robert Redford’s compelling The Conspirator chronicles a dark chapter in America’s history that took place amidst that crisis. The film depicts the outrageous trail by military tribunal of Mary Surrat (a radiant and dignified Robin Wright), who operated a rooming house frequented by assassin John Wilkes Booth, who was often in the company of Mary’s son. That Mary takes a hit for her vengeful son’s actions is an understatement. That she is innocent is still up for debate 150 years later.
Government prosecutor Danny Huston, taking cues from Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton (an intensely forceful Kevin Kline), throws the Constitution to the wolves. The rush to judgement is driven largely by Stanton’s desperation to hold the tenous Union together at any cost. Stanton leads the charge to bring down any and all conspirators as quickly as possible, to leave them “buried and forgotten.”

With comically contradictory government witnesses against her, with no right to testify, no jury, no opportunity for appeal, and ultimately no right of habeas corpus, Mary’s trial quickly becomes aa shambles. She’s defended by a reluctant former Union soldier Frederick Aiken (James McAvoy) whose mentor, the Senator and former Attorney General Reverdy Johnson (a brilliant Tom Wilkinson) can’t defend Mary himself due to his southern background. Surratt, a Confederate sympathizer is the lone woman accused conspirator tried by a court that is more Kafka than kosher.

A strong supporting cast includes Evan Rachel Wood in a pivotal role as Mary’s daughter aand the incomparable Shea Whigham as a prosecution witness–his second such role recently after playing a jailhouse snitch witness so effectively in The Lincoln Lawyer.

The Conspirator is a vivid, dramatic old-fashioned-feeling film whose characters stand up to scrutiny and whose art direction poignantly depicts the era. Anything but a dry history lesson, it contains lessons nonetheless. Parallels to more recent dilemmas about the wisdom of military tribunals and their relationshp with government security can be drawn, as can the question of when is it ever moral for forecful political revenge to seek a convenient scapegoat?

8 Out of 10

Back to the future? As a plot artifice here it’s a surefire suspense stimulant. Read more →

Back to the future? As a plot artifice here it’s a surefire suspense stimulant. Read more →

Danny Green, a Cleveland 1970’s union boss turned mobster, doesn’t drink and has the emotional range of a Secret Service bodyguard. Allegedly book smart, the Irishman (Ray Stevenson) can’t even come up with an anti-Italian ethnic joke better than you’d hear in a remedial reading class.

“Kill The Irishman,” beset with a cliched script written by director Jonathan Hensleigh that’s practically a spoof on its own highly recognizable organized-crime supporting cast (Paul Sorvino, Tony LoBianco, Vincent d’Onofrio), provides minimal movie mob thrills given that cast’s acting chops.

Telling the true-story (it must be–there’s real newsreel footaage thrown in) of Danny’s rise from grunt worker to union boss to mob enforcer to mob target, the film has its moments but staggers too often.

When none other than Christopher Walken enters the scene as Shandor Birns, a fastidiouly prudent Jewish operative, the film’s problem becomes clear. Walken is only in a few scenes. Shame. His presence and that of Sorvino, as mob bigwheel Tony Salerno, who’s in even fewer scenes, kick the film up several notches. Green is a stoic character who rarely expresses anything unless it’s a platitude about his “Irish warrior” tenacity, He speaks so seldom in the film when he does we’re startled into a “What got into you?” response. The charisma gap in
his pivotal scenes with Walken and Sorvino gives the film an uneven, off-kilter vibe. Then there’s the film’s two women characters, his wife, and later, his girlfriend, who are written even more cardboard than Danny is. I know, I know. Women of that time period and culture were docile by nature. Well there’s docile, and then there’s inert. The charisma gap here is similar to what happened in the Oscar telecast. After enduring our young, out-of-their-league or just-victims-of-poor-writing hosts, in walks Billy Crystal and we’re suddenly in a different program.

Unless you’re a huge fan of Walken, save the time and stream “Mean Streets” instead. If you’ve never seen it, you’re in for quite a thrill.

6 cliches out of 10

Danny Green, a Cleveland 1970’s union boss turned mobster, doesn’t drink and has the emotional range of a Secret Service bodyguard. Allegedly book smart, the Irishman (Ray Stevenson) can’t even come up with an anti-Italian ethnic joke better than you’d hear in a remedial reading class.

“Kill The Irishman,” beset with a cliched script written by director Jonathan Hensleigh that’s practically a spoof on its own highly recognizable organized-crime supporting cast (Paul Sorvino, Tony LoBianco, Vincent d’Onofrio), provides minimal movie mob thrills given that cast’s acting chops.

Telling the true-story (it must be–there’s real newsreel footaage thrown in) of Danny’s rise from grunt worker to union boss to mob enforcer to mob target, the film has its moments but staggers too often.

When none other than Christopher Walken enters the scene as Shandor Birns, a fastidiouly prudent Jewish operative, the film’s problem becomes clear. Walken is only in a few scenes. Shame. His presence and that of Sorvino, as mob bigwheel Tony Salerno, who’s in even fewer scenes, kick the film up several notches. Green is a stoic character who rarely expresses anything unless it’s a platitude about his “Irish warrior” tenacity, He speaks so seldom in the film when he does we’re startled into a “What got into you?” response. The charisma gap in
his pivotal scenes with Walken and Sorvino gives the film an uneven, off-kilter vibe. Then there’s the film’s two women characters, his wife, and later, his girlfriend, who are written even more cardboard than Danny is. I know, I know. Women of that time period and culture were docile by nature. Well there’s docile, and then there’s inert. The charisma gap here is similar to what happened in the Oscar telecast. After enduring our young, out-of-their-league or just-victims-of-poor-writing hosts, in walks Billy Crystal and we’re suddenly in a different program.

Unless you’re a huge fan of Walken, save the time and stream “Mean Streets” instead. If you’ve never seen it, you’re in for quite a thrill.

6 cliches out of 10

Okay, so nobody likes Matthew McConaughey. Never heard so many declare the man is at best annoying, at worst a dimwit full of bombast. Having mostlty avoided his films for no other reason than they sounded uninteresting (liked him in Tropic Thunder, though), I came into The Lincoln Lawyer without an ax to grind.

Playing Mick Haller, streetwise lawyer for “scumbags” (sez a fellow attorney to his face), the guy pulls off the role and the film. Helps to have William H. Macy, Marisa Tomei, Ryan Phillippe, Michael Pena, John Leguizamo, and (brilliant as a jailhouse snitch) Josh Whigham on your supporting cast. Favorite scenes involve Mick telling off cops and fellow lawers who look down upon his defense of the downtrodden, or his head-on direct laying down protocol to a client, or his jostlng with his investigator Macy over maneuvering a case through extralegal means.

I have no idea whether the legal stuff in the film holds water, or whether it adopted the Michael Connolly novel faithfully. I do know it’s a gripping, often amusing legal drama with refreshingly not a lot of courtroom yet more than a little sense of reality. Matthew (yea, HIM) told Jay Leno he was surprised in hanging out with lawyers in his research for the film on just how much criminal law work was informal, slang-full, slambang, near constant negotiation rather than anything more crusty. This film way brings it.

8 of 10

Okay, so nobody likes Matthew McConaughey. Never heard so many declare the man is at best annoying, at worst a dimwit full of bombast. Having mostlty avoided his films for no other reason than they sounded uninteresting (liked him in Tropic Thunder, though), I came into The Lincoln Lawyer without an ax to grind.

Playing Mick Haller, streetwise lawyer for “scumbags” (sez a fellow attorney to his face), the guy pulls off the role and the film. Helps to have William H. Macy, Marisa Tomei, Ryan Phillippe, Michael Pena, John Leguizamo, and (brilliant as a jailhouse snitch) Josh Whigham on your supporting cast. Favorite scenes involve Mick telling off cops and fellow lawers who look down upon his defense of the downtrodden, or his head-on direct laying down protocol to a client, or his jostlng with his investigator Macy over maneuvering a case through extralegal means.

I have no idea whether the legal stuff in the film holds water, or whether it adopted the Michael Connolly novel faithfully. I do know it’s a gripping, often amusing legal drama with refreshingly not a lot of courtroom yet more than a little sense of reality. Matthew (yea, HIM) told Jay Leno he was surprised in hanging out with lawyers in his research for the film on just how much criminal law work was informal, slang-full, slambang, near constant negotiation rather than anything more crusty. This film way brings it.

8 of 10

Assessing a sci-fi thriller with a premise as outlandish as that of “Limitless” is a tricky business. It’s especially tricky when the flick in question is so damn much fun that to convey its worth in order to rise it above secondary status one needs to ignore plotholes large enough to drive a truck through.

Ignore them.

When a guy can pop a pill (here the fictitious NZT) that will morph him from a slacker depressive into an uber-intelligent, extrasensory superman who can do nearly everything, logic’s going to take a backseat somewhere along the line. Bradley Cooper, Robert DeNiro and Abby Cornish play our lovable main character, his heavy-duty tycoon challenger, and his cautious girlfriend turned moll. DeNiro’s actually acting (superbly) again, and Cooper handles the”dual role” deftly.

Throw in a Russian villain (Andre Howard) who’s so crazy he’s funny, and enough filmed-in-Philadelphia stuff to keep us guessing. The film’s payoff is you never know what’s coming next as Cooper learns whole disciplines and languages overnight, finishes writing a novel in a few days, seduces women effortlessly, gets his once-fed up girlfriend back, makes millions on the stock market, and, oh yes–gets involved with mean dudes who also want the rare supply of the wonder drug, and others (DeNiro) who want his extraordinary skills to manipulate a Wall Street merger. Hijinks insue. Some are silly, others highly suspenseful. Director Neil Burger’s no slouch. His The Illusionist with Edward Norton was top-shelf enough you should stream it today if you haven’t seen it. Here he throws a few Danny Boyle visual moves our way with a sleek, rollicking ride that turns enough hairpin curves to thrill us into the realization we’ve just had one of the finest fastfood film experiences in some time.

8 Plot holes out of 10

Assessing a sci-fi thriller with a premise as outlandish as that of “Limitless” is a tricky business. It’s especially tricky when the flick in question is so damn much fun that to convey its worth in order to rise it above secondary status one needs to ignore plotholes large enough to drive a truck through.

Ignore them.

When a guy can pop a pill (here the fictitious NZT) that will morph him from a slacker depressive into an uber-intelligent, extrasensory superman who can do nearly everything, logic’s going to take a backseat somewhere along the line. Bradley Cooper, Robert DeNiro and Abby Cornish play our lovable main character, his heavy-duty tycoon challenger, and his cautious girlfriend turned moll. DeNiro’s actually acting (superbly) again, and Cooper handles the”dual role” deftly.

Throw in a Russian villain (Andre Howard) who’s so crazy he’s funny, and enough filmed-in-Philadelphia stuff to keep us guessing. The film’s payoff is you never know what’s coming next as Cooper learns whole disciplines and languages overnight, finishes writing a novel in a few days, seduces women effortlessly, gets his once-fed up girlfriend back, makes millions on the stock market, and, oh yes–gets involved with mean dudes who also want the rare supply of the wonder drug, and others (DeNiro) who want his extraordinary skills to manipulate a Wall Street merger. Hijinks insue. Some are silly, others highly suspenseful. Director Neil Burger’s no slouch. His The Illusionist with Edward Norton was top-shelf enough you should stream it today if you haven’t seen it. Here he throws a few Danny Boyle visual moves our way with a sleek, rollicking ride that turns enough hairpin curves to thrill us into the realization we’ve just had one of the finest fastfood film experiences in some time.

8 Plot holes out of 10

Dude never stayed at a hotel before, never flew in a plane. Sleeps with and goes needy on his twice-his-age gradeschool teacher (Sigourney Weaver). Sells insurance. In a small town in Wisconsin where vice is shunned. Headed for a work convention. To The City: Cedar Rapids.

There, Ed Helms (The Office, The Daily Show) meets raunchy, wildly funny provocateur, John C. Reilly, who, in trying to convert innocently dippy Helms into a real live human, steals this movie bigtime. I knew Reilly could act when I saw him and Philip Seymour Hoffman switch roles in subsequent Broadway stagings of Sam Shepard’s demanding True West, playing brothers as opposite each other as Charlie Sheen and the Dalai Lama. But now he’s on another level. He takes the standard Apatow vulgar oaf and turns him on his head. Here there’s an underlying niceness and sincerity that permits some of the wackiest, all-get-out, politically incorrect barrage on Helms’ small town square without losing the viewer or the rest of the cast.

Instead a camaraderie develops at the convention between corny Helms, daft Reilly, and an intriguing Ann Heche, who can toss down shots with the boys while lending just enough curiosity and eventual concern over Helms’ dimwitted yet earnest social skills.

Romantic misadventures and fallout on religious hypocrisy ensue. Multiple characters end up in compromising positions in a hotel pool. Midwestern values win the day. And Reilly nonstop chatters about sexual references one more ill-mannered than the next while still staying a friendly pussycat.

8 Butterscotch’s out of 10