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thedullwoodexperiment

~ Viewing movies in a different light

thedullwoodexperiment

Tag Archives: Amy Ryan

Beautiful Boy (2018)

11 Tuesday Dec 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Amy Ryan, Drama, Drug addiction, Father/son relationship, Felix van Groeningen, Literary adaptation, Maura Tierney, Review, Steve Carell, Timothée Chalamet, True story

D: Felix van Groeningen / 120m

Cast: Steve Carell, Timothée Chalamet, Maura Tierney, Amy Ryan, Kaitlyn Dever, LisaGay Hamilton, Andre Royo, Christian Convery, Oakley Bull, Timothy Hutton

After his teenage son, Nic (Chalamet), goes missing for a couple of days, freelance writer David Sheff (Carell) discovers that Nic has a drug habit. David arranges treatment for Nic at a rehab clinic and the teenager makes significant progress, however it’s not long before he goes missing again and his habit becomes an addiction. With the support of his father, and his stepmother, Karen (Tierney), Nic makes a full recovery and goes off to college to focus on writing. Nic relapses, though, and soon he’s back to taking drugs, particularly crystal meth, while insisting that he has everything under control. When an overdose puts Nic in the hospital, David and his ex-wife, Nic’s mother, Vicki (Ryan), decide that he should live with her while he attends rehab sessions. Again, Nic makes significant progress, and is sober for over a year before anxieties about relapsing cause the very thing he’s afraid of to happen. Reconnecting with an old girlfriend, Lauren (Dever), Nic’s addiction spirals even further out of control, which leaves David with a tough decision to make: whether to continue trying to help his son, or admit that he can’t help him at all…

From the synopsis above, it’s easy to guess just how much Beautiful Boy is going to be a movie based around a succession of terrible lows and tantalising highs, and though it’s based on a true story, this is exactly how the movie plays out: Nic takes drugs, Nic gets better, Nic relapses, and so on. Unfortunately, while the quality of the central performances isn’t in doubt – Carell and Chalamet are superb – and van Groeningen’s direction ensures the viewer remains interested throughout, the repetitive nature of the material leads to an emotional distancing that becomes more pronounced as the movie progresses. Though the effects of Nic’s drug addiction clearly take their toll on him and everyone around him, once he’s relapsed the first time (and so early on), you know that it’s going to happen again, and again. The script – by van Groeningen and Luke Davies – does its best to offset this by focusing on David’s efforts to understand his son’s addiction, though strangely, it’s on a more physiological and intellectual level; when Nic explains how drugs make him feel, David doesn’t get it at all. So, while Nic experiences feelings and sensations that make drug addiction, to him, more desirable, David remains somewhat aloof. Even after he’s taken cocaine himself, David is unchanged, and any effect the drug may have had isn’t revealed.

With both father and son unable to connect anymore in a meaningful way, the movie seeks to remind its audience of the tragedy that’s occurring by resorting to flashbacks that show the bond David and Nic shared when he was much younger. These are placed at key points in the narrative and serve as leavening moments against the grim nature of Nic’s addiction. But these too lose their impact through over-use, and by the time Nic reaches rock bottom, the idea of one more poignant remembrance is one too many. But though the structure and the content of the movie hampers its effectiveness, it’s the performances that stand out. Carell has rarely been better, using David’s anger and shame at not being able to help his son, to paint a portrait of a man coming up against the hard fact of his own limitations. As Nic, Chalamet continues to impress, imbuing the character with a desperate, anguished fatalism that is heart-wrenching to watch. The father/son relationship is the heart of the movie, and van Groeningen pays close attention to it, letting it dominate the movie accordingly, while leaving Tierney and Ryan with little to do as a result. At least it doesn’t seek to be profound, or to provide any glib answers to the issues it explores, and that at least is something to be thankful for.

Rating: 7/10 – adapted from books written by both David and Nic, and which allow for a powerful yet emotionally subdued movie, Beautiful Boy is bolstered by two stand out performances, and its refusal to compromise on the dispiriting nature of its storyline; while it doesn’t work as well as it should, and it might not be everyone’s idea of a “good time”, there’s still more than enough on offer to keep the average, or even casual viewer hoping that, by the movie’s end, Nic finds some semblance of peace.

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Jack Goes Boating (2010)

11 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Amy Ryan, Catch Up movie, Comedy, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Drama, John Ortiz, Limo driver, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Review, Romance

D: Philip Seymour Hoffman / 91m

Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Ryan, John Ortiz, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Tom McCarthy, Salvatore Inzerillo

When actors make the transition from appearing in front of the cameras to working behind them as directors, their first attempts at building a secondary career have a tendency to be remarkable debuts. Think Charles Laughton and The Night of the Hunter (1955), or Kevin Costner and Dances With Wolves (1990), or Sarah Polley and Away from Her (2006) (just to name a few). Well, you can add Philip Seymour Hoffman and Jack Goes Boating to the list. A movie that clearly shows that Hoffman could have had an equally lustrous career as a director as well as an actor (this was his only outing as a director), Jack Goes Boating sees him deftly handling comedy, drama, and romance in his screen version of the play by Robert Glaudini. It’s an unsurprising choice as Hoffman, along with Ortiz and Rubin-Vega, appeared in the original Off-Broadway production in 2007. The main cast’s familiarity with the material – similar to that with Fences (2016) – helps tremendously, but Hoffman is astute enough to transpose the action so that at no point does it feel stage-y or contrived.

The movie is terrifically understated from the start, with Hoffman’s shy, reticent Jack working as a limo driver for his uncle. He works with his best friend, Clyde (Ortiz), and the two have an easy going relationship that is affectionate and endearing. Clyde is married to Lucy (Rubin-Vega), but their relationship is on rocky ground, though they both help set up Jack with one of Lucy’s co-workers, Connie (Ryan). Connie is similar to Jack in that she’s shy and diffident; she also has some intimacy issues. Their first meeting goes well, and by the end of it they’re talking about doing something during the summer, such as boating. Neither of them have done anything like this before, and Jack is especially worried as he can’t swim. Clyde agrees to teach him, and in the process, Jack learns about positive visualisation, which helps him have the confidence to overcome his fears.

An incident involving Connie leads to Jack agreeing to make dinner for her, something nobody – aside from her mother – has ever done before. Clyde helps out again by giving Jack the name of a chef nicknamed The Cannoli (Inzerillo), who’ll show him how to cook a meal. But there’s more to The Cannoli than Jack is initially aware of, and as the night of the meal for Connie draws nearer, Jack learns more about his friends’ marriage than he was ever prepared for, while his own relationship with Connie grows stronger. On the night of the meal, the various stresses and strains affecting Clyde and Lucy come to the fore, and the evening descends into chaos, one that has repercussions for Clyde and Lucy, and has a profound effect on Jack and Connie…

What’s immediately apparent from Jack Goes Boating is the surety that Hoffman shows in guiding the material from its opening scenes where the script’s dry humour is given room to breathe, through the middle section where Jack and Connie’s romance takes centre stage, and then on into the final stretch where it becomes a stinging drama. Hoffman handles each stage of the movie with due care and attention to the characters and, more importantly, their inner lives. As a director, Hoffman is incredibly generous to his cast, giving them the room to explore their roles and instill them with small details that enhance both their performances and the movie at the same time. What this means for the viewer is a movie that delights and captivates in equal measure, and has the ability to leave said viewer wearing a happy grin for most of the movie. Hoffman and Ryan in particular do more with a look and a glance than some actors can do with a four-hour movie and two hundred pages of expository dialogue.

The romance between Jack and Connie is handled with a great deal of finesse, as the pair gingerly and carefully get to know each other, and try to overcome their lack of confidence in being part of a couple. Opening up to each other and trusting each other, the pair behave in a winsome manner that sees them warily circling around the idea of being together while at the same time, being eager to move forward as quickly as possible – as long as they’re both okay with that. In contrast, Clyde and Lucy are at the kind of loggerhead where intimacy is painful and recriminations for past misdeeds are just a breath away. Clyde grows to be jealous of his best friend’s good fortune in finding Connie, and his unhappiness threatens to ruin the meal. Lucy too is unhappy, and like Clyde, is dealing with her feelings in a way that’s detrimental to the possibility of their staying together. Lucy’s unhappiness also threatens to ruin the meal, and when things do begin to unravel, it’s Lucy whose anger finds its full expression in an excoriating attack on Clyde. As the warring couple, Ortiz and Rubin-Vega give outstanding performances, each imbuing their character with a potent mix of pained acceptance (that things are unalterably wrong between them), and a desperate need to wipe the slate clean (which they’ve tried and failed to achieve).

While there’s little here that’s new or hasn’t been covered before – Marty (1955) is an obvious forerunner – it’s the way in which Hoffman and his very talented cast handle the material that makes Jack Goes Boating so emotionally vivid and deceptively compelling. Jack and Connie are characters you can’t help but like, and you can’t help but root for them all the way through. And though they’re at odds with each other, Hoffman ensures that Clyde and Lucy deserve our sympathy as well. It’s all supplemented by a wonderfully expressive soundtrack that mixes an often poignant score by Grizzly Bear, and a handful of Fleet Foxes songs that contribute greatly to the movie’s overall tone and mood.

Rating: 9/10 – Hoffman’s death in 2014 robbed us of an inspired actor and director, and after viewing Jack Goes Boating, that sense of loss is more keenly felt than ever; beautifully observed and endlessly affecting, the movie is funny, romantic, tragic, and a terrific showcase for all concerned. (11/31)

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Central Intelligence (2016)

24 Friday Jun 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Aaron Paul, Action, Amy Ryan, Black Badger, CIA, Comedy, Drama, Dwayne Johnson, High school reunion, Jason Bateman, Kevin Hart, Rawson Marshall Thurber, Review, Satellite codes

Central Intelligence

D: Rawson Marshall Thurber / 114m

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Amy Ryan, Danielle Nicolet, Jason Bateman, Aaron Paul, Ryan Hansen, Tim Griffin, Timothy John Smith, Thomas Kretschmann

An action comedy that doesn’t take itself, or its raison d’etre, seriously, Central Intelligence is the kind of buddy movie that lives or dies depending on the chemistry between its two leads. It’s a relief then that the pairing of Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart – this decade’s answer to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito perhaps – works so well, and the pair are able to riff off on one another with an ease that belies the fact that this is their first movie together.

It all begins twenty years ago at a high school rally that sees put-upon fat kid Robbie Weirdicht grabbed from the school showers and sent sprawling across the floor of the gymnasium where everyone is gathered. While everyone else laughs, only Calvin Joyner, the most popular kid in school, helps Robbie to cover up. Robbie runs away and is never seen again. Fast forward twenty years and the class of 1996 is preparing to attend their high school reunion. Calvin (Hart) is now an accountant whose initial promise seems to have petered out: he’s just been passed up for promotion. He’s married to his childhood sweetheart, Maggie (Nicolet), but they don’t have any kids and she’s more successful than he is. Then, out of the blue, Calvin recieves a friend request on Facebook from someone called Bob Stone (Johnson). Stone persuades Calvin to meet him for a drink, and when they do, Calvin is amazed that Bob is actually Robbie, and that Robbie has changed so completely from the fat kid he remembers from school.

CI - scene2

The pair end up back at Calvin’s home, where Bob asks him to look at his payroll account as there’s a problem with it. But the account is actually a list of bids for an unknown item at an auction due to finish the next night. Bob stays over, but the morning brings a surprise visit by the CIA in the form of Agent Harris (Ryan) and her fellow agents, Mitchell (Griffin) and Cooper (Smith). They’re after Bob who, it transpires, is a CIA agent who is apparently wanted for the theft of spy sateliite codes and the murder of his partner. Bob has left, however, and only catches up with Calvin later at his office. A firefight with the CIA ensues and the pair narrowly escape. Bob explains he’s trying to find the location where the codes will be bought, and needs Calvin’s accounting skills to help him do so. Calvin balks at the idea however, and takes off at the first opportunity.

Pressure from the CIA is brought to bear on Calvin and he’s forced to give up Bob’s whereabouts. But with Bob in custody and being interrogated “the hard way”, Calvin has a change of heart and helps him escape. They use another high school alumni, Trevor (Bateman), to help them find the location of the buy, and head off to Boston to crash the meeting, and discover just who the buyer is and if he’s a shadowy figure called the Black Badger, also the man responsible for the death of Bob’s partner, Phil (Paul)…

CI - scene1

From the above synopsis you can guess that Central Intelligence doesn’t have exactly the greatest of scripts, but that wouldn’t be entirely true. Yes, it has several painful moments where the basic plot rebounds against the constraints of credibility, and the storyline surrounding Calvin and Maggie’s relationship takes the movie off into odd areas that slow the movie down and feel like padding, but overall it’s a movie that provides solid laughs, both visual (Bob’s dislocated finger) and verbal (“And you’re still shorter than my cat” – Trevor to Calvin). For once, Hart doesn’t overdo his usual schtick and delivers his best performance for a while, making Calvin’s eventual, committed, partnership with Bob more believable than expected. Meanwhile, Johnson reminds viewers just how good he can be in a comedy role, playing Bob as an over-exuberant man-child whose enthusiasm for pretty much everything is expressed through a variety of gushing excitement and childlike wonder.

Indeed, it’s the inspired pairing of Johnson and Hart that makes Central Intelligence work as well as it does. Unlike, say, Hart’s pairing with Ice Cube in the Ride Along movies, here he displays a genuine chemistry with the former WWE Superstar that makes watching the movie far more enjoyable than it appears at first glance. And while, as mentioned above, Hart employs his trademark cowardly, fast-talking movie persona on several occasions but perhaps in deference to Johnson’s cleverer, less in-your-face approach, refrains from going as over the top as he’s done in the likes of Get Hard (2015). This makes for one of his better performances, and in his scenes with Johnson you can see and feel him upping his game, something he hasn’t done since co-starring with Stallone and De Niro in Grudge Match (2013).

CI - scene3

Without Johnson and Hart’s sterling performances, however, Central Intelligence would be even more derivative and lightweight than it looks, thanks to its piecemeal plotting, obvious villain, and low-key action sequences (they’re well choreographed but aren’t that memorable when all’s said and done). There’s an awkward subplot involving bullying that is resolved in typically inappropriate fashion, and the secondary characters are practically cardboard cutouts, leaving the likes of Ryan and Bateman little else to do but recite their lines and hope for the best once the movie’s cut together. Thurber, whose last movie was the wickedly smart and under-appreciated We’re the Millers (2013) makes light work of a screenplay that could have been filed under “fluffy nonsense” and no one would have complained, and shows an aptitude for the buddy movie – and showing these characters in a good light in particular – that hopefully will keep him retained if a sequel is ever greenlit (which is likely).

Rating: 6/10 – there’s plenty of silly fun to be had in Central Intelligence, but while it’s amusing enough, it doesn’t excuse the waywardness or clumsiness of the script; Hart and Johnson make a great double act (though Johnson proves to be the better comic actor), and there’s enough merit to the action scenes to keep genre fans happy, all of which adds up to a surprisingly entertaining viewing experience – if you don’t expect too much.

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Don Verdean (2015)

19 Saturday Dec 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Al Qaeda, Amy Ryan, Archaeology, Comedy, Danny McBride, Goliath, Israel, Jared Hess, Jemaine Clement, Leslie Bibb, Lot's Wife, Religion, Review, Sam Rockwell, Satire

Don Verdean

D: Jared Hess / 96m

Cast: Sam Rockwell, Amy Ryan, Jemaine Clement, Will Forte, Danny McBride, Leslie Bibb, Steve Park, Sky Elobar

Now and then a motion picture comes along that rocks the very foundation of accepted Christian belief, a movie that lifts the lid on the precepts of religious beliefs and exposes them to the light of clever satire. And for its first twelve minutes, Don Verdean looks like it might be that movie. But once those twelve minutes are over, and Don (Rockwell) commits to working with born-again preacher Tony Lazarus (McBride), any hopes of something special are dashed by the introduction of Boaz (Clement), an Israeli jack-of-all-trades who brings the movie down to earth with a resounding thud.

It’s not so much that Boaz is a manipulative, shady, stupid, sexist, arrogant, deceiving, lying opportunist, nor that he comes close to being one of the most offensive racial characters seen in recent years, but purely because he becomes the driving force behind a plot that doesn’t need him. Boaz is a character who belongs in another movie entirely, and one that hasn’t got the kind of ambition that Don Verdean has. But he’s there, he’s an idiot, and we’re stuck with him. (Even Clement, an actor whose comedy chops aren’t to be overlooked, can’t do much with him; and if he can’t, how’s the viewer meant to cope?)

Don Verdean - scene2

The way in which Boaz overwhelms both the narrative and the other characters is unfortunate for several reasons. The movie sets out its comedic stall from the start with an infomercial detailing Don’s successes finding holy artefacts in Israel, items such as his greatest find: iron shears dating back over 3000 years (and possibly the very shears used to rob Samson of his hair – yes?). The narration is portentous and deadly serious, and it’s this seriousness that is carried forward as we see Don field questions about the validity of his finds at a small church group. Don responds to these doubts with calm sincerity, and even though the viewer will know without a shadow of a doubt that he’s as naive in his own way as the people that believe in him, he’s also determined to provide reassurance for those whose faith might be wavering.

With Don’s unwavering naïvete matched by the public’s erstwhile gullibility, he joins forces with Lazarus and Lazarus’s ex-prostitute wife Joylinda (Bibb) to bring even more religious artefacts back from the Holy Land (even if the whole idea is both illegal and preposterous). Lazarus wants to put these items on display at his church, both as a display of his unwavering faith, and as a way of undermining a rival ministry run by ex-Satanist-turned preacher Pastor Fontaine (Forte). Don has a lead on the remains of Lot’s Wife – actually a rock formation that looks like it has breasts – and contacts Boaz to arrange to have them shipped to the States, but the Israeli sends a different “statue”. Lazarus retains his faith in Don and asks if there is a particular antiquity he’d like to track down. Don’s answer? The skull of Goliath.

Don Verdean - scene3

However, setbacks in Israel lead Don to make an awful decision, and he fakes finding the skull. When Boaz discovers the deception, he blackmails Don into bringing him to the US. And the script, by Hess and his wife Jerusha, quickly runs out of comedic steam as it brings Boaz’ selfish demands and childish behaviour to the fore, and sidelines Don’s attempts to weather the storm of his professional duplicity. It’s still a funny movie, but by now it’s lost the subtlety and the poise applied by a cast who know to play things completely straight, even when they’re called upon to behave ridiculously or say something absurd (even McBride, an actor not exactly known for the subtlety of his performances, reigns in the urge to put in a larger than life performance, and his tirade against sea monkeys is a highlight).

With the focus now on Boaz and his increasingly ludicrous machinations, the script brings in an unlikely scam: the finding of the Holy Grail (on an Indian reservation no less). It’s an idea that’s ripe for comic exploitation, but again, Hess misjudges the strength of the material, and the movie labours under the weight of that misjudgment, and struggles to recover. A twist in the tale proves laboured and is awkwardly revealed, and the subplot involving Don’s lovelorn assistant Carol (Ryan) is wrapped up with undue haste. And the less said about Pastor Fontaine and his efforts to see Lazarus’s church shut down the better.

Don Verdean - scene1

This is very much a movie with a core idea – the need for religious proof of events mentioned in the Bible in an increasingly secular world – that is downplayed and eventually discarded in favour of a succession of betrayals and implausible story turns that eradicate the good work done in the movie’s first half hour. Rockwell is laidback as  Don, playing him with a delicate sense of irony that makes the character immensely likeable and sympathetic, even when he responds to Carol’s dismay that he’s never asked her about her personal life by saying he hasn’t because he didn’t think she had one. Ryan struggles to make Carol anything more than an amiable stereotype, while Forte comes close to sabotaging his own performance by substituting mugging for acting. And Clement… well…

By the end, most viewers will be feeling a mixture of disappointment and ennui, as the script tries to wind things up with one last flourish, but it’s an effort that comes too late, and reminds the viewer of what might have been if the script had been more focused on the world of Biblical archaeology and its desperate-to-believe supporters. Instead, Hess’s latest fails to make the most of its central idea, and never fully gets to grips with its inherent notions of faith and honesty.

Rating: 5/10 – with a script that strays further and further away from its initial set up with each successive minute, Don Verdean lacks coherence and conviction once the search for Goliath’s skull is begun; Rockwell is good value as usual, but those expecting a more concerted, consistently humorous movie will be sorely disappointed thanks to some very poor storyline choices.

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Bridge of Spies (2015)

09 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

America, Amy Ryan, Cold War, Drama, East Germany, Espionage, Exchange, Francis Gary Powers, Glienicke Bridge, Historical drama, James B. Donovan, Mark Rylance, Review, Rudolf Abel, Russia, Scott Shepherd, Spies, Steven Spielberg, Thriller, Tom Hanks, U2 spy plane

Bridge of Spies

D: Steven Spielberg / 141m

Cast: Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Scott Shepherd, Amy Ryan, Austin Stowell, Sebastian Koch, Alan Alda, Jesse Plemons, Will Rogers, Michael Gaston, Dakin Matthews, Billy Magnussen, Peter McRobbie, Mikhail Gorevoy, Burghart Klaußner, Max Mauff

In 1957, Rudolf Abel (Rylance) was arrested by FBI agents and charged with three counts of conspiracy as a Soviet spy. He was defended by an insurance attorney called James B. Donovan (Hanks), but despite Donovan’s best efforts (and to no one’s surprise) Abel was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to a total of forty-five years in prison (which was a surprise). An appeal to the Supreme Court was rejected and Abel remained in jail.

In 1960, US pilot Francis Gary Powers (Stowell) was shot down while on a spy plane mission over Soviet territory. He was charged with espionage against the Soviet Union and sentenced to ten years in prison. In 1961, American economics student Frederic Pryor (Rogers) found himself arrested and held without charge by the East German police. In 1962, Donovan, at the request of CIA chief Allen Dulles (McRobbie), travelled to Berlin to negotiate the exchange of Abel for Powers; when he learned of Pryor’s incarceration he made the young student’s release a part of the deal as well. On 10 February 1962, Pryor was released at Checkpoint Charlie, and Abel and Powers’ exchange took place at the Glienicke Bridge.

Bridge of Spies - scene3

These are the basic facts that Bridge of Spies elects to tell, and while it makes it clear from the beginning that the movie is “inspired” by real events, writers Matt Charman and Joel and Ethan Coen have expanded on those facts in order to fill in the gaps and make the movie more audience friendly. They’ve done a terrific job, with the politics of the time, both American and Soviet, explored and explained with a conciseness and brevity that allows the story to breathe and not be bogged down by endless exposition (there’s even room for a brief exposé of East German politics as well). What this means is that Bridge of Spies becomes a movie where all the twists and turns don’t leave the viewer baffled as to what’s going on, and they have a firm grounding as to why it’s all happening.

With the political and espionage themes so effectively set up and presented, Spielberg is left to get on with doing what he does best: telling a complex, complicated story easily and with surprising verve. The director seems at home when making historical dramas, and he has an enviable track record in the genre, from Empire of the Sun (1987) to Schindler’s List (1993) to Munich (2005) to Lincoln (2012). Spielberg is rightly regarded as a populist movie maker, but it’s his forays into history that often prove more satisfying, and Bridge of Spies is no different. Most of the “action” takes place behind closed doors, and consists generally of conversations between Donovan and one or two others. But it’s during these scenes that Spielberg teases out the subtleties and unspoken nuances of the various negotiations and political manoeuvrings, and makes them resonate in a way that few other directors are able to.

Bridge of Spies - scene2

As Donovan juggles the demands of his own government with the needs of the Soviet Union, and the aims of the newly created East German authorities, Spielberg shows how close everyone is in terms of not wanting to be seen to be directly involved in any of the negotiations – Donovan himself is officially a private citizen representing his client, Abel – and how appearances are more important than the truth. Donovan is seen as an honorable man doing the best he can, and as he sees fit, in difficult circumstances, and his early brushes with his own legal system (which seems happy to ignore due process and the Fourth Amendment when it comes to prosecuting Soviet spies) show just how determined and independent-minded he is; or, as Abel puts it, a “standing man”. Donovan provides the moral compass to help audiences steer their way through the various schemes and ruses that each side comes up with.

In the more than capable hands of Hanks, Donovan is an ordinary man thrust into the extraordinary world of legal and political expediency and asked to put aside his personal and moral beliefs. That he doesn’t, and that he doesn’t in such a way that he also doesn’t appear to be pedantic or judgmental (at least not publicly) is a measure of Hanks’ controlled portrayal and what’s needed to make Donovan both sympathetic and credible. Hanks is matched by an equally impressive performance from Rylance, his stoic features and polite bearing providing a neat counterpoint to the American public’s view of him as reprehensible and an enemy of the American way of life. At different points in the movie, Donovan asks Abel the same question but in different ways: “Aren’t you worried by what might happen to you?” And always he answers: “Would it help?” Rylance plays Abel quietly and with dignity, his awareness of his situation and the political games going on around him expressed with a resigned authority.

Spielberg recreates the period with his trademark exactitude, and aided by longtime collaborator Janusz Kaminski highlights the differences between US and East German life by emphasising Powers’ homeland via warm tones and an ingrained sense of comfort, while recreating Berlin’s post-War identity as the still-blasted, partially rebuilt city it was. The contrast is illuminating, adding to Donovan’s initial feelings of unease as he navigates the treacherous waters of international diplomacy.

Bridge of Spies - scene1

It’s here though that the movie loses some of the traction it’s built up along the way. Abel’s arrest and subsequent trial, along with Donovan’s hampered attempts to defend him properly, are expertly handled by Spielberg, and if the movie had only been concerned with Abel’s case then it would be an unqualified success. But once Donovan arrives in Berlin, and despite the various obstacles that threaten to derail his negotiations with the Soviets and the East Germans, there’s no tension in these scenes. Donovan overcomes each obstacle by either refusing to accept the problem is worth worrying about, or by making demands in the hope that the other side will blink first. By making this stretch of the movie so “easy” for Donovan, by the time we get to the exchange at the Glienicke Bridge, there’s so little reason or chance for things to go wrong at the last minute that any apprehension on the audience’s part has evaporated long before.

It’s a shame as the scenes in Berlin should have provided most if not all of the movie’s dramatic highlights, but alas it’s not to be. There is humour however, with Donovan’s fish-out-of-water situation used to good effect, and it’s drily executed by Hanks and perfectly in keeping with Donovan’s increasingly weary view of the world (at one point he remarks that the full names of the Soviet Union and East Germany are just too long). Away from Donovan’s efforts to negotiate the exchange and Pryor’s release, there’s a powerful sequence that shows Powers’ U2 plane being shot down and just how lucky he was to survive (though the movie makes it clear he shouldn’t have), and we see the initial creation of the Berlin Wall, a sight that remains unnerving even now that it’s gone.

Rating: 8/10 – measured, patient and deceptively simple in its approach, Bridge of Spies lacks resonance in terms of what’s happening in the world today, but as an examination of a particular event in recent world history it’s still fascinating and informative; capped by another of Hanks’ effortless performances, and Spielberg’s mastery of the medium, it’s a movie that holds the attention throughout even if it isn’t particularly thrilling.

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Goosebumps (2015)

06 Sunday Dec 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Abominable Snowman, Amy Ryan, Comedy, Delaware, Drama, Dylan Minnette, Fantasy, Giant praying mantis, Jack Black, Madison, Monsters, Odeya Rush, R.L. Stine, Review, Rob Letterman, Ryan Lee, Slappy, Wolfman

Goosebumps

D: Rob Letterman / 103m

Cast: Jack Black, Dylan Minnette, Odeya Rush, Amy Ryan, Ryan Lee, Jillian Bell, Halston Sage, Ken Marino, Timothy Simons, Amanda Lund

There’s a moment in Goosebumps when Mr Shivers (Black), having already been rumbled as the writer R.L. Stine, tries to maintain his cover. Not believing him for a second, new neighbour Zach (Minnette) goads him by saying that he’s not as good a writer as Stephen King. Shivers/Stine rounds on Zach and in the process mentions that he’s sold way more books than “Steve”. It’s an odd moment in an otherwise straightforward, enjoyable imagining of Stine’s fictional world of monsters, and while it may be true, you can’t help but wonder if it’s there to give Stine some extra credibility now that he’s been adapted for the movies (not that he needs it). (And maybe it’s an issue for him.)

On the strength of this outing, Stine has little to be worried about. Although Goosebumps is a steadfastly homogenised horror fantasy for children – the zombies aren’t at all frightening, and the abominable snowman is played mostly for laughs – it has enough in the way of heavily stylised fantasy elements to keep its target audience happy for an hour and a half or so, and has been lucky enough to secure the services of Black as the “cursed” author. Black strikes just the right tone as an anxious, over-protective father-cum-author whose creations will spring fully formed and alive from the pages of his books if they’re opened (this doesn’t explain how his books have been published up til now, but it’s a great idea for a fantasy movie).

With Zach believing that his reclusive neighbour is mistreating his daughter, Hannah (Rush), he convinces a school friend, Champ (Lee) to help him break in to the house next door and ensure that Hannah is okay. Along the way, they discover bear traps in the basement and a bookcase full of Goosebumps novels that have locks on them. And in true children’s fantasy style, one of the books is opened, while the others all fall to the floor, leaving at least one of the books unlocked. The trouble is, this particular book features Slappy the ventriloquist’s dummy, and he’s the one monster that Stine doesn’t want to let out at all… and Slappy knows it.

Goosebumps - scene1

Soon the town of Madison, Delaware is home to all sorts of rampaging monsters and creatures, and it’s down to Stine, Hannah, Zach and Champ to save the day by getting all of the author’s creations back in their books. But Slappy is one step ahead of them, and is making sure each book is burnt once the creature in it is released. This leaves the quartet with only one option: to make sure Stine has the time he needs to write a new story that involves all the monsters so that they can be returned to the new pages en masse.

There are the usual obstacles to their doing this, and the usual action sequences when they encounter any of the monsters – the lawn gnomes are particularly good – but it’s all done with an energy and a sense of fun that carries the movie along and doesn’t allow it to get bogged down by too many distractions. As mentioned before, Black is great as the author whose sense of responsibility has kept him moving from place to place and isolated his daughter in the process (though a plot twist two thirds in unfortunately cancels this out), while Rush, Minnette and Lee all play their standard teen characters with verve if not too much depth. Ryan is continually sidelined as Zach’s mother and high school vice principal, and Simons and Lund are given brief exposure as the town’s (apparently) lone law enforcement officers, with Lund’s gung ho approach bagging quite a few laughs.

In the hands of screenwriter Darren Lemke, Goosebumps sets out its stall quite early on and sticks to what is a safe formula: kids accidentally release monsters, team up with concerned adult, and find a way to save the day. But the movie avoids outstaying its welcome, though it does takes each new monstrous development in its stride, which is at a cost to the drama and the tension that should be inherent in the storyline. By ensuring that its target audience isn’t too frightened or worried, there’s no real sense of danger or peril, and each “threat” is neatly or quickly dealt with.

Goosebumps - scene2

As you’d expect the special effects are woven seamlessly into the physical action, and there’s a pleasing sense of spectacle when the high school is besieged by all the creatures. Keeping things moving with an eye for the quirkier moments, Letterman allows his cast, both human and CGI, their individual moments to shine – Champ rescues the girl he likes from the wolfman, Slappy acknowledges his driving Stine’s car is compromised by not being able to reach the brakes – and includes enough adult humour to keep older viewers happy. And most of all, he manages to keep Zach and Hannah’s blossoming romance from becoming too mawkish or saccharine.

Rating: 7/10 – straying too close to formula to make it stand out from similar fare, Goosebumps is nevertheless a fun ride that can be enjoyed by children and adults alike; if there are to be any more adaptations of Stine’s work then that won’t be such a bad thing at all.

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