Shock and Awe (2017)

04 Saturday Aug 2018

Tags

Drama, Iraq War, James Marsden, Jessica Biel, Journalism, Knight Ridder, Mainstream media, Milla Jovovich, Rob Reiner, Tommy Lee Jones, True story, US government, Woody Harrelson

D: Rob Reiner / 90m

Cast: Woody Harrelson, James Marsden, Rob Reiner, Tommy Lee Jones, Jessica Biel, Milla Jovovich, Richard Schiff, Luke Tennie

In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, the US government began asserting that Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden had been aided by Iragi leader Saddam Hussein. This was at odds with the perceived wisdom that Bin Laden was operating out of Afghanistan, and despite an on-going mission to bomb him and the country “back to the Stone Age”. With most of the mainstream media, including publishing giants such as The New York Times and The Washington Post accepting the government’s “shoddy intelligence” as fact, it was only the likes of independent news service Knight Ridder journalists Jonathan Landay (Harrelson) and Warren Strobel (Marsden) who challenged the government’s stance, and did their best to expose the neo-con conspiracy that wanted to manufacture a war with Iraq. Supported by their editor, John Walcott (Reiner), Landay and Strobel strove to find evidence to contradict the government’s assertions that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and that this was the excuse being used to support the call for war, a call that had no basis in fact…

Recently, the journalist Carl Bernstein tweeted, “This is worse than Watergate, because the system worked in Watergate.” Of course he’s referring to the current situation with Donald Trump as President, but his remark could equally apply to the state of play following 9/11. After Watergate, the Republicans began managing the mainstream news media in a way that can still be seen today, and the post-9/11 watershed in political reporting is a perfect example of how government manipulation of the truth – or outright lying, if you prefer – was aided and abetted by the news corporations. But if you’re looking for a savage indictment of this kind of behaviour then Shock and Awe is not the place to find it. Instead, the movie flits between scenes of rote exposition and misjudged solemnity as it tries to exploit a situation where one group of journalists were outmanoeuvred by the Bush Administration, and their message was undermined by not getting it out to the public in as wide a manner as was needed. So what we have is a movie that deals with failure but not in an outraged, we-demand-justice kind of way, but in a poor-naïve-us kind of way that just isn’t attractive.

It also tries to be more than it has to be by including a distaff side to things through the paranoid (yet correct) assertions of Landay’s Yugoslavian wife Vlatka (Jovovich), and an awkward, should-have-been-jettisoned-from-the-get-go boy-meets-girl scenario involving Strobel and his neighbour, Lisa Mayr (Biel) (the scene where she recounts a potted version of fourteen hundred years of Iraqi history has to be seen to be believed). These episodes sit uneasily between scenes of Landay failing to charm various sources, and Strobel continually doubting if what they’re discovering is right. Added to this is a clumsy sub-plot involving The Philadelphia Enquirer not running any of Knight Ridder’s stories when they contradict the government, and the inclusion of veteran war reporter turned State Department official Joe Galloway (Jones), whose sole purpose seems to be to provide pithy comments about the duplicitous nature of his bosses. It’s all a huge, uninspired, unworthy, and unrelentingly mediocre movie with no fire or energy, and which uses a disabled soldier (Tennie) to make a thumpingly obvious point about the waste of men and resources once the US got to Iraq. Harrelson and Marsden are unlikely reporters, and Reiner overdoes his serious, flinty editor role, but it makes no difference as there’s not one relatable character in the whole movie. Is there any shock and awe? Yes, but only at how bad it all is.

Rating: 4/10 – you know your movie’s in trouble when its best performance is given by George W. Bush in archive footage, but that’s just one of the dilemmas that Shock and Awe fails to overcome; with no sense of outrage to build on or to, and by telling a story that’s too little too late, the movie lacks a purpose or a workable design, something that should have been spotted right from the start.

A Kind of Murder (2016)

05 Sunday Mar 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Andy Goddard, Crime, Drama, Eddie Marsan, Jessica Biel, Literary adaptation, Murder, Patricia Highsmith, Patrick Wilson, Review, The Blunderer, Thriller, Vincent Kartheiser

D: Andy Goddard / 95m

Cast: Patrick Wilson, Jessica Biel, Vincent Kartheiser, Haley Bennett, Eddie Marsan, Radek Lord, Jon Osbeck, Christine Dye

New York City, the Sixties. Walter Stackhouse (Wilson) is a successful architect with a beautiful home and a beautiful wife, Clara (Biel). In his free time he writes short stories about crime and murder. On the outside he’s living the perfect life, but his marriage is strained. Clara has a history of mental instability, and is remote from him. At the same time, though, she’s jealous and possessive, accusing him of having an affair with a young woman, Ellie (Bennett), who attended a party they gave. When Clara is like this, Walter usually ends up in a local bar. It’s on one such occasion that he reads an article in a newspaper about the unsolved murder of a woman outside of New York at a rest stop called Harry’s Rainbow Grill.

Suspicion seems to rest on the woman’s husband, a bookstore owner called Kimmel, but he has an alibi. This isn’t enough for the detective investigating the case, Corby (Kartheiser), who is convinced Kimmel is the killer. While he tries to intimidate Kimmel into confessing, Walter becomes more and more fascinated with the murder, and like Corby, becomes convinced that Kimmel is guilty. He even goes so far to visit Kimmel at his bookstore. But at home, his marriage goes from bad to worse. Clara takes an overdose and ends up in hospital. When she comes home, her jealousy remains firmly in place, and she remains convinced that Walter is having an affair with Ellie. When she’s proved right, Walter tells her he’s going to divorce her; Clara retaliates by saying she’ll definitely kill herself if he does.

Undeterred, Walter continues with his relationship with Ellie, but when Clara leaves suddenly to visit her sick mother upstate, he follows the bus she takes until it reaches Harry’s Rainbow Grill. But though she gets off the bus, Walter doesn’t see her, and he heads back to New York City. Later, Walter receives terrible news, news that causes Corby to link him to the murder of Kimmel’s wife, his relationship with Ellie to falter, and his business partnership to founder. With his honesty and integrity on the line, as well as his freedom, Walter must find a way of extricating himself from a situation that grows worse every day, and that could ultimately cost him his life.

An adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Blunderer, A Kind of Murder is a good-looking movie in search of a leading character for the audience to identify and sympathise with. Walter’s plight should be one that has the viewer on the edge of their seat, but thanks to both the script and Wilson’s performance, he’s vanilla bland from start to finish, and the movie never really knows how to make his predicament more intriguing or exciting. Walter becomes interested in the murder of Kimmel’s wife because he’s beginning to have thoughts about killing Clara. As he believes Kimmel killed his wife, Walter is supposed to feel some kind of kinship with the bookstore owner, but it’s all psychologically unconvincing. Walter channels his feelings about Clara into his writing, something we see on more than one occasion, and so any idea that he and Kimmel are similar can be disregarded from the start.

What this leaves us with is a contrived relationship that never develops beyond an uneasy semi-alliance against Corby’s invasive and confrontational detective work. And there’s never any doubt as to whether or not Kimmel killed his wife, or if Walter’s situation will lead to his livelihood being compromised. As the movie progresses from potential whodunnit to unabashed thriller, Susan Boyd’s first-time script forgets to instil proceedings with any tension, as Walter’s predicament never sees him fully in jeopardy, or at risk of having his comfortable world taken away from him. And in conjunction with Boyd’s script, Wilson delivers what may well be one of his least successful performances ever. For an actor who can genre-hop with ease, and who at least doesn’t look out of place in a period drama, Wilson never connects with Walter and gives a wayward portrayal of a man whose calm, outward manner belies a compulsive, selfish individual hidden away on the inside.

It’s this duality that the movie tries hard to promote, with Walter and Kimmel meant to be two sides of the same coin, and Clara and Ellie both representing the best and worst of Walter’s relationships with women. But again, there’s nothing for the audience to connect with. Even when Clara spells out her intention to kill herself if Walter goes ahead with the divorce, and tells him everyone will blame him for not doing enough to help her, there’s nothing there to back up that claim. It carries the weight of an empty paper bag, and as such, loses any validity, so that when Walter receives his terrible news, it doesn’t have the impact that it should have. And this is the moment when the viewer should find themselves completely on Walter’s side… but probably won’t.

As a thriller, A Kind of Murder stumbles along trying to match Highsmith’s elegant turn of phrase to its early Sixties setting, and only doing so on very rare occasions. It also dispenses with any attempt at providing back stories for any of the characters, leaving us in a void when it comes to understanding their current motivations. Clara is clearly mentally ill, and she’s clearly difficult to live with, so why Walter stays with her is a bit of a mystery (and a better one than if Kimmel killed his wife or not). And why Corby becomes so obsessed with Kimmel and bringing him to justice isn’t explained either. In the end, these are characters operating in a vacuum, occasionally bumping into each other but failing to make a proper connection.

And so it goes for the length of the movie. Wilson’s disappointing turn is matched by Biel’s monotone performance, Kartheiser’s unncessarily angry cop, and Bennett’s subdued turn as Walter’s girlfriend. Only Eddie Marsan deserves any praise, giving the kind of unexpected, yet nuanced performance that this kind of movie needs to be anywhere near successful. His brooding, snake-like approach to Kimmel is a master-class in big screen malevolence. Tying all this together is Goddard, known mostly for his TV work, but not stretching his abilities too far in bringing this tale to the big screen. However, he’s on firmer ground with the movie’s recreation of Sixties New York, with its colourful vibrancy and Mad Men-style glamour of the period, and all despite (or in spite of) the wintry backdrop. But for anyone expecting more substance with their style, this isn’t the place to be looking for it.

Rating: 5/10 – lacklustre in too many ways to even count, A Kind of Murder flatlines for most of its running time, and forgets to make itself interesting for the viewer; with so-so performances and a dull script, this is one thriller that can be given a wide berth unless you’re a fan of Marsan’s, or in an undemanding mood when it comes to choosing something to watch.

Bleeding Heart (2015)

28 Thursday Jan 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Diane Bell, Drama, Edi Gathegi, Half-sisters, Jessica Biel, Joe Anderson, Prostitution, Relationships, Review, Shiva, Thriller, Yoga, Zosia Mamet

D: Diane Bell / 88m

Cast: Jessica Biel, Zosia Mamet, Edi Gathegi, Joe Anderson, Kate Burton, Harry Hamlin

Bleeding Heart is likely to end up being one of those movies. You know the ones, those “interesting” looking movies you pass by on your way to the New Release/Blockbuster section of your local DVD store (if there still is one in your area). It has a well-known “name” actor or actress in the lead role, and is often a drama that looks intriguing and which you may even pick up to read the blurb on the back of the case. But chances are that even then you’ll think twice and instead, plump for the latest Bruce Willis flick (Career Suicide Part 9 perhaps), or the most recent Katherine Heigl humdrum rom-com. But if you did put Bleeding Heart back on the shelf, then you would be doing both it and yourself a serious disservice.

It begins with Jessica Biel’s slightly ethereal yoga teacher May extolling the virtues of a non-violent, peaceful existence. She and her boyfriend Dex (Gathegi) have big plans to expand their yoga business, and their sense of contentment – with their work, their lives, and each other – is palpable. But May has a personal issue she needs to deal with first: getting in touch with the maternal half-sister she’s only just located (and luckily only half an hour away from where she lives). Nervous and unsure if she’s doing the right thing, May knocks on her door and drops the bombshell she’s been carrying around with her for some time.

The young woman who answers is ten years younger and suitably shell-shocked by May’s turning up on her doorstep. They agree to meet in a bar and May’s half-sister Susan, who likes to call herself Shiva (Mamet), is nice and agreeable and pleasantly surprised by this sibling revelation. The two get on and at May’s urging, agree to meet up again. Back home, Dex is initially pleased for her, but his focus is on their business and his support dwindles at the realisation that seeing Shiva is likely to become more important than taking their current success to the level.

May accepts a late night invitation to meet Shiva and her boyfriend, Cody (Anderson), outside a bar. Cody is aggressive and clearly has a volatile temper, and when someone reproaches him for speaking harshly to Shiva, he gives them a vicious beating. May and Shiva drive off and they go back to May’s place. The next morning, with Cody in jail, May and Shiva persuade each other that spending some proper time with each other is a good idea and they head for May’s mother’s place. On the way, they stop off at Shiva’s apartment to pick up some things and May discovers that Shiva is a prostitute. May is stunned by this and by the implication that Cody is both boyfriend and pimp. But Shiva is unconcerned by it all, even appearing comfortable with it.

As they begin to get to know each other, cracks start to appear in May’s relationships with her mother, Martha (Burton) (unhappy at not being consulted about May looking for Shiva) and Dex (unhappy that she’s no longer focused on their business). But she feels a bond with Shiva that she’s never felt before, and even though Shiva tells her she doesn’t need to be saved, May’s instincts are to do exactly that. When Cody gets out of jail, Shiva goes back to him, and he drops her off at a client’s home. May, though, follows them, and decides to rescue her, and the resulting effort leads to both a consolidation of their relationship and a showdown with an angry Cody.

At its core, Bleeding Heart has a lot to say about relationships and the nature of power and control within them. While Shiva and Cody’s relationship is volatile and intense, and his control over her is the frame within which they exist, May’s relationship with Dex is, on the surface at least, more fluid and mutually supportive. But Dex has his own control issues, and in his own way doesn’t want May to do the things she wants to do. When she begins spending time with Shiva, and even gives her money to pay her rent, Dex is angry because May’s behaviour is a threat to the orderly existence he’s cultivated with her. And when May resists his insistence on maintaining their “status quo” his reactions are similar to Cody’s (though to be fair he’s not as violent).

With May coming to terms with the impact of having a half-sister in her life, and the repercussions of pursuing that relationship, the movie concentrates on how both women find their way out of what are unhealthy relationships for both of them. It doesn’t offer any blinding revelations, or even provide any new insights into how people justify their staying with people who profess to care about them but don’t show it in reality (or when it’s really important to do so). But what it does offer is a chance to see how two people can find real dependence in each other, and despite having numerous obstacles put in their way. May and Shiva are more alike than they realise, and Bell’s perceptive script is careful to show the ways in which they begin to mirror each other, with the best of each one’s character having an effect on the other.

Both Biel – an actress whose career resumé is littered with too many lacklustre Hollywood movies – and Mamet are well suited to their roles, and their onscreen partnership is both subtly rewarding and emotionally resonant, with both actresses inhabiting their characters with confidence and skill. Biel undergoes a physical as well as emotional change, and shows a burgeoning strength of purpose that helps May refind herself after years of following what appears to be the path of least resistance. Mamet underplays the vulnerability beneath Shiva’s street smarts, and there are moments where her unhealthy dependence on Cody is both frustrating and yet entirely credible. It’s to both actresses credit that while May and Shiva are clearly recognisable “types”, they’re still sympathetic and likeable, and easy to root for.

On the opposing side, Gathegi plays Dex like an injured puppy who can’t understand why someone would upset him (deliberately or otherwise), while Anderson’s turn as the outwardly charming Cody is hampered by his character’s lack of depth. Bell can be forgiven for this, as Cody is essentially the unthinking catalyst for the two sisters coming together, and without him this would be a different movie altogether; his adversity is necessary for May and Shiva to bond together with the appropriate intensity. That said, Anderson definitely makes an impression, and it’s difficult to remind yourself that he’s British.

Bell, making her second feature after her impressive debut Obselidia (2010), here tells a simple story with a firm grasp of the dynamics of May and Shiva’s relationship, and the unfulfilling lives they lead. If there’s an element of wish fulfillment towards the end it’s negated by the movie’s resolution, which is tougher and less cathartic than it might seem. Add some unshowy but deft camerawork by Zak Mulligan and you have a movie that is polished and assured and which offers far more than at first glance. And if Bell decides to revisit May and Shiva at some point in the future, that wouldn’t be a bad thing at all.

Rating: 8/10 – Bell is a moviemaker to watch, and imbues Bleeding Heart with a simple complexity (not a contradiction) that elevates the movie from its indie roots and provides the audience with unexpected rewards throughout; Biel and Mamet give great performances, and the whole exercise shows that even the most staple of storylines can be enhanced by well-judged brio and conviction.