The Catcher Was a Spy (2018)

21 Saturday Jul 2018

Tags

Baseball, Ben Lewin, Drama, Literary adaptation, Mark Strong, Morris "Moe" Berg, Nuclear bomb, Paul Rudd, Review, Sienna Miller, Thriller, True story, World War II

D: Ben Lewin / 95m

Cast: Paul Rudd, Mark Strong, Sienna Miller, Jeff Daniels, Tom Wilkinson, Guy Pearce, Paul Giamatti, Giancarlo Giannini, Hiroyuki Sanada, Connie Nielsen, Shea Whigham

In the years before the US enters World War II, Morris “Moe” Berg (Rudd) is a catcher for the Boston Red Sox. Regarded as the “strangest man ever to play baseball”, Berg is an average player, but of above average intelligence, being able to speak seven languages fluently, regularly contribute to the radio quiz programme Information, Please, and read and digest up to ten newspapers daily. A man of singular interests but also leading a very private life, Berg pursues a relationship with a woman, Estella (Miller), that he won’t acknowledge publicly, while on a trip to Japan, he takes it on himself to shoot footage of the Tokyo harbour. After Pearl Harbor, Berg uses the same footage to wangle himself a desk job with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Soon though, his expertise in languages lands him a job in the field: to track down the noted physicist Werner Heisenberg (Strong) and determine if his work for the Nazis will give them a nuclear weapon – and if it will, then Berg is to kill him…

Another tale of unsung heroics set during World War II, The Catcher Was a Spy (a title that’s both derivative and clever) is a movie that takes a real life person and spins a mostly true story out of events they took part in, but does so in a way that alerts the viewer very early on that, despite the mission, Berg won’t be put in any danger, so any tension will evaporate before it’s even got up a head of steam. So instead of a movie that should be increasingly tense and dramatic, we have a movie that plays matter-of-factly with the material, and is presented in a pedestrian, if sure-footed manner. Working from an adaptation of the book of the same name by Nicholas Dawidoff, director Ben Lewin and writer Robert Rodat have fashioned a moderately engaging espionage tale that moves elegantly yet far from robustly from scene to scene without providing much in the way of emotional impact. Partly this is due to Berg’s own nature, his muted feelings and intellectual prowess being ostensibly the whole man, and while the movie and Rudd’s performance adhere to Berg’s character, it leaves the viewer in the awkward position of being an observer and not a participant.

With Berg introduced “as is”, and with only the most minimal of character arcs to send him on, the movie soon becomes a wearying succession of exposition scenes, or opportunities to show off Berg’s gift for languages (which Rudd copies with aplomb). The early scenes with Estella show Berg trying to be “normal” but not quite knowing how to, give way to the mission to find Heisenberg, but the movie’s switch from domestic tribulations to wartime emergency – Berg literally has Heisenberg’s life, and possibly the fate of the world in his hands – dovetail at the same pace and with the same lack of urgency. Even a sequence where Berg, accompanied by military man Robert Furman (Pearce) and friendly physicist Samuel Goudsmit (Giamatti), try to thread their way through a town overrun by Germans lacks the necessary sense of imminent peril needed to make it work. Another issue is Andrij Parekh’s humdrum cinematography, which deadens the effect of Luciana Arrighi’s murky yet effective production design. Against all this, Rudd is a good choice for the enigmatic Berg, and the moments where he expresses Berg’s self-doubts, offer a rare glimpse of the man behind the façade. But, sadly, these moments aren’t plentiful enough to offset the flaws that dog the rest of the movie, and which keep it from being far more impressive than it is.

Rating: 5/10 – proficient enough without providing much more than the basics of Berg’s life as a catcher or an OSS man, The Catcher Was a Spy isn’t dull per se, just not as compelling as it could (or should) have been; Rudd aside, a quality cast is left with little to do except recite their lines in a competent manner, and any notions of political or intellectual morality are left undeveloped or overlooked.

American Assassin (2017)

05 Thursday Oct 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Action, Drama, Dylan O'Brien, Literary adaptation, Michael Cuesta, Michael Keaton, Mitch Rapp, Nuclear bomb, Revenge, Review, Sanaa Lathan, Shiva Negar, Taylor Kitsch, Thriller

D: Michael Cuesta / 112m

Cast: Dylan O’Brien, Michael Keaton, Sanaa Lathan, Shiva Negar, Taylor Kitsch, David Suchet, Scott Adkins, Joseph Long, Mohammad Bakri, Navid Negahban, Khalid Laith, Vladimir Friedman, Charlotte Vega

It doesn’t take long – or much – to work out that American Assassin wants to be the first in a new spy/action series. After all, it’s an origin story, and the main character, Mitch Rapp (O’Brien), is in his early twenties at this point, so the potential is there for several more movies to be adapted from the novels by Vince Flynn, and made into the kind of slick, glossily produced, but largely pedestrian movie that’s been put together here. Depending on your patience or your level of appreciation for Rapp and his personal mission to rid the world of terrorists – particuarly Muslim ones – this will either have you urging him on, or wondering what makes him so special. However, what is certain, is that Mitch’s origin story leaves a lot to be desired.

What sets Mitch off on his pesonal mission happens on a beach in Ibiza. Having just proposed to his girlfriend, Katrina (Vega), Mitch is getting them drinks to celebrate when, from out of nowhere and with no warning at all, the beach is overrun by terrorists who start shooting randomly at everyone, including Mitch himself, who gets wounded, and (of course) Katrina, who is killed right in front of him. Fast forward eighteen months, and Mitch is now on the trail of the terrorist responsible for the beach attack. He’s managed to persuade said terrorist that they share the same aims and gotten himself a personal invitation to meet up in person. But just as he’s face to face with his arch-nemesis, a team of US Special Forces ops take out the terrorist and his men, and leave taking Mitch with them. He’s taken to a CIA safe house where he spends thirty days being debriefed, and impressing CIA Deputy Director Irene Kennedy (Lathan). She wants him for a black ops team called Orion, because “he tests off the chart” for what they need.

Without wishing to use this site’s favourite I-word, what follows could be predicted by just about anyone, even someone who’s never seen this kind of movie before (or any kind of revenge flick). Mitch is revealed to have authority issues, and he clashes with his trainer/handler Stan Hurley (Keaton), while also getting on the nerves of the rest of his team, and in particular, those of Victor (Adkins), his main rival for the position of Alpha Male. But Irene keeps on vouching for him, even when Mitch makes it clear he’s not a team player, and even when Stan correctly deduces that he’s driven by revenge and not by any patriotic duty (which is apparently preferable, as revenge is regarded as something that gets in the way of being a fully competent operative). Sent on the trail of some missing weapons grade plutonium that may or may not be about to fall into the hands of a trio of Iranian hardliners, Mitch disobeys orders on a mission in Istanbul, but is fortunate enough to retrieve vital information in the process.

This sets the pattern for the rest of the movie, as Stan tries to focus Mitch’s energies in the right direction, while Mitch continues acting impulsively and without the slightest idea of what he’s going to do next until he makes it up on the spot. He’s kind of an anti-hero, using the resources of the CIA to wage his own war on terror, while being told that his approach and attitude isn’t the best. This leads to a fair bit of confusion on the script’s part, as Irene and Stan (mostly Stan) keep telling him that his motives are wrong. But without them, Mitch wouldn’t have the skill set that he has, and he wouldn’t “test off the chart”. Apparently, he’s a natural, the kind of operative that the CIA prays comes along every so often, but at the same time they want to reign him in and make him fit their approach and attitude. And they wonder why it doesn’t work…

In the end, the movie can’t help but try and have its cake and eat it, as Mitch swings into action single-handedly at every turn, ignoring Stan’s orders and advice, and getting by on sheer exuberance and luck. O’Brien gives an intense performance as Mitch, but aside from a growing respect for Stan that fits the standard template for this kind of movie, there’s no character arc as such because he goes from delighted fiancé to revenge-fuelled assassin in the space of those eighteen months we never get to see. What we’re left with is a dour, singularly remote character that the viewer can’t connect with, and whose only emotional trait is anger. Other than that, Mitch is pretty much a stiff with a variety of weapons. As his mentor, Keaton continues a run of performances that prove he’s an actor who can make more out of a character than is on the page, and whose work ethic is almost second to none. Whenever he’s on screen, the movie picks up, and his energy helps carry the movie forward when at times it’s in danger of stalling.

Elsewhere, Lathan’s CIA Deputy Director remains a bland interpretation of an even blander role, while Negar grabs some of the limelight as an Iranian agent who’s part of the team when they get to Rome. The main villain is a renegade Orion operative called Ghost (Kitsch) who has his own revenge issues, but like a lot of self-absorbed bad guys he’s prone to too much monologuing and being lenient when it’s absolutely not in his best interest. The script’s nuclear bomb McGuffin feels old hat, and it all leads to an unfortunate bout of ruinous CGI involving the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet that requires such a major suspension of disbelief that only unintentional laughter can be regarded as the correct response to it. Trying to keep all this feeling fresh and exciting, but being undermined by the tired scenarios on display, Cuesta – whose pedigree includes stints on TV’s Six Feet Under, Dexter and Homeland – does what he can, and there are flashes of what he could have achieved, but they’re not enough to lift the material out of its self-imposed doldrums. By the end of the movie, you’ll either be optimistically looking forward to another outing for Mitch and his authority issues, or you might be agreeing with Tina Turner and saying, “We don’t need another hero”.

Rating: 5/10 – a broad spectrum action thriller that’s at least professionally made, American Assassin is the result of the work of four screenwriters (including Edward Zwick when he was attached to direct as well) who, between them, couldn’t make the material memorable enough; formulaic and predictable at every turn, it’s not a bad movie per se, just one that doesn’t have the necessary impact to help it rise above the bar set by the likes of James Bond or Jason Bourne.

Red 2 (2013)

17 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Action, Anthony Hopkins, Bruce Willis, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Dean Parisot, Drama, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich, Nuclear bomb, Project Nightshade, Review, Sequel, The Frog, Thriller

D: Dean Parisot / 116m

Cast: Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker, Helen Mirren, Byung-hun Lee, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Neal McDonough, David Thewlis, Brian Cox, Garrick Hagon, Tim Pigott-Smith

A surprise hit in 2010, Red was fun to watch because it had an ageing cast (Parker excepted) indulging in the kind of action movie heroics that (Willis excepted) you wouldn’t normally find them involved in. Everyone looked like they were having a great time, so it was almost a certainty there would be a sequel. And here it is.

Following on from the first movie, Frank Moses (Willis) is still having trouble settling down with Sarah (Parker). When Marvin (Malkovich) warns that someone is coming for both of them, he then fakes his own death. At the funeral, Frank is taken in for questioning by federal agents. Frank and Marvin are accused of having worked on Project Nightshade, an operation carried out over thirty years before whose purpose was to plant a nuclear bomb in Moscow. After Frank survives an attempt to kill him by sinister US agent Jack Horton (McDonough), the Americans hire Han (Lee) to complete the task, while the British give the job to old friend and ally Victoria (Mirren). Both countries have their reasons for putting Frank and Marvin on their most wanted lists, and as the movie progresses those reasons become clearer and clearer, and have a lot to do with missing-presumed-dead scientist Edward Bailey (Hopkins). In order to clear themselves, Frank, Marvin and Sarah travel from the US to Paris to Moscow and then to London in their efforts to stop the bomb from being set off. Along the way they are variously helped and/or hindered by terrorist The Frog (Thewlis), Russian official Ivan (Cox), and an ex-flame of Frank’s, Katja (Zeta-Jones).

The first movie, as mentioned above, was fun to watch, but Red 2 is a chore. From the opening sequence to the final scene, the movie lumbers from set up to set up, barely pausing to catch its own breath. If it did, if it gave itself a chance to breathe, then there’s more chance the audience would realise how poor a sequel it is, so the movie doesn’t let up. Willis, Malkovich and Hopkins overact as if their careers depend on it, while Parker stretches kooky to flat-out annoying. Lee is underused, McDonough makes the most of his early scenes, while Zeta-Jones succeeds in putting the fatal in femme fatale. Only Helen Mirren emerges unscathed from a script – by Jon and Erich Hoeber – that dispenses with any attempt at characterisation, pays lip service to the idea of a coherent plot, and includes some of the worst dialogue this side of an Adam Sandler movie (Jack & Jill anyone?).

The action sequences are perfunctory and often poorly edited, and the humour that punctuates the movie seems forced rather than organic. It’s the same old schtick from the first movie but less interesting and on a bigger budget. Parisot directs as if he’s not responsible for anything that appears on screen, and nothing can detract from the sense of hopelessness that builds toward the incredibly naff – and predictable – showdown between Willis and the movie’s main villain (their identity in itself completely predictable). It’s somehow more disappointing when a big budget movie with a talented cast tanks so badly – you’d think someone might look at the script and say, “hang on, can’t we do something about this?”. If this is a cast and crew that are doing their best, perhaps they just shouldn’t bother.

Rating: 4/10 – an unremittingly bad sequel to a moderately good first movie, Red 2 stutters and stumbles its way through a disaster of a script; saved from a lower rating by some good location work, and the pleasure of seeing Helen Mirren showing everyone else how it should be done.