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The Comedian (2016)

03 Wednesday May 2017

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D: Taylor Hackford / 120m

Cast: Robert De Niro, Leslie Mann, Harvey Keitel, Edie Falco, Danny DeVito, Patti LuPone, Charles Grodin, Cloris Leachman, Veronica Ferres, Lois Smith

Jackie Burke (De Niro) is an aging stand-up comedian who is famous for having appeared in a very successful sitcom thirty years ago, called Eddie’s Home. His career is somewhat in the doldrums, with his agent, Miller (Falco), unable to get him any really well-paid gigs. But he’s well liked and respected on the comedy circuit, and his act – as an insult comedian – is well received also. But one night, while he’s on stage he’s heckled by a member of the audience. The heckling takes a more serious turn when Jackie assaults the man responsible and winds up in court. Tasked with making a sincere apology to the man, Jackie refuses, and is sent to prison for thirty days. And when he’s released he has to perform a hundred hours community service.

Community service turns out to be helping at a mission, serving food and providing clothing to the local homeless. There, Jackie meets Harmony Schiltz (Mann), who is there because she assaulted her boyfriend and the woman he was having an affair with. There’s an attraction there on Jackie’s part, but not on Harmony’s. He does persuade her to go out with him (as an appointment, not a date), and Harmony has such a good time, she agrees to go with him to his niece’s wedding. They miss the actual ceremony, but are in time for the reception, where Jackie – at his neice’s insistence but to the horror of her parents Jimmy (DeVito) and Florence (LuPone) – gives a speech. It’s peppered with swear words, deliberately offensive, but by and large, is exactly what his niece wanted.

The next night, Jackie acts as a birthday present for Mac Schiltz (Keitel), Harmony’s father. He’s a big fan of Eddie’s Home, and can’t resist pushing Jackie to recite some of the character’s catchphrases. Mac also harangues Harmony over her community service, and tells her she can complete it in Florida where she can also resume the work she did at a retirement home her father owns. Jackie takes exception to the way Mac treats her, and they leave earlier than planned. A few drinks later, and back at Harmony’s apartment, their relationship takes an unexpected turn. The next day, Harmony has left for Florida, and Jackie resumes looking for the kind of work that will pay handsomely and restore his standing with bookers and club owners. But when he tries to contact Harmony, she doesn’t reply to his calls or his texts…

Every now and again, a movie comes along that provokes antipathy and dissatisfaction in equal measure, and which causes the viewer to wonder why on earth said movie was even made in the first place. The Comedian is such a movie. It’s one of those movies that doesn’t make sense when you consider the talent involved, and the potential it holds. But this really is a movie that makes so little impact, and which has so little meaning that it’s hard to understand why everyone involved in its making didn’t spot it sooner. The original story and screenplay is by the producer Art Linson, and he’s been aided and abetted by Richard LaGravenese, Lewis Friedman and Jeff Ross. That’s a talented group of people, but between them they’ve written a flat, uninspired screenplay that’s replete with redundant scenes, a minimum of effort in terms of the characters (say hello to more borderline stereotypes in one movie than you’ve seen in a very long time indeed), yet another of Hollywood’s bizarre and unconvincing attempts at portraying a May-December relationship, and perhaps unsurprisingly given the project’s long gestation period, jokes that would have been funny five or six years ago, but which now sound stale and in need of a rethink.

This is first and foremost meant to be a drama, as Jackie struggles to maintain a livelihood that doesn’t have anything to do with, or depend upon, Eddie’s Home. He hates reciting the catchphrases, complains bitterly at how much his TV success is ruining his stand-up career, and behaves in a churlish, emotionally dysfunctional way that is unattractive, unendearing, and unapologetic. He’s not quite a relic from a different age of entertainment, but in a time when diversity is a key component of social interaction, Jackie is so far behind in his thinking it’s unlikely he’ll ever catch up. His material is offensive at times, and not because Jackie doesn’t understand context (which might make his jokes more acceptable), but because he doesn’t care enough about context to include it. And this leads to much of his stand-up material being as far from funny as you can get. There’s an incredibly awkward, uncomfortable scene in Mac Schiltz’s retirement home that sees Jackie improvise an act around the elderly residents and their sexual proclivities (or Jackie’s idea of their proclivities), and reworking the song “Makin’ Whoopee” into “Makin’ Poopee”. It’s hard to know who to feel the more sorry for: De Niro for playing the scene and not being able to make it work, or the writers for including it and thinking it could work.

Jackie’s relationship with Harmony is another area where the script struggles to make any headway, aiming for a mixture of cute flirtations and meaningful glances to provide the (un)necessary romantic shorthand, and failing to convince audiences that Harmony would be attracted to Jackie at any point, let alone take him back to her apartment after she’s been drinking a lot and do something she “wants to do”. This is the kind of lazy dialogue screenwriters come up with when they have no credible basis for a character to behave in such a way, and it’s disheartening to see the main female character treated in such a cavalier fashion (Mann does what she can, but sadly it’s not much in the face of such blatant sexism.) And try as they might, De Niro and Mann don’t exactly light up the screen with their chemistry together.

Making only his third feature since the Oscar-winning Ray (2004), Taylor Hackford gives no indication that he’s engaged with the material, and the movie coasts along in first gear for much of its running time, muddling through its contentious romantic scenario without any recourse to enthusiasm, and staging the stand-up routines with all the flair of a director who’s heard that the camera doesn’t have to be static but who doesn’t trust it all the same. The Comedian was never going to be a visually arresting movie, even with Oliver Stapleton behind the lens (he’s Lasse Hallström’s cinematographer of choice), but it’s such a bland, unappealing movie to watch that you end up being unsurprised. After all, if the material is bland and unappealing then what chance does any other production aspect have?

Even the participation of real life comedians such as Brett Butler, Hannibal Buress and Jim Norton doesn’t add any verisimilitude to proceedings, because Grodin’s Friars Club bigwig aside, everyone loves Jackie and his act. And so too does the Internet, with three(!) videos of him going viral in quick succession and each time boosting his flagging career. It would have been a sloppy plot device if it was used just the once, but three times reeks of desperation, and each time it happens it doesn’t help propel the story forward because the script resolutely refuses to exploit the idea in any sensible or confident way. Jackie becomes even more famous than he already is – and that’s about it. No character development (or at least none that isn’t trite and/or clichéd), and no reason to believe that any might be forthcoming. Like the movie as a whole, it doesn’t matter what happens to Jackie because whatever it is, it will be of little consequence, and as a result, will have no effect on the audience either.

Rating: 4/10 – dramatically poor and comedically estranged, The Comedian is a movie that feels tired from the off, and which never has the energy to drag itself up out of the same doldrums where Jackie’s career is stranded; with no ambition or sense of its own inconsequence, it’s a movie that plays for two hours and barely registers as an experience, so slight and insubstantial is it.

Trailers – Claire in Motion (2016), The Comedian (2016) and The Zookeeper’s Wife (2017)

25 Friday Nov 2016

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In Claire in Motion, the titular character finds her orderly world turned upside down when her husband disappears. What follows – at least as far as the trailer goes – is a search that takes some unexpected twists and turns, and which further undermines Claire’s sense of her marriage and her life. Featuring a breakout performance from Breaking Bad‘s Betsy Brandt, Claire in Motion is the creation of writing and directing team Annie J. Howell and Lisa Robinson, and looks like a strong, compelling mix of mystery thriller and a woman’s emotional struggle to make sense of what’s happened, that takes a well-worn storyline and does something unexpected with it. Will the husband be missing out of choice, or will there be a more sinister reason for his disappearance? What looks certain is that the answer won’t be as straightforward as might be expected.

 

De Niro’s third movie of 2016 – after Dirty Grandpa and Hands of Stone – The Comedian sees him playing Jackie Burke, an aging comic who’s performance style is somewhat “confrontational”. A burgeoning relationship with Leslie Mann’s charity worker sets the character off on a journey of personal reassessment, but along the way he still finds time to be obnoxious and insulting – which isn’t surprising as his stand-up routines were written by Jeffrey Ross. The movie has had several ups and downs on its way to our screens (director Taylor Hackford was preceeded by Martin Scorsese, Sean Penn, and Mike Newell, while Mann was third choice after Kristen Wiig and Jennifer Aniston), so it remains to be seen if it can maintain a “straight face” away from the moments where Burke indulges in his penchant for derogatory remarks and non-PC attitude.

 

Based on a true tale of wartime heroism, The Zookeeper’s Wife tells the story of Antonina Zabinska and her husband Jan Zabinski (Jessica Chastain, Johan Heldenbergh) who not only saved hundreds of animals from the Warsaw Zoo – where they lived and worked – but also hundreds of people fleeing from Nazi persecution. It’s a movie with some arresting imagery (wild animals prowling the streets of ghetto-ised Warsaw), a script adapted from the book by Diane Ackerman (itself based on the unpublished diaries of Antonina Zabinska), and all overseen by Niki Caro, the director of Whale Rider (2002) and North Country (2005). It all looks promising enough then, and with Daniel Brühl’s Nazi officer no doubt making things difficult, it remains to be seen if the movie adopts a typically polished approach to the Zabinskis’ story, or aims to be more gritty and realistic.

Trailers – xXx: Return of Xander Cage (2017), Hands of Stone (2016) and In a Valley of Violence (2016)

22 Friday Jul 2016

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In the trailer for xXx: Return of Xander Cage, one thing stands out: that pretty much all the action beats we see, involve, or are performed by, everyone with the exception of Vin Diesel (aside from one leg swipe and an elbow to the neck). So straight away this seems less of a movie about the return of Xander Cage, and more of a movie where the star of the Fast & Furious franchise reinvigorates another, minor franchise by inserting his character into a storyline Cage didn’t originally feature in. If that’s so, then Diesel and director D.J. Caruso have an uphill battle on their hands to make Cage a still-relevant action hero at a time when Jason Bourne is back on our screens, and the best action movies are being made by a little outfit called Marvel. But if this really is a brand new outing designed and written specifically for Cage, and is intended to restart the franchise with Diesel firmly in place this time, then on first glance, it’s not looking too good. And it’ll be interesting to see where Tony Jaa fits into the scrapping order (first Paul Walker, now Diesel – who’s next? Michelle Rodriguez?). Let’s hope the two have a thumping good fight scene together, and one that doesn’t rely on the kind of editing that makes you wonder if their stunt doubles should be sharing top billing.

 

Real violence is on display in Hands of Stone, the story of boxer Roberto Durán’s rise from the poverty-stricken streets of Guarare in Panama, to glory in the ring, and two historic fights with Sugar Ray Leonard. The trailer makes it look as if Durán’s story is being told from the perspective of legendary trainer Ray Arcel, so it may be that the movie carries a degree of objectivity in its approach, and isn’t out to simply lionise Durán’s achievements. The boxer had his demons, and though the trailer touches on these, it’s hard to tell how much time will be spent on the man outside the ring instead of or rather than, the man inside it. Ramirez seems an obvious choice to play Durán (and he may be hoping to erase moviegoers’ memories of his performance in the Point Break remake), but he’s not an actor who’s really proven himself to date. De Niro has proven himself (many times) but the trailer doesn’t make it look as if he’s really trying, so let’s hope he’s more engaged than he’s been in recent years. And let’s hope the fight sequences are more Raging Bull (1980) than Grudge Match (2013).

 

Ti West is an indie movie maker in the best sense: he writes and directs his own movies, and he has a intriguing visual style that means you’re never sure where he’s going to take you next. Sometimes, as in The Sacrament (2013), he can surprise you just by getting the camera to turn a corner; other times, as in The Innkeepers (2011), he can surprise you by not surprising you (you’ll have to see the movie to know what that’s like). In a Valley of Violence has been on West’s to-do list for some time, and now that the first trailer is here we can see that it’s been well worth the wait. There are few trailers that can adequately instill a sense of foreboding from its assembly of clips, but this is one of those trailers. The lone stranger in town isn’t exactly a new twist on the Western genre, but under West’s stewardship, this looks like meaty, thrilling stuff indeed. With a great cast that includes Ethan Hawke, John Travolta (let’s hope it’s the kind of role he can do real justice to), James Ransone, Karen Gillan and indie favourite Larry Fessenden, this should be a rousing treat come the end of the year.

Joy (2015)

01 Monday Feb 2016

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Joy

D: David O. Russell / 124m

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper, Edgar Ramirez, Diane Ladd, Virginia Madsen, Isabella Rossellini, Dascha Polanco, Elisabeth Röhm, Aundrea Gadsby, Gia Gadsby

At first glance, Joy looks like a traditional rags to riches story about a plucky young woman who overcomes several hurdles on her way to making her fortune. And for the most part this is exactly the kind of movie that Joy is. But it’s also a David O. Russell movie, and that means that the story can’t be told in a completely straightforward way. Instead we’re treated to occasional dream sequences that apparently hold a mirror up to Joy’s feelings at the time, a voiceover that comes and goes without adding too much to the overall presentation, and a lengthy stopover at the headquarters of the QVC Channel that amounts to a very generous piece of promotion.

By returning to the kind of small-town milieu he depicted so well in Silver Linings Playbook (2012), Russell has forgotten to include the one thing that made that movie so affecting and effective: interesting characters. Here, we have budding business matriarch Joy Mangano (Lawrence) whose struggle to get her Miracle Mop – the first self-wringing mop – both into production and into people’s homes is punctuated by several obstacles and problems, not the least of which is her business naïvete. That she overcomes all these problems is a given – this is based on a true story after all – but in the hands of Russell and his co-story writer Annie Mumolo, Joy’s tale lacks the kind of investment in the characters that’s needed for an audience to be cheering them on through adversity after adversity.

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The problems begin almost immediately, with Joy’s grandmother Mimi (an almost unrecognisable Ladd), foreshadowing events with an upbeat voiceover that predicts Joy’s success as an adult because Mimi knows she’s destined for greatness. This is the restaurant equivalent of being told that a particular meal on the menu is going to be a feast for the tastebuds. If you’re already seated at your table (or in the back row of your local cinema), then you’re not going to disbelieve the person telling you all this, and with Joy we know in advance that Mimi’s predictions will come true. So it doesn’t need all this dreamy talk of predestination and making one’s dreams come true. And this is largely the role that Ladd has in the movie, to pop up every now and then when things go wrong and remind everyone that everything will be alright in the end. (But we know this already…)

We then have a considerable amount of time spent introducing the characters. There’s Joy, obviously, a divorced mother of two who spends most of her time clearing up after her reclusive mother, Terry (Madsen), and her father, Rudy (De Niro), who owns an auto repair shop. Her parents are divorced, but circumstances have them living in Joy’s house, Terry in her room, Rudy in the basement. There’s also Tony (Ramirez), Joy’s ex-husband, who also lives in the basement, and has his own dreams of being a singer (but this subplot is smothered at birth and dismissed thereafter). Adding to the mix is Joy’s petulant half-sister Peggy (Röhm), whose own struggle to be accepted fully by Rudy is another subplot that gets an early grave, and Joy’s childhood friend Jackie (Polanco), whose role is to support Joy at the expense of having any character of her own. All these characters interact with each other in ways that are mostly confrontational, but which add up to a series of poorly timed dramatic interludes, Russell filming these scenes as if they were rehearsals rather than the finished offering.

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And then there’s Joy herself. Whatever really happened in Joy Mangano’s life as she fought to get her Miracle Mop into people’s homes (“It’s the only mop you’ll ever need to buy” is repeated like a mantra), it’s hard to believe that someone with so much flair and the kind of intelligence to come up with such a revolutionary invention could be so continuously undermined both by her family – though admittedly with her best interests at heart – and by such a large number of poor business decisions. And the movie eventually realises this at the end, but by then it’s too late. Despite several setbacks, including a declaration of bankruptcy that gets ignored like so many other briefly introduced subplots, Joy wins out in the end, as expected, but it’s the way in which she does that shows just how uninterested Russell is in portraying his central character in any kind of consistent light. Joy solves all her business problems by providing the kind of expertly constructed and detailed deconstruction of her opponent’s position that only exists in the movies, and which has them backing down immediately.

Russell’s uneven, and often ill-considered script is the one major flaw that stops Joy from being the thought-provoking, inspirational movie it no doubt wants to be in the first place. Thankfully it’s bolstered by an impressive performance from Lawrence even if she is fighting against the script’s often painful restrictions on her ability to connect with the audience. Alas, the same can’t be said for Cooper, who plays a senior buyer at QVC as if he were a Messiah of the airwaves. It’s an arch, uncomfortable to watch performance, and helps to mire the movie around the halfway mark, as Joy’s initial attempts to sell the Miracle Mop are given awkward free rein on TV, and the movie’s pace, not the sprightliest at the best of times, grinds to a clunking halt. De Niro has the look of an actor whose starting to realise his role isn’t going to be as big or as important to the story as he’d thought, Madsen channels an odd combination of deliberate shut-in and shy Southern belle supposedly to comic effect but soon becomes annoying, Ramirez is sidelined early on and hangs around in the background for two thirds of the movie, and Rossellini comes in halfway through and behaves like a low-rent mafiosi whose just suffered a minor stroke.

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Along with American Hustle (2013), Russell seems to be foregoing content over style, but here it doesn’t work either. The wintry Long Island setting and bland interiors do little to improve the visual malaise that stalks the movie throughout, and there are too many occasions where the framing seems off-kilter, though whether this is deliberate or not is hard to tell, but it does have the effect of further distancing the viewer from the characters. Russell adds a few cinematic tricks to mix things up but they only serve to reinforce how ineffective the overall design is. With it already being too difficult to connect with Joy and her dysfunctional family, Russell’s directorial stance and ragged screenplay offer little help in getting any actual joy out of Joy.

Rating: 6/10 – lacking the necessary creative steam to get it through the hesitancies and inconsistencies of the script, Joy is a pedestrian tale of success borne out of personal tenacity; Lawrence elevates proceedings but even her sterling effort can’t save a movie that doesn’t know what kind of movie it wants to be, and which fumbles around for too long trying to find out.

 

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The Intern (2015)

23 Wednesday Dec 2015

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The Intern

D: Nancy Meyers / 121m

Cast: Robert De Niro, Anne Hathaway, Rene Russo, Anders Holm, JoJo Kushner, Andrew Rannells, Adam DeVine, Zack Pearlman, Jason Orley, Christina Scherer, Nat Wolff, Celia Weston, Linda Lavin

Taken at face value, The Intern looks like a movie that you could easily pass by. For one thing it’s a comedy starring Robert De Niro, not exactly the best recommendation a movie could have these days, and secondly, there’s the possibility of a May-December romance between De Niro and Hathaway (and with all due respect to both actors, nobody wants to see that). Look a little closer and it still doesn’t look like a great prospect: it’s about a small internet fashion retailer, built up out of nothing by Hathaway’s determined entrepreneur, and facing an uphill battle to maintain and expand on its initial successes. Then there’s the whole senior intern programme idea that’s bolted onto the basic storyline – and where De Niro’s Ben Whittaker comes in. Sold yet? Maybe not? Then consider this: Hathaway’s character, Jules Ostin, is neglecting her husband and young daughter while she builds her business empire. Sound familiar, maybe overly so? Any guesses as to who helps Jules get her business and private lives back in sync and on track?

If you’re still not sold on The Intern, and this type of comedy (with a smattering of light drama added) still doesn’t appeal, then fair enough, move on to something else. But you’d be making a mistake, because against all the odds, Nancy Meyers’ latest writing/directing gig is deceptively charming and warm-hearted, the movie equivalent of a hug from a loved one. In these days of mega-budget, special effects-laden tributes to the joys of target demographics, The Intern is a refreshing change of pace, a movie that plays out simply and effectively, and not without a degree of style all its own.

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What makes it work so well is Meyers’ well-balanced, and surprisingly intuitive script. Even though the majority of what unfolds has been done before, and will be again (and again), here familiarity breeds contentment, and fosters a relationship between the characters and the audience that allows some of the more sentimental moments to slide by without too much approbation. In short, it’s a joy to watch from its slightly slow beginning to its let’s-wrap-all-this-up-with-a-bow-on-top finish.

By marrying the two ideas – senior citizen with oodles of personal and business experience looking to keep busy, young internet-based company trying to move up to the next level but uncertain how to do it – Meyers has created a movie that looks at how little difference there is in generational thinking when it comes to relationships, and how it’s often true that experience can offer a much simpler solution than seems immediately apparent. At one point, one of Jules’ staff, Jason (DeVine) asks Ben for advice. He’s cheated on his girlfriend, co-worker Becky (Scherer), and hasn’t had much luck getting her to forgive him. Ben’s advice is simple: say sorry to her and do it face-to-face, not via texts. But where some movies might take that advice and have it work straight away, here Meyers is canny enough to make it just the first move in an eventual reconciliation.

So, with Ben’s experience of life and work clearly to his advantage, it’s all down to Jules to realise that it’s to her advantage as well. It doesn’t happen overnight, and along the way Jules makes the kind of mistakes that a lack of experience will bring out. But through it all Ben maintains a patience and a determination not to let things overwhelm or get the better of him that eventually has its effect on the other staff around him. And, of course, along the way, he helps Jules come to realise just how her behaviour and narrow focus on work is contributing to the problems she has both in the office and at home.

The Intern - scene1

Meyers keeps things light and airy throughout, and her insistence that old age is not a passport to obsolescence is well handled; it’s patently obvious but not rammed down our throats. And the relationship between Ben and Jules is handled so deftly that as it develops and they come to have a mutual respect for each other, there’s not one awkward moment for the viewer where they might suspect Ben and Jules will find themselves in a romantic situation.

De Niro is self-effacing and modest as Ben, always dressed in a suit, always shaving every day (even if he’s not seeing anyone he knows, even on a Sunday), and always ready with the right thing to say. It’s a quiet, mostly internal performance from De Niro, and if he still has a rampant tendency to grimace uncontrollably every time he’s called upon to be embarrassed or uncertain or surprised, it’s strangely effective here even if it is overdone. It’s not a role that was ever likely to tax him as an actor, but he gives a commitment to the part that he hasn’t done in some of his more recent movies (Heist (2015) anyone?).

Matching him for effort and commitment, Hathaway combines vulnerability, fortitude, uncertainty and a blinkered siege mentality with casual ease, and makes Jules an easily recognisable and sympathetic character from the start. It’s the more emotional role (naturally) but she handles it with skill and sensitivity, maintaining a through line that makes her journey from overwhelmed businesswoman to poised, decisive company head all the more credible. It’s worth pointing out again that this is a relatively lightweight movie that provides just enough depth for its characters to avoid being stereotypes, but it’s the themes around age and experience that are more important, and thanks to De Niro and Hathaway’s involvement, Ben and Jules are the kind of unlikely friends that really do crop up in real life.

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And it’s a genuinely funny movie, with the humour arising from the characters and their individual foibles. There’s a sequence where Ben and three other staffers volunteer to break into Jules’ parents’ home to delete a nasty e-mail she’s sent to her mother by mistake, and while it may seem out of place, it allows some of the secondary cast members a chance to impress, and they grab the opportunity with gusto; as a result it’s the funniest part of the movie. Meyers is also good at providing her willing cast with great dialogue, dialogue that doesn’t sound like lines to be acted but which is natural-sounding and far from contrived.

Modestly budgeted at $35m, The Intern has gone on to make nearly $200m at the box office (worldwide), and is a good sign that there’s room for intelligent, adult comedies that don’t rely on gross-out gags and puerile humour to attract audiences. It’s not a movie that will win tons of awards (or gain many nominations), but the fact that it’s been as successful as it has should be counted as a very good sign indeed that audiences know a good movie when they see them.

Rating: 8/10 – above average comedy with something to say about the compatibility between the young and the old, The Intern is charming and, as it progresses, irresistible; De Niro and Hathaway have a great chemistry, but it’s Meyers’ combination of great script and assured direction that makes this movie so enjoyable.

Heist (2015)

03 Thursday Dec 2015

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D: Scott Mann / 93m

Cast: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Robert De Niro, Dave Bautista, Gina Carano, Morris Chestnut, Kate Bosworth, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Summer Altice, D.B. Sweeney, Lydia Hull

There are few things in the world of cinema more dispiriting, more dismal, than the sight of good actors struggling to make something out of nothing. We’ve all seen them: those star-drenched movies that feature a great cast; the kind of movie where you can’t help but think, “Well, if they all signed up for it then it must be good”. But here’s the thing, the thing that a lot of people forget: actors, just like everyone else on the planet, have bills to pay, and so, sometimes, they forget about the “art” of cinema and focus on getting paid. And you can tell within minutes of the movie starting that the Oscar-winner in the supporting role is bored, or that the up-and-coming actor with a few good roles under his belt is trying too hard by way of compensating for the paper-thin nature of his character, and the star looks weary throughout, as if once committed to making the movie he can’t wait for filming to be over. (And let’s not mention any promotion work, where they might have to talk about the movie and how “good” it is…)

And so it is with Heist, a movie that has no real reason for existing, and wouldn’t be missed if by some chance it suddenly didn’t. This is knock-off movie making of the finest ordure, a terrible waste of the cast’s time, the crew’s time, your time, everybody’s time. It sucks, and royally. Despite what you see on screen, the overwhelming impression is of a movie made just for the sake of it, because somebody  – and here we have to lay the blame very firmly at the feet of writer Stephen Cyrus Sepher – had an idea for a movie and they managed to persuade five separate production companies to cough up the money to make it. And as so often happens in these situations, nobody looked at Sepher’s script and said, “Er, hang on a second…”

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Ironically given the movie’s subject matter, this should be filed under “take the money and run”, as everyone involved does not quite enough to make Heist a watchable affair, from Mann’s uninspired, by-the-numbers direction to Sepher’s cliché-ridden, nonsensical script to half a dozen bored performances that help to sap the life out of a movie that’s already on life support. The main offender is De Niro, giving possibly the worst performance of his career, a lazy, credibility-free caricature of a gangster. De Niro is so bad that if you were to show someone who had no idea about his career or his legacy this particular movie, and then showed them, say, Raging Bull (1980), that someone would be completely baffled as to how it could be the same actor. This is a role where he mugs his way through in lieu of providing a recognisable character, and where he makes absolutely no attempt to convince the audience that his character’s sudden change of heart in the last ten minutes is in any way believable.

Elsewhere, the movie’s star looks tired and/or bored, with Morgan summing up just enough energy to get him through each scene, while Bautista undoes the kudos he’s gained from Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) by giving such a one-note performance it’s embarrassing (though to be fair his character doesn’t exactly benefit from being written that well). He’s matched by Chestnut as De Niro’s psychotic right hand man, but both actors are outdone by Gosselaar’s crooked cop, a wise-cracking annoyance who’s introduced in the most unlikely of fashions and continues to be annoying until the script finally has done with him. And Carano continues to undo the good work she did in Haywire (2011) by steadfastly refusing to alter her expression no matter what.

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With so many things going against it, Heist struggles along from scene to scene, clearly happening in its own little alternate universe where the laws of plausibility are flouted with impunity, and where bad directing, writing and acting are actively encouraged and supported. The plot, such as it is, involves Morgan teaming up with Bautista to rob De Niro’s casino, but when the robbery goes wrong, they hijack a bus and head for Texas (as you do). Bautista is bad through and through – hey, he doesn’t care if the pregnant lady on board goes into labour, that’s how badass he is – but Morgan is doing it to pay for his sick daughter’s transplant operation (so he’s much more noble). The threat of passengers being killed keeps the police at bay, while De Niro and Chestnut beaver away in the background looking for a way to isolate Morgan from the bus and for De Niro to get his money back. Along the way Carano becomes an ally, Bosworth cameos as De Niro’s daughter, and bus driver D.B. Sweeney continually looks like he’s wondering what happened to his career.

So, it’s a bad movie, but it’s professionally made and manages to look a little more glossy than your average TV movie, but with so many “did they really just do that?” moments littering the narrative, no amount of goodwill generated by the production crew can mitigate for the farrago of bad ideas and decisions made in front of the camera. This could – and should – have been better in every way but sadly, no one took the time or made the effort to improve things, and the result is a movie that should be a dictionary definition of the word lame. Or awful. Or lousy. Or rubbish (you get the picture).

Rating: 3/10 – one to avoid, Heist only scores so highly because the crew, at least, weren’t asleep at the wheel; with no one attempting to correct the mistakes inherent in the script, or even recognise them, all the viewer can do is to try and stop their jaw from continually hitting the floor from seeing all the ridiculous antics the script is packed with.

10 Movies That Are 40 Years Old This Year – 2014

22 Wednesday Oct 2014

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Pick any year and you’re likely to find ten really good films that were released during that year, but 1974 is a year when there were ten really great films released.  It’s not a year that stands out when first thought about, but upon closer inspection it seems like a banner year, when movie makers pulled out all the stops and gave us a succession of impressive movies that even now, still resonate and attract viewers in high numbers.  (And if truth be told, this list could have been stretched a little further, but 13 Movies That Are 40 Years Old This Year didn’t sound right.)  So, in no particular order, here are those ten movies we’re all still talking about.

1) Chinatown – Roman Polanski’s stunning neo-noir thriller transformed Jack Nicholson into a superstar and made Robert Towne’s elaborate, gripping screenplay – one of the most compelling, intelligent screenplays ever written – the main reason for seeing the movie.  With superb performances from Faye Dunaway and John Huston, this incredible movie still has the power to unnerve and startle with its story of corruption and greed in 40’s Los Angeles, and that tragic revelation.

Chinatown - scene

2) Lenny – Revisiting the life of counter-culture, angst-ridden comic Lenny Bruce was always going to depend on the actor playing him, but Dustin Hoffman turns in an amazing, detailed performance that is possibly his best ever.  With a career best turn from Valerie Perrine, deft, sympathetic direction from Bob Fosse, and a grimy, authentic recreation of the clubs where Bruce vented his anger at the hypocrisies of society, Lenny still has the potential to shock and surprise, and takes no prisoners (just like Bruce himself).

3) Fear Eats the Soul – German auteur Rainer Werner Fassbinder had made a number of excursions into movies for TV before he wrote and directed this vital, important tale of the relationship between a Moroccan migrant worker (the soulful El Hadi ben Salem) and a German woman in her mid-sixties (the affecting Brigitte Mira). Ageism and racism are given short shrift by Fassbinder’s script, and the growing relationship is portrayed naturally and with little sentiment.  It’s a dour movie, to be sure, but uplifting at the same time.

4) The Godfather Part II – The crowning glory of Francis Ford Coppola’s career and a movie that’s nigh on faultless, The Godfather Part II is the classic example of a sequel that is better than its predecessor… so, so much better.  Even Brando’s presence isn’t missed.  With its flashback sequences detailing the origin of Vito Corleone’s role as Godfather conflated with the inexorable rise of his son Michael to the same position, this has tragedy and triumph in equal measure, and features astonishing achievements in directing, scripting, acting, cinematography, sound, editing, costumes, art direction, and set design.  In short, it’s a masterpiece.

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5) The Texas Chain Saw Massacre – With its fierce, tension-wringing set up and feral, nightmarish family of cannibals, Tobe Hooper’s second feature still has the power to shock, and leave audiences feeling drained by the end.  The iconic image of Gunnar Hansen with a literal “face”-mask and revving a chainsaw – once seen, never forgotten – sums up the movie’s terrifying approach to its subject matter, and confirms (if anyone needed reminding) that low budget horror can be startling, original and a once in a lifetime experience.

6) A Woman Under the Influence – Possibly the finest examination of mental illness within the family, John Cassavetes’ stinging, heart-rending drama features a tour-de-force performance from Gena Rowlands as the emotionally downtrodden Mabel, a woman whose ill treatment by her husband and children leads her to suppress any positive feelings for fear of being judged as “unbalanced”.  Not a movie for everyone but one that isn’t afraid to confront a complex, contentious issue with poise and a piercing intelligence.

7) The Phantom of Liberty – If you like your movies chock-full of symbolism, surrealism and absurdist humour, then Luis Buñuel’s collection of barely connected episodes will capture your attention and never let go.  It’s a modern masterpiece of (mis)direction and subversive behaviour, and features a seasoned cast that includes Jean Rochefort, Monica Vitti and Adolfo Celi, all of whom enter into the spirit of things with undisguised gusto.

Phantom of Liberty, The - scene

8) The Conversation – It’s that man Coppola again, this time with an introspective low-key look at the self-contained life of a surveillance expert (the superb Gene Hackman) who finds himself drawn – against his better judgment – into a perfectly weighted mystery.  The chilly, withdrawn mise-en-scene is expertly crafted, and Coppola’s script delivers more and more as the movie heads toward its incredible denouement.  To release both this and The Godfather Part II in the same year – well, that’s just insane.

9) Young Frankenstein – Mel Brooks’ finest hour, even though Blazing Saddles was also released in ’74, this grand homage to the Universal horrors of the 30’s and 40’s is an undeniable treat, full of terrific one-liners – “To the lumber yard!” – and wonderful visual flourishes.  Co-writers Brooks and Gene Wilder are on top form, and their affection for the Fronkensteen movies made by Universal adds to the joy of watching Mary Shelley’s classic tale unfold in its own, very unique manner.  And the “Puttin’ on the Ritz” sequence is just inspired.

10) The Taking of Pelham One Two Three – Ignore the turgid remake with Denzel Washington and John Travolta, this is ten times as good and ten times as gripping.  Walter Matthau is the grizzled cop engaged in a battle of wits with train hijacker Robert Shaw, and as the movie ratchets up the tension, audiences are treated to one of the finest thrillers ever made.  Bravura movie making from all concerned but anchored by a fantastic job of direction by the underrated Joseph Sargent.

Taking of Pelham One Two Three, The - scene

If you agree or disagree with my choices, feel free to let me know.  And if there’s another year with an equally brilliant selection of movies released, feel free to let me know as well.  But more importantly, if you haven’t seen some or all of the movies listed above, then what are you doing reading this?  Get out there and watch them!

Grudge Match (2013)

08 Saturday Feb 2014

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Grudge Match

D: Peter Segal / 113m

Cast: Robert De Niro, Sylvester Stallone, Alan Arkin, Kim Basinger, Kevin Hart, Jon Bernthal, Camden Grey, LL Cool J

Thirty years after they fought against each other, ageing boxers Henry “Razor” Sharp (Stallone) and Billy “The Kid” McDonnen (De Niro) are tempted back into the ring for one last bout to decide, once and for all, which of them is the better fighter. When they first fought, Billy won easily. In the rematch, it was Henry who won. A third, deciding fight was planned but Henry refused to fight and retired from the ring. Billy has always wanted a third fight to happen, and when the son of their old promoter, Dante Slate Jr (Hart) offers both men a chance to get back in the ring and settle the issue, it all hinges on getting Henry to say yes. Initially reluctant, but eventually persuaded by the size of the payout – which he needs to pay the nursing home bill of his former trainer Louis (Arkin) – Henry also has to contend with the reappearance of Sally (Basinger), an old flame of his who slept with Billy and as a result, had his child (and awkwardly called him BJ). With Sally attempting to win Henry back, and BJ (Bernthal) becoming a part of Billy’s life, both fighters have to deal with long buried personal as well as professional issues before they can step back into the ring.

As a piece of high concept matchmaking, the idea of bringing together Stallone and De Niro under the veiled banner of “Rocky vs Raging Bull” was probably too hard to resist (though why it’s taken so long for someone to come up with the idea is a little surprising). You can almost imagine the delight on the faces of the studio executives at Warner Bros when the pitch was made to them. You can also imagine that the script was the last thing they would have worried about. And while the whole idea has a whiff of Cocoon-style wish fulfilment about it, the basic plot is augmented with enough emotional and comedic incident to make Grudge Match watchable if not exactly unpredictable. The storyline involving Billy’s burgeoning relationship with BJ (it obviously stands for Butterscotch Jellies), is almost straight out of Screenwriting 101, but there’s enough there to make it affecting in a gentle, enjoyable fashion. Likewise the reawakening of Henry and Sally’s feelings for each other; again, nothing original and with the usual stumbling blocks along the way to true happiness, but done with enough feeling and conviction to keep the audience invested in the outcome.

Tim Dahlberg

With its ageing cast required to poke gentle fun at greater glories – Stallone wanting to punch a slab of beef during a training session and being soundly told off for it, De Niro getting heckled at a speaking engagement – Grudge Match never really aims to be as dramatic as the set up might imply.  Its notions of family ties and relationships aside, the boxing side of things is played mostly for laughs, particularly when both men agree to provide motion capture for a video game, or when pressed to make a public appearance together.  It’s only when the fight finally happens that the comedy is dropped altogether and the two men – both in remarkably good shape – batter each other over twelve rounds.  The rivalry, such a big part of the script and the plot, is allowed a proper resolution here, and it’s good to see a way in which both men can be seen to be winners.

This awkward mix of comedy and drama, both lightweight yet curiously satisfying, is saved by the sterling work of its cast.  Both Stallone and De Niro are fun to watch, and while neither is stretched (in or out of the ring), they acquit themselves well.  As the lost love who wants a second chance, Basinger fares well with an under-developed role, but it’s always good to see her, whatever she’s in.  Left with the bulk of the dramatic content, Bernthal is still a fresh enough screen presence that you’re never entirely sure what he’s going to do next, and this helps immensely in his scenes with De Niro.  The comedy then is left to Hart and Arkin, Hart edging it with a manic, ADHD-style performance that appears largely improvised and is often very funny, while Arkin replays his crotchety OAP from Little Miss Sunshine (2006) and almost steals the movie.

On the production side, the movie is well-mounted without being spectacular or too visually arresting, and the location work is suitably low-key and reflective of the two fighters’ backgrounds and current circumstances.  The movie flows thanks to Segal’s capable direction and William Kerr’s measured editing, and while the photography by Dean Semler is mostly subdued by the wintry colour scheme, it’s still sharp and carefully framed throughout, with good compositions and blocking.  Trevor Rabin’s score supports the action almost casually, and there’s fun to be had looking for background references to both Rocky and Raging Bull.

In the end, Grudge Match fails to live up to its potential by choosing to tread some very worn paths, and by failing to decide whether it should be a comedy with dramatic elements, or a drama with comedic moments.  The script by Tim Kelleher and Rodney Rothman could have been tightened a little, but it remains what it is: effective in a predictable, sometimes banal way, but falling short of making a solid impression.  A shame, then, as the basic premise is a good one.

Rating: 7/10 – not as bad as it could have been but equally not as good as it should have been, Grudge Match won’t win any awards (probably) but it’s a pleasant enough way to spend a couple of hours; a movie that, sadly, in boxing terms is “punching above its weight”.

Last Vegas (2013)

19 Sunday Jan 2014

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Last Vegas

D: Jon Turteltaub / 105m

Cast: Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Kline, Mary Steenburgen, Jerry Ferrara, Romany Malco, Roger Bart, Joanna Gleason, Michael Ealy, Bre Blair, April Billingsley

Four friends – Billy (Douglas), Paddy (De Niro), Archie (Freeman), and Sam (Kline) – are reunited when Billy is set to get married in Las Vegas.  For three of them it’s a chance to escape from the mundanity of their lives and live a little.  Paddy is still mourning the death of his wife after a year; Archie is living with his son, yet being treated as if he’s too fragile to be trusted even to look after his granddaughter; and Sam is dying a slow death from boredom in a retirement community in Florida.  Meanwhile, Billy is marrying 32-year-old Lisa (Blair), and while he’s outwardly happy, it becomes clear he’s not as committed to the idea as his friends might have expected.  Friends since childhood, the four come together despite Paddy’s animosity towards Billy for not attending his wife’s funeral, and declare they’r going to party “like it’s 1959”.  With a burgeoning romance developing between Billy and lounge singer Diana (Steenburgen) that threatens to undermine his marriage plans, as well as his friendship with equally smitten Paddy, it’s up to Archie and Sam to keep things on track, and ensure everything goes as smoothly as possible…if they can.

As close to a vanity project as you’re likely to get these days, Last Vegas plays like a fever dream for the geriatric community.  With none of its star quartet below the age of sixty-five, seeing them behave as if they were still teenagers is alternately disquieting and off-putting.  Douglas is the lonely Lothario, afraid of getting old and losing out on love and companionship altogether.  De Niro is the devoted husband bereft at losing his wife and retreating from life.  Freeman is the supposedly frail grandfather who whose life is governed by his ill health (not that he displays any of this in the movie).  And Kline is the bored retirement dweller who feels his life and any excitement is behind him.  Frankly, if I was the same age as these guys and I felt they were supposed to represent my age group, I’d want to punch their lights out.

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There’s nothing wrong with wanting to feel young again when you reach a certain age and the things you took for granted have become the things you have to think about before you do them.  But here, all the initial complaints about getting old are soon left behind once everyone’s in Las Vegas, and they can start to “party like it’s 1959”.  Archie busts some serious moves on the dance floor, Sam nearly gets to use the condom his wife has given him (so he can get over his “depression”), Paddy realises his wife wouldn’t want him to hole up in their apartment for the rest of his life, and Billy finds true love with Diana having come to terms – quickly – with his loneliness.  Tonally, Last Vegas is one of those “have your cake and eat it” movies where it’ll all come right if you remain true to yourself, and don’t lose sight of who you are.  It’s a wish fulfilment movie with no sense of irony or its own absurd premise.

It’s a good job then that the movie delivers on the laughter front.  There are some belly laughs to be had, mostly related to Freeman, and the movie has a good time making its characters look foolish before it makes them out to be super-cool.  The script by Dan Fogelman does its best to wring laughs out of the situations the four friends find themselves in, rather than completely at their expense, while most of the supporting characters are there mainly to show how ageist we are as a society, and to be humiliated (see Dean, played by Ferrara).

Of the four leads, it’s Freeman and Kline who come off best but that’s because they’ve got slightly more to work with (and Kline can do this sort of thing in his sleep).  Douglas looks uncomfortable, as if he really would like to be marrying a 32-year-old, while De Niro is just uncomfortable to watch.  Despite the number of comedies he’s made in the last twenty years, De Niro still fumbles the ball when it comes to humour. Here he looks like the guy who not only doesn’t get the joke, but isn’t even aware that a joke’s been told (it doesn’t help that Paddy has to remain angry with Billy for most of the movie).  Steenburgen does well as the singer with a heart of gold, but isn’t given much to do other than listen to the travails of the four friends, or warble a couple of songs.  Of the rest of the cast, only Malco stands out, as the organiser of Billy’s stag party.

The movie is adequately directed by Turteltaub, and there’s fun to be had from seeing a slightly different side of Las Vegas than the one normally seen, but without the committed performances of its leads, and the better-than-expected humour in the script, Last Vegas would be a waste of time and effort.  That it partially succeeds is therefore a surprise, and a pleasant one at that.

Rating: 7/10 – worth seeing for Freeman and Kline alone, and the rare sight of De Niro having a DJ’s crotch thrust at his face repeatedly, Last Vegas works a lot better than you’d think; no awards winner, it’s true, but a pleasing diversion nevertheless.