American Ultra (2015)

08 Tuesday Sep 2015

Tags

Action, Animation, Apollo Ape, Assassin, Chip the Brick, CIA, Comedy, Connie Britton, Jesse Andrews, John Leguizamo, Kristen Stewart, Nima Nourizadeh, Review, Stoner, Thriller, Topher Grace, Tough guys, Ultra program

D: Nima Nourizadeh / 96m

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Topher Grace, Connie Britton, Walton Goggins, John Leguizamo, Bill Pullman, Tony Hale, Stuart Greer, Monique Ganderton

Mike Howell (Eisenberg) is charitably known as a stoner. He works in a mini-mart that rarely sees any customers, and he lives with his girlfriend of five years, Phoebe (Stewart). Having made plans for a romantic trip to Hawaii, Mike doesn’t make it further than the airport as he always gets panic attacks when he tries to leave the sleepy town of Liman, where he and Phoebe live. Mike was going to propose when they were in Hawaii, and has kept the ring, waiting for the right moment.

At the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, veteran agent Victoria Lasseter (Britton) receives a mysterious phone call that warns her that “Tough Guy is moving in on Little Man”. This refers to two separate CIA programs: the Little Man referred to was part of the Ultra program that was shelved several years before, while Tough Guy is the brainchild of fellow agent Adrian Yates (Grace). Lasseter confronts Yates who tells her he’s cleaning house and the one remaining participant in the Ultra program is regarded as a liability. Blocked by Yates’s seniority, she decides to take matters in her own hands.

That night, Lasseter visits the store where Mike works. She tells him some coded phrases that are meant to reactivate him, but they appear to be ineffective. But later, when he sees two men tampering with his car, he finds himself being attacked. Without thinking, he defends himself and kills both men. Freaked out he calls Phoebe and tells her what’s happened. When she arrives, she’s just ahead of the sheriff (Greer), who arrests them both. Mike is unable to explain how he was able to kill the men, but his newly realised (or reawakened) skills prove useful again when Yates sends two Tough Guys – Laugher (Goggins) and Crane (Ganderton) – to finish the job the other two couldn’t. In the process, the station is destroyed and all the police force killed; Mike kills Crane and he and Phoebe get away.

They head for the home of Mike’s dealer, Rose (Leguizamo). There they learn that the town has been quarantined and that Mike and Lasseter are being labelled animal rights terrorists who have released a deadly virus in the area. Two more Tough Guys arrive and start to flood the place with a deadly gas. Phoebe and Mike get out but not before he ingests a dangerous amount of it. She saves his life, but in the process Mike realises that she knows too much about what’s going on. Phoebe is forced to confess that she’s been hiding something from him, and this changes things between them. While Phoebe tries to explain things, Laugher pushes their car off a bridge. Mike is trapped, but Phoebe is captured by Laugher who takes her to Yates – but not before he’s poured gasoline on the overturned car and set it alight…

An uneven mix of stoner comedy and action movie, American Ultra is the kind of late summer crowd pleaser that will likely please fans of both genres as it comfortably combines both to generally good effect. It’s a movie where lots of things happen coincidentally and predictably, but this is one occasion where it doesn’t really matter, as whatever flaws it has are compensated for by the huge sense of fun to be had, from Mike’s drug-fuelled paranoia – at one point he thinks he might be a robot – to the moment where he finally proposes to Phoebe.

It’s a deliberately offbeat, totally ridiculous slice of escapist fantasy that knows exactly what it’s doing, and if screenwriter Landis and director Nourizadeh between them can’t quite wrestle the whole premise into a manageable whole, it’s still comforting to know that they get it right more times than not. On the plus side, there’s the relationship between Mike and Phoebe, a touching, believable couple with minimal ambitions and secure in their love for each other (even if Mike can’t make an omelette without nearly burning down their home). As played by Eisenberg and Stewart, reuniting at last after first appearing together in Adventureland (2009), Mike and Phoebe provide the sweet-natured heart of the movie, and you root for them when Yates and his operation come to Liman. Even when Phoebe’s revelation threatens to come between them, there’s enough investment in their relationship made already that even though their reconciliation is inevitable, you still want it to happen sooner rather than later.

Another plus factor are the inventive fight scenes, particularly a standout sequence at the mini-mart that is shot almost like a first-person video game, and sees Mike using anything that comes to hand to ward off over a dozen Tough Guys. Eisenberg makes a convincing action hero, his slight frame and long hair at odds with the muscular attributes of most action stars, and he’s a revelation in these scenes, kicking ass in a way that the portrayer of Mark Zuckerberg wouldn’t usually be thought of. Stewart also has her moves, and she too is surprisingly effective as a bad-ass. There’s still a tendency to shoot the action sequences and fight scenes with too much of a nod to rapid editing, though there is a fair amount that’s seen in long shot, and is all the better for it.

On the downside, Leguizamo has an awkward role that sees him using the N-word too often, while Grace mugs and overacts in a way that suggests he’s read a different script to everyone else. The real script’s implausibilities threaten to derail the narrative at times, and Landis can’t always resist the temptation to throw in a few unnecessary curve balls (the character of Laugher and his eventual fate is a case in point), but as mentioned above there’s more than enough to make up for it all, including some very humorous moments that show Eisenberg’s complete ownership of his character (Mike’s reaction to a call from Yates is the best example, and very funny indeed).

And lastly, there’s Apollo Ape and Chip the Brick. Who are they? They’re characters Mike draws who have adventures – very violent adventures – in outer space. They make an animated appearance at the movie’s end that’s hopefully not the last time we see them.

Rating: 7/10 – too messy at times to be entirely effective, American Ultra is still a worthwhile view, ably enhanced by the pairing of Eisenberg and Stewart, and feeling fresh when concentrating on the action; if the machinations of the plot are too far-fetched to work as well as they should, it’s still good to know that there are far worse, similar movies out there that aren’t half this enjoyable.

The King Is Dead! (2012)

18 Tuesday Feb 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Australia, Bojana Novakovic, Comedy, Dan Wyllie, Gary Waddell, Neighbour from Hell, Review, Rolf de Heer, Slacker, Stoner

D: Rolf de Heer / 106m

Cast: Dan Wyllie, Bojana Novakovic, Gary Waddell, Luke Ford, Lani John Tupu, Roman Vaculik, Lily Adey, Michaela Cantwell, Anthony Hayes

When science teacher Max (Wyllie) and his accountant wife Therese (Novakovic) move into their new home, they are unprepared for the nightmare that is their neighbour, King (Waddell). An addled, often-stoned slacker with dubious friends and a habit of having loud late night/early morning parties, King is the kind of neighbour who would drive any normal sane person to the brink of desperation… and so it proves with Max and Therese.

At first they try and ignore the nightly disturbances and the antisocial behaviour, the screams and the shouts and the loud music, and what sounds like a woman being attacked. But when they begin to report these incidents to the police, and warn King that his behaviour is unacceptable, then things take a darker turn than even Max and Therese could have anticipated, and what begins as a distinct Aussie comedy of manners becomes something much darker and less comfortable to watch.

While the premise is familiar – what would you do when confronted with the neighbour from Hell? – what director de Heer (Ten Canoes, Bad Boy Bubby) does is take that basic premise and uses it to explore a variety of different, and often unexpected avenues. At one point, Max and Therese are burgled during the night, and while their suspicions naturally steer in King’s direction, there is no evidence to connect him to the robbery. But this, and a few more disturbances, sees them not only plotting their revenge, but finding themselves in a situation they are completely unable to deal with.

There is much to like about The King Is Dead! As the put-upon couple, Wyllie and Novakovic have a winning chemistry together, and while we as observers might find them a little too middle-class in their outlook and aspirations, this is a movie as much about class as it is about how to deal with an annoying neighbour. As the offending King, Waddell brings a much-needed pathos and underdog sincerity to the role, making the character less of a bad guy and more misunderstood. The dynamics between the trio are well-handled and all three are recognisable, sympathetic characters we can relate to.

As noted above, the movie starts off as a comedy of manners, and there is much that will remind viewers of Mike Leigh’s work, especially in the opening scenes; the music is also reminiscent of Leigh’s work. There is plenty of humour, and much of it is to be found in the way that Max and Therese attempt to deal with King and his friends’ behaviour without losing their understanding and sympathy for someone they view as less fortunate than themselves. Fortunately, they don’t descend into pomposity or self-pity. Rather, they attempt to take matters into their own hands, and this is when the tone of the movie begins to shift.

Deciding to rid themselves of the problem of King once and for all, Max and Therese devise a couple of plans that backfire on them before coming up with a “last resort” idea: framing King for another “robbery”. Here we enter, briefly, thriller territory, and then… well, then things take another, entirely different turn, and the tone becomes darker and more unsettling. This proves to be a step too far in terms of the narrative and doesn’t really work; it also leaves the movie’s ending feeling weak and slapdash. That said, it’s a brave move, but one that needed to be given more consideration.

De Heer is a confident director and impresses with his handling of both the characters and the fractured community they live in (keep an eye out for the old Sicilian man played by Giuseppe Lo Faro who thinks Max should “burn the lot of them”). The photography is low-key but effective and the music suits the changing moods throughout. If the movie struggles on occasion in maintaining the right tone then it’s because of the frequent changes in tack that the movie comes up with. Still, this is a well-crafted movie, with plenty to say.

Rating: 7/10 – another intriguing movie from Down Under, The King Is Dead! poses some interesting questions, and refuses to let its characters become, or behave as, stereotypes.