Movie Review

  • Taare Zamden Par [Like Stars on Earth] (2007)

    Taare Zamden Par [Like Stars on Earth] (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) I’m in the middle of an Aamir Khan mini-binge these days, and there’s something really interesting in pairing Dangal and Taare Zamden Par so close together—I feel that both of them are representative of a more modern Indian cinema than the acquired notion of Bollywood musicals. Both of them offer a relatively grounded take on Indian society: they don’t feature actresses in flowing robes, musical numbers or simplistic love stories. Both of them tackle social issues, feature most of their music during montages and show Khan willing to take roles that differ a bit from the usual Indian movie archetypes. Taare Zamden Par is specifically about an arts teacher (Khan) helping a dyslexic kid go beyond the social demands for conventional career-driven success. There is an earnestness to the film that may register as naïve by Western standards, but that’s unfair—dyslexia as a topic matter in western societies has been beaten into the ground by countless “special episodes” of TV shows, socialized widely throughout the educational system and fully digested by various social actors including those best placed to help the affected kids. India, as of 2007, still had to catch up to that level (Wikipedia details how the film led to some national policy changes), and it’s in that spirit that Taare Zamden Par becomes endearing in boldly (but vividly) engaging with the same issue for a different social context. The execution matters a lot, and it’s fun to see Khan fully embrace his likable character, becoming a paragon of ebullient charm as an arts teacher mentoring a young protagonist to success. There are a few welcome expressionist sequences that take us in the mind of its imaginative protagonist, adding some more interest to the result. For North American viewers, there isn’t much here that hasn’t been seen elsewhere … but it’s handled well and a compelling view even if it tries audience patience with its 164 minutes running time.

  • Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

    Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2018) I know it’s de rigueur to dismiss remakes as being inferior to their original, but I had a great time watching this new version of Murder on the Orient Express, even as it indulges in contemporary tropes that, I suspect, may not be as much fun in a few more years. Director/star Kenneth Branagh seems to have fun repurposing the legendary Hercules Poirot as a modern Cumberbachian-Sherlockian Super-sleuth, with an action prologue clearly identifying his deduction and anticipatory skills. Once aboard the Orient Express, it’s an ensemble cast of great performances that awaits viewers, as we go through the familiar setup but with a great amount of style. Whether you’re familiar or not with the premise, Murder on the Orient Express is about interrogations in a confined location, each person interviewed in their own way with a multiplicity of motivations. Poirot is here played without the slightly ridiculous aspect of his 1973 adaptation, tough and keen to a more believable degree (although the moustache sleeping device does get a big laugh). Visually, the film is very strong—adept cinematography reinforces the icy confines of much of the story, while taking advantage of is fantastic cast. The last-supper climax shot is particularly striking, with Branagh in fine form as he tears through the summation of his investigation. Murder on the Orient Express is a joy to look at, and great good fun to watch—I couldn’t have wished for a more comfortable movie experience. There’s a bit of plot weirdness and thin characterization due to stuffing a large ensemble cast in the confines of a two-hour movie, but it’s not quite enough to overpower the lush period atmosphere or performances. [March 2019: … and after watching the 1973 film, I’m sticking to my heretical thesis: this is a remake that’s better than the original.]

  • The Foreigner (2017)

    The Foreigner (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) It’s rare enough to see one actor challenging his established persona, how about two in the same movie? Granted, it’s a bit of a stretch to say that both Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan play against type in The Foreigner: Chan has taken on increasingly diverse roles as he’s grown older and unable to sustain the same kind of punishment as he did as a young man. Meanwhile, Pierce Brosnan has played a number of villains in the past, notably and recently in Survivor. Still, it’s a bit off-putting to see Chan as a vengeful father in the middle of a dour realistic thriller—his stock-in-trade has always been comedy, and he looks much, much older here in the context of a world-weary suspense movie. Meanwhile, Brosnan is usually depicted as an action-capable strong figure, and it’s a bit of a change to see him become a hypocritical politician, violent enough to kill a subordinate but not meant to sustain action feats. Helmed by veteran director Martin Campbell, The Foreigner does have a few remarkable sequences: The double-decker bus bombing on London Bridge is viscerally effective, while Chan does get at least one good bone-crushing fight late in the film. Still, for all of its qualities, The Foreigner can’t quite escape a certain blandness as another bleak revived-IRA thriller that seems to go through the motions in washed-out cold colours and doesn’t feature anyone to cheer for. Thanks to its two stars playing atypical roles, it may be a bit more memorable than its many similar movies, but not by much.

  • What Happened to Monday aka 7 Sisters (2017)

    What Happened to Monday aka 7 Sisters (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) I have several issues with modern Science Fiction cinema, but one of the biggest ones is how even savvy filmmakers will use the SF label to completely disregard anything looking like logic or verisimilitude. Add an unexplained global catastrophe between now and the film’s putative date and that seems to be enough to justify the worst world-building atrocities. While particularly pronounced in the Young Adult dystopias, the same tendency can also be found in so-called more serious work with What Happened to Monday being a case in point. Here, the creaky overpopulation bugaboo takes centre stage as the justification of a draconian one-child policy and other assorted dystopian business. Our heroines, predictably, are seven identical sisters kept hidden and educated by their grandfather. When one of them goes missing, it’s not just about finding her, but exposing the incredibly obvious lies of the government. Premise-wise, this is a dud. Where it gets more interesting is in the execution, as all sisters are played by Noomi Rapace in the kind of acting tour-de-force opportunity that actors crave. Each sister is differentiated in looks, personality and abilities even as they are strictly regimented to appear as one in order to fool the authorities. The various plot machinations required to keep the premise running can be ingenious even if the overall situation makes no sense, and that’s probably the film’s saving grace, along with occasional good action sequences from director Tommy Wirkola. What would have been a low-budget disaster becomes a mildly diverting Netflix “original” (aka: not theatrically distributed in North America), with a few intriguing moments and a remarkable lead performance but not something you can really count as good Science Fiction. There’s been worse, but What Happened to Monday could have been much better.

  • Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001)

    Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) Considering that Lagaan was for a long time the highest-profile Indian film to make it to North America (where it was nominated for a Foreign-language Academy award), it was high time that I took a look at it—and even better if it fit in the middle of an Aamir Khan mini-binge. For a very long 224-minute film, not a whole lot happens in Lagaan: A sports drama set against the oppression of the British Raj, this is a cricket movie in which the climactic match seems to play nearly in real time (and it takes place over three days). Still, it’s too easy to criticize Indian cinema’s tendency toward inflated duration: it’s much more acceptable to embrace the deliberate pace of the film. Shot in an immersive near-desert environment, it’s a film with strong cinematography that helps define its mood. Despite the inclusion of a few musical numbers, this is not a typical Indian masala, and much of the film is given to a meticulous description of the Raj’s oppressive taxation, various conflicts between the populace and their British oppressors, and an immensely detailed depiction of a cricket match meant to decide the fate of a small community. I swear that even cricket newcomers will learn most of the rules of the game by the time the film is over. The plot elements are incredibly familiar to a broad swath of viewers, ensuring its worldwide accessibility. It all builds to a triumphant conclusion, although—once again—the duration of the film may make its ending more meaningful. Lagaan regularly shows up on various lists of essential Indian movies, and for good reason.

  • Patriots Day (2016)

    Patriots Day (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) It’s too easy to point out that after Sole Survivor and Deepwater Horizon, this is Peter Berg’s third Mark Wahlberg-starring movie in a row tackling recent events in American history. It’s true, and kind of amusing, and so what? It does help that for all of its right-leaning American-uber-alles posturing and warm-headed rewriting of history toward a common safe consensus, Patriots Day is really well made and has its share of strong moments. It is about, obviously, the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, concatenating events of a particularly tense week into a coherent storyline spearheaded by Wahlberg’s composite character. (It’s a bit much to ask for him to be there at every significant event in the chronology, but once you accept that conceit the film becomes easier to enjoy.) As you may expect, there’s a strong “you messed with the wrong city” attitude in the final results, which can be inspiring considering that it doesn’t mutate into jingoism or xenophobia. The film is, by most accounts, remarkably accurate once you forgive the lead composite characters, which makes some late sequences appear even more amazing, such as the western-style shootout set in suburban Watertown. J. K. Simmons doesn’t have a lot of scenes, but he makes every single one of them count. The same goes for Khandi Alexander, a favourite of mine who gets a terrific one-scene presence as a canny interrogator. Downplaying Wahlberg’s there-at-every-moment role, perhaps the most stirring element of Patriots Day is seeing a city, a system, an attitude rally behind a common violent intrusion and dealing with it adequately. (And I say this with incredible fondness for Boston, the American city I’ve visited more often than all others.) The crisis response is reasonable, effective and free of petty rivalries. But beyond re-creating the event more faithfully than most Hollywood movies, Patriots Day also benefits from solid filmmaking—while it’s by no means an action movie, it has a few suspenseful sequences and manages to re-create an intensely surreal period (such as seeing all of Boston empty for a few days) with some skill. Patriots Day can’t escape justified accusations of taking place too soon after the events, but I suspect that its appreciation will grow over time as one of the few early takes that wouldn’t necessarily have been better had it been completed later.

  • Fences (2016)

    Fences (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) It’s always interesting to see what actors with strong screen personas choose to take on when they direct a movie. Here we have Denzel Washington, of the old-school stoic tough-love tradition, picking the historical drama play Fences as his inspiration for his third outing as director. As we may guess, it’s a strong actor-driven project exploring themes of black experiences in urban America, facing prejudice and individual failings along the way. Washington himself gets to play a hard-headed patriarch—but certainly not a perfect one. Actors such as Viola Davis and Jovan Adepo have good roles here, with family conflict building up as a dramatic force throughout the film. While Fences is not particularly strong on sheer cinematic qualities, the acting is, as one expects, very good—with many of the players, including Washington and Davis, reprising award-winning performances from a 2010 theatrical revival. It’s not a spectacular nor overly memorable film, but it’s solid, thematically successful and a wonderful capture of a play, a time and place and a certain hard-fought working-class attitude. It certainly does much to bolster Washington’s credentials as a surprisingly effective voice for a certain segment of the African-American community, not only by what he chooses to play, but also what to bring to the screens.

  • Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)

    Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) On paper, the premise of Hunt for the Wilderpeople sounds like it leads directly to the dullest film imaginable—some kind of heartwarming bonding thing between a disaffected teenager and his foster father set in the woods of New Zealand. But it’s all in the execution, and considering that it’s from writer/director Taika Waititi (who has achieved considerable name recognition lately thanks to This is What we Do in the Shadows and Thor: Ragnarok), it deserves a good look. The first few minutes aren’t that impressive, with a disaffected teenager being welcomed on a farm by a couple of older foster parents. But the film does get crazier and funnier at it goes on, as the teenager’s attempt to run away gets more complicated when his foster father tracks him down, gets injured and the whole thing becomes a national manhunt. The climax is straight out of action blockbusters (albeit tempered by a limited budget), which is not necessarily something that we could have predicted from the quiet onset. There’s a unique comic sensibility to the result, not necessarily based on slapstick or one-liners (although “Skuxx life!” does have its charm), but on off-beat gradual character development and a strong emotional arc. Sam Neill is up to his usual high standards as the foster father, while Julian Dennison is a revelation as the teen protagonist, and Rachel House is hilarious as an overzealous child services officer. It’s another strong comedy from the New Zealand scene—and I was gobsmacked, having spent all of four days in the country, to actually recognize the Auckland train station. It’s a surprisingly engaging film, and a quiet little success in its own right. [March 2019: … and now I see the similarities with Waititi’s earlier Eagle vs. Shark]

  • The Square (2017)

    The Square (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2018) There’s an upsetting mixture of funny and troubling moments in The Square that makes it impossible to recommend as anything more than a collection of dark comedy sketches about the management of a modern art museum. On the positive side, there’s some biting satirical material about the hypocrisy of art marketing in an age that feeds on outrage (how far is too far when satire and reality blends?) On the other hand, wow—writer/director Ruben Östlund really isn’t interesting in delivering anything like a film with a beginning, development and conclusion: Dramatic and comic arcs are proposed, abandoned, settled within two scenes, revived-but-not-really, and then drawn out at the expense of more interesting material. Worse; the film positively delights in humiliation comedy and never knows when to quit a scene on a high note. Much of what’s strong about the film is usually inseparable from its worst qualities: The Man-Ape sequence (featuring Terry Notary), for instance, is unforgettable as much for its conceptual hilarity than for the excruciating experience of watching it play out over several very long minutes of acute discomfort. The lack of an ending is perhaps the film’s worst sin—after its wild ride, The Square doesn’t offer anything like a satisfying resolution, just dropping its plot threads one after another. Perhaps that’s part of the joke … but it won’t work as well on all audiences.

  • The Circle (2017)

    The Circle (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) There’s something really weird at play in The Circle, and I’m having a bit of trouble untangling my exact issue with it. I think that it has a lot to do with its unimaginative techno-skepticism, as it follows a young woman who starts working for a (fictional) tech giant and becomes gradually disenchanted by the disconnect between its lofty public ambitions and the less-than-positive impact it has on her life and society at large. It’s not a bad premise on which to base a film, but The Circle does itself no favours by being lazy and trite about it. There is a surprising lack of interest from the film in spelling out what exactly is so awful about the company for which our character works: it seems to rely more on common assumed notions about the evils of Facebook, Google, Apple, et al. There’s a conspiracy angle to the film that never goes farther than two senior executives saying to each other, “Oh no, we’re in trouble now!” when their emails are leaked. Paradoxically, the crutch of using viewer’s anti-tech prejudices also points at why the film feels so useless—so it simply confirms those awful suspicions about the evils of tech giants? That’s it? Nothing more? Why bother watching the film when I can just look at my favourite newspaper and read articles that go far beyond The Circle‘s freshman-level musings? Even the dumb moral at the end of the film feels badly under-thought. It doesn’t help that the film doesn’t have much in terms of energy or paranoia. Writer/director James Ponsoldt has done much better in the past. Poor dull boring featureless generic actress Emma Watson looks annoyed for ninety minutes or however long it takes to make it to the end of this ordeal. Tom Hanks seems to have fun playing the sinister CEO visionary, but there’s—again—nearly nothing of substance behind the vague menace he’s supposed to present. What a dull movie. What a hypocritical movie. What else is on?

  • Dangal (2016)

    Dangal (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) I’ve been working at expanding my knowledge of Indian cinema beyond the usual masala clichés, and Dangal is a good reminder that there’s a lot more to it than song and dance. Under Aamir Khan’s supervision (he didn’t write or direct, but he produces and stars in the film, and there’s a clear link between this and his other recent movies), Dangal tells the story of a family in crisis over several decades: an ex-wrestling star father despairing over having two daughters, and then in seeing his girls go on to have success in his own chosen sport, upsetting a number of expectations along the way. (The film is considerably messier in practice, concatenating roughly three plot arcs in a single film and expanding its running time far beyond what we’d consider appropriate in more focused western sports film, but that’s how it goes.) The film is heavy on female empowerment from the perspective of an older man, an imperfect viewpoint but one that probably echoes the current inner fault lines within Indian society as more egalitarian values are challenging a traditionally conservative society. To be fair, Dangal‘s use of familiar tropes doesn’t break expectations (training montages being the least of them, although they are noteworthy for being where the film’s musical numbers are integrated in a semi-natural fashion), but its execution is nicely done. For western audiences, Dangal does feel like a throwback to an earlier kind of gently pro-feminist cinema but everything has to be graded on a curve appropriate to the producing country: what may seem old hat to Canadians may be radically progressive in India. [November 2018: After seeing a few more of Aamir Khan’s films available on Netflix and especially Taare Zameen Par, I’m struck at how many of his recent films adopt western conventions to tell stories of social issues digested in North America two or three decades ago but relatively progressive by Indian standards.] Aamir Khan turns in a convincing performance as a flawed, aging character (a feat made even more impressive by looking at the ripped heroic roles he played in other movies made a few years before Dangal), and the actresses playing the two daughters are quite good as well. Length of the film and multiple peripheral dramatic arcs aside, I had a relatively good time watching Dangal—it’s meant to be a rousing inspirational drama and it works as such.

  • Silence (2016)

    Silence (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) Martin Scorsese’s Catholicism has always informed his movies, but seldom as much as in Silence, the story of two missionaries travelling to Edo-era Japan to spread the gospel and being persecuted for their beliefs. While such a plot summary would suggest a dull drama, Scorsese keeps even a slow-paced story moving through good performances and a focus on a period of history that usually gets short thrift in western cinema. Along the way of the protagonists’ suffering, Scorsese also gets to play with themes that are dear to him and inspiring in their own way—how closely you adhere to your beliefs can be measured to how much pain you’re willing to endure for them, even as others may reach accommodations with persecution. Andrew Garfield is quite good in the film’s main role. It’s worth noting that there is seldom any explicit discussion in Silence of the absurdity of religious oppression: it exists, immovable, and can either be resisted on a personal level (at the risk of destruction) or surrendered to. In Scorsesian terms, this is a pure passion project and far closer to his spiritual biographies than his crime drama—it’s certainly not as flashy or purely entertaining as other films, but it may be more important to him than others. I approached Silence with some skepticism (I’m really not in the target audience for the film) and dread at the film’s advertised characteristics (length, setting, subject matter…) and yet ended up appreciating the result far more than I expected.

  • The BFG (2016)

    The BFG (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) While The BFG was a box-office disappointment, I think it will modestly endure as a decent family movie thanks to some solid directing from Steven Spielberg: He’s been making popular entertainment for so long that he gives the impression of being able to direct them on autopilot and still deliver the same level of quality. Here, his roving camera once again takes centre stage as he tells the story of a young girl and her Big Friendly Giant friend as they fight against less friendly giants. The queen, and then the British military eventually get involved. I’m not going to pretend that The BFG is a hidden gem: there are some basic issues with the film that hold it back—notably the somewhat repulsive character design, non-jolly discussion of children being eaten, some uncanny-valley issues in presenting almost-human CGI characters, the exasperating malapropisms and many of the cheaper jokes. On the other hand, the direction is superb, the special effects are very well done, and the film’s second half becomes wilder and wilder in terms of plotting and incidents. Newest Spielberg muse Mark Rylance is quite good as the titular BFG, while Ruby Barnhill sustains a lot of attention as the teenage protagonist. Meanwhile, my inexplicable crush on Rebecca Hall continues unabated thanks to a minor but solid supporting role. While there isn’t much to the film’s plot, the wall-to-wall special effects are used wisely to heighten the fairy-tale nature of the film and create characters from motion-capture technology. Considering The BFG‘s disappointing box-office returns, it’s likely that we won’t see anything similar for a while … so let’s appreciate what we’ve got.

  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016)

    Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) It’s actually amazing, these days, how much effort and resources can go in making movies that barely make a blip on the cultural radar. We’re told that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows cost $135M, a reasonable amount for a live-action film featuring CGI characters on-screen for nearly its entire duration, and dynamic action sequences—including one in the Amazon River. The film made nearly twice its budget back, which today means that it’s not nearly enough to offset marketing and other expenses. As a result, this is likely the end of the road for this third Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie series—a reboot is likely to follow at some point. And yet, and yet, Out of the Shadows itself is often too uninteresting to be memorable. While it’s slightly better than the original—at least in terms of presenting a halfway-intriguing premise—, the film is practically a case study in 2010s blockbuster cinema and how, once the shouting and the explosions are over, it can be instantly forgotten. Out of the Shadows, like its predecessor, really comes alive during its action sequences: The highway chase sequence, the Brazilian river sequence and the Technodrome ending sequence are director Dave Green’s three claims to viewer enjoyment and excitement. When the film stumbles is in what’s probably a too-gross antagonist in a PG-13 film: Krang is executed as a Lovecraftian nightmare of exposed viscera and tentacles, which is in-keeping with the source material but executed too vividly to be purely enjoyable without a side order of nausea. But Out of the Shadows doesn’t, in the end, amount to much—if you’re a Turtles fan, you got your sequel. Otherwise, you got yet another CGI-heavy spectacle forgotten a week later. Such is the norm today.

  • The Founder (2016)

    The Founder (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) I’ve known about McDonald’s colourful history even since reading the unauthorized corporate biography Behind the Arches, so it’s a treat to finally see the story being told on-screen in The Founder. McDonalds is an American institution, so it makes sense that its history would expose the more sinister underbelly of that other American institution of capitalism. The entire film revolves around Ray Kroc, who begins the film as a middle-aged salesman having trouble making ends meet. His business trips eventually bring him to the first McDonald’s location, the product of two brothers’ ingenuity in speeding up restaurant service. Fascinated by the innovation, Kroc invests in launching a franchise operation, then another, then another … until effectively taking control of the company and forcing the original McDonald brothers out of the business, reneging on a handshake agreement along the way. Kroc is not written as a good guy in The Founder, but having Michael Keaton incarnate him is a stroke of genius in making our reactions to his action more ambiguous: Keaton is such a compelling actor and playing such a convincing salesman, how could any of this being bad? Except that, well, it was the essence of unshackled capitalism and the pursuit of the American dream—complete with a trophy wife—at the expense of the values and ethics that led the McDonald brothers to create what Kroc dearly wanted for himself. It’s a story worth contemplating and even if the script isn’t without its issues (not spending much time on Kroc’s persona life) nor anachronisms (McDonalds did have a bit of an identity crisis when it discovered that it was as much a real estate company as a restaurant business, but that happened closer to the 1970s) it’s a convincing historical re-creation and a magnificent showcase for Keaton’s skills. Far from being a corporate hagiography, director John Lee Hancock’s The Founder actually zeroes on a familiar yet always-interesting paradox: What if dodgy ethics were a requirement for phenomenal business growth?