Movie Review

  • All the Money in the World (2017)

    All the Money in the World (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2018) Some movies become famous because of the actors that are in it, but All the Money in the World is a rare reverse example, famous for who’s not in it. Namely Kevin Spacey, whose sexual misconduct became widely publicized in the short span of time after his important supporting role in the film as J. Paul Getty was shot but before the film was released. Rather than shrug their shoulders and release the film as-is, the producers, along with veteran director Ridley Scott, decided to take another riskier path: Recast the Getty role with Christopher Plummer and reshoot all the scenes involving the character. This isn’t quite as insane as it sounds, considering that the character is mostly confined to mansion rooms in one of the film’s subplots. And it worked: Not only was Scott able to replace one significant actor in a ridiculously short amount of time while the film was nearing its release date, but you really can’t tell in the finished product: It’s as if Plummer had been there the entire time, and his performance is rock-solid enough that he ended up nominated for an Oscar. In comparison to the production drama, the story in All the Money in the World seems almost pedestrian, portraying the kidnapping of the grandson of one of the richest men in the world back in the 1970s. There’s an intriguing re-creation of mid-seventies Italy, dark machinations by an incredibly rich man not inclined to negotiate with kidnappers, and some funny business between the kidnapped man’s mom (Michelle Williams, better than usual) and the specialist hired to get him back (Mark Wahlberg, rather ordinary). The drama is solid even though the film itself feels sombre, ponderous and overlong in the middle. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the finished result is a demonstration of the way excessive wealth alters the world around it, twisting human relationships, corrupting individuals (the Getty patriarch is really not a nice person) and inviting predators to make their moves. Alas, not quite enough time is spent on this idea, as the film flirts with romance and spends a lot of time kidnapped by its own subplots. (It doesn’t help that the film has numerous deviations from the historical record.) It’s not a bad movie, but it could have benefited from a lighter and shorter touch. But then again there’s Plummer delivering yet another great performance.

  • Shot Caller (2017)

    Shot Caller (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) Prison movies hold an everlasting fascination, and perhaps the biggest thrill for law-abiding audiences is to be placed in a situation where an ordinary guy is sent to prison, and then learns how it works well enough to succeed inside the walls as well as outside. So it is that with Shot Caller, we follow an ordinary guy who, thanks to some fatal drunk driving, is sent to prison for a short while. Unfortunately, he has the bad luck of being sent to prison in the late-2000s, a time of supermaxes, racist jailhouse gangs and reprisals on the families of convicts. Meaning that once he gets on the treadmill, he has no choice but to go the distance. It gets dark. Darker than Felon (2008), although not as dark as the stomach-churning Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017). Nikolaj Coster-Waldau impressively handles the transition between architect intellectual and muscle-bound prison gang leader. Unlike prison movies of an earlier era, Shot Caller depicts a sordid environment that worsens its inhabitants but doesn’t seem to call for reforms, letting the story speak for itself. It’s familiar material (as I’ve said: there have been a lot of prison movies over the years) but it’s handled competently and the ending manages to find just the right spot between tragedy and hope.

  • Gerald’s Game (2017)

    Gerald’s Game (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) I first read Stephen King’s Gerald’s Game decades ago, but I was able to remember a surprising amount of it while watching its straight-to-Netflix adaptation. Thanks to writer/director Mike Flanagan (following up on a series of increasingly successful horror movies), the adaptation is surprisingly faithful, a feat made even more amazing given that the novel is as interior-driven as anything else in King’s biography. After all, how can you portray a woman being chained to a bed and left alone with her husband’s corpse for days? What Flanagan does, aside from the obvious use of flashbacks, is to literalize the heroine’s fantasies and delirious visions: Suddenly, the deceased husband gets up, talks to her and gets her to express her feelings. And then, later, there are other, more tangible horrors: A dog, then something else… And still, throughout, the terrors of being left to die alone. The thirst, the cold, the isolation. Carla Gugino is near a career-best performance in the lead role, being on-screen for almost the entire duration of Gerald’s Game and being asked to carry a wide range of emotions. Bruce Greenwood does get a mention for his not-so-brief time playing a not-so-good husband. The film is so close to the novel that it does share a few issues later on, namely the collision of a good-enough premise with a serial killer story that doesn’t entirely serve the rest of the plot. I was dubious about it when I read the novel so long ago and I’m still dubious about it now. Still, it’s the kind of thing that doesn’t add much, so what is left of Gerald’s Game is still remarkable. Flanagan has done much with little (the film has only barely a dozen roles in a largely single location), delivering quality chills and thrills in a compelling package. This is probably his best film yet, and it suggests even better things in the future.

  • Downsizing (2017)

    Downsizing (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) Aaargh. There’s a really good Science Fiction movie struggling to get out of Downsizing, but the one we see, as written and directed by Alexander Payne, isn’t it. I am, for once, not going to comment on the biological nonsense of reducing humans to a height of 13 cm. I will grant the movie that one big deviation from reality. Where I’m not going to be so lenient, however, is in forgiving the direction ultimately taken by the film’s story after the shrinking is explored. While the earliest parts of the film do have their moments and intriguing details, the film soon goes off in a direction that is markedly less interesting than anticipated. Rather than keep going in the direction of social criticism, Downsizing settles for the end of the world and, in going so, seems to lose its way. The film’s first act does seem to set up a far more ferocious film that the one that follows: It puts all the pieces in place for a reckoning about the sustainability of “small wealth” (considering that it depends on temporary externalities and a precarious agreement with “the bigs”—consider the havoc that even one common house cat could wreak) and an even deeper satire of capitalism run amok … but no. None of the film’s disappointment comes from the actor—Matt Damon is a perfect American everyman, Christoph Waltz is an intriguing Lothario, and the entire film is stolen by Hong Chau as soon as she shows up. Alas, it’s the script that fumbles midway through and doesn’t recover as much as misdirects away from the themes it sets up in its first half. What a shame. At least Downsizing tries something and fumbles, which is more than we can say for most movies these days.

  • The Florida Project (2017)

    The Florida Project (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) Owing to its Oscar nominations, I read a bit about The Florida Project and, frankly, wasn’t expecting to like it a lot. I’m not a big fan of downtrodden characters, poverty dramas or indie-budget wonders. And yet, despite expectations, I was gradually taken by the film and particularly the way it juxtaposes the dream sold at the nearby Disney Park with the misery shared by its protagonists. I strongly suspect that much of the film’s ultimate impact (and it does get intense toward the end) has a lot to do with being the father of a girl of the same age as one of the film’s protagonist. There’s something that I can’t quite handle at this moment about kids in danger (whether immediate of structural, the later of which The Florida Project acutely depicts) that short-circuits a lot of my critical instincts. Still, there’s no denying that writer/director Sean Baker knows what he’s going after: The depiction of desperately poor people shuffling from one hotel to another is gripping. Giving a father-figure role to Willem Dafoe is a great idea—after so many villainous roles, it’s simply a joy to see him as a purely good character, and he got nominated for an Oscar as well. Alas, the rest of The Florida Project plays on an entirely different (and worsening) register, pitting childlike innocence against adult doom until there’s nowhere else to go but in fantasy. Whew. It concludes with a devastating ending, and yet the only one appropriate for the film.

  • Death Note (2017)

    Death Note (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) There has been a lot of criticism aimed at Netflix’s Death Note movie from fans of the original anime, but the irony is that for viewers coming in fresh without knowledge of the film’s inspiration is that Death Note, taken by itself, is actually not bad—it feels like a throwback to the kind of high-concept horror movies circa 1995–2005. Something like Idle Hands, perhaps, or more specifically the first Final Destination. Consider this: A teenager gets possession of a book in which he can specify who will die and how. From that simple premise stem a few complications: a bloodthirsty demonic personification of the book coaching the protagonist or maybe trying to take over his soul; media attention toward a sudden slew of high-profile deaths (as, naturally, our hero scribbles all sorts of high-profile criminals in the book); a genius-level detective tracking down what he thinks is the source of those mysterious deaths; and the inevitable romantic complications of a high-schooler getting his hands on life-and-death power. I understand from the numerous complaints that the anime is better, smarter, stronger, faster and possibly tastier than the film adaptation, but as a first-time viewer I don’t have much to complain about: while Death Note does tie itself up in logical knots in trying to fit the premise in a two-hour movie, it’s intriguing throughout, and ends with a nice fillip that shows more imagination than the usual horror film confrontation. Nat Wolff is fine as the protagonist and Lakeith Stanfield is interesting as Detective L, but it’s Willem Dafoe who seems to be having the most fun voicing demon Ryuk. Director Adam Wingard leads the material competently, but he’s a bit stuck with the original material—even newcomers such as myself can see the compromises made in order to distill it to a movie and whitewashing it to American audiences, although my suggestion would have been to run even rather away from the source material in the hope of ending with something that doesn’t feel like a half-baked compromise between weird source material and the requirements of a self-contained movie. Until the sure-to-follow sequel presumably addresses some further plot threads, I’m relatively satisfied by the result—which is probably what Netflix aimed for when it backed its production.

  • Begin Again (2011)

    Begin Again (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) Mark Ruffalo makes for an unlikely star, but you can’t deny his hangdog charm. He’s one of the two biggest reasons why Begin Again work, the other one being John Carney’s uncanny ability to make great musically dominated movies. I watched Begin Again largely because I was intrigued to see if Carney would match the effectiveness of Once and Sing Street. I shouldn’t have worried. Begin Again takes place in New York City and targets a disgraced record label executive (Ruffalo) as he discovers a new talent (Kiera Knightley, possibly miscast) that he nurtures to success. There are plenty of things here that could have gone wrong: it’s a very familiar story, after all, and under rougher hands it probably would have ended with a mismatched-age romance between the two. But Carney knows better, and after some initial romantic tension, the mentor/mentee relationship proves to be enough, especially when both of them gain from the experience. The centrepiece of the film, as with other Carney movies, is a sequence in which the characters come together for the sheer fun of making music, shooting a video on New York City rooftops and backstreets. While, overall, Begin Again doesn’t have the same punch as Carney’s earlier Once, it’s a lot more fun and colourful. And while Knightley isn’t much of a signer, she does have chemistry with Ruffalo, while Ruffalo himself has enough charm to power the rest of the movie by himself. While Begin Again may not age all that well, it does illustrate the music industry at the beginning of the 2010s, poised between the decade-old traditional system and the disruptive influence of the web. It’s still a worthwhile movie, and a nice link between Carney’s other movies.

  • It Comes at Night (2017)

    It Comes at Night (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) Despite my best intentions, I continue to have a hit-and-miss relationship with critically acclaimed horror movies. Sometimes I fully align and claim the film’s greatness to the ends of the Earth (that’s you, Babadook), sometimes I keep staring at the screen thinking that I’ve missed something (that’s you, VVitch). It Comes at Night falls squarely in the second category: While others have praised its take on the aftermath of a viral apocalypse, I kept wondering until the end credits what was so special about the film. It’s certainly not the premise, which is undistinguishable from dozens of other movies in just the past few years. It’s not the darker-than-black tone with no likely survivors, as that has become a solid horror cliché. It’s certainly not the pacing: saddled with a slow, deliberate and agonizing rhythm: It Comes at Night feels interminable even at 91 minutes. The acting talent isn’t bad (with special notice to Joel Edgerton and a thoroughly de-glammed Carmen Ejogo) and there’s clearly an intentional aesthetic at work from writer/director Trey Edward Shults in the way it shows a family disintegrating thanks to external and internal pressures. But considering the everybody-dies ending, the large number of unexplained ambiguities and the misanthropic tone, all kinds of viewers—casual and jaded alike—may come to feel that it asks too much in return of very little payoff. I’ll respect the intention behind such a measured psychological horror movie far more readily than a shlockfest, but the end result is depressingly similar: It Comes at Night is a film that doesn’t feel as if it’s worth watching. Certainly not twice, maybe not even once.

  • Okja (2017)

    Okja (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) Much-ballyhooed as a more ambitious kind of Netflix original project (as in: a major director’s film approved and financed by Netflix rather than them buying the distribution rights of an independent production), Okja also represents the latest in Bong Joon-ho’s typically scattershot blend of comedy, action, drama, horror and irony. Decently budgeted, Okja presupposes the existence of genetically modified super-pigs, leading to animal activists trying to prevent their exploitation by a heartless corporation. Obviously, Okja‘s anti-animal abuse themes are often undistinguishable from a recognizable vegan agenda, but don’t let that stop you from sampling what it has to offer. Okja itself is an often-delightful CGI creation, a creature bred for meat but designed for cuteness. That balance informs the rest of the film, as it veers between horror at animal exploitation (with a forced-breeding scene that’s as horrifying as anything else in movies this year) and good-natured charm at the creature and the efforts of a heroic ragtag band of activists at saving it. Intentionally, Okja itself is uncomfortably semi-sentient, bringing us to the uncanny valley of what’s dumb enough to eat even for confirmed carnivores. Tonal shifts are part of the Bong Joon-ho experience after all, and if his previous films have already been a bit challenging because of the way they go from one genre to another, Okja is a magnified instance of the same. The Anglo/Korean cast is wonderfully eclectic, with Ahn Seo-hyun in the lead role with Tilda Swinton, Paul Dano, Giancarlo Esposito and Jake Gyllenhaal being some of the best-known names recognizable to a western audience. Challenging, uncomfortable, surprisingly enjoyable at times and just as surprisingly disgusting at others, Okja is not the kind of film to watch on a lark. But it’s a good thing that Netflix can get behind such unconventional projects.

  • Jackass: The Movie (2002)

    Jackass: The Movie (2002)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) Doing dumb dangerous stuff has always been the prerogative of young males since times immemorial, and it’s in that spirit that Jackass: The Movie is best appreciated. Here we have a few young men (no women except for moms—this is probably significant) doing harmful and/or stupid activities while being filmed, ranging from elaborate stunts (ah, that giant shopping cart!) to simpler cringe-inducing things such as deliberate paper cuts. Some of it takes place in Tokyo, worsening international relations. The film as a whole anticipates (or perhaps caused) the whole YouTube “let’s film ourselves pranking and stunting” craze, making it somewhat less unique than it was back then. I’m not saying that the film is without its highlights—watching Henry Rollins laughing at the misery he inflicts on the cast is a bit of wishful thinking, and the ending sequence does get a laugh or two—but a lot of it is simply discomfort comedy without much point. The flurry of short segments—55 of them in 85 minutes—means that there’s always something else coming up, for better or for worse. There were a few sequels to Jackass: The Movie, but all appear redundant after sitting through the first film.

  • Rang De Basanti (2006)

    Rang De Basanti (2006)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) Fourth film in my Aamir Khan mini-binge, Rang de Basanti certainly dovetails with the first three: staying away from stereotypical Bollywood tropes, this is an ambitious film that engages with contemporary social issues and keeps the song-and-dance to a minimum. Boldly making its way to a full-throated denunciation of political corruption in India, Rang de Basanti bolsters its (fictional, but relevant) case with historical parallels, a strong sense of friendship between its leads and a tragic ending that ennobles the characters’ struggles. Saddled with a 157 minutes running time and a weighty subject matter, this is not a film to take in lightly. I didn’t quite like it as much as many of Khan’s other features, but that’s probably because Rang de Basanti makes few concessions to foreign audiences in discussing issues of national importance: There’s a British character that frames the film’s story but does not really impact it (a good story choice), and there’s the sense for North American audiences that we’re listening in on an important conversation taking place elsewhere. This limits but does not diminish Rang De Basanti‘s effectiveness—the film’s length and tragic ending may be more effective deterrents. Still, Khan is an effective force as an actor here, and I didn’t need anything more to satisfy me on a mini-binge of his most noteworthy movies.

  • The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

    The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) Confirmed and settled: I just don’t like writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos’ aesthetics. After being unimpressed at The Lobster and now all over again with The Killing of a Sacred Deer, I’m ready to give up entirely on his work. The premise of The Killing of a Sacred Deer is weird enough (a vengeful teenager puts a curse on a family, to be broken only through a violent choice), but it’s the execution that makes it exasperating: a deliberate blend of flat elocution, languid pacing (at two hours, the film is far too long), unlikable characters and deliberate emotional distance. It may work for some (the film was well reviewed), but I couldn’t wait until it was all over, not really caring about who lived or died. (No, actually that’s not true: at times I was actively rooting for everyone to die.) Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman seem game for the material, which to be fair to the actors is substantially different from anything else they may have been asked to play. Still, as far as I’m concerned, The Killing of a Sacred Deer is a notable bore: interminable, uninvolving and unlikable.

  • Geostorm (2017)

    Geostorm (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2018) Don’t tell anyone, but I do have a soft spot for those dumb catastrophe movies that run on a stream of special-effect sequences. Geostorm really isn’t anywhere close to being an exemplar of the form, but it’s enough to scratch that itch. The setup, with its runaway weather-altering satellites in a rigid grid, makes zero sense … but that’s irrelevant as it’s merely meant to enable a series of distinctive action vignettes. Gerald Butler is the lead here, his square jaw and dubious ability to pick good movie projects being all we need in a protagonist. Dean Devlin has his first solo directing job here (although reshoots three years later under another director kind of sabotage this achievement), which makes sense considering that he, alongside Ronald Emmerich, had a hand in similar global-destruction projects such as Independence Day and Godzilla. Alas, for all of the destructive joy found in Geostorm as it targets Hong Kong, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, Mumbai, Moscow and Dubai (and an entire space station), the plot has trouble keeping up with the spectacle. We’re soon stuck in a familiar morass of rogue American officials, conspiracy theories, out-of-control systems and rote character dynamics. The actors don’t do much to help: Butler is his usual reliable self, with Ed Harris and Andy Garcia also doing their best, but Abbie Cornish continues to be distinctively boring. Only Zazie Beetz distinguishes herself in a small role. Still, that’s not much, and seeing the disjointed result only makes one wish for a tell-all documentary showing what prompted the reshoots and how they tried to patch Geostorm into its final form. Otherwise, the film does better as a battle between spectacle and stupidity, as very little effort is made to even make the mayhem halfway plausible. Considering that we’ve seen a lot of these movies lately, Geostorm may have worked as an almost-parody camp version of those films … but it chose to attempt a straight version, and the very middle-of-the-road result speaks for itself.

  • 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.]