Movie Review

  • Half Baked (1998)

    Half Baked (1998)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2015) Stoner humor is such an absurdly specific subgenre that it can feel both juvenile and hermetic to non-stoners.  Given that I live a personal life so clean as to make even straight-edgers feel ashamed of their depravity, I’ve never been much of a good audience for stoner movies.  But I chuckled a few times during Half Baked, and I think it’s because the film almost tries to become an anthropological study of stoners, thus making it a bit more accessible than the usual tripe under that category.  The story is thin: When a pothead gets incarcerated, his friends end up raising bail money by… selling weed.  But on this scaffolding is built a few profiles of stoner types (most of them surprising cameos, from Jon Stewart to Snoop Dog to Janeane Garofalo), some comic exploration of the dirty business of selling drugs and a fairly convincing portrait of their lives.  There are, despite the juvenile nature of the film, a few good jokes in there: enough to keep me amused throughout, and not being exasperated at the film as I expected.  Dave Chapelle helps a lot in making the film fun; so does Rachel True as the sort-of-voice-of-reason.  The last thirty minutes are a bit too heavy on pot and not as heavy on wry observations, but that’s fine given that by that time, Half Baked has already proved to be more enjoyable than it ought to have been.

  • John Tucker Must Die (2006)

    John Tucker Must Die (2006)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, September 2015) What’s frustrating about John Tucker Must Die isn’t as much that it has long stretches that are undistinguishable from every other high-school romantic comedy out there; it’s the other moments, those who escape mediocrity and suggest that there was a much better film to be made from it.  The beginning is certainly promising, as our rather sympathetic narrator quickly brings us up to speed with her life (free of attachments, thanks to her mom’s string of boyfriends and her habit of running away at the end of every relationship) and the curious case of John Tucker, high-school philanderer.  It’s a breezy, confident beginning and it sets up something a bit different from the usual high-school romantic comedies, as three embittered ex-girlfriends vow to (figuratively) kill John Tucker.  Their first attempts backfire, to further unexpected hilarity, but then the plot takes an extremely familiar turn midway through, as we’re back in a “fake love leads to real love” plot.  The film loses a lot of steam as it moves through the familiar scenes of that kind of story.  Occasionally, a few good lines or unusual choices remind us that while the film might have been initially aiming for a Heathers-grade take on teenage romance films, it ended up in far more mediocre territory.  While Brittany Snow isn’t too bad in the lead role, and director Betty Thomas does her best to spruce up increasingly ordinary material, John Tucker Must Die is a good case of failed ambitions in a movie that doesn’t get any better as it runs along.  

  • Fierce Creatures (1997)

    Fierce Creatures (1997)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2015) So it turns out that I was in the mood for a farce and didn’t even know it.  Upon its release, Fierce Creatures soon became known as “the not-as-good companion film to A Fish Called Wanda”, featuring many of the same cast and crew and resonances in plotting.  Not having seen A Fish Called Wanda yet (this will change soon), that freed me to enjoy Fierce Creatures on its own merits and while not all of it works as well, it does have considerable charm and strong moments.  Perhaps the most refreshing thing about the film (besides the zoo environment, and the sympathetic role given to the animal minders) is how clever the script can be in acknowledging and responding to comic clichés.  The first half of the film, for instance, has a ton of dumb plans that end up easily detected and defused by the protagonist: in lesser films, those dumb plans would have carried the day.  (It also heightens the stakes for the film’s last fifteen minutes, in which another dumb plan it set up –will it be detected and defused as well?)  Otherwise, the film features strong roles for John Cleese as the gradually sympathetic protagonist and Kevin Kline as two imbecilic antagonists, while Jamie Lee Curtis unusually plays up her sex-appeal.  The innuendos work, the sight-gags can be very funny and if the film’s first fifteen minutes feel a bit disconnected, much of the film is pleasant enough to watch, building up to a few good set-pieces. (The running gag about the protagonist’s perceived insatiable sexual appetite gets funnier and funnier.)  Nearly twenty-five years later, Fierce Creatures remains a well-executed comedy that stands on its own.

  • [REC] 4: Apocalipsis (2014)

    [REC] 4: Apocalipsis (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2015) Oh well; like all horror series, the [REC] sequence has now reached a terminal point of no return.  [REC] 2 was uneven, [REC] 3 was barely redeemed by its last ten minutes, but [REC] 4 is just… dull.  The film picks up moments after the second film (while featuring a bit player from the third one) but quickly locks itself up in a cargo ship where no one, heroes, zombies or viewers, can run away.  The result is surprisingly dull, with rote zombie scare and mediocre slug-parasite suspense.  Manuela Velasco isn’t too bad as the battered chipmunk-faced heroine of the series (she’s the centerpiece of the film’s best sequence, an attempted vivisection that plays with our sympathies at a moment when her true nature isn’t obvious.) but returning director Jaume Balagueró compounds [REC] 4’s problems with a camera style that combines not only herky-jerky handheld camera (without the excuse of found-footage), but incomprehensible rapid-fire editing as well, making a dark mush of the film’s action sequences.  There isn’t much here that hasn’t been seen before, and the closed-off nature of the setting doesn’t bring much to the result.  As a result, [REC] 4 is –unfortunately- a bit of a chore to get through.  Rumors have it that this is meant to be the last installment in the series, which seems appropriate given its downhill trend.  On the other hand, it does leave with an underwhelming conclusion…  

  • Ghost Town (2008)

    Ghost Town (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2015) Worth pondering: The good impression left by a film can often be measured solely against expectations.  For instance, I expected little of Ghost Town, so when the film managed to pull off decent sequences and amusing moments, it seemed far better than if I had gone in with high expectations.  Ghost Town remains, in many ways, a basic romantic comedy with a nebbish protagonist trying to impress a beautiful woman.  But this one happens to feature Ricky Gervais as a protagonist who suffers a near-death medical experience that leaves him able to see ghosts in Manhattan.  The supernatural element is brought in gently and is always presented wondrously: there isn’t a hint of darkness in the film which, considering that is deals rather heavily in death, is something to admire.  Gervais makes for a capable unconventional hero, with anti-social nature believably progressing into something approaching decency by the end of the film.  He is ably supported by Greg Kinnear as the ghost of a philanderer trying to meddle in his widow’s affairs.  Complications obviously ensue.  Fortunately, Ghost Town has an amiable atmosphere, enlivened by a couple of strong sequences.  There’s a hilarious hospital scene in which our protagonist discovers his temporary death, for instance; a rapid-fire exploration of the nature of ghosts hanging around Manhattan; and a poignant sequence in which our protagonist gets to help ghosts settle their affairs with the living.  It doesn’t make for a film for the ages, but it makes Ghost Town quite a bit better than its closest comparisons.  It exceeds expectations, and often enough that’s exactly sufficient to leave audiences with a satisfied smile on their faces.

  • Drive Hard (2014)

    Drive Hard (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2015) As much as I’m a good audience for car-heavy action movies, as much as I can tolerate a lot of silliness, as much as I’m willing to cut some slack to low-budget films, there’s something just off-balance in Drive Hard.  What should have been a generic action film almost-inexplicably features both Thomas Jane (looking shaggy) and John Cusack (in another low-budget role as a villain with a curiously sympathetic streak).  Such name actors unhelpfully raise the profile of a generic action buddy comedy beyond what it can be expected to achieve.  There are a few likable things about the film: Australia’s Miami-like Gold Coast is a picturesque but unusual setting, there’s a cute car chase featuring an underpowered car, and you can see how the rapport between Jane and Cusack exceeds the quality of the script they have to work with.  Unfortunately, that script brings the entire film down.  Structurally, it’s a bit of a mess, with subplots hastily cut down in a rain of bullet, the film’s best action scene placed far too early, jarring shifts of tone, an unpleasant misogynist subplot, and dialogue nowhere as smart as it thinks it is –with added bursts of extreme profanity that seem to come out of nowhere and cheapen the entire film.  I have only a small idea of the behind-the-scene story about the film’s production and hasty re-writes, but the result on-screen is a big disappointment.

  • Rob the Mob (2014)

    Rob the Mob (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on-Demand, September 2015) At a time when it seems as if we’ve seen every mob movie concept imaginable, here’s a slightly different twist on the genre, and what’s more it’s based on a true story.  Here, against the backdrop of the 1991-92 Gotti trial in New York City, we get a sympathetic but dim-witted couple that decides to make ends meet by robbing mob social clubs.  The idea is smarter than it sounds when the protagonist realizes that there are no weapons allowed in mafia clubs.  Still, the protagonist makes plenty of mistakes along the way, and Rob the Mob is never stronger than when it can indulge in the inherently comic aspect of two small-time crooks taking on the powerful NYC mob and holding their own for a while.  Michael Pitt is fine as the lead Tommy, but Nina Arianda is a bit of a revelation as Rosie his charismatic wife, while Andy Garcia plays a fine fictional mob boss and Ray Romano is unexpectedly interesting as a journalist covering criminal developments.  The film moves well, doesn’t dwell on gore, makes heroes out of its unlikely protagonists and delivers the expected entertainment.  As an adaptation of real events, Rob the Mob sticks to the main points of the original story –still, it’s tempting to say that a far funnier film could have been made had the screenwriter taken a few more liberties with the source.

  • Cheap Thrills (2013)

    Cheap Thrills (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2015)  There’s something admirable and repulsive in what Cheap Thrills is able to do: even as a very-low-budget film (200,000$ is the reported number), it manages to come up with a compelling hook, a controlled pace and a memorable ending.  It’s also the kind of film that you never, ever want to see again once you’re done.  The premise couldn’t be tidier, as a recently-fired family man, already anxious for money, befriends a couple of rich people willing to pay for entertainment in a series of dares pitting the protagonist against a recently-reunited friend.  The dares and the payouts escalate gradually, until the characters are crossing irremediable moral lines and doing irreparable damage to themselves.  While occasionally billed as a dark comedy, Cheap Thrills easily veers into horror midway through, and manages to make audiences hate the protagonist well before it’s over.  The performances are good, with David Koechner, the only “name” actor in the film, delivering a disquieting role far away from his usual funny-redneck persona.  Arguably more disturbing than the grand-Guignol gore of the Saw series, Cheap Thrills is very successful at what it attempts.  Unfortunately, what it does attempt to deliver is the kind of nightmare that you never want to experience again. 

  • Mary Poppins (1964)

    Mary Poppins (1964)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, Video on-Demand, September 2015) I had seen bits and pieces of Mary Poppins over the years, but never the entire thing from beginning to end.  So it is that “I can see why this is a classic” jostles with “wow, this is a long movie” as my first conclusions.  Clocking in at nearly 140 minutes, Mary Poppins unevenly goes from one set-piece to another, flirting with plotlessness before finally delivering something near the very end.  It’s obviously a musical, meaning that is comes with a Bollywoodian intent to cover all emotional bases during its lengthy running time, no matter the loss in economical storytelling along the way.  There’s also an argument to be made that in 1964, audiences were far more accepting of a meandering movie experience and that today’s 90-minutes feature competes with far many more entertainment options.  So be it –let’s simply say that the film often drags.  Still, it would be churlish to ignore the reasons why Mary Poppins remains a cultural touchstone: the charm of it all, the great performances by Julie Andrews and Dick van Dyke (whose physical energy in the film remains astonishing), plentiful special effects, the catchy tunes, the family-first message, the set-pieces that do work well.  (My own favourites include the partially-animated Jolly Holiday, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (of course) and the rooftop Chim-Chim-Cheree)  Must of the film feels dated, but in doing so has acquired a further patina of whimsy that can’t be replicated by modern films.  (Well, except for the use of suffragette activism as a motivation for a mother ignoring her kids –that’s even more annoying than it must have been at the time.)  While I itch for some editing power in making this film more focused from beginning to end, the end result is still a classic for the ages.  Note: The French version may be competently translated, but it’s nowhere near the catchiness of the original English soundtrack.

  • Rescue Dawn (2006)

    Rescue Dawn (2006)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, September 2015) As far as difficult adventures go, Rescue Dawn tackles the plight of a Vietnam-era American pilot brought down in unfriendly country.  Quickly captured, he plot evasion and escapes through the jungle before being rescued.  Director Werner Herzog adapts his own documentary film inspired by a true story about the real-life odyssey of Dieter Dengler, and while the result never rises above the ordinary, Rescue Dawn is a well-made adventure film that gives a credible look into the plight of American POWs during the Vietnam War.  Christian Bale headlines as Dengler, once again showing off a feat of physical transformation during the course of the film.  Plot-wise, the film has an accumulation of man-versus-man-versus-nature events keeping things interesting from one moment to the next.  It may be a bit too long, with some dodgy aerial special effects and a few plot shortcuts along the way.  Still, Rescue Dawn remains interesting as a survival story, remarkable for Bale’s performance and impressive for the jungle scenery that wraps up the film. 

  • The Book of Life (2014)

    The Book of Life (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2015)  If anyone still needs a reason why diversity in cinema is crucial, The Book of Life should prove to be enough of an argument in itself.  As a middle-budget animated film, it has the freedom to explore a story based on a mixture of old classics, dress it up in colorful Mexican-inspired visual style and wrap it all up in a package easily accessible to a wide variety of audiences.  I may not think all that much about the framing sequence, but once the film gets to San Angel and the stories of Manolo, Maria and Joaquin, it quickly picks up charm and interest.  Reel FX’s animation may not be as polished as Pixar-grade state-of-the-art animated films, but The Book of Life makes up for it through eye-popping visual design, in-between stylized character design (many characters are wood puppets that turn to bone in the land of the dead), a broad color palette and bold flights of fancy.  It is, as a result, almost completely charming.  At two or three moments (usually during musical numbers), I just wanted to hug the film and say “You’re an adorable movie, yes you are!”  Thematically, the film dares to tackle life-and-death in a kids’ film (albeit in a very unthreatening fashion), and writer/director Jorge R. Gutierrez brings a delightfully different point of view to the result.  As a full-spectrum counterpart to Burton’s animated features, The Book of Life is likely to find a devoted audience.  It certainly deserves a wide one.

  • Little Nicky (2000)

    Little Nicky (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, September 2015)  I’m not a big Adam Sandler fan, but have seen enough of his films by now to say that most of them are likable in a fairly generic way –crude, oftentimes gross, certainly lower-common-denominator, but still aiming for kind of a genial comforting middle-America male consciousness.  Little Nicky is irritating in ways that I can’t completely articulate, though: From the early curious fascination with Hitler’s rectum, the simpering protagonist, the badly-executed CGI gags or the haphazard structure, this is a film that feels more botched than most, without much in terms of overall direction or aesthetics.  It’s a dumb comedy, granted, but it seems more aggressively dumb than most others in the Sandler filmography.  Sandler himself is annoying to watch, leaving little of his natural charm to carry viewers over to the end.  Terrible special effects don’t help, and neither are the various pot-shots at easy targets or the uninspired lack of thematic depth in what could have been an effortless opportunity to add more substance to the script.  In the grand scheme of Sandler’s career, Little Nicky is definitely a film at the end of his first, more immature phase –it’s easy to see 2002’s subsequent Mr. Deeds as a course-correction for the excesses of this one (not to say anything about Punch-Drunk Love, also immediately subsequent.)  This is strictly for Sandler completists.

  • The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)

    The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2015) On one hand, watching The Hobbit after enduring so many generic fantasy films is like sipping very high-quality product: this is how fantasy should be done, respectfully and with big budget and capable filmmakers.  Everything feels slick, polished, handled with wit and intelligence.  Peter Jackson’s direction is fantastic, the script holds its own, the special effects are still capable of astonishing audiences and there are a number of great moments built into the film.  (The Legolas fight on top of a crumbling tower, in particular, is an action-scene showcase.)  It decently wraps up the trilogy, makes a solid bridge to The Lord of the Rings and shows how modern cinema can fully realise even the most complex fantasy mythology.  Well done.  But on the other hand… This third installment of The Hobbit, as well-made as it is, also shows exactly what’s wrong with modern Hollywood filmmaking: The quest for profits has blown a kid’s book into a massive movie trilogy, with added battles, characters, romantic subplot and links to the previous/subsequent trilogy.  Perhaps worse: the result feels intensely flabby, everything handled without nimbleness to the point of feeling oppressed by the imposed grandeur of the result.  This couldn’t be any more important, shouts the trilogy, as if there weren’t any other modes in which to tell the story.  At times, it feels dull –we expect the test questions to pop up at any moment to test our knowledge of all there made-up names and useless complications.  But, of course, that’s sort of the point of those films: to appeal broadly to people who aren’t invested in the story, while providing plenty of depth to the aficionados.  I just happen to fall on the wrong side of the divide (that is: the casual audience) most of the time.  Now that we’re done with The Hobbit, maybe Peter Jackson can do something else with his life than strip-mine Tolkien’s work.

  • Going Clear: Scientology & the Prison of Belief (2015)

    Going Clear: Scientology & the Prison of Belief (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2015) Documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney takes on the church of Scientology in Going Clear, and the result is as fascinating as any of his other movies.  Adapted from Lawrence Wright’s book Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief, it’s a highly critical look at the inner workings of Scientology, featuring a number of disillusioned former high-ranking members of the organization.  After a look at the colorful life of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, Going Clear spends time detailing the recent and current activities of the organization and the reasons why several of its former members have left it.  Along the way, the relationship between Scientology and its star members John Travolta and Tom Cruise is detailed in ways to make us understand how they all benefit from the association.  It’s a slick documentary, although the “dramatic recreation” segments meant to illustrate some of the material is overdone: the interview alone are compelling enough.  Going Clear is builds to a highly critical portrait of Scientology, packaging together a lot of material that has been available for years but seldom presented in such a self-contained form.  Read the film’s Wikipedia article for more details on the ensuing controversy.

  • Bean (1997)

    Bean (1997)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, September 2015) All movies ask for a bit of indulgence as they take off from reality, and this is truer in slapstick comedy where we’re asked to play along what is obviously ludicrous.  Of course, you have to be willing to give in.  So it is that a high compliment that I can give to Bean is the way it manages to be funny despite my mild dislike for the character.  Rowan Atkinson is an exceptional comedian, but I’d rather re-watch the verbal wittiness of his Blackadder series than to suffer through much of his dim-witted Bean character.  The movie certainly doesn’t try to move away from the essence of the character: Bean is still terrifyingly stupid and the world around him seems to adjust itself in consequence.  Characters behave in brain-damaged ways, which to say that the comedy here is broad enough to let anything through.  Bits of the TV shows are repeated nearly verbatim, further cementing the film’s dedication to its protagonist.  And yet, despite my dislike for that kind of stuff, I did find myself chuckling more often than I should, especially in the last third of the film when Bean improbably acquires some idiot-savant skills and manages to pull off a half-clever scheme.  SO it is with reluctant admiration that I doff my hat at Bean’s success in making me laugh even when I didn’t want to.  One notes, however, that I ended up watching not only the French version of the film, but (due to Ami Télé’s intentional accessibility policy) the Described Audio French version of the film, in which a narrator describes Bean’s on-screen antics in a deadpan fashion.  It almost goes without saying that this makes the film quite a bit better, or at least far more pleasant absurd to watch.