Movie Review

(In theaters, November 2007) It’s become fashionable to beat up on Ben Affleck for poor career choices, but this adaptation, co-written and directed by Affleck, should mark the end of that particular fad. It’s not a particularly memorable film, but it’s quite good at it what it tries to do, and it does try to do difficult things. It starts like many other crime thrillers: someone has disappeared, and someone else is hired to find them. But the story, adapted from Dennis Lehane’s novel, quickly starts picking at sensitive issues with a story about children abuse, what parents should be, and how to atone for past mistakes. The story takes unexpected twists and turns, only to end on a choice without happy alternatives. The ending is more thoughtful than conventionally satisfying, but at least it clearly shows its cards early on, and as such doesn’t betray the intent of the film. The direction doesn’t call attention to itself, but does well in presenting the story simply and without a fuss. The only exception are the action scenes, which show more confusion than skill. But the rest of the film is pretty good, although Michelle Monaghan’s role seems underwritten given its place in the plot. Not a classic, no, but definitely a film that will remain with viewers a while longer than most of what’s out there.

(In theaters, November 2007) Sometimes, it’s a relief to watch a film and realize that it’s made by professionals for a wide audience. This dramatic biography of 1970s-era drug kingpin Frank Lucas may take a few liberties with the truth (read the original article to spot a few of them), but it’s a slick piece of cinema that never feels too long despite clocking in at a touch more than two and a half hours. Chief among the film’s assets is the unflappable Denzel Washington, always the coolest guy on-screen despite the strong presence of Russell Crowe as his policeman antagonist. Washington is so compelling that it’s hard to think of him as a bad guy, even as he shoots people in the forehead or beats an associate with a piano. The other big star of the film is the period re-creating of early-seventies New York, completely convincing even as it avoids flashy set-pieces. American Gangster deserves its iconic title, and if the result isn’t quite up to Goodfellas or Scarface, it’s close enough to warrant a passing comparison. Without insisting on it, it actually portrays a thick mess of police corruption, criminal economics, easy racism and power relationships. The careful construction of the story makes it irrelevant that the two lead actors don’t meet face-to-face until a few minutes before the end: few moments are wasted along the way. While I’m not sure that the film will sustain multiple viewings as the other best-of-class movies in the gangster category, it’s good enough to deserve at least one good look.

(In theaters, October 2007) Enough earnestness can carry any film over rough patches, and so it is that the first act of this bio-drama about Canadian general Romeo Dallaire’s experiences during the Rwanda genocide is clunky beyond belief, filled with rookie screenwriter mistakes and graceless film-making. The good intentions are there, but the entire film feels strained and amateurish. This feeling dissipates as soon as the violence begins, and as the situation becomes as fragmented as the film itself. Roy Dupuis completely disappears into Dallaire’s role, and some scenes really stand above others in terms of impact. It doesn’t become a faultless film (the framing device in the psychologist’s office, in particular, isn’t particularly well handled), but it improves and eventually packs a heck of an emotional punch. It also becomes something of a purely Canadian film: not only is it naturally bilingual, but it tells the story of an enormous failure, the only comfort being that at least someone tried to do something. (Dallaire fires his weapon in anger only once, and it’s portrayed as a deeply wrong moment.) I’m not sure that an American version of the same story would have been so honest. Viewers familiar with the far better-handled Hotel Rwanda will nod in recognition at the point during which the two stories briefly converge.

(In theaters, October 2007) Let me say this again: Good intentions aren’t sufficient to make a good movie. I’m sure that Rendition had noble intentions at heart: show how the American government has come to support torture; show how someone becomes a terrorist; show how torture doesn’t work; show how terrorism backfires on the terrorists. But that’s really no excuse for the overlong mess that is the final film. In bits and pieces, the film sometimes succeeds: Jake Gylenhall’s character arc is compelling, Meryl Streep has a killer speech midway through and the parallels with the Maher Arar case are obvious. But the film would have been better had it focused on that particular triangle. As it is, showing the bomber, his girlfriend, her father, his sister and so on is just a pointless waste of time: it doesn’t strengthen the theme of the film, it makes everything feel even longer and the time-shift that occurs at the end of the film is a cheap trick that doesn’t really add anything else either. There’s a much better film struggling to get out of Rendition, and it’s sad to say that despite the good hearts of the filmmakers, the result just flops there and remains inert.

(In theaters, October 2007) People change, and that’s the only explanation for why one of the most unpredictable horror/fantasy director of the eighties would grow up to be one of the dullest suspense filmmaker of the new twenty-first century. After the plodding A History Of Violence, David Cronenberg is back to small-scale crime drama with Eastern Promises, and the result isn’t more enjoyable despite a change of location to London. It’s not a badly made film: Cronenberg has full control of his film, and there’s never a time where we don’t feel in the hands of a master craftsman. But at the shining exception of a lengthy full-male-nudity fight scene in a bathhouse (which is going to seal Viggo Morgenstein’s Oscar nomination), there is little energy to this feature film. It sputters from one scene to another, sometimes with a twist and most often not. Low-octane and low-interest: at least it’s low-annoyance too. On the other hand, who’s going to remember anything about this film aside from the naked fight?

(In theaters, October 2007) There should be awards for high-concept premises, because this film would definitely qualify for a nomination: How about vampires invading a town so far north that the winter night lasts thirty days? Huh, huh, how about that? Unfortunately, there have been a lot of vampire movies out there in the past few years, and if a neat premise is a good way to distinguish any new film from the pack, it’s not necessarily a guarantee of quality. 30 Days Of Night may pass the grade as a decent vampire film (it’s certainly better than, oh, The Forsaken), but there are a number of logical and cinematographic problems that undercut everything good about it. If nearly everyone will remember the long continuous aerial shot of a main street riddled with vampires and their victims, most will also question the idiocy of a bunch of vampires taking over a town like this without much by way of resource conservation. The director has a few other problems of his own: whether the script was botched or pieces were left on the editing floor, there are numerous times during this film where things don’t quite make sense or flow from one scene to another. It gives a disjointed feel to the film that the now-boring “rage cam” action sequences don’t exactly improve. It all drives an intriguing premise into a dull film that won’t register too long on the pop consciousness, even for the vampire fans.

(In theaters, September 2007) Both wonderful and reprehensible, this newest entry in the “fast and furious cheap action movie” sub-genre (after Running Scared, Crank and Smokin’ Aces) is the kind of film I hope Decency Leagues never discover. The first few minutes set the tone, with barely thirty seconds before the first car crash and ninety before the first gunshots. A pregnant woman is involved, after which a baby becomes the bouncing ball around which the carnage of the film takes place. The very definition of a guilty pleasure, Shoot ‘Em Up will simply be unbearable for many, yet compulsively hilarious for others. Clive Owen looks fantastic as the laconic hero of the piece, a man with infallible shooting skills and a bulletproof aura. But Monica Bellucci has the naughty darkness required to play a milkmaid prostitute (!) and Paul Giamatti is a scenery-chomping delight as a villain who, for a change, is just as smart as the hero. Seeing the body-count whir up steadily during a series of delirious action set-pieces, it’s hard not to feel ashamed and dirtied about the experience. But Shoot ‘Em Up never takes itself seriously as it piles up preposterousness over ludicrousness in an effort to top just about every standard for bad taste. But at the same time, it’s deliriously fun as a nervy action thriller. No, the plot doesn’t add up and there’s far too little nudity given the excesses of the film in matters of violence. But it’s meant to be enjoyed, not analyzed. (Whatever symbolism it features has the subtlety of a 2×4, and you’ll groan at the one-liners.) While not quite up to Hard-Boiled‘s standards (too quick, too close, too jokey), it’s certainly one of the most unapologetic pure action films in a while. If it makes you feel any better, let me assure you that the baby and the hooker make it to the end of the picture completely intact and unharmed. Trust me: you’ll appreciate the spoiler once the action gets going and Clive Owen starts sliding through the air in slow-motion, mowing down villains with one hand while clutching a baby with the other. It doesn’t have one death-by-carrot: It has two of them. It’s that kind of film, and I almost hate myself for loving it.

(On DVD, September 2007) The good news is that this is a genre picture made in Quebec. It’s a visually gorgeous piece of work, it sports a terrific atmosphere and it’s more or less in the lineage of Silent Hill and other small-town atmospheric horror film. The bad news is that it’s written and directed by someone who doesn’t have a clue about logic, pacing or payoff. The tale gets more and more ludicrous as it rolls along, eventually heading into unconvincing Science Fiction and ignoring a good chunk of everything that came before. Continuity and coherency are obviously not this film’s strong point, and the result starts well but then crashes down. Given the slow rhythm of the film, though, simply getting to the end will be an achievement of sorts. It’s too bad that all of the considerable talent involved in making this picture simply didn’t come together to produce something worthwhile. While the images may make a cool music video, it simply doesn’t hold together as a feature, and the script is the first thing to blame.

(On DVD, September 2007) What a mess. Take September 11, add a serial killer, add castration, add suburban angst, add pseudo-profound musings on the nature of North-American suburbia and stir. Yeah, you won’t like the result either, especially when, visually, it looks like something you could have shot with a bunch of middle-aged friends in your nearest suburb. Attempted profoundness quickly leads to achieved pretentiousness, and the film seems to implode on itself as all the plot threads are brought together. But don’t give up on that rental just yet: The DVD comes bundled with a short making-of film that is, I believe, the real worthwhile film on the platter. I won’t say any more: You will have to watch it to believe it.

(On DVD, September 2007) What a strange, strange concept: Adapt an old French spy thriller to the screen and poke fun at its outdated assumptions. Jean Dujardin is magnificent as “Agent OSS 117”, but it doesn’t take much for his high-wire performance to turn sour if you’re not in the right frame of mind. His old-school French parochialism is either amusing or irritating, and that pretty much speaks for the entire film: it’s a satire, but often a frustrating one as the clueless protagonist can being either charming or infuriating. At least the period recreation is convincing (down to cinematic techniques that call back to the early James Bond era), Aure Atika is gorgeous in her too-short turn as Princess Al Tarouk and a few gags stick in mind far longer than they should. It’s definitely a curiosity, and as such warrants at least a look even if it doesn’t quite work all the time.

(On DVD, September 2007) Faithful readers of these reviews already know that I love Ashwarya Rai like few other actresses, and I really should let that stand as my review of the entire film. She’s gorgeous, she’s the star of the film and frankly, is there any other reason to see it? Well, okay: if ever they perfect smell-o-cinema, this would be the first movie to re-master. There is such an accumulation of details and images about spices that the film practically cries out for a cooking kit bundle. Fans of sumptuous exotic flavours will be able to overlook the lacklustre magical realism romance that runs at the heart of the film and just enjoy the film on a scene-per-scene basis. The rest doesn’t always hold together very well, and the mechanistic nature of the script is a bit too obvious to be completely entrancing, but with a title like The Mistress Of Spices, at least you get both the mistress and the spices.

(On DVD, September 2007) I have a soft spot for earnest low-budget parodies, and Kung Phooey! is a shining example of one. Writer/Director/Actor Darryl Fong does a few nice things with good intentions, a low budget and scattershot comedy: While the film’s editing is too lax to truly punch up the film’s gags, it generally gets better as it goes along, and the film’s puppy-dog charm eventually makes it easier to forgive. Watching the film once won’t be enough: For a greater appreciation of the movie, re-run it with the commentary track to hear Fong talk about the process of making a low-budget film. Yes, it’s cheap and raw and occasionally unfunny and frequently eye-rolling awful. But I like them like that, and once you’re in the proper frame of mind, it’s even curiously enjoyable.

(In theaters, September 2007) I like political thrillers and I love action movies, so imagine my anticipation at a movie that promised a mixture of both. The Kingdom certainly gets cracking early with a dynamite opening credit sequence that lays out decades’ worth of American/Saudi history in eye-catching infographics. Then it’s down to the nitty-gritty of a mass-murder investigation as a small team of FBI operatives is sent to Saudi Arabia to investigate an act of terrorism in a Western enclave. Jamie Foxx easily takes control of the film, but he’s ably supported by good performances from Jennifer Garner, Ashraf Barhom and Chris Cooper. As a procedural, it’s a bit dull and linear, but the strangeness of the Saudi environment is enough to keep everything interesting as police work takes a back-seat to politics and cultural differences. It’s an easy sip of a film, one that never requires any prodding to go from one scene to another. Then the last half hour kicks in, and from that point on The Kingdom shifts gears to become one continuous thirty-minutes-long slam-bang action film that rolls from car crashes to shootout to car chase to more shootouts to hand-to-hand combat. It’s exhilarating, well-shot and does a lot to reconcile the film’s geopolitical goals with its willingness to entertain a crowd. What’s missing, unfortunately, is a willingness to go beyond a certain level and truly start scratching at the uncomfortable reality set up in the film’s opening minutes: The Kingdom, as enjoyable as it can be, only skims the surface of what could have been possible with those elements, and smothers its epilogue in an abrupt flood of cheaply-bought sentiment. Too bad. Too damn bad, because for a few moments, this could have been an equal to Syriana with even more kick-ass explosions.