Reviews

  • 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.]

  • 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.