Adrien Brody

  • Dummy (2002)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, April 2022) One of the fascinating things about small low-budget independent movies is that, from time to time, some of them can have a second life as a showcase for actors who became famous much later. I should be careful in talking about Dummy as an ensemble cast of then-unknowns –at the time, Milla Jovovich was already well-known, Adrien Brody was on the upward trajectory of his career (and about to hit the big time thanks to The Pianist) and Ileana Douglas had a long filmography. On the other hand, Vera Farmiga and Jared Harris were in their first years in the movie business – and that clearly shows in how nearly unrecognizably young they look compared to their later high-profile years. But yeah: five actors, many of them used in ways not necessarily associated with their best-known screen persona. It’s quite a trip to see Jovovich as an emo-type struggling singer with a tendency to fly off in a rage, or Harris as a young man with stalking issues. Brody, on the other hand, is playing to type as a socially awkward young man who finds ways of expressing himself through ventriloquism. There’s a low-key comedy tone running through the film even as it focuses on some miserable characters – the upbeat ending ensures that viewers will get a good feeling from this quirky film. Dummy is a bit of a surprise – not a big one, but a low-profile independent film that managed to cast five actors of interest in the service of an ultimately feel-good film. I’ve seen much worse.

  • Tian jiang xiong shi [Dragon Blade] (2015)

    Tian jiang xiong shi [Dragon Blade] (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, on TV, June 2020) In early retrospect, the 2010s were a weird decade of cinematographic American/Chinese intermingling. Much of it can be explained by China’s conscious efforts to make inroads in Hollywood through financing deals and co-productions. By the end of the decade, Chinese films were better than ever (having learned much from Hollywood), while American audiences were left with endless logos at the beginning of many films, bizarre casting choices and Hollywood’s refusal to take any sort of principled position against China. Still, artifacts of this period will remain with us, and you can take Dragon Blade as one of the most obvious ones. Clearly an attempt to combine the strengths of eastern and western filmmaking, it proposes Roman soldiers making their way to the end of the Silk Road and allying themselves with Chinese forces against another group of Roman soldiers. Somehow, Adrien Brody is presented an action hero, facing down a team-up of John Cusack and Jackie Chan as an elderly pacifist warrior. It’s all executed in grandiose fashion by writer-director Daniel Lee, with big spectacular fight sequences, fancy CGI and sweeping camera shots. (You can tell that this isn’t The Great Wall because there are no supernatural enemies.) Alas, the result is mixed. Brody chews scenery while Cusack looks perplexed, and Chan’s martial sequences are low-key compared to his earlier films—not to mention atonal in the middle of a big CGI battle film. Dragon Blade isn’t particularly good, although it does warrant some attention for its blend of things that don’t necessarily go together, even if they’re proven not to go together. I’m not sure if this decade of China/Hollywood collaboration will last [October 2024: Four years into the 2020s, it looks as if China is leaving Hollywood alone, having extracted all it could], but we’ll always have Dragon Blade as a memento of that time.