Jason Sudeikis

  • South of Heaven (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2022) Look, filmmakers: You can’t just declare your film to be neo-noir and expect that everyone will agree with you out of sympathy – you have to put some work into it, and make sure you at least understand the aesthetic and thematic core of noir. Or you can do like writer-director Aharon Keshales does in South of Heaven and just throw up stuff in the movie without really caring whether it’s tonally consistent, whether it undercuts other parts of the film, whether it’s the best use of the actors or whether it’s more than a blend of predictable tropes and incoherent plotting. You can, sometimes, see the glimpses of a more successful film in South of Heaven… if only it could stick to an approach for more than five minutes, or at least try to execute the familiar clichés in an engaging fashion. Instead, we get an ex-felon returning to his dying wife, getting embroiled in a criminal overlord’s sombre schemes out of sheer happenstance (even though there are plenty of hints about him being tempted by criminal activity), reacting in interesting ways, but seeing his plans unravel in dark comic fashion. There are about five and a half genres in that brief plot summary alone, and the film itself is no better when watched one minute after another. Featuring Evangeline Lily in the worst imaginable haircut and a miscast Jason Sudeikis acting tough, South of Heaven makes too many mistakes to avoid being ridiculed. At some point, everything the film does, every choice it makes simply feels like a wrong one. It whiplashes from comedy to tragedy to suspense to indifference faster than you’d think possible. From time to time, it gets a good idea (such as the protagonist kidnapping his enemy’s son to turn the tables) but blows that lead with something stupid. An unimaginable coincidence powers much of the plot, and the film goes for a moody ending that just screams pretentiousness once we’re already done caring for whatever happens during the action-driven climax. There are misfires and then there’s South of Heaven, a constant far-too-long parade of mismatched script pages glued together. That it’s not a complete failure (thanks to Mike Colter, an audacious one-shot, or occasionally shifts in power relationships) only makes the result feel worse. Skip it – there’s only frustration here.

  • Colossal (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, April 2022) Years after placing Colossal in my Netflix queue, I finally saw it… dubbed in French, off a DVR late-night recording interspaced with ads. Not the ideal circumstances, not the best timing, but sometimes a DVR-based workflow is easier than streaming marginal choices, especially on a less-than-impressive Internet connection. Still, a good movie should remain identifiable no matter the viewing situation, right? Well, I think so – and if Colossal isn’t necessarily a great movie, it’s quirky and fun enough to be worth a look in less-than-ideal conditions. Anne Hathaway stars as a bit of a loser – a young woman with big dreams of becoming a writer, but whose drinking problems get her kicked out of her job, relationship, apartment and New York City itself. Going back to the empty family house of her childhood town, she gets to rebuild everything… with the help of a past flame (Jason Sudeikis).   So far, so small-town romantic comedy, right? We’ve seen endless Hallmark movies with roughly the same premise. But none of them has ever done anything close to what Colossal does next, which is to take a flying leap into surreal fantasy as our protagonist realizes that stepping on a playground at a specific time of the day will create a gigantic monster in Seoul duplicating her gestures. It gets even wilder when another person (for reasons badly explained in a flashback) also enters the playground and manifests himself in Seoul. Fully exploring the possibilities of its premise, Colossal also delivers a better-than-average romantic drama talking about women encountering terrible men, flipping the usual small-town romance into something far darker. There are few tidy answers here: no real steady progress from addiction to recovery, and little comfort to be gained from romantic clichés. Yet it goes big in its imaginative conceits. The blend of dull realism with wild surrealism is remarkable enough – and it will keep you glued to the screen, wondering what’s going to happen next and how far writer-director Nacho Vigalondo will push things. I don’t quite like the way the film wraps up, but that’s not a big deal, considering what it can deliver on its way there. Colossal may still be in your own Netflix queue, but if that’s the case, don’t worry: even six years later, there hasn’t been anything quite like it.

  • Driven (2018)

    Driven (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2020) Considering the outrageous nature of John DeLorean’s story in founding DMC at the beginning of the 1980s, it’s a wonder that a film about his life hasn’t been made earlier. But maybe some distance helped, as suggested by the darkly funny tone taken by Driven as it fictionalizes the incredible crime story that transformed DeLorean from a car maven entrepreneur to a convicted felon. Wisely, the film doesn’t focus on the grander-than-life DeLorean as much as one of the supporting characters in his story—the man who would eventually become an informant for the FBI and expose DeLorean’s drug deals to finance his company. It’s all very entertaining, but take everything with a grain of salt, of course—Driven isn’t interested in factual accuracy as much as its breezy, very seventies atmosphere and comic approach. A bunch of likable actors help make the film even better—Lee Pace as the very tall, white-haired DeLorean, Jason Sudeikis in the lead role, and notables such as Judy Greer and Corey Stoll in supporting turns. Despite the comic intent, the film does demonstrate the reasons why DeLorean turned to drug dealing for last-resort cash, and even finds some empathy for the doomed character stuck in ambitious schemes that could not come to a happy conclusion. While very watchable, Driven does come with a few warnings—there’s an undercurrent of sadness behind it all, the film isn’t too sure of how far it should push the comic tone, and it’s very distant from the true story of what happened. [July 2020: If you’re interested in the facts, take a look at the documentary Framing John DeLorean, which is even better than the fiction.]

  • Tumbledown (2015)

    Tumbledown (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, April 2020) Rebecca Hall and Jason Sudeikis make for an interesting pairing in romantic comedy Tumbledown, although the “comedy” here may be a bit more muted than you’d think considering that the story happens during the female lead’s final stages of grieving for her dead husband. The plot has to do with a writer (Sudeikis, in an unusually toned-down role) travelling from New York City to Maine in order to complete his biography of a dead singer. Alas, the singer’s widow (Hall, as beautiful as ever) is not a willing participant and the complex relationship they have eventually moves toward romance. It’s all a bit predictable in a good way, with Hall’s character moving on from her grief into something else. It’s perhaps a bit sweeter than usual for those kinds of films, considering the more dramatic aspect of a dead husband hanging over the romantic component of the film. The late-winter small-town setting echoes the larger thematic aspects of the script and the darker undertones of the backstory. There are a few issues with the script—Sudeikis’ character, who has elements of wish-fulfillment for the female audience, isn’t always written in the most believable ways. Elsewhere in the cast, I did enjoy seeing another late-career role for Blythe Danner –and Griffin Dunne too! While uneven and arguably a bit too wrapped in the conventions of romance (although, you know, those are likable characters and we want them to be happy), Tumbledown isn’t bad considering its slow pace.

  • We’re the Millers (2013)

    We’re the Millers (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on Demand, December 2013) There’s little in We’re the Millers to suggest that it’s more than a middle-of-the-road Hollywood family comedy, but sociologists and policy wonks may be fascinated to note that public acceptance of soft drugs is now high enough that a mainstream Hollywood comedy can feature protagonists smuggling tons of marijuana into the United States without raising much of an eyebrow.  It helps a lot that the film is both broad and amiable enough to soften the blow: Our hero-dealer (Jason Sudeikis, making a career out of playing lovable pushers and likable perverts) is nowhere as bad as the other dealers in the story, and at its core this is a film about misfits building a family together, which pretty much fits Middle-America’s core values.  Not that this is a PG-rated film by any stretch of the imagination: it earns its R rating through copious drug references, sexual content, comic violence and pervasive profanity.  However, We’re the Miller seems almost innocuous compared to some of its gross-out R-rated comic brethrens of a decade ago: it’s never mean-spirited, keeps its wilder references implied rather than demonstrated (for instance, while the entire plot is drug-based, you never see anyone doing drugs) and eventually builds toward the kind of conclusion that everyone can cheer for.  The jokes are numerous enough that some will stick even when others won’t, earning enough chuckles to make the film a success for nearly everyone.  While We’re the Millers may not be as hilarious as it could have been, and suffers from Jennifer Aniston’s bland screen persona (she earns a laugh when revealed as a stripper, but it’s a laugh at her expense –many other actresses could have done quite a bit better in this role), it’s good enough to keep audiences satisfied, and that’s in keeping with the film’s place as a big Hollywood comedy.

  • Hall Pass (2011)

    Hall Pass (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On-demand Video, April 2012) I’m never too sure whether I should be annoyed or relieved when mainstream Hollywood comedies end up neutering their daring premises with innocuous plot developments.  Audiences don’t like to be unnerved when they’re supposed to be laughing, and I suppose that I’m no exception.  Nonetheless, there’s something maddening in seeing a film about married couples agreeing to mutual indiscretion racing to a conclusion when nothing really happened.  (Actually, it may be best to ignore the fact that the one woman who did something, albeit briefly, ends up punished by a car crash that ends up not much more than a plot point for her husband’s emotional growth.  But such is the way of Hollywood, and this includes the emotionally-retarded male protagonists who are supposed to earn our sympathy. The gender politics here aren’t particularly even-handed here, which is keeping in mind the target audience of the film.)  Still, Hall Pass has a number of laughs in reserve, especially when the protagonists can’t even begin to imagine how to take advantage of the freedom they’ve bargained for themselves.  Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis (who, in-between this film, Horrible Bosses and A Good Old Fashioned Orgy, is carving himself a bit of a niche as a sex-obsessed protagonist) are both as charming as they can be in characters who are barely emotionally adults, although it’s Richard Jenkins who gets the biggest laughs in short appearances as an even older and less mature professional bachelor. The problem is that by ultimately playing it safe, Hall Pass doesn’t do anything that warrants any lasting attention.  Despite a few out-of-place graphic gags, it’s a disposable comedy destined to the bargain bin.

  • A Good Old Fashioned Orgy (2011)

    A Good Old Fashioned Orgy (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2012)  Don’t be fooled by the pornish title; this R-rated ensemble comedy is about as good-natured as sex-themed mainstream comedies can, er, come.  Never mind the “pervasive sexual content” promised by the film’s R rating, the mostly-amusing nudity, porn film snippets or the standard-issue profanity: This is a movie about thirty-something post-teenagers trying to hold on to high school friendships in the face of increasing “adult” commitments by putting together an orgy before a summer getaway destination is taken away from them. To its credit, the film does confront the uneasiness of such a situation, and the way such an event is likely to alter friendships along the way.  (It’s a comedy, though, so don’t worry over-much.)  The laughs are closer to chuckles, but they’re numerous enough to make the film worthy a look for those in the mood for an amiable but not-too-explicit sex comedy.  Jason Sudeikis is likable as the lead, but it’s really an ensemble effort that makes the film work as a comedy.  Don’t expect wall-to-wall indecency, and the film eventually works itself to a good-natured conclusion.

  • Horrible Bosses (2011)

    Horrible Bosses (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, July 2011) Two and a half years after a catastrophic global meltdown, movies are starting to reflect the soul-deadened guilt of those who kept their jobs.  Playing heavily on wish-fulfillment, Horrible Bosses dares to ask how much better life would be if people could just get rid of their awful supervisors in the most definitive way possible.  It takes strong protagonists to keep our sympathy in such circumstances, and Horrible Bosses get two out of three in that matter: Jason Bateman continues his streak of playing endearing everymen, while Jason Sudeikis somehow manages to make us look past his character’s horn-dog issues.  As the remaining member of the trio of oppressed worker looking to dispatch their bosses, however, Charlie Day is almost more annoying than useful, and the tic of reverting to a high-pitched whine whenever things go wrong is annoying the moment it happens a second time.  Then there’s the other half of the deal: the bosses.  Fortunately, that’s where Horrible Bosses wins a perfect score: Kevin Spacey is deliciously slimy as the kind of arrogant sociopath that climbs up the corporate ladder; Colin Farrell is unrecognizable as a loser working to extract as much loot out of the family company before it goes bankrupt; whereas Jennifer Aniston is all sex-appeal with bangs, toned body and racoon eyes as a crazed harasser.  They deserve their fate; the protagonists have suffered enough; and the film can stand on its own.  It does get better as it develops, mostly due to some clever writing, sympathetic performances (including Jamie Foxx as a criminal consultant), a few twists in which real world problems become comic plot points, and a conclusion that neatly wraps things up.  While Horrible Bosses won’t stick around in popular culture, it’s a decent example of the kind of film it wants to be: It’s amoral without being offensive, edgy without grossing-out and polished to an extent that it leaves little if any unpleasant aftertaste.  Good enough for entertainment; consecration isn’t an essential prerequisite with a good-time comedy like this.