William Fichtner

Virtuosity (1995)

Virtuosity (1995)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On Cable TV, June 2019) I suspect that both Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe would consider Virtuosity to be one of their early shames. At times, the film does stink of mid-1990s funk and silliness, what with its then-spectacular-now-terrible computer graphics, fascination for virtual reality and careless overuse of such SF tropes as artificial intelligence and nanotechnology. At its heart, it’s nothing more than a cop-versus-criminal-nemesis chase dressed up in near-future plot refinements—it should work better as a crime thriller than a serious extrapolative work, except that what keeps it interesting are the SF plot devices, as half-heartedly developed as they are. (Circa-2019 viewers will be struck as how many of Virtuosity’s plot devices would also be covered in Westworld’s first two seasons, including a solid-state storage device for artificial intelligences and recreating virtual simulation to interrogate said AIs.)  Of course, what was gosh-wow for mainstream viewers back in 1995 is old hat to a far more technologically savvy 2010s audience. Still, there’s a certain inadvertent charm to see how the era then portrayed the future—shared with such Virtuosity contemporaries at The Net and Hackers, or to director Brett Leonard’s own The Lawnmower Man. Extrapolation aside, the film itself is an uneven suspense thriller—director Leonard occasionally finds ways to keep his action sequences moving, most notably through the use of helicopters in the rooftop finale. Still, perhaps the thing that most will remember from the film is the acting—Washington’s stoicism returns full force after a bit of an unusual prologue, while Crowe snacks on the scenery as an exuberant villain-of-villains with superpowers—and a (badly executed) musical fixation that partially explains the film’s title. In the background, William Fichtner is instantly recognizable, whereas only committed Kaley Cuoco fans will identify her in a child role performance. The ending has the unfortunate distinction of dragging on for an added ten minutes after the climax between the two protagonists—a more skillful screenwriter (or a film more resistant to the lead actor’s script tampering, as documented in an interview with Kelly Lynch) would have restructured that last half-hour to end on a higher note and effectively rearrange its best ideas. Virtuosity is not really a good movie, but let’s not try to pretend that it’s now without some interest even in the ways it now looks ridiculous. (After all: you needed to explain emoticons in 1995 because it was still obscure to older people. You still need to explain it in 2019 is because it’s obscure to younger people raised on emojis.)

12 Strong (2018)

12 Strong (2018)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, October 2018) Despite Hollywood’s supposedly left-leaning tendencies, it can be counted upon to deliver, year after year, a reliable stream of pro-war statements wrapped in the American flag, family values and unquestioned imperialism. The latest entry in the subgenre is 12 Strong, which heads back to the woolly post-9/11 days when the United States boldly invaded Afghanistan half a world away. Such initial force projection isn’t easy, and so the first boots on the ground belong to Special Forces, leading the charge that more conventional military troops would later follow. Afghanistan is not an easy country to invade, and much of 12 Strong portrays the adaptations of the American soldiers as the CIA sets up factions against each other. Our protagonists eventually take up horses as the only workable transportation in the country, leading to a somewhat surreal scene featuring a 21st-century cavalry charge. Surprisingly enough, 12 Strong ends with everyone making it back home against overwhelming odds, marking a rather pleasant change of pace given the number of movies focusing on recent American military disasters with few survivors. This is not a particularly deep film—there is practically not introspection here about the wisdom of invading other countries, nor about the looming quagmire that would sweep up American (and Canadian!) troops over there for almost two decades. The dramatic arcs of the film play on familiar threads: family, safety, and bonds between men under combat. Only the cavalry aspect of the film distinguishes it from so many other similar efforts. Still, the film is a decently entertaining watch under Nicolai Fuglsig’s direction. It does help that it features terrific actors: in between Chris Hemsworth, Michael Shannon, Michael Pena and William Fichtner, the cast is a bit too good for the limited material, but they do give it a dramatic heft. It’s too long for its own good, and even then doesn’t quite manage to flesh out its characterization. But it does come alive in battle scenes, and documents an underappreciated facet of the Afghan invasion. At times, 12 Strong feels like a throwback to the war-is-an-adventure school of filmmaking, but that’s a nice change of pace from the overly ponderous war movies of late.

Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)

Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, March 2017) I will reluctantly concede a certain audacity in drafting a follow-up to Independence Day twenty years after the first film. In positing a fictional universe advanced by twenty years of international co-operation and repurposed alien technology, Resurgence takes us in relatively new territory as far as alien invasion films are concerned: As much science fictional on the human side as the alien side, rebalancing the usual power dynamics of the situation. Unfortunately, this ends up being largely window-dressing for bigger action sequences: the lunar tripwire gets ripped quickly, and it doesn’t stop a spectacular disaster sequence from picking up Abu Dhabi and dropping it on London (no, really). Twenty years later, advances in special effects technology do look like alien technology to 1996 state-of-the-art, and if Resurgence definitely has something going for it, it’s the quality of its special effects. As anyone would have anticipated, however, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the rest of the film is as good. While the script does acknowledge its own absurdity (“They do go for landmarks”, says Jeff Goldblum as famous monuments are destroyed), it doesn’t quite manage to build an interesting cast of characters, nor take us on a steadily engrossing adventure. In fact, the fan-service calling back the first movie does get annoying at time, hampering the film from managing something better than another battle on the desert flats. Among the cast, Jeff Goldblum is very enjoyable as an older but just as cynical version of his character in the first film, William Fichtner is exactly what’s needed as a solid military figure, Maika Monroe almost makes us forget that she’s taking over Mae Whitman’s role. Will Smith is sorely missed, with no one quite managing to step up as a replacement. As a catastrophe movie, the large-scale destruction is what director Roland Emmerich usually does best, and so Resurgence at least delivers on those expectations. Still, it does have enough promising elements to be disappointing in the way it puts them all together. There may or may not be another sequel, but the movie works hard at ensuring that we wouldn’t care one way or the other.

Phantom (2013)

Phantom (2013)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Video on Demand, June 2013) The submarine-movie subgenre is interesting in that there are only so many things you can do, story-wise, aboard a submarine.  Sense of isolation; claustrophobia; being stuck with an insane individual; nuclear weapons (sometimes); submarine fights; ocean dangers; the list is finite, and nearly every submarine movie ever made seems to play with the same ideas.  Phantom is no exception: while “based on a true story” (albeit the most incredible interpretation of events, with an added dash of magic science to make things even less plausible), it’s resoundingly familiar in the way it re-uses common plot elements.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing –execution is everything, and writer/director Todd Robinson does a generally acceptable job at transforming a fairly low budget into a cold-war nuclear thriller.  A good chunk of the film’s success can be attributed to a trio of capable veteran actors: Ed Harris as the flawed captain, William Fichtner as his capable lieutenant and David Duchovny as a potentially dangerous outsider.  The film has enough credibility to carry audiences across the less-believable moments, and the sense of tension that comes from being confined in such a small space for so long is also good enough to entertain.  But while Phantom is generally fine for audiences with an interest in its style or subject matter, “generally fine” isn’t enough to elevate it above its subgenre for a wider audience.  It doesn’t help that the film shoots itself in the foot with an ending that tries to fit narrative consolation with cold hard historical fact.  While the result will be just entertaining enough to satisfy those who are predisposed toward submarine movies in general, Phantom doesn’t have what it takes to reach a much bigger audience.

Drive Angry (2011)

Drive Angry (2011)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In theatres, February 2011) I wish I liked this film a bit more.  After all, what unholy union of escaped-from-Hell supernatural characters, muscle cars, evil cultists, William Fichtner and Nicolas Cage could fail to ignite the interest of any self-respecting geek?  Yet Drive Angry feels a lot less interesting than it should: flat dialogue, familiar action scenes (Another mid-coitus shootout?  Shoot’em Up did it better!), wasted actors, bland script, dull direction and unappealing cinematography all compete to undermine the potential of the film.  While it’s always good to see William Fichtner on the big screen and Nicolas CageCage is always at least kind of cool to see, Fichtner isn’t given any kind of exceptional material and Cage tones down his performance a bit too much.  The scripts and its associate mythology are both filled with holes and hazy rules: there’s little concision to the story, which hurts a lot given its self-professed intent to ape old-school exploitation pictures.  The action scenes feel a lot more ordinary than they should (even the exploding tanker just doesn’t get the blood racing) and Drive Angry never completely clicks.  The mixture of demonic characters, cult sacrifices and American muscle-cars never amounts to much more than a collection of buzzwords: A perfect example of how good B-movie are usually identified by pleased audiences, not deliberately put together by technicians.

Date Night (2010)

Date Night (2010)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In theatres, April 2010) There’s something refreshing in seeing a comedy for adults that delivers entertainment while avoiding the crassest demands of teenage audiences.  It’s not that Date Night is short on violence, profanity, sexual references and overall bad behaviour, but it refuses to indulge in them for their own sake.  The result is, for lack of a better expression, well-mannered.  Date Night is seldom mean or meaningless; it features two mature comedians (Steve Carell and Tina Fey) at the height of their skills and it’s obviously aimed at an older target audience of long-time married couples.  Date Night has too many plotting coincidences to be a perfect film, but it does end up better than average, and that’s already not too bad.  If the script logic is often contrived, it’s far better at making us believe that the lead couple’s reactions are what bright-but-ordinary people would say or do in dangerous situations, rather than what the Hollywood stereotypes may dictate.  There are even a few particularly good sequences in the mix, including a deliriously funny car chase through the streets of New York City, and a thinly-veiled excuse for Carell and Fey to dance as badly as they can.  A bunch of recognizable character actors also appear for a scene or two, from the sadly underused William Fichtner to an always-shirtless Mark Wahlberg and a pasta-fed Ray Liotta.  Add to that the somewhat original conceit of involving a bored married couple in a criminal caper (rather than using the thriller elements to make a couple “meet cute” as is far more common) and Date Night is original enough, and well-made enough to be noticeable in the crop of films at the multiplex.  A few laughs, a few thrills and a few nods at the difficulty of staying married; what else could we ask from a middle-of-the-road Hollywood action comedy?