Articles by Carl Kozlowski
"Split" Review
Jan 20, 2017 / 00:00 amThere’s no filmmaker today who loves to throw audiences for a loop more than M. Night Shyamalan. For a while it worked, with “The Sixth Sense,” “Unbreakable” and “Signs” all considered classics, and “The Village” also has its strong advocates, including myself. But following those four gems, he proceeded to make some of the worst movies of all time in “The Happening,” “The Last Airbender” and “After Earth.” Shyamalan finally had to regroup in 2014 if he ever hoped to work again, and teamed up with low-budget-horror impresario Jason Blum, who revolutionized the horror genre by creating a string of hugely profitable hits (the “Paranormal Activity” and “Insidious” series) that were made for $5 million or less. The result was the fantastically fun thriller “The Visit,” a tremendous comeback that grossed nearly $100 million worldwide off a tiny budget. This weekend, he teams up again with Blum for the new thriller “Split,” which follows the battle of wills between three teenage girls and a deranged man with 23 personalities who kidnaps them and traps them in a massive, creepy underground compound. The result is smartly written and expertly acted by James McAvoy as the kidnapper who displays eight personas in the course of the film, and Anna Taylor-Joy as Casey, the girl who is the sharpest at fighting back. Yet it’s also deeply unpleasant for much of its running time, as it’s hard to call a movie centered on the endangerment of young women a crowd-pleaser. Of course, that works sometimes — as in the classic “The Silence of the Lambs ” — but in this case it feels like the movie isn’t walking the line just right. Shyamalan has the class to keep the threat largely psychological, with most of the actual violence shown in the briefest of shocking glimpses or implied off screen, but nonetheless it’s much more unsettling than truly entertaining until the last few minutes’ series of surprising twist endings. The film opens with three teenage girls — Casey, Marcia (Jessica Sula) and Claire (Haley Lu Richardson) — as they wait in a car for one of their fathers outside a shopping mall. But instead of the dad showing up, a creepy stranger (McAvoy) slides behind the wheel, dons a mask to cover his face and mouth, and knocks all three girls out with a spray. They awaken in a creepy underground lair and soon realize that the creep has a never-ending change of personalities ranging from a mentally challenged man named Hedwig to an upper-crust British woman named Patricia. As Marcia and Claire freak out and attempt their own futile escapes, Casey manages to know how to manipulate his mind and gather clues that might add up to saving her life. The reason that Casey is better prepared than her friends stems from her creepy childhood, in which a sleazy uncle tricked her into being sexually abused as a young girl. Shyamalan unspools the revelations masterfully through a string of partial flashbacks to a long-ago hunting trip, but his tasteful restraint here also still might leave viewers with the queasy uncertainty of whether it’s justified to create a thriller out of such a tragic topic. Adding an extra level of intrigue is the presence of Dr. Karen Fletcher (Betty Buckley), the kidnapper’s psychiatrist, who believes that people with multiple personalities might hold the key to discovering the untapped possibilities of the human mind. A third story thread of the film — alternating with the intense battle of wills between Casey and the kidnapper, the childhood flashbacks — follows the bizarre therapy sessions that the man’s various personas keep emailing to request. Ultimately, Fletcher and Casey each come to realize that the true thing to fear about him isn’t the 23 personalities they already know — it’s a brewing 24th identity he calls “The Beast” that combines all his other traits together into a mindset of overarching, near-superhuman evil. And they have to beat the clock before “The Beast” announces his presence for good. That five-paragraph description – which leaves plenty more to be experienced – is an example of how complexly plotted “Split” is. It’s a fascinating tale and will likely keep viewers on the edge of their seats throughout, but it still feels like Shyamalan is using the tragedies of child abuse, sexual abuse and psychological trauma to achieve those thrills, and it is a valid question to wonder whether it’s partly exploitative as a result. This is a movie that also points out the shaky moral sense of the MPAA ratings board, which gave it a PG-13 rating because “Split” has hardly any foul language and much of the violence is off-screen or barely shown, leaving the worst horrors to viewers’ imaginations. There is one mostly heard but cut-off use of the "MF" word, and four mild swears, and while there's no sex or nudity, the teen girls are forced to wear bras and panties for good portions of the running time by their kidnapper. This is presented in straightforward scary, not overly prurient fashion, however. But its relentless sense of dread and the scenarios depicted should not risk being seen by children at all, and possibly even some teens, and it’s probably a good idea for anyone who’s ever suffered from severe abuse to avoid risking “Split” as a trigger. To be fair, the final ten minutes deliver a powerful coda to the film, as we come to learn where the girls have been held captive and find that there are two final twists. The last line of the movie in particular had the entire audience audibly startled, with one rabid Shyamalan fan literally shrieking, “This is his best twist ever!” I'd say the powerful surprise is definitely a doozy, especially for longtime M. Night Shyamalan fans.
Double Review - “Silence” and “Patriots Day”
Jan 13, 2017 / 00:00 amConsidering all the classics he has made, ranging from “Taxi Driver” and “Raging Bull” to “Goodfellas” and the Best Picture-winning “The Departed” — one might expect that Martin Scorsese just has to say the word to make any film he wishes. Yet his new film “Silence,” about two Roman Catholic missionary Jesuits risking martyrdom for evangelizing in 1600's Japan, took 28 years to bring to the screen. Contrast that with another new film,“Patriots Day,” which takes an alternately epic and intimate look at the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing from director Peter Berg and star Mark Wahlberg, who previously teamed up for two other films about true stories in “Lone Survivor” and “Deepwater Horizon.” Coming just three years after the tragic events it depicts, it is remarkable partly for the speed with which it made it through Hollywood’s notoriously slow development process. Both are among the heaviest movies of the past year, deep dramas offering painful looks at people under remarkable duress. Yet, while they’re hardly popcorn entertainments, they are the kind of movies that make their viewers gain insight into both art and the human condition — feats that are all too rare these days. “Silence” is the more challenging of the two films, taking two hours and 40 minutes to tell its tale of Portuguese priests named Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Garrpe (Adam Driver), who tell their religious superior that they wish to find out what happened to another missionary named Ferreira (Liam Neeson), no matter how risky the mission may be. Ferreira has disappeared while evangelizing in Japan, yet while many other missionaries were known to have been martyred for their efforts, rumor has it that Ferreira renounced Jesus and the Catholic Church and is surviving as a now-married man. Rodrigues and Garrpe refuse to believe that rumor and head off with an unreliable and often drunken guide named Kichijiro (Yosuke Kubozuka) to find out for themselves. They journey into the heartland of Japan, which has a roaming team of deadly men led by a ruthless figure known as The Inquisitor (Shinya Tsukamoto) seeking out and killing Christian converts. Their efforts form the heart of the film as they balance their fearless passion for Christ against the all-too-fearful reality of facing brutal torture because of their beliefs. “Silence” asks many spiritual and existential questions, particularly those focusing on how much a person can or should endure in the name of paying witness to their concept of God. The tortures visited upon the missionaries and their village flock included men being hung from crosses on the edge of the ocean as high tide rises to drown them. Horrific cries emanate from people hanging upside down with their heads in a dark pit as they bleed slowly to death over days. Scorsese manages to convey these horrors without dwelling on them visually, and yet there is no pleasant way to portray these atrocities. Garfield is particularly amazing as the man who endures the most, and viewers will likely find themselves able to relate all too well in a time when ISIS is subjecting modern-day Christians to similar traumas in the Middle East. And yet, there are significant problems. “Silence” could have spoken volumes about the power of faith to overcome seemingly anything, and the human penchant to punish others who view God and salvation differently than themselves. Spoiler alert: But ultimately, Rodrigues falls to the pressure of being told that the people suffering a slow death by torture are dying because of his refusal to apostatize, and he steps on a picture of Christ to save them. This is shown as an utterly devastating moment for him, and until one is faced with this unimaginable decision, it’s not really fair to judge him. But the fact that the movie shows him agreeing to remain an apostate publicly the rest of his life, and even agreeing to marry a Japanese man’s widow for decades and father a child long after the moment of danger to others has passed, is inexcusable. Furthermore, the film’s final shot shows Rodrigues clutching a crucifix as officials set his corpse aflame as a final defilement of him after he dies. His widow has placed it there, indicating that she knew he secretly loved Jesus all along, but while that may give undiscerning viewers a powerful moment, it actually underscores the insidious nature of the film because once again, the movie tries to present him as a heroic near-martyr when in fact he enjoyed a life of luxury by hiding his true feelings for Christ. End spoiler. There are a couple of other purely artistic drawbacks to “Silence.” In particular, the meditative pace of the film makes it at least 45 minutes longer than it had to be, even if it remains interesting throughout. And Tsukamoto is a truly odd casting choice, as his never-ending grin and fake-friendly tone of voice often make him feel more like a Jerry Lewis character than a figure to fear. Yet he fades into the background with plenty of time for the film to recover its sense of somber majesty. Meanwhile, the more immediately relatable “Patriots Day” is a dark police procedure drama that shows what the bombing victims and the law enforcement officials who tracked the bombers down had to endure over four harrowing days. Wahlberg plays Tommy Saunders, a Boston cop who was assigned to security detail at the normally incident-free marathon finish line when brothers Dzokhar and Tamerlin Tsarnaev unleashed hell with their improvised bombs. While Saunders is a composite character tying together three real-life Boston police officers into one fictional creation, Berg and his co-writers Matt Cook and Joshua Zetumer hew extremely close to the real people, details of the bombing, and pursuit on every front. As the Boston police are augmented by help from the state and federal levels, a massive command center is built under the control of FBI Special Agent Richard Desluauriers (Kevin Bacon) and the impressive wheels of finding and either arresting or destroying the bombers is rapidly under way. “Patriots Day” is packed with harrowing action moments, particularly in a nerve-wracking battle royale in which the Tsarnaev brothers lob numerous explosives at the police as they desperately try to wipe out as many officials as possible when they’re surrounded. But these are more compelling than simply fun to watch, as Berg masterfully manages to tell a story of everyday heroes without becoming jingoistic in any way. Considering its subject matter, it should not be surprising that “Patriots Day” has a lot of disturbing moments, even as they are real-life events. The movie ties together real-life footage of the bombs going off and their aftermath with recreations to powerful effect, and there are some quick shots of dismembered limbs. The terrorist brothers are portrayed in a realistic, not cartoonish, way, adding to the intensity of moments where they shoot or throw bombs at police. The movie also has a large amount of foul language, which is noticeable yet doesn’t feel as exploitative as a fictional movie might – this is filled with intense life and death situations, and these are blue-collar tough guys in Boston fighting against utter evil. This is a rare case where if one is interested in a powerful story well told, it’s better to be aware of the language and give it a pass. Berg and his co-writers also manage to weave together at least a dozen major characters, from the victims to the law enforcement figures to the bombers themselves in a way that brings an understanding of the good or evil that drives them. For being a masterful achievement, it’s surprising “Patriots Day” isn’t attracting more love from the awards shows.
Double Review - “Hidden Figures” and “A Monster Calls”
Jan 6, 2017 / 00:00 amThis is the best time of year for movies, as noble-minded films fill theaters while hoping to draw attention on the way to winning Oscar gold. Often these movies are among the best films for families as well, forgoing excessive sex and violence while offering high-class entertainment. I’m happy to report that this week two superb new films are expanding their reach nationally, and both are great for viewing by families and just about any age group. “Hidden Figures” is an uplifting historical drama about three African-American women in the early 1960's who were key but overlooked figures at NASA during the race to space against the Soviet empire. “A Monster Calls” is an impressive and emotional fantasy film about a young Irish boy learning to cope with his mother’s impending death from cancer by imagining that a favorite tree has come to life and is giving him lessons in physical and emotional strength. “Hidden” is the real crowd-pleaser of the two. It is bolstered by three vibrant performances of three actresses giving the performances of a lifetime. Taraji P. Henson plays Katherine G. Johnson, a woman who grew up as an incredible math prodigy but had her career path hampered by her race amid segregated society. She works among a division of other black women in a division of “computers” – people who compute statistics and other mathematical calculations for the space program. Meanwhile, Spencer plays Dorothy Vaughn, who has been acting as the supervisor of that computing team, overseeing 30 women yet not receiving the title and salary she deserves due to her racial background. Finally, Janelle Monae plays Mary Jackson, a woman who's capable of being a brilliant engineer but can’t be considered for the position unless a judge overturns segregation laws to enable her to finish nine key classes from an elite high school she was never allowed to attend as a youth. Overseeing them all is a tough but good-hearted white male boss named Al Harrison (Kevin Costner), who demands the best of any of his employees. He’s used to supervising white men only, but Katherine’s undeniable magic with calculations is key to ensuring that famed astronaut John Glenn can become the first American to enter space orbit, and when the unfairly prejudicial rules of NASA culture push her to the breaking point, he initiates reforms. “Hidden” may sound like a heavy drama from this description, but while it deals with important topics, there is such a sense of joy, ambition, achievement, and patriotism at its core that it inspired four massive rounds of applause at the screening I attended. Director Theodore Melfi, who co-wrote with Allison Schroeder, has created a movie that is not only engaging and packed with goodness (all the women press forward in strength garnered by their Christian faith), but is also extremely timely as the nation struggles with morale and racial relations. It’s a must-see and likely to win Best Picture. Meanwhile, “Monster” is a highly original and emotionally powerful tale that puts the higher-profile 2016 failures of Steven Spielberg's “The BFG” and Will Smith’s “Collateral Beauty” to shame. Lewis Macdougall plays Conor, a young Irish boy whose Mum (Felicity Jones) is dying from cancer. She has long told him that an impressive tree on the edge of the town cemetery has magical powers, and Conor is shocked to find the tree has come to life one night, complete with a booming voice (by Liam Neeson). The tree both encourages Conor to have peace and understanding about his mother’s worsening condition, but also moves him to stand up for himself against a cruel bully and to establish a loving relationship with his grandmother (Sigourney Weaver), who will have to take him in when his mother dies. In each of these cases, as Conor unleashes his pent-up frustrations, the tree roars to life, giving life to his internal roiling emotions. But ultimately, Conor will have to face down the terrifying nightmare that is troubling him most of all. Writer Patrick Ness adapted his own acclaimed novel, and director J.A. Bayona follows up his outstanding work in the 2012 film (a must-see about a family striving to reunite after being separated by the Indonesian tsunami) with a movie that brings together a beautiful mother-child dynamic with stirring special effects and incredible performances. “Monster” can be an intense film at times, and is likely too strong for young children to handle, but those viewers who are about 10 and up should find it a wondrous and memorable film on the order of the timeless Spielberg classic “E.T.”
10 best / 5 worst films of 2016
Dec 31, 2016 / 00:00 amEach year I see more than 150 movies, and I’m pretty easy to please. But there’s always a few movies that stand out from the pack as ones I’d see over and over and recommend to anyone’s collection – and a few that I’d rather forget forever. Following are my 10 favorite movies this year, the ones that made me laugh the hardest, feel the most thrilled and occasionally made me cry. And after that are the five worst movies of the year. 1) “La La Land.” I’ve seen this four times already, and it gets better every time. Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone team up for the best musical since “Singin’ in the Rain,” and it scores extra points because it is the original vision of writer-director Damien Chazelle rather than an adaptation of a Broadway classic. It follows a couple of showbiz dreamers through a year of highs and lows that are especially relatable to anyone who knows someone playing the Hollywood game. 2) “Moonlight.” As a straight white male, this movie blindsided me by drawing me in fully to the romantic travails of a black gay man. Writer-director Barry Jenkins crafted a mesmerizing portrayal of loneliness and longing that is universal, following the story of a Miami man from boyhood to adulthood as he struggles to find his place in the world. Moral warning: one scene implies manual stiumlation between two teen boys, but nothing is actually seen. The film is sympathetic to homosexuality, but it's really a movie that's universally about loneliness. 3) “Edge of Seventeen.” This thoroughly winning comedy struck some poignant points as well. Fantastic young actress Hailee Steinfeld giving Emma Stone and Viola Davis (of “Fences”) a run for best female performance of the year in this story of a 17-year-old girl struggling with dating and coping with the loss of her father. So good that legendary filmmaker James L. Brooks (“Terms of Endearment,” “As Good As It Gets”, “Broadcast News”) came out of retirement to produce it. 4) “The Nice Guys.” Writer-director Shane Black (“Lethal Weapon,” “Iron Man 3”) struck action-comedy gold again with this 1970s-set private eye flick that was largely overlooked in the summer blockbuster shuffle. Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe teamed up to solve what appears to be the murder of a porn star but winds up being something altogether different. A pure joy. 5) “Deadpool.” Ryan Reynolds had one of the biggest comebacks ever by taking on the daring and edgy role of a decidedly R-rated superhero in this audacious mix of gutsy comedy and souped-up violence that was a gasp-inducing thrill ride from start to finish. This is definitely R-rated comedy and violence, and has an extended sequence of premarital sex, but most adults should handle it. 6) “10 Cloverfield Lane”/ “Don’t Breathe.” Both these movies were edgy, claustrophobic, edge-of-your-seat thrillers with a non-stop series of nasty surprises. Sci-fi thrillers often don’t get awards, but John Goodman in “Cloverfield” gives the performance of a lifetime as a man who holds a woman hostage in an underground shelter while she wonders whether an apocalypse has occurred outside. “Breathe,” meanwhile, delivered Hitchcock-worthy suspense with moments of pure terror and a star-making turn by Jane Levy as a woman struggling to escape a house filled with traps while attempting to rob a blind veteran. 7) “Snowden.” Oliver Stone’s biopic of Edward Snowden moves beyond a mere recap of the controversial NSA analyst to create a timely call to arms about just how recklessly abusive world governments have become of average citizens’ privacy. Sadly getting overlooked by awards. 8) “Sully.” Clint Eastwood directs and Tom Hanks stars in an utterly brilliant rendition of the story of pilot “Sully” Sullenberger’s miracle landing of a packed jetliner on New York’s Hudson River. Todd Komarnicki’s inventive, time-jumping script might be the year’s best. 9) “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.” Tina Fey delivered perhaps the year’s biggest surprise, a masterful dramedy following the true story of female journalist Kim Barker, dodging both bombs and her inner demons while embedded inside the Iraq War. Patriotic without being jingoistic, this might be the best movie to emerge from our Middle Eastern misadventures. 10) “Florence Foster Jenkins.” Meryl Streep works wonders as the title character, a rich post-WWII socialite who became a sensation for being an utterly terrible singer who nonetheless managed to buy her way into Carnegie Hall performances. But it’s Hugh Grant as her husband and Simon Helberg as a vocal teacher who will be duking it out for the honor of Best Supporting Actor this year in the year’s most intelligent comedy. And the five worst: 1) “Dirty Grandpa.” Robert DeNiro reaches an all-time low as a lecherous grandpa who joins his sleazy grandson (Zac Efron) for utterly offensive misadventures on spring break in Florida. Beneath contempt. 2) “Hardcore Henry.” This utterly vile shoot-em-up gave audiences the chance to see 90 minutes of reckless, bloody mayhem from the first-person POV of a ruthless killer on a rampage. Pure evil. 3) “Passengers.” This should have been a world-class winner, with Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence as two people stranded on a spaceship who have to navigate a relationship while battling major malfunctions, but it fails on every level. Boring, bloated, overpriced and lazy. 4) “Zoolander 2.” Co-writer/director/star Ben Stiller might have created the worst, most unnecessary sequel of all time with this pointless revisiting of an airhead male model and secret agent. It was also another nail in the coffin of Owen Wilson’s career. 5) “Keanu.” Comedy team Key and Peele were masters of mirth on their Comedy Central series, but this embarrassing misfire featured them on the lam with a drug dealer’s kitten. It should be impossible for two black stars to make a racist comedy, but they pulled it off.
Triple review – 'Fences,' 'Manchester by the Sea,' and 'La La Land'
Dec 23, 2016 / 00:00 amThe holiday season is a time for dreaming of a better world and hoping for a better life in the upcoming new year. But dreams can be difficult to manage as well – a theme to be found throughout three new and recent films in theatres this week. “Fences” comes out Saturday and serves up some of the most potent dialogue and powerful performances of the year, as Denzel Washington knocks it out of the park as both star and director. He plays Troy Maxson, a man living amid the limited opportunities afforded to African-Americans in mid-1950s Pittsburgh, who has spent the past 17 years working as a trash collector. Troy was a troublemaker in his early years, and wound up with a stint in prison, during which he learned how to play baseball at a star level. Unfortunately, during those years amid segregation, his skills were limited to the low-paying Negro Leagues. Now, despite the fact that Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in professional sports, Troy lives with massive resentment against the white power structure and believes that his son Cory (Jovan Adepo) will never succeed amid his own dreams of attending college on a football scholarship. Meanwhile, Troy’s wife Rose (Viola Davis) has been putting up with his mixture of drunken braggadocio and bitter frustrations for nearly two decades herself. And when Troy has no choice to admit he’s been having a longtime affair with another woman whom he’s impregnated, tensions finally explode in several directions. “Fences” is adapted from a classic stage play by August Wilson, which was also presented at the Pasadena Playhouse starring another powerhouse combo – Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett – in 2006. As such, most of the film is set in and around Troy’s home, and the film occasionally feels claustrophobic, although that tension of enclosed space bearing down on people dying to break free is effectively rendered. Make no mistake, “Fences” is a sad film, nearly a tragedy, and an African-American parallel to Arthur Miller’s classic “Death of a Salesman.” It might be a film that provokes sadness, but it’s definitely a great way to see a couple of legends stepping into these iconic roles at a small fraction of the cost it would take to see them in live theatre. And Washington and Davis tear into their roles with what might be career-best and definitely Oscar-worthy performances. “Fences” only has a couple of uses of “GD” in its language, while Denzel’s Troy is often seen getting wasted on cheap booze. The movie’s main reason for its PG-13 rating lies in its dark overall themes, but this is a movie that teens and adults can easily see, and younger kids wouldn’t care anyway. Meanwhile, “Manchester by the Sea” has been turning into a sleeper hit over the past month, and also deals with the issues of lost dreams and people whose lives fall short of their hopes and ambitions. The film stars Casey Affleck as Lee Chandler, a Boston-based handyman going nowhere in life, while caught in a never-ending stream of drunken brawls that he instigates. When his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) abruptly dies, Lee heads to his boyhood home of Manchester to help settle Joe’s affairs and figure out how to help see that Joe’s teenage son Patrick (Lucas Hedges) has a stable way to finish high school in the wake of his tragic loss. What Lee doesn’t count on is that returning to Manchester means he also has to face up to a tragic fire he accidentally caused many years before, and the still-raw pain that lingers in himself and his ex-wife Randi (Michelle Williams). There are moments of humor in “Manchester,” but the overall feeling of the movie is as bleak or bleaker than “Fences.” These characters represent the all-too-real and too-large segments of the population who seem to have no way to ever achieve any greater happiness beyond the fact they survived another day. Affleck is terrific in it, and both he and Washington in “Fences” are perhaps the best male performances of the decade so far. Williams is stunning in a heartbreaking attempt at reconciliation, but too much of the film feels needlessly padded, as its 137-minute running time easily could have been shaved by at least a half hour. Add in an annoying classical score that serves as an overbearing backdrop to nearly every scenes, and “Manchester” becomes less-than-prime real estate to visit this weekend. “Manchester” has plenty of foul language, including copious uses of the F word in all its variations. The bigger moral issue lies in its extremely casual and positive view of teen sex, as a running joke in the movie follows Patrick’s attempts to find ample time to have sex with his girlfriend without adult interference. Condom use is discussed and strongly implied as well. But for adults in the mood for meaty drama, this is still a good option. Way over on the positive end of the emotional spectrum is the lush and glorious musical “La La Land,” which hits Pasadena on Christmas Day and follows the stories of a jazz pianist named Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) and an actress named Mia (Emma Stone) who meet and fall in love while struggling to attain showbiz success. That simple plot description tells you pretty much everything you need to know, as writer-director Damien Chazelle follows his stunning debut film “Whiplash” (which was nominated for Best Picture) with an even greater and far more expansive work of both art and entertainment. “La La Land” serves not only as a paean to young love and the thousands of dreamers who strive to catch a break every day in L.A., but also as a beautiful tribute to the city at its magical best. The film opens with a rousing song-and-dance number featuring 100 performers leaping up and down on their cars amid an LA freeway traffic jam, yet also serves up an exquisite dance number in and around the Griffith Observatory that will make that dating hotspot an even more legendary backdrop for romance. Gosling and Stone do it all, mixing snappily paced banter with slick dance moves, and heartfelt longing with expertly sung musical numbers. No other movie this year has such a transcendent, feel-good kick that is guaranteed to make viewers feel great about life and its possibilities – a potent allure indeed amid tenuous times. “La La Land” is rated PG-13 solely for one single use of the F word, which is a sad testament to movie studios’ fear that a G or PG rating will result in adult viewers assuming a movie is aimed at children. It’s also implied that the couple co-habitate, but no sexual activity is ever shown or discussed. It really is as pure and joyous a film as any released in a decade, and a must-see on the big screen.
'Passengers' and 'Collateral Beauty' are two to avoid
Dec 23, 2016 / 00:00 am“Passengers”: It might have seemed like a clever idea at one point to have two of the hottest young stars in movies today, Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt, team up for what amounts to a combination of a space-age Adam and Eve story done up as a bad ripoff of the Sandra Bullock-George Clooney masterpiece “Gravity.” But this film - about a man who accidentally breaks free of his hibernation pod 90 years ahead of schedule while traveling through space among 5000 other hibernating humans, and then opts to release a woman so he can have a companion – does nearly everything wrong. The first 40 minutes don’t even feature Lawrence at all, as Pratt comes to reckon with his situation, and then when she is brought to life, the audience is subjected to her learning how to cope with the loneliness of her situation as well. The audience is also subjected to a lot of boring “getting to know you” moments leading up to the world’s most obvious romance. Let’s face it, if the last person you’ll ever see is one of these two gorgeous people, would you resist making a connection with them? Lawrence discovers that Pratt forced her out of her pod, and winds up freaking out in the first annoying performance of her career. Then, the space station they’re on suddenly goes haywire, apparently for the sole purpose of tricking audiences into thinking they got something for their money other than watching these two actors make googly eyes at each other for two hours. The way that they resolve the crisis defies all logic, and the scenario is nowhere near as complex as it should be. It also leads to an ending that feels completely rushed, poorly thought out and unearned. The movie only has one S word for foul language, but audiences will see Pratt’s bare derriere a couple times as he’s in a shower or roaming the hallways, and there are two brief shadowy sex scenes and a third moment where the camera turns away as the pair are about to have sex in an empty cafeteria. On the plus side, Pratt offers her a wedding ring even though there’s no way in the universe they can get married by another person. “Collateral Beauty”: Will Smith plays a successful ad exec named Howard who is traumatized by the death of his young daughter and has spent the past two years sleepwalking through life. But when a huge offer comes to buy out his agency and his closest friends and co-workers (played by Michael Pena, Edward Norton and Kate Winslet) believe the sale is at risk due to his lack of interest, they step in for an unusual intervention. The friends hire actors to play human manifestations of Time, Love and Death, because Howard writes letters to those concepts as his way of processing his grief. When Death (Helen Mirren), Love (Keira Knightley) and Time (Jacob Latimore) arrive in real-world settings and make Howard believe that only he sees them, he goes for help to a grief-support group that helps him begin real healing, by making him appreciate the good that still remains in his life – aka the “collateral beauty.” This may all sound like a great and moving concept for a movie, but the script by Allen Loeb is almost stupendously awful. Characters explain things, in-depth and all the time, while the actors look bored. It’s a shame that there is such an amazing cast (Smith, Mirren, Norton, Winslet, and Knightley) who apparently didn’t bother to read the script thoroughly before cashing their paychecks. To see another movie that handles issues of grief and death in a much more powerful, profound and moving way, check out “A Monster Calls.” “Monster” opens in ten major cities this weekend, but I’ll review it when it goes nationwide on Jan. 6.
Movie review: ‘Why Him?’
Dec 23, 2016 / 00:00 amFor as long as there have been movies, the chemistry of movie stars has been perhaps the most vital quality in whether a movie is a hit with audiences. Whether an audience is rooting for a couple to get together in a rom-com or deciding whether to cheer for a couple of heroes, the way stars interact onscreen is key to enticing viewers to suspend their disbelief and get involved in a movie’s world. Two new movies show how chemistry or the lack of it can make a movie sink or swim. “Passengers” stars Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt and is boring disaster, while “Why Him?” starring James Franco and Bryan Cranston offers more cheer to fans of R-rated comedies, but is highly questionable in terms of morals and taste. “Why Him?” has distinctly earthbound plotting but soars to more entertaining heights than that failed space epic. The movie stars the unlikely team of Emmy-winning actor Bryan Cranston – whose lead turn on “Breaking Bad” has led to his being considered one of the best TV actors ever – and the Oscar-nominated goofball James Franco. Cranston plays Ned Fleming, a conservative printing shop owner from Grand Rapids, Michigan, who takes his wife Barb (Megan Mullaly) and son Scotty (Griffin Gluck) to California for Christmas after their 22-year-old daughter Stephanie (Zoey Deutch) invites them out so they can meet her new boyfriend. They don’t realize that that boyfriend happens to a 32-year-old, oddball video-game tycoon and zillionaire named Laird Mayhew (James Franco). One might think a couple of traditionalist parents would be delighted to find their daughter getting serious with a wealthy man, but Laird is covered in tattoos (including images of Stephanie’s face on his left pectoral and of the Fleming family Christmas card on his back). He also is utterly uncensored, and shocks her parents with his comically incessant swearing and inappropriate comments to the point they want to run for their lives on the first night. Laird wants to propose to Stephanie on Christmas, and asks Ned for his blessing. Ned doesn’t want to give it, but agrees to let Laird have a chance to start over and make a good impression over the course of the visit. Laird’s culture-clash efforts to make good on his opportunity spark the rest of the movie’s manic misadventures and risqué repartee. Mullaly and Keegan-Michael Key (as Laird's oddball assistant/martial-arts trainer) deliver hilarious supporting turns, and co-writer-director John Hamburg (“Meet the Parents,” “Along Came Polly”) delivers another solid dose of comic fun from a secular perspective. But be forewarned, that "Why Him?" definitely earns its R-rated status. Packed with crass yet clever raunchy humor, “Why Him?” is comic gold for most audiences, but if you’re easily offended, it’s not the movie for you.
Movie Review - "Rogue One"
Dec 16, 2016 / 00:00 amWhen George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012 for $4 billion, there was a mix of trepidation and anticipation among the fans of the “Star Wars” film series. After all, the word was immediately out that Disney intended to milk the franchise by not only completing the final three official films envisioned by Lucas, but to also create a possibly infinite number of standalone films. The first movie under Disney’s watch was the official seventh film in the series, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” and fan nostalgia helped propel it to a $2 billion worldwide gross. But despite being solidly made to the point that 92 percent of critics rated it “Fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes, its story was essentially a gender-flip on the legendary original film in the series from 1977 - a move that sparked the term “remakequel” among some fans. As a result, interest is high in seeing how Disney handles the first standalone movie, “Rogue One,” which opens this weekend. It’s designed to be an immediate prequel to the events in the fourth episode (but first release) of “Star Wars” because it tells the story of how a ragtag faction of rebel forces teamed up to steal the official plans for the Death Star, thus enabling other rebels to destroy the evil mother ship. Thankfully, “Rogue” has a fully original plot by Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy, both veteran screenwriters with their own distinct voices, a smart move away from the much-maligned Episodes 1-3 in the main series. Lucas wrote or co-wrote those three, and their narrative weaknesses and stupid character choices, such as Jar Jar Binks, reflected the bubble he was in where no one could tell him he was wrong. “Rogue” follows the story of a young woman rebel named Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) as she first tries to reconnect with her long-lost father (Mads Mikkelsen), who helped design the Death Star, and her eventual quest to find the plans for the ship. She teams up with other rebels played by actors including Diego Luna and Riz Ahmed, who all give the film a refreshing diversity that the original series sorely lacked at a time when Lando Calrissian seemed to be the only non-white guy in the galaxy. The team of rebels square off primarily against an Empire official (Ben Mendelsohn), who is determined to protect the Empire-held planet where the plans are kept. The rebels must figure out how to penetrate the enormous protective force field that envelops that planet, then learn how to find the plans themselves and figure out how to transmit them while trapped in the middle of a raging fighter-ship battle royal between rebel and imperial forces. The action in “Rogue One” is extremely well-staged and exciting, and it’s fun to see its small connections to the larger “Star Wars” universe, including a split-second appearance by R2D2 and C3PO, and a last-second surprise appearance by another beloved character. Most interesting is the fact that CGI has brought Grand Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing) back to life for an extensive role, 22 years after Cushing’s death. As always in the “Star Wars” series, there is no foul language to worry about, nor sex or nudity. The violence is bloodless, although when some heroes die, the film does a good job of making the viewers feel the loss. It’s perfectly fine viewing for anyone who’s ever seen a prior “Star Wars” film and of course those who haven’t, with maybe some consideration needed about how old kids should be to handle the spaceship and light saber action and the moments of loss. I saw the 1977 “Star Wars” at six years of age with my extremely careful father and was fine, so that’s probably a safe standard here. The one weak spot in the film is that the characters don’t show a lot of individual flair, and lack the breakout pizzazz of a Han Solo. But director Gareth Edwards, who did the most recent American version of “Godzilla” and earned hot indie cred before that with a Sundance stunner called “Monsters,” keeps the movie propulsively paced and exciting, and fans should be pleased that this is a great sign that the rest of Disney’s extensive plans will be carried out with care as well.
Double review: 'Office Christmas Party' and 'Arrival'
Dec 10, 2016 / 00:00 amIt seems that every year there are three types of movies that come out in the holiday season: artistic movies seeking Oscar approval, sentimental family movies centered around the holidays, and – for some strange reason – truly raunchy comedies that seek to blow a comedic hole in the reverence of the season. This year’s biggest attempt at shock comedy during the Christmas season is this week’s new “Office Christmas Party.” The story follows the misadventures at the Chicago branch of a high-tech company called Zenotek, which is in danger of being shut down due to the insanely intense sibling rivalry between the company’s CEO Carol Vanstone (Jennifer Aniston) and her brother Clay (T.J. Miller), who runs the branch. Carol is a cheap shrew who challenges the hard-partying Clay with the prospect that if he can’t close a $14 million deal in the next two days, the entire branch will be shut down on top of her already canceling the office holiday party and all the staff bonuses. When Clay and his chief technical officer Josh (Jason Bateman) and Josh’s right-hand woman Tracey (Olivia Munn) meet with the potential client representative Walter Davis (Courtney B. Vance), he is bored by them and says that he’s turning them down because their corporate culture seems toxic. In a desperate attempt to win him over and save their office, the trio immediately hatches an impromptu scheme to throw the greatest office party of all time in the hopes of wowing Walter and closing the deal. At first, the staid Walter isn’t impressed, and he opts to leave once Clay challenges him to swing off a balcony using a strand of Christmas lights. But then he accidentally gets a face full of cocaine blown directly at him when the company’s HR head Mary (Kate McKinnon) accidentally stuffs a baggie of the illicit powder into the fake-snow machine, and he turns into the hardest partier of them all. This all happens at the same time a sudden snowstorm strands Carol from making a planned trip to Europe and leads her to discover the party she has expressly forbidden. What happens from there follows a well-worn formula on the surface, and on a secular level, this “Party” has some laughs and energy due to its terrific talent roster. Aside from the aforementioned stars, Rob Corddry of “Daily Show” and “Childrens Hospital” fame, “SNL” star Vanessa Bayer, and Randall Park of ABC’s hit sitcom “Fresh Off the Boat,” all appear, rounding out nine solid pros who are clearly having a fun time. Directors Will Speck and Josh Gordon (“Blades of Glory” and the underrated “The Switch”) handle all of the mayhem with great energy, and only the final third – when the action spills into the streets of Chicago complete with frantic car chases - starts to feel exhausting. Yet while it is well-made for its genre and it mostly shows its most immoral visual content in quick, almost split-second shots and doesn’t feel like its intentions are to simply shock like many other raunchy R-rated comedies, “Office Christmas Party” has plenty of troubling elements played for laughs and should be watched with extreme caution and only by those adult viewers who are certain that the immoral elements will not inspire their own immoral behavior or force lingering immoral thoughts into their minds. There is frequent foul language, several very dirty jokes about sexual behavior, implied perverse sex, a couple pairs of bare breasts and bare buttocks with one quick shot of a penis as a man is about to try to drunkenly photocopy it. Comic violence includes several knockdown, drag out fights played for laughs between the sibling CEO and her branch-manager brother. There are also many scenes of rampant drinking and drunkenness, as well as cocaine use played for laughs. And be aware that there are a couple of quick moments with a Jesus impersonator hired for the party; in his first moment, he's seen with actors playing the three wise men and says, "It's my birthday." In the other, he's seen riding a horse in slow motion through the chaos wrought by the party. However, there are some positive elements as the brother and sister touchingly reconcile at the end and the brother prays sincerely to God for help saving his branch’s jobs. Overall, this is one party nearly all discerning viewers should simply not attend. Meanwhile, there is one movie that I missed reviewing earlier which is worth seeing: “Arrival.” Starring Amy Adams in one of the best performances of a career filled with Oscar nominations, the movie follows her as a linguistics expert called in to figure out what alien visitors want. Teamed with a theoretical physicist (Jeremy Renner) who’s expected to figure out the science behind the aliens’ arrival, the duo enter one of a dozen spaceships and start to figure out that the aliens have an urgent timely message that affects the whole planet. The race against time to solve it is compelling and wondrous, and the end result has impressed most audiences and other reviewers more than myself, yet it’s still well worth the ride. With only one F word as the entire basis of this movie’s PG-13 rating, “Arrival” is safe viewing for any teen or adult. It’s worth checking out before the arrival of another galactic juggernaut, the “Star Wars” prequel “Rogue One,” next weekend.
Movie reviews: Three hits and a dud
Nov 30, 2016 / 00:00 amThe month between Thanksgiving and Christmas marks the busiest time of the year for moviegoers, as every studio in town tries to make amends for the mindless blockbusters they’ve released all year long. Combining a flood of awards contenders with holiday-themed comedies, there are easily four or five major flicks which hit the multiplexes recently, and this week I’m spotlighting three cinematic gifts and one you’ll likely want to return for a refund. “Moana” is the latest smash hit from the Disney animation factory, having opened to a tremendous $81 million this past weekend. In the recent tradition of Disney cartoon hits like “Frozen” and “Tangled,” it serves up a healthy dose of girl power as the eponymous heroine is a teenage Hawaiian girl, while also including a guy-friendly angle through her sidekick, a burly Samoan demigod named Maui (voiced by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson). They team up on an adventure to reclaim a lost sacred stone that can restore vitality to her dying island. Facing off against coconut-shaped pirates and a giant crab in an ocean-based fortress, as well as natural disasters like storms, the fast-moving tale has action to spare, but only a couple of songs seem destined to be breakout sing-along classics. Being a Disney cartoon, this is suitable for all ages without question. “The Edge of Seventeen” is the real knockout here, and perhaps my favorite movie of the year so far. Starring Hailee Steinfeld (who earned an Oscar nomination in 2010 for “True Grit”) as Nadine, an outcast 17-year-old girl whose life is turned upside down when her detested yet perfect twin brother starts a relationship with her best (and only) friend, the film has wise and witty things to say about young love and lust, troubled parent-child relationships, how kids cope with the death of a parent and much more. It may sound like a run-of-the-mill teen-angst film, but Steinfeld’s performance is easily Oscar-worthy in what may be the most three-dimensional teen character ever committed to film. Sound like overly high praise? Then consider that the script by debuting writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig is so good that it inspired legendary filmmaker James L. Brooks (“Terms of Endearment,” “As Good As It Gets”) to come out of retirement and be a producer for the first time in six years. Highly recommended for adults and mature teens, this will likely foster some valuable parent-child discussions. “Edge” deals with its teens’ first relationships, and lets one couple that’s obviously having premarital sex seem blissfully happy. But Nadine has a highly complicated encounter with a guy who’s clearly bad news, enabling the film to show outright promiscuity as a mistake. The film leaves most of the sexual activity offscreen, with no nudity shown. The happily portrayed couple are seen kissing in a bed together for a literal split-second, and Nadine’s negative encounter is handled perfectly. There is some foul language sprinkled throughout the film, but not enough to shock anyone familiar with today’s teens. Where the movie scores its best points is in showing Nadine’s road to emotional health and a positive relationship with her mother after years of tension following her dad’s untimely death. If you’re looking for something darker and far more adult, look no further than the powerhouse starring combo of Jake Gyllenhaal and Amy Adams in “Nocturnal Animals.” The second film by famed fashion designer-turned-filmmaker Tom Ford, “Nocturnal” ingeniously interweaves three storylines into one hell of an overarching narrative that packs a haunting punch. The main plot focuses on Susan (Adams), a high-end art dealer trapped in a loveless second marriage in which her husband is cheating on her. She receives a package from her ex-husband Edward (Gyllenhaal) containing a novel called “Nocturnal Animals” – a reference to how Susan describes herself due to her inability to sleep well. Edward has dedicated the novel - which is about to be published - to Susan, but it’s no love story. Rather, it tells a harrowing noir-style tale of a man named Tony (also played by Gyllenhaal, a highly effective way of showing how Susan becomes immersed in the novel), who is driving across a deserted Texas highway in the dead of night with his wife and teen daughter when three creeps force them off the road. These cretins kidnap Tony’s wife and daughter while abandoning him, and as Tony begins his desperate quest to find them and seek justice, Susan finds herself flashing back to the conflicted emotions of her past with Edward. As Edward sends her an email inviting her to see him for the first time in 19 years, Susan’s fictional and real-life worlds come to an intense head. “Nocturnal” is a masterpiece of mood and style, but it thankfully has a dark heart beating strongly under its surface. If Gyllenhaal doesn’t score a nomination and possibly the win for the three intense pieces of his performance, then the Best Actor Oscar race is one more significant vote that will appear to be rigged this year. “Nocturnal” opens with an unsettling slow-motion opening titles sequence in which a few older, extremely obese women are shown dancing fully nude at an art gallery opening. If you can get past that – a stark metaphor for the depraved and empty art world Susan is trapped in as a gallery owner – the rest of the film is mostly a moody thriller with the limited but creepy violence shot in a haze. Overall, “Nocturnal Animals” is an outstanding film artistically but should be approached with extreme caution and only be seen by adults. Finally, there’s also a movie that’s a must to avoid. It’s almost impossible to believe that a film as utterly tired and pointless as “Bad Santa 2” would be foisted upon crowded multiplexes at a time of such high ambitions, but this lump of cinematic coal is indeed taking up space. Billy Bob Thornton returns in what must be a career low (not to mention a lost bet) as Willie Soke, a hopeless alcoholic and lifelong thief who pulled off a hilarious heist while dressed as a mall Santa in the first “Bad” film, back in 2003. This time, he’s been tricked by his dwarf sidekick Marcus (Tony Cox) to come to Chicago to rob a crooked children’s charity, but problems ensue when Willie finds that his estranged and utterly vile mother Sunny (Kathy Bates) is the real engineer of the new job. Nonstop clashes and highly offensive jokes ensue, but “BS2” is severely hurt by the fact that this go-round is lacking Willie’s nemeses from the first film, played by the late John Ritter and Bernie Mac. The film is also in different hands than its original’s writer-director team, rendering the plotline boring and threadbare. Thornton looks like he’s in a state of bored agony throughout, but Brett Kelly returns to steal what little is worth taking as the now-adult Thurman Murman, a complete oddball kid whom Willie befriended in the first film in his only glimmer of decency. Unfortunately, one key element being good can hardly prop up a disaster, and any theatre screen showing this one is a must to avoid. “Bad Santa 2” is as corrupt as it gets, filled with crass humor, foul language, blasphemy, drunkenness and sexual situations failingly passed off as humorous.
Double Review: 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them' and 'Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk'
Nov 18, 2016 / 00:00 amFantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them What’s a movie studio to do when it runs out of ideas in a film series that made $7.7 billion worldwide? Create a spin-off series that they hope will carry many of the original fans along with it. That’s what Warner Bros. is attempting to do this weekend with the release of “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” which is an offshoot of the eight-film “Harry Potter” series following the misadventures of another magically-powered fellow named Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne). The idea is that Newt wrote a magic guidebook of the same name that Harry has previously studied, and that Newt is also a Hogwarts graduate who is beloved by Dumbledore. With fans having waited five years for more magical misadventures, it’s highly likely that this will be casting a spell at the box office as well. Newt has sailed across the ocean to New York City in 1926, carrying a suitcase filled with magical creatures that are also hopelessly mischievous. Newt is sneaking the creatures back into the U.S. in order to set them free in their natural habitats here, but trouble soon explodes when he and a non-magic New Yorker named Kowalski (Dan Fogler) cross paths and Kowalski accidentally walks off with Newt’s suitcase. Soon, the beasts – ranging from a comical platypus-like creature who keeps breaking into bank vaults and jewelry stores and eating all the gold it can find, to a giant glowing rhinoceros-style beast that wreaks havoc in the Central Park Zoo – are dashing through New York and destroying streets and builidings. But there’s a more malevolent force at hand, a fierce combination of wind and cloud and spectre, that’s tearing the city apart at even greater levels - and it’s emanating from a young girl with magic powers who must be found ASAP. There’s far more to the plot, with Newt finding Kowalski and teaming up to save New York City together, Kowalski and Newt each finding romantic sparks with a pair of magically powered sisters, and a secret magical congress trying to order everyone around. It’s a lot of fun, for the most part, with much of it feeling like the first two “Night at the Museum” movies with a supernatural twist. Yet, like Newt’s magical suitcase, “Fantastic Beasts” is ultimately overstuffed. With so many plot lines to juggle, the movie’s pacing is occasionally disjointed and while it’s an entertaining experience overall, some sequences drag too long and others feel rushed. Redmayne makes a fun hero to watch, dressed like Dr. Who and bringing an incredulous spirit to his performance that makes him eminently relatable to the audience. He seems as surprised as anyone by the mayhem around him, and it’s refreshing to see him in a light role after his Oscar-winning turn as Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything” and last year’s grating performance as the first man ever to receive gender reassignment surgery in “The Danish Girl.” But it’s Fogler as Kowalski who’s the movie’s MVP. Every moment he’s onscreen pops with comic energy, while his sad-sack everyman persona also makes a great person to root for romantically. Surprisingly, “Fantastic” marks “Potter” creator J.K. Rowling’s first foray into actual screenwriting, and all things considered, she’s conceived a world that will be fun for multiple adventures to come. Teaming with David Yates, who helmed the last four “Potter” films, the plan is to create four more Newt Scamander movies over the next eight years. There’s a deep well of acting talent eager to get in on the action here, with Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton and Katherine Waterston – all veteran performers of note – playing key roles. This bodes well for future magic in the sequels, particularly from a last-minute superstar whose reveal as a key villain marks both a surprise and a perfect casting at once. As always, the "Potter"/"Fantastic" universe contains no foul language, sex or nudity, no dirty jokes or innuendos, and the violence is of a fantastical, lighthearted variety. There's a few moments that could be considered scary, but the only possible moral concern to worry about is if some parents worry about the idea of magic being presented as a positive thing to be involved with. I've always felt that these movies are so innocently created that the filmmakers' intentions are not nefarious at all and there's nothing to fear here, but I certainly won't tell parents they're wrong if they disagree. Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk There have been breakthrough moments in the history of film technology, from the creation of talkies through the addition of color, and the coming, going and resurgence of 3D movie popularity. Add in Technicolor, 70 mm projection and the use of Cinerama along the way and one can find a long list of innovations that either became a standard practice in filmmaking or a noble failure. Rank the new movie “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” among the list of failures, which is a surprising shame considering it comes from the usually superb filmmaker Ang Lee. Lee has brought the poetic grace of martial arts to the screen in stunning fashion in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” broke the box office taboo against depicting gay romance with “Brokeback Mountain” and crafted dazzling uses of CGI effects in “The Life of Pi.” However, Lee also brought us the notorious failure of 2003’s “The Hulk,” which mixed ridiculously awkward cartoonish effects to bring the green monster to life amid a cast of human actors. And he’s got a similarly garish mashup of styles working against him in his new film. Lee shot the film at 120 frames per second (fps), rather than the standard filming process of 24 fps. The first-of-its-kind effort was intended to immerse viewers in the film, particularly in a few intense military combat scenes, but the result actually gives the film a disorienting flat look that’s also so vivid that it serves as a distraction from the plot —which is a good thing, in this case. Based on a novel of the same name by Ben Fountain, “Halftime” focuses on a 19-year-old soldier named Billy Lynn (Joe Alwyn), who becomes a national hero during the Iraq War in 2004 after killing an enemy soldier who had just shot a beloved sergeant named Shroom (Vin Diesel) and his heroics are inadvertently caught on videotape. He and his unit, known as Bravo Squad, have been sent by the US government on a national tour to hype the war and support soldiers, and most of the film depicts a day in which they are being honored at a Thanksgiving football game’s halftime show. As the fresh-faced yet secretly troubled Lynn and his compatriots await their turn in the spotlight, the narrative alternates between the positive face he must wear during his experiences with fans, a press conference, a hot cheerleader who wants to give him something special for his heroics, and the shaken, sad reality he hides while drifting into flashback memories of life in Iraq and back home in Texas. This may sound like potentially interesting fodder for a film, but something in the script by Jean-Christophe Castelli is extremely off. The characters largely have no depth to them, all the non-combat scenes are staged with the same, utterly inert energy and the combination of those factors combined with its extremely confusing flashback structure make “Halftime” literally impossible to care about. I’ve been an ardent opponent of the US military’s Middle East adventures since the Persian Gulf War, and should have been the perfect audience for a film attempting to make a sly and subtle series of points against the war. But on top of all the bad writing and pacing issues already mentioned, the film devolves at a few key points into outright speech-making by characters, and the score by Jeff and Mychael Danna is mostly unheard except for extremely awkward twangy guitar that springs out of nowhere whenever a character discusses something meant to be taken very seriously. One is left to wonder why Lee and his crew made the effort to shoot this film differently at all, because there are few if any scenes that call for an intensely unique look to draw viewers in. Much of the movie consists of Billy and his fellow soldiers sitting or walking in uniform while waiting for their big halftime moment, and the rest consists of a series of flashbacks that rarely feature action. There’s nothing here in the script or performances to make viewers say “Wow,” so why bother trying to do so at no doubt great expense visually? While the lead performances by Alwyn (a young Leonardo DiCaprio clone), Kristen Stewart and Diesel are solid, it’s almost maddening to see supporting turns by Chris Tucker and Steve Martin in a movie that gives them little to do, knowing that they have been avoiding sharing their talents in starring roles for years now. The movie isn’t really offensive anywhere, with some uses of the F word that are scattered throughout the film but don’t seem out of place considering these are soldiers who are angry about what they have gone through in battle. It’s implied that Billy has sex with a cheerleader, but nothing is shown in that scene, though he also has a brief fantasy scene of having sex with her back home in Texas if they were married that is quick but frenzied, with no actual nudity shown. The war violence has some bloody imagery but there’s not much of it, and nothing is more graphic than other R-rated war films such as “Saving Private Ryan” or “Hacksaw Ridge.” “Halftime” stands as one of the strangest, most disappointing films of the year, and most audiences will be happy to end their own suffering by walking out long before the movie’s own midpoint.
Double review: 'Loving' and 'Moonlight'
Nov 11, 2016 / 00:00 amNext to the primal needs of eating and sleeping, there is perhaps no more universal need among humans than to feel loved. Two relatively new arthouse movies – “Moonlight” and “Loving” — offer complicated explorations of that desire, with both touching on the additional complications of being black in American society as well. “Loving” tells the true story of Richard and Mildred Loving, a white man and black woman who challenged the US laws against interracial marriage and won in the Supreme Court in 1967 after a nine-year battle for justice. The movie opens in 1958, when the young interracial couple Mildred (Ruth Negga) and Richard Loving (Joel Edgerton) decide to get married when they find she is pregnant. They go to Washington, DC, because their home state of Virginia won’t allow interracial marriage, but when they return, the local sheriff busts into their home in the dead of night and arrests them for violating state law. Their local lawyer can only get them the right to move away as soon as possible, or split up, as a means of avoiding prison time. But when they return months later in order to have their baby delivered by Richard’s midwife mother, they are caught again and this time they are told if they don’t move out of state permanently or divorce, they will be thrown in prison for 25 years. Ruth writes to then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy, a prominent civil rights leader, for help in their case, and he sends an ACLU lawyer named Bernie Cohen (Nick Kroll) to help them. Thus begins a series of maneuvers that take years to resolve in their favor. “Loving” has a beautiful, understated tone with strong performances from the leads, whose performances playing rural Southerners are even more impressive considering Negga is actually Irish and Edgerton is Australian. While Negga offers a strong and dignified resolve throughout her performance, Edgerton is a marvel, changing his entire physical presence tremendously without apparent makeup through the way he walks, talks, and has his head shaved. Writer-director Jeff Nichols (“Mud,” “Midnight Special”) continues an impressive string of character-driven films set in rural America, this time taking a complex historical subject and providing a strongly human, emotional touch. The one weakness of “Loving” is its occasional overly-deliberate pacing, which makes this a film that moves more than it entertains. Yet it proves that love conquers all – even the legal machinations of the nation’s judicial system. “Loving” is rated PG-13, even though it has literally zero foul language, doesn’t show any sex or nudity, and its only implied violence or threat of it comes from the cops busting open the couple’s door in the dead of night to initially arrest them. The film does show that the judges who ruled against the Lovings tried to apply the Bible against them, claiming that verses of Scripture stated that there was to be no intermingling of the races, but while the ACLU lawyer mildly smirks at these moments, the film makes it clear that the judges are wrong or overly harsh in their assessments and doesn’t mock Judeo-Christian faith at all. This is a film that should provide no offense to any viewer, but it certainly is a movie that kids or most teens would have no interest in anyway. While it’s a very solid film, it’s for adult interest or very serious-minded teens anyway. Meanwhile, “Moonlight” offers an even more thoughtful and deliberate story that manages to make a personal quest for companionship thoroughly universal. Focused on the life of one young African-American boy named Chiron who is derided for being “soft” or “different” from the time he was a child, and key moments from his adolescence and adulthood that turn him into a deeply lonely and closeted gay man, “Moonlight” is driven less by plot than by writer-director Barry Jenkins’ desire to make audiences become fully immersed and invested in Chiron’s emotional state. Using three impressive yet unknown actors to portray Chiron in three distinct segments breaking down important phases of the years from age 9 to 28, “Moonlight” opens on him being gently derided with the nickname “Little” (Alex Hibbert). Little can’t fit in with other roughhousing boys, and flees bullies one day by hiding in a dilapidated drug den controlled by a conflicted yet kindhearted dealer named Juan (Mahershala Ali). Juan and his girlfriend Teresa (Jonelle Monae) take Little under their wing since it’s obvious the boy has no father figure, and a mother (Naomie Harris) who is well-meaning but constantly tired from working overtime to survive. As Little gets older, his mother sinks into a drug addiction fueled by purchases made through Juan. Little becomes known by his real name of Chiron in high school, where the bullying against him turns vastly more vicious and at the same time his lifelong friendship with a nicer boy named Kevin crosses the line into sexual contact. When a particularly tragic bullying incident drives Chiron to take a desperate measure of revenge, his life is shaped toward a decade of loneliness, in which he reinvents himself as a musclebound Atlanta-based drug dealer named Black. That loneliness is suddenly broken by two phone calls – one from Kevin at 28 (Andre Holland) and another from his now-rehabbing mother – which force him to decide the direction the rest of his life will take. “Moonlight” doesn’t rely on a linear plot to make its powerful points about how hard it is to grow up different – in this case, black and gay in a Miami ghetto where being the toughest dude on the block is the only way to survive. Jenkins has pulled off a powerful film that can make even straight white audience members feel sympathy for the aching pain that Chiron lives with, and root for him to overcome it. From a Catholic Christian perspective, “Moonlight” provides some challenges. The movie has some foul language and crude slang about sex and also anti-homosexual slurs from bullies in the film’s portrayal of Chiron’s teen years. There is also a scene in which he hear moaning and comes across another male friend of his having sex with a girl, in a moment that is obvious about what’s occurring, yet doesn’t show any nudity. And when the two teenage males cross the line from friendship, they are shown passionately kissing for about a minute and sexual contact is implied; yet no other sex implied in the film and nothing actually seen in that regard either. While “Moonlight” is about how a young black gay man became who he is, and viewers are expected to sympathize with him, it’s not quite accurate to consider it propaganda for homosexuality. The movie is very specifically about the life path of Chiron himself, not a broader statement, and it really is about being an outsider and the pain of being alone in the world, which are universal fears and feelings. Ultimately, it’s a film that invites viewers to understand the Chirons of the world without advocating the lifestyle in a direct way. Thus, for viewers who are not easily offended by such a concept, it’s a powerfully emotional film that fits the idea of loving the sinner in the case of homosexuality, if not the sin. In a time when Hollywood is facing huge demands for a change to more minority-driven films, both “Moonlight” and “Loving” stand excellent chances for attaining Oscars and on an artistic level deserve them. “Loving” should provide no moral challenges to viewers, while “Moonlight” is handled with enough discretion to not cause major problems for adult viewers who are aware of its themes.
Double review: 'Doctor Strange' and 'Hacksaw Ridge'
Nov 4, 2016 / 00:00 amNot to get all trippy on everyone, but I love to find the connections between things, whether as a fan (if not necessarily a believer) of conspiracy theories, a student of human nature, or as a film critic. When I get the chance to see more than one big movie a week, it’s fun to see if there’s a way in which even the most disparate films come together. This week’s movies, the Marvel superhero head-trip “Doctor Strange” and the straightforward yet emotionally powerful true-life epic “Hacksaw Ridge,” are two films that seems worlds apart on the surface yet share the same pacifist heart underneath. “Strange” stars Benedict Cumberbatch as the title character, Dr. Stephen Strange, a mega-genius master surgeon who has a cocky attitude about every aspect of his life, expressed through withering sarcasm. When he suffers a horrific car crash while offering surgical advice while speeding on a winding road, he wakes up to find that his hands are shattered and he may never conduct his work again. His frustration and anger drives away Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), a fellow doctor and former paramour who tries to convince him there are other ways to serve the world. Hearing about another shattered man who was mysteriously made whole again after visiting a guru in Nepal, Dr. Strange spends his last dime to get there, and enters a weird school of mystic arts and Eastern spiritualism under the tutelage of a guru known as The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) and her sidekick, Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor). Dr. Strange soon learns that a former student of his guru, Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen), got greedy in his quest for the knowledge needed to become immortal. He stole a key spell from her private library that enables him to both pass through time loops between different eras of Hong Kong, London and New York, wreaking havoc on his own as well as preparing the way for an evil being from another universe to come and destroy mankind – and of course, Dr. Strange and his mystical masters have to learn how to save the day. “Strange” is an effects-filled wonder to behold, creating a universe that follows the playbook of “The Matrix” and Matt Damon’s trippy yet flawed “The Adjustment Bureau” in creating a unique world where characters could be on Mount Everest in one moment and the heart of a desert in the next. It also emulates those movies in having something deeper to say about the meaning of life and our perceptions of it – a factor which was born of the 1960s hippie-dippie era in which the original comic was created. Underlying it all is a reluctant hero who feels that killing anyone, even an evil henchman of the villain, is a violation of his sworn oath as a physician to do no harm to others, to save lives rather than take them. Co-writer/director Scott Derrickson was an interesting choice to helm this movie, since he’s built a successful career as a master of horror films, such as “The Exorcism of Emily Rose,” that have a strong spiritual underpinning. He’s clearly thought deeply about these matters, and the extra depth that brings – alongside the terrific cast of offbeat actors including Cumberbatch, Swinton and Ejiofor, who normally eschew easy popcorn fare – makes “Strange” a particularly odd and exciting time at the movies. There is hardly any foul language or profanity in “Strange,” no sex or nudity, and the violence is largely standard action-movie level and definitely bloodless. The main issue for discerning Catholic viewers lies in the fact that Doctor Strange is learning magic and Eastern mysticism, which are of course in direct contradiction with the Christian perspective on the world we live in. For adults and older teenagers, it is easy enough to distinguish this as fantasy and keep the film’s influence in properly limited perspective, but for children younger than the age suggested by its PG-13 rating, the movie could lead to confusion and build an interest in occultism. “Hacksaw,” meanwhile, also features an intriguing choice of director, as Mel Gibson uses the film to mark his return to the director’s chair after a decade of being shamed by Hollywood for a drunken rant filled with anti-Semitic slurs. He’s got Oscar-winning chops, as evidenced by his Best Director win for “Braveheart,” and movingly tells the story of Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), a Seventh-Day Adventist who put himself in a precarious position during World War II by enlisting to become a medic and running afoul of his leaders and peers by refusing to touch a gun since it was against his religion to kill anyone under any circumstances. The story of how this simple yet affable man stood tall behind his convictions and ultimately became one of America’s greatest war heroes by saving 75 men on the battlefield at Okinawa is alternately grim and inspiring. Gibson adds to his career canon of violent films that show the consequences and meaninglessness of that violence, serving up gruesome imagery of shattered soldiers while focusing on their inner driving spirit and indomitable will to live. It’s an impressive comeback from an apparently conflicted talent, even though it has some hokey moments in the first half, and he also helps Garfield get another shot at leading-man status after two mediocre “Amazing Spider-Man” movies nearly killed his career. Together, they’ve created a film that serves as a stirring reminder of the true costs of war in a world that’s far too filled with them. “Hacksaw Ridge” also has barely any foul language, and the filmmakers along the way agreed to edit a greater amount of obscenities from the film since both Gibson and his subject are deeply religious men, and it makes sense to reach out to an audience of believers. The romantic aspects of the story, following Doss’ romance and early days of marriage to his wife, a nurse, are portrayed tastefully with only kissing and then implied sex about to happen on their wedding night. The war violence, however, is intense and many of the wounds are stomach-churningly gruesome. But considering the topic, that war is such hell it can drive a man to seek pacifism as an ideal at all costs, such footage is necessary.
Inferno: an uptick for Dan Brown film adaptations
Oct 28, 2016 / 00:00 amThere are few films in the past decade or two that stirred up as much controversy among Catholics as “The Da Vinci Code.” That 2006 film, based on a best-selling book by Dan Brown, starred Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon, a professor of religious iconography and symbology from Harvard University, who was engaged in a race to find the legendary Holy Grail. The “DaVinci Code” turned controversial because it posited that Mary Magdalene was the bride of Christ and bore him children who carried on a line of descendants into the present day, an idea that is, of course, blasphemous to Christian belief. Meanwhile, its follow-up film, 2009’s “Angels & Demons,” had Langdon racing against time to solve a murder and prevent a terrorist act against the Vatican. That film was a fun lark as the professor solved one improbable clue after another to save the day, and even the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano gave it its seal of approval as entertainment, after having condemned “The DaVinci Code.” Now, the third film in the series is out this weekend, called “Inferno,” and it’s both the best and and least contentious one yet for Catholics. This time, there’s no controversial elements about our faith, and when the film does focus on Dante’s “Inferno” and a painting by Botticelli that it inspired of Hell, it takes the subject in a horrifyingly serious way and doesn’t mock it or contradict Hell in any way. This time the stakes are raised to involve a threat far beyond solving a religious mystery or a terror threat against a religious institution to encompass an existential threat to the planet. The film opens with the sudden suicide of Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster), a billionaire scientist who rails against the threat of overpopulation and secretly has planned to release a deadly virus called “Inferno” that could wipe out half the planet’s human populace within days. Cut to Langdon awakening in a hospital room in Florence, Italy, utterly disoriented and unable to process even the slightest sound without having an agonizing headache. He’s lost all memory of the previous 48 hours, and his mind is filled with horrific visions of a river of blood, people writhing in agony, and demons everywhere. Just as he starts talking to his doctor, Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones), and tries to figure out what’s going on, a female dressed as a police officer comes barreling down the hallway like a Terminator, with guns blazing and the doctor forces Langdon to go on the run. Langdon discovers a device called a “Faraday pointer,” which is a miniature image projector, in his pockets and finds that it projects an altered version of Sandro Botticelli’s painting “Map of Hell,” which is based on Dante’s “Inferno.” They soon realize this is the first clue in a trail left by Zobrist to locate where the virus is stored, and that they are being chased by both legitimate and rogue World Health Organization agents, as well as Italian police, with all the competing forces attempting to get their hands on the virus, either to destroy it or release it. The result is an almost non-stop race across Florence and the rest of Italy, combining breakneck action with historic locations and impromptu lessons in art history to create a popcorn thriller that makes audiences feel smart as well as entertained. Hanks is in fine form and having a blast dishing out arcane information about religious codes and symbols at the same time he’s running for his life or engaged in dangerous escapes from a slew of people who want him to give up his information and then wish him dead. Jones, a British actress who had her American breakthrough with an Oscar-nominated turn as Stephen Hawking’s wife in 2014’s “The Theory of Everything,” proves to be a fun sidekick to Langdon and brings welcome depth at a key moment in the film. The film has very limited foul language, and most of the action is standard-level violence with no blood shown from shootings or one character’s deadly, steep fall. However, there are several very intense hallucination sequences in which Langdon sees demons, people writhing in pain and a giant river of blood – and comes to realize they are rooted in depictions of Hell, as seen in a Botticelli painting inspired by Dante’s “Inferno.” There are also a couple of quick flashes of grim medieval battle footage. The fact that these depictions of Hell are neither contradicted nor mocked is impressive, as this is a rare Hollywood movie to show it in a truly horrific light. The movie is also a refreshing change of pace from its predecessors, as it does not mock Christianity or Catholicism at all. There is also a brief scene implying sex, but the characters are seen fully clothed through the camera angle chosen. Director Ron Howard returns after helming the first two films in the series, not only acing both the action and the smart stuff, but employing a diverse cast of distinctive-looking actors whose faces alone make viewers wonder who’s a hero or villain – a touch that adds to the fun throughout. Tie it all together and this is mindless fun that still makes viewers feel kind of smart since it takes them through some of the world’s greatest arts institutions and teaches them about art in a way that will entertain and excite them, rather than bore them to tears in the vein of a college lecture. “Inferno” should prove popular enough to heat up the box office for a few weeks to come.
Triple review: 'Keeping Up with the Joneses', 'The Accountant', and 'Jack Reacher 2'
Oct 21, 2016 / 00:00 amThere have been countless movies about hit men, as well as umpteen versions of spy comedies throughout the history of Hollywood. In an era when superhero movies and sequels are already glutting multiplexes, the arrival of the films “Keeping Up with the Joneses” and “The Accountant” might seem cause for more despair for moviegoers hoping for original ideas. Thankfully, both films manage to be entertaining because they take these potentially hackneyed premises and put enough thought, energy and spin on them to make them entertaining. “Joneses” is the spy comedy, telling the story of a bland suburban couple named Jeff and Karen Gaffney (Zach Galifianakis and Isla Fisher) whose lives are turned upside down with the arrival of their mysterious new neighbors, Tim and Natalie Jones (Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot). Jeff and Karen have just packed their kids off to summer camp and initially fantasize about having two weeks of unbridled passion and partying together, but instead they wind up watching “The Good Wife” on Netflix. Jeff is a thoroughly boring human resources manager for a software company that manages flash drives filled with classified information for the CIA, but he has unwittingly drawn the attention of the Joneses because someone is using his work computer to pass vital secrets to an evildoer named Scorpion. When Karen suspects the Joneses aren’t who they say they are, Jeff initially scoffs at her for having a wild imagination and sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong. But when they discover the Joneses have bugged their house via a gift they gave them, Jeff tries to find out what’s going on and winds up getting caught in the middle of an ever-crazier CIA operation. Has this plot been done before? Yes, and sometimes in terrific fashion in movies like the 1979 classic “The In-Laws” and the Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie action romp “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.” Add this one to the list of successful endeavors, as director Greg Mottola (“Superbad”) nails both character-driven comedy and impressive action sequences, with hilarious performances by the lead foursome that play perfectly to their respective strengths. There’s a refreshing near-absence of profanity in the movie, with one F word, and about five uses of God’s or Jesus’ name in vain in the entire movie. The violence is standard action-comedy level, with fist fights, shootouts, car chases and crashes but no blood, though one villain has a knife thrown into his throat in comic fashion. The most potentially offensive element are several sexual innuendoes, a couple of which are pretty descriptive though brief. And there’s a scene in which Mrs. Jones talks to Karen while wearing skimpy lingerie next to a department store dressing room, and encourages Karen to buy a lingerie combo that is seen later at a comic moment with Jeff. The lingerie leaves Mrs. Jones quite scantily clad and the scene lasts two or three minutes. Finally, the two wives kiss with false passion for a moment to distract the villains at a key point in the film. Overall, though, the movie has a positive attitude towards marriage and keeping the spark alive between long time spouses, and the dirty jokes are a minimal part of the total film. “Joneses” may be mindless entertainment, but in this depressing and contentious election year, we could all use exactly that. Meanwhile, “The Accountant” offers Ben Affleck as Christian Wolff, who suffers from the high-functioning autistic disorder known as Asperger’s syndrome. Wolff appears to be a mild-mannered tax master with a strip-mall office in suburbia, yet masks a double life doing audits for some of the world’s most dangerous criminals. Hired as a consultant to find out why $61 million has gone missing from a robotics firm, he manages to break down 15 years of tax paperwork in a single night and winds up wowing a young staff accountant named Dana (Anna Kendrick). But at the same time, a veteran US Treasury agent named Ray King (J.K. Simmons) who’s on the edge of retirement wants to know who Wolff is, because he’s seen him for years in countless photos with some of the world’s worst people. King blackmails an FBI analyst with a shady past named Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) into investigating Wolff, and the ensuing cat and mouse game grows to involve a nonstop and intriguing series of twists. The actual motivations of Wolff, and why and how he learned to become an ace assassin, form a fascinating tale, and the riveting, multifaceted script by Bill Dubuque also provides plenty of affecting backstory for Dana, Ray and Marybeth as well. Dubuque’s script hits on multiple levels, working not only as an action movie and a mystery, but also as a deeply human and multilayered tale of four people whose lives come together via their troubled pasts and hopes to become better human beings. It’s also an intriguing look at the world through the eyes of an autistic man and handles Wolff’s character with great sensitivity, drawing out of Affleck what may be his best performance yet. The movie features several intense hand to hand combat fights and shootings, with pools of blood visible at a couple of crime scenes. The lead character engages in a somewhat disturbing ritual in a couple scenes of the movie where he blasts loud music and flashes strobe lights in his bedroom while whacking his shins with a metal pipe, all in the name of “toughening up.” Finally, there are about 25 F words and another 15 or so lighter obscenities and seven uses of God’s or Jesus’ name in vain. Overall, it shouldn’t be problematic for most adult viewers. Add it all up, and “The Accountant” offers plenty of bang for the buck, and could very well tally up some Oscar votes. Finally, Tom Cruise returns as the title character in “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back”, the second installment in yet another series of action films by one of the world’s biggest stars. Cruise has lost his box-office mojo a bit in the last few years, outside of the “Mission: Impossible” series, and while hopes are high for his starring role in a “Mummy” reboot next year, it’s unclear how this sequel to one of his most mediocre movies got made. Cruise is fine as Reacher, bringing his steely charisma and charming way with one-liners to the fore as the ex-military man who now drifts around the country helping people vigilante-style. This time around, he’s trying to clear the name of a military officer acquaintance named Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders), who is on lockdown on false charages after two military investigators she sent to Afghanistan were killed by US bullets. The dead officers were trying to find out where leftover weapons in the Afghan war effort are disappearing to. Reacher realizes that assassins are on their way to kill Turner, and with those officers dead and an ever-growing conspiracy becoming ever more apparent, Reacher busts Turner out of her cell and the two go on the run to solve the mystery. One added element that works to a point is that Reacher also has to look out for a 15 year old girl named Samantha, who believes Jack is the father she never met. He initially follows her to get a sense of her, but then realizes the assassins are also out to kill her. Her flight with Jack and Susan gives the film a needed dose of both humor and heart. Overall, though, the new “Reacher” is better than its predecessor, but still amounts to nonstop chases and fighting throughout much of the film. There are numerous plot holes in the script, and ultimately this feels average enough to be something an action buff or Cruise fan might enjoy seeing once, but would likely (you guessed it) never go back. To give it credit, foul language is barely noticeable if present at all in the film, and there’s no sex or nudity. The action fits the PG-13 rating, so the movie overall is fine for teens and adults.
Double review: 'Miss Peregrine's Home' and 'The Girl on the Train'
Oct 7, 2016 / 00:00 amSometimes it’s hard to find a great movie to pinpoint for families. Sure, there are cartoons like “Finding Dory,” “The Secret Lives of Pets” or “Storks” that are obviously OK for kids, so I tend not to review those because I feel it’s more important to look at movies that people might truly wonder about. And of course, many weeks only movies for older teens and adults are out, and that’s what I focus on then. But this week, there couldn’t be a starker contrast in movies to consider. One is the delightful, instant classic “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children,” which is the latest film by Tim Burton (and one of his greatest). The other is the well-made but lurid mystery “The Girl on the Train,” which is packed with broken relationships, graphic sex and nudity, and brief but highly visible grisly violence. “Miss” follows the story of a Florida boy named Jake (Asa Butterfield), an awkward teen whose only real friend is his grandfather Abe (Terence Stamp), who has spent his life telling him what seemed to be wild bedtime stories about a children’s home in England that was filled with kids who basically were comical X-men-style mutants. One is a boy who’s filled with bees that fly out whenever he opens his mouth, another is a girl who has to wear heavy metal shoes because she is lighter than air and floats like a balloon whenever she is untethered. Jake has grown up to disbelieve his grandfather, even as he still loves and appreciates his stories. But when Abe dies after a mysterious home invasion one night – one in which Jake could swear he saw a strange man (Samuel L. Jackson) with spooky white eyes and a giant shadow monster that disappears after a friend shoots at it. As a result of having a hard time processing Abe’s death, Jake proposes going to England with his father and seeing once and for all if the children’s home was real or a fantasy. What he discovers involves ageless youths living under the care of Miss Peregrine (Eva Green), but in a time loop that traps them in the same day forever – a day that ends with Nazi planes coming to bomb their home. Once Jake figures this out, his surprise turns to a determination to save them from their predicament. What unfolds from there is a wondrous thing to behold: a magical experience in the best possible sense with vibrant visuals, a lush score, its own utterly unique world that calls to mind Burton’s masterpiece “Edward Scissorhands,” and expertly done performances that are a delight. There are some scary moments in the film, due to the prospect of the daily bombings, though they are shown in aftermath, as well as some of the goofily scary creatures the kids encounter, including giant moving skeletons that get in the way of how they break themselves free. But the tone of the movie is always perfect in keeping things fun rather than truly frightening – especially for those who are 10 and up - as well as wondrously whimsical. This is a great one for families to enjoy together. Meanwhile, “The Girl on the Train” stars perpetually-rising star Emily Blunt as a blackout-drunk alcoholic woman whose daily spying on her ex-husband’s house from a passing commuter train gives her unique insights into the mysterious murder of his gorgeous nanny. Like 2014’s smash hit “Gone Girl,” this movie is based on a hit page-turning novel (by Paula Hawkins) and is packed with lurid twists and turns tying together a mix of occasional, yet graphic, sex and even more sporadic yet surprising violence, with Blunt at the center of it all in a role that should take her into the big leagues of marquee movie stars once and for all while earning a much-deserved shot at an Oscar as well. “Girl” stars Blunt as Rachel, a desperately depressed woman who discovered two years ago that her husband Tom (Justin Theroux) was cheating on her with their real estate agent Anna (Rebecca Ferguson), and dumped her for Anna because she was infertile. She’s been simply existing ever since, occupying a room in her best friend’s suburban apartment while riding drunkenly to and from New York City every day on a commuter train and using her same specific seat as a vantage point to spy on Tom and Anna. She starts to also wonder who the beautiful blonde younger woman spending time with the couple is, not knowing it’s their nanny Megan (Haley Bennett), who has her own dark secrets and ample issues. In fact, viewers actually see Megan first, as her voiceover narration lets them know that she’s actually been reinventing herself in a series of false identities ever since high school, and that she’s now living just two doors down from Tom and Anna, married to an abusive lout named Scott (Luke Evans). Add into this heady mix of messed-up humanity her shrink, a guy named Kamal Abdic (Edgar Ramirez), with whom Megan is engaging in an affair. Megan disappears one evening just after Rachel has followed her and called her a whore in front of Tom, thinking that she’s stalking Anna. When Rachel wakes up the next morning, with her clothes covered in blood and the TV news describing the discovery of Megan’s corpse, she finds that she’s the prime suspect of Detective Riley (Alison Janney). She manages to keep herself free long enough to recover shards of memory, including the fact that she saw Megan kissing a mysterious man on the porch of Tom’s house during one of her ride-bys. She figures that if they can figure out who the mystery man is, Megan’s death can be avenged and her own name can be cleared. And from here, the story only gets crazier as the movie takes one unpredictable turn after another. This may sound like “The Girl On the Train” might be as shamelessly enjoyable as “Gone Girl,” as viewers sort through the ever-growing puzzle formed by the seedy relationships of the super-rich. But “Train” has a more somber tone, a heavy weight born of the tragic secrets it reveals all the way to the finish, and that joylessness results in this exciting and engaging thriller being kind of a downer compared to the wickedly acid wit of “Gone.” The question is, of course, whether – no matter how well-made a movie is on artistic terms – if it’s a bad choice in viewing for a discerning person of faith. With its portrait of broken relationships, deception, affairs, murder, cover-ups mixed in with sex, nudity and ultimately graphic violence, this is certainly not the healthiest way to find one’s entertainment, and possible viewers should use real caution here. Make no mistake, however, that Emily Blunt delivers perhaps the most impressive performance by an actress this year so far. Conveying depression and alcoholism, as well as a growing strength and determination to prove she’s sane and can get both her sobriety and her life back, she is stunning to watch. In the end, this “Girl” manages to be solid enough to be worth a look once on an artistic if not moral level. But be careful letting movies like this become obsessions like Rachel’s.
Double review: 'Deepwater Horizon' and 'Masterminds'
Sep 30, 2016 / 00:00 amThere are two kinds of true-story disaster movies hitting theatres this weekend. “Deepwater Horizon” stars Mark Wahlberg and Kurt Rusell in the tragic tale of what happened when the titular oil drilling rig fell to pieces in the Gulf of Mexico, causing what became known as the BP disaster and creating the biggest oil spill in American history. The second, “Masterminds,” stars a powerhouse comedy cast of Zach Galifianakis, Kristen Wiig, Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis and Leslie Jones to recount the ridiculously misguided events surrounding the largest cash robbery in American history. Out of the two, “Deepwater” offers an evening of impressive explosions but is kind of a downer, while “Masterminds” emerges as the comic surprise of the year and left an entire room of local critics exploding with laughter at a screening room last week. “Deepwater” tries to immerse viewers quickly into the life of Mike Williams (Wahlberg), one of the lead engineers supervising the safety of equipment on the Horizon, which is located far offshore. We see him enjoying a roll in the hay with his wife and playing with his young daughter, but within minutes he’s whisked away to the oil rig for the three-week tour of duty that nearly costs him his life. Joined by the Horizon’s owner Jimmy Harrell (Russell), Williams tries to tell a slimy British Petroleum executive (John Malkovich) that the rig is in no shape to engage in a new long-term drilling operation. But the exec says they are already 43 days behind schedule and orders the rig to drill anyway, leading to the explosive disaster that shocked the planet. While the explosions and other action effects while the disaster unfolds are impressively wrought by director Peter Berg (“Friday Night Lights”, “The Kingdom”), they occur in the service of such a dismaying story that it’s impossible to enjoy rather than be horrified by the mayhem onscreen. And aside from the opening moments, none of the men onboard is shown with enough personal depth to care about their characters’ fate other than on a basic human level. “Deepwater” is rated PG13 for its intense scenes of explosions and the many ways in which the oil, shrapnel and fires onboard the Horizon endangered the lives of the crew members aboard. Only a couple of scenes become cringe-inducingly bloody, however. There is also frequent use of mid-level swear words and one use of the F word, for those counting. On the other hand, these are American heroes, having helped stop the disaster once it unfolded, and there is a powerful scene of prayer at a key moment that provides another example that Christian scenes and themes have been successfully re-entering mainstream movies over the past few years. Thus, viewers are left with a classic example of sound and fury signifying nothing, while “Masterminds” expertly mines comedy gold from the tiniest of details. “Masterminds” follows the late-1990s tale of a dim-witted security guard named David Ghantt (Zach Galifianakis), who was tricked into robbing his bank-security company of $17.3 million in 1997. The real mastermind of the operation is a guy named Steve (Owen Wilson), who is friends with David’s fellow guard Kelly (Kristen Wiig) and uses her as a means to woo David into the theft because David is in love with her despite being engaged to a woman named Jandice (Kate McKinnon). David agrees to pull off the robbery in the hopes of winning over Kelly, who is unsure of herself and is easily convinced to concoct the robbery. He is also hopelessly bored with his life and tired of being poorly paid, so he jumps at the chance for excitement and steals an armored vehicle filled with cash before stupidly handing it all over to the rest of the gang. Steve sends David off to hiding in Mexico with $20,000 in bundled cash stuffed in his underpants, hoping to keep him out of the way so that he won’t ever tell the police what happened and in the hopes that he won’t be able to come back and demand his $3 million share of the robbery. Steve has managed to hide his identity from David the whole time, using Kelly as his intermediary, but when David figures out who he is and threatens to rat out the entire operation, Steve hires a hitman named Mike (Jason Sudeikis) to kill David. Add in a tough-talking FBI agent (Leslie Jones) leading the law-enforcement investigation and chase to recapture the loot, and “Masterminds” becomes a screwball comedy of incredible inventiveness and rapid-fire comic perfection. The plot is ever-twisting and incredibly funny, the dialogue snaps with comic crackle, and the performances are all distinctive and a joy to behold. Even better, the screenplay by Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer and Emily Spivey keeps the amount of foul language and sexual humor far more contained than in most current wild comedies. There is one gross-out scene in which two women are fighting using a tube of feminine-hygiene gel as their weapon of choice, but it is pretty quick, and easily forgotten in the overall scheme of things. “Masterminds” is just risqué enough, and has enough comic violence, to make it inappropriate for children, but adults and older teens will enjoy it greatly. Director Jared Hess (“Napoleon Dynamite,” “Nacho Libre”) makes a tremendous comeback with this movie, following his unmitigated 2010 disaster “Gentlemen Broncos.” He has a unique comic vision tying together oddball characters (the wigs and costumes in this movie are a sight to behold), off-the-wall set details and fine-tunes the comedic aspect of nearly every minute detail on screen to deliver a movie that had a screening room of veteran critics exploding with laughter. It ranks with 2012’s “We’re the Millers” as the funniest movie of the decade so far.
'The Magnificent Seven': This year's more intriguing remake
Sep 23, 2016 / 00:00 amAs Hollywood seems to run out of its own original ideas, reboots and remakes are an increasingly big part of the release schedule – with “Ghostbusters” and “Ben-Hur” just two classics that were reimagined this past summer. Both failed to incite excitement among the new generations of moviegoers they were aimed towards. Just a month after MGM foisted the new “Ben-Hur” upon the world, it is releasing a far more intriguing new take on its classic 1960 Western “The Magnificent Seven.” Unlike the new “Ben-Hur,” whose only big star was Morgan Freeman in a supporting role, the new “Seven” teams up superstars Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt with respected veteran actors Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio and Peter Sarsgaard. The new movie alters the plot somewhat, shifting the locale from a Mexican village trying to defend itself from a Mexican bandido and his henchmen to an American mining town terrorized by a ruthless mogul named Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard) who’s determined to drive them off their land. When a federal warrant officer named Chisholm (Denzel Washington) rides into town in search of an outlaw, his African-American background draws mean-spirited stares until the townspeople realize that hiring him to take on Bogue and his men might be their only hope for survival. Chisholm quickly assembles his titular team of heroes, including a Civil War sharpshooter (Ethan Hawke) who’s too shell-shocked to shoot anymore, and a charming tough guy (Chris Pratt) who quickly endears himself to a pretty local woman who proves to be an ace with a gun herself. This time, however, the seven heroes include a more ethnically diverse bunch, with a Latino, a Native American, and an Asian man along for the ride and fighting in their own inventive ways in addition to teaching the town how to defend themselves in the eventual battle royale. The fact that Washington is the lead hero in a traditional-style Western is drawing attention from some who claim that the new film’s eclectic casting is merely Hollywood political correctness. But an actual viewing of the new edition shows that to be a pointless argument. The broader range of backgrounds in the new cast comes off as a positive aspect, since Westerns were traditionally the film genre that seemed to use white actors most exclusively. There never seemed to be an attempt during the genre’s heyday to reach out to any other audience demographic, leaving fans and kids of any other background without heroes they could call their own. Aside from the ugly stares at the film’s start, and the final rant he delivers to the villain near the end, the race of Washington’s character Chisholm doesn’t come into play – he just simply is a sharp-shooting representative of the law. And frankly, it’s fun to see the team come together. Those pining for the days of all-white Western casting still have Pratt, Hawke and a stellar performance by Vincent D’Onofrio holding down the fort, yet director Antoine Fuqua has fashioned a movie that the whole world can now enjoy and relate to – which can only be healthy for this film’s success and revive the genre as a whole. Yet like the new “Ben-Hur,” the new “Seven” is also an overt appeal to faith-based audiences, including a heavy reliance on prayer from not only the townspeople they’re saving, but among the heroes themselves. Throughout the film, the townspeople rely on prayer in scene after scene, and D’Onofrio’s Jack Horne in particular among the heroes is driven by a righteous fervor to help bring justice to the townspeople. Towards the end, Washington’s Chisholm retreats to the candle-filled church for an intensive quiet moment of prayer, making it unmistakable that the movie’s heroes are believers. Thankfully, the film has plenty of action setpieces that deliver, and this “Seven” is certainly deserving of a viewing on the big screen for teens and adults (it's too violent for those under 13; its PG13 rating is well-deserved). Here’s hoping it’ll inspire some more adventures on horseback from Hollywood.
Double review: 'Bridget Jones's Baby' and 'Snowden'
Sep 16, 2016 / 00:00 amWhen Renee Zellweger burst into fame as Tom Cruise’s quirky, humble girlfriend in “Jerry McGuire” back in 1996, her impish look and shy girlish voice endeared her instantly to audiences worldwide. She managed to build a solid career quickly, even winning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for “Cold Mountain,” but her biggest success came taking on the title role in the critically acclaimed 2001 film adaptation of the wildly popular best-selling novel, “Bridget Jones’s Diary.” In it, she played a single woman who had given up all hope of love, but decided to improve herself over the course of a year while looking for love and recording all the results in her diary. She found herself the object of affection for two dashing men played by Colin Firth and Hugh Grant, giving hope to lovelorn people everywhere that they could still attract the perfect partner. Its 2004 sequel, “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason,” changed directors from the original’s Sharon McGuire and wasn’t nearly as popular – or good. The movie featured the same trio of stars, but as Bridget questioned whether she was really happy with her new relationship. And within a year or two, Zellweger started choosing a whole string of critically dismissed bombs, ultimately dropping off the film biz radar completely about five years ago. But now both Zellweger and her most famous character, Bridget, are back with “Bridget Jones’s Baby.” It could have seemed like a pointless addition or a desperate cash grab, but instead the movie is thankfully the best and funniest in the bunch – no doubt due to the return of McGuire in the director’s chair. (This recommendation indeed comes with moral caveats I address later in the review.) This time Bridget has to figure out which of two men - one from her past, and one new one - fathered her child. “Baby” starts out by finding Bridget alone and sad at age 43. Of course, she is comically portrayed in her sadness, and her best friend offers to take her to a wild rock music festival and encourages her to have sex with the first man she meets. That man is Mark (Patrick Dempsey), a dashingly handsome American businessman who has invented a new phone app for dating. She falls into bed with him, then unwittingly leaves in the morning while he’s out bringing her breakfast. She next goes to a funeral, where she runs into her old flame Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), who is sweet but stodgy and now has a wife. But when they re-meet at a party following a christening, he reveals that he’s separated from his wife and she seduces him. Soon, Bridget is pregnant and realizes that she can’t tell who the father is since she had sex with the two men just days apart. Her doctor (Emma Thompson) advises her to tell both men about the baby, setting off a competition between the men to prove each is the better father (or rather, father-in-waiting) in the hopes of winning both her love and the child for an instant family. “Baby” has a lot of foul language and sexual euphemisms used comedically, but Zellweger invests Jones with such sweetness that it’s hard to take as much offense with her as with almost any other character in a typical movie. That isn’t to excuse the immoral behavior, but the tone of the movie makes it easier to enjoy as Bridget goes through the life events that eventually do lead to positive, moral decisions. The sex scenes are basically racy foreplay, stronger than in most comedies yet cutting away before going very long or graphic. The movie’s attitude towards casual sex is nonchalant initially, and the fact that she pairs up with the merely separated Darcy is questionable by any standard, Catholic or not. One other troublesome aspect is a running gag of Bridget’s mother running for her parish council, first opposing gay rights but eventually fully embracing the issues and the people in over-the-top comedic fashion. While somewhat funny in spite of itself, these moments add nothing to the main plot and could have easily been left out. In another scene, a lesbian couple is shown in a parenting discussion group, with the two potential fathers of Bridget’s baby mistakenly believed to be a gay couple with Bridget as a surrogate mother. On the positive side, the movie never questions for a second that Bridget wants her unexpected pregnancy, and the pregnancy and babies are shown as being wonderful throughout to the point that it’s basically a pro-life message. SPOILER ALERT: Also, when Bridget does figure out which of the two men she truly loves, she has a church wedding with him. END SPOILER. Thus, this is a movie that sounds more morally questionable on paper than it actually plays onscreen. There is a place in storytelling that can show characters who are making mistakes with their lives as long as they work towards a more positive moral lifestyle, and this is one of those films – albeit just for adults. ----------------------------------------------------------------- It may seem like a cliché and an impossibility in modern times that one person can literally change the world, but Edward Snowden showed it can be done. The former CIA intelligence analyst shocked the world, and in particular the American government, in 2013 when he jetted out of the country with a massive trove of top-secret information about the National Security Agency (NSA) and its metadata collection programs that basically invaded the privacy of every American living on the grid. Snowden was trying to flee to Ecuador, but famously got stranded in Russia when the U.S. government revoked his passport while he was amid a layover at a Russian airport. Three years later, he remains in limbo in Russia, a man without a country and a figure of international controversy and mystery. The new movie “Snowden” reveals the whole story, or at least Snowden’s side of it, and arrives in theatres Friday as a movie that’s not only well-made and compelling, but downright important. Its depiction of just how far even our supposedly saintly government will go if watchdogs don’t stay alert is frightening, yet its portrait of a man who stood up and shook the most powerful leaders on the planet to the core is an indelibly brave one. “Snowden” opens with Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) meeting documentary filmmaker Laura Pointras (Melissa Leo) and journalist Glenn Greenwald (Zachary Quinto) of the British newspaper The Guardian in a crowded Hong Kong mall. They quickly hide out in Snowden’s hotel room, where he starts the process of extensive video interviews revealing all he knows to the world. The goal is to tape him quickly and get a story written by Greenwald and fellow journalist Ewan McAskill (Tom Wilkinson) in time to beat the CIA from catching them all first. The reason why they know the clock is ticking is that the Guardian’s editors had to follow legal protocols and make sure that the articles would not result in massive blowback from U.S. officials. Once they found that the publication of the article couldn’t be stopped, the clock began ticking because it was a certainty that the CIA would be racing to capture Snowden and his cohorts as a show of force to the world. As Snowden and his team effect a complicated escape from Hong Kong for him, the movie jumps back and forth across multiple phases of his career, showing the shocking layers of knowledge he gained at each stage that led to his decision to bring the NSA’s nefarious efforts down. Director Oliver Stone, who co-wrote the screenplay with Kieran Fitzgerald, has a long history of making movies (“Platoon,” “JFK,” “Wall Street” and “W.”) that tackle controversial political subjects and people. While he’s a multiple Oscar-winner, he has often allowed his movies to slip into bombast to make their points – yet here, he manages to keep the tone moving and humanly relatable throughout. Snowden’s relationship with his girlfriend Lindsay Mills (Shailene Woodley) is a particularly stirring aspect of the film. A liberal Iraq war protester who had a vastly different worldview than diehard conservative Snowden, she slowly has an effect on waking him up to the idea that it was okay to question a president rather than blindly adhere to one. But the film draws great moments from the immense stress Snowden’s secretive life had on the couple. Yet that very lesson gives the movie a fascinating kick, as the NSA programs started under George W. Bush’s administration only become worse under President Obama’s, despite his promises of vast reform and great change for the better. In fact, the movie is such a strong indictment of how badly Obama allowed the program to expand that it’s an amazing reminder of our First Amendment protections. This fact, which makes the film seem to be conservative in nature, has no doubt impacted the general critical response it’s gotten from the nation’s critics. I know for a fact that the critics in Los Angeles are extremely liberal – it is a long story that I can share in another column. In the chatter after the critics’ screening I attended, in fact, some of them complained not about the film’s qualities but their annoyance that it presented the negative truth about Obama’s administration so directly. This is a masterfully made film, regardless of how you view its politics. The fact that this film was made by Oliver Stone, a man who is considered one of the strongest left-wingers in Hollywood, is a testament to just how dire our government’s abuse of power was and how brave Snowden is. Joseph Gordon-Levitt does a terrific job immersing himself into the role so fully that his entire speech patterns are fully transformed, and he manages to bring a powerful emotional undercurrent to the film even in spite of having to keep his deepest thoughts secret much of the time. Morally, the movie does feature about 50 F words scattered across its 2 hour 20 minute running time. Most of these are bunched into specific tense situations – arguments over the policies, or a big fight between Edward and his girlfriend, and in context, they’re not nearly as offensive as when F words are paraded through raunchy comedies. The one other element to be aware of is a fairly graphic sex scene that lasts about 30 seconds between Edward and his girlfriend, which shows a brief shot of her bare breasts from the side and her bare behind as well. While the scene could have been more implied, there is a very key aspect to it that is one of the film’s biggest and most important surprise revelations to the actual plot. For viewers who can handle those aspects of the movie, it all adds up to a film that not only is a must for anyone who cares about the state of our nation, since this was a program that was abused by both parties. The movie’s message is clear: our nation will only remain great if we remain vigilant about those who control it.
Double review: 'Hell or High Water' and 'War Dogs'
Aug 26, 2016 / 00:00 amWe’re reaching the tail-end of summer, when studios tend to dump out movies that have no-name casts or have turned out poorly in the hopes that no one will notice how bad the films are amid season-ending cookouts and last-minute vacations. So I won’t waste yours or my time reviewing any of the new films hitting theatres this weekend, instead spotlighting two excellent films (albeit strictly for adults) that hit theatres last week. The Western is a movie genre that has fallen largely by the wayside in the past few decades, as modern moviegoers lost interest in chases and shootouts between cowboys, and Indians now have to be called Native Americans. But occasionally a movie comes along that is labeled a “modern Western,” in which the good guys and bad guys travel by vehicles but they still are fighting elemental battles of good and evil and struggling for survival in the bleak rural terrains and deserts of states like Texas and New Mexico. The Best Picture-winning “No Country for Old Men” set a high bar for these kinds of films in 2007. Those who loved that movie should also enjoy the new movie “Hell or High Water,” which stars Jeff Bridges as a retiring U.S. Marshal named Marcus Hamilton, who decides to take on his last case – finding and arresting a pair of brothers on a bank-robbery spree - with a hangdog intensity. Shot in New Mexico but set in the hopeless desert towns of Texas, “Hell” features rising star Ben Foster as Tanner Howard, a bad-boy small-town resident who teams with his struggling brother Toby (Chris Pine, who plays Captain Kirk in the most recent “Star Trek” film trilogy) to rob a string of banks across the state in an attempt to pay off Toby’s enormous child support backlog and save his dying ranch for his family. As Tanner gets more reckless and Toby becomes more concerned about their luck running out, Marcus and his deputy Alberto (Gil Birmingham) employ old-school psychology and a whole lot of patience in the hopes of outwitting them. There’s not much more to the plot in the script by Taylor Sheridan, who wrote last fall’s superb drug-war thriller “Sicario,” but the magic in this film is in the well-drawn characters, the spot-on dialogue and especially the atmosphere of quiet desperation and growing tension. The premise is a timely one, amid a weak economic recovery that still puts the squeeze on average landowners who are buried under oversized mortgages and risking repossessions. Director David Mackenzie is British, yet brings viewers fully into this hard-scrabble world as if he had spent a lifetime as an oil rig worker – and viewers lucky enough to see this movie will be left with a thoughtful and frankly unforgettable experience. While there is foul language throughout “Hell or High Water,” it fits the atmosphere enough to blend in without being overly offensive for most adults. There are a couple of intense violent moments, but they are few and far between in this movie that’s more concerned with psychological battles than gore and pyrotechnics. The one other R-rated element is a brief scene where one brother is engaged in blurred and clothed sex with a hooker in the far end of a hotel room while his brother ignores them. Meanwhile, “War Dogs” is a wholly different look at two guys skirting the law in the name of what they deem to be a noble cause. Based on a Rolling Stone article about two former high school buddies who team up a decade after graduation to become arms suppliers for the U.S. military during the peak of the Iraq war, the movie is a full-throttle adrenaline blast of action, comedy and thrills that is likely to join “Hell or High Water” on my ten favorite films list at the end of the year. The movie stars the dynamite duo of Miles Teller and Jonah Hill as David Packouz and Efraim Diveroli, two guys desperate to make fast money amid a slowing economy in 2005. David is the more grounded and responsible one, living with his girlfriend Iz (Ana de Armas) and earning decent bucks doing the detestable job of being a masseur for rich gay men. When he runs into his childhood best friend Efraim at a funeral after a decade apart, he’s quickly impressed by Efraim’s high-living ways and wonders how he’s managing to score big money. His friend invites him to join his one-man operation as a low-level arms supplier for the military, even though David and his girlfriend march in anti-war protests. But when Iz announces she’s pregnant, David’s principles go out the window and he winds up joining Efraim in a dangerous mission to Jordan and then Iraq, as they personally have to show up and save a huge order of ammo from being seized due to a massive shipping error. As they experience the thrill of dodging both authorities and shady fellow dealers including Henry Girard (Bradley Cooper in an ace supporting turn filled with humorous malice), David has to decide how far he’s willing to go at the same time he’s realizing that Efraim may not be as friendly as he seems. Granted, I’m a sucker for edgy political satire and cleverly executed action movies, but “War Dogs” puts those two elements together in perfect fashion to match “Central Intelligence” as my favorite movie of the summer. Co-writer/director Todd Phillips was clearly dying to prove he could do something special after becoming trapped helming all three of the rapidly worsening “Hangover” movies, and he pulls it off big-time here. “War Dogs” is the wilder of the two movies in its tone, with Jonah Hill’s Efraim prone to whooping profanities and additional foul language in multiple tension-filled scenes. Most of its violence consists of people being punched or shot at without any real blood. The two dealers are shown smoking joints, including before a humorous meeting with Pentagon officials, and Efraim is shown snorting cocaine behind David’s back. SPOILER ALERT: Ultimately, the drug use is portrayed negatively as it becomes clear that the movie shows Efraim in a negative moral light. END SPOILER. Overall, for those who can handle an adult-oriented action comedy, “War Dogs” is a treat. Those who are easily offended should consider other fare. Both movies ultimately show that a life of crime is a life filled with regrets, and that is another feather in their caps.