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Out in Theaters: THE COUNSELOR

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“The Counselor”
Directed by Ridley Scott
Starring Michael Fassbender, Cameron Diaz, Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt, Dean Norris, Sam Spruell, Natalie Dormer, Goran Visnjic
Crime, Drama, Thriller
117 Mins
R

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When we think Ridley Scott, typically big, lavish spectacles pop up in our minds, which is why The Counselor comes as such an admirable surprise. Much more interested in cautionary talks than fits of physical violence, The Counselor plays mind games with its audience, toying with us intellectually and emotionally. One long con bleeds into a slow climb towards a heady climax of inescapable comeuppances, and we have front row seats to the scramble. If Scott’s former films are a series of taxing somatic workouts, The Counselor is the glistening sweat beading from his forehead once the Western dust has settled. Like a man with an agenda tucked up his sleeve, Scott wields an unblinkingly grim look at the allure of the international drug enterprise and the heartless abandon of cartel justice. As a piece of purely adult entertainment, it’s fearlessly mature and irreverent – the antithesis of studio expectation.

The narrative structure in which this ill-mannered tale of thoughtless vengeance unfolds is laid out like an eight-course table settings. A series of foreboding set-ups piece together a pilgrimage through the stages of greed, wealth, and power, all bonded by prosaic speeches. Various supporting characters all leaning against the post of lawlessness forewarn our hero, a man trying to dip his toe into the drug business, known only as the counselor (Michael Fassbender), of the potential gravity of the situation he’ll be marrying his money and his mouth to. No matter the caution tape they place, telling him to settle with hamburger while he can, the counselor’s taste can’t be satiated with anything less than Kobe beef. As it is, each rehearsed soliloquy is a trap set to spring later in play.

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Stepping into a new role as a screenwriter, author Cormac McCarthy is a maestro at establishing these simmering ideas that later erupt in bright bursts of bloodshed. Doling out a class of ironic justice, McCarthy defies civil expectations of “fair,” parsing romanticized ideas of criminal proceedings from the stark actuality of border politics. Standing on some dusty line in the sand and glancing into the sun, there is no line, no limit, no “fair” – only gory messes and dutiful cleanups.

In revealing this harsh reality, McCarthy and Scott know exactly how and when to play their cards.  As the adage goes, if you show a gun in the first act, it better go off by the time the credits roll. Throughout The Counselor, McCarthy and Scott show an arsenal of guns and give each a moment in the sun to pop off in the film’s home stretch. Though some may feel taxed by the grueling nature of Scott and McCarthy building this house of cards, the payoff is well worth the wait. 
 
Although McCarthy’s talky script flirts with being overly showy, like the teachers pet showing off, his larger-than-life dialogue works to convert this tale of untold tragedy into a thing of grit-toothed folklore, transporting it like smuggled heroin from the blood-in-the-sand shoot-em-up it might have been to a more uncharted territory. But make no mistake; this is entirely McCarthy’s intention – entirely his rodeo. His fingerprints smother the dialogue, fueling the jet black tone and unrelenting bleakness dripping from the screen. Dangling characters at the end of his puppet strings, using them as mouthpieces for his prosaic tact for conversation, McCarthy’s pithy word play is the star of the show.

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To the chagrin of those expecting a guns blazing actioner, The Counselor is only violent in rare fits, so for those going for a bloodbath – beware. When it does shift to the grisly side, it’s more of the full-stop violence of Refn’s films than anything this side of Kill Bill. This is violence as reality; violence as horror; not some glamorized Hollywood spectacle. But the elements that will really haunt you are the ones that slink into the shadows, the ones that are suggested, talked about in whispers, but never shown.

With a screenplay that exchanges high-octane thrills for moments of stressful self-reflection and one-on-one character conversations, Scott keeps the proceedings lively by punctuating them with anecdotal scenes that offer some of the lighter and more engaging moments. Between the gasps, the laughs, and the many talks, there’s not too much room for adrenaline. Much more a mentally stressful film than one that will have your blood pumping in thirsty gushes, all may be quiet on the western front, but it’s not in the minds of those living there.

For a movie that depends so much on the weight of these character chats, a rock solid cast is an absolute necessity. To the benefit of all, the top-tier cast lined up fully rises to the occasion. As the titular counselor, Fassbender continues to flex his thespian muscles, showcasing a spectrum of trade tricks that really makes his performance pop. Although still unconvinced of her true talent, at least in the English language, Penélope Cruz manages to be more than just eye candy and displays a woman who humanizes beauty and love requited. Brad Pitt continues to hit his mark in a solid streak of winning performances, although his Southern drawl may have started to wear a little thin. Cloaked in gaudy clothes and rings the size of dinner party costume jewelry, Cameron Diaz puts in the role of a lifetime. Sadly, that’s a low bar to hit and her performance fails to become the true stunner that it could have been.  

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As the gold-toothed Malkina, a sexual minx of any sinner’s fantasy, Diaz is on the precipice of something great but never trusts herself enough to take a true risk. In many ways, Malkina is a feminine ode to McCarthy’s Anton Chigurh. Though lacking the brute force of Chigurh, they share comparable devilishly savvy elements. It’s as if they are long separated siblings or lovers who will never be. Ironically, Malkina’s love interest here is played by Chigurh actor Javier Bardem, although his role here is more a thing of kooky-clothed comic relief than the stuff of day terrors. While Chigurh was driven by a distorted cosmic sense of justice, Malkina is ruled by authoritative greed. Too secure in her old image to take a blind leap of faith into the mysterious recesses of something fresh though, Diaz flirts with being great but doesn’t commit. Although I originally had her as a potential Oscar nominee, those chances are all but slashed.

As is becoming a trend for him, Scott throttles the line of brilliance but allows himself to get bogged down in the execution of it. Illustrating his potential for staggeringly intelligent storytelling, there are explosions of excellence scattered throughout The Counselor and a surgeon-steady backbone of thoughtful inspiration, it still gets a little muddled along the way. The wealth of intriguing ideas are there but I’m not convinced that they are fully realized.

Stepped in the tradition of the Old West, The Counselor leaves you wanting to know more, curious if you’d missed anything, and thirsty for another viewing. With the magic of a red pen and another few months spent on pre-production, this could have been an astonishing product, as it is, it’s Prometheus in the desert – brilliance pocked with gaping holes. With a little more polish and another couple edits, this could have been as solid gold as the cap on Cameron Diaz’s canine.

B

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Out in Theaters: WADJDA

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“Wajdja”
Directed by Haifaa Al-Mansour
Starring Waad Mohammed, Reem Abdullah, Abdullrahman Al Gohani, Ahd, Sultan Al Assaf
Drama, Foreign
98 Mins
PG

Wadjda is first and foremost an important film. More than just the first movie ever filmed in Saudi Arabia – where cinema has been illegal under censorship laws since the 1980s – and the first feature film ever from a female Saudi Arabian director, Wadjda is actually quite a good film. Director Haifaa Al-Mansour braves the rocky shoals of creating a slyly counterculture work in a totalitarian epoch that bans women from driving, voting, and dressing as they like, crossing the finish line with saintly courage. With material on display that, like its central character, is consciously subversively and takes careful aim at the many forms of culturally approved misogyny, Al-Mansour boldly broadcasts material that defiantly flies in the face of the normative Saudi lifestyle and, for it, she deserves celebration.

Our heroine Wadjda – inspired both by Al-Mansour’s niece and her own childhood experiences – is a headstrong young girl, seemingly not aware of the vast limitations placed on her by society. She’s as spunky as a young Saudi girl can get, secretly rocking Chuck Taylors under the secrecy of her burka and jamming out to American Top 40 on Beats headphones. Her heart set on a buying a bicycle to race with her male friend, Wadjda turns to a Quran recitation contest to win the money to buy her prized possession.

Wadjda

However innocent her quest to obtain a bike may seem, roadblocks surround her. Even her loving family and schoolteachers tell her that bicycles are strictly forbidden for girls. For something as simple as riding a bicycle, Wajdja could face lifelong consequences, they warn. Blind to the “ought to’s” of gender, Wajdja either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care. To Wajdja, that bike is all the freedom a girl could want, and she wants what she wants so no silly cultural norm is going to stop her. Proving that little is more beautiful than the arrogant ignorance of a child; Wajdja sees gender walls as something she can conquer. We allow ourselves to root for her, suppressing our adult understanding of slim odds. As it goes, the house always wins.

Wadjda’s ensuing journey throughout her Saudi Arabian landscape is hopeful and yet deeply tragic. As a harbinger of a new generation of progressive youth, Waad Mohammed is magnetic as Wadjda. Shuffling to strip the invisible weights societal expectations have saddled on her – omnipresent reminders of her lower status within a male-dominated society – Wadjda proceeds with a smile.

While playing outside the schoolyard gates, a female teacher scolds Wadjda, “Women’s voices shouldn’t be heard by men outside.” I almost gagged. Cultural sensitivity be damned, that kind of senseless, patriarchal censorship is sickening and Al-Mansour begs you to agree. No young girl should be muzzled like a criminal, simply because of her gender. A culture steeped in tradition, promoting uniformity and encouraging submission is a culture at standstill, and Al-Mansour does a masterful job at conveying this pejorative truth.

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Moving into the third act, Wajdja faces its biggest problem: colliding with a glass ceiling of touchiness.  En route to a whopping defamation of culture, Al-Mansour veers. Admitting that her original vision was much bleaker, Al-Mansour has skirted around some of the goriest details and settles with a bit of a storybook version. Grey skies are painted bright blue as heartbreaking circumstances are touched up with happy endings. We get a sample of the true injustices but we never experience the full flavor. As grim circumstances turn towards a brighter tomorrow, Al-Mansour gently raps, leaving the true lambasting for another time, another place, and another artist.

This is the issue of being part and parcel of the society you’re examining, you don’t have the degree of separation to allow for unwavering freedom in storytelling. Still deeply ingrained within it, perhaps to the point of being a hostage, Al-Mansour escapes into Wadjda, feeling the perpetual pain of a woman suffocated by medieval beliefs that still rain supreme. But Wadjda doesn’t quite play like the cry for help, as it easily could have. It’s more of a gentle nudge towards feminism – a reminder of its ever-increasing importance in progressive society.

Sure to be a healthy contender at this year’s Oscars for Best Foreign Language film, Wajdja earns its place on the roster with strong storytelling and historical significance. Giving us a peek at discrimination through the eyes of a child, Wajdja tenderly plays at our heartstrings, reinforcing the magnificent blessing of our unadulterated freedom.

B

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Out in Theaters: ESCAPE PLAN

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“Escape Plan”
Directed by Mikael Håfström
Starring Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Caviezel, Faran Tahir, Amy Ryan, Sam Neill, Vincent D’Onofrio and 50 Cent.
Action, Mystery, Thriller
116 Mins
R

There’s a lot to be said for how entertaining a shoot-em up picture can be if handled with tact and the right people. Escape Plan dispenses with tact and focuses entirely on the “right” people, serving as a vehicle for the film’s stars to get into fights and be brooding, tough-guy stereotypes over a page-one rewrite of Escape from Alcatraz. Crass in all the wrong places, Escape Plan is a superficial viewing experience that takes the prison break formula to its extreme, both in plot elements and in believability. Where it should soar in scope, it exploits its star power, avoiding “setting the scene” or providing any action sequences that are even on par with the films that Escape Plan tries to emulate.

The film stars Sylvester Stallone as a prison break-out expert who literally wrote the book on reinforcing prisons alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger as his later accomplice, Jim Caviezel as their diabolical warden, and Vincent D’Onofrio as Stallone’s business partner. D’Onofrio and fellow cast members Faran Tahir, Amy Ryan, Sam Neill, and 50 Cent barely get a couple one-liners each on screen in a film focused entirely on Stallone and Schwarzenegger’s conflict with Caviezel, which isn’t terribly surprising. It’s obvious this is a B-movie, one that seems to exist entirely so that Schwarzenegger and Stallone can remind fans that they’re tough action heroes, even though both are in their sixties. The casting is rife with stereotypical roles that are never fleshed out, and even for a pulp film the portrayals are pretty shallow.

Stallone, we’re told, has made a living for the better part of the last decade breaking out of prisons and writing about prison security as part of his partnership with D’Onofrio at the security firm they jointly own. When a job comes Stallone’s way from the CIA to break out of a private prison where the “worst of the worse” are held, Stallone signs up after about a minute’s hesitation, only to discover that he’s been set up. He meets Schwarzenegger in this supposedly state-of-the-art successor to the black box prisons America utilizes and the rest of the movie is them using ingenuity, their muscles, and all the guns they can find to get out of the place alive. No elaborate stage-setting here, just Schwarzenegger and Stallone as they face the worst excesses of American imperialism. Their back stories and even names pale in importance in comparison to their stoicism and prison beat down skills.

The film deals with a number of surprisingly dark topics – private prisons, prison brutality, lack of transparency and accountability, American imperial overreach – with cavalier and fascicle levity, the themes serving as shallow reasons for the two aging stars to get themselves into a hard spot they have to punch and shoot their way out of. The formula of a prison break has been given much higher stakes here than in many previous iterations – Stallone is an expert on prison breakouts and the prison he’s at is the best private prison for the worst (read: mass-murdering, insane, anti-American) prisoners. While this would tow the line for a lot of B-movie criteria if it were more tongue-in-cheek or even slightly more visually descriptive, instead we’re left with a simple treatment of extraordinary problems without the assurance of a campy joke or at least some amusing action thrills.

The problem that this film has as its core is that it pretends to take itself seriously and then fails to deliver on its gravitas. Instead of embracing it’s camp and going over the top, the fight scenes and prison breakouts are remarkably commonplace to the genre and feel muted. The strongman act that both Stallone and Schwarzenegger have made wonderful and storied careers out of needs to be balanced by overwhelming action – typically violent – that these silent-types end up employing in the pursuit of their goal. Escape Plan falls short in this regard, making you wait instead for the one shot that reminds you of Rambo or whatever film you’d rather be seeing these stars in. There are a lot of problematic depictions of Islamic inmates and of gender dynamics that are a little too phobic and regressive for discerning tastes, and if they’d only made the action more intense and the setting a little better, it might have started to compensate for these foul-breathed shortcomings.

The prison, pitched as an ultra hi-tech Panopticon, is aesthetically unimpressive. With block names like Babylon and an aspiration to present the best prison ever built, you’d think they’d have spent a little more effort on the spectacle. Instead, you get Plexiglas boxes on stilts and prison guards who, despite their black face masks, look more like mall cops then deadly security contractors. The visuals and set pieces don’t have the kind of hellish quality you’d expect from a place where the most dangerous international figures are housed. Even the other inmates barely looked like they belonged in Oz, much less in the Alcatraz of the War on Terror era. The styling of the place wouldn’t cut in in the 80’s films that Escape Plan wants to be like, and that apparently no effort was made to bridge that gap is disappointing.

Even when those moments come up, the moments that the film was made for – Schwarzenegger machine-guns a bunch of goons, the villains gets their comeuppances, and Stallone delivers the beat down of the movie to the head guard – aren’t as satisfying when taking the movie in as a whole.  The explosions aren’t as big as they should be, the final lines aren’t catchy enough, and the fighting scenes are so poorly executed that you never really feel like the heroes are in any danger. Sure, they may have had torture to put up with, but they were never so broken down that they didn’t have the upper hand against their over-maniacal and wonderfully incompetent jailers. That the film shortchanges audiences in those smaller, establishing scenes lessens the glory of the moments that were the most visceral, leaving all but the most ardent Stallone/Schwarzenegger devotees feeling stiffed.

You want to like a film like Escape Plan if you’re into low-budget action films, but they didn’t put in enough effort to sell the premise and they didn’t make the action scenes extravagant enough to compensate for that lack of scene-setting. It lacks enough camp to B-movie homage and is not bold or funny enough, unintentional or otherwise, to be a regular B-movie. This is the kind of film that would go straight to DVD if it had other stars then the ones it has, making the many missed opportunities for action or spectacle hurt even more. If you have to see everything that Schwarzenegger or Stallone has been in, you’ll see this anyways. If not, do yourself a favor and rent Predator or First Blood instead.

D

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Out in Theaters: ALL IS LOST

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“All is Lost”
Directed by J.C. Chandor
Starring Robert Redford
Action, Drama
108 Mins
PG-13

2013 is the year of the survivor-thriller reigning supreme. In Gravity, Alfonso Cuarón explored themes of isolation amidst the inhospitable vacuum of space, using dazzling special effects to elevate a simple story to a visual masterpiece. Paul Greengrass dove into the true account of Richard Phillips and his struggle to maintain his humanity in a Somali pirate hostage situation in Captain Phillips, an excellent biopic fueled by a knockout performance from Tom Hanks. In All is Lost, J.C. Chandor pits man against entropy, testing the endurance of the human spirit against an onslaught of ill-tempered serendipity at sea. It must be time for a genre victory lap, because once more, survivor-thrillers have just crowned themselves king.

There is something about these types of films that make us want to rise from our seats and cheer. They drive us to invest, they urge us to care. They recognize the most enticing aspect of our own humanity, our un-surrendering urge to live. Unlike the cataclysmic weather catastrophe of The Perfect Storm, the humanist reckless abandon of this year’s Danish film Kon Tiki, or the global satellite calamity of Gravity, All is Lost follows a relatively meager story, one of bad odds and “Ah shit!” coincidences, but however paltry it might seem from afar, it ends up having more meat on its bones than either of the two former stories combined.

As the unnamed, gruff hero of this expedition, Robert Redford hardly utters a single line of dialogue and yet carries the film squarely on his shoulders. Even without a true spoken line, there is never a time when Redford’s weathered chops don’t convince us of the track-halting gravity of his worsening circumstance. Even while he remains collected and fine-tuned, it is clear that his situation is rather grim. But Redford’s “Our Man” goes about course correcting with the smooth confidence of a career father, trying to carry us into smooth seas, both physically and metaphorically. With his panic pushed deep down, Redford is a machine of physical efficiency, an Einstein of deep-breathed problem solving.

To be the only man credited on a cast list (there’s not even a glimpse of another face, not a whisper of another voice) is a pretty unique accomplishment, but to do so and be a serious Oscar contender is another thing entirely. Redford lays down a silent tour-de-force, reckoning those who may have called him on “phoning it in” in this later stage of his career. If there’s one thing Redford is not, it’s a hack, and even when his directorial projects land with a bit of a thud, it’s not for lack of trying.

In All is Lost, his measured passion and experienced bravado guide us through a range of emotions, however restrained and simmering they may be. But this is the most challenging, and often least appreciated, act of them all. Conveying buried emotions, those under a veneer of levelheaded collection, takes conditioned skill and requires a deeper commitment to self-exploration than those spilling over the surface in winded theatrical monologues or emotion-stricken outbursts.

The decision to put so much stock in Redford’s ability to single-handedly emote his way through a film takes a boatload of guts, to Chandor’s credit. But Chandor’s deep-seated confidence in Redford is doubled in his cool, collected approach. Evident from the blueprint of a dialogue-bereft script, Chandor obviously is a man of vision, swinging for the fences. Instead of deploying red herrings, arm wrestling the audience into a false sense of tension, everything from the very get-go is very real and very dangerous. 

 

From the opening shot that confusingly pans across a shipping container adrift at sea (I initially thought the shot was of a red dock attached to land), the sensation of something amiss comes barreling from the screen. It’s no surprise that the lost shipping container – human clumsiness and carelessness personified – is the culprit of the “Who punctured my boat?” mystery. Even worse, the salt water gushing through the boat’s gaping hole has destroyed all electrical navigation and communication equipment. From minute one, the stakes are sky high. The hole is in the boat, the boat is in the water, the water is in the boat and as it turns out, the ocean is large…very large. There’s no phoning in support, no cries for help, just a need to grab your bootstraps, yank them up as high as possible and try to start calculating your way out of the ghastly inevitability of drowning. Here, throwing in the towel means certain death.

What transcribes over the following 106 minutes is the story of a man fighting tooth-and-nail for survival against all odds, even when all is lost. Just as he patches up one problem, another surfaces, and another, and another. From sharks to lack of supplies to a crumbling mast, his very humanity dangles at the end of a rope but it’s not something he will abandon without the fight of his life.

Captured with crisp imagery from cinematographers Frank G. DeMarco and Peter Zuccarini, it’s almost hard to believe that the film was shot almost entirely on a water stage (the same one used in 1997 for Titanic actually). Though backed by a small army of digital effects workmen, the water-logged stunts have a sense of immediacy and deep-splintered truth to them largely lacking from CGI-driven films. Although Gravity elevates visual panache to a new level, it fails to hone in as acutely on the emotional isolation of its central character, giving Redford and crew a matured edge over Sandra Bullock and Co. emotionally.

The creaks and moans of the tried ship mimic the heaves and hoes of a exasperated Redford, visual cues as foreboding and understated as the hardly visible score from Alex Ebert. Each adds their own signature to the layer cake of suspense, rather than seeking glory for their own right. it’s this sum-of-all-parts attitude that really makes the film sing. Chandor’s vision is so exact and his execution so precise, that All is Lost adds up to one doozie of an experience. Finger-nibblingly exciting when it needs to be, nimbly quiet when called for, but always full of hope and tenacity, All is Lost is a whopper.

A

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Out in Theaters: THE FIFTH ESTATE

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“The Fifth Estate”
Directed by Bill Condon
Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Daniel Brühl, Jamie Blackley, Anthony Mackie, Laura Linney, Stanley Tucci
Biography, Drama
128 Mins
R


The best part about The Fifth Estate was the cheeseburger I ate before the movie. The bun was nicely toasted, hugging two juicy patties each pressed with a layer of cheese, topped with caramelized onions and the gentle spice of jalapeños. It was superb. The movie though was the antithesis of that burger. It was crap. Utter, unadulterated, “pee-a-little-in-your-pants because you’re laughing so hard in its face” crap.

The dead horse-beating script is the easiest clunker to point fingers at for its “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” tactile approach, but that quick analysis fails to recognize the full scope of how truly horrendous every element of this movie is. The consistently confused directing, entirely bumbling, borderline hack acting, and total lack of vision – all backed by one of the worst scores I’ve heard in ages – each land with a thud on the lowest tier of story-telling prowess.  The Fifth Estate‘s saving grace is that it has a good shot at winning the excuse, “It’s so bad, it’s good” from more forgiving moviegoers.

Whether the intent of the movie is to herald the importance of Julian Assange and his brainchild Wikilieaks or condemn him is unclear throughout. Even by the film’s conclusion, it’s hard to decipher if those in charge support Julian’s cause or just can’t stand him – an amazing feat for a movie that stretches well over two-hours. The intention may have been to land in some kind of moral gray zone but somewhere along the line moral complication got mixed up with poor storytelling, and the result is The Fifth Estate.

Wikileak’s contributions to revolutionizing how information is shared was groundbreaking – the way in which that story here is told is anything but. For a film that celebrates innovation, it’s amazing how stale its telling is. Montages set to thumping electronic beats detail Julian typing on a computer, driving in a car, walking down the street, typing even more on his laptop, and opening doors as if it were breathless entertainment. At times, it seems as if Bill Condon bumped his head and woke up thinking he was making a Bourne-style thriller.

Condon also hasn’t quite shaken out of his vampire gloves coming out of the ring of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part One and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part Two as the Assange onscreen is a lot like Bella. Brooding and touchy, he’s a one-note nincompoop with the depth of skinny jean’s pockets…girl’s skinny jean’s pockets. Having a conversation with Assange results in hearing about one of his many accomplishments or an oddly timed confession about the challenges peppering his life.

As if the character written on the page doesn’t already show it in bright stripes, Assange feels that its necessary to inform co-conspirator Daniel Berg (Daniel Brühl) that he’s on the autism spectrum. It’s painful for all the wrong reasons. However little humanity the script affords these characters, the performance is still horrid to watch unfold.

As my friend pointed out, Benedict Cumberbatch does a great SNL impression of Julian Assange, and he really does. But don’t expect to see more than a lazy, played for laughs impression of Assange, as Benedict puts in one of the worst performances of the entire year. His dopey take on Assange is a far cry from a definitive look at a complex character (even if it does wind up being the only one). This is a man you never once feel sympathy for. He’s strange, jealous, and abusive to all those around him. The icing on the cake comes in a completely unnecessary scene in which he dances by himself in a strobe-lit club like a lanky gibbon jumped up on Adderall. Both Josh Singer’s script and Cumberbatch settle with saying, “Look at how weird he is!”

Shame on Cumberbatch for breaking the golden rule of acting. As an actor, you are not to judge your character. You seek understanding. You find what makes the audience connect to your character, not disengage from them. You’re like a lawyer preparing a case for trial. We, the audience, are the judge and the jury, not you. Otherwise, we wind up watching a paper-thin characterization, produced by someone who can’t stand the person they’re embodying. Cumberbatch’s take as Assange seeps this kind of cheap impersonation.

Like a student rushing to finish a research project, recklessly jamming every last bit of information they can on the page, hoping it will make them look more informed than they are, the choice of what to include in the film is simply dumbfounding. Important character information is blasted into the audience without context, relationships start and end hollow, and the actual accomplishments of Wikileaks become buried under a mile of silt. Instead of allowing the story beats room to breath, they fly out in our face, spring-loaded and irrelevant.

With all these scattered bits flying in from nowhere, this is filmmaking as drag-and-drop. Case and point: a romantic angle is shoehorned in. There’s no basis for it, it’s just there, because other movies do it. When the shirts pop off in the obligatory sex scene, you’ll bat your eyes, watching the congress of two stick figures with the sex appeal of listening to your parents talk dirty to each other.

Even from a technical perspective, the film is awful. The score by Carter Burwell works with the surgical precision of a sledgehammer, informing you, “This part’s exciting! This bit’s sad! Drama! Oh, it’s exciting again!” The set design is similarly off-putting as the locations these guys hang out at look inspired by the stark neon sets of Batman and Robin.

Since the 80s, filmmakers have felt that it is their duty to turn “hacking” into an exciting thing. It’s common knowledge that watching someone fire away at their keyboard doesn’t make for the best viewing experience, so they tend towards using visual metaphors to represent the pallid electrical repetition. The Fifth Estate‘s visual metaphor takes us to a giant warehouse, filled with rows upon rows of desktop computers, a metaphysical flair the producers must have thought very cool. However imaginative the sequence may have seemed at one point, the final execution is inexcusably lame, providing for some of the heartiest laughs of this straight-faced film.

With Cumberbatch and The Fifth Estates‘ once promising Oscar odds now shot to pieces, a flicker of hope remains for meat-headed political junkies, pseudo-intellectuals, and those who relish movies that are “so bad, they’re good”. Don’t get me wrong, I actually had a good time watching this, but it was all for the wrong reasons. Nevertheless, The Fifth Estate is, without a doubt, one of the worst movies of 2013.

F

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Out in Theaters: CARRIE

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“Carrie”
Directed by Kimberly Peirce
Starring Chloë Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore, Gabriella Wilde, Portia Doubleday, Alex Russell, Zoë Belkin, Ansel Elgort, Judy Greer
Drama, Horror
99 Mins
R

We all know the delightful bedtime story of Carrie and the Pig’s Blood Prom: strange, loner girl experiences first bloodbath period (literally and figuratively) at school and becomes the target of tampon-slinging ridicule from her merciless peers. Charitable popularite Sue repents and urges hot-stuff boyfriend, Tommy, to bring Carrie to the prom, where she receives an unexpected swine viscus shower and promptly employs telekinesis to exact a wrecking ball of bloody revenge. It’s squarely within the horror genre, but it’s never really been a scary movie. The subject is far more unsettling and grotesque, a step back from jumpy frights and into demented psychology. Kimberly Peirce attempts to navigate the open can of worms within that tender, twisted psyche but stops short, pursuing the studio-brandished sheen of an American Hollywood horror remake.

As the film opens, Peirce provides a new introduction to Carrie. We meet her as a slimy head emerging from her mother’s womb, met with all the warmth and motherly love of a trembling butcher knife clutched by Julianne Moore‘s Margaret – a woman convinced her child is the product of sin and, accordingly, born of the devil. This new scene solidifies the weapon-wielding, love-hate relationship between mother and daughter that will go on to become a through line of Peirce’s retelling of the story while also playing at our natural guardian sensibilities that no baby should be inches from a razor sharp blade. It invites the right type of winches and cringes from an uneasy audience desiring something fresh.
 

Securing Moore as Margaret is a move of inspired casting. Moore’s usual warmth is gone, replaced with jitterish paranoia and a penchant for closet-rearing corporal punishment. The real irony though is that in spite of all of her bible-thumping madness, she is pretty much right on the money all along. Carrie’s abilities may not necessarily be born of the devil but a very easy utilitarian argument could be made that if Margaret pulled the trigger on her infanticide instinct, she would have saved the town a lot of grief and a lot of lives. But tricky debates of this nature are tabled and left wholly unexamined.

Skirting around these deeper philosophical questions that would have made for a much more interesting movie (more of a reinvention than an outright remake) Peirce’s Carrie settles with being largely a paint-by-numbers remake, doused in a blanket of digital makeup from all the wonders of current CGI technology.

Hunched like a troll, the teenage version of Carrie is awkward like a platypus. Corner-standing and slinking seem to be her main primary hobbies around the high school she attends, so it’s no wonder she doesn’t have a Facebook full of friends. In fact, she doesn’t really seem to have a Facebook at all (gasp). 

Following her unsettling shower scene though, Carrie seems to somehow become more confident than she was before, as if her virginal menstration opened up a new chapter in the book de Carrie’s mind. But that probably has less to do with that nasty pool of time-of-the-month blood and more to do with the telekinetic powers that seem to accompany her corporeal transformation into an adult. I don’t know if Carrie’s physical coming into womanhood is supposed to be linked to the emergence of her powers but they definitely both seem to start their flow around the same moment.

At any rate, Carrie goes about wielding her new found powers with the sneakiness of a jitterbug-thumbed high-schooler texting a storm in the midst of Spanish class. That is – how the hell is no one noticing?! She screams and tampons flutter away from her, she’s visibly upset and water coolers crumble like piñatas. While this version really ratchets up the degree of foreboding in the escalation of Carrie’s powers, it fails to take into account the reactions of those around her. It’s as if they’re all used to telekinesis, like it ain’t no thang.

Conceivably, their ignorance could be a side effect of the fact that everyone at this untitled Maine school is pretty much the worst person in the world. Even the English teacher mocks Carrie between takes eye-banging his female students. While I’m sure that opening the floor to debate about the relative ease or difficulty of people’s high school experiences is another can of worms entirely, I’m a homegrown Mainer and I don’t think you could pinpoint any school, Maine or otherwise, where every single person would burst out laughing at you in the midst of the most unfortunate moment of your life. Surely, they’re the next level of “tough crowd”. I’m fully aware that this is a work of fiction and as such everything is amped up a notch for effect but this “everyone is the worst” reality really stood out to me in this version as disingenuous and irritating. 

As Hollywood’s go-to girl for teenage risqué, Chloë Grace Moretz works well as Carrie and is far easier to empathize with than the otherworldly pale Sissy Spacek from Brian De Palma‘s version. She’s more of an ordinary girl under extraordinary circumstances than a full-blown weirdo –  someone who could have been perfectly normal if she wasn’t subject to the manipulation of her Looney-Toon mama.

It’s clear to me that the main issue with this film and with the story, is that it only works if everyone, save for Carrie, is the worst. Otherwise, we’re rooting for a serial killer. Dexter may have proved that that formula can work, but only if it’s done right. I understand that we’re supposed to sympathize with poor Carrie and the ghastly deeds brought down on her but the world in her reality is just so plastic, so invented, and so aggravating. Couple that with the fact that you’re probably going into Carrie already knowing the conclusion and it’s hard to imagine that what Peirce has cooked up will satisfy those who are looking for more than mere updated special effects.

C-

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Out in Theaters: KILL YOUR DARLINGS

by Posted in Out in Theaters

“Kill Your Darlings”
Directed by John Krokidas
Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Dane DeHaan, Michael C. Hall, Elizabeth Olsen, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jack Huston, Ben Foster, David Cross
Biography, Drama, Romance
104 Mins
R

Kill Your Darlings provides an origin story for some of the most prolific authors writing this side of the American Renaissance with a bit of a hot-blooded, cold-fingered approach. A burning sense of urgency ignites the passion of the characters onscreen – coiled up and bouncing off the walls, lunatics as they are – but that same urgency is largely absent from the film itself.

Like a budding author who hasn’t quite found his style, John Krokidas‘ film gets too caught up with being a part of the excitement to really invite others to join the fun. There’s palpable joy bubbling from the screenwriters’ research and the performer’s larger-than-life embodiments, but like newcomers to a party in full swing, we’re observers, hopelessly trapped outside the true jubilance and forced to watch through a pane of glass.

Best known for his beatnik masterpiece “Howl,” Allen Ginsberg was once a college freshman just like you, Kill Your Darlings supposes. Friendless, desperate to separate from his parents, and pining for his knack, his niche, his next big role, Ginsberg is in many ways the wide-eyed youth of our generation – filled with hope and promise, propped by all-angles encouragement, and saddled with lofty expectations. Horn-rimmed glasses and a head of greasy, wavy hair may not be a far cry from his garb of Potterdom but Daniel Radcliffe certainly experiments with a new breed of performer’s personality as Ginsberg, a refreshing break from the tired cliché of the white-bread young hero.

As a man struggling with his creative genius as well as his wavering sexuality, Ginsberg is a kettle boiling over with deep-seated self-frustration. He knows there is something worthy buried within him but struggles to access it. When he meets fellow student Lucien Carr, his world is opened to an intellectual renaissance, sexual reinvention, and, naturally, drug experimentation. After all, isn’t that what college is all about?

The Ginsberg that meets Carr is dressed in a secondhand suit literally sagging off his shoulders (a visual clue representing the idea that Ginsberg has yet to grow into himself) and is immediately transfixed by Carr, just as we are transfixed by Dane DeHaan. DeHaan as Carr is simply on fire. A conflagration of ideas breaching societal norms, Carr is a student of drunken revolution, lighting up the lives of those around him and activating something buried inside them. As it goes, Carr and Ginsberg are a match made in heaven. Manic reveler, DeHaan brings a magic quality to Carr like he brought brokenness to Jason in The Place Beyond the Pines and emptiness to Andrew in Chronicle. DeHaan is quickly becoming the most talented young actor in Hollywood and his fiery performance here just helps to solidify that fact.   

But for all the excitement born of Radcliffe and DeHaan’s circling one another intellectually, sexually, emotionally, and otherwise, the beats surrounding these beatniks are often in a downward spiral. We see the invisible magnetism of Carr but the many relationships he involves himself in are shallow and unearned. Save for a recurring relationship with kind of sketch-ball David Karramer (Michael C. Hall), the foundations upon which his web of friendships stands are shaky, if not totally crumbling. The balance between telling a succinct story and anthologizing the true characters within it have gotten the better of screenwriters Austin Bunn and Krokidas, as they carve too many side paths that fail to pay off down the line.

Beginning with a murder, of all things, sets our expectations up for a different kind of story, a more suspenseful piece than the period drama which unfolds, and for all accounts, this conceptual slight of hand is symbolic of the film’s casual failure. Like Ginsberg’s fluttering sexuality, Kill Your Darlings just doesn’t quite know what it is. Surely, the murder involved in the narrative is a critical piece towards understanding the ebb and flow of this character’s relationships, but it is more of a caveat than a central focus. Considering that the murder at the film’s introduction is more a postscript to the tale about the Beatnik generation’s roots, this tactic of putting it front and center seems like a diversion aimed to capture an audience that will clearly feel deceived by curtain time.

Better thought of as a mildly failed experiment than an abject defeat or a soaring victory, Kill Your Darlings scores big with great performances from its leads but directionless oversight from first-time filmmaker John Krokidas. Ambitious to a fault, he needs to narrow the focus and give more weight to a strong-footed narrative rather than ambling up each and every the peripheral sub-story that may present itself. With more confidence and tighter vision, Kill Your Darlings may have been excellent. As it is, it’s still pretty good.

C+

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Out in Theaters: MACHETE KILLS

by Posted in Out in Theaters
“Machete Kills”
Directed by Robert Rodrgiuez
Starring Danny Trejo, Mel Gibson, Demian Bichir, Amber Heard, Mechelle Rodriguez, Sofia Vergara, Charlie Sheen, Lady Gaga, Antonio Banderas, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Alexa Vega
Action, Crime, Thriller
107 Mins
R


Machete Kills is not a work of autership. The latest in a series of grindhouse-revival films kicked off by director Robert Rodriguez’s collaboration with Quentin Tarantino, Machete Kills diverges as a sequel from the original Machete in McGuffin more than form or content. Then plotline is as raggedy and half-baked as the first and the character development and motifs are of the same post-modern cloth: entirely over-the-top, in reminiscence of actual grindhouse films while simultaneously mocking all movie premises that bear any likeness to the farces contained within. Although as one-note and as hackneyed as the original, Machete aspires to bev, and boy does it deliver.

 

Danny Trejo reprises his role as the eponymous Machete, archetypical silent action hero cum serial killer with a Mexican twist, as he continues his work of tracking down the bad guys and slaughtering them in gory fashion. More so then the original, Machete Kills’ cast is studded with stars both falling and rising, including Charlie Sheen as Carlos Estevez (as the president of the United States), and Demian Bichir as Mendez – a rouge freedom fighter and cartel hitman who’s got a nuke pointed at Washington. The rest of the cast, including Michelle Rodriguez, Sofía Vergara, Lady Gaga (in her first film role), Amber Heard, and Mel Gibson have equally topic roles that are heavy on style without too much introspection or substance, each one a vicious killer (naturally) and saddled with so many stereotypical character descriptors that it would get repetitive to enumerate them all.

Machete Kills
Much like with the characters, the movie’s plot is also a big middle finger to gradual and realistic movie arcs, going for broke from the minute the opening preview for the next Machete sequel (Machete in Space) ends, a tactic that pays off over and over again as the movie progresses. Much as the film is saturated with the camp sleaze and mindless violence, it also abounds with plotlines, starting at first with a sting gone bad – Machete’s love interest from the first movie Sartana (Jessica Alba) gets killed after a confrontation with the military, a cartel, and a gang of thugs in wrestling masks – and then crescendoing endlessly into a hit on dangerous Mexican vigilante Mendez, a race back across the border with him, and enough twists and turns to confuse even the most obsessive viewer. No plot line is too flimsy and no action is the final action as the body count grows and the sleazy action gets ever more creative. Attempting to seriously follow this windy road will leave you disappointed and, in any case, distracts from the movies true gifts: it’s sex and violence.

Like any good grindhouse movie, Machete Kills is stuffed with sleaze, radiating from every skimpy, barely more than a bikini outfit and from it’s numerous contrived excuses for grindhouse aesthetic choices, sexual innuendos, and 80’s mood music. So frequent and unexplained are these homages to blatant sexuality, which are impossible to take as serious plot developments due to their frequency, that the scenes end up being laughable sight gags and wonderful opportunities for pulp, drenched in bad taste and 70s nostalgia. Notable moments include Vergara’s multiple weaponized bras and “sex” scenes so schlocky as to make you laugh in remembrance of all the other awfully arranged trysts that movies have used over the years.

Machete Kills
This constant, humorous barrage of outdated sexuality is buffeted by nearly non-stop violence, reminding the audience that, yes, they are watching Machete Kills and thus will be treated to instance after instance of Machete killing hundreds of nameless goons with machetes, guns, and other weapons both modern and futuristic. Assassins of all stripes attempt to take Machete down, with El Chameleon’s many actors holding center stage as the tertiary antagonist du jour in this splatter fest.  At once heavy-handed comments on America’s long running obsession with firepower and Mexico’s cripplingly violent drug culture, these scenes alternate between absurd and downright creative, Machete in turns kills dozens of attackers without breaking a sweat, then pulls off truly devious fatalities, death by helicopter blade and death by speedboat propeller being some of the more obtuse but fun scenes.

There are a couple things missing from Machete Kills that were present in the original: violent, noir-gone monologues that made the original such a pleasure are missing here. The conceit of Machete trying to live an average life instead of the murderous action hero he is has disappeared completely, and some of the more tender, believable, and slower paced beats that allowed audience time to breath when watching Machete have been removed. Although a noticeable loss for the film, Machete Kills overcompensates the original film’s core competencies, and comparing fight scene to fight scene, gore to gore, and sleaze to sleaze leaves Machete Kills a more resounding, if not more enjoyable, movie experience. It has left the artistic clutching at the grindhouse aesthetic behind in favor of actually being a grindhouse movie, which when all is said and done is really refreshing.

machete3
That eros and pathos in their grimiest, campiest, and most Americanized forms dominate this film is in line with the original grindhouses of the 70s and 80s and highlights the reason their resurgence in the current era was so popular: they were honest and up front about not being junk and were not to be taken seriously. Pure food for the id, Machete Kills doesn’t pretend to have a moral or some high-minded plot that’ll challenge your views or bring you to a deeper understanding of anything. Unlike so many movies released these days that purport to be meaningful works of art while just giving their audiences more of the same, Machete Kills doesn’t masquerade for a minute. It is an indiscriminate banquet of sex, death, sleaze, and cheapness and doesn’t apologize for it, a gluttonous feast of bad acting and cheesy effects in the vein of Plan 9 and other pinnacles of trash film.

Machete Kills is not for everyone. There are plenty of things about this film that, if taken in anything less than a humorous and accommodating mood will offend many outright, offensiveness being part of the currency of grindhouse films and the reason so many of them were considered “exploitation” films. It is an easily forgotten film that doesn’t stretch it’s concept to compete with the likes of 2011’s Hobo With a Shotgun and lacks the snappy, 70’s-cool dialogue of Reservoir Dogs or Death Proof, but as far as splatter fests goes, Machete Kills stands up there with best.  The writing isn’t as terse and memorable as Machete, but Machete Kills makes up for it with sheer spectacle and grindhouse pageantry, and if that’s why you came – most people did at my screening – then you’ll go away happy.

B

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Out in Theaters: ROMEO AND JULIET

by Posted in Out in Theaters

“Romeo and Juliet”
Directed by Carlo Carlei
Starring Hailee Steinfeld, Douglas Booth, Damian Lewis, Kodi Smi-McPhee, Ed Westwick, Paul Giamatti, Stellan Skarsgård
Drama, Romance
118 Mins
PG-13

Traditionally there have been two ways to tackle a Shakespeare production. The first is a straight adaptation of the film language, with a time-period that may vary, often abridged to cut running time (take Baz Luhrmaan and Franco Zefferelli’s versions of Romeo and Juliet). The second substitutes traditional, or shall we shall colloquial, speech patterns for Shakespeare’s lofty language but follows the basic plot (think Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood). In his version of Romeo and Juliet, Carlo Carlei kind of does both. Famous lines such as “A rose by any other name…” make it into the film, but they are surrounded by mang riffs on his language that are only similar to the source material. It’s written to sound like Shakespeare, but it is not Shakespeare. The end result can only be described as Shakespeare-ish. Seen as a tactic to distinguish this version from older productions, it only draws more attention to the fact that we probably have enough Romeo and Juliet films already.

Someone who hasn’t read the play in a while or watched any of the other film adaptations may be deceived by the trailers, but the glaring changes made by Carlei are apparent immediately, when the film opens on a Capulet/Montague tournament, overlaid with an updated introduction from the chorus. There’s no thumb biting here. Instead the opening conflict begins by high tensions following the tournament. In this opening, the action scenes are quite well done. Close camera angles and fast cuts don’t quite capture the nifty chaos of the battles from older adaptations. But Carlei’s fight scenes, aided by choreography from Paolo Antonini are visceral and competently arranged to suit modern tastes.

Unlike the trend that many modern Shakespeare adaptations follow, such as Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing, Carlei’s Romeo and Juliet is set in traditional renaissance style, with gorgeous costumes and set design (the only exception is a truly awful CG wedding chapel that looks like something out of a Star Wars prequel). The aesthetic will undoubtedly draw comparison to Franco Zefferelli’s version of the star-cross lovers, as some of the set designs look pulled directly from the 1968 film.

Aesthetics aside, the frantic pacing of the film, which seems to be there as to not bore young audiences, ends up skipping over many of the plays great comedic moments, exposing the intentions of a film more concerned with beating the audience over the head with the romantic elements  and entirely skipping the actual absurdity of its events.


Stellar performances by some of the older cast members, especially Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis, bring a lot of credibility to the film, but Hailee Steinfeld and Douglas Booth’s respective turns as the titular lovers  range from overdone to flat, demonstrating a fundamental lack of engagement with the text. “Wherefore art thou, Romeo?” should be spoken in anguish, to accentuate the central conflict of the play, not with a dreamy, glazed-over look. Too often, our protagonists feel like they are reading lines at each other, which is a common trap for actors with no Shakespearian training. This, combined with forced stage directions, make this production feel very “high-school play.”

With the central performances working mostly against it, Romeo and Juliet relies on a cheesy score to try and jerk some tears during pivotal scenes, combining unnecessarily fast-paced shots to create several moments straight out of an engagement ring commercial. These scenes were receiving giggles I don’t think the film was in on (a “so bad it’s good” production of this, played straight, could be interesting and hilarious, as long as the production is in on the joke).  Scenes where Romeo and Juliet are alone suffer the most compared to the rest of the film, as if the editor was pulling his hair out to save the uninspiring performances. 

It takes a special kind of hubris to take one of the most beloved plays of all time and say, “That needs another draft.” But that’s exactly what Downton Abbey writer Julian Fellowes did. Romeo is shown to be a much bolder young Montague, while Lord Capulet has some of his motivations  changed entirely by Fellowes’s new script. The goal was allegedly to simplify it enough to bring Shakespeare to a new audience. A good adaptation of the material would have done this, without the edits, through context clues.


Shakespeare’s words were not only chosen for the ideas they convey, but for the sounds they make. By altering that distinct cadence, Fellowes creates a slightly easier to understand, but far more shallow play. It may serve as an apt cheat sheet for high school students who have never heard of the internet, but it surely won’t help them delve further into the text. A shallow adaptation will beget a shallow audience. And it has. Sounds of sniffling from the women in the audience, confirm the success of Carlei’s ham-fisted approach.

Zefferelli’s 1968 version of the play remains the most competent, true to source, and enduring version of the traditional play (It’s also on Netflix). Luhrmaan’s controversial adaptation broke away from tradition and brought an exciting new angle to the play, fully embracing the sometimes-ridiculous concept, while making it culturally relevant and fresh. Carlei’s film, however, faces the struggle of justifying its own existence among the pantheon of great Shakespeare productions. It succeeds as a kind of “No Fear Shakespeare” on film, but will be quickly forgotten. Twilight fans and pubescent girls may give Carlei’s Romeo and Juliet two thumbs up, but anyone familiar with the play will inevitably bite their thumb at it.

D+

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Out in Theaters: CAPTAIN PHILLIPS

by Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged , , , , , , , ,

“Captain Phillips”
Directed by Paul Greengrass
Starring Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi, Barkhad Abdirahman, Faysal Ahmed, Michael Chernus, Catherine Keener, David Warshofsky, Corey Johnson, Chris Mulkey
Biography, Crime, Drama
134 Mins
PG-13

“There’s gotta be something more than fishing or kidnapping people,” Captain Phillips (Tom Hanks) pleads to his captors. “Maybe in America,” Somali pirate Muse (Barkhad Abdi) retorts musingly, “maybe in America.” Paul Greengrass‘s harrowing dramatization of Captain Phillip’s 2009 kidnapping is filled with cultural misunderstandings of this nature. Vermont native Phillips fails to understand the true scope of these 21st century Somali pirates’ desperation just as Muse and his ragtag gang of automatic weapon-clutching goons can’t grasp how ridiculous their uncompromising request for a ten million dollar bounty is. On the surface, Captain Phillips may be a nail-biting tension match on par with Greengrass’s Bourne films but these surging politic undercurrents nipping at the frayed seams of a lopsided global economy takes the film to the next level of austere greatness.

As Phillips departs home on a socked in Vermont morning, he and wife Andrea (Catherine Keener) make small talk. Opposite to expectations, their relationship has never quite acclimated to Phillip’s globetrotting work. His departure is a challenge each and every time. But besides the emotional stress that comes bundled with physical distance from his family that rolls around like clockwork, there looms a far greater threat to Phillips: pirates.

Not swashbuckling, rum-chugging, sword-swinging Captain Jack Sparrows that Hollywood has so successfully romaticized but rather pirates born and bred of desperation. There are no “pirate’s life for me” sing-a-longs, no colorful parrots, plank to walk, or skull-and-bones flags, just a ragged sense of urgent necessity fueled by a “do or die” philosophy. Greengrass scrubs any dated concepts of glamor with a lump-throated scene of “woe-is-them” exposure. Pirating is a business and like all businesses, it can only handle so many employees. In this third world enterprise, tattered Somalians are literally begging to join the bandit crew. As easy as it is to paint them as such, they are not the scum of the earth; they’re just the products of a living, breathing dumping ground, scrounging for their piece of the pie.

However you may despise the cold-eyed Muse and his radical tactics at times, there is never an instance where you don’t understand him. This finely tuned balance, achieved through tactful story telling and a deeply humanistic element, is the work of a master. Onward and upward from the utterly fantastic and heart-wrenching United 93, Greengrass has learned even more self-discipline in the past decade. With Captain Phillips, he’s managed to secure a better handle on blending tension, drama, and the cold hard facts. For the wealth of real-life drama originating from the Maersk Alabama kidnapping, Greengrass has harnessed the best elements, like a weathered jeweler cutting down a diamond, and crafted a truly moving story.

Front and center, Hanks puts in one of the finest performances of his career. For all of his great former roles, there has always been a pinch of something disingenuous. Here there’s no shoddy accent cluttering things, no slips into hammy flourishes, no reliance on melodrama to catalyze the impact of his delivery. This is 100 percent raw and real. As Phillips, Hanks delivers a master class in acting, easily revealing his most mature and finely adjusted performance, perhaps ever.

While Captain Phillips falls in a season exploring all brands of survival drama (Gravity, All is Lost), it carves its own niche and is able to get our blood boiling in its own kind of way. While Gravity explored our human fear of claustrophobia and solitude, Phillips overturns the darkest corner of human nature: the fight-or-flight survival instinct within us. Any creature with its back against the wall will battle tooth and nail for its own life, and this is the catch 22 of the Somali circumstance. They believe that they must put their lives in danger ransacking these cargo ships in order to survive, even if that means holding up vessels stocked with emergency aid for those living in Africa. They are literally Robin Hood-ing their own people under the thin veil of collective-interest while they are literally taking food from the mouths of their fellow emaciated comrade.

And while this crew may not be dying in the moment, they are literally rotting away as a result of abject poverty. Their only perceived solution is this kidnapping business – as fishing just won’t cut it in the days of cargo barges constantly scaring off schools of potential dollars. As our entrance to this “other side of the world” mindset, Muse is more than a caricature. He’s hardly more than a sack of bones but he’s downright terrifying at times, reminding us of a once-bullied school child, now clinging to notions of American grandeur that could only be the stuff of dreams. Even his nickname “Skinny” (a tag he despises) fingers poverty and false iconography as the true enemy.

The beating heart of Captain Phillips is the revolution of these two Captains around one another as they fight for their survival only as they best see fit. They both lie to each other, they both make tragic mistakes, they both underestimate each other’s ceaseless zeal but, in the end, they want the same thing and this is the true irony. Both Phillips and Muse covet the American dream. To Phillips, this means responsibility, family, and job security – basically, the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. He’s not asking for much, just what he’s been promised his whole life.

Muse essentially wants the same thing; he just doesn’t know how to go about it. Even more damning, he fails to understand that not every American is a millionaire nor can he really comprehend the value of the American dollar. Just as Phillips can’t quite grasp the grim lack of options presented to these sea-bound desperadoes, Muse can’t help but apply a paradise template to his Americano notions. Their inherent misinterpretation of what each other stands for creates a deliciously polarized character swirl that pulls the tension as taut as a guitar string.

Humanizing his villain is a bold step, especially since we’re rooting against him for so much of the picture, but it’s a skill that Greengrass and screenwriter Billy Ray boldly execute. It’s rare to see an antagonist so despicable and yet so secretly tender. Using the autobiography from the real Richard Phillips as a map, Ray has crafted a believable and yet supercharged hijacking film far and away better than the much celebrated but truly lacking Denmark film A Hijacking.

Greengrass has made a hero story that we don’t quite know how to feel about. Our alliances are set, our convictions are airtight, but there’s a sneaking feeling of something amiss in an American victory that we just can’t put our finger on. He’s not piling on the white guilt but maybe that’s the genesis of the moral frustration, the straw-on-camel tipping point of Western privilege. The one we didn’t see coming.

As a biopic, it’s uncompromising and doggedly raw. As a thriller, it defines “being on pins and needles”. As a showcase for Tom Hanks, it serves as a major highlight for his long and illustrious career. It is, without a doubt, a spectacular achievement.

A

 

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