Category: (by verdict)

Traitor

The story of Samir Horn (Don Cheadle), a man of Sudanese and American parentage, as he navigates the jihadi world. The audience is meant to be in suspense as to whether Samir is a traitor to the jihadis who befriend him, or the American handlers who believe he is inflitrating a terrorist cell.  And Cheadle tries, only somewhat successfully, to convey how conflicted he is. This movie does a lot of things right, the most important being to give a co-starring role Said Taghmaoui, who was so superb in a minor role in Three Kings, and is far and away the most intersting thing about this movie. It paints a fairly gritty picture of the environment that produces suicide bombers, and the underground networks that recruit and nurture them.  The movie also deserves some credit for trying to explain Samir’s motivation in terms of his commitment to, and interpretation of, the Koran. Thus it presents an alternative view of Islam, one that empahsizes non-violence. That said, the movie is dull and efforts to ramp up the tension are limited to making the soundtrack more instrusive. Cheadle is also diappointing, wearing a single dour expression the entire time. He can be so much fun when he flashes a smile and avoids the cockney accent he is weighted down with in the Ocean movies, but here he is largely a cipher, forced to utter a series of earnest but silly lines.

Burn After Reading

The Coen Brothers’ latest black, black comedy of errors follows a group of thick-sculled, mean-spirited, surface-obsessed, selfish, moronic imbeciles. It’s an extreme and unflatteringly hilarious portrait of America but a believable one nonetheless. In terms of plot, tone and craft, Burn After Reading‘s kissing cousin is most certainly Fargo. Critics, understandably, are frustrated that the film lacks Fargo‘s moral center, but that film takes place in a rural winterland where one can make a happy living birthing babies and illustrating postage stamps. Burn takes place in Washington DC. Therein lies the film’s vicious, misanthropic, cold hearted conceit–in Washington DC everybody is both larger than life and a douche bag (and as goes Washington, sadly, so goes the nation). Given all the political nastiness occuring 24 hours a day on LCD screens large and small, the Coen Brothers have appropriated Aaron Sorkin’s dark other, offering up a gleefully caustic evisceration of human folly (though I will admit that amid the blood, the goat cheese, the Mamba Juice and the dildo there are hints of humanity struggling to reach the surface). I loved it. Sure, Brad Pitt overacts, but he’s so much fun to watch. Clooney, Malkovich, Richard Jenkins, Francis McDormand: all are top notch. The film is tightly edited and never drags. And J.K. Simmons masterfully (and uncharacteristically) underplays three brief scenes and nearly steals the entire show. His line reading in one particular moment (“Russia?”) is worth fifty bridges to nowhere.

Following

Apologies if this has been discussed before, but I can’t find it using the search feature. Following is Christopher Nolan’s first film, two years before Memento, produced for only $60K and lasting 70 minutes. The initial conceit is that unemployed writer Jeremy Theobald (simply called “the young man”) likes to follow random people. He breaks his own rules and repeatedly follows a man named Cobb, who turns out to be a thief. The premise serves only to set up the rest of the movie, which is pure and enjoyable noir as Theobald gets sucked into a a series of underworld crimes and a relationship with a woman (Lucy Russell) who is credited only as “the blonde”. What makes this worth watching, beyond the simple craft, the gritty black and white photography, and the fine performance from Theobald (who seems to have never acted again except for a bit part in Batman Begins), is Nolan’s trademark shattering of time. Scenes are played out of order so that we see elements of the story in fragments; Theobald appears with a different haircut and suit, then returns to his goatee and leather jacket; we see bruises on his face, then they disappear. It is all tied together at the end in far too neat a package, but you admire it nonetheless.

region madness

perhaps some of you are more tech-oriented than I am.  I want to buy a portable DVD player that will play DVD’s from other countries. Now some of them are labelled “multi-region” and others are labelled “region free.” apparently there are 6 global regions, most of Europe and Britain being region 2, India being a region of its own, etc.  When a player says it’s “multi-region,” does that mean it plays all 6 regions or does it select from those (perhaps only playing region 1, north america and region 2, Europe…) so if you want to play all regions, must you buy a “region free” player? I asked one of those online consultants at Amazon/Overstock or some such site and got the answer “I like stuff.”

Bangkok Dangerous (2008)

First, the good news: according to the previews, Transporter 3 is coming soon.

The bad news is that this remake is not a very good movie. The Pang brothers have remade their 1999 story of lone assassin (is there any other type?), this time with Nicolas Cage in the lead role. In the original, the assassin was deaf-mute; in the remake the love interest is deaf-mute, and how the directors expect to make a love story between an American man and a Thai woman believable when they cannot communicate in any way, is anyone’s guess. In truth, the love story is irrelevant. We are meant to believe that Cage inexplicably grows a heart and a conscience on his final mission, setting aside every rule he has made for himself. In fairness, this is a theme we have seen many times before, but Nicolas Cage is no Chow Yun-Fat.

The action sequences are decent, there are a couple of momments of poetry (particularly a scene where two men try to mug Cage), and the movie even manages to summon up a Hong Kong sensibility at the very end as Cage sits in a car and contemplates his own death. But Cage is not given enough to do. He alternates between cold hitman and goofy tourist, with nothing in between. A waste.

Ensemble, C’est Tout

This is directed by Claude Berri who, at 74 years old, remains a powerful figure in French Cinema, having produced almost 60 films including a few Asterix et Obelix live action films, and more recently, Yvan Attal’s Happily Ever After. Berri has also directed some 20 odd films–although they’re not odd at all. They are bourgeois, domestic. But also somewhat satirical. He is known for what some call his “Bobo” style (bourgeois-bohemian). I don’t think Germinal (1993) or Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources (1986) qualify as Bobo. But Ensemble, C’est Tout certainly does. And it is, more or less, an enjoyable film. Continue reading Ensemble, C’est Tout

Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait

It is a very simple idea. Train 17 high def cameras on a single player, in real time, for the duration of a soccer game. The player is Zinedine Zidane, and the game was one he played for Real Madrid in 2004 as his career was coming to an end (but before the 2006 World Cup final that formally ended that career). What you get is the portrait of a single player, largely isolated from his team and the events around him. Even the crowd noise is turned way down and an ethereal Mogwai soundtrack plays over the murmur of the crowd. The cameras never leave Zidane. You don’t see a goal being scored, or a foul committed, unless Zidane is involved, just his face. Occasionally his teammate David Beckham wanders across the frame sporting his flock of seagulls haircut. Roberto Carlos exchanges a smile and a look of relief with Zidane. There are endless shots of his cleats and socks, of the sweat pouring off his face. Only occasionally is a piece of the TV footage of the game inserted to give some context. What you get is a portrait of a craftsman, of all the stuff you never see when you watch a soccer game on TV. It is far more mundane because you are not following the ball; you are watching Zidane following the ball. His economy of movement, at the end of his career, is remarkable. Never a wasted movement, but the ability to spring into action and return to a state of rest the instant the potential of a play is over. There is some pretentious and self-important nonsense (French soccer players seem to be regarded as philosophers, ever since the banalities of Eric Cantona — wonderfully skewered in the “Philosophy Football” t-shirts one can buy), and a strange sequence of world news events that were occurring the same day as the game. But the point is made when you see footage of a car bomb in Najaf, and as you watch a bloody stretcher in the distance, a boy passes the edge of the frame wearing a #5 Zidane jersey.

This is probably only for aficionados, but there is a quiet beauty to watching a craftsman at work. And perhaps fittingly, it ends with Zidane’s volcanic temper leading to a red card near the end of the game. He walks off the field, disbelief on his face, alone.

Really Enjoyable Crap

Death Race is a thoroughly satisfying little action movie, all the better for being entirely predictable: the good cons win and the bad cons and prison governors lose. There is a not a stray storyline, a hint of complexity, or an emotion that outlasts the time it takes to downshift a Mustang V8 Fastback. Even the wincingly bad dialogue is kept to a minimum. It is exactly what the previews and the title suggest. Good guy, ex-steelworker and one time race driver, Jason Statham, is framed for the murder of his adored wife in order to participate in a top-rated prison death race by evil prison governor, Joan Allen. Statham is befriended by cuddly, loveable cons like Ian McShane and a tough but cute navigator from the women’s prison, Natalie Martinez. Mayhem ensues.  Roger Corman is credited as a producer, but despite the claim in the credits, this remake is nothing like the original. It is hard to fault, unless, of course, you expect more from your movies than simple setup, fine driving, and explosions galore. And Joan Allen emerges with, if not her dignity intact, at least a couple of sly scenes.