7/5/15 (Part Two): A Jackrabbit in a Den of Wolves

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Andrew Robertt, Ben Mendelsohn, Best of 2015, betrayal, bounty hunters, Caren Pistorius, cinema, class systems, dark humor, directorial debut, father-daughter relationships, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, flashbacks, greenhorns, Jay Cavendish, Jed Kurzel, John Maclean, Kodi Smit-McPhee, love story, Michael Fassbender, Movies, optimism vs pessimism, outlaws, Robbie Ryan, Rory McCann, sardonic tone, set in 1860s, Silas Selleck, Slow West, the Beta Band, the myth of the Old West, the taming of the Wild West, the Wild West, UK-New Zealand films, upper vs lower class, voice-over narration, Westerns, writer-director

There’s a point in writer-director John Maclean’s instantly classic feature-debut, Slow West (2015), that just may be one of the subtlest, most cutting bits of insight into the human condition that I’ve seen in some time. As they recover from the aftermath of a particularly chaotic, violent robbery attempt at a general store, 16-year-old Scottish greenhorn Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-McPhee) looks past the stack of still-smoking corpses and right into the eyes of the dead robbers’ now-orphaned children. The children are impossibly young and innocent, their wide eyes seemingly unable to process the complete upending of their world, as they stand silently, gripping each others’ hands tight.

Feeling the instant onus of responsibility, Jay tells his travelling companion, hardened, sardonic gunfighter Silas Selleck (Michael Fassbender), that they’ll just need to take the kids with them. It’s the only thing that makes sense, after all: Jay and Silas weren’t responsible for the death of the urchins’ parents but they would be complete monsters if they just left them there, on their own, to die. The kids can just hitch a ride with them as they proceed on their mission across the frontier wasteland, in search of Jay’s beloved Rose (Caren Pistorius). Jay is eager to help, his eyes bright and determined, until Silas take all the wind out of his sails with one off-handed response: “And then what?” Silas, you see, is nothing if not a realist and knows one very important fact above all else: the desire to do good just isn’t enough…without the ability to follow through, it’s all just stuff and nonsense…smoke and bullshit. He accepts the fact that Jay won’t: taking the kids with them would be as sure a death-sentence as leaving them there to rot, good intentions be damned.

It’s precisely this level of insight and intelligence that makes Slow West not only the best Western to come down the pike in years but also one of the very best films of this still-in-progress year. A mature, darkly humorous and gorgeously shot character study that has little use for easy stereotypes or empty action, Maclean’s debut is the perfect antidote for overwrought, multiplex inanity, the very antithesis to the gazillion-dollar superhero films that currently clog cinematic arteries. Featuring a fantastic cast, a brilliant script and images lovely enough to frame, Slow West should be a poignant reminder of a time when cinema didn’t need to rely on shouting and CGI to slug audiences right in the solar plexus.

Plotwise, Slow West is the very definition of streamlined efficiency. The aforementioned Jay Cavendish, the son of a Scottish lord and lady, travels to the untamed chaos of 1860s frontier America in pursuit of his beloved Rose and her father, John (Rory McCann), after a terrible accident finds the father and daughter forced to leave their native land one step ahead of a lynch mob. With only the vaguest idea of where to look for his beloved, Jay sets off across the plains, so wet-behind-the-ears that he practically leaves a puddle wherever he goes.

In no time, Jay finds himself in the crosshairs of a group of miscreants hunting a fleeing Native American, one short step from getting his naive brains blown out all over his citified duds. At the last-minute, however, a mysterious gunman appears and blasts everyone but Jay straight to hell: this is the silent, contemplative Silas, a character who would’ve been played by none other than Clint Eastwood were this about four decades older. Silas knows that Jay is an accident waiting to happen, a plucky little chicken traipsing his way through an entire country full of hungry foxes, and he offers to be his bodyguard, in exchange for a little cold, hard cash. Jay heartily agrees, although he’s completely unaware of the other half of this particular coin: there’s a huge bounty out on Rose and her father (dead or alive) and Silas wants Jay to, unwittingly, lead him right to a much bigger payday.

As the two ride across the Old West, they encounter an almost endless variety of outlaws, wandering musicians, grizzled bounty hunters and foreign immigrants, each individual following their own particular path to salvation or destruction. Chief among these unique characters is Silas’ former gang leader, the extraordinarily lethal Payne (Ben Mendelsohn): Payne and his gang also have their sights set on Rose and her father and certainly won’t mind burying an old colleague, if they have to. As Jay and Silas continue to bond, they get ever closer to the beloved Rose, albeit with some suspiciously gunfighter-shaped shadows following behind. Will Silas be able to overcome his patently cynical nature in order to help his young charge? Will Jay ever reunite with Rose? Will true love really save the day or it just a myth as fanciful and false as Jay’s sunny view of this “brave new world”?

First off, let’s make one thing clear: Slow West is just about as perfect a film (certainly as perfect a full-length debut) as I can recall seeing, the kind of movie that hits you immediately and keeps you rapt right through the closing credits. From the genuinely stunning cinematography (if Robbie Ryan doesn’t get nominated for an Oscar, I’ll punch a hole in a wall) to the often whimsical score to the utterly thrilling action setpieces, Slow West is one exquisitely crafted piece of art. Add in a truly smart script, full of great dialogue and surprising doses of humor (the scene where Jay and Silas come upon the skeletal body of a logger crushed beneath a tree, ax still in hand, is one of the single greatest sight gags ever) and one of the best casts in some time and I’ll be honest: I can’t really find much fault here. At all.

Fassbender and Smit-McPhee are absolutely perfect as the unlikely partners, each playing off the other in ways both expected and truly surprising. The aforementioned Eastwood reference is not stated lightly: as someone who worships at the altar of everything Eastwood (at least through the ’90s), I found plenty of nice parallels between Fassbender’s performance, here, and my squint-eyed childhood hero. His is a low-key performance, as much about what’s not said as what is. While I’m usually not the biggest fan of cinematic voice-overs, Silas’ narration throughout is an integral part of the perfection, leading us to one of the most perfect endings I’ve seen in some time.

For his part, Smit-McPhee finds the perfect balance between Jay’s inherent helplessness and the steely determination that allowed him to make this dangerous trek in the first place. At any point, the character of Jay could have slipped into either obnoxious comic relief (look at the silly Scottish wimp!) or complete irrelevancy (why focus on this yahoo when you’ve got badass Silas over there?). It’s to both Smit-McPhee and Maclean’s tremendous credits, however, that Jay is always sympathetic: we want him to succeed because he seems like a genuinely good, hopeful and positive person. This pie-in-the-sky optimism is absolutely critical to the film’s underlying themes and Slow West wouldn’t be nearly the overwhelming success it is without his able participation. My advice? Get Fassbender and Smit-McPhee into another film, stat!

Like the best films of Jim Jarmusch, however, the supporting cast gives as good as the leads do. Pistorius is perfect in a relatively small role, imbuing her character with such a co-mingled sense of joy and unbearable sorrow that she makes every second of her screen time count. Mendelsohn, who might be the very definition of an actor who really needs no introduction, absolutely shines as the gang leader, turning in one of the coolest, most fun and vile villains to hit the big-screen since the glory days of Peckinpah films. In fact, much of Slow West recalls Peckinpah’s work in style and theme, if not necessarily unmitigated bloodshed. With his odd fur coat, droll manner and reptilian coldness, Payne is an instantly iconic creation: my only complaint, here, is that we don’t get nearly enough of him.

Production-wise, Slow West is at the absolute top of its game, no two ways about it. What really tips the film into classic territory, however, is how smart and insightful it is. This isn’t the stereotypical Western, full of flinty men blowing other flinty men to Kingdom Come. In many ways, Slow West is about the disparity between intent and action, between wanting a better world and actually doing something about it. Time and time again, Silas points out the difference between his and Jay’s personal philosophies: Jay sees the Wild West as a place of endless promise, full of hard-working people doing their best to overcome the elements (and themselves), carving out their own spot in an unforgiving landscape, while Silas sees the frontier as a no-man’s-land full of outlaws, dust, murder and drudgery. To accept Jay’s worldview is to invite absolute destruction, as far as Silas is concerned: let your guard down just once and you’re wormfood. To accept Silas’s worldview, however, is equally destructive: if no one is good, if no one can change and if the capacity for peaceful coexistence is a myth, what, exactly, do we have to live for?

As smart as it is beautiful, Slow West is an absolute treasure, the kind of film that the Coens thought they were making with their True Grit (2010) remake, only to fall short of the mark. As apt to make you chuckle as stare in awe, Maclean has established himself as one of the most exciting new filmmakers operating right now: the fact that the writer-director is only on his first film (after a pair of shorts) is even more extraordinary. The fact that Maclean comes to us not through the film world but the music world is that much more astounding: erstwhile music fans might recognize him as one of the driving forces behind Scottish indie heroes The Beta Band.

To restate the very obvious: I absolutely loved Slow West. From the craft to the message to the absolute perfect synthesis of form and meaning, Maclean’s debut is nothing short of a revelation. At 84 minutes, there isn’t one wasted scene, shot or motion, no sense of pandering, hand-holding or dumbing-down. This is cinema at its very best, the kind of movie that makes you feel glad to be alive. As a lifelong movie fan, I look for films like this all the time but it’s like finding a needle in a field of haystacks. Good thing, then, that Maclean is all needles and no hay: when I’m looking for a quality film in the future, I have a pretty good idea where to look.  If you enjoy quality movies, too, I suggest you do the same thing.

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4/2/15: Uncle Scam

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9/11/01, Alexis Rodney, Anna Paquin, anti-authority, army base, bad soldiers, based on a book, betrayal, Brian Delate, British films, Buffalo Soldiers, Catch-22, cinema, Cold War, conscription, dark comedies, David Holmes, Dean Stockwell, drug dealers, Ed Harris, Elizabeth McGovern, film reviews, films, Gabriel Mann, gallows' humor, Glenn Fitzgerald, Gregor Jordan, Idris Elba, Joaquin Phoenix, Leon Robinson, M.A.S.H., Michael Pena, Movies, multiple writers, Ned Kelly, Oliver Stapleton, rivalry, Robert O'Connor, Scott Glenn, September 11 2001, set in 1980s, set in West Germany, Sheik Mahmud-Bey, The Longest Yard, war profiteers, writer-director

Sometimes, movies (like people) can be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Take Australian writer-director Gregor Jordan’s Buffalo Soldiers (2001), for example. This smart, pointed and pitch-black comedy about U.S. soldiers behaving badly in Cold War-era West Germany opened at the Toronto Film Festival on September 9, 2001. Two days later, of course, the United States would be faced with September 11th, an event which would make anything even vaguely “anti-American” absolutely verboten for some time afterward. A film about greedy, avaricious, drug-dealing GIs running rough-shod (literally) over a foreign country? Buffalo Soldiers had about as much chance of receiving U.S. distribution as it did sprouting wings and flying to Saturn.

Which, as it turns out, is a real shame: not only is Buffalo Soldiers the furthest thing from an anti-American screed but it’s also one of the funniest, most cutting war satires since the glory days of M.A.S.H. (1970) and Catch-22 (1970). The soldiers depicted here might be reprehensible, violent and debauched con-men but they’re also fascinating characters, brought to vivid life by an outstanding cast. The script is smart, the film is full of surprising left twists and there’s a gleeful sense of abandon to the proceedings that make it easy to get lost in the bad behavior. Had the film come out a month (or even a few weeks) earlier, it would probably be heralded as a minor classic, along the lines of Barry Levinson’s Wag the Dog (1997). As it stands, however, Buffalo Soldiers is a largely unknown gem, waiting for modern audiences to give it the fair shot it never got the first time around.

The film takes place in the waning hours of the Cold War, in 1989, at Theodore Roosevelt Army Base in Stuttgart, West Germany. Our “hero” (such as he is), Ray Elwood (Joaquin Phoenix), is a conscripted ne’er-do-well who chose a stint in the armed forces over a stiff prison sentence and has regretted it ever since. Ray may be many things (a black marketeer, a philanderer, a hopeless screw-up and a perpetual con-man) but he’s definitely not a soldier, regardless of what his uniform, rifle and salute might indicate. Lucky for him, Teddy R Army Base is a veritable Garden of Eden for screw-ups and wasteoids, with a cast of quirky characters who would all fit right in with the idiots of Police Academy (1984): Ray may not be “the best that he can be” but at least he’s got plenty of good (bad?) company.

Commanding officer Colonel Berman (Ed Harris) is a soft-headed simpleton who’s as clueless about Elwood’s criminal activities as he is about his wife, Liz’s ( Elizabeth McGovern), on-going affair with the procurement specialist. Sergeant Saad (Sheik Mahmud-Bey), the brutal leader of the base’s MPs, deals heroin on the side and eagerly patrols the grounds with his men, enthusiastically beating any white soldiers who are unlucky enough to cross the base’s invisible color-line. Meanwhile, Ellwood’s fellow soldiers, Hicks (Glenn Fitzgerald), Garcia (Michael Pena) and Stoney (Leon Robinson), are all permafried and given to reprehensible behavior like getting completely fucked up and driving their tank through the middle of a quaint German town: it’s all fun and games until they accidentally barbecue two of their own, bringing a terrible sense of literalness to the term “friendly fire.”

As with all good criminals, Elwood is really just looking for that one, big haul that will let him retire into the lap of luxury and ease. Thanks to Hicks, Garcia and Stoney’s misadventures in the tank, opportunity drops into Elwood’s greedy hands when he steals the dead soldiers’ supply trucks, which just happen to be laden with millions of dollars worth of weaponry. Elwood turns around and sells the weapons to a dubious outside source and receives a king’s ransom in uncut smack for his troubles. Working around the clock, Elwood and his crew need to turn the pure heroin into pure profit, engaging in the kind of massive drug cook that would make Walt and Jesse misty.

Things get complicated, however, when the base receives its new “top,” Sergeant Robert E. Lee (Scott Glenn). Lee is a complete hard-ass who has no time for foolishness and instantly marks Elwood as a problem to be eradicated, similar to a roach infestation. As the two men feint around each other, probing for weakness, each thinks he’s found the other’s Achilles heel: Elwood is determined to “stick it” to Sergeant Lee by (literally) sticking it to his rebellious daughter, Robyn (Anna Paquin), while Lee is determined to make Elwood’s life a living hell via a million tiny indignities, along with the occasional ass-whipping. As the mortal enemies gradually ramp up their campaigns, Lee becomes increasingly violent while Elwood, ironically, finds himself falling for Robyn, despite his most cavalier intentions.

As the conflict gets more intense, everything is brought to a head when Colonel Berman challenges a rival colonel to an exceedingly unfriendly round of “friendly” war games. With Saad, Lee and his various illicit contacts bearing down, Elwood must figure out how to keep his ill-gotten gains, his girl and his head, all while running the scam of his life. Welcome to Theodore Roosevelt Army Base, where the Commies are the least of your worries.

Based on Robert O’Connor’s well-received 1993 debut novel of the same name, Buffalo Soldiers is a quality production from top to bottom. Almost ridiculously stylish and vibrant (the early shot of the soldiers marching across the flag-painted asphalt is a real eye-popper), there’s more than a hint of magical-realism to the proceedings, which helps to play up the many inherently fantastic elements, such as the riotous tank scene. Although the screenplay is credited to three writers (director Jordan, along with Eric Weiss and Nora Maccoby), the film never feels overly cluttered or disjointed: there’s a remarkable sense of cohesion, here, that belies Buffalo Soldiers’ split-authorship and speaks volumes towards the production’s structural integrity.

When you have a cast this good, there’s always a danger of “unnecessary cameo disorder (patent pending)” but this has more the feel of a gifted ensemble than anything more calculating. Phoenix is dependably good as the roguish Ellwood, although it’s nothing we haven’t seen from him in the past. Much better (and more surprising) are Harris and Glenn as, respectively, the Colonel and the Sergeant. Usually known as the craggiest thing in whatever production he happens to be in, Harris does a complete 360, here, and gives us the closest thing to a complete bumpkin that I think he’s ever done. Berman is a complete idiot, no two ways about it, but Harris brings just enough low-level cunning and pathos to the character to prevent him from being a completely silly, stock stereotype.

Glenn, for his part, is a complete force of nature as the cheerfully dastardly Sergeant Lee: one minute, he’s all stiff, starched and by-the-book. The next, he’s gleefully extolling the bad behavior that he, himself, got up to in Vietnam, insinuating that it would make Ellwood’s “adventures” seem like schoolboy pranks. It’s a great role and a great performance: there’s never a point where Glenn ever feels any less than 1000% invested in the role and his enthusiasm is absolutely infectious.

The supporting cast aren’t slouches, either: Mahmud-Bey is convincingly terrifying as the casually sadistic MP, while Pena, Robinson and Fitzgerald get great mileage out of their bumbling soldiers. While the female characters don’t get quite as much to do, they’re never just background detail, either. McGovern makes the most of her screen-time by positing Liz as an avaricious, status-climber who possesses the brains (and balls) that her simpering husband doesn’t, while Paquin serves as a good foil for Phoenix: no one will mistake their courtship as “star-crossed love” but it works within the context of the story and continually pushes the plot into thorny new territories. Throw in some smaller (but no less impressive) appearances by Dean Stockwell, Idris Elba and Gabriel Mann and you’ve got a film with more than ample star-power in the tank.

Despite being unaware of the film on its first go-around, I was completely taken with it on this viewing: there’s enough energy and invention here for five films, to be honest. When Buffalo Soldiers is locked-in and firing on all cylinders, it’s practically unbeatable: the combination of coal-black humor, social commentary and detailed characterization make the film the furthest thing from “disposable” that you can get. As funny as it is, however (and it’s often incredibly funny), Buffalo Soldiers also never shies away from violence, death and grit, which really puts it into the same vaunted company as Altman’s M.A.S.H: they’re both films about the immense absurdity of the human condition and violent death is as much a part of that as breathing is.

When the film is at its horrifying best (the uproarious tank rampage that gets ugly quick…the bracing scene where a pair of higher-than-kite soldiers repeatedly stab each other, while grinning from ear to ear), it’s impossible to look away. While Jordan would go on to more successful projects like the Heath Ledger-starring Ned Kelly (2003) and Unthinkable (2010), I don’t think he’s ever quite scaled the same heights that he does here. Nearly 15 years after its initial (limited) release, I think it’s way past time for Buffalo Soldiers to get some of the attention it so richly deserves.

11/30/14: The Last Train Out of Town

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12 Monkeys, action films, Alison Pill, auteur theory, betrayal, Blade Runner, Bong Joon-Ho, Chris Evans, cinema, class systems, class warfare, climate change, dystopian future, Ed Harris, end of the world, English-language debut, Ewen Bremner, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Hunger Games, Jamie Bell, John Hurt, Ko Ah-sung, Luke Pasqualino, Movies, near future, Octavia Spencer, rich vs poor, sci-fi, Snowpiercer, Song Kang-ho, Steve Park, The Host, Tilda Swinton, trains

Nowadays, with the space between the haves and have-nots not so much a gap as a massive, bottomless chasm filled with baying hellhounds, the notion of class warfare has never been more prescient. Increasingly, it seems that the world can be neatly divided into two groups: those who can afford the basic necessities of life (food, clean water, housing, security, justice) and those who must struggle to divide up whatever dregs remain. We can argue notions of economics, supply-and-demand, consumerism, et al until the cows come home but it does nothing to change the basic facts: as it stands, our modern world is but several very slippery steps away from the feudal system that proved so “effective” during the Middle Ages. While issues of race, gender, religion and nationality will always plague humanity, anyone who doesn’t see the underlying class issues behind them is either willfully ignorant…or a part of the problem.

For his English-language debut, Snowpiercer (2014) Korean auteur Bong Joon-ho takes a good, long look at this underlying class warfare, wrapping it tight within the guise of an environmental message film before bundling everything up within a stream-lined sci-fi/action outer-shell: if you will, Joon-ho’s film is the turducken of big-budget multiplex fare, a multi-layered feast that reveals new flavors and wrinkles with each turn of the script. If the ultimate result ends up feeling somehow less revelatory than expected, it does nothing to detract from the overall quality of the film: anyone worried that making the transition to English-language films would blunt Joon-ho’s edge should check their fears at the door, since Snowpiercer is nothing if not a highly accomplished spectacle, relentlessly paced and endlessly thrilling.

From the outset, we learn that efforts to reverse global warming, involving a material known as “CW-7” have proven a little too successful: the Earth has now frozen and the vast majority of life has been wiped out. The only survivors now live on a massive “super-train” that zooms in a perpetual, never-ending loop around the frozen desolation, unable to ever step foot outside lest they instantly freeze. Aboard the train, similar to the breakdown on the Titanic, the survivors have been separated into two groups: the wealthy, powerful members of society get the front of the train and all of the perks (real food, drink, tanning beds, raves, shopping, sushi), while the poor, downtrodden masses get the tail section and live in complete squalor, subsisting on some sort of strange, black “food” substance and whatever scraps the upper berths don’t want. To make matters worse, the poor are constantly beaten and abused by the thuggish security detail and have their children constantly taken from them, spirited away to the front of the train, never to be seen again. The system is stretched to breaking and something must change…and change, it does.

Revolution enters the picture in the form of Curtis (Chris Evans), the charismatic “folk leader” of the lower classes who, along with their de facto leader, Gilliam (John Hurt), has devised a plan to wrest control of the train from the haves and return it to the have-nots. Quite simply, “whoever controls the engine, controls the world,” and Curtis knows that their only hope for change is to fight their way all the way to the front of the train. At first, the task seems all but impossible: the security detail is huge, well-armed and cold-blooded; the ruling regime, represented by the bizarrely presentational Mason (Tilda Swinton), don’t see the lower classes as anything other than fodder and free labor, so have absolutely no problem with dispatching as many of them as necessary to make their point. During the moment of truth, however, as Curtis’ rebels square off against the security team, something miraculous happens: the guards are revealed to be out of ammo, after all. Fortune, it appears, has just smiled on the brave.

Seizing the moment, Curtis and his fighters gain the upper-hand and begin their perilous trek to the front of the train, working their way towards a climatic meeting with Wilford (Ed Harris), the mysterious industrialist and engineer who not only foresaw the current environmental crisis but created the Ark as humanity’s last recourse. Along the way, the group picks up Nam (Song Kang-ho) and his daughter, Yona (Ko Ah-sung), a pair of drug addicts who may just know how to get Curtis into the engine room. As the group will find out, however, nothing on the train is quite as it seems and Curtis will soon be neck-deep in betrayal, shocking revelations and life-changing decisions. At stake? Nothing less than the fate of all humanity.

For the most part, Snowpiercer works spectacularly well on several different levels. For one thing, the film is a superb action film, showcasing several impressive set-pieces (the tunnel massacre is pretty unforgettable) and throttling forward at a breakneck pace. We’re jumped into the action from the get-go and the film never really lets up: in some ways, it almost feels as if we’re dumped into Snowpiercer in media res, although the film is streamlined enough that abject flailing about is fairly minimal. Everything is filmed in a highly stylized, kinetic fashion that will be immediately familiar to fans of Joon-ho’s back catalog (especially his iconic monster flick, The Host (2006) and the various fight scenes, full of highly evocative slo-mo and balletic movements, are consistently impressive.

Snowpiercer also succeeds as a dystopic future flick, albeit one that doesn’t add much to the lexicon: even the revelation of the icky looking protein bars (Spoiler: it’s not people) feels like part of a fairly well-established formula. That being said, the film’s look and world-building is fully immersive: this is recognizably our world but it’s tweaked enough to give a proper sense of disorientation. It reminded me of Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys (1995), although Joon-ho’s particular vision isn’t quite as singular or unique. There are moments when the film approaches the iconic city scenes of Blade Runner (1982), especially during our introduction to the tail section of the train and the moment where our heroes first pass into the posh upper class section.

The third area where Snowpiercer excels is as a message film: while the script can, occasionally, be a little too on the nose, there are plenty of layers here and some truly interesting discussions of responsibility, personal sacrifice and the value of the individual against the many. Wilford may be the film’s de facto villain (although Swinton’s ludicrously over-the-top Mason fits that bill in a more classic manner) but his climatic meeting with Curtis raises more questions than it answers: a latter-half revelation puts his actions into a new light, making easy condemnations just a little bit harder. Wilford may be a real son of a bitch but he’s anything but arbitrary: the fact that he, technically, has a point doesn’t absolve him or his peers of responsibility for their terrible actions but it should definitely lead to some interesting post-film conversations/arguments. In many ways, Wilford represents the unwavering, coldly clinical eye of government: decisions and actions that seem unconscionable on the ground sometimes take on a different meaning from the war room.

Despite all of the pluses, however, I must freely admit that I didn’t find Snowpiercer to be the complete revelation that others have: if anything, the film is an exceptionally well-made, tightly plotted action with lots of themes and meaning but, ultimately, not much different from similarly intelligent multiplex fare. Often, I was reminded of the Hunger Games series: while Snowpiercer is a much more mature, artistic film, craft-wise, it’s really not that far removed, thematically. Unlike the uncomfortable class discussions of something like Society (1989), nothing in Snowpiercer really feels “game-changing,” as it were: we’ve seen this particular conflict many, many times over the years and, while it may be timely, it’s certainly not shocking. This is not to knock the film’s themes in any way, however: I would rather see an overly familiar discussion of class and environmentalism on the big screen than no discussion at all, thank you very much. That being said, I frequently found myself wishing that the film took a few more risks: even the double-crosses felt a bit familiar and the ending, while beautifully executed, didn’t seem to pack the punch that it could have.

Ultimately, however, my quibbles about Snowpiercer feel fairly petty: above and beyond all else, this is the kind of intelligent popcorn film that we definitely need more of in this era of the “turn your brain off and react” action film. The acting is excellent, with Captain America’s (2011) Chris Evans almost unrecognizable as the grizzled hero and Song Kang-ho serving as a more than suitable foil. If Hurt and Swinton end up turning in yet more variations on their past work (“gruff mentor” and “quirky oddball” could very well be chiseled on their gravestones, at some point in the far future), it doesn’t take away from the basic pleasure of watching either one work. Ditto for Ed Harris who’s managed to avoid disappointing me for at least a couple decades now: a film could do a lot worse than have him play a megalomanical leader with a God-complex and distinct ideas on the social contract.

Is Snowpiercer one of the best films of the year, however? To be honest, it’s kind of a difficult question to answer. The film is certainly one of the best action films of the last several years, hands down, but I just can’t help shake the feeling that it’s still slightly less than what it could have been. Despite it’s epic scope and feel, Snowpiercer, somehow, feels like a slightly lesser film than The Host. Chalk this up to to the transition from more personalized family struggles in one to more “universal” issues in the other and we begin to see where the issue may lie. While watching Snowpiercer, I kept waiting to feel the intense connection to the characters that I did with the family in The Host but it really only happened with Nam and his daughter: whenever the two of them share the screen, Snowpiercer is able to transcend its sci-fi/action trappings and become something simultaneously more intimate and more far-reaching. In a film that purports to be about the very essence of humanity, it’s only when we spend time with this disenfranchised father and daughter, so wrecked by life yet still so inherently hopeful, that the film truly seems to come alive. I’d like to say it’s enough to melt the most frozen heart but that would be kind of precious, wouldn’t it?

10/22/14 (Part Two): The Second Time’s Not the Charm

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31 Days of Halloween, abandoned bunkers, betrayal, Black Sun, Catherine Steadman, cinema, Clive Russell, co-writers, Daniel Caltagirone, David Gant, Dog Soldiers, film reviews, films, horror, horror films, horror franchises, Julian Wadham, Michael Byrne, Movies, Nazi hunters, Nazi zombies, Nazis, Nick Nevern, Outpost, Outpost: Black Sun, Philip Rosch, Rae Brunton, Richard Coyle, sequel, set in Eastern Europe, Steve Barker, writer-director, zombies

Despite really enjoying Steve Barker’s “Nazi zombies vs mercenaries” chiller, Outpost (2007), I was more than a little wary when I heard that he would be releasing a sequel some five years later (late?). While the original Outpost featured an open ending, I assumed this was just a de rigueur “downer” finale and wouldn’t necessarily translate to an actual sequel: silly me. As it turns out, Black Sun (2012) would be but the first sequel released: shortly afterword, a third film, Rise of the Spetsnaz (2013) would be announced. Suddenly, Barker’s modest little zombie/war hybrid went from a stand-alone film to a veritable franchise. Too much of a good thing? Alas, as far as Black Sun is concerned, the answer seems to be a resounding “yes”: what seemed fresh and genuinely spooky the first time around has been beaten into a pulpy mess that vaguely resembles a Syfy-channel take on Outpost. In other words, pretty much the last thing anyone was hoping to find.

Beginning pretty much right after the proceedings from the first film, Black Sun wastes no time in tossing us headfirst into the increasingly complex storyline. We learn that Hunt (Julian Wadham), the unfortunate bureaucrat from the first film, was actually working for a group of modern-day Nazis who seek to use the mysterious machine to raise an army of the living dead in order to take over the world: the 4th Reich, if you will. Chief among the Nazis is the elderly Klausener (David Gant), one of the engineers who originally built the machine and a close confident of the undead commandant from the original film.

Our protagonist this time around is Lena (Catherine Steadman), a Nazi hunter who has taken up the mantle from her father and has been tracking Klausener and his supporters for years. Tracking them to the same part of Eastern Europe where the original Outpost took place, Lena runs into an ex-boyfriend, Wallace (Richard Coyle), who appears to be some sort of shadowy mercenary-type. The pair quickly falls in with another paramilitary group, this time led by Macavoy (Daniel Caltagirone), and soon find themselves back at that old familiar bunker. After spending the first 50 minutes of the film running around the countryside, Black Sun finally decides to get us to the good stuff and heads into the claustrophobic bunker for another all-out fight between good and evil. One of the members of the group isn’t quite who he claims to be, however, and a stunning act of betrayal may doom them all to the same fate as the poor mercs from the original film.

For the most part, nearly everything about Black Sun is a lesser version of its predecessor: the effects aren’t as good, the acting is more over-the-top (in particular, Wadham’s return performance as Hunt is a real vein-popper and extremely tedious) and the whole thing devolves into the kind of generic action sequences that are used to pad the run-time of various direct-to-TV “epics.” The storyline becomes needlessly complicated, shooting for something resembling the epic world-building of Hellboy (2004) but on a poverty-row budget.

While Steadman isn’t terrible as Lena, I really wish I could say the same thing about poor Richard Coyle. Despite being a huge fan of his work in the British sitcom Coupling, as well as his utterly delightful performance in Grabbers (2012), I found Coyle’s performance in Black Sun to be off-putting, irritating and tonally inconsistent. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, trust me (he’s easily one of my favorite character actors), but there’s nothing about his take on Wallace that notable for any of the right reasons. Steadman and Coyle have zero chemistry, which makes their backstory about being “passionate lovers” rather suspect: if anything, Wallace always seems like a suspicious asshole, rendering the “surprise” developments in his character pretty moot. Unlike the first film, where Ray Stevenson provided a ridiculously charismatic lead, neither Steadman nor Coyle have what it takes to rivet the audience’s attention.

The strangest thing about Black Sun’s failure is that the core creative team, director Barker and writer Rae Brunton, are back but the script is so much worse than the first film. Perhaps this can be chalked up to Barker sharing a co-writing credit with Brunton…perhaps the pair just realized they really didn’t have anything left to say on the subject. For whatever reason, however, Black Sun comes across as flat, needlessly silly and way too proud of mediocre action sequences for its own good: it’s like a formerly straight-A student bragging about scoring all Cs…it just doesn’t make sense.

Ultimately, despite wanting Black Sun to succeed, my earlier suspicions were right on the nose: rather than existing for any good reason, Black Sun seems to be just another sequel, attempting to replicate the original films successes without having a single new thought to get across. While there are plenty of good moments (some great) and pulpy thrills to be found in Black Sun, it’s such a huge step-down from the first film that I couldn’t help but be massively disappointed. Perhaps the third installment, Rise of the Spetsnaz, will correct the issues and get the ship sailing full-steam ahead. Unfortunately, my intuition tells me that one’s probably a stinker, too.

1/30/14: Do the Hustle (Oscar Bait, Part 2)

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'70s-era, Abscam, Academy Award Nominee, Academy Awards, American Hustle, Amy Adams, auteur theory, betrayal, Bradley Cooper, caper films, Christian Bale, cinema, con-men, con-women, David O. Russell, drama, Film, Film auteurs, good but not great films, haircuts, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner, Louis CK, Movies, period-piece, political scandals, scams, Silver Linings Playbook

I now continue my Academy Awards catch-up with American Hustle, nominated for ten awards. This will be the first of the Best Picture nominees that I’ve seen for 2013, so I really don’t have much to base it on. Thus far, however, my money is definitely on the competition.

What is the difference between a “good” and a “great” film? Is there some magic formula, some sort of recipe for truly going above and beyond? Is a movie truly “great” if it does everything right but nothing more? If that’s the case, what constitutes a “good” movie? What makes a movie “classic” and what makes it just a really enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours? To use a sports analogy, we pretty much assume that any professional-level athlete can catch, throw, run, etc, at least well enough to play their specific games: what makes the sports super-stars different?

I begin with this particular line of questioning for a very simple reason: I honestly want to know. You see, I’ve seen my fair share of films that I’ve considered unmitigated classics and a few of them (The Godfather Part II, Apocalypse Now, Taxi Driver, Blade Runner) have even been considered unmitigated classics by other, much worthier people than me. When looking at the current crop of Best Picture nominees for this year’s Oscars, I tried to imagine how many (if any) of these films would stand the same test of time as The Godfather II or Taxi Driver. Would any of these current films still be considered “classics” in ten years or would other films have replaced them in our minds?

David O. Russell’s American Hustle is, ostensibly, about the Abscam scandal of the late ’70s-early ’80s, although the film takes great pains to let us know that this is a largely fictional account: “Some of this actually happened.” Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale, with a terrible toupee, in uber-schlub mode) and Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams in an array of outfits that practically scream, “Hey, boobs!” from the rooftops) are a pair of con-artists who fleece their victims using a banking transfer heist (the ’70s equivalent of those “Help a Nigerian prince” emails). One of these victims just happens to be Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper with a tight, curly perm…seriously, was everyone required to pick a different, strange hairstyle out of a book?), who also happens to be an FBI agent. He decides to use Irving and Sidney’s scheme to lure in some bigger fish in the form of corrupt politicians, notably Atlantic City mayor Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner with a jet-black, plastic pompadour). All of this comes to a head when mobsters enter the mix, a combination made more toxic when Irving’s nutty wife Rosalynn (Jennifer Lawrence in a ditzy tour-de-force) gets involved with one of the made-men and threatens to sink the whole enterprise. Will Irving and Sydney make it out alive? Will Richie be able to woo Sydney away from Irving? Will Rosalynn accidentally burn down the house? Will Louis CK ever finish that damn ice fishing story?

Let me make one thing clear right off the bat: there is absolutely nothing crucially wrong with David O’ Russell’s latest entry in the yearly Oscar sweepstakes. There are choices that I don’t particularly agree with (a little too much music at times, a few too many singularly goofy haircuts for one confined space, a few weird acting choices by Cooper) but, by and large, the film is extremely well-made. The cinematography is beautiful and the sound design/soundtrack is some of the best integrated sound use since the glory days of Scorcese or Tarantino: certain scenes, such as the moment where Rosalynn first meets Sydney as Goodbye Yellow Brick Road plays, are as good as similar scenes in Goodfellas. If anything, I wish that there had been slightly less music used (at one point, the soundtrack cycles through at least four different tunes in the space of a few moments) so that the truly brilliant moments could stand out more. No bones about it, though: American Hustle looks and sounds great.

How about the acting? Well, as expected from a Russell film, it’s great. The entire ensemble cast really inhabit their roles but specific attention should be paid to Cooper and Lawrence. I’ve never been a fan of Bradley Cooper: in fact, I usually find him to be completely insufferable. His portrayal of Richie, however, is pretty damn great and rather nuanced: he’s an insufferably pompous jackass with a huge ego and an even bigger inferiority complex. Cooper has a way of constantly building up and deflating his character: one moment, he’s a swinging-dick FBI agent flexing his figurative muscles at Irving and Sydney, the next moment he’s arguing with his mother over whose turn it is to clean the fish tank. Not every choice Cooper makes worked for me (there are a few freak-out moments where I caught myself saying, “Huh?”) but he fearlessly inhabits the character body and soul: I could easily see him taking the Best Supporting Actor statue and I wouldn’t complain (this time).

Lawrence, for her part, took a little longer to wrestle her way into my heart. At first, I didn’t buy her as the kooky Rosalynn: she was acting all over the place but her eyes were never engaged. At that point, I figured this would be another case of an actor obviously “acting” a part, rather than becoming the character. Somewhere along the line, however, I ended up buying her character hook, line and sinker. Perhaps it was the scene where she brazenly chats up the mobsters. Maybe it was the part where she finally meets her husband’s mistress. All I know, for sure, is that it was before the terrific scene where she belts out Wings’ “Live and Let Die” as she bops around the house. Wherever it happened, I eventually found myself really pulled in by Lawrence, an actress with a tremendous amount of talent (see Winter’s Bone if you need further proof) who will (hopefully) make the leap into more high profile roles soon (Hunger Games notwithstanding).

For the most part, everyone acquits themselves quite nicely in roles that range from glorified cameos (Robert DeNiro in his best gangster role in decades, Louis CK as Cooper’s put-upon boss at the agency) to genuine supporting turns (Renner is great as the Mayor and Michael Pena gets in some great moments as the fake Sheik/FBI agent). I’ve always felt that Russell has a particularly deft touch with actors (although Lily Tomlin might not agree…) and that’s certainly in evidence here.

So, then: what’s the conundrum? I’ve said that American Hustle looks and sounds great, is well-cast, well-acted and doesn’t have in critical issues (for me, at least). This should, by all rights, be a classic film, right? Alas, at least as far as I’m concerned, the answer is no. Quite simply, the film made me feel absolutely nothing or at least nothing more than I feel when I watch most films. I was caught up in the action, interested in the story and satisfied by the ending. At no point, however, was I truly blown away. Now, I don’t mean blown away in a flashy filmmaking sort of way: not at all. Some of my favorite films are smaller, quieter, more subtle works. I don’t need to have explosions and spinning cameras for every single scene or, to be more honest, for any scenes: it’s just not what I look for.

I did expect, however, to be blown away emotionally. I didn’t expect to be devastated or destroyed: this isn’t that kind of a movie. I also didn’t expect to slap my knee every five minutes: it isn’t that kind of a film, either. I did expect that I would feel something, some measure of Irving’s crushing loneliness, some measure of what it meant to be Rosalynn, some iota of Richie’s ridiculous obsession with being a success…anything. As it was, I never found myself bored or looked at my watch but I never found any higher significance for anything I saw, either. To me, this was an extremely well-made, entertaining caper film but nothing more. There didn’t seem to be any bigger social ramifications, message, what have you: what was there was up on-screen.

Not every film, of course, has to aspire to delusions of grandeur: if everything changed the world, we’d be in a constant state of flux. There has to be room for “pretty good,” “good” and “very good” films, otherwise we’d have no concept of “excellent” and “amazing” films. My main issue (or confusion, to be more accurate) comes with whatever I appear to be missing regarding American Hustle: what am I not getting from the film? When I watched it, more than anything, I was reminded of another film, one that moved me completely and has never really left my mind: Goodfellas.

From where I sit, American Hustle appears to be David O. Russell’s attempt to make his own Goodfellas. There are quite a few parallels: the extensive use of music; the large ensemble cast; the glorification (to a point: neither film lets their bad guys get off totally scot-free); the heavily stylized moments (Russell has more shots where Cooper, Bale and Adams stride side-by-side, in slo-mo, while a cool song plays than are probably necessary for even a Robert Rodriguez film); the voiceover (as my esteemed friend Salim has pointed out, Bale even seems to be channeling Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill at various points). When put together, at least as put together in this particular film, these individual pieces definitely form a picture that reminds me (more than a little) of Scorcese’s seminal film.

I’m not sure what it is about Goodfellas that moves me so much but it still affects me in the same way today that it did back in the ’90s. Despite my overall enjoyment of American Hustle and my general goodwill towards Russell (I loved Three Kings, I Heart Huckabees and The Fighter, disliked Spanking the Monkey and Flirting with Disaster and have yet to see Silver Linings Playbook), I find it impossible to believe that American Hustle will have any impact on me whatsoever in one year, much less 24 years. American Hustle is a fun, well-made, extremely enjoyable film, which is really more than we can (usually) ask for. Is it an amazing film or a neo-classic? Absolutely not. Is it the best film of 2013, at least as far as the Academy is concerned? I’m hoping they all got to see at least one truly amazing film this year: I’m pretty sure American Hustle wasn’t it.