7/15/15 (Part Two): We All Fall Down

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Adriana Barraza, Alma Martinez, anger issues, Anna Kendrick, Cake, Chris Messina, Christophe Beck, chronic pain, cinema, Daniel Barnz, divorced couple, dramas, Evan O'Toole, ex-husband, Felicity Huffman, film reviews, films, grieving mother, House M.D., Jennifer Aniston, letting go, Mamie Gummer, Movies, Patrick Tobin, Pepe Serna, pill addiction, Rachel Morrison, Rose Abdoo, Sam Worthington, single father, suicide, William H. Macy

With her world-weary cynicism, barbed sarcasm, constant physical pain and pill addiction, Claire Bennett doesn’t really look like any role Jennifer Aniston has taken on in her 20+ year career but that doesn’t mean that the character isn’t a little familiar. Change Claire’s gender, give her a lab coat, an even bigger chip on her shoulder and voila: paging Dr. Gregory House to the front lobby.

Reductive? Perhaps, although it’s certainly not meant as any kind of slight on Aniston’s abilities. The former Friends star underplays her part nobly, allowing the inherent anger, depression and hopelessness of her situation to bob to the surface, breaking the chilly serenity like so many jagged ice floes. The problem, as it turns out, is that Daniel Barnz’s Cake (2014) really doesn’t give her a whole lot to do. As Claire frowns, mopes, drops dry repartee and lashes out at the world around her, it becomes increasingly difficult not to think of the surrounding film as a kind of prison, a distressingly familiar, middle-of-the-road salvation story that hits every expected beat, yet constantly feels lesser than the sum of its parts.

We first meet Claire in a chronic-pain support group, where she displays her uncanny ability to be simultaneously charming, obnoxious, combative and exceptionally glum. One of Claire’s fellow group members, Nina (Anna Kendrick), has just committed suicide by jumping from a busy freeway overpass and, in lieu of focusing on her own issues, Claire has decided to figure out just what makes another person decide to kill themselves. Her interest, of course, is purely academic: Claire couldn’t really give two shits about anyone but focusing on her amateur “investigation” is as good as any a way to try to stay occupied.

What, exactly, is Claire’s problem? The film, itself, is pretty cagey about the whole thing, drawing out the revelation as if it were some sort of twist but we get the main elements early enough to draw our own conclusions: with all of her scars and healed injuries, chronic pain, constant mourning and divorce from her husband, Jason (Chris Messina), we know that Claire has been in an accident of some sort, an accident that’s claimed the life of her child and left her bitter, broken and impossibly angry at the world. We get a nice reminder of this when we listen in on a message that Jason leaves for Claire in which he expresses his desire to come claim the rest of his things when she’s not around: nothing in her life is easy, pleasant or positive.

As is wont in this kinds of films, however, a change is a brewin’: once Claire and her put-upon housekeeper/caretaker Silvana (Adriana Barraza) start to dig deep into the details of Nina’s life (and death), Claire begins to regain a tiny bit of her joie de vivre. Things pick up even further when she happens to meet Nina’s husband, Roy (Sam Worthington) and young son, Casey (Evan O’Toole). Like Claire, Roy has plenty of anger issues, most of which he reserves for his dead wife: Nina “abandoned” Roy and Casey and her husband hates her abjectly for it.

Birds of a feather do, indeed, flock together and soon, Claire and Roy are striking up a strictly platonic relationship (they both want “intimacy” but have no interest in “sex”) as they each try to lean on the other for support. There’s an awful lot of anger resting below the surface of Claire’s wit and sarcasm, however, the kind of anger that makes it impossible for anyone to just live their lives. As Claire (and the audience) get ever closer to learning all of the details of Nina’s passing (did I mention that Nina also “appears” to Claire, alternating between berating her, cajoling her and trying to steer her away from Roy? Well, she does.) and the accident that destroyed Claire’s life, as Claire gets ever closer to her own oblivion and Silvana seems helpless to affect any change, we’ll all learn a very important lesson: sometimes, life is just a series of small victories and that’s the best we can ever hope for.

As mentioned earlier, Aniston’s portrayal of Claire is rock-solid (she was even nominated for a Best Actress Golden Globe) but the rest of the film exists on much shakier ground. While the movie has a reliably sturdy, understated look that’s pretty much the definition of “indie drama” (cinematographer Rachel Morrison also shot Sound of My Voice (2011), Fruitvale Station (2013), Little Accidents (2014) and Dope (2015)), Patrick Tobin’s script ends up short-sheeting too many of the characters, giving the film a malnourished, under-developed feel.

We briefly meet Silvana’s daughter and out-of-work husband (the whole scene lasts maybe 2-3 minutes, tops) but that’s the extent of any character building with that character, unless one counts the even briefer scene where Claire and Silvana run into a couple of Silvana’s old “friends” in Tijuana. Despite being in a fair amount of the film, Worthington’s Roy never really amounts to anything more than a plot contrivance (he gives Claire more info on Nina, sort of like a gamer running around and talking to NPCs in a role-playing-game) and any romance between him and Claire seems pretty dead on arrival. Kendrick pops up constantly, as the “ghost” of Nina (I guess), but we never get much better sense of her character than “suicide victim.” There’s even an extremely odd, unexplained scene where Claire seems to have sex with some guy that climbs in through her window. Is he a friend? A prostitute? She seems to pay him with a box of toys so, if he’s a professional, I’m guessing that he’s not a particularly astute one.

And don’t even get me started on poor William H. Macy, who gets exactly one scene (essentially a cameo) as the guy who was, apparently, responsible for the death of Claire’s child. We never get any more explanation than that: he shows up at her door, begs forgiveness, gets yelled at, thrown out and then exits stage left, never to be seen (or heard from) again. Any opportunity to milk honest emotional resonance from the scene is rendered moot by the fact that it all happens so quickly and, seemingly, arbitrarily.

In the end, this lack of fleshing out becomes the film’s biggest Achilles’ heel. Even the title, Cake, is based on something that seems to be as disposable and insubstantial as possible: when Nina and Claire were discussing what they would do if they were pain-free, Nina responded that she would bake her kid a birthday cake, from scratch (Claire’s wish was to screw an entire soccer team, for what it’s worth). All well and good. This whole notion culminates in a thoroughly head-scratching bit, however, where Claire and Silvana pick up a young hitchhiker and pay her to make a cake from scratch. The girl bakes the cake, steals Claire’s purse and takes off. As with the aforementioned scenes, the whole incident is over so quickly and so under-developed that it really has no impact: cut the hitchhiker scenes (along with the explanation of the cake) and the film is no worse for the wear.

There’s also a decided lack of danger to the film, a feeling that the stakes are too low to really make any of us break a sweat. There’s never a sense of urgency to anything Claire does, never the notion that she’s ever in any real danger, even when her and Silvana get stopped at the border with their load of illegal scrips. Even the scene where Claire comes perilously close to following Nina into the great beyond is quickly set up and then hurried along to the next scene, almost as if the filmmakers were checking points off a list. I had a similar issue with another film about addiction issues, Why Stop Now? (2012): in both cases, it felt as if the filmmakers were taking a purely surface view of a much darker, deeper issue, pushing everything towards the kind of “it all works out” ending that, in reality, rarely happens.

Ultimately, the one thing that consistently works, as far as Cake is concerned, is Aniston’s performance. Despite the very obvious comparisons to Hugh Laurie’s cantankerous sawbones, Claire is a thoroughly multi-dimensional character and definitely marks a new high-water line in the actress’ career. While I didn’t think the performance was the best of its year (or even one of the best of the past several years), Aniston brings an understated, completely welcome sense of honesty and genuine pain that manages to shine over the rest of the film like a beacon.

In a better film (I’m thinking of something like the surprisingly great Life of Crime (2013)), Aniston has shown that she’s no slouch when it comes to the more dramatic side of the silver screen: despite being predominately cast in comedies, romances and rom-coms, I’d like to think that filmmakers will begin to realize that she’s a lot more versatile than she’s been given credit for. As it stands, though, Cake is a very serious, very well-meaning but, ultimately, rather shallow film. Everybody might love cake but this particular treat, unfortunately, falls a little flat.

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3/18/15: The Heart, Wrung Dry, Is a Stone

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Aimee Mullins, alcohol abuse, alcoholism, Alex McGregor, black market, Christy Pankhurst, cinema, David Butler, David Clatworthy, drama, drought, dysfunctional family, dystopian future, Elle Fanning, Ernest Holm, family in crisis, farmers, father-daughter relationships, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, Flem Lever, Giles Nuttgens, Jake Paltrow, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Liah O'Prey, Michael Shannon, Movies, neo-Westerns, Nicholas Hoult, Robert Hobbs, robots, sci-fi, single father, The Grapes of Wrath, There Will Be Blood, tragedy, voice-over narration, water rights, water wars, Westerns, writer-director, Young Ones

Pitched somewhere in the middle of the triangle formed by Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Anderson’s There Will Be Blood (2007) and Stanley’s Hardware (1990), writer-director Jake Paltrow’s Young Ones (2014) is a powerfully acted neo-Western that blends intense character drama with dystopic sci-fi. If the whole thing is somewhat deflated by a rather meandering ending, it does nothing to take away from the journey, which is packed with memorable characters, some rather ingenious plot developments and genuine emotional power.

We’re dumped into a world of the future, although of 20 years or 100, we’re never really told. Stylistically, it’s pure Western, as the land has been in the grip of a devastating drought for long enough to turn everything into parched desert…everything, that is, except for the lush, green areas that are served by the “state” waterworks: the “wet areas,” as they’re called. In these areas, things function much as we might expect, albeit with the extra oomph provided by futuristic robotics and technology. In the “dry” areas, however, it’s a hard-scrabble existence, punctuated by harsh living conditions, sudden death and constant water wars: the untamed West, if you will.

Our lowly protagonist, Ernest Holm (Michael Shannon) is one of the farmers who’s stuck it out, along with his son, Jerome (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and daughter, Mary (Elle Fanning). Mother Katherine (Aimee Mullins) is living in a care facility after suffering a crippling injury of some sort, rendering Ernest a single father, of sorts. He’s a former alcoholic who makes ends meet by delivering supplies to the very same corrupt waterworks employees who continually resist running much-needed waterlines through Ernest’s sun-baked land: talk about your nasty Catch-22s! After his only well goes dry, poor Ernest is reduced to buying his water from gas station-style pumps and praying for much-needed, long-absent rain.

It wouldn’t be a Shakespearian tale without some Shakespearian intrigue, however, and we get that in bulk with Mary’s boyfriend, the elegantly sleazy Flem Lever (Nicholas Hoult). Flem is a smooth talker with a new con for every day of the week and a bone to pick with Ernest, thanks to a perceived slight involving the land that Flem’s father used to own.  As Flem exerts more influence over the increasingly rebellious Mary, he butts heads with Ernest in a million different ways. Through it all, Jerome, our constant narrator, observes it all with his slightly detached gaze: ever faithful to his father, yet caught in Flem’s thrall, nonetheless.

Trouble strikes when the Holm family mule heads to mule heaven and Ernest is forced to buy a robotic replacement (the robot auction is a real thing of beauty). This kicks off a series of unfortunate events that culminates with Flem stealing the “mule,” Ernest tracking him down and…well…”something” happening in the desolate wasteland, far away from prying eyes. What it is, exactly, we won’t know for some time but the tragedy results in Flem becoming the de facto head of the family, much to Jerome’s consternation. When the suspicious son gets the full details on what happened in the desert, however, thanks to the robot’s previously undisclosed video recording function…well, let’s just say that there’ll be hell to pay and leave it at that, eh?

Despite some occasional familiarities with other films (There Will Be Blood was never far from my mind, at any time), Young Ones is a strikingly fresh, thoroughly intriguing film. The script is quite clever and unfolds is a completely organic manner, with some surprising (yet always logical) twists. The blending of dystopic sci-fi and Westerns is seamless and quite magical, if I do say so, creating a believably immersive world, one that’s built up by a million little details and subtle touches. It’s the best kind of world-building, one that’s accomplished by layers rather than a sledge-hammer.

Young Ones is a very dialogue-heavy film, without a doubt, but Paltrow’s script and cast are more than up for the challenge. In most cases, anything this “talky” might become tedious but some of the film’s greatest pleasures come from the frank, in-depth conversations that the characters, particularly Ernest and Flem, have with other. There’s a wry lyricism to Paltrow’s lines that makes everything simultaneously grim, yet rich: it’s a quality that I associate with Cormac McCarthy and, while Paltrow isn’t quite there yet, I can easily see him getting there in the future.

Without a doubt, one of the shining stars in Young One’s crown is its phenomenal cast. Most of the time, it’s an easy best that Michael Shannon will be the best thing in whatever he’s in: there’s an honesty to him that makes it all but impossible to tear your eyes from the screen whenever he’s there and Ernest is one of his best, most complex roles in some time. In this case, however, Shannon gets a run for his money from Smit-McPhee, Hoult and the rest of the superb cast: everyone brings their A-game, making this one of the most exquisitely acted films I’ve seen in some time. To be honest, Hoult and Smit-McPhee give two of the best performances of the year, playing two of the most radically different characters possible. Only Fanning, normally great, falls short of the mark: chalk it up to the character or the performance, but Mary is a constantly petulant, unpleasant and hysterical character, never sympathetic, even during the moment’s where the film practically demands it.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention the ending, which sputters into the station after the film runs out of steam some 20 minutes before the finish line. It’s the odd deflating moment in a script that normally runs like a Swiss clock, feeling like nothing less than Paltrow ran out of things to say before he ran out of film: again, only notable due to the fact that the rest of the film moved so effortlessly.

That being said, Young Ones is still a mighty impressive film and bodes quite well for Paltrow’s future. When the film really works, there’s a sad sense of poetry that says more about the death of the idealized West than a million cowboy hats ever could. Giles Nuttgens’ cinematography is often quite beautiful (the mournful shots of the robotic mule pacing across the mesa are, quite simply, stunning) and there’s a sense of austere seriousness to the proceedings that fits it all like a glove. While there’s something inherently tragic about the Holm family and their blood-spattered legacy, the only tragic thing about Jake Paltrow (and yes, in case you’re wondering, he’s Gwyneth’s brother) is that we’ll need to wait for his next film. When you’ve got something like Young Ones on your calling card, the sky, quite frankly, is the limit.

12/27/14 (Part Three): Stop Dragon My Heart Around

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adventure, archaeologists, Bjørn Sundquist, CGI, children in peril, cinema, Daniel Voldheim, dragons, eggs, family films, fantasy, father-daughter relationships, film reviews, films, flashbacks, foreign films, John Kåre Raake, Julian Podolski, Jurassic Park, Magnus Beite, Maria Annette Tanderø Berglyd, Mikkel Brænne Sandemose, Movies, mythical creatures, Nicolai Cleve Broch, Norwegian films, Oseberg Vikings, Pål Sverre Hagen, Ragnarok, set in Norway, single father, Sofia Helin, Steven Spielberg, Terje Strømdahl, Vikings

For many folks of a particular age, the term “adventure film” will always be synonymous with one thing: Steven Spielberg. Throughout the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, the auteur was directly responsible for some of the biggest, most iconic adventure films of those eras: Jaws (1975), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom (1984), Indiana Jones and Last Crusade (1989), Hook (1991) and Jurassic Park (1993). This, of course, doesn’t include all of the iconic adventure films that he produced but didn’t direct during the same time-period: Poltergeist (1982), Gremlins (1984), The Goonies (1985), Back to the Future (1985), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Arachnophobia (1990), among many, many others. Regardless of how you, personally, feel about his films, there’s no denying that Spielberg has practically been a cottage industry for the past forty years…no mean feat, if you think about it.

Despite his massively impressive history with adventure films, however, we haven’t had a whole lot of Spielberg adventure movies since The Lost World (1997): there have been a few, such as Minority Report (2002) and War of the Worlds (2005) but, for the most part, Spielberg has turned his attention to “prestige” films like Amistad (1997), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Munich (2005) and Lincoln (2012) since the Aughts and doesn’t really show signs of stopping anytime soon. For people who miss Spielberg’s brand of high-octane, family friendly, effects-spectacles, there doesn’t really seem to be much that’s filled the void…until now, that is. If you’re looking for big, fantastic adventure, look no further than Norwegian director Mikkel Brænne Sandemose’s Ragnarok (2013), a big, colorful and exuberant adventure yarn that recalls films like André Øvredal’s Trollhunter (2010) in subject matter but more closely resembles Spielberg yarns like Jaws, The Goonies and, especially, Jurassic Park, in tone and execution.

After an extremely effective medieval-set opening that helps establish the film’s mythology, Ragnarok wastes no time in introducing us to our intrepid hero, single-father and Viking history expert Sigurd (Pål Sverre Hagen). Sigurd genuinely his two young kids, Ragnhild (Maria Annette Tanderø Berglyd) and Brage (Julian Podolski) but he’s far from the best father in the world: absent-minded and completely obsessed with finding some connection between the Oseberg Vikings and the mythical Ragnarok, Sigurd is the kind of father who remembers to pick his children up from school after they’ve been waiting for hours and plans family vacations based around archaeological digs.

After Sigurd’s partner, Allan (Nicolai Cleve Broch), shows up with a Viking runestone, Sigurd finally gets the confirmation he needs and the group has a new destination: the mysterious “Eye of Odin,” an island-within a lake-within a volcano that’s got to be one of the coolest locations for an adventure film, ever. Once there, sparks (the good kind) fly between Sigurd and Allan’s comely assistant, Elisabeth (Sofia Helin). There are also sparks flying between Sigurd and Allan’s guide, Leif (Bjørn Sundquist), although these are definitely the “wrong” kind: Leif thinks the whole expedition is beyond ridiculous and treats Sigurd like a dumb kid, which tends to make Sigurd kinda pissy. In other words: the circle of movie antagonism.

Once at the Eye of Odin, Sigurd and the others begin to unearth evidence that Sigurd was absolutely correct in his speculations: not only did the Oseberg Vikings land in Finnmark, as he postulated, but the group is able to find plenty of evidence of their passing, including preserved helmets and weapons…score! The group also finds evidence to support not only the one-time existence of the monstrous Ragnarok but its current well-being, as well. Faster than you can say “Jurassic Park,” Sigurd, his kids, Elisabeth, Allan and Leif are on the run from something that should only exist in fairytales, yet has somehow attained massive, terrifying life. It will take all of Sigurd’s skills, wits and extensive knowledge of Viking lore to survive the day but he’ll be damned if any of his family are going to become dragon snacks. Is the Ragnarok really as terrible as it seems, however, or is there more going on here than meets the eye?

Gorgeously shot, suitably thrilling and filled with lots of well-executed CGI and visual effects, Ragnarok is a decided throwback to Spielberg’s aforementioned adventure film glory days, yet never comes off as slavish imitation. The whole film definitely has the feel of a family film, with the vast majority of the film’s violence occurring off-screen. In fact, there’s nothing here that really pushes the PG-13 rating, save one brief shot of a corpse that directly recalls the similar jump-shock in Jaws (which, as we’ll all recall, was rated PG). In many ways, Ragnarok is sort of an update of Jurassic Park: absent-minded, absentee dad and precocious kids must survive an attack by giant reptiles while bonding and becoming closer to each other. Throw in a romantic angle, some double-crosses and betrayal (always to be expected), truly jaw-dropping locations and the parallels seem pretty obvious.

While Pål Sverre Hagen is dependable as Sigurd, Sofia Helin handily steals the film as the ever-resourceful, ass-kicking Elisabeth. Indeed, Elisabeth is pretty much single-handily responsible for saving the entire group on multiple occasions (including a thoroughly awesome setpiece involving crossing a chasm via rope) and Heflin is a mighty great action star: I can’t wait to see her in other films after this. Berglyd and Podolski are good as the kids, although neither one brings anything unique or revolutionary to the performances.

The real star of the show, however, aside from Heflin, is cinematographer Daniel Voldheim’s stunning camera-work. The various Norwegian locales never look anything less than beautiful and the cave sequences make excellent use of light and shadow to create some spectacularly atmospheric scenes. Also noteworthy is composer Magnus Beite’s highly effective score: it’s no patch on any of John Williams’ iconic scores but it is exciting, moving and just bombastic enough to effortlessly sell the big action beats.

Ultimately, I found myself quite taken with Ragnarok: there’s a genuinely old-fashioned quality to the film that I really enjoyed and I found it to favorably compare to some of my favorite adventure films from the past. Sandemose’s film may not be the most original film of the year but it’s got a helluva lot of heart and a genuine desire to thrill its audience. I’d like to think that ’80s Spielberg would have been a big fan, too.

7/16/14: Hat’s Off to the Old School

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action films, bad cops, based on a book, bullies, Burt Reynolds, Chuck Zito, cinema, corrupt law enforcement, DEA agents, drug dealer, druglord, film reviews, films, Frank Grillo, Gary Fleder, Homefront, Izabela Vidovic, James Franco, Jason Statham, Kate Bosworth, Marcus Hester, Movies, Rachelle Lefevre, single father, small town life, Sylvester Stallone, thrillers, Winona Ryder

There’s certainly something to be said for a nice full-throttle, no-frills, old-fashioned action film. You know the kind that I mean: white hats vs black hats, clear-cut heroes and villains, lots of ass-kicking and just enough tension to make us think that anything could happen, even if our steadfast hero has everything locked down tighter than Fort Knox. The ’80s were a pretty fertile breeding ground for films like this, turning square-jawed bruisers like Chuck Norris, Sly Stallone, Bruce Willis, Burt Reynolds and their ilk into box-office warriors and giving a generation of kids a bakers’ dozen of take-charge “do-gooders” to look up to. While it’s debatable whether modern audiences are looking that far backwards (although the prevalence of remakes and re-dos as of late makes me think that someone has their eye planted on the rearview mirror), it’s pretty clear that filmmakers are, consciously or not, evoking the Reagan-era left and right. Case in point: director Gary Fleder’s recent Homefront (2013), a film that comes off as so influenced by gritty ’80s action films that it plays as more of an homage to the era than other obviously ’80s-leaning flicks like Almost Human (2013) and Hobo With a Shotgun (2011).

In certain ways, Homefront plays like a long-lost Burt Reynolds film, perhaps one of the string of gritty shoot-’em’ups that the hirsute mega-star was involved with throughout the ’80s: movies like Sharky’s Machine (1981), Stick (1985), Heat (1986) and especially Malone (1987) certainly seem to be spiritual forefathers to Homefront, if not strictly genetic ones. It’s certainly not difficult to see star Jason Statham as the successor to ’80s action stars: his patented brand of brooding, kind-hearted cynicism seems tailor-made for films where he reluctantly (but efficiently) opens industrial-sized barrels of whup-ass on thoroughly deserving bad guys. With Homefront, however, Statham might have just found his most implicitly ’80s film yet: that the film also ends up being one his most entertaining is certainly no mean feat.

Homefront kicks off with a sequence that, for better or worse, looked and felt like a scene from Sons of Anarchy: we watch as undercover DEA agent Phil Broker (Jason Statham) is involved in the takedown of big-time biker/druglord Danny T (Chuck Zito) and his gang. During the bust and subsequent high-speed chase through the city, Danny T’s son pulls a piece and is promptly aerated by multiple rounds from about a million cops. Broker is disgusted by the senseless killing (although, to be fair, the dude did pull a gun while surrounded by at least an entire squadron of police officers…what did he assume would happen?) and quits the force.

Fast-forward two years and Broker is now the single-father to adorable 9-year-old munchkin Maddy (Izabela Vidovic). The two live in a small, Southern town where Broker is a building contractor and does everything humanly possible to blend into the background. Blending is difficult when you have a self-assured kid who’s an expert at self-defense, however, which Broker learns after Maddy (politely) kicks the ever-loving shit out of a douchbag bully at school. Enter the bully’s repulsive parents, the ridiculously white-trash-and-proud-of-it Cassie (Kate Bosworth) and her spineless asshat of a husband, Jimmy (Marcus Hester). Cassie is furious that her beloved meatsack son got schooled by a girl and browbeats Jimmy into confronting Broker. This, of course, is a terrible move, as Broker proceeds to politely kick Jimmy’s ass up one side of the street and down the other, all while the local Sheriff (Clancy Brown) looks on.

Since Cassie has never been one to leave well-enough alone, she decides to take her complaint up the food chain: next stop, her insane brother and local meth kingpin, “Gator” Bodine (James Franco). Gator is a real piece of work, as we see when he mercilessly beats a group of sad-sack wannabe meth cooks with a baseball bat. Gator may be providing meth to his miserable addict of a sister but she’s still family, dammit, and no smooth city boy is gonna fuck with his family. This ends up setting off a chain of events where Gator and his men try to run Broker and his daughter out of town, all while Broker finds new and exciting ways to break jaws, legs, ribs and skulls. All that Broker wants is to be left alone to raise his daughter in (relative) peace and quiet. When Gator ups the ante by getting Danny T involved, Broker has no choice but to take it all to its logical extreme: if it’s a war that the backwoods mafia wants, it’s a war that they’re gonna get. To paraphrase that paragon of ’80s badassery: I pity the fool who gets between Broker and his daughter.

Like the best ’80s action flicks, Homefront is one big, thrilling mess of shattered limbs, anonymous baddies getting ventilated with automatic weapons, massive explosions, gritty violence and memorably evil antagonists. As with the best ’80s action flicks, however, Homefront lives or dies based on the inherent cool of its hero and Statham is more than up for the task. While I’ve always enjoyed Statham as an action figure, I must admit that most of his more popular films (The Transporter series, the Crank series) tend to just wear me out: as a rule, the films are kinetic nightmares, full of seemingly endless stunts, fights, explosions and little to no sense of narrative flow. If anything, they seem sort of like R-rated cartoons, so chaotic and manic that sitting through them is more about overcoming the distractions and “absorbing” the films versus actually enjoying them.

Not so with Homefront, thankfully: despite its overly polished look and sound (at times, the film looks distressingly like a Hallmark Movie of the Week, albeit one with a poundingly loud soundtrack and more casual ultra-violence than most Schwarzenegger flicks), Homefront is just about as gritty as it gets and is decidedly reminiscent of the aforementioned ’80s actions flicks. Statham brings a tired, world-weary sensibility to his portrayal of Phil Broker that really works: he doesn’t want to keep cracking skulls but he’ll be damned if these morons just can’t take the hint. Every good ’80s action star needs a good villain, however, and Franco is more than capable as the bat-shit-scary Gator. I have a love-hate relationship with Franco, to be honest: when the guy is on point, he’s pretty damn amazing, a smirking chameleon who can easily morph into whatever role he wants. The rest of the time, however, I find him to be a rather pretentious douchbag, more given to creating and upholding his own “mythology” than he is in crafting an indelible body of work: I can totally dig “Franco the actor” but I often find myself wanting to kick “Franco the celebrity” square in the family jewels.

Luckily for me, “Franco the actor” is front and center in Homefront and his Gator may be my favorite role of his yet. Franco can be an unusually expressive actor and his performance here is a minor miracle of facial tics, raised eyebrows, subtle mannerisms and explosive violence: he underplays the role so much that when he finally lets loose, he really lets loose, bringing the thunder in a pretty major way. Compare this to Winona Ryder’s “gal Friday” part as Gator’s on-again/off-again girlfriend Sheryl for an interesting parallel: Franco underplays everything to marvelous effect while Ryder overplays everything and comes across like a nitwit. In a long career of hot-and-cold performances, Ryder’s Sheryl has to be one of her coldest: despite the histrionics, there’s no part of her performance that resonates in any meaningful way.

Kate Bosworth, on the other hand, surprises rather handily as the virulent, awful Cassie. At first, Cassie comes across as the worst kind of stereotypical redneck (think a Deliverance (1972) baddie but with less self-control) but Bosworth is a gifted enough performer to bring plenty of nuance to her character, enough so that her 11th hour “humanization” comes across more as a natural progression than a deus ex machina. Poor Rachelle Lefevre (Under the Dome), however, ends up being completely wasted as Susan, one of Maddy’s teachers. In certain ways, the character of Susan feels as if it were hacked to pieces and left to bleed out on the cutting-room floor: not only does the expected (and teased) romance with Broker never materialize but Susan doesn’t really do much of anything, save walk around and look concerned. Faring much better is current action star Frank Grillo (The Grey (2011), The Purge: Anarchy (2014)), who makes a pretty scary badguy as Danny T’s lieutenant, Cyrus. The scene where he forces Sheryl to meet him at a seafood restaurant, despite her allergy to shellfish, is pretty unforgettable and prime Grillo, a it were.

Despite really enjoying Homefront, there were a few issues that forced me to rate it a little lower than I might have otherwise. As mentioned earlier, the film is never quite gritty enough to shake off that whole “Hallmark Movie” notion (in particular, the score is always heavy-handed and way too leading), despite the abundance of violence. There’s also an odd tendency for the “heroes” to seem all but invincible: there are at least four, if not more, times during the film where a good guy suffers what appears to be a fatal injury only to just “walk it off.” The same doesn’t apply to the bad guys, however, who tend to kick the bucket in herds. I was also less than enamored with a weird, irritating editing tic wherein upcoming scenes are briefly edited onto the tail-end of the preceding scene. I’m not sure who thought this was a good (or even clever) idea but it really isn’t: had the rest of the film not been so rock-solid, this would have been a deal-breaker, for sure.

That being said, I ended up enjoying Homefront to an almost ludicrous degree, perhaps because it so effectively channeled those ’80s flicks I grew up on. The script, based on a novel but adapted by action star Sly Stallone, is quite good and the numerous fight scenes are real corkers: Statham really knows how to portray a cinematic asskicker and Fleder, who also helmed Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead (1995) and Kiss the Girls (1997), really knows how to make him look badass doing it. I really bought the relationship between Maddy and her dad, which never seemed forced and overly saccharine. And then, of course, there’s that glorious performance by Franco: somebody make this guy a Bond villain, stat!

At the end of the day, Homefront is unapologetically violent, a little cheesy and over-produced. The film is also genuinely exciting, action-packed and full of undeniable energy and verve. If you’re looking for a good, old-fashioned, black-and-white story about good guys kicking the snot out of bad guys, you could do a whole lot worse than Homefront. For anyone who grew up on those caustically cool ’80s actioners, however, Homefront may just look a lot like manna from heaven. Statham may not have Burt’s chest-chair but he sure as hell has his eye for dependably tough action roles. Let’s hope he can grind out a few more of these and give the Transporter and Crank films a rest.