Film Review - RACHEL GETTING MARRIED: Worth Committing To!

The chaotic swirl of pandemonium that surrounds the average wedding ceremony has long been a popular focal point in cinema. It’s a durable scenario, one that has been played for laughs in romantic comedies ranging all the way back to Hollywood’s Golden age. From Katharine Hepburn’s flighty serial bride in The Philadelphia Story, to Steve Martin’s flustered Father of the Bride, leading into the recent spate of “Wed-coms” (27 Dresses, Made Of Honor, The Wedding Date), audiences have regaled in watching fictional people panic in the face of lifelong commitment.

But, as we all know, real life typically paints a much more intense portrait of nuptial ceremonies, where train-wrecks in the form of last minute scheduling disasters and soused speech-makers can lead to misery for the organizers and awkward amusement for the guests. Screenwriter Jenny Lumet (daughter of legendary director Sidney Lumet), has obviously experienced her fair share of wedding D-days, and has compiled and moulded these memories into Rachel Getting Married, a searing debut film that should earn lead Anne Hathaway an Oscar nomination.

Hathaway plays Kym Buchman, a despondent former model and recovering drug-addict, who leaves the supportive confines of rehab to take part in her older sister Rachel’s wedding party. Nevertheless, things do not go smoothly for the venom-tongued out-patient, as her manipulative tendencies and emotional neediness only add to the tumultuousness of the impending proceedings. Through his voyeuristic lens, director Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia) tracks the family’s dramatic journey, from rehearsals to reception, delving deeply into both our heroine’s shattered psyche, as well as the secrets which dwell within the dark shadows of the Buchman clan’s troubled past.

One of Rachel Getting Married’s most striking feats is in how Demme and cinematographer Declan Quinn have blurred the line between fictional and documentary film-making. The movie has a surprisingly life-like quality, where intimate hand-held footage creates the illusion that we the audience are actually experiencing the on-screen events first hand. This effect, which feels fresh and original, forces us to invest ourselves in the characters’ emotional highs and lows, and builds uncomfortable scenes, such as Kym’s inappropriate rehearsal toast, into seat-squirming triumphs. However, what really sells Demme’s method-of-madness is the naturalistic performances he’s drawn from his mostly unknown cast of character actors.

Much attention has deservedly been heaped on Hathaway, whose wounded doll eyes, pale complexion and rather gaunt figure form a vivid physical representation of abuse. Kym isn’t just a wounded pariah; she’s often vicious and hurtful, desperate to make others feel her own twisted sense of internal struggle. Watching her sad attempts to drag attention away from Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt, a perfect foil who simmers with barely suppressed frustration), or engaging in a wrenching squabble with her emotionally withdrawn mother (Debra Winger, set for a comeback), Hathaway vanishes into the bruised skin of her character.

Almost equally as brilliant is Bill Irwin, as the conflicted Buchman patriarch, Paul. Irwin, best-known, it would seem, for playing Mr. Noodles on Sesame Street, is exceptional as a father struggling to stay on equal footing with his often irrational daughters. He’s funny in little moments, such as in a giddy reaction to a surprise announcement, and remarkably compelling when he has to reveal the buried emotional truths of his character. If justice of any kind exists in Hollywood, Irwin won’t be overlooked when awards season rolls around, as he is the film’s greatest discovery.

Also worth mentioning is Mather Zickel, as best man Kieran, a fellow recovery case, who has made peace with his demons and acts as a source of support for the near-fracturing family. He’s a warm presence who understands Kym’s torment, and the two have a very interesting relationship that is entirely free of false moments.

If Rachel Getting Married has a flaw, it’s that Demme’s persistent quest for realism slightly drags down the last quarter of the picture. Wedding receptions aren’t particularly entertaining to attend in real life, much less in docu-drama style, where we can see only so many scenes of anonymous people dancing and socializing before fatigue sets in. It’s a testimony to the filmmakers’ vision that the characters are so three dimensional and absorbing that we can’t stand being taken away from them for too long, and these sections occasionally do just that.

With that minor quibble aside, it’s hard to find many flaws on display here. Demme and Lumet have managed to re-explore the tired themes of suburban dysfunction in a way that is poignant, funny, frank and, ultimately, pretty moving. From the point of view of someone who has been bored witless by his fair share of on-screen and off-screen weddings, Rachel Getting Married is well worth a speedy RSVP.

4 out of 5

*Originally printed in SFU's The Peak: Oct. 13th, 2008.

Film Review - RELIGULOUS: Sinfully Brilliant!

"Tell me I'm a sinner I've got news for you/I spoke to God this morning and he doesn't like you!"
-Ozzy Osbourne,
"I Don't Want To Change the World"

This song lyric ran through my head a couple times during Religulous, the stunning new documentary from Borat director Larry Charles, as I watched the film’s writer/narrator/interviewer Bill Maher, formerly of Politically Incorrect, impishly journey through the inner-most sanctums of organized religion and spirituality. There’s an infectious coiled energy that permeates from the diminutive outlaw comedian’s illusionary facade of laid-back cool, and this devilish fearlessness makes him the ideal master of ceremonies for Religulous, a film that has proven, predictably, to be a firebrand for controversy over the last couple of months.

Opening the film standing on the site of Megiddo, the Christian prophesied site of Armageddon, Maher states his thesis immediately: that religion is detrimental to the progress of humanity. There’s a jolt that comes with hearing a statement such as this spoken aloud as we’ve been socialized in North America to practice a sense of hesitant respectfulness when discussing religion. It’s a private matter, best discussed among family and members of your spiritual community. This, to paraphrase Maher, is bull-pucky.

Maher, a lapsed Catholic whose beliefs fall on the agnostic side of the spectrum, isn’t comfortable with current political structure of his country, much less the world, where the fate of the globe rests in the hands of individuals who are more concerned with the next world than this one (a clip of George Dubya citing his Christian beliefs as being vital in forming America’s foreign policy is particularly troubling). He’s annoyed by the hypocrisies, prejudices and manipulations that are perpetrated by misguided members of the religious right. But most of all, Maher is just plain tired of people being unwilling to admit that “they just don’t know”.

So, we follow him as he journeys the world in search of answers. He talks to a gold-bedecked evangelical preacher who attempts to use Bible quotes to defend his right to wear expensive lizard-skin shoes. There’s a hilarious meet-and-greet with summer-time tourists at Holy Land, a Florida-based Christian theme park (Check out their website at holylandexperience.com and be awestruck at the wondrous depths of crass commercialism), where an actor playing Jesus catches Maher off-guard with a uniquely astute religious analogy. And in the final section of the film, our Host with the Most asks some very pointed questions inside a Jerusalem-set Islamic temple.

This is very uncomfortable territory for many, and Maher and Charles are very aware of this fact, so they’ve used their years of comedy-writing experience to mould Religulous into a comical odyssey, packed with tightly-edited beats and amusing inserted film footage and subtitles. Their attention to the golden rules of comedy story-telling has allowed the duo to create one of the funniest films of the year, a veritable playground of wit and ideas which results in a memorable and absorbing film-going experience.

Now, there’s no doubt that your own personal beliefs are going to weigh heavily on the movie-going experience that Religulous provides. Many will have a hard time dealing with the giddy cheap-shots that Maher is inclined to make (though usually in the service of a larger point). I think what makes it a worthwhile, even important, film to see is how Maher uses the film, not as a tool for vindictive intolerance, but rather for probing curiosity. He’s fascinated by religion, not afraid to lay bare his frustrations with its practices and dogma, and yearns for rational thought to find its place above personal ideology for the sake of humanity’s future.

It must be said, I suspect that the film’s latter sections will lose some viewers. Maher’s exploration into the Islamic religion doesn’t have the care-free humorousness that the sections on Mormonism, Scientology and Christianity do, but it’s an appropriate choice for a couple of reasons. Firstly, due to the more serious and sensitive current political nature of the topic, and alternately, this transition better eases into the culmination of the film: a dazzling crescendo of imagery and gospel music, wherein Maher provides an impassioned call-to-arms for “non-believers” to speak up and make their minority voices recognized, as well as an appeal for people to recognize man’s propensity for just plain screwing up a lot.

Religulous will likely be more willingly embraced by the academic (read: liberal) crowd, who will appreciate the incisiveness and lack of pandering on display. Maher and Charles have made a truly great film that will entertain the many. But I think the real strength of the film lies in the fact that once the laugher dies down, intelligent discussion and debate is likely to ensue. And there’s nothing “religulous” about that.

4.5 out of 5

*Originally published in SFU's The Peak: Oct. 6th, 2008.

Film Review - EAGLE EYE: Blindingly Stupid.

His name is LaBeouf. Learn it well. For his is the glorious face of the future of the cinematic art form!

...Or at least that’s what those thunderous voices emanating from the Titans of Tinseltown have been bellowing for the last few years, as the ever-encroaching spectre of Shia LaBeouf slowly began infiltrating the tranquility of our daily lives. From the moment he was cast in Walt Disney’s Holes (Has there ever been a dirtier sounding family film?), the buzz has been deafening, and the back-to-back-to-back hits Disturbia, Transformers and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull were likened to triumphant blasts, heralding the arrival of an unstoppable box-office juggernaut. So how does one follow up two bazillion-grossing extra-terrestrial themed blockbusters? You make a paranoid suspense flick dealing with governmental surveillance, of course! (Hey, it worked for Big Willie, right?)

Which brings us to Eagle Eye, a head-slappingly absurd cyber-thriller, which pairs LaBeouf’s Jerry, a Copy Cabana-employed ne’er-do-well, with pretty single mother Rachel (Michelle Monaghan), and sets them on the run from their own government (handily personified by terse FBI man Billy Bob Thornton and gutsy Air Force investigator Rosario Dawson). The duo must obey an ominous female voice on a telephone (Julianne Moore in a wisely uncredited vocal cameo), who can see them anywhere, anytime, and who threatens their personal safety if they do not comply with her often bizarre demands. Should I also mention that amidst these energetic events a controversy swirls around a presidential decision to attack an Afghani desert funeral that may have been attended by a bin Laden-like terrorist? Could the two events possibly be related?

Now fine, the set-up for Eagle Eye is actually promising, and LaBeouf has a nicely shifty personality (though bad teenage facial hair was a questionable choice), all off-beat gesticulating and rapid-fire speech patterns, that’s fun to see plugged in to something this generic. He’s a bit like ‘Ratso’ Rizzo’s suburban nephew. But he’s badly sidelined at the beginning of the second act when the script takes a laughable turn. Before proceeding, I’d recommend anyone who yearns to experience Eagle Eye unsullied skip the next paragraph. Hark, light spoilers be on the horizon!

It turns out that the mysterious “voice” is Project Eagle Eye: a rogue governmental computer dubbed ARIA, which is modelled so closely to 2001’s HAL 9000 that I hope Stanley Kubrick’s estate is getting royalties. It has decided that the United States government is in a critical state of disarray and in need of intervention (Oh, how I wish they’d cast Michael Moore as the ARIA’s voice...). So, its plan is to stage the most overly-complex, silly scheme against the powers that be as inhumanly possible. It goes without saying that ARIA can control every single mechanical thing in the free-world: cranes, electrical conductors, iPhones and even, in a shameless plug, the Circuit City home-entertainment department. The sheer stupidity of ARIA's decisions had me pondering whether it had a virus protection program installed. Those trojan-droppers can be a bitch!

Director D.J. Caruso, who helmed Disturbia, tries to ground all this nonsense by attempting to shoot the picture like a half-witted homage to seventies’ cinema. He has the gritty filters down, but his action beats are flat out embarrassing. The film’s first intended show-stopper, a rapid-fire chase through downtown D.C., has apparently been shot and edited by a blind epileptic, while the second, featuring a self-flying attack plane, is a second-rate rip-off of Stealth and Live Free or Die Hard. I don’t even want to describe Caruso’s The Man Who Knew Too Much-lifted climax for fear of being haunted by Hitchcock’s ornery ghost.

Perhaps Eagle Eye’s most egregious crime, however, is wasting such an impeccable supporting cast. Rosario Dawson and Michelle Monaghan (who earned serious geek-cred with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) are as devoid of personality as their super-powered puppet master. At least Billy Bob Thornton, who bears a mad glint of secret self-amusement, almost manages to rouse the audience awake with his oddball behaviour and (likely improv-ed) dialogue.

This brings us back to LaBeouf: the Man, the Myth and the Legend. He’s engaging and idiosyncratic, and able to make badly-written sarcastic dialogue about trains turning into talking ducks strangely crowd-pleasing. While many would like to deny it, he’s an outstanding lead because he understands the importance of a charismatic, grounded central figure, and yet brings numerous attractive acting choices to the table. Unfortunately despite his talents, he’s incapable of redeeming this sorry project, which boasts an Eagle Eye... and a bird-brain.

1.5 out of 5

P.S.: The final scene, an obvious studio intervention, is a howlingly miscalculated attempt at a sunny ending. My fellow movie-goers tittered their way through the whole thing.

*Originally printed in SFU's The Peak: Oct. 6th, 2008.

Film Review - CHOKE: Rock(well)-Solid Comedic Gag-fest!

I’ve met many on-screen weirdoes in my time, but Victor Mancini is a true original. Get this: Victor, as portrayed by Sam Rockwell, is an unremitting sex addict, gawking lasciviously at any woman within 100 yards, who’s infamous at his mother’s psychiatric hospital for boffing every nurse and orderly on the payroll. Sure he realizes he has a problem, and does attend group therapy, but usually either jokes his way through them with his best friend, a chronic masturbator named Denny (Brad William Henke) or by rolling around the bathroom floor with the equally licentious Nico (Paz de la Huerta).

He’s also got serious mommy issues, doting on his dementia-addled mother Ida (Angelica Huston), a cruel former criminal, who has screwed poor Victor up so badly that the only way he can feel nurtured is to make himself choke on food at restaurants and have strangers save his life.
Oh, did I mention that he works as a “historical interpreter” (aka lowly jackass in a silly wig and costume) at a colonial theme park/tourist trap, where he relentlessly hits on his standoffish co-worker Ursula (Bijou Phillips), and takes cruel joy in infuriating his pompous boss (the film’s director, Clark Gregg).

Yep, he’s a character all right, and the film about his misadventures, titled simply Choke, is one of the most quirky and entertainingly original comedies to come down the twisted pike in eons.

Based on the novel by disturbed author Chuck Palahniuk (who also wrote Fight Club), Choke is the surprisingly affecting tale of a pathetic wretch who searches for meaning in his life. His emotional journey leads him to a number of avenues: learning the truth behind his crazily dysfunctional upbringing, beginning an awkward courtship with Paige (Kelly Macdonald), a new doctor at his mom’s hospital, and by finally making peace with his own depressions and admitting his (many) problems.

But plot isn’t imperative here. Choke is, at its filthy little heart, a hysterical character study that should, lord Xenu willing, finally launch the sleaze-tastic star that is Sam Rockwell. Rockwell, that ace character actor who’s been kicking around Hollywood for almost two decades working in films of varying quality (including Matchstick Men, Charlie’s Angels, Galaxy Quest and Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind), has finally found his ideal role and he owns it every sinful second he’s on screen. With his tousled, lightly greying mop and peculiarly otter-like appearance, he works wonders in making the audience love a man who sexually harasses senior citizens and launches snarky verbal projectiles at everyone around him.

First time helmer Gregg (who also adapted the film), is best known as co-star of TV’s The New Adventures of Old Christine, and was recently seen in theatres being bashed by a metal behemoth in Iron Man, doesn’t have much of a visual sense (he’s more from the bland point-and-shot school of directorial thought), but he shows a remarkable talent for staging comedy and drawing the best from his cast of off-beat talent.

He especially knows how to use Angelica Huston to full effect. Done up like a Goth Carmen Sandiego in flashbacks, the veteran actress goes crackers creating one of the most pathologically wounding parental figures since Gene Hackman worked his own emotionally-stunted magic in The Royal Tenenbaums. No one can say “It’s late! We have to make the state line”, with the chilly authority she can. As well, her work in the present, as a rapidly fading invalid is bravely unsentimental and lacking in vanity.

The other power-player here is Kelly Macdonald, the adorable Scottish actress best known for losing a coin toss in No Country For Old Men, who takes a very tricky pivotal role and really brings a surplus of warmth to it. The fact that she can make the audience believe that Sam Rockwell is endearing is incontestable evidence of her talents.

Gregg’s script is slickly written, and filled with raucously lewd comedic moments. One scene, which had a dozen battle-hardened film critics cackling, features Vincent hooking up with a business-minded rape fetishist without a single submissive bone in her body, who proceeds to verbally dominate her would-be “rapist” to the point of panic. As well, a bathroom encounter that ends with a misplaced anal bead is, on paper revolting, but as portrayed in the film, giggle-inducing. It takes talent to make the depravities seen here funny, but Gregg establishes such a breezy, amiable tone that they’ll offend only the most outrageously conservative of souls.

I ambled into Choke expecting a vulgar trip into Weirdsville, populated by the seamiest of dwellers. So imagine my pleasant surprise at discovering one of the most lovable films of the year, an off-beat triumph with a crackerjack lead performance and full dedication towards delivering a unique comedic vision. For a film over-flowing with acidic wit, bizarre fetishes and mislaid sex toys, Choke sure goes down smooth.

4 out of 5

*Originally printed in SFU's The Peak: Sept. 29, 2008

Film Review - LAKEVIEW TERRACE: Solid Foundation, Shaky Design.

Call me crazy, but nobody plays frustrated emasculation like Patrick Wilson. Over the past few years, he has been steadily gathering a stable of hopelessly ineffectual middle-class guys who are backed into a corner by dominant opposing forces. The suburban husband arrested development case in the astonishing Little Children, overshadowed by successful wife Jennifer Connelly and paralyzingly reluctant about stepping into the adult world. The smirky pedophile unwittingly trapped in would-be victim Ellen Page’s sinister mind-games in the squirm-inducing Hard Candy. And 2009 will see him, in perhaps the penultimate Wilson role, as the impotent crime-fighter Night Owl in the eagerly anticipated adaptation of Alan Moore’s Watchmen.

So try to understand my enjoyment in watching the future star’s misery this time around, being metaphorically (and sometimes literally) slapped around the screen by that unconquerable figure of alpha-maleness, Samuel L. Jackson, in the semi-successful new thriller, Lakeview Terrace.

Set in an upper-middle class suburban neighborhood in forest-fire plagued L.A., Lakeview Terrace features Sam Jackson as Abel Turner, a hard-edged police officer who runs the streets, as well as his single-parent household, with a combustible mix of intimidation and fierce vigilance. An ever-present watchdog over his proud neighborhood, Turner is none-to-pleased when inter-racial married couple Chris and Lisa Mattson (Wilson and Kerry Washington) move in next door. Beneath a subtle veil of hostility, Turner begins making things uncomfortable for the new homeowners with everything from subtle annoyances (parking tickets, intrusive security lights and disparaging racial comments) to vicious verbal attacks and homicidal behavior.

…But then, we’ve all been around this block a few times before. Perhaps titles like Strangers On A Train, Unlawful Entry, Single White Female or The Hand That Rocks The Cradle pop into our heads, clueing us into the fact that we’ve once again entered the ol’ “Psycho Stalker” genre, in which decent people are endlessly tormented by an unstoppable force of menace.

At the very least, screenwriters David Loughery and Howard Korder have mixed things up a bit by honing on the subject of racial prejudice, and in Abel Turner they’ve created an interesting antagonist. Turner is furious over white America’s adoption and subsequent perversions of African-American culture, tired of seeing people like Chris Mattson sleepwalk their way into prosperity while he risks his life on a daily basis and, most of all, he’s resentful of his own place in society. Jackson is most fascinating when he lets his self-loathing seep to the surface like vitriolic ooze, especially in an alcohol-fueled bar-stool confessional, or engaged in a tense breakfast table stand-off with his two young children. His hurt is palpable, occasionally even truthful, and he poses some interesting moral questions.

Patrick Wilson is his perfect counterpart, a liberal yuppie, who often seems almost childlike in his inability to deal with the crises around him. His inability to deal with his wife’s desire to start a family or her over-bearing father (Ron Glass, masterfully imposing in his two short scenes) feed into his venomous conflict with Abel, who knows exactly how to tear down his confidence.

Director Neil LaBute, who previously made the ultimate filmic statement on monstrous male egos with In The Company of Men, understands that these two dueling lions are Lakeview’s core (Indeed, Kerry Washington’s Lisa is mostly relegated to whining and looking angry/hurt, minus a few edgy moments with Jackson), and for the most part he just lets them circle each other. It’s only in the latter third of the film, when the thriller aspects get amped up to ludicrous heights, that we’re reminded that LaBute also gave us The Wicker Man, my most oft-cited film of late. The film’s tumultuous fist-and-firearm show-down, as well as a ridiculous shot of a character in a Christ-like pose, deflate the film’s tension and honest intentions.

As far as suspense films go, Lakeview Terrace does its job and manages to sneak in a few surprise punches. It’s somewhat refreshing to attend a mainstream star vehicle that manages to inject some interesting moral conundrums and social criticism and not appear too simple-minded or patronizing.

Still, it would be nice, just once, to see a “Psycho Stalker” film that doesn’t end with battered sweaty people screaming at one another to “put the gun down”?

3.5 out of 5

*Originally printed in SFU's The Peak: Sept 29, 2008.

Film Review - RIGHTEOUS KILL: Dead On Arrival.

I’m pretty sure that director Jon Avnet is in leagues with the Dark Lord himself. And not the seductive, amiable type like Harvey Keitel in Little Nicky or Jack Nicholson in The Witches Of Eastwick, either. No, I mean the serious Tim Curry-in-Legend-type of badass who hates us all and yearns to make mankind (and Tom Cruise) suffer beyond all comprehension.

How else to explain how Avnet, after conjuring up box-office duds with Kevin Costner, Richard Gere and Robert Redford, was allowed to escape TV purgatory and direct two Al Pacino vehicles? Short-term memories will recall that their first collaboration birthed the critically body-slammed, audience-ignored 88 Minutes (which, oddly enough, ran 108 minutes). Now, suckering Robert De Niro into showing up, their second has arrived, the pathetic serial-killer groaner Righteous Kill.

Set in gritty New York, Righteous Kill clumsily starts off by introducing us to two veteran homicide cops nicknamed Rooster (Pacino) and Turk (De Niro), who are out to bust a gangsta drug-dealer played by, *sigh*, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson. However, just as their investigation into the dealings of Mr. G-Unit, P.I.M.P. is heating up, known criminals start violently shuffling off the mortal coil. Seems a killer is offing the worst of the worst, and he might just be a cop. Thus, the old-timers are teamed up with two younger detectives (John Leguizamo and Donnie Wahlberg) and, aided by De Niro’s slutty CSI friend-with-benefits (Carla Gugino), attempt to discover the identity of the perp.

Right off the bat, Righteous Kill knee-caps itself by revealing what a wasted opportunity it is. De Niro and Pacino are the most treasured actors of their generation, who have only appeared in two films together, The Godfather: Part II and Heat, and only actually shared scenes in the latter. Any film that pairs the two of them together better earn their presence. Yet instead, Avnet and writer Russell Gewirtz (Who wrote the infinitely cooler Inside Man), saddle the two greats with buddy-cop dialogue so awful that your soul dies a little bit just hearing it. I’m talking Brady Bunch references and icky, awkward sex chat. They feel less like partners than tired actors sleepwalking their way through the scene on the way to the catering truck.

What is even worse is how amazingly dull the whole mystery is. We’re told right away who the guilty party “supposedly” is, and then must slog through ninety lifeless minutes watching this person do everything they can to look blameworthy, before being exonerated in an arbitrary last minute twist that defies all the evidence the film has provided. Real storytellers hide clues right in front of you and weave their mystery with skill and precision. Hacks like Avnet and co. put on kid-gloves and treat the audience with contempt.

If only the cast had gone gonzo with the lame material. De Niro, looking comically bloated, relies on grimacing his way through every single scene, while Pacino does his typical world-weary routine (except in a hilarious climactic moment when his stunt double steps in and he turns into a coiled jungle-cat).

Poor Carla Gugino tries valiantly, but her role is so needlessly degrading as to be offensive. Supporting players Leguizamo and Wahlberg seem to be on downers, and manage to appear more lethargic than the stars, though Wahlberg does have one good memorably awful moment wondering aloud “is he killing time? Or is it... killing time?”

There is, in all honesty, not a single thing I can recommend about Righteous Kill. It’s amateurishly shot, tedious and ugly, with as many holes as Pacino wore at the end of Scarface. I beg you, avoid this sucker like Maple Leaf deli meat and help send the malevolence known as Jon Avnet back to whence he came. It’s the righteous thing to do.

1 out of 5

*Originally published in SFU's The Peak: Sept 22nd.

Film Review - BURN AFTER READING: Plenty Of Smoke, But Not Much Fire.

Hello all. If you don’t mind, I’d like to preface my review of Joel and Ethan Coen’s latest film, Burn After Reading, with a joke that will hopefully tickle your funny-bones.

*Ahem*

So, a guy walks into a bar. It’s in Chicago, and it’s raining hard outside. Now, the guy is wearing a gray overcoat, with a battered fedora and nerdy glasses. He’s an accountant. Anyways, the guy takes off his coat and hangs it on a crooked coat-rack and walks up to the bartender, who’s about 60. The bartender is nervously reaching for the telephone, but the guy doesn’t see that. So, the guy looks at him and says: “What do you recommend for a wet accountant?” The barman looks him up and down, and says “whiskey on the rocks”. The guy drinks it and leaves.

The above anecdote best explains how I felt walking out of Burn After Reading, an anarchic ensemble comedy that jerks and shoves the audience through a litany of plot twists and turns only to deposit them, breathless and impatient, back into their seats, pat them on the head and inform them that the punch–line is that there isn’t one. Thanks for coming folks, don’t forget your jackets on your way out.

Burn After Reading relies more on a complex scenario than a plotline: a recently unemployed CIA agent named Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) has heatedly retired from the spook game and decided to write his memoirs. This decision exasperates his icy wife, Katie (Tilda Swinton), who has been conducting an affair with married serial philanderer/treasury agent Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney) and is determined that each of them divorce their current partners in the interest of a more socially acceptable union. Meanwhile, Osborne's book project has turned into an vengeful expose of his former employers. In preperation, he has created a CD-ROM of top-secret figures and statistics which, through fateful circumstances, ends up in the hands of dense personal trainer Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) and vain, insecure Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand), employees of a local gym called Hardbodies.

Through an unimaginable series of absurd coincidences involving the aforementioned CD, as well as torrid affairs, each of these characters find themselves, often obliviously, caught up in a seemingly high-stakes game of espionage that makes so little sense that the Coens provide a pair of G-men, played by J.K. Simmons and David Rasche, to lend voice to the audience’s bewilderment.

Now, this isn’t the first time that the Coen brothers have played around with the concept of randomness and meandering narratives. Remember that the duo won Oscars last February for the brilliant No Country For Old Men, a far deeper and challenging film than Burn After Reading. More importantly, however, they were the masterminds behind the 1997 cult-classic The Big Lebowski, which introduced us to the Dude (Jeff Bridges), and plugged him into a film noir plot that was as hazy as his own mindset. Well, Burn After Reading can best be described as a less-ambitious Lebowski with spy-thriller conventions and unlikably needy characters.

Still, there are a few delights along the twisty way. Brad Pitt, an actor whom, despite his popularity, often seems as lively as balsa-wood on screen, is having a ball here and makes Chad a dim-wittedly brilliant creation. Most of the laughs in the film result from his delirious idiocy, especially in a goofy scene with Malkovich in a car, where Pitt tries to intimidate the furious former agent with ludicrous eye-squinting and tough-guy attitude. Pitt is fully committed throughout, and I found myself having flashbacks to his ace comedy-relief in True Romance. Someone get this guy a meeting with Judd Apatow, stat!

Equally amusing is J.K. Simmons, who you’ll recall from Juno and the Spider-Man series, as the befuddled CIA supervisor who, in two gang-buster scenes, mutters and shakes his head in disbelief over the increasingly jumbled plot developments.

I was also amused by the musical contributions of Carter Burwell, who overlays the tiresome lunacy with cheekily hard-edged thriller music, which establishes the intended espionage-genre satire.

But aside from these simply joys, I found myself blankly staring at an often lifeless patch-work of missed opportunities. It seems as though the Coens, so intent on crafting a droll cinematic F-U to the audience forgot to write anything very funny for their all-star cast to say. Pros like McDormand, Malkovich, Swinton, Richard Jenkins and Clooney are working hard, but haven’t much witty to say or do. And the mid-film introduction of a particular... apparatus is amusing, but missing the necessary punch to make it classic.

It’s kind of dispiriting to watch the massively talented Coen brothers deliver tired sardonic statements when they have so much more to offer. Burn After Reading is an okay ironic in-joke, but as a film it’s the equivalent of having Porky Pig sputter “TH-TH-TH-THAT’S ALL FOLKS!” at the end of the second act.

2 out of 5

*Originally published in SFU's The Peak: Sept 22nd.

Film Review - BANGKOK DANGEROUS: Cage Rules, But BANGKOK Goes Out With A Whimper...

Can we all just agree that Nicolas Cage is the most entertaining actor working today? Sure, he may have a less consistent filmography than Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington or Russell Crowe, but Cage works the hardest for our entertainment dollars, in my lowly opinion. While his peers are tripping over each other chasing Oscar bait and renowned directors, he’s rambling surreal, likely ad-libbed, dialogue about the joys of jelly beans and television while playing a flame-headed second tier superhero. He’s leering like a pervert and stalking Jessica Biel in time-travel schlockbusters. He is even, in his greatest hall-of-fame moment, wearing a giant bear suit and clocking evil hippie women in the schnozzle while screaming about honey and bees! Yep, dammit, I love the oft-wigged eccentric hangdog, and so I was nearly euphoric about attending his latest, a strange exotic hitman drama with the genius title of Bangkok Dangerous.

Before I begin my expository breakdown of Bangkok Dangerous’ plot though, let’s keep in mind that a true Cage vehicle depends more on weirdo method acting moments than first-rate storylines. Anyways, I digress.

Cage’s character, economically named “Joe”, is a world-class assassin-for-hire, with a coldly methodical work ethic and preference for bad tourist outfits and greasy black hair extensions. Arriving in steamy, seamy Bangkok, Joe becomes quickly accustomed to his lurid surroundings and hires an errand boy, named Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm), to aid him in his homicidal tasks. Kong, after some initial misgivings, develops a man-crush of sorts on Joe, inspiring the weary hitman to take the young man under his tutelage. Also, along the meandering way, Joe develops a slightly creepy crush on Fon, a local deaf pharmacist (Charlie Yeung), who seems blissfully ignorant towards the awkwardness of her hulking, cave-dweller-like new squeeze. In the midst of these relationships are a number of baffling and ill-conceived double-crosses, flashy assassinations (including a stylish drowning sequence) and horrendously incoherent action scenes that completely derail the film’s emotional centre: Joe rediscovering his lost humanity through the beauty and tranquility of Bangkok’s exotic culture and people.

Now, you may have taken my physical descriptions of Cage in the last paragraph as smart-ass ridicule, but it isn’t intended to be. Rather, I believe (truly, truly believe) that Cage’s physical presence and appearance in this film to be wholly intended. How else to explain the stooped posture and tacky aesthetics? Cage has always had a fondness for white-trash chic (Re-watch Con Air or Next. See what I mean?), and I think that Joe is one of the actor’s more interestingly wacky recent on-screen performances. The way he offsets his shabby exterior with a tired, world-weary attitude is actually quite appealing. The film’s best scene, where Joe first meets the lovely Fon in the pharmacy, has a gentle sort of off-beat grace about it. Carried out almost completely in silence, it allows Cage to exercise his talent for physical acting and stream-of-conscious verbal sputtering, which Yeung matches suitably with unspoken elegance. Even while I was pondering the potential liabilities involved with employing a mute, hearing-impaired woman as your pharmaceutical customer service representative (“How many pills a day? Two..? Five..? The whole bottle!?”), I was able to overlook the logistics and be entertained by the pleasantness of the moment.

If only the rest of the film was interested in following such a character-rich path. The directors, who work under the badass moniker “The Pang Brothers!” (Okay, I added the exclamation point for effect, but still...), have watched way too much flashy American junk for their own good. So instead of setting-appropriate transitions and graceful camera moves, we are pummelled with heavily edited action scenes and filler bits that reminded me of CSI and the Saw films. Speaking of which, Bangkok Dangerous is crammed to the gills with gun battles that can only be described as John Woo-On-Stupid-Pills. Apparently unable to match the stylishness of Woo, the Pang Bros. have instead wound up with a high-speed canal gondola chase that packs all the intensity of a paddleboat race, and a final shoot-out that, despite a record number of exploding water jugs, is as thrilling as City Council coverage on community television. As well, the directors’ choice to under-lit the sets and shoot through grainy filters makes the whole darn thing look like a straight-to-video Dolph Lundgren opus. I did, however, giggle at their shot from inside a car trunk – an obvious Tarantino homage. Keep dreamin’ brothers Pang.

Yet, Nic Cage’s strange charisma makes most of this shambling mess mildly interesting. So, if you too have been willingly inducted into the Cult of Cage, I’d consider guiltily checking this one out on DVD (Preferably on 2-for-1 night). The majority, however, should steer well clear. Unfortunately, despite promises of sensationalized violence and lurid subject matter, Bangkok couldn’t be any more harmless.

2 out of 5