Tag: Mad Men

Maggie Moore(s) Review

At one point in Maggie Moore(s), New Mexico police chief Sanders (Jon Hamm) tells his blunt deputy Reddy (Nick Mohammed) that he has no concept of when it’s OK to tell a joke. You could say the same with Paul Bernbaum’s screenplay. This black comedy attempts to pull off incorporating pedophilia and hate crimes as its murder mystery plays out. It doesn’t work in this aimless grim pic. Plus it’s just not very funny.

Maggie Moore (Louisa Krause) works at a diner while sleazy husband Jay (Micah Stock) is the franchisor of a sandwich shop where he buys rancid meat on the black market. When she threatens to expose his various shady business dealings, she turns up dead. A gigantic deaf hitman named Kosco (Happy Anderson) is responsible. In this small town setting, there’s another Maggie Moore (Mary Holland) and perhaps her murder will throw Hamm’s chief from the fast food potential felon.

This all goes down early in the picture and most of Moore(s) is Sanders and his partner catching up with what we already know. This unfortunate structure zaps it of any suspense and when the humor falters (which is most of the time), the mold gathers quickly.

You might think a 30 Rock reunion of Hamm and Tina Fey courting each other could save it. She plays Jay’s nosy and self-conscious neighbor who catches the lawman’s eye. Despite their easy chemistry that results in a handful of laughs, it can’t rescue the second feature length effort from the lead’s Mad Men costar John Slattery.

The aforementioned taboo subjects indicate that its makers want to bring an edge that is never earned. None of the relationships feel authentic in a script where the players are quirky without quality development. The subs aren’t the only item that are substandard.

*1/2 (out of four)

Don’t Worry Darling Review

The halcyon neighborhood in Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling looks like something a production designer would mount for a 1950s suburban setting (think Pleasantville or Edward Scissorhands). In the director’s sophomore feature after the winning Booksmart, that begins to make more sense as time passes. The male characters are all about appearance and maintaining a certain Mad Men vibe. Their wives are expected to maintain the home (though there are more frequent opportunities for cocktails given the pined for time period). You don’t need to be a cinephile to suspect this idealized community could be a facade and that dark secrets lurk. You might be reminded of several films with similar themes that were more successful. Meanwhile… that production design and other tech aspects? They’re exquisite. So is the lead performance. They’re also contained in a story that’s often baffling in its narrative design.

Alice Chambers (Florence Pugh) is a resident of Victory, California where everyone seems to have a winning attitude. Her husband Jack (Harry Styles), along with the rest of the townsmen, work at Headquarters where their uniform job description is developing “progressive materials”. Alice and the rest of the spouses have no clue what that means and seem more concerned with the sheets being properly folded and the roast being cooked at the proper temperature. The unofficial ruler of Victory is Frank (Chris Pine). In addition to being the boss at Headquarters (where the ladies are strictly forbidden from visiting), he has daily indoctrination monologues disguised as a radio show. The call letters could be CULT.

The tranquil facade is threatened when Alice’s friend Margaret (KiKi Layne) begins making accusations about the hierarchy. Shortly thereafter, Alice’s experiences have her questioning this reality. That doesn’t sit well with Frank or Jack, who’s climbing up the corporate ladder. She also finds little support from next door neighbor and bestie Bunny (Wilde), who seems perfectly content with the setup. Same with Frank’s doting wife Shelley (Gemme Chan).

Don’t Worry Darling, with a screenplay from Booksmart scribe Katie Silberman, finds influences from many sources. Notable ones include The Matrix, The Truman Show, and obviously The Stepford Wives. For a while (easily the first half), it’s a decently intriguing and gorgeously rendered paranoia thriller. Yet I couldn’t shake where I thought it was headed and once it got there, it felt as empty as Alice’s daytime activities. This is no fault of the actress playing her. Pugh is a firecracker and that’s not matched by her costars. The charisma of Styles, so evident in his role as Biggest Male Pop Star on the Planet, isn’t evident here.

Silberman’s script leaves plenty of questions burning in the Victory sun. When the credits rolled, I was only mildly interested in the light being shed on them. The style is present with Darling. The substance slows down the progression of this material.

**1/2 (out of four)

Confess, Fletch Review

It’s often the company our title character keeps in Confess, Fletch that determines the success rate. Jon Hamm effortlessly wears the role of a former journalist who is forced to solve a murder. The urgency is due to I.M. Fletcher finding a female corpse in the house he’s staying at in the first scene. He calls the police station instead of 911 after the discovery. Why? The emergency part is over, according to him. His ambivalence results in humorous moments throughout. It also leads to him becoming the prime suspect.

Greg Mottola has directed comedies that killed like Superbad and Adventureland. He’s also behind the dud Keeping Up with Joneses, which costarred Hamm. This reboot of a franchise that yielded one of Chevy Chase’s finest pics in 1985 and a disappointing 1989 sequel is somewhere in between. When it’s funny, it’s quite funny. There’s also the matter of the mystery itself and it’s not very compelling.

Before Chevy made the often disguised wisecracker into his own vehicle, the character was based on a series of Greg Mcdonald novels. Confess, Fletch is based on his second book. It involves kidnappings and art thievery that our former “investigative reporter of some repute” (as he refers to himself) gets caught up in due to his romance with wealthy Italian contessa Angela (Lorenza Izzo).

Fletch may be the prime suspect to law enforcement, played memorably by partners Inspector Monroe (Roy Wood Jr.) and Detective Griz (Ayden Mayeri). He nonchalantly scopes out others. This includes Angela’s potentially gold digging stepmom The Countess (Marcia Gay Harden) and perhaps Angela herself. The Countess is an example of a character played quite broadly and while Harden seems to be having a ball, there’s other personalities that the movie could’ve benefited from with more screen time. I’m thinking specifically of Annie Mumolo’s gossipy next door neighbor and Lucy Punch as a jilted ex-wife of another suspect. I would’ve taken more bits with them over The Countess or Kyle MacLachlan’s EDM loving art dealer.

Just like Hamm’s take on the reputed reporter, it’s easy to go along for the ride. It was also easy to wish for more of what worked best. Ultimately I was about as involved in the plot mechanisms as Fletch himself and that’s sporadic.

**1/2 (out of four)