Recounting the BP Oil Spill disaster of 2010 that was both a human and environmental tragedy, DeepwaterHorizon spends a good deal of its running time concentrating on the competence of those workers on the enormous rig. Peter Berg’s dramatization of the events off the Southern coast of Louisiana finds Mark Wahlberg’s engineer Mike and Kurt Russell’s supervisor Jimmy trying their best at their positions while dealing with cost cutting corporate elements. It’s something many in the audience are likely to relate to and the pic coasts for a bit on simply being a story about people working.
Yet it’s the elements that arrive later during that massive explosion that give Deepwater its disaster flick cred. Had this not been a true story, I’m not so certain the visual spectacle that pervades the third act would’ve been as meaningful. The action sequences are well rendered if not particularly anything new from a run of the mill summer blockbuster.
We get to know more than just Mike and Jimmy. There’s John Malkovich’s BP “company man”. He’s the guy cutting corners and the actor himself is given a pretty decent monologue about it. There’s Kate Hudson as Wahlberg’s wife, watching the drama unfold from afar and Gina Rodriguez as a fellow crew member.
Horizon also features a lot of technical jargon that those without an engineering degree or knowledge of the industry could be lost with. It doesn’t really matter. The script does a perfectly serviceable if unspectacular job letting us meet some people whose everyday occupations put them in previously unseen peril.
TheGirlontheTrain isn’t skillfully made enough to realize its own trashiness. This differs greatly from David Fincher’s GoneGirl, which embraced its pulpy source material and had lots of fun with it. Based on a huge bestseller by Paula Hawkins, Train takes itself too seriously to be the guilty pleasure it ought to be. That’s a shame because Emily Blunt’s central performance continues her fine work rolling along.
She plays Rachel, a divorced alcoholic who spends the bulk of her time on the titled mode of transportation. Her boozy travels send her past her old home, where her ex (Justin Theroux) lives with his new wife and old mistress (Rebecca Ferguson) and baby. It is two houses down, however, where Rachel’s chemically imbalanced imagination is running wild. This is where Megan (Haley Bennett) and her husband Scott (Luke Evans) reside and the passenger watching them envisions their relationship to be the one she pines for. Of course, there’s far more beneath the surface and that goes for all the characters involved.
When Rachel realizes there’s more to the facade she’s conjured for the couple, it leads to a mystery and a disappearance that involves Allison Janney’s detective. It leads to questioning Rachel’s whereabouts on a typical blackout drunken evening. I suppose, too, it eventually leads to a twist that is one you’re likely to pick up on earlier than you should. Whether this is designed that way is something I don’t know, but it’s a flaw nonetheless.
Our title character’s abuse of her own body and mind and other abuses I won’t reveal gives Blunt a chance to shine. Her performance is really the only one worthy of note, though Bennett does have a couple moments of her own. The story is told in a flashback style that gives all the women some backlog, but it’s Rachel who merits our attention. If only director Tate Taylor didn’t seem intent on pushing a dour vibe instead of recognizing this is vacation paperback material, this could’ve worked better. Blunt almost makes it worth the trip, but not quite.
In a way, WarDogs is a bit of a companion piece to TheBigShort. We have a director (Todd Phillips) known for humorous material making a more serious and based on true events effort about controversial policies during the Bush/Cheney era. We have a mix of dramatic and comedic actors telling the tale. However, whereas Adam McKay’s aforementioned 2014 picture was a big success, Dogs falls short.
Its failings are certainly not due to lack of an interesting story. We begin in 2005 when the Iraq conflict is at its height. While the war is dividing a nation, David (Miles Teller) is living a carefree existence in Miami as a massage therapist. His major conflict is making enough cash to support him and his pregnant girlfriend (Ana de Armas). David’s financial issues are provided a boost when he runs into his junior high best bud Efraim (Jonah Hill). He seems to be doing just fine and David soon discovers his old friend is making a killing as an arms dealer selling product to the U.S. government. Efraim soon cuts David in as a partner and their deals bring them to the Middle East, including drab Albania. It is that deal, involving selling 100 million rounds of ammo to the military, that will provide their windfall payload. It also provides all sorts of dangerous problems.
Dogs wags an understandable critical finger at the ease in which these twentysomethings with zero government or defense experience managed their exploits. As Efraim and David become richer than they ever could have envisioned, their trappings of wealth storyline feels awfully familiar. David’s relationship suffers, Efraim’s already diabolical personality grows out of control, etc… Yes, this may be a true story, but all this material felt truly well-worn.
As for performances, Hill has shown himself to be adept at both funny stuff and less funny stuff (Moneyball and TheWolfofWallStreet as the prime examples). His performance here isn’t near as effective and I couldn’t escape the notion that he seemed to be trying a bit too hard to pull off his bad guy role. Teller is a talent as well (Whiplash as prime example), but his work here is a couple notches above bland. Bradley Cooper turns up for a few minutes as a shady dealer whose character is just interesting enough that I would’ve liked to see him more.
The source material (based on a RollingStone article) should have garnered a richer experience than what Phillips gives us. WarDogs has plenty in common with TheBigShort in terms of personnel involved, but little in common with it as to lasting impression.
Damien Chazelle has figured out innovative ways to marry music with film in a way that no other director has dared try in the 21st century and it permeates every frame of his sophomore feature La LaLand. Let’s go back for a moment to the final scene of his masterful debut Whiplash. It culminated in a virtuoso drum performance from Miles Teller showing his skills from his dictatorial instructor J.K. Simmons that left a collective smile on the audience’s faces. That frown upside down feeling is immediately resurrected in the opening sequence here, as dozens of citizens stuck in L.A. traffic burst into a gleeful song and dance number. The message is loud and clear: writer/director Chazelle has been given the freedom to make a full-on old Hollywood style musical and he doesn’t shy away from the leeway.
Mia (Emma Stone) is an aspiring actress who works on the Warner Bros lot as a barista as she hustles from one despairing audition to the next. Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) is a jazz pianist who’s playing restaurants and pining to open his own club as he laments the demise of the genre he adores. The two meet briefly and not romantically on that aforementioned Southern California freeway and keep bumping into each other. It takes them awhile to recognize that they adore one another. In Chazelle’s world, that elevation of their courtship involves some amazingly choreographed numbers. A particular highlight is one that occurs at the famed Griffith Observatory.
LaLaLand tracks the couple as their professional lives rise and fall. Mia is determined to get her one woman play off the ground. Sebastian joins a jazz fusion band led by John Legend and even though he’s not wild with their sound, it’s a steady paycheck. The picture coasts for a good portion of its running time on its harmonious relationship of the leads.
Yet real life eventually causes the needle to skip on their joyous record of happiness. It is then that those issues Mia and Sebastian experience allow the two actors playing them to stretch their dramatic chords. This is the third time Gosling and Stone have been together on screen (the others being Crazy, Stupid, Love and GangsterSquad) and their chemistry is already well established and rock solid. There’s a final audition scene involving Stone in which she left the crowd silent with her voice.
When we reach the third act, the decades old Hollywood rules in this genre of happily ever after don’t necessarily apply. Chazelle fashions a what if segment that is both inspiring and a bit heartbreaking, all while keeping us in tune with the boldness of taking something old and making it new. And you’ll be smiling again when the fade out occurs.
Tom Ford’s NocturnalAnimals is centered on a woman living in a fancy world surrounded by her own boredom and regret at certain life choices. The film is an often fascinating mash-up of Hitchcock, a little De Palma inspired Hitchcock, and most surprisingly, a West Texas crime tale that looks and feels like this year’s earlier HellorHighWater. We also have a more conventional tale of a romance gone astray and the emotions involved with that. It’s a concoction that sometimes is a little messy, a tad campy at moments, veers in tone shifts, and is also directed a fashion designer who seems to know exactly what he wishes to fashion.
L.A. art gallery owner Susan Morrow (Amy Adams) is living a wealthy life in an unhappy marriage and a career she’s grown to believe is purposeless. One day, she receives a manuscript. It’s from her ex-husband Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal) that she was only married to for a couple years around college. The novel grabs her. It’s the aforementioned HighWater looking story of a remarried Edward on a West Texas road trip with his wife and daughter when they are terrorized by bad guys led by a disheveled and effectively menacing Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Their encounter takes a dark and tragic turn and soon Edward is teaming up with a ranger (Michael Shannon, in a terrific performance) to deal with its aftermath.
The story cuts back and forth between the actions of Susan’s ex-flame’s West Texas narrative (is it real or not?) and her unhappy life on the West Coast. We also witness the courtship of them in college. This juxtaposition creates an often dream like quality (a little David Lynch thrown in for good measure) and it’s rather intoxicating. We basically get to know everything we need to know about Susan’s character in a great short scene with Laura Linney as her debutante mom. Other key characters and their motivations don’t become clear until later.
NocturnalAnimals looks gorgeous as you might expect from a designer that Jay-Z made a song about. The cinematography is stunning and the musical score is often reminiscent of something we’d hear in an old Hitch pic or perhaps De Palma homage. There are moments that recall Nicolas Winding Refn’s TheNeonDemon in plot had that movie actually succeeded. Tom Ford wears his influences proudly and unabashedly in his sophomore effort. It’s anything but boring.
Now that this latest iteration of the StarTrek film series has reached its third entry, the creative forces behind it are free to just let Beyond be a two-hour episode upon itself. In other words, JJ Abrams was quite successful directing the first two features in 2009 and 2013 and establishing a new cast playing iconic roles. By part III, those objectives have already been met and Abrams leaves his successor Justin Lin the opportunity to make this one an action packed sci-fi spectacle. We also have the hallmarks of the 50-year-old franchise that include celebrating the camaraderie of the Enterprise crew and injecting well-placed humor.
In a way, StarTrekBeyond reminded me of the previous 007 pic, Spectre. How so? Spectre arrived three movies after Daniel Craig had put his stamp on another half century old institution. By the time part 4 rolled around, I was ready for something that needn’t burden itself with continually reshaping itself. Spectre didn’t and was mostly successful. Beyond doesn’t either and is even more satisfying.
We begin in year 3 of the USS Enterprise’s five-year voyage that they embarked on at the conclusion of StarTrekIntoDarkness. Not all is well. Captain Kirk (Chris Pine, grown and confident in the role) is struggling with the endless journey. Trusty Spock (Zachary Quinto) is having girl troubles with Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and mourning the reveal that Ambassador Spock (Leonard Nimoy) has passed. This, of course, holds special meaning to the audience due to Nimoy’s passing in between pics.
Everything perks up for the crew when the ship is invaded by Krall (Idris Elba), a ruthless extraterrestrial tracking a relic that Kirk has in his possession. This attack leaves the crew splintered for a decent portion of the running time, allowing many of the members their moments to shine. That includes Karl Urban as McCoy and Simon Pegg’s Scotty, who both continue to provide sturdy comic relief. Sofia Boutella is a fine addition as an alien who joins Team Enterprise. Both Saldana and Anton Yelchin’s Chekov are a bit more relegated to the sideline in terms of the overall story (tragically, Yelchin died just a month before the film’s release). John Cho’s Sulu is given a previously not revealed character development. And when it comes to the main villain, Elba is quite menacing and effective.
Without having to set up anything new, Beyond gets right to the fun stuff and doesn’t let up. Lin is no stranger to elaborate action sequences, having helmed four FastandFurious flicks. Yet enough time is set aside to explore the strong bonds of the team. It’s about family… to borrow a theme that FastandFurious characters endlessly beat into our skulls. So while this might be the simplest of the trio of new StarTrek’s we’ve witnessed, it also manages to be the most purely entertaining.
Gavin Hood’s EyeintheSky succeeds as a tense and strongly acted thriller which presents a moral test to the audience without being preachy. That’s a compliment to screenwriter Guy Hibbert for not feeling the need to bash us over the head with whatever his personal politics might be. We don’t know and don’t really need to.
The subject of drone warfare and its prevalence in recent conflicts is one that audiences will bring their own leanings to. This film presents a scenario in a matter of fact manner with characters on different sides of the fence. That situation is in the country of Kenya where a trio of high value targets are in the same location. The British government is in charge of deciding how to kill or capture them and many of the shots are being called by iron willed Colonel Powell (Helen Mirren). Her chain of command is superseded by fellow soldier General Benson (Alan Rickman in his second to last role). Their experience on the ground makes them simpatico when it comes to decisions, but they’re in a constant morass of government officials kicking the can up the chain.
It isn’t long before the capture order becomes a kill order and it’s an American Air Force pilot (Aaron Paul) tasked with dropping the drone from his base in Nevada. There’s one significant complication: a little girl is selling bread right outside the target zone. The question of her being likely collateral damage weigh on the conscience of our characters to varying degrees.
There are moments in the Sky that can’t help but be somewhat humorous even considering the potentially tragic circumstances, as many of the people shown can’t bring themselves to make any final decision. You may not feel like you should be amused by it, but there are times where it feels like the intent. This also extends to small moments where real life gets in the way of those making these massive judgment calls, from children’s toy shopping for one to a bout of food poisoning for another.
The acting is all first-rate with special credit to the always dependable Mirren and Rickman, whose characters disdain for their higher-ups indecisiveness is barely bubbling under the surface. When Eye concludes, it has managed to take the time to lay out the pros and cons of each momentous decision. Yet it invites us to make our judgment call on whether it was all worth it. In this case, that’s the sign of some filmmakers respecting their audience and successfully keeping us enthralled throughout.
The 20th and just wrapped season of “South Park” essentially posited a theory that a lot of the love for last year’s StarWars: TheForceAwakens was due to our nostalgia goggles being tuned up to 11. In short, Trey Parker and Matt Stone came to the conclusion that Force really wasn’t very good. It was just that we were hungry for that feeling we had from Episodes IV-VI (I-III not so much).
Comedy Central’s show made their position clear through the ingenious creation of Member Berries, talking fruits who constantly reminded us of StarWars characters and situations from decades ago. In other words, to Parker and Stone – TheForceAwakens was partially just two hours of ” ‘Memba Han Solo?!?!?!” and ” ‘Memba R2D2?!?!?!”.
This is a feeling that many of the StarWars legions of fans share in that Force was too much of a rehash of the beloved 1977 original. It’s fair criticism and somewhat true, but I personally felt it didn’t really take away from it being a very satisfying experience.
Another hallmark of South Park’s season (and the one before that) is that it’s been serialized into one long plot line over ten episodes. For 18 seasons, the show never did that. When we get to season 21, there are hints it could go back to the past as the finale was titled “The End of Serialization As We Know It”.
Why all the South Park talk? ‘Memba you’re supposed to be writing a review of the new StarWars?!?!?! Well, I just love the show, but it also dovetails into RogueOne: AStarWarsStory, which marks the first interruption of this cherished franchise’s serialization. We have our inaugural spin-off in the series. The first without a Roman numeral episode behind the title. When Disney paid George Lucas billions of dollars to begin producing new titles, it was quickly revealed that we’d get individual stories without episode numbers involved about every other year.
RogueOne is the first and just as TheForceAwakens had large expectations attached, so does this. It must simultaneously introduce new characters into that far, far away galaxy while feeding us those Member Berries. It must especially do so because the events in Rogue happen between Episode III (2005’s Revengeof the Sith) and IV (that first entry nearly forty years ago). This is when Darth Vader is alive and well and developing his Death Star to wreak havoc on the planetary system.
‘Memba Daddy issues?!?!?! They’re prevalent everywhere in this franchise and here too. Our central hero is Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), whose scientist father (Mads Mikkelsen) was recruited against his will to develop that evil device Vader pines for. Jyn is separated from him as a child after being rescued from being taken by Imperial forces by Rebel leader Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker). Flash forward to Jyn as a young lady when she teams up with defected Imperial pilot Bodhi (Riz Ahmed) and Rebel fighter Cassian (Diego Luna) to find her long captured Pops and stop Vader’s destructive deeds. In true StarWars fashion, there’s also sidekick droid K-2SO (voiced by Alan Tudyk) providing effective comic relief.
‘Memba strange looking CG effects that hindered the prequels?!?!?! I found them here, but explaining them in detail would move into spoiler territory. I’ll just say there’s one well-known returning character whose inclusion is badly hampered by what I’ll refer to as technical issues.
Gareth Edwards, who last directed 2014’s pretty cool Godzilla reboot, clearly has reverance for the world George Lucas created. Since the happenings here directly lead to what we saw in 1977, Edwards does an often remarkable job in getting the look down for what transitions into Luke, Leia, and Han. The final third of RogueOne is non-stop action and it’s well-developed and thrilling. There’s not a performance I can complain about (at least not the live-action ones) and particular stand-outs include Ben Mendelsohn, an Imperial baddie trying to impress Boss Vader and Donnie Yen as a blind warrior whose belief in the Force is quite strong.
Yet this end of serialization as we know it for StarWars presented this critic with some perhaps unavoidable challenges. I found it tough to get as involved in the central characters knowing that this is a one off picture. TheForceAwakens gave us newbies mixed with oldies where we know their saga will evolve and grow. That’s not the case here. Therefore it’s often the case in RogueOne that the most memorable moments involve Member Berries being served to us as opposed to enjoying what is new. ‘Memba that feeling of dread mixed with excitement hearing James Earl Jones voice one of the greatest villains in film history?!?!?! Of course you do. You loved it then and will love it again.
Henry Joost and Ariel Shulman’s techno thriller Nerve boasts a fairly cool concept that is mostly squandered under typical genre cliches. These are the directors responsible from 2010’s documentary (?) Catfish, where revelations about the dark side and fictitious nature of the Internet seemed somewhat new and novel. This pic takes its story from a 2012 novel where online game Nerve dares its players to complete tasks that increasingly become deadlier.
Vee (Emma Roberts) is a shy Staten Island high school senior with a domineering and trampy BFF (Emily Meade) and meek other BFF (Miles Hezier) that has a serious crush on her. She’s also got a single mom (Juliette Lewis) whose character is written as a complete moron when you stop and think about it. There’s also her dead brother and that unexplained backstory seems a bit unneeded.
Back to the game that shares its title with the movie. Vee decides to get out of her comfort zone and become a Player (the other option is being a Watcher and there’s a bunch of them). It starts out innocently when she has to kiss a stranger named Ian (Dave “The Other Franco” Franco). He turns out to be a Nerve Player as well and the two are directed by the unseen forces to team up.
The screenplay by Jessica Sharzer attempts to make some broad points about Internet fame and the youth culture’s obsession with their social media devices. At first, the concept of Nerve (both the film itself and the game) is kinda fun for us to watch and be voyeurs to, like when Vee has to decide whether to steal a pricey dress from Bergdorf’s.
Yet as the challenges for Vee and Ian become more risky, Nerve becomes far less believable, considerably less enjoyable and far more trapped in the cliches of any run of the mill thriller. None of the cast necessarily shines, but everyone is essentially playing a stereotype so it’s probably not their fault. As a huge fan of 90s hip hop, I did appreciate the Wu-Tang Clan references due to Vee hailing from Staten Island, so there’s that. There’s also the sight of The Other Franco serenading a restaurant to Roy Orbison. At least some solid music interrupts the mostly disappointing Nerve on occasion.
Pretty much every character in David Mackenzie’s HellorHighWater conceals a weapon in its desolate and beautiful West Texas setting. They don’t conceal their feelings that the system (think banks) works against them. So in these laid back locales, the brothers Howard (Chris Pine and Ben Foster) robbing those establishments in order to save their family farm is something of a noble cause. However, the unpredictability and violence that normally follows those crimes (no matter how sensical they might be) are present.
Pine is Toby, a divorced father of two suddenly put in charge of the Howard ranch after the death of his mother. Tanner (Foster) is his loose cannon brother, fresh out of prison. When the pic opens, they are beginning their plot to pilfer enough cash from several branch locations to pay off a reverse mortgage that Mom was saddled with. Tanner’s outlaw past often interferes with Toby’s well-plotted scheme. Ranger Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) is tasked with nabbing the duo, along with his half Comanche partner (Gil Birmingham), who’s often the brunt of Hamilton’s sort of good-natured teasing.
A peak into Tanner’s trailer home reveals a “Don’t Tread on Me” banner and it summarizes the general worldview of even the background players we see here. This applies to the Indian fellow Tanner plays poker with in the casino or the flirtatious waitress who gets a healthy tip from Toby. Yet one suspects that unseen forces have been treading on them for generations, as evidenced by the wasteland their small towns have become.
The typical genre fare we’re used to seeing are to be found here, from Hamilton being this close to retirement to Tanner’s combustibility. Where HellorHighWater succeeds is many facets, from the gorgeous cinematography to top notch performances. Pine sheds his leading man facade to blend in well with the scenery. Foster sells his off kilter criminal with relish (his reaction to being unexpectedly woken up by his brother tells you lots about who he is). Bridges’ Ranger gets opportunities to be a detective in ways he probably rarely does and it’s a joy to see the actor try out his garbled accent while doing so. While HellorHighWater may not be anything too different in the heist category of film, its fleshed out characters and actors playing them make it a worthwhile watch.
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