16 Blocks (2006) * * *

Directed by:  Richard Donner

Starring:  Bruce Willis, Mos Def, David Morse, Cylk Cozart

We think we know how 16 Blocks will play out.    Bruce Willis will channel his inner John McLane and kill a lot of baddies as he delivers a grand jury witness to the courthouse in the nick of time.    16 Blocks throws a few surprises our way.    There is a hero buried within Willis' weary, drunken detective Jack Moseley, but you have to dig past his pain and the booze he is likely pickled in to get to it.    16 Blocks is an action thriller about not just Moseley's redemption, but the redemption of Eddie Bunker (Mos Def), a petty criminal who witnessed a cop murdering someone.   He wants to open a bakery far away from New York and start his life anew...if he survives.

As 16 Blocks opens, Moseley is sitting at a murder scene ensuring no one disrupts it until the medical examiner arrives.    He is a detective, but almost in name only.    He is a full-blown alcoholic who looks aged well beyond his years.    When his shift ends, Moseley is assigned another task; to transport Eddie Bunker sixteen blocks to the downtown courthouse by 10am, which is when the grand jury assignment expires.    Why the parameters?    To create a deadline which will always be in the back of everyone's mind as Jack and Eddie elude the villains.   

Since Eddie witnessed a murder involving a dirty cop, he is chased by a group of dirty cops who don't want him to testify.     The leader is Captain Frank Nugent (Morse), Jack's former partner who tries to at first talk Jack into letting Eddie die and protect his brethren.    On this day, Jack does not play ball and is soon on the run from Frank and his henchmen.     Why did Jack decide to protect Eddie instead of handing him over to certain death?    The answers are revealed later and make sense.

Willis has played a cop so often in his career that he could be an honorary NYPD police officer.    In 16 Blocks, he is flawed, but musters up enough strength for a last rally.    If he goes down, he'll go down fighting instead of at the bottom of a whiskey bottle.    Eddie is a guy with diarrhea of the mouth and doesn't make it easy for Jack to handle him.    Although Mos Def is surely up to the verbal challenge of playing Eddie Bunker, I question the screenwriters' decision to have him talk non-stop.    Run DMC's You Talk Too Much was written with guys like Eddie Bunker in mind.    Did they like the contrast of the stoic Jack vs. the talkative Eddie?    I'm not sure I did.

Morse's Frank Nugent is also facing an inner conflict.    He knows what he must do, but does his damndest to spare Jack.    Does he really want to not kill Jack or does he think a drunken Jack is a better one?    Morse is direct and solemn as Frank, knowing full well he may need to kill Jack to protect himself from Eddie's testimony.    He's not just a simple, shallow villain.

Director Richard Donner directed the Lethal Weapon series, The Omen, and the original Superman.    He is action thriller master, but in the cases of the films I just mentioned (as well as 16 Blocks), he is attracted to stories in which its heroes are conflicted and aren't just wall-to-wall action.    He takes the time to appreciate the humor and humanity in his stories in between the hail of gunfire and chases.    



  

Wedding Crashers (2005) * * *

Directed by:  David Dobkin

Starring:  Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Rachel McAdams, Isla Fisher, Bradley Cooper, Christopher Walken, Jane Seymour

To John Beckwith (Wilson) and Jeremy Todd (Vaughn), "wedding season" is better than Christmas.    What exactly constitutes wedding season is anyone's guess.   John and Jeremy are experts at assuming phony identities and crashing weddings in order to seduce available women.    They have turned this practice into an art form, citing rules handed down by the King of Wedding Crashers himself to keep themselves in line.   Rule Number 1 is never leave your fellow crasher behind.   
Dozens of rules follow.   The guys can recite them chapter and verse.

Wedding Crashers is full of energy and has a heart.   John and Jeremy are nice guys and the best of friends who find a niche and excel at it.    We see multitudes of women melting over lines such as, "They say people only use 10% of our brains.    I say we only use 10% of our hearts."    Sometimes they can't keep up with their own lies.   One failed conquest asks, "Would you say you're just 50% full of shit?"   

John and Jeremy crash the wedding of the Secretary of Defense's daughter and find themselves invited to the Secretary's house for the weekend.    Secretary Cleary (Walken) takes a liking to the two men who say they are venture capitalists.   Cleary has two other unmarried daughters who become involved with the crashers.   The sexually adventurous Gloria (Fisher) has her eye on Jeremy, who finds she may be too much even for him.   John falls for Claire (McAdams), who has a good-looking, mean stud fiancé (Cooper) named Sack.    Sack is such a creep that it's amazing a doll like Claire would be with him, but I suppose he is just one more obstacle for John to overcome in his quest.    What would a romantic comedy be without a fiancé just waiting to be dumped?     Sack is just more violent than the rest.    \He lays out Jeremy with dirty hits in a touch football game and beats up John at least twice.    Come to think of it, I've never seen a romantic rival be so mean.   We have come to like Cooper in the years following in films like Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, American Sniper, and even in some not-so-good films.   He exudes charisma and likability, so it's kind of strange to see him play such a sociopathic prick.  He's pretty good at it too.

Wilson and Vaughn have a smooth cadence that underlines their scenes.    We sense their years of friendship and their mutual love of wedding season.    Vaughn is more verbal and boisterous than Wilson and their contrast fits right.    Yet, Vaughn suffers the most when they visit the Clearys.    Besides being crushed in the football game, he is also tied up by not just Gloria but the Clearys brooding, gay artist son.     A quail hunting expedition goes bad for him too.   

Wedding Crashers ends like most romantic comedies do.    Will Ferrell makes a cameo appearance as Chaz, the aforementioned King Of Wedding Crashers who lives with his mom but scores big at funerals as well.    The fact that he has to stoop to picking up grieving women at funerals says much about his life, but we don't think of that at the time.    Other than Sack, the people in Wedding Crashers are funny and we enjoy their company.    There is a foul-mouthed grandmother who makes everyone cringe at dinner.    She was employed to appeal to the least common denominator, but I prefer the scenes where Jeremy and John make toasts, eat wedding cake, make bets on which readings from the bible will be read, and base their probability of getting lucky on observations of the ladies.    "A tattoo on the lower back.   Might as well be a bullseye."    It's rare that we see people on screen excel at something, even if it's something as goofy as wedding crashing.    We may as well enjoy it. 

Serena (2015) * *

Directed by:  Susanne Bier

Starring:  Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Toby Jones, Rhys Ifans, David Dencik


Serena is a lush, exquisitely photographed film with a screenplay that is only half-finished.   There are lots of subplots juggled, but no satisfactory payoff.   The actors try their best with underwritten characters.     The movie sat on the shelf for three years after filming wrapped in 2012.   I read reports of editing and distribution issues, both of which don't mean much without a decent script.   Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence teamed up for the splendid Silver Linings Playbook (2012) and the filmmakers wanted to capitalize on that successful pairing.   Lightning did not strike twice.

As I said, it is not the fault of the actors that Serena doesn't work.    Cooper and Lawrence are enormously appealing and talented, but even they can't rescue this.    Cooper stars as George Pemberton, who runs a lumber company in Depression-era North Carolina.   At least I think it's North. Maybe it's South.  The characters just say "Carolina" when referring to their home state. 

They are in the middle of a land-clearing project, but have eyes on expansion.    George and his right-hand man Buchanan (Dencik), pay off local politicians to gain favor and keep secret accounts.  Workplaces like Pemberton Lumber Company are why OSHA was created forty years later.   At least two people are killed on the job and others like the foreman Galloway (Ifans) has his hand chopped off by an errant ax.   These incidents are swept aside and never mentioned again.   

George travels to Boston to secure more funding for his projects and encounters the beautiful Serena Shaw (Lawrence) on horseback.    Their courtship may be the shortest in history.    George says, "We should be married," and then the film cuts to their reception.    Serena returns to Carolina with George and becomes an integral part of the operation, much to the dismay of Buchanan, who is half in love with George.    Serena wins the respect of the workers with her ability to chop down trees and know exactly where to cut a tree so it falls safely with minimum waste.    The clairvoyant, creepy Galloway, who never seems to change clothes, becomes a devoted follower of Serena's because he saw her in his visions as a child.    This news doesn't seem to faze George much.   

Serena juggles different subplots unsuccessfully.    There is George's feud with the sheriff, George's homicidal tendencies, Serena's homicidal streak towards a local woman who bore George's illegitimate child, and George's obsession with killing a panther which would make Captain Ahab seem reasonable.  Serena, who is seen as independent and strong, soon goes to pieces when she discovers that George knocked up another woman.     It is amazing more men didn't, since before Serena's arrival this woman seemed to be the area's only female resident.   How did Serena stay in the dark about this fact?    Everyone else knew about it.

Serena is the stuff of melodrama, but it at least could have succeeded as a Depression-era soap opera.    Maybe the film should have been a mini-series, which would have given it time to develop its characters and its subplots.    The movie works overtime to resolve all of them, but in the end we are left dissatisfied.   Serena starts out as romantic melodrama and ends as violent melodrama in just under two hours.   It is ridiculously uneven, but the shots of the mist-covered mountainsides are beautiful if anything. 

Trainwreck (2015) * *

Directed by:  Judd Apatow

Starring:  Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, Colin Quinn, Brie Larson, Lebron James, Amare Stoudamire, Tilda Swinton

I know I've written this before, but boy does an editor on a Judd Apatow movie have the best gig in Hollywood.    Even the good Apatow films overstay their welcome, but why subject us to more of movies like Funny People, This Is 40, and now Trainwreck than absolutely necessary?

Trainwreck isn't a total train wreck.   It is a sporadically funny romantic comedy about a commitment-phobic woman played by comedian Amy Schumer.   She certainly drinks more than she should and has commitment issues, but she's mostly harmless.    She is just not someone we root for to be happy.    Why should we care if she finds true love with Hader's Dr. Aaron Conners?    Conners can do better and should.    Even after the film's forced happy ending, I'll bet if we revisit the couple in a week they would be broken up again.   

As written and played by Schumer, her character Amy Townsend is too cool for the room.    She doesn't seem at home unless she has a drink in her hand, a joint in her mouth, or some snarky remark for someone.    The best parts of Trainwreck do not involve Schumer at all.    We see Lebron James playing himself as someone with zillions of dollars who splits a lunch check with his friend Dr. Conners.     (And pulling the old "I left my wallet in the car" routine).     James isn't a wooden version of himself.    He is engaging and protective of his friend.     Colin Quinn plays Amy's father, a diehard Mets fan suffering from MS who advises his two daughters when they are young, "Monogamy isn't realistic."    Amy follows this advice and avoids having guys sleep over, let alone commit to a monogamous relationship.     Her sister Kim (Larson), takes the traditional route of having a family.   

I also enjoyed WWE Superstar John Cena's role as the closest thing Amy has to be a steady boyfriend.   He's a musclebound lug named Steve who doesn't seem to realize he may be gay.    When Amy asks him to talk dirty to her, he tells her how hot she looked in jeans and climaxes when he says, "I thought you were a guy."    He's funny, especially when he is compared to Mark Wahlberg by a stranger.   ("I look like Mark Wahlberg after he ate Mark Wahlberg.")    Bill Hader is not just a straight man setting up the punchlines for Amy.   He is likable and we wonder how he could be interested in a selfish lush like her.    He would be better off looking elsewhere.    Tilda Swinton is nearly unrecognizable sporting long blonde locks, but the Oscar winner is a deft comic actress as well.   

Basically, the supporting characters here are fresh, while Amy Schumer herself, who is the star of the film, is someone we want to spend the least amount of time with.     I also could've done without the cameos by Chris Evert, Matthew Broderick, and Marv Albert in an attempted intervention for Conners.     The scene disintegrates without any payoff as Marv conducts play by play of the proceedings.    It's unfunny and ungainly.    Here is one segment the underworked editor could have lopped off.

Don't get me wrong.   Amy Schumer is attractive and maintains a screen presence which would serve her well in other movies.    But on the evidence of Trainwreck, she is more of a supporting player than a lead.    She would be better off playing someone who is not so close to herself or her stand-up act.    And Judd Apatow should start understanding that not every idea needs to show up in the movie.

Terminator: Genisys (2015) * *

Warning:  This review contains spoilers. 

Directed by:  Alan Taylor

Starring:  Arnold Schwarzenegger, Emilia Clarke, Jai Courtney, Jason Clarke, JK Simmons

The Terminator (1984) worked very well as a high-tech horror film.   Schwarzenegger played the title role of an unflappable and unstoppable robot that stalked a terrified woman around Los Angeles who will be the mother of the resistance leader in a future war between machine and man.    She was aided by a human named Kyle Reese, who also traveled back in time to attempt to stop The Terminator.    Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) was a visual feast and seemingly tidied up all of the loose ends so the future war would never happen.    It was the logical end to the story, but Hollywood rarely fails to quit while it's ahead.   

Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines (2003) was decent, albeit unnecessary.    Terminator: Salvation (2009) threw Christian Bale into the mix and was wholly unsatisfying.    I was sick of terminators, Skynet, John Connor, and the whole franchise.    When Terminator: Genisys was announced, I was hardly stoked for it.    However, the film's plot involved not just time travel, but alternate timelines, which at least perked my interest enough to see it.    The film is well-made technically, but the alternate timelines are never explained satisfactorily, leading to more questions than answers and hampering my enjoyment of it.

To briefly describe the plot, Kyle Resse (Courtney) is sent back in time to save Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) from a terminator to ensure she gives birth someday to John Connor (Jason Clarke) and thus saves the human race from extinction at the hands of Skynet.    This is the same plot as the original Terminator, but with a twist.    When Reese arrives, Sarah is already fighting the war against terminators with the help of the original T-800 (Schwarzenegger), who saved her life as a child and is her father figure.    She affectionately calls him Pops.    Because he is covered in living tissue, he can age, which explains why he looks like today's Schwarzenegger and not the Schwarzenegger from 30 years ago.    However, his machine parts do not grow older.   This at least is a plausible explanation.    Why there are alternate timelines is not adequately explained.   

Some questions I had were:

*  Assuming Skynet sent a Terminator back to Sarah's childhood home to kill her, who sent Pops to save her?   (I'm basing this question on the plot twist that John Connor was converted to a baddie)

*  Once Skynet wipes out humankind, what does it plan to do?    There isn't much life on the planet left to conquer since they've destroyed nearly everything in a nuclear holocaust.    

*  How could Reese and Sarah not know they were being set up by John Connor when they travel to 2017 San Francisco (which is the new time for Skynet to launch its attack according to the alternate timeline)?     They did not have sex yet, so Sarah could not have given birth to him in time for him to be a grown man by 2029 and thus travel back 12 years to visit them as a grown man.    If you didn't see the original Terminator, you may be unaware that Reese is the father of John Connor.   Oops, sorry.

*   How exactly did the timeline split into an alternate timeline?    The writers here should consult Back To The Future II to figure out how to properly create one.

*   How many bullets and shotgun shells will Sarah, Kyle, and Pops waste before they realize that bullets and shotgun shells won't stop a Terminator?  

*   When John Connor offers Kyle and Sarah a chance to join him, doesn't he realize that Skynet has destroyed everything and the planet is pretty much uninhabitable?    It's not an attractive offer. 

Questions aside, this is all stuff we've seen before.    Terminator: Genisys feels more like a Terminator Greatest Hits package.    There is very little a Terminator can do to improve its indestructibility after the T-1000 shape shifts and assumes the identity of whatever it touches.   Thus, watching Arnold and the T-1000 battle it out reminds me of when it was done better in Terminator 2.   It was fresher then and more exciting.    Now it's a retread.   

If Skynet is so smart, how does it keep sending back the T-1000 and T-800s when it knows they will ultimately fail?   Why can't they fix the glitches that make them vulnerable?    Because it is sci-fi that deals with time travel and computers, the Terminator series is inherently silly and we accept that to a degree.    Arnold mixes in self-parody and humor as only he can.    The rest of the cast simply supplies straight lines.  

I think we have seen all that can be done with this material.    Skynet has been destroyed at least twice now and continues to rebuild and pose a threat to humanity.    It is now becoming repetitive.   I've heard two speeches now about how the future is now full of hope and promise.    It was the closing speech delivered by Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2.     Can we just leave well enough alone now? 

Die Hard (1988) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  John McTiernan

Starring:  Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia, Alexander Gudonov, Reginald VelJohnson, Paul Gleason, Robert Davi, Hart Bochner, William Atherton

All New York cop John McClane wanted to do was visit his estranged wife at her office Christmas party in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve.    Perhaps they could work out their differences and resume their marriage?     She moved cross-country to take a job in L.A. for a large Japanese corporation with its headquarters in a sleek high-rise.    John stayed behind in New York.    Then, the terrorists showed up and threw a monkey wrench into everyone's plans.  

That is the setup for Die Hard, which established Bruce Willis as a major movie star after his successful run on the 80's TV series Moonlighting.     The film spawned four sequels, three of which were very good and the final one which was a stinker.     Each follows the same formula:   McClane is a smart, resourceful, tough cop who manages through will, luck, and determination to outwit the bad guys and save the day.    He is bloodied, but unbowed in the process, like a living, breathing Energizer bunny.     Die Hard is an exemplary action thriller with brains and humor.  

The terrorists here are led by Hans Gruber (Rickman), a smug, arrogant intellectual with his eyes on the company's vault containing $640 million in bearer bonds.   They take the employees hostage, including McClane's wife Holly (Bedelia).    Everything was going according to plan, until McClane starts killing his accomplices while staying hidden on the floors above.    McClane takes a licking, but keeps on ticking.   He spends most of the movie running around in bare feet, which leads to nasty cuts when he walks on broken glass.   

Rickman plays a nice contrast to McClane's everyman.    His slicked back hair, neatly trimmed beard, expensive suits, and English accent ooze arrogance and assumed superiority.    Yes, he's supposed to be German, but the English accent just fits better.    The police soon arrive, with a beat cop providing support over the radio to McClane while the cops and FBI struggle in vain to counteract the terrorists.    The lawmen are portrayed mostly as buffoons, which is good for some laughs although you wonder how they got to be in the positions they're in.

The battle between McClane and Gruber is not just one of physicality, but smarts.    Gruber sees McClane as an annoyance, but soon realizes he is in over his head dealing with him.    This dynamic underscores the well-choreographed action sequences.    McClane is not a superhero, just someone with a dogged determination to win.    At the end of all of this, someone better have a hot shower and a bed waiting for him.    What a lousy way to spend Christmas Eve. 

The Untouchables (1987) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Brian De Palma

Starring:  Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Andy Garcia, Robert De Niro, Charles Martin Smith, Patricia Clarkson, Richard Bradford

Like many Brian De Palma films, The Untouchables contains big sets, big gunfights, and big bursts of sudden violence.    This is a director not interested in subtlety or small personal projects.    It is easy to take his talent for granted, but if you think about his filmography, we see he is a master.    Besides The Untouchables, De Palma directed Carrie, Dressed To Kill, Body Double, Blow Out, Wise Guys, Mission: Impossible, Casualties of War, and Carlito's Way.  I'm sure I'm missing a few other gems, but you see my point.  De Palma loves complex thrillers and exudes sheer joy in making them.   

The Untouchables is based on the 1950's television series which starred Robert Stack as Treasury officer Eliot Ness, who was tasked with ridding Chicago of illegal alcohol distribution during Prohibition.     The movie and series are loosely based on the real-life endeavors of Ness and Al Capone, who ran Chicago for intents and purposes and was even called The Mayor.  Ness (Costner) is a straight-laced, by-the-book agent determined to bring down Capone.  He meets resistance from not only outside factors, but from within the corrupt Chicago police department.  It is by sheer luck that he crosses paths with Jimmy Malone (Connery), an honest cop whom he enlists in his fight.  A police academy recruit with a deadly aim (Garcia) and a treasury accountant (Smith) join Ness to form The Untouchables.  

The group harasses Capone's organization at every turn, leading Capone to drastic measures.    ("I want Ness DEAD.   I want his family DEAD.")    Malone instills in Ness the practical realization that lines between cop and criminal may need to be crossed if Capone is to be brought down.  Malone tells Ness, in a church of all places, "Here's how you get Capone.  He pulls a knife, you pull a gun.  He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue."  

De Palma creates some imaginative gunfights, especially in the train station as Capone's bookkeeper is attempting his getaway.   A baby in a carriage in is sure danger of bullets whizzing by.   It is well choreographed and suspenseful.    The film's look is a successful and faithful recreation of Prohibition era Chicago, especially the lobby of the hotel which Capone uses as his base of operations.   It's plush, but the walls and carpet are blood red.   Symbolism perhaps?   Nah.

Kevin Costner plays Ness first as a staunch idealist who transitions into a staunch realist.    He doesn't have a lot of personality, but we still root for him.   Sean Connery won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role here.  Malone is the catalyst for Ness' changes.   He may be honest, but he knows a lot because he observes a lot.  Connery's performance is the most vibrant in the film.  I also appreciated Andy Garcia's quiet recruit who will not hesitate to draw his weapon when the need arises.    

DeNiro gained weight for the role of Capone, a media darling who holds court with the press.    He does little to mask his intentions.   ("If someone's going to mess with me, I'm going to mess with him.")    We gain insight on what makes him brutal, but do we gain insight on how he created and maintained his empire?    One of the weaknesses of The Untouchables is how little we understand Capone.    We see no evidence of the intelligent Capone, just the ruthless one.    It's one-dimensionally written, but DeNiro does what he can with it.     Smith's Oscar Wallace is another version of the nerdy bookworm he has played in films like Never Cry Wolf and American Graffiti.   I liked him better in Lucky You, where he had an edge to him.

Small issues aside, The Untouchables is an entertaining, violent film.    It is not encumbered by deep meaning or too much meandering.    It is good vs. evil, with occasional shades of gray and difficult not to enjoy on that level.   

The Forger (2015) * *

Directed by:  Philip Martin

Starring:  John Travolta, Christopher Plummer, Tye Sheridan, Jennifer Ehle, Anson Mount, Abigail Spencer

The Forger is in no hurry to get where it's going and once it gets there, the payoff is not worth the patience we've expended waiting for it.    The movie combines the elements of family drama and a heist, but they almost feel like two different movies.     It's all setup.

John Travolta stars as Raymond Cutter, a forger with nine months left to go on a 5-year prison stretch.    He makes financial arrangements with a local crime lord to pay off a judge to spring him early.    Why can't he simply ride out his time?     He arranges his release so he can spend as much time with his son, who has a brain tumor.     His son (Sheridan) lives with Ray's grandfather Joe (Plummer), an irascible former thief who says things like, "Jesus, Mary, and me".    Get it?    His name is Joseph?    Maybe you had to be there.  

Cutter, however, won't be able to spend time reconnecting with his family without a hitch.   Keegan (Mount), the criminal who Cutter now owes a favor, asks him to run one more heist.    He wants Cutter to steal a Monet painting from a museum and replace it with an exact replica that no one will suspect is a forgery.    This sounds a lot tougher in theory than it does in practice.     Remember all of the planning that the Ocean's Eleven crew put into knocking off a casino or stealing the Faberge Egg?    None of that is necessary here.    Without giving away too much, Ray and his crew don't break a sweat while swapping the paintings.     Ray expends even less energy forging the painting.    It would have been interesting to witness how an expert forger like Ray plies his trade.    A pizza oven was used if I recall correctly.    The security systems used to protect these priceless works of art are easily tricked or knocked off line.    The cameras suddenly go off and the guys in the surveillance room barely move.     Do businesses really use a giant room with multiple monitors that looks like the production trailer used to broadcast the Oscars?  

The Forger has all of the elements in place to be successful in at least one of the two genres it was attempting to tackle.    Travolta has to juggle a lot of emotional balls in the air and he does what he can.    Christopher Plummer has the irascibility thing down pat.    Sheridan doesn't play for pathos and shows wisdom beyond his years in some scenes.    One subplot involves Ray acting as a one-man Make-A-Wish foundation for his son.    He grants him three wishes, like a genie, and one of them involves helping the boy lose his virginity.    The idea of Ray hiring a hooker to help the 15-year-old lose his virginity is wrong and creepy on so many levels.    

The two federal agents trailing Ray sit outside in their car as Ray brings his boy to the hooker's place.    Their initial plan was to simply tail Ray and bust him for the heist later.   One agent says to the other, "If we don't bust him for this, then we're just not doing our jobs."    At least someone displayed some sense in this subplot.    Where is Children's Services when you need them?    The movie would have been wise to remove this all together.   

I notice as I'm writing this that I'm using the words "could have" and "would have" often in this review.    The Forger gives me plenty of reasons to use them.  

Frequency (2000) * * * *

Directed by:  Gregory Hoblit

Starring:  Dennis Quaid, Jim Caviezel, Elizabeth Mitchall, Shawn Doyle, Andre Braugher, Noah Emmerich

Gregory Hoblit's Frequency starts with a premise in which one needs to suspend a great deal of disbelief and turns into a special film.     The plot involves the bending of the space-time continuum in ways that would make Dr. Emmett Brown from Back To The Future envious.    Frequency works its way meticulously through a plot while maintaining its heart.     It is not a heartless gimmick picture.    It works emotionally and more or less logically.     Its conclusion does stretch credulity, but the emotional payoff is worth it.

Frequency stars Jim Caviezel (Passion of the Christ) as New York cop John Sullivan, who is investigating a series of unsolved murders from the late 60's.    He still lives in his childhood home and his wife recently left him.     His father Frank (Quaid) was a firefighter who died in a warehouse fire when John was 6.    John finds a ham radio in a closet and turns it on to see if it still works.    It does, and thanks to something to do with the Northern Lights, John is able to talk in 1999 on the radio to his father in 1969, days before his death.    There are natural suspicions on both sides because, let's face it, why wouldn't there be?    How eerie is it, though, when Frank asks John whether he thinks the Mets will win the 1969 World Series and John replies, "That happened 30 years ago."? 

Frank, of course, thinks John is crazy when he reveals that the man he is speaking to is his now 36 year old son.    In a scene which underlines the film's brilliance, John attempts to warn his father about the fire which will occur the next day and cost him his life, unless he listens to John's desperate pleas to warn him.     Frank, of course, could have just shut the radio off and never heard from John again, but he says, "What fire?  What are you talking about?".    After all, what if the man on the other end is telling the truth?     This underlines the film's insight into human nature.     

The details of each game of the 1969 World Series plays a key part in the events that follow.    As does the details of the murder investigation John is conducting in the present, which takes a sharp, personal turn for the worse after Frank survives the fire he was ultimately supposed to perish in.    Frank's survival turns out to be the best, and worst, thing for his family.     How the film plays with timelines and covers its tracks is a wonder to behold.    It plays on the notion that an event changed in the past will directly alter the present, although only John recognizes the difference in timelines and no one else does.    He remembers his dad dying in the fire and then living through it.    No other characters feel the same impact.   Trying to sort all this out logically is a fool's errand anyway, so we just let the paradoxes fall where they may.   

The underlying emotional truth is what carries Frequency along.    Having lost my father six months ago, I would love nothing more than a chance to hear his voice again once more or see him once more.    It's a universal response to loss.    John Sullivan is able to hear a voice he never thought he would hear again.    He is able to tell his father about a World Series he never saw the end of.    I spoke often with my father about sports.    What a privilege it would be to be able to tell my dad about the Patriots winning this year's Super Bowl?    Or something even more personal?    Frequency understands that and more.   

Black or White (2015) * *

Directed by:  Mike Binder

Starring:  Kevin Costner, Octavia Spencer, Anthony Mackie, Bill Burr, Andre Holland, Mpho Koaho, Jillian Estell

Black or White is a frustrating movie to watch.    It raises issues and then sidesteps them at its convenience.    The alcoholism of its main character, Elliott Anderson (Costner), is certainly referenced, but not dealt with.    The film's conclusion includes a 180 degree character swerve which serves only to put a happy ending on a story that should not have one.    Why did this swerve happen?   What led up to such a drastic change of heart?    I don't know.   

Kevin Costner stars as Elliott, a 60ish grandfather whose younger wife dies in a car accident and he is left to care for his multi-racial granddaughter Eloise (Estell) by himself.    Sort of.    He does have a maid named Rosita who speaks in broken English and is always around when you need her, no matter what time of day it is.    Elliott is a well-off attorney with a large home in suburban Los Angeles, so he can afford to take time off to help raise the young girl.    Eloise's mother died giving birth to Eloise and the girl's biological father Reggie's (Holland) whereabouts are unknown.    Eloise is a smart, well-adjusted seven year old who is perfectly happy where she is.    She does notice Elliott's increasing drinking.    "I don't like when you drink," she tells her grandfather, who does not take the hint and is seen with a drink in his hand for most of the film.    The first shot of Elliott in his home focuses on his bar situated right in the living room, which should be the first sign to anyone that he has a drinking problem.   

Eloise's paternal grandmother is Rowena (Spencer), who lives in South Central and laments to Elliott that he should allow her to see her granddaughter more.    This request soon becomes the basis of a joint custody hearing initiated by Rowena, who believes Elliott's reluctance to bring Eloise around her family may be racially motivated.    Or maybe she doesn't.     Rowena's reasoning for wanting Eloise around more is understandable and even reasonable.    She is uncomfortable with calling Elliott a racist, but is prodded by her attorney brother (Mackie) to go down that path.   I think Elliott's alcoholism is a more justifiable reason to want to gain custody of Eloise and easier to prove, but this is somehow not the focus of her attack.

Why Rowena's brother thinks painting Elliott as a racist is a sound strategy is never made clear, other than to turn Black or White into a racial conflict where one really doesn't exist.    Elliott's anger with Reggie has manifested itself in his relationship with Rowena's family, but I don't believe he is a racist, even with his courtroom testimony which any lawyer worth his salt would never advise him to say.   

Reggie returns to the scene and joins the custody battle.   He claims to be clean and sober, which Elliott does not believe.     He tries to pay Reggie to go away.    Elliott, however, does not have much moral high ground in telling Reggie to clean up when he is soused to the point that he hires his granddaughter's tutor as a part-time driver.    His feud with Reggie ends with a whimper after a physical altercation in which one or both men should have been brought up on charges.

Even after everything that transpires, the final courtroom scene involves a change of heart that can't be accepted.    How did this happen?    Why?    And how exactly will Elliott get help for his drinking?     In all honesty, having Eloise stay with her family should come as a relief to him.    He doesn't seem very happy with her around.     Rowena may be doing him a favor.    His approach to caring for Eloise seems more like a duty than a pleasure.    

Black or White wants to be all things to all people.    It doesn't take sides, which is commendable, but maybe it's because the script is so murky that we don't know why the people here do what they do.    Their behavior, feelings, and motives are at the mercy of the screenplay.