There's Something About Mary (1998) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly

Starring:  Cameron Diaz, Ben Stiller, Matt Dillon, Chris Elliott, Harland Williams, Lee Evans, Keith David, Lin Shaye

How does Mary attract such creeps as suitors?   The nicest guy of the bunch is Ted (Stiller), who was her prom date years ago on a night cut short because his balls got caught in his zipper.  Ouch.  Years later, Ted is still crazy about Mary and hires a private eye named Healy (Dillon) to track her whereabouts.  In a move that will likely not help his reputation, Healy gives Ted false information about Mary (saying she's 250 lbs. with 4 kids) and goes after her himself.  Also in the mix is a British architect named Tucker (Evans), who walks with crutches and isn't exactly who he seems either.  One thing is for sure, Tucker lusts after Mary also, as does almost any guy who comes in contact with her.  

There's Something About Mary manages to be an energetic, inspired comedy about these sad sacks and the sweet girl who is the object of their affection.  Not that she really wants to be.  Each of the guys, including one or two others, all don't necessarily tell the truth about themselves in order to position themselves in the pecking order.   Diaz projects the right amounts of sweetness, warmth, and physical attractiveness as Mary.   She deserves better, but she is like flypaper for the walking wounded.   

The movie goes for big laughs in the most outrageous ways.   In one of the movie's most famous scenes, Ted masturbates before his big date with Mary and after ejaculating can't find the jizz for the life of him.  Where did it go?   Mary soon finds it stuck to his ear and assumes it's stray hair gel.    She applies it to her own hair and the rest is history.   The entire sequence builds with one payoff and then another.   

A lot of There's Something About Mary operates like that.    You assume the scene hit its climactic laugh (no pun intended) only to throw in something more outrageous moments later.   

There's Something About Mary isn't simply a comedy which coasts on getting away with being borderline bad taste.  The characters have some nice, subtle touches, including Healy's giant choppers and bad mustache, Ted's best friend Dom's (Elliott) really nasty skin rash that breaks out at the slightest mention of Mary, and even a dog who winds up in a full body cast.  It takes craftsmanship to make a comedy that bends the rules while not completely obliterating them.  Later comedies inspired by this film assumed it was funny in itself to just introduce a bodily fluid and ingest it accidentally.  That's gross, not funny.  Yet, countless comedies lazily trot out the same gag over and over.   

Since There's Something About Mary, the Farrellys became household names and their work has been hit and miss.  Me, Myself, and Irene (1999), The Heartbreak Kid (2007) , Dumb and Dumber To (2014), and The Three Stooges (2012) were duds, while Shallow Hal (2001), Fever Pitch (2005), and Osmosis Jones (2001) were all very good comedies. The Farrellys have inventive comic minds.   But in their best work, they infuse their comedies with an underlying warmth that works. 

War Dogs (2016) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Todd Phillips

Starring:  Jonah Hill, Miles Teller, Bradley Cooper, Ana de Armas, Kevin Pollak

The ads for War Dogs read "From the director of The Hangover" plastered at the top.    This may mislead some folks into thinking they are in for a Hangover-style comedy.     War Dogs is based on true events and I no longer feel the need to write a disclaimer about those.    It is a drama with a light touch about two Miami guys who make stupid money brokering arms deals and within a few years have it all fall to pieces.     What causes the collapse which ends in an FBI investigation and a mountain of charges?    Greed and drugs.    One is bad enough.    Combine them both and you have a time bomb in the form of Efraim Diveroli (Hill), the founder of AEY Inc. which starts off brokering small deals and works its way to a $300 million ammunition deal that proves to be everyone's undoing.    

Diveroli is more obsessed with the kill than he is about the money itself.    He gets more of a high on the drama of the deal.    Like Danny DeVito in Other People's Money, he likes money more than the things it can buy.    His partner David Packouz (Teller) is the more level-headed of the two, but as War Dogs begins is also the guy kidnapped by Albanian thugs with a gun pointed at his head.    War Dogs then flashes back to show how David got to that point.  

Circa 2005, David's present and future do not look promising.    He is a massage therapist whose clientele seems to consist mostly of gay older men.     His wife is soon pregnant and he needs money fast.    David tries to start a new business selling soft cotton bed sheets to nursing homes, but learns: "People don't give a shit about the elderly."     It is his fortune (or maybe misfortune) that he runs into his high school friend Efraim at a funeral.    Efraim drives around town in a Porsche.    He shows David the ropes of arms dealing.     Efraim and David are at first content to "live off the crumbs and not the whole pie" in the cutthroat world of arms dealing, but that soon changes as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan drone on endlessly.    The needs for arms become bigger and the contracts grow to be more lucrative.   

One shipment of arms from Italy to Iraq proves particularly tricky thanks to those pesky international laws and regulations.     Their shipment is held up in Jordan and unless David and Efraim figure out a way to get the shipment to Iraq, that is all she wrote for AEY Inc.    David and Efraim actually smuggle the arms via truck through a war zone to get the shipment to its destination and things perk up.    Then, Efraim and David become greedy, snort coke, and things go south, especially after hooking up with a shadowy dealer named Henry Girard (Cooper), who is banned from conducting arms deals by the U.S. government.

War Dogs takes great care never to lose us as the story progresses.    We know what is happening and why.    The movie brings us in on the world of arms dealing and gives us an intimate knowledge.     David narrates the film, since he at least has some kind of moral compass, while Efraim loses himself in the quest for more money, drugs, and hookers.     Efraim's compass went off course long before David hooked up with him.     We see Hill as Efraim, always looking for the shortcut and the angles, and he takes us for a ride into the world of the superficial.    We never get a true sense of who he is because he is always playing a role.     He will be whoever you need him to be and is always scheming, but becomes sloppy and loses sight of the small details such as paying the guys who are helping him defraud the government by repackaging illegal Chinese bullets as legal Soviet ones.     Efraim doesn't see how this could go horribly wrong for him.   We see in War Dogs, as we did in Moneyball and The Wolf of Wall Street, that Hill is a comic actor with depth and ability.   

Teller plays the more identifiable of the two dealers.     He was stuck in a rut and found a way to make some money to support his family.     The trouble is, this causes him to lie to his wife Iz (the fetching de Armas) about his dealings, which sticks in her craw more than anything.     David has morals, but sees the need to put them away as the money rolls in.     To him, it beats giving hand jobs.     Teller was a standout in Whiplash (2014) and once again plays a guy who will go with the flow but eventually hits a wall.     The movie correctly sees the story from his point of view, although it would have been interesting to hear Efraim's take on things occasionally.     It would be whacked out to say the least.

I'm glad War Dogs never saw the need to play as an outrageous comedy.    It doesn't suit the story.    Some people who go into War Dogs expecting something like The Hangover will be disappointed, but I think even more will be pleasantly surprised by how engrossing a story it is.     David and Efraim are guys who idolize Scarface and even hang a giant picture of Tony Montana on the office wall, but like many they don't understand Scarface is not a glorification of excess, but a sad tale of how such excesses come with a heavy price.  

Criminal (2016) * 1/2

Directed by: Ariel Vromen

Starring:  Kevin Costner, Gary Oldman, Tommy Lee Jones, Gal Gadot, Ryan Reynolds, Michael Pitt, Alice Eve, Jordi Molla

This is the second movie within a year in which Ryan Reynolds is involved in a thought or brain switching experiment.     The other was self/less (2015), in which Ben Kingsley's soul or consciousness (I'm not even sure what) was transferred to Reynolds.     Now, Reynolds, as a slain FBI agent, pays it forward by having his consciousness transferred to psychotic criminal Jericho Stewart (Costner) in Criminal.      The whole thought transfer thingy isn't even the most ridiculous part of the movie, if you can believe that.   

As Criminal opens, FBI agent Bill Pope (Reynolds) is on the trail of The Dutchman (Pitt), a  computer geek who is selling a program which could cripple the world's governments to the highest bidder,   Pope makes a deal with The Dutchman to pay him for the program and give him a new identity, thus keeping it out of the hands of evildoers like Heimbahl (Molla), who openly calls for the toppling of governments in TV interviews.    Doesn't he think he would be the first suspect if a government goes down?

Pope is killed before he can complete the deal and The Dutchman is still in hiding, so his frothing, upset boss Quaker Wells (Oldman) authorizes a secret government experiment in which Pope's memories can be transferred to Stewart's brain.     Stewart is a piece of work.    According to reports, he suffered a frontal lobe injury in childhood and feels nothing emotionally.     With that being said, he spends the first part of the movie agitated and upset.     Those are emotions, last I checked.     Maybe saying Stewart is an amoral psychopath is enough.     The rest is unnecessary overselling.

The surgery is performed by Dr. Franks (Jones), whose face wears a forlorn expression throughout the entire movie.     I get the feeling Jones would have rather had the surgery performed on him than appear in this movie, but since he showed up he may as well pretend to have a good time.     Stewart is the violent, malicious Stewart for a while, but soon Pope's memories begin to take over, and he remembers Pope's wife Jill (Gadot) and young daughter.     For the first time, Stewart experiences emotions of love and caring, all the while trying to find the Dutchman and prevent a world disaster.   

Stewart leaves a trail of bodies in his wake, including those of law enforcement and innocents (while he's being Stewart and not Pope).     All is forgiven apparently as Stewart thwarts the bad guys and learns to be a human being because the cruel deaths and injuries at his hands are forgotten.     Pope himself is quickly forgotten also because, as far as I can tell, there is no funeral for him and Pope's family seems to forget his death quickly once Stewart arrives on the scene.     Their primary function is to become hostages for the bad guys at a critical point.

Costner is game for the role, but isn't given much of a character to play.    Most of his dialogue is monosyllabic, with a lot of grunts and screams peppered in.     He sure isn't paid by the word.     There is really nothing about Stewart which inspires our sympathy.     When he's violent, he's really, really violent and the body count rises.     Then, on a dime, he switches to the kinder, gentler Stewart/Pope, but we just can't buy it.    Gary Oldman falls back on hysterical overacting in a lot of his scenes.     He spends the bulk of his time being angry, throwing things around, and barking orders at people.     Doesn't the job description of a leader of a major FBI assignment require a cool head and some sort of tact?     And what kind of name is Quaker Wells?  

Then again, there are the names Quaker, Jericho, and Pope in this movie, so is there some sort of religious link to all of this confusing lunacy?     I don't know if it was intended and it is likely not even relevant.     I think the movie further confirms the unfortunate luck of Ryan Reynolds, who has a knack for appearing in mostly bad movies.      With a few exceptions, Kevin Costner has followed in those footsteps lately.    

Moms' Night Out (2014) * 1/2

Directed by:  Andrew Erwin & John Erwin

Starring:  Sarah Drew, Logan White, Patricia Heaton, Sean Astin, Trace Adkins, Abbie Cobb, Robert Amaya

Moms' Night Out was doomed from the start.    The trailers promise a wild and crazy night out for three women (joined by a fourth) looking for a break from their harried lives.     Their well-meaning but dopey husbands promise to watch the kids.    Like the movie's tagline reads, "What Could Go Wrong?"    Things go wrong from the start, but none of them are funny or daring.    We watch in stunned silence at the screen.    How can people this dumb hold jobs or even walk and chew gum at the same time?      One of the women walks confidently towards the camera in slow motion before her heel gives way and she nearly twists her ankle, so there you go.

The main character is Allyson (Drew), an overburdened mom of three who has lost her happy.   She aspires to be a blogger (although there is little evidence she can write anything of interest), but her kids keep making messes and doing things that movie kids do.     You know, turn the house upside down and leave it looking like a war zone.     Throw in Allyson's obsessive fear of germs and leaving the lids off of the cleaning products and you have a real disaster in the making.     Allyson never comes across as a real human being, just a series of neuroses and unreasonable fears.    She doesn't need a night out.    She needs treatment.    It's little wonder her uber-supportive husband Sean (Astin) is always away on business trips, even on Mother's Day.    Who could blame him?

Allyson arranges a girls night out with her two friends where she promises to let her hair down and the gals wind up going bowling after their dinner plans go awry.     Her best friend Izzy (White) just learned she is pregnant, while her other friend Sondra (Heaton) is a pastor's wife and forever trying to quell her daughter's rebellious streak.     The men completely bungle their end of the bargain, leaving Sean with a dislocated shoulder and Izzy's spaz husband a complete mess.    It will likely be a long, long time before these women can go out again.

Through plot developments entirely too ridiculous to recap, the girls and guys are soon looking for the child of Allyson's sister-in-law Bridgette (Cobb), who works at the bowling alley and discovers her ex isn't watching their child as expected.     The girls ride around town in a taxi (don't ask) knocking on doors and visiting tattoo parlors searching for the child who is actually safe and sound in a neighbor's house.   Everyone winds up in a police station where one of the women is accidentally shocked with a taser.

I am probably making this sound more entertaining than it is.    Moms' Night Out is a mess of dead end scenes and missed comic opportunities.      Scene after scene unravels before our eyes with no comic payoff.     It lacks imagination and nerve.     There is a reason for this and it took me four and a half paragraphs to reveal that Moms' Night Out is a faith-based movie.  Because of this, everything that happens is tame and repressed.    There are a couple of sermons inserted into the rare quiet moments the film offers.   But it is an ungainly fit.   The Christian angle seems like it was dropped in from another movie.

Do the filmmakers have so little faith in its intended Christian audience's ability to handle a little subversive behavior?   Or some risqué humor?    The movie holds back.    It is afraid to offend anyone.    It is difficult to make a comedy without pushing back against set boundaries.      Except for a snooty restaurant maître-'d, everyone in Moms' Night Out is nice, sweet, and bland.    Even when one of the characters reveals her "wild" past, she expresses her remorse over having a tattoo.    Oh no!   The horror.   She regrets going to Woodstock '94.   That is the extent of her past.   The other characters don't seem to have ever done anything adventurous in their lives.    The people in this movie are not allowed to be human or multi-dimensional.   Everyone deserves better.  

Romantic Comedy (1983) * * 1/2

Directed by:  Arthur Hiller

Starring:  Dudley Moore, Mary Steenburgen, Ron Leibman, Frances Sternhagen, Robyn Douglass, Janet Eliber

Romantic Comedy plays like Neil Simon light.    Based on a play by Bernard Slade (Same Time, Next Year), the movie follows the age-old traditions of a movie romantic comedy while its two leads fail to realize they are in one.     Its leads are enormously appealing and because of that, we stick with the formula a lot longer than we would normally.    But as time goes on, we wish they would get to the inevitable conclusion already after the movie spent 90 minutes (or 9 years in the movie's timeline) keeping it from happening.     Then, when they finally get together, the payoff is a letdown.     Perhaps they were better apart.

The movie opens circa 1974 in the chaotic home of playwright Jason Carmichael (Dudley Moore) who meets his new writing partner Phoebe Radick (Steenburgen) on his wedding day.    He thinks she is his substitute masseuse.    Jason's agent (Sternhagen) refers to her as P.J. Radick, which leads to the cliché of everyone assuming P.J. is a man.   Phoebe is never referred to as P.J. for the rest of the movie.   I would think an agent would have that researched, but it's early in the movie and we move on.

There is definite sexual tension between Jason and Phoebe, even though Jason seems happily married to Alison (Eliber), who has designs on a political career.    Their first play together is a flop, but then the duo puts together a string of hits.    They work long hours together and it is obvious to everyone except Jason that Phoebe is in love with him.     Jason's marriage soon falls apart after an affair with one of his temperamental leading ladies.     Phoebe, in a fit of jealousy masquerading as ethical outrage, hastily marries her own suitor, a smart journalist named Leo (Leibman), who exists only to be dumped near the end.     He seems like a sturdier mate for Phoebe, he loves her, and does absolutely nothing wrong.    But since he is not the lead, he eventually must be dispensed with and exit the scene.     This happens in not very convincing fashion.    He makes the road for Phoebe and Jason entirely too simple.    Wouldn't it have been interesting to have Jason and Leo actually be friends instead of acting suspiciously of one another?     This would add another layer to the material.  

After 10 and Arthur, Moore already proved his mastery of comedic romances.     We like him even when he behaves like a fool.     Steenburgen and Moore have a natural, easy chemistry.     It carries the movie a lot longer than expected.     Romantic comedies are made with built-in clichés and points to check off.     The leads are kept apart through circumstances or sheer unwillingness to admit their feelings.     But Romantic Comedy milks this premise for all it is worth and then some; to the point where our patience wears thin.     Then, they finally sleep together (sort of) and the movie never recovers.     The two break up just as quickly as they get together and then there is the eureka moment when Jason realizes he loves the girl after all.  

I enjoy romantic comedies when they are done with freshness and energy.    Romantic Comedy maintains both for a while.     I think Jason and Phoebe are entirely too intelligent to so easily dismiss their feelings for each other.     The movie for a while is so quickly paced and written with such Neil Simon-ish dialogue that we could be forgiven for assuming he wrote it.     The actors are more than game, but the tenuous nature of the story finally gives way.    

Amistad (1997) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Steven Spielberg

Starring:  Matthew McConaughey, Morgan Freeman, Anthony Hopkins, Djimon Hounsou, Nigel Hawthorne, Jeremy Northam, David Paymer, Pete Postlethwaite, Peter Firth, Stellan Skarsgard, Anna Paquin, Chiwetel Ejiofor

As Amistad opens circa 1839, Cinque (Hounsou), an African slave being transported on a ship from Havana, leads a rebellion and kills several crew members.   The ship then travels into U.S. waters near Connecticut, where Cinque and the other slaves onboard are captured and charged with murder.    Due to  treaties, the slave trade with Africa is outlawed, but the slave trade from the West Indies is still legal.    The ship's owners claim the slaves came from Cuba, which would make Cinque guilty of murder.     However, if Cinque can prove he was kidnapped and transported from Africa, the rebellion would be justifiable and the slaves would be found not guilty.     It is bizarre to think there would be any scenario in which Cinque could be found guilty, but Amistad takes place in a time in which slavery would not be abolished in the U.S. for another 25 years and the threat of civil war looms. 

Steven Spielberg's film is part legal proceedings and a document of the nature of slavery.    Cinque is an ordinary Sierra Leone farmer with a family who is kidnapped, transported thousands of miles across the Atlantic, and sold into slavery in Cuba.   There are hundreds of other slaves on this journey.   Some are thrown overboard due to lack of provisions, while others are whipped, raped, or tortured by their enslavers.   Slavery is a lucrative business and covered under property law.   When Cinque and the slaves require a lawyer, Roger Baldwin (McConaughey), an attorney specializing in property law, takes their case at the urging of local abolitionists Theodore Joadson (Freeman) and Tappan (Skarsgard).    Baldwin gradually grows to understand the slaves as human beings and not mere property while learning their harrowing tale. 

The trial soon becomes a political football between President Martin van Buren (Hawthorne), who fights to win a guilty verdict in order to appease the South and bolster his re-election efforts, and the eleven-year-old queen of Spain (Paquin), who argues for Spain's ownership of the slaves.   The case rises to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Cinque's appeal is argued passionately by former President John Quincy Adams (Hopkins-in an Oscar nominated performance).    The strange part is:   Baldwin argues the case successfully, but the case goes to appeal anyway, mostly because the rights of the Africans aren't exactly recognized.   

It is difficult not to think of the numerous scenes in Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993). in which the Jews are rounded up, executed, or mistreated in concentration camps, when Cinque's horrific story is shown.    I never can fathom how any person could so cruelly treat other human beings in such a manner.    How do the traders or camp guards sleep at night?    What justification could they have for their behavior?    With the Jews, it is a matter of harmful scapegoating and evil political ideology run amok.    With slaves, it is a matter of the bottom line.    In either case, as with any other type of genocide, a group must view another as not human and thus acceptable to be exterminated.    It takes a certain mindset or pathology which is foreign to most people, but not nearly enough.

Spielberg's film is one of innate power.    The Africans may win the case and be allowed to return to Africa, but what will they find there?     Will they even have homes?    Or families?    They have lost so much already by simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.    There are many on the side of right in the case, such as Adams, Baldwin, and Joadson, but will right necessarily triumph over legal?    Amistad poses that question carefully.    Because Steven Spielberg is such a master storyteller, he can use the power of pure filmmaking to tell this powerful story which is but a footnote in American history.    Hopkins' final speech before the Supreme Court is masterful, eloquent, and appeals to practicality and political realism.    "If Cinque were a white man who killed his British captors, he would not be able to stand due to the weight of all the medals bestowed upon him," he argues.    It is astounding to think 175 years later that such a statement could still hold true.   

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Frank Oz

Starring:  Steve Martin, Michael Caine, Glenne Headly, Anton Rodgers, Barbara Harris

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is about two competing con artists who run scams in a small, rich French Riviera town.     Lawrence Jamieson (Caine) has lived there for years, posing as a deposed king bilking rich women out of their money which he says he will use to finance his return to the throne.    Freddy Benson (Martin) just arrived in town and pulls off smaller-scale scams which nonetheless catch Lawrence's attention.    Lawrence naturally resents an outsider, especially a common American, moving in on his established territory.  

The town isn't big enough for the two of them, figures Lawrence, so they agree on a bet.    A newly wealthy American named Janet (Headly) arrives in town with fanfare as a recent sweepstakes winner.     The first guy to bilk her out of $50,000 stays in town, the other will leave.     Sounds easy enough, especially since Janet seems like a guileless pushover.    Both will find separating Janet from her money is a lot taller of an order than anticipated.    

Lawrence acts with an air of dignity, class, and culture.    He is a con artist, but with a certain style Freddy lacks.     He has pinpoint advice for Freddy in his efforts to force him out of town, "Know your limitations, Freddy.   You are a moron."    Freddy can't necessarily pull off behaving like royalty, but he sure looks convincing when he pulls up to Janet in a wheelchair posing as a disabled war hero.     Lawrence and Freddy engage in an ever escalating and funny game of one-upmanship.     We see how resourceful they can be when faced with an obstacle or when Janet seems she is about to sign over all her money, but then retracts at the last second.     Who knew conning would be such hard work?

Caine and Martin are masterful comic actors.     Their teaming is flawless.     We actually like them since, hey, we're not the ones in their crosshairs.     The film's ending is not just a nice twist, but poetic justice for both men, who are after all Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.      The movie, directed by one of Jim Henson's Muppeteers Frank Oz, is one in which the actors are clearly loving their work.     Their joy is infectious and transfers to the viewer.     Oz went on to direct Martin in superior comedies like Housesitter (1992)  and Bowfinger (1999), plus Robert DeNiro in the heist drama The Score (2000) and Nicole Kidman in the biting satire The Stepford Wives (2004).    He is a skilled director who keeps things moving.   

Perhaps we like Lawrence and Freddy because their targets are wealthy women who have so much money to burn they cheerfully give it away.    They won't miss what amounts to a few sheckles to them.     We forgive the guys their trespasses     We can even tip our cap, like Lawrence can, to a superior con artist who outwits them both in the end.     They, like us, never saw it coming.     Isn't that the way with most movies about cons and con artists?     And would we have it any other way? 

Inifinitely Polar Bear (2015) * *

Directed by:  Maya Forbes

Starring:  Mark Ruffalo, Zoe Saldana, Imogene Wolodarsky, Ashely Aufderheide, Keir Dullea

The title Infinitely Polar Bear is unique.    I'll give it that.    The movie itself doesn't inspire nearly as much interest.    The actors try.    Mark Ruffalo gives the movie much more dramatic depth than it deserves, but by the end, what really happened?     Not much.  

Written and directed by Maya Forbes, who based the screenplay on her childhood experiences in Boston, Infinitely Polar Bear never really clicks although the elements are there for it to click.    Taking place in the 1970s,  Ruffalo is Cam Stuart, a manic depressive father of two daughters whose estranged wife Maggie (Saldana) wants to earn her Masters degree in New York.    The program takes 18 months to complete, so she asks Cam to move back into their Boston apartment and care for the girls.     If she considered for one second his history of instability, she would realize this is not the ideal move.     But, we have a movie to make, so Cam agrees and Maggie is on her way.     She comes home on weekends at least.

Cam is naturally uneven in his parenting skills.     His behavior fluctuates, which at times endears him to the girls and other times embarrasses them.     Cam isn't keen on taking his prescribed lithium medication and everyone is at the mercy of his moods.     He instead calms himself through "small sips of beer" and cigarettes.    Cam doesn't just smoke, he has a cigarette dangling from his mouth in every other scene.     He smokes so much it becomes a distraction.     Scenes in which he isn't smoking come as a welcome relief.  

The daughters (Wolodarsky and Aufderheide) have a nasty habit of expressing their displeasure by screaming at the top of their lungs at Cam, especially when he embarrasses them by being overly friendly with their neighbors during points when he is experiencing a high.     He insists on carrying one neighbor's groceries.     When she politely declines his offer to help her cook dinner, Cam continues to try and ingratiate himself to this woman who obviously doesn't want his help.     It is testament to Ruffalo's considerable acting acumen and likability that he is able to make Cam watchable.    He is at odds with himself at all times, which is oddly fascinating.     A different actor may have made Cam insufferable.   

Zoe Saldana (she played one of the blue people in Avatar) is given a rather thankless role and does what she can with it.     She is patient and understanding when on screen.    However, she is off screen a lot as the movie focuses on Cam's relationship with his daughters, but I would have liked to have seen more of her experiences in New York.     Maggie instead is just someone who drops in when required by the script.    I did enjoy the scene in which she applies for a prestigious job in Boston and her interviewers ask her questions that would today be outlawed.     

Infinitely Polar Bear took a pat, predictable story about a father learning to reconnect with his family and kept it that way.     It never reaches any emotional arc.    The movie just drifts along without any real reason to connect with it.     There is little reason for us to emotionally invest ourselves in this family, one which goes through the same pains countless others have.    

Broadcast News (1987) * * *

Directed by:  James L. Brooks

Starring:  William Hurt, Holly Hunter, Albert Brooks, Joan Cusack, Robert Prosky, Jack Nicholson

Broadcast News covers familiar ground as a newsroom comedy with almost documentary-like authenticity about the world of TV news.     The one constant is that nothing is constant.     The characters are defined by their jobs and have very little time for much else, including romance.     Broadcast News could be talking about any job where people are under the pressure of deadlines and once one crisis is over, another one is waiting around the corner.     When we see characters talk to each other about something other than work, it is something of a minor miracle.

Broadcast News takes place at a nightly network news program.     Made in 1987, this is when the competition to break the story was limited only to beating other networks and possibly the newspaper.     The internet would completely change the game.     Because the name of the game is to break stories faster, many network news broadcasts or "special report" coverage of an event do not even bother to check to see if a development is accurate.     New "facts" scroll across the ticker on the bottom of the screen and the facts change within minutes.     It doesn't matter much if they are actually true.    The network of Broadcast News at least attempts to present a semblance of accuracy and truth.     Nowadays, it would play second fiddle to TMZ.     The nightly news is no longer the top news source for people.     It is more of a recap show for events  that were already presented, discussed, broken down, and dissected by other sources.   

The weekend anchor is Tom Grunick (Hurt), a sports reporter for a small station hired because of his looks, deep voice, and charisma.     He isn't a great reader and doesn't know much, but the audience likes him.     His new co-worker is Aaron Altman (Brooks), a field reporter who looks upon Tom with equal parts fascination and envy.    He thought he would get the weekend anchor spot, but we learn later he isn't exactly cut out for it.     He perspires a lot and noticeably.     Tom and the program producer Jane Craig (Hunter) become an item, much to Aaron's displeasure because he is in love with Jane himself.

Jane isn't necessarily adept at handling relationships.     Her first love is her job, where she thrives under the pressure.      When the pressure is off, she scarcely knows what to do.     Hunter, Hurt, and Brooks were all nominated for Oscars for their performances and give us respectively three-dimensional portraits of people who in a lesser movie would be mere archetypes of a workaholic producer, a pretty boy on-camera talent, and an overlooked, self-important newsman who can't imagine what the producer sees in the pretty boy.   

Behind the scenes is the ever-looming threat of layoffs due to declining ratings.     The nightly news anchor Bill Rorish (Nicholson) is safe and laments out loud to an underling how much he hates when layoffs happen.     The underling gently suggests that Bill knock a million a year off of his salary so the layoffs wouldn't be necessary.     Bill simply gives the underling a "what are you, kidding me?" look and the suggestion is soon forgotten.

The romantic subplots are not as entertaining as the insiders view of the news business.     We sort of know what's bound to happen with the love triangle and it doesn't quite fit.    It feels shoehorned in to broaden the movie's appeal.     But, the movie knows what it's talking about when it reflects on the slick, professional, highly volatile world of media.     Broadcast News was made when TV was the top of the media food chain.     It almost seems quaint now, which is refreshing in its own right, but in its context the pressures and the office politics were very real.     They have since been replaced with different kinds of pressures, but no less intense.      

I Saw the Light (2016) * *

Directed by:  Marc Abraham

Starring:  Tom Hiddleston, Elizabeth Olsen, Bradley Whitford, Cherry Jones

I had the feeling when watching I Saw the Light that I came in during the middle of the story.    Good biopics allow you to feel you understand its subject's motivations and hungers.     We never really get to know Hank Williams (Hiddleston) despite a strong Tom Hiddleston performance.     There are throwaway lines referencing his childhood, but we don't truly get the full picture of the iconic singer/songwriter who died in the back seat of a car on January 1, 1953 at age 29.     Like the subject of many singer biopics, Williams struggled with alcohol and drugs throughout his adult life.    Partly because he was afflicted with Spina bifida, and partly because his life seemed destined to be cut short.    

I couldn't help but compare I Saw the Light to Walk the Line (2005), the superior Johnny Cash biopic.    Cash, like Williams, was a famous country singer who saw crossover fame.     Cash's life and career lasted a lot longer.    Walk the Line provides us with reasons why he was driven to succeed and destroy himself in the process.     His father would openly say things like, "The wrong son died".     This filled Cash with a burning desire to prove the old man wrong, but the alcohol and drugs tempered any satisfaction.     I Saw the Light only makes us guess as to what drove Williams.     Hiddleston's stage performances show Williams singing in his trademark voice with a big hat and a bigger smile.    The movie focuses more on Williams' upside down personal life, which involved two marriages, broken homes, and erratic behavior.     This is the first musical biopic where the concert performances seem dropped in just so we can be reminded why we are watching a film about its subject.

Hiddleston and Elizabeth Olsen, who plays his first wife Audrey in a convincing performance, did their own singing.     Their musical abilities pass muster.      We never see the process of Williams writing songs or his inspiration to write them.     We only see him performing them or recording them with relative ease after all the hard work was done.     The movie hurries past this so we can see him drink some more and make life miserable for himself and everyone around him.     I think of The Buddy Holly Story (1978), which took its time to show us the process of Holly's songwriting and musicianship.    We came away feeling that he would still have been a force in the music business even if he stopped performing.    A plane crash left us only with speculation as to what might have been, but we sensed his passion for music.  

By the end of his life, Williams had spun totally out of control.    He had a heart condition (perhaps unbeknownst to him) that was exacerbated by drug and alcohol abuse.     He was divorced from Audrey, knocked up another girl, and then settled down to marry another one just a few months before he died.     He developed a bad reputation for being unreliable since showing up at shows drunk become commonplace.     However, there is nothing here we haven't seen before in other biopics.    This doesn't feel like Williams' story, but the story of someone kind of like him.     It doesn't feel unique to him.  

Hiddleston and the other actors do their mightiest to bring us some understanding of Williams and the people who loved him and suffered with him.    Hiddleston has the look of Williams and is up to carrying the heavy load on his thin frame.     Olsen creates a portrait of a strong-willed woman who took a lot from Williams, but clearly draws a line in the sand as to how much more she will take.   She would only be pushed around so much.    I couldn't help but be reminded of June Carter.     I suppose it's not a great thing when a movie consistently reminds me of better ones covering the same ground.     

Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall (2016) * * 1/2

Directed by:  Spike Lee

Starring:  Michael Jackson, Rosie Perez, Marlon Jackson, Joe Jackson, Jackie Jackson, Kobe Bryant, Spike Lee, Mark Ronson

"Without Off the Wall, there would be no Thriller," says one of those interviewed for Spike Lee's documentary about the early years of Michael Jackson's career, culminating with the release of 1979's Off the Wall.     It's a mixed bag.    The impressive focus is on Jackson's work ethic and pursuit of perfection in his work.    He loved what he did.     He would sit in for hours on other artists' recording sessions just to learn how to produce a record and mix it.    He was tough on himself.     "Even if a song went to number one, I am always thinking how I could have improved it," says Michael himself.

As big an album as Off the Wall was for Jackson at the time, it was eclipsed in every respect by Thriller (1982).     Off the Wall became that first Michael Jackson solo album.     Songs like Rock with You and Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough still receive wide radio airplay, but it is odd to see a Michael Jackson documentary that stops before Thriller.     It's like a World War II documentary that ends just as the Germans invaded Poland.     Director Spike Lee has made strong documentaries before (Four Little Girls) and he knows the territory.     But why do I get the suspicion this one was made because no one else ever thought to make a documentary about Jackson's third most famous solo album?     If you want to argue that Bad (1987) belongs in the tertiary position, go ahead.    

It is certainly true that Thriller represented the next step in Jackson's evolution as the King of Pop.   The album sold millions, yet Jackson only won Grammys in R & B categories that were not shown live on TV.     He made Thriller partly because he was driven by perceived snubs.     After Thriller, no one could deny him his superstardom.     He achieved stardom as a young boy and lead singer of the Jackson 5.    They were a Motown staple, but soon jumped ship to Epic/CBS records in order to pursue better creative control.     It is amusing to hear the CBS President at the time tell a story about how he nearly refused to sign the Jacksons.     What a colossal mistake that would have been.

The Jacksons (the name Jackson 5 was still owned by Motown) released Destiny in 1978 featuring the huge hit "Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)".    Michael wanted to be a solo artist and his movie role in The Wiz (1978) and Off the Wall cemented that dream.     The movie not only focuses on Jackson's singing and songwriting abilities, but his dancing.     Michael was gifted and worked hard.    He was forever trying to push the limits of his abilities.    It is part of what made him great.

But then, Lee's film hits a wall (no pun intended).    Song by song is covered.    We hear the history, we see numerous talking heads saying how great the song was, and then on to the next song.     The pattern becomes monotonous.    I found myself wanting Lee to get through the songs faster.   Do we really need to hear a review of a song that Michael Jackson himself probably forgot he recorded?     The personal baggage that inevitably followed Michael into scandal, controversy, a trial on child molestation charges, and then his untimely death in 2009 is sidestepped.    The scope does not extend that far.    Lee's documentary is really a love song to the Michael Jackson before he became the world's biggest megastar and thus began his tragic downfall.    But the movie only tells half of the story.    What's told here is done well, but it all feels incomplete.  

Pulp Fiction (1994) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Quentin Tarantino

Starring:  John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Tim Roth, Bruce Willis, Ving Rhames, Christopher Walken, Harvey Keitel, Uma Thurman, Eric Stoltz, Rosanna Arquette, Amanda Plummer

Pulp Fiction combines elements of crime drama, human comedy, and smart dialogue.    They mostly fit, although there are a couple of scenes that drag on too long and should have been trimmed.     But, Pulp Fiction remains an influential film that marked the arrival of writer/director Quentin Tarantino.    His movies have been hit and miss since then, but there is no denying his influence.    Pulp Fiction plays with its chronology so a character who seemingly died midstream is "resurrected" and its criminals actually discuss things other than how they will kill their next victim.    Tarantino himself has been guilty in recent years of being excessive with his violence, film length, and bouts of endless dialogue.   It is as if he is trying to show his imitators who the master is.   

Pulp Fiction tells numerous tales in Los Angeles' criminal underworld.     Following the opening credits, we see hitmen Jules (Jackson) and Vincent (Travolta) on their way to a meeting with some punks who ripped off their unforgiving boss Marcellus Wallace (Rhames).     They discuss Vincent's recent trip to Europe, with Vincent explaining what Quarter Pounders with cheese are called in France.   ("Royale with cheese").    They are so loose that you may not even realize they will be killing people in the next few minutes.     There is also discussion of why Marcellus Wallace threw a guy out of a window because he allegedly gave Wallace's wife a foot massage.    This sets up the next sequence where Vincent is asked by Wallace to take his wife Mia (Thurman) out on the town while he's away.  

Things don't go as planned.    Vincent finds himself in a crisis when Mia snorts heroin and overdoses.    He calls on his drug dealer friend Lance (Stoltz) to help out.    This requires an injection to her heart and they only have one shot at making it work.     Vincent is terrified, not so much for Mia, but for what will happen to him if Mia dies on his watch.      Marcellus Wallace is not a man to be trifled with, as boxer Butch (Willis) learns when he does not throw a fight as instructed.    Or as the guys in the apartment in the beginning learn.     When he tells someone, "I'm going to get medieval on your ass," you can take it to the bank.    And it won't be pleasant.

There are more plot twists involving Willis, Rhames, and Travolta.    They do not roll out predictably.    Things happen that are unexpected and deadly.     A main character is killed off much to our surprise, but then returns in a flashback segment.     Why did Tarantino write the film this way?   Perhaps to confound the audience and surprise it.    Or to shake up the tried and true method of movie chronology.  We learn later in the movie why we see Travolta and Jackson in t-shirts and shorts after their first scene shows them in suits.    Or why Jules was not present at a crucial time which likely would have resulted in certain death for him had he been there.    And there is an unanticipated conclusion to the feud between Wallace and Butch which actually involves some sort of redemption for Butch.     Although he still has to leave town because, according to Wallace, "You've lost your L.A. privileges."

Little dialogue touches like that make Pulp Fiction go.    I haven't even mentioned a restaurant robbery conducted by two lovers (Roth and Plummer), who decide to rob the place for the hell of it.    They meet up with Jules and Vincent with another set of unintended consequences and resolutions.    Just when you think a story arc will play out one day, Tarantino goes against the grain and resolves it in a more satisfying way that flies in the face of convention.

Three of the movie's performances were Oscar nominated, with Tarantino's screenplay winning.    Travolta for Best Actor, Jackson for Best Supporting Actor, and Thurman for Best Supporting Actress.    All were richly deserved.     Jackson's directness and frankness plays very well off of Travolta's half-stoned Vincent.    They bicker and disagree like an old married couple, but we sense they have worked together so long that this is part of the routine.    Thurman's Mia is a woman aching for some excitement since her life as a mob wife doesn't give her much.    She gets more than she bargains for.    She clearly devours Tarantino's juicy dialogue in her scenes with Vincent.     Ving Rhames did not receive awards consideration, but he is no less memorable.     He doesn't mince words and exercises longstanding authority.   When asked at a crucial juncture if he's ok, he responds in the way only Wallace can: "No, I'm pretty fucking far from ok."  

A couple of scenes, including a cab driver's conversation with Butch and Butch's scenes with his girlfriend, run far too long.    Trim those and you have a near perfect movie.    Pulp Fiction retains a lot of its wit and ingenuity after twenty plus years.     The themes of Jules' redemption and Butch's remain thoughtful.     Jules decides to walk out on the criminal life after surviving a near death experience.    It won't be easy, but his journey in the final third of the film retains a certain power.   






     

The Bronze (2016) *

 

Directed by:  Bryan Buckley

 

Starring:  Melissa Rauch, Gary Cole, Thomas Middleditch, Sebastian Stan, Haley Lu Richardson, Cecily Strong

 

Hope Ann Greggory (Rauch) is one of the most unpleasant, abrasive, horrible movie characters I've encountered in many a moon.     Since The Bronze is billed as a comedy, her overuse of swear words and generally abhorrent behavior is supposed to be funny.     Or are we supposed to commend Rauch for writing and playing someone who rips the envelope instead of merely pushing it?    When Hope finally decides to do something decent and redeem herself, we couldn't care less.    She stepped so far over the line there is no coming back.      Her attempts to ingratiate herself with the audience are even worse.

 

Hope is a former Olympic bronze medal gymnast from the 2004 Olympics.    She managed to perform a tough uneven bars routine despite injuring her Achilles tendon.     Fast forward to present day, where the miserable Hope still lives in her hometown of Amherst, Ohio.    Hope dresses every day in her Olympic warm up suit (I wonder what that smells like after a while).    She lives off the free stuff she wriggles out of people thanks to her status as the closest thing to a town celebrity.    Oh, and she steals money from the mail in her father's postal truck and is generally nasty to everyone she comes into contact with.     Of course, she also likes to buy weed, or at least manipulate her way into getting some.     It is a pattern in comedies that smoking weed or possessing weed in and of itself is hilarious.    We are a long way past Reefer Madness, guys.  

 

Hope has an ongoing cold war with her former coach, who trains sunny Olympic hopeful Maggie Townsend (Richardson) who Hope detests.     Hope pretty much detests anyone, but particularly Maggie because she threatens to usurp Hope as the town's resident celebrity.     Thanks to plot developments too laborious to mention, Hope finds herself training Maggie for a spot on the Olympic team.     At first, she sabotages the naïve, guileless Maggie, but then she actually starts training her legitimately.     Meanwhile, she torments her spineless enabling father (Cole), who reads books on how to deal with a monster like Hope.

 

The Bronze doesn't generate a single laugh, a mere chuckle, or even a slight smile.    Rauch, who plays Bernadette on The Big Bang Theory and co-wrote the script with her husband Winston, is apparently not interested in career self-preservation.     Their creation of Hope Ann Greggory is a woeful miscalculation and a complete overestimation of the audience's patience with her.     There is nothing redeeming about her.    Like her father eventually concedes, she is a total bitch.     A nice guy named Ben (Middleditch from HBO's Silicon Valley) is condescendingly called Twitchy by Hope (due to his facial tics), but he wants to date her anyway.    Why?    There is nothing to like about her.     

 

Rauch speaks with an accent that channels her inner Sarah Palin.    I halfway expected her to say how she can see Russia from her front porch.     There is also a former flame on the scene in Lance Tucker (Stan aka The Winter Soldier from Captain America), a gold medal gymnast who loathes Hope yet can't resist wanting to bang her in over the top fashion.    How over the top?    The two have sex while performing gymnastic vaults and flips.  Inventive positions are used.  I saw something like this from Sacha Baron Cohen in Bruno.  It wasn't funny then and it isn't funny now.   

 

The Bronze follows a predictable story arc as Hope goes from a horror to a mere terror in the course of 90 minutes.     We are supposed to be happy that she actually treats people with at least a modicum of dignity at the end.     Are we supposed to suddenly care that she has feelings?     It's okay to have your lead as an unpleasant grouch, but make the character funny and with a glint of charm and wit.   Something to build on.     Bill Murray in Groundhog Day is a perfect example.    Sure, he's crass and put upon, but we know he can be redeemed and has good qualities somewhere.     Hope Ann Greggory is bereft of anything resembling good qualities.      I can be tempted to laud Rauch as having the courage to play someone so over the top, but I find it's a temptation I can easily resist.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ghostbusters (2016) * * *

Directed by:  Paul Feig

Starring:  Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, Andy Garcia, Neil Casey, Bill Murray, Chris Hemsworth

I admit the trailer to the reimagined Ghostbusters with female leads did not look promising.     I scoffed.    Not because of some misguided belief that the original film is a Holy Grail in filmmaking and a remake is akin to heresy, but because I was not a fan of director Feig's earlier efforts.    Bridesmaids, Spy, and The Heat averaged 1.67 stars between the three.    (That's two stars for Bridesmaids and Spy, plus one for The Heat).     Remakes and reboots are so common in Hollywood anymore that complaining about them is as futile as complaining about the weather.     It just is and we must accept it.     I liked the original Ghostbusters plenty and I enjoyed Ghostbusters II (1989), although that puts me in the minority.    

This version has a charm of its own.     It is not a remake as much as a reimagining.     The cast does not strain for laughs, but the laughs come from within the characters.     None of the ladies turns into a foul loudmouth.     They retain a certain sweetness and likability.     Yes, there is lots of slime, but at least someone isn't assaulted with bodily fluids.    There is surely the temptation to try and outdo the original film or aim for the lowbrow, but this version wisely avoids both.     Those who disliked Ghostbusters attacked it with a savagery reserved for early 2000's Ben Affleck movies.     But, I'm not here to review their reviews, I'm here to provide my own.    

The four principals are Dr. Erin Gilbert (Wiig), a Columbia science professor looking for tenure and disavowing anything to do with a book on ghosts she wrote years ago with her then-friend Dr. Abby Yates (McCarthy).    Yates and her lab partner Jillian Holtzman (McKinnon) have created technology which would help track ghosts.     Patty Tolan (Jones), a Manhattan subway worker who saw a ghost on the tracks, is the fourth and joins the other three later.     Erin, Abby, and Jillian investigate rumors of a haunted house and after confirming the presence of supernatural beings, go into the ghostbusting business.     They set up shop right above the Chinese restaurant that is forever shortchanging the number of won tons in Abby's soup.     More ghosts are sighted and a malevolent outcast hotel janitor (Casey) is helping to unleash them on the world.

The ladies hire a stud receptionist named Kevin (Hemsworth), who is dumber than a box of rocks, but stirs up lustful feelings in Erin.    He wears glasses without the lens not as a fashion statement, but because the lenses kept getting dirty.     Answering the phone is quite the challenge for him.     The movie is able to milk some pretty inventive laughs out of Kevin's stupidity.    The Ghostbusters make headlines after battling malicious ghosts at a rock concert (much to Ozzy Osbourne's consternation), but are soon asked to admit being frauds by the mayor (Garcia), who has federal agents working undercover on the disturbances and doesn't want the cover disturbed.     Or at least I think that was the play.  

Jillian is the techno geek of the four, forever gleefully inventing gadgets on the fly to battle the ghosts.    The proton packs the Ghostbusters carry act as laser lassos to trap the spirits.    And there is no mention of an apocalypse if the streams were ever crossed.     Of the four, McKinnon is the scene stealer.    She wears giant goggles and really gets into DeBarge's Rhythm of the Night, (although she thinks it's by Devo).     She perks our interest without even trying.    Emotions escape from her as if there is no more where that came from, which is sublimely fascinating.     I'd like to know what she does in her leisure hours.    Wiig more or less plays it straight, although she is really cute when she sets eyes on Kevin.    McCarthy, refreshingly, never reverts to being a mean potty mouth she defaults to in other films.     Jones is the most vocal, no-nonsense member of the group.    The good thing, no one tries to outdo each other in the name of cheap laughs.     Each stays in her lane.   

I am happy I gave Ghostbusters a shot.    The perky, underdog ladies battle the ghosts (and the evil janitor) and I found myself caring about them, which is how good comedies work.     If the people are interesting, then the rest works itself out.     There are cameos by Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, and Annie Potts from the original that don't distract.     Even the Sta-Puft marshmallow man returns in the climactic battle.     I can honestly say I'd like to see more of these Ghostbusters, but the scathing critical reviews and underwhelming box office may make this unlikely.    But, you never know in Hollywood.    



    


  

Fracture (2007) * * *

Directed by:  Gregory Hoblit

Starring:  Ryan Gosling, Anthony Hopkins, Billy Burke, Rosamund Pike, Fiona Shaw, Cliff Curtis, Embeth Davidtz, Zoe Kazan, David Strathairn

Ted Crawford (Hopkins), a wealthy airplane manufacturer, comes home one day and shoots his wife in the face, causing irreversible brain damage and leaving her in a coma.    There is no hope of recovery.    Ted is arrested for attempted murder, confesses to the crime, and his conviction seems to be an open and shut case.     The case is handled at the district attorney's office by Willy Beachum (Gosling), a hotshot attorney with a 97% conviction rate who is short timing it at the office.     He has a higher-paying, more prestigious job waiting for him at a slick Los Angeles firm.     Willy figures he can pad his stats and impress his new bosses.     We learn soon enough a conviction will not be that simple.

The constitutional right to a speedy trial only seems to happen in movies.     In Fracture, Ted is arraigned and his trial starts all within the two-week notice Willy gives his boss.     Ted curiously represents himself and is all malevolent smiles as the evidence piles up against him.     Then, the case begins to turn.     Detective Nunally (Burke), who was on the scene and took Ted's confession, was his wife's lover and thus this throws the entire confession out.     Then there is the matter of a missing murder weapon, which Ted somehow disposed of, or did he?     Willy is flustered as the case slips away, his new job is in jeopardy before he even starts working, and his current boss, D.A. Joe Lubruto (Strathairn) questions his sloppy lawyering and takes him off the case.

Ted finds he can push Willy's buttons under a façade of benevolence, referring to him condescendingly as "old sport" and his smug belief in not of his innocence, but that Willy won't be able to convict him.    Willy begs to be put back on the case just to get a chance to shut the arrogant, rich Ted up and convict him of the attempted murder.     Like a chess master, Ted seems to have planned two to three moves ahead of Willy.    The case is barely afloat and might be wrapped up just as Willy is scheduled to leave for greener pastures.   

Fracture is at its best when depicting the tense cat-and-mouse game between the younger, arrogant Willy and the older, arrogant Ted.    We side with Willy because he is on the right side of the law, but we don't necessarily root for him personally.     Gosling and Hopkins are effective adversaries and their confrontations never fail to be suspenseful.      I have a hard time buying their final showdown, though, even though it leads to satisfying conclusion for all.     Would Ted, who carefully and precisely thought his way through his legal strategy, be so reckless with his mouth?   Or make a boneheaded decision with his wife's fate that would potentially upend his own legal standing?     Or conveniently forget how the double jeopardy clause works?     It is as if the wily Ted suddenly went all idiot on us in the final 15 minutes.  

Up until that time, Fracture is a quick-moving, stylish courtroom thriller.     Hopkins isn't Hannibal Lecter, but his manners and civil façade suggest the malevolence beneath the surface much like Lecter.     Gosling undergoes some compelling changes as he grows from cocky lawyer to a guy who reads to Ted's comatose wife at her hospital bed.     He learns to care for others, at least to an extent.     I also liked the always dependable Strathairn as the D.A. who we know will wind up fully supporting Willy in the end as the voice of reason and conscience.  

Despite the plot holes, I still admired Fracture mostly because of the performances and director Hoblit, who has covered legal dramas adeptly in movies like Primal Fear.     He is intrigued by the shadowy elements of guilt and innocence presented in Primal Fear and now Fracture.    Somehow, my mind dredged up a line from an 80s Charles Bronson movie where Bronson proclaims, "I remember once when legal meant lawful.    Now it means a loophole."    Hoblit probably thinks the same thing.