Silver Linings Playbook (2012) * * * *

 

Directed by:  David O. Russell

Starring:  Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert DeNiro, Jacki Weaver, Chris Tucker, John Ortiz, Shea Whigham, Julia Stiles, Paul Herman, Anupan Kher

I first saw and fell in love with Silver Linings Playbook in 2012.   After several viewings since then, I felt it appropriate to revisit and write an updated review.   I gave it three and a half stars in 2012, but now I'm inclined to go all the way and give it four stars.   Silver Linings Playbook is an endlessly charming romantic comedy in which square pegs like Pat Solitano Jr. (Cooper) and Tiffany Maxwell (Lawrence) find a way to fit into the round hole of life.   They were both dealt some crappy hands, but they find a way to persevere.   

We first meet Pat in a mental hospital in Baltimore, one hundred miles away or so from his home in suburban Philadelphia.   He is giving himself a pep talk before he pretends to take his meds, which he spits out on to the floor after convincing the doctors he swallowed them.   His mother Delores (Weaver) can no longer stand her son being in a hospital and signs him out against the recommendations of his doctors.   Why is Pat in the hospital?   Eight months ago, he walked in on his wife Nikki having sex with a guy and Pat nearly beat the man to death.   Pat has been trying to keep a lid on his rage ever since, but he finds this is difficult especially when he reads A Farewell to Arms and despises the ending.

Pat's father Pat Sr. (DeNiro) is happy to see his son home not only because he loves him, but because he sincerely believes his son brings positive juju when watching Eagles games.    Pat Sr. is a bookie who bets recklessly on Eagles games against his friend Randy (Herman), a Cowboys fan.    One reason DeNiro is so endearing in this role is because we sense how much he loves his family, who he'd like to act as his support system for his own OCD during Eagles games. 

Along the way, Pat Jr. meets Tiffany Maxwell, the sister of his best friend's wife whose husband recently died.   She coped with the death by having sex with everyone in her office which caused her to lose her job.   She's barely hanging on to sanity, but she finds she likes Pat Jr. and even offers to have sex with him right after they meet.   Moments later, we find she doesn't want sex as much as someone to hold and grieve with.   That person is Pat Jr.   Because Nikki has a restraining order against Pat Jr, Tiffany offers to give her Pat Jr.'s letter offering reconciliation in exchange for becoming her partner at a Philadelphia dance competition.    This is not a movie where Pat and Tiffany suddenly become Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, but there is a sweet payoff involving a parlay between Pat Sr. and Randy over the results of the contest.   

Pat Jr. is drawn to Tiffany even if he won't admit it to himself.   He turns down sex with Tiffany because he still has delusions Nikki will take him back.   He thoroughly believes this, and fails to see Tiffany loves him.   But Tiffany subtly inserts herself into his head and heart.   Silver Linings Playbook is a romantic comedy with an edge.   It earned Lawrence a Best Actress Oscar, nominations for DeNiro and Weaver, and gave Cooper not only his first Best Actor nomination, but he would earn multiple nominations and awards season gravitas for years to come.  

Silver Linings Playbook, adapted from the Matthew Quick novel and directed by David O. Russell, gives us imperfect people all trying to fit their quirks into a life which satisfies them.   It charms in spite of itself.   Normally, romantic comedies are chock full of thinly drawn people who think we should be involved with them because they are trying to find love.   Silver Linings Playbook's characters are complex, edgy, and touchingly human.   Pat's and Tiffany's relationship doesn't fall easily into togetherness.   They fight it every step of the way, but that makes the payoff all the more satisfying in the end.   David O. Russell would reassemble the principals of this cast in American Hustle (2013) and Joy (2015).   Both were good movies, but they didn't approach Silver Linings Playbook in terms of how they presented desperate characters and made them lovable.    I wonder how this group would've reacted to the Eagles finally winning the Super Bowl in 2018.   

Pirate Radio (2009) * * *

 

Directed by:  Richard Curtis

Starring:  Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Tom Sturridge, Chris O'Dowd, Kenneth Branagh, Jack Davenport

Now here is a group dedicated to a cause.   In 1966 England, the BBC broadcast rock and roll for only thirty minutes a day.   The stodgy, conservative Parliament wouldn't have it any other way.  Even though The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Kinks, The Animals, and other British Invasion bands had already been topping the charts worldwide for years, rock and roll was still seen as immoral and a vessel leading to the decay of Britain's moral fiber.   

The staff of DJ's aboard Radio Rock think differently and broadcast rock and roll 24/7 from a ship anchored in the North Sea with transmitters powerful enough to blast The Who, Procol Harum, etc. all over the British isles.   People loved not only the music, but how Radio Rock stuck it to the establishment.   Listening in was an act of defiance.  

Quentin (Nighy), the station manager, is forever trying to keep the music playing and his eclectic cast of characters happy.   The crew and DJ's are all men, with the exception of one woman who is a lesbian, so Quentin boats in female companionship every few weeks to keep morale high.   For guys like The Count (Hoffman), the lone American on board, the rocking and rolling supersedes everything in life except perhaps breathing.   When the British government enacts legislation to snuff out Radio Rock from legally transmitting the tunes, The Count would be the guy to literally and figuratively go down with the ship.

Pirate Radio may have a few too many characters populating the ship, but it has an infectious, anarchic quality.   These are mostly young people (but some older guys as well) for whom music is a calling.    On the flip side is Alistair Dormandy (Branagh), the Parliament member who has made it his life's mission to shut down Radio Rock because he is one of the hateful fuddy-duddies mentioned in the first paragraph.  The horse is already out of the barn, but men like Dormandy still want to shut the door.   It would've been satisfying, since Pirate Radio is based on a fictional ship (although there were real ships performing such "illegal" transmissions), to see Dormandy get a comeuppance.  

Instead, the ship gets its own comeuppance at the worst possible time, and we see just how much it means to this group to keep the music playing for as long as physically possible.   The Count leads the way and the rest of the movie follows.   Pirate Radio, like the music featured in it, is a throwback to a bygone era...and a lot of fun.  

The Mauritanian (2021) * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Kevin MacDonald

Starring:  Tahar Rahim, Jodie Foster, Benedict Cumberbatch, Shailene Woodley, Zachary Levi

The Mauritanian tells the true story of Mohamedou Ould Salahi, who languished in Guantanamo Bay for fourteen years after being arrested for alleged ties to the 9/11 Al-Qaeda plot.   Salahi was never charged with a crime, but was imprisoned, tortured, and tormented by U.S. government officials and prison guards.   The evidence against him was thin at best.   After enduring months of physical and psychological torture, Salahi signed a confession but after that ordeal he would have signed a paper confessing he was Bin Laden's father and responsible for Pearl Harbor.

After being arrested in November 2001 in his home country of Mauritania, The Mauritanian shifts to 2005 when his case is brought to the attention of crusading attorney Nancy Hollander (Foster).   The Supreme Court recently reinstituted habeas corpus for Guantanamo Bay prisoners.   Hollander and her associate Teri Duncan (Woodley) take the case and visit Salahi, who maintains his innocence but has grown cynical for good reason.    Hollander's opponent is Lt. Colonel Stuart Couch (Cumberbatch), who is seeking the death penalty in a case even he has doubts about.

Does The Mauritanian end with a trial showdown?   No, but instead the principals learn through court and prison documents the extent of Salahi's suffering.   Salahi initially won his case, but shamefully the Obama administration appealed the outcome and Salahi wouldn't be freed until 2015.   One of President Obama's promises was to close Guantanamo Bay prison, but as of this writing it is still open for business.   Why would Obama's administration appeal a case of a Guantanamo prisoner when he wanted the prison closed anyway for reasons exactly like these?

On to the movie itself, which never rises to the level of outrage the story requires.   Rahim gives us a humanizing portrait of Salahi, with whom anyone can sympathize, but none of the legal wrangling and aghast expressions when reading the documents leads to a substantial payoff.   Salahi published a book shortly after his release and we see footage of a happily married father who smiles a great deal these days.   But the whole movie is rather dry in its depiction of Salahi and his legal ordeal.   The depth of Foster and Woodley's scenes with Rahim consist of prison visits.   These begin to feel repetitive.   

After an attack of moral indignation, Woodley disappears from the movie only to be awkwardly reinserted without a word of explanation.   Still, The Mauritanian has its periods where it is compelling, but as a whole it is lacking.  

The Bank Job (2008) * * *

 

Directed by: Roger Donaldson

Starring:  Jason Statham, Saffron Burrows, Daniel Mays, Stephen Campbell Moore, James Faulkner, Michael Jibson, Peter De Jersey

Not to be confused with The Italian Job (2003), which co-starred Jason Statham, The Bank Job is "based on a true story" about a 1971 London bank heist in which millions of pounds were stolen from safety deposit boxes, but also other little secrets to be used for blackmail.   As The Bank Job opens, we see a threesome involving a high-ranking member of the royal family and a snoop taking incriminating photos of the acts.   The existence of the pictures came to the attention of the British government, who then ordered the bank where the photos were hidden to be robbed.   The thieves could keep the riches, the government just wanted the photos in safe hands.    If you realize the government could cause media coverage of the crime to cease within days of the robbery, then you might wonder why it would go through the trouble of staging a robbery.    Just go into the bank with a warrant of some kind and empty out the contents of the box in question.   No muss, no fuss, but likely no movie either.

The setup of The Bank Job wasn't promising.   Besides a London auto dealership owner named Terry Leather (Statham) being asked by a former flame (Burrows) to rob the bank, we meet a militant Trini named Michael X (De Jersey) who took the photos and will soon blackmail the royal family, members of espionage organizations, dirty cops, a sleazy porno king, and government officials who like to visit S & M brothels.   There is a lot to keep track of, and I worried The Bank Job would slip while trying to keep track of all of these pieces to juggle.    Once the caper gets going, The Bank Job steadies itself into a suspenseful story.   How much of the "based on a true story" part is real and how much is fiction we may never know.

Director Roger Donaldson is no stranger to making solid thrillers (No Way Out, Thirteen Days) and he does so here as well.    A refreshing aspect of The Bank Job is how Statham's character is a true amateur at this bank robbing stuff.   He is a petty criminal at best, someone who wasn't conceived as a master criminal in the womb.   Terry's plan to rent a store two doors down from the bank and burrow under a fast food restaurant using a jackhammer is one which begs he and his crew to get caught.   The vibrations from the jackhammer cause beat cops to stop by.   The group's radio transmissions are picked up on a ham frequency.   A listener calls the police attempting to thwart the theft and Terry narrowly avoids capture. 

The heist is over mid-movie, but Terry now has to evade other parties with secrets of their own hidden in the boxes.   Members of Terry's crew are captured, tortured, or killed and Terry will be next unless he can think his way out of this mess.    The Bank Job doesn't always run like clockwork, but when it does it is an effective caper film with Statham as a steady center.  

Nomadland (2021) * *

 

Directed by:  Chloe Zhao

Starring:  Frances McDormand, David Strathairn

The prologue of Nomadland tells of a mine in northern Nevada which closed in 2011 and months later the entire ZIP code of the town where the mine was located was discontinued.   The residents of the mining town picked up and left once the mine closed, or lost everything beforehand.    Some, like Fern (McDormand) traveled in her van looking for work and living out of the van.   Fern would work during the Christmas season at Amazon and once the seasonal work is over, she would hit the road again.   Fern refurbished the inside of the van to seem more like a home to her.   She runs into friends at a store who offer her a place to stay, but Fern proudly refuses.   "I'm houseless, not homeless," she tells the daughter of her friend.  

Nomadland is being lauded for including non-actors playing themselves as nomads in the same predicament as Fern.   I find this is the biggest issue with Nomadland.   When Fern is interacting with the real nomads, it feels like movie star McDormand is invading their world instead of inhabiting it.  As great an actor as McDormand is, we are witnessing worlds collide on screen and the magic is lost.    It's as if McDormand is guest-starring in a documentary about nomads.    We are consistently aware that McDormand is a professional actor and the real nomads are not.   David Strathairn also appears in a subplot as a nomad who tires of life on the road and settles down with his son and newborn grandchild.  Fern can't abide this type of lifestyle and after a brief visit, she lights out for life on the highway.   

We learn about this unique phenomenon but are hardly engrossed by it.   The nomadic lifestyle provides a certain degree of freedom, but the RV's and vans have to be filled up with gas and people have to eat and perform bodily functions.   We are witness to Fern excreting into a bucket.   Nomadland is akin to 2012's Beasts of the Southern Wild, which covered the lives of the poverty-stricken people impacted by Hurricane Katrina.   That movie was more stark and realistic, partly because it was full of non-professional actors and unknowns who inhabited that world more convincingly.  

I can't fault the performances of McDormand or Strathairn except to say they are at the service of the wrong movie.    Nomadland should've been either a documentary about the nomadic lifestyle or a scripted drama featuring mostly actors in the nomad roles.   The combination of both is distracting.  

Supernova (2021) * * *

 

Directed by:  Harry Macqueen

Starring:  Colin Firth, Stanley Tucci

Sam (Firth) and Tusker (Tucci) are a longtime couple taking what will likely amount to a final road trip together.   Tusker is suffering from dementia.   He is himself most days, but has a tendency to wander off and forget things.   These are two men who have been together so long they know each other's rhythms and are beyond comfortable with each other's full being.   Tusker wants Sam, a renowned concert pianist, to perform a gig somewhere in the English countryside and renew his career.   Sam wants Tusker, a writer, to continue writing, but as the illness progresses we find this may not be possible.

Supernova documents in moving and emotional fashion the decision Tusker makes to commit suicide before he doesn't remember who he is or Sam is anymore.   He doesn't want to be a burden to Sam, while Sam fully wants to be burdened.   Or so he thinks he does.   One of the best scenes in the final act of Supernova is how Sam stumbles across Tusker's plans and how they deal with the decision honestly and with scorching truth.   Sam tries in vain to talk Tusker out of suicide, but he knows Tusker won't budge.   

Firth and Tucci are superb.   I'm tempted to say, oh heck I'll just say it...as usual.   Supernova is a basically a movie in which the leads are together nearly all the time and are constantly speaking.   In a short span, we learn their history through dialogue.   We never doubt their love for each other.   In retrospect, the first few minutes may be a mite too talky, but this establishes the comfort these men have with each other.   This makes the final moments so heartbreaking and shattering.   

Are we witnessing a premature end to their life together?   Is Tusker perhaps being too proud?   Or is Tusker being pragmatic while Sam is being romantic?    Is Tusker being selfish or selfless?   Supernova sees things from all angles and the answers can only come from Sam and Tusker.    The film, written and directed by Harry Macqueen, is roughly ninety minutes but could've shaved off about ten minutes to make it even more taut.   But no matter, because the emotional payoffs are so real they seem almost like this is happening to people we know.  

I Care A Lot (2021) * * *

 

Directed by:  J Blakeson

Starring:  Rosamund Pike, Peter Dinklage, Dianne Wiest, Alicia Witt, Eiza Gonzalez, Chris Messina

Marla Grayson (Pike) is a con artist looking to be the taker and not the taken in life.   She claims to care a lot, but she really just takes a lot.   Working with a team of like-minded lowlifes, Marla throws unwitting senior citizens into nursing homes, takes over as conservator legally in court, and then loots their assets while preventing family from seeing them.   It's a cold scheme which takes nerve, which Marla has in abundance.   One day, a doctor in on the con (Witt) proposes a well-off elderly patient named Jennifer Peterson (Wiest) to be the next victim of the scam.   Jennifer is a "cherry", meaning she has no family or heirs and has tons of dough.   Marla's eyes widen.   Jennifer is the next innocent woman to be chucked into a nursing home and locked away forever.   It doesn't take long for Marla to realize she did this to one too many seniors, especially when a Russian mobster named Roman (Dinklage) takes an interest in the case.

Roman sends his shark attorney to Marla's swanky office with a proposition.   We give you cash, you give up conservatorship of Jennifer, and maybe you'll live.  Otherwise, things will get ugly quick.  Marla refuses and soon things get ugly like the attorney promised.    How nasty things get I will leave you to discover.   One of the charms of the darkly comic I Care A Lot is seeing how far Marla will go to save her con, while seeing how far Roman will go to stop it, or at least get Jennifer out.  

Pike relishes this role and it shows in her devious smile.   Unlike Pike's most famous role to date in Gone Girl (2014), Marla gleefully displays her sociopathic tendencies for all to see.   She isn't out for revenge against anyone, just enrichment for herself and her partner/lover Frankie (Gonzalez),   If Marla has any Achilles heel, so to speak, it's her obvious love for Frankie.   Roman plays straight to that.  Dinklage and Wiest provide rich supporting performances as people who are not what they seem.   At least Marla lays her cards on the table.   She actually proposes that her way is at least more fair and quasi-legal.  

I Care A Lot almost ventures into absurdity and self-parody when Marla and Roman try to kill the other.   Instead of putting a bullet in someone's head and calling it a day, they set up elaborate plans to make the deaths look like accidents.   But then I Care A Lot rights itself with a couple of late developments you don't see coming.   In a way, Marla gets what she wants at long last...and deserves.  

Breach (2007) * * *

 

Directed by:  Billy Ray

Starring:  Ryan Phillippe, Chris Cooper, Laura Linney, Kathleen Quinlan, Caroline Dhavernas, Dennis Haysbert, Gary Cole, Bruce Davison

Breach tells the story of how traitorous FBI agent Robert Hanssen was finally captured by his own agency in the early days of the George W. Bush administration.   What makes Breach all the more involving isn't the covert cat-and-mouse game between Hanssen (Cooper) and his clerk Eric O' Neill (Phillippe), a wannabe FBI agent installed to do intel on Hanssen, but how Hanssen is presented as an enigma even to himself.   A deeply religious man; Hanssen was convicted of selling intelligence secrets to the Russians for sixteen years while working for the FBI.   There are moments he clearly had remorse about his duplicity.   He went to church every day, loved his wife and grandchildren, yet sneakily recorded video of he and his wife having sex and shipped the tapes off to friends.   Cooper plays Hanssen as a man full of dichotomies whose inner turmoil is hidden by a stern, grizzled face.   It's quite a performance and it is the glue to holding Breach together.  

We first meet not Hanssen but Eric as he works his way up the ladder to FBI agent.   He is assigned to perform as Hanssen's clerk by Agent Kate Burroughs (Linney), who tells Eric they are keeping tabs on him because he's a "sexual deviant" and they are building a case against him.   Hanssen, an FBI lifer months away from mandatory retirement age, was assigned an "assistant to the assistant director" type of job in a tiny office with no windows.   Hanssen is insulted and he has no qualms about letting his superiors know about it.   Eric quickly intuits the case against Hanssen isn't about his sex life, but about something deeper.   Burroughs then lets Eric in on the real deal:  Hanssen is suspected to be a traitor, but no case could ever be made against him.   

Hanssen is at first gruff and no-nonsense with Eric, but gradually softens towards him because both share similar religious backgrounds.   Hanssen goes to church daily, while Eric only goes occasionally.  Eric is married to Juliana (Dhavernas), who grew up in East Germany and begins to resent Eric's secrecy and long hours away from home.   Breach's biggest weakness is those tired scenes stressing Eric's deteriorating marriage and home life.   We've seen those all before.   

Phillippe is a capable actor in an underwritten role.   Most of the juicy parts go to Cooper, who plays the more fascinating person anyway.   As the movie moves along, we sense Hanssen is dog tired of this game he plays.   Capture may be a welcome relief for him because he can then stop living a double life which has weighed on him for years.   We sense years of being an underappreciated asset to the FBI drove him to his crimes.   Cooper has a countenance that suggests multitudes of possibilities.   He's tough to read and way too smart to be played by a novice like Eric.   Perhaps he lets his guard down because he's sick of having to keep it up. 

Breach moves along briskly, only slowing whenever Juliana and Eric have a perfunctory fight (which is once or twice too often for my taste), but the suspense elements still play well.   We see a Robert Hanssen whose next moves are a mystery to himself and especially to others.   It's as if we hardly knew the man.  

Land (2021) * * *

Directed by:  Robin Wright

Starring:  Robin Wright, Demian Bichir, Sarah Dawn Pledge, Kim Dickens

Edee (Wright) keenly feels unshakable grief stemming from the death of her husband and son in a manner we learn about later.   She is tired of having to deal with life and moves up to a remote cabin in the middle of nowhere.   She has no idea how to live off the land, hunt, build a fire, or repair the dilapidated cabin.   If I didn't know any better, I'd say Edee was slowly trying to commit suicide.   During the brutal winter, the starving Edee nearly freezes to death before being rescued by a kindly passerby named Miguel (Bichir) and a local nurse named Alawa (Pledge).   Edee is brought back from the brink of death, although she wouldn't have minded if she perished, but soon Miguel is teaching her how to hunt, fish, fix things, and actually live.   This friendship is at the heart of Land and its resonance helps sidestep some fundamental plot questions.

Grief is something which will inevitably touch every life at some point.   Edee's seems to be worse than most.   She is unable to cope with her sister Emma (Dickens) who suggests she see a therapist.   When Edee lights out for the mountains and purchases the cabin, she coldly throws her cell phone in the trash as Emma is trying to reach her.   Edee wants no connection to the outside world.   Is she trying to process her emotions?   Or punish herself?    Miguel is not without his own demons and secrets.   They find they need each other, but thankfully that need doesn't lead to a perfunctory romance.   Edee and Miguel find purpose in each other and a reason to keep on living a while longer.

Land looks beautiful even when depicting harsh elements.   Edee is as physically remote as she is emotionally.   Some can live in such conditions.   Edee isn't one of them.   Is she really even trying?  The desolation of Land in all of its forms is not easy to swallow.   I sometimes felt she was paying such an extreme price for her pain that it was difficult to accept.   Thankfully Miguel and Alawa arrive and restore some sanity.   It's a tribute to Wright, the actor and director, that Land inspires us to care enough to hope Edee finds herself happy again.   Bichir provides warmth and humanity at the best possible time and when we learn his full story he inspires plenty of sympathy.   

Wright tackles the sometimes difficult material with confidence as a first-time director.   It has issues, such as whether Emma believed Edee was dead all this time and how cruel Edee was to her for moving away without a word of explanation.   With that being said, Land is a thoughtful effort with themes many probably wouldn't have the courage to touch.    

The Conversation (1974) * * *

 

Directed by:  Francis Ford Coppola

Starring:  Gene Hackman, Allen Garfield, John Cazale, Cindy Williams, Frederic Forrest, Harrison Ford, Robert Duvall, Teri Garr, Elizabeth MacRae

Harry Caul's life is a dichotomy.   He excels at surveillance and delivering the goods for his clients, but what is on the tapes could lead to others being hurt or worse.   Six years earlier, his surveillance may have led to the deaths of two people and he is haunted by it.   He records a conversation between a man and a woman in a crowded San Francisco park.   They may be lovers or perhaps conspirators.   We hear the conversation in fragments.   Are they plotting something or are they in the midst of an affair?   As more of the conversation is revealed, the less we learn.  

Caul (Hackman) is an intensely private man whose connections to others is limited.  He has a girlfriend (Garr) who he visits less and less frequently than she would like.   He isn't married, so what is keeping him from forming a relationship with her deeper than a few visits?   He lives alone in an apartment, but is dismayed to find his landlord entered to leave him a birthday present.   The irony of a surveillance expert complaining about invasion of privacy is thick.  

Maybe he has his reasons for not opening up.  When he attends a convention, he brings back some of his competitors and a hooker to his office.   The hooker plays him, he opens up to her, and he awakes to find his recordings stolen.   Caul wanted to delay bringing those tapes to his client for fear of a repeat of six years ago.   His client's shadowy assistant (Ford) seems to be pulling the strings, or worse keeping tabs on Caul.

Hackman speaks very little, as if he is afraid to admit something he doesn't want others to know.   His mistrust of others is seen verbally and non-verbally.   He'd rather hide in a corner than mingle.  The movie doesn't judge him.   We gradually learn he has his reasons stemming from an unhappy childhood coupled with a job he has the curse of being good at but despises. 

The Conversation suffers from a payoff which doesn't match the intensity of the buildup.   Does what happen occur in Caul's head or was it part of a plot?   Is he paranoid or did something really happen?  The Conversation has a surprise ending in which someone winds up dead, but we don't know how or why.   We hear the bulk of the taped conversation in its context, and we are still baffled.   With that being said, the first seventy-five to eighty percent of The Conversation is an involving character study of a man who wishes he weren't involved in any of this. 

Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Shaka King

Starring:  Daniel Kaluuya, LaKeith Stanfield, Jesse Plemons, Martin Sheen, Dominique Fishback, Lil Rel Howery

Judas and the Black Messiah features strong performances in a movie which doesn't keep up with them.  I can't pinpoint why it lacks juice.   Daniel Kaluuya gives an impressively balanced performance of a Black Panther who doesn't simply give provocative speeches, but understands strengthening the Black community is the only way to achieve equality.   Kaluuya's J. Fred Hampton can "sell salt to slugs" says car thief/FBI agent impersonator turned informant William O'Neal (Stanfield) to his FBI handler Roy Mitchell (Plemons).  O'Neal isn't wrong and Mitchell is unimpressed.  Mitchell is under orders from J. Edgar Hoover (Sheen) to have Hampton and other Black Panthers arrested because he sees them as the next radical threat.  

The pieces are in place for a fiery movie which somehow invokes mild outrage at best.   O'Neal must betray one of his own in order to stay out of prison, causing expected inner conflicts within O'Neal which haunts him the rest of his days.   In the epilogue, we learn O'Neal committed suicide after the premiere on PBS' Eyes on the Prize 2 in 1990, in which O'Neal was interviewed.   Hampton did not have the chance to live until 1990.   He was shot and killed in 1969 following a police raid which was really an assassination.  O'Neal assisted in that murder by feeding information to the FBI about Hampton's every move. 

What went wrong?  Why isn't there three and a half or four stars attached to the top of this review instead of a respectful but underwhelming two and a half stars?   This type of story has been told before as recently as Martin Scorsese's The Irishman (2019), in which a confidant and friend of Jimmy Hoffa is forced to be his executioner.   The relationship between Hampton and O'Neal is solid, but not deep.  They aren't together enough to form a strong bond.  The movie might've done better to flesh out the tug of war between O'Neal and Mitchell, who in one scene invites O'Neal into his home and offers him the good Scotch.   Could there be an added dimension to their relationship?  This, however, doesn't develop either.   O'Neal meets with Mitchell and expresses his dismay over being a rat (or worse), and Mitchell has to smoothly keep him at bay or outright threaten him with prison for car theft and impersonating an FBI agent while doing so.   This begins to be repetitive..  Perhaps prison might've worked out better for O'Neal in hindsight

Hampton is fleshed out more as he forges alliances in Chicago with other groups representing the downtrodden, including one with White supremacist leanings.   To Hampton, poor is poor, and that's what they all should be fighting against.   Hampton also is about to become a father and is allowed to be seen as hard-nosed, yet gentler when dealing with his girlfriend (Fishback).   Kaluuya will likely be Oscar-nominated in the Supporting Actor category, but let's face it:  He's a lead and the more compelling person which Judas and the Black Messiah only spends part of the time exploring. 

Happiest Season (2020) * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Clea DuVall

Starring:  Kristen Stewart, Mackenzie Davis, Victor Garber, Mary Steenburgen, Alison Brie, Mary Holland, Aubrey Plaza, Daniel Levy

The Happiest Season has the feel of a Hallmark Christmas movie except for the A-list cast and the inclusion of a lesbian couple in the forefront.   This rom-com is saccharine, sterile, occasionally involving, and ultimately you are at a loss to remember much about it the next day...or even the next hour.  Fortunately, the plot is easy to follow and everything is neatly resolved in the end.   There is a certain level of comfort in that.   If you expect anything else, you are watching the wrong movie.

The movie begins with a deliriously happy couple, Abby (Stewart) and Harper (Davis) enjoying the Christmas season in their idyllic town.   They kiss, they declare their love for each other, and Harper invites Abby to spend Christmas with her family.   This all sounds delightful and Abby picks out a wedding ring so she can propose to Harper on Christmas Day.   However, and there's always a however, Harper confesses on the ride up she has yet to tell her parents that she is gay.   How to handle this dilemma?   Abby will pose as her straight roommate who wants to spend Christmas with a family since her parents died when she was nineteen.   Abby reluctantly agrees after Harper promises to tell her parents "after Christmas".   Fair enough, but Complications Ensue, as are wont to happen in movies like The Happiest Season.  

One issue is Harper's father Ted (Garber) wants to run for mayor and Harper thinks having a lesbian daughter would kill his chances of winning.   Another is Harper's mother Tipper (Steenburgen), who tries to keep everything classy.  Another is the presence of Harper's former boyfriend Connor, who clearly wants her back and has no clue she is gay, and Harper's secret high school girlfriend Riley (Plaza), who Harper disavowed when their cover was nearly blown in high school.   In a refreshing twist, Riley is not a vengeance-seeking woman scorned, but someone who intuits Harper's real relationship with Abby and lends a sympathetic ear.   Riley is clearly still saddened by Harper's treachery and fears Abby may experience it some day when the chips are down.

There are other siblings with their own problems, which are more easily resolved than Harper's and Abby's, and subplots the movie could frankly do without.   The actors provide as much appeal as they can muster with stock characters, even though Daniel Levy's role as Abby's customary gay friend John is not a million miles removed from his Schitt's Creek's David Rose.   They make us care more than we should, even though The Happiest Season reminds us so much of a Hallmark movie that we keep waiting for the commercial breaks.  

Beverly Hills Ninja (1997) * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Dennis Dugan

Starring:  Chris Farley, Nicolette Sheridan, Chris Rock, Robin Shou, Nathaniel Parker, Soon-Tek Oh

I just finished a two-and-a-half star review of Absence of Malice (1981), which was earned because I expected more and was disappointed.    Now we have Beverly Hills Ninja, which is the other side of the two-and-a-half star review coin.   I did not expect much, and I was surprised by the movie's sweetness and Chris Farley, whose comedic style was that of the Pamplona bulls invading an antique store.  Farley leaned on physical slapstick and lots of yelling.   It didn't serve him well in previous films, but in Beverly Hills Ninja, we like the big lug.   He has a heart, takes a licking, and keeps on ticking.   

Farley plays Haru, a Caucasian who washed up as a baby on an island populated by ninjas and is raised to be one.   The opening credits establish all you need to know about Haru's non-existent skills.  He tries hard, but he just can't get it right.   His half-brother Gobei (Shou) is a superior ninja who is exasperated by his half-brother's ineptitude.   I expected Gobei to be a malicious sort who wants Haru gone, but Gobei actually loves the big guy while shaking his head at the things he does.   

The plot thickens years later when Haru is left behind while the rest of the ninja clan performs a mission, and the beautiful blonde Allison (Sheridan) wanders into the dojo looking to hire a ninja.  How did she find out about the supposedly secret ninja organization?   Don't ask.   Even though Haru nearly obliterates the dojo trying to show Allison he has mad skills, Allison hires him to spy on her boyfriend Martin Hanley (Parker), who she suspects is into crooked activities.   Haru witnesses a murder and is soon suspected of it, and flees to Beverly Hills in order to help Allison, who is a bit shady herself.  

Haru is shadowed by Gobei on orders of Gobei's father.   He assists Haru while trying not to be discovered, and winds up being accidentally struck by objects.   Haru is involved in a pratfall, slip, trip, errant use of weapons, etc. about once a minute.   Most of these are done with energy but grow tiresome.   When Haru speaks, he manages to sound intelligent and stupid at the same time.   A Beverly Hills hotel valet (Rock) is floored to be in contact with a real ninja and agrees to be Haru's student.   It's like the blind leading the blind.

Like Inspector Clouseau, Haru is convinced of his own genius, and stumbles and bumbles his way into success while trying to help Allison stop Martin's nefarious counterfeiting scheme.   The plot is immaterial; it's just something to hang gags on.   However, Beverly Hills Ninja nearly rises above expectations and provides a couple laughs as well as Chris Farley's softer side which peeks out in between Farley's slapstick.   It's not a great comedy, but it's worth ninety minutes and I have some affection for it.     

Absence of Malice (1981) * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Sydney Pollack

Starring:  Paul Newman, Sally Field, Josef Sommer, Melinda Dillon, Wilford Brimley, Bob Balaban, Don Hood

Those who believe the media is shady and fake would love Absence of Malice.   The movie gives anti-media people plenty of ammunition.   If the movie stuck it out as a story about journalism ethics and the damage that occurs when such ethics are violated, then Absence of Malice would've been better.   It instead bogs down in an illogical and unconvincing romantic relationship between its leads.   Wilford Brimley injects life into the final thirty minutes as a no-nonsense federal investigator, but by then the movie is too sunk to be rescued.  

The pity is: The setup is compelling.  A desperate federal agent (Balaban) investigating the disappearance of a Miami union leader opens an investigation into Michael Gallagher (Newman), the son of a mafioso who runs a legitimate liquor distributorship.  There is no earthly reason for the agent to investigate Michael, and no reason to leak the matter to reporter Megan Carter (Field), but he does both and a shitstorm ensues.  

Megan has no corroboration that Michael is crooked, but the paper runs the story anyway (back in the day when newspapers were printed on paper and not online).   Michael shows up at the reporter's desk asking where the story came from.  Megan spills her coffee and the two begin an awkward and frankly unnecessary journey to romance, all while the investigation goes further down a rabbit hole no one anticipated. 

Michael isn't the type of guy to take this sort of thing lying down, especially when the story causes harm to his lifelong best friend Teresa (Dillon) who knows Michael is innocent.   For the most part, Michael is a legitimate businessman who has distanced himself from his mafia family, but that doesn't mean he is above calling on his family for favors when he hatches his plan for revenge.   It's a simple, but effective plan.     

Absence of Malice flies off the rails when it expects us to believe Michael and Megan would fall for each other, even after what happens to the troubled Teresa when a follow-up news story is printed.  There is little chemistry between the otherwise likable Michael and Megan.  I can believe Michael is a liquor distributor falling on hard times.  I can't believe Megan is a hard-nosed, aggressive reporter who would eschew her responsibilities so easily.   Field is comes across as too nice to be playing such a role.  She's a child in a grownups' game.  Newman, with his grizzled mannerisms and intelligence, is right at home.   

As mentioned, Wilford Brimley shows up in the final act as a fed trying to figure out who did what to whom.   He lays down the law in the authentic, no-bullshit way which made Brimley such a reliable actor.   But even after everything is settled, we are left underwhelmed because it took the wrong turn at the fork in the road.    A promising beginning led to a muddled end.  

  

Sound of Metal (2020) * * *

 

Directed by:  Darius Marder

Starring:  Riz Ahmed, Olivia Cooke, Paul Raci, Mathieu Almaric

Ruben (Ahmed) is a drummer in a two-person band with his longtime girlfriend Lou (Cooke) who one day suffers massive, almost immediate hearing loss.   It just happened.   He can no longer play the drums because he can no longer hear the music.   This is devastating for Ruben, who has made a living touring and playing drums.   Living in an RV with Lou and touring from town to town, Ruben must now find another purpose in life.   We learn Ruben is also four years clean from heroin addiction, but the hearing loss may trigger a relapse.   He and Lou find a rehab of sorts run by Joe (Raci), a Vietnam veteran who lost his hearing in the war.    Joe has his doubts as to whether his facility which assists other hearing impaired people can truly help Ruben.   

Thanks to Ahmed's quiet, empathy-inspiring performance, we learn more about Ruben as the onion layers are peeled back on his life.   He is unable to be at peace.   He is forever in forward motion, not because he is goal-oriented, but because he doesn't know how to be still.   As Joe puts it, he doesn't reach the "silence" which can be so beneficial to a soul at rest.   To Ruben, being still means he is forced to confront demons instead of running from them.   

Sound of Metal has its share of moments of emotional clarity even in the morass of sound and fury.  Ruben sells his RV and Lou goes home to Paris so Ruben can stay with Joe and pay for a procedure to help restore some of his hearing.   This is not a smooth process.  There are times Ruben can hear clearly, other times he is assaulted by waves of sound especially in the hustle of life.   Most of what Ruben hears is muddled and unclear, almost like Charlie Brown's parents.   I would not be surprised if the sound department of Sound of Metal is not rewarded with an Oscar win or two as a practical co-star in the film.

Paul Raci also deserves an Oscar nomination as Joe, who truly wants the best for Ruben, but knows Ruben better than Ruben knows himself.   Joe has seen too many addicts like Ruben come and go.  Raci delivers the most powerful moment in the movie when he tells Ruben he can no longer allow him to stay.   It breaks Joe's heart and ours.   

Some may find Sound of Metal too quiet or perhaps having too many moments without forward dramatic motion.   It won't be for everyone, but I found I cared for Ruben.   I didn't want to see him relapse and I wanted him to find purpose...and at least some peace.   Sound of Metal finds a way to get there.  

Playing for Keeps (2012) * *

 

Directed by: Gabriele Muccino 

Starring:  Gerard Butler, Jessica Biel, Dennis Quaid, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Judy Greer, Uma Thurman, Noah Lomax, James Tupper

What about Playing for Keeps attracted such A-list talent?    It's a standard romantic/sports comedy in every fiber of its being.   The movie is pleasant, disposable, and forgotten about shortly after watching it.  It has its momentary charms, but nothing special.   The cast does its best to make the most of thin characters, but not much happens that one couldn't predict coming a mile down the road.

Playing for Keeps begins with highlights of the stellar career of soccer start George Dryer (Butler), whose career was cut short by an ankle injury.   Cut to the present day: George has fallen on hard times.  He is now divorced from Staci (Biel), who is now engaged.   He has a strained relationship with his six-year-old son Lewis (Lomax), he lives in the guest house of a wealthy man but has trouble paying rent because he has no job, etc.   One day while watching his son's hapless team at soccer practice, he takes over for the disinterested coach and shows the kids a few things.   George is soon the soccer coach, the team starts winning, and the soccer moms are soon hitting on George.

The moms are a newly divorced woman (Greer), a former sportscaster (Zeta-Jones) who thinks she can use her contacts to land George a coveted job with ESPN, and the unhappy wife (Thurman) of a millionaire who throws his weight around and cheats on her.    Watching these women throw themselves at George gives us painful would-be seduction attempts which George mostly rejects because he is Still In Love with Staci and is trying to Grow Up.   Dennis Quaid as the jerk millionaire Carl King injects some life when he's on screen with his patented licentious grin and the back slap that could kill.  

The seduction attempts are PG.  The closest anyone comes to nudity is Uma Thurman stripping to her bra and panties.   George is a nice enough guy and still manages to keep lean and muscular despite not going to a gym or doing any exercise.   The women come at him like they've never seen a man before.  Staci stands by waiting for George to take responsibility for himself and her son so she can dump her fiance (Tupper), a nice guy who only exists to be dumped.   It is amazing the fiance doesn't catch on sooner, but these folks generally are too busy being saints. 

Playing for Keeps is generic right down to its title.  Not only will we have forgotten we saw it, but it's likely the cast has forgotten they appeared in it.   

Mad About You (2019) * * * (Series revival streaming on Amazon Prime)

 

Starring:  Paul Reiser, Helen Hunt, Richard Kind, John Pankow, Kecia Lewis, Abby Quinn, Anne Ramsay, Antoinette LaVecchia, Mo Gaffney

Mad About You is a revival of the 1990's sitcom starring Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt as Paul and Jamie Buchman, a married couple living in New York.   The charm of the original series was the chemistry and byplay between Reiser and Hunt.   After the first couple seasons, the show jumped the shark when Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner made guest appearances and Reiser and Hunt stood around watching them with their mouths dropped in awe.   Brooks and Reiner do not appear in the revival, but there are impressive cameos from Cloris Leachman as a lonely widow for whom Jamie provides psychotherapy, Jason Alexander as himself, David Harbour as himself, and Carol Burnett as Jamie's mother.  

The revival contains some of the same cute back and forth between Paul and Jamie, but there are serious undertones involving their daughter Mabel (Quinn) leaving the nest to attend NYU five blocks away.  (They could save serious cash by allowing her to stay at home and commute).  With Mabel gone and causing her own problems, Paul and Jamie are empty nesters, and long held resentments bubble to the surface.   Paul and Jamie seek marriage counseling with Dr. Sheila Kleinman (Gaffney), who approaches her job with absolute cynicism and the pessimistic belief that Paul and Jamie will soon divorce.  

For those who recall, the finale of the original series indicated that Paul and Jamie split when Mabel approached her mid-twenties.   The revival makes no mention of that.   They are still together as the show opens, and living in a roomy New York apartment.   Paul must make great scratch still as a documentary filmmaker to afford that kind of place with Jamie not working during the first few episodes.   Jamie eventually goes back to work as a therapist in her friend Tonya's office (Lewis).  Tonya is married to the Buchmans' best friend Mark (Kind), who divorced Jamie's best friend in the previous incarnation.   The Tonya character is forever exasperated by Jamie and Paul.   She doesn't strike me as someone who has much patience with her clients, the Buchmans, or the world in general.    

Paul's cousin Ira (Pankow) has opened a successful Italian restaurant with his girlfriend (LaVecchia) who he adores but not enough to marry.   Why mess up a good thing?  Ira remains a funny character who thinks he must be Italian and not Jewish because he has taken to the restaurant and cooking thing so well.    Mad About You works because it doesn't recycle the old formula (okay, maybe a little) and we find we still care about Paul and Jamie.   Reiser and Hunt haven't missed a beat and some of the territory this revival delves into is a bit dark.   Perhaps all of the one-liners and zingers mask hidden insecurities and fears.   Paul and Jamie know each other well, love each other, and are each is more aware of the other's issues more so than even they realize.   With that being said, a twelve-episode reboot is just right.   Everything is resolved and there is no need for another season.   Why mess up a good thing?  

The Dig (2021) * * (Streaming on Netflix)

 

Directed by:  Simon Stone

Starring:  Carey Mulligan, Ralph Fiennes, Lily James, Archie Barnes, Ben Chaplin, Johnny Flynn, Eamon Farren

It's 1939; the eve of World War II in Great Britain, and Edith Pretty (Mulligan) doesn't have war on her mind.   There are mounds on her property which she suspects may hold ancient artifacts.  She contacts excavator Basil Brown (Fiennes) and he surveys the area.   Maybe there's something there, maybe there isn't.   Digging will be costly to the sickly Edith, who ails from a heart condition in her young age.  She presses on, and soon Basil uncovers a find for the ages: remains of an Anglo-Saxon ship from a thousand years ago and, more of interest to local museums, a vast sum of treasure, gold, and artifacts.   Suddenly, the London Museum and the more local Ipswich Museum are sending their own archaeologists to verify the findings.   Both museums want the artifacts as exhibits, but with war looming and word of German air raids, how long would it take for the find to be reduced to rubble?

The Dig is expertly acted, with the working-class Brown forming a touching friendship with Edith and her young son (Barnes), who is fascinated by archaeology.   Maybe it's a question of timing because World War II is so close that matters of excavation of mounds of dirt in the middle of the English countryside seem trivial.   How can we get worked up over who lays claim to the artifacts when thousands of British soldiers are being deployed for imminent war?   We can't, and The Dig introduces romantic subplots involving a young archaeologist (James), her stuffy husband (Chaplin), and Edith's handsome cousin (Flynn) who are all employed mostly to spice things up. 

There simply isn't a lot of drama here.   Edith's health worsens while Basil battles with the museums over who will get credit for the find and where the artifacts should go.   Ho-hum.   The movie itself never pushes the emotions too high.   It doesn't want to appear unmannerly.   In the epilogue, we discover the artifacts were safely hidden underground during the war so they remained intact.   Basil was never mentioned in any way until years later when he was given his posthumous credit.   What we have with The Dig is superb performances standing around waiting for a story equal to them.   It doesn't happen. 

The Next Three Days (2010) * *

 

Directed by:  Paul Haggis

Starring:  Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks, Brian Dennehy, Liam Neeson, Olivia Wilde, Ty Simpkins

Things go awry fast for John and Lara Brennan.   One night they are having dinner with friends and all is well, although Lara seems a bit hostile, and the next morning the police bang down the door during breakfast and arrest Lara for murder.   John absolutely refuses to believe she is guilty, even though the evidence against her is damning.   Fast forward to three years later, Lara is still in prison after her latest appeal is rejected.   She is resigned to spending the rest of her days in prison, but not if John can help it.

The Next Three Days is about John's plan to bust Lara out of prison and be a family unit again with their six-year-old son Luke (Simpkins), who resents his mother being away.   John (Crowe) is a local college professor who isn't at home trekking around for fake ID's and guns, but he'll need those and lots of money if he wants to pull this off.    A former convict who escaped from prison seven times and wrote a book about it (Neeson) gives John advice about how to plot an escape.   Lara (Banks) is so hardened and cynical now she all but begs John to leave her be and move on with his life.   Another woman (Wilde) appears on the scene, and we think it will lead to a romantic subplot for John, but no...he is determined to spring his wife.   A lecture he holds about Don Quixote reveals his mindset.

A great deal of The Next Three Days is devoted to John's plotting.   He takes up an entire wall in his living room with photos, articles, checklists, and a map of the Pittsburgh area.   He's a smart cookie, but does he have the stones to follow this potentially deadly heist to the end?    Thankfully, he doesn't have many visitors to question why he has all of the junk on his wall.   Elizabeth Banks, normally a solid comic actress, gives us a portrait of a woman who may be innocent, but also has the temperament to possibly commit murder.   The time in prison changes Lara, and Banks is up to the task of portraying her varying states of mind.

Crowe plays a steady Eddie who, like many characters like John, figures out a way to fire guns and evade police without any previous experience doing so.   It's as if John watched a lot of movies and learned the behavior.    It's hard to fault the performances here, just the movie they are in service of.  The Next Three Days is over two hours long and never finds its rhythm.   It stops and starts, trading off some poignant scenes involving John's father George (Dennehy), who suspects something is going on with his son with others which make you scratch your head.   With the Pittsburgh police bearing down on them, do Lara and John really have time to pull over after a near accident and sit beside the car to ponder things?   Why does Lara always seem like she's about to say something and then holds back?  Are we ever truly convinced that John loves Lara enough to do this?   Or that Lara loves John enough to let him risk his own life for her?

We have over two hours to find out the answers to these questions and we never discover them.   There are parts of a solid thriller at work in The Next Three Days, but it's too long, too dragged out, never gathers serious momentum, and in the end simply silly.