Captain Phillips (2013) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Paul Greengrass

Starring:  Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi, Yul Vazquez, Catherine Keener

Captain Phillips isn't a mindless action film.   The pirates depicted here aren't simply evil, soulless baddies whose fate is to become target practice for Navy SEALs.   Instead, they have motives and personalities which play a key part in the events that unfold.    The hijacking of the Maersk Alabama ship in 2009 by Somalis became worldwide news.    The hijackers are "pirates" in the sense that were attempting to take over the ship like Blackbeard would've done hundreds of years earlier.   But they weren't organized and didn't come in a tall ship.   The Somalis were a ragtag group of desperate people under the thumb of ruthless warlords.     They see the Maersk Alabama as a big payday that might satiate their bosses.     They were outgunned and outmanned, but still believed their trump card was kidnapping Captain Phillips and holding him for ransom.     Muse (Abdi), the pirates' leader issues hollow declarations like, "Everything will be ok," to Phillips and his crew, knowing that the siege will likely end badly for someone.   

Because Captain Phillips chooses not to depict its people one-dimensionally, it becomes an all the more engaging experience.   The pirates do bad things, but their reasons are understandable considering their economic situation.   We don't sympathize with them, but we understand the motives.   Richard Phillips (Hanks) is a very competent, professional sea captain who understands that his crew's best chance for survival is for him to accompany the pirates onto the lifeboat and allow himself to be held for ransom.  He's scared and under duress, but also observant.   He correctly senses that Muse as a captain is way out of his depth.  Phillips offers to help apply first aid to a wounded pirate and advice to Muse, mostly to ensure his own survival by ingratiating himself to his captors, but maybe he empathizes with Muse on some level.    Phillips plays the situation like a master chess player who can anticipate one or two moves ahead.   

Captain Phillips begins with the captain boarding his vessel, meeting with his crew, warning that they are in waters that are prone to pirate attacks, and overall maintaining a complete control of his ship.  
He knows how to handle those who say, "I don't get paid enough to fight with pirates," as if there is an amount that would make such a thing worth their while.     The ship is soon boarded by the four pirates, whose only advantage is that they are brandishing automatic weapons.    Captain Phillips knows the ship and his crew, which plays to his advantage.      Phillips offers the $30,000 in the ship safe in order to persuade the pirates to leave, but they are looking for a bigger score.     After realizing that the ship is too big for them to adequately control, the pirates leave in a covered lifeboat with the captain as their hostage.     They believe the US Navy will pay them millions, but Phillips tells Muse, "The US Navy won't let you win.   They would rather sink this boat." 

Tom Hanks is an actor whom audiences will follow into uncomfortable situations.     In films like Cast Away, Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan and many others, he is an able tour guide into areas many can't identify with.     His everyman quality is only part of the reason why is such a superb actor.    Laurence Olivier is lauded by many as the greatest technical actor who ever lived, but how many people would rather spend time with a Tom Hanks character than Hamlet?    
His Richard Phillips is a model of intelligence and competency, entirely convincing and equally vulnerable.     Phillips is not a hero in the sense that he can physically outmuscle his captors, but he is noble and even to a degree sympathizes with the people who hold him hostage.   He handles things as best he can with the information he's either provided or intuits from his surroundings.

Paul Greengrass is well-known for directing two of the Bourne movies and United 93, which tensely and authentically depicted the fear and confusion surrounding the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001.     I wasn't a fan of the Bourne series, but United 93 was splendid.     In Captain Phillips, Greengrass takes advantage of the tight quarters inside the claustrophobic lifeboat to ratchet up the tension.   Then, the US Navy arrives with high-tech intelligence and limitless resources at its disposal to end the crisis on the terms they want.    The final showdown is a model of great film suspense.   By then, even the pirates know their fates are sealed as they cling to the futile hope of a big payday.    

Greengrass made the correct choice to up the human stakes by allowing the pirates to have their say.    We may not agree with their tactics, but we understand their motivations and we see why they are driven to such desperation.     Abdi, to my understanding, is a first-time actor from Somalia who lived in Minnesota.    He is not a cackling villain full of cute one-liners created for his and our amusement.    His Muse wants to believe he is doing something important for himself and his people.   He thinks his gun will buy him respect.    Abdi creates a person who has craved power and now has it, but pays a terrible price for it.    It is an effective piece of acting based on knowledge of the Somali experience.

When the film's final showdown is over, (many already know how it ends based on news accounts), the audience didn't cheer like I expected, as if terrible villains met their maker in a satisfying way.    Instead, there was mostly silence.    This is a tribute to the film not painting the Somalis as ruthless people and not making everything one-sided.     There are ramifications to the action we witnessed and we know all too well such things will continue to happen when poverty meets hopelessness.  












  



   

  

Entrapment (1999) * * *

Directed by:  Jon Amiel

Starring:  Catherine Zeta-Jones, Sean Connery, Will Patton, Ving Rhames, Maury Chaykin

Entrapment is a caper movie containing twists, turns, swerves, double-crosses, and people hanging from very, very high places.     It's a whole lot of fun with appealing stars who play appealing characters even though they are thieves.  

The movie opens with a masked thief scaling down a New York highrise and stealing a Rembrandt painting.     Thinking back to 1976's Silver Streak, where all of the fuss was over letters that may or may not have been written by Rembrandt, a lot of bad things have been done in the late painter's name.    Who committed the robbery?    An insurance agent named Virginia Baker (Zeta-Jones) thinks it's the work of Robert "Mac" Macdougal (Connery), a master thief who remains at-large after pulling off several high profile robberies of priceless art work.  

She tracks the elusive Mac to London and plans to go undercover posing as an aspiring thief who wants to enlist Mac's help.    Because she looks like Catherine Zeta-Jones, Mac agrees to help her.    Had Virginia Baker looked like the landlord that Roy Munson had to bang in Kingpin in order to keep his apartment, I doubt Mac would've been so quick to help out.     If you don't know what I mean, see Kingpin and then finish reading this review.

Mac and Virginia plan a big heist in London and an even bigger one in Kuala Lampur on New Year's Eve 1999.    Mac's shadowy assistant Thibodeaux (Rhames) shows up and his role remains murky until the end when all of the players' roles become known.     The film was made and released with the looming Y2K scare hovering over the New Year's Eve celebrations.      Virginia and Mac plan to use the scare to their advantage as they look to steal $8 billion from the world's largest clearance bank (via computer of course).    This causes Mac to lament that stealing money isn't what it used to be.   "Where is the loot?" he says as they break into the vaunted computer room to wire transfer the money into their account.      Moving $8 billion in cash is certainly more of a burden than pressing a few buttons.  

On Mac and Virginia's tail is Hector Cruz (Patton), her boss at the insurance agency whose motives for following her may not be professionally motivated.       Part of the suspense comes from trying to figure where Virginia is coming from.    Is she really trying to get Mac arrested?    Is she falling for the old guy?   We can't separate the truth from the lies, or is it the other way around?    And what about Mac?    Does he really believe that she's a novice thief looking for a big score?     His big head may say no, but the little head may have other ideas, especially after seeing Virginia slink through a maze of lasers in a most suggestive fashion.

Entrapment is goofy and sometimes preposterous.    We see a lot of well-done stunts and plenty of narrow escapes by Mac and Virginia.     The whole movie is light caper stuff, but it gets the job done.   Connery and Zeta-Jones make a good team and generate some heat, even though there is roughly a 40-year age difference between them.      I still can't figure out the "Bus/Train Swipe Effect" (as I call it).     It goes like this.    Two people are standing across the railroad tracks from each other.     A train whizzes by and suddenly one of the characters is gone.     This happens like three times in the final ten minutes.      How does the person disappear so fast?     Does he vanish into some other dimension for a moment?   This really has no impact on my enjoyment of Entrapment, but I just want to know.  

Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight (2013) * * (Shown on HBO)

Directed by:  Stephen Frears

Starring:  Christopher Plummer, Frank Langella, Benjamin Walker, Barry Levinson, Ed Begley Jr, Danny Glover

Muhammad Ali's refusal to be drafted into the US Army during the Vietnam War defines him as much as his legendary boxing career and legendary mouth.     He refused on religious grounds and declared himself as a conscientious objector, which was a new idea at the time.     His stance was unpopular at first and he was stripped of his heavyweight title, but as the Vietnam War rolled on he became a hero to the anti-war movement.     He was sentenced to 5 years in jail, but his case was appealed to the US Supreme Court.     This is where Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight comes in, although Ali is only seen in archive footage and the closest thing to a fight involves two Supreme Court Justice clerks.    

The movie never cranks up the dramatic juice considering the high-profile nature of the case and the increasing discontent with the war that surrounded it.     The acting is solid to be sure, with veterans like Plummer and Langella leading the way.     There is buildup but little payoff.     The justices arrive at their verdict mostly through political wrangling amongst each other than a surefire belief in the case's merits.      Justice John Harlan (Plummer) at first is opposed to overturning Ali's conviction, but is swayed by the arguments of his clerk Kevin Connolly (Walker) and reverses his decision.      Maybe this happened or maybe it didn't, but it seems more like a typical plot device in which the liberal younger man is able to open the eyes of the older, crotchety one.  

As the justices are introduced, they are seen more as eccentrics than a group of justices with the huge responsibility of running the most powerful court in the land.      Thurgood Marshall (Glover) is late to meetings because he doesn't want to miss his favorite soap opera.     Chief Justice Warren Burger (Langella) is more interested in redesigning his office and the courtoom than his caseload.     Justice Harry Blackmon (Begley) is seen as Burger's lapdog, until a crucial scene in which he ultimately makes a decision which doesn't side with Burger's.     And so on, and so forth.     Only Justice Harlan is seen as a well-rounded person who insists that his clerks go home early on Fridays to be with their families.     He is also battling his own health issues as is his wife, who is suffering from dementia.

The Supreme Court must have been a fun place to work once upon a time.    The clerks play basketball whenever they want, run and scream like a wild mob down the halls (playing football I guess), and don't appear to be doing a whole lot of work.     They are not developed enough as individuals to care about them.    There's a Jewish clerk, a liberal one, and a snobbish one from Harvard whose function is to give the others a hard time.      Maybe writing those long, arduous opinions for the justices is more taxing than I realize and they need to goof off to let off some steam.

Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight never gains any real traction.     The meetings between the justices  don't unfold with any dramatic tension.      We see the aftermath of the Supreme Court's decision when Ali is shown knocking out George Foreman and regaining the heavyweight title in 1975.     There is no epilogue reflecting on the case's effect on the anti-war movement or even mention of the war dragging on for another four years as the nation remained divided.      The overall impression I had was this:   Wasn't it nice of the court to keep Ali out of jail so he could regain the title that was stripped from him?     I would have to think there were more reprecussions, but they aren't shown or even thought about. 

The Contender (2000) * * *

Directed by:  Rod Lurie

Starring:  Joan Allen, Jeff Bridges, Gary Oldman, Sam Elliot, William Petersen, Christian Slater

The Contender is a political drama that pulls no punches.     It was made and released fresh off the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal (it is even referenced here) and there is plenty of anger about that fiasco simmering under the surface.    Mix in some good old-fashioned sexism and political backstabbing and you have The Contender, which focuses its plot around the Senate confirmation of the first female Vice-President.

The VP to President Jackson Evans (Bridges) dies and the person expected to be appointed to the position is Gov. Jack Hathaway (Petersen).     Hathaway's life hits a snag during a fishing trip in which a car plunges off a bridge in front of him and he attempts unsuccessfully to save the female driver.    (Chappaquiddick, anyone?)      This scandal paves the way for Evans to nominate Illinois Senator Laine Hanson (Allen) as the next VP.     This causes considerable consternation to Sen. Shelly Runyon (Oldman), who was fully prepared to confirm Hathaway in a walk and now must conduct the confirmation hearing for a candidate he sees as less than desirable.

Runyon's misgivings about Laine are based on sexist myths ("What if she is having her period when it comes time to push the button?"), but things escalate when a photo surfaces alleging that Laine participated in a gangbang while in college.     It sures does look like her face in the photo, but Laine flatly refuses to answer any questions regarding the incident during the confirmation hearings.       She believes the incident has no bearing on her ability to be VP, but others want to know the answers simply to satisfy their nosy curiosity.     Anyone who followed the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal even a little bit understands that people are much more interested in the hot button issues of sex than whether someone is competent at doing his job. 

Laine sticks to her guns, even if it may cost her the nomination.     It certainly would've made her life easier to answer the questions, but her principles tell her otherwise.     "Principles are only strong when you stand by them when they're inconvenient," she tells the President.     Allen is strong and possesses a fierce intelligence perfect for the role.     She is not a martyr, but someone who realizes she must take a stand and defend it.     The President and his advisors (Elliot and Saul Rubinek) would love for her to just tackle the issue and move on.    They find Laine doesn't play ball and grudgingly admire her for it.

Meanwhile, a young FBI agent (Kathryn Morris) is snooping around asking questions as well.    Will she uncover the truth, or is there something greater afoot?     Runyon does his best to ensure that Laine isn't confirmed.    He attacks her on not just the photo, but her stance on abortion and other "issues" which really have no bearing on anything.    These issues seem to crop up every Presidential election as if they have any merit.      Runyon bases his disdain for the candidate by telling her, "I just don't see in you the promise of greatness," as if he has any clue what greatness is.

Oldman, barely recognizable underneath the glasses and receding hairline, is right at home as the villainous Runyon, who believes himself a moral and just man while conducting backroom meetings to thwart Laine's rise to VP.     Backstabbings and double crossings are so common here that after one takes place, there are still invitations to dinner involving all the parties.     Such things are part of the show in the world of politics.     President Evans puts his arm around a character who is arrested during a key meeting and behaves like an executioner trying to comfort an inmate on the way to the gas chamber.     Evans is folksy, hospitable, but with a keen instinct and an ability to play dirty with the best (or worst) of them.     Bridges is just the actor to play such a role.    He has made a career out of playing seemingly nice guys who know all the angles.  

The Contender does end with a Capraesque-type of ending in which the virtuous are rewarded and the villains deprived.     It doesn't quite match the tone of the preceding 95 minutes and it doesn't seem exactly right that everything would be resolved with a big speech.    However, The Contender is a thoughtful film that examines not only politics, but what is done in the name of politics.     How the players in Washington are able to do this day in and day out is astonishing.  

Goodfellas (1990) * * * *

Directed by:  Martin Scorsese

Starring:  Ray Liotta, Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, Paul Sorvino, Lorraine Bracco, Debi Mazar, Samuel L. Jackson

Very few films are as vibrant as Goodfellas, which depicts the life of the late mobster Henry Hill (Liotta) and told in such intimate detail that we feel like insiders.    Hill takes us through a tour of his life as a successful gangster who later turns FBI informant when he falls out of favor with his bosses.     Liotta, who provides ample voiceover narration as well, does so in proud, almost giddy fashion.     "To many of us, there was no other way to live," he says,  "We were movie stars with muscle.   Everything was ours for the taking."     We may not necessarily approve of the actions of these mobsters, but we understand how and why things must be done.     The mob code relies heavily on respect, a certain level of honor among thieves, and accountability when someone is wronged or does the wronging.    

We also see the world of a mobster's wife through the eyes of Henry's wife Karen (Bracco), who doesn't have any friends outside of other mob wives and endures Henry's infidelities and trespasses because she has money at her disposal and an affluent life.     Henry's shortcomings are a small price to pay for her at first, but soon Henry's involvement in drug trafficking threatens to end their lives as they know them.     Perhaps Karen got hooked on Henry when he pistol-whipped her male friend who tried to assault her and told her to stash the gun.     "It turned me on," she confesses as she holds the bloody gun in her hand.    That was all of the justification she needed to marry a guy who said he was "in construction", but was also able to get a front row table specially brought out to him in a sold-out Copacabana.  She knew he wouldn't be wearing many hardhats.

Scorsese introduces many characters and subplots, but we are never confused or missing any key information.     Associates and friends come and go, either by getting jailed or killed, but guys like Henry simply move on to the next score.    Henry works for Jimmy Conway (DeNiro), a master thief who shakes hands and doles out money like a politician running for office.    DeNiro takes Henry under his wing at a young age and shows Henry the ropes.     "All of my life, I never wanted to be anything but a gangster," Henry says.    Getting to hang around guys like Jimmy made the decision to be a gangster easy for him.     Henry also befriends Tommy, who would grow up to be played by Joe Pesci (in his Oscar-winning performance) as a hothead whose violent streak flashes out of control almost without warning.     One minute, he's laughing and joking with a crowd and the next he's shooting at a lowly underling who forgot to serve him the drink he ordered.      Pesci is foul-mouthed, colorful, and invests Tommy with sadly tragic undertones.    We know his temper will get him into serious trouble one day, but we just don't know when.     The beginning of the end for Tommy comes when he kills a "made guy" (a high-ranking mobster who can't be touched without permission) for insulting him at a party.  

Goodfellas is certainly not an all-out lovefest being thrown for mobsters.    Scorsese sees that all good things must come to an end.   Greed and, for Henry, getting hooked on the cocaine he's trafficking, is the recipe for Henry's downfall, which takes Jimmy and mob boss Paul Cicero (Sorvino) down with him.     Sorvino, with his large build and no-nonsense demeanor, rules the screen with utmost authority.     His performance is perhaps the most underrated in a film full of great ones.    When he advises Henry to move back in with his wife after a fight over one of his infidelities, we sense this is not a man who will ask twice, or that he is even asking in the first place.  

The price to pay for the good life the mobsters lead is that it comes with a limited shelf life.    Sooner or later, the police, feds, or other mobsters will put an end to it.    Mobsters like Meyer Lansky, who never spent a day in prison and died at an old age, are the exception.     The guys in Goodfellas won't have such luck.     Scorsese, with his ever-moving camera, takes us inside this world in a stylish and energetic way.     He sees the people that populate this world from the inside out.   When Henry is sent away in the witness-protection program, he laments that he would have "to live the rest of my life as a schnook."    To him, that's a punishment worse than getting whacked.          

Gravity (2013) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Alfonso Cuaron

Starring:  Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, (voice of) Ed Harris

Many people would find a car breaking down someplace a taxing experience, even with resources available to get the car fixed and get you home safely.  Imagine if you are in space and your shuttle is destroyed by floating debris. Imagine also if you need to float in space a few miles over to the nearest space station.  Rescue missions are impossible and radio communication to NASA has ceased.  I couldn't imagine the terror and helplessness I would feel, especially when the more experienced of the surviving crew members separates from me.    

Gravity stirs those emotions within the audience.  I wondered while watching Apollo 13 how the crew would react if radio communication to NASA were cut off and the crew had to handle re-entry without ground support.   Probably the way Dr. Ryan Stone (Bullock) reacts, which is with lots of panic, uncertainty, and heavy breathing.  She thinks she may be able to initiate re-entry when she boards the unmanned Russian space station, but since she failed the simulations, she is not very confident.   Her mission superior Lt. Matt Kowalski (Clooney) is more experienced, confident, and reassuring, but he is forced to make a decision which would affect both of their chances of survival.  

Director Cuaron has made a film which taps into some of our worst fears about being in a situation where we feel hopeless and helpless. There is no manual on how to get back to Earth with very few resources at your disposal and the ones available may not even work.  The thought of being stranded in space forever is terrifying beyond comprehension, but to the two characters in Gravity, that is a very real possibility.

Gravity is visually stunning and convincing At no point is the marriage of visual effects and the actors anything less than seamless.  We know the scenes weren't shot on location in outer space, but it sure does feel that way.  The film is only about nienty minutes long and makes the right choice in stripping away everything except the essential characters and their journey.  Having a gaggle of actors fighting to occupy the same screen would be deadly.    

Clooney and Bullock are vulnerable and appealing.   We know little about their characters, but enough to make their plight compelling.  Dr. Stone seems to have thrown herself into her work after her daughter's death, while Kowalski keeps himself amused by telling jokes over the radio and his obsession with the space walk record.  This is said to be Kowalski's last space mission and usually when a character is about to retire....

I won't reveal what happens except to say that Dr. Stone is forced to rely on her survival instincts to perform feats she didn't know she was capable of.   The thought of such catastrophes happening to her mission likely crossed her mind, but she never took them seriously.  If we would fail to attempt anything because of worst-case scenarios, then we would get nothing accomplished.  The worst-case scenario does happen to her in Gravity and the horror it causes is even worse. 

When Harry Met Sally... (1989) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Rob Reiner

Starring:  Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher, Bruno Kirby

The most famous scene in When Harry Met Sally... is the scene where Sally (Ryan) loudly fakes an orgasm in a restaurant in front of stunned spectators.    Her mission is to convince Harry (Crystal) that women can fake orgasms and men would be none the wiser.    She succeeds and even prompts an onlooker to tell her waiter, "I'll have what she's having."    When Harry Met Sally... is a light romantic comedy containing warm, funny people and plenty of laughs stemming from Nora Ephron's witty dialogue. It's not a deep film, but it's genial, pleasant, and done very well.

The twelve-year friendship/courtship or whatever you want to call it begins in 1977 when Harry and Sally take a trip from Chicago to New York so both can begin their post-college careers.   Harry is dating Sally's best friend, but this doesn't stop him from flirting with her.   Harry doesn't believe that men and women can be friends since "the sex thing is always out there."  Because of this, when they arrive in New York, they go their separate ways.

Fast forward to five years later, Harry bumps into an old friend at the airport (who is kissing Sally goodbye at the time) and he doesn't even recognize Sally at first.  At the time, Harry is about to marry.   When the two bump into each other again six years later, Harry is in the midst of a divorce and Sally had just ended her own five-year relationship.  Harry and Sally do indeed become friends and do their best to deny their attraction to each other, even though it is evident.  Their friendship confounds Harry's buddy Jess (Kirby) and Sally's chum Marie (Fisher), who both think they should hook up.    

In a nice payoff, Jess and Marie become a couple and then marry, shortly after a double date in which Harry was supposed to hook up with Marie and Jess was intended for Sally.   Jess proclaims to Harry and Sally at his wedding, "If either one of us had found either of you remotely attractive, we would not be here today."

When Harry Met Sally... sinks or swims based on the likability of the leads.    Crystal and Ryan are naturally engaging and charming performers.    They're sweet and vulnerable and we know they will likely end up together, because as well they should.    Everyone in the film is nice and just wants to be happy.   We want them to be happy, even if Harry and Sally don't recognize right away that the key to their happiness lies in each other.       

Nora Ephron would later make films like Sleepless In Seattle, You've Got Mail, and Julie & Julia.    Each film contains nice, sweet people who go out of their way to achieve their own happiness, whether romantic or otherwise.   Are they realistic films?   Of course not, but sometimes we watch movies because we've had just about enough of reality for one day.   When Harry Met Sally... is the perfect film to watch when we're in that kind of a mood.