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Kontroll

January 24, 2012

A killer is terrorizing the subway stations beneath Budapest. Like the Angel of Death, he stalks the tunnels and platforms in a black hood, sneaking up behind late-night commuters and shoving them into the path of oncoming trains. It’s into this Langian netherworld that Bulcsú (Sándor Csányi), the roguish young hero of writer-director Nimród Antal’s debut feature, “Kontroll,” has exiled himself from life on the surface.

When he isn’t curled up on a desolate platform, Bulcsú is riding the rails as a ticket control officer for the metro. Alongside his ragtag crew, he patrols the subways, making sure they’re free of freeloaders. Judging from Antal’s depiction, it’s a hellish gig, prone to frequent scuffles with authorities, fellow inspectors, not to mention the host of belligerent, ticketless commuters, each itching for a fight, a chase or both.

“Kontroll” finds its footing not upon the rungs of plot, but through a succession of vignettes depicting the inspectors’ workaday grind. Antal gets the textures right, all urban grime and pallid lighting that gets under your skin, but there’s a jokiness to these sequences, a gimmickry in the cutting and the theatrics, that points to the filmmaker’s background in commercials and music videos And for a movie about a killer on the loose, there is scant dread and paranoia at work here: Neither the ticket inspectors nor commuters seem terribly concerned, and there’s none of the morbid sense of inquiry behind the killer’s motives, both ingredients with which thrillers achieve their credibility. The movie, instead, settles in on Bulcsú as he tangles with rival inspectors, falls for Sofie (Eszter Balla), the lovely, self-assured daughter of an aging metro driver, before he finds himself the lead suspect in the subway killings. You can see the final showdown between Bulcsú and the killer coming as clearly as the headlights of the next train. It’s not the destination that counts in “Kontroll,” however, but the visceral delights to be had in getting there.

Above all, “Kontroll” is a gleeful demonstration of Antal’s flair for the medium. He is clearly a natural, as comfortable with the classical fundamentals of craft as with the hyperkinetic attitude of the modern action movie. Propelled by a dance-fevered soundtrack, Antal has fashioned an enticing allegory about lives suspended in self-imposed purgatory and seeking to rise again into the light of the real world.

Grade: A-

Directed by: Nimród Antal
Written by: Jim Adler, Nimród Antal
Cast: Sándor Csányi, Eszter Balla, Csaba Pindroch, Zsolt Nagy

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Intermission

January 24, 2012

Dizzily paced and structured, the Irish import “Intermission” charms with its “never-let-‘em-see-you-sweat” exuberance. Theater denizens, Mark O’Rowe and John Crowley, the movie’s writer and director respectively, juggle elements of romantic comedy and farcical crime caper with hardly a misstep or stumble. After a somewhat annoyingly “virtuosic” opening that comes staggering at us with a chopped-up, documentary-style jitteriness, “Intermission” finds a sure and brisk footing. Before long, you’re swept away in its pell-mell of interweaving narratives by a couple of crack storytellers who seem audaciously at ease in their newfound medium.

Dewy-eyed and pouty-lipped John (Cillian Murphy) calls it off with his girlfriend, Dierdre (Kelly Macdonald), and almost immediately regrets it. He finds that it’s too late to make amends, however, because Dierdre is already bedding down with Sam, a middle-aged and married bank manager in the thick of a raging mid-life crisis. Eager to mend her tattered self-esteem, Sam’s jilted wife, Noeleen (Dierdre O’Kane) sets her sights on Oscar (David Wilmot), John’s rangy, sex-starved pal. Noeleen’s unleashed libido, not to mention her pent-up rage at her delinquent husband, loosens Oscar’s goose but it also, comically and mid-coitally, beats the poor schlub to a pulp.

John and Noeleen aren’t the only ones stung by rejection. Ever since her last boyfriend shit on her, literally, Dierdre’s sister, Sally (Shirley Henderson), has let herself go and has the moustache to prove it. Sally’s bitterness has her hissing and snarling, but she’s got a tender soul which her widowed mother (Ger Ryan) tries patiently to nurse back to health.

Following the old rule that if you can’t get them back, then get back at them, John throws in with Lehiff, a petty, thuggish punk (played with gusto by Colin Farrell) in a scheme to kidnap Dierdre and hold her ransom to Sam. It so happens that Lehiff is in the cross-hairs of the brutish Jerry Lynch (the indomitable Colm Meaney), Dublin’s answer to Popeye Doyle by way of the self-serious vanity of Inspector Clouseau. Lynch is on a one-man crusade to scour Dublin’s streets of scum and achieve local stardom, while he’s at it, if a reality-TV producer has his way. Meaney mines the great tradition of comic blowhards; he clads Lynch in the armor of male bravado, but one that can’t hide his pathetic inner gloom nor his idiosyncrasies (in this case, an obsession with Celtic mysticism).

Through all its whirl and bluster, “Intermission” comes through a remarkably winning and tender character study—a patchwork of contemporary Dublin’s lovers, hoods and regular Joe’s. O’Rowe and Crowley impressively dovetail their various stories through well-timed turns, parallels and intersections. Add to its ambitious script and direction an ensemble of on-target performances, and you have a rare seasonal treat: a rowdy comedy unafraid of honesty and with a direct appeal to the heart.

Grade: A-

Directed by: John Crowley
Written by: Mark O’Rowe
Cast: Colin Farrell, Cillian Murphy, Kelly Macdonald, Brian F. O’Bryne, Colm Meaney

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Elephant

January 23, 2012

Gus Van Sant’s “Elephant” won the Palm d’Or and Best Director prizes at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, marking the resurgence of a gifted filmmaker whose talents seemed tamed recently in service of more traditional dramas. If “Drugstore Cowboy” (1989) and “My Own Private Idaho” (1991), were dazzlingly wrought portraits of lives on the fringes of society, “Elephant” meanders through the more recognizable territory of high school. More importantly, it’s bravura filmmaking, subtler in approach than either “Cowboy” or “Idaho,” but just as exhilarating.

The title of Van Sant’s movie refers, among other things, to the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about. The conspicuous pachyderm, in this case, is the issue of gun violence in American schools, something that stampeded through our collective consciousness in the late-90s, brought most vividly to mind by the Columbine incident. In “Elephant,” Van Sant sets out to talk about it. Just how incisively or effectively he manages to do so, though, is frustratingly questionable.

The movie offers a portrait of an American high school. Van Sant’s characters are students whose paths intersect in the course of a routine day. There’s nothing routine, though, in Van Sant’s approach as he weaves together a mosaic of delicately interlaced storylines. “Elephant’s” most bustling scenes in hallways, offices and classrooms are so assuredly choreographed that they recall the most adroit Altman movies. The movie builds on a cyclical structure, following one storyline before flashing back to pick up another. In this way, Van Sant fleshes out vividly believable characters, bringing them, one storyline at a time, to the edge of his narrative, while allowing a hypnotic, unsettling tension to hang over the movie as we anticipate its inevitable outburst of violence.

Harris Savides’ camera glides along in step with “Elephant’s” largely non-professional, teenage cast. The movie’s immaculate visuals are matched by Leslie Shatz’s expressive sound design, intermingling Beethoven’s classical piano with ambient noise and wild sound to arrive at a disconcerting blend of disparate elements that perfectly serves the movie’s tone.

Van Sant shrewdly withholds judgment and steers clear of moralizing his subject. But, after it’s finished, you’re still wondering what it all adds up to. “Elephant” may be pointing to the insidiousness of violence, lurking in the woodwork of our society, no more unusual than the rest of the banalities of high school life. But Van Sant ends his movie so abruptly, glibly cutting away from his final scenes, that he left me to trip all over myself to come up with the movie’s justification or even any sense of its message. “Elephant” is one of this year’s boldest movies, technically, but, in refusing to assert any point-of-view about what troubles modern American youth, Van Sant’s loses heart and flees the scene of the crime.

Grade: C+

Written/Directed by: Gus Van Sant
Cast: Elias McConnell, Alex Frost, Eric Deulen, John Robinson, Carrie Finklea

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Edmond

January 23, 2012

Whether it’s a white-collar noir (“Glengarry Glen Ross”), a courtroom drama (“The Verdict”), a gangster saga (“The Untouchables”), a brainy thriller (“The Spanish Prisoner,” “Ronin”), or even a monster movie (“The Edge”), it seems that David Mamet’s particularly cerebral, male-centric dramaturgy needs the rigors of a plot-driven narrative in which to subdue and shape itself. Otherwise, we get something like “Oleanna”–the playwright/filmmaker’s fatally stilted screed about sexual harassment. With its clipped, oblique dialogue (that old Mamet trademark), and characters that act and talk like they’ve come out of a factory box, molded out of stereotypes of, respectively, the finger-wagging feminist female and the pussy-whipped, white-collar male, Oleanna elicits anger and befuddlement (at least in this viewer), but for all the wrong reasons.

Here comes “Edmond,” originally penned for the Chicago stage in the early ’80s, adapted for the screen by Mamet and directed by Stuart Gordon (whose “Re-Animator” taught us that even disembodied heads have feelings). “Edmond” is another of Mamet’s white, urban, misogynistic male nightmares, but, unlike “Oleanna” (which Mamet himself directed), it is saved from itself thanks to Gordon’s appropriately playful direction and William H. Macy’s lead performance. Instead of sales offices and academic chambers, we’re now trolling through a nighttime labyrinth of crime-ridden streets, alleyways, and strip clubs–it’s “After Hours,” Mamet style.

Deeply frustrated city mouse, Edmond Burke (Macy), hates his wife, his job, and desperately wants to get laid. One night, after a fortuneteller tells him his life has gone way off track, he bolts from his marriage. At a local drinking hole, a fellow boozer (Joe Mantegna), sympathizing with Edmond, directs to him a gentleman’s club where he might relieve himself. In Edmond, the real victims of sexual predation aren’t the whores and strippers so much as their decent, frugal-minded johns. Edmond is constantly overcharged for sexual services–a running (and very funny) joke in the film. If that weren’t bad enough, he also finds himself an easy target for pimps and scam artists–you know, Black People. After a night of getting mugged and ripped off, Edmond snaps. In a scene that demonstrates the best and worst of Mamet’s style, Edmond and Glenna (Julia Stiles), a waitress he’s just slept with, unleash a rant against “niggers” and “faggots”–the former because they’re lazy and criminal, and the latter because they hate women. Theirs is a crude, naked rant, and Mamet sees it through boldly. But just how bold is open to question, for this is a rather generic sort of hate, taking shallow urban stereotypes to task as if they had any real currency with an intelligent audience. This is “Oleanna” territory, and we’re happy to see the noisy, clattery scene end–and in a shower of blood, no less.

Edmond’s odyssey takes him from the urban jungle, where his fears ran rampant, to a penitentiary where he must butt up, so to speak, against all that drove him into his mad delirium. The outside world is wild, immoral, and untrustworthy, even as it shrouds itself in the hypocrisy of law and order. Prison’s bad too, but at least it’s honest about it. “It’s simple,” says Edmond, now shaven-headed, tattooed and mustachioed, the desperate fear in his eyes now replaced by the calm of moral nihilism. The world-class Macy is reason enough to check out “Edmond.” Mamet’s script may not convince as either satire or social commentary, but, in Macy’s hands, poor, pathetic Edmond’s story finds its shocking, darkly funny resonance.

Grade: B-

Directed by: Stuart Gordon
Written by: David Mamet
Cast: William H. Macy, Julia Stiles, Mena Suvari, Joe Mantegna, Denise Richards

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Crimson Gold

January 22, 2012

“Crimson Gold” is the latest import from that world cinema hotspot, Iran. Scripted by Abbas Kiarostami, the movie is Jafar Panahi’s follow-up to his widely praised “The Circle” (2000) and finds him continuing to explore the theme of the individual pushing feebly against inexorable social forces. But, while “The Circle’s” power erupted from its live-wire, all-female ensemble, the cold austerity of “Crimson Gold’s” style and dramaturgy all but strangles any emotional resonance the movie might have had.

Panahi frames his movie in a jewelry store where a robbery has gone tragically wrong; in a fit of rage, Hussein (Hussein Emadeddin), a glowering bear of a man, shoots the storeowner then, as pedestrians watch in horror, turns the gun on himself. Panahi then rewinds his narrative to make the case for how a combination of demoralizing circumstances turned this low-key, working-class schlub into a violent criminal. Amid the teeming streets of Tehran, Hussein ekes out a living on his moped, delivering pizzas. We see how he endures the snobbery of a wealthy jeweler, the material indulgences of a garrulous, patronizing playboy and, on one night as he delivers pizzas, the bullying of a policeman who blocks his progress as he ambushes guests leaving a party, arresting them on charges of dancing in mixed company. Hussein’s fiancé, meanwhile, is boggled by his morose detachment and her brother, Ali, can’t seem to snap him out of his stupor.

Hussein’s urban breakdown has echoes of Travis Bickle’s but with none of the latter’s engaging, expressive fury. We sense that Bickle is essentially a moral character driven to vigilantism in the name of his own, admittedly warped, sense of pride and morality. “But what does Hussein want?” we ask ourselves. “What does he yearn for beneath all this repression?” Indeed, under the relentless drone of his moped, we sense no impetus in Hussein: no yearning, no calling. So we do not especially care what happens to him.

Even Fassbinder’s Hussein-like Hans Epp in “Merchant of Four Seasons,” a movie that hews closer in tone to Panahi’s than does “Taxi Driver,” wants something—a measure of peace and acceptance after a lifetime of grief. Indeed, several scenes in “Gold” have the unsettlingly raw feel of Fassbinder’s cinema, right down to its halting, unactorly technique. Emadeddin is a non-actor (he is, by trade, a pizza deliveryman), but, more than that, he is a paranoid schizophrenic. Panahi knew this when he cast him, and it might have been far more poignant to acknowledge Emadeddin’s mental illness within his narrative rather than to work around it, to absorb it within his story-fabric, thereby adding to, rather than stripping down, the emotional texture his characters so badly need.

The impression that Panahi did his damndest to make “Crimson Gold” as elusive and distancing as possible runs like a stake throughout this movie. Panahi may have turned his camera on a fascinating society-in-transition, but it reveals so frustratingly little and remains so stubbornly alienating as to render the whole thing an artful failure, a moped-fueled odyssey into dramatic weariness and monotony.

Grade: C-

Directed by: Jafar Panahi
Written by: Abbas Kiarostami
Cast: Hossain Emadeddin, Kamyar Sheisi, Azita Rayeji

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Confidence

January 22, 2012

“Confidence,” the crackerjack new caper from director James Foley and writer Doug Jung proves, finally, that Ed Burns is a better actor than either Matthew McConaughey or Ben Affleck. Much better, in fact, for he never resorts to the gimmicky smirks or stone-faced stammering associated with clueless actors run amok. Burns combines a working class charm with the requisite cool of an ace grifter to genuinely appealing effect.

Jake Vig (Burns), and his partners, Gordo (Paul Giamatti) and Miles (Brian Van Holt), choose poorly when they pick Lionel Dolby, an accountant, to swindle, because, it turns out, the money they steal is already stolen—from a little terror of a kingpin named, aptly enough, The King (Dustin Hoffman). After both Dolby and Big Al, the gang’s fourth member, turn up dead, Vig promptly approaches The King, and, in a bid to cool tempers and settle his debt, strikes a deal with him.

Targeting a bigtime banking tycoon, Vig offers to hatch an intricate scheme to extort millions from his coffers, then divide the spoils between them. Before setting forth, Vig recruits Lily (Rachel Weisz), a clever pickpocket who puts her fetching sexiness to full use in practicing her trade.

Jung weaves his plotlines briskly and entertainingly, never idling long enough for us to notice the kinks in his story. Once Vig, Lily and the gang strike up their camaraderie, the script hits the ground running, bringing into its fold a discontented lunk of a banker, a pair of weasely cops and the curious snoopings of a grizzled Federal officer (Andy Garcia) sporting the dullest of neckties

It’s clear from the chemistry of this cast that everybody’s having a grand time. Already relishing the go-for-broke spirit and bristling dialogue of Jung’s script, the cast is aided further by Foley’s distinctive character-driven style. He reinforces his characters with enough psychological nuance and backstory to make this a truly compelling gallery of cads and villains.

“Confidence,” however, never slows down to enjoy its own charms. Foley seems obliged to keep his movie galloping along to a needlessly frenetic rhythm. A casualty of this, unfortunately, is one my favorite scenes in which Vig and his gang go to work on a sad sack banker. It’s a scene that confirms the strength of this cast and this material, in which Foley might’ve let his camera rest, so we too might enjoy the slow, predatory nature of their game. While it sometimes fails to live up to its title, “Confidence,” ultimately, wins us over—in short, it dazzlingly does what all good cons are supposed to do.

Grade: B+

Directed by: James Foley
Written by: Doug Jung
Cast: Edward Burns, Dustin Hoffman, Rachel Weisz, Paul Giamatti, Donal Logue, Brian Van Holt, Andy Garcia

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Point Blank

January 19, 2012

Save for its title, Fred Cavayé’s “Point Blank” is unrelated to the 1967 Lee Marvin lone-gun thriller. The new movie certainly deserves it’s in-your-face title for the sheer velocity of its pacing but viewers familiar with the Lee Marvin classic will pine for its style and intelligence while shaking their heads at the ludicrousness of Cavayé’s namesake movie.

This new “Point Blank” gets off the blocks fast with an opening montage of a foot chase through Parisian streets as gangsters stay on the heels of a mysterious fleer. The nifty sequence ends with a gunshot and motorcycle accident that leaves the fleer wounded and whisked off to the hospital. The nervy yet smooth filmmaking on display in “Point Blank’s” opening showcases a filmmaker in sure command of the nuts and bolts of action sequences. That sureness doesn’t let up in the following scenes in which Cavayé and co-writer Guillaume Lemans introduce us to Samuel (Gilles Lellouche), the male nurse caring for the wounded fleer, Hugo (Roschdy Zem), who happens to be a criminal. When Samuel’s very pregnant wife Nadia (Elena Anya) is kidnapped by Hugo’s gang, Samuel finds himself in a Hitchcockian pickle as he has to do the bidding of the kidnappers or risk certain danger to his wife and unborn child.

It’s a dynamite setup and Cavayé does right by it up to a point, infusing panache and style in every scene. The sequences in which Samuel must smuggle Hugo out of the hospital, evading suspicious police, and deliver him to his gang hideout pack suspense in classically effective ways. As Samuel, Lellouche has both a believable physicality to carry him through the story’s demanding action as well as the vulnerability of an innocent man that wins our sympathy. And Sartet instills Hugo with just the right mix of a killer’s business-as-usual approach to, well, killing and a redemptive charm that makes his chemistry with the harried Samuel fairly combustible.

But Cavayé and Lemans spoil a good thing when they dump all manner of double-dealing and good cop-bad cop intrigue into what could have been a wonderfully streamlined, character-driven thriller about an innocent man forced to do the bidding of criminals to save his family. The plotting becomes hopelessly busy once crooked cop Werner (Gérard Lanvin) complicates the police pursuit because he’s in cahoots with the same criminals who were pursuing Hugo at the movie’s outset. In one clunkily handled scene that screams “Exposition!” Werner’s entire cover is blown when a dying hitman reveals the crooked cop’s involvement in the murder of a wealthy businessman.

The evidence of Werner’s involvement, of course, in a safe back at police headquarters, the setting for the film’s noisily protracted finale. The second half of “Point Blank” is simply the plot machinery working overtime: With Samuel in tow, Hugo arranges for the infiltration of police headquarters while Werner locks horns (and steely stares) with Fabre (Mireille Perrier), the good cop who suspects that Samuel is not a fugitive but a victim of circumstance.

All of these moving parts collide in a third act that makes mincemeat of all the suspense elements that held our attention in first act, exaggerating them to absurd – even dopey – proportions. To be fair, Cavayé and his team come up with a brisk, watchable climactic set piece. But the elements themselves are too predictable and absurd to be involving and, what’s worse, they betray the riveting simplicity of “Point Blank’s” arresting set-up.

Grade: C

Directed by: Fred Cavayé
Written by: Fred Cavayé, Guillaume Lemans
Cast: Gilles Lellouche, Roschdy Zem, Gérard Lanvin, Elena Anaya, Mireille Perrier, Claire Perot, Moussa Maaskri, Pierre Benoist

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The Double Hour

April 14, 2011

When a movie goes by the tagline, “Nothing Is What It Seems,” you know you’re in for a long guessing game. For much of director Giuseppe Capotondi’s 96-minute “The Double Hour,” the viewer is wondering whether what’s unfolding up on the screen should be believed or not. What’s more, reviewing the film is an inherently dodgy exercise since one can’t really discuss or critique the movie without giving away its central conceit. Suffice it to say that Capotondi tries for a romantic mystery/thriller in the vein of Christopher Nolan’s structurally snarled “Memento” and “Inception.”

The fundamental difference between “The Double Hour” and the Nolan movies, however, is that, in “Memento” and “Inception,” the puzzle-box plots have real bearing on the larger story; they reward the viewer’s investment in them with third-act payoffs. That crucial lesson is lost on Capotondi and his screenwriters Alessandro Fabbri, Ludovica Rampoldi and Stefano Sardo. Because most of “The Double Hour” doesn’t really need to exist in order for the viewer to process the impact of the finale, when – after following its heroine for ninety minutes – the movie momentarily breaks its point of view to follow its male protagonist. And it’s through the male’s point of view, arguably, that we cash in on the entire pseudo-tragic nature of “The Double Hour’s” story and theme.

The story: A lonely, pretty Slovenian woman, Sonia (Rappoport) living in Turin, Italy meets a roguishly handsome ex-cop, Guido (Timi), now working as a security guard at a lavish estate. The two begin a tender, tentative courtship that comes to sudden, shattering halt when they fall victim to a violent robbery. During the robbery, a gunshot seriously injures Sonia. Guido’s fate is bleaker – supposedly.

Thereafter, the grieving Sonia can’t focus on her duties as a hotel housekeeper. She’s increasingly distraught and panicky, especially after Dante, a nosy detective (Michele Di Mauro), starts snooping on her. Dante suspects that Sonia was in cahoots with Riccardo (Gaetano Bruno), the mastermind behind the robbery – a charge she firmly denies.

There are teasing ambiguities as the movie accommodates two parallel storylines: There’s the actual version of events that reveals itself in due time competing with Sonia’s own version, in which characters from the former re-appear in different roles in the latter. Capotondi and the screenwriters do a neat and precise job of assiduously playing Sonia’s story without showing their hand – that is, neither confirming nor negating the parallel story. But all the movie’s psychological spookiness and breathless attempts at suspense amount to little since two-thirds of what’s on-screen is not the plot, but a plot within the plot, and, hence, of little real consequence.

For their part, Rappoport and Timi execute their roles effectively (both won acting prizes at the 66th Venice Film Festival). Timi is suitably mysterious and lovelorn, while Rappoport gamely sustains the question of whether it’s grief or guilt that motivates Sonia. Rappoport’s skillful sleight of hand hardly matters, though, since “The Double Hour’s” bogus parlor-trick of a screenplay set matters straight on its own. So straight, in fact, that you could’ve left the theater at the 15-minute mark, played arcade games in the lobby for an hour, and come back for the third act only to miss…nothing.

Grade: C

Directed by: Giuseppe Capotondi
Written by: Alessandro Fabbri, Ludovica Rampoldi, Stefano Sardo
Starring: Ksenia Rappoport, Filippo Timi, Antonia Truppo, Gaetano Bruno, Fausto Russo Alesi, Michele Di Mauro

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True Grit

January 24, 2011

True Grit, Joel and Ethan Coen’s adaptation of Charles Portis’ novel has all the trimmings you’d expect from a film by these brothers extraordinaire. Impeccably produced, this revenge story set in the Old West has the gorgeous, meticulously crafted design and imagery as well as the offbeat tone and deadpan humor of a trademark Coen Brothers outing. Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld and Matt Damon contribute to a gallery of excellent performances, all by turns eccentric and poignant as True Grit — which begins as a straight-ahead story about a bounty hunt — becomes an affecting saga about loyalty, friendship and redemption.

Resourceful, headstrong 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Steinfeld) enlists the drunken loose-cannon Rooster Cogburn (Bridges) to find and retrieve Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), the outlaw who murdered her father. As part of the deal, Mattie insists on going along on the manhunt through difficult, unfriendly territory. Along the way, Cogburn and Mattie forge an uneasy alliance with LaBoeuf (Damon), a duty-bound Texas Ranger who’s on his own quest to bring in Chaney for another crime.

This is the barebones storyline of True Grit, and, as it is, the story is about as close to a Western programmer as they come — the standard B-movie fodder they used to crank out in the genre’s heyday. But, in the hands of the Coens, True Grit becomes a deeply immersive experience thanks to its exactingly rendered sense of time and place.

Credit the Coens’ costume and production design teams for evoking an authentic sense of life as lived in the Old West in the late 19th century. This is naturalism stylized through the prism of the Coen Brothers, meaning that characters speak in a kind of mash-up of low- and high-brow patois, so that what we find are eccentric versions of realistic characters, each of them gussied up by the Coens’ fondness for quirky idioms and mannerisms.

There’s no doubting the authenticity of Roger Deakins’ gorgeous cinematography however: As with all of the Coen Brothers’ films, True Grit is an example of Hollywood visual artistry at its finest. The film’s aesthetic is a result of the dazzling combination of Deakins’ camerawork with the topnotch talents of Production Designer Jess Gonchor, Art Directors Stefan Dechant and Christina Ann Wilson and Costume Designer Mary Zophres.

All the roles are theatrically juicy, beginning with Bridges’ one-eyed, hard-bitten Marshall Cogburn. In a way, Bridges is channeling the shambling antics of The Dude from the Coens’ The Big Lebowski via the pathetic drunkenness of his Oscar-winning turn as Bad Blake in Crazy Heart. He wears the role like a comfortable old coat, and seems to be having an absolute blast strutting his stuff here. Damon takes a more straight-laced role as the uptight LaBoeuf, but it’s a committed performance seasoned with ripe dialogue. Likewise, Brolin as Chaney and co-star Barry Pepper, as the leader of Chaney’s gang, sink their conspicuously dingy teeth into their bad-guy parts. Pulling out the rug from under all of them, though, Steinfeld who, from the get-go, is the film’s emotional and moral anchor. The actress’ presence on-screen is as assured and compelling as the character she plays, and her tough, no-nosense Mattie can hold her own in a story packed with alpha males.

For all its craftsmanship and flamboyant turns, True Grit resonates when it’s dealing with Mattie’s evolving relationship with the self-loathing Cogburn, a deadbeat father and a casualty of multiple bad marriages. In Cogburn’s climactic flight to save Mattie, what transpires is the man’s last-ditch attempt to be the friend and father he’s yet failed to be in life. Thematically, this is predictable ground, but in Bridges and Steinfeld’s hands, it’s elevated to the level of poetic drama. The Coens’ also layer haunting notes of mortality, moral anarchy and hostility in a lawless environment that all work to deepen our involvement in Mattie’s odyssey.

True Grit isn’t among the Coens’ most satisfying creations (Fargo is still far and way their masterpiece on all fronts), though it is one of their most solidly accomplished films. This is a tough, stylish re-imaginging of the Western, beautifully crafted and performed, with a disciplined, unwavering pace and a mastery in how it earns viewer sympathies. The Coens stay within the modest bounds of the script and keep to the story’s modest thematic ambitions. That very modesty in the material is both True Grit’s limitation and its saving grace — the film never pretends to be something it can’t be, never reaches for a grandiosity it can’t support. That quality, ultimately, is what endears True Grit to generations of fans — of the Western and of the Coen Brothers.

Grade: B+

Directed by: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Written by: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Cast: Hailee Steinfeld, Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper, Paul Rae, Domhnall Gleeson

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Undertow

September 7, 2010

This is the best movie yet from David Gordon Green, but that isn’t saying much. Cinematically, Undertow oozes mood, quite literally as the sweat and dampness of the Southern summer drips from the pores of its characters’ and from its sodden textures. And, for a while, there is great pleasure in taking this in and in witnessing Gordon Green’s visual talent at work. But, when it comes to pacing and in establishing the very purpose of his stories, this writer-director is at a woeful loss. Even here, when he has a real genre framework and a clear storyline to work from, he manages to ditch everything at the expense of indulging his fascination for Southern squalor. Indeed, every character, every setting of Undertow (as in his previous George Washington and All the Real Girls) is spawned from some hideous dream of the downtrodden and muck-drenched South. After a while, all this becomes extremely monotonous and downright depressing. As good as its performances are (especially by the gifted Jamie Bell), it’s all smothered by Gordon Green’s obsession with contrived Southern gothic, cross-bred here with Greek tragedy, the O’Neil of Desire Under the Elms and the Hitchcockian chase formula.

The story: John Munn, a pig farmer (Mulroney) with two sons (Bell and Alan), lives in a ramshackle house. One day, he gets a surprise visit from his long-estranged brother, Deel (an effectively slimy Josh Lucas). Deel intends to steal a cache of gold coins, a legacy from his and John’s late father, that John has stowed away. After a bloody scuffle in which John is killed, Chris (Bell) snatches the coins and hotfoots it, along with his sickly younger brother, Tim. Across oppressively dank swamplands, rundown backwater towns, a junkyard and even a squatters’ colony, Deel chases the boys down. The thatch-haired Tim, as thin as a stick figure and always ingesting paints and other hazardous chemicals so as to induce vomiting, comes across as just a sad sack with no discernible motive for his self-destructive behavior. Bell does his best as the resilient older brother and so does Lucas as the venal Deel. But what’s with Gordon Green’s fascination with emotionally retarded social outcasts? The ragged urchin girl who befriends Chris seems just a tattered version of the moon-eyed and addle-brained college nitwit played by Zoey Daschenel in All the Real Girls.

A real letdown, a drag-down bore, a shame considering the promise of its mood and its style (most notably its 70s-inspired freeze frames and color schemes). Still, none of this is a surprise considering its misguided maker. Gordon Green — along with P.T. Anderson and a handful of other American filmmakers who have a penchant for style, but nothing to offer in terms of an original vision — must be jettisoned from the poop shoot of pop culture. Let us all move on.

Grade: C

Directed by: David Gordon Green
Written by: Joe Conway, David Gordon Green
Cast: Jamie Bell, Kristen Stewart, Devon Alan, Dermot Mulroney, Josh Lucas

Posted in All Reviews Archive, Crime, Drama, Thriller | Leave a Comment »

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