Rampart

Rampart - Dir. Oren Moverman (2011)

"I am not a racist. The fact is, I hate everyone equally."

Screenwriter Oren Moverman made a strong directorial debut with 2009's The Messenger, a heavy drama with Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster as army officers charged with notifying families that their loved ones were killed in action. In my opinion, it was one of the best films of the year and netted Moverman an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay and Harrelson one for Best Supporting Actor. Moverman and Harrelson have teamed again for Rampart, a gritty drama set during the Rampart scandal of the late-90's.

The LAPD became notorious nationwide for the infamous beating of Rodney King. They again rose to public consciousness following the uncovering of widespread corruption in the anti-gang unit of the Rampart Division. Charges included bribery, falsifying evidence, armed robbery, and drug dealing.

Amidst the chaos, we meet Officer Dave Brown (Harrelson), a former Vietnam vet, who sees the streets of L.A. as his new battleground. Rampart opens in a seemingly conventional manner with Brown berating a female trainee (played by Julian Schnabel's daughter, Stella) for refusing to eat french fries because she is on a diet. But, this is not a retread of Training Day. The rookie isn't seen again and the rest of the film becomes a trip into an urban Dante's Inferno with its protagonist descending deeper and deeper into the pit.

Dave Brown is definitely the bad cop. He has earned the nickname, "Date Rape Dave," because he allegedly murdered a business partner suspected of multiple rape. A former law student, he can cite obscure legal precedent off the top of his head. He failed the BAR exam, but it's obvious it wasn't due to a lack of intelligence. It seems Brown was more interested in cracking heads.

He's also the patriarch of an unconventional little family. Brown has two ex-wives (Anne Heche & Cynthia Nixon), who happen to be sisters and live next door to each other. He has a daughter with each of them and, with the exception of the youngest girl, they all hate his guts. When Brown fails to get in bed with one sister, he moves on to the next one.

Brown ignites another scandal after a hit-and-run collision that sees him chase the suspect and mercilessly beat him with his flashlight. The incident is captured on video and played endlessly on the news. Already under scrutiny, Brown is hammered by investigators from Internal Affairs and the D.A's office. Needing cash to support his family and his legal defense, Brown robs a high stakes poker game and kills an unarmed man, forcing him to cover up yet another crime.

The cast also includes: Steve Buscemi as the District Attorney, Ben Foster as a homeless vet, Brie Larson as Brown's angry teenage daughter, Ned Beatty as a retired cop and confidant, and Sigourney Weaver and Ice Cube as investigators against Brown.

Woody Harrelson really carries the film. Rampart is seen entirely from Dave Brown's perspective and Harrelson appears in every scene. Harrelson isn't afraid to make Brown a nasty and sometimes pathetic individual. Yet, he's charismatic and articulate so it's easy to see why he's able to bed a number of women night in and night out. It's too bad this great character wasn't given a more compelling story.

There's strong storytelling in the first half of Rampart, but the second half of the movie unravels. The narrative drifts into a series of plot threads that never seem fully formed. One subplot that doesn't go anywhere involves an on/off romance between Brown and a defense attorney played by Robin Wright. There's nothing of note here unless you want to hear Wright state that she likes to "suck cock."

Moverman is struck with the sophomore slump that has befallen many independent filmmakers before him. Despite a magnetic performance by Harrelson, Rampart deals with issues, such as police corruption and their effects on the soul and family, that have been seen numerous times in film and television. The script feels like an entire season of The Shield condensed into an hour and forty minutes.

Rating: ** (*****)

Rango

Rango - Dir. Gore Verbinski (2011)

Imagine if Hunter S. Thompson and Sergio Leone dropped acid together and had a baby. That mutant freak baby would probably be Rango. Throw in healthy doses of Salvador Dali and Tex Avery and you have an animated film that stands apart from the homogenized CG kids movies flooding multiplexes across the country.

Johnny Depp has been praised for his chameleon-like qualities as an actor so it comes as no surprise when he's called upon to play an actual chameleon. As the titular Rango, he is a pet lizard (with a flair for the theatrical) living inside a glass aquarium struggling to define his own identity. When we meet Rango, he is performing Shakespeare with his only friends a dead fly, a plastic wind-up fish named Mr. Timms, and the naked torso of a Barbie doll. Oh, the movie hasn't even begun to get weird yet.

A car accident sends the aquarium tumbling out of the car where it's smashed into a million pieces across the asphalt road. Rango finds himself lost in the middle of the desert and the first creature he comes across is a Don Quixote-esque armadillo named Roadkill (Alfred Molina). He is so named because he was clearly run over by a car, yet somehow survived. Practically bisected, the poor armadillo still has the tire marks across his flattened stomach. Nope, the movie gets weirder still.

Rango wanders through the scorching desert and finds a dusty Old West town appropriately named Dirt. Through sheer dumb luck, he kills a predatory hawk plaguing the town and re-imagines himself (like any good chameleon) as a deadly gunfighter and becomes the sheriff of Dirt. Rango also romances Beans (Isla Fisher), a desert iguana prone to random spells of catatonia. Her farmland is sought after by the seemingly benevolent Mayor of Dirt, a wheelchair bound desert tortoise voiced by Ned Beatty. It shouldn't be much of a spoiler that the Mayor will be revealed as primary antagonist since Beatty also portrayed the similar Lotso Hugging Bear in Toy Story 3. There's also an owl mariachi band who act as a Greek chorus narrating the journey of Rango.

Rango was produced by Nickelodeon Movies and is the first film fully animated by Industrial Light & Magic with Roger Deakins serving as visual consultant (as he did on Wall-E and How to Train Your Dragon). The animation is impeccable including a gorgeous shot of infinite reflections of the characters inside a giant eyeball. The performances were uniquely captured as well with director Gore Verbinski, working from a script by John Logan (Gladiator, The Last Samurai), using a process he dubbed 'emotion capture.' This is a decidedly low-tech method with the actors performing the scenes on a soundstage. The voices were recorded there and the video tapes were viewed by the animators to properly render movement and facial expressions.

While the majority of animated films tend to look the same, Rango dares to be original. There's no attempt to make the creatures cute and cuddly so the studio can sell them as Happy Meal toys. Even generally adorable animals like rabbits are rendered as mangy oddballs. One character has an arrow going through his eyeball and out the side of his head. Rango himself is hardly the lovable little chameleon from Tangled, his Hawaiian shirt and smashed, lopsided head is meant to evoke the artwork of Ralph Steadman, the long-time collaborator of the late-Hunter S. Thompson.

The subversive humor of Rango is another element that makes the film so successful. The movie is filled with pop culture references which will likely go over the heads of the children in the audience as well as some of the parents accompanying them. Rango makes several references to Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas such as the visual callbacks to Steadman and a cameo from two humans resembling Thompson and Dr. Gonzo. The primary plot point of the movie (involving a water shortage) is lifted straight out of Chinatown while much of the imagery is borrowed from iconic Westerns like High Noon, The Wild Bunch, and A Fistful of Dollars while the score by Hans Zimmer is cribbed from the work of Ennio Morricone. Rango's eventually nemesis, Rattlesnake Jake (Bill Nighy), has a Gatling gun for a tail and a flat-brimmed hat borrowed from Lee Van Cleef. Rango also goes on a vision quest where he meets the Spirit of the West (Timothy Olyphant) and I won't spoil who he's clearly modeled after.

One spectacular action sequence finds the protagonists riding a wagon and being chased by a clan of rodents riding bats ("We can't stop here. This is bat country!"). Somehow the filmmakers weave together references to Apocalypse Now, The Road Warrior, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Star Wars (it is an ILM production). However, none of the references are thrown in simply to show off how clever and hip everyone is. Neither are they Family Guy gags where they pop up randomly and have nothing to do with the plot. The references don't draw attention to themselves so children won't be scratching their heads while those in the know will get an additional layer of joy. The voice acting doesn't draw attention to itself either as the filmmakers chose the best actors, instead of stunt casting A-list talent. This leads to the casting of great character actors like Ray Winstone, Stephen Root, and Harry Dean Stanton.

Rango earned a PG rating and contains some decidedly adult humor. One of the townsfolk mentions how he found a human spinal column in his feces. So parents should be warned in case their child asks them questions about prostate exams.

The year may have barely begun, but Rango is already the frontrunner for Best Animated Film of 2011. With Pixar releasing the anemic looking sequel, Cars 2, it is hard imagine another picture knocking Rango off the pedestal. The fact that a movie so strange and trippy was made in the Hollywood system is astounding. Most likely it exists solely because of Verbinski and Depp's success on the Pirates of the Caribbean series. The story may be familiar, but the film is a unique and witty take on the classic hero's journey.

Rating: ***½ (*****)

Toy Story 3

Toy Story 3 - Dir. Lee Unkrich (2010)


Pixar set a new gold standard in animation with their first feature-length film, Toy Story. Since then, they’ve established a track record like no other. They’ve made ten films and not a single one of them is a stinker. Even Cars, the most mediocre of Pixar’s oeuvre, is stronger than everyone else’s best. Now, Pixar releases their 11th film in Toy Story 3 and the bar has been set even higher than before. Despite the critical acclaim and box office success of all their pictures, Toy Story has been the only film that Pixar has spun off into a franchise. A Cars sequel is planned for next year, likely because it became a merchandising cash cow.

It’s been 15 years since the original Toy Story hit theaters with the even better sequel following four years later. Both films dealt with the toys worrying about abandonment by their owner Andy (John Morris). With Toy Story 3 that day seems to have finally come. Andy is now 18, too old to play with toys, and heading off to college.

Our gang of toys has grown smaller and small over the years. Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) are still around along with Jessie (Joan Cusack), Bullseye, Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head (Don Rickles & Estelle Harris), Rex (Wallace Shawn), Hamm (John Ratzenberger), and Slinky Dog (Blake Clark taking over for the late-Jim Varney). The other toys, such as Wheezy and Bo Peep, have sadly been broken, lost, or given away. The survivors have only an uncertain future to look forward to. Andy decides he’ll take Woody with him to college, but the others are headed for storage in the attic.

After a series of unfortunate incidents, the toys go from the trash heap to the Sunnyside Day Care Center. There, Andy’s toys are greeted by another group of toys led by the folksy Lots-O-Huggin’ Bear (Ned Beatty). He tells the new arrivals that they’ll never have to worry about being abandoned or outgrown. The center sees a constant stream of children coming in and out. All seems well except for Woody who wishes to return to Andy. He heads off and eventually winds up in the hands of Bonnie (Emily Hahn), a cute little tyke whose toys treat playtime like improv theater. Meanwhile, Buzz and the gang find Sunnyside isn’t so sunny when they’re left to fend for themselves against a classroom full of hyperactive toddlers.

It should go without saying that Pixar seems incapable of making a bad film. So it should come as no surprise that Toy Story 3 is another winner. The real question is: Does it live up to the lofty Pixar standards? The answer is a resounding yes.

John Lasseter, the head honcho of Pixar, directed the first Toy Story and co-directed the second with Lee Unkrich, who also co-directed Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo. This is Unkrich’s first solo effort and he works off a script by Michael Arndt who earned an Oscar for Little Miss Sunshine. These guys are master manipulators. They know all the right notes to hit to tug at your heart strings.

The work done here is incredible. Pixar has a real knack for characters. The toys aren’t just chunks of plastic, but fully formed and realistic characters. We’ve become completely invested in their journey and it’s a heartbreaker to hear we’ve lost a few along the way.

That journey brings us full circle with a wonderful opening sequence that calls back to the original film. It’s an action-packed prologue with runaway trains, exploding bridges, dinosaurs, monkeys, and a pig-shaped spaceship. It’s a set piece that rivals the Buzz Lightyear opening of the second film. The ending (which I won’t spoil) is a wonderfully touching resolution that caps off the trilogy at just the right note.

Technology has improved by leaps and bounds since we first met Woody and Buzz. As such, the animation in Toy Story 3 blows the other films out of the water. The third film is far more epic in scope, dealing with heady issues of toy existentialism. It doesn’t go into Jean-Paul Sartre territory (this is a kids’ movie), yet it does touch a tiny bit on the mortality of these toys. TS3 is also a little more mature with some dark moments, including a rather creepy baby doll with a wonky eye and an edge-of-your-seat trip to the landfill.

Toy Story 3 isn’t without its light moments. There are plenty of hilarious gags, most of which involve Michael Keaton who voices a metrosexual Ken doll (”I’m not a girls’ toy! I’m not!”). Have I mentioned Mr. Tortilla Head or Spanish Buzz? Pixar has also thrown in a few pop culture references on the sly, including a funny Return of the Jedi joke to go along with the Empire Strikes Back gag from the second picture. Also watch out for a quick cameo from the sadistic Sid as a garbageman.

Creating a sequel is a tricky proposition. Attempting a third film is an increasingly difficult task. It’s difficult to think of a great number three, aside from Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade and The Prisoner of Azkaban. I can think of plenty of bad number threes like Superman 3, Spider-Man 3, and Shrek the Third. Thankfully, Toy Story 3 is not among those poorly conceived productions. It doesn’t necessarily feel like a story that needed to be told, but it was told and told with amazing skill. Pixar will run you through an emotional gauntlet full of adventure, thrills, laughs, fears, and tears. Toy Story 3 will assuredly find its way onto numerous year-end lists.

P.S. – The short which played before the film, Night & Day, is definitely one of the best and most clever ones Pixar has produced. Also, the 3D effects are so subtle that I’d recommend you save the extra bucks and see it in 2D.

Rating: ****