The Rover

The Rover - Dir. David Michod (2014)

"You should never stop thinking about a life you've taken. That's the price you pay for taking it."

Aussie director David Michod gained a reputation for his gritty crime drama Animal Kingdom and his long awaited follow-up has finally arrived. The Rover could be described as a post-apocalyptic thriller involving cars and the dusty Australian outback. Images of Mad Max will immediately pop in your head, but The Rover doesn't take this possible future to those extremes. Michod's sophomore effort looks like something that could feasibly occur without too much difficulty. Its set ten years after a global economic collapse and, without question, those on the fringes of society have been affected the worst.

After a robbery gone wrong, Henry (Scoot McNairy) has been shot in the leg and his cohorts have forced him to leave behind his younger brother Rey (Robert Pattinson). The gang has an accident on the road and grabs the nearest car they see. Unfortunately for them, that car belongs to a gruff and scruffy loner played by Guy Pearce. In the credits, he's referred to as Eric, but no one calls him that and he never bothers to introduce himself. He's the proverbial man with no name, cut from the same cloth as Clint Eastwood. Eric is determined to get his damn car back, come hell or high water. Along the way, he runs into Rey and convinces him, in not-so-polite fashion, to help him find Henry.

Michod and collaborator Joel Edgerton have done an incredible job in creating the world of The Rover. This is a movie that was shot on film and the cinematography by Natasha Braier captures the sun-baked desolation of the outback and every layer of sweat and grime that cakes its inhabitants. Michod never delves into bulky exposition, so we never get a full explanation of the hows and whys, which is perfectly fine. We do get glimpses of just how things have changed. Wary vendors will only accept American dollars and a kindly doctor (Susan Prior) keeps stray dogs locked in cages because she's afraid people will kill them for food. When Eric strolls into an old woman's home, she doesn't react with shock or anger. Instead, she nonchalantly pimps out her teenage grandson.

There's a pervasive sense of gloom and nihilism to The Rover. The outback has become a largely lawless place where even the scant soldiers that patrol the area don't particular care about justice. They just want to get to paid. Eric is most definitely not a hero, evidenced by the casual way in which he kills people.

Pearce is perfectly cast as the taciturn protagonist. It's clear the thieves have chosen the wrong car to jack from someone quickly revealed as an Australian Terminator. He's unrelenting, but there's a deeper sense of tragedy to the character. Robert Pattinson, inexorably linked to the Twilight franchise, puts away any notions of sparkly vampires with his turn as the mentally challenged Rey. This is a character that can be tricky to perform. To quote Tropic Thunder, you can't go full-on retard. Yes, Pattinson's performance is mannered and he pushes the Southern accent a little too hard. However, he's believable and complex in the role. At times, his Rey is almost heartbreaking as someone so simple-minded that he couldn't possibly survive alone in such a harsh environment. At other times, he reveals himself to be more than capable of sudden violence.

The Rover doesn’t quite hit it right out of the park. The movie hinges on a couple scenes where the characters must behave foolishly just to move the plot forward. There's no real explanation as to why Henry's crew don't just drive off with their truck and Eric's car. At the very least, they could have slashed his tires.

As he did in Animal Kingdom, Michod utilizes a pop song as an ironic counterpoint to the bleakness portrayed in the film. Lit solely by the dashboard light in his car, Rey waits and tries singing along to Keri Hilson's "Pretty Girl Rock." The scene hearkens back to happier times when sitting in your car and listening to the radio was a luxury.

Rating: *** (*****)

Iron Man 3

Iron Man 3 - Dir. Shane Black (2013)

People always say, "Third time's the charm." However, that rule doesn't always apply to comic book movies. If a franchise is lucky enough to make it to a third outing, the filmmakers have forgotten what made the series successful in the first place. Superman 3, Spider-Man 3, and X-Men: The Last Stand are glaring examples while Batman Forever was the start of Batman's descent into campy nipple-dom. Christopher Nolan broke from the trend with The Dark Knight Rises and Marvel does the same with Iron Man 3.

Iron Man 3 opens in 1999 where the old, arrogant playboy Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) attends a conference in Switzerland. He parties with a pretty geneticist named Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall) and ignores Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), a nerdy and lame-legged scientist. In present time, Stark should be standing on cloud nine. He helped fight off an alien invasion and he's now living together with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) in his cliff side Malibu mansion. Instead, Stark is suffering from insomnia and a newfound sense of inadequacy following the events of The Avengers. Next to the enormous green rage monster and the god of thunder, he's just a "man in a can." He suffers from anxiety attacks and takes refuge inside his Iron Man armor, which has become his high-tech security blanket. He spends sleepless nights tinkering in his workshop and building dozens of suits designed to deal with every danger he could possibly imagine.

Danger comes with a savagery Stark hasn't dealt with before as The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), leader of the terrorist group, The Ten Rings, steps up his attacks on America. Meanwhile, Killian has remade himself as a suave, Richard Branson-looking entrepreneur. His think tank, A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics), has developed a super-soldier serum dubbed Extremis, which turns human beings into living bombs. When one of them goes off in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater, Stark brazenly issues a challenge to the Mandarin on live television. The bad guys respond by reducing his house to rubble and forces Stark to rely on more than just his suits.

Jon Favreau, who directed the previous Iron Man movies, returns as a producer and in the supporting role of bodyguard Happy Hogan. Favreau has passed the torch onto Shane Black whose career trajectory mirrors the troubles of Robert Downey Jr. and his onscreen alter ego. Black became one of the highest paid screenwriters in Hollywood off the back of his debut script Lethal Weapon. However, he became persona non grata after costly failures like The Last Boy Scout and The Long Kiss Goodnight. Black reappeared with his directorial debut, the neo-noir comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, starring Downey. Their relationship would lead to Black serving as an unofficial consultant on Iron Man and Iron Man 2. Both Favreau and Downey credit Black with paralleling Tony Stark's moral quandaries with those of Robert Oppenheimer. Though Iron Man 3 is far and away Black's most daunting production yet, Marvel Studios has become enough of an efficient factory that it almost doesn't matter who is at the helm as long as they are halfway competent.

The look and feel of Iron Man 3 fits right into the merry Marvel method of movie making. It's slick without being overly stylish in a Michael Bay or Guy Ritchie sort of way. Iron Man 3 is more action packed than either of its predecessors. There's a thrilling sequence where Iron Man forms a human chain to rescue passengers sucked out of Air Force One. The climax features dozens of armored suits (including one of my favorites, the Silver Centurion) battling an army of Extremis powered soldiers on an offshore oil rig, a classic supervillain hideout. Stark's latest iteration, the Mark 42, can be remote controlled and donned in creative fashion.

The screenplay by Black and Drew Pearce consists of several Black trademarks such as the Christmas setting and a voiceover narration by Downey that stops and rewinds ala Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Black's flair for witty banter is paired perfectly with Downey's penchant for off-the-cuff one-liners. Iron Man 2 was criticized for its preoccupation with building towards Avengers rather than telling a standalone story. That's been corrected here with a more focused sequel with only passing references to Thor and SHIELD. Everyone involved made a concerted effort to metaphorically return Tony Stark to the cave from the first film. Stark crash lands in rural Tennessee where he uses the tools at hand inside a ramshackle garage and befriends a doe-eyed, precocious boy named Harley (Ty Simpkins). This section of the film could have easily veered into mawkish Spielbergian territory, but the sentimentality is constantly undercut by Downey's irreverence. The script brings up the notion that we as individuals and as a nation have created our own enemies, but never digs deeper than surface level.

Don Cheadle's Rhodey (remade as the Iron Patriot) is sidelined for most of the movie and Rebecca Hall is wasted a bit in the underwritten role of Maya Hansen. On the other hand, Gwyneth Paltrow gets the chance to become more than just Stark's sounding board. Pepper Potts is thrown into the action frequently and even puts on the armor for a brief moment. Yes, she plays the damsel in distress, but she also gets to do some saving of her own. Perhaps, the most intriguing character in the threequel is Iron Man's arch-nemesis, the Mandarin. A yellow peril villain in the vein of Fu Manchu, Mandarin has been updated and re-imagined as an uber-terrorist appropriating an iconography of infamy. He's Castro, bin Laden, Qaddafi, Genghis Khan, and Colonel Kurtz all rolled into one. Sir Ben Kingsley portrays the Mandarin in unique fashion with a booming and authoritarian staccato; all accentuated by ominously constructed video threats. However, a twist to the character will have comic book fans launching into conniption fits.

Iron Man 3 not only kicks off the summer blockbuster season, it's the beginning of Marvel Studios' Phase 2 and the course will be exciting judging by the early results. Other comic book threequels suffer from being over long and burdened with too many characters, but Iron Man 3 never feels bloated and moves at a quick clip. This is a fun and vibrant tentpole release bolstered by an exceptionally heroic score from Brian Tyler, one of the best done for Marvel Studios. A return to form for the Iron Man series and a worthy successor to The Avengers.

Rating: **** (*****)

Lawless

Lawless - Dir. John Hillcoat (2012)

One of my most anticipated films of 2012 was Lawless, based solely on the strength of director John Hillcoat's last two pictures, The Proposition and The Road. Closest in spirit to the former, Lawless is a Prohibition-era Western adapted from The Wettest County in the World by Matt Bondurant, a descendent of the protagonists. The script was adapted by rock star and screenwriter Nick Cave.

The story is set in Franklin County, Virginia, where the hills are alive with the sound of moonshine stills. Bootleg liquor has become a lucrative business, especially for the Bondurant Brothers, who run booze out of their diner/gas station. Forrest (Tom Hardy) is nominally the leader, feared and respected for his legendary toughness. Howard (Jason Clarke) is a volatile war veteran. Then, there's the runt of the litter, Jack (Shia LaBeouf). The youngest of the Bondurant clan, Jack wants to become a bigger part of the operation, but is relegated to being a glorified delivery boy. He impresses his brothers when he lands a deal with feared Chicago gangster Floyd Banner (Gary Oldman). The Bondurants are flush with cash. Jack finds himself in fancy new duds, fast cars, and romancing the town preacher's chaste daughter Bertha (Mia Wasikowska).

The good times come to an end with the arrival of a big city prosecutor, who is more interested in getting a cut of the profits than throwing criminals in jail. Anyone who doesn't fall in line answers to his enforcer, a brutal special deputy named Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce).

The story of Lawless unfolds through wildly divergent tones, which may be disconcerting to some, but plays into the dichotomy of the characters. Despite a frightening capacity for brutality, it is an absolute last resort for Forrest, who believes the bonds of family are most important. His credo, "It’s not the violence that sets a man apart, it's the distance he's prepared to go." There are scenes of extreme violence, such as a character getting his throat slit and a castration. In between there are tender moments in Jack's sweet courting of Bertha and surprisingly funny scenes. At one point, Jack and his sidekick, Cricket (Dane DeHaan) refuel their rundown truck with a jar of moonshine.

Forrest Bondurant isn't too dissimilar from Bane as both see Tom Hardy cut an imposing figure with a barely discernible voice. He speaks with a deep mumble and commands attention in each of his scenes. Shia LaBeouf stars in his usual plucky underdog role while Jason Clarke's Howard is hardly given any screen time to develop. The same goes for Mia Wasikowska and Jessica Chastain as a former big city girl with an eye for Forrest. Both are great actresses and the make the most out of roles that are sadly underwritten.  Meanwhile, Gary Oldman's part amounts to a cameo though he's excellent for the little time he's around. The spotlight of Lawless belongs to Guy Pearce in an eccentric and chilling turn as a dastardly dandy, bordering on Dick Tracy villain. Clad in a dandy suit with slicked hair parted in the middle and dress gloves, Rakes stands as a stark contrast to the earthy country folk. And, for some reason, he has no eyebrows.

Adding to the atmosphere is an O Brother, Where Art Thou-esque soundtrack of bluegrass tunes put together by Cave and composer Warren Ellis with vocals by Ralph Stanley and Emmylou Harris. Rather than choosing 1930's standards, they go anachronistic with an original tune, "Midnight Run," by Willie Nelson and a montage set to a cover of Velvet Underground's "White Light/White Heat."

Lawless might not match up to The Proposition, but it is a solid period piece with delicious mix of action and drama.

Rating; *** (*****)

Lockout

Lockout - Dirs. James Mather & Stephen St. Leger (2012)

Luc Besson is an action impresario. The French filmmaker once directed two highly acclaimed action pics in La Femme Nikita and Leon: The Professional. Since then, he's produced a whole slew of shoot-em-ups like The Transporter, Taken, and Colombiana. Lockout is the latest thrill ride churned out by the Luc Besson factory.

Lockout can best be described as Escape from New York in outer space. It is the year 2079 and the most dangerous criminals are incarcerated in MS One, a maximum security prison orbiting the planet. The inmates are also kept in suspended animation. Emilie Warnock (Maggie Grace), the daughter of President Warnock (Peter Hudson), comes on board to assess any effects the stasis process may have on the prisoners' minds. The one convict they decide to revive and interview happens to be Hydell (Joseph Gilgun), the most dangerous and psychotic one aboard. He quickly releases all the other inmates who proceed to systemically kill the majority of the prison's staff. The President is forced to turn to the one man who can save his daughter, a man so badass he needs only one name. That man is Snow (Guy Pearce), a former CIA agent arrested by the Secret Service and accused of murdering one of their agents. Snow reluctantly agrees to mount a rescue, partly to reach a comrade on MS One, who possesses evidence that may exonerate him.

Lockout is straight B-grade material. Co-directors James Mather and Stephen St. Leger, who penned the script with Besson, have the same cookie cutter visual style as other Besson disciples like Louis Leterrier, Pierre Morel, and Olivier Megaton. The special effects aren't anything to crow about with a freeway chase being particularly laughable due to video game graphics. Other similarly ridiculous sequences include an agent shooting himself in the head to save oxygen for Emilie followed by Snow injecting her through the eye with a stimulant. Eat your heart out Pulp Fiction. The story and the action are unapologetically derivative. In addition to John Carpenter's cult classic, Lockout rips off Die Hard with Snow pulling a John McClane as he crawls around the station's air ducts while bemoaning his fate. There's even a Star Wars sequence as attack ships stage an assault on the penitentiary.

Maggie Grace once again assumes the role of damsel in distress and the always hammy Peter Stormare is great as the Service's slightly sinister chief. But, the whole movie hinges on Guy Pearce's performance as the prototypical action hero armed with only his wits and a bevy of corny one-liners. He won't win an Oscar, but he is a helluva lot of fun.

So bad, it's good is the best way to describe Lockout, a film whose sheer awfulness is highly entertaining. Don't demand too much from Lockout; just check your brain at the door.

Rating: ** (*****)

Seeking Justice

Seeking Justice - Dir. Roger Donaldson (2012)

Nicolas Cage sure has had his ups and downs over the last several years. It's been a long time since he headlined a film that won widespread critical acclaim (Adaptation?) Cage seems content to star in lowbrow tripe like Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, The Sorcerer's Apprentice or Season of the Witch. The Oscar winning actor can't say no anymore. Not surprising, considering he owes millions in back taxes to the IRS. The poor guy had to sell off extravagances such as an 18^th century castle in England, an island in the Bahamas, and his copy of Action Comics #1. I don't know what's worse, giving up a copy of Superman's first appearance or doing Z-grade direct-to-video schlock like Seeking Justice.

Cage is Will Gerard, a high school teacher trying to enlighten inner city youths about Shakespeare. One night, his wife, Laura (January Jones), is attacked and raped. While waiting at the hospital, Will is approached by the mysterious Simon (Guy Pearce), a member of a clandestine organization meting out their own brand of street justice. Simon offers to deal with his wife's assailant in a manner the police and the courts cannot. All he asks in return is a simple favor to be named later. At first, the favors seem innocuous enough - mail a letter and then observe a woman and her children at the zoo. Next thing you know, Simon orders Will to murder a supposed pedophile. Will and Laura find their lives in danger as they discover just how far reaching and powerful Simon is.

Call Nicolas Cage what you want: a human medical experiment or a living, breathing post-modern expressionist art exhibit, perhaps? Whether it's his bizarre inflections, crazed bug-eyed looks or psychotic twitches, he is entertaining in a unintentional way. There's bad and there's Nicolas Cage bad. Either way, you can hardly accuse him of being boring. Unfortunately, that's exactly what he is in Seeking Justice, boring. Despite returning to the Big Easy, the site of his manic performance in Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans, Cage barely registers as if he were going through the motions until the check clears. Equally robotic is his co-star January Jones, who delivers every line with a blank stare and a monotone demeanor, much like her performances in X-Men First Class or Unknown. It's a wonder how she could be as good as Betty Draper on AMC's Mad Men.

The filmmakers may have done better by replacing Jones with Dexter star Jennifer Carpenter, who says barely a few sentences as Laura's best friend, Trudy. The supporting cast also includes Xander Berkeley as a police detective, Harold Perrineau from Lost as Will's best friend, and IronE Singleton from The Walking Dead as one of Simon's enforcers.

Much like Cage, director Roger Donaldson has had a rollercoaster career. He's been behind the camera of well-received films such as Thirteen Days and The World's Fastest Indian. Yet, he's also directed Species, Dante's Peak, the Alec Baldwin/Kim Basinger remake of The Getaway, and the 80's camp classic Cocktail. Donaldson's last feature was The Bank Job, an excellent heist movie that gave Jason Statham a chance to stretch his acting muscles beyond his usual action pictures. Seeking Justice doesn't do the same for Nicolas Cage and is so forgettable; it doesn't even belong amidst Donaldson's weaker efforts. His direction is leaden with random canted angles thrown in to switch up things.

The screenplay credited to Todd Hickey and Robert Tannen is full of weak contrivances and ludicrous plot twists. The methods of Simon's vigilante organization are needlessly Machiavellian. There's a lot of silly cloak-and-dagger activity such as buying two candy bars from a vending machine as a go signal or using the code-phrase, "The hungry rabbit jumps," which was the movie's original title. This same association employs cops, reporters, and skilled thugs. It doesn't make a lick of sense for them to coerce untrained civilians.

As revenge thrillers go, one can do better: Haywire, Lady Vengeance, and Harry Brown being recent examples. Seeking Justice is a second-rate potboiler that is unworthy of even Nicolas Cage's notoriously feeble standards.

Rating: * (*****)

The King's Speech

The King's Speech - Dir. Tom Hooper (2010)

Now that it is awards season, all the major studios are rolling out their prestige pictures in order to keep them fresh in the minds of the voters. The King's Speech is exactly the type of movie that the Academy and other committees eat up with a spoon. It's based on an inspirational true story and features an all-star ensemble of British thespians.

Colin Firth is once again called upon to play the stiff Englishman as he steps into the role of Prince Albert, who suffered from a life-long stammering problem. This probably wouldn't have been such a big deal in the olden days when royalty was only called upon to wave and smile at the adoring masses, but a newfangled invention called radio now requires them to be eloquent and articulate. Poor Albert can barely get the words to sputter out of his mouth when addressing a crowd at Wembley Stadium. It isn't just public speaking that gives him problems, Albert even struggles with telling bedtime stories to his daughters Margaret and Elizabeth II (the current queen).

Albert's wife, Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) supports him through thick and thin, bringing a parade of therapists through Buckingham Palace. After a disastrous session where Albert is forced to literally speak with marbles in his mouth, he begs Elizabeth to stop. However, she gives it one more go by turning to Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), a failed actor from Australia with no real credentials as a therapist. Logue's eccentric methods exasperate the prim and proper Prince, who Logue insists on calling 'Bertie.' Logue doesn't bother with honorifics, wants to be treated as an equal, and probes Bertie about his personal life. At one point, Logue refers to some of Bertie's ancestors as a bunch of "royal assholes." Stuffed shirt that he is, Bertie takes offense and storms off more than once, but circumstances necessitate their uneasy relationship. When the King (Michael Gambon) dies, the throne is passed on to older brother David (Guy Pearce), who is crowned King Edward VIII. His scandalous affair with an American divorcee leads Edward to abdicate and Bertie is now King George VI. Meanwhile, Hitler prepares to plunge England into World War II and the new King is called upon to deliver an inspiring speech.

Screenwriter David Seidler (who suffered from stuttering) originally envisioned The King's Speech as a play with the potential for a feature film version. It's easy to see why the movie took precedence and attracted the attentions of such a high caliber cast. The script is basic, old-fashioned storytelling at its best, hitting all the right notes without a single superfluous scene. Seidler manages to inject an understated level of humor to the proceedings, which prevents the film from becoming too much of a starchy BBC-style production. The relationship between Bertie and Logue provides the backbone as a reverse Pygmalion with the middle class instructor teaching the posh student. In real life, the two became close friends for years.

Tom Hooper (The Damned United, HBO's John Adams) directs with a straightforward manner though some of his compositions aren't the most aesthetically pleasing. Still, he does a splendid job in contrasting the ornate trappings of the Palace with Logue's modest flat and basement office. The acting is uniformly excellent, particularly Helena Bonham Carter as the future Queen Mother and Guy Pearce as the irresponsible playboy brother. The only weak link in the cast is Timothy Spall's Winston Churchill, who comes off more as a comic relief caricature than an actual person.

Rating: *** (*****)

Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom - Dir. David Michod (2010)


Animal Kingdom is the grimy, blue collar reflection of the Godfather-style sprawling crime drama, coming to us from the Land Down Under. The film is loosely based on an actual case.

Writer/Director David Michod (who makes his feature-length directorial debut) sets the mood immediately with the introduction of Joshua "J" Cody (James Frecheville) sitting on the couch next to his comatose mother. EMTs arrive and we learn the mother has OD'd on heroin. J's attention drifts in between their futile attempts to revive her and an episode of Deal or No Deal on the TV.

J is sent to live with his mom's estranged family who she tried hard to stay far away from. J comes from a family of bank robbers. His eldest uncle, Pope (Ben Mendelsohn), is in hiding from the corrupt Armed Robbery division who shoot first and ask questions later. The middle brother, Craig (Sullivan Stapleton), is strung out on coke while the youngest, Darren (Luke Ford), follows the others like a lost puppy. He's so close to age with J that he refuses to be called Uncle Darren. The Cody brothers work with Barry Brown (Joel Edgerton who also co-wrote and starred in The Square), a stable family man looking to get out of the business. The matriarch of the Cody family is Janine (Jacki Weaver), a petite woman with arching eyebrows who plants prolonged kisses on the lips of her sons. She's Florence Henderson on the outside, but we soon learn she's black as night on the inside.

When Barry is gunned down by the gung-ho cops, Pope and Craig hatch a plan to get even by murdering two patrolmen. Darren and J are dragged into the muck with them. The investigating officer, Det. Leckie (Guy Pearce, sporting a goofy mustache), seems to genuinely be concerned about J, but has no problem using him to drive a wedge within the family. J finds himself caught between the law and his amoral relatives.

As the title suggests, the film is all about a pecking order with J at the bottom of the food chain. The passive protagonist is forced to become predator or prey. Michod is economic in his focus on the familial relationships. He never shows the Cody clan in action nor does he take us into the courtroom drama that unfolds during the third act. They aren't needed. However, Michod stumbles when he overplays his hand. He underlines the movie with unnecessary voiceover narration by J as he explains themes and story elements that are transparent. Animal Kingdom becomes excessively dour to the point of self-parody. Pope's increasing instability is summed up in a scene where he broods menacingly to the tune of "All Out of Love" by Air Supply. As the passive lead, J is only as interesting as the more compelling characters he's surrounded by. Once he becomes the center of the film, his innate inertia isn't enough to carry the picture.

Rating: **

The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker - Dir. Kathryn Bigelow (2009)


"The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug." – Chris Hedges, War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning

American audiences have been reticent in rushing out to see movies depicting war and the current political climate. Not surprising, since they’ve more than gotten their fair share in the daily news. The majority of these films (Stop-Loss, Rendition) have fallen flat on their face. The Hurt Locker, a refreshingly apolitical take on the subject matter, is not one of them. It is a great deal things, a taut drama, a splendid action movie, and, perhaps, the best depiction of the Iraqi War to date.

Sgt. J.T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and SPC Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) are members of an EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) unit deployed during the early stages of the invasion in 2004. Their team leader, SSgt. Thompson (Guy Pearce), is killed in the opening moments by an IED (improvised explosive device). He is replaced by SFC Will James (Jeremy Renner) who isn’t afraid to literally get his hands dirty when defusing explosive devices. He tosses aside his protective suit at one point proclaiming, ”If I’m gonna die, I want to die comfortable.” In the aftermath of a bombing, he rushes off into the night to go after the perpetrators.

His recklessness immediately puts him into conflict with his comrades. Sanborn is by-the-books and with a little over a month left in their tour of duty only wants to get home in one piece. Eldridge is traumatized following Thompson’s death and carries the guilt over not pulling the trigger on the insurgent detonating the bomb.

James is not the typical maladjusted combat veteran. Yes, he is more at home on the battlefield than he is shopping for breakfast cereal with his wife (Evangeline Lilly) and son. Yes, he is something of an adrenaline junkie. But, he’s not callous. He’s simply learned to deal with the life-or-death situations in an emotionally detached manner. James tugs on a wire to find it attached to seven other bombs buried in the sand. With clinical precision, he simply yanks the connecting wires loose. He keeps a box of mementos under his bed, matter-of-factly explaining they are pieces of the devices that have almost killed him. As James, Jeremy Renner gives a star-making performance. There is an eerie calmness to his man trying to stay sane in an insane world.

One of the few female directors working in the action genre, Kathryn Bigelow, has a better grip of the on-screen happenings than most of her overpaid mail counterparts. She has already helmed a trio of underrated films in Near Dark, Strange Days, and Point Break (yes, Point Break) and she’s finally receiving well-deserved accolades for Hurt Locker. The film was shot on location in Jordan and Kuwait with four 16mm cameras covering the production. There’s immediacy and a sustained tension underlying throughout the movie.

Is it a perfect film? Far from it, the screenplay by former embedded journalist Mark Boal drifts off tangent from time to time. The most jarring subplot involves James’ befriending of a local Iraqi boy selling bootleg DVDs. Real-life veterans have criticized the inaccuracies in combat scenarios. Criticisms aside, The Hurt Locker is still one of the best war movies made by Hollywood and easily one of the best pictures of 2009.

Rating: ***

The Road

The Road - Dir. John Hillcoat (2009)


”She was gone and the coldness of it was her final gift.”

Will the world end with a bang or a whimper? According to Roland Emmerich, the world will end with a shit-ton of bangs. In the shadow of Emmerich’s bloated and idiotic 2012 comes The Road, a haunting experience and a post-apocalyptic film like no other. The Road isn’t an action spectacle like Mad Max nor is it the misstep that was I Am Legend, which completely missed the point of Richard Matheson’s original story. Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Cormac McCarthy, The Road features the same desperate isolation that marked the Coen Brothers’ adaptation of No Country For Old Men times a hundred.

Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee star as an unnamed father and son who are simply dubbed Man and Boy in the credits. The pair tries to survive in a desolate wasteland where the skies have turned to ash and the landscape is littered with dead trees and abandoned roads. The Boy has been born into this nightmarish world and knows nothing of life before. The Man tells stories to his son about heroes and bravery. He insists they are the “good guys” and that they “carry the fire” inside. As they attempt to make their way to the coast, the Man must protect the boys from the horrors he sees including roving bands of bandits who’ve turned to cannibalism to survive. In one of the film’s most harrowing moments, father and son come across a house where human beings are kept locked in a basement, filthy and emaciated, so their jailers can feed on them, piece by piece. Just as these people have gone to horrible lengths simply to survive, the Man becomes as equally desperate to keep his son alive. The Boy still manages to cling to his innocence, believing that there is still inherent good in others.

No explanation is ever given for the end of the world and none is necessary. There are a series of flashbacks showing the Man and his wife (Charlize Theron) briefly before the devastation and later scenes showing them dealing with the aftermath and her pregnancy. An almost unrecognizable Robert Duvall makes a quick and unforgettable appearance as an old, blind man they meet on their journey.

I haven’t read the original novel by McCarthy, so I can’t compare the two. Director John Hillcoat (who helmed the equally somber and desolate Western The Proposition) fashions a deals with the heights that man can reach and the depths in which he will sink. The Road is all about human emotion and not special effects or camera mugging performances. Mortensen and Smit-McPhee are fantastic and utterly believable in their roles. We become as frightened as they are and feel that same tiny moment of joy when the two find a lone can of Coca-Cola.

The way the film unfolds will leave many divided. Some have criticized it saying The Road hops from scene to scene without much flow or driving force. Yes, the script by playwright Joe Penhall does meander. But, it meanders just as the characters that inhabit the world, making it a natural fit. The Road isn't the classic that many were hoping for, but it's a damn good movie.

Rating: ***