Enemy

Enemy - Dir. Denis Villeneuve (2014)

"Chaos is order yet undeciphered."

2014 was a good year for fans of doppelganger cinema. Richard Ayoade featured Jesse Eisenberg in dual roles in The Double and Denis Villeneuve does the same with Jake Gyllenhaal in Enemy. Villeneuve earned rave reviews for Incendies, which earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. The notoriety caught Hollywood's attention and Villeneuve made a big debut with Prisoners, an epic thriller starring Gyllenhaal and Hugh Jackman.

Enemy is a much smaller and intimate drama, loosely based on a novel by Jose Saramago. Villeneuve transplants the action from Portugal to Toronto and casts Gyllenhaal as history professor Adam Bell. Bell leads an uneventful life. He rarely goes out and gives the same lectures (dictatorships, totalitarianism) again and again to a sparse group of students. Even sex with his girlfriend Mary (Mélanie Laurent) seems to be perfunctory. One day, a colleague recommends Adam check out a movie titled Where There's a Will, There's a Way. To his shock, Adam notices a background character that looks exactly like him. After much research, Adam learns his duplicate is Anthony Claire, an actor based in Toronto. After several awkward phone conversations, Adam and Anthony set a meeting.

Any further revelations of the plot would spoil the film. Suffice to say, the lookalikes switch places to see how the other lives. Let's just say, this isn't The Prince and the Pauper. There's no happy ending and nobody learns a valuable lesson.

If Prisoners was an extended episode of Law & Order, Enemy could be described as a lost episode of Twin Peaks with a dash of David Cronenberg to spice it up. "Enemy" is an enigmatic picture that offers plenty of questions and no answers. This is the type of film that is ripe for discussion and multiple interpretations. The movie opens with an unsettling scene in which Anthony attends an underground erotic club involving women crushing tarantulas with their stiletto heels. Imagery of spiders and webs is a recurring theme within Enemy, perhaps as a metaphor for the way in which the twins have been ensnared by the women in their lives. Or maybe it's a symbol for the totalitarian governments Adam lectures about. Again, Villeneuve never spells it out for you.

The connection between Adam and Anthony is never made clear either. Is it a cosmic fluke or are the two simply related by blood? A sit-down with Adam and his mother (Isabella Rossellini) almost points to the latter.

Gyllenhaal turns in a pair of great performances as Adam and Anthony. The dual roles are certainly reminiscent of Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers. Gyllenhaal is understated as Adam giving him a slight slouch and a subtle uneasiness. As Anthony, he's bolder and more confident. Sarah Gadon, who has been popping up in both David and Brandon Cronenberg's pictures, has the most substantial female role in Enemy as Anthony's pregnant wife Helen. She gives a quiet performance that conveys a world of sadness and desperation.

Enemy might not appeal to an audience seeking conventional cinema. This one is for the arthouse crowd. Villeneuve has crafted an eerie, thought-provoking thriller anchored by the engrossing performances of Gyllenhaal and Gadon.

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

End of Watch

End of Watch - Dir. David Ayer (2012)

You can trace the origins of the found footage genre back to the controversial horror film Cannibal Holocaust. However, it was The Blair Witch Project that really brought it to the forefront for modern audiences. With camera technology readily accessible along with the proliferation of the internet and viral videos, found footage has become more relevant today. Most importantly, they are relatively cheap to make. Recent years have seen a glut of found footage horror films that include The Devil Inside, The Last Exorcism, The Chernobyl Diaries, and Apollo 18. None of them were very well received though movie-goers liked REC and Paranormal Activity enough to warrant multiple sequels.

The subgenre was in danger of growing stale, but a few filmmakers ventured to apply found footage aesthetics to other genres. Project X was a raunchy teen comedy shot documentary style that was critically reviled, but wildly successful at the box office. Chronicle was a unique take on the superhero origin story from director Josh Trank, who wound up scoring the job of helming the Fantastic Four reboot for Fox.

This brings us to End of Watch, a cop drama set in the inner city of Los Angeles from writer/director David Ayer, who has made a career of gritty crime flicks set in L.A. He wrote Training Day, Dark Blue, and S.W.A.T., then went on to direct Harsh Times and Street Kings. Ayer does his best work with End of Watch, which is a more positive look at the LAPD than his earlier pictures. It follows two hotshot LAPD officers named Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Miguel Zavala (Michael Pena). Taylor is a former Marine who is earning his law degree on the side. As part of his course work, he is filming a documentary about his life as a police officer. This includes using tiny cameras pinned to his lapel and his partner's. Whereas Zavala is a family man, Taylor is happily single though he may have finally met "the one" in the perky Anna Kendrick.

End of Watch opens with a wild pursuit recorded by a dashboard camera that ends in a justified shooting. From there, we watch as Taylor and Zavala rescue kids from a burning house and bust a perpetrator carrying a ton of cash and a jewel encrusted AK-47. Our protagonists even earn the respect of a gang member named Tre (Cle Sloan) after he gets into a brawl with Zavala. After discovering a house full of rotting body parts, Taylor and Zavala unwittingly earn the wrath of a ruthless Mexican drug cartel pushing its way into Los Angeles.

End of Watch doesn't stay firmly within the realm of found footage. While there are the usual shaky cam shots, many of the scenes are shot and edited conventionally. Still, End of Watch succeeds in placing the audience intimately alongside the officers. It's as if we were right there for the ride. Ayer's willingness to shoot tightly and closely gives the action sequences an immediacy and tension not found in movies with larger budgets. Ayer also throws in some unique shots such as one in which a camera has been mounted on Taylor's shotgun barrel.

Shootouts are all well and good, but Ayer ensures that we care about the characters with the camaraderie of Taylor and Zavala at the forefront. Gyllenhaal and Pena give strong performances and their banter is a highlight. Though the focus is on them, their relationships with their families and fellow cops aren't short changed. Taylor and Zavala have their run-ins with an embittered beat cop (David Harbour) and a pair of female officers (Cody Horn & America Ferrera) who aren't impressed by their cocky attitudes.

End of Watch falters when it shifts focus from Taylor and Zavala to the Latino gangbangers gunning for them. In the YouTube era, it makes sense that the criminals would be bold enough to record their illegal activities. Still, their scenes are less interesting because they are portrayed in stereotypical and over-the-top manner.

End of Watch is a gripping police drama that rises above genre conventions and the limitations of found footage.

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

Source Code

Source Code - Dir. Duncan Jones (2011)

Duncan Jones obviously has a great passion for sci-fi having made a spectacular debut as a filmmaker with Moon, one of the best films of 2009. He must have had a unique childhood as the son of David Bowie, who was like a science fiction character come to life. Not surprising that Bowie was chosen to play an alien in Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth.

While Jones has several original projects in the works, Source Code is based on a script by Ben Ripley, whose only previous credits include Species III and Species: The Awakening. Not exactly an illustrious resume. Jones’ second film follows the trajectory of many new directors. Source Code is a more mainstream movie with a bigger budget and bigger stars. Often times, those aren’t necessarily advantages, but Jones doesn’t fall into the sophomore slump even if Source Code isn’t as strong or thought-provoking as Moon.

Jake Gyllenhaal is cast as Capt. Colter Stevens (an awesome action hero name), an Army helicopter pilot previously stationed in Afghanistan. He is shocked to awaken inside the body of a high school teacher named Sean Fentress, who is on board a Chicago-bound train. Before he can understand what is happening, the train explodes and Stevens finds himself strapped into a capsule where he is greeted by Air Force Capt. Colleen Goodwin (Vera Farmiga). Stevens is a part of a bold new experiment called Source Code, developed by the cold Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright). Source Code isn’t time travel, but it does allow the subject to relive events (eight minutes in length) by building from the final memories of the dead. Everyone on the train was killed by a bomb and another will go off in the city unless Stevens finds the culprit. Disoriented with little information to go on Stevens is hurtled back and forth until he can complete his mission. At the same time, he must also unravel the mystery of how he came to be apart of the Source Code project.

The best way to describe Source Code would be a melding of 12 Monkeys, Memento, and Groundhog Day. There’s also a dash of Quantum Leap thrown in and they even cast Scott Bakula for a brief voice-over cameo. It’s a high concept actioner in the vein of Inception. Unlike Christopher Nolan’s magnum opus, Source Code isn’t bogged down by endless exposition. Its inventor succintly states Source Code involves quantum physics and would take weeks to explain to the layman. There is just no time to science lessons when a nuke is about to kill millions. Honestly, the whole idea doesn’t make a lick of sense if you really think about it, which means the movie has to keep you engaged long enough so that you don’t poke through the plot holes.

At approximately 90 minutes, Source Code moves at a quick enough pace that the audience doesn’t have time to question the very nature of the Source Code. Each “do-over” is varied enough to avoid tedious repetition. The lead characters are well-defined with Jake Gyllenhaal doing an excellent job at playing the idealistic hero. Michelle Monaghan is also good as Christina, a friend of Sean’s who gradually becomes the love interest for Stevens. Warm and sweet-natured, it’s easy to see why he would fall for her. Jones grounds the film’s outlandish plot by focusing on the love story between the two. Both Jeffrey Wright and Vera Farmiga turn in strong performances, despite their brief and clichéd roles. Aside from the main players, the film noticeably lacks a memorable supporting cast. Unlike the comparable Speed, the other passengers on the train lack distinct personalities as such there is a lack of sympathy for their fates and a loss of dramatic tension in the mystery of the bomber.

Source Code has a unique premise and a powerful opening sequence, but features an ending that leaves more questions than it does answers.

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

SPOILER ALERT: Click on comments section for discussion of ending.

Love and Other Drugs

Love and Other Drugs - Dir. Edward Zwick (2010)

Sometimes I just don't understand the strange decisions made by Hollywood executives. Love and Other Drugs had all the makings of an interesting film centered on a very timely concept. The film was based on the non-fiction book, Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman, written by Jamie Reidy, a former pharmaceutical salesman. With health care being a hot button topic, it seems like the perfect time for an inside look at the pharmaceutical industry. Instead, the studio plays it safe and whitewashes the story into yet another banal romantic comedy.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Jamie Randall, a med school dropout who has just been fired from his job in retail electronics after boning the boss's girlfriend in the stock room. Jamie quickly gets a job shilling medication with the corporate juggernaut known as Pfizer. In the pharmaceutical game, medical knowledge is hardly a necessity, but good looks and a winning personality are everything. A dizzying montage shows candidates memorizing sales pitches and dancing the Macarena at a garish orientation. Jamie aspires for the bigger market of Chicago, but gets the accounts in Iowa instead. There, he's to push Zoloft, an anti-depressant that is a distant second in sales to the more renowned Prozac. He shamelessly flirts with the receptionists to get his foot in the door and offers bribes to various doctors. Fortunes rise (pun slightly intended) with the creation of Viagra and Jamie leaps at the opportunity, "Who can sell a dick drug better than me?"

While pretending to be an intern, he meets Maggie Murdock (Anne Hathaway), a patient suffering from stage one Parkinson's disease. Jamie inadvertently glimpses her breast and gets pummeled in the parking lot when Maggie finds out he's a drug rep. Only in the movies does this ignite a star-crossed romance. At first, both parties are only interested in empty sex, but true feelings develop to complicate their relationship. Jamie worries about how he'll care for Maggie when her condition inevitably deteriorates while Maggie is concerned about holding Jamie's career back.

Love and Other Drugs feels like four or five different movies stitched together in a haphazard manner. The film starts off strong with an engaging first act that serves as a satire of the pharmaceutical industry. Once Maggie is introduced the story veers into the territory of a standard romantic comedy. When the Parkinson's subplot is emphasized, Other Drugs becomes a weepy melodrama similar to the all-time cheesy classic Love Story. The sentimental portion does provide one of the few genuine moments of the picture when Maggie leaves a medical convention for a support group for those afflicted with Parkinson's. Topping it all off is a heavy element of raunchiness straight out of the Apatow comedy playbook. The film's stars get naked frequently and there are the requisite boner jokes involving Viagra. They've also brought in Josh Gad, who acts like the love child of Jonah Hill and Jack Black, as Jamie's lazy brother. Every word out of his mouth is an annoying and horribly unfunny attempt at lowbrow humor. On the other hand, Gyllenhaal and his Brokeback Mountain beard Anne Hathaway are both good in the lead roles as is Gabriel Macht as a rival salesman. However, Judy Greer is underutilized as are George Segal and the late-Jill Clayburgh, who only appear in one scene as Jamie's parents.

Love and Other Drugs is a different kind of film from director Edward Zwick, who helmed Glory and The Last Samurai, but it fits right in with thirtysomething, the sappy and soapy television series he produced back in the early-90's. This is a completely disjointed affair that fails to find any semblance of balance between light comedy and heavy drama.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - Dir. Mike Newell (2010)


A cinematic rule of thumb: video game movies suck. You know you’re in trouble when Mortal Kombat is essentially the Citizen Kane of video game adaptations. It is with great trepidation that I approached the Prince of Persia, based off the video game series created by Jordan Mechner. It is also one of two Jerry Bruckheimer produced spectacles this summer along with The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Prince of Persia is set in a fantasy version of Persia where no one is actually Persian and everyone speaks with a British accent.

The film opens with an Aladdin-esque prologue featuring a young boy named Dastan defending another child in the open marketplace. Impressed by his courage, King Sharaman (Ronald Pickup) adopts him. The now adult Prince Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal) is leads an army to attack the city of Alamut. The King’s brother, Nizam (Ben Kingsley), has evidence that Alamut is building weapons for Persia’s enemies. However, Nizam is secretly after a mystical dagger which can turn back time for just a few seconds. Beneath the city lies an hourglass full of the Sands of Time, plunging the dagger into it will allow Nizam to rewrite history as he sees fit. Framed for the murder of his father, Dastan and the beautiful Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton) must uncover Nizam’s plot while being hunted by his own brothers and a cadre of assassins.

As you’d expect from a Bruckheimer production, Prince of Persia is packed with overblown action sequences and expensive special effects. The climax feels like a genuine sandstorm that threatens to blind your eyes and engulf your body in a torrent of CGI. The movie is surprisingly light on Parkour stunts considering acrobatics were a big part of the games. Most of the acting is bland with the leads engaging in forced dialogue that passes for witty banter. Only Alfred Molina gives a sly and amusing performance as the earliest member of the Tea Party. He’s a promoter of ostrich races who bemoans the plight of the small businessman and adamantly refuses to pay taxes.

Prince of Persia is lightweight and forgettable popcorn entertainment. It fails to be a 21st century version of Indiana Jones, coming off more as a knockoff of Stephen Sommers’ Mummy pictures. As a video game movie, it’s still better than Super Mario Bros. and, at least, it wasn’t directed by Uwe Boll.

Rating: **