Les Misérables

Les Misérables - Dir. Tom Hooper (2012)

I had a dream my life would be

So different from this hell I'm living

So different now from what it seemed

Now life has killed the dream I dreamed

One of the most popular and enduring versions of Victor Hugo's 1862 novel, Les Misérables, has been the stage musical. It initially began as a concept album with music by Claude-Michel Schonberg and lyrics from Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel. Cameron Mackintosh, the producer behind Broadway blockbusters Cats and The Phantom of the Opera, saw the potential and mounted a production in London before taking it to the Big Apple. Les Misérables stands as one of the longest running Broadway shows ever, opening in 1987 before closing in 2003. While there have been many movie adaptations of the original novel, the musical version has never been brought to the silver screen until now.

The story begins in 1815 with Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), a recently released convict who has served nineteen years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family and attempting to escape. Branded as a dangerous man, Valjean has nowhere to stay and no chance of finding honest work. A kindly Bishop (Colm Wilkinson, who originated the role of Valjean in the London production) takes pity and gives Valjean some of the church valuables to start a new life. Under the name Madeleine, he becomes the mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer and a respected factory owner. Unbeknownst to him, Fantine (Anne Hathaway), a young woman in his employ is unjustly fired by the lecherous foreman. She is forced to not only become a prostitute, but to sell her teeth and hair to support her daughter, Cosette (Isabelle Allen), who is under the care of the cruel Thérnardiers (Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter). On Fantine's deathbed, Valjean promises to rescue only to be confronted by the relentless Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe). He spends years trying to live a peaceful life with Cosette with Javert constantly at his heels until a revolution explodes onto the streets of Paris.

Les Misérables isn't like your typical musical. It's more of an operetta in that nearly all of the dialogue is sung and there aren't any dance sequences. Rather than recorded separately, the songs were performed live on set to allow a more nuanced performance. Hugh Jackman, with his passion for musicals and experience on stage, equates himself superbly as Jean Valjean. The same goes for Anne Hathaway, who earned an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress as the ever suffering Fantine. Hathaway commands the screen for the show-stopping "I Dreamed a Dream," which was captured entirely in close-up and in one take. She belts a soulful rendition that will wring tears from anyone, except the most cold hearted. Though Jackman and Hathaway got the lion's share of attention during awards season, the film's best performance belongs to Samantha Barks, who made her feature film debut with Les Misérables. Barks played the role of the Thérnardiers' daughter, Eponine, on stage and reprises the role here. She can act and carry tune and does so admirably during the rain-soaked ballad, "On My Own." The one weak link in an otherwise strong ensemble is Russell Crowe as Javert whose rigid moral code allows no mercy for his prey. In a straight adaptation of the novel, Crowe would have been an excellent casting choice. However, his vocal efforts leave much to be desired. Despite his experience as a musician and frontman, Crowe's singing comes off as flat and lacking the emotional range displayed by his co-stars.

Even with a generous runtime of over two and a half hours, Les Misérables occasionally stumbles in its attempts to juggle a myriad of plotlines. The romance between the adult Cosette (Amanda Seyfried) and rabble rouser Marius (Eddie Redmayne) is rushed as is the conclusion to Javert's story. Then, there's "Suddenly," a forgettable new tune composed simply to receive a nomination for Best Original Song. The passage of time isn't always properly conveyed with abrupt intertitles announce eight years have elapsed. It's hard to sense that Javert has been nipping at Valjean's heels for decades.

Les Misérables is the most expensive and ambitious project helmed by Tom Hooper, who multiple Best Director awards for The King's Speech. Be prepared as Hooper's penchant for awkward compositions and fish eye lens close-ups hasn't waned. When looking at the bigger picture, Hooper proves more than capable of handling the spectacle required of such a lavish production. The film opens right away with a collection of tattered convicts, waist deep in seawater, as they pull a warship into dry dock. The oafish Thérnardiers take the spotlight for "Master of the House," an intricately staged musical number in which the larcenous lovebirds pick the pockets of their unsuspecting guests. "One Day More" is a well-edited ensemble piece that cuts smoothly between multiple planes of action.

Les Misérables doesn't do subtle. This is a bombastic and surprisingly gritty musical full of heart-wrenching tragedy, romance, and pageantry.

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

Broken City

Broken City - Dir. Allen Hughes (2013)

When you have a film that stars big-name talent like Mark Wahlberg, Russell Crowe, and Catherine Zeta-Jones, you expect it to get a prime slot in the release schedule. Instead, Broken City gets dropped into the wasteland of January. Without all the famous faces, it could have easily faded off into direct-to-video obscurity.

Broken City opens with Det. Billy Taggart (Wahlberg) at the center of controversy for gunning down a teenaged rape suspect in the Bolton Village projects of Brooklyn. Crucial evidence is covered up by Mayor Nicholas Hostetler (Crowe) and the Chief of Police Carl Fairbanks (Jeffrey Wright) and the case is dropped though Taggart is forced to resign from the NYPD. For the next several years, he ekes out a living as a private investigator snapping pictures of adulterers. The Mayor, currently in a heated campaign against a young upstart subtly named Jack Valliant (Barry Pepper), hires Taggart for the sum of $50,000 to collect evidence that his wife, Cathleen (Zeta-Jones), is cheating on him. Taggart thinks it will be an easy payday until his mark ends up dead. It's the tip of a vast conspiracy involving a land deal that could mean billions for a few and forced evictions are hundreds of people.

Broken City is the first solo effort for Allen Hughes who has previously directed Menace II Society, From Hell, and The Book of Eli with his twin brother Albert. Newcomer Brian Tucker wrote the screenplay, which has been in development for several years and once made the Black List. That must have been a completely different version. Hughes and Tucker have created a glossy little blockbuster with aspirations of being a socially relevant political thriller. Instead, what we get is a bastardized and sanitized hybrid of Chinatown with the works of Sidney Lumet, specifically Serpico and Prince of the City, except there's no grit or rich storytelling to be found. The script relies too heavily on lazy contrivances to advance the plot. At one point, Taggart falls off the wagon and stumbles through the streets drunk. Then, he's called to a crime scene and shows up completely sober. Another scene Taggart observes the bad guys shredding and disposing of documents. Yet, he just happens to find an entire box full of incriminating evidence in pristine condition right next to the dumpster.

Wahlberg has made it a habit of playing these blue collar Joes and he's perfectly adequate here. The rest of the cast is strong though Jeffrey Wright blows everybody out of the water for what little he is given. Standing out amongst all the veteran talent is young Israeli actress Alona Tal (who some might recognize for her stints on Veronica Mars and Supernatural) as Taggart's loyal secretary Katy. Tal beams in a spunky performance and has some great banter with Wahlberg.

Broken City is disposable cinema, utterly forgettable save for those who are tremendous fans of hard boiled dialogue and macho posturing.

Rating: ** (*****)

The Man with the Iron Fists

The Man with the Iron Fists - Dir. RZA (2012)

Anyone who has listened to the music of the Wu-Tang Clan knows they've been heavily influenced by the classic martial arts films of the 1970's. It was inevitable that they're de facto leader, the RZA, would eventually craft a martial arts movie of his own. RZA serves as star and director of The Man with the Iron Fists, based on a script he co-wrote with Eli Roth.

The film is set during the late-1800's in the small Chinese town of Jungle Village. RZA is the Blacksmith, a skilled craftsman who makes formidable weapons for the village's warring factions. He tirelessly works night and day to earn enough money to free his love, Lady Silk (Jamie Chung), from a brothel owned by Madam Blossom (Lucy Liu). Meanwhile, Gold Lion (Chen Kuan-tai), the honorable leader of the Lion Clan, is assassinated by his lieutenants Silver Lion (Byron Mann) and Bronze Lion (Cung Le). Silver is after a shipment of the governor's gold that is set to pass through Jungle Village and is collaborating with the traitorous Poison Dagger (Daniel Wu), a hooded figure employing mercury-tipped blow darts. To assist in eliminating their enemies, the bad guys have hired Brass Body (WWE's David Bautista), a hulking brute with the ability to turn his skin into solid brass. Caught in the middle of this conflict, the Blacksmith finds unlikely allies in Zen-Yi (Rick Yune), the Gold Lion's son who uses an armored suit with retractable blades, and Jack Knife (Russell Crowe), an enigmatic Englishman with a fondness for booze, opium, and women.

Beginning with its grindhouse-style opening titles, Man with the Iron Fists is a loving throwback to the grand era of Golden Harvest and Shaw Brothers. Nods to those pictures include the casting of Gordon Liu as a wise Shaolin monk and the use of Sally Yeh's ballad from John Woo's The Killer. Enter the Dragon is evoked through a climax involving a hall of mirrors. There are herky-jerky zoom-ins and stilted line readings meant to evoke badly dubbed chop socky theater. While the fight sequences (choreographed by Cory Yuen) won't rival the fights from classics like Once Upon a Time in China or Drunken Master II, they are an exciting mix of hard hitting kung fu and elaborate wire work with buckets of CGI blood. As expected from Eli Roth, there's plenty of cartoonish violence, such as Jack Knife eviscerating an overweight man. A scorecard might be needed to keep track of all the players and rivalries. Thus, the story feels very overstuffed for a fast-paced runtime of 95 minutes. RZA and Roth have created an entire world with its own mythology and rich backstories that are only hinted at in the final picture. At one point, RZA toyed with the idea of releasing a four hour cut as two episodes ala Kill Bill.

RZA might have done well to concentrate on his behind-the-camera duties. As the protagonist, he doesn't quite have the acting chops or the presence to headline a movie. He's too laconic and his fight with Brass Body isn't as entertaining as the others. The two best performances belong to Byron Mann and Russell Crowe, both of whom are clearly having fun. Mann is appropriately over-the-top while Crowe channels the boisterous spirit of his late Gladiator co-star Oliver Reed.

The Man with the Iron Fists isn't an exceptional directorial debut for RZA, but it does show he has plenty of potential.

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

The Next Three Days

In Conviction, Hilary Swank plays a mother of two who puts herself through college and law school in order to free her brother after he is wrongly convicted of first degree murder. Russell Crowe, however, is no Hilary Swank. He's Russell Crowe after all and he doesn't have time for any of that fancy book learning. When his wife is sentenced to life in prison, he decides to bust her ass out in The Next Three Days.

Crowe is John Brennan, an English teacher who spends his days lecturing to community college students about Don Quixote. Brennan finds himself in his own Quixotic quest when his wife, Lara (Elizabeth Banks, is arrested during family breakfast time for the murder of her boss. The circumstantial evidence is pretty damning. Lara had an argument with her boss earlier in the day. Her fingerprints are on the murder weapon and blood from the victim was found on her coat. John is thoroughly convinced of Lara's innocence, but their options dwindle as years pass and the appeals process goes nowhere.

John consults with an ex-con (Liam Neeson in a one scene cameo) who literally wrote the book on prison breaks. This formerly unassuming teacher sets in motion an intricate plan to free his wife and escape the country before authorities lock down the city. The ticking clock that gives the film its title kicks when John learns that Lara will be transferred from county jail to a maximum security penitentiary upstate.

The Next Three Days has good moments and weak moments. If you saw Crash, you know that Paul Haggis is not a subtle filmmaker. He's downright blunt and wants to spell everything out for the audience. That trait is evident with the running time of his latest picture. Next Three Days was based on a 2007 French film entitled Pour Elle, which was 96 minutes long. Haggis's version clocks in at over two hours. The movie chugs along at a lethargic pace as we watch the emotional toll that Lara's imprisonment has taken on her husband and young son.

While the dour emotional scenes drag on, the portions that focus on the actual jailbreak are riveting. Yes, they are a bit preposterous and Haggis tends to rely too much on convenient coincidences, but they are riveting. As a law-abiding Joe Average, John must find ways to gather enough cash to live on the run as well as acquire fake IDs. His nocturnal trips to the wrong part of town are tense as is a sequence where John tries out a homemade skeleton key during a visit to his wife. How he learned to make one seems simple enough. He saw it on YouTube. John also learns how to break into a car using only a tennis ball. There's more to the internet than just porn.

Crowe doesn't quite pull off the role of the unassuming school teacher, but he does excel at being gruff and brooding. There's not a lot of chemistry between he and Elizabeth Banks who still looks beautiful while trying to be haggard.

The Next Three Days could have used some judicious editing to tighten the pace and cut the fat. After the mediocrity of the first two acts, the film concludes with a thrilling climax as the prison escape finally happens. That itself might make the movie worthy of a rental.

Rating: ** (*****)

Robin Hood

Robin Hood - Dir. Ridley Scott (2010)


”Rise and rise again until lambs become lions.”

Was there a dire need for yet another Robin Hood film? There have been dozens and dozens of iterations about the famed archer on film and television. One of the most well-regarded versions is The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn in a light-hearted, Technicolor adventure film. The garish color palette of the 1938 picture is in stark contrast to Robin and Marian with Sean Connery as an aging, world weary Robin Hood returning to England and his love Marian (Audrey Hepburn in her first film after a 9 year absence) who has since become a nun. A grimier and grounded approach was taken with Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves starring Kevin Costner as the blandest version of the title character. Despite Costner’s vanilla performance and sad attempt at a British accent, Prince of Thieves was buoyed by the mere presence of Morgan Freeman and a deliciously over-the-top Alan Rickman as the Sheriff of Notthingham. You can also toss Disney’s animated Robin Hood and Mel Brooks’ parody Robin Hood: Men in Tights into the mix.

So where does Ridley Scott’s vision of Robin Hood stack up against the competition? Even with a $200 million budget, this Robin Hood sinks to the bottom of the barrel.

Russell Crowe teams with Ridley Scott for the fifth time. They originally paired up in the historical epic Gladiator and surprisingly followed that up with the romantic comedy, A Good Year. Their collaboration continued with the gritty crime film, American Gangster, and the spy thriller, Body of Lies. Robin Hood is closest in spirit to Gladiator and acts as a pseudo-companion piece to Scott’s Crusades picture, Kingdom of Heaven. This is a down and dirty rendition with nary a buckle swashed.

The film kicks off during the tail end of the 12th century with Richard the Lionheart (Danny Huston) attempting to make his way back to England following the folly of the Third Crusade. King Richard is killed by an arrow through the neck while ransacking a French castle. Among the king’s army is a skilled bowman by the name of Robin Longstride (Crowe) who quickly deserts the battlefield with his friends Little John (Kevin Durand), Will Scarlet (Scott Grimes), and Alan A’Dayle (Alan Doyle). Meanwhile, Richard’s right hand man, Sir Robert of Loxley (Douglas Hodge) leads a small band of knights to return the king’s crown to England. They are ambushed by the evil Sir Godfrey (Mark Strong) who conspires with King Philip of France (Jonathan Zaccai) to weaken England with civil war.

Robin and his Merry Men (though they are never called as such) come across the aftermath. Donning the knight’s chain mail, Robin poses as Loxley upon his return to England. He arrives at Loxley’s estate where Robert’s father, Sir Walter (Max von Sydow), requests that he continue the masquerade much to the chagrin of Robert’s widow, the Lady Marian (Cate Blanchett). While Robin undertakes the charade, Godfrey brutally and relentlessly gathers taxes from the people under the orders of Richard’s brother, the petulant King John (Oscar Isaac), a near-copycat of Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus.

The main cast also includes: William Hurt as the royal regent William Marshal, Mark Addy as Friar Tuck, and Matthew Macfadyen as an utterly inept Sheriff of Nottingham.

If that sounds like a lot to digest, it’s only the appetizer. There is a helluva lot more to come during the film’s daunting two and a half hour runtime. Robin Hood’s biggest strength lies in the spectacular production values. Scott and cinematographer John Mathieson (who also first collaborated on Gladiator) have created a gorgeous looking film that captures the majesty of the English landscape belonging to royalty and the squalidness of the world of the lower classes. CGI is effectively used to lend an added layer of authenticity. The acting isn’t particularly noteworthy, but the actors are fine in their roles. Honestly, the majority of them are capable of performing these parts in their sleep.

The weak link of the movie lies solely in the story. The screenplay was originally written by Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris who also wrote Kung Fu Panda and…ugh…Bulletproof Monk. Working under the title of Nottingham, the project was intended to portray Robin Hood as the villain while his arch-enemy, the Sheriff, would be shown in a more sympathetic light. Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential) was brought on board to rewrite the script. Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare in Love) was hired later on to perform script polishing while on-set. The filmmakers settled on telling the origin story of a character who has no definitive origin story. Thus, Scott has stripped Robin Hood of nearly everything that makes him Robin Hood.

The names and places may be the same, but the romance between Robin and Marian is only just blossoming. Robin doesn’t live in Sherwood Forest yet and he only robs from the rich and gives to the poor once. The film does postulate an interesting premise in making Robin, who has always been portrayed as a nobleman, a humble peasant and conning his way into the higher classes. However, that subplot is dropped soon after. See, Robin never knew his real father, but Sir Walter conveniently knew Daddy Longstride and reveals all to him. Oh, and Robin’s father apparently came up with the Magna Carta.

Therein lays another weak point in the script, the uneven hodgepodge of historical fact and fiction. Real-life figures and events feel shoehorned into the legends and myths of Robin Hood. The movie maintains a self-serious tone which is completely undone during the climactic battle when the transport ships from Saving Private Ryan arrive. It only gets more ludicrous when Marian arrives in battle armor with an army of wild boys who look like they wandered off the set of Lord of the Flies.

Imagine going to see Batman Begins only to discover Bruce Wayne doesn’t don the Bat-costume until the final minute of the film. Robin Hood makes us sit through a 140 minute prologue that ends at the exact moment when it should have begun.

Rating: * ½

State of Play

State of Play - Dir. Kevin Macdonald (2009)

Just like Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic, State of Play was based on a BBC mini-series. Having not seen the origin British production, I can’t speculate as to how the American remake matches up to it. I will say that State of Play is a perfectly acceptable thriller that tries to evoke the themes of 70’s classics such as All the President’s Men with a hint of The Parallax View.

State of Play begins with a young African-American male with a history of drug problems and felonies being murdered in an alley late at night. The police probably would have let this one fade away if not for a bicyclist witnessing the shooting and also being killed. Cal McCaffrey (Russell Crowe) is the veteran reporter assigned to the case by the Washington Globe and his tough-as-nails editor Cameron Lynne (Helen Mirren). That very morning, Sonia Baker (Maria Thayer), the beautiful aide to Congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck) is killed in a supposed accident on a subway platform. Collins is a rising star in political circles as he heads an investigative committee looking into the inner workings of PointCorp, a private security firm and obvious stand-in for Blackwater. Young and handsome, he’s the type of TV-friendly politico that John F. Kennedy Jr. may have been if not for his premature death. Alas, Collins is more John Edwards than John John as it comes out he was having an affair with Baker. Robin Wright Penn plays Collins’ dutiful wife, Anne, who reluctantly chooses to stand by her man for the big press conferences.

McCaffrey was once Collins’ roommate in college and it’s hinted at that he also had an affair with Anne years ago. Lynne wants to use McCaffrey’s relationship with the tarnished congressman to assist in the story being written up by the Globe’s online blogger, Della Frye (Rachel McAdams). McCaffrey and Frye begin working together in an adversarial capacity. The elder journalist feels she is a glorified gossip monger and can’t stand that she has a high-tech laptop and doesn’t seem to own a pen. Eventually she takes on a mentor role and teaches her to get out from behind a desk and use old-fashioned legwork to get the scoop.

Though the film takes a uniquely American point-of-view to the proceedings, it is the Scottish Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland) who helms the picture. Macdonald is backed up by a script written up by a team of crackerjack screenwriters all of whom are well-equipped to handle these ripped-from-the-headlines, twisty turny story. Among those who contributed to the script include Matthew Michael Carnahan (The Kingdom, Lions For Lambs), Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton), Billy Ray (Breach, Shattered Glass), plus an uncredited rewrite from Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon). They manage to find some balance between the wealth of characters and subplots. There are a few bumps in the road that may take you by surprise and a few you can see coming. Perhaps, the weakest point in the film is the third act resolution which tries to fit in a few too many twists while wrapping all the dangling plotlines far too neatly.

The political scandals may make up the meat of the story, but the underlying themes of print versus online media are a far more fascinating aspect to State of Play. The clash between the old-school and the new-school. Further on point is the added effect of the economic slump to the financial viability of the newspaper. My local paper, the San Diego Union-Tribune, recently laid off just under 200 workers following similar layoffs last year. Filmmakers added an extra layer of resonance as we watch the latest headlines move through the massive printing press on its way to the public. If only there were a lame-legged newsie hawking copies on the local street corner, shouting ”Extry, extry.”

During early development, Brad Pitt and Edward Norton were attached to the roles of McCaffrey and Collins, respectively. We may not have gotten a Fight Club reunion, but Russell Crowe is more believable as the weary, slovenly McCaffrey than Pitt. It’s not a surprising role for Crowe following similar ones in American Gangster and Body of Lies. Affleck has the good looks for Collins, yet lacks the range of Norton to bring the character truly to life. Some of his line readings are flat. The best performances out of the A-list ensemble belong to supporting players Jason Bateman as a sleazy, drug-addled PR man and Jeff Daniels as an oily elder statesman.

State of Play isn’t the ingenious thriller the cast and crew had hoped it would be. It is, however, a popcorn film for those seeking something deeper than expensive CGI and loud explosions.

Rating: ***

Body of Lies

Body of Lies - Dir. Ridley Scott (2008)

Leonardo DiCaprio & Russell Crowe - 1, Terrorists - 0

In recent years, Hollywood has dealt with Post-9/11 America in films that were either overly didactic (Lions for Lambs, Rendition or politically tinged action flicks (The Kingdom. Body of Lies falls somewhere in the middle, tasting of that Bourne flavor, but going light on the action and the nauseating, shaky camera.

Adapted from the novel by William Monahan (The Departed, Body of Lies) is content to be a competently made production while failing to distinguish as a film that just has to be seen. All the earmarks of a modern spy thriller are present. The sky high satellite shots, intertitles with time & location, and double-crosses galore. A love story is tacked on because DiCaprio can’t possibly do the movie without a romantic interest. It does touch upon the unique tribulations of a Middle Eastern woman dating a Westerner, but adds nothing to the overall narrative.

Crowe puts on a fun performance along with an extra 40lbs. and a country fried accent for his role as DiCaprio’s superior. Mark Strong is the real star of the film as the head of Jordanian secret intelligence.

Rating: ** 1/2

3:10 To Yuma

3:10 To Yuma - Dir. James Mangold (2007)

Has none of the gritty realism of The Proposition or artsy existentialism of Seraphim Falls or The Assassination of Jesse James. But, that's just fine for this action-packed, gun-slinging affair.

The genre archetypes of hardened outlaw and emasculated frontiersman are dusted off and given a renewed lease on life.