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: *** (*****)

Non-Stop

Non-Stop - Dir. Jaume Collet-Serra (2014)

"If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it…But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you."

"I'm Martin Harris…I didn't forget everything."

"I'm not hijacking this plane. I'm trying to save it!"

Despite entering into his 60's, Liam Neeson has remade himself into one of Hollywood's premier action heroes. Standing at 6'4, Neeson certainly possesses the physicality needed to be a believable ass kicking machine. Years of dramatic experience has given him the credibility and gravitas that many of his compatriots lack. He'll need every bit of those talents for Non-Stop, a movie every bit as ridiculous as Neeson's last couple efforts Unknown and Taken 2.

Neeson is Bill Marks, a Federal Air Marshal who has descended into alcoholism following the death of his daughter and the dissolution of his marriage. Marks is in the last place he wants to be, a non-stop international flight from New York to London. Things only get worse when he receives a threatening text message that someone on the plane will die every twenty minutes unless $150 million is transferred to their account. The mysterious mastermind has it all figured out to the point that for every step Marks takes to protect the passengers, the more it looks like he is the one hijacking the flight.

The screenplay, credited to John W. Richardson, Chris Roach, and Ryan Engle, is filled with plot twists, each one more unbelievable than the rest. In spite of all the plot holes and logic gaps, Non-Stop never experiences explosive decompression as director Jaume Collet-Serra (who previously teamed with Neeson on Unknown) knows how to ratchet up the tension. Collet-Serra frames his close-ups and medium shots to accentuate the claustrophobic feel of being trapped in a flying metal tube. Text messages appear as pop-up graphics to ensure the audience isn't just watching people stare at their phones. The action is perfectly adequate with Neeson bulldozing through opponents with the same martial arts blows he's previously employed. He doesn't leap into the air while firing two guns at once, but he does fly through the air and catches a gun as the plane rapidly descends.

This is a finely tuned whodunit and there is no shortage of suspects. The filmmakers wisely filled the supporting cast with tremendous ensemble and no single person stands out as the obvious villain. There's Julianne Moore as a friendly frequent flyer, Corey Stoll from House of Cards as an NYPD officer, Nate Parker as a tech expert, Scoot McNairy as a school teacher on his way to Amsterdam, Anson Mount as a fellow air marshal, supermodel Bar Paly, and Linus Roache as the captain. Plus, you have Downton Abbey's Michelle Dockery fame and recent Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong'o as flight attendants though the latter only gets a handful of lines. Top it all off with a freckle faced little girl to really lay it on thick.

Non-Stop isn't exactly thought provoking cinema. It is an entertaining action flick and if you've enjoyed Liam Neeson's other offerings, this is an easy recommend.

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

Promised Land

Promised Land - Dir. Gus Van Sant (2012)

Socially conscious dramas have long been a staple of Hollywood. Promised Land, written by stars Matt Damon and John Krasinski, is certainly attempting to evoke the classic works of Frank Capra along with Bill Forsyth's Local Hero. The movie touches upon several hot button topics, but primarily focuses on hydraulic fracturing or "fracking," the controversial process of mining natural gas from underground rock layers.

Steve Butler (Damon) is a top sales rep for Global Crosspower Solutions and in line for a promotion to VP of Land Management. Before settling into a cushy office gig, Steve's superiors task him with securing the drilling rights in McKinley, a small farming community hit with hard times. Butler feels he is the right man for the job because he grew up on a farm in Iowa, which went into a downward spiral following the closure of the local Caterpillar plant. Butler and his partner Sue Thomason (Frances McDormand) have their entire strategy mapped out, including driving into town in a weathered pick-up truck and dressing in down-to-earth denim. Many of the locals have been anxiously awaiting their arrival others are easily swayed with the promise of lucrative payouts and improved schools.

Everything seems to be in the bag for Global Crosspower until a low-key town meeting at the high school gym. Frank Yates (Hal Holbrook), a former engineer turned high school science teacher, raises his concerns that the fracking could contaminate the town's water and soil. Soon, Dustin Noble (Krasinski), a fervent environmentalist, arrives with evidence that Global caused irreparable damage to his farm in Nebraska.

Though they try their best to be even-handed, it's clear Damon and Krasinski are strongly opposed to fracking. Damon's beliefs were strong enough that he initially planned to direct Promised Land, before handing the reins to his Good Will Hunting director Gus Van Sant. Van Sant handles the film with a gentle hand and captures the beauty of the rural landscape with a solemn tone. The acoustic folk rock and ethereal score by Danny Elfman add to the old fashioned atmosphere. A montage of life in McKinley acts as a forlorn tribute to the heartland of America, which has been hit hard by the economic crisis. One character bluntly raises the fact that there are no drills in Manhattan and the gas company has arrived solely because they are poor and desperate.

Damon and Krasinski forget a few basic rules of screenwriting. Rather than tell a good story and allow their message to flow forth naturally, they hammer home their ideology on the shaky back of an inconsistent script. Steve Butler is meant to be a confident hotshot, yet he's completely thrown off his game by the sudden opposition of Yates and Noble. You'd think he had enough experience to deal with any arguments in an intelligent manner without throwing a tantrum. A vital twist in the third act is too convenient and hackneyed not to induce eye rolling.

Credit goes to the stellar cast for preventing the film from falling further into ham-handed moralizing. Damon and McDormand turn in fine performances in spite of their underwritten characters. Old pro Hal Holbrook lends an extra layer of gravitas to every one of his scenes. Rosemarie DeWitt is also terrific as an elementary school teacher being romanced by Butler and Noble. She's made a habit of these strong supporting roles in good (My Sister's Sister) or bad (The Watch, The Company Men) flicks. Titus Welliver has a quiet turn as the owner of the wonderfully named "Rob's Guns, Groceries, Guitars, and Gas," who has amorous intentions towards Sue.

The art of cinema can be educating and entertaining, but Promised Land fails on both accounts. Mary Poppins always said a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. In this case, you'll leave with nothing more than a sour taste in your mouth.

Rating: ** (*****)

Killing Them Softly

Killing Them Softly - Dir. Andrew Dominik (2012)

"You ever kill anyone? They get touchy-feely, emotional, a lot of fuss. They either plead or beg. They call for their mothers. I like to kill 'em softly…from a distance."

As the old saying goes, "Never judge a book by its cover." So it goes with Killing Them Softly, a film seemingly depicted by the trailers as an action-packed crime thriller. Comparing it to a John Woo movie, would be like comparing Drive to The Fast and the Furious. Killing Them Softly is arthouse noir masquerading as typical multiplex fare.

Killing Them Softly is written and directed by Andrew Dominik whose previous film was The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, a hauntingly beautiful picture that had more in common with Terrence Malick than the average shoot 'em up Western. Dominik's latest work is based on the 1974 novel, Cogan's Trade, by George V. Higgins, who stands alongside Dennis Lehane as one of the preeminent authors of Boston crime fiction. The only other book by Higgins that has been translated to cinema is The Friends of Eddie Coyle, a cult classic of gritty 70's cinema with Robert Mitchum perfectly cast in the title role of a low-level crook forced to turn informant to avoid prison.

The stylish dialogue remains largely intact, but Dominik has moved the story to a post-Katrina New Orleans in 2008. Obama, Bush, and John McCain serve as a Greek chorus as excerpts of their speeches about the financial collapse, the massive bailouts, and the murky future of the country play throughout the movie. Dominik sets the stage with a jarring opening as audio of then-Senator Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention is intercut with distorted feedback. A lone figure walks through the desolate streets as litter floats around him. The final images are side-by-side billboards of the presidential candidates and their photogenic smiles as they survey the ruined kingdom they hope will be their prize. It's a prologue that feels ripped out of an experimental film.

From there, Killing Them Softly cuts to a more conventional scene as Johnny Amato aka Squirrel (Vincent Curatola) hires two crooks, Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and his drug-addled friend Russell (Ben Mendelsohn), to knock over a high-stakes poker game for mobsters. The clandestine games are run by Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta), who actually robbed one of his games years ago. No one could prove he did it though he later drunkenly bragged about pulling the job, yet his bosses still gave him a pass. Johnny knows that if the game is robbed again, it will be Markie who falls immediately under suspicion. This is where Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt) enters the story (after almost half an hour) in grand fashion, snorting cigarette smoke and driving a classic town car to the tune of "The Man Comes Around" by Johnny Cash. Cogan is hired to track down the thieves and deal with them in his own indomitable manner.

Dominik incessantly hammers home the idea that the entire film is a parable for the economic crisis and that there is little difference between the financial sector and organized crime. The heads of the mafia are never seen and only represented by Richard Jenkins as a middle management suit exasperated by the corporate structure he's entrenched in. Only in this corporate structure could Trattman be allowed to steal from his own company and be placed in a position where he could do so again. Cogan himself is surrounded by incompetent underlings and indecisive superiors. They move about in a world where everyone makes their money by gambling, stealing, and scamming from one another. It's a world where loyalty is an inconvenience when it comes to saving your own ass. It's a thoroughly masculine world too with the only female character in the movie being a prostitute.

Then, there's New York Mickey (James Gandolfini) who could be seen as a thinly veiled representation of the SEC or any other ineffectual watchdog committee. Mickey is a renowned enforcer brought in by Cogan to assist in the murder of Johnny Amato. Much to Cogan's dismay, Mickey has become a bitter shell of his former self. Mickey drowns his self-pity with booze and hookers as he bemoans his shattered marriage and an impending prison sentence.

Buried underneath the ham-fisted political rhetoric is a compelling film yearning to breathe. The dialogue crackles and the performances are strong. Pitt moves across the screen with an effortless swagger wrapped in a black leather coat. The scenes he shares with Gandolfini are some of the best in the movie though they could have been excised entirely with no impact to the rest of the narrative. They exist as if they were separate one-act plays written by David Mamet. Gandolfini initially turned the part down due to its similarities to Tony Soprano. Gandolfini isn't the only one typecast as a gangster, there's also Ray Liotta and Vincent Curatola, another Sopranos alum. You can easily see Soprano, Henry Hill, and Johnny Sack slowly turning into these pathetic wrecks. However, their roles feel short changed, not surprising since Dominik edited the picture from an early two and a half hour cut to 97 minutes. One supporting standout is Ben Mendelsohn, an Aussie actor used to portraying scumbags. He recently popped up as a ruthless executive in The Dark Knight Rises, but first gained notice as the psychotic Pope in Animal Kingdom. As Russell, Mendelsohn is the definition of sleazy so much so you'll want to take a shower after watching him. He's constantly caked in a layer of sweat and dresses like a disheveled hobo. Sam Shepard appears in one scene as an enforcer named Dillon, who was superbly played by Peter Boyle in the aforementioned Friends of Eddie Coyle.

Anyone who has seen Assassination of Jesse James knows Dominik is capable of crafting gorgeous imagery. Killing Them Softly is no exception as Dominik stages sequences that are both poetic and violent. There's a brutal beatdown soaked in rain, blood, and vomit. Later, a shooting occurs in slow motion as a bullet exits a man's skull as beads of water and broken glass swim in a sea of crimson red. When Russell does heroin, Dominik uses a trippy first person perspective reminiscent of Gaspar Noé's interminable Enter the Void. The soundtrack selection is just as on the nose as Dominik's message with "Heroin" by Velvet Underground scoring the scene and Barrett Strong's "Money (That's What I Want)" over the end credits.

"I'm living in America and in America you're on your own. America's not a country, it's a business. Now fuckin' pay me."

That final line, delivered by Pitt as a cynical response to Obama's hopeful inaugural address, encapsulates Dominik's themes more succinctly than the heavy handed method he employs. It may be amusing to imagine a criminal underworld that subsists solely on a steady stream of C-SPAN and NPR, Killing Them Softly would have been better served with the same distanced approach used by its protagonist.

Rating: ** ½ (*****)