The Lone Ranger

The Lone Ranger - Dir. Gore Verbinski (2013)

Nobody expected Pirates of the Caribbean to be a hit. It was a movie based on a ride at Disneyland. The star, Johnny Depp, was a respected actor, but not a box office draw. Plus, the last pirate movie to hit screens was the abysmal Cutthroat Island, a notorious flop that hastened the demise of Carolco, the production company responsible for Terminator 2 and Basic Instinct. Pirates was not only a triumph, it spawned one of the biggest money making franchises in movie history. Each of the three sequels is ranked in the top 20 of highest worldwide grosses, plus Depp received an Oscar nomination for his memorable portrayal of Capt. Jack Sparrow.

While Hollywood has produced several quality Westerns over the last several years (3:10 to Yuma, Django Unchained), it wasn't a genre considered to be a huge attraction. Disney was looking to change that perception with The Lone Ranger. They put the Pirates band back together including Depp, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, director Gore Verbinski, composer Hans Zimmer, and screenwriters Ted Elliot & Terry Rossio (with a rewrite by Justin Haythe).

The Lone Ranger and his faithful sidekick, Tonto, debuted on a 1933 radio drama, but his most popular incarnation is the ABC television series that aired from 1949 to 1957 with Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels in the lead roles. The least popular version would have to be The Legend of the Lone Ranger, a live-action film released in 1981 to capitalize on the success of the Superman movies. Legend was a critical and commercial failure and immediately sank the career of its star, Klinton Spilsbury, who never acted again. Spilsbury was no Christopher Reeve. He upset many crewmembers with his egotistical behavior, his drinking, and a mediocre performance that led producers to dub over his voice. Disney's Lone Ranger was also plagued with production woes. Filming was delayed due to the studio wanting to trim the bloated budget of $225 million. They cut it down to a mere $200 million. Not that it mattered because the picture wound up spending the difference and then some. Remember when Westerns didn't cost the GNP of a small country because all you needed was a horse, a desert, and a guy with a gun?

John Reid (Armie Hammer) returns to his dusty hometown of Colby, Texas after studying law back east. His brother, Dan (James Badge Dale), is a member of the Texas Rangers and Colby's primary lawman and is married to John's former girlfriend, Rebecca (Ruth Wilson). Progress is about to transform Colby into a vital hub thanks to the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad overseen by tycoon Latham Cole (Tom Wilkinson). The Reids and a team of Rangers set out into the desert to capture a recently escaped outlaw named Butch Cavendish (William Fichtner). An ambush by Cavendish and his gang leaves everyone dead, except for John who is rescued by Tonto (Depp), a Comanche on his own mission of vengeance.

Anything unique Verbinski and Depp had to say about the Western, they told it all in the delightfully quirky Rango. The Lone Ranger is painfully formulaic in spite of Verbinski quoting from the works of John Ford and Sergio Leone. He even throws in a visual reference to The Flight of the Red Balloon. The beautiful shots of Monument Valley aren't nearly enough to distract from a bloated runtime of nearly two and a half hours. Borrowing from Little Big Man, Verbinski employs a framing device in which an elderly Tonto, posing as a mannequin in a traveling sideshow, recounts his tale to a young boy. These sequences are one of many that attempt to deal with America's bloody history and the indignant treatment of Native Americans, along with Chinese rail workers. However, the movie never digs deeper into those topics because it is a Disney movie. Thus, we get a brutal scene where a Comanche tribe is massacred by machine gun fire that is completely undercut by Laurel & Hardy-style slapstick involving the Ranger and Tonto on a seesaw cart. There's no payoff to the sideshow scenes either. Too bad Sony has the rights to the Green Hornet, otherwise the kid could have been revealed to be Britt Reid, the Hornet's alter-ego and Dan's grand-nephew.

The tonal inconsistencies are a major problem beyond the failed blend of violence and humor. Throughout the picture, the Ranger is a source of derision in spite of the studio's desire to make him into a modern, bad-ass character. There's a constant mocking of the Ranger iconography with people asking, "What's with the mask," as a bad running joke. When the Ranger shouts his catchphrase, "Hi-yo, Silver! Away!," Tonto emphatically tells him to never do it again.

The Lone Ranger falls into the same trap of many origin stories in that the protagonist doesn't become the hero we know until the end. The final act is the best part of the movie with a pair of runaway trains on parallel tracks. It's the same type of outlandish set piece that the Pirates series did so well. The film is almost invigorated when the Ranger's theme, the William Tell Overture, finally kicks in and the masked man rides to the rescue of Rebecca, who is in full Perils of Pauline mode.

Although the movie is entitled, The Lone Ranger, Johnny Depp's Tonto is the obvious star. Depp tries to recapture the magic of Jack Sparrow with another idiosyncratic performance, but there isn't anything particularly memorable about his Tonto. The same goes for Armie Hammer, who was great in The Social Network, but is given nothing but the blandest material to work with. As brothel owner, Red Harrington, Helena Bonham Carter seems to have wandered off a Tim Burton set and is more than welcome though she could have been easily cut.

The Lone Ranger is an indulgent mess that failed to achieve a fraction of the success of the first Pirates movie. In the end, it will go down as another costly failure for Disney alongside Mars Needs Moms and John Carter.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol - Dir. Brad Bird (2011)

Tom Cruise is one of the biggest movie stars in the history of cinema. Yet, his reputation and box office clout have been tarnished by his bizarre behavior. The Tom Cruise publicity machine has been working overtime to restore his standing in the eyes of the public. Will a return to the mega-successful Mission: Impossible franchise rehabilitate Cruise's status? In my opinion, the man can jump on all the couches he wants as long as he keeps making films like Ghost Protocol.

The fourth Mission: Impossible opens with an exciting prison escape as Ethan Hunt (Cruise) breaks out of a Moscow gulag with help from IMF (Impossible Mission Force) agents Jane Carter (Paula Patton) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg). During his incarceration, another IMF member (Josh Holloway from "Lost") has been murdered while attempting to retrieve launch codes for the Russians' nuclear missiles. As it turns out, the codes have fallen into the hands of sultry French assassin, Sabine Moreau (Léa Seydoux), who is in the employ of Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), a Swedish-born scientist code-named Cobalt. Hendricks genuinely believes all-out nuclear war will benefit mankind in the long run, allowing only the strong to survive.

The IMF team infiltrates the Kremlin in order to retrieve information on Cobalt. Unfortunately, the enemy is several steps ahead as Hendricks alerts the security to IMF's presence, steals a launch device, blows up the Kremlin, and implicates Hunt's team as the culprits. Branded as terrorists, the entire IMF department has been disavowed by the U.S. government. On the run from Russian authorities, Ethan and his team must clear their names and prevent a nuclear holocaust. Joining them as their newest member is Brandt (Jeremy Renner), an intelligence analyst whose combat skills belie those of a mere paper pusher.

Mission: Impossible III took the franchise down a darker path in line with Casino Royale and the Bourne franchise. Ghost Protocol gleefully embraces the over-the-top elements of the spy genre. JJ Abrams, who directed the previous installment, has stayed on as producer and brought on board writers Josh Applebaum and André Nemec from his Alias days to pen the script. Their screenplay seems to have emerged from the 80's since it is packed to the gills with Cold War trappings. There are Russian antagonists, shady villains with generic foreign accents, and the looming threat of all-out nuclear war between the superpowers. The gadgets are all here too. The IMF utilizes high-tech gear such as a contact lens that can transmit visual data, a magnetic levitation suit, not to mention iPads and iPhones. The iconic masks are present as well. What would a Mission: Impossible movie be without a cool mask reveal? A running gag throughout the film is how the team's equipment always seems to malfunction at the most inopportune of times. Even the famous self-destructing message (hidden inside a payphone) needs a good bang to the side to get it started.

Each installment of the Mission: Impossible series has had a different director behind the camera employing his own trademark style. For Ghost Protocol, Tom Cruise went with an unlikely choice in Brad Bird, whose experience has solely been in animation. Bird has helmed The Iron Giant, Ratatouille, and The Incredibles. His skills have translated to live-action with rousing success. Bird has managed to create an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride in a way that not even action maestro John Woo, who directed Mission: Impossible II, could have. Ghost Protocol consists of one unique action sequence after another as Bird takes the audience on a globetrotting adventure from Budapest to Mumbai. You have a foot chase through a blinding sandstorm and a climactic fist fight in the middle of an automated parking garage. Without a doubt, the centerpiece of Ghost Protocol is a spectacular set piece involving Tom Cruise precariously scaling the outside of the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. It's an amazing stunt that Cruise insisted on doing himself. The sequence was also one of several that were shot in IMAX. Ghost Protocol features approximately thirty minutes of footage shot in the larger format and Bird makes the most of every frame, including the ones featuring the beautiful Paula Patton in a slinky evening gown.

Despite being 49, Cruise is as youthful as ever and slips right back into the role of Ethan Hunt with his usual exuberance. But, Cruise is smart enough to know when to step aside and allow his co-stars to share the spotlight. Indeed, Ghost Protocol is more about teamwork than its predecessors. Simon Pegg is easily one of the film's highlights with his trademark brand of comic relief. Jeremy Renner, who might be groomed to take over the franchise, is a welcome addition. While his castmates play it big, Renner underplays the role of Brandt and gives him a dry sense of humor. Also look for cameos from Tom Wilkinson as the head of IMF and Ving Rhames returning as Luther Stickell.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is the epitome of a well-made, big budget blockbuster. The law of diminishing returns is not in effect here as the fourth picture is far and away the best in the series. The extra surcharge is worth it for the IMAX version as Ghost Protocol is gorgeously shot and one of the most fun movie experiences of the year.

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

The Debt

The Debt - Dir. John Madden (2011)

The Debt is a slick Hollywood remake of a little seen Israeli film called Ha-Hov, which was released in 2007. A throwback to the Cold War thrillers of the 1970’s, The Debt follows the lives of three Mossad agents on a secret mission to apprehend a Nazi war criminal.

In 1965, David Peretz (Sam Worthington) and Stephan Gold (Marton Csokas) are deep undercover in East Berlin and tasked by Mossad with finding the fugitive Dieter Vogel (Jesper Christensen), whose sadistic human experiments earned him infamy as “The Surgeon of Birkenau.” Learning that Vogel has been living in anonymity as a gynecologist, they are joined by Rachel Singer (Jessica Chastain), a young translator on her first field mission. Posing as David’s wife, Singer visits Vogel’s office to capture him, but their plan to spirit him into West Berlin goes awry. Now, the agents are forced to hold up in a rundown flat with their sadistic prisoner.

In 1997, David, Stephan, and Rachel are now played by Ciaran Hinds, Tom Wilkinson, and Helen Mirren. All three are heralded as national heroes, despite the obvious emotional fallout. Rachel is singled out for killing Vogel when he tried to escape custody. Stephan married and divorced Rachel while rising to a high-ranking position within Mossad. David, meanwhile, has been traveling off the grid for years. The trio is supposed to be reunited in honor of the publication of a book about the mission by Rachel’s daughter. The celebration comes to a screeching halt when David finally resurfaces only to commit suicide by stepping in front of a truck.

The narrative progresses between two parallel storylines set in two time periods. The mystery of what really happened on that ill-fated mission slowly unravels piece by piece thanks to the workmanlike direction from John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) and the script by Peter Straughan (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) and the team of Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman (Stardust, Kick-Ass). The early scenes set in East Berlin are fraught with tension, especially the uneasy moments where Rachel must be examined by a man obviously inspired by real-life Nazi butcher Josef Mengele. The tension rises during a tightly crafted sequence at a train stop where the protagonists attempt to smuggle their prey across the border. When that fails, they are forced to guard Vogel in their flat until a contingency plan is put together. There, Vogel plays mind games with the nervous agents, taunting them and the loved ones they lost in the Holocaust. Exacerbating the already edgy Israelis is the simmering love triangle revolving around Rachel, David, and Stephan. It's obvious a romance would happen with Rachel being the sole woman between two lonely men.

However, The Debt loses its way in the third act with a resolution that stinks of the studio demanding an ending that wraps everything up in a neat, little bow. These final moments lack the power that the rest of the film had.

Rather than utilizing copious amounts of makeup, the filmmakers cast two sets of actors to play the younger and older characters. On the plus side, we don't have to deal with unconvincing putty jobs like the recently released J. Edgar. The drawback is making sure the actors resemble one another. While Jessica Chastain could pass for Helen Mirren, their male counterparts don't match up quite right. Marton Csokas actually looks more like a young Ciaran Hinds than he does a young Tom Wilkinson who could pass for an older Sam Worthington if you squint your eyes just right. Still, each man gives a good performance though the film is largely commanded by Chastain and the ever-regal Mirren. The omnipresent Chastain has broken through this year with acclaimed turns in arthouse titles like The Tree of Life and Take Shelter as well as the highly successful The Help. The Debt features another winning performance from Chastain as the vulnerable Rachel with Mirren adding an extra layer of weariness for her scenes. Jesper Christensen, best known as Mr. White in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, really ups the creepy factor as the movie's sneering and remorseless villain.

The Debt almost feels like a comment on Jewish guilt and self-loathing. While it's doubtful that was anybody's intention, those themes feel like their bubbling underneath the surface. The Debt is a slightly pedestrian, but competently made thriller that stands in the shadow of Steven Spielberg's far superior Munich.

Rating: ** (*****)

The Green Hornet

The Green Hornet - Dir. Michel Gondry (2011)

In the pantheon of superhero movies, The Green Hornet ranks above the atrocities known as Steel and Catwoman, but never reaches the heights of Iron Man. Therein lays the dilemma with The Green Hornet, it is a film that seems happy to remain in the middle of the pack, content with its own mediocrity.

The Green Hornet began life not as a comic book character, but as a 1936 radio serial created by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker, who also created The Lone Ranger. In fact, the Hornet was meant to be a direct descendent of the masked gunfighter. Perhaps, the most well-known incarnation of the emerald vigilante was a brief television series that aired on ABC from 1966 to 1967. That series starred Van Williams as the Green Hornet and introduced the world to Bruce Lee as the kung fu fighting sidekick, Kato.

A feature film version has been in development for nearly two decades with the property bouncing around from Universal to Miramax to Sony. George Clooney, during the early days of his fledgling movie career, was attached to star before making the fateful decision to film Batman & Robin instead. Both Jason Scott Lee (who ironically played Bruce Lee in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story) and Jet Li were attached as Kato at one point or another while the studio looked at Greg Kinnear and Mark Wahlberg as possibilities before landing in the hands of the Weinsteins. Kevin Smith was brought on to write and direct, but his version never came to fruition though his script eventually resurfaced as a comic book published by Dynamite Entertainment. This brings us to Seth Rogen and co-writer Evan Goldberg who are white hot following the success of Superbad. The duo surprisingly chooses The Green Hornet as a future project. Fanboys are skeptical about Rogen dipping his feet into the action realm, but perk up when Rogen's first choice for Kato is Stephen Chow. The star of Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle not only signs on to play the crimefighter chauffeur, but to direct as well. Sadly, Chow eventually parted ways due to the lack of creative control he was used to in the Hong Kong film industry. Michel Gondry (who was actually attached to direct back in 1997) is brought on board to replace him as director while Taiwanese pop star/actor Jay Chou is cast as the new Kato.

Rogen plays Britt Reid, the spoiled son of newspaper mogul, James Reid (Tom Wilkinson). Growing up under the harsh hand of his father, Reid has become the male equivalent of Paris Hilton, wasting his life away on an endless parade of parties, booze, and loose women. Everything changes when James dies due to a bee sting. Britt befriends Kato, who worked for his father as a mechanic and barista. Yep, this Kato not only kicks ass, but makes a mean cup of coffee too.

Britt and Kato bond over their mutual dislike for the elder Reid and engage in a night of debauchery and vandalism. They wind up saving a couple from an attack by a gang of hoodlums and decide to mask up as a pair of costumed vigilantes. Britt also hits on the idea to pose as villains in order to get closer to the criminals while preventing them from using innocents as bargaining chips. In his civilian guise, Britt uses his late-father's newspaper, the Daily Sentinel, to publicize the Green Hornet's exploits as he wrecks havoc across Los Angeles.

Though Gondry has proven to be an incredibly imaginative and playful filmmaker, The Green Hornet is Seth Rogen's show through and through. Flashes of Gondry's signature style emerge here and there, such as in clever split screen sequence that breaks into a cluttered mosaic of assassins hunting for the Hornet. Gondry's largest contribution to the film is the use of "Kato-Vision," taking the audience into the mind's eye of the Hornet's sidekick during his fight sequences. It isn't simply slow motion, but slow motion and fast motion simultaneously as Kato moves at lightning speed before the bad guys even have a chance to react. We see Kato zeroing in on critical attack points, charting out his strategy within a split second. Alas, these moments are fleeting as Green Hornet drudges along as a formulaic buddy comedy.

The joke has always been that Kato does most of the work and the movie plays into that. Kato is the ultimate fighting machine and he creates the team's entire arsenal, including a gas gun. The crown jewel is definitely the Black Beauty, '65 Chrysler Imperial tricked out with bulletproof windows, machine guns, and rocket launchers. Meanwhile, Britt Reid stumbles around throughout the film as an obnoxious doofus. All well and good if he goes through a character arc and learns to grow as a person. He doesn't and neither does Rogen grow as an actor. Yes, Rogen is a funny guy, but he continues to play the same frat boy man-child he has in previous pictures like Knocked Up and Pineapple Express.

The burden is left to Rogen's co-stars to carry the weight. Jay Chou isn't up to the task, however. As the silent straight man, he plays well against the glib Rogen, but his iffy English is painfully obvious when given any substantial dialogue. Chou delivers his line with wooden conviction and little screen presence. Cameron Diaz pops in as Lenore Case, Britt Reid's new secretary who is originally assigned from a temp agency. I'd love to know what temp agency sends you Cameron Diaz. Unlike most obligatory love interests, Lenore has little tolerance for Britt's horndog flirtations. In fact, she seems to be more intrigued by Kato, but that subplot never leads anywhere. She winds up being nothing more than a throwaway character, a far cry from Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts. Tom Wilkinson and Edward James Olmos (as the Perry White-esque editor are equally wasted in bit roles.

The biggest waste, without a doubt, is Christoph Waltz, still fresh off his Academy Award winning turn as Col. Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds. Here, Waltz is Chudnofsky, a gangster who has risen to control the entire underworld of L.A. His ruthlessness is matched only by his insecurities. He is constantly worried that other people don't find him scary enough. Chudnofsky also arms himself with a custom-made double barreled Desert Eagle. Waltz's brilliant portrayal of the Nazi officer was helped by Quentin Tarantino's amazing script. He truly sunk his teeth into the role, but Rogen and Goldberg are unable to offer anything as meaty. Aside from an early scene opposite an uncredited James Franco, Waltz is never given the proper material to create something more than a run-of-the-mill villain.

Once slated as a summer tentpole film, The Green Hornet was pushed back to a holiday release before quietly being scuttled off into the doldrums of January. Despite Gondry's best efforts, his unique visual style is crushed underneath the heel of committee filmmaking and Rogen's unconvincing attempt at playing the action hero. While the film is hardly the stinker many predicted, the final product is ultimately generic and forgettable.

The Green Hornet was pointlessly converted to 3D in post-production. It looks better than the hackjobs of previous conversions like Clash of the Titans and The Last Airbender, but the 3D adds nothing to the experience.

Rating: ** (*****)

44 Inch Chest

44 Inch Chest - Dir. Malcolm Venville (2009)


Don’t take the title of this film the wrong way. 44 Inch Chest is not about a buxom starlet by the name of Chesty Larue or Hootie McBoob. No, this film is all about men. Manly men. Manly men who speak with British accents. That’s how you know someone is a badass when they speak with a tough British accent.

44 Inch Chest comes to us from director Malcolm Venville and screenwriters Louis Mellis and David Scinto who penned the amazing gangster pic Sexy Beast. That film gave us Ben Kingsley in his anti-Gandhi performance as a maniacal criminal who refuses to take no for an answer. Kingsley isn’t anywhere to be found, but Ray Winstone is back with an all-star collection of English hard men. You’ve got Ian McShane, John Hurt, Tom Wilkinson, and Stephen Dillane. Prepare to choke on the testosterone.

Chest opens stylishly and succinctly sets the tone for the rest of the picture with Winstone as Colin Diamond laying nearly-catatonic amidst the wreckage that was once his home. Harry Nilsson’s cover of Badfinger’s “Without You” plays on a loop. Colin’s wife, Liz (Joanne Whalley), has dropped a bombshell on him. She doesn’t love him anymore and is leaving him for another man.

He returns home from work when his wife, Liz (Joanne Whalley), drops a bombshell on him. She’s no longer in love with Colin and she’s leaving him for another man. Colin runs a gamut of emotions from despair to remorse to anger. From there, he does what any man would do. Colin rounds up a group of his buddies to abduct the man having an affair with his wife. Archie (Wilkinson) is the most level-headed of the bunch, a nice guy who still lives with his mother. Archie’s polar opposite is Peanut (John Hurt), a misogynistic and homophobic septuagenarian on a constant conniption fit. Playing as a foil to Peanut is Meredith (McShane), an ultra-sophisticated and gay gambler. Finally, there’s the suave Mal (Dillane) who may or may not have had his own fling with Liz.

The unfortunate individual that is the target of Colin’s hatred is a hunk of beefcake only referred to as Loverboy (Melvil Poupaud). He never says a single word in the movie, but he’s young, handsome, and, dear lord, he’s French. The gang has Loverboy locked up in a wardrobe before tying him up to a chair where he’s subjected to verbal and physical abuse.

That’s the loose summary of the plot. The main narrative is broken up with various flashbacks and fantasy sequences. The most bizarre and disturbing moment has to be seeing John Hurt’s head on Joanne Whalley’s body. Another wonderful sequence finds Meredith smoothly recounting a winning night at the casino. The dialogue is one of the highlights of the film. Everyone speaks with hard R words that sound like David Mamet filtered through Harold Pinter.

The title evokes images of men bowing up with their chests puffed out. For Colin, it’s all about regaining his manhood after the utterly emasculating dissolution of his marriage. Each of the friends he’s gathered seems to represent different aspects of his psyche. Some cool and collected others hot-headed. However, much of the male bravado is a showy falsehood. Never is this more evident than in Peanut whose bark is far worse than his bite. The façade shatters when Peanut launches into another of his profanity-laced tirades and his dentures drop out of his mouth.

Let us not forget the woman at the center of all the controversy. Joanne Whalley looks exceptionally gorgeous in this film. Surrounded by wafting cigarette smoke and clad in a slinky, black dress, she looks like the femme fatale out of a classic film noir.

44 Inch Chest is a mixed bag. The dialogue is sharp and the acting is excellent with McShane and Hurt being particularly entertaining. However, Chest can’t shake the feeling of being little more than a play in front of the cameras. The script also feels a little light then padded out to be feature length.

Rating: ** ½

The Ghost Writer

The Ghost Writer - Dir. Roman Polanski (2010)


Two of the masters of film tried their hands at the thriller genre at the beginning of 2010. While Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island was undone by an M. Night Shyamalan style twist ending, Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer offers no such tricks. Based on the novel by Robert Harris, it relies on a strong cast of actors and old-fashioned storytelling.

Ewan McGregor stars as an unnamed ghost writer who is only referred to as The Ghost in credits. The Ghost lands a lucrative job handling the autobiography of former British Prime Minister, Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan). The Ghost’s predecessor was Lang’s long-time aide whose body was found washed ashore. In addition, Lang is accused of abducting two British citizens suspected of being terrorists and handing them over to the CIA for torture. The Ghost digs deeper into the mysterious death as well as the accusations leveled against Lang.

The allusions to today’s political landscape are obvious and sometimes hammered home too hard. Lang, played with a fierce bluster by Brosnan, is loosely based on Tony Blair with just a dash of Bill Clinton thrown in for good measure. Lang is having an affair with his assistant Amelia Bly (Kim Cattrall) while his dutiful wife, Ruth (Olivia Williams) steadfastly stands by his side in public. He is portrayed as a glorified lackey to the American government with shady ties to a military-industrial conglomerate known as Hatherton. About as subtle as calling them Schmalliburton, I suppose.

Polanski instills a cold and sullen mood to the The Ghost Writer. The majority of the film is set in Martha’s Vineyard and there is a constant gloomy overcast, about as gloomy as the specter of scandal and death hanging over everyone’s head. Lang’s retreat is just as cold. It is an angular, ultra-modern hideaway ironically laden with expansive glass windows looking over the island coast.

The final verdict on The Ghost Writer hinges not on any on-screen happenings, but in Polanski’s own personal proclivities. While I certainly have no problem with separating the personal with the professional, it’s difficult to do so when it’s rubbed right in your face. Much of the story involves the International Criminal Court attempting to prosecute Lang as a war criminal. Lang must choose between fighting the charges in his native England and staying in America where he will not be extradited. If you know anything about Polanski, the parallels need no explanation. The subtext boils to an uneasy conclusion in which the accused is laid blameless and the fault is laid firmly at the feet of a woman.

Rating: **

Duplicity

Duplicity - Dir. Tony Gilroy (2009)


Michael Clayton was on my top ten list of best films for 2007. It’s a movie that gets better with each viewing. I was looking forward to writer/director Tony Gilroy’s follow-up though I was taken aback by the first trailer. I thought it was going to be a dark thriller cut from the same cloth as Clayton, instead it was a frothy Ocean’s Eleven-type film. Duplicity is part romantic comedy, part heist film and tries to be a little too clever for its own good.

Clive Owen is MI-6 agent, Ray Koval, who picks up a beautiful woman at the US Consulate in Dubai. That woman turns out to be Claire Stenwick, a CIA agent who drugs Ray and steals secret documents from him. They run into each other years later, now working on rival sides of a corporate espionage death match. Claire works for Burkett-Randall, headed up by CEO Howard Tully (Tom Wilkinson), while Ray is part of a security team for Equikrom under the auspices of CEO Richard Garsik (Paul Giamatti). Both corporations have been trying to steal sensitive information for each other and it only intensifies when Tully announces he is ready to roll out a revolutionary new product. We learn Claire is actually working as a mole for Equikrom and, not only that, she and Ray are looking to double-cross everybody to cash in on the secret product for themselves. That’s only the beginning of the twists and turns of Duplicity.

I’m all for twisty storylines as long as they are properly set up and make sense. Gilroy doesn’t so much set us up as he drops the twists right into our laps. It’s difficult to become invested in the plot when the rug keeps getting pulled from under us. The true appeal of the film is watching the movie stars act like movie stars. Clive Owen is always in a well-tailored suit and Julia Roberts (at 41) looks the best in her career and shows cleavage on an Erin Brockovich level. They meet each other for clandestine affairs in Rome, the Bahamas, and even Cleveland (where Owen has a funny dialogue about frozen pizza). Gilroy goes for a classic Hollywood feel to their relationship, something on par with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. Though they have chemistry, they aren’t lighting up the screen as much as you’d want.

Duplicity begins on a high note with some clever use of split-screens and a slow motion slap fest between Wilkinson and Giamatti. The rest of the film doesn’t live up to the promise shown by the excellent opening sequences. It’s worth a rent if you’re in the mood for some lightweight fluff.

Rating: ** 1/2

Valkyrie

Valkyrie - Dir. Bryan Singer (2008)


The fall of 2008 is a great time to be a Nazi, cinema-wise. There’s been a wealth of releases dealing with World War II and Hitler’s Fourth Reich. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Adam Resurrected, The Reader, Good, and Defiance, but the biggest, high profile production has to be the Tom Cruise vehicle Valkyrie. Cruise dons an eyepatch as Col. Claus von Stauffenberg who lost his left eye, right hand, several fingers on his left hand during a campaign in North Africa. Already disillusioned with his Fuhrer and the atrocities committed by the SS, Col. Stauffenberg joins with a secret cadre of similarly disenchanted officers and politicians in a plot to assassinate Hitler. The conspirators plan to take Adolf out with a bomb planted at his headquarters, the Wolf’s Lair. However, the true problem that hadn’t been addressed in previous attempts is what to do afterwards. It is Stauffenberg that hatches the idea to use the reserve army to secure Berlin and arrest members of the SS in order to finalize their coup.

You don’t need to be a history buff to know their plan fails. It’s a testament to the filmmakers that they were able to keep the suspense. Director Bryan Singer is used to working with ensemble casts that might be unwieldy in other hands. Here, he re-teams with his Usual Suspects screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie and co-writer Nathan Alexander. Valkyrie doesn’t deal with the deeper issues of war and the concentration camps are only mentioned once throughout the entire film. This is slick Hollywood filmmaking at it’s finest, a stripped down Mission: Impossible without all the gadgets and stunts.

As the lead, Tom Cruise isn’t as terrible as most people assumed. He’s not spectacular, but he’s perfectly adequate, if a tad too American. Luckily for Maverick, he’s got plenty of back-up in the form of an A-list supporting cast of some of the finest actors working today. And best of all, they’re British. Who else can lend credibility and gravitas to a film than an Englishman? Even Hitler is played, quite convincingly, by a British actor (David Bamber). There’s also Kenneth Branagh as Major-Gen. Tresckow who brought Stauffenberg into his circle after failing to kill Hitler with a booby trapped champagne bottle. We’ve got the always excellent Tom Wilkinson as Gen. Fromm who seems content with sitting back and seeing where the chips fall, Terence Stamp as one of the head conspirators, and rounding out the heroes are Bill Nighy and Eddie Izzard in a rare (but great) dramatic role. So that’s Ethan Hunt, Prof. Gilderoy Lockhart, General Zod, Carmine Falcone, Davy Jones, and one of the Disco Boys. How did Hitler survive against those odds?

No one speaks in a German accent by the way as Singer chose to allow his actors to speak with their natural voices. The odd amalgamation of American, British, and German accents is fairly distracting at first, but the story is engrossing enough that you forget all about it.

Cruise’s off-screen shenanigans unfairly soured the film long before it was released. The picture also suffered from several delays and reshoots partly due to film stock being destroyed. Again, that led to some negative buzz which was unfounded. Valkyrie won’t find its way onto any year-end lists, but it’s a good, popcorn thriller.

Rating; ***

RocknRolla

RocknRolla - Dir. Guy Ritchie (2008)


The well may have run dry, but that hasn’t stopped Ritchie from dipping into it once more. Thrust yet again into the London underworld, we are introduced to an ensemble of ruthless gangsters and incompetent crooks. There’s an overly complicated real estate scam, stolen cash, a stolen painting, and the search for a drugged out rock star.

Ritchie has been reluctant to grow as a filmmaker ever since making his big splash on the Post-Tarantino cinematic landscape with Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. He’s essentially remade the same film three times. Then again, when he did try to stretch his directing muscles, he made the universally reviled Swept Away.

With RocknRolla, the former Mr. Madonna’s flaws show more and more. MTV style editing and fancy camera tricks act as feints for otherwise bland sequences. Ritchie stuffs his script with far too many subplots and characters in a vain attempt to bolster his page count. The only way to distinguish any of those characters is by arbitrarily goofy nicknames like One Two, Mumbles, and Johnny Quid. It won’t be by their well-rounded personalities since they have none.

To Ritchie’s credit, he still manages to collect a wealth of talented actors to play his cartoonish characters. Not all of them are properly utilized, the usually entertaining Jeremy Piven turns in a bland performance, for example. As one of the hottest accountants in the world, Thandie Newton displays a sexy cool that might be the closest we’ll ever get to a gangland Audrey Hepburn. I also enjoyed Mark Strong’s (also great in Body of Lies and Stardust) excellent turn as our narrator and the right-hand man of Lenny Cole played to perfection by Tom Wilkinson (”There’s no school like the old school.”).

Rating: **

Cassandra's Dream

Cassandra's Dream - Dir. Woody Allen (2008)

Desperate for money, 2 brothers commit murder-for-hire.

Strong performances not enough to elevate this maudlin & mediocre morality play.

Poor man's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.