Jack Reacher

Jack Reacher - Dir. Christopher McQuarrie (2012)

"Do you think I'm a hero? I am not a hero. And if you're smart, that scares you."

Even without the tragic headlines still fresh in our minds, the opening of Jack Reacher is a tense and disturbing sequence as a sniper primes himself across from PNC Park, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates. We peer through the crosshairs of his rifle scope as the shooter picks off five targets, including a woman clutching a child while fleeing for safety. The investigation is swift and a retired Army sniper named James Barr (Joseph Sikora) is apprehended. During his interrogation by D.A. Alex Rodin (Richard Jenkins) and Det. Emerson (David Oyelowo), Barr remains silent and simply writes on a legal pad, "Get Jack Reacher."

Reacher (Tom Cruise) is a hard man to find. A decorated soldier and a former military investigator, Reacher has dropped off the grid completely. He drifts across the country with only the clothes on his back and a portable toothbrush in his pocket. He's so old-school that he still uses pay phones. You don't find Jack Reacher, Jack Reacher finds you. Reacher is familiar with Barr from a previous case and doesn't arrive as a savior crusading for his innocence, but to ensure he is properly punished for his crime. Despite the pleas of Barr's defense attorney, Helen Rodin (Rosamund Pike), who also happens to be the district attorney's daughter, Reacher is ready to take the first bus out of town.

However, something bothers Reacher about the murders and he sticks around. As he digs deeper, Reacher unravels a dark conspiracy involving a clandestine cartel headed up by a man known only as The Zec (Werner Herzog). The Zec is a chilling puppet master who chewed off his own frostbitten fingers while imprisoned in a Siberian gulag.

There was immediate controversy when Tom Cruise was cast as Jack Reacher, the hero from a series of novels by Lee Child. In the books, Reacher is described as a craggily 6'5 juggernaut with shortly cropped blond hair. He's John Rambo, Sherlock Holmes, and the entire A-Team rolled into one. Imagine everyone's surprise when the 5'7 Cruise stepped into his large shoes. There are moments where Tom Cruise's…well, Tom Cruise-ness works for and against his portrayal of a no-nonsense action hero.

It's rare to find someone physically imposing with the acting chops to kick start a blockbuster franchise. The filmmakers could have gone for someone like Dolph Lundgren or The Rock, both of whom likely would have given a one note performance. Liam Neeson might have done in a pinch or Ray Stevenson. A younger Clint Eastwood could have also been a good choice, especially since the sniper angle is reminiscent of Dirty Harry. In any event, Cruise won the role and had the clout to get it made. At 50 years old, Cruise doesn't look like he's aged in the past two decades. Not an easy task to picture the exceedingly handsome star as a world weary combat veteran who shops at Goodwill. It doesn't help that Cruise's leading lady, Rosamund Pike, is taller than he is.

What Cruise does possess is a grim determination and a forceful screen presence. He may not be playing Jack Reacher any differently than Ethan Hunt or John Anderton, but he's convincing when delivering tough guy lines, such as when he threatens to beat someone to death and drink their blood from a boot. Cruise's Reacher isn't the guy you don't want to mess with, he's the guy you mess with and realize what a mistake that was. Cruise's small stature leads to one of the movie's cleverest sequences in which Reacher evades the police by simply stepping into a crowd waiting at a bus stop.

Jack Reacher was adapted for the screen by Christopher McQuarrie, best known for writing The Usual Suspects. This is his second directorial effort with the first being 2000's Way of the Gun. Handsomely photographed by Caleb Deschanel, Jack Reacher is an old-fashioned action film with McQuarrie eschewing the rapid-fire editing employed by many directors. The fight scenes are captured with a steady camera and a series of extended shots with Cruise performing the majority of his own stunts. There's a climatic confrontation in a quarry as well as a prolonged car chase, a throwback to Bullitt with Cruise ripping through the streets of Pittsburgh in a '70 Chevelle.

The script takes a by-the-numbers approach to the genre and though Cruise is miscast, he handles the material well. What really boosts the film is the inspired casting of German auteur Werner Herzog as the Zec. Despite being on screen for maybe ten minutes, Herzog is one of the most memorable movie villains in recent memory. He is downright eerie as he drones on in that unmistakable drawl of his. The plot centers on a needlessly complex obfuscation, but Herzog is so creepy you're quick to believe his mind works on such byzantine levels. Robert Duvall is also terrific when he pops up in the third act playing a crusty coot as only Robert Duvall can.

Jack Reacher is a rather generic start to a potential franchise for Tom Cruise and Paramount. Still, the movie stands as a solid bit of popcorn entertainment with several well done action sequences. Herzog and Duvall are certainly worth the price of admission.

Rating: ** ½ (*****)

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done - Dir. Werner Herzog (2010)


Lynch and Herzog. Herzog and Lynch. It's a titanic team-up of epic proportions not seen since Superman and Batman first joined forces in Superman #76 back in 1954. David Lynch serves as executive producer on My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done with Werner Herzog as director and co-writer with Herbert Golder.

My Son, My Son was loosely based on the case of Mark Yavorsky, a San Diego man who murdered his mother in 1979. Yavorsky was a stand out basketball player and grad student studying drama at UCSD. At the time, he was starring in a staging of Sophocles’ Greek tragedy, Electra, as Orestes who would murder his mother, Electra, in revenge for killing his father, Agamemnon. Ironically, Yavorsky would do the same, running repeatedly stabbing his mother with an antique sword.

Michael Shannon plays Yavorsky analogue, Brad McCallum, a deeply disturbed individual who still lived at home with his doting mother (Grace Zabriskie). One morning, he walked into his neighbor's house, where mom had taken shelter, and murdered her. Detective Hank Havenhurst (Willem Dafoe) and his younger partner Detective Vargas (Michael Pena) are called to the scene. Brad has barricaded himself in his home, brandishing a shotgun, and claiming to have two hostages. The police are soon joined by Brad's fiancée, Ingrid (Chloe Sevigny), and theatrical director Lee Meyers (Udo Kier), who worked with Ingrid and Brad on a production of The Oresteia.

Together, they reveal Brad's erratic behavior since his return from a disastrous whitewater rafting trip in Peru. His companions were killed by the violent rapids, but Brad escaped when he voice told him not to go. Brad claims to see God in the face of the Quaker Oats oatmeal guy. He vows to buy a home on the moon for Ingrid. His mantra of "Razzle dazzle" becomes eerily reminiscent of Charles Manson and "Helter skelter."

My Son, My Son is as much a straight hostage drama as Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call was a straight crime thriller. This is never more evident than in the moment when the police examine the crime scene. Don't expect exciting the use of high-tech equipment or the discovery of DNA evidence ala CSI. No, the detectives break out tape measures to log in the exact locations of coffee cups on a table. You can also see the unique flourishes of both Lynch and Herzog throughout the picture.

As Lynch did was Blue Velvet, Herzog examines the dark underbelly of idyllic suburbia. The film was shot on location in the actual neighborhood of Point Loma where Yavorsky lived and committed his crime of matricide. It is a completely nondescript area made all the more surreal with the usage of pink and flamingoes as a recurring theme. McCallum has two flamingos as pets and has decorated his garage door with a pastel colored mural of flamingos. Pink dinnerware and other similarly colored items are present during a luncheon with McCallum, his mother, and Ingrid. When mom serves oh so American dessert of Jell-O, the participants freeze in place, creating the Bizarro version of a Norman Rockwell painting. Herzog uses this pseudo-freeze frame again in a scene where McCallum and his bigoted uncle (Brad Dourif) pose in the foreground of a snow-capped forest as a dwarf in a tuxedo stands between them in the background. I don't really know what's going on, but there is an unsettling beauty to Herzog's impromptu tableaus.

By the way, the uncle is an ostrich farmer. It seems gangly, long-legged birds are Herzog's current fascination in the way he fixated on iguanas and gators in Bad Lieutenant.

Long-time character actor Michael Shannon gives another stellar performance as the unhinged McCallum. His booming voice and wild-eyed intensity make you really believe he's completely off his nut. Shannon has been moving further and further into the forefront recently with his Oscar nominated role in Revolution Road and excellent turns in films like Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Shotgun Stories, and The Runaways. If there's any justice in the world, Shannon will have the career longevity of Christopher Walken. Shannon is joined by Brad Dourif and Udo Kier, making My Son, My Son, a sort-of character actor heaven for cinephiles.

Lynch veteran, Gracie Zabriskie (Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks), doesn't have many lines in the film, but she doesn't need them. With only the simple act of arched eyebrow, Zabriskie manages to speak in volumes through her severe features and facial expressions. Her Big Love co-star, Chloe Sevigny, does a fine job as McCallum's naïve paramour who doesn't get the hint to run like hell during his numerous breakdowns. Herzog rounds out the cast with solid performances from Willem Dafoe, Michael Pena, Irma P. Hall, and Loretta Devine.

As a native San Diegan, it was a delight to see familiar sights such as Point Loma, Balboa Park, and the Convention Center. Herzog also shot on location near the Urubamba River in Peru, the famous sites used in Aguirre and Fitzcarraldo. While My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done may not measure up to those past films, Herzog manages to craft a strange and compelling tale of a man's tenuous grasp on sanity.

Rating: ***

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans - Dir. Werner Herzog (2009)


”It’s my lucky crack pipe. You don’t have a lucky crack pipe?”

Abel Ferrera’s original Bad Lieutenant was a gritty, unflinching portrayal of a corrupt cop with themes of Catholic guilt and uneasy redemption. Harvey Keitel played the unnamed titular character with an uncompromising bravery in depicting the Lieutenant’s disturbing demons. Werner Herzog claims to have not been aware of the original film and his version is neither a remake nor a reboot. The script was written by William M. Finkelstein whose credits include a number of television shows such as L.A. Law, NYPD Blue, Law & Order, and…Cop Rock. Under the unwieldy title of Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans, Herzog crafts a film that isn’t so much disturbing as it is an oddball black comedy hinged around the human medical experiment known as Nicolas Cage.

Cage’s eccentric, idiosyncratic performances have been both lauded and blasted by critics. At his insistence, he ate a live cockroach in Vampire’s Kiss (it was supposed to be a raw egg) and his ”Not the bees!” act in the Wicker Man remake has become popular YouTube fodder. Here, Herzog manages to harness the innate weirdo in Cage into a calculated craziness that is utterly compelling.

”What are these fucking iguanas doing on my coffee table?”

Cage is Terence McDonagh, a police detective in New Orleans shortly after the city was savaged by Hurricane Katrina. During the storms, he rescued (though after much debate) a prisoner trapped in his cell as the water rose dangerously high. McDonagh suffers a back injury that leaves him addicted to painkillers and other drugs. It’s highly doubtful, however, that he was that nice of a guy before the injury. Awarded a medal and promoted to lieutenant, McDonagh is put in charge of a homicide case where a Senegalese family was murdered by local drug dealer Big Fate (rapper Xzibit). When he’s not investigating, McDonagh is stealing narcotics from the evidence room and suffers from addled hallucinations of iguanas. He’s deep in gambling debts and inadvertently pisses off a vengeful mobster. When McDonagh is investigating the case, he strong arms a wheelchair-bound, old lady by cutting off her respirator and waving a .44 Magnum in her face. One night, he rousts a pair of club kids and finds a miniscule amount of drugs on their person. He forces the boyfriend to watch as he smokes crack and bangs his girlfriend on the hood of his unmarked police car.

McDonagh has a high-class prostitute girlfriend, Frankie (Eva Mendes), who he eventually hides out with his father. Dad (Tom Bower) is a recovering alcoholic who lives with his ever-soused wife (Jennifer Coolidge) in a mansion in the woods. On the outside, the home is like something out of a Tennessee Williams play, but inside it has all the dark, gloomy charm of a double-wide trailer.

”Shoot him again. His soul is still dancing.”

Cage is at his bug-eyed best in Bad Lieutenant. He lumbers about in a stooped stride like he’s the love child of Dirty Harry and Quasimodo. His voice sometimes drifts into a high-pitched tone similar to the Pokey-inspired voice Cage put on in Peggy Sue Got Married. McDonagh is an ugly human being perfectly at home in the underbelly of a city still struggling to rebuild following a devastating natural disaster. While Cage goes as over-the-top as he possibly can, he’s balanced out by the understated performances of Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer as a fellow detective, and classic character actor Brad Dourif as McDonagh’s pony-tailed bookie.

Herzog adds a surreal touch to the picture with a reptilian fetish that includes a strange, yet haunting, scene at a traffic accident with a gator lying in the middle of the road with its intestines on the asphalt and a single leg twitching. There’s also an interlude of extreme close-ups of iguanas set to Johnny Adams’ “Release Me.”

Port of Call is at its weakest during the third act. The film’s resolution comes out of left field with its happily-ever-after denouement. Everything seems to end for the better and you keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Is this a happy ending or another one of McDonagh’s crack-induced fever dreams? Honestly, the story is secondary to watching Nic Cage at his Nic Cage-iest.

Rating: ** ½

Mister Lonely

Mister Lonely - Dir. Harmony Korine (2008)


Harmony Korine burst onto the cinematic landscape as the co-writer to the controversial, unflinching Kids. He made his debut as director with Gummo, a redneck David Lynch-esque look in a small Southern town. He followed that up with Julien Donkey Boy, Korine’s entry into the Dogme 95 movement. Both films cemented Korine’s status as a polarizing filmmaker. Some critics lauded him as a unique voice others considered his films incomprehensible and reprehensible. Korine’s career was derailed by drug problems and after a nine-year gap, he returns with Mister Lonely, co-written with his brother Avi.

Mister Lonely opens with a scene of a Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) riding around a go-kart track on a yellow mini-bike as Bobby Vinton’s hit song plays over the credits. This is exactly the kind of thing Korine is the master of, finding beauty in the strange and unsettling. This faux-King of Pop earns a living in Paris and meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton) while performing at an old folks’ home. Marilyn invites Michael to the Scottish countryside where she and other celebrity look-alikes have formed their own commune. They have a James Dean, a Madonna, a Buckwheat, the Three Stooges, the Pope, Queen Elizabeth II, Sammy Davis Jr., and a foul-mouthed Abraham Lincoln. Marilyn has a daughter, a doppelganger of Shirley Temple, and is married to an insensitive, piggish “Charlie Chaplin.” Oddly, their ranks also include a Little Red Riding Hood (played by Korine’s wife, Rachel). There’s also a completely unrelated subplot involving filmmaker Werner Herzog (in a scene stealing role) as a priest in South America charged with airdropping food to poor villages. One of his nuns falls out of the plane, but miraculously survives, an act of God, no doubt.

This quiet commune acts as a microcosm for our own society. The impersonators look to fashion their own idyllic fantasy world, but find the realities of life creeping in. Their sheep get sick and need to be put down. Despite creating alternate personas, those in the community still suffer from all the same neuroses and jealousies as anyone else. For all of Korine’s intentions and best laid plans, Mister Lonely feels like two incomplete films slapped together. There’s thoughtfulness and tragedy to be found as well as tedium and pretension.

Rating: **