A Most Wanted Man ****
Short Take: When a half-Chechen, half-Russian man with terrorist ties turns up in Hamburg with a claim to his father’s ill-gotten gains, German and U.S. intelligence agencies take notice.
REEL TAKE: Based on John le Carre’s 2008 best-selling novel by the same name, A Most Wanted Man, is a thinking man’s thriller. Directed by Anton Corbijn (The American), this is not an espionage thriller with mass commercial appeal, but rather a subtle, suspense drama. A Most Wanted Man is filled with the duplicitous cat and mouse games of the politico/intelligence arena. It’s the type of action that often plays out better on the page than it does on screen. At the center of this particular game is Gunter Bachman, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman.
As is often the case with le Carre novels, Gunter is an old school, chain-smoking, hard drinking, cold war type spy. In the wake of September 11th, he runs a little known, low-profile intelligence operation in Hamburg, where, hidden among its heavy Muslim population, the terrorist attacks were plotted without notice. Gunter is being pressed by German and US intelligence agencies to come up with proof that a prominent [and apparently moderate] Muslim doctor is not what he purports to be.
When a half-Chechen, half-Russian man (Grigoriy Dobrygin), shows up with a claim to his late Russian militarist father’s ill-gotten fortune, German and American intelligence officials are ready to pounce. Seeing young Issa as a conduit to Dr. Abdullah, but knowing there’s more to the big picture than they realize, Gunter bargains for time. This in turn brings a notable banker (Willem Dafoe) and a human rights attorney (Rachel McAdams) and a slick CIA operative (Robin Wright) into the fold.
As the story unfolds the difference between how modern intelligence operates and how Gunter operates is striking. At the end of the day Gunter is a man who wants to do the right thing and exact true justice. Meanwhile the other agencies are concerned with exacting their own polished brand of justice to “make the world a safer place.”
A Most Wanted Man marks Hoffman’s last fully completed film. It’s a fine performance (though perhaps not one of his most comfortable) imbued with wonderful complexities. John le Carre himself was delighted with it. McAdams, Dafoe and newcomer Dobrygin also deliver solid performances. Unfortunately Hoffman, McAdams and Dafoe all affect vague German(ish) accents which I found somewhat distracting and unnecessary. The merits of the film far outweigh this grievance, but I thought it distracting enough to mention.
A Most Wanted Man is a gritty, grey toned jigsaw puzzle. Its cerebral suspenseful quality is refreshing. The film isn’t quite as good as it thinks it is, or maybe as it wants to be. It doesn’t possess the charm, wit or stylishness of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, but folks who liked Tinker will likely enjoy this one. People who are unfamiliar with le Carre’s flawed characters and untidy endings may be taken slightly aback, but this is not a bad thing.
If for no other reason, see A Most Wanted Man for Philip Seymour Hoffman’s performance.
Rated R for language.
Review by Michelle Keenan
Begin Again ***
Short Take: From the maker of Once comes another story of two struggling musicians. It passes on the merits of its actors, but let’s hope Carney realizes that Once was enough, so let’s not Begin Again.
REEL TAKE: In 2006 Irish writer/director Jim Carney took the world by storm with the indie darling Once. Like many, I fell under its charming spell and couldn’t get enough of its soundtrack featuring the irresistibly captivating music of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. Not heeding the title of the first film, Carney decided to make another movie about struggling musicians. Lightning didn’t strike twice.
Once told the story of an Irish busker falling for a piano playing Czech immigrant. There was something truly special about the story, the characters were immensely likable and then there was the music – oh that beautiful music! It was pure magic.
In Begin Again we meet Greta and Dan. Greta (Keira Knightley) is a recently jilted songwriter and occasional singer. Dan (Mark Ruffalo) is a washed up record producer. When Dan hears Greta sing a song he hears it like no one else does. He sees Greta and her guitar joined by keyboards, cello, violin, and sets his sights on recording an album with her.
Greta resists at first, but having just been unceremoniously dumped by her rising star boyfriend (played by Maroon 5’s Adam Levine), it’s go home to England or make the record. Greta is a refreshingly high minded individual and she’s likable. The fact that Dan is an unhappily divorced, drunken has-been and absentee father makes him somewhat of an annoying cliché, but he’s definitely got potential. Once he’s making music, you know he’s going to get his groove back.
The film has some great attributes. The concept is good. Having the leads share an incredible, yet unromantic relationship was very smart. The way Carney illustrates Dan’s talent for arranging music is almost hokey, but somehow it really does work. The idea to record Greta’s album in impromptu sessions throughout New York City with the city’s living sounds as part of the recording is pure genius.
Unfortunately there are a few too many moments that just don’t work and chip away at our characters and diminish the story. The music they record for the album is nice, but ironically the best song is one Greta and her BFF and fellow Brit (James Corden) write under the influence of whiskey and then record on the ex-boyfriend’s cell phone. Also ironic, Knightley and Corden have some of the best chemistry in the movie.
Ultimately I was quite torn about whether or not I liked Begin Again. The more time that passes, the less I seem to like it. That doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile. Just don’t expect lightning to strike twice.
Rated R for language.
Review by Michelle Keenan
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes ***1/2
Short Take: It’s man versus ape ten years after Rise of the The Planet of the Apes with what’s left of humankind struggling to rebuild civilization.
REEL TAKE: Rupert Wyatt’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes (in 2011) revived the franchise after Tim Burton almost single-handedly killed it in 2001’s Planet of the Apes. Now Matt Reeves (Cloverfield) continues the series reboot with Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and for my money, it’s the best blockbuster of the summer. Picking up ten years from where Rise left off, humankind is struggling to survive and rebuild civilization in the wake of the catastrophic simian flu virus, accidentally released by scientists.
None of the humans from the previous film are featured in this one. Caesar (the focus of the 2011 film and now head ape; played by Andy Serkis) and his nation of genetically evolved, intelligent primates are thriving. But just when they think they’ve seen the last of the humans, a group of gun toting homo sapiens enter their forest. The humans, led by Malcolm (Jason Clarke) need access to a now defunct dam and hydro-electric plant in an effort to restore power to San Francisco.
Malcom is accompanied by his second wife Ellie (Kerri Russell), his son Alex (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and some additional members of his team. After a rough start Caesar and Malcolm form an uneasy accord made ever more tenuous by a moronic hothead among Malcolm’s group and the human-hating Kuba (Toby Kebbel) from Caesar’s tribe.
As you may have guessed, war of course breaks out. Predictability is one of the film’s weaknesses, but it’s a pretty forgivable flaw, given its strengths. Some of the movie’s greatest moments are the scenes between Caesar and Malcom. While most epic summertime fare would focus more on the action and sequences of war, the emphasis here is squarely on these two characters, even when the action surrounding them is over the top and more than a little disturbing. This imbues the story with an organic dignity.
Andy Serkis, who has made an incredible living working in performance and motion pictures – starring as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings franchise, and as Captain Haddock in the Tin Tin movie – gives a tremendous performance as Caesar. However, props have to be given to Jason Clarke. He had to envision Serkis as a giant monkey in their scenes together. Clarke’s look of awe-struck wonder and respect while in Caesar’s presence comes off so realistically you’d have thought there was an actual talking ape in front of him.
There are some surprisingly touching and sensitive moments throughout the film. While the visuals are a marvel [a true marvel], I believe it’s the heart at the center of this film that delivers such satisfaction. There’s an innate goodness in Caesar and Malcolm. It’s a decency that transcends warmongering and gives hope that man and ape can peacefully coexist (allegory anyone?)
While it is helpful, one does not need to have seen Rise of the Planet of the Apes before seeing Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Dawn is a big score for 20th Century Fox in a summer where box office returns are grossly down and many of the so-called summer blockbusters. Dawn of the Planet of Apes is not just another sci-fi CGI action-fest, it’s movie magic and some seriously good monkey business.
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and brief strong language.
Review by Michelle Keenan
Deliver Us From Evil ***
Short Take: Updated version of The Exorcist,while not bad on its own modest terms, is completely unnecessary and was, for all practical purposes, a complete waste of my time.
REEL TAKE: This is just what I needed, an almost exact clone of one of my least favorite movies from the 1970s, The Exorcist. Although I knew it was going to be about an exorcism going into it, I had no idea just how similar it would be to William Friedkin’s 1973 opus.
The film opens in 2010 in the Middle East (Iraq to be exact, just like Friedkin’s film) where a trio of soldiers (Scott Johnsen, Chris Coy, Sean Harris) unleash an evil spirit that “bedevils” their lives from then on. Four years later we are then introduced to NYC police sergeant Ralph Sarchie (Eric Bana) who has been neglecting his family in an obsessive attempt to clean up crime in the South Bronx.
Sarchie (a real life person) who co-wrote the book Beware the Night on which this movie is based, discovers evidence that three recent crimes are related to the 3 soldiers we met earlier and that, somehow, his family is in danger. Being a lapsed Catholic (of course), he has a hard time believing that spiritual evil is behind it until he meets an unorthodox priest (are there any other kind in these movies?) played by Edgar Ramirez who convinces him otherwise.
After a series of harrowing incidents (including the film’s best scene in the Bronx Zoo), and more than a few gory details, the movie arrives at its climactic set piece, the expected exorcism which takes place in Sarchie’s police station. By the time that occurred I was thinking of how much I enjoyed the 2012 restoration of Hammer’s Dracula. Director Scott Derrickson is best known for his 2005 “based on real events” saga The Exorcism of Emily Rose which I didn’t see and 2012’s Sinister which I did.
So why did I go see Deliver Us From Evil you might be tempted to ask? Reason 1… hope springs eternal, 2) I’m a masochist, 3) I needed another movie to fill up this month’s Reel Takes. In order of importance it’s 1, 3, 2 (although every critic must have something of the masochist in them to sit through some of the movies that we do). I can truthfully say that I am not paid enough to sit through movies like this one.
Ultimately Deliver Us From Evil is at least half an hour too long and offers up nothing new although to be fair minded, it isn’t trying to. Eric Bana tries his best to lend gravitas to the whole proceedings and there are great turns from Sean Harris as the chief possessed soldier and Joel McHale as Bana’s streetwise partner but director Derrickson and the script writers ultimately let them down. One good thing to come out of all this is that we do learn never to visit the Bronx Zoo at night.
Rated R for bloody violence, grisly images, terror throughout, and language.
Review by Chip Kaufmann
Snowpiercer ****
Short Take: Thought provoking dystopian sci-fi about a supertrain that circles a frozen Earth with passengers rigidly divided by class. Snowpierceris superbly acted with great production design but it sure could use some editing.
REEL TAKE: Locally there has been a lot of buzz surrounding Snowpiercer, the latest dystopian future epic in a time honored tradition that stretches back to Fritz Lang’s Metropolois in 1927. The buzz has been very favorable, but while there is much to admire in Snowpiercer, I was not as enamored of it as my colleagues were.
The basic plot is as old as Metropolis, the privileged few at the top and the rest of society at the bottom. In this case, instead of above ground and below ground, the physical metaphor is a supertrain with the few in the front, the poorest in the rear, and the workers in the middle.
The movie is based on the 1982 French graphic novel Le Transperceneige where a failed attempt to control global warming sends the Earth into another ice age and kills off all life except for those who live inside this monumental train which circles the earth on a continuous track which takes a year to complete.
We see none of how it happened (which is good) and jump straight away into the squalid conditions of those who live in the rear cars. They are led by the old crippled Gilliam (a reference to director Terry and played by John Hurt) and his protégé Curtis (Chris Evans). They are planning a coup to get to the front of the train and take control. End of Act 1.
So far, so good. Unfortunately, from my perspective, the film bogs down in Act 2 as the attempts to reach the front are filled with lots of bloody mayhem, which goes on far too long and could easily have been edited down. Fortunately Tilda Swinton shows up as an evil bureaucrat and with her red wig, thick glasses, false teeth, and an accent best described as posh on LSD, she owns every scene she’s in.
As they proceed further up the train aided by a drug addicted designer (Song Kang-ho) and his teenage daughter (Go Ah-sung), surroundings get better with each car until they reach a classroom where an idyllic setting unexpectedly becomes a deadly trap. With only a handful of followers left, he finally reaches the all powerful engine and its creator Wilford (Ed Harris). End of Act 2.
Act 3, which involves a series of revelations, is the best part of the whole movie. Therefore I will tell you very little about it as you’ll have to see it for yourselves but with the exception of a few minor surprises, I had figured everything out in advance thanks to the film’s striking resemblance (plot wise) to John Boorman’s 1974 dystopian saga Zardoz. Ed Harris as Wilford, the train’s creator, gives a wonderful performance. But then he has some really choice dialogue, as he holds the key to the film’s meaning.
Chris Evans as Curtis the rebellion leader provides a solid anchor, which is not that different from his Captain America, but the context is different. This is good as he’s in almost every frame of the film. The strong supporting cast of Octavia Spencer, Jaime Bell, and especially Song Kang-ho give extra substance to an already solid effort from Korean director Bong June-ho.
In the final analysis, Snowpiercer struck me as an extended episode of the 1960s sci-fi TV series The Outer Limits, but obviously with a much bigger budget. Limits concentrated on ideas rather than effects like much of the sci-fi from another era when nuclear annihilation seemed a distinct possibility. This movie has the ideas and the effects (great model train work), but it could have paced itself a little bit better by removing some extraneous footage.
Rated R for violence, language, and drug content.
Review by Chip Kaufmann