Arbitrage ****

Short Take: Tense, well made character study of a charming but duplicitous financier whose perfect life suddenly spins out of control.

Reel Take: Time was when a new film by Richard Gere would have garnered a major release by a major studio and been surrounded lots of publicity. While there has been a press junket featuring Gere and co-star Susan Sarandon, their new film Arbitrage has only been given a limited art house release by the Weinstein Company. This strategy seems to have worked as the in-house take of Arbitrage was second only to The Master which is poised to be the indie darling of the year.

After watching the film I wondered where the title came from as it’s not mentioned once during the course of the movie. Colleague Michelle Keenan came to the rescue by looking the word up (that’s why her name is first in the byline). Arbitrage – the simultaneous purchase and sale of the same securities, commodities, etc in different markets to profit from unequal prices. Now both you and I know (thanks Michelle!).

As it turns out, that’s a perfect description of the plot of the film for that is exactly what Richard Gere is attempting to do. He’s a very successful, widely respected financier who seems to have it all. A still beautiful wife (Sarandon), a loving family, palatial surroundings, and enough money to give a lot of it away to worthy charities. If that were really the case then we’d have no movie.

Of course with a story like this he has a mistress (Laetitia Casta) who wants to be an artist, trouble within his company, and a serious cash flow problem. Borrowing illegally from one of his hedge funds is just the start of his problems. In a scene similar to one in Bob Rafelson’s Blood & Wine (1996), he’s involved in a car crash where his mistress is killed and he’s injured. He calls on the son of an old friend (Nate Parker) to help him out. All seems well until the investigating officer (Tim Roth) smells a rat and comes after Gere and then the s**t really hits the fan.

All of the performers hit the right notes with Sarandon, Roth and Stuart Margolin (remember him?) being outstanding. The direction by first time writer-director Nicholas Jarecki is refreshingly uncluttered although director Jarecki should have told screenwriter Jarecki to simplify things just a little. The biggest problem with the movie from my perspective is that it’s more complicated than it needs to be making it occasionally hard to follow. It’s also extremely cynical in tone and I can’t say I liked the ending.

Nevertheless Arbitrage is an above average movie with a good cast who know what to do with the material and effortlessly elevate it by their very presence. Gere has aged well and is ideal for the role of the magnate (much better than original choice Al Pacino would have been). As for Susan Sarandon (we won’t mention her age), she’s still a knockout and plays her part to perfection. This is a film that, like its two stars, will age very well and that is what good movies do.

Rated R for language, violent images, and drug use.
Review by Chip Kaufmann

Killer Joe ****

Short Take: When a morally derelict, dysfunctional family hires a hit man to take out the only family member with a life insurance policy, all does not go according to plan.

Reel Take: Killer Joe will no doubt have left first run theatres by the time this issue goes to press. Those that have seen it will be few and those that actually liked it will be even fewer. The folks at KFC will also be glad to see it gone too (but we’ll get to that later). Killer Joe is one of the most singularly disturbing, yet darkly comic films to come down the pike in a long time. It is not a film I can easily recommend to many, and I would even caution some people away from it. On the other hand, for those who enjoy darkly twisted humor, sudden bursts of violence, and a bit of sexual perversion, Killer Joe is right up your alley.

Chris (Emile Hirsch) is a 22 year old petty drug dealer in nowhere Texas. When his own mother steals his stash, he needs to come up with $6,000 in a jiffy or he’s dead. Not feeling any love loss for his mother, Chris hatches a plan with this father, Ansel (Thomas Haden Church), to have her knocked off so they can collect $50,000 in life insurance. Ansel’s now wife, Sharla (Gina Gershon) also wants a cut of the action so, in a rare moment of familial harmony, they agree — the bitch no one likes will be gone, they collect the insurance money, and all their problems will be solved.

Ansel and Chris attempt to hire Detective ‘Killer Joe’ Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), but can’t afford his retainer fee. However, after catching a glimpse of Chris’ younger sister Dottie (Juno Temple), Joe agrees to do the job if they’ll put Dottie up as sexual collateral. Seeing as they’re all dumber than a bag of hammers and have the moral sensibility of a gnat, no one seems to give this transaction a second thought.

Dottie, appropriately named, is the innocent character (albeit slightly demented), at the center of the story. Her naive, simple ways make her seem almost angelic. But then again we are dealing with a story where the hit man is the least morally reprehensible character.

That things don’t go as planned is a foregone conclusion, but how far they go, and how bad they go, are not. The film culminates in a spectacular blaze of Jerry Springer-like deep-fried, demented dysfunctionality. You will not have the opportunity to see an ending as brazenly unsettling as this very often, and rest assured, you will never look at a fried chicken leg the same again, if ever.

Playwright Tracy Letts adapted his own play for the big screen. Director William Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection) seizes every layer of Letts’ story with the audacity and tenacity of his earlier work. The cast is disturbingly good as this band of derelicts. Hirsch is the least impressive, but that may not be so much about his performance as it is that his character is written with a puny-ness that belies his tough talk. Thomas Haden Church gets most of the film’s laughs as a rather unwitting dupe. Gina Gershon is mean as a snake as Ansel’s wife and deserves everything she gets. Juno Temple almost steals the whole show, and is second only to McConaughey, who turns in a seamless performance as the titular character, navigating between sociopath, sexual aggressor and gentleman caller.

Killer Joe is brutally fascinating, unflinchingly unapologetic, and impossible to forget, even if you want to.

Rated NC-17 for graphic disturbing content, involving violence and sexuality, and a scene of brutality (involving a chicken leg).
Review by Michelle Keenan

Lawless ****

Short Take: Gangster goes Appalachian in this true story of a bootlegging band of brothers in prohibition-era Virginia.

Reel Take: Lawless is a gritty, stylish, genre-bending gangster tale, served Appalachian-style. It was inspired by Matt Bondurant’s novel, “The Wettest County in the World, which tells the tale of his grandfather Jack Bondurant and his grand uncles, who ran a moonshining operation, during prohibition-era in the mountains of Virginia. Directed by John Hillcoat (The Road) and adapted for the screen by writer/musician Nick Cave, The film aims high, but tries to pull off too many things to be truly great. Instead, it delivers moments of greatness couched between pops of humor and unsettling violence. Lawless is not an easy film to watch, but it is engaging throughout.

As the story goes, the Bondurant brothers – Forrest, Howard and Jack — were successful bootleggers in Franklin County, Virginia during prohibition. The narrative voice of the story is Jack Bondurant (Shia LaBeouf), the youngest of the Bondurants. He lives in shadow of his two older brothers, especially the eldest brother Forrest (Tom Hardy), the head of their moonshining operation. Jack tells us that Forrest is a bit of a legend on the merit of his toughness and his apparent gift for eluding the grim reaper, even when death seems inevitable.

It’s business as usual until special deputy Charley Rakes (Guy Pearce) arrives on the scene. Rakes demands a cut of the action or they’ll be shut down. While other moonshiners in the area are intimidated and cave to the deputy, the Bondurants do not. Meanwhile Jack tries to prove himself to his older brothers by making a run to Chicago to impress a mobster, Floyd Banner (Gary Oldman). Banner remembers Jack, who quietly witnessed Banner killing a rival in cold blood, and he is impressed. The Bondurant’s bootlegging business soars, which only fuels Rakes’ fury. It’s war on the Bondurant boys.

On the surface Lawless sounds like the ultimate Americana antihero movie – gangsters, moonshiners, bootleggers and cops, complete with an Appalachian backdrop. What’s really there is something far more violent and disturbing. There is an undercurrent of brutality that damn near usurps anything worthwhile from the film. For me, this falls squarely on the shoulders of Hillcoat and Cave. The duo seem better suited to magnifying the more brutal and bleak elements of the story than elevating heartfelt emotion. The flecks of humor speckled throughout diffuse the darkness, but the moments of lightness and romance are never quite in balance with the rest of the film.

Hillcoat does achieve fine performances from his cast. Even LaBeouf stretches his chops in this one, and everyone surrounding him gives exceptionally strong performances. Oldman proves the adage that no part is too small. As Rakes, Pearce becomes one of the most singularly repulsive characters to ever hit the silver screen. That he is at once foppish and evil makes him even more fun to despise. Hardy as the sullen, brutish eldest Bondurant is believable, likeable and emotionally vulnerable, in spite of his hulking physical demeanor. He also delivers some of the most comic moments of the film with his mumbling and grumbling. Best of all, he seems to believe in his own myth and invincibility as much as everyone else.

Cave creates the ideal musical backdrop, with surprising bursts of modern alt rock thrown in for good measure. This element gives a beautifully filmed period piece a contemporary and relevant edge. Bottom line, Lawless is not flawless, but it is certainly worthwhile.

Rated R for strong violence, profanity, sexual content, nudity, and smoking.
Review by Michelle Keenan

The Master ***

Short Take: Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2 ½ hour look at a violent sociopath who becomes involved with a Scientology like cult features an Oscar worthy performance from Joaquin Phoenix but founders on its lack of sympathetic characters and a story that goes nowhere.

Reel Take: Paul Thomas Anderson’s name is on a short list of great filmmakers (and the only living one) whose films I admire as a critic but as an audience member, they make me want to ask for a refund. Being in the company of Orson Welles, Stanley Kubrick, and Michaelangelo Antonioni sounds like high praise and it is but ultimately I want something more from a filmmaker than art with a capital A.

All the elements are here for a great movie. The subject of a Scientology like cult and its charismatic founder (Philip Seymour Hoffman) circa 1950 is rife with possibilities and Anderson gets a lot of it right. His actors give flawless performances most notably Amy Adams and Joaquin Phoenix. If Phoenix doesn’t get the Best Actor Oscar or at least a nomination, than the director will have no one to blame but himself.

Like the above mentioned filmmakers, PTA (as he’s known in the trade) is also his own scriptwriter and that is where The Master’s greatest failing lies. His films are often full of unlikeable and unpleasant characters (Tom Cruise in Magnolia, Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood to name two) but in this film all the characters are either disagreeable and/or downlike unlikeable and who wants to sit through a 141 minute film with no one to relate to or sympathize with.

In addition to the unsympathetic characters the storyline, although linear, goes absolutely nowhere. It’s as if we were watching a day in the life of these people for far too many days. There is a beginning, a middle, but no end. If PTA’s intention is to alienate the audience then he succeeds with flying colors. Most of the almost full house I saw this with left the theater saying mostly unkind things (to put it mildly).

That’s really too bad as there is much in The Master to admire. The period recreation is outstanding and the soundtrack of modern chamber music and pop standards of the day is remarkably effective. The photography and editing are up to PTA’s previous high standards with unusually long takes interspersed with intense close-ups. The quality performances by his large ensemble cast recall the movies of one of his favorite directors, Robert Altman.

The story, just so you know, concerns a violent sociopath (Phoenix) who becomes involved with a cult of regressive time travelers (past lives) headed up by a charismatic leader (Hoffman) whose wife (Amy Adams) is the driving force behind him. Hoffman sees Phoenix as a test case to be cured by his theories but Phoenix remains unresponsive. They eventually part company with nothing having been accomplished. The End.

Instead of becoming more accessible, Paul Thomas Anderson’s movies seem to becoming more enigmatic and little more than a cinematic exercise. That may be great for some critics but it’s certainly not great for most audiences. If this sounds like your kind of movie, then by all means go for it but others beware.

Rated R for sexual content, graphic nudity, and language.
Review by Chip Kaufmann

Robot & Frank ****

Short Take: Similar to Driving Miss Daisy except with a robot, Robot & Frank is essentially a one man show and Frank Langella is more than up to the task.

Reel Take: After watching this movie, I was reminded of a Time magazine review from years back talking about actor James Mason. The review concerned a stage play that Mason was appearing in and it remarked that he had been a beautiful young man and that now he had become a beautiful old man. The same can be said for Frank Langella and this movie is the proof.

Langella plays the appropriately named Frank, a retired jewel thief in the near future who is in the early stages of dementia. His son (James Marsden) purchases a robot companion (voiced by Peter Saarsgard) to keep an eye on him and to help him with daily tasks. Naturally Frank can’t stand the robot at first especially when it tries to teach him gardening. Once he discovers that it can’t distinguish legal from illegal activities (they are just tasks to be performed), he begins to open up.

First he teaches the robot how to pick locks. This enables him to steal a copy of Don Quixote from the town library. This is to impress the local librarian (Susan Sarandon) who’s distressed because the library is being converted into a community center by a wealthy developer (Jeremy Strong) since books and newspapers are becoming obsolete. Later Frank and the robot steal jewels from the developer and when the police question him, he pretends his memory is worse than it is.

Frank also has a daughter (Liv Tyler) who returns from a philanthropic trip in Asia to ask him to give up the robot which she doesn’t like and to which Frank has now become attached. This, along with the jewel theft, forces Frank into making a decision that will affect how both he and the robot will continue to function.

As I mentioned at the outset, this is essentially a one man show with Langella easily taking center stage. Marsden is good as the concerned son and Sarandon equally good as the librarian with a secret although it’s a role several actresses could have played. Liv Tyler continues to unimpress me since Lord of the Rings but then there isn’t a lot for her to do either.

The screenplay is about more than just Frank and his robot. It has a few things to say not only about one character’s dementia, but on what it sees as the collective overall dementia being brought about by the disappearance of print media. There is a significant plot twist at the end involving Sarandon which I won’t mention here but it adds an additional emotional resonance to the film.

Take away the futuristic setting and there really isn’t anything new about Robot & Frank. It’s Driving Miss Daisy with the robot in place of Morgan Freeman. There are many other movies with similar plot lines but what keeps this film a cut above them is the avoidance of sledgehammer sentimentality and Langella’s captivating performance. A small film, to be sure, but one that is “memorable.”

Rated PG-13 for language.
Review by Chip Kaufmann

The Words ***

Short Take: When a talented but struggling young novelist stumbles across a brilliant unpublished manuscript, scruples are tested and truth may be stranger than fiction.

Reel Take: Most critics, if they are reviewing it at all, have crucified the layered romantic melodrama The Words. In fact, last I checked it had a 17% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which makes it not only rotten but pretty darn stinky. As with any other movie, audiences will decide the film’s worth and it’s fate. While I’m not going to sing its praises, I’m not going to dish up a snarky dissection of the movie (although I concede there are parts where it’s tempting).

Rory Jansen is a talented young novelist who receives praises from literary agents who won’t publish his book (it’s too elegant for this economy or some such thing). While on his honeymoon in Paris, he finds a battered old valise. Once home he discovers an old manuscript, a love story that keeps him riveted, a story he wished he’d written.

Longing to know what it would be like to feel those words coming from himself, he begins to type until he has copied the manuscript letter for letter, typo for typo. When his wife (Zoe Saldana) sees it, she thinks it’s his and thinks it is the best thing he’s ever written. She makes him promise to show it the publisher where he works as a mail clerk. One thing leads to another and before he knows it, he has a best seller on his hands.

Enter ‘the old man’ (Jeremy Irons). The old man is author of the long lost story. After ominously trailing Rory he confronts him in the park one day. He tells the story behind the story. As he does the film becomes a story within a story. Ridden with guilt, Rory tries to come clean, at the risk of losing his wife, his credibility and his newfound fame and fortune.

Meanwhile both of these previous tales are being told by Clay Hammond (Dennis Quaid), a successful writer at a book reading and signing. As his narrative evolves what is truth and what is fiction isn’t clear. What is clear is that, while thoughtful and romantic, The Words thinks it’s far more clever than it actually is.

Its vanity is its downfall. If it had been just a romantic drama without such emphasis on superficially outwitting its viewer (this is not a Christopher Nolan film after all), the result would have been more moving and elegant and ultimately more literary. Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal co-directed — multiple directors for multiple stories, perhaps?

The cast turns in fine performances, although Quaid is downright creepy and almost pained in moments where that just doesn’t sit right. Cooper and Irons on the other hand seem to truly enjoy their parts. Some have said Irons phoned in the part, but I disagree with that sentiment.

Ultimately The Words is a layered literary drama that plays out like a book for people who don’t read.

Rated PG-13 for brief strong language and smoking.
Review by Michelle Keenan

Trouble with the Curve ****

Short Take: Although billed as a Clint Eastwood picture, this movie is really Amy Adams’ vehicle and she makes the most of it.

Reel Take: Don’t let Clint Eastwood’s recent shenanigans at the Republican National Convention keep you from seeing this movie. No matter how you feel about Eastwood it should be noted that he is only a part of this movie. A key part to be sure but Trouble with the Curve is really about and truly belongs to Amy Adams. In fact she is so good that she elevates this film close to the level of Bull Durham and Field of Dreams.

It bears a closer resemblance to Bull Durham in that the story takes place among the minor league baseball teams of North Carolina. No real minor league teams are used (the principal team is called the Swannanoa Grizzlies) in this story of an aging baseball scout (Eastwood) and his estranged daughter (Adams) who is one step away from becoming a partner in an Atlanta law firm.

Knowing that his eyesight is deteriorating, Eastwood’s boss with the Atlanta Braves (John Goodman) sends him on one last assignment to scout out a hot young prospect in North Carolina. The prospect, Bo Gentry (Joe Massingale), can hit the ball a mile and has no small opinion of his abilities. Goodman asks Adams to tag along to confirm Eastwood’s observations. Once there, they run into a former pitcher (Justin Timberlake) whose career was cut short by bad management. After getting together, father and daughter try to reconnect.

While there is nothing new or original about Trouble with the Curve, it IS possible to follow familiar formulas and have performances and/or script and direction that keep it from being just another paint-by-numbers offering. Every principal performer hits all the right notes with a special tip of the baseball cap to Matthew Lillard (Shaggy in the Scooby Doo movies) as an oily young upstart in the Braves organization. First timer Robert Lorenz directs with a sure hand and the script by Randy Brown keeps it interesting.

This is a movie about baseball for people who love baseball but others shouldn’t have too bad a time of it. It captures what minor league baseball is really like from the look of the countryside to the feel of the tiny ballparks and the communities they serve. It’s also a movie about reaching the end of the line and finding the love that all of us need but that some of us rarely receive.

I can already predict the mostly negative reviews that this movie will get. Those few that I have read seem to miss the point. Trouble with the Curve is extremely well made and deserves credit on that account. Sometimes first class swill can be more satisfying than the latest craft brew (see my review of The Master in this issue). It’s also a movie that’s unashamedly made for an older target audience. In fact it’s the first movie I’ve been to in many, many years with a sizable audience where I was the youngest member there. That certainly doesn’t happen every day.

Rated PG-13 for language, sexual references, and for smoking.
Review by Chip Kaufmann