Broken City ***1/2

Short Take: Well made contemporary film noir covers no new ground but does what it needs to do thanks to a strong cast and solid direction from Allen Hughes.

Reel Take: Broken City is another in the seemingly endless line of low profile films where I find myself at odds with most reviewers. Its current 25% rating (at last check) on Rotten Tomatoes is simply inexcusable. If this movie constitutes a less than 30% rating then please let’s have more “under 30” films.

It’s starting to sound like a broken record (or CD glitch in today’s technology). “This movie lacks originality” or words to that effect are used as if that’s grounds for immediate dismissal. It’s really starting to make me angry and makes me want to divorce myself from the critical brotherhood. I might as well since I don’t seem to be seeing the same films that they are.

Broken City is yet another take on big city corruption in high places and it certainly won’t be the last. It works here not because of the script which is the film’s weakest link but because of the committed performances from the entire cast especially Mark Wahlberg who is truly in his element here. The direction by Allen Hughes (minus twin brother Albert for the first time) is tight and assured making the film compelling when it needs to be and easy to follow.

Billy Taggart (Wahlberg) is a former cop, now a private investigator, who is hired by NYC mayor Russell Crowe to spy on his wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones) whom he suspects is cheating on him with the campaign manager of Crowe’s political rival. Wahlberg investigates, comes up with pictorial evidence, and is paid handsomely for his efforts (money that he desperately needs) but when the campaign manager turns up dead the next day, he knows something is wrong.

While Broken City’s characters may be stock ones, they are invested with little quirks that keep them interesting and there’s just enough suspense involved, not in how it turns out but in how it gets there, to keep the audience engaged. At least my audience was and they left the theater talking to each other and in a good mood, their movie fix having been satisfied.

Broken City won’t win any awards and in fact won’t come anywhere near to even receiving a nomination but it is the type of well made, bread and butter film that will be just as entertaining 10 or 20 years from now as it is today. That, my fellow critics, should be worth far more than a 25% rating.

Rated R for pervasive language, sexual content, and violence.
Review by Chip Kaufmann

Django Unchained ****1/2

Short Take: Quintin Tarantino is a director unchained and at the top of his brand of movie making in the story of a slave-turned-bounty hunter, out to reclaim his wife from a Mississippi slaver.

Reel Take: You may have heard a bit of controversy surrounding Quintin Tarantino’s latest effort, Django Unchained — historical inaccuracies, strong violence, blah, blah, blah. If you’re hell bent on historical accuracy, go see Lincoln. If you don’t care for violence and bloodshed in movies, Tarantino films aren’t for you. Django Unchained is one of Tarantino’s best films to date. Only Quintin Tarantino can create a film that is at once hilariously witty, shockingly gruesome, and ultimately romantic. Tarantino may be the consumate movie geek, and his love of all things film is on full display here like never before, even down to his supporting cast and bit players.

Django Unchained takes place a couple of years before the start of the Civil War and tells the story of a slave turned bounty hunter (Jamie Foxx) who desires nothing more than to be reunited with his wife. Getting there however will take Siegfried-like heroics and Tarantino antics. His journey begins when a wickedly puckish German dentist turned bounty hunter, Dr. King Schultz (Christophe Waltz), buys Django to help him identify his next bounty. Seeing the potential in his new property, and abhorring slavery, he offers Django his freedom, a job as a bounty hunter and assistance in finding his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington).

Before they can get to Broomhilda there is much bounty hunting to be done; bounties are paid dead or alive, and this being Tarantino, you know that means they’re going to bring them in dead, really dead. The good doctor and the titular, gun-slinging former slave become fast friends, as they work their way through a sea of scumbags to bring in their bounties. These scenes are somewhat predictable, but the dialogue is razor wit sharp and shockingly hilarious, as best exemplified in a scene depicting the origins of the KKK and ill-fitting white hoods.

Nothing prepares our dynamic duo for what they find at ‘Candie-land,’ the plantation where Django’s wife is now a slave. Pretending they want to buy a Mandingo fighter, they enter into the world of Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), a world of perverted southern hospitality, king-like aspirations and particularly cruel recreational games. Curiously, the most insidious character in Candie-land is not the master himself, but Stephen (played by almost unrecognizable Samuel L. Jackson), a self-described “house n…..” As the climax of the movie plays out not once, but multiple times, all you know is this n…. needs to die badly.

The use of the n-word is abundant in this film, which has caused some controversy. Its use helps fuels the fire of the story and is actually quite suitable given the context; a context and story that make the Nazis in Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds look like chop liver. Django Unchained is Tarantino’s ultimate movie geek homage to date. He tips the hat, of course, to the original Django, even using the theme song and featuring a cameo with Franco Nero. He should have ended the film at the first opportune ending (about   hour before the final ending), but he just couldn’t resist going all out Tarantino.

Jamie Foxx is does a fine job as the titular character and Samuel L. Jackson and Leonardo DiCaprio are also something to behold, but the movie belongs to Christoph Waltz. Praising his portrayal of Schultz doesn’t mean he played outside of the ensemble of actors. In this case, he is the heart of the ensemble and he is an utter delight to watch.

Rated R for strong graphic violence throughout, a vicious fight, language and some nudity.
Review by Michelle Keenan

Gangster Squad ***1/2

Short Take: Slickly made with great period design and droll performances, Gangster Squad is remarkably entertaining if you don’t take it too seriously.

Reel Take: Gangster Squad is yet another movie that is taking a critical drubbing from the higher ups who either take it too seriously or fault it for not being serious enough. Lighten up guys! It’s only a movie and one which is perfectly content to be nothing more than an afternoon’s or an evening’s entertainment.

It doesn’t exactly channel Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables (1987) or Dragnet as many reviews claim, but the old TV show with Robert Stack (1959-1963) which inspired many movies of its own. This is where Sean Penn is coming from. He’s the biggest, baddest, most psychotic gangster since Vic Morrow’s Dutch Schultz in Portrait of a Mobster (1961) and he has the style and panache of Ray Danton in The Rise & Fall of Legs Diamond (1960).

The plot of Gangster Squad deliberately goes back to Howard Hawks’ original Scarface (1932). Eastern crime boss Mickey Cohen (Penn) has come to Los Angeles in the late 1940s and has taken over the town terrorizing other criminals and putting the police in his back pocket. Incorruptible Police Chief Bill Parker (Nick Nolte) puts together a secret squad to do battle with Cohen.

The squad is recruited by no-nonsense Sergeant John O’Mara (Josh Brolin) who instructs the others that the only rules are that there are no rules. Another Sergeant (Ryan Gosling) becomes personally involved with Cohen’s mistress (Emma Stone) which leads to the expected consequences. In fact everything in Gangster Squad comes as no surprise and that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with familiarity as long as it’s done as well as it is here.

This is pulp fiction at its most pure, a tribute to the B movie gangster sagas of the 1960s without any psychological overtones. It’s played straight but there’s a wink in the eye. Josh Brolin is unashamedly Sgt Joe Friday lacking only the classic “Just the facts ma’m” line and whether deliberate or not, Emma Stone’s make-up and demeanor mirror Lindsay Lohan.

The performances are in line with the material (even Penn who is having way too much fun), the period recreation is impeccable, and the fashions made me want to rush out and order a highball. It really is OK to go slumming at the movies every once in a while and Gangster Squad is the perfect film to do it with.

Rated R for strong violence and language.
Review by Chip Kaufmann

Mama ****

Short Take: Executive producer Guillermo del Toro has come up with another winner in this old school horror film about feral children with a secret and the couple who adopt them.

Reel Take: Actress Jessica Chastain has had a significant run of high profile, highly regarded roles in notable movies over the past couple of years (Tree of Life, The Help, Zero Dark Thirty). Guillermo del Toro is an accomplished film director (Cronos, Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth) who also happens to be a perceptive executive producer of other people’s work (The Orphanage, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, Rise of the Guardians). Together their respective talents help to turn Mama into a better than average old school horror film that bears a strong resemblance to last year’s The Woman in Black.

The opening prologue sets the tone right away as the 2008 recession causes a man (Nicolaj Coster-Waldau) to kill his business partners and his estranged wife before kidnapping his baby daughters. Crashing his car during the getaway, he stumbles on an old abandoned cabin in the woods and prepares to kill his children and then himself when something stops him.

Five years later the man’s brother (also Coster-Waldau) and his girlfriend (Chastain) discover the children still alive but in a feral condition. They are placed in a welfare clinic where a psychiatrist (Daniel Kash) plans to study them. After gaining custody of the girls, the brother takes them to his home where he is seriously injured by an unseen force. This leaves the sisters with Chastain who begins to see and hear things while the girls tell her about “Mama” a vengeful spirit who kept them alive and now has come back to claim them.

Intrigued by drawings the girls left behind, the psychiatrist investigates and discovers the story of a mental patient whose baby was taken away from her. Stealing the child back, she commits suicide with it and now her spirit has come back wanting the new children. The brother, having recovered, now seeks to protect them with the help of his girlfriend and the doctor.

First time director Andres Muschietti has expanded a 3 minute film that he and his wife made into this first class frightfest that concentrates on mood and suspense just like The Woman in Black rather than gobs and gobs of goo. In fact, if you’ve seen it, let that film be your guide. If you liked WIB then you’ll love Mama. If you didn’t see it, then let the PG-13 rating be your guide. That should tell you all you need to know.

Rated PG-13 for violence and terror and some disturbing images.
Review by Chip Kaufmann