Archive for Matt Damon

THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU!

Posted in 2011, Action Movies, Cinema Knife Fights, John Harvey Reviews, Michael Arruda Reviews, Science Fiction with tags , , , , , , , , , on March 7, 2011 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT:  THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU (2011)
By MICHAEL ARRUDA & JOHN HARVEY


(The Scene:  A park bench on a busy city street.  L.L. SOARES, unpredictably dressed in a suit and a trilby hat, sits on the bench, speaking into his cell phone.)

LS:  Don’t worry.  I get it!  Michael Arruda has to start his review of THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU before 7:00 AM, and then I get the weekend off.  No problem, I’m on it.  Now shut your pie hole.  Like I’m going to forget.  Nothing distracts me.  (Shuts off cell phone, just as a gorgeous redhead walks past him.)  Whoa!  Wucka-wucka!  (whistles)  (looks at his watch)  Dammit!  It’s 6:59!

(LS gets up and runs towards bus stop, just as MICHAEL ARRUDA appears on the sidewalk carrying a cup of coffee.  LS runs across the street towards MA, but is distracted by a buxom blonde.  While he’s looking at her, he’s hit by an oncoming bus, which sends him hurtling through the air.  MA looks up and notices camera.)

MA (to camera): Oh, hello.  You’re early.  I’m on my way now to meet L.L. Soares to review this week’s movie, THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU.  Why don’t you come on the bus with me and we’ll chat a bit before I begin the review with L.L?

(MA gets on a bus and notices JOHN HARVEY sitting with an empty seat next to him. John looks out the window at the crowd gathering around a horribly injured L.L. Soares.)

MA:  Hey, John!

JH:  Hey! Have a seat.

MA:  Thanks.  Funny bumping into you.  In a big city like this, what are the odds?

JH:  It’s like it was planned or something.

MA:  Yeah, I’m on my way to meet L.L. to review THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU.  It’s weird though.  I’ve been trying to call him all morning to confirm our meeting, and my cell phone doesn’t seem to be working.

(John looks out the window again toward the accident. Off-screen, we hear LS scream “Cool, I can see my own spine!”)

JH:  Yeah … I have a funny feeling that’s just not going to work out. Call it fate.  Hey, I saw THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU.  Maybe I could review it with you.  (points to the camera)  Since those folks have joined you for the ride, maybe we could review it right now, right here.

MA:  That is an excellent idea.

THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU (2011) is the new science fiction movie starring Matt Damon, in which his character is chased and harassed by a mysterious group of men in suits and hats who are hell-bent on controlling his destiny.  It’s based on a short story by Philip K. Dick called “Adjustment Team.”  I suspect a story like this worked better as a short story than a feature length film, because there are lots of holes and questions in this plot which become more exposed the longer it goes on.

In THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU, Matt Damon plays hotshot David Norris, an up and coming politician with a bright future ahead of him.  On the eve of his winning a New York Senate seat, a scandal erupts over a published photo of him mooning his friends at a college reunion party.  As a result, he loses the election.  Before he delivers his concession speech, though, he has a chance meeting with a young dancer Elise (Emily Blunt) who he hits it off with immediately.  She has to run since she had crashed a wedding at the same hotel and was being chased by security, but Norris is so captivated by her that he becomes inspired and goes on to deliver the best speech of his career, setting him up to be the front runner in the next Senate election.

Norris joins a private venture capital firm and temporarily leaves politics.  Unbeknownst to him, one morning on his way to work, a mysterious stranger dressed in a suit and hat named Harry (Anthony Mackie) is instructed to make sure Norris misses his bus and returns home before going to work, but Harry accidentally nods off instead!

(suddenly laughs)  I have to stop here for a second.  What kind of a superior being who has the power to control destinies oversleeps on the job?  Is this a comedy?  I thought this was a ridiculous plot point.

JH: It did seem a bit contrived, but they did establish Harry as an “agent” who was both more sympathetic and job weary compared to his peers. It’s thin, but this film was designed around a human story, rather than careful, believable plotting. But go on.

MA: Because Harry screws up, Norris gets on the bus and has a second chance meeting with the woman of his dreams, Elise.  They hit it off again, and she gives him her phone number.

Norris arrives at work on time, which wasn’t supposed to happen, and he finds everyone there frozen in time and stumbles upon of group of men sticking some kind of probe into his friend and co-worker’s head.  Norris tries to flee, but is quickly caught and confronted by the leader of these men, Richardson (John Slattery).  Richardson decides to level with Norris and tells him who they are, a group of beings who work for someone known as The Chairman who spend their time controlling people’s destinies.

Richardson tells Norris he must never reveal what he knows, or else his brain will be wiped clean.  There is one other problem, Richardson says.   Norris wasn’t supposed to meet Elise again.  Their getting-together is not part of The Chairman’s plan, so they must never see each other again.

As you can imagine, this doesn’t sit well with Norris, and he spends the rest of the movie trying to find Elise, while the Adjustment Bureau does everything in their power to stop him.  Why, you ask?  It seems the folks at the Adjustment Bureau want our buddy Norris to become president one day, and he just isn’t going to be that motivated if he’s home and happy in love with the girl of his dreams, Elise, which doesn’t actually make much sense, since she was the one who inspired him in the first place.

I was wary of THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU because I’d heard there had been many rewrites and delayed release dates, which often spells doom for a movie, but I have to say, in spite of the holes in this movie’s plot, I actually found myself liking this one, which certainly surprised me.

JH: I liked it, too. I didn’t love it, but I liked it. I think that I was a lot more forgiving of the plot holes than you were. Also, keep in mind that this was George Nolfi’s first turn as writer, director, and producer of a single film. Before this, he had writing credits on THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM (2007) and OCEAN’S TWELVE (2004), and a few other films. This was a pretty ambitious project for him.

MA: The main reason I found this movie entertaining was I bought into the love story between Norris and Elise, and so while the threat to their relationship didn’t always make sense, I wanted them to be together, and so I was drawn into their story, and as a result enjoyed it.  I was also interested in just who The Adjustment Bureau were, and I wanted to know more about them.  Here, the movie doesn’t do so well.

JH: I’ll agree with you there. I’ve seen so many movies recently where the love story is very contrived and plastic. In THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU, you buy into the chemistry between these two. As far as the Adjustment Bureau itself is concerned, I was afraid that they’d tell me too much about what they’re about. In film, this is the sort of device that works better as an unexplained mystery.

MA: I disagree. I wanted to know more about them.

I mean, I like the IDEA of the Adjustment Bureau, a group of beings who plan everything out and control our destiny so we don’t screw up the world, and some of the things they say in the movie ring true, like when they describe their work and talk about people losing keys, cell phones not working, and how we think it’s chance but it’s really them.  This rings true because this sort of thing happens to us all the time, and often we wonder, is there some unseen force preventing me from doing this?

However, the more you think about the concept of The Adjustment Bureau, the less sense it makes.  First off, it seems too incredibly difficult to pull off, to control all our destinies, and that’s what happens in the movie.  These guys screw up left and right, which to me, is the biggest problem in this movie, and that is, the Adjustment Bureau are a bunch of failures.  They should be called the Failure Bureau.

JH: Eh. I didn’t have a problem with that. Mostly because it’s a blatant urban fantasy/romance film. So, I know going into it that everything in the film is subservient to the characters and the love story. If the filmmaker’s spent a lot of time trying to make the Adjustment Bureau seem logical, then they lose their target audience.  This is a date movie with fantastical elements.  It’s not even loosely science fiction or realism.

MA:  Well, I wasn’t on a date.

(ANOTHER MAN IN SUIT and wearing a fedora is suddenly running alongside bus, screaming and hollering at MA through window)

MAN:  Hey! Did you start the review yet? DID YOU START THE REVIEW!?

(JH stares at the man as he runs.)

MA: Do you hear something?

JH: Ummmm.

(MAN IN SUIT runs smack dab into a Stop sign on street and collapses to ground.)

JH (listening):  No. But on second thought, I have to admit that these Adjustment Bureau agents have the same kind of luck as a drummer in SPINAL TAP.

MA:   And they give Norris way too much slack.  They should never have allowed him to get as far as he did.  When Richardson first comes on the scene, he’s powerful and effective. He seems to have special powers, the ability to make objects move, to freeze time, yet later all these strengths seem to be gone and he’s reduced to a slow-moving dimwit.

A higher-up is called in, Thompson, played with dignified menace by Terence Stamp, but the same thing happens to him.  Damon’s Norris walks all over these guys.  The Adjustment Bureau should have been more of a threat.

JH: It did seem a bit easy for Norris to outsmart these guys. On another subject, what I would have liked to see out of Norris is a moment when he contemplates cutting Elise out of his life entirely due to ego and political ambition. It’s a very predictable love story because you know that he’ll always act out of his total and consuming love for Elise. It would have added a little more texture and humanity to the film if one or both of the characters had moments when they are entirely self-centered.

MA: That’s a good point.  Norris is pretty much being handed the keys to his future.  You’d think he’d contemplate the offer a little more seriously, but it’s a classic case of wanting what he can’t have, Elise.

Unlike you, I wanted to know more about the Adjustment Bureau.  It’s hinted at that they’re angels, and the Chairman is God, but if true, this would be disappointing.  They lack passion and purpose.   I mean, why are they doing these things?  I don’t really understand their point.  If they’re so powerful that they can control our destiny, don’t they have something better they can be doing?  Why do they care so much for us?  Do they love us?  With the exception of Harry, who feels sorry for Norris and is compelled to help him, it doesn’t seem that way.  They’re just a bunch of suits following orders.

It would have been cool had they been humans from the future.  That would have explained their interest in helping the human race, because they’d be preserving their life in the future.  But this isn’t the case.  It’s never clearly explained who they really are.

JH: I completely disagree with you there. If they’d started going into that kind of minutia about the Adjustment Bureau, I would have been disappointed. If it turned out that they’re humans from the future, then I would have been just plain angry. These guys work best as a mystery. As far as I’m concerned, they came to the hairy edge of saying too much.

MA: Really?  I thought they were way underdeveloped.

Another hole in the story occurs when the Team tells Norris that he can never see Elise again, and they say they’re not worried about this happening by chance because without her phone number and last name, it’ll be next to impossible for him to find her again.  I didn’t buy this, because the two met on a bus on their way to work.  Wouldn’t it be feasible to believe that they ride the same bus at the same time every day because they’re going to the same jobs?  Also, he’s a famous politician.  Wouldn’t it be easy for her to find him?  She knows his name, for damn sure!  It’s all over the news!

JH: And if you’d gone to this movie with a date, then so many of these things would matter so much less for you. Because she’d be content and cuddly, and you’d be too busy wondering if she’s happy enough to let you do … you know … “the weird stuff” when you get home.

MA: I’ll die happy if you never bring up “the weird stuff” again. What’s all this date stuff anyway?  Did you have a date?

JH: Of course not. I couldn’t find a date in the candied fruits section at the supermarket. But I may have been a little drunk when I saw this movie. THAT also makes you a bit more forgiving. Anyway, let’s just agree to disagree on how much the plot holes should bother the average viewer.  Let’s talk about other aspects of the film.

MA: Fine.

I thought the acting was decent.  I like Matt Damon a lot, and he’s solid as David Norris.  Damon certainly fares better here than he did in last year’s HEREAFTER.  He’s believable as a young politician, and his feelings for Elise seem real.  I bought the fact that he was desperately in love with her.  He also seemed to have put on some weight here, so when he’s running through the streets fleeing the Bureau baddies, he doesn’t look like super killer Jason Bourne, which is a good thing.

Emily Blunt was okay as Elise, though she was somewhat less effective than Damon.  One thing I didn’t buy was that she was supposed to be this amazing ballet dancer, yet in the scenes we see her dance, she’s anything but amazing.  Blunt played Gwen Conliffe in last year’s THE WOLFMAN.  She was okay in that movie too.  Neither performance blew me away though.

I liked John Slattery a lot as Richardson, the main Adjustment Bureau guy, and he delivered the best performance in the movie.  Slattery has a long and varied resume, and we saw him last year in IRON MAN 2 as Howard Stark.

(Editor’s Note: even MORE people will know Slattery as Roger Sterling from the excellent TV show, MAD MEN)

Anthony Mackie was less effective as the goodie-goodie Bureau guy Harry Mitchell.  I found him a bit too nice for my tastes, and I think the biggest problem I had with his character is I never really understood why he cared for Damon’s character so much.

Terence Stamp as the heavy, Thompson, was sufficiently cold-hearted and powerful, but he would have been much more fun had he actually been successful at being cold-hearted and powerful.

JH: I agree with pretty much everything you have to say about the acting. I’ll add that I think Terrence Stamp was used too little in this film. He brought a level of gravitas to the Adjustment Bureau that seemed to be lacking whenever he walked off camera.

MA: George Nolfi’s direction is okay, as the movie looks fine, but the chase scenes were not very exciting.  They just seemed to be lacking in the suspense department.  Scenes of people running (and there were a lot of these) on their own don’t generate a whole lot of suspense.  THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU doesn’t really work as a suspense thriller, because it’s not that suspenseful nor is it much of a thriller

The script which director Nolfi also wrote works best when you don’t think about it too much.

JH: I thought of this movie as INCEPTION-lite with a love story. It’s a lot more accessible to a wider audience. I think a valid criticism of this film is that it attempts to be a jack of all trades, but master of none. It’s good in many respects, but spectacular at nothing.

MA: I liked the two main characters enough to care about what happened to them, and so when these weirdos in suits and hats start playing around with their future, I wanted them to stop, and I wanted the two lovers to get away from them.

The problem isn’t with the two lovers.  They’re fine.  It’s with the Adjustment Bureau.  They’re an interesting lot, but too little is revealed about them and their motives, and once the going gets rough, they don’t get going.  They fail miserably, which is a huge disappointment.

There are lots of scenes where Damon is fleeing from them, running like hell, and they’re in pursuit—walking.  It’s like, will you hurry up?  He’s friggin getting away!

It’s like Darth Vader finally confronting Luke Skywalker but suddenly realizing he’d forgotten his light saber.  Oops.  Why did I pay all this money to watch this character if he can’t even remember to bring his light saber? Same here.  These guys can’t control one politician and a ballerina? What the hell business do they have then trying to run the world!  Scram!

JH: Really? You’re comparing and contrasting THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU with RETURN OF THE JEDI? You own a set of Captain Kirk pajamas, don’t you?

MA: Damn!  How did you know?

Anyway, I liked this one, and in spite of the weak villains and less than tight story, I found the plight of the desperate lovers compelling and entertaining, enough for me to recommend this movie.  I give THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU three knives.

JH:  For the most part, we agree. We diverge mostly on believability (or rather, the level required to enjoy the film) and exposition regarding the film’s fantastical elements. So, I’m giving it 3.5 knives.

(The bus comes to a halt at the same stop where they started. Michael and John have been on the bus for the whole route)

MA:  Hey, we’re back where we started. I wonder if we’ll find L.L. hanging around? I’m starting to worry about him.

(John looks out the window to see the same crowd gathered around LS’s prone and bloody body.)

JH:  You know, I don’t think that’s in the plan.

LS (gets up, brushing himself off): I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. I’m just a little bloody, is all.

(NICOLAS CAGE pulls up in a Dodge Charger and LS gets in on the passenger side.)

MA: I can’t believe he totally blew off this review. (Shakes head as he and JH get off at their stop).

LS (off-screen): Thanks for reviewing this one for me guys. Since I’m a big Philip K. Dick fan, and I hate Matt Damon, I’m sure I would have hated it.

(Dodge Charger squeals as it roars off. MA and JH didn’t even hear him)

JH: Yeah, I suspect he got hit by something unexpected. It’s a funny old world.

MA: I guess. You want to grab a beer.

JH:  Sure. It’s booze-o’clock somewhere.

(They each put on fedoras and head towards a bar.)

—END—

© Copyright 2011 by Michael Arruda & John D. Harvey (with a smidgen of input from L.L. Soares)

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Michael Arruda gave THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU – three knives

John Harvey gave THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU - three and a half knives

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CKF Coming Attractions: March 2011!

Posted in 2011, Aliens, Coming Attractions, Werewolf Movies with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 1, 2011 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT
COMING ATTRACTIONS: March 2011
by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

(The Scene: The streets of Los Angeles. Pandemonium is everywhere. People are running through the streets. Military vehicles and soldiers are firing into the sky, and giant alien spaceships are returning the favor. The camera pans to the window of a coffee shop, and through the window we go inside, with the camera settling on MICHAEL ARRUDA and L.L. SOARES at a table drinking coffee.)

MA (looking out window):  Yep, it looks like yet another alien invasion. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of this storyline. We just had SKYLINE (2010) and MONSTERS (2010) last year.

LS:  Those are just two movies. How can you be tired of a storyline after two movies?

MA:  I guess because I didn’t like either movie.

LS:  That’s because you have no taste. MONSTERS was one of the better movies of 2010.

MA:  Anyway, before we get to this latest invasion, from BATTLE: LOS ANGELES, which opens March 11, we have to cover a couple of other movies. The first is THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU (2011) which opens on March 4.

THE ADUSTMENT BUREAU is a thriller starring Matt Damon about a secret group of men in suits who control our destiny, and it involves a love affair between a politician and a ballerina. In short, this one sounds plain stupid, and I don’t have high hopes for it.

(Outside the window, a politician and a ballerina run by, pursued by a group of men in suits, in fast motion.)

MA:  That’s what I’m talking about.

Anyway, I like Matt Damon a lot, but I’m not sure if his presence alone will be able to save what looks to be a troubled production. Rumor has it that this one has gone through multiple rewrites and delayed release dates.

It’s written and directed by George Nolfi, who wrote THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM (2007) and the Michael Douglas thriller THE SENTINEL (2006), which a lot of people didn’t like, but I thought it was pretty good. THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU is based on a Philip K. Dick short story called “Adjustment Team” so it does have this in its favor.

LS:  I’m a big Philip K. Dick fan. Some good movies have been based on his work, especially BLADE RUNNER (1982). But there have been bad movies adapted from his stories as well. THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU looks pretty boring to me. And I’m not a big Matt Damon fan.

MA:  Okay, moving on to what promises to be perhaps the biggest release of March, BATTLE:  LOS ANGELES (2011). This one’s got a very stylish trailer, and it’s about yet another battle between humans and aliens. I generally like this storyline, but I’m getting tired of it. I certainly hope this one delivers the goods.

It does have a good cast, which includes Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez, and Bridget Moynahan. This is one that I certainly WANT to like, but a lot will depend on how well the story is written. I’m sure it’ll look great with smooth special effects, but whether a film makes that jump to the next level often depends on the strength of its story.

LS:  You’re right, though, that it looks an awful lot like another movie we saw recently, SKYLINE. If we judge the movie on its trailer, BATTLE LOS ANGELES looks very similar. I hope that’s not the case. I hope it gives us something different.

MA:  Also coming out on March 11 is RED RIDING HOOD (2011). I had absolutely no interest in this one. I mean, who wants to see a movie about Little Red Riding Hood?

(Three little pigs run by the coffee shop window, pursued by a big, bad wolf.)

MA:  I guess it could be worse.

Anyway, I wasn’t into seeing this one at all, until that is I saw its trailer, which I have to admit has piqued my interest, and has me actually looking forward to seeing this one now. The movie looks pretty cool. It’s got some impressive photography and makes great use of the color red, at least in the trailer, anyway.

Amanda Seyfried who I like a lot is playing the lead role, Valerie, aka Red Riding Hood. We saw her in CHLOE (2009) and JENNIFER’S BODY (2009). And Gary Oldman is on hand as Father Solomon, and he looks to be a nasty werewolf hunter.

In spite of the fact that the movie is named RED RIDING HOOD, it looks like an atmospheric werewolf movie, one that I’m looking forward to seeing. I guess this really shouldn’t come as a surprise, since LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD, the fairy tale, really is a werewolf story, too.

It’s written by David Johnson, who also wrote the screenplay for ORPHAN (2009), a movie I liked a lot. The only knock on this one is it’s directed by Catherine Hardwicke. What’s the knock?  Well, she directed TWILIGHT (2008).

(Bella and Edward run by the window. LS & MA break window and start hurling donuts at the fleeing couple.)

LS:  The trailer looks interesting, but it also looks like the werewolf is a teenager. It looks like yet another variation on the TWILIGHT concept. So I’m not that interested. Even though I do like Seyfried and Oldman.

On March 18 we’ll be reviewing PAUL (2011). At first, I thought it was the new movie by Edgar Wright, who gave us SHAUN OF THE DEAD (2004) and HOT FUZZ (2007). But Wright is nowhere around. It’s directed by Greg Motolla, who also directed SUPERBAD (2007). But the stars, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, were also the stars of SHAUN and FUZZ.

PAUL is a movie about a couple of idiots who pick up an alien named Paul, who has escaped from the legendary Area 51. The character of Paul is CGI and looks like he could get a bit cutesy as the movie goes on. However, this one is rated R, so maybe it will surprise us and not be as silly as the trailer suggests.

MA:  Yeah, I loved SHAUN OF THE DEAD, and I’m looking forward to PAUL.

That being said, the trailer didn’t blow me away by any means. It didn’t look as funny as I thought it would be. I hope there are funnier jokes in the movie than in the trailer.

LS:  And we’ll finish the month with SUCKER PUNCH (2011) which opens on March 25. This one’s about a girl sent to a sanitarium who escapes into a fantasy world. Except it looks like some of the other patients join her in this world, where they have a quest that will lead them to freedom. SUCKER PUNCH is directed by Zack Snyder, who gave us the so-so remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD (2004), as well as the comic book movies, 300 (2006) and WATCHMEN (2009). He’s made interesting enough films so far that I want to give SUCKER PUNCH a chance, even though the trailer didn’t wow me.

MA:  I’ve got mixed feelings about this one. I mean, the trailer’s pretty good, and the story looks fairly interesting, but if the action scenes don’t hold up, this one could be a disappointment. The story of girls in an institution using an alternate reality as a coping strategy doesn’t do much for me. It seems kinda lame. This one might be a mixed bag.

And yes, the fact that it’s directed by Zack Snyder is a plus.

Well, this about wraps things up here.

LS:  Yes, it does. (to audience):  We’ll see all of you in March at the movies!

(MA & LS pay the bill, then exit restaurant. On the street, they watch the horde of screaming fleeing people run by them. They look at each other, shrug their shoulders, and then join the running and screaming crowd, disappearing into the night.)

—END—

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TRUE GRIT

Posted in 2010, Cinema Knife Fights, Coen Brothers, Westerns with tags , , , , , , , , on December 27, 2010 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT: TRUE GRIT (2010)
by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

(THE SCENE: The back room of a general store. The proprietor tries to keep MICHAEL ARRUDA from going back there, but he pushes on. In the room, they encounter empty whiskey bottles on the floor, and LL SOARES asleep among the inventory. The proprietor lifts his arms in defeat and leaves)

MA: Wake up, you old codger, we’ve got a movie to review.

LS: Saints and tarnation! Can’t a man be allowed to sleep the sleep of the dead even one day a year? I paid that proprietor dearly to prevent anyone from coming back here and disturbing my slumber. How the hell did you find me?

MA (lifts an empty whisky bottle and sniffs): It wasn’t too hard. Wake up. We’ve got a movie to review.

LS: Dammit, Michael. It’s Christmas Eve. Can’t you let a brother sleep late for once?

MA: It was your idea to review this one. Up and Adam! (He kicks the steamer trunk LS is sleeping in)

LS: AAAARGH!

MA: Come on. I have family members to visit. Gifts to hand out…..

LS (interrupts): Houses to haunt. I know, I know.

(LS jumps up, covered in old, worn long underwear and pulls his pants on)

MA: What’s with the eye patch?

LS: I was raising a bottle and accidentally poked myself in the eye. Do you mind?

MA: Eye don’t mind at all, yuk, yuk!

LS: Oh, get stuffed. We’ve got a movie to review, don’t we?

MA (smiles): Yes, we do! And eye do believe it’s your turn to start.

LS: You’re going to need an eye patch of your own in a minute! Okay, I’ll start it then.

TRUE GRIT is the new movie by the Coen Brothers, Joel and Ethan of course, and I was really looking forward to this one. Based on the classic novel by Charles Portis, some of you pardners might remember that it was filmed once before, by director Henry Hathaway, with John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn, in 1969. It was the only movie to get Wayne a coveted Oscar statue. But some people have complained that the Hathaway/Wayne version took some liberties with the source material. The Coens aim to rectify this by adhering closer to the novel. Of course, I can’t tell you if they succeeded in doing this. I haven’t read the book.

MA: Neither have I. (LS glares at him.) What? I said “I”, not eye!

LS: Aye. While Wayne was not the most talented of his brethren – there were certainly other leading men of his generation with more range and actorly gifts – he did a great job with the character of Rooster Cogburn (as his Oscar clearly illustrates), and I’m a big fan of the original film. So I wasn’t sure if it really needed to be remade.

But the Coen Brothers, in their infinite wisdom, deemed it so. So who am I to argue? I donned my winter attire and went out to the movie palace to partake of their cinematic Christmas gift. And I have come away with mixed feelings about the new TRUE GRIT.

I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy the movie, because I did. I thought it was extremely well-made and well acted. I’m just not sure if I appreciated the tone all that much.

MA: Really? Then I’m eager to hear what you have to say, because for the most part, I enjoyed the tone of this one. I didn’t have a problem with this movie until its ending, which I found anticlimactic. Why are endings so challenging for filmmakers these days? Don’t answer that now. Go on with your thoughts about tone. I’m interested.

LS:  Let’s dissect this pickled frog, shall we?

The story is mainly about poor Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld). Her father, a farmer, was shot to death by a hired hand named Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), who also robbed him and fled the scene. Mattie is a serious, determined girl, and all of 14 years old. She has come to town to have her father’s coffin shipped back home and to secretly arrange for vengeance upon her father’s killer. When she is told it is unlikely that the killer will be apprehended – the man has fled to “Indian Territory” (which will someday be called Oklahoma) and there’s a shortage of federal marshals to pursue him – Mattie takes it into her own hands to hire a marshal directly, with money in hand, to make sure the job gets done. Of the possible lawmen to hire, Mattie chooses Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), because he has “true grit” and is known for not bringing them in alive (he usually kills the men he pursues). Since she wants her father’s killer dead, she is overjoyed to find such an ornery and foul-tempered brute to do the job. When she first spies Cogburn, testifying at a trial about men he’d shot, she knows she has made the right choice in the matter.

And so she goes about resolving some of her father’s business to acquire the money, and hires Cogburn to do the deed. Of course, Cogburn is also a whiskey-drinking drunkard as well as a man of the law, so it’s tough to get him motivated at first. But he comes around quickly enough. One of her demands in their exchange of money, however, is that she has to go along on the journey. Her intention being to kill the man himself when they find him, with her father’s own gun, which she has collected from the boarding house he stayed at when he was last alive.

The rest of the film recounts their journey to find the elusive Chaney and bring him to justice. The polecat has taken up with the outlaw Lucky Ned Pepper (Barry Pepper) and his gang. Cogburn aims to take Ned in tandem, to collect a reward for his hide as well.

MA: And I enjoyed this tale of the journey. It’s what happens once they find good old Mr. Chaney that I have trouble with. By the way, don’t forget Matt Damon….

LS: Ah, yes. Mr. Damon portrays a Texas Ranger by the name of LeBoeuf (which he pronounces “LaBeef”). LeBeouf has been trailing Chaney for a while now, attempting to take him back to Texas for a sizable reward. It seems Chaney had been up to mischief in that state as well, killing a Senator and his dog, and LeBoeuf plans to claim the bounty. But he hasn’t had much luck and seeks to throw in his lot in with Mattie and Cogburn, because I guess he believes the more, the merrier. Besides, Cogburn knows the Indian country well and would at least provide a useful guide for LeBeouf. He even cuts the man in for a percentage of the reward. Both men see Mattie as a complication, a thorn in their respective hides, but she proves she is more than capable of keeping up with them.

And so, our merry band departs Arkansas, hot on the trail of Tom Chaney.

The acting here is all top-notch. Starting with Steinfeld, who is pretty much astounding in her role.

MA: She is amazing, no doubt about it. Her performance in TRUE GRIT is among my favorite parts of the movie.

LS: The young girl plays a no-nonsense, ultra-serious character who will not back down in her quest. I don’t think she cracks a smile once in this movie, and she takes charge of every situation she is in with little or no effort. TRUE GRIT is really her story, and Steinfeld is more than up for the job. Her performance is a powder keg here, and I hope she gets nominated for an Oscar herself.

MA: She’s definitely worthy of an Oscar.

LS: Jeff Bridges, at this point in his career, has become almost as iconic as John Wayne was when he portrayed Rooster Cogburn.

MA: Hold your horses, there, pardner! That would be emphasis on “almost.” I love Jeff Bridges just as much as the next guy—

NEXT GUY: I take offense at that comment. I don’t love Jeff Bridges at all!

MA: Sorry. I thought I was just using an expression.

NEXT GUY: You should be more careful with what you say.

LS: Scram, you smelly varmint!

(NEXT GUY exits.)

MA: As I was saying, I’m a big fan of Bridges, but he’s nowhere near to the icon that was John Wayne. Wayne’s one of the all time biggest stars in film history. And even though Wayne over the course of his career didn’t show a lot of range—as he tended to play himself over and over— he was damn good at it. I’ve become a huge Wayne fan as I’ve gotten older.

LS: Be that as it may, Bridges is the superior actor.

MA: Yes, I would agree with that.

LS: Like I was saying, I love this guy like a second cousin—

NEXT GUY: Better you than me.

LS: Go away!

But I do have some bones to pick with Bridges’ performance here. First of all, the man speaks in such a gruff, mutter, that in some scenes I wasn’t 100% sure what was being said. But, thankfully, that doesn’t happen too often. My other objection is that at times he is portrayed as a bit of an oaf, an idiot, for the sake of comic relief in a story of revenge, and that wasn’t much to my liking. A couple of jokes at his expense is one thing, but there are parts of this film where I thought Cogburn came close to becoming a joke.

MA: I didn’t think he was a joke, but if you’re thinking of the scene where he tries to show off his shooting abilities to LeBoeuf and Mattie Ross, and he’s obviously drunk and at that time not a very good shot, yes, that scene was a little annoying. But I don’t remember there being much more than that.

LS: Yes, that scene where he tries to shoot items he throws up into the sky to impress Mr. LeBeouf becomes rather comical at Cogburn’s expense, but he redeems himself in a true crisis. My problem is how Cogburn is portrayed as pretty much a buffoon throughout he tale – constantly blathering on about silly details of his life like an old hen, shouting when he’s better off using stealth, etc. This is more the fault of the screenwriting than the acting, however, and Bridges does his best to keep the character both noble and oblivious throughout, despite the drunken binges and such.

MA: I really enjoyed Bridges a lot in this movie. As powerful as Hallee Steinfeld was in this film as Mattie Ross, I thought Bridges was equally as good as Rooster Cogburn. I thought both their performances were among the best I’ve seen this year. Bridges was certainly more satisfying here in TRUE GRIT than he was in last week’s TRON: LEGACY.

LS: As many people may know, I’m not a big Matt Damon fan. In some films his earnestness and resemblance to Howdy Doody have made it difficult for me to take him seriously, but he continues to wash away that initial reaction and prove himself a decent enough actor. In TRUE GRIT, Damon is clearly the comic relief character (or is that Cogburn?), who thinks he is much smarter than he truly is. And I think he’s an improvement over Glenn Campbell, who played the same role in the 1969 version.

Of course, Mattie shows both men up for the fools they are. Damon’s character also redeems himself when he needs to. But two fools in one tragedy seems a bit overdone to me, even if this were a work by Billy Shakespeare.

MA: I usually enjoy Damon a lot, but I thought he was just OK here. I didn’t find LeBoeuf particularly compelling or all that enjoyable. I’ve seen Damon deliver some riveting performances, taking a role and making it his own. That’s not quite the case here. LeBoef is Le-Boring.

LS: Josh Brolin plays Chaney, when we finally meet him, as a whiny man-child, not much worth the time spent pursuing him, and not much of an adversary at all, which I guess is the point, but I found his character to be a bit grating. Which is odd, since I’m usually such a big fan of Brolin’s.

MA: I wouldn’t know. Brolin’s screen time here is ridiculously brief, it’s flippin annoying! It’s one of the problems I have with this movie. The three main characters spend all this time tracking down Chaney, and then when they find him, it’s over so quickly.

I actually thought Brolin was fine. I wish he had had more of a part. As it stands now, blink and you might miss him.

LS: You’re exaggerating again.

MA: I know, but I’m making the point that he’s not in this thing much. Often, my favorite part of a movie is its villain. Tom Chaney isn’t much of a villain. And why not? Because we don’t get to know him.

LS: Barry Pepper is actually much better in his small role as outlaw Lucky Ned Pepper. He looks and acts as battle-worn as his character should be, and deserved more screen time.

MA: Yes, he does. TRUE GRIT is obviously the story of Mattie Ross and Rooster Cogburn, and as such, the movie succeeds. I enjoyed their story immensely, but the movie as a whole would have been better had more time and care been given to the villains in the story as well.

LS: Agreed. I liked this movie a lot. I thought it was very well-done, and I think Steinfeld steals every scene she is in. But my complaint is with the tone of these proceedings. As I mentioned before, there’s a bit too much comic relief in a story that deserves more introspection. Sure, Cogburn is a drunk and a blowhard, but if he’s been so successful at his job, he must be much more of professional killer than we are led to believe here. A bit more clenched-teeth mercilessness in the face of adversity would have been nice. It’s like the movie starts with telling us his reputation as a cold-blooded bringer of vengeance and then the reality is that he’s a clown. Which is all well and good, but I would have been happier to see more of his rattlesnake fangs.

A scene in a shack where one man loses his fingers and another has his head blown off was more to my liking – an intense scene that goes from casualness to violence in the blink of an eye, but there’s not much else like that to be seen here. Even if you were to have one eyehole covered in a patch, as Rooster does.

MA: A great scene! One of my favorite scenes of the movie, very intense! I wish the ending had been as intense as this scene!

LS: Are you referring to an absurd bit of storytelling toward the end where Cogburn rides a horse to death to get a snake-bitten Mattie to a doctor, and once the horse dies, he carries her miles further in the snow to their destination? Is this the scene you didn’t like? Because you’re right, it’s kind of dumb.

MA: No, I was actually referring to the confrontation— or lack thereof— between our good guys and Tom Chaney, but you’re right about the rushing to the doctor scene.  I mean, I was fine with it until the horse dies and Cogburn picks up Mattie and carries her across the countryside.  I think after a few yards he would have passed out, but he carries her for miles!  Yeah, right.

LS: Look, I love the Coen Brothers to death, and I wanted to love this movie, but it’s not in the same wheelhouse as films like NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007) and FARGO (1996), which better knew how to temper their laughs and grimaces of pain. Actually, I don’t remember laughing much in NO COUNTRY at all, which is probably why it worked so well for me. In these grim scenarios, laughing in the face of reaper is often better served in small doses, unless you’re going to create a virtuoso work of absurdity like my favorite of their films, THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998), in which the tone suits its material perfectly.

MA: I’m hot and cold with the Coen Brothers. While I enjoyed NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and FARGO, I didn’t enjoy BURN AFTER READING (2008) all that much. Oddly, one of my favorite movies of theirs is the quirky O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU? (2000).

LS: And there you have it, my review of TRUE GRIT. I give it three and a half knives. Not the full four of an exceptional film, but close. And certainly not the five knives of a masterpiece. The Coens have made a couple of films that approach greatness in their oeuvre, but this one falls a bit short for me.

MA: Me, too. Actually, for most of this movie, I was enjoying it a lot, and it was approaching four knife status. However, the ending took care of that.

I thought the pacing to TRUE GRIT was slow and deliberate, and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I was completely wrapped up with Mattie Ross’ and Rooster Cogburn’s story, and even though this film of their journey together took its time, I enjoyed every minute of it.

There were lots of enjoyable scenes. You already mentioned my favorite, the “finger slicing scene,” but I also enjoyed the sequence where they come across the hanging body from the tall tree branch. I loved the small details, like the sound effects of the bird chomping on the corpse’s face.

I enjoyed the sequence where they met the Bear Man. It was very mysterious and captivating.

I thought the shoot out following the “finger slicing” scene was also rather intense and well done.

Everything up until the ending was excellent. Up until the ending, TRUE GRIT is a compelling western, well-made, and totally engrossing.

But the conclusion lacks oomph; it’s anticlimactic. What should have been a dramatic confrontation between Rooster Cogburn and Tom Chaney never happens. This is because, ultimately, TRUE GRIT is a character study of Mattie Ross and Rooster Cogburn. It’s not a chase movie, or an action picture about the pursuit of an evil bad guy. The evil bad guy is nothing more than an afterthought here.

Does this ruin the movie? Absolutely not! It just prevents it, in my book, anyway, from completing the deal and achieving 4 knife status.

As a result, I give TRUE GRIT three knives.

LS: Fine. Some might say that TRUE GRIT is a bit off the beaten path for us, since it’s not horror. But it is a genre film—that genre being of the Western persuasion. Besides, there were mighty slim pickins’ this month for horror films. And as this year went on, we did seem to be branching out a bit in other territories…much like Rooster Cogburn and his crew.

And now that you’ve wrung this review from me, Michael, can I please go back to my slumber?

MA: Of course. I’ve got to get going anyway. I have to go scare— I mean, visit some relatives today.

(Door opens behind MA. A young 14 year-old girl enters the room.)

GIRL: Are you two the Cinema Knife Fighters?

MA & LS: Yeah.

GIRL: A bad man shot a lousy movie about my daddy. I’m here to clear his name. Will you review the movie and tell the truth about my daddy?

MA: Your daddy’s name isn’t Edward Cullen, is it?

GIRL: Nope.

MA: Good, then I’ll see the movie.

LS (exasperated): I just want to sleep, dag gum it! Can’t you handle this one yourself, Arruda?

MA: You can sleep all you want—after we help this girl. Now, tell us about this movie.

GIRL: Well, first of all, it’s all lies, and second—-.

(As girl tells her story, the camera pans away, exits through window of general store, and in a wide crane shot pulls away, revealing saddled horses hitched to the store and a snowy surrounding landscape, and we hear LS shouting, “Damn it, where’s that whiskey bottle I was saving for Christmas?” followed by the crack of a glass bottle shattering, and MA saying, “There ‘tis.”)

—END—

© Copyright 2010 by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

Michael Arruda gave TRUE GRIT – three knives.

LL Soares gave TRUE GRIT - three and a half knives

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HEREAFTER

Posted in 2010, Michael Arruda Reviews, Paranormal, The Afterlife with tags , , , , on November 16, 2010 by knifefighter

MOVIE REVIEW: HEREAFTER (2010)
By Michael Arruda

What happens after we die?

That’s the question posed by HEREAFTER (2010), the new movie by director Clint Eastwood. It’s a question that begs for a poignant answer, and while the movie does well to ask the question, it strangely doesn’t seem all that interested in answering it.

The story begins with a French journalist Marie LeLay (Cecile De France) who gets caught in a tsunami and suffers a near-death experience. Afterwards, she finds herself changed, unable to clear her head of the images she experienced while she was unconscious, images of a place she can’t describe as anything other than the hereafter.

Then there’s a young boy (Frankie and George McLaren) living in London with his twin brother and drug-addicted mother. When his twin gets hit by a car and dies, he’s taken from his mother and placed with a foster family. His brother’s death leaves him with such a void he can’t think of anything else but contacting his dead brother.

The third story takes place in San Francisco, where psychic George Lonegan (Matt Damon), who has the ability to speak with the dead, is desperately trying to put this part of his life behind him. He describes his ability to speak with the dead as a curse rather than a gift, and we see this firsthand when he meets a woman named Melanie (Bryce Dallas Howard) at a night school cooking class who he likes a lot and begins to fall in love with. When she learns about his ability, she begs him to do a reading with her. He reluctantly agrees, and when he relays to her a very disturbing message from her deceased father, it proves too humiliating for her, and she breaks off the relationship.

The driving force of HEREAFTER is the anticipation that these characters are going to meet, and that somehow their lives will intertwine and their fates will change because of it. The problem is this much anticipated meeting takes forever to happen.

We watch Marie meander around Paris wondering just what it was she experienced, decide to write a book on the subject, and then struggle to find a publisher and conduct her research.

We watch the young boy struggles in his new life with his new foster family, unable to clear his head of the drive to speak with his dead brother. This drive takes him to one psychic after another, and ultimately to one disappointment after another.

We follow George to his night school cooking class, as he struggles to overcome his loneliness. We watch him argue with his brother, who tries to convince George to quit his low-paying blue collar job and go back to making money as a psychic.

We watch these stories and we know that nothing is going to change, no one is going to learn anything new, until these characters meet, and yet, the film meanders through their stories with little or no sense of urgency. By the time they do meet, it’s much too late to be effective.

And the answer to the poignant question, what happens when we die? According to this movie, we just don’t know. Well, I knew that going in!

It pains me to criticize a film by Clint Eastwood, because he’s been one of my favorite film talents forever. I’ve enjoyed him immensely as an actor, and I’ve enjoyed his work as a director just as much. His recent films like MILLION DOLLAR BABY (2004) and GRAN TORINO (2008) were highly entertaining, and in the case of BABY, Oscar- worthy. But HEREAFTER is a misfire, I’m afraid.

But as disappointed as I am with Eastwood, I’m even more disappointed with screenwriter Peter Morgan. Morgan wrote FROST/NIXON (2008) and THE QUEEN (2006) two films I enjoyed very much, mostly because I thought they had excellent screenplays and had terrific stories to tell. Here, HEREAFTER just isn’t much of a story. You know things are bad when some of the more entertaining scenes in the movie take place during a night school cooking class!

But even worse in terms of the story is that it does next to nothing with answering its big question, what happens when we die? “I don’t know, kid” Matt Damon’s psychic George tells the young boy towards the end of the movie. That’s as poignant as it gets. Even the actual process of seeking out answers is taken on superficially. George communicates with the dead, yet he doesn’t talk about what that actually means. If he’s talking with the dead, then they still exist some place. This isn’t discussed.

The French journalist Marie believes there’s a hereafter based upon her experience after the tsunami, and her research leads her to believe that a hereafter exists, but just what that research teaches her isn’t fully disclosed. She speaks of a conspiracy of silence, but this conspiracy isn’t revealed. She implies that the world’s scientists have documented that a hereafter exists, but the mainstream media and organized religion have suppressed this information. Why? We’re not told. It’s an interesting idea, but it’s not developed at all.

The most compelling story is that of the little boy, but it’s compelling because we feel so bad for him. This story eventually shows us that the dead don’t really leave us, but this plot point comes so late in the game that it’s not why the story works. It works because the boy’s life is so tragic, and we’re moved by his ordeal.

Bottom line, while I enjoyed Peter Morgan’s screenplays for FROST/NIXON (2008) and THE QUEEN (2006), his screenplay for HEREAFTER is too lightweight for its subject matter. For such a big question “what happens to us when we die?” its answers are small.

The acting is fine. I like Matt Damon a lot, and he’s good here, but I’ve seen him in better roles. Bryce Dallas Howard, who we’ve seen in lots of genre films in recent years, from TWILIGHT: ECLIPSE (2010), TERMINATOR SALVATION (2009) and SPIDER-MAN 3, is stuck here in a small, thankless role that pretty much goes nowhere. Cecile De France is okay as French journalist Marie LeLay, but she’s not all that memorable.

Real life twins Frankie and George McLaren probably fare the best as twins Marcus and Jason, and they’re listed in the credits as playing both boys, so I guess they spent time in the movie playing both parts. You can’t tell, since they’re identical twins. Anyway, they’re very good, and were my favorite characters in this movie.

I will say that the special effects during the tsunami scene at the beginning of this movie were excellent. It’s a very realistic sequence with convincing CGI effects.

But I was expecting bigger and better things from HEREAFTER. At the very least, I was expecting to be moved by this movie. I was not.

HEREAFTER is a misfire from start to finish, a slow-moving vehicle that fails to inspire. More interested in asking questions than answering them, its much-needed poignant answer never materializes, remaining hidden in the shadows like a quiet unassuming ghost. As a result, what could have been a powerful story remains mired in the mundane.

I give it 1 knife.

—END—

© Copyright 2010 by Michael Arruda

Michael Arruda gave HEREAFTER - One knife!

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