The Last Stand

Posted on January 17, 2013 at 6:00 pm

The NRA should forget that ad about the Obama girls and use this movie instead. The entire storyline can be summarized in the words of NRA head Wayne LaPierre: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Or, in this case, a ragtag bunch of good guys with many, many, many, many guns. It’s basically a co-commercial for the NRA and AARP.

Arnold Schwarzenegger returns from his decade detour into politics to play Ray, a former LA cop turned sheriff in a sleepy Arizona border town. With most of the residents out of town for a high school basketball team away game, he is taking a day off. A dangerous prisoner escapes while being transported by the FBI and hops into a souped-up supercar. “It’s a psychopath in the Batmobile,” says the furious agent in charge (Forest Whitaker). And he’s taken a hostage with him, another agent (Genesis Rodriguez).

But just like the “Manhunt” episode of “The Andy Griffith Show” where the state police think that the local law enforcement are a bunch of rubes who can’t handle an escaped prisoner, Sheriff Ray has some surprises in store. And a lot of firepower, thanks to Johnny Knoxville as the town nutball-with-a-gun “museum,” an excuse for stockpiling all kinds of exotic weapons, including medieval spiked battle flails and WWII machine guns.

The bad guy is a third generation drug lord (handsome Spanish actor Eduardo Noriega) who has sent an advance team to build a bridge over a narrow canyon between Arizona and Mexico. All that lies between him and escape is Sheriff Ray, his young and beautiful deputy (“Thor’s” Jaimie Alexander), the comic relief deputy (Luiz Guzmán), the drunk and disorderly prisoner (think “Andy Griffith Show’s” Otis, except young, handsome, ex-military, and the ex of the beautiful deputy), and the crazy guy with the arsenal. Can they stop the head of a drug cartel with unlimited resources, a paramilitary operation, a car that goes faster than a plane, and all of the freedom from doubt that comes from being a sociopath? What do you think?

It’s set-piece after set-piece, with many capably staged showdowns and lots of macho posturing (several “let’s play”-style comments), plus numbingly predictable dialog with a few winks at Schwarzenegger’s age. Audiences may be less enthusiastic about the entertainment value of whole-sale carnage these days, less able to suspend any thoughts of what the reality looks like. I hope so.

Parents should know that this film features major non-stop carnage with constant shoot-outs, chases, and fights, many characters who are injured and killed, and strong language.

Family discussion: How does the movie acknowledge the real-life circumstances of its star? Who is right about what kind of life to choose, Ray or Jerry?

If you like this, try: “Con Air”

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Action/Adventure Crime

Zero Dark Thirty

Posted on January 10, 2013 at 6:00 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for strong violence including brutal disturbing images, and for language
Profanity:	Constant very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Intense and disturbing wartime images including torture and terrorism
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	January 11, 2013
Date Released to DVD:	March 18, 2013
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00B1E6FF8

It begins with heart-breaking audio of 911 calls from the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. A frantic woman who asks if she is going to die is soothed by the operator until she is suddenly gone and we hear the operator’s dawning understanding of the magnitude of the disaster.

And then it is two years later and we are watching the torture-aided interrogation of a detainee in Pakistan. Dan (Jason Clarke) is forthright and almost clinical as he tells Ammar (Reda Kateb) that he will hurt him for every lie. The interrogation is witnessed by a new arrival who we will know only as Maya (Jessica Chastain). She turns down the chance to stay outside the room. “There’s no shame if you want to watch from the monitor.” Maybe she is proving something to Dan, maybe she is proving something to herself, maybe she is so intent on finding Osama Bin Laden that she wants to make sure she does not miss a detail. Probably all three.

Director Kathryn Bigelow brings that same intensity of focus to telling the story that Maya brings to the search. After “The Hurt Locker,” Bigelow, the first woman to win the Best Director Oscar, re-teamed with screenwriter Mark Boal to make a movie about what they thought would be the unsuccessful search for Bin Laden. Their project was overtaken by events as Bigelow and Boal were all but embedded with the military and CIA to do their research in real time, giving the movie an intimate, gritty, documentary feel.

Maya goes to work. “You don’t think she’s a little young for the hard stuff?” one of her new colleagues asks. “Washington says she’s a killer.” This is not a movie where we go home with the heroes and see them hug their children. It is not a movie where we see them struggle with their demons or sit down over drinks to give us endearing details about their lives or explain why they do what they do. At one point, Maya is asked about her background and she says she has done nothing since she got out of school but look for Bin Laden. She acknowledges that there is a reason she was particularly suited for this task, but she never reveals it. This is the story of hard-working, even driven professionals who have to make life or death decisions all the time, about what it takes and about the price they pay.

People come and go in the story. A new President is elected and the policy on torture changes.* The policy on the level of certainty required as a basis for action changes, too. Dan goes back home. “I need to do something normal for a while. I’ve seen too many guys naked.” And, he says, “You don’t want to be the last one holding a dog collar when the oversight committee comes.” Some of the CIA and military investigators are killed and she is attacked. But then there is a breakthrough and she has another challenge — persuading the military and the politicians that she is right about where Bin Laden is hiding. James Gandolfini, Mark Strong, Jennifer Ehele, and Kyle Chandler are all outstanding as Maya’s colleagues.

And then it is time to bring in Seal Team 6. The attack is brilliantly staged, much of it through night goggles that let us see the compound and the shoot-out through their eyes.

It is also a gripping, masterfully assembled story. Even though we know how it ends, it will leave you breathless.

Parents should know that this film includes terrorism, war, and torture scenes with some very graphic images, characters injured and killed, some sexual references, very strong language, and drinking and smoking.

Family discussion: What does this movie stay about torture? Was Mya right to be so confident? What made her good at her job?

If you like this, try: the documentaries “Restrepo,” “Gunner Palace,” and “Standard Operating Procedure”

*Those who claim that this movie is pro-torture are not paying attention. While some people in the movie may be pro-torture, that is not the same thing as having the movie promote torture. The movie makes clear that establishing a high probability of Bin Laden’s location depended on years of intensive research and was based on correlating many, many sources of information. Mya gets critical data other ways. And the movie’s unblinking portrayal of torture is there to remind of what happened, and, perhaps, of Golda Meier’s famous comment about the true tragedy of war: “When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons.”

Django Unchained

Posted on December 24, 2012 at 6:00 pm

How do you solve a problem like Tarantino?

The prodigiously talented writer/director is a master of style, sensation, and a uniquely muscular kind of cinematic storytelling that builds on a stunning ability to mash up high and low art in a singular and wildly entertaining combination shot through with pure cinematic testosterone and filled with saucy variations on dozens of other films.

But then there is the content of the films, which it seems that Tarantino looks at as just another tool for jacking up a movie’s adrenalin. In “Pulp Fiction,” there was the shock of a literal shot of adrenalin to the heart of an overdosing character and the frisson of hired killers whose biggest concern about blowing someone’s head off is the challenge of getting the blood off the car upholstery. The purest expression of Tarantino’s art is in the “Kill Bill” movies, where he wastes no time on plot, just the minimum nod to the simplest and most relatable of motives — revenge.

In “Django Unchained,” as in his last film, Tarantino uses an actual historic atrocity almost as an afterthought or a placeholder. Like The Bride’s revenge motive, the Holocaust and slavery — and endless uses of the n-word by both black and white characters — are used to justify massive carnage, and, apparently, for no other reason. With “Kill Bill,” the less we knew about the specifics of the reason for the revenge, the better. With “Inglourious Basterds” and “Django Unchained,” we are already aware of the horrors that give the characters license to wreak destruction (artfully). But it is, ultimately, empty. Put another way: sound and fury, check. Signifying: nothing.

Foxx plays the title character. As the movie begins, slave dealers are marching a group of slaves in leg irons and with the scars of whip marks along their backs, through the wilderness. A cheerful man with an elegant, cultured manner pulls up in a cart with a big tooth mounted on a spring. He is passing as a dentist. He cordially offers to buy a slave but when the brutish, dull-witted men refuse, and the first massive slaughter of the story is underway, and all the other slaves set free. The man is Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz, who won an Oscar as a Nazi for Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds”). He is a bounty hunter who hunts down “wanted dead or alive” men and kills them to collect the reward. In those pre-Google image search days, he needs Django to identify three brothers. The information on the wanted posters is not enough for a positive identification. He is opposed to slavery, so he makes a deal. He will keep Django a slave only long enough to complete the job.

Django proves so adept at the bounty hunter business that Schultz offers to bring him on as a partner. “Kill white people and get paid for it? What’s not to like?” Django replies. Django wants to rescue his wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). When they tried to escape from their owner, they were separated and sold. Schultz says that Django will not be able to do it alone, and promises to help him get her back. Their travels take them through several different adventures and many nods and winks to other films (Franco Nero, the original Django, shows up in a brothel bar), including a completely hilarious scene with a bunch of proto-Klan types who can’t get the eyeholes right in their masks and some completely horrifying scenes with a slave torn apart by dogs and a seemingly endless “mandingo fight” to the death. Broomhilda is now owned by a man named Candy (his plantation is called Candyland). He is utterly corrupt and despicable, but even worse is his house slave (Samuel L. Jackson), because he betrays other slaves.

Tarantino gets top marks for style, as always. The violence and historical reversals are possibly intended to be empowering (oddly, Broomhilda is surprisingly less powerful than the usual Tarantino female characters). On the contrary, it is dispiritingly disrespectful to the people who suffered unspeakable atrocities. And Tarantino’s increasing distance between style and substance grows less palatable with each film.

Parents should know that this film includes extremely brutal, graphic, bloody, and disturbing violence with many characters injured and killed, an extended fight to the death, whipping and torture, prostitutes, slaves, some nudity, and constant very strong language including many uses of the n-word.

Family discussion: Why did Stephen tell Calvin his suspicions about Django? How does this movie show the influences of spaghetti westerns, American westerns, and “Blazing Saddles?” Any other inspirations?

If you like this, try: “Inglourious Basterds” and “Kill Bill”

Jack Reacher

Posted on December 22, 2012 at 1:02 pm

Jack Reacher, the hero of a series of books by Lee Child, is as much an idealized fantasy figure as any adorkable chick-lit single girl rocking her Jimmy Choos and self-deprecating quips until Mr. Perfect puts a ring on it. The testosterone version has the observational and analytic skills of Sherlock Holmes, the “who was that masked man” righting-wrongs-and-leaving-town career path of the Lone Ranger, and the single-minded devotion to righteous indignation firepower of Rambo, and he will never, ever, ever put a ring on anyone.

Reacher is ex-military, and ex-pretty much everything else. He has no strings, no relationships, no commitments — also, no id, no phone, no home, and no baggage, in both the literal and metaphorical sense. When he needs to change clothes, he picks up something at Goodwill and throws away whatever he was wearing before. When he needs a car, he has a very effective way of persuading people to let him drive theirs. Or, he just takes one. And he keeps moving.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK7y8Ou0VvM

In the books, Reacher is 6’5″ and 250 pounds and blond. But that did not stop Tom Cruise, who is none of those things, from taking the role. He more than makes up for the lack of physical stature with pure movie star charisma, a fair trade.

The movie is based on Child’s One Shot, written and directed by “The Usual Suspects” screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie. It opens with a scene of a sniper shooting random passers-by, and it is especially jarring when we see him aiming at a child. I would say that it might have made sense to delay the release of the film because it is unfortunate to have it open a week after the shooting of children and teachers in Newtown, Connecticut, but it may be that after that horrible tragedy there will never be a good time for a movie that turns carnage into entertainment. Within the world of the movie, a world people willingly enter because they want to see some guilt-free fights, chases, and shoot-outs, it is reasonably effective. But if it is harder to enter that world these days, perhaps that is not a bad thing.

Law enforcement tracks down the sniper, a military vet, and the case seems open and shut. But before he is beaten into a coma by other prisoners, he scrawls “Get Jack Reacher.” Reacher can’t be contacted, but somehow he knows where he is needed, and he shows up. The sniper’s lawyer Helen (Rosamund Pike) believes her client is guilty, but wants to do her best to represent him. It turns out Reacher knew the sniper in Iraq. He has reason to believe the sniper is guilty. And, as Reacher tells us, he is not a hero.

Oh, who is he kidding, of course he is. Surprise! The case is not as open and shut as we thought. There are some dreary detours into Helen’s relationship with her father, who happens to be the DA, and to a hideous torture scene with a bad guy known as “The Zec” (Werner Herzog, better known as a director), and a five-on-one bar fight, and than, thankfully, we meet up with Robert Duvall as a ex-Marine shooting range owner. He is the only one who seems to understand what kind of movie this is, bringing a delicious zest to his scenes that almost make us forget that this is a movie in which a man is asked to bite off his own fingers and everyone seems to speak Russian.

It delivers what it intends to and what fans of the series are looking for. But I’d say it’s too soon, and maybe it’s never going to be the right time for a mindless shoot-em-up again.

Parents should know that this film includes extensive, brutal and graphic violence including a sniper who kills innocent people and executions, many fights, many guns, car chases and smashes, torture, some disturbing images, characters injured and killed, some strong language (one f-word, crude epithets), drinking, and references to drug use and drug dealing.

Family discussion: Why does Jack stay on the move? Did Emerson have a choice?

If you like this, try: the Jack Reacher books by Lee Child

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Posted on December 13, 2012 at 6:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for extended sequences of intense fantasy action violence, and frightening images
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended fantasy violence and peril with swords and arrows, characters injured and killed, scary monsters
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	December 14, 2012
Date Released to DVD:	November 4, 2013
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00E8S2JZ4

As the second in the Hobbit trilogy is about to be released, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Extended Edition). Director Peter Jackson returns to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth for this “Lord of the Rings” prequel, the adventure of young Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit we meet in the LoTR trilogy as the middle-aged uncle of the heroic Frodo. We see many familiar faces, especially Ian McKellan as the wizard Gandalf, the sepulchral Christopher Lee as Saruman, Cate Blanchett as the ethereal Galandriel, Hugo Weaving as the regally gracious Elrond, and Andy Serkis plus CGI as Gollum, and the now-familiar but still marvelously eye-filling New Zealand locations.What is most different here is that Jackson has doubled the frames-per-second for a new hyper-clarity. The 24 frames per second standard that has been in effect since the beginning of the sound era has been upped to 48, giving the film a depth of detail that is so fresh it can be a little unsettling. We subconsciously associate the quality of light and focus with the video used for news programs and lower-budget sitcoms (think of the difference between the indoor and outdoor scenes in the old “Monty Python” episodes), so it can take a while to get used to it in a richly imagined fantasy, especially when close-ups reveal the pores of a character’s skin like a magnifying mirror at a department store makeup counter and the quality of light seems chillier and more sterile. We get so much visual information that it takes a while to re-calibrate our ability to separate the meaningful from the superfluous.

It does not help that Jackson himself seems to miss the forest of the story for the literal trees. Blowing out the shortest and most accessible of the books to a projected trilogy of nearly nine hours suggests that Jackson has fallen so in love with the project that he has lost touch with what it feels like not to be completely obsessed with it. Of course, he is enabled by the intensity of the fans, who are famously dedicated to every leaf, twig, and Elvish declension. But he seems to have lost track of the thread of the story and dulled his sense of how to communicate with those who are not as deeply involved with the story as he is. He glosses over the important discussion of Bilbo’s two competing heritages, one open to adventure, one devoted to home and hearth, which makes it hard to understand why he changes his mind about accepting Gandalf’s challenge. Since it is a prequel, we are all familiar with the destructive power of the One Ring to Rule Them All, which makes it confusing when we see it 60 years earlier as a simple and benign invisibility ring. Meanwhile, it takes all of 40 minutes before Bilbo leaves his house as what should have been a 10-minute scene about the unexpected arrival of a bunch of rowdy dwarves is expanded to include two different musical numbers. And yet, it still does not give us enough of a sense of who the individual dwarves are.

The action scenes are filled with vitality and dynamically staged, but the film assumes a commitment and understanding on our part that it has not earned. In a story about a quest of honor, that is an unexpected disappointment.

Parents should know that this film includes many battle sequences and scenes of peril, scary monsters, characters injured and killed, some disturbing images, smoking, drinking, and some potty humor.

Family discussion: Why did Bilbo decide to join the adventure? Why did Gandalf pick him? Why didn’t Gandalf use his powers to help the dwarves sooner?

If you like this, try: The book by J.R.R. Tolkien and the “Lord of the Rings” films