Black or White

Posted on January 29, 2015 at 5:58 pm

Writer-director Mike Binder sure likes to get Kevin Costner drunk. As in his uneven but impressive “The Upside of Anger,” Binder once again has Costner playing a man who is a little lost and usually shnockered, a role well suited for Costner’s loose-limbed, naturalist wryness. Binder’s strengths are evident here. He creates complex, unhappy characters who are articulate without being artificially quippy. He casts superb actors and gets outstanding performances (“The Upside of Anger,” flawed as it was, is worth seeing just to watch Joan Allen work through so many variations on ferocity, loss, and doubt). And in this film, he takes a highly charged situation that could easily be overly melodramatic, formulaic, or polemical and gives it nuance and dignity. No matter what your inclination on the custody dispute over a biracial child at the center of the film, you will rethink it.

Costner plays Elliot, a lawyer who learns in the first moments of the film that his wife Carol (Jennifer Ehle) has been killed in a car accident. She has had most of the responsibility of caring for their granddaughter Eloise (Jillian Estell), who has lived with them since she was born, because her mother, then just 17 years old, died in childbirth.

Elliot is so overwhelmed by loss that the next morning he takes Eloise to school without telling her what happened. He has no idea of what the morning routine is, how to fix Eloise’s hair, or even where exactly the school is located.

That afternoon, with some bolstering of his courage via alcohol and his law partner, Elliot finally tells Eloise that her grandmother has died. He is committed to continuing to care for her. But her other grandmother, Rowena (a terrific Octavia Spencer) wants to have a bigger role in Eloise’s life. She files for joint custody. Her brother Jeremiah (Anthony Mackie), a successful litigator, tells her that if she wants to succeed, she will have to have a more powerful argument than her rights as the child’s grandmother. She will have to claim that Elliot is not a suitable guardian for a black child. “Do you want what is best for the child?” asked Jeremiah. “Then has a problem with black people.” Elliot’s counsel urges him to be aggressive. “Are you okay getting ugly?”

Rowena and Elliot respect, even have some affection for one another. Each knows the other is far more than the extremes alleged in the court filings. But the system is not set up for anything but extremes. Jeremiah is successful in getting the case before a black woman judge (the excellent Paula Newsome), and both sides think she will be inclined to give Eloise to her black relatives.

But both sides are vulnerable, and, as the judge has warned them, once a child is in the system it is within her power to decide that neither grandparent should have custody. Elliot and Rowena both understand that the litigation will bring them to the brink of mutually assured destruction. But things heat up. Rowena brings in her son Reggie (André Holland), Eloise’s father and amends the suit to call for full custody, saying Elliot is not fit to raise Eloise because he drinks. While his legal claim is stronger on paper because he is her parent, his claim is also weaker because he has a record of drug use and criminal behavior and has never cared for or even spent time with his daughter. We see the contrast between Elliot’s big, luxurious, but empty house and Rowena’s crowded, chaotic, but loving home. Elliot is white and male. Can he understand Eloise? Both of Eloise’s grandparents are still struggling with their failures as parents the first time around as well.

Binder continues to be better with the small moments than the big ones, and there are affecting one-on-one moments with Reggie and his mother and uncle, and with Elliot and Rowena. But he still has trouble with finding a good way to end a story, and he has no idea of how to write for a child. Estell has a likeable screen presence, but is asked to deliver some unforgivable lines that are far too idealized and age-inappropriate for her character. It is too bad that a film that shows exceptional sensitivity to its adult characters so badly fails the girl on whose behalf they are fighting.

Parents should know that this film includes some strong language, including racist epithets, drug and alcohol abuse, and sad offscreen deaths. The family issues and custody battle may be upsetting to some viewers.

Family discussion: If you were the judge, where would you put Eloise? Why does Duvon write so many papers? Why does he learn so many languages?

If you like this, try: Clover and “Losing Isaiah”

The Judge

Posted on October 9, 2014 at 6:00 pm

Robert Downey Jr. gives his best performance since “Chaplin” in “The Judge,” an absorbing story of family, redemption and home.

Downey co-produced and stars as Hank Palmer, a Chicago criminal defense attorney known for doing whatever it takes to get his clients a “not guilty” verdict. Hank relies on his two strengths and his belief in a third. He has a restless intelligence that operates like a perpetual random radar signal going off in every direction at once. As we will see in a sensational bar scene where he sizes up some guys heading towards him with fight in their eyes, Hank can size up a situation and formulate a dazzling verbal response in an instant. But that same intelligence also makes him impatient and dismissive.

Hank also has a coping mechanism for keeping him focused that has worked very effectively. It is basically not to think too much about anything but winning. Other lawyers in the movie will talk about their view of the law — that it is a mechanism for making sure individuals take responsibility for the consequences of their actions, that it is the one place where everyone is equal. Hank’s professional career has been dedicated pretty much to proving the opposite.

And Hank thinks of himself as a devoted father to his little girl, Lauren (Emma Tremblay of “The Giver”) because he loves her dearly, though, as his estranged wife points out, he cannot name her teachers, best friends, or favorite color.

These two skills and one inflated idea are what sustain Hank, and over the next seven months, he will have to give up all three to explore who he is, where he came from, and how these protective mechanisms are no longer keeping him safe but keeping him stuck. The greatest pleasure of this film is seeing Downey’s responses as a man who is very, very good at what he does learn that none of that is of any help to him.

We first see Hank taunting his opposing counsel in the courthouse men’s room. “I respect the law,” he says. “I’m just not encumbered by it.” He is representing a man he knows to be guilty of massive financial fraud. As the trial begins, he gets a message that his mother has died. Hank, who has assembled the life he thought would make him happy, a fancy home, a fancy car, a beautiful wife, will have to do something he has been avoiding for years. He will have to return to his small hometown, Carlinville, Indiana. While it is his father who is a judge by profession, either could be the title character. Hank has done a lot of judging of those around him and, like his father, he has found just about everyone not up to his standard.

The golden, elegiac tones provided by master cinematographer Janusz Kaminski and steeped in tradition, slightly formal soundtrack from Thomas Newman introduce us to the town. Hank pays his respects to his mother with his brothers, sweet-natured, developmentally disabled Dale (Jeremy Strong), who always carries his Super 8 movie camera, and Glen (Vincent D’Onofrio), a once-promising athlete who was injured and stayed in town to run a tire store. His father, the judge (Robert Duvall), is presiding. Hank watches from the balcony. Some things never change. His father still tells defendants that “Yeah” is not the way to speak in a courtroom.

But some things have changed. The judge cannot remember the name of his longtime bailiff. Hank suspects his father, sober for many years, may have started drinking again.

Hank is uncomfortable and feels unwelcome. His old room has been used for storage. He can barely find his bed. His father and brothers barely speak to him. Even an encounter with his high school girlfriend Samantha (Vera Farmiga, wonderfully earthy) cannot make him anything but out of place and eager to get away.

And then the judge is accused of murder. The night of the funeral, he was driving in the rain. A man riding a bicycle is dead, his blood on the judge’s fender. The dead man and the judge had a history. Hank wants to defend his father, mostly because he is still hungry for his father’s approval and this will give him a chance to show the judge what he does best. He may not be much to brag about outside the courtroom, but inside the court is where he lives. That is something Hank and his dad share.

Co-writer and director David Dobkin is best known for wild, raunchy comedies like “The Wedding Crashers.” Like Hank, and like the man who plays him, Dobkin here moves to the grown-up table with a rich, thoughtful, beautifully structured film, with moments of humor that are among the funniest you will see this year. The jury selection scene is a treat all its own.

It would be enough just to get a chance to see Downey show how much more he is capable of than even his brilliant work as Tony Stark or in small gems like “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” and “The Wonder Boys.” Here he gives a master class in acting, never less than fully present in showing us Hank’s layers of protection and the deep yearning for connection they cannot hide. The open-heartedness and vulnerability of this performance are deeply moving, a gift from Hank the character and from the man who plays him. But this is an enormously wise and moving story, beautifully told.

Parents should know that this film has strong and crude language, sad deaths of parents, infidelity and divorce, serious car accidents with injuries and death (nothing explicit), graphic depiction of various bodily functions and fluids, gastrointestinal distress foilowing cancer treatment, sexual references, drinking and discussions of alcohol abuse and drug use

Family discussion: How were Hank and his father alike? What made it hard for them to get along?

If you like this, try: “The Client” and more films from Robert Downey, Jr. (“Chaplin,” “The Avengers”) and Robert Duvall (“The Apostle,” “Tender Mercies”)

Related Tags:

Courtroom Drama Family Issues

Delivery Man

Posted on November 21, 2013 at 6:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, sexual content, some drug material, brief violence and language
Profanity:	Very strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Character grows marijuana, alcohol, hard drug abuse treated seriously but irresponsibly
Violence/ Scariness:	Fight, drug abuse
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	November 22, 2013
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00GEKO51U

The undeniable sweetness of “Delivery Man” makes its inherent silliness just about forgivable. Or, it just might be the sense of relief that Vince Vaughn is finally making a movie that is just silly instead of crass and stupid like “Couples Retreat,” “Four Christmases,” “Fred Claus,” and pretty much most of what he’s done since “Wedding Crashers.”

Vaughn plays his usual likeable shlub, this time Dave, the son of a butcher. His brothers work in the store with their father, but all Dave can do is drive the delivery truck, and he does not even do that very well. “It’s like every day you find some new way to push the limits of incompetence.”

He also has the usual long-suffering girlfriend, a cop named Emma (Cobie Smulders), who, like all girlfriends in these arrested development movies, has only one responsibility in the story, which is to look beautiful when she tells him that it’s time for him to grow up. It turns out that she is pregnant, and she does not believe he has it in him to be responsible enough to be a dad.

In the midst of all this, he discovers that he already is a dad, at least in the strictly biological sense. Some time ago, he was a “very, very frequent donor” at a sperm bank, which carelessly made it available to many more women than its guidelines allowed. A lawyer shows up in Dave’s apartment to tell him that he is the biological father of 533 children, and 142 of them have sued the facility to find out the identity of the mysterious “Starbuck” whose genetic heritage they carry. Starbuck is not related to the coffee shops or the Moby Dick character who inspired their name. It is the name of the French-Canadian film adapted by its writer-director for this remake, and the name of a legendarily productive stud bull.

Dave is known only as “Starbuck” to the progeny, and his anonymity is guaranteed by the terms of his donor agreement. His best friend is Brett (Chris Pratt, a highlight of the movie and quickly becoming one of our most indispensible comic actors), a lawyer who is beleaguered by his four young children. “My children cannot pick up the frequency of my voice,” he explains, exhausted. Brett gives Dave the folder of information on the 142 plaintiffs and tells him not to open it. What was he thinking?

Dave reads just one file, and is thrilled with his connection to a very accomplished young man. So he takes out another one, and then another, and finds that many of them need help. And he finds that helping them gives him a great sense of satisfaction and purpose. Most don’t need much help. Dave covers a would-be actor’s day job (badly) so he can go on an audition. He warns off catcallers harassing a young woman in a short skirt. He helps an inebriated kid get home. These are in the trailer and are fairly cute.

Some have serious problems. One is a drug addict. One is severely disabled and cannot communicate. These are handled superficially at best and downright irresponsibly at worst.

It’s all just a matter of time before everyone finds out, generally in the most awkward of ways. Cue the fake Jay Leno monologue. But babies are heart-tugging, even twenty years later, and the longing for family from both the children and their bio-dad is so touching that even the most preposterous resolution somehow seems just fine.

Parents should know that the film is about a man who fathered more than 500 children through a series of donations to a fertility clinic and it includes explicit references and crude jokes about producing samples and fertility treatments. Characters use strong and crude language, drink, grow marijuana and abuse harder drugs (the movie implies that addicts can quit easily without any help), and there is some brief violence.

Family discussion: How should Dave prove that he “deserves” to be the baby’s father? What did the children want from the lawsuit? How did he help them?

If you like this, try: “Baby Mama”

Closed Circuit

Posted on August 27, 2013 at 8:00 am

Terrorism has killed thousands of people, destroyed buildings and property, and caused seismic rifts in our notions of who constitutes “us” and “them.” What is even more terrifying is the damage it has inflicted on our most fundamental notions of privacy and justice. “Closed Circuit” is an up-to-the-minute thriller in which the chases and explosions are less scary than what it reveals about how ineffective our legal system is for responding to terrorism. The damage to democracy may be more devastating than the damage to life and property.

The story begins with a shocking terrorist attack at a London market. Two suspects died in the bombing and one died “resisting arrest.” Farroukh Erdogan (Denis Moschitto), described as “the last man standing,” is quickly captured and accused. The traditional judicial system cannot provide him with the rights that are accorded all defendants under UK law, including the right to examine and respond to all evidence against him and to be given any evidence the government has that might cast doubt on his guilt. So he is given two different trial attorneys (called barristers in Great Britain), one for an open hearing, one for a separate closed hearing. The judge soberly advises them that “you must not meet or communicate or share information in any way.”

Martin (Eric Bana) will represent Erdogan in the open hearing to the best of his ability without any access to information deemed sensitive by the government. Claudia (Rebecca Hall) is appointed to have access to those files the government has selected as confidential. In a complicated set of procedures, if she discovers something in those files that is relevant to the case, she can show it to the judge but not to Martin or the defendant. This procedure is intended to provide some some fairness in an inherently unfair process we continue to refer to as the justice system. “There is no right way out of this,” a character will say.

Claudia initially tries to withdraw. She does not explain much but we learn that she and Martin have a history. Even though the process prohibits them from having any contact, that past relationship makes things more complicated.

Separately, Martin and Claudia begin to believe that they are being manipulated, even threatened. But by which side? Is it possible to sustain a democracy, or any kind of accountability, when an official explains, “You want the freedom to attack me, but without me you wouldn’t have much freedom at all?” It is eerily reminiscent of Jack Nicholson’s famous speech in “A Few Good Men” and Jose Ferrar’s in “The Caine Mutiny.” Both accuse us of feeling superior to the decisions we delegate to those who guard our freedom, and our willingness to overlook the infringements of freedom that result.

As an audience, we can distance ourselves from the chases and explosions. Our most terrifying realization is the same one Pogo made famous: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Parents should know that this film has very strong language, references to adultery a terrorist attack, chases and fights, suicide, some disturbing images of murder victims, drinking, and smoking.

Family discussion: Read up on the US FISA court and the controversy about NSA access to personal information. How do we balance the need for national security with the fundamental guarantees of individual justice like the presumption of innocence, the right to examine evidence, and the protection against self-incrimination?

If you like this, try: “Four Lions” and “The Ghostwriter”

Related Tags:

Courtroom Drama Politics Thriller

Great Movie Lawyers

Posted on April 30, 2013 at 12:18 pm

I’m a lawyer from a family of lawyers, and we all love law movies. Be sure to check out Beliefnet’s list of courtroom dramas and Movie Unlimited’s list of great movie lawyers.

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Courtroom Lists