Chi-Raq

Posted on December 3, 2015 at 3:37 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for strong sexual content including dialogue, nudity, language, some violence and drug use
Profanity:	Very strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking, drugs
Violence/ Scariness:	A theme of the film is gang-related violence, guns, shooting, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	Race and gender issues are the theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	December 4, 2015
Date Released to DVD:	January 25, 2016
Amazon.com ASIN:	B017W1P79I

“WAKE UP!” Laurence Fishburne pleads at the end of Spike Lee’s incendiary movie, “School Daze,” not just one of Lee’s best films but one of the most important films of the 1980’s. He was not talking to his fellow students. He was not talking to the camera. He was talking to us in the audience. He was telling all of us to rise above fear and petty differences — and fear of petty differences and stop hurting each other.

That message is even more urgent now, and so “Chi-Raq” is an even more powerful call for all of us to wake up, and it is Lee’s best non-documentary film in many years. It is more than a film; it is an anguished wail of grief and fury and the most important film of 2015.

We call the great Illinois city on the shores of Lake Michigan Chicago, but as the opening lines of the movie explain, for the residents of a South Side community with more violent deaths than the US military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is Chi-Raq. In the film a little girl is killed by a stray bullet in a gang-related shooting. She is collateral damage. The week I saw the film, there was a funeral in the very community where it is set for a nine-year-old boy who was a deliberate murder target as an act of reprisal against his father. Even the ultimate symbol of Chicago gangster violence, Al Capone, never went that far. This is not a documentary and the mode of storytelling here is heightened, but there can be no credible claims that what it portrays is unfair or exaggerated.

They feel completely isolated from any kind of help from the outside. Businesses are afraid to come into their community, so there are not jobs or services. The government does not help. The newspapers do not tell their story. Their news is reported by rappers, and in a sensationally dynamic scene in a club a rapper known as Chi-Raq (a fierce Nick Cannon) tells the truth about what they see all around them.

Lee, working with co-screenwriter Kevin Willmott, brilliantly positions this vitally contemporary story as an updated version of a play written in 411 BC, “Lysistrata,” by Aristophanes. Just as the savvy strategist of almost 25 centuries ago plotted with the other women of her community to bring an end to the Peloponnesian War by withholding sexual favors from all of the men, “Chi-Raq’s” Lysistrata (a sizzling performance by “Mad Men’s” Teyonah Parris) sits down with the women from the opposing gang (to continue the classical themes, the gangs are the Trojans and the Spartans) to get them to pledge that there will be no loving until there is no more shooting. The heightened classical overtones include a narrator/chorus who has a Greek-sounding name Dolmedes — inspired by the Blaxploitation hero Dolemite and played by Samuel L. Jackson in a series of natty, brightly colored suits. And then there is the dialog, all in verse, somewhere between rap and iambic pentameter, which actually have a pretty broad overlap.

Lee makes it clear that this is a widespread, even universal problem as women around the world join forces with Lysistrata. And no one escapes responsibility for the carnage, with a searing climax of tragedy and redemption. We see a mother (Jennifer Hudson) scrubbing her little girl’s blood off the street. We see people tweeting the details of a shooting as it happens. Lysistrata is inspired not just by her namesake but by the real-life Nobel Prize winner Leymah Gbowee, who brought the Christian and Moslem women of Liberia together to stop the fighting in their country. Lee is very clear about who is to blame and who is responsible for making it better: all of us.

And when we see mothers holding pictures of their children killed by guns, we are seeing real mothers, holding pictures of their real children. All of the flash, music, sex, and spectacle are balanced with moments of intimacy, connection, and poignancy, and all are anchored in Lee’s passion for his community. That reality makes this a rare movie that can change the conversation.

Parents should know that this film features gang-related and other violence with tragic outcomes including characters injured and killed, explicit sexual references and situations with nudity, smoking, drinking, and drug use.

Family discussion: What is the best way for the community, the government, and business to stop gang-related violence? How can a movie like this make a difference?

If you like this, try: “School Days,” “Do the Right Thing,” and “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” and read “Lysistrata”

Secret in Their Eyes

Posted on November 19, 2015 at 5:28 pm

A girl is murdered. That girl, that crime and the man who did it are seen very differently by different people, all of whom are in law enforcement and all who have sworn to devote their professional lives to justice in this dark thriller based on an Oscar-winning Argentinian film (“The Secret in Their Eyes“). Just as that film used a long-unsolved murder to explore the shifts of politics and culture over the decades, this version, from writer-director Billy Ray, sets the murder in the frantic realigning of priorities following the terrorist attacks of 9/11. For those who loved her, justice for the death of the girl is all that matters. For those working on anti-terrorism, though, the suspect may be of more use out in the world as an informant than in prison as a murderer.

The story takes us back and forth between the present day and the time of the murder, in 2001. Claire (Nicole Kidman) is a District Attorney and Ray (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is an investigator newly assigned to the FBI’s anti-terrorism division. There is an immediate charged connection between them, though Claire is more reserved. Ray works with Jess (Julia Roberts), who teases him about his evident interest in Claire.

Then there is the report of a death, a body in a dumpster. Ray and Jess arrive, alert, professional, but detached, snapping on their blue latex gloves and talking about a possible connection to their work because the body was found near the mosque they are investigating.

And then Ray sees the girl and has to tell Jess that everything she cared about in the world has been destroyed. The shot of Roberts’ face as she has to go from thinking she has been called to see a body to understanding that it, that she is the one particular individual who means the most to her, “the thing,” she says, “that made me me,” is shattering to see. For the rest of the film, the radiant presence we know so well is haggard, numb, broken.

In the present day, the murder has not been solved. Because the suspect was an informant from a mosque that could have been harboring terrorists, the case against him was not pursued, and he has disappeared. But Ray has never stopped looking for him. He went through 1906 photos a night, searching every white male in the FBI’s system, for 13 years. He thinks he has found him.

More successful in mood than plot, Ray uses this story to meditate on loss, hopelessness, and the gulf between law and justice. Each of the characters wants something different from this investigation. Jess wants what she thinks of as justice but what looks more like revenge. “Death penalty would be too good for him,” she says. Ray feels somehow responsible, because he could have been with Jess’ daughter the morning she was killed. Claire wants the law to be enforced. And she still feels a connection to Ray. As for the suspect — in his own way, he is as controlled by his obsessions as the others.

Parents should know that this film includes a brutal rape and murder (off-screen) and some violence, with some peril and some injuries and abuse. There is some strong language.

Family discussion: Do you agree with Morales’ decision on how to treat Marzin? Should Ray have told Claire how he felt?

If you like this, try: the original film, “The Secret in Their Eyes” and Ray’s earlier films, “Shattered Glass” and “Breach”

Related Tags:

Crime Drama Remake Thriller

Captive

Posted on September 17, 2015 at 8:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for mature thematic elements involving violence and substance abuse
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drugs and discussions of drug abuse
Violence/ Scariness:	Prison escape, violent murders, tense confrontations, hostage situation
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	September 18, 2015

Two desperate people who think they have nothing discover that there is still a lot more to lose in this fact-based story about an escaped prisoner and the woman he held captive.

The story made headlines throughout the country. Ashley Smith, a young widow still in her 20’s, was in the early, fragile stages of recovery from drug abuse. Her daughter was living with Smith’s aunt, but Smith was working hard to be able to care for her. Brian Nichols was in prison, charged with rape. When he was being transferred for his trial, he beat the security guard, stole the civilian clothes he was to wear for the trial, and went on the run, killing a judge and three other people. He grabbed Smith, and forced her to let him into her apartment. He held her there for seven hours before she was able to leave and call 911. While they were together, they talked, she made him pancakes, and she read aloud to him from Rick Warren’s best-seller, The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?. The book was given to her by a woman in her 12-step group, and she tossed it in the garbage. But it was waiting for her again at her job. The woman who gave it to her got it out of the garbage can and left it for her.

Kate Mara plays Smith and David Oyelowo plays Nichols, and the heart of the movie is seeing each of them find some humanity in the other. Neither has any reason to trust, and neither does much to earn trust, either. “I’m a mother!” she says when he first captures her. She wants him to see her as a person, and as a person someone else depends on. But she tells him the truth, that her daughter is not there and will not be returning. And then she lies to him and says that her husband is coming home soon. He asks her for weed, and she says there isn’t any, but he can tell from the way she says it that she is holding something else. It is “ice” (meth) and it is in a small packet she almost could not resist shortly before Nichols captured her.

He takes some and tries to force her to take the rest. But she realizes that she would literally rather die than start using again, and it is the strength of that moment that is the turning point for her. Hopped up on drugs, Nichols says he wants Smith and her daughter to come with him to Mexico. He will kidnap his infant son and they can all be together. But he knows it is impossible. Listening to the book, or perhaps seeing Smith get the message that she can still have a purpose even after all her mistakes, helps him understand what he must do. Smith herself says that moment was when faith in God’s love filled her heart and she knew she would be all right.

The movie loses momentum when it shifts to the law enforcement efforts to track Nichols. What matters is two people who think they have lost everything and how one of them chooses life, hope, and purpose.

Parents should know that this movie includes a prison escape with four brutal murders, guns plus reference to drug dealing and another murder, hostage, drugs and discussion of drug abuse, some strong language, and issues of child custody and parental fitness.

Family discussion: What were the most meaningful parts of the time they spent together to Ashley? To Brian? What book would you want to read to someone afraid and in pain?

If you like this, try: the book by Ashley Smith Robinson and Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life

Black Mass

Posted on September 17, 2015 at 6:00 pm

The most terrifying image on movie screens this year is the ice blue eyes of crime boss Jimmy “Whitey” Bulger, played by Johnny Depp in “Black Mass.” They are opaque, implacable, and piercing. Depp’s performance as the man who was second on the FBI’s Most Wanted List when Osama Bin Laden was number one is a return to form for one of Hollywood’s most talented performers, whose recent films have been a series of disappointments. His Bulger is coiled fury, horrifying when he kills, even more horrifying when gets an FBI official to tell him the secret recipe for a steak marinade and most horrifying of all when he strokes a woman’s face and touches her throat, pretending concern that she may be ill but very clear about the menace he is contemplating.

Director Scott Cooper (“Crazy Heart”) has assembled a superb cast to tell a complicated story. Bulger was a full-service crook — a killer, racketeer, extortionist, and drug dealer. When a businessman would not cooperate, he did not waste time making him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Told that he wouldn’t make a deal, he asks, “Will his widow make a deal?” And then the guy gets shot in the parking lot of his country club and she is a widow.

What makes this story different from the usual gangster film is that Bulger was enabled by a childhood friend from the neighborhood who became an FBI agent, John Connelly (Joel Edgerton). At first, they help each other, especially when Bulger tips off the FBI so they can go after his rivals, clearing the way for the expansion of Bulger’s Winter Hill gang into new territories and lines of illegal business. But the FBI ultimately becomes complicit, even turning over to Bulger the names of informants so he can execute them. “Black Mass” is a reference to a Satanic perversion of the Catholic rites of prayer, and this movie is about the secular perversion that has a murderer sharing a jolly Christmas dinner with the most powerful politician in the state (Bulger’s brother Billy, played with wily street smarts by Benedict Cumberbatch) and the FBI agent who is supposed to be investigating him.

Cooper and screenwriters Mark Mallouk and Jez Butterworth (based on the book by Boston Globe reporters Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill, keep the pressure taut. It opens on the close-up of one of Bulger’s Winter HIll gang, insisting he is not a rat, but making it clear is his about to tell the police what he knows. We can see every individual whisker on his cheeks, every bit of scar tissue from a lifetime spent getting beat up and beating up other people. (Extra credit to the makeup department headed by Joel Harlow for the most believable aging I’ve seen in a movie.) The score by Junkie XL is one of the best of the year, and the closing credit sequence is superbly designed.

We see Bulger harden over the years, as though he is freezing from the inside out. There is a lot of talk about loyalty but it is really about pride and power. Its exploration of the compromises that may be necessary to stop someone who operates entirely outside the rules and the implosion of spirit necessary to maintain those compromises gives a texture to the story by asking us to consider who was responsible for more damage and who was more responsible as well. Bulger is a deeply frightening bad guy. But the scarier bad guys are the ones who are supposed to be protecting us from the Bulgers of the world and protect them instead.

Parents should know that this movie is based on the true story of a notorious crime boss. It includes many brutal murders, drug dealing, racketeering, corrupt law enforcement, graphic and disturbing images, constant strong language, sexual references, prostitution, drugs, drinking, smoking.

Family discussion: What should the rules be for working with informants who are involved enough with crime to provide reliable testimony? Do you agree with the punishments for the various characters? What would you do differently?

If you like this, try: “The Departed” (Jack Nicholson’s character was in part inspired by Bulger) and “Goodfellas,” and the documentary “Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger”

Related Tags:

Based on a true story Crime Drama

The Real Story: Whitey Bulger

Posted on September 16, 2015 at 3:11 pm

“Black Mass” stars Johnny Depp as Whitey Bulger, now serving two consecutive life terms plus five years in prison for racketeering, drug dealing, and multiple murders, just a small part of the crime, terror, and mayhem he was responsible for as a Boston crime boss of a mob crew known as the Winter Hill gang. For 16 years he was hiding out until he was arrested in 2011. For 12 of those years, Bulger was listed second on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, behind only Osama bin Laden.

James Joseph “Whitey” Bulger, Jr. was born in 1929, the son of a longshoreman. The family was poor and he got involved with crime very early. His first arrest was at age 14, served time in juvenile detention, and then served his first prison sentence in his 20’s for armed robbery. After he got out, he became involved in organized crime. Meanwhile, his brother Billy became involved in politics and served as President of the University of Massachusetts and also as President of the Massachusetts Senate for a record-breaking 18 years. He is played in the film by Benedict Cumberbatch.

In 1971, according to reports, he first became an informant for the FBI, which overlooked his crimes to obtain his help in going after his biggest rival, the Patriarca crime family. This association is the primary focus of an excellent documentary about Bulger from director Joe Berlinger, who told me:

The three star witnesses for the government are murderous thugs. I mean could you imagine somebody going up for trial for 20 murders and getting 12 years? He’s a serial killer and yet the government treats him as a star witness, now how is that guy incentivised? It’s what I love about the movies, it is a true Rashomon experience and yet the truth rises to the top and something stinks. The real story has been swept under the rug because it’s just implausible on so many levels that all that murder and mayhem and bad behavior is solely the responsibility of one relatively low level agent and his corrupt supervisor, it’s just not plausible.

I really want to know how truthful is the claim that he had a deal of protection and frankly it’s an important question that is the major disappointment that I had in observing the trial because that was a question that was not allowed to be aired. Even before the trial began, the judge ruled that the immunity claim was not allowed to be brought up in trial so that was disallowed as a line of inquiry. It’s a complicated question but he should have been allowed to bring that up at trial because it’s a central question to the saga and I was disappointed that the judge would not allow because I think it was pretty clear that no matter what happened at trial Whitey Bulger was not going to walk out of that preceding a free man. Right from the start he admitted to being a drug dealer and loan shark.

This week’s film is based on the book Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI, and a Devil’s Deal. There is also a 60 Minutes story about Bulger’s capture.

Related Tags:

Crime The Real Story