Getaway

Posted on August 29, 2013 at 6:48 pm

There’s dumb fun and then there’s just dumb. “Gateway” is closer to that second category, and worse, so forgettable that better title would be “Throwaway.” This one has 99 cent DVD bin all over it.

Ethan Hawke, believably seedy, plays a former race car driver awfully named Brent Magna. He was known for being both reckless and fearful and “wrecking expensive cars.” He and his wife now live in Bulgaria. He comes home on Christmas Eve to find that his wife has been kidnapped. If he wants to see her alive again, he must do exactly as he is told, starting with stealing a very fancy car and then driving it very fast. On the other end of the phone is a mysterious man with an unidentifiable but clearly villainous accent and a disturbingly genial tone that darkens when he becomes insistent and threatening.

We see only his mouth and stubble-covered chin as he sips a cocktail. Magna hears only his voice, directing him to undertake a series of seemingly random and very reckless tasks in the car, which has been equipped with every possible kind of monitoring device, including microphones, cameras, and a sort of high-end Lojack. The man listed in the credits only as The Voice tells him to speed through a park crowded with Christmas celebrants and crash into the dias. He tells Magna that if he tries to get help or is stopped by the police, he will kill Magna’s wife, who we see getting roughed up and tossed into a cell equipped with the obligatory stained mattress.

A teenage girl with a gun (Selena Gomez) tries to steal the car. Voice orders Magna to kill her. Magna cannot do it. Voice changes his mind and tells Magna to keep her in the car. Not that it made any sense before this point, but now is when it really goes off the rails. The girl is supposed to be something between the Dragon Tattoo hacker (with the hacker skills and bad manners but without the tattoos, piercings, and omni-sexuality) and Mackenzie Phillips in “American Graffiti” (with the attitude but without the shaving cream and Paul LeMat). Even if her crazy list of character traits made sense — did I mention she also happens to be the owner of the super-duper stolen vehicle? — Gomez would not be the actress to pull this off. Whenever she is called upon to show rage or toughness, she looks like she’s ordering a soda at the malt shop. Magna has principles about killing people. Until he doesn’t. And don’t get me started on the conveniently irrational and incompetent behavior of the police and the fact that everyone speaks English. Each subsequent twist piles on another layer of preposterousness. When Voice said there was only more more task, I was more relieved than Magna was.

“Getaway” wants to be “Die Hard” in a car. But it stalls in first gear.

Parents should know that this film has constant peril and violence including chases, explosions, crashes, and guns, characters in peril and minor characters injured and killed, frequent s-words and other bad language, criminal activity including extortion, kidnapping, and theft, drinking and scenes in bar

Family discussion: What evidence did you see of Magna’s recklessness and fear? What did he and the girl have in common?

If you like this, try: “Nick of Time,” “Cellular,” and “Phone Booth”

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Action/Adventure Thriller

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”

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Jurassic Park 3D

Posted on April 4, 2013 at 6:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for intense science fiction terror
Profanity:	Brief strong language (s-word, SOB)
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Smoking, drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Intense and sometimes graphic peril and violence featuring children and adults, adult characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	April 5, 2013
Date Released to DVD:	April 22, 2013
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00B4804KS

Back in 1993, what was astonishing in “Jurassic Park” was the special effects that seemed to bring dinosaurs back to life. Two decades later, rediscovering Steven Spielberg’s mastery of cinematic storytelling is the best reason to go see it again.

It is back in theaters with the best 3D conversion I’ve seen, avoiding the cheesy Viewmaster effect too often the result of adding 3D effects after a movie has already been filmed. Other than a couple of shots where the foreground is distractingly blurred, the effects are immersive and organic, and the dinosaurs-jumping-toward-you moments are sparing and effective.

My favorite moment in the film has always been when the characters are trying to outrace the charging T-Rex in a jeep. All of a sudden, we see a toothy dinosaur coming at them fast and angry in the side rear-view mirror. It takes a moment for the words on the mirror to register: “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.” Spielberg has found a way to make us laugh and ramp up the tension at the same time. And it is even more compelling in 3D.

The movie holds up remarkably well, other than the computers and walkie-talkies used by the characters, which will seem to today’s audiences almost as prehistoric as the dinosaurs. On the other hand, its then-state-of-the-art special effects, a combination of mechanical creations and computer images, are still as immediately believable as the high-techiest creatures on screen today.

Spielberg has gone on to weightier and more prestigious projects, but this thrill ride of a popcorn pleasure is one of his best and a masterpiece of the genre. It shows his unparalleled gifts for pacing and for the visual language of movies, and his ability to make us invest in the characters. That is what makes all the special effects pack an emotional wallop. He conveys more with ripples in a glass of water — or a sneeze — than most filmmakers can with 15 pages of dialogue.

The story, based on a book by the late Michael Crichton, begins with hubris, the sin of pride so great that a man places himself with the gods and thus sets the stage for his downfall. John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) is a vastly wealthy man who dreams of extracting dinosaur and plant DNA that has been trapped for millions of years in amber and using it to reboot species of flora and fauna that have not been seen on earth. Spielberg grounds the story with a strong moral core that lets us enjoy the catastrophic destruction ahead without any inconvenient pangs of conscience.

Spielberg also makes sure we have someone to root for, lining up our loyalties with a quick introduction to characters we can both identify with and admire. Laura Dern and Sam Neill play experts in paleolithic animals and plants. They are (1) interested in science, not money (except to pursue more science), and (2) in love. That’s all we need to know. But just to make sure, he adds in a couple of children (Hammond is their grandfather), who not only get our automatic protective instincts going but give Neill’s character a chance to grow. At the beginning, he does not like children. At the end — spoiler alert — he does.

Go to see “Jurassic Park” in 3D. Go to take your kids who were not born when it was released. Go to see it the way it should be seen, on a big screen in a theater filled with happily terrified fans. Go to see Samuel L. Jackson before he was SAMUEL L. JACKSON. And for a young female computer whiz who could grow up to be Sheryl Sandberg. But most of all, go for the resoundingly satisfying delight of watching pure Spielberg movie magic.

Parents should know that this movie has non-stop peril, with characters injured and killed and some graphic scenes of injury, including a severed limb, brief strong language (s-word, SOB), drinking and smoking

Family discussion: How many different controls were in place to prevent the dinosaurs from hurting anyone and how did each one fail? What have been the biggest changes in science and technology since this movie was made? Learn about current experiments with gene splicing of animals by reading Frankenstein’s Cat by Emily Anthes

If you like this, try: your local museum to see dinosaur fossils and Spielberg’s “Jaws” and “Duel”

Phantom

Posted on February 28, 2013 at 6:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for violence
Profanity:	Mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, drinking game, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended violence, characters injured and killed, suicide
Diversity Issues:	Cultural differences
Date Released to Theaters:	March 1, 2013
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00B635CPI

Submarine movies are immediately gripping because they are powerful microcosms that amplify conflict. A small group of people in very close quarters, highly trained and with an explicit mission are then completely disconnected from the rest of the world. When problems arise, they have to decide what to do with very limited information and no access to authority outside the ship. Great drama, when it works. This time, though, not so much.

Theoretically “inspired by true events” but more like “a massive flight of fantasy and speculation slightly tied to one possible thing that might have happened,” this submarine story begins with a promising twist. American actors play members of the Soviet navy during the Cold War. We might expect Ed Harris, William Fitchtner, and David Duchovny to be the Americans fighting the Soviets. It takes a few moments to get used to the idea that we are rooting for the guys in the striped shirts pushing the buttons with Cyrillic labels, or at least some of them.

Ed Harris plays Demi, a captain with a dark past (yes, we’ll find out what that’s about) who gets unexpected orders to ship out on a secret mission, his last, on a sub that makes the assignment somehow even more meaningful and ironic (yes, we’ll find out that, too). It is the sub’s last mission, too, before it will be sold to the Chinese.

Because it comes up so suddenly, he gets a new crew, along with two passengers operating under some higher authority but not revealing very much about what they are doing. The leader is Bruni (Duchovny), whose arrogance seems to outweigh Demi’s air of resignation.

Demi is still anguished about a mistake made early in his career and the sense that only his father’s high rank and prestige kept him from being discharged dishonorably. When he discovers that Bruni’s plans would put the entire world at risk, he has to become the leader he once dreamed of being.

Writer/director Todd Robinson clearly cares passionately about the material but he often loses track of the narrative. There are many scenes of people racing and chasing down narrow corridors and men staring and analog instrumentation. There are so many shifting power plays that it is difficult to keep track, and the story escalates so preposterously that it is difficult to care.

Parents should know that this is an intense Cold War story that deals with issues of nuclear war and includes extended sequences of peril and violence, with many characters injured and killed.

Family discussion: How should Demi decide which orders to follow? Listen to and discuss the “This American Life” story about the real-life notes provided to British officers in nuclear submarines to be opened in case of catastrophe. What should the note say?

If you like this, try: “Crimson Tide,” “The Hunt for Red October,” and “K-19: The Widowmaker”

Side Effects

Posted on February 7, 2013 at 6:00 pm

Those “ask your doctor about” commercials for medication always have a lawyer-imposed “side effects may include” section briskly recited by the narrator in the second half of the ad in the same bright but soothing tones used for the near-miraculous results described in the first half. It is a difficult choice to balance the risks and benefits of some of today’s pharmaceuticals, made more difficult by the conflicts of interest that doctors and drug companies face in balancing what is best for the patients with what is best for them.

Steven Soderbergh’s nicely nasty and genre-bendingly twisty thriller takes place at the heart of this conflict. Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”) takes mood-lifting medication to deal with the crushing stress she faces with her husband Martin (Channing Tatum) in prison for insider trading and the loss of all their money and their luxurious life in Connecticut. Martin gets out after four years and promises her that he will get it all back for her. But the stress is too much. After a suicide attempt, her new psychiatrist, Dr. Jonathan Banks (Jude Law), who earns a little extra money with a cushy “consulting” fee from a drug company pushing a new anti-depressant, prescribes medication, and then more medication to deal with the side effects of the pills she is already taking. We know from the very first scene that this is not going to turn out well.

The drug that “helps stop the brain from telling you you’re sad” and lets you “take back tomorrow” is something “everyone takes.” “It doesn’t make you anything you’re not,” the doctor explains. “It just makes it easier to be who you are.” But is his recommendation compromised by the $50,000 he gets just to “go to a few meetings, recruit some patients, track some data?” Law is excellent as the doctor who wants to do the right thing but may want to do right by too many people. And his judgment may be further compromised by a problem from his past.

Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns (“Contagion”) build some meta-surprises into the story. And just about anything more I can tell you after that would require a spoiler alert, so I’ll just say that the less you know about the movie before seeing it, the better you will be able to appreciate it. In fact, don’t watch the television commercials. They give too much away. But if you need to know more now, I’ll just say that the movie’s biggest surprise may be how conventional it turns out to be.

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Drama Thriller