Trailer–Transformers: Age of Extinction with Mark Wahlberg
Posted on March 5, 2014 at 11:05 pm
Lone Survivor
Posted on January 9, 2014 at 6:00 pm
Director Peter Berg is as good as it gets when it comes to putting a particular kind of male chemistry on screen. If he was writing instead of filming, he would dunk his pen in testosterone, beard stubble, and sweat. Whether it is the small town Texas football community of “Friday Night Lights,” the disastrous bachelor party of “Very Bad Things,” or the aliens and explosions of the under-rated “Battleship,” Berg understands the rhythms of guy-talk that circles around the still core of pure masculinity. There are nearly as many f-words per minute in this film as in the record-breaking “Wolf of Wall Street.” But there the language was used to show off, to convey bravado, for shock and awe. Here the heirs to a long tradition of colorful military argot almost have air quotes around the language. It’s almost a mirror image; on Wall Street, they use bad words to seem tougher. These Navy Seals use bad language with irony — they know that no words can be as tough as they really are or express what they have really seen and done. For them, the inadequacy of even the most provocative language is the joke.
This is the true story of a disastrous Navy SEAL mission in Afghanistan, based on the book Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10
As in most military dramas, real and fictional, there are archetypal characters. There’s a new addition and a hardened vet. And there is Luttrell, a medic, a witness, like Ishmael in Moby Dick the survivor who carries the stories of the others with him.
This is not “action violence,” with super-effective weapons on our side and endless just-misses from the enemy, along with exciting explosions and instant death. This is messy, dirty, blood-gushing and agonizing wartime violence. Berg pays tribute to these men by showing us that their courage, dedication, and skill were unparalleled and the tragic stupidity of war presented them with a series of awful choices and unthinkable danger. At one point, when they have been spotted by (apparent) civilians, including a young boy, they stand there and discuss their options — let them go and risk having them tell the enemy where they are, tie them up and risk having them die of predators or starvation, or kill them, preserving the mission but putting into question the larger issues, from what happens when it gets reported on CNN and what we are fighting for if that is who we’ve become. That may be the most heartbreaking moment of the film — until the end, when we see the real faces of the brave young men who died. They knew what they owed us. Perhaps this movie will help remind us what we owe them.
Parents should know that this movie includes constant wartime peril and violence with many characters injured and killed, children in peril, guns, explosions. There are very disturbing and graphic images of characters being hit with bullets, many sad deaths, as well as constant very strong and sometimes crude language.
Family discussion: What elements of the training and briefings were important to helping the SEALS do their job? What more did they need? Who was right in the discussion of what to do when they were “compromised” in being spotted by civilians?
If you like this, try: “Act of Valor,” with real-life Navy SEALS playing fictional versions of themselves and “We Were Soldiers,” about the early days of the American involvement in the Vietnam War.
2 Guns
Posted on August 1, 2013 at 6:00 pm
A+| Lowest Recommended Age: | Preschool |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated R for violence throughout, language and brief nudity |
| Profanity: | Strong language |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | Drinking, drug dealers |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Constant intense and graphic peril and violence, some very disturbing images, torture, guns, chases, explosions, many characters injured and killed |
| Diversity Issues: | Diverse characters |
| Date Released to Theaters: | August 2, 2013 |
| Date Released to DVD: | November 19, 2013 |
| Amazon.com ASIN: | B00BEIYN9Q |
The couple with the most electrifying chemistry on screen so far this year is Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg in “2 Guns.” As the title of the the graphic novel by Steven Grant and Mateus Santolouco
Washington plays Bobby, a DEA agent who has been undercover for a couple of years infiltrating a Mexico-based drug ring. Wahlberg is Stig, working undercover for the Navy for the same reason. We’re told they are the best at what they do, but somehow when they are trading banter about the best doughnuts in three counties and the drug dealer henchman who has been separated from his head they never figure out that they are both working for law enforcement. Me, I think I might suspect that Bobby was not the usual bad guy when he stops in the middle of a robbery to pick up and soothe a crying baby. But Stig is too busy being cool to notice. Other than that, and repeatedly trusting the wrong people, and not making much progress in getting anyone arrested or confiscating any drugs or weapons, they are both crackerjack detectives.
Bobby has some issues. He is a loner. He does not “have people.” He has a sometime girlfriend, a Justice Department attorney named Deb (Paula Patton). “Did you ever love me?” she asks him when they are in bed together. “I meant to love you,” he says. Stig is more easy-going, but he may be too far in the other direction when it comes to trust, not able to see when his “people” are less loyal to him than he is to them. That may be part of the explanation for their mutual blind spot in not figuring out that they were both doing the same thing. Neither they nor we have much time to think about that as very quickly it turns out that they have been set up and betrayed, and they will need to find a way to work together in the midst of being hunted down by three separate groups who want to kill them.
After that, it’s just banter, chase, banter, shoot-out, banter, a couple of torture scenes, banter, betrayal, more quippy banter, and then ludicrous even in the context of this movie side-story about the perils of illegal immigration, then pay-off (literally). It is an uneasy mix, but the stars own the fizzy dialogue with such brio, electricity and pure charisma that they provide the real explosive power.
Parents should know that this film includes constant comic book-style violence, some graphic and disturbing images, torture, guns, explosions, chases, fights, many characters injured and killed, non-explicit sexual situation, female nudity, some strong language, and pervasive corruption.
Family discussion: The issue of loyalty occurs several different times in this movie. How do Bobby and Stig show their views about loyalty? How does Deb? How do their views change over the course of the story?
If you like this, try: “Lethal Weapon,” “Shoot ’em Up,” and “The Other Guys”
Pain & Gain
Posted on April 25, 2013 at 6:00 pm
“Unfortunately, based on a true story,” we are warned as this film opens. In case we forget, or, more likely, in case we assume the usual Hollywood embellishments, we are reminded, when things get really bizarre and really, really, really disturbing, that it is, indeed, still true.
Director Michael Bay is known for big movies with big explosions, big special effects, and big, big budgets, including “Armageddon” and the Transformers series. So “Pain & Gain,” a passion project he planned for seven years with only a $40 million budget, is his version of a quirky little indie. Quirky, it is, and his feeling for the material, the too-bizarre-to-be-fictional story of three body builders who got involved with kidnapping and murder is palpable. Bay’s ability to give the audience the same sense of connection to the story is less effective.
Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg, who will be on screen in Bay’s next blockbuster, the fourth installment of the Transformers series) is a body builder who believes in the American Dream. No, not the dream of freedom and democracy; the dream of getting rich without earning it. With two pumped-up compadres, the just out-of-the-clink born-again Paul Doyle (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) and steroid-injecting Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie), they create a sort of Dumbfellas posse so they can kidnap a prosperous South American immigrant named Victor Kershaw (Tony Shaloub, playing a composite character based in part on Florida businessman Marc Schiller
The movie is darker than the marketing makes it seem, with very graphic scenes of torture and dismemberment, but it does include some very funny moments as our hapless anti-heroes continually overestimate their own abilities and underestimate those around them. All of the performances are excellent, but Ed Harris steals the film as a former cop-turned detective and Emily Rutherford is a stand-out as his wife, by far the movie’s most appealing character. Bay, with screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (the next “Thor” and two “Captain America” films) and cinematographer Ben Seresin (the upcoming “World War Z”) skillfully evoke the world of protein shakes, motivational platitudes, and a deep wellspring of resentment. “If I believe I deserve it, the universe will serve it,” Lugo says like a mantra. He also talks about eating a “shame sandwich,” and, in his most revealing moment, tells Kershaw, “I don’t just want everything you have. I want you not to have it.”
Bay is less successful in tying all of this to larger themes worthy of its more than two-hour running time. It feels like a very personal story about his own struggles with ambition and dignity, but a struggle he still does not understand well enough to convey in more than superficial terms. Like its main characters, it has a lot of muscle but not much upstairs.
Parents should know that this film is based on a true story of crimes that include kidnapping, torture, murder, dismemberment, fraud, and drug use. The movie also includes crime and law enforcement violence, graphic wounds, very explicit and crude sexual references and situations, nudity, and constant strong language.
Family discussion: More than one character in the movie talks about what being an American means — which do you agree with and why? What took the police so long to realize what was going on? Do you agree with the punishment ordered by the court?
If you like this, try: “Fargo” and “Welcome to Collinwood” and read the story of the real-life case by Pete Collins
Broken City
Posted on January 17, 2013 at 6:00 pm
Another January weekend, another dumb shoot-out.
Last weekend, it was 1950’s Los Angeles. This week, it’s contemporary New York. It’s still about corruption, betrayal, and bang-bang. Co-producer Mark Wahlberg plays Billy, a cop exonerated after he killed a suspect because there was not enough evidence to refute his claim of self-defense. Mayor Nick Hostetler (Russell Crowe in a very bad Boehner-orange spray tan) congratulates him and then explains with engaging directness and considerable charm why Billy still has to leave the police force. “It is a necessity that we remain un-f’d.”
Seven years later, Billy is almost making a living as a private investigator. He is good at his job but he is too nice a guy to push for payment. His loyal and very beautiful assistant Katy (a likably sharp performance by Alona Tal) reminds him that they are broke because their overdue accounts amount to $42,000, which leads to a pointless scene of phone calls using assorted tactics to get people to pay. There are a bunch more pointless scenes in the film but I cannot say they are any worse than the pointed ones.
Billy hears from Mayor Hostetler, who wants to hire him for the same purpose as all of his other clients but for a lot more money. Hostetler wants to pay Billy $50,000 to find out who is having an affair with his wife, Cathleen (Catherine Zeta Jones). Billy takes the pictures but then, just as the mayor snatches them out of his pocket, it begins to dawn on him (he may be a cop, but he is not much of a detective) that things may not be what they seem and people may not be telling the truth, starting with the mayor.
All of this is happening in the midst of a tough re-election campaign. Hostetler likes to come across as one of the guys, rough, sometimes crude, but effective. He tries to paint his opponent, Jack Valiant (Barry Pepper) — names are not this movie’s strong point — as an out of touch elitist who comes from Connecticut and went to Harvard. But a controversial sweetheart sale of public housing to a private developer (a seedy-looking Griffin Dunne) has tightened the race. Guess what! That surveillance job was not about an affair after all. One clue? Despite a massive shredding operation in the bad guy’s expensive lair/manor, the evidence conveniently shows up in the garbage can in mint condition, not even any coffee grounds or banana peels stuck to it.
It feels like they were making this up as they went along, without regard to what has already happened. A detour about Billy’s actress girlfriend (the very lovely Natalie Martinez) and his fall off the wagon just drags things out in between the chases and shoot-outs. It’s too bad to see top talent slumming in an underwritten, under-thought, under-whelming piece of multiplex fodder.
Parents should know that this film has constant very strong and crude language, sexual references and explicit situations with brief nudity, drinking and drunkenness, shooting, fighting, car crash, corruption, rape (offscreen), and characters who are injured and killed.
Family discussion: What did Billy’s relationship with Natalie tell you about him? Why did he visit her parents? What will happen to him?
If you like this, try: “Inside Man”