Invictus

Posted on May 11, 2010 at 12:17 pm

Clint Eastwood tells the story of South Africa’s triumph in the 1995 Rugby World Cup, the first World Cup after the end of apartheid. The title, “Invictus” comes from the inspiring poem that Nelson Mandela shared with the team’s captain, Francois Pienaar. The movie is respectful, dignified, and a little dull.

Mandela is played by Morgan Freeman, who shows us the new President’s grace and patience as well as his wisdom in treating everyone — even those who opposed the end of apartheid and believe his presidency is illegitimate — as countrymen, not enemies. He directs his black security detail to work with their white predecessors, and to remind them that it is important to smile at the people you are asking to move. Many people were skeptical that a black man who has spent 27 years in prison can lead a country where the white population had imposed legal segregation on the black citizens, asking “He can win an election. But can he run a country?”

And even his most loyal supporters wonder if he isn’t being unrealistic and trivial in hoping that a sports team can make a difference. “Unite for something more important than rugby,” one tells him. But the very first scene shows us Mandela, just after becoming President, driving down a road that has a wealthy, well-equipped white team playing on one side and a group of poor black boys in rags playing on the other. He knows that the rugby team can be a powerful symbol of unity and teamwork. He knows that all of the people of South Africa need to feel pride and a sense of shared purpose. He spent 27 years observing the Afrikaans guards at the prison and learning what was important to them. And so, he invites Pienaar (Matt Damon) to meet with him and he begins to memorize the names and faces of Pienaar’s team.

Eastwood has a good eye for striking images. While he does not handle the dynamism of the games well, he does make the rugby huddles look like something between a colorful Gordian knot and a many-legged creature. He has a gift for the small moments — a boy loitering near a police car so he can listen to the game on their radio, a housekeeper’s face when she is given a ticket to watch the game. He draws a connection between the two men — both are ferociously dedicated to making sure no one takes what is their away from them, not on their watch, and not today. But the impact is softened with dialog like “It’s not just a game!”

Mandela is such a transformative figure and Freeman such a distinguished actor that we are drawn in. It is impossible not to be stirred when he says, he does not want his followers to prove that they are what the whites feared; “We have to surprise them with compassion, restraint, and generosity.” But for a sports movie it is oddly lacking in momentum. Mandela tells Pienaar that he needs the team to win. We’re pretty sure that if they had not won, there would not be a movie about it (or, if there was, it would not be called the Latin word for “unconquered”). But that means we want to know why. We may get a sense of the way Mandela inspired Pienaar, but how did Pienaar inspire his team? Damon looks very buff and Pienaar seems like a nice guy, but this is rugby, one of the toughest sports on earth. How about showing us a little more ferocity? Some kind of strategy? Some individual personalities for the players? The New Zealand team they have to play in the big match does a little Maori war dance before the game that is more vivid and arresting than anything we see from the team we are supposed to be rooting for. Eastwood tells us this is all very important, but he never really shows us.

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The Bucket List

Posted on June 9, 2008 at 8:00 am

It’s The Shawshank Redemption part two, or it tries to be. It has voiceover narration by Morgan Freeman. It has an inspiring and life-affirming friendship — featuring Morgan Freeman. It just is not very good.
If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen the movie. And if, after seeing the trailer you want to see the movie, then you will get what you are expecting, a formulaic feel-good story of two dying men who finally learn how to live. There just will not be one original or authentic moment along the way. This is the kind of thing old pros Freeman, Jack Nicholson, and director Rob Reiner can pretty much phone in, and that is what they do. bucket%20list.jpg
We know the minute we see bombastic Jack Nicholson insisting that the hospitals he owns are not health spas and that everyone shares a room, no exceptions, that soon he will be sharing a room and won’t be happy about it. We know that when saintly though embittered Morgan Freeman shows up in that other bed in the room, they are there to teach each other important life lessons about the importance of connections and living life to the fullest.
But the movie’s idea of living life to the fullest is, well, not very full. It consists of sky-diving and tourism. There are some moments of family reconciliation that are thrown in toward the end but never shared, much less explored. Dying just seems an excuse for a geriatric, spend-it-all Spring Break.
The movie continually undercuts its own ostensible messages. It preaches authenticity but practices facsimile. It preaches tenderness but fetishises hedonism. It preaches on behalf of home but glamorizes running away. Freeman and Nicholson are always watchable, but the best their finer moments in this movie can do is remind us of how much better they are in other films.

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Bruce Almighty

Posted on May 21, 2003 at 5:28 am

You could not ask for a better showcase for what Jim Carrey does best than this comedy about a man who is given all of God’s powers and has no compunction about using them for cheap thrills and petty payback. Director Tom Shadyac, who worked with Carrey on his biggest hits, “Ace Ventura” and “Liar, Liar,” once again gives us Carrey in a role designed to get the most out of his talent for wildly elastic physical comedy.

There’s a strong sense of art imitating life here, at least the life of Carrey the performer, if not Carrey the person. Carrey the performer has not had the success he hoped for in more serious roles, particularly in “The Majestic” and “The Man in the Moon.” So when his character is told throughout this movie that there is nothing wrong with being funny (and when God, played by Morgan Freeman, says “All-righty then!” Ace Ventura’s favorite catch phrase), and when he plays a character with God’s powers (which must feel pretty close to the omnipotent power our society gives to celebrities) and yet he ends up being satisfied with what makes people laugh, it is hard not to think that there is something more than resonance here for Carrey. It is almost as though he is saying “All-righty then! If this is what you want to see, here it is!” to the audience.

Carrey plays Bruce Nolan, a television news reporter who resents being assigned to silly stories like the world’s biggest cookie and the anniversary of the Niagara Falls boat tour. He wants to do serious stories and he thinks he should be the anchor. He lives with his girlfriend, Grace (Jennifer Aniston), whose name is an indication of the script’s idea of a theological reference.

Despite his love for Grace, Bruce is shallow and self-centered. When he loses the anchor job to a rival (Comedy Central “Daily Report’s” Steve Carell), he furiously explodes on the air and is fired. He tries to help a homeless man, and is beat up by thugs. Bruce thinks that life is very unfair, so he complains to God. God challenges him to try out His powers, as long as he does not tell anyone or interfere with free will.

Bruce spends the first week using the powers for cheap thrills. He parts the red soup instead of the Red Sea and makes the cars blocking him in a traffic jam move out of the way. And he enjoys petty payback. This part of the movie is fun — who would not like to be able to do anything without any guilt or accountability — and it is very funny, especially when Bruce makes his rival mess up on camera. The best physical comedians, like Carrey, perfectly enact the id out of control, the mean little imp that lives in each of our hot little hearts. That is ideal for embodying Bruce’s juvenile uses of his new power.

But then Bruce has to realize that power and responsibility go together and that he cannot be happy until he understands that other people’s happiness has to come first. That part of the movie does not work because it is pretty clear that Bruce never cares about anyone but himself. There is a hollow, hypocritical, and faintly creepy sense that the people behind the movie don’t really understand the message themselves.

Bruce’s carelessness in lassoing the moon (a reference to “It’s a Wonderful Life” that is hammered home later on when we get a glimpse of that scene on television), unleashing an asteroid, and making hundreds of lottery winners, is portrayed as humorous. Even though we get glimpses of the disasters he causes, Bruce never does and never has to clean up the mess.

When Bruce tells God that he wants to solve the problems of world hunger and peace, God tells him that is a “Miss America answer” and His goal seems to be to get Bruce to think about what would make him happy with no regard for anyone but himself and the woman he loves. And life and art come together as it becomes clear that Carrey the performer is no more generous than Bruce the anchorman; Bruce’s failure to appreciate the sweet and ever-forgiving Grace is less of a, well, sin, than Carrey’s failure to make use of the considerable comic talents of the woman who plays her. It’s a shame to see Aniston in essentially an arm candy role. The result is a movie that, despite some very funny moments, makes the same mistake as its main character without learning any lessons about maturity or responsibility. It teeters between deranged comedy and sentimental fable, and is unsatisfying in both categories. What Bruce should have used his powers for was a better script.

Parents should know that the movie has very mature material for a PG-13, including very strong language and crude humor after a thug makes a rhetorical reference to a monkey coming out of his butt. Bruce gives “pleasure” to Grace as they prepare for a sexual encounter. There is an extended joke about a dog who is not house-trained. Characters drink alcohol and Bruce uses his powers to plant bags of marijuana on rival broadcasters.

Families who see this movie should talk about what they would do if they had God’s powers. How would they decide the best way to respond to prayers? Most of the prayers in this movie are “petitionary,” meaning that they are asking for something, usually love, money, or status-related. What other kinds of prayers are there? Some families will want to discuss their own ideas about God and prayer.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “Oh God,” with George Burns and John Denver. They might like to see a different portrayal of God that also discusses the importance of free will in the wonderfully imaginative “Time Bandits.” And every family should watch and discuss “It’s a Wonderful Life” with Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed.

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Comedy Fantasy Romance

Along Came a Spider

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

Morgan Freeman returns as Dr. Alex Cross in this prequel to “Kiss the Girls.” Like the original, this movie has a nursery rhyme title and centers on a kidnapped girl. This time it is not a serial killer, just a madman inspired by the Lindburgh kidnap case, trying to make a name for himself with the crime of the new century. And this time the kidnap victim is not a woman but a little girl, the daughter of a United States Senator.

Freeman, as always, is a pleasure to watch, bringing a complexity and weight to every scene that almost makes up for a dumb plot. But even he cannot make up for Monica Potter, who replaces Ashley Judd as Freeman’s co-star, and who is as bland as a Barbie doll, and with an even blanker facial expression.

Potter plays Jazzie, a Secret Service agent assigned to a fancy school for the children of big shots and rich people. It’s the kind of place where every desk has an internet hookup and there are more Secret Service agents around than hall monitors. Let me just point out here that the Secret Service does not protect the children of Senators or even Senators themselves, who are in a different branch of government. We’ll give them some leeway for movie logic on that one. But there are some lapses, like having the President of Russia living in Washington, DC, that are inexcusably preposterous.

Jazzie blames herself when Megan (Mikka Boorem) is taken, and she is grateful when Alex Cross, himself recovering from a disastrous sting operation, wants her to work with him. They track down the kidnapper and prevent a second child from being taken. And there are shoot-outs, chases, and near-misses, some well staged. But the final twist is just plain dumb, and neither the performers nor the script’s explanation of the characters’ motivation have the panache to carry it off. No one could, especially when they resort to that hoariest of clichés, the good guy figuring it all out and then going out to the deserted location where it is all happening all by himself! At least they spare us the long explanation by the villain about the master plan.

Parents should know that the movie is very violent, with many deaths and some of the brightest-colored blood I have ever seen spurting in a movie. Characters use strong language. Many people may be upset by seeing children in peril, though Megan and her friend are strong, brave, loyal, and very smart. Other characters betray the trust of people who have been good to them, which may be disturbing to some viewers.

Families who see the movie should talk about what people do when they have to pick themselves up and go on following a disaster. They may also want to talk about how we decide whom we will trust and how we find reserves of strength when we are in scary situations. They should discuss Cross’ statement that everyone is born with a gift or gets good at something and “you don’t betray that.” They might also want to talk about whether criminals really are motivated by the prospect of fame, and whether there is or ever will be again a hero as universally adored as Lindburgh was.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “Kiss the Girls” and an enjoyably dumb movie with a similar theme, Masterminds, a kind of “Die Hard” in a fancy prep school, with Patrick Stewart as the bad guy. Next to this one, “Masterminds” looks like “Citizen Kane.”

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Based on a book Series/Sequel Thriller

The Sum of All Fears

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

Part of the magic of movies is the way they make us not just willing – even eager to suspend all kinds of disbelief. It isn’t just that we are willing to believe that Jet Li can knock out a guy with one kick or that Harry Potter can soar through a Quidditch match on his broomstick – we want to. That’s part of what movies are for.

And we have lived through five different actors asking for martinis that are shaken, not stirred, as James Bond – so far. So I don’t think audiences will have any problem accepting the fact that Russia analyst Jack Ryan of the CIA, played by 50-something Harrison Ford in two previous films set in the 1990’s based on Tom Clancy novels (and Alec Baldwin in a third) has now lost some thirty years and turned into Ben Affleck. There may not be much suspense in the love story – we already know who Jack Ryan marries – but that isn’t what the movie is about.

What it is about is a new Russian president. The U.S. is concerned that he is a hard-liner. Ryan believes that he is only trying to sound tough to get the support of hard-liners in the Russian government. U.S. officials get even more concerned when Chechnya is hit with chemical weapons. And then the U.S. is attacked with an atomic bomb and it seems that America’s only choice is to retaliate. It is up to Jack Ryan to save the world.

The movie is ably done, a big time Hollywood production with big time actors (Morgan Freeman as the head of the CIA, James Cromwell as the U.S. President), and big time special effects. Everything is very professional. But as easy as it is to settle back with our popcorn and adjust our notion of a Jack Ryan of the 21st century, there are some parts of the story that are so hard to accept that they seem to violate the covenant between the audience and mainstream movies. There is a level of destruction that might be acceptable in a book but feels excessive to the point of pornography on screen, even more so in an era of suicide bombings and terrorism. The fact that the bad guys in this movie are so much less scary than the ones on the news adds to the sense that the story is more about sensation than about sense. And the ultimate resolution does not feel either ultimate or resolved. Movies like these need interesting villains and satisfying conclusions. Like people who make roller coasters, they need to strike a balance between making us pleasantly dizzy and making us sick. On that scale and at this time, this movie does not work.

Parents should know that the movie has a lot of graphic violence and destruction of unimaginable proportions. There is prolonged, intense peril and characters die. Characters use very strong language, drink and smoke. There is a non-graphic sexual situation.

Families who see this movie should talk about how people at any level, from heads of state to siblings, learn to trust one another.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the other Jack Ryan movies (and the other Jack Ryans), especially “The Hunt for Red October” and “Patriot Games.” Two other movies, both made in 1964, dealt with the prospect of an accidental missile attack by the U.S. on Russia and both are worth watching. One is the thoughtful drama “Failsafe” and the other is the unforgettable classic, “Dr. Strangelove.”

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Action/Adventure Based on a book Remake