New Releases
AMERICAN GANGSTER Ever since 1990's one-two punch of GoodFellas and Miller's Crossing, it's been mostly downhill for the mob movie, and even acclaimed efforts like Donnie Brasco and The Godfather Part III couldn't light my fire (and, despite the insistence of friends over the years, I have yet to be stirred enough to tackle six seasons of The Sopranos). And make no mistake: What's offered in American Gangster isn't particularly fresh, as it's yet one more tale about a confident crime figure who rises to the top before taking that inevitable plunge down the elevator shaft. Yet for all its familiar trappings, director Ridley Scott and writer Steven Zaillian invest their tale with plenty of verve, even if they frequently soft-pedal the deeds of their real-life protagonist. Denzel Washington, perhaps our most charismatic actor, has been charged with bringing Frank Lucas to the screen, and, as expected, he turns the Harlem kingpin into a magnetic menace, a self-starter who, after serving as apprentice to bigwig Bumpy Johnson (Clarence Williams III) throughout the 1960s, becomes a millionaire by eliminating the middle man in the drug trade, thereby infuriating the Italians who are used to being at the apex of this particular food chain. American Gangster could easily have been called American Capitalist or American Dreamcatcher – it's a Horatio Alger tale shot up with heroin – but perhaps sensing that Lucas' fine qualities might likely overshadow the fact that he's selling death to his own people (only one sequence hammers home the horrors brought about by Lucas' exploits), Scott and Zaillian offer up a standard movie hero in Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe), the honest cop tasked with busting open the New York/New Jersey drug racket. Roberts could have come across as a cardboard saint, but thanks to Crowe's deft underplaying, he's an interesting figure and strikes a nice counterbalance to the more dynamic Frank Lucas. American Gangster is long but not overlong – its 160 minutes are well spent – and while it never achieves the epic grandeur of, say, The Godfather (for one thing, the real-life denouement prohibits any Scarface-style theatrics), it manages to pump a measure of respect back into a genre that thrives on it. ***
Current Releases
ACROSS THE UNIVERSE Fashioning a story around a catalogue of classic Beatles tunes, Across the Universe proves to be a magical mystery tour with the power to restore one's faith in both movies and music. Taking place in the late 1960s, the story, credited to director Julie Taymor and the team of Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais (the blokes responsible for the smashing Irish R&B flick The Commitments), finds Liverpool laborer Jude (Jim Sturgess) traveling to America, whereupon he finds a best friend in college kid Max (Joe Anderson) and a lover in Max's kid sister Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood). Eventually, the three end up in New York, at which point Jude develops his passion for drawing, Max gets drafted into the army, and Lucy finds her political consciousness awakened. The movie takes great care to not only honor the music of The Beatles but also to pay tribute to other musical staples of the period. Combining the song sampling technique of Moulin Rouge with Forrest Gump's journey through the turbulent 1960s (and owing reams to Hair as well), Across the Universe serves up some truly staggering images, achieved through an eye-popping mix of computer graphics, oversized puppets and color-saturated set decorations. But while there's plenty of hallucinatory material, there's also plenty of heart, not to mention a handful of respectable covers of Fab Four tunes. ***1/2
THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD Here's a sterling example of accomplished filmmaking on a grand scale, wielding a lengthy running time that allows it to explore its themes and characters in satisfying detail. Writer-director Andrew Dominik's Western comes from the same school as The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Unforgiven and the underrated Wyatt Earp: Hardly a straight shoot-em-up, it serves as a commentary on the manner in which Western fact morphed into Western myth even as the ink was still drying on that particular time in American history. It also explores the allure of celebrity, using its powerful final half-hour (after the outlaw has been killed) to recount how Robert Ford (Casey Affleck) was vilified while Jesse James (Brad Pitt) was elevated to legendary status. Aided by stunning cinematography by Roger Deakins and a score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis that grows in stature as the film progresses, this also benefits from Hugh Ross' sturdy narration, which adds depth to a movie already awash in it. Pitt makes his mark via a skillfully etched portrayal yet top honors go to Casey Affleck, who's as impressive here as he is in Gone Baby Gone. ***1/2
DAN IN REAL LIFE One look at the trailer reveals that here's a movie that's going to try to milk audience emotions for all they're worth. You'll laugh! You'll cry! You'll sing! You'll reflect! You'll hug the moviegoer sitting next to you, even if he smells like an NFL wide receiver's socks after a particularly grueling Sunday match-up! The preview doesn't lie: Dan In Real Life wants to offer it all – a fine sentiment when a movie can pull it off, an example of trying too hard when it doesn't. This one falls somewhere in the middle: There are individual scenes that work nicely, even if the finished product doesn't produce the flood of emotions one might have reasonably expected. Writer-director Peter Hedges soft-pedals this material, offering a warm and fuzzy tale of a popular newspaper writer (Steve Carell) whose column, "Dan In Real Life," offers practical advice that he can't seem to apply to his own life. A widower with three daughters, Dan travels to Rhode Island for the annual family get-together; he falls for Marie (Juliette Binoche), a Frenchwoman he meets in a book store, only to learn that she's the girlfriend of his brother Mitch (Dane Cook). It's nice to see this normal a family on screen, but the movie pays a price for its politeness, since there's never any sense that feelings might be hurt or egos bruised – this is especially true at the conclusion, which basically ignores conflicts that have already been established in order to send everyone home smiling. Dan In Real Life is the equivalent of a warm glass of milk, and that's meant neither as a compliment nor a criticism, merely a stated fact. **1/2
THE DARJEELING LIMITED Wes Anderson is the type of filmmaker who stirs love-him-or-leave-him vibes in audience members, which makes my own ambivalence toward him slightly perplexing: I've mildly enjoyed all of his films to date, yet I've never detected that spark of genius that his fans (and many critics) insist he possesses. Anderson's movies are too slight to earn such hefty acclaim, and were they not peopled with strong actors who can punch across his sweet-and-sour declarations (most memorably Gene Hackman in The Royal Tenenbaums), they would blow off the screen with the ease of a dandelion caught in a summer breeze. The Darjeeling Limited is Anderson's most wispish work to date. Carrying over the thematic baggage of most of his previous efforts, this one also concerns itself with familiar discord – here, Francis (Owen Wilson) invites his younger brothers Peter (Adrien Brody) and Jack (Jason Schwartzman) to India to join him on a spiritual quest. They travel mainly aboard the train The Darjeeling Limited, attempting to communicate (but often just miscommunicating) with each other as they reflect on their lives. Anderson regular Bill Murray pops up at the beginning, and his shaggy-dog appearance sets the tone for the picture. This is a mixed bag of a movie, with some exquisite camera shots and clever exchanges not quite enough to overtake the tale's slenderness or the limitations of its characters. But it still offers enough mild charms to earn it a mild recommendation. **1/2
GONE BABY GONE Ben Affleck makes his directorial debut with Gone Baby Gone, and by playing it close to the vest, he turns out a drama that's deeply absorbing and constantly surprising. A better movie than Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone sports a connection to that film since both were adapted from novels by Dennis Lehane. Here, a little girl is snatched from her home in a working-class Boston neighborhood, and the family hires two private investigators (Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan) to track down the missing moppet. Working in uneasy unison with a couple of detectives (Ed Harris and John Ashton), the pair follow the trail of clues wherever it leads, which is usually straight into an underworld populated by thuggish crime lords and coke-addled pedophiles. Aided by a stellar cast that showcases superlative turns by Ben's brother Casey, Harris and Amy Ryan as the child's trashy mom, Affleck (who also co-scripted with Aaron Stockard) has crafted a forceful crime flick that's made even more irresistible by way of a moral ambivalence that's extremely rare in modern dramas. It's this stance that propels the film through its knockout finale, since a sequence about two-thirds through the picture erroneously leads us to believe that the film is winding down with a disappointingly conventional ending. But it's a mere ruse, since it clears the way for more surprises that in turn build toward a devastating conclusion guaranteed to remain in the mind for days, weeks, maybe even months. ***1/2
INTO THE WILD Adapting Jon Krakauer's based-on-fact novel, director Sean Penn has fashioned a somber, reflective film about a young man whose actions are so open to interpretation that where some will see an idealist, others will see an obnoxious brat; where some will see a martyr, others will merely see a moron. Emile Hirsch delivers a strong performance as Chris McCandless, a well-to-do college graduate who donates all his savings to charity and head for the wilderness. Determined to leave society and all its hypocrisies behind, he treks all over North America's untamed terrain, meeting a wide range of interesting individuals along the way. Into the Wild is especially memorable in the manner in which it offers no absolutes. Functioning as a bookend piece to Werner Herzog's excellent documentary Grizzly Man, it demonstrates that nature is as beastly as it is beautiful, and even noble aspirations run the risk of getting trampled under its imposing weight. All of the characters have their say, yet even when people's opinions run counter to each other's, everyone is making sense and no one is being disingenuous. Penn obviously feels enormous sympathy for his protagonist, yet he doesn't present him as a saint, only a charismatic if troubled kid whose defining feature is that he managed to live a life less ordinary. ***
LARS AND THE REAL GIRL How is it even possible to make a PG-13 movie about a man and his plastic sex doll? To their (sort-of) credit, director Craig Gillespie and writer Nancy Oliver give it a shot by fashioning a gentle parable about an introvert whose relationship with said object is actually a cry for help – plus, it doesn't hurt audience acceptance of the film (and the character) that he never uses the faux-female for what she was intended. In a performance that's as calculating as it is sweet-natured, Ryan Gosling plays Lars, a shy man who cringes at the mere thought of interacting with other humans, whether at the office, at parties, or even in the home of his brother (Paul Schneider) and sister-in-law (Emily Mortimer). Lars ends up purchasing a sex doll online, but rather than using her to satisfy God-given urges, he maintains a platonic relationship, escorting her all over town and introducing her to bewildered townsfolk as his Brazilian girlfriend Bianca. Rather than shunning Lars, his family and neighbors go along with the delusion, coaxing him (and Bianca!) into becoming more involved with the community even as a psychiatrist (Patricia Clarkson) attempts to uncover the source of his behavior. An often clumsy fable about the sting of loneliness and the welcome balm of selfless intervention, Lars and the Real Girl can't quite manage a gimmick that's well-suited for a short film but thin when stretched out over 105 minutes. **1/2
MICHAEL CLAYTON Michael Clayton plays like Erin Brockovich without the populist appeal – it centers on the title character (George Clooney), a law firm "fixer" who's always called upon to clean up messy problems for the company's clients. Hating his job but stuck with it due to massive debts and an expensive divorce, Michael finds himself caught in the middle when Arthur Edens (an excellent Tom Wilkinson), Michael's good friend and the firm's best attorney, seemingly goes bonkers and threatens to derail their most important case: defending an agrochemical company against a lawsuit filed by ordinary citizens. Michael's boss (Sydney Pollack) orders him to talk some sense into Arthur, but it turns out that the agrochemical company's chief counsel (Tilda Swinton) is willing to go to more extreme lengths to silence the wayward lawyer. Tony Gilroy, adapter of the Jason Bourne novels, makes his directorial debut here (as well as writing the script), and it's an assured first effort. Almost everything about the movie is muted – the settings, the exchanges, the emotions – and this decision gives the story a real-world gravitas that makes the odious executive actions seem even more plausible than they already are. There are no real surprises in Michael Clayton, just the awareness of a job well done. ***
RENDITION What's the point of tackling a real-life hot-button issue if everything about it is presented in an only-in-Hollywood style of fantasy filmmaking? The post-9/11 topic on hand is "extraordinary rendition," which allows the U.S. government to send suspected terrorists to other countries in order to be interrogated. Since the Bush Administration has no qualms about torturing any foreigners whose skin is darker than, say, Nicole Kidman's, it's a viable and volatile subject for a movie to tackle, but Rendition does so in the most simplistic manner possible. Reese Witherspoon plays Isabella, a pregnant mom whose Egyptian-born, U.S.-raised husband (Omar Metwally) has disappeared without a trace, snatched at the Washington, D.C. airport for his suspected part in a bombing. The U.S. government's evidence is feeble, but Senator Whitman (Meryl Streep, not particularly effective) decides that's all the proof she needs to ship him off to be subjected to all manner of pain. The American analyst (Jake Gyllenhaal) assigned to preside over the torture finds the treatment shocking; meanwhile, Isabella seeks help from a former college fling (Peter Sarsgaard), who just happens to be the assistant to a senator (Alan Arkin) who works closely with Whitman. As if this weren't all convenient enough for the sake of tidy storytelling and tentative armchair liberalism, there's also a plot thread involving a love affair between a terrorist and the daughter of the head of the torture unit. Coupled with a narrative "Gotcha!" more suited to Memento, it all adds up to a dilution of the real issues at hand. With friends like this movie, who needs Dick Cheney? **
OPENS FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9:
FRED CLAUS: Vince Vaughn, Paul Giamatti.
LIONS FOR LAMBS: Robert Redford, Meryl Streep.
P2: Rachel Nichols, Wes Bentley.
WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY: Patrick Fugit, Shannyn Sossamon.