THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON / THE WOODSMAN Sean Penn's reputation often exceeds his actual accomplishments (an Oscar for chewing the scenery in Mystic River? Please...), yet here's the actor delivering one of his finest performances to date in The Assassination of Richard Nixon. Conversely, Penn's Mystic River co-star Kevin Bacon rarely gets singled out for his understated but effective turns, yet he likewise can be seen in top form in The Woodsman. Released in Los Angeles and New York at the tail end of 2004 to qualify its stars for Oscar bids, both movies have proven too low-key to cause even minor ripples. Yet anybody in the mood for a downbeat drama anchored by a sturdy lead performance won't go wrong with either film. Nixon, inspired by actual events of the mid-70s, centers on an ordinary joe who's a failure both professionally - he's barely holding onto his job as a salesman - and personally - his separation from his wife (Naomi Watts) is clearly going to become a divorce. Tired of constantly getting beaten down by life, he decides to murder Nixon, the man he feels best exemplifies everything that's wrong with America. The Woodsman, meanwhile, casts Bacon as a former convict trying to adjust to life on the outside after spending years in prison for molesting young girls. He does his best to stay clean, but discovers it just might be a losing battle when those around him aren't even willing to give him a chance to start anew. Nixon focuses on a man succumbing to sickness while Woodsman centers on someone who's trying to escape it, and both films dole out will-he-or-won't-he? tension in comparable doses. Both movies:
ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 A favorite of critics and cultists alike, 1976's Assault On Precinct 13 was a nifty little "B" flick John Carpenter helmed before hitting the big time with Halloween. Propelled by an excellent music score (composed by Carpenter) and economical in its use of settings, dialogue and character development, the film concerns itself with the members of an LA street gang who descend upon a nearly abandoned police station with the sole purpose of wiping out everyone inside. That the protagonists never learn the reason for the siege (though we do) adds to their sense of discombobulation, and the brutal death of a little girl in the early going remains one of the most disturbing (and unexpected) acts of homicide ever committed on screen. In this flashy update, there's no little girl, no bloodthirsty street gang, and no kick-ass Carpenter score. Instead, we get a competent but entirely generic action opus in which it's a group of rogue cops who attack the precinct in order to kill a captured crime lord whose testimony would put them behind bars. Laurence Fishburne plays the cool-under-fire kingpin, who reluctantly teams up with an honest officer (Ethan Hawke) to ensure his own survival. Bucking the trend of cinematic puritanism that Carpenter himself helped jumpstart with Halloween (in which the heroine was a virgin while her victimized friends were all sexually active), this movie switches cultural gears by allowing the nympho (Drea De Matteo) to be more heroic than the bookworm (Maria Bello); beyond that, expect no surprises from yet another needless remake.
COACH CARTER First, The Incredibles comes along and pushes the message that it's OK - even advantageous - to be exceptional in America instead of conforming by dumbing down. And now here's Coach Carter to nudge a similar theme about the importance of a solid education over all else, even (gasp!) sports. In a nation where more people have seen Fear Factor than The Fog of War, should such films be considered acts of anarchy? At any rate, Coach Carter works the usual underdog cliches fairly well as it tells the true story of Ken Carter (Samuel L. Jackson), a high school basketball coach in California who manages to turn a team that won only four games during its previous season into a statewide powerhouse. But at the height of their success, with an unbroken string of victories, Coach Carter elects to bench the entire team once he discovers that most of his players are performing poorly in class. It's a sad state of affairs that most parents (and even some educators) opposed Carter's genuine concern for the well-being of these kids (who needs to learn how to read when a sports scholarship just might be around the corner?), yet this individual's selfless actions against a failed education system register even when the movie surrounding him turns on itself. All pertinent points are made after a full two hours, yet the picture drags on for another 20 minutes simply so viewers can be treated to a climactic Big Game. Ultimately, Coach Carter's sincerity gets trumped by its savvy at milking the sports formula for all it's worth. 1/2
ELEKTRA Talk about a house of flying daggers: The multiplex is filled with them once Marvel's blade-wielding superheroine springs into action in this spin-off of 2003's Daredevil (in which she appeared in a supporting role as the sightless superhero's romantic interest). But while this lady in red often kicks it into high gear, the movie itself rarely moves beyond a stroll. It's a blown opportunity, because Jennifer Garner has proven (through 13 Going On 30 and TV's Alias) that she's an ace at layering her physical prowess with emotional resonance. Yet here she's basically required to walk around sporting a scowl, and all attempts to explain what led to this dour disposition result in poorly conceived flashback sequences that further deaden an already lifeless film. Apparently taking place after the events of Daredevil, the film finds the assassin-for-hire balking when her latest assignment requires her to kill a single dad (Goran Visnjic) and his precocious teenage daughter (Kirsten Prout, whose annoying performance does the film no favors). Elektra elects to protect them instead, which in turn pits her against the members of an evil organization known as The Hand. Inexplicably, no one ever deadpans, "Talk to The Hand," but then again, a sense of humor is noticeably missing throughout. There are several intriguing villains (Typhoid, Kinkou, Tattoo) tossed into the mix, but they aren't defeated by Elektra as much as by the efforts of director Rob Bowman (the underrated Reign of Fire) and his three scripters. 1/2
Current Releases
THE AVIATOR This sprawling biopic about Howard Hughes (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), the notorious billionaire-industrialist-producer-flyboy, employs all the cinematic razzle-dazzle we've come to expect from Martin Scorsese, yet there's an added layer of excitement as the eternal cineast finally gets to step back in time via his meticulous recreations of the sights and sounds of Old Hollywood (look for Cate Blanchett in a show-stealing turn as Katharine Hepburn). Still, the behind-the-scenes movie material takes a back seat to other aspects of Hughes' life - namely, his adventures in the field of aviation and his lifelong battle with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. At its best, the film is a stirring tale about a man whose inner drive allowed him to climb ever higher and higher, grazing the heavens before his inner demons seized the controls and forced the inevitable, dreary descent. 1/2
BEYOND THE SEA Kevin Spacey serves as actor, co-writer, director and producer - and probably caterer, key grip and best boy, if we search the closing credits hard enough - on this misguided vanity project that's so in love with its creator (as opposed to its subject, singer Bobby Darin), it makes Yentl look like a model of modesty and restraint. Spacey is 45 years old, yet here he's playing Darin from his late teens(!) up until his death at the age of 37; the effect is at once creepy, comical and impossible to digest. The film-within-a-film framing device, meant to deflect criticism of the distortions ("He was born to play the role!" someone says of Darin, though the line is really about Spacey), is as clumsy as the flat-footed musical numbers. Skip the movie and use the admission price to purchase a Darin CD instead. 1/2
HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS Zhang Yimou recently stated that it's always been his dream to direct martial arts films. Having now helmed Hero and House of Flying Daggers, let's hope he's gotten it out of his system. Yimou directed the best foreign-language film of the 1990s - Raise the Red Lantern - and was also responsible for other titles that explored Chinese history in all its facets. This overrated new film pales by comparison, exuding a been-there-done-that vibe on the heels of (among others) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero. But if nothing else, Daggers is gorgeous to behold, and that alone almost carries the picture over the hump: Its rainbow visions are probably vibrant enough to even register with the color-blind. Daggers is appealing eye candy, but here's hoping that Yimou goes back to making movies that can rattle a nation down to its core. 1/2
IN GOOD COMPANY In Good Company works as well as it does because its central character, Dan Foreman, is a paragon of uncompromised ideals, and because Dennis Quaid plays him so perfectly that we can't help but line up behind this guy and cheer him on. Dan symbolizes not the larger-than-life morality found in superhero or gladiator yarns nor the bogus morality exhibited in pieces of hypocrisy like Christmas With the Kranks; instead, it's the everyday type to which we can all aspire, as decent people trying to make the right choices concerning family and career. The storyline, which finds ad executive Dan forced to report to a corporate golden boy (Topher Grace) half his age, rarely strays far from convention, but it's hard to dislike a picture that goes out of its way to champion integrity in America.
MEET THE FOCKERS The drop in quality between a hit movie and its sequel is usually so steep that just thinking about it could lead to a broken neck. Happily, no such falloff exists between Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers. The freshness of the premise may have dissipated, but the attention to the differences between the central characters - the primary reason the first film raked in the dough - still exists. So once again we find Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) seeking the approval of prospective father-in-law Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro), with the presence of Greg's old-hippie parents (Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand) adding to the stress level. The primary pleasure is watching veteran comedian Stiller once again squaring off against De Niro, whose recent attempts at shtick have worked only in this series.
A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT The ad material wants us to believe that Engagement, about a woman (Audrey Tautou) searching for her lover at the end of World War I, is cut from the same cloth as pictures like The English Patient and Reds, movies that place grand romances against the backdrop of wars and social upheaval. But director Jean-Pierre Jeunet's movie is a different kind of epic, with a light touch and an offbeat attitude that strip the story of much of its gravitas and instead replace it with a freewheeling flippancy. Engagement isn't as overtly funny as Jeunet's previous films (including Amelie), but its comic quota is still there, resting behind its players' character quirks or within the tight choreography of several of the more elaborate set pieces. The result is a real curio: often delightful, often tragic, yet never as penetrating as one might expect.
WHITE NOISE This silly movie asks viewers to accept Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP) - the method by which the dead communicate with the living via televisions and radios - as cold, hard fact; it then proceeds to spin a fantasy yarn that flubs its own narrative constraints. Michael Keaton headlines as an architect whose wife (Chandra West) dies in a car accident. Soon, a fuzzy figure starts appearing through the snowy static on his TV set, but rather than assume (as most of us would) that he's illegally receiving HBO without a converter box, he's convinced it's his late wife trying to communicate with him. It's a coin toss as to whether this cribs mostly from Poltergeist, The Ring or The Sixth Sense; in any case, its inconsistencies prove to be the primary culprit, as this never plays fair even within the parameters of its own supernatural milieu. 1/2
