Film Review: Legend (2015)

Copyright: Universal Pictures

For some complex and subtle reason, gangster movies became something that is not easy to make. It could be that the ever increasing demands of the viewers have forced directors and writers to try and push the limits of the genre, but as recent films clearly show, this is not going well. Just like Black Mass, another high-end gangster film based on real people, Legend is also lacking in engagement, in spite of some great acting and plenty of style.

The story of the film is set in London in 1960’s where the Kray brothers rule as criminal princes. 

One has a strategic mind that desires to grow and expand as peacefully as possible, while the other has a violent mind clouded by a multitude of psychiatric issues. Both are played by Tom Hardy and both are played quite well. As a whole, they create the Kray gang which becomes one of the key factions in the London underground.

Sure, Legend has a lot of sway about it, featuring suits, walk and talk of the era, making it slick film. Hardy too has the ability to carry almost any project on his shoulders, as the movie’s director, Brian Helgeland knows very well. In The Revenant, he was the man who stole the show, even though the people from the American Academy did not agree with this. But, Helgeland was not able to differentiate between what Kray story was needed to be told, and which one is irrelevant.

By focusing on the private life of the sane brother and his wife played superbly by Emily Browning, he made the film a series of short events which mix in a bunch of stuff, including rival gangs, US mafia syndicates, failed nightclubs and much more, but do not follow through on any of it.

The end, when it comes, simply wraps it up, as if the police themselves were watching the film and at one point said “OK, that’s enough, let’s get this over with”. This way, Legend just fails to be anything regal even though it does tell the story of a pair of very colorful rules of the underworld. Because of this lack of impact that the film has, maybe future gangster films could try to use the factual stories as inspiration, but then, base the films on their imagination, not the bleak and pointless reality which true crime usually boils down to.

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Biography, Crime, drama,

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Film Review: Trumbo (2015)

Copyright: Bleecker Street

This movie is more about Bryan Cranston than it is about Dalton Trumbo, which is not necessarily a bad thing. On the other hand, it is definitely not about Communism in any shape or form, even though it should be at least a bit. Instead, it is about how the US when through a dark period by learning their lessons, which they obviously (like any other super-power in the world) did not do.

Like many big films about a dodgy period in the US history, it slithers away from the slippery ground which might not go so well outside of the relatively liberal costliness of the country.

Here, in the mostly blood-red interior of the US, I bet that calling someone a “communist” is still a hard-hitting insult but also a social system that armed Christian Caucasian still fear deep down inside. 

The fact that the actual fall of communism in its basic form failed to stifle these fears is a great example of how much they are embedded in the conservative mindset. Trumbo caters to this fear way too much, to a point where its depiction of a man becomes irrelevant. As the film unfolds and presents a story about a man who took on the system, lost and kept on fighting, we are left wondering how much was actually Trumbo into communism in the first place.

I’m certain that the movie makers would argue that the whole point of the plot is that this is a personal matter, but it still dissects Trumbo’s personal sides. We are shown his addictions, crumbling friendships and strained family relationships, so it is not a question of respecting his privacy. But, when it comes to his political views, they are left in the dark, even when his support for a global socialist cause is compared to others. Arlen Hird, who is played by Louis C.K., is represented as a person with more left-leaning views, but Trumbo remains a mystery.

Sure, he wants workers’ rights, less censorship and more freedom to fight for your paycheck, but all that remains in the domain of wishful thinking. The same would be if Cranston declared in the film as Trumbo that he wants “the people to live better”. This all might sound jaded on my part, but I feel this way because I’m certain that if the film declared that Trumbo really was a Communist, not just an almost accidental part of the Communist party at one point, a lot of the US audience wouldn’t emphasize with him. In fact, many would be more or less on the side of all the repressive elements of the film.

I believe this because I remember a single historical notion. As McCarthyism policy clearly stated, “the only good Communist is a dead Communist”. No matter how good or convincing Bryan Cranston, he still ends up as someone who is a great guy but definitely not a communist. Hell, in the end, how could a person be both of these things? That is why, in spite of his genuine message about censorship, it falls flat when it comes to its decency. Here, instead of presenting someone for whom he really was, the director Jay Roach and writer John McNamara appease the book-burners of the current world.

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Film Review: Black Mass (2015)

Making films about gangsters, especially real-life ones, can often turn into a quite a boar and Black Mass is an ideal example. The story revolves around a steady rise to fame of James 'Whitey' Bulger, a Boston kingpin in the 1970’s and 1980’s, mainly thanks to his connections with the FBI task force in the same city.

Directed by the talented Scott Cooper, who made the impressive Out of the Furnace before this film, Black Mass falls short of being either thrilling or compelling.

As if he was star-struck by Johnny Depp, who plays Whitey, Cooper seems to struggle whenever he is not in the frame. The film just adores Depp and his evil, vampire-like persona, but does not succeed in showing the audience why should they care about this pale-eyed monster.

Of course, Whitey is a despicable but smart criminal, but most movie kingpins are something similar. He manipulates, terrifies, injures and kills his way out of any situation, but remains uninteresting as a character. What drives Whitey and what scares him? Cooper and his writing team seem to be as clueless about this as I am and it reflects in the film throughout.

The only kindling of interests this movie has to offer burns in FBI agent John Connolly, played by the spectacular Joel Edgerton. Here, a transformation can be witnessed by the audience, but it is still eclipsed by the face of Whitey, who always hovers over all other people in the film. The role is masterfully played, but the film doesn't know what to do with it inside of the bigger picture. This mistake dulled the film substantially and turned it into a TV documentary about an appalling man from Boston’s Southey.

Even thought it is a Depp-worshiping film, it cannot be called a disaster because it looks good from a visual standpoint (a new pattern of a fascination with the late 70’s can be seen here). But, A Most Violent Year develops a similar storyline in a similar environment but pulls it off it with a lot more tact and immersions. I’m sure that Black Mass does a lot of justice to the real events and people, but a rude question begs to be asked – who cares about the real James Bulger?

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Biography, Crime, drama,

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Film Review: Steve Jobs (2015)

Copyright: Universal Pictures

In the modern, still somewhat death-centric culture thanks to 2000 years of Christendom, deceased are both revered and explored. No matter if those people are dead musicians like Michael Jackson or Kurt Cobain, or if they are leaders of industry, like Jobs, there is a strong magnetic pull that keeps people from allowing them to be forgotten. 

It does not only this but also somehow forces the public subconscious to dig through their lives and looks for clues, even though there are no real questions anymore, at least not any that are relevant to them.

This grave digger approach is the reason why a lot of films about real people end up either half-cooked, like The Imitation Game or weirdly (but clearly) disjointed from that actual woman or man as Lone Survivor.

 However, Steve Jobs was created by Danny Boyle, one of the best directors working today, especially when it comes to those who meander when it comes to genre. He, as a great scholar of films (I believe he is, at least) knew that already people tried to tell the tale of Jobs and failed.

So, instead of making a grand picture about a genius who created barely anything himself in a technical sense, but successfully “played the orchestra” to build a business empire, he made a small tale about a father and a daughter. This tale isn’t set in the wide open world but on stages and backstage areas of the venues where Job held seminal presentations about Apple products. Starting in the 80’s and going all the way to the period before the launch of the iMac, the film juggles the business dealings of the man with his shifting approach to a little girl who is his daughter (even though he denies this at the beginning).

Here, the talent of Michael Fassbender works wonders as he presents a man who will never be an open book, even to the people who knew him best. As Jobs, Fassbender is likable and deplorable, soothing and poisonous, depending on the need and the situation. But, at all times, he is alluring, like a light in a dim room that beckons people to him even when he acts like a complete ass. The rest of the cast is equally interesting and gives the film a very elegant and unforced cognitive quality without any flash or bang.

There is controversy about the film and some believe it to be a misrepresentation of the man. But, we are a culture who loves to explore its dead, so I’m certain that there will be other works which deliver into the life of Steve Jobs. That’s fine by me, as long as they are all as good as this one.

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Film Review: Bridge of Spies (2015)

Copyright: 20th Century Fox

30 years ago, when Steven Spielberg and the Coen Brothers were younger and a lot hungrier for recognition, I could imagine the Bridge of Spy becoming an interesting film. Back then, aside from the supposed mindset of these men, this film about Cold War spies would have had an additional advantage: the USSR would have still existed.

Today, however, spies are mostly people who sit behind a computer and fly a drone over some country where beards are very popular or who force their way into the enemy’s (and more than often allies) databases. The age of the agent 007 is so gone that even the last film from this series desires to put the notion of the gentleman spy to its eternal resting place.

But, Spielberg-Coen production decided that the world of the spy genre had too much technology, YouTube head chopping videos, and radical Islamism villains.

Instead, they took us to a much simple time, when the world was facing total nuclear annihilation, but you could hop on a train and be pretty certain that no one would try to blow it up using their mom’s pressure cooker. Here, a New York lawyer by the name of James B. Donovan (played by Tom Hanks) gets to defend Rudolf Abel, an almost-certainly Russian spy.

On the other side of the world, a newly recruited CIA “driver” or U2 spy pilot sets off from Peshawar airbase in Pakistan (which is also Islamism-free back then) to snap some photos of the USSR secret facilities. The Americans are assured that the U2 cannot be brought down, forgetting that age-old wisdom that you never-ever go off to invade Russia, even using a single funny-looking airplane.

In rapid succession, both US and USSR have got themselves valuable spies in custody. But, Donovan, being a sharp mind used to tough negotiation, finds himself in the middle of the trade-off deal involving his country, the Russians but also the German Democratic Republic. The complex web of interests and lies is soon spun from all corners, but Donovan plows through it, determined to save his countrymen.

The Bridge of Spies is so vanilla that you can taste it in every scene and with every character. Everyone is human and logical and every person Donovan meets makes sense from their own vantage point. There are no stereotypes, not even on the Russian side, where they are usually found in other US films. Instead, the Coen Brothers’ script plays out like a really expansive documentary film about human determination to be rational when all the global mindset in every country calls for blood. But it is still very vanilla in its realization, from the cinematography to the constantly worried, I’m-not-a-hero hero Tom Hanks. Like with Captain Phillips, this gig that Hanks does is getting a bit bothersome.

I imagine that the main reason for making this film was to show the world who James B. Donovan was. While he apparently was a great guy who wanted to talk with his enemies instead of exclusively hate them and trying to kill them, the Bridge of Spies is still a masterfully made TV movie.

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Film Review: Love & Mercy (2015)

Copyright: Roadside Attractions

The goal of the Love & Mercy and its director Bill Pohlad are clear from the first moment of the film, which show John Cusack as an older Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys who wants to buy a car somewhere in the 1980’s. Wilson, now an unrecognizable middle-aged man, lost all of this drive and creativity that help him create one of the most successful bands in the U.S. history.

Deeply troubled by emotional issues and under the constant supervision of a strange psychotherapist, Wilson loses days and months, maybe even years in a haze of prescription drugs and complete lack of interest in anything in the world around him. Then, without any warning or sign, the story rewinds 20 years into the past, where the young Brian, now at the top of his game, desires to make an incredible album which will break away the Beach Boys from their fake surfer vibe he gradually came to despise.

But at the same time, his mind is eroding, accompanied by audio hallucinations and deterring emotional stability, which is additionally fueled by drug use. At both times, Wilson tries his hardest to follow his vision and share the love he feels with people around him but ends up isolated in the world that is becoming more and more distant to him.

Pohlad made Love & Mercy in a way that really underlines Wilson’s musical genius and his ability to expand the realm of popular music when no one asked or expected that of him. The film shines while it shows famous Beach Boy’s songs being made in the studio and Wilson, who is terrifically portrayed by Paul Dano, both lost in his miraculous world of sounds and terrified by the things he suspects are coming. Unlike the, for example, Benedict Cumberbatch's uneven presentation of Alan Turing in The Imitation Game, Dano makes Wilson’s instantly connectable, even when he’s losing his mind. Because of this, all those who love or at least know these songs will definitely feel at least a spark of jubilation while they watch how Good Vibrations or some other track slowly come into existence. At the same time, they will also some other darker emotions, seeing in what agony they were created.

Pohlad, who isn’t new to movies but is new to directing, can’t evade the lure of the regular protagonist-antagonist plotline, which dampens the part of the story which takes place in the 1980’s. Here, Dr. Eugene Landy is depicted as a tyrant and a madman who keeps Wilson down, while his newfound girlfriend tries to pull him out of this toxic relationship. Paul Giamatti does a great job as Landy, but I feel that this part of the script failed an otherwise wondrous film by making sure the audience had a bogeyman to hate. Like the Wilson’s real life, I feel this uncalled-for Hollywoodization of his story only subtracted from it but didn’t add much an aside of the cheap thrills of having a bad guy in this musical biography.

There is no doubt that the mind of Brian Wilson was and probably still is a marvelous and terrible place. As a gentle soul who wanted to give people the gift of music, he got a life that had way too much suffering and pain. Love & Mercy might not do him justice in every possible way or as much as he deserves, but it is still a window into a fascinating man. It is clear that the world needed that window and having it is a joyful occasion.

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Biography, drama, music,

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Film Review: Wild (2014)

Copyright: Fox Searchlight Pictures

At some moments in this film, I felt that something very wrong is about to happen. For example, a woman all alone in a desert is about to jump across some large rocks. I was almost compelled to say out loud to the main character of this film:

“What are you doing, haven’t you seen the 127 Hours? Keep it up and you’ll have to cut off your hand with a pocket knife!”

This alone is a big cinematic achievement. In it, its director Jean-Marc Vallée made a devious pack with Nick Hornby, who wrote this screenplay. With Hornby’s talent for making sad tales engaging to a point where Disney went when they killed off Bambi’s mom, Vallée created an inspirational story which doesn’t state the obvious and doesn’t pamper us in happy-go-lucky feelings. Not all the way, at least.

The tale, based on the true adventures of Cheryl Strayed, a woman who hiked the Pacific Crest Trail accompanied only by uncomfortable shoes and some camping gear, is really unique. In it, this trail, which wasn’t really famous outside the die-hard hiking community, plays an equally important role as the main character. Its beauty and indifference are stunning, captivating, and perfect for Vallée to transform it into a mirror for the protagonist, who is in a deep spiritual, emotional and personal crisis.

Cheryl is played by Reese Witherspoon who acts her heart out and it really shows. Along with Hornby’s writing, she made sure that her character didn’t become some bland heroine who is determined to show the nature who is the boss. Instead, her Cheryl is someone who is much realer and a lot faultier than the average nature conqueror.

But, while Wild is a very stunning movie that draws you in a very poetic way, I was really impressed with the director’s readiness to make the film more gritty. Using frantic editing and cuts, he obviously became even more advanced in his trade since he made Dallas Buyers Club.

Still, I feel underneath that underneath all of the grandeur and greatness, there is still that sticky touch of Nick Hornby. While films like All Is Lost have that moment where the viewer is captivated and terrified by the collision of nature with a single human being, throughout this film, there is the slightest but the constant feel of that undercover Disney approach Hornby does so well.

This is why the film forced a verbal ending and few epilogue-type sentences on how all of this fits together, ignoring the fact that it could have ended without it. But then, in that case, the audience might be just a bit less satisfied and a bit more confused, and Hornby just couldn’t let that happen.

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Film Review: The Imitation Game (2014)

Copyright: The Weinstein Company

Alan Turing had it rough, but it was all kind of worth it. This is, in a nutshell, the idea that I got from the film The Imitation Game. This story about the king of computer geniuses of the first half of the 20th century is very polished and the cherry on its top is Benedict Cumberbatch, who is a great actor and the next gigantic crush for all those boys and girls who really loved Ryan Gosling before he became really popular.

Yes, everything is here and all it very compacted and easily digestible, but somehow, for me, something was very lacking and very off in this film. Its director, Morten Tyldum, had a similar effect on me with his previously best-known film Hodejegerne. In it, just like in The Imitation Game movie, I have a feeling that Tyldum strives for bedazzlement and charm, all in a desperate attempt to leave the audience without too many questions, mainly, what did we really learn about its main characters?

Here, the same problem arises. What drives Alan Turing and why is practically everyone his enemy or at best, passing annoyance? The film provides two parallel vectors that never merge into a single human being: one side of Turing cares only for his machine that can decipher the Enigma code, while the other side is forever haunted by his personality that is simply unwelcome in that time and place (primarily his sexual orientation).

Here, the film backs off, not allowing Cumberbatch to make a choice as Turing. He is neither fine with who he is nor is he tormented by it. He is calculated and even cruel in his worldview, but offers a soft human side on practically every corner. He desires to make beautiful computers that can become aware one day, but he also desires to find boyfriends in the local pub. He is everything that the real Turing was supposed to be, but nothing of this truly defines him, mainly because the film doesn’t show him sacrificing anything willingly. Things and people just fall out of his life, but he marches on, even when his supposed life purpose is completed.

A lot of Tyldum’s careful constructed facade that plasters the inherent emptiness and gutlessness of the film is seen in its soundtrack. At some moments, it is sad, while other times it is cheerful, but throughout the film, it remains very whimsical, as if it seeped from a blockbuster film like Gravity, where the music is used to underline the pacing of the action for those who have trouble concentrating on it while they make out, eat popcorn or use their smartphones.

I don’t know much about what kind of man Alan Turing was, but I am also certain that I learned or felt nothing more about him after I watched The Imitation Game.

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Biography, drama, Thriller,

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