Film Review: Money Monster (2016)

Copyright: TriStar Pictures

We all got hurt in one way or another by the recession of 2008/09. While reasons for the crash are beyond most of us, many instinctively blamed the trader/broker/banker characters of the world, especially the US.

The same sentiment was founded on numerous elements, but the biggest cornerstone was the idea that those behind the reigns of this failed venture did not suffer when the excrement hit the fan.

Money Monster draws most of its energy on this premise and wants to serve one back to the financial community and at least in this fictional domain, make them sweat for what they have done and continue to do. But, no one can threaten them financially, so here a man decides to move his vengeance to the realm of bodily harm.

Directed by Jodie Foster, this thriller follows a single day in a studio where a money advisory TV show, led by Lee Gates (played by George Clooney) becomes a victim of a viewer who lost all of his money on one of Gates’ suggestions. Armed with a handgun, he places a bomb on Gates and demands that the network finds out what really happened (the official story blames the loss on a glitch in an automated trading algorithm).

Films like this one and, for example, John Q could be placed in a genre of their own which could be called Righteous Hostage Takes. But, instead of providing anything of any marginal value, Foster’s film once again shows that the US consciousness is still terrified of a potential 1917 Tsarist Russia scenario, where the downtrodden masses take to arms and end a lineage of wealth and power that began when Mayflower made landfall centuries before.

In the movie, Foster tries her best to show that the victim and the unwitting accomplice (Gates) can work together for the greater good, fighting the real evil as they finally make it out, emerging from the shadows. But, below this Kumbaya story, there a deep-rooted anxiety which inexplicably seeps out from the façade – the slaves are getting restless, they sense a disturbance in the force of wealth, so let’s serve them fantasies that are both satisfying (the bad bankers get what’s coming to them) and pacifying (we are all victims, after all).

It’s possible that I’m reading too much into all of this, but it’s difficult to enjoy this film on any level without accepting that there are bucket loads of emotional charge that cannot be properly directed, so it’s left to kind of eat its own tail and try to implode. On moments, a solid cast and unexpected snippets of events, like the appearance of the girlfriend of the hijacker, do provide a bit of freshness. However, aside from this, Money Monster remains just another piece of faulty financial flag-waving with a simple message:

“Do not rise up dear oppressed peasants. There’s still plenty cake left for you to eat.”

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Crime, drama, Thriller,

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Gaby's Revenge Full Season Review (2016)

The thing which impressed me the most about the web series Gaby's Revenge is the ease with which it develops emotional connections. Like a neural network where nodes connect to other nodes and create a dense mesh so does this series place its characters in a living, breathing universe, where every action has a reaction.

Inside of it, the things people experience are not plot devices that simply take place and then disappear. Instead, like in the real world, they interact with each other, expanding a single event into a complex and tragic story of violence, family, and loyalty.

The creator of the series, Jonathan Vargas, pushes a clear vision for the episodes. The series consists of five individual episodes and they all differ greatly in tone, length, and exposition of the key plot elements.

The series begins simply by showing Gaby, a haunted contract killer who works, as the series puts it, as a freelancer for both the mob and the government agencies. She is under a huge amount of stress, especially because of a job that went haywire, so she decides to visit her family and try to get some bearing on her chaotic and exceedingly dangerous life. Gaby arrives at her family home, where she is greeted by her mother and her sister Angie.

However, the happy reunion is tainted by the news that her sister is struggling because of a false rumor started about her. Enraged by it, Gaby slowly but surely enters a mental place where only exceedingly bad things can happen and soon enough, they do. When I wrote the review of the pilot episode, I wished for darker things and I sure got them, but also something more important than that.


There are two main drives that power the show through the episodes. First one is the simple need to see how the story ends and how the events will lead back to one another. But, more than this, there is an emotional interconnectedness that I mentioned at the beginning. With it, Vargas manages to provide the viewers with a single character, paint him or her with a single brush, but then, later on, provide a new perspective on the same person. A bully can become a loving brother, a kingpin can turn out to be a rational man, and an assassin’s handler can be a surrogate parent. Like the very specific MagChop art the series features in its pilot, at first, the connections are random and irrelevant, as if they are simply splattered on the canvas. But as you immerse yourself in it, the art form begins to take shape.

All of this takes place in a very subtle manner and it doesn’t devalue the main plot or take anything away from it. It uses the noir setup and the thriller elements to tell a drama about pain, hurt, and suffering dealt out to those who don’t deserve it, but still are left with the gaping wounds, no matter if they’re physical or emotional. In some better reality, they victims would not get to suffer and would just relinquish this life, but in our world, Vargas tells us, people live one, struggling with the person’s they have to become because of those wounds. The whole acting cast, especially Amanda Ortega, carries this difficult setup with a lot of styles and their presence never breaks the pace that the series sets.

On some level, Vargas must have understood this while he made the series, which is why he utilizes the action elements with constraint and precision. From a cinematic perspective, this could have been the spot where some heavy stylization could have been used to make the viewing an even more smooth experience. Action scenes and limited production potential often are a big challenge, even for some big film companies. Here, an approach like the one used in Steven Soderbergh’s The Limey could make the series an even stronger neo-noir piece.

But, this is a minor observation and doesn’t really impact the current show. The main appeals of Gaby’s Revenge lie in the character development and their backstories which slowly fall into place, creating a sad but heartfelt painting of ordinary people in situations where there’s no good choice. The series shows that Vargas can grapple with plots that are both serious and complex; hopefully, he’ll get a shot at something bigger in the same thriller-like genre.

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drama, Thriller, web series,

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Film Review: High-Rise (2015)

Copyright: StudioCanal

Ben Wheatley knows films. His Hit List is a marvelous noir movie, developed and executed in a manner that should have made Wheatley rich and famous in a more just world. After it came out in 2011, this relatively young writer, director, and producer continued working on edgy films that only rare individuals thought they completely understood.

Now, he has branched out to the domain of big budgets and celebrity actors, while at the same time hooking a chain tied to a great literary name to his film. High-Rise is to Wheatley what The Brothers Bloom was for Rian Johnson and Godzilla was for Gareth Edwards. All of these directors showed immense talent and ability to make small films where they attained a huge level of control. Their first film on an AAA budget, however, ended up as something not exactly spectacular. 

In High-Rise, Wheatley had to fight expectations, but also a story by J. G. Ballard, one of the best writers of the 20th century and a man who is righteously adored by millions of smart people. The tale is a metaphor for the social divisions that were boiling up in the 1970’s UK and the film follows the same narrative. In it, the main character is Dr. Robert Laing, played by Tom Hiddleston, who arrives at an ultra-modern, self-sustained (regarding regular modern needs like schools and supermarkets) residential tower. He begins his new life there, but soon the structure of both the tower and the tenants begins to splinter towards a horrific end.

Wheatley went for the Stanley Kubrick approach, shooting the High-Rise using very sterile shots that were meticulously set up. His cast works well with the environment, especially the main actor and Luke Evans as his violent and volatile counterpart. But, like the shots, the film remains strangely sterile as well, working like a clock mechanism but lacking its Cuckoo bird or something else to give it either some flavor or some edge.

Unlike his other equally strange films, the director tried to use the idea of decadence as the main emotional hook. But, this concept is very troublesome for the centerpiece element of any movie, mainly because a setting needs to be shown as true initially and then slowly slide into its dark corners. Here, all of the characters are repulsive from the get-go and get very little sympathy from the audience. This might be intentional, but it makes the transition as something the audience cares little about. A social message, if there is any, wasn’t really adapted for the time 40 years after the novel was written.

It’s good to know that Wheatley broke into the big league, but the High-Rise is not something that will provide him with many impressed fans, while Ballard aficionado can only be modestly happy that this film got made. If Johnson and Edwards are a good reference point for his future, Wheatley migth soon be getting his first offers to begin working in the Star Wars franchise.

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Blu-ray/DVDebut: Wim Wenders' angst- and surprise-laden EVERY THING WILL BE FINE

I can't remember the last time I found a movie so trying to sit through for its first half, and then slowly became so involved in the second half that, by the finale, it had me in tears. Such a film, for better or worse, is EVERY THING WILL BE FINE, the new one from the popular German arthouse director, Wim Wenders. What Wenders does here is about as risky as it gets these days, in terms of audience approval. He delays and delays and delays our gratification and involvement with his main character to the point -- if you look at the critical reviews and audience response to the film -- of near obliteration. Even TrustMovies must admit that, had he not received a complementary disc (along with an obligation to cover this film), he might have stopped watching midway and moved on to something else. He is very glad he didn't do this.

Actors are often attracted to roles that occasion angst, guilt, and depressive behavior (and why not, as these so often win awards). Part of the problem very soon into the film is that James Franco (below) is not an actor who fares well with this sort of role. He can seem all-too-shallow for one thing, and he needs real specifics from which to build a character. Initially, at least, Wenders (shown at right) and his screenwriter, Bjørn Olaf Johannessen, don't provide these. Franco plays Tomas, a novelist who is evidently somewhat blocked and whose main characteristic seems to be that, despite the sub-zero temperatures, he forgets to close doors to the outside.

Fifteen minutes into the film, after a sudden shock of an incident, we are handed an ever greater shock, and the movie, for a time, clicks in. This is due partially to the actress Charlotte Gainsbourg (below), who does "depressed" with the best of them.

Tomas, in fact, treats her character better than he treats his longtime girlfriend -- another somewhat wasted role for the often excellent Rachel McAdams (below, left) -- and later in the film will treat his next girlfriend, played by Marie-Josée Croze (at left, two photos down), with equal unconcern bordering on disdain.

But Wenders has something more on his mind. During his film a number of years pass -- nearly a decade or more, I believe -- and in that time, things and people begin to change to the point where we finally become much more involved with them and their issues. Time is said to be the great healer, but it can act as something more. It bridges huge gaps, and when telescoped as interestingly as it is here, it shows us things and makes us understand them in ways we might not have otherwise done.

The Gainsbourg character has a son whom we meet early on (below) then later see as he grows up (as a teenager, he is quite beautifully played by young actor Robert Naylor). Tomas' odd bond with both the Gainsbourg character and her son is key to the movie, and as this bond grows and changes, the film takes on enormous resonance, with its ultimate scene a pure and emotional amazement.

Every Thing Will Be Fine is also quite a beautiful film to view. I believe it was originally shot in 3D, and even on the rather spectacular Blu-ray transfer the film has been given, there are a number of moments in which you can almost see that 3D come to life. (This is one of the better Blu-ray transfers I've yet viewed.)

All of which is by way of saying, stick with Wenders' movie and you may be very surprised how moved and connected you will eventually feel. Even Franco -- about whose work I run hot and cold -- finally acquits himself surprisingly well. And McAdams gets one scene toward the end in which she absolutely shines.

From IFC Films and running 119 minutes, the movie hit the street on Blu-ray and DVD this past Tuesday, June 7 -- for purchase or rental. On the Blu-ray extras, there are interviews with Wenders and most of his cast (Franco is the exception). These are quite interesting and offer additional worth to the overall experience.

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Canadian film, drama, EVERY THING WILL BE FINE, German film, guilt and redemption, time as a character, Wim Wenders,

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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: I Smile Back (2015)

Broad Green Pictures

There’s plenty of terrible mental and emotional spaces in the I Smile Back movie. As an exploration of a well-meaning but critically damaged woman, who is played by Sarah Silverman, it goes deep into territory that will make people feel uncomfortable, even though 

I doubt this was the intended purpose of its makers. Its director, Adam Salky, decided to place its plot in a perfect household, where Laney and Bruce, a young and successful couple have two perfect children and live in a beautiful house.

In that environment, however, the main character of Laney feels an endless torrent of negative emotions and thoughts which push her into alcoholism, drug use, and promiscuity. At one point, the situation begins to deteriorate and she starts to lose control, which triggers an onset of fear about the prospect of losing her family. 

Salky boldly dissects the suburban world that Laney inhabits, but does not try to present it as a nicely decorated emotional hell, like Sam Mendes did in the American Beauty. Instead, it is Laney herself who constructs the hell on her own, knowing that her behavior leads to a dark place, but still has no way to stop it. From a psychology perspective, the film is a stellar success and builds up Laney as a very coherent character when all of their past and present is gradually revealed. To do this, Salky uses her own actions, but also subtle hints, stories told by other characters and many more inventive storytelling techniques. All of them combine in a collage that presents a person who has all but still feels as if she has nothing. 

With its short runtime of 85 minutes, Salky does all that he intended to do and does not waste even a minute. But, it is Sarah Silverman who makes Laney into a real person. Her character is reliable and somehow right there, living in it all without any false dramatization or overacting. It’s obvious that Silverman’s talent for dramatic roles has been perfectly hidden until now.

Finally, it is the decision of Salky not to provide any possible solution to Laney’s conundrum which makes the film a great work of art. It would have been easier to wrap up I Smile Back in some predictable fashion, but instead, Salky does something a lot more visceral and powerful.

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Film Review: Irrational Man (2015)

Copyright: Sony Pictures Classics

The talent of Woody Allen knows no limits. His film called Irrational Man is one of the best examples of his current creative period in which he apparently fell in love with simple and basic thrillers. Like Match Point, this film provides an uneasy, self-mocking feel that is rare and precious in Hollywood these days.

Here, Allen puts Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone to work, using them to create a plot where a distraught philosophy professor played by Phoenix arrives at a new college and begins to reevaluate his life through talks, sexual encounters and epiphanies about the nature of humanity. Along the way, murder also becomes involved.

The plot, like Allen’s direction, builds up an environment of intellectualism and an (undeserved) high quality of life, but also a vast and placid emptiness about the purpose of it all.

In Irrational Man, all the characters are looking for that something, completely oblivious to their incredible self-indulgence and a need to see themselves as someone who is living a righteous life according to the latest cultural norms.

While these traits block them in their attempts, they still ask for it, actually, demand it, no matter what or who might get hurt along the way. Internal monologues coming from the main actors go great justice to this concept and further enforce it.
But, because of their social class, eloquent rationalization and unapologetic and unconscious selfishness, others definitely get hurt in a range of ways. Allen shows how this need to put oneself in the center of the known universe is something corrosive and dangerous. In fact, the emotional weirdness combined with valid internal cognitive processes of the characters transform the film into a dark comedy about the toxic hunger of the modern western self-centered philosophy of life.

Towards the end, the audience gets entangled in the web of lies and explanation, settling into the position where it would not be that bad if everyone got punished for what they did and how they acted. This way, Woody Allen managed to create via a classic tale of crime and guilt, set in the modern world of convenience and ego-worshiping individual philosophies.

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drama, Mystery,

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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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Biography, drama,

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Film Review: Remember (2015)

Copyright: A24

The best way to describe Remember is to call it nauseating in a really mellow way. Atom Egoyan, its director, works really well with bland locations, where the depth of space is measured in meters that are in their single digits. Virtually all of the film, except its finale, takes place in rooms, basements, run-down houses and other places that are both enclosing and claustrophobic.

Here, in these spaces from where there is no room to escape, a simple plot unravels. Zev Guttman, played by Christopher Plummer, is a Jewish man gripped by late-stage Alzheimer’s, who mourns the death of his wife in their nursing home residence. But, Zev is soon reminded by Max, one of his friends about a promise he made: as a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp, he will find an SS officer who stole the identity of a killed camp prisoner and immigrated to the US after the war. 

With his destroyed memory which practically restarts every time he falls asleep, Zev leaves the nursing home with a list of four names, knowing that one of them is the man who murdered his family in Auschwitz. On this journey, Egoyan works as if he is creating a senior version of Memento. Zev forgets and is easily disoriented, but his drive for justice keeps him pushing on, using a letter from his friend to guide him once he forgets everything.

The toned-down nature of Remember is employed to show the world which moved on and almost forgot about the unspeakable horror that took place behind the Nazi barbed wire. However, the oldest ones among us still remember vividly the places where hell became a physical, tangible thing and this movie delves head on into that feeling. Egoyan does not use any gimmick to push his point home: there are no flashback scenes, no grizzly stories about the events that took place in the barracks or the killing rooms. Instead, it is the state of Zev that tells the story of suffering and dismay right here and now, in the pleasant environment of the modern United States.

Plummer is excellent and very visceral in the presentation of his character, spurred on by the always great Martin Landau as Max. Here, the audience sees Zev who has almost lost everything stored in his mind while his body follows suit. But, in spite of this, his small hand purse holds a Glock and he is still, as his name says in Hebrew, a lion. And lions hunt, even when they are on their deathbed.

Remember is a film about growing old but not forgetting the things that matter, especially those that cannot be forgotten.

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drama, Thriller,

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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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Biography, drama,

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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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Biography, drama, Thriller,

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Film Review: Spectre (2015)

Copyright: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Everyone seems to be impressed by the fact that Dark Star is David Bowie’s eulogy, but Spectre offered people a lot less usual content on its farewell to the Daniel Craig’s James Bond. In it, Sam Mendes apparently decided to end his 007 run not with a bang, but with a very impressive whimper. This time, the plot does not include testicle-beating, M-stabbing villains, but an organization that encompasses them all.

The same organization is run by a mysterious figure that apparently, died many decades before and now wants to see the world burn not through a single grandiose deed, but through the human savagery and gradual exploitation of the range and anger that is already in all of us.

Mendes is a master of an elegant cinematic eye which could have worked equally well 50 years ago as it does today. Steering clear of any and (almost) all modern tricks, the director of Spectre uses his natural ability to set up a shot in a menacing way, where the protagonist is almost surrounded by other things in it, both human and inanimate.

This silky smooth trick is applied several times, but most effectively on the site of a burial in an ancient cemetery in Rome, where the use of white and gray pylons goes brilliantly with mourners wearing black. As they slide away from the scene, Mendes demonstrates his uncanny talent where the narrative is spoken and presented by the environment itself almost more than the actors and their lines – remember the Scottish moors in Skyfall?

At the same time, this scene, like many others, focuses on the notion of things passing away and stopping to exist, while latently, it also provides a counterpoint by showing how this passing, no matter how tragic or undesirable, will not stop the world from spinning.

As Bond fights and investigates his way to the heart of Specter, Daniel Craig is on board with Mendes’ last goodbye to the series. He, like his character, presents a determined but shallow man who knows it has all ended a long time ago and now he is simply fighting for remembrance and their legacy, nothing more. Even when he sees his name written in paint onto the memorial placket of the old MI6 HQ, Bond simply recognizes the word but does not react. The character and Craig both recognize that their time has passed and they are fine with that.

While I watched the film with its regular location A, location B, location C setup of the plot, I was surprised that the film is so toned down. But, just like Christoph Waltz, there is no need for extravaganza when you have that deep-rooted quality about you, presented in all the things you do no. Like Sicario, another recent and impressive action film, it is very cool about being cool. I’m certain that many of those who enjoyed Quantum of Solace will not like this film, but they shouldn’t go hard on it: after all, Spectre is a kind of a funeral.

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action, drama, Thriller,

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Film Review: Tangerine (2015)

Copyright: Magnolia Pictures

A lot of times, you really need very little to make a decent movie. Tangerine is a type of film that has even less than very little when it comes to the cinematic gear, sets, and props, but it has more than enough in the terms of actors and performances.

Following two transgender prostitutes and an Armenian taxi driver on the streets of LA on Christmas eve, it explores the nature of relationships in a place where desire and utter loneliness go so well together.

As Sin-Dee works tirelessly on finding her pimp/boyfriend, her friend Alexandra tries to provide her with some common sense while she calls on mutual acquaintances to visit her gig taking place on the same evening. As they go about their business, the city remains indifferent to their hopes, fears, and aspirations.

But, in spite of this, the film, just like Dope, manages to be an homage to LA, even when it comes to the parts that are not on the tourist maps.

In a matter of several hours, the two converge, diverge and converge again, trying to stay afloat and stay happy in a world of Los Angeles that is only seen in gangster films that feature drive-by shootings. The film’s director Sean Baker created this comedy drama on less than a shoestring budget. With the absolute minimum of investment, he still managed to pull off some impressive cinematography, accompanied by a perfectly crafted electronic soundtrack.

Here, Sin-Dee and Alexandra work the streets and at the same time, their counterpoint in the form of Razmik, the taxi driver who apparently has all figured out, but is also cursing the same streets looking for compassion and love. In Tangerine, Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, Mya Taylor, and Karren Karagulian perform brilliantly, precisely measuring their acting to suit every situation just right. At a first glance, a film like Tangerine might appear all flash and no bang, but the first 15 minutes are enough to put an end to that theory.

Additionally, Baker managed to infuse it with the right amount of humor, making it in equal measure a dark comedy and an optimistic drama movie. But, it’s this optimism that really pushes the film even when there apparently is not much to be hopeful about. Thanks to it, Tangerine remains upbeat and full of energy even in its dark moments, saying a lot about life in general.

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comedy, drama,

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Film Review: The Hateful Eight (2015)

Copyright: The Weinstein Company

With The Hateful Eight, the movie that Quentin Tarantino delivered is for me similar in quality to Django Unchained, which makes it a contender for the worst films he created in his career. Of course, Tarantino’s worse is a lot better than most directors’ best, but still, the fact remains. As with the previous western, there are several things which really grind my gears and where the film failed to maintain a connection to both my emotions and attention span.

First and most serious of these is the film’s chapter that rewinds from the cabin fewer atmospheres to a period that took place a few hours earlier, taking the plot into the recent past to explain the protagonists’ current predicament.

This big revelation reveals nothing of value and just sabotages the big finale that can only be expected from a neo-western where a bunch of killers ends up spending a night in isolated, blizzard-stricken house miles away from anywhere.

At this unnecessary rewind moment, the flaw of the film is exposed like poorly hidden acne under a white neon light – Hateful Eight uses the well-known fuel of the Tarantino thought processes, but this time, it burns weakly. While one of the many punches of the Inglorious Basterds was the moment when Aldo’s commandos kill Hitler, here, the only punch is the appearance of Channing Tatum’s character which is an undersell of an epic proportion.

The clickety-clack of the endless dialogue is here as well, but just like the many racial insults, it all falls flat and lifeless, at least when compared to the director’s previous films. Other issues are also present in the film's 150-minute runtime, including a few jokes which apparently somebody found hilarious, like the two pieces of wood, nailed to the door, but for me at least, the humor kept on eluding me.

Naturally, all of this is a disappointment coming from a man who expected greatness, but got only a fun and somewhat rambling thriller. The Hateful 8 experience is not particularly bad and the film keeps the viewer interested for 80% of its duration. The rewind segment is its weakest link; however, the rest is good, mainly thanks to the cast and the raw cinematography, to almost completely compensate this fact.

The Hateful 8 is like a film created by an exceedingly gifted ghost director (as in ghost writer) who got the task of making a movie just like Quentin Tarantino does. The result is fine, but I still expected someone to kill Hitler if you know what I mean. At the same time, others are making neo-westerns like the fantastic Bone Tomahawk, which makes The Hateful Eight look like a runner-up.

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comedy, Crime, drama, western,

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Film Review: Sicario (2015)

Copyright: Lionsgate

There’s a lot of justice in the fact that Benicio Del Toro had the opportunity and the privilege of being a part of two seminal films about the War on Drugs, almost exactly 15 years apart. One is Traffic while the other one is Sicario and this review will perceive them both as a single chapter in a bloody and futile endeavor.

Both films are crucial in their presentation of how the US collective subconsciousness is grappling with the issue of drug trafficking in the Americas and the violence it breeds in the ever-widening cracks left by poverty.

In my Sicario review, I have to congratulate the director Denis Villeneuve for continuing his streak of fantastic movies that includes Enemy and Prisoners. As intense as always, Villeneuve in his latest film tells two stories – first covers a driven and honest FBI agent accepting a role in a task force with a semi-secret, semi-legal mission that will include both the US and Mexico territory.

The other one takes place for only a fraction of the film and follows a mysterious adviser to the task force called Alejandro (played by Del Toro) who is seeking for something a lot more personal than a law enforcement victory. With a life filled with unimaginable suffering, felt and caused by him, he is a figure determined to see his goal accomplished, no matter what.

All of this is shot under the beautiful sky of the US-Mexico border region. Villeneuve doesn’t shy away from action sequences, even though the story of the film is so dark and unnerving that Sicario is anything but an action film. As the hunt for a cartel sub-boss descends deeper into the pitch black waters of the War-on-whatever-we’re-making-war-on-currently, so does the FBI agent, played by Emily Blunt, become lost in the violence and depravity of human greed and stupidity.

Del Toro, as a brilliant, hard-working actor that marked many films for two decades, now has a complete body of work that will surely be on the right side of history. While Traffic tried to present the fact that a very ordinary and a very American hunger for narcotics is driving the will of the criminals to sell it (and kill for it), Sicario is placed in a time and place where that idea doesn’t really mean anything anymore.

Now, in 2015, the War on Drugs is exactly that – a real armed conflict fought with special forces, drones, rigged safe-houses, urban US cartel graveyards and seasoned professional killers. Norther Mexico turned into a battleground, which, unlike places in the Middle East, is not grabbing headlines nor shocking the world. Instead, it just festers suffering and mindless confrontations created by the unquenchable thirst for drugs coming from its norther neighbor.

Today, a row of mutilated bodies are strung from a highway bridge in Juarez and it’s just another day. The film ends with sounds of explosions and gunfire erupting in the background of a children’s soccer training in the same city and people only look over their shoulders in a tired fashion. No one runs, no one screams and ducks for cover. There are no police sirens and no TV crews converging on the scene.

The fate of those people is set and there is nothing they can do about it. Now, Sicario tells us, the War on Drugs simply became just a war.

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action, Crime, drama,

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Film Review: Extinction (2015)

     Copyright: Vertical Entertainment

The best way to describe the movie Extinction is to perceive it as a weird dream about a script about a time after a zombie apocalypse. The film opens in the present time, where an outbreak of some kind transformed patients into rabid killers, brought the army onto the streets and people were being evacuated to the protected zones.

Two friends, Patrick and Jack, along with a pregnant woman, try to reach safety. A decade later, society has fallen apart and the world has entered a new ice age (for whatever reason), most are dead, but Jack and Patrick are neighbors, living apparently secure lives while one of them is also raising a child, the nine-year-old Lu.

But, here’s the twist – the two men are not communicating with each other in any way, even though only a road separates the two houses.

The twist-based approach isn’t something new in zombie films. Ever since The Walking Dead revived the interest in the genre and started the latest zombie craze, there have been numerous films trying to find a fresh angle from which they can present the same theme. One of the latest ones was Maggie, which relatively successfully went for the father-daughter family drama as the main cornerstone of the plot.

Extinction and its director Miguel Ángel Vivas went for the mystery of a broken relationship between two friends, which obviously had to be something huge if it managed to overshadow the death of the human civilization. Vivas, who previously worked on a home-invasion thriller called Kidnapped, placed a lot of attention to the characters and their state of mind. This is why almost half of the film passes while we see how Jack is a caring father to Lu while Patrick gradually goes insane. Flashbacks examine their relationship and slowly move to the present point.

But, Vivas had to use some horror elements as well, so in one moment, additional survivors and new infected mutants come onto the stage. From then on, the film switches gears into the standard under-siege flick, dispersing almost all potential about the two main characters the director tried to build. Both Matthew Fox and Jeffrey Donovan present solid characters, but their acting stop being important in that point.

As the action unravels, the film goes full bore into the action-survival mode, which doesn’t really leave a lasting impression mainly because the entire film (both houses and the small surrounding area outside) looks like a giant sound stage with plenty of fake snow. In this environment, the panic, fear, and the confusion, in my opinion, just don’t connect that well with the audience.

Like a dream of the zombie movie, Extinction dares to innovate but lacks the cognitive effort needed to make whole the different random parts it tries to encompass.

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drama, Horror, Sci-Fi,

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