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Wake Up Dead Man (2025)
Being the third in its franchise, we now have a familiar idea of what to expect from a Knives Out murder mystery. Writer/director Rian Johnson has a clear love for the whodunit mystery genre but he loves even more turning the genre on its head, finding something new in a staid and traditional style of storytelling. The original 2019 hit movie let us in on the “murderer” early, and it became more of a game of out-thinking the world-class detective, Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig). With the 2022 sequel Glass Onion, the first of Netflix’s two commissioned sequels for a whopping $400 million, Johnson reinvented the unexpected twin trope and let us investigate a den of tech bro vipers with added juicy dramatic irony. With his latest, Wake Up Dead Man, Johnson is trying something thematically different. Rather than adding a meta twist to ages-old detective tropes, Johnson is putting his film’s emphasis on building out the themes of faith. This is a movie more interested in the questions and value of faith in our modern world. It still has its canny charms and surprises, including some wonderfully daffy physical humor, but Wake Up Dead Man is the most serious and soul-searching of the trilogy thus far, and a movie that hit me where it counts.
In upstate New York, Pastor Jud (Josh O’Connor) has been assigned to a church to help the domineering Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin). The congregation is dwindling with the exception of a few diehards holding onto Wicks’ message of exclusion and division. The two pastors are ideologically in opposition, with Pastor Jud favoring a more nurturing and welcoming approach for the Christian church. Then after one fiery sermon, Wicks retires to an antechamber and winds up dead, with the primary suspect with the most motivation being Pastor Jud. Enter famous detective extraordinaire Benoit Blanc to solve the riddle.
I appreciated how the movie is also an examination on the different voices fighting for control of the direction of the larger Christian church. Wicks is your traditional fire-and-brimstone preacher, a man who sees the world as a nightmarish carnival of temptations waiting to drag down souls. He sees faith as a cudgel against the horrors of the world, and for him the church is about banding together and fighting against those outside forces no matter how few of you remain to uphold the crusade. Pastor Jud rejects this worldview, arguing that if you think of the church as a pugilist in a battle then you’ll start seeing enemies and fights to come to all places. He’s a man desperate to escape his violent past and to see the church as a resource of peace and resolution but Wicks lusts for the fight and the sense of superiority granted by his position. He relishes imposing his wrath onto others, and his small posse of his most true believers consider themselves hallowed because they’re on the inside of a special club. For Pastor Jud, he’s rejecting hatred in his heart and looks at the teachings of Jesus as an act of love and empathy. It’s not meant to draw lines and exclude but to make connections. These two philosophical differences are in direct conflict for the first half of the movie, one viewing the church as an open hand and the other as a fist. It’s not hard to see where Johnson casts his lot since Pastor Jud is our main character, after all. I also appreciated the satirical tweaks of the church’s connections to dubious conservative political dogma, like Wicks’ disciples trying to convince themselves the church needs a bully of its own to settle scores (“What is truth anyway?” one incredulously asks after some upsetting news about their patriarch). It’s not hard to make a small leap to the self-serving rationalizations of supporting a brazenly ungodly figure like Trump. At its core, this movie is about people wrestling with big ideas, and Johnson has the interest to provide space for these ideas and themes while also keeping his whodunit running along pace-for-pace.
There is a moment of clarification that is so sudden, so unexpectedly beautiful that it literally had me welling up in tears and dumbstruck at Johnson’s capabilities as a precise storyteller. It’s late into Act Two, and Blanc and Pastor Jud are in the thick of trying to gather all the evidence they can and chase down those leads to come to a conclusive answer as to how Pastor Jud is innocent. The scene begins with Pastor Jud talking on the phone trying to ascertain when a forklift order was placed. The woman on the other side of the line, Louise (Bridget Everett, Somebody Somewhere), is a chatty woman who is talking in circles rather than getting to the point, delaying the retrieval of desired information and causing nervous agitation for Pastor Jud. It’s a familiar comedy scenario of a person being denied what they want and getting frustrated from the oblivious individual causing that annoying delay. Then, all of a sudden, as the frustration is reaching a breaking point, she quietly asks if she can ask Pastor Jud a personal question. This takes him off guard but he accepts, and from there she becomes so much more of a real person, not just an annoyance over the phone. She mentions her parent has cancer and is in a bad way and she’s unsure how to repair their relationship while they still have such precious time left. The movie goes still and lingers, giving this woman and her heartfelt vulnerability the floor, and Pastor Jud reverts back to those instincts to serve. He goes into another room to provide her privacy and counsels her, leading her in a prayer.
The entire scene is magnificent and serves two purposes. This refocuses Pastor Jud on what is most important, not chasing this shaggy investigation with his new buddy Blanc but being a shepherd to others. It re-calibrates the character’s priorities and perspective. It also, subtlety, does the same for the audience. The wacky whodunit nature of the locked-door mystery is intended as the draw, the game of determining who and when are responsible for this latest murder. It’s the appeal of these kinds of movies, and yet, Johnson is also re-calibrating our priorities to better align with Pastor Jud. Because ultimately the circumstances of the case will be uncovered, as well as the who or whom’s responsible, and you’ll get your answers, but will they be just as important once you have them? Or will the themes under-girding this whole movie be the real takeaway, the real emotionally potent memory of the film? As a mystery, Wake Up Dead Man is probably dead-last, no pun intended, in the Knives Out franchise, but each movie is trying to do something radical. With this third film, it’s less focused on the twists and turns of its mystery and its secrets. It’s more focused on the challenging nature of faith as well as the empathetic power that it can afford others when they choose to be vulnerable and open.
Blanc doesn’t even show up for the first forty or so minutes, giving the narration duties to Pastor Jud setting the scene of his own. Craig (Queer) is a bit more subdued in this movie, both given the thematic nature of it as well as ceding the spotlight to his co-star. Blanc is meant to be the more stubborn realist of the picture, an atheist who views organized religion as exploitative claptrap (he seems the kind of guy who says “malarkey” regularly). His character’s journey isn’t about becoming a true believer by the end. It’s about recognizing and accepting how faith can affect others for good, specifically the need for redemption. Minor spoilers ahead. His final grand moment, the sermonizing we expect from our Great Detectives when they finally line up all the suspects and clues and knock them down in a rousing monologue, is cast aside, as Blanc recognizes his own ego could be willfully harmful and in direct opposition to Pastor Jud’s mission. It’s a performance that asks more of Craig than to mug for the camera and escape the molasses pit of his cartoonish Southern drawl. He’s still effortlessly enjoyable in the role, and may he continue this series forever, but Wake Up Dead Man proves he’s also just as enjoyable as the second banana in a story.
O’Connor (Challengers, The Crown) is our lead and what a terrific performance he delivers. The character is exactly who you would want a pastor to be: humble, empathetic, honest, and striving to do better. It’s perhaps a little too cute to call O’Connor’s performance “soulful” but I kept coming back to that word because this character is such a vital beating heart for others, so hopeful to make an impact. It’s wrapped up in his own hopes of turning his life around, turning his personal tragedy into meaning, devoting himself to others as a means of repentance. He’s a man in over his head but he’s also an easy underdog to root for, just like Ana de Armas’ character was in the original Knives Out. You want this man to persevere because he has a good moral center and because our world could use more characters like this. O’Connor has such a brimming sense of earnestness throughout that doesn’t grow maudlin thanks to Johnson’s deft touch and mature exploration of his themes. O’Connor is such a winning presence, and when he’s teamed with Blanc, the two form an enjoyable buddy comedy, each getting caught up in the other’s enthusiasm.
Johnson has assembled yet another all-star collection of actors eager to have fun in his genre retooling. Some of these roles are a little more thankless than others (Sorry Mila Kunis and Thomas Haden Church, but it was nice of you to come down and play dress-up with the rest of the cast). The clear standout is Glenn Close (Hillbilly Elegy) as Martha, the real glue behind Wicks’ church as well as an ardent supporter of his worldview of the damned and the righteous. She has a poignant character arc coming to terms with how poisonous that divisive, holier-than-thou perspective can be. Close is fantastic and really funny at certain parts, giving Martha an otherworldly presence as a woman always within earshot. Brolin (Weapons) is equally fun as the pugnacious Wicks, a man given to hypocrisy but also resentful of others who would reduce his position of influence. The issue with Wake Up Dead Man is that elevating Pastor Jud to co-star level only leaves so much room for others, and so the suspect list is under-served, arguably wasted, especially Andrew Scott (All of Us Strangers) as a red-pilled sci-fi writer looking for a comeback. The best of the bunch is Daryl McCormack (Good Luck to You, Leo Grande) as a conniving wannabe in Republican politics trying to position himself for a pricey media platform and Cailee Spaeny (Alien: Romulus) as a cellist who suffers from deliberating pain and was desperate for a miracle delivered by Wicks. He’s the least genuine person, she’s hoping for miraculous acts, and both will be disappointed from what they seek.
Wake Up Dead Man (no comma in that title, so no direct command intended) is an equally fun movie with silly jokes and a reverent exploration of the power of faith and its positive impact, not even from a formal religious standpoint but in the simple act of connecting to another human being in need. This is the richest thematically of the three Knives Out movies but it also might be the weakest of the mysteries. The particulars of the case just aren’t as clever or as engaging as the others, but then again not every Agatha Christie mystery novel could be an absolute all-time ripper. That’s why the movie’s subtle shifts toward its themes and character arcs as being more important is the right track, and it makes for a more emotionally resonant and reflective experience, one that has replay value even after you know the exact particulars of the case. If you’re a fan of the Knives Out series, there should be enough here to keep you enraptured for more. Because of that added thematic richness, Wake Up Dead Man has an argument as the best sequel (yet).
Nate’s Grade: A-
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Highest 2 Lowest (2025)
Spike Lee’s remake of Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low, both of them based upon the novel King’s Ransom, is a movie in desperate need of a stronger identity. Every “Spike Lee joint” is definitely an experience that few can imitate, and his personal predilections and stylish direction often elevates the movie into something more engaging and intriguing. We follow Denzel Washington as David King, or “King David,” a middle-aged record company president who is at a career and personal crossroads. He’s trying to negotiate back enough capital to buy back controlling interest in his company, to ward off being bought by a soulless conglomerate that has no interest in protecting the decades of Black musicians given platforms. His teenage son is also kidnapped, except it’s revealed that the kidnappers nabbed the wrong kid; they grabbed the son of his chauffeur (Jeffrey Wright) instead. The movie is at its most entertaining when it dwells in this moral quandary of whether David feels as compelled to pay the ransom when it’s someone else’s child, especially when he needs that money to regain his company. I wish the entire movie had been spent over this agonizing personal guilt crucible. This is the hook of the movie. I found it hard to care once the money went out. But then David agrees to meet the ransom, deliver it personally, and it becomes a generic police thriller from there, including an Act Three where David tracks down the culprit. It’s just far less interesting than the personal stakes of what occurred earlier. There’s also an ongoing digression of analyzing what it means to be a successful Black musician, enough so that the movie literally ends on an uninterrupted musical audition meant to symbolize David feeling like the music matters to him again after so long, that this ordeal has refocused his attention to What Actually Matters. It just doesn’t feel like it meshes with the trail of conscience nor the police thriller. Highest 2 Lowest ends up being stretched into too many directions, chasing after a relevancy that seems just outside its grasp. Lee and Washington have certainly done better together.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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The Phoenician Scheme (2025)
It’s so nice to connect with a Wes Anderson movie again. I’ve been mostly a fan from the beginning but his career has as many ups as downs for me, often getting lost in his distinct dollhouse style of artifice and losing the sense of wounded humanity that marks his best movies. I haven’t truly loved a Wes Anderson movie since 2014’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, which I consider one of his very best. It’s been a long ten years of feeling indifferent or distant to that signature Anderson twee whimsy. I took my wife to see 2021’s The French Dispatch in the theater, and this was her first Anderson movie, and it also happened to be his worst movie, plus with Timothee Chalamet, an actor she isn’t fond of. I feel like I ruined her impression of this indie auteur and the question over his enduring popularity. 2023’s Asteroid City had some interesting ideas and dramatic potential, but its multiple framing devices and layers of obfuscation smothered what I could have enjoyed about its drama buried underneath. It is with that accruing disappointment that I began to question whether new Wes Anderson movies just weren’t for me, and that’s why I find The Phoenician Scheme a welcomed return to form that makes me relieved. The idiosyncratic tactician that is Anderson can still make a movie that engages me on different levels, including an emotional one, which I’ve been missing for so long from his recent output.
So I’m going to do something a little different with this review. I’m going to specify and articulate why this movie works for me, namely why it resonates and succeeds where his other movies of late have not. I suppose you could argue every film critique is charged with explaining the nuts and bolts of an opinion, but I’m going to really try and crack open why The Phoenician Scheme is a better movie overall.
1) Emotional investment. Primarily Anderson is known for his heavily mannered, expertly curated style, which is why he seems to be the go-to pastiche for A.I. film juxtaposition experiments (“What if Wes Anderson directed Star Wars?” etc.). Many of Anderson’s movies are populated with hurt people trying to reconnect, a subject that has great emotional appeal. However, if you cannot connect with the characters or their dynamic or the relationship stakes, then it can feel like an afterthought to all that fancy production design and camera placement. With The Phoenician Scheme, the movie is an adventure film but it’s really about a father (Benicio del Toro as Zsa-Zsa Korda) trying to reconnect with his estranged adult daughter (Mia Threapleton as Sister Liesel). The father is a billionaire robber baron set in a vaguely mid 19-century setting. The daughter is a newly enshrined nun who believes that her father had her mother killed. Right away, we have very different perspectives and exciting conflict between them. He’s an arms dealer and willing to have key parts of his scheme involve a famine and slave labor. Her very involvement in the convent is itself a reaction to her father, who sent her away to live there at age five. She doesn’t want to be like him, who she views as on the wrong side of morality, but she also wants to get to know this man better and get her own answers. Her convent needs her to proceed to get a significant donation from her father. He wants to hire her on a trial basis to see if she’s fit to be his sole heir. They’re stuck together on an adventure that forces them closer, and the ensuing relationship that begins to build, with old hurts melting away to new revelations and new aches of yearning, comes across as very involving and emotionally rewarding. I was actually quite taken by the father-daughter relationship and their bickering, which organically gives way to better understanding and personal growth from both parties. They make each other a little better than they could be, and they recognize that despite their differences and hurt, they do genuinely care about the other. Korda is such an unflappable dilettante and yet the very notion that his daughter thinks he might have killed her mother from rumors deeply upsets him. The rest of the movie is essentially both characters directly and indirectly trying to prove themself to the other and also acknowledge and accept the other person. The core of this movie works because the core relationship is given serious and deliberate development to be meaningful. It’s about a broken family recognizing their connection to one another and desire to be connected.
2) The vignettes do add up. The folly of The French Dispatch was that it was a collection of short films, meaning that every twenty-minutes or so it felt like having to start over again with character introductions and relationship development. It didn’t feel like it added up to much. With The Phoenician Scheme, the film is structured around the different investors that Korda has to convince to cover a higher percentage of a budget shortfall for the big plan. It might sound pretty lackluster on paper but it becomes a larger goal that each segment builds to, and each new investor and setting allows Anderson to explore a new aspect of his characters. One situation involves a literal game of basketball and another involves taking a bullet to save an investor. Each situation allows us to change things up without losing the momentum of building toward that larger goal, as well as continuing to build the progression of the character relationships. With a vignette movie, each segment is a beginning, middle, and end that starts over with the next. With this, we have those mini stories with each new investor, but the whole is still advancing. It allows Anderson to explore a variety of comedy and story options while still keeping his attention to the bigger picture, thus earning our continued investment and more payoffs.
3) This is still a very funny movie. That droll yet whimsical tone we expect from Wes Anderson is very present, and I was smiling and laughing throughout. I particularly loved a running joke where Korda offers each new guest a hand grenade like a welcome present. Korda also has repeated assassination attempts, which is the impetus for him reaching out to his daughter because he knows he won’t outlive every assassination attempt. However, in the meantime, each new assassination attempt is presented as another predictable annoyance, and I enjoyed that with every one Korda admits, “I think that guy used to work for me.” The basketball game of horse is wonderfully absurd and dryly serious at the same time, elevated by Bryan Cranston’s considerable commitment to the bit. Another great source of comedy is Michael Cera as the third significant character to the adventure, Bjorn, an assistant to Korda and also an entomologist. He’s such a delightful nonplussed addition to the trio, providing an outsider perspective to the family drama and reminding us how not normal everything is. I heartily enjoyed how his nerdy passion for bugs keeps inserting itself in all sorts of unexpected situations. The excesses of Korba’s lifestyle, and his seeming history of amorality, allows for just about anything to be possible or referenced, opening the comedy even further into surreal asides still tethered to characterization.
4) The added religious elements provide a deeper introspection for the characters and the viewer. Every time Korba has a near-death experience from his latest assassination attempt, we have a black and white sequence of Korba interacting with the afterlife. In one sequence he’s being judged by St. Peter, then God, then his own deceased wives. Each opportunity with the afterlife is a reminder for Korba about his sins and mistakes and a motivator to do better. The stylized realm is mysterious without being overt in its directions, allowing Korba to stumble around looking for guidance, like when God is annoyed that He isn’t recognized as the Big Guy. I was amused by these little interludes but they also act like a moral intervention for our main character, and his growing interest is a sign that his daughter’s influence is affecting him. It adds a depth to the character as well as a weightier sense of celestial consequences for a life of misdeeds, and it helps to better realism the character’s arc as well as set him up for change. It allows an introspection over legacy. These are also the segments you’ll get the most blink-and-miss-them cameos, like Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and F. Murray Abraham.
5) Smaller ensemble to devote characterization. Everyone wants to work with Anderson, and he keeps an impressive list of actors who continuously reappear, even if it’s only for seconds, anything to just be back into the ornate world of a Wes Anderson fantasy. His last few films have been stuffed with characters but there wasn’t enough for everyone to do (go ahead, try and remember what Steve Carrell did in Asteroid City). The narrative gets fractured trying to provide enough moments and screen time for all these distaff characters. A larger cast is not inherently a doomed prospect, but it does mean more attention and development needs to be made, and with less time, to ensure those characters are meaningful and well developed. The French Dispatch and Asteroid City couldn’t do that for me. This time Anderson condenses his important characters down to a manageable trio. We have other supporting players but they typically come and go through the different vignettes, each getting their turn with the main players. This keeps the focus on the winning character dynamic of the father-daughter buddy comedy, and with Bjorn bumbling along and finding himself becoming more fond of Liesel. There are some fun twists and turns with the three characters but no matter the external obstacles or silliness, the emphasis remains on these three and their relationships. It all works so much better.
6) The acting by the Anderson newcomers is greatly enjoyable. It’s shocking that this is the first time Michael Cera (Scott Pilgrim Takes Off) has been in a Wes Anderson movie because his comic sensibilities are a natural fit for this universe. The direction his character goes lets Cera have even more ways to have fun, and each new turn made me love his character and the performance even more. I also love that, despite all the revelations, at his core, Bjorn really is a nerd who loves talking about insects. The real discovery is Threapleton (The Buccaneers), though maybe we shouldn’t have been so surprised considering she is the adult daughter of Kate Winslet (do you feel old now too?). She holds her own with her many scenes with del Toro and is able to hone her withering glare into a considerable weapon of disapproval. Watching her character blossom and test her boundaries, like when she says she’s only drank communion wine and is introduced to a new form of alcohol at every jaunt that she feels compelled to try. It’s a character that is slowly recognizing more about herself and the possibilities of this life.
The Phoenician Scheme isn’t a deviation from the tried-and-true Wes Anderson formula; it’s a better calibration of what makes that style and formula continue to resonate for so many fans. I’m apparently in a small minority with my esteem for this picture, and that’s fine by me. I’ve outlined through this review the reasons why it was a much more enjoyable and worthwhile entertainment for me, and if you found yourself nodding along, then perhaps it could work its query magic on you as well. It’s nice to be charmed again by a Wes Anderson movie but to also feel something rather than distant appreciation for the carefully composed sets and photography. I actually cared about these characters and their journey. The end results mattered to me. Their plights mattered. If you’re like me and falling from the Wes Anderson bandwagon, then perhaps The Phoenician Scheme might pull you back aboard.
Nate’s Grade: A-
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American Fiction (2023)
Cord Jefferson’s hilarious, inflammatory, and insightful comic fable can be boiled down to the question of what exactly does it mean to be a “black writer” in this day and age? According to the main character, English professor and middling writer Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright), he would pointedly argue that he is a black writer and thus his novels, never ones to climb a best-seller chart, should qualify as black literature. The publishing industry seems to think differently. Their conception of a “Black story” is one defined through poverty, guns, drugs, gang violence, degradation, and all sorts of depressing stereotypes of socioeconomic disadvantage. If there are stories of triumph, they will usually be relegated to the same familiar settings of struggle: slavery, the Civil Rights era, and modern ghettos. A simple slice-of-life about a middle-class family isn’t necessarily seen with the same level of acceptance. With American Fiction, Jefferson and Monk push through, trying to exploit a system of exploitation at its own game, and the results are biting and hilarious and a condemnation of the low expectations that can govern the supposedly open-minded values of others when it comes to celebrating authentic minority stories.
The movie really takes off once Monk decides to, as a sarcastic lark, give the publishing world what it seems to crave, a novel (My Pafology) that plays into every urban stereotype. He adopts a nome de plume, “Stagg R. Leigh,” and riffs that he’s currently a fugitive from the law. The intention was to make fun of the limited black literary stories that he despises, and yet the incendiary manuscript becomes a hot commodity. They’re already talking about turning it into a movie. Monk is aghast but the money is very appealing, so he puts his moral superiority aside to see how far he’s willing to pander if the check is right. His alter ego is deemed more authentic and compelling when he doesn’t even exist and is only a combination of the same worn-out and destructive stereotypes. It becomes an ongoing game for Monk to see where exactly a line can be drawn. He actively tries to make his manuscript objectively worse, and at every step it only seems to have the opposite reaction among white editors and agents and producers salivating to celebrate it. There’s a very telling scene where Monk is part of a literary award body scouring through manuscripts for potential worthy award-winners. He and another prominent black author (Issa Rae), the best-selling author of We’s Lives in Da Ghetto, are critical of My Pafology and its adherence to harmful stereotypes, but the white liberals won’t hear it and want to reward it. “It’s really important that we listen and uplift black voices,” one of them says obliviously. Of course, if they knew the truth that the author was really an upper middle-class East Coast academic, there wouldn’t be the same rush to elevate this “brave and inspiring” story of the streets. To Monk’s ire and chagrin, there is no bottom when it comes to the appetite for degrading stories that neatly fit into a pre-existing mold.
Jefferson’s screenplay, based upon the 2001 novel Erasure by Percival Everett, is bristling with biting intelligence. This extends beyond the identity crisis of Monk in the world of publishing to his personal life, and the time spent with his fractured family is just as illuminating as the time spent in publishing. Monk’s need for money is driven less from his own desire to live large and more about caring for his ailing mother who needs to be placed in a costly assisted living home as she plunges further into dementia. His shared moments with his mother can be heartbreaking as well as informative. His relationship with his brother, Clifford (Sterling K. Brown), who is embracing his black sheep status as a now openly gay middle-aged man, is a regular point of reflection for both characters who feel their identities are in free fall. Their conversations about being accepted as you fully are help reinforce the major themes mirrored through Monk’s publishing odyssey with his alter ego. The Hollywood satire is best encapsulated by Adam Brody’s shallow movie producer, a good white liberal who is sold on the project after he perceives that Monk leaves their meeting after hearing police sirens. His every appearance is a gift. Not everything in Jefferson’s adaptation feels as exceptionally well integrated. I don’t think the romantic subplot quite works but Jefferson is smart enough to frame that as possibly the larger point, an offshoot that presents an alternative of happiness for our bitter protagonist that he will inevitably decline.
This is also a deserving showcase for Wright (Westworld, The Batman), one of our best character actors who rarely gets the plaudits he deserves. He’s a brilliant actor when it comes to consternation and exasperation, and his unexpected journey of discovery and success allows him to assess how much he’s willing to go along with a deceptive narrative in a ludicrous industry of perception. Wright’s performance is equal parts amusement, like a conman who can’t believe he keeps getting away with his ruse, and head-shaking anger at being marginalized unless he erases the complicated, unique parts of himself.
I also want to celebrate the very ending of American Fiction that goes even harder on industry satire. Jefferson gets extra meta and presents a series of possible endings for Monk’s story, from Monk’s preferred ending that leans more ambiguous and open-ended, to the Hollywood happy ending and other versions, each their own condemnation on the studio system and the larger demands of mass audiences for tidy endings. It’s a level of comic bravado that American Fiction hasn’t really fully channeled until that moment and its absence makes this conclusion, a choose your own adventure of bad endings, hit even harder. He’s been saving his full satirical might until the very end and it was worth it.
Who exactly gets to qualify what constitutes the black experience? Certainly not I, a 41-year-old white guy writing on the Internet. Even though the source material is over twenty years old, the struggles of identity and acceptance and the lens of which we subject others’ experiences through are still relevant in an increasingly hostile cultural environment for different attempts at diversity. American Fiction is hilarious and smart and produces as many thought-provoking questions as solid belly laughs. It’s a cutting satire but with characters that are compelling beyond their connection to larger satirical points. This is more than a message movie, and it’s a statement debut film for Jefferson as a filmmaker and primarily as a storyteller. Jefferson began as a journalist and has worked on several critically-acclaimed TV shows, winning an Emmy for an extraordinary episode of HBO’s Watchmen. He is a talent, and American Fiction is proof that he has a voice and the confidence to carry it through into one of the best films of 2023.
Nate’s Grade: A-
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Asteroid City (2023)
It’s not a good sign that a week after watching a movie I was racking my brain to try and remember what I had watched, and it’s even worse when it’s a movie by Wes Anderson, a filmmaker with such a distinct sense of intricate style it’s now become a go-to A.I. test for untalented people. Asteroid City has the makings of an appealing comic escapade set in a Southwest small town known for its tiny asteroid, and once aliens make their presence known, the entire town and its tourists and wanderers and scientists are quarantined. The problem comes almost immediately, as the movie is presented through several added layers of obfuscating framing devices. The story itself is a play, and we’re watching a movie version, but then also the play of the movie, and the behind the scenes of its now-deceased playwright toiling with his authorial messages and stubborn actors, and it feels like two different movies at odds with one another. The Asteroid City sequence is the more engaging, with some sweet storylines like Jason Schwartzman as a widower processing loss with his family, including his father-in-law (Tom Hanks) who never liked him, while beginning to find a possible romantic kinship with a struggling actress and single mom (Scarlett Johansson). I enjoyed weird little asides about the history of this little town, like a vending machine for land ownership, and s science fair with brainy whiz kids finding their own comradery. There’s even a nice moment in the meta-textual framing where the Schwartzman actor recites an exorcised dialogue scene with the actress who played his deceased wife in the play. It’s elegantly heartfelt. However, the added layers don’t really add extra insight or intrigue but serve as muddy trappings, making meaning less likely rather than more. It feels like Anderson didn’t have enough material with the central story so he added on the meta to make up the difference. There are too many moving pieces and too many characters, and versions of characters, here to settle into something grander. The whimsy and visual style of Anderson is still evident throughout every highly-crafted and pristine arrangement in the movie, so if you’re an Anderson diehard, he still has his charms. This is two Anderson movies in a row that felt disorganized, distracted, and chiefly under-developed, and I’m starting to worry that the form has taken over the function as storyteller.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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The Batman (2022)
Matt Reeves is a director who has found a way to inject soul into blockbuster movie-making, notably shepherding the last two films of the revived Planet of the Apes series. Who would have guessed at the turn of the twenty-first century that the two co-creators of Felicity would go on to helm such monumental properties like Star Wars and Batman? Reeves has reliably proven himself on increasingly bigger stages, and that’s why I held out hope that yet another Batman reboot would be worth the effort under his care. Let’s face it, dear reader, we’re probably never going to be more than three or four years removed from some kind of Batman movie, whether a continuation or another reboot. If we are going back to the Bat basics, I trust giving the franchise over to exciting artists like Reeves. I was hoping for a Ben Affleck-directed Batman after he slipped into the cowl in 2014, but it was not to be even though he was the best part of the Zack Snyder run. After multiple production delays, we now have The Batman, and it’s the next big box-office hope for desperate movie theaters until the oasis of summer releases (some are even charging a heftier ticket price, so consider it a blockbuster tax). As a slick comic book spectacle, The Batman is a three-course meal that could have sensibly pushed away earlier. You’ll feel satisfied, full, a little addled, but if dank serial killer thrillers are your thing, you’ll definitely be hungry for more even after nearly three hours of Reeves’ deep danky dive.
Gotham City is on the verge of a new mayoral election, and it’s also on the verge of a killing spree. A masked man identifying himself as the Riddler (Paul Dano) is targeting the elites of the city with cryptic notes addressed specifically toward “The Batman” (Robert Pattinson), the newfound vigilante trying to instill fear in the hearts of would-be criminals. The key ends up being Selena Kyle (Zoe Kravtiz), a waitress at Gotham’s grungy club that also happens to be a popular market for the big crime bosses. Batman enlists the help of Selena to put together the clues to predict the Riddler’s next target and to uncover decades of corruption infesting the city.
The Batman exists in a specific cinematic universe far more in common with the rain-soaked, gritty serial killer thrillers of David Fincher than anything from the previous DC movie universe. This is a pulpy, stylized movie that feels akin to Seven or Zodiac, and not just in its protracted length. It’s a methodical movie that takes its sweet time dwelling in the decrepit details. The plot is very similar to the serial killer formula of finding that first alarming murder and clue, leading to the next, learning more from each additional target to try and discern a pattern of connectivity, and finally learning that the grand scheme goes deeper than imagined, and is usually personal. It’s more based as a detective procedural than any previous Batman incarnation, including missions where the Dark Knight goes undercover or enlists others to gather intel for his investigation. If you’re the kind of person that’s been dreaming of the quote-unquote world’s greatest detective to do more sleuthing and less typing at magic computers, then your time has come. This is a very dark and very serious movie, though it doesn’t feel too suffocating. Fun can still be had but on its own terms, satisfaction from building momentum, seeing how this world incorporates familiar faces and Batman elements, and deepening the lore of this city’s complicated history. Nobody is going to be making any “I gotta get me one of these” quips. It’s hard to even remember a time Batman had nipples on his chest plate and a Bat credit card.
This is also the first Batman where I can vividly feel the anger resonating from its title character. In this new timeline, we’ve thankfully skipped the origin period (and even more thankfully skipped watching Bruce’s parents die on screen for the sixteenth time or so), and we’re now two years into Batman being Batman. He’s still figuring things out but his effect is evident. Reeves has a terrific introduction of various acts of crime across the city and cross-cutting the criminals staring at the Bat signal in the sky and then nervously looking at a corridor of shadow, fearful that the caped crusader could emerge at any moment. When he does finally arrive, this Batman walks with such heavy plodding steps for dramatic effect (and reminiscent of some Goth club kid). This version of Batman relishes delivering pain. He wallops his opponents with abandon, and the intensity of the physical performance from Pattinson really impresses. This is Batman as a rampaging bull, leaning into fights, and also carelessly blase about enduring damage. You will watch Batman get shot dozens of times and he just keeps fighting, so overcome in the moment with the drive of his own violent vigor. Bruce Wayne hasn’t exactly been portrayed as a stable and well-adjusted man in the other movies, but this is the first Batman that made me a little scared about what he might do to others and how cavalier he was taking all this damage.
On that note, Pattinson proves himself more than capable of shouldering the weight of the franchise. Upon news of the former Twilight star’s casting, fan reaction across the Internet was apoplectic and rotten, ignoring the fact that Pattinson has gone the 90s Johnny Depp route and purposely leveraged his good looks to work with an eclectic group of filmmakers and odd roles (see Good Time, The Lighthouse, and The Rover). Pattinson has become a very interesting young actor, and it’s funny to me that ten years after the release of the final Twilight, we have one half of the undead couple playing Batman and the other half nominated for Best Actress for portraying Princess Diana. I would say they’ve proven themselves as legit thespians. Anyway, the Batman franchise has a long history of negative fan reaction to casting, from Affleck to Heath Ledger to even Michael Keaton, that is then rescinded upon seeing the movie, and I expect the same to occur for Pattinson. He actually plays Bruce Wayne something like an atrophied vampire, barely keeping the visage because the costume is the real him. Although, if this is a Batman who prioritizes the night, I think if I was a criminal, I would just start planning on committing all my many crimes during daylight hours (strictly keeping to banking hours).
The supporting cast is as deep and as talented as the Nolan films. Several villainous characters are in their early stages of our conceptions. Kravitz (Kimi) is the real breakout star. While she cannot supplant Michelle Pfeiffer as the top Catwoman, Kravitz makes the role her own. Selena is more a socially conscious antihero trying to fight back against bad men in power abusing that power. Her own goal aligns with Batman’s, and the two become intertwined allies with a clear romantic frisson emerging. This is a Catwoman I would like to see again. Dano (Swiss Army Man) is effortlessly creepy as the morally righteous and unhinged Riddler, more akin to Zodiac or Jigsaw than Jim Carrey’s wacky version. He’s menacing and the tricks he does with his voice are unnerving, except, however, when his voice hits higher pitches and then he sounds like a whiny child needing to go to his room. Colin Farrel (The Gentlemen) is nearly unrecognizable under pounds of makeup that make him resemble a disfigured Richard Kind (one wonders why the movie didn’t just hire Richard Kind himself) and he’s having a ball. Jeffrey Wright (Westworld) has a weary gravitas as a younger Jim Gordon, the only ally on the police force for Batman. Andy Serkis is a welcome presence as the dutiful Alfred, the last familial bond Bruce has, though he spends most of the time off-screen probably due to Serkis directing 2021’s Venom 2.
Reeves might not have the signature Gothic opulence of a Burton, the visual flair of a Snyder, or the zeitgeist-tapping instincts of a Nolan, but he is a supremely talented big screen stylist. There is a deeply felt tactile nature to this movie, from the streets to the alleys to the homes. It feels wonderfully alive and especially dirty. The entire movie feels like it has a visual pal over it, favoring burnt orange, and the cinematography by Greig Fraser (Dune) is ornate and often mesmerizing, begging you to just immerse yourself in the details and compositions. The influence of Fincher is all over this movie, but there are far worse auteurs to model after than the man who elevated serial killer thrillers to high art. I appreciate how Reeves stages many of his bouts of action, including one sequence of Batman taking out a group of gunmen glimpsed only from the staccato flashes of muzzle fire. Reeves is a first-class showman when it comes to introductions. I mentioned Batman’s introduction, but Reeves also delivers splashy entrances for Catwoman, the Riddler, and even the Batmobile, which comes to monstrous life like a kaiju being awakened. The explosive car chase with that marauding muscle car is the action high-point. The movie is further elevated by Michael Giacchino’s pounding musical score. It’s not an instantly iconic Danny Elfman theme but it is stirring in how thunderous it announces itself.
I wasn’t feeling the length of the movie until its third hour, and that’s where my friend Eric Muller cites that The Batman is suffering from a Return of the King-level of false endings. Just when you think it’s wrapping up, there’s something else, and just when you think it’s now finally coming to a close, it’s got another sequence and attached resolution. It’s during this final third hour that I feel like the movie could have been trimmed back. While it ends on a high note and brings characters to the end of their arcs in a clear fashion, part of me really feels like a bleaker ending would have been appropriate for the rest of the movie we had. I won’t specify for the sake of spoilers but you’ll know it when it happens, and it could have ended on a note of the villain more or less winning the larger war on their own terms. It has such a power to it, tying elements together that had been carefully kept as background for so long as to be forgotten only to bring them back to assert the full power of an insidious virus. I think the movie would have been a more fitting ending on this dreary note, with our heroes having lost, but of course the studio wouldn’t want its $200 tentpole to end with its main star bested by pessimism. Again, this is merely my own personal preference, but after two-plus hours of rainy gloom and doom, it feels more fitting to end on a dour note (also akin to Seven or Zodiac) than on inspiring triumph.
This is also perhaps one of the most disturbing PG-13 movies. I might caution parents about taking younger children to watch. The mood of this movie is very dark and somber and the details of the Riddler’s acts of terror can be very horrific to contemplate. There are also intense moments like listening to a woman being strangled to death, twice. It all started making me think maybe Reeves and company could have pulled back and left more to the imagination. I’m not saying the movie’s tone is inappropriate for the material, it just occasionally luxuriates in the grimy details and pitched terror and trauma of its victims that can be unsettling and unnecessary.
Even with the heaviest expectations from the hardest of fans, The Batman is an unqualified success. It’s not in the same category of Nolan’s best but the ambition and execution place Reeves only just outside that hallowed sphere of blockbuster showmanship. It also hurts that The Batman lacks an exciting anchor that can break through the pop-culture clutter, like a dynamic and ultimately Oscar-winning performance from Heath Ledger or Joaquin Phoenix. It almost feels like a Batman miniseries that you might want to continue tuning into (Reeves is developing a few Batman-related projects for HBO Max). Overall, The Batman is an exciting and intelligent blockbuster with style, mood, and a clear sense of purpose. Reeves remains an excellent caretaker of any pop-culture property and proves big movies can still have souls.
Nate’s Grade: B+
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No Time to Die (2021)
One cannot talk about No Time to Die without talking about finality. I’ll try and dance around significant spoilers but the movie by design is meant to serve as the capper to the Daniel Craig era filling out the world’s favorite martini-drinking British secret agent. I thought that 2015’s Spectre was the swan song for Craig as it brought back a famous franchise villain Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) made the man Bond’s secret half-brother, and it tried to explain how every bad thing that seemed to befall Bond was the machinations of an evil conspiracy, and then it literally ends with Bond driving into the sunset in his classic car with his girl (Lea Seydoux) by his side. It felt like the end, and it felt very much like everyone was just done and tired. And then the Bond producers wanted one more shot, or more likely one more lucrative franchise entry, to send an even older, battle-tested Craig on his way. I was wary of another Spectre-like entry, one that was tying back to the elements of decades-old for empty homage. Does anyone really care that the villain is meant to be Blofeld who means next to nothing to audiences in this era? After watching all 160 minutes of the longest Bond on record, for an actor who has portrayed 007 for 15 years, I have to say that No Time to Die is a terrific action movie and a welcomed second chance at a sendoff for the modern era of Bond that has gone through great artistic rebirth.
Bond’s cozy retirement is short-lived. Spectre agents have found him and Madeleine (Seydoux) and now Bond is forced to ship off his love for her safety. Years later, Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek) is determined to take down the last vestiges of the Spectre organization, the same group responsible for murdering his family. Bond is recruited by the newest 007 agent, Nomi (Lashana Lynch), to help MI-6 locate a kidnapped scientist with a powerful nanobot poison that can be genetically targeted to a specific person. Bond agrees especially once he realizes that Safn and his dangerous organization are targeting Madeleine, who has a big surprise of her own.
As an action movie, I will argue that No Time to Die is better than 2012’s Skyfall, the Bond film that is widely seen as the high point of Craig’s tenure but one I find overrated. Director and co-screenwriter Cary Fukunaga, the second director ever given a writing credit for a Bond film, has crafted a beautiful movie with a real sense on how to showcase the majesty and suspense. Nothing will likely rival the superb cinematography by the legendary Roger Deakins on Skyfall, but this movie gets as close as you can get. It’s a remarkably beautiful looking movie. I mean that not just in the exotic locales and scenic vistas but simply in its depiction of action. The visual arrangements are noticeably several levels higher in quality, elegantly composed and lit to make each scene so pleasing to the eyes even before the information of the scene translates. Fukunaga (True Detective) frames the action in clear shots and clean edits so the audience is oriented with every shot and each patient edit point. For an era that began by trying to adopt the Paul Greengrass-style of docu-drama edits popularized with the Bourne sequels, it’s quite a welcomed change. I appreciate that action directors have creatively gone more in a direction of longer takes, wider shots, and a conscious effort to showcase the ingenuity and skills of its action choreography. Let us enjoy watching the masters of action operate at their highest level. Fukunaga understands this, and while the action might not be the best in the series, it is lovingly orchestrated and displayed.
There is a delightful mid-movie set piece that deserves its own attention mainly because of how actress Ana de Armas (Knives Out, Blade Runner 2049) steals the show. She plays Paloma, a CIA agent working in coordination with Bond, and the two of them wreak havoc across a Cuban neighborhood while wearing their finest evening wear. She immediately leaves a favorable impression and struts her stuff while operating heavy machinery with confidence. This part feels the most aided by co-screenwriter Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s contributions. Craig personally requested that Waller-Bridge, best known for award-winning TV like Fleabag and the first season of Killing Eve, come aboard and help polish the script, including characterization and dialogue. This sequence feels the most in keeping with her past spy thriller work and penchant for strong female characters who are meant to take the lead. de Armas is so memorable, and her segment so self-contained, that it feels like a backdoor spinoff to set up her own character’s franchise, and one that I wouldn’t hesitate to watch.
If you thought Spectre was getting convoluted with how it tried to bend over backwards to explain how one man and one villainous conspiracy were manipulating all of Bond’s many miseries and setbacks, well then things are going to get even worse for you to keep up with. I’ll credit returning screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who have been with the storied franchise even before Craig’s 2006 debut, with attempting to make the continuity matter for a franchise that often throws up its hands at continued emotional stakes. By stretching backwards with ret-cons and added flashbacks, every new Bond movie tries to better evaluate the previous ones including the poorer movies, like Spectre and 2008’s Quantum of Solace. It’s like saying, “Hey, you didn’t like those bad guys in that movie? Well, these are the real bad guys,” or, “Well, maybe you didn’t like them, but their heinous actions gave rise to these new bad guys.” However, a consequence of continuing to add further and further clandestine machinations, and spiraling consequence from those machinations, is that Bond has now become a tangled web that is more convoluted without offering much in the way of payoff. I don’t think much more is gained introducing a new villain saying, “It was me all along,” when we don’t have an established relationship or interest with these new villains. Imagine introducing the Emperor back in Episode 9 of Star Wars and saying he was secretly behind everything… oh wait.
There are also benefits to this approach and No Time to Die crafts a sendoff unlike any other final entry for a Bond actor. This is a franchise going back sixty years, but the 007 brand has endured because no one actor is bigger than the brand. The franchise is regularly resetting with each new addition. The hyperbolic bombast and tongue-in-cheek frivolity of the Pierce Brosnan years (1995-2002) was replaced with a more grounded, gritty, and psychologically wounded Bond, made even more so by giving him personal attachments and then taking them away. I would argue this decade-plus with Craig (2006-2021) has involved the most mature and personal movies of the franchise;s history. It’s fitting then for the final film to pay service to that elevated take on the character. If you’re treating the secret spy as more of a person than a suit and a gun and a wisecrack, then that character deserves an ending that stays true to prioritizing more human elements of the character. To that end, No Time to Die works as a final sendoff, and I feel pretty confidant saying Craig is officially done now.
After a year and a half of delays from COVID, as well as its parent company, MGM, being bought for billions by Amazon, we finally have the final Bond movie in Daniel Craig’s successful run, and it’s a worthy finale for an era of the franchise becoming relevant again. I don’t know if that many people are emotionally attached to the character, likely more so just the nostalgia and the franchise, but if ever you were going to tear up from a James Bond thriller, this would be the one. It’s an exceptionally strong visual caper, with smooth and steady direction from Fukunaga, and while overly long and convoluted and a dull villain, it comes together for a worthy and celebratory conclusion that stands with the best of Bond. I’ll still cite 2006’s Casino Royale as the best Craig Bond, and one of the best ever, but No Time to Die is a solid second-place entry, and it does what few other Bonds ever could: fitting finality. Until, naturally, the popular series inevitably reboots with the next handsome leading man sipping a signature vodka martini (shaken, not stirred).
Nate’s Grade: B+
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The French Dispatch (2021)
Wes Anderson’s latest quirk-fest is his usual cavalcade of straight-laced absurdity, exquisite dollhouse-level production design, famous faces popping in for droll deadpans, and the overall air of not fully getting it. The French Dispatch is structured like you’re watching the issue of a news magazine come to visual life, meaning that the two-hour movie is comprised of mainly three lengthy vignettes and a couple of short asides. This narrative decision limits the emotional involvement and I found myself growing restless with each of the three segments. I was amused throughout but each felt like a short film that had been pushed beyond its breaking point. Perhaps that is Anderson’s wry, subtle point considering the entire journalistic voice of the movie feels like somebody made a movie in the style of one of those esoteric, supposedly “funny” New Yorker cartoons. It’s occasionally so arch and droll that it feels too removed from actual comedy. This is not the most accessible Anderson movie for a newbie; it’s very bourgeois in the kinds of people it follows, the stories it pursues, and the intellectual and political conflicts it demonstrates. The first and best segment follows Tilda Swinton discussing a heralded but imprisoned experimental artist (Benicio del Toro) who is dealing with the pressure to produce. The second segment follows Frances McDormand as she investigates a Parisian student union revolting against the ignorant powers that be. The third segment follows Jeffrey Wright recounting an assignment where he investigated a master police chef (not “chief”) and gets in the middle of a wacky hostage negotiation. Each of them has the requisite charm and random asides we’ve come to expect from Anderson, including a leotard-wearing strongman that is called upon by the police to help during the hostage crisis, but it felt more like a collection of overlong short films than a cohesive whole. If you’re already a fan, by all means, step into The French Dispatch. If you’re new to the idiosyncratic world of indie film’s most precise curator, then I’d advise starting with a more digestible and earlier Anderson entry. I enjoyed myself during stretches, was getting frustrated during other stretches, and I hope Anderson focuses more on the big picture of his next picture.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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The Ides of March (2011)
The Ides of March is that rare political thriller that pulls the curtain away to come to the stolid conclusion that our entire political system is incontrovertibly stuck in the muck. This is a deeply cynical movie that posits that politicos are just about spinning truth, cutting backroom deals, attaining power and influence, and living to fight another day. Even the ones who champion integrity have plenty of salacious skeletons in their closet. So while Ides of March is in one way a liberal reductive fantasy, casting co-writer and director George Clooney as an Obama-style change agent, and Clooney can assert all the rabble-rousing missing from the current occupant of the White House, it still sticks to its deep-seated cynicism. There is nobody that looks good by the film’s end. Ryan Gosling stars as a magnetic campaign director trying to push his guy over the top by winning the all-important Ohio Democratic primary. As the primary gets closer and the race gets tighter, Gosling has to cover up potential scandals while skillfully using his intimate knowledge of them for opportunistic deal making. The film moves at a great clip, the dialogue is intelligent, the characters are rich and ambiguous, and every one of the sterling thespians gets at least one big scene to stretch their acting muscles. The film has plenty of intriguing twists and turns, as the pieces all fall into play for one final power play. If you’re a fan of smart political thrillers, then do not beware The Ides of March.
Nate’s Grade: B+
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Source Code (2011)
Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) awakes on a train. His mind has been transplanted into the body of Sean Fentress, a doomed train passenger. Fentress, along with 200 others, were killed in an explosion on a commuter train heading in to Chicago. But this has all happened in the past. Colter has been quantum leaped into a top secret government program known as the source code. It uses people’s brain waves to simulate a recorded reality. The last thing Colter can remember is a firefight in Afghanistan, and now he’s aboard a train looking for a mad bomber. Whatever info he can retrieve will help the officials (Vera Farmiga, Jeffrey Wright) prevent a second terrorist bombing scheduled that day. Colter only has eight minutes to interact with the train passengers and deduce who the bomber is. After eight minutes, the train explodes and the reality resets itself again. Things get even more complicated when he falls for Fentress’ fetching female friend Christina (Michelle Mongahan). Can he save her? Can he save anyone? Can he get out of the source code?
Source Code manages to be a twisty, trippy little film that doesn’t so much knock you out but definitely packs a bit of a punch. Its simplicity is its very best asset. There’s a bomb on a train (ignore the questionable movie sci-fi physics). Colter has exactly eight minutes to learn what he can before he and everybody else blows up. Then the fun starts anew. The movie is less a time-travel flick than an alternate reality sort of experiment. Personally, I love movies that present a timeline and then slowly thumb away at the edges, stretching the narrative space, showing the audience the various intricacies of this tiny world. Whether it’s Pulp Fiction, Groundhog Day, or the propulsive fun of Run Lola Run, I enjoy a story that expands outward into a greater foundational complexity. I enjoy the clockwork of a story that shows me how the different pieces work together. I enjoy that through the variations I can experience a richer world, seeing what happens to a passenger as they leave the train, seeing how a character’s actions can impact another, seeing how altering that character’s action alters other forces in the story. That kind of narrative trickery, perfected in Groundhog Day, makes the story feel like a living creature because you witness the interconnected relationships of everything and everyone. It also makes it pretty fun to watch.
Director Duncan Jones makes slick use of tight spaces like he showcased in 2009’s celestial sci-fi thriller, Moon. The quick pacing and collective rhythm of the movie helps contribute to its entertainment factor. Source Code is playful enough in design and execution. It remains consistently clever with its plotting, but what’s really surprising is that Jones is able to find a personal human story inside all the thriller trappings. Colter is trying to make sense of his situation, but he’s also trying to reconcile the idea of life, death, fate, and getting to speak with his parents who assume he was killed in Afghanistan (he’s been with the source code project for over two months). There’s a human face to all this, and while the love story feels tacked on and underdeveloped, Colter’s emotional turmoil and existential struggles to reassert his identity and find some peace from his life ring true. Gyllenhaal (Prince of Persia) is an ever capable lead who takes a near Hitchcockian leading man role and plays it straight to fine effect.
At the same time, Source Code tries to have it all with an ending that I don’t truly believe it pulls off. Spoilers will lurk, so skip the next two paragraphs those who wish to remain pure and chaste. The film does a fairly nimble job of setting up an appropriate, if mostly downbeat, ending. Colter doesn’t want to be a brain in a box; he doesn’t want the government using him as their newest tool for the rest of his unnatural days. He was pulled from the brink of death and he now just wants to die in peace. In the recorded reality of the source code, he’s allowed the chance that most of us will never have – he can find closure. Whereas he would have died on a desert battlefield, now Colter has an opportunity to speak to his father one last time, to say goodbye. The entire denouement of Source Code seems to be establishing a memorial for the people who were lost on that train, because once the source code is erased so too will they be. They’re electronic recreations but in the end it reminds you that they were real people, and now they get something of a proper sendoff, a fairly touching memorial to the people who will just be seen as numbers in a news report.
And then… just as Colter makes peace with passing over, he passes over into another reality. The train doesn’t blow up. The people are able to get off. He gets to walk hand-in-hand with his new sweetheart. Jones doesn’t make it clear what really happens, which can lead to some mounting confusion. Did they really alter the past? Did they create a parallel dimension? In one dimension is everyone on the train dead whereas in another everyone lives, short of Sean Fentress? And how crappy is that? Yes, Gyllenhaal is a charming and terrific looking guy, but does no one shed a tear for the fact that he stole another man’s body? Sean Fentress may not have had the courage to ask out his pretty friend, but that doesn’t mean he deserved to have his identity hijacked and his existence more or less erased from time and space. It’s a weird blemish that the filmmakers don’t truly want to address, and why would they? The ending lacks commentary of any sort strictly because the movie wants to have it all. It wants the sad, mournful ending, it wants the happy “Everything’s gonna be okay” ending. It almost let’s you choose. But Source Code doesn’t come across so much as a film that begs to be opened for different interpretations so much as a film that didn’t want to upset anyone by picking an ending.
Source Code is nicely paced, nicely plotted, and it produces just as many intriguing questions as it does substantial thrills. Jones finds interesting ways to make the same material different. The various characters, converging storylines, and science-fiction mumbo jumbo are all nicely woven into a satisfying bite-sized sci-fi thriller. It fumbles with the landing, in my view; it seems like a pandering appeal to please every faction of the audience, or at least to confuse them with the illusion that they have gotten what they wanted. This is an intellectual sci-fi potboiler in disguise as a thriller. Roll with it, play along, don’t think too hard about the moral implications of its murky ending, and enjoy the ride.
Nate’s Grade: B+
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