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The Invention of Lying (2009)
Imagine a world where people could only tell the truth. Sounds scarier than anything in horror movies today.
Mark (Gervais) is trying to romance Anna (Jennifer Garner) but even the waiter tells him she’s out of his league. She tells him upfront that she finds him unattractive and he will never have any hope of having sex with her. She’s more interested in Mark’s snide but handsome co-worker, Brad (Rob Lowe), who she feels is a better genetic match. Mark is about to be fired from his job, writing historical screenplays about the 13th century, and his secretary (Tina Fey) delights in telling him that she loathed every minute they spent together. This is a world without a filter. Until one day Mark goes to take out money from the bank, and something inside his brain switches. His balance is $300 but he asks for $800, and the bank teller apologizes for the computer error and gets Mark his full $800. He explains to his barfly friend Greg (Louis C.K.) that he said something that wasn’t. Nobody understands. “I’m a black Eskimo,” Mark says. Everybody takes him at his word. Mark is the only human on earth who has the ability to tell a lie, which he uses to his great advantage whether it be gambling, getting out of a traffic ticket, or unearthing a “lost” historical chapter about ninjas and aliens that makes for a stirring “non-fiction” film. Mark can’t even explain what he’s done, since the world lacks even a word for “lie.”
Gervais and co-writer Matthew Robinson concoct some interesting and inspired ideas of what a world bereft of lying would be like. Naturally, advertising would be completely different if people had to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; imagine prescription drug ads that only said, “This is a placebo. Your penis won’t ever grow bigger.” The slogan for Coca-Cola is, “It’s very famous,” and the slogan featured for its rival, Pepsi, is, “When you can’t have Coke.” No one has any concept of fiction, of people pretending to play parts, so movies only consist of an older man sitting comfortably and reading a historical account with some minor dramatic inflection. Movies have become book reports. The sign in front of a retirement center says, “A Sad Place for Hopeless Old People,” and a motel sign reads, “A Cheap Place to Have Intercourse with a Near Stranger.” However, I’m puzzled by how forcefully open every person is. Just because you can only speak the truth doesn’t mean you have to be talking constantly. I understand Gervais’ point about the need for lies to protect people’s feelings, but just because you think someone looks fat doesn’t mean you have to blurt it out. When Mark greets Anna at the door for their date she reveals, “You’re early. I was just masturbating.” It’s funny, sure, but did she feel compelled to link the two statements? It seems in this world, everyone is incapable of keeping their mouths shut.
The premise of the movie is terrific, and I’m honestly shocked no one has thought of it before. But the premise wears a little thin after the first 30 minutes of people speaking with no filter. You begin to expect outrageous comments that will be hurtful and blunt, and because you expect them it takes away the shock value and lessens the humor. But then The Invention of Lying takes a sharp right turn at about minute forty and becomes a radical and subversive and much funnier movie. Mark is comforting his dying mother (Fionnula Flanagan) who is afraid of leaving existence. She’s afraid of a cold nothingness. So Mark explains to her that there is an afterlife, a world beyond our own, where everybody gets to be around their loved ones in a mansion, and there’s no pain. She closes her eyes and dies in peace with this new knowledge. The doctors and nurses are amazed and beg to know more. Mark has created the idea of religion and God! He’s mobbed by people and camera crews demanding him to explain what he knows. Mark then works up the courage to establish a system of 10 rules to follow, which he tapes onto old pizza boxes. He then addresses his flock and has to explain the complicated minutia of religion, with hilarious questioning from the acolytes. Mark explains that there is a “man in the sky” who watches everything we do and is responsible for everything that happens. “Does that mean the Man in the Sky gave my sister cancer?” someone asks. Mark tries to explain the nature of a loving, all-powerful deity who willingly allows bad things to still happen. “Screw the Man in the Sky,” someone yells, “He’s going to kill us all. We need to fight back!” You try explaining the nature of the unknown to people.
It’s at this point that the movie transforms into a biting satire on belief and belief. I was cackling but I noticed that my theater seemed to get awfully quiet the longer the religious satire went on. I almost spat out my drink when I saw a spinning newspaper headline that said, “Man in the Sky Continues to Give Children AIDS.” It’s offensive but completely within the bounds of religious questioning. Gervais and Robinson aren’t ridiculing religious belief; in fact they seem to prove that it has a definite place of significance within society and can be beneficial psychologically. The satire isn’t savage and still manages to play with the amiable, fable-like nature of the story. Gervais isn’t laying out an argument that believing in an unforeseen deity is stupid. The movie isn’t condescending or hectoring, like Bill Maher’s anti-religion documentary Religulous, but it does take some slyly subversive swipes at the nature of faith and its reliance upon the unproven.
The Invention of Lying suffers from trying to be a romantic comedy. Too much of its conflict is spent on whether the chubby guy can get the pretty girl. The movie gets a tad sentimental for dealing in bitter-truths, and Gervais and Robinson steer the film to the ultimate romantic comedy setting: objecting at a wedding. I wouldn’t have minded the rom-com asides if they didn’t feel like they kept striking the same chord. Mark wants to be in a relationship with Anna. She points out that he’s fat, has a snub nose, and not a good genetic match. He persists. She points out that he?s fat, has a snub nose, and not a good genetic match. This goes on and on until the inevitable break at the end. Mark, and especially Gervais, is an appealing guy, self-effacing and witty, even downright cute at turns, but when Anna keeps repeating the same looks-first mantra, it makes her seem increasingly shallow and him seem like a glutton for punishment. Garner is a fabulous comedic actress and packs a lot more emotion into her character than I would have expected given the conceit.
Ricky Gervais is catching fire as of late, and it seems that America is finally waking up to the charms and brilliance of this squat comedian. He created The Office, the standard for squirm-based comedy, and appeared in the underrated supernatural comedy Ghost Town last fall. Gervais shows the necessity of lies in our world, from sparing hurt feelings to making mass-market entertainment. The world needs dishonesty. When The Invention of Lying is on-target, it is a hilarious, almost brilliant, comedy, with its best gags saved for taking on “the Man in the Sky.” It’s too bad then that the entire movie doesn’t live up to these flashes of comedic brilliance. Still, the movie is sweet enough and ends on a satisfying level, even if The Invention of Lying begins as one movie and ends as another. Gervais is an appealing lead, though he doesn’t prove much in the way of a director, and he has some real dramatic acting chops too, nicely put to use during his mother’s deathbed scene. I hope more Americans wake up to this man’s charms. Gervais continues to show audiences the sharp wit that has made him one of the world’s foremost funnymen.
Nate’s Grade: B+
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Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009)
I maintain that no story has been redone, recycled, re-purposed, and parodied more so than Charles Dickens’ classic holiday tale, A Christmas Carol. Dickens’ tale of redemption aided by supernatural ghosts and time travel has appeared in everything from Muppets to the Odd Couple. Statistically, the odds are good that right now as you read this very sentence television is airing some adaptation of this story right now. I suppose it was only a matter of time before Dickens got reduced to a romantic comedy setup. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is a charmless and mostly empty movie that makes you pine for the comparative masterpiece of A Muppet Christmas Carol.
Connor Mead (Matthew McConaughey, playing himself for the thousandth time) is a hunky fashion photographer for Vanity Fair magazine and, boy, is he in-demand. Everyone wants his photo services and every woman wants to rip his clothes off. Connor is a notorious womanizer and he travels to the country to attend his younger brother Paul’s (Breckin Meyer) wedding. Connor is intent on dissuading his brother on the prospect of marriage, which Conner dubs archaic and he feels love is “comfort food for the uneducated and lonely.” It just so happens that Connor’s ex-girlfriend from way back, Jenny (Jennifer Garner), is the maid of honor at the wedding. She hasn’t seen her dubious ex for some time, but that doesn’t stop him from trying to make his move. Jenny and Connor were childhood pals, but an early bout of heartbreak led Connor to become the disciple of his Uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas), a boozy playboy who taught the kid everything he knew about bedding the babes. During Connor’s stay, the ghost of Uncle Wayne informs him that three spirits will visit to showcase Connor’s checkered past, present, and dodgy future, Dicken’s-style.
The movie is wholly unbelievable even for a contrived romantic comedy. The central romance between Connor and Jenny rests on the silly notion that after ten years apart, a lifelong selfish jerk can sweep his former girlfriend off her feet during a single crazy weekend. Connor’s redemptive arc is lackluster at best, and the movie just mimes the steps it feels that it needs to take to turn its lead insensitive jerk character into a sensitive jerk character. It doesn’t work. I refuse to believe for one second that a pretty, smart, confidant doctor such as Jenny would allow herself to get so completely suckered in by Connor’s “Baby I’ve changed” speech. It’s insulting and degrading. The compressed timeline reflects poorly on Jenny’s decision-making. The expedited timeline makes every human action seem far-fetched. There’s a scene where Connor opens a champagne bottle in the kitchen. The cork flies out and knocks one of the legs loose on the multi-tiered wedding cake. The cake is about to slip over when Connor slides in to stabilize it. Instead of redistributing the weight via the available legs, he tries reaching for the out of reach champagne bottle with his foot (the size of the bottle and the cake leg are not even close). A more believable situation would involve Connor trying to reach the fallen cake leg, not a champagne bottle, but alas. To make this example even worse, the filmmakers set up the disaster of a fallen wedding cake and then amazingly fail to show the goods. We only see the smashed aftermath. This is a comedy fundamental: set-up food disaster, let audience witness ensuing food-related disaster.
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past also doesn’t have one redeeming or marginally realistic female character. I would expect, given Garner’s star power and the natural importance of being the romantic lead, that Jenny would come across as a reasonable woman or someone worth fighting over. Sorry, Jenny is a powerfully underwritten character and Garner is left without much work other than serving as a reservoir of reaction shots. Seriously, that’s her main purpose in this movie; she is a cutaway image. Sandra (Lacey Chabert) is a shrieking high-maintenance shrew of a bride. The other female roles are largely one-note misogynistic fantasies (thanks male screenwriters Jon Lucas and Scott Moore). The trio of bridesmaids is gossipy chatterboxes and eager to get laid. Connor’s introduction to his future mother-in-law (Anne Archer) involves him casually groping her breasts, much to her prosaic approval. Connor has an irresistible way with the ladies, which makes everything without a Y chromosome want to sleep with the man. A young famous pop singer watches Connor dump three women simultaneously on an Internet conference call, insult them, and then she still strips off her clothes to bed the cad. She even states, “I don’t even know why I’m doing this,” and continues along. I’m just as confused what power Connor holds over the fairer sex because to me he’s just a twit.
Here’s a telling example about how obvious this movie is written from an unenlightened male perspective: the central relationship dilemma is that Connor is afraid of cuddling. In the past, Jenny asked him to stay and cuddle but that was the breaking point, so he bolted. All of these women somehow manage to fall head over heels in love for a guy who willingly goes through women likes changes of underwear. It makes all the women comes across as emotionally needy, insecure, vapid bubbleheads who will sacrifice everything, including self-respect and dignity, to get a taste of McConaughey’s back sweat. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is not a flattering movie for either sex.
The tone of this movie never finds an authentic and satisfying balance. Being a half-hearted tale of redemption during the period of a weekend, the movie crams in plenty of gooey sentimental claptrap. You’ll listen to characters talk about the true meaning of friendship, tear up over family memories, and then someone will make an inappropriate sex joke. There is a high level of semi-racy sex jokes that populate the world, appearing at odd moments, destroying any assembling emotions. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past will pretend like it’s building to something that actually matters and then it will throw it all away for a cheap sex gag — har har. There’s a moment where Douglas is illustrating how much ire Connor has wrought with visual metaphors. It begins to rain and he says that the downpour is made up of all the tears shed from ex-girlfriends and flings. Then it starts raining ripped pieces of confetti, and this we are told is all the tissues used. And then comes all the used condoms, and we watch Connor try and take cover before the aerial assault of used (and presumably “filled”) contraceptives annihilates him. It’s kind of gross and tonally disjointed from the rest of the sappy, happy PG-13 storyline.
The movie is at its most amusing when it’s riffing on the expectations of following the Christmas Carol model. Connor is quite aware of the tried-and-true formula, so his comments along the way provide the movie’s only genuine laughs outside of Douglas. Really, Douglas’ character is the most entertaining character, and I kept wishing that the film would follow him even after death. Wouldn’t it be interesting to watch the life of a ghost involved in a Christmas Carol scenario? I imagine it would be a bit like a play rehearsal. I would enjoy seeing the behind-the-scenes work that goes into the scenario. I want to see ghostly foremen plot out unique scenarios for a list of real-life Scrooge cases, I want to see the ghost tryouts, I want to see the mechanics involved in the spiritual setup for this whole process. I enjoyed watching Uncle Wayne hit on his fellow spirits. But I suppose that approach would be too literary and break away from the cozy confines of the stillborn romantic comedy genre. And to prove that it is indeed a romantic comedy by the numbers, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past even includes the last minute dash to stop the romantic party from leaving via some method of transportation.
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past manages to squander every opportunity it has to be a better movie. The central idea could have worked but the execution is exceedingly lazy, charmless, and degrading to women in particular. The comic scenarios miss out on better laughs, and some of the better laughs are obvious and just around the corner, but the film routinely falls back on being a sexual farce. The characters don’t feel remotely like people and Connor is a terrible lead character with unfunny dialogue that reduces women to disposable pleasures. His transformation is contrived even for a romantic comedy. I’m not saying a cad character could not make for an entertaining lead here. Clearly Douglas is the best character, and his sleazy 1970s swinging sexpot has a fun Bob Evans vibe. Every moment he’s onscreen the movie comes alive in a new way, and Douglas is an actor that knows how to make lecherous appealing and appalling at the same time, like what Michael Caine pulled off in Alfie. This movie pales in comparison. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past should have been visited by the most important spirit of them all – the Spirit of Screenplay Rewrites.
Nate’s Grade: C-
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Juno (2007)
Juno is a hysterical teen comedy with equal parts sweetness and sour. The idea of an underage pregnancy certainly presents a lot of conflicts and seriousness but the film avoids direct messages on the big topics thanks to large doses of levity and some hard-earned wisdom. With this serving as a companion piece to Knocked Up, I suppose Hollywood is convinced there’s something inherently funny about unplanned pregnancy. Remember that, suddenly expectant fathers and mothers.
16-year-old Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) drinks her “weight in Sunny D” to take pregnancy test after test, but each pee-dipped stick gives the same result: Juno is going to become a mommy. The father is Paulie Bleaker (Michael Cera), a fellow high school student who has a fondness for jogging shorts and orange Tic-Tacs. Juno’s father and step-mother (J.K. Simmons, Allison Janney) lament that they wish their daughter would have told them she was expelled or into hard drugs instead of being pregnant. Still, they are supportive and Juno decides to give away her bun in the oven to a childless couple, Mark and Vanessa (Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner).
Juno doesn’t patronize or dismiss the gravity of what is indeed happening (a life is being brought into this world); Juno says she is trying to come to grips with issues “way beyond my maturity level.” There are moments that reveal real sadness and regret for some of these characters, and moments of palpable doubt about what it means to officially grow up and assume responsibility for another. Juno also refrains from easy high school stereotypes and coarse humor. Juno is an intelligent comedy that doesn’t make light of its circumstances even if the sarcasm is off the charts. It’s this winning combination of wicked wit and heart that makes [I]Juno[/I] destined to be a crowd-pleaser.
Writer/blogger/former stripper Diablo Cody makes one hell of an impressive screenwriting debut. The dialogue is practically sparkling and revels in the hip, hyper-literate realm that used to dominate the teenage speech patterns of shows like Dawson’s Creek. Sure, it’s not terribly realistic when characters can spout pithy one-liners mixed in with heavy jargon and lots of cool speak, but what do I care when I’m cracking up with laughter so often. But Juno cannot easily be dismissed as glib because Cody throws in some incisive moments that display shades of vulnerability and tenderness with her wacky assortment of characters. Even the aloof oddballs have moments that deepen them from just being quirky for quirky’s sake. These people are more than just receptacles for Cody’s wonderful words; they may begin that way but through the course of 96 minutes they manage to transform into flesh-and-blood where we, the audience, feel their pain and celebrate their happiness. You may be surprised, as I was, to discover yourself holding back tears during the movie’s inevitable and tidy conclusion.
The heavily acoustic score banks on a lot of pleasant, leisurely strumming but it suits the film and the song selections are apt. The very end involves a long acoustic duet rendition of the Moody Peaches’ “Anyone Else But You” and it may be one of the most disarmingly sweet, romantic moments of the year (the repeated lyric “I don’t see what anyone can see in anyone else” is a perfect summary for two outsiders finding their match). In fact, it’s probably the most potentially romantic song ever to include the line “shook a little turd out of the bottom of your pants,” but then again I do profess ignorance when it comes to romantic odes that include defecation references. Somewhere there has to be a Barry White song that has to cover this.
Director Jason Reitman feels like a natural fit for this smart-allecky material. He lets the story take center-stage and, just as he proved with last year’s Thank You for Smoking, he can coax terrific performances from a strong body of actors. He keeps the pace chugging along and keeps form command of the many storylines and characters needing to be juggled. Juno is a comedy that says more about a character through a handful of smart, wry observations that cut to the bone, which is helpful considering the short running time means the film needs to do the most with its time.
Page should have been crowned a star immediately after her blistering performance as jail bait with claws in Hard Candy, but perhaps her top notch comedic turn in Juno will right this slip-up and give Page the opportunity to star in, at least, the same amount of movies as, oh, I don’t know, Amanda Bynes (Seriously, Hollywood, are you just throwing money at her?). Page is the perfect embodiment of the wiseacre teenager that thinks she knows more than anyone else. She recites the refined dialogue with such precision and ease, always knowing what segments to enunciate or de-emphasize to maintain a seamless comedic tone. Page brings great empathy to a know-it-all character and is the snarky spirit that makes Juno resonate.
The supporting cast around Page doesn’t let her down. Cera gives another fine performance of comic awkwardness befitting a teenager contemplating fatherhood. Simmons and Janney make a great pair of unflappable parents, particularly Janney who gives an ultrasound doc a memorable tongue-lashing for an off the cuff remark about Juno. Bateman works the same laid-back demeanor that he excelled at on TV’s Arrested Development. Rainn Wilson (TV’s The Office) makes a very funny cameo in the beginning.
Garner as an actress has been somewhat hamstrung by her roles, either focusing on her multitude of ass-kicking abilities or landing her leads in romantic comedies that don’t require more than dimples and twinkling eyes. In Juno she is driven by her desire to have a baby; she’s affluent, prim, and an easy joke thanks to her stick-in-the-mud seriousness. But then Juno and the audience get a glimpse about how important being a mother is to Vanessa, and Garner nails a rather touching scene where she directly speaks to the growing child inside Juno’s belly upon Juno’s request. She speaks softly to the baby, briefly mentioning how loved they will be, and then she marvels at feeling the baby move. In lesser hands this scene could have induced eye rolls but instead seems genuine and a turning point for how we see Vanessa.
If Juno does have a flaw it is a minor one. The film places its teen romance on the back burner for so long that when it resurfaces and positions itself front and center the storyline lacks credence and believability. The conclusion would have had more emotional weight had the filmmakers spent more time on the teen romance angle, but regardless I was still amused, entertained, and grateful for the ending that came.
Juno is a delightfully tart and hysterical comedy that is easily quote-able thanks to Cody’s quick-fire retorts and snappy dialogue. Page is destined for greatness and Reitman proves once more that he can handle anything thrown at him with deftly comic aplomb. This is an impressive and assured comedy that bristles with comic vitality and confidence. This holiday season, make sure to take a trip to Juno.
Nate’s Grade: A
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The Kingdom (2007)
Now that summer is but a hazy memory, get ready for a roll out of serious minded movies Hollywood hopes vie for serious award attention. It may be five years into the current war, but the movies are now cranking out Iraq-themed dramas that will dominate the release schedule for the approaching months. Things are about to get heavy and somber. First out of the gate, though, is The Kingdom, a film about the nebulously termed War on Terror set within the confines of an action movie. Actor-turned-director Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights, The Rundown) knows how to create a stylized movie that feels organic to its genre, and The Kingdom is another example of his growing cinematic pedigree.
In Saudi Arabia, a housing enclosure of American contractors and their families is brutally attacked by terrorists that have infiltrated the Saudi security. Two hundred American lives are lost and FBI agent Ronald Fluery (Jamie Foxx) is intent on leading a team of experts (Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman) to the soil of the Saudis, otherwise known as The Kingdom. The State Department refuses to authorize an investigation citing the jurisdiction of the Saudis as well as the danger of violent reprisals if agents are within reach of the perpetrators. Colonel Faris Al Ghazi (Ashraf Barhom) is assigned to baby-sit the American agents and keep them stuck in red tape during their five days allotted to them. Fluery refuses to take a subservient role and works with Al Ghaazi to get some answers.
The animated opening credit crash course in Saudi history is fun and informative, however, it really doesn’t relate to The Kingdom even though the damn movie is set in that country. Curiously, the movie only makes cursory statements on the wary relationship between the Saudis and the United States, but otherwise this movie could have been dropped in any nondescript Muslim country in the Middle East. If The Kingdom was relocated to, say, Yemen, I doubt the script would need that much fine-tuning; snip some references to royalty here and there. This is a story about the balance between a moderate Middle East regime and radical elements within the country willing to buck Western influence by any destructive means necessary. I’m measurably disappointed that the movie didn’t tackle more about the unique and tenuous Saudi-U.S. relationship, but then I accepted the fact that The Kingdom wasn’t so much about a country but an ideology that knows no borders.
To that end, The Kingdom is one part CSI: Saudi Arabia, one part political thriller, and one part gung-ho Hollywood action extravaganza, and none of the parts seems to work well together as a whole. The film doesn’t work as a cohesive unit and perhaps tries to do too much. Now, this does not mean that any of those parts are not entertaining. The criminal investigating is rather interesting because of all the cultural barriers between the U.S. agents and the Saudi governing system (a miscast Jeremy Piven, as an ambassador, admonishes Janet, in a very Ari Gold way, to “dial down the boobies”). The central mystery of who is responsible is pretty thin and easy to solve, which may be why the film spends so much time finding obstacles to delay our FBI team from getting their hands on the evidence. The political thriller elements are expressed with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, and yet they feel like thoughtful counterpoints to any rah-rah jingoism that The Kingdom may instill in an American audience. The climax provides plenty of fist-pumping violence but it also ends on a note about the futility of violence as well as the durability of hate. I even appreciated devoting time to interdepartmental jockeying and watching agency heads seeing who will blink first in a public relations-dominated world. The Kingdom doesn’t have a desire to become Syriana 2: No Blood for Oil, but it does possess a greater deal of intelligence and relevance than most of what big budget Hollywood is spewing out (I refuse to believe the FBI would send an agent, with a personal family tie to Israel, into a Muslim country).
Strict action fans, however, are going to have a lot of downtime on their hands. The Kingdom opens with an action sequence and closes with an action sequence, and there’s a wide gap in between those bookends. The final 20 minutes are devoted to a nail-biting ambush and rescue that transforms our FBI agents into improbable action movie warriors. Berg’s restless camera isn’t as well honed as Paul Greengraas (The Bourne Ultimatum), and sometimes you just wish the jittery cameraman would allow you to see what’s going on. I don’t know if the docu-drama emphasis is fully needed, especially when the movie jumps between shots of just two people having a conversation. Berg is a terrific director and the action sequences hit hard; I just hope he doesn’t become trapped trying to fit himself into one style.
In truth, the most intriguing part of The Kingdom is the relationship between Fleury and Al Ghazi. They begin frustrated and fighting for control, but soon, in true buddy cop genre fashion, a mutual respect forms as they search for the bad guys. The script offers helpful examples of good Movie Arabs and bad Movie Arabs, and the audience is able to easily identify the two sides. The interplay between Fleury and Al Ghazi leads to some humorous exchnages as well as some reflective opportunities, like where the men recount their families and declare they do not care why such dastardly acts were done, they just want to inflict some punishment on the rightful parties.
The acting, like the film, is a bit all over the place. Foxx seems to be on autopilot. Foxx has bunkered into his acting troupes; intense, penetrating stare, whispery dialogue recitations, and a cocksure attitude. Cooper is cranky and incredulous older timer along for the ride. Garner does her best with a character that was written for the sole purpose of concocting culture squabbles over the role of the opposite sex. She does unleash a torrent of anger and power in one very hard-core and frighteningly extreme fight scene. Bateman is playing comic relief and does sarcastic quips with great ease, but his character also gets unexpectedly thrown into a very harrowing experience and Bateman makes you feel every drop of his fear. Barhom (Paradise Now) gives a convincing performance of a man torn apart by his moral compass and the path of his country. He feels a sense of duty to protect the innocent but at the same time he is scoffed at by colleagues for helping “them.”
The Kingdom is an action movie with more on its mind than blowing up the enemy real nice like, though that also plays a key component. The pieces don’t fully add up to a whole and the film’s politics are a little tricky to get a bearing on; is this a red state movie, a blue state movie, or something for both audiences? Berg’s ambition is admirable and his film never drags out a soapbox to preach. The Kingdom is a topical movie aimed at planting seeds of debate among a mainstream audience in between their handfuls of popcorn and gulps of soda.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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Catch and Release (2007)
Catch and Release may in fact have the most bizarre meet-cute in movie history. Gray (Jennifer Garner) is mourning the loss of Grady, the man that would have been her husband. She seeks a refuge from all the well-wishers and lies down in a bathtub with the shower curtain drawn. Fritz (Timothy Olyphant), one of the deceased’s best friends, enters the room with a female caterer. They position themselves against a wall and engage in some opportune sex. Gray is trapped and forced to hear the whole thing. The caterer keeps screaming, “Sock it to me” in increasing orgiastic pleasure. I was waiting for some more 1950s hipster dirty talk, like, “Lay it in me, Daddy-O.” Eventually the sex comes to an end and Fritz lights up a post-coital cigarette. But then Gray flings the shower curtain back. Aha! It’s boy meets girl in the most preposterous fashion, but that’s Catch and Release for you, a romantic comedy with enough to be different but still too limited to become anything other than a lukewarm date movie.
Now absent one less earner, Gray is forced to move into a house occupied by Sam (Kevin Smith) and Dennis (Sam Jaeger). They were friends of Gray’s ex as well. Then life proceeds to give Gray a series of curve balls. She discovers that her dead fiancé had over a million dollars in the bank and an 8-year-old son with another woman (Juliet Lewis), a flighty New Age massage therapist. Grady might not have been the same man Gray thought she was set to have and to hold (her married name would have been Gray Grady?).
Things get off to an interesting start. The proposed wedding party has been transformed into a wake. Then as she is trying to cope with loss and put the pieces of her life together she’s further undone by revelation after revelation of secrets her ex kept from her. That’s pretty dark for a usual airy genre but also a pretty interesting setup for something different. Catch and Release flirts with being unconventional but then is on a fairly predictable trajectory once its promise settles down and completely dissolves.
Thankfully, despite all the doom and gloom there isn’t any grating sense of whininess. The perspective feels knowing and in search of wisdom through life’s unexpected calamities. Writer/director Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich, Ever After) has a worthy adult sensibility that helps make the film feel a bit more credible and less like an inane melodrama. Catch and Release feels less pre-programmed and unlike most paint-by-numbers romantic comedies, and yet it still wears the weight of its genre around its neck and can never take a step forward without taking two backwards. There’s ample opportunity for a romantic comedy that begins at the literal end of a relationship, with the widow discovering more than she ever knew about her dearly departed (a rom-com version of The Constant Gardener? Call me, Hollywood). However, the movie seems too content to walk the same beaten path many have before it. It may be nothing more than a throwaway genre movie but it got my hopes up that it could have been something more. I feel spurned and betrayed, somewhat like Gray must have felt.
Catch and Release is a hit-and-miss date movie that can never really reel in what it wants to do. The film has some somewhat inspired moments but is also dominated by romantic comedy clichés and sitcom generalizations when it comes to its characters and setting. Of course the nice guy has had a lifelong crush on Gray. Of course the fat guy is also funny and rude. And of course we’re going to house all of these people under one roof so it will produce plenty of Gray-Fritz interactions that will lead to their eventual coupling. Plus, who could forget the classic eleventh hour misunderstanding followed by the pursuit that ends in a glib line like, “What took you so long?” The movie seems to be trying too hard to make Fritz seem like a suitable replacement when we never really know much about him. He’s kind of sleazy and he knows it, but when exactly does he become likeably sleazy? Their union feels forced and unrealistic, even by romantic comedy standards. It also feels like Grant named Garner’s character Gray just so she could include this passage:
Gray: “What’s your favorite color?”
Fritz: “Gray.”
This prompted an entire row of teenage girls to go “ahhhhh” in my theater. I wanted to laugh, but then I was grossly outnumbered in my theater.
Catch and Release is mostly a grab bag of other romantic comedies. It doesn’t even know what to do with the fly fishing metaphor it valiantly tries to lift into some deeper meaning. I don’t get it myself. Gray says that her dead ex was always a “catch and release” man; does this mean he never had the heart to finish off his prey, or that he was too sympathetic with struggling creatures? It doesn’t matter what the metaphor attempts are because it allows for the cast to put on their rubber boots and wade in the cool waters of predictability. At least only one character works in the usual romantic comedy job pool (publishing, advertising, theater). Though Sam does come up with quotes for boxes.
Garner is such a winning actress but still finding her stride. She’s being positioned to fill the void of Meg Ryan and Julia Roberts, which is fine, but when I see her more as a modern Sigourney Weaver, someone who can excel in light comedy but also kick your ass when the time came. Gray’s world goes into upheaval and Garner is up to the task balancing emotion and wry life observations, but too often there’s little else for her to do but pout or crinkle her eyebrows. Her cheekbones certainly get quite a workout in Catch and Release but I wouldn’t exactly call that dramatic acting. I have been a fan of Olyphant since 1999’s Go. He’s always had a scary sexiness to him, and works best playing assholes you just can’t help but love. Grant totally drops the ball on his character. Fritz is behind the eight ball early and never really recovers when it comes to audience loyalty. Olyphant is also given a problematic shaggy haircut that manages to neutralize his natural alluring danger and still make him seem aloof. His role is a stock role and nothing more.
Thank God for Kevin Smith. Grant wisely chose Silent Bob as her comic relief and Smith has such natural laid back charm and great timing that he should get more acting gigs full time. His presence is deeply missed when he steps offstage and the film returns back to its familiar roots. I don?t know why Grant has Sam eating or making food, or talking about eating in almost every scene. After the fourth scene in a row where Sam has a chicken leg in his fist, it gets tiresome, like she defined a character by hunger. Smith has the best scenes and the best chemistry, whether it’s with Garner, Lewis, or a little kid. I think someone should cast Kevin Smith as the lead of a romantic comedy. Now that’s an unconventional date movie I’d pay to see.
Catch and Release has some glimmers of promise before succumbing to the weight of the romantic comedy genre. The movie just cannot get past mounting clichés and shallow characters, plus some fairly contrived situations like the bizarre meet-cute. Garner and her dimples will survive to enchant another day. At the end of the day, Catch and Release is just like any other romantic comedy movie, and there’s plenty more of those in the sea.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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Elektra (2005)
January is typically a cinematic wasteland. It’s the place where films go to die. So imagine my surprise when I heard that Elektra, a comic book movie built around a nimble sai-spinning assassin, was going to be released in January 2005. I remember at one time there were plans for a summer release, which means Elektra had fallen from the very top to the very bottom of expectation. After viewing Elektra for myself I can perfectly understand why anyone would want to dump this clunker.
Elektra (Jennifer Garner) is a feared assassin-for-hire (she even has an agent for her hits). She’s been brought back to life by a powerful sensei, but has ignored a possible higher calling to make her money killing folks. Apparently she is the mythical warrior that will keep the balance between good and evil, or something or other. Her next hit ends up being a nice guy (Goran Visnjic) and his teenage daughter. Elektra doesn’t have the heart to kill them, so she joins them and all three run away from the really bad guys, an ancient group known as The Hand.
Elektra doesn’t really bare comparison to other comic book films because Elektra feels more like a video game. In true video game fashion, I’ll numerically list the likenesses:
1) There is no such thing as characterization, just definition by super power. One assassin is super strong, another can suck the life out of creatures, and a third has the amazing ability to have his tattoos come to poorly rendered life (lucky this guy doesn’t have butterflies and fairies). With a powerful lack of imagination, these assassins are called Stone, Pestilence, and Tattoo (not the Russian girls who make out with each other. That’s Tatu.).
2) The only sense of a story is pitting Elektra against one bad guy after another. There aren’t character arcs and subplots so much as there are end stage boss battles. It gets really repetitious.
3) The film seems like it’s bending over backwards to get character special moves into the story. With 1995’s Mortal Kombat, the writers, and I use that term in the loosest possible sense, had to work a story that included popular video game moves. Working so hard to include something so trivial and arbitrary really ties the storyteller’s hands. Elektra feels like the film would rather try and include some character’s special move rather than formulate a cogent storyline.
4) Once our assassins are vanquished they burst into clouds of yellow dust. I am not kidding. When they die they explode into clouds of mustard-hued gas. Just like in a video game, once you kill the bad guy they disappear with no necessary cleanup. It’s really thoughtful of them.
5) A second player can jump in at any time! In Elektra, different characters magically appear whenever it’s convenient and I?m not even talking about the super assassins.
6) Just like in a video game, you get an extra life! I don?t know why the producers of Elektra didn’t just make a prequel. With a sequel they have to work around their heroine’s untimely death in 2003’s Daredevil, and so we are introduced to the idea that a warrior of great mind can bring people back from the dead. So if Elektra dies (again) she can just be brought back to life. This whole idea practically eliminates any sense of danger and consequence.
So little of Elektra makes any kind of sense. Characters make rash choices and surprise appearances. The villains are a bland, cliched crop from some back order of ancient kung-fu brotherhoods. The plot is mysteriously oblique and has the frustrating habit of using cheats to get around logical roadblocks. About halfway through Elektra I gave up shrugging my shoulders and rolling my eyes. There is no definition on character limits, so anything can happen, and when it does it’s usually very stupid.
Even worse is how dreadfully dull Elektra can be. The last two acts are compromised of nothing but a long, boring chase scene. The action sequences are brief and unoriginal, which include the thousandth inclusion of a hedge maze. There’s one moment where Elektra is battling in a room that has sheets flying all around for no good reason. It’s visually reminiscent of a Where’s Waldo? page. Take that for what you will.
The film is brisk, clocking in at just 90 minutes, but you don’t care about the characters because 20 minutes is spent establishing them, and the remaining 70 is spent watching them run.
The only redeeming quality of Elektra is its star. Garner is suited for the running, jumping movies, but she also has great acting chops behind her square jaw and impeccable physique. She casually generates intensity but also has a light, humorous touch. It doesn’t hurt that she looks fabulous in a red bustier. Her character is given OCD but then this plot is dropped entirely. Without the appeal of Garner, Elektra would simply be Catwoman.
Elektra is a flat comic adaptation that plays more like a video game, and just like in real life, watching a video game is no fun at all. Things happen, characters appear, people explode into clouds of yellow dust, and it’s all a bunch of uninteresting, half-baked nonsense. Elektra is frustrating, labored, ridiculous, and empty of thought and enjoyment. Why should I pay to watch Garner kick ass when I can watch Alias on TV and see Garner kick ass for free? And the plots of Alias are brazenly complex, fun, and high-spirited. I care about the people and events on Alias. With Elektra, the only thing I cared about was when the film was going to be over.
Nate’s Grade: D
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Daredevil (2003)
Not as bad as it could have been. That’s the best way to sum up Ben Affleck in tights.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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Catch Me If You Can (2002)
January at the theaters is a tale of two kinds of films. One type are the studio bombs (take Just Married and Darkness Falls, please take them far away). The other type are the prestige pictures expanding their releases in hopes of garnering some of that Oscar magic. A lot of prestige films were released around the holidays and though not every one could be a winner, they were all better than Kangaroo Jack. Well, except for The Hours.
Catch Me If You Can (2002)
Premise: Successful true-life con artist Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leo DiCaprio) zips across the world posing as a pilot, doctor and lawyer all before the age of 18. A mousy Tom Hanks provides the chasing.
Results: Breezy and light-hearted, Catch is an entertaining and fun romp that works with a charming Leo (unlike in Gangs), a jazzy score and a skillful recreation of the 1960s life and mood. Spielberg hasn’t made a film under two hours since 1989, so Catch is a tad long.
Nate’s Grade: B
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Pearl Harbor (2001)
It turns out we went to war in 1941 not because of Japanese aggression, Hitler’s dominance in Europe, or the protection of freedom and democracy. Sorry kids. The real reason we went to war was to complicate and then clear up Kate Beckinsale’s love life. At least that’s what director Michael Bay and screenwriter Randall Wallace would tell you with their indulgent epic Pearl Harbor.
We open in Tennessee in the 20s with two boys who dream of being pilots. Rafe (Ben Affleck) and Danny (Josh Hartnett) grow into strapping young lads who flash their hot dog flyin’ skills at basic training, which brings them chagrin from superiors but admiration from peers. Rafe falls in love with a young nurse named Evelyn (Kate Beckinsale), who goes against ARMY rule and passes Rafe in his eye exam portion when he has a slight case of dyslexia. But he’s just so cuuuute. The romance builds but Rafe feels like he’s grounded when all he wants to do is fly, and volunteers to fight in the RAF over in Europe. He promises he’ll be back to see his lovely Evelyn. Of course he gets into an accident and everyone assumes that poor dyslexic Rafe is fertilizing a lawn somewhere with his remains. Hence Danny slowly but surely develops something for Evelyn in their periods of mourning, and the two consummate their puppy love with a tango in parachute sheets.
All seems well until Rafe returns back from the dead throwing a wrench into Evelyn’s second date parachute plans. Thus the Hollywood favorite of the love triangle endures until the end when the two fly boys enlist in the Doolittle attack against Japan, months after the ferocious attack on Pearl Harbor. The real purpose of the Doolittle attack was not militarily, but merely for morale. The real purpose it serves in the movie is to shave off an end on our love triangle.
Pearl Harbor allows us to follow a group of youthful and innocent starry-eyed kids from training to combat. Each seems pretty much exactly the same to each other. It’s near impossible to distinguish which character is which. It’s like the screenwriter didn’t even have the gall to resort to cliche supporting character roles, and he just made one character and duplicated it. The only one who was noticeable for me was the character of Red (Ewen Bremner, julien donkey boy himself), but that was simply because the man had a speech impediment. We also have our handful of young nurses alongside Beckinsale, and I had an easier time distinguishing between them; everyone had different hair colors.
]If you look in the pic, or the credits, you’ll see that two of the nurses would turn out to be Jennifer Garner (Alias) and Sara Rue (Less than Perfect), both stars of ABC shows, and ABC is owned by, yep, Disney. Coincidence? Probably. When they ran this on TV they actually advertised Jennifer Garner above Kate Beckinsale. That reminded me of when Seven ran on TV shortly after Kevin Spacey had won his well-deserved 1999 Best Actor Oscar for American Beauty, and they gave him second-billing in the advertisement over Morgan Freeman, the movie’s true main character.
Affleck has a hayseed Southern twang, but seems to mysteriously disappear for long stretches. Hartnett seems to talk with a deep creak, like a door desperately trying to be pushed open. Beckinsale manages to do okay with her material, but more magnificently manages to never smear a drop of that lipstick of hers during the entire war. We could learn a lot from her smear-defying efforts. Gooding Jr. is pretty much given nothing to work with. I’m just eternally grateful he didn’t go into a usual Cuba frenzy when he shot down a Zero.
Michael Bay has brought us the ADD screenings that are the past, loud hits of The Rock and Armageddon. Teamed up with his overactive man-child producer Jerry Bruckheimer once more, Pearl Harbor is less Bay restrained to work on narrative film as it is Bay free-wheeling. His camera is loose and zig-zagging once more to a thousand edits and explosions. Bay is a child at heart that just loves to see things explode. When he should show patience and restraint he decides to just go for the gusto and make everything as pretty or explosive as possible. This is not a mature filmmaker.
Despite the sledge hammer of bad reviews, Pearl Harbor is not as bad as it has been made out to be. The love story is inept and the acting is sleep-inducing, unless when it’s just funny. It doesn’t start off too badly, but twenty minutes in the movie begins sinking. The centerpiece of the film is the actual Pearl Harbor bombing that clocks in after ninety minutes of the movie. The forty-minute attack sequence is something to behold. The pacing is good and the action is exciting with some fantastic special effects. The movie is bloated with a running time a small bit over three hours total. Maybe, if they left the first twenty minutes in, then gave us the forty minute attack sequence, followed by a subsequent five minute ending to clear up our love triangle’s loose ends… why we’d have an 80 minute blockbuster!
Pearl Harbor doesn’t demonize the Japanese, but it feels rather false with their open-minded attempts to show both sides as fair minded. It gets to the point where they keep pushing the Japanese further into less of a bad light that it feels incredibly manipulative and just insulting. It seems like the producers really didn’t want to offend any potential Pacific ticket buyers so the picture bends backwards to not be insulting. The only people who could be offended by Pearl Harbor are those who enjoy good stories. Oh yeah, and war veterans too.
The cast of Pearl Harbor almost reads like another Hollywood 40s war movie where all the big stars had small roles throughout, kind of like The Longest Day for the Pepsi generation. Alec Baldwin plays General Doolittle and is given the worst lines in the film to say. Tom Sizemore shows up as a sergeant ready to train the men entering Pearl Harbor. He has five minutes of screen time but does manage to kill people in that short window. Dan Akroyd is in this for some reason or other, likely because Blues Brothers 3000 has yet to be green lighted. John Voight is easily the most entertaining actor to watch in the entire film. He gives a very authentic portrayal of President Roosevelt. I still find trouble believing it was Voight under the makeup.
The blueprint for Pearl Harbor is so transparent. They took the Titanic formula of setting a fictional romance against a disaster, with the first half establishing characters and our love story, and then relegating the second half to dealing with the aftermath of the disaster. It worked in Titanic (yes, I liked the film for the most part), but it doesn’t work here. Pearl Harbor is a passable film, but the mediocre acting, inept romance, square writing, and slack pacing stop it from being anything more. Fans of war epics might find more to enjoy, especially if they don’t regularly have quibbles over things like “characters” and “plot.” To paraphrase that know-it-all Shakespeare: “Pearl Harbor is a tale told by an idiot. It is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Nate’s Grade: C
Reviewed 20 years later as part of the “Reviews Re-View: 2001” article.
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