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88 Minutes (R) reviewed by Max Weiss   |
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It’s hard to say what’s more glaring: Al Pacino’s fake tan or the enormous plot holes in this inept thriller.
Pacino plays Jack Gramm, a cocksure forensic psychiatrist who specializes in the serial killers. The film starts with a bit of torture porn—a masked killer slowly slices up one scantily clad twin while the other watches in horror. Fast forward to Gramm taking the stand, confidently telling the court that they’ve got their killer...
<Click Here> for the complete review! |
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300 (R) (2007) reviewed by Mike Mayo |
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A couple of years ago when Frank Miller’s Sin City was released, Max said that she thought the mix of stylized sex and violence would make it your average 14-year-old boy’s all-time favorite movie.
I think that 300 will make all those 14-year-olds rethink their top-ten lists. It’s a defiantly adolescent mix of video-game-themed blood-and-guts action, windy speeches about glorious death and sacrifice and patriotism, a quick seasoning of kinky sex, and vividly grotesque villains. Precisely the kind of movie that a kid wants to sneak into at the multiplex.
The story has been filmed before in the similar 1962 The 300 Spartans. This version is based on Miller’s graphic novel. It’s about the defense of Greece in 480 BC against the invasion of Persians. In this corner, we have the Spartan king Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and in that corner we have the Persian king—actually god-king to be completely accurate—Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), a giant, bejeweled, heavily-pierced, bare-chested, unambiguously gay and vaguely rapacious figure. He’s a sort of combination of Dennis Rodman, The Rock and Elizabeth Taylor. We’re talking seriously scary.
The Persians had millions and millions of slave-soldiers in their army. 300 Spartans, decked out in their Speedos and attractive red capes, tricked them into fighting at the narrow valley at Thermopylae where they could hold off the large force.
The film is told in the same comic book style we saw in Sin City. Virtually all of the backgrounds and settings are computer-generated and so the image never attempts to be “photo-realistic.” Perhaps that explains why the MPAA ratings board allowed so much graphic violence. The big action scenes are filled with rolling heads and impalements on assorted sharp objects, all placed front and center before a loving camera. This is probably the most violent film I’ve seen since Passion of the Christ.
The battle scenes owe something to the Lord of the Rings trilogy with their hordes of computer-created beasties and horrors.
Curiously, 300 has inspired a couple of heated political debates. Some say that it’s an allegory for the current Iraq war and those folks are divided into two camps. One group says that Leonidas is George Bush, who’s saving Western Civilization from the forces of barbarism and mysticism. Others say that Bush is actually Xerxes, the invader. I disagree. Miller published the graphic novel well before this war, in 1998-99. If the film has any politics, despite the blather about freedom vs. slavery, it comes down four-square in favor of military dictatorship but without the ironic winking of Starship Troopers. Elected officials are shown as dithering indecisive fools, and religious leaders are even worse. They’re foully diseased, corrupt sexual predators. Only the military figures (and their noble wives) are worthy of any admiration.
And now it turns out that the Iranians are all honked off, too, claiming that the movie defames their magnificent Persian heritage. Does that mean that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is actually Xerxes?
Nah, couldn’t be. He’s too short. |
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50 First Dates (PG-13) (2004) - reviewed by Max Weiss |
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Ten minutes into Adam Sandler’s new comedy, you will have already endured walrus vomit jokes, crude sexual hijinx, and the never-pretty specter of SNL vet Rob Schneider (does this guy know where the bodies are buried or what?) as a vulgarian Hawaiian beach bum. At this point, your fight or flight reaction might kick in. But don’t flee.
Not a moment too soon, Drew Barrymore shows up playing the impossibly sunny Lucy. Ever since a car accident a year ago, Lucy has no short term memory. While she remembers everything up to the accident, she starts each subsequent day with a clean slate. To Sandler’s Henry Roth, a marine life veterinarian and island playboy, this should seem like an ideal scenario: All the benefits of a one night stand, without any of the commitment. But, of course, Henry has fallen in love with Lucy and now must re-woo her every single day.
To make matters worse, he must struggle with a moral dilemma: Should he keep Lucy cocooned in a bubble of blissful ignorance (as her doting father and brother have chosen to do) or tell her over and over about her malady? The film’s writer, George Wing, has managed to come up with all sorts of ingenious ways to dramatize this dilemma and add lightness to what is essentially a big bummer of a subject (woo-hoo! brain damage!). And, as they demonstrated in The Wedding Singer, Sandler and Barrymore have a sweet, easy chemistry. While 50 First Dates has its share of no-brow humor, at it’s core, it’s secretly a loveable, smartly conceived romantic comedy. |
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About a Boy (PG-13) (2002) - reviewed by Max Weiss |
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Commitment-averse single guy becomes reluctant father figure to lonely, misfit boy and learns to embrace love and responsibility along the way. Okay, before you think "chick flick from hell!" trust me here—About a Boy is no slobbering tear-jerker. Sure, the movie is touching. But in sneaky, smart, unexpected ways.
It all starts with the wonderfully witty and wise script, based on the book by British novelist Nick Hornby. Hornby was the man behind the equally witty (and, come to think of it, equally wise) High Fidelity and I'm beginning to think this is no coincidence. Once again, Hornby is blessed with an ideal leading man (in High Fidelity it was John Cusack; here it's Hugh Grant). In the hands of a lesser actor, the callow Will Freeman would be too obnoxious to take. But Grant plays him like the kind of effortlessly droll quipster you'd want to sit next to at a cocktail party (but would want to avoid like the clap in a serious relationship).
As for Marcus, the eponymous "boy"? Played by newcomer Nicholas Hoult, he is your basic junior high school disaster zone: he has a bowl haircut, mom-approved hippie threads, and the tendency to burst into song at inopportune times (is there ever an opportune time to burst into song when you're 13?). Will, by contrast, is all about being cool—having the right car, the right clothes, just the right attitude of world-weary irony. There are women here, too, of course: the letter-perfect Toni Colette as Marcus's depressed, new age mum; the luminous Rachel Weisz as the lucky woman who just may benefit from the new, improved version of Will. But this is the story of a boy. Two boys, in fact. One who needs a father and the other who, despite all appearances, just may need a son. |
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Across the Universe (PG-13) (2007) reviewed by Max Weiss |
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Across the Universe left me exhausted. I can safely say that I’ve never seen a film that was such a maddening mixture of brilliant and banal, inspired and obvious. The concept was, perhaps, doomed from the start: A musical love story set amid the youth culture of Vietnam War-era America, using Beatles songs as our sonic guide.
I’m sure that director Julie Taymor—the visionary genius behind Broadway’s The Lion King, and the films Titus and Frida—has strong feelings about the 60’s. But her film plays like blended snippets from every 1960s docudrama and psychedelic musical ever assembled. Are our young lovers divided over anti-war radicalism? Check. Is one of our heroes—a lovable androgynous mischief-maker—going to be recruited? Check. Will our cast take acid and sing and dance aboard an elaborately painted bus? Check. Are there characters depicting, loosely, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Timothy Leary? Check, check, and check.
Another problem, of course, is trying to force-feed the Beatles music onto the script. There are characters, not surprisingly, named Jude, Lucy, and Prudence, making “Hey Jude,” “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” and “Dear Prudence” that much easier to adapt. (Although the overly literal-minded interpretation of “Dear Prudence”—the poor girl has locked herself in a room as the characters croon, “Won’t you come out to play?” is almost laughable). But some of the songs, like “Why Don’t We Do it In the Road?” and “The Benefit of Mr. Kite” simply don’t make sense lyrically, forcing Taymor to distract us with her dazzling visuals. (And oh, does she dazzle.)
Because when Across the Universe works, it soars. Take the opening moment: A young man on a beach (male lead Jim Sturgess, who has a beautiful, cracked voice and looks like, yes, a young Paul McCartney) faces the camera and sings “Girl,” it brings a new depth and poignancy to that song. (At its best, the film makes you reappreciate those well-worn Beatles classics). Other highlights: a spine-tingling gospel version of “Let it Be”; a brilliant set piece involving a grotesquely animated Uncle Sam and the song “I Want You”; and a dreamy “I Want to Hold Your Hand” sung by a lesbian cheerleader on a football field. All the acting and singing is quite strong—Bono, Joe Cocker, Eddie Izzard, and even Salma Hayek show up in memorable cameos—and the film’s palette, passion, and imagination can not be denied. But a little part of you will think. . .why? Why not use all this energy, all this talent on something new and fresh? Why not give us perspective on a different era, with other, less celebrated music, and perhaps more insight into our own time? (Enough with the Baby Boomer navel gazing, already!) Across the Universe is certainly worth seeing: But it frustrates as much as it delights. It should’ve taken the Beatles’ own advice: “Don’t Let Me Down.” |
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American Gangster (R) (2007) reviewed by Mike Mayo |
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This fact-based story is almost one of the great gangster epics. Superbly acted and absorbing all the way through, it still falls just a bit short of The Godfather and Goodfellas. Why? It lacks the big finish—Michael sweeping away his enemies, Jimmy Conway’s stepping out of the witness box—to push it up to the very top level. Even so, it’s easily one of the best movies of the year.
It details the rise and fall of Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), protégé of the famous Harlem mob boss Bumpy Johnson (Clarence Williams III) who takes over the heroin business in 1968 when his boss dies. Lucas revolutionizes the business by going straight to the source and importing the stuff directly from Thailand at the height of the Vietnam war, and then under pricing his competitors and bringing in family members from North Carolina to help him run things.
At the same time, Jewish cop Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) is having a tough time rising through the ranks of New Jersey law enforcement. His personal life is a mess and nobody on the force trusts him because he has a reputation for strict honesty. That’s how he winds up on a special drug task force that comes to focus on Lucas.
For almost three hours—three really fast-moving hours—they deal with other mobsters and crooked cops, as Roberts edges closer to Lucas’s organization.
Some reviews have accused the film of glamorizing Lucas. It does, but only to the extent that any Hollywood movie is built around an attractive protagonist. No one can say that the film glamorizes drug use. I found the depictions of people shooting up to be as stomach-churning and frightening as anything I’ve seen in a horror movie.
The real point of the film is Lucas’s all-consuming drive for respectability and commercial success. The key to that part is the brilliant Thanksgiving scene where Lucas first gathers his extended family for dinner. As director Ridley Scott sets it up, the shot is an unsubtle recreation of the famous Norman Rockwell “Freedom from Want” Saturday Evening Post cover.
But most of the film has a much grittier, dirtier ‘70s throwback feel that’s exactly right for a dirty gritty crime story. Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe deliver two Oscar-worthy performances and they’re surrounded by a fine supporting cast. In short, American Gangster delivers the goods. If the rest of the big serious winter releases are as complicated, engrossing and enjoyable, we’re in for a good year. |
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Apartment Zero (R) (1988) reviewed by Mike Mayo |
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This fine Hitchcockian thriller finally makes a belated debut on DVD.
For those who don't know the film, or, like me, haven't seen it in years, it
tells a story of Adrian LeDuc (Colin Firth), a young theater manager, in
Buenos Aires, 1988. He lives in a grand old apartment building and
thoroughly loathes his eccentric neighbors. When economic straits force him
to look for a roommate, he meets Jack Carney (Hart Bochner), a shady
American. At the same time, murders are taking place in the city and they
may be connected to the recently disbanded government death squads.
On his commentary track, writer and producer David Koepp talks about the
genesis of the project and gives most of the credit to director and
co-writer Martin Donovan, noting the autobiographical details Donovan
provided that are so important to the story and the characters.
When I spoke to Koepp in a phone interview about the film, I asked why it
took so long for it to appear on DVD. The reasons go back to the original
financing. Like all independent producers, Koepp and Donovan scrambled to
find backing wherever they could. Koepp had to use writing fees from other
projects to finish paying off Apartment Zero after filming had been
completed. One of their original investors controlled some of the secondary
rights including DVD. He died some years ago, and those rights were tied up
in his complicated estate. When those matters were settled, the producers
were able to restore the original negative and print.
Apartment Zero found its first audiences on the festival circuit in the late
1980s. It was trimmed slightly for theatrical distribution, and then again
for VHS. The DVD restores the theatrical release. Koepp said that none of
the cuts were significant. They were merely a matter of tightening the plot
and keeping the pace sharp.
It remains a fascinating film for all the right reasons. Koepp was quick to
note the influences of Rear Window, Roman Polansky's The Tenant and Repulsion, and several other films. He and Donovan filled the screen with
many other references, both obvious and oblique, to older films and stars.
That's part of the reason Apartment Zero is still so enjoyable.
Adrian's apartment was a set, but the wonderful central staircase of the
apartment building, where much of the important action takes place, is real.
The film was made on location in Argentina where Donovan grew up.
Koepp goes into more detail about the production process on the commentary
track, recorded with director Stephen Soderbergh who asks the right
questions. There's also a second commentary by Martin Donovan.
It really is a testament to the film's quality that Koepp, one of the most
successful and sought-after screenwriters (Spider-man, Jurassic Park, War of
the Worlds, etc.) in the business would take time to return to his first
effort and that he'd go out of his way to promote it.
By the way, at the end of our brief conversation, Mr. Koepp, who has just
finished the script for Indiana Jones 4, refused either to confirm or deny
internet rumors that Jar Jar Binks would appear in that film. |
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The Aristocrats (Not Rated) (2005) reviewed by Max Weiss |
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I keep getting asked the same question about new documentary, The Aristocrats: “Doesn’t it get tiresome to hear the same joke told over and over again?”
Okay, there seems to be some confusion out there. First of all, yes, The Aristocrats revolves around the telling of a joke (called the Aristocrats). In its own way, it’s a very corny and old-fashioned joke with a set beginning and end. It’s in the middle of the joke that the comedy magic (if you will) takes place—here, the comedian is encouraged to allow his or her id to rage, to say things that would make the French surrealists blush, to raise bad taste to an art form. So yes, it’s the same joke told over and over again, but each time the telling is different—it’s like an evil jazz rift, the devil is in the details.
Also, The Aristrocrats is about much more than a joke. It’s also about the telling of the joke. Various comedians, many of them extremely famous—George Carlin, Paul Reiser, Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, Phyllis Diller, et al—deconstruct the joke; it’s like a master class in comedy. How far is too far? When do you pull back? What’s the most offensive thing you can say? What is the proper tone in which to say it? Should there be props? Hand gestures?
The film is also about the subculture of comics—an entrée into their secret world. You see, the Aristocrats is never told in front of a real audience (“No one tells jokes anymore,” one comic dryly points out). Instead, it’s told after hours, when inhibitions are lifted, drinks have flowed, and just a few comedians and the nightclub staff are still milling in the lounge. If you can impress other comedians with your version of the Aristocrats, then you have really arrived.
Which brings us to Gilbert Gottfried. Frankly, I’ve never been a fan of his: I find his nasal, staccato delivery more annoying than funny. But apparently, he is a god to other comics. The centerpiece of the film is his now- legendary telling of the joke at a Friar’s Club roast for Hugh Hefner. And it’s true, something about Gottfried’s manic, bug-eyed delivery is perfectly suited to this particular joke. And his audacity in telling the joke when he did—the Hefner roast came only days after the World Trade Center attacks—added to its sense of trangressive grandeur.
So, yes, The Aristrocrats is extremely profane. Some of the most unlikely people tell the dirtiest versions—Bob Saget (yes, of Full House) is completely uncorked; the deceptively demure looking Sarah Silverman does a profoundly inappropriate (and hilarious) rift on the material. But it’s funny and weirdly liberating all the way through. And no, it never gets tiresome. Not even close. |
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Babel (R) (2006) reviewed by Max Weiss |
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As its title suggests, Babel is a movie about miscommunication. Not just miscommunication between nations or across barriers of culture and language—but also the miscommunication between fathers and daughters, husbands and wives, and even complete strangers. But Babel is also a movie about connectivity—about how even when oceans separate us, we have these things in common, things that bring us closer than we might ever suspect.
As the film starts, we see four seemingly unrelated plotlines: A married couple (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett) are in Morocco trying to salvage their relationship when the wife is shot by a random bullet; a Moroccan sheep farmer is teaching his two young sons how to shoot wolves with his newly-purchased gun; a Mexican nanny, working in California, is trying to figure out how to get to her son’s wedding in Mexico; and a deaf-mute Japanese teenager, still reeling from the death of her mother, is acting out in suspicious and dangerous ways. The action in the film is layered, not linear—so it takes a while to figure out the timeline. What’s more, the connections among the characters are revealed gradually, some not until the very end.
When you have a film in four distinct parts, you run the risk of having one storyline be more compelling than the others, especially when only one story features two major movie stars. (There are actually two other international stars in the film—Gael Garcia Bernal plays the nanny’s devil-may-care nephew and Japanese star Koji Yakusho plays the deaf-mute’s hapless father—but American audiences won’t be quite as familiar with that pair.). But the brilliant young Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu (Amores Perros, 21 Grams) manages to make each segment equally riveting. There is an incredible urgency, an immediacy to each of the stories. The performances are all remarkable—Pitt, who does some of his most restrained and mature work, has already been short-listed for an Oscar nod—but I was especially impressed by the work of newcomer Rinko Kikuchi as the angry teenager and Adriana Barraza as the loving nanny.
Babel may be dealing with lofty issues—and its narrative structure may be a bit complex—but be assured, the film is as is swift and as compelling as any action blockbuster. Iñárritu has established himself as a real master, and he more than accomplishes his goal—when his film is over, you’ll never look at CNN and think that the people “over there” have nothing to do with you ever again.
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Babel - A response by Mike Mayo |
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Not since Lost in Translation have Max and I been so divided on a movie.
I went into this one with high expectations. Iñárritu’s first feature, Amores Perros, is nothing short of brilliant, though after a second viewing, I’ve got to admit that the characters are generally unsympathetic and the plentiful violence against dogs make it difficult to watch. Still, the three interconnected stories are brilliantly told and they arrive at a strong conclusion. His second film, 21 Grams, seems to cover much of the same territory and simply isn’t as interesting.
And now we have Babel, the longest, slowest and weakest of the three.
As Max says, it is made up of three stories. Two of them are solidly connected. The third (and the most interesting) has virtually nothing to do with the others. When at the end, the tenuous link to the other two is finally revealed, it feels forced and strains credulity.
hen there’s the matter of the structure. Again, Iñárritu juggles the various plotlines. But here, there is really no reason for it. The action described in the film is actually linear. The plot follows a simple straightforward chronology. The stories are not taking place at the same time, as the technique suggests. Is that cheating or merely the director’s prerogative? Whatever, I came away from Babel disappointed. |
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Baby Mama (R) (2008) reviewed by Max Weiss |
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Hope and Crosby. Abbott and Costello. Martin and Lewis. What do these comedy teams all have in common? Well, they’re all dudes, for one thing. In fact, I can’t think of a single all-female comedy duo for the ages. Until now.
Okay, so it may be a bit premature to suggest that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are the next Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, but so far, these funny ladies are two-for-two. They were, of course, brilliant together on the set of SNL’s Weekend Update—the two smartest girls in the back of the class, cracking wise, throwing verbal spitballs, and making the boys swoon. And now they’re at it again in Baby Mama, playing an odd couple thrust together under unlikely circumstances...
<Click Here> for the complete review! |
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The Bank Job (R) (2008) reviewed by Mike Mayo |
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Heist pictures follow a formula. It might be reduced to: gang gets loot, gang loses loot, gang gets loot back. O.K., the gang doesn’t always get the loot, but these movies usually end on a positive note of some kind. The Bank Job works some nice fresh twists into the standard-issue plot, and is simply one of the most enjoyable movies of the young year.
Supposedly based on a true story, it’s set in early 1970s London. For their own reasons, a bunch of shady intelligence officials want to get their hands on the contents of a safety deposit box in a bank on Baker St. (around the corner from Sherlock Holmes’ digs). But they can’t just waltz in and confiscate the stuff and so they blackmail fashion model Martine Love (Saffron Burrows, looking very modelish with cheekbones that just won’t quit) into recruiting a bunch of “villains” to rob the bank.
These villains are hardly master criminals and that’s where the movie is at its best. Terry (Jason Statham, from the Transporter series) is essentially a used car salesman who has a criminal past and a history with Martine. He persuades a few of his pals to join in for what promises to be nothing more than a weekend’s work. His gang consists of a photographer, an ex-porn star, a welder and a tailor. If the robbery itself is simple, the supporting characters make the rest of the story insanely complicated. We’ve got black revolutionaries, a porn magnate, a high class madam, more spies, crooked cops, the royal family, and a guy with a ham radio. All of them are played by British character actors whose faces are more familiar than their names. To a man and woman, they’re excellent.
The film earns its “R” rating honestly with lots of discreetly kinky sex and violence, so it’s not recommended for kids, but, for my money, it’s the best of its kind since Spike Lee’s Inside Man.
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Becoming Jane (PG) (2007) reviewed by Max Weiss |
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On the face of it, Becoming Jane has a clever premise: That the real-life Jane Austen (Anne Hathaway) had a real-life Mr. Darcy (James McAvoy), but that she never got her happy ending. Austen died, unmarried, at the age of 41.
But there’s one problem—the movie plays like yet another iteration of Pride and Prejudice. And considering the fact that we’ve had several productions of Pride and Prejudice—the most recent, a lushly romantic version with Keira Knightley—not to mention, an extraordinary number of movies based on other Austen novels (Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Mansfield Park) and even more movies that cover Austen-like ground (the recent Miss Potter, The House of Mirth, Wings of the Dove, pretty much the entire Merchant/Ivory canon), it’s safe to say that a bit of Austen fatigue has set in, at least for me.
What this film should have done is de-emphasize the similarities between Austen and her Elizabeth Bennet and instead focus on the creative birth of a great writer. Obviously, this is no easy task. Movies about writers are notoriously tricky—writers don’t actually do anything. (To wit: The embarrassing advice Sean Connery gives his young protégée in Finding Forrester: “you have to punch the [typewriter] keys!” Yes, good writing—it’s all in the wrist). But Becoming Jane isn’t really about Austen the writer—sure, she’s shown scribbling in her notebooks and she even gives a reading or two. Instead, it’s about her relationship with the dashing Tom Lefroy (McAvoy)—a rapscallion-about-town, whose benefactor uncle disapproves of their union. Both actors are quite good. I became a Hathaway convert after seeing The Devil Wears Prada—she held her own in those showdowns with Meryl Streep—but I preferred Keira Knightley’s slightly sassier interpretation of the character (and make no mistake, it is the same character). The impish McAvoy, who suggests a young Ewan MacGregor, is a star in the making—he absolutely radiates charisma.
But in the end, this just feels like Austen lite. Another day, another British period chick flick to throw on the pile. |
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Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (R) (2007) reviewed by Max Weiss |
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Most filmmakers, if given the storyline of Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, would direct it in a linear fashion. And why not? It’s a doozy of a story: Two middle-aged brothers, both fallen upon hard times (although one, at least, with the outward appearance of success) decide to rob the mom and pop jewelry store they worked for as kids. It’s seemingly fool proof: They know the security codes, they know where the loot is stashed, they even know where the panic button is. As they see it, they get in, get the jewels and cash, get out, the store owners collect the insurance, and no one is the wiser. Oh, and one last thing: The mom and pop who own this jewelry store? Those would be their actual parents.
Great story, huh? We’ll want to see if hectoring big brother Andy (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) is able to convince weak-willed little brother Hank (Ethan Hawke) to pull off the heist and if all goes according to the deceptively simple plan.
But director Sidney Lumet, that crafty veteran of over 40 films (some, like Network and Dog Day Afternoon, true masterpieces) has something much more interesting in mind. It’s only 10 minutes or so into the film that we see the heist—and see that it goes horribly, horribly awry.
From there, time lurches backward and forward. But because we know the outcome of Hank and Andy’s plan, the whole movie has a sickening sense of inevitability. We can’t think to ourselves, “Run away, Hank! It’s a bad plan!” when Andy lays out the details, because we already know he goes through with it—and fails miserably.
As the film continues, we see that Andy is in a largely loveless relationship with his wife Gina (Marisa Tomei) who is having an affair with Hank. We see that Hank has an emasculating ex-wife and a precocious daughter (who has been thoroughly schooled in his shortcomings). We see that Andy has an expensive drug habit—one that drains him financially and emotionally. We meet Andy and Hank’s parents (Albert Finney and Rosemary Harris) both before the heist and after it. We discover that Andy has never felt loved by his father—and, as we witness a rather spectacular meltdown he has in the car, we begin to suspect that Andy’s whole plan had more to do with getting revenge on a father who never loved him and a kid brother who was unfairly doted on, than committing the perfect crime.
And so on.
In other words, Lumet is delving into people in crisis, and families in crisis, and what we do with our backs against the wall, and the anger and hubris that lead us to do very stupid things, indeed.
The acting is brilliant. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is already considered a kind of American treasure—and he plays an angry but proud man teetering on the brink of a breakdown masterfully—but I’ve always thought that Ethan Hawke was underrated. (To me, it was Hawke, not Washington, who deserved the Oscar for Training Day—Washington deserved his for The Hurricane, but this game could go on all day.) He’s great as Hank—a character in an uneasy state of arrested development, still waiting for someone (his big brother? his daddy? his ex-wife?) to tell him how to be a man.
Of course, none of the main characters are even remotely likable. Not even the bear-like Finney as the father who begins to suspect the very worst of his own sons. And that’s the point. Lumet has directed a film that encourages us to positively wallow in the characters’ misery. He’s invented a new genre: Cinema schadenfreude. |
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Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (R) reviewed by Max Weiss |
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It’s hip to like Borat. That’s what I was thinking as I perused the near unanimous huzzahs the film—a mockumentary about a cheerfully bigoted character sent to America from “Kazakhstan” to learn our customs—has received from critics. To not love Borat (or to even suggest that its creator, Sacha Baron Cohen, is not the second coming of Groucho Marx) is to be sour, dour, and oh-so-uncool. I guess that makes me uncool. Look, it’s not that I don’t think the film is funny—it is, stuff-coming-out-of-your-nose funny. And it’s not that I think the film is offensive (it’s only offensive if you don’t get the joke). It’s just that I don’t think the film truly exposes the ugly, intolerant underbelly of America that many critics are giving it credit for.
For those who don’t know the shtick: Much of the footage in the film is candid—real people duped into filming segments for Borat’s (fake) documentary. Yes, there’s something to be said about Borat as a cipher—a sweet-natured naïf who allows others to safely indulge their own bigotry. But a lot of the people in this film are just being polite or clueless, or both. So when Borat goes into the gun shop and asks, “What’s the best rifle for killing Jews?” and the shop owner shows him the case, I don’t think it’s because the shop owner is anti-Semitic or wants Borat to kill Jews. He’s probably just slow on the uptake. Likewise, when a crowd at a rodeo cheers on Borat as he shouts—“ May George Bush drink the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq!"—I think they’re just collectively duped into thinking he’s made a blandly anti-Iraq, pro-Bush comment. Maybe this makes me an apologist for Americans. (And certainly a lot of the “victims” in this film dig their own graves.) But I think it’s easy to make people look foolish with “gotcha!” humor. (Who among us has not had a “Wait, what did he just say?” moment after walking away from a conversation.) Is Borat funny? Heck yeah. Is it offensive? Only if you’re humor-impaired. Is it an devastating piece of social satire? I guess that’s where the cool kids and I will have to disagree. |
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The Bourne Ultimatum (PG-13) (2007) reviewed by Mike Mayo |
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Ultimatum is a satisfying conclusion to the Bourne trilogy. It’s a legitimate ending to a three-part story, not a second sequel slapped together to milk a popular title for a few more dollars.
I’ve got to believe that the series has been so successful because everyone involved—star, cast, writers, directors—was committed to the characters and to this fresh approach to the action film. They made it work.
Things pick up where Supremacy left off. Bourne (Matt Damon) still doesn’t know how he came to be who and what he is, when he learns that a reporter for the Manchester Guardian has some information about his background and the CIA organization that he worked for. But a couple of shifty CIA guys (Scott Glenn and David Strathairn) have read the same articles.
That sets the stage for a series of dynamite set pieces. An extended cat and mouse game involving a sniper in Waterloo Station, London; a long chase and fight in Tangier and, finally, a big finish that contains the best New York car chase since The French Connection. If there was any CGI work in it, I couldn’t tell, and I can usually spot that. I can’t believe that they didn’t destroy a few cameras in the process. These are some of the most intense, visceral, kinetic action scenes you’ll ever see. Credit goes to director Paul Greengrass, editor Christopher Rouse, and the 61 stunt men, stunt women and stunt drivers listed in IMDb.
And some mention should be made of Joan Allen and Julia Stiles. They bring intelligence and attitude to supporting roles that would usually go to more conventionally glamorous starlets. Pay no attention to the slightly snarky comments that Meg and I made about Ms. Stiles on the Message Board. She’s fine.
Admittedly, all of this technical brilliance is used to tell what is at heart, a fairly conventional escapist melodrama, but that is all that these movies have ever tried to be.
Sometime early next year, this one’s going to be released on DVD. I hope it turns out to be cold and stormy then because I plan to get out all three movies and settle in for The Bourne Weekend. Can’t wait. |
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Breaking and Entering (R) (2006) reviewed by Max Weiss |
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Beauty, I suppose, has its downside. When a woman is beautiful, she has to fight the assumption that she is dumb. And when a man is beautiful—in this case, I’m referring to Jude Law—he has struggle with the perception that he is a narcissist. I actually like Law as an actor, but he needs the right role. He was perfect in Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley—he actually played a narcissistic golden boy. And in the breezy rom-com The Holiday, his undeniable dreaminess was put to excellent use (the audience laughs at Cameron Diaz’s good fortune when he shows up at her door). But in Breaking and Entering, also directed (and written) by Minghella, we can’t shake the feeling that Law’s character is a naval-gazing twit. He plays Will, a London architect who lives with his half-Swedish girlfriend Liv (Robin Wright Penn) and her autistic 13-year-old daughter. Liv is extremely wrapped up in her daughter’s illness and Will is extremely uncertain he wants all this man-sized responsibility. Meanwhile, his firm has been broken into—twice—so he stakes out the office at night with a wise-cracking Russian prostitute (I wish I were making this up), played with great mirth by Vera Farmiga. Will discovers that the cat burglar is actually a teenage boy, a Bosnian refugee who is living with his mother, Amira (Juliette Binoche), a concert pianist, now forced to work as a seamstress in London. He commences an ill-advised relationship with Amira—he thinks he’s doing police work, but ends up hopping into her bed.
Breaking and Entering is ostensibly about the combustible melting pot that is West London, but it’s also about a shallow man getting exactly what he wants (sex with the earthy Amira) and learning valuable life lessons in the process. In the end, I wanted to see the Swede, the prostitute, and the seamstress form their own Ya Ya Sisterhood and kick Will’s beautiful little butt.
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Brick (R) (2006) reviewed by Max Weiss |
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Rian Johnson, the writer/director of the teen noir Brick, might’ve done himself a service by watching re-runs of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yes, I said Buffy the Vampire Slayer. What made Joss Whedon’s iconic TV series so brilliant was the way it managed to be both a trenchant look at high school and a darn good horror series. The horror wasn’t sacrificed for the high school plotlines, nor vice versa—indeed, the two genres were masterfully, inexorably linked. Which brings us to Brick. Yes, there’s lots to recommend about this sure-handed debut—a hyper-stylized, noir detective story set in a Southern California high school. Johnson perfectly captures the swaggering Dashiell Hammett patter and he’s constructed a fairly nifty (if convoluted) mystery to go with it. But it doesn’t pass the Joss Whedon test. In press notes, Johnson more or less admitted that the only reason he set the film in a high school was so that we’d view film noir with a fresh set of eyes. He’s not making an allegory here; just a hipster update on a favorite genre.
With that said, it’s a pretty neat trick. Brick focuses on a teen gumshoe, Brendan (the excellent Joseph Gordon Levitt) who is solving the disappearance of his ex girlfriend. Along the way, he gets involved with a mysterious drug kingpin named Pin (Lukas Haas—yes, the kid from Witness); his muscle, Tug (Noah Fleiss); a crew of burnouts; and at least two would-be femme fatales. In keeping with the rules of the genre, Brendan has a useful pal—in this case a hyper-observant loner named The Brain (Matt O’Leary)—and an authority figure he has to finesse (in a hipster casting alert, Shaft’s Richard Roundtree plays the high school vice principal). Brendan also has a surfeit of Sam Spade cool—he’s always a step ahead of the baddies and he’s willing to take a punch (or 12) to solve the crime. There are some good jokes along the way: The kingpin seems to work out of his parent’s basement, where upstairs, mom is cheerfully baking cookies (at one point, Tug lifts a kitschy rooster pitcher to use as a weapon); and—in the film’s one concession to the reality of high school life—Brendan gruffly tells one informant, “She knows where I eat lunch.” But Brendan is never shown in class, never shown to have parents; never shown fretting over the prom—high school is merely a novelty setting here. Which is a shame. Brick could have been great. Instead, it’s an extremely well-executed gimmick. |
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Brokeback Mountain (R) reviewed by Max Weiss |
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It starts, simply enough, with two young cowboys in 1960s Wyoming. They’ve been hired to do a crud job: watch over a herd of sheep in the mountains. One of the cowboys, Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a bit rowdy and playful, he’s got a quick smile and flashing eyes; in the off-season, he rides rodeo bulls in Texas. The other one, named Ennis (Health Ledger) is taciturn and stoic; a true Marlboro man. Eventually, though, they become friends—sharing beans out of a can, swapping life stories, fighting off the boredom (not to mention the occasional coyote or bear.)
The director, Ang Lee—who, while born in Taiwan, is ironically one of the most vivid and insightful observers of American life—presents this dusty cowboy life with almost obsessive detail. (It helps that the screenplay, based on the Annie Proulx short story, was co-written by Mr. Lonesome Dove himself, Larry McMurtry.) You sense it all—the rugged beauty of the land, the stillness of the air, the rawness of the cold. It’s important that the film establishes the bond between the two young men painstakingly—because what forms between them will shape and haunt the entire film. When Jack and Ennis fall in love, it seems inexorable. But once this idyll passes, can their love survive?
That’s the heartbreaking premise of Brokeback Mountain. Sensible, wounded Ennis knows that their love would condemn them to a life in the shadows. Impetuous Jack thinks they should be together. Both men eventually move on, get married, have children. But their time together on Brokeback Mountain—a time of youth and simplicity and unfettered love—will be the defining event of their lives.
I can’t praise the work by the two leads enough. Both Ledger and Gyllenhaal are credible cowboys (they just look right on horses—apparently Ledger was actually raised on a ranch) and they don’t hold back on showing the passion and tenderness between the two men. Ledger has the harder part—his Ennis is repressed and self-denying, holding his true feelings deep within. But Gyllenhaal is also superb—early on, you sense that Jack’s intensity and ardor will ruin him. (The supporting cast is equally fine—especially Michelle Williams as Ennis’s too-smart-for-her-own-good wife and Randy Quaid as the nasty rancher who hires them.)
The Hollywood soundbite meisters have already dubbed this film “the gay cowboy movie” (another wag amusingly referred to it as “The Gay Gone With the Wind.”) Literally, I suppose that’s true. But such descriptions are truly reductive. Gay, straight, or otherwise, this is truly one of the best love stories ever filmed. When I hear just a snippet of the fabulous and evocative score (by Argentine composer Gustavo Santaollala), I start to well up, revisiting the profound effect the film had on me. It’s a masterpiece. |
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Broken Flowers (R) (2005) - reviewed by Max Weiss |
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It’s a match made in art house heaven: Droll, deadpan director Jim Jarmusch paired with droll, deadpan actor Bill Murray. Yeah, Jarmusch has been doing his minimalist irony shtick a bit longer than Murray, who only recently evolved from winking hipster to wry leading man. But right now, these two guys clearly belong together (and they proved it, however fleetingly, in Jarmusch’s Cigarettes and Coffee). Let’s hope it’s the beginning of a long, fruitful partnership.
In Broken Flowers, Murray plays aging lothario Don Johnston (with a “t” as he wearily points out). A confirmed bachelor, he made his fortune in some vague computer business, and is now content to live in his perfectly manicured Connecticut home, watching his hi-def TV, and getting the occasional doses of humanity from his cheerful buttinsky of a neighbor, Winston (Jeffrey Wright). Don’s existence is about as flat as his TV, but it takes two possibly coincidental events to rise him from his torpor: First, his gorgeous girlfriend (Julie Delpy) leaves him—not just citing his lack of commitment but, it would seem, his total lack of human engagement. Then, he receives a letter from an ex lover telling him that he has a 19-year-old son who may or may not be on a journey looking for him. The letter is not signed.
Don claims that he couldn’t care less about the letter, but Winston, a father of five (who also fancies himself an amateur sleuth) will have none of that—he researches the addresses of five of Don’s ex-lovers from that period (alas, one is currently residing in a cemetery), prepares an itinerary, and sends Don packing to find the mother of his son. Of course, Don is perfectly capable of rejecting Winston’s elaborate plan—but he convinces himself that the journey is somehow out of his control.
What follows is a roadtrip movie—and a nifty chance to see Murray and four great actresses chew on some really great writing. First, we meet a slightly road-weary but game-for-anything Sharon Stone and her Lolita of a daughter (named, aptly enough, Lolita). Then it’s onto real estate agent Frances Conroy, a former flower child, who gives Don furtive looks as she displays her joylessly sterile life with her cheese-whiz of a husband. Next we meet suspicious pet communicator Jessica Lange and her officious and protective office manager (Chloë Sevigny). Finally, an almost unrecognizable Tilda Swinton (sporting an unruly mane of dark brown hair) plays a ticked-off biker chick who wants nothing to do with Don or his visit.
Through it all, we sense a man who has sleepwalked through his own life but has more depth of feeling—more desire to love and be loved—than he cares to admit. By the end of the film, it’s quite clear just how much Don needs this son—and how much we want Don to find him. |
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The Bucket List (PG-13) (2007) reviewed by Max Weiss
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On Second Thought, Pass Me the Bucket.
Have you ever been out shopping with a pal and you tried on a sweater that looked like everything else in your wardrobe and your friend helpfully said, “Don’t you own that already?”
Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson need to get better friends.
It’s not just that the two actors are playing characters we’ve seen them play countless times before—Nicholson, an ornery and irascible billionaire; Freeman, a wise and sagacious good egg—they’re playing ersatz versions of these characters. This is a made for TV version of a Morgan Freeman/Jack Nicholson buddy film, except it actually stars Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. (And it’s directed by Rob Reiner. Oh, whither Meathead?)
One critic suggested the film might be better if the two actors had switched parts, and I sort of agree. At the very least, it would have been more watchable. But in the end, nothing can save this cloying, shallow, disingenuous film from itself.
Here’s the premise: Two old men meet in a hospital room. Edward Cole (Nicholson) actually owns the hospital (among others)—he only shares a room because his personal assistant/whipping boy (Sean Hayes) convinces him it’s a good PR move. His roomie Carter Chambers (Freeman) is a mechanic and trivia whiz who sacrificed a college degree to support his family. (How do we know Carter’s smart? Because he shouts out the answers to Jeopardy questions. Can we put a moratorium on this character device please?). Both men are dying of cancer but are conveniently “asymptomatic.”
While Carter—who provides the film’s patient, doting voiceover narration (I know, it pains me to write this as much it pains you to read it)—has a loving family, lonely Edward has four ex wives and an estranged daughter. (Gee, wonder if Carter is going to facilitate some sort of father/daughter reunion? Oh, I don’t want to spoil the surprise). While at first the men dislike each other (so different from other buddy films I’ve seen!), they eventually become allies and friends.
It is then that the concept of The Bucket List—a list of things both men want to do before they “kick the bucket”—is introduced and the two fogies embark on one last intercontinental adventure.
Just take a guess as to what they might do.
If you guessed skydiving, you’d be right!
If you guessed race car driving, give yourself two more points!
View the pyramids? Check and double check!
Dine at the finest restaurant in Paris? Oui, oui, oui.
And so on.
The list also has some vague, treacly entries like, “See something truly majestic” and “Kiss the most beautiful girl in the world”—designed to wrench maximum tears from the audience.
What else can I say? The film is one big fake, by-the-numbers buddy film crossed with some comforting Hallmark bits of faux-wisdom on death.
You want to see a film that tackles death and love with sincerity and guts? Rent Sarah Polley’s Away From Her. But whatever you do, stay away from this stinker. Let Freeman and Nicholson know that even they can wear out their welcome. |
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Capote (R) (2005) reviewed by Max Weiss |
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Because his personality was so outrageously contrived—his mannerisms so extreme, his dress so dandified, his voice so mincing—it could be argued that playing Truman Capote is both an actor’s greatest gift and his worst nightmare. After all, anyone can do an impression (indeed, most people do). But to get to the soul of the man you have to get beyond the superficial, and see it all: Capote’s preternaturally alert mind; his all-consuming ambition and ego; and, yes, his deep reservoir of pain. In Bennett Miller’s haunting and intimate new biopic, Capote, Philip Seymour Hoffman gives such a performance—and if he doesn’t win the Oscar for it, well hell, there’s simply no justice in Hollywood.
Hoffman depicts Truman Capote at the most significant artistic and personal juncture of his life—when this East Coast raconteur, born in Louisiana, went beyond Breakfast at Tiffany’s and the Manhattan smart set and wrote about the brutal slaughtering of a Kansas family. In Cold Blood would go on to be the most acclaimed book of Capote’s career; it created its own genre—the non-fiction novel. But the writing of the book—and the devil’s bargains that Capote had to make to complete it—took a lot out of the author. He never wrote another major work again.
From the moment Capote meets the sensitive, troubled murderer Perry Smith (Clifton Collins, Jr. in his own star-making performance), he sees painful echoes of himself—a fellow misfit, neglected by his parents, and similarly misunderstood. “It’s like Perry and I grew up in the same house,” he muses at one point, talking to his friend, the novelist Harper Lee (ever-reliable Catherine Keener). “And I stood up and went out the front door and he went out the back.” His ability to empathize with Perry also gave Capote a unique opportunity to manipulate him. In many ways, Capote is about the irony that this famous bon vivant was, in fact, bogged down by his own demons. But it’s also about the kind of amoral selfishness of the artist. Did Capote actually care about the people he so masterfully finessed into sharing their most intimate and damning stories? (At one point, because it suits his deadline needs, he manages to get Perry and his accomplice a stay of execution.) And, more importantly, when one achieves a work as revolutionary as In Cold Blood, do the ends ultimately justify the means?
For an interview with the film’s director, click here. |
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Catwoman (PG-13) (2004) - reviewed by Max Weiss |
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Far from purrfect, Catwoman could have been an outrageously campy, sexy romp—channeling the spirit of Bond sirens and the fabulous Eartha Kitt. Instead, it’s a misbegotten meow mix of chick flick, dark drama, mystical mumbo-jumbo, and—inevitably, it seems these days—high-wire action film. The fault doesn’t exclusively lie with Halle Berry, who looks fabulous in leather and captures Catwoman’s feline solipsism well enough. (Of course, some of the fault must lie with her—why does this Oscar-winner continue to associate herself with such drek?)
Instead, I’d lay blame on a pitifully bad script (our first glimpse of Catwoman’s super powers comes not in a death-defying escape, but in a tragically unsexy girl-against-boy basketball game) and horrible casting choices. Benjamin Bratt, for example, is supposed to be a good-hearted cop in love with Catwoman’s mild-mannered daytime persona. But Bratt is such a lean, angular figure—he appears to be chiseled out of some kind of indestructible, gleaming stone—that he hardly seems vulnerable, or even particularly human, next to this half-cat, half-woman figure.
Then there’s Sharon Stone, who plays that old misogynistic standby: the aging model who will do anything (anything, I say!) to stay young. Once a sexy, playful figure (in her prime, she could’ve been a mean Catwoman), Stone now comes across as brittle and caustic. Still, she fares better than Lambert Wilson—who, as Stone’s callous cad of a husband, gives what amounts to a master class in putrid film acting. Catwoman is essentially a schizophrenic, joyless mess. Then again, what are we to expect from a film directed by a guy named Pitof? |
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Charlie and the Choclate Factory (PG) (2005)- reviewed by Max Weiss |
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I’ll never forget the first time I saw Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I had never seen such a strange and captivating character—at once slightly mad and even a little sadistic; yet all-knowing, abundantly imaginative, and possessing a kind of deep-seated virtue. When, in the end of that 1971 musical, Wonka turns over the keys to his candy-coated kingdom to young Charlie Bucket, we feel the magical embrace a fantasy father figure.
But what are we to make of Johnny Depp’s relentlessly creepy and off-putting Wonka in Tim Burton’s retelling of Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s novel? Yes, this new film is more faithful to the book, even using the book’s real title, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But could Dahl have possibly had this demented cross between Vogue editor Anna Wintour, Michael Jackson, and Dana Carvey’s The Church Lady in mind? I had a nagging fear that Depp’s success in Pirates of the Caribbean might have a negative effect. In that film, he was campy, over-the-top—his performance bordered on caricature—but somehow it all came together brilliantly. Here, we sense Depp being egged on by his favorite collaborator/co-conspirator Burton: “No, weirder! No, weirder still!” It’s too bad, because it throws the whole film out of whack.
Visually, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is stunning, with Burton displaying more visually moxie and surrealist humor than he has in a decade. I loved the beautiful rendering of Charlie’s decrepit but love-filled home (the hunched shack almost seems to envelop the family in an embrace), and the various homes and lifestyles of the four brats who are to accompany Charlie on his tour of the chocolate factory. (I was especially amused by Violet Beauregarde’s mother—sporting a velour warm-up suit and a crisp blonde page-boy cut that perfectly matches her daughter’s, and with her Botoxed frozen grin—she is truly a stage mother from hell.) And bright-eyed Freddie Highmore (last seen alongside Depp in Finding Neverland) handles the role of Charlie quite ably.
Once inside the candy factory, however, Burton makes some other questionable choices. Staging the Oompa Loompa cautionary songs as elaborate, Busby Berkley style musical numbers was amusing (even if I miss the proletariat chants of the original), but the joke of having every Oompa Loompa played by the same actor (Deep Roy) got a little tiresome. And the ending, while again more faithful to the book, doesn’t have nearly the same payoff. How could it? When Wilder’s Wonka recognizes a kindred spirit in Charlie, we feel that he has been touched by greatness. When Depp’s Wonka does the same, we want to grab the young lad and scream, “Run for your life!” |
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Chicago (PG-13) (2002)- reviewed by Max Weiss |
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If you’ve ever seen great live musical theater, you know the dancing-in-the-street giddiness it can inspire. But, with a few exceptions (Singin’ in the Rain and West Side Story spring to mind), musicals on film have rarely been able to capture that spirit of exhilaration. They seem flat, bloodless. Not so with Chicago. Director Rob Marshall has taken Bob Fosse’s brilliant choreography and the timeless story of showgirl Roxie Hart’s media infamy and turned into a rip-roaringly sexy, sizzling delight.
His cast is great: Who knew that Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Richard Gere could sing and dance? (And who knew that Queen Latifah could act?) But, more importantly, Marshall seems to really understand how to make a musical work filmically—the song and dance numbers never seem staged, they pop off the screen with fullness and vitality. Darned if you won’t be tapping your toes and attempting a high kick as you leave the theater. |
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The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (PG) (2008) reviewed by Max Weiss |
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Sadly for me, all the things I liked best about the original Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe—Tilda Swinton’s icily mesmerizing White Witch; James McAvoy’s puckish Mr. Tumnus; the refreshingly realistic sibling rivalry among the Pevensie children; the talking beavers; those crazy-delicious cupcakes (just checking to see if you were paying attention)—are mostly gone in the sequel. Instead, we get more CGI! More battles! More epic grandeur! In this case, more is less—at least for me. I missed the charm and intimacy of the first work. Some, I suppose, will prefer this version, which plays a bit like Lord of the Rings for tweens....
<Click Here> for the complete review! |
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Cinderella Man (PG-13) (2005)- reviewed by Max Weiss |
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Ron Howard (Cocoon, A Beautiful Mind, et al) never met a heartstring he didn’t want to yank. An undeniably skilled director, he nonetheless seems fundamentally incapable of letting his stories and actors simply be. (Why take a chance on genuine emotion when force-fed emotion is so much more reliable?) Lucky for him, Howard has recently paired with Russell Crowe, an actor of such substance, gravitas, and depth, he manages to single-handedly transcend Howard’s hammier tendencies. And boy oh boy, does Howard need every inch of Crowe’s presence to save Cinderella Man from drowning in a sea of slop.
This true story is tailor-made for maximum emotion wringing: Crowe plays Jim Braddock, a Depression-era boxer who had a shot at the title, lost it, found himself desperately trying to support his impoverished family, got an unlikely second chance at boxing glory, and became a national symbol of hope. In short, he’s Sea Biscuit with boxing gloves. We’ve got all of Howard’s trademarks here: Adorable, smudge-faced children, a preternaturally adoring wife (played by Renee Zellweger), a wise-cracking and loyal best pal (the great Paul Giamatti, who deserves better than this kind of supporting work but is just so darn good at it), and a grand finale with a swelling score and gratuitous reaction shots from all parties involved. But we also have Crowe | | | |
