I watch movies every week and then write down my thoughts. Read my previous reviews!
My rating is simple, Watch It, It Depends, Skip it.
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| Money Monster - Entertaining movie, hampered by an uninspired ending. |
Buy Money Monster
Written by: Jamie Linden and Alan DiFiore & Jim Kouf (screenplay), Alan DiFiore & Jim Kouf (story)
Directed by: Jodie Foster
Starring: George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jack O'Connell, Dominic West, Giancarlo Esposito
Rated: R
Plot:
Financial TV host Lee Gates is taken hostage when a viewer wants revenge due to bad advice.
Verdict:
This starts off engrossing and clever. Why aren't television personalities held accountable for their words, and is their advice really unbiased? It's got a great start, but the ending trades a nuanced bad guy in for a definitive bad guy. Any pretense of nuance or commentary is completely abandoned, and this undercut the message of the movie. It's a good movie, but it could have been great.
Watch it.
Review:
Clooney plays zany and bombastic television personality and financial advisor Lee Gates. Gates's show features him dressing up in costume with boxing gloves and white guy dancing to rap music. He's using this spectacle to dominate the opening of his show to diminish his previous stock tip failure. He's a talking head, and people follow his advice. When he gives bad advice he just shrugs his shoulders and attempts to misdirect. He affects lives and doesn't realize or care.
Lee Gates told his viewers Ibis stock was safer than a savings account. Of course he contests this when presented with the quote, but he said it and people took his advice as truth. Kyle (Jack O'Connell) wants to hold him accountable. It's a hint of to Falling Down (1993) where someone does what we all secretly want to do.
I hoped the movie could maintain the clever set up, but it can't. The antagonist gets a subtle introduction, and I wondered if the movie would use Kyle to humanize Lee Gates, the unlikable empty suit. The movie does that to a degree, but it never seems to be the point, and it could have been handled better.
The movie had the chance to present Gates with a dual personality. Bombastic on air, but a coward when the cameras aren't pointed his way. He seems devoted to continuing the charade that is his life, but the movie fails to delve into this too. Gates bluntly tells us he's a terrible person, but Clooney still seems to be playing too much of a hero, a little too much Clooney.
Despite my criticisms this is an engrossing movie. Jody Foster does a great job of balancing tension with big moments.
Julia Roberts plays Gates's producer and they work both sides as they try to placate Kyle. Roberts is able to communicate to Gates through an ear piece while she is in the production booth. Of course the cameras keep rolling throughout the situation.
The public is watching Gates's show as he's a hostage and I wasn't sure if they thought it was part of the show or real. No one seemed that concerned, some even laughing at the misfortune. The movie keys in on a few spectators, who are reintroduced much later.
Gates has a great sequence when he pleads to viewers for his life. I don't know if stock prices could be affected that quickly, but it's a great sequence, well directed.
An oft repeated phrase between Roberts and Clooney is "Sacagawea." It seems to mean shut up or stay on topic, but it's odd that the movie never really explains this. Only towards the end do we get definitive context clues. It was a missed opportunity to build the relationship between the two.
When Kyle's girlfriend appears, that's when the movie begins to lose its uniqueness. It starts to spiral as we get a greedy bad guy, an affair, and a ridiculous cop plan to shoot the hostage. We even have a cop crawling around in an air duct. First, air ducts aren't that large. Second, they were never designed to support two hundred extra pounds, the mounting points would snap. Third, the hostage taker would hear the cop bumping around.
This movie will stretch you suspension of disbelief as Gates and his attacker begin working together, but this didn't bother me. It's the fact that they are teaming up to take down the big bad. This movie didn't need that and it's as subtle as a flashing neon sign. Gates should be the bad guy in this, and he instead becomes a hero.
When the entertainment ends, everyone simply goes back to life. I liked the internet meme reference at the end. Despite the crimes committed, and the loss of life, culture just wants a funny picture. They just don't care, and that's the point this movie began to make before it abandoned it.
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| The Ladykillers - Good, but not Coen good. |
The Ladykillers (2004)
Buy The Ladykillers
Written by: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (screenplay), William Rose (movie "The Ladykillers")
Directed by: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Starring: Tom Hanks, Marlon Wayans, J.K. Simmons, Ryan Hurst, Bruce Campbell
Rated: R
Plot:
Tom Hanks plays a Southern professor leading a band of would-be robbers on a heist.
Verdict:
This isn't a bad movie, but the Coen brothers have made such great films that compared to their body of work this is lackluster. It's obvious Tom Hanks has fun chewing the scenery, but it's not as clever as it should be. If you go in with low expectations, you will enjoy it. Just don't compare it to the Coen brothers other movies.
It depends.
Review:
I could never pin down the setting for this movie. It looks like a seventies movie with Tom Hanks dressed up as a poor man's Colonel Sanders complete with cape, but then the cars are from the eighties and even mid nineties. Marlon Wayans style is straight from the early nineties. Hurst's football uniform looks like it's from the fifties. These are odd anachronisms when the Coen brothers usually nail every small detail.
Just as the time period is hit or miss, the beginning is all over the place as we're introduced to the crew before we know their roles. Hanks is the leader, and you can tell he had fun using his best deep South voice. He is fun to watch in an atypical role, and while all of the cast plays side character promoted to a main roles, they don't mesh. Wayans stands out the most as he seems to be a few decades ahead of everyone else. This just seems a little too slapstick for the Coen brothers. It's never as smart as their other films.
The tale of bank robbers is tired, but this is well done. I like the cast of characters, save for Marlon Wayans, but they lack chemistry despite posing as a classical band while they dig a tunnel in a little old ladies basement.
The heist crew has a clever plan, but Oceans 11 (2001) has become the prototypical heist movie. This just doesn't compare. This went for over the top characters instead of a sense of cool. We even get the required discord among the crew. This could work if the crew had chemistry.
This even has a strong hint of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) with the characters throwing objects off a bridge onto a trash barge. I had to wonder how many trash barges pass under the bridge. It works out extremely conveniently when they throw multiple things off the bridge in a single night. While the ending is completely over the top, the entire movie has been that way.
I like Ms. Munson's ending, and the movie set that up early on and delivered the payoff. It's not a bad movie, and it's certainly entertaining, but it's hard not to think about No Country for Old Men (2007) (read my review), Fargo (1996) (read my review), and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) (read my review) and see how far removed The Ladykillers is removed from the Coen brothers' other work.
Read my Blue Ruin review
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| Brooklyn - Great writing and story. Do you look to the past or future? |
Buy Brooklyn
Written by: Nick Hornby (screenplay), Colm Tóibín (novel)
Directed by: John Crowley
Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen, Domhnall Gleeson
Rated: PG-13
Plot:
An Irish immigrant girl has to decide whether home is Brooklyn or Ireland.
Verdict:
Brooklyn has very good writing with more than a few scenes that will cause you to laugh with the characters. It's more than just a romance, though it does include those elements. What do you do when your dreams come true but you've already moved on?
Watch it.
Review:
This is a period piece with Eilis (Saoirise Ronan) sailing to America for a better life. She's completely ignorant in a new country, she doesn't fit in, and she's separated from everything she's ever known. The first half of the movie is her triumph in overcoming these obstacles and finding a boyfriend, Tony.
The scenes of her and her roommates eating dinner with the landlady capture something real. You can't help but laugh with them. It capture so many emotions from silly to jealousy very well.
When Eilis returns to Ireland she stumbles into a job and meets a guy. This confirms Tony's fears that if she returns home, she won't come back. She wants to return home but friends, family, and circumstance trap her. She now has everything she wanted in Ireland, things she believed she wouldn't have gotten if she had stayed.
The writing is strengthened by its restraint. Many movies would make the conflict the choice between two men she cares about, but the choice here is what's home. It's completely emotional. Eilis is back home with everything she ever wanted, but she is leaving behind the life she created in Brooklyn. She is leaving behind a man she committed to and who is devoted to her.
Many movies would make her divided emotions more overt and have her fully cheat on her boyfriend. She doesn't need to do that because it's not the point. Home is where the heart is, but Eilis is split. While she was happy in Brooklyn, she's fulfilled a dream upon which she had given up.
This is a less sappy and smarter version of The Notebook (2004). Instead of love and practicality conflicting, with the main character having to decide between two men, Eilis's predicament is internal. Where does she want to live?
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| Magnum Force - Classic action movie, classic Clint. |
Buy Magnum Force
Written by: Harry Julian Fink and Rita M. Fink (original material), John Milius and Michael Cimino (screenplay), John Milius (story)
Directed by: Ted Post
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Hal Holbrook, Mitchell Ryan
Rated: R
Plot:
Dirty Harry tracks down vigilante cops.
Verdict:
Action movies have improved since '73. The first half of this is tame, before the action picks up in the last half. Prime Clint Eastwood is fun to watch, but it's hard not to wish he was in a modern action movie with shootouts that don't feel so staged. The underlying question of how far is too far is interesting, bolstered by a straight forward story.
It depends.
Review:
It's difficult not to like Eastwood and the Dirty Harry franchise. Harry is the wisecracking, no-nonsense, expert marksman cop who gets results. Of course his boss thinks he's a loose cannon and wants him restrained. This concept may have been more original in '74, but watching it now it's just a trope.
This is prime Eastwood as the hard nosed cop spouting one liners. "Man's got to know his limitations." is his refrain in this movie. Harry's unorthodox methods contrast with the vigilantes in this, cops or people posing as cops killing criminals. It's a step past Harry, but Harry can't accept breaking the law even if one could justify it. Harry is contrasted against his lieutenant who claims never to have even drawn his gun in the line of duty.
While there's a lot of gun play, the first half of this movie is mostly set up. The editing is particularly atrocious because the movie cuts away from the action often. I don't know if it's a budget limitation or just trying to avoid some gore. For a movie that wants you to focus on the action, the action is lackluster. The movie doesn't even have a score, just to drive home the hard nosed action theme. A man doesn't have time for music.
The last quarter of the movie picks up the pace. While a modern movie would have less setup, this isn't bad. It just makes the movie feel slow if you're used to newer films. The action is subdued and the shootouts look staged and fake.
The quick cutaways strip many sequences during the ending of any impact. I wished for full sequences of motorcycle jumps. Instead we see the start of a take off and then the bike landing. You almost don't know what happens. It gives you just enough to piece it together. This doesn't need all the flash of modern movies, but just a bit would help.
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| The Limey - A throwback revenge film. |
Buy The Limey
Written by: Lem Dobbs
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Terence Stamp, Peter Fonda, Lesley Ann Warren, Luis Guzman, Nicky Katt
Rated: R
Plot:
An Englishman goes to Los Angeles to avenge his daughter.
Verdict:
This is a mixed bag. It's yet another entry into the revenge genre, but Terrence Stamp and a quirky cast of characters help distinguish it. The editing is inventive but skews to confusing. It feels like a throwback, a movie from the seventies remade in a modern time.
It depends.
Review:
Terrence Stamp is excellent in this, playing a character somewhere between the elderly vigilante Michael Caine in Harry Brown (2009) and the unstoppable Liam Neeson in Taken (2008). Stamp elevates this movie.
This skips the runway and jumps right into the action with Wilson (Stamp) hunting down the man responsible for his daughter's death. In one of his first scenes we don't know his capabilities, but we soon find out. It's a nice twist as it seems Wilson's journey might be over at the first stop.
The editing is inventive, looping voice over and flash backs together. It feels like a stream of consciousness. We see Wilson's thoughts as they flit through his mind. It can be disorienting at first as it's atypical.
Footage from Stamp's earlier movie Poor Cow (1967) serves as flashback fodder as he remembers his daughter. It's a neat trick that I'm surprised we don't see occur more often in film. At first I thought it might be makeup, but makeup can't be that good.
We get cockney rhyming slang that reminded me of Ocean's Eleven (2001), another Soderbergh directed film. Of course the slang has to be explained. Wilson refers to someone as china. China refers to china plate which rhymes with mate. This reminded me of Don Cheatle's line in Ocean's Eleven when he refers to a bit of rubble and explains that rubble refers to the Flintstone's Barney Rubble which rhymes with trouble. Could anyone figure out the slang without the explanation? I doubt it, but it's also fun. I still quote the Barney Rubble line.
Stamp is chasing Fonda, a drug smuggler involved with his daughter. Of course this movie ends in a big shoot out. This has an indie feel that makes it unique enough to be enjoyable.
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| High-Rise -Tom slings paint, because society demands it. |
Buy High-Rise
Written by: J.G. Ballard (novel), Amy Jump
Directed by: Ben Wheatley
Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans, Elisabeth Moss, James Purefoy
Rated: R
Plot:
Things get out of control for residents in a condo.
Verdict:
This is trying to be a commentary on society, but it doesn't really succeed. Well, it succeeds as a commentary, not as entertainment. It's difficult to portray pretentiousness with out becoming pretentious. The movie avoids that, but it also avoids being particularly interesting.
Skip it.
Review:
This starts with the dreaded 'how did we get here' trope, with Robert (Tom Hiddleston) living in a husk of a building and eating a dog to survive. Three months earlier, life was completely normal.
If a movie ever needed the trope, it would be this one.
The movie has a bit of an American Psycho (2000) vibe with the focus on vanity. This is a very obvious satire about the socioeconomic divide in society. Despite that I was hoping for more. Was I not sharp enough to really get it or was I just too bored?
Robert literally and figuratively straddles the line between rich and poor, even getting to visit the penthouse and attending their party. He even succumbs to their mind games, and seeks to avenge a slight.
This is a building with all the amenities. The residents don't need to leave. They become dependent, and when the infrastructure fails, violence ensues.
We've been told they're dependent on the building, but I still wonder why they don't just leave. If they left it would break the metaphor.
Robert does nothing to change the course of events, but it's easier to watch it happen than try to change it. Wilder realizes what's going on but his attempts to overthrow the regime meet resistance.
Snowpiercer (2013) also did the class divide thing, though that was less about exploring the metaphor and more about being an action movie. There's a good movie hidden in the two hours, and this may very well be a movie that needs a second watch to process it. It's never going to be an entertaining movie, but it might be a movie that generates interesting questions.
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