Cate Marquis

I SAW THE LIGHT Review

Tom Hiddleston gives a remarkable performance, with some fine singing, as country music legend Hank Williams but it is not enough to rescue I SAW THE LIGHT, which reduces the singer/songwriter’s skyrocket career and brief life into a grim slog, plodding towards his death at age 29.

Any doubts that Hiddleston, a classically trained British actor who perhaps is best known to American audiences as Loki in the Thor and Avengers movies, could play the country music legend are immediately dispelled at the start of the film. The problem is writer/director Marc Abraham’s script, coupled with uninspired direction.

Hank Williams was a pivotal figure in country music, who changed the genre and also laid the foundation for rock and roll. Like Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, Hank Williams burst onto musical charts like a skyrocket, blazed brilliantly, then suddenly vanishing, but left a lasting legacy that changed the nature of country music. In the late 1940s, Williams shot to stardom in his early 20s on the strength of his haunting singing, charismatic stage presence and his songwriting, a memorable mix of clever, playful tunes and searing ballads. His songwriting added blues and popular music influences to country music, a break from the traditional folk music that had been the staple of country music before WWII. In the six-year span of his career, Williams had over 30 Top Ten hit songs, with several going to number one. Like other legendary musical shooting stars, Hank Williams lived a fast and hard short life, one marked by alcoholism, marital troubles and significant health problems, before dying in the back of a car on the way to perform a concert New Year’s Day 1953.

This dramatic story should have written itself. But instead of focusing on Williams’ songwriting, giving us insight into his music, or his meteoric rise to fame, Abraham focuses almost entirely on Williams’ sad, messy personal life, particularly on his relationship with his first wife Audrey, played well by Elizabeth Olsen. Audiences who are not familiar already with Hank Williams’ music will hardly have a clue how famous he was or why there would be a film about him.

The film stutters to a start with two false openings, one a black-and-white documentary-type scene in which Fred Rose (Bradley Whitford), Hank Williams’ music publisher and father-figure, talks about the singer/songwriter, and then a scene in which Hiddleston sings a heart-wrenching acappella version of William’s “Cold, Cold Heart” against a bare backdrop.

The film’s story really begins with the next scene, in which 21-year-old Hank Williams (Hiddleston) and the newly-divorced Audrey (Olsen) are married in an Alabama gas station by a justice of the peace. The talented, ambitious Williams is quickly making money singing in honky tonks and on a local radio station, despite his already growing drinking problem, his contentious home life where his manipulative, selfish wife and domineering mother Lillie (Cherry Jones) fight constantly. Audrey is ambitious too, to launch her own singing career, despite an inferior voice, and she insists on singing along side her husband, despite complaints from his band members and even the radio station. He dreams of getting a spot on the Grand Ole Opry, country music’s premier venue, and finally achieves that after his cover of “Lovesick Blues” makes him a star.

The musician’s difficult personal life, and taste for fast living, were reflected in his songs, ranging from comic tunes like “Honky Tonkin’,” and dark comic “Move It On Over” to heartbreaking ballads like “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” Yet the film gives us little insight into the man behind the songs, and we rarely get scenes showing his songwriting process.

The best scenes are those featuring Hiddleton singing one of Williams’ many hits, performances that are sprinkled throughout the film but seem somehow disconnected from it. Hiddleston did his own singing and does an excellent job capturing some of Williams’ vocal style and stage presence. While he does not have the singer’s golden voice, he does a good imitation, making this portions almost worth sitting through the rest of the dismal film.

Hiddleton and Olsen give their all in this film, creating strong performances, but there is a lot of bad script to overcome. Jones’ role as Williams mother is reduced to a single-note stereotype, giving a talented actress little to work with.

Oddly, the musician’s sudden surge to fame is hardly noted in the film, which continues to focus on his home life. Although Abraham drew on Williams’ biography, he often focuses on inconsequential events, and leaving out important ones, and having other pivotal moments happen off-screen, including Williams’ death. The black-and-white faux documentary sequences reappear periodically, as Fred Rose serves as a narrator intermittently throughout the film, but always look out of place.

Rather than telling the story visually, Abraham packs the film with talking. Instead of showing scenes of Hank Williams’ wild carousing in honky tonks, we get scene after scene of the musician and his wife arguing about his drinking, carousing and cheating. Periodically, we get a scene where Williams collapses with pain from back problems, caused by late-diagnosed spina bifida. His health issues seem to be largely ignored by those around him who couldn’t see past his considerable drinking problem, and the film suggests those around him were more concerned about his immediate earning potential than his health, or life. “Cold, Cold Heart” indeed.

All that may be true but it is pretty grim thing to watch, when we never see Williams cutting loose and enjoying his fame. The only time he seems to get out of the house or a hospital is to perform one of his hit songs, often a performance that gives us little sense of the venue – whether it is the Grand Ole Opry or a USO show in Germany, they all look about the same. A scene where he goes to New York to play live on television, shows him entering the building before the broadcast but then inexplicably cuts to him in a bar after the show. The only moments of joy we see Williams experience come when we finally gets on the Grand Ole Opry, and when his wife tells him she pregnant. The latter is a sweet, touching scene, which Hiddleston and Olsen play well. Too bad there are so few happy moments shown, in a story we already know has a tragic ending.

That such a landmark figure in popular music should receive such a limp biopic treatment is just a cryin’ shame. Tom Hiddleston’s excellent performance as Hank Williams deserved a better film but the performance alone is not enough to save I SAW THE LIGHT.

I SAW THE LIGHT Opens in St. Louis on April 1st, 2016

OVERALL RATING: 2 OUT OF 5 STARS

MARGUERITE Review

French actress Catherine Frot gives a touching, masterful performance as the title character in director Xavier Giannoli’s tragicomic MARGUERITE. The lavish 1920s costume film centers on a wealthy baroness who loves music and fancies herself an opera singer. The problem is that she cannot sing and seems unable to hear her own off-key screeching. With her great wealth, generous support of causes and social position, no one tells her the truth.

MARGUERITE is a fictional film but the title character was inspired by real person, Florence Foster Jenkins, an American heiress famous for her awful singing and delusional belief in her talents who gave invitation-only concerts in elaborate costumes, which audiences viewed with a “so bad its good” appreciation. A biopic about Jenkins, starring Meryl Streep and directed by Stephen Frears, is due out later this year.

Giannoli and co-writer Marcia Romano move their story to 1921 France – the Roaring Twenties. The post-World War I era saw the rise of new art, fashions, pop culture and expansion of wealth, along with the fall of old class divides. It was the era of Dada art, anarchists and nihilists, the craze for silent movies and Charlie Chaplin, jazz and photography – all of which figure in this film.

MARGUERITE is a comic yet touching film delving into the power of self delusion and the love of art. Frot delivers a stunning performance as the title character, for which she won a Cesar, the French version of an Oscar. Through her skillful performance, we may laugh at Marguerite’s awful singing but not at the sweet, generous if deluded person behind the voice.

Frot plays Marguerite Dumont, whose name is almost certainly a reference to Margaret Dumont, the clueless foil in the Marx Brothers comedies, who lives in aristocratic country mansion with her husband of twenty years, Georges (Andre Marcon). Georges inherited the title of baron along with the mansion, but the money belongs to heiress Marguerite.

In a brilliant opening scene, we are introduced to Marguerite as the baroness is hosting a charity concert in her lavish home, to raise funds for World War I orphans. The concert is presented by their aristocratic friends in the Amadeus Music Club, which Marguerite supports financially while also appearing as a featured performer. Her husband Georges, embarrassed by her insistence on singing in public but unable to tell his wife the truth about her voice, disappears for these concerts, blaming his absences of trouble with his fancy sports car.

The concert features a young singer Hazel (Christa Theret) and a couple of her friends, journalist Lucien (Sylvain Dieuaide) and his friend and sometimes illustrator, Dada poet/nilhilist/anarchist Kyril (Aubert Fenoy), sneak in. Both Lucien and Kyril have come to hear Hazel but also to find out if certain rumors are true. A peacock’s screeching cry hints at what is to come.

The concert’s finale is the hostess’ performance, and Marguerite flutters around preparing for her aria, assisted by her devoted mysterious butler Madelbos (played by Belgian Congolese actor Denis Mpunga, with a near-wordless menace), and periodically asking whether her husband has shown up yet. Making a grand entrance like a diva used to singing before kings, she sings Mozart’s showy, difficult aria “Queen of the Night,” which she “executes” with a voice like a wild animal dragged to the guillotine. The audience stifles a few smiles but offers polite applause and carefully-worded neutral comments, an Emperor’s new clothes response for the major financial benefactor of their musical society. The concert concludes with a group photo taken by Madelbos, with Marguerite at the forefront.

With a child-like innocence, Marguerite lives in a bubble, surrounded by her beloved collection of opera costumes and scores and her delusion, devoting her life to music and her non-existent talent. The next day, the mansion is filled with white flowers from “anonymous admirers”- certainly her husband and butler. But while her husband’s lack of truthfulness about her voice makes him an enabler, her intimidating butler not only enables but orchestrates her self-delusion.

As her attentive butler/chauffeur/photographer, Madelbos organizes elaborate fantasy photo shoots for Marguerite, with props and costumes from great operas. He also shields her from any intrusion of the truth. When journalist Lucien, encouraged by the Kyril, who delights in the perfection of her awful voice, writes a mocking review of the concert, he offers ambiguous statements and sly commentaries that most readers would understand. Delusional Marguerite reads it as a rave review and wants to meet the author, but Madelbos carefully removes other, franker reviews from her sight.

For Marguerite’s screeching singing, the director mixed Frot’s own singing with a professional singing badly and some electronic manipulation, to create a hauntingly bad sound. The film does let us laugh at this absurd, eccentric character but we also eventually see the humanity underneath her grand delusion.

Unlike other films set in the ’20s, Giannoli uses muted colors that keep the tone of the film edgy, sometimes even sinister. On one level, “Marguerite” is a lavish costume drama set in an exciting time of change, and about class and the changes reshaping society after WWI. Yet it is also an exploration of the intersection of self-delusion and great wealth, and how people drawn to the latter can enable the former.

The film starts comic, then takes a darker turn. Everyone seems to want to use Marguerite for their own purposes, while child-like, sweet Marguerite is unfailing kind and generous. By the film’s midpoint, there is a shift, as those who initially laughed at her become fond, and seeming protectors reveal darker motives. Lucien introduces Marguerite to a financially-strapped, has-been opera star Atos Pezzini (Michel Fau), who is blackmailed into coaching Marguerite for a public performance. Pezzini auditions Marguerite in a hilarious scene, and then moves in with an assortment of assistants including a fortune-telling bearded lady (Sophia Leboutte) and a deaf accompanist, providing a new level of absurdity and a wonderful performance by Fau.

MARGUERITE is not a perfect film, although Frot’s performance is. The film runs a bit too long, has some subplots that add little to it, and the story unravels towards the end when it tries to offer a kind of explanation for Marguerite’s self-delusion. Still there is much to admire, particularly Frot’s wonderful performance.

MARGUERITE opens Friday, March 25th, in French with English subtitles, at the Plaza Frontenac Cinema

OVERALL RATING: 4 OUT OF 5 STARS

CITY OF GOLD Review

In director Laura Gabbert’s delightful documentary CITY OF GOLD, Jonathan Gold, the first food critic to win a Pulitzer Prize, drives around his hometown of Los Angeles, in search of great food in unexpected places, talks about writing, the links between food, nations, neighborhoods and identity. It is a road trip you do not want to miss.

A native of Los Angeles, Gold knows his city and it willing to go to unlikely places in his search for culinary adventure. As the Los Angeles Times restaurant critic, he does not seek out the fancy, trendy, high priced dining spots of the rich and famous to review. Instead, he prowls his beloved city seeking small family restaurants, food trucks and little entrepreneur chef-owned spots offering delicious, affordable food, often that honors a certain country or heritage, or serving innovative fusion cuisines reflecting real neighborhoods. As one commentator notes, Gold is creating a food map of LA.

It is a bit akin to the way film critic Pauline Kael noted that small budget, independent B films often were more original and innovative than Hollywood’s big-budget A films. Gold himself credits writer (and Missouri native) Calvin Trillin for inspiration and setting him on this path of seeking out the authentic and delicious. Trillin is one of a handful of notables who appear on camera, along with TV’s “Bizarre Foods” host and adventurous eater Andrew Zimmern. But mostly it is Gold, and the restaurant owners and chefs who speak, about the food, their goals and dreams, and each other. With the camera and Gold nearly always in motion, the documentary has a restless, adventurous feel to it, far different from the usual talking-head style.

Gold has an unexpected personal charm. A large, overweight man, balding, freckled and red-headed, he is no one’s image of handsome. But as he talks, a magic comes over the listener, with his soothing voice leading us down paths of discovery, in an open, intelligent way. The key is Gold’s willingness to approach new foods, new cultures, new people with an open curiosity and without scorn or snobbery – and to want to take us along on that adventure.

And Gold does know his stuff. As the film notes, what sets real critics apart in an era when everyone styles themselves a critic – whether food, music or movies – is the willingness to do the research, to have the depth of knowledge or put the work in to gain it, to do it right, to do it thoroughly, to really know what one is talking about. Gold does his research when sampling a new type of cuisine, and visits restaurants four or five times, and more for cuisines he is new to, as many as 17 times, before writing his review. It is a fairness that restaurant owners admire and respect, and sets his reviews far above Yelp with restaurant patrons.

Gold’s writings are as much about cultural commentary and exploration as about food. Early in the documentary he notes Los Angeles is a city everyone thinks they know from the movies, even if they have never been there. Setting out to dispel the myths, Gold describes the sprawling city as not a melting pot of cultures but a “glittering mosaic,” not spreading out from a core but distinctive neighborhoods that have grown until they touch. His wanderings lead to discoveries like clusters of restaurants with food from particular regions of Mexico, from specific Chinese cities, or a pocket of places serving flavors of Tehran in “Tehrangeles.” Sampling the food traces waves of immigration to the city and adaptation to available local produce, creating culinary geography of the city.

After all, Los Angeles is in California, an agricultural garden of Eden, so one might expect great food with all that great fresh produce close at hand, even from modest eateries. On the other hand, Gold worries about traditional mom-and-pop food shops being replaced by too-precious artisanal cheese shops at a local farmer’s market, even if the cheese is good.

Gold skips the idea of donning disguises when visiting restaurants to review them. He just turns up without warning, a kind of pop quiz that sometimes strikes fear in owner/chefs. The risks are high but so are the rewards, with a good review leading to foodies lined up around the block for a place that usually only caters to a neighborhood.

His reviews have power, not just due to Gold’s fairness, the careful research and repeat visits that underpin them but in the writing itself and turn of phrase. Moved by his environmental activist brother’s arguments to save ocean species, Gold wrote a review about how the fine flavor of a certain seafood dish was not enough to overcome “the bitter taste of extinction.”

Oddly, Gold does not think of himself as a successful food critic but as a failed cellist, the passion of his youth. The documentary delves a bit into his personal life – his long marriage to an editor, their two kids, his two brothers – and his writing process. Before becoming a food critic, he was a classical music critic, then turned to championing hip-hop music. He grew up in L.A. in a working-class Jewish family that treasured education. He notes that where he grew up, you could tell as much about a Reform Jewish family by which deli they frequented as by which synagogue they attended.

The visuals that accompany these discussion often focus on scenes of L.A. streets and neighborhoods, the restaurant owners (who often share their immigrant story) and, of course, beautiful, appetizing food. Not beautiful in the art gallery presentation style of high-end dining but the natural beauty of hearty food that makes the mouth water, or the exotic, colorful, that-looks-good appeal of unfamiliar dishes. Cinematographers Goro Toshima and Jerry Henry paint modest strip-mall restaurant storefronts and busy, colorful streets in loving golden tones. Even highways clogged with traffic but lined with palm trees look good.

Gold is an entertaining, enlightening guide on this food adventure, an exploration anyone can enjoy, foodie or not.

CITY OF GOLD opens Friday, March 25th at the Plaza Frontenac Cinema

OVERALL RATING: 4 1/2 OUT OF 5 STARS

EYE IN THE SKY – The Review

Gavin Hood showed a talent for handling complex issues with brilliant skill in “Tsotsie,” a film about a small-time thug that was both a thriller and a balanced exploration of the intersection of crime, poverty and AIDS in South Africa’s slums. Now the South African director brings that knack for taut thrillers with nuance, balance and humanity to the morally murky subject of drone warfare, in EYE IN THE SKY.

Hood takes a neutral tone in this gripping thriller, where a joint British and American mission to capture a British national, who has become an Islamic terrorist leader in Kenyan, is complicated when their remote surveillance, the “eye in the sky,” reveals a suicide bomber mission in progress. The unexpected discovery seems to change the mission from capture to kill, but that decision is debated between politicians, diplomats, military leaders across international lines, in a tension-filled drama with the soldiers at the drone controls buffeted by their own feelings. The suicide bomber plot starts a countdown and window to take action but the decision is further complicated by the appearance of a young girl (Aisha Takow) in the kill zone.

Drone warfare has allowed soldiers to kill enemies from great distance while eliminating the risk of being on the battlefield, and has sparked myriad moral questions. In this film, Hood explores some of those questions, through the eyes of the human beings involved. At the same time, “Eye In The Sky” is a top-notch thriller, with all the tension and rawness needed to keep audiences riveted and nail-biting.

The film features a fine performance by Helen Mirren as hard-as-nails Colonel Katherine Powell, a British military officer who has spent years tracking the targeted terrorist, a British female convert to radical jihad who has risen to become number 4 on the international terrorist most-wanted list.

When intelligence leads Powell to a house in Kenya, the British see a chance to capture the terrorist alive, and bring her back for interrogation. The late Alan Rickman plays British Lieutenant General Frank Benson, the military top brass observing the military operation Powell is directing, along with a few British politicians, from a panelled conference room in London. In one of his last performances, Rickman plays his part with style and a sharp intelligence, a character who helps viewers to tease out what responsibility is carried by the military and what by their civilian political leaders.

A need for a positive identification of the target leads to a delay. When their terrorist change locations, the “eye in the sky” follows, sending a insect drone into the house, operated by Kenyan undercover agent Jama Farah (Barkhad Abdi). Surveillance reveals the preparations for a suicide bombing. To prevent civilian deaths, the military wants to change the mission from capture to kill but they need political approval for the change.

In a conventional action thriller, this scenario would have painted the various people involved in this decision as right or wrong, good or bad, morally black or white. Hood instead lets each character express their own view of the situation, as well as reveal their feelings about their actions. The result is a film that has all the ticking-clock tension of an action thriller, while intelligently exploring the moral and ethical questions behind drone strikes in a balanced way.

Hood takes no sides, simply presenting the issue in all its complicated nature for the audience to decide. There are no perfect, clear answers here – it is all in the ethical, moral calculation. Is the death of one innocent person worth it if it means saving hundred of others? Do they let this terror mastermind slip from their grasp? How do the Americans and British differ? What about the feelings of those who will pull the trigger? The bouncing back-and-forth in taking responsibility for the action is very telling, as are the different calculations made by the military and the politicians. The film also touches on the moral responsibility and personal anguish of the soldier with his finger on the trigger, USAF drone pilot Lieutenant Steve Watts, (Aaron Paul), something rarely presented in conventional thrillers.

Although the film plays like an ensemble cast piece, it is interesting to note that all the various characters are in far-flung locations – the general and politicians in a posh London office, Col. Powell in her command center, the American drone operators in Las Vegas. All are pretty remote from the focus of the action, except for the Kenyan agents on the ground, who are facing more direct risk, particularly Kenyan agent Farah, played with verve by Barkhad Abdi, who was nominated for an Oscar for his debut role as the Somali pirate leader in “Captain Phillips. The thriller brilliantly illustrates the power of a connected world, the sophisticated state of surveillance and communications, as well as its limits.

Mirren and Rickman dominate most of the action but the cast also includes Jeremy Northam as Brian Woodale and Iain Glen as British Foreign Secretary James Willett. Director Gavin Hood also plays a role, as Lt. Colonel Ed Walsh.

EYE IN THE SKY is a compulsively watchable thriller, packed with some striking performances, but also a film that engages the mind and humanity of viewers. That Hood can pack all this real-world complexity in a film that is still a terrific, white-knuckle thriller is amazing and a tribute to his skill. Aided by nice performances and believable, feeling characters, EYE IN THE SKY a must-see film that tackles the issue of drone strikes in a first-rate, intelligent thriller.

OVERALL RATING: 4 1/2 OUT OF 5 STARS

EYE IN THE SKY opens in St. Louis March 18th, 2016.

HELLO, MY NAME IS DORIS – The Review

Sally Field plays Doris Miller, a 60-something accountant with a Walter Mitty-like imagination who becomes fixated on a younger new co-worker John Fremont (Max Greenfield), in HELLO, MY NAME IS DORIS. The comedy from director/co-writer Michael Showalter (“The Baxter”) has plenty of indie film quirkiness but what makes the film work is Field’s performance as Doris, a character who in lesser hands could have gone so very wrong.

Doris is a data entry worker in accounting working at a hipster fashion magazine who is suddenly smitten when she meets a handsome young new co-worker named John Fremont, a nice Midwestern who is new to the city. But Doris is no sexy cougar; she is an oddball character that would have been out of his league even if she were 20 years younger.

HELLO, MY NAME IS DORIS reverses the gender of the standard movie male fantasy of an older man pining for a younger woman but Doris is also the male version of the nerdy, shy guy. dresses in a sort of coordinated but mismatched style that suggests both the ’80s and the ’50s, wears wigs, headscarves, and cats’ eye glasses, and has a hoarder’s penchant for picking up discarded items from trash bins she passes on the street. At work, her younger co-workers look right through her. After years of caring for her mother in the Staten Island home where she grew up, Doris is now a bit adrift after her mother’s recent death. Her insensitive brother Todd (Stephen Root) and his selfish wife Cynthia (Wendi McLendon-Covey) urge her to sell the house, eager to get their share of the money and oblivious to her bereavement and sacrifice caring for their mother.

The character is really a bundle of quirks and even stereotypes, the kind that shows up as a secondary character in comedies, but Field breathes unexpected life and humanity into Doris. Doris’ Walter Mitty tendency to get lost in her fantasies is pared with a kind of cluelessness that makes her both dim and smart, yet Field shows us a human complexity beneath her loud clothes and strangeness.

Director/co-writer Showalter had to make a choice in this comedy, whether Doris will be an object of ridicule or sympathy. He opts for a mix of both, where she is sometimes the hero and other times to butt of jokes. There are little hints of Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp and pathos in that choice, but social commentary is hardly the point in this uneven film.

That unevenness adds to the film’s already considerable indie film quirkiness but it also sometimes strays into a kind of scary/creepiness, with stalker behavior. Only Field’s fine, nuanced performance saves the film from its worst side.

Along with her best friend Roz (Tyne Daly), who specializes in finding events with free food, Doris attends a lecture by slick motivational speaker Willy Williams (Peter Gallagher), who urges his audience to “take risks” – a message Doris takes to heart and applies to her romantic obsession. With guidance from Roz’s teen-aged granddaughter Vivian (Isabella Acres), who helps Doris create a Facebook page and persona, where she can secretly stalk John online, and embarks on a plan to win her heart’s desire.

Her co-worker John is new to New York and knows no one. Being Midwestern nice, he innocently takes Doris’ overtures as simple friendliness. What he sees as a budding friendship, she sees as something else.

At times, Doris’ immersion in John’s much younger world allows director Showalter to poke fun at millennial quirks and pretensions. There is a very funny scene where John’s new girlfriend Brooklyn (could there be a more perfect name?) takes Doris along to a gay quilting circle, with Brooklyn has bonded although she is not gay. In another scene, Doris becomes a social media hit at a concert, where the band and their fans take her bizarre clothes and murky pronouncements as hipster cool.

Late in the film, Field reveals a different, more complicated Doris, the one that could have been before a lifetime of deferred dreams, in a brilliant, striking scene that is the film’s most riveting moment.

Despite the film’s unevenness and its impractical ending, HELLO, MY NAME IS DORIS is worth seeing, primarily for Field’s terrific performance, a demonstration of how a skillful actor can transform lesser material.

OVERALL RATING: 3 OUT OF 5 STARS

HELLO, MY NAME IS DORIS opens in St. Louis March 18th, 2016.

WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT – The Review

In WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT, Tina Fey plays a journalist sent to Afghanistan in 2003 when the more-experienced war correspondents flock to the new battlefields of Iraq. Produced by Fey and loosely based on reporter Kim Barker’s memoir “The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” the film continues Fey’s pursuit of more dramatic roles, a less-than-stellar quest so far that might cause some audience members to balk at this one. However, WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT is the exception to that rule – actually a very entertaining film, thanks largely to a strong supporting cast that includes Martin Freeman, Billy Bob Thornton, and Alfred Molina, who take the pressure off Fey.

In case any one is in doubt, WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT (meaning WTF – get it?) is not a hard-hitting war movie or even really about war, but a tale of war reporters and the unreality of reporting from a war zone, a movie that leans more towards “MASH” than “The Killing Fields.” This dramedy is an “absurdity of life in a war zone” tale that has its share of loss and danger too. The story takes place in Afghanistan but there is so little about that war, that it could have been set in any number of wars. No, the subject of this real-life inspired story is war journalists, not war.

The story takes place as the Iraq War is starting, during which fighting (and news coverage) in Afghanistan reduced to a slow simmer, and ends before that situation really changes. With the Iraq invasion, the cable news organization where Kim Baker (Fey) works as a copy writer/producer is put in a bind. Their best war reporters are being sent to cover the new war so they are desperate for someone – anyone – to report from Afghanistan on that war. Her boss assembles all “the unmarried staff without children” – a description that prompts one staffer to burst into tears – and asks for a volunteer. Kim volunteers, in an almost off-handed WTF way. Fey offers little reason why, beyond a vague comment about boredom.

Kim arrives in Kabul a pretty unprepared. She did think to buy a headscarf and brand-new cargo pants, but also brings along a bright orange duffle bag for her gear – a perfect target for a sniper. Arriving at the windblown airport, she meets Marine Col. Hollanek, a tart ramrod officer with whom she will work as an embedded reporter, her Afghan translator/driver/“fixer” Fahim (Christopher Abbott, in a surprisingly touching performance) and her hunky bodyguard Nic (Stephen Peacocke). The streets are dusty, crowded, and an unpleasant stench fills the air, as she is driven to her hotel, which it turns out, is a hang-out for an international collection of Western reporters, photographers and their security guards, and the site of an ongoing party that seems to run through the whole film (playing the same dance song throughout).

The reserved Kim is quickly introduced to the wild and unreal ways of Westerners living in Kabul – or as one character calls it, the Ka-bubble. She meets Tall Brian (Nicholas Braun), the young photographer assigned to her, and is quickly befriended by beautiful British TV journalist Tanya Vanderpoel (Margot Robbie). Tanya gives Kim the basics – if you were a “four” back home you are a “ten” in Kabul, and people feel free to invent new identities for themselves here – and introduces Kim to her circle of friends, including wild man Scottish war photographer Iain MacKelpie (Martin Freeman).

Kim’s first embedded experience, under Col. Hollanek’s command, that erupts in gun-fire and sends her running into the action with camera in hand. She is immediately hooked on the adrenaline rush. As she adapts to life as a war reporter and the crazy world of Westerners in Kabul, her natural reserve and cautiousness gives way to her own kind of crazy.

Co-directors Glenn Ficara and John Requa, and script writer Robert Carlock (“30 Rock”) keep the focus on the characters and the unreal world that envelopes them living in a war zone where what seems like insanity back home gradually becomes what passes for normal.

What makes WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT worthwhile largely are the supporting performances, particularly Martin Freeman. Freeman radiates such a quirky charm and creates such an appealing, believable character that he lifts Fey’s thin performance. The film really takes off with the introduction of Freeman’s Iain, a charismatic photographer with a bad-boy reputation, who lights up the film with snappy dialog and just the right reaction to every line and situation.

Other cast members also do their bit, which allows Fey to just be the figure around which all this madness rotates. Although he has done this kind of role before, Thornton is striking and hits all the right notes as the slightly put-upon, gruff military commander Hollanek. Alfred Molina is very good as Ali Massoud Sadiq, a shadowy, slippery Afghan official who takes a liking to Fey’s character. Abbott is a charmer as the translator Fahim, exuding a sweet appeal as a proper Muslim fellow who truly cares about Fey’s character, trying to keep her out of danger, and later warning her when she is losing her bearings in the Ka-bubble. As Tanya, Robbie finds the right balance for someone who is both Kim’s friend and her competitor. Other good performances are delivered in smaller roles by Sheila Vand and Cherry Jones.

That is a lot of good acting and likable performances backing up Fey, who does just fine because she does not try to do too much. Although the film does say much, if anything, on the Afghan war, it does draw viewers into the unreal life of these people working in a war zone, and balances the mix of dark comic and dramatic portions well. Apart from its lack of comment on war, the film’s major shortcoming is its score, with a particularly odd choice of a sappy ballad for a sequence that represents the dramatic peak.

Overall, it is the characters who make WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT entertaining. Although Freeman is getting a bit more recognition with his excellent role as Dr. Watson in the “Sherlock Holmes” television show, he is still an underrated actor. In this film, Freeman is so good, he elevates both the material and his co-star. Hopefully next time, he will be the one with top billing.

OVERALL RATING: 4 OUT OF 5 STARS

WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT opens in theaters March 4th, 2016.

GODS OF EGYPT – The Review

GODS OF EGYPT is the kind of film that looks like it started out with blockbuster ambitions. With a big name cast that features “Game of Thrones” star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Gerard Butler (“300”), Chadwick Boseman (“42”) and Geoffrey Rush, plus pretty Elodie Yung, and some very expensive-looking visual effects, GODS OF EGYPT seeks to draw on Egyptian mythology to create an action/adventure epic. Unfortunately, this plodding, overweight snoozer never gets off the ground, due to a remarkably dull, confusing script that mixes a little “Thief of Baghdad,” a classic hero plot-line and bits and pieces of Egyptian myth with some remarkably bad dialog, into a hot mess that is more Gordian knot than classic epic.

Director Alex Proyas has created a silly, overblown would-be epic that might stand as an example of bad film-making – or at least boring film-making. Brenton Thwaites plays Bek, a “Thief of Baghdad” type character, who finds himself on a quest with the god Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), who has been deposed on the verge of being crowned king of Egypt by his jealous uncle, the god Set (Gerard Butler). In this Egypt, there are no pharaohs and the gods themselves rule and live among mortals, one of several strange things in this movie fantasy universe. Other Egyptian deities join in this would-be saga of a royal coup, such as Thoth (Chadwick Boseman), Hathor (Elodie Yung) and Ra (Geoffrey Rush).

Confused? Not how you remember Egyptian history or myth? Sometimes, this kind of pseudo-historical epic can be saved by clever, funny dialog and charismatic characters. Sadly, neither comes to the rescue here. Despite some good actors in the cast (Geoffrey Rush, for heaven’s sake), they mostly overact under Proyas’ direction, mouthing the script’s nonsensical dialog. But mostly the script is to blame. Although GODS OF EGYPT has more actual Egyptian legend than one expects, it is mashed-up with so much other stuff in a goofy quest tale that even an expert in Egyptian myths would have trouble sorting it out.

The dazzling, golden special effects are sure to lure a few viewers, and the hero tale story seems a perfect draw for preteens, the audience most likely to enjoy this movie. But the movie’s confusing mix of Egyptian gods and myth, rambling plot and lack of effective comic relief might lose even those few.

This film is not one of those “so bad it’s good” movies. No, it is just bad. Rather than laughing at it, one is more likely to nod off, except it is too noisy to do that. This is the kind of movie that makes one want to just leave after about five minutes.

There is nothing to redeem this one, not even the lavish visual effects. Be warned: GODS OF EGYPT is likely to strike you down, with overwhelming boredom, an urge to cringe and a profound regret at spending actual money to see this big-budget turkey.

GODS OF EGYPT Opens Friday, February 26 everywhere

OVERALL RATING: 1 OUT OF 5 STARS

A WAR – The Review

Like A HIJACKING, Danish writer/director Tobias Lindholm’s previous film, A WAR has a deceptively simple title for a film that a complex, very human drama. In this film, Denmark’s entry for the Foreign-language Oscar, Lindholm does not address the idea of war itself but instead explores the soldier’s experience of it, in a neutral yet unblinking way.

A WAR is a gripping, tense film, focused on the very human drama at its core and the complex moral choices the characters face, while avoiding any hint of melodrama. In particular, “A War” looks at the moral choices made by one Danish commander in Afghanistan. The choices are made with the best intentions but with unforeseen and tragic results, as he tries to balance what is right for his men, Afghan civilians, and even in his own family back home in the fog of war. It is a film about grief, guilt, responsibility, and the contrast between snap decisions made in the heat of war and the cool assessment of those decisions back home.

Company commander Claus Pedersen (Pilou Asbaek) is the leader of a Danish unit fighting in Afghanistan, along with his second-in-command Najib Bisma (Dar Salim), a close friend from the military academy. Back home, his wife Maria (Tuva Novotny) is struggling to cope with their three children, one of whom is misbehaving at school in response to his father’s absence. In Afghanistan, Pedersen is concerned about the morale of his men after the death of one soldier, and decides to start accompanying them on missions, which unit commanders rarely do. Pedersen is a man with a strong sense of responsibility, who is close to his men and sensitive to the strain they experience in war. His commitment to do his best for them may cloud his judgment and, with the best of intentions, Pedersen makes a decision in battle that is either the right moral choice or a war crime, depending on how one views it. The decision saves the life of one of his soldiers but costs the lives of several civilians,which results in Pedersen being recalled to Denmark to face a courtroom trial, and a new set of moral and ethical dilemmas.

Using handheld photography and a documentary-like approach, A WAR plays out with all the edge-of-your seat tension of a war film and a courtroom thriller, while intelligently tackling issues faced on the battlefield and at home during wartime. Lindholm navigates this difficult territory with great skill and sensitivity, but also with stark honesty, focusing on the personal view of the soldier, without expressing either support or disapproval of the long-running war. Like A HIJACKING, A WAR avoids painting choices in simple black-and-white and handles difficult, real-life moral choices in a sensitive manner, while delivering taut drama and an engrossing film.

Focusing on the taut drama of the situation and the emotions of the characters, the director is carefully non-judgmental, leaving the audience to decide. Although Pedersen is on trial for these civilian deaths, ironically, he made an earlier decision as commander which also cost civilian lives. In that decision, the commander chose to follow the rules of engagement but the result was also a devastating outcome in human terms.

A WAR reunites writer/director Lindholm with A HIJACKING actors Pilou Asbaek (also billed as Philip Asbaek) and Dar Salim. The gifted cast is one of the strengths of the film, and all turn in strong but subtle performances. In the lead role, Asbaek skillfully creates a character who is wholly believable as a basically good man grappling with difficult choices. Salim, an Iraqi-Danish actor who served in the Royal Guard, brings both a warmth as Pedersen’s friend and a convincing military precision as his second-in-command. Salim’s military experience helps add the the film’s strong sense of authenticity, but Lindholm further strengthened that by extensive research and collaboration with Danish soldiers who served in Afghanistan.

A WAR is an emotionally powerful film, a thought-provoking, intelligent film which looks at both the challenges in the field and at home during wartime.

A WAR in Danish with English subtitles, opens Friday, Feb. 26, at Plaza Frontenac Cinema

OVERALL RATING: 4 OUT OF 5 STARS

WHERE TO INVADE NEXT – The Review

Filmmaker Michael Moore returns to a more comic touch with WHERE TO INVADE NEXT, an election-season-perfect tour of life in other developed countries which maybe Moore’s funniest in years. Moore’s last film, CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY, took a rather grim look at America’s economic system but WHERE TO INVADE NEXT recalls Moore’s earlier playful troublemaker, uncovering ironies and overlooked facts, as he did in BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE and ROGER AND ME, although this film continues some thoughts from previous films. In WHERE TO INVADE NEXT, Moore starts with the U.S.’s penchant react with military force, and fashions himself into a one-man army to “invade” various countries on America’s behalf in order to “take things we need.” In this case, those countries are other developed nations and those things are not oil or other resources but their good ideas to solving our myriad domestic problems. The odd thing Moore uncovers is that most of these good ideas actually originated in the good ol’ USA.

Michael Moore is a “love him or hate him” filmmaker. There are plenty of folks on the “hate him” side, who might steam at the very thought of Moore’s films, seethe at calling them documentaries or even call Moore “unpatriotic.” On the other side are those who delight in his satirical and stunt-filled style of uncovering of facts behind issues and see his version of lefty truth-telling as patriotic. Although Moore has little interest in presenting the other side’s view in his films, and some find Moore’s stunts irritating, there is no denying he often focuses on issues many people are thinking about and hits on a few unpleasant truths.

People who dislike Moore are unlikely to go see any of his films, and this one is no exception. But for those who take the opposite view of Moore, WHERE TO INVADE NEXT has much to offer.

The film opens with Moore “meeting” with the heads of branches of the U.S. military, and after noting their lack of success in winning wars in recent decades (“not even bringing back Iraq’s oil” – comments sure to enrage right-wingers), Moore offers his services as a one-man army, to invade other countries and “take what we need.” Of course, that is all comedy and what he means to “take” are good ideas to solve the nation’s domestic problems – such as failing schools, poor childhood nutrition, lack of access to healthcare, student loan debt, an overloaded prison system, and other issues.

Moore may have taken the idea for this film from the end of SICKO, where Moore “invades” Cuba in search of healthcare for all. Healthcare is part of this film too but this time Moore is looking for more. There is a kind of travelogue aspect to the film, as Moore “invades” Italy, France, Norway, and Sweden, among others – “countries with names I can mostly pronounce” and with a higher level of middle-class satisfaction than this nation has. In Italy, Moore finds happy employees with generous vacations and factory owners concerned about their well-being. In France, he finds grade-school kids who are served healthy, four-course meals (on real plates) by the “lunch ladies” as if they are dining in restaurants. In Slovenia, he finds free college education for all (even Americans living there), and in Norway, top-notch education in public schools where children are encouraged to play. Other countries have prison systems that aim to rehabilitate offenders or banking systems that punished the malefactors in the global economic melt-down and have been re-organized to benefit all citizens.

Moore also tackles the oft-cited issue of higher taxes in these other developed nations, correctly pointing out that residents of those countries get a whole lot of services for a little more in taxes, whereas Americans spend far more by paying for services like childcare and healthcare from private providers. Further, those other taxpayers get an itemized list of where their tax dollars go, something progressive and even some libertarians have been asking the U.S. government to do for years. As Moore’s film shows, such an American taxpayer receipt would reveal that, apart from Social Security and Medicare, about half the taxes Americans pay go to the military.

All this is done with an impish, flag-waving sense of fun, even though Moore is making some hard-hitting points. In an election year where voters on both sides are unhappy with politics as usual, WHERE TO INVADE NEXT provides an entertaining and thought-provoking look at how other countries solve these problems.

WHERE TO INVADE NEXT Opens Friday, February 12^th at the Plaza Frontenac and Tivoli.

OVERALL RATING: 4 OUT OF 5 STARS

ZOOLANDER 2 – The Review

If the sheer number of celebrity cameos could make a comedy funny, ZOOLANDER 2 would be hilarious. It is not. In fact, ZOOLANDER 2 is a dull, overloaded slog that it is more likely to evoke snores than laughs.

Even for those who loved the original, ZOOLANDER 2 (also known as “Zoolander No. 2,” in a little Chanel reference that illustrates the film’s level of cliche comedy) does not offer much and tops the list as candidate for this year’s most unneeded sequel. Oh, there are a few chuckles in this follow-up to Ben Stiller’s send-up of dim-witted models and the fashion world, but there are just not enough of them to keep the audience awake through most of this slow-moving, plot-heavy movie. The movie is basically made up of quoted song lyrics, and movie references and cliches, and several plots, all seasoned with a mind-boggling number of celebrity cameos.

ZOOLANDER 2 may have more cameos that any other recent film. These cameos feature not only actors but musicians, pop culture personalities, TV news figures and even actual fashion industry icons. The list ranges from Justin Bieber to Sting to Willie Nelson, from Benedict Cumberbatch to John Malkovich to Susan Sarandon, and from astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson to actual fashion icons Anna Wintour and Tommy Hilfiger (what are the odds a project would feature both Tyson and Wintour?). Actually, the film’s few comic moments are generally linked to these familiar names and faces popping up in some unexpected place. Some of the cameos are mere walk-ons but others are more extended, like Benedict Cumberbatch’s bit as a transgender fashion model named All. The vast array of cameos might entice some to see ZOOLANDER 2 but, remember, you have to sit through a whole dull film to see them.

In ZOOLANDER 2, “ridiculously good-looking” but dim-witted male fashion models Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller) and Hansel (Owen Wilson) set out to get their fashionista mojo back after a decade and a half out of the business. The one-time top models’ style have not changed but the fashion world has moved on without them, as they discover when they show up to work a runway fashion show in Rome for top-designer Alexanya Atoz (Kristen Wiig). Before traveling to Rome, Derek had been in hiding, living like a “hermit crab,” after losing custody of his son, Derek, Jr. (Cyrus Arnold), following the death of his wife, who was killed when the building housing his “Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Can’t Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too” collapsed on her. Once in Rome, Derek and Hansel are contacted by Interpol, who are trying to figure out who is killing pop celebrities. They are assigned to Valentina Valencia (Penelope Cruz), an agent in the fashion division of Interpol (yep, the fashion police).

Of course, neither Stiller nor Wilson are “ridiculously good-looking,” which is part of the joke as Derek and Hansel lead us on a smirking if remarkably tame fashion-and-pop culture romp while the two has-been models try to bring their 20th century style back into fashion. Like the original, Ben Stiller directed and co-wrote ZOOLANDER 2, which reunites him and Wilson in their dumb-and-dumber fashion model shtick, with Will Farrell also returning as strangely-coiffed villain Mugato. The movie opens with perhaps its best scene, an action-movie chase that ends with Justin Bieber riddled with bullets outside Sting’s house in Rome, and an overwrought death scene that terminates with a dying Bieber sharing one last selfie before he goes. When Zoolander finally finds his son, he is horrified that the boy is fat – the ultimate fashion crime. The boy, who is smart, is equally horrified his father is so dumb.

All this preposterous stuff could have been fun but ZOOLANDER 2 both overloads the movie with too many plots and mishandles the comedy. Some scenes are played too straight or low-key,and the movie lingers too long on bits that are not working while tossing in new comic bits like pies flying through the air in a Keystone silent comedy, bits of humor that get buried before the film can exploit any actual comic potential. Rather than poking fun at the fashion industry, the fashion industry is in on the joke this time around. ZOOLANDER 2 mixes a James Bond-ish thriller with a redemption tale of reconnecting with Zoolander’s estranged son while the two models make a fashion world comeback. The movie also blends in bits of other movie genres and individual films, including a spoof of soul-searching dramas. The mashed-up story keeps adding twists, absurdities and song-and-movie references (as well as the ever-increasing number of cameos) until the whole overloaded mess topples over – like a 7-year-old’s build-it-yourself sundae, so loaded with toppings and whipped cream that it becomes an unappetizing sight.

If Ben Stiller’s aim is to transition to directing, this style of comedy might not be his best choice. Stiller does have talent, as shown in his subtler, more effective comic touch in Noah Baumbach’s “While We’re Young.” He might do better directing something in that sly, smart style of humor rather than this movie’s obvious, overworked vein of comedy. Or maybe go back to TROPIC THUNDER, for the silly side.

ZOOLANDER 2 is a true stinker, the kind of unfunny, nap-inducing comedy likely to be a future Razzie nominee. Even if you liked the first ZOOLANDER, and Ben Stiller’s work generally, film-goers might want to skip this one, unless they just feel the urge to nap in a movie theater.

ZOOLANDER 2 OPENS NATIONWIDE ON FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12

OVERALL RATING: 2 OUT OF 5 STARS

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OVERALL RATING: 4 OUT OF 5 STARS

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OVERALL RATING: 4 1/2 OUT OF 5 STARS

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OVERALL RATING: 4 1/2 OUT OF 5 STARS

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OVERALL RATING: 3 OUT OF 5 STARS

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OVERALL RATING: 4 OUT OF 5 STARS

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OVERALL RATING: 1 OUT OF 5 STARS

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OVERALL RATING: 4 OUT OF 5 STARS

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OVERALL RATING: 4 OUT OF 5 STARS

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OVERALL RATING: 1 OUT OF 5 STARS

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