Review – Page 211 – We Are Movie Geeks

A BRILLIANT YOUNG MIND – The Review

A BRILLIANT YOUNG MIND tells the story of a mathematically gifted British teen on the autism spectrum as he prepares to compete in an international math Olympics.

Nathan (Asa Butterfield) is gifted at math but struggles with relationships, including with his caring but overwhelmed mother Julie (Sally Hawkins). Nathan has the more functional form of autism once known as Aspergers but he is also still struggling with the trauma of the accidental death of his father Michael (Martin McCann), who was killed in a car wreck while Nathan was in the car. His mother has done her best to raise him as a single parent but Nathan was never as close to her as his dad and it has been difficult for them both. A chance to enter the International Math Olympiad brings an unconventional math coach into Nathan’s life and introduces him to other mathematically gifted kids.

There is quite a bit of comedy and even some romance in this pleasant, crowd-pleasing British film. While it follows a conventional story arc, A BRILLIANT YOUNG MIND also accurately depicts some of the difficulties of raising a child on the autism spectrum. Director Morgan Mathews loosely based the story on a boy he met while filming his documentary “Beautiful Young Minds.” This British film was originally named “X + Y” when it played at the Toronto film festival, which is a clever mathematical title but a little obscure in telling an audience what the film is about. Nathan is indeed a brilliant young mathematical mind, and in fact sees everything in his world through a mathematical filter. Although he is a nice looking boy, Nathan is shy and the only thing he seems to care about is math. Despite his shyness with others, he is a bit of tyrant towards his eager-to-please mother, treating her with coldness although he clearly knows he needs her too. He is picky about his food, and his obsession with prime numbers leads him to demand that he have an exact number of shrimp in his Chinese take-out, berating his long-suffering mother if she gets it wrong. His mother is so devoted to her still-grieving son that she takes his abuse without complaint, and even seeming to feel inadequate to the task of raising him.

When Nathan’s school recommends a math coach to prepare him for the math competition, a new factor changes the toxic social dynamics. Martin Humphreys (Rafe Spall) is a once-promising math prodigy who didn’t quite live up to potential. Now teaching in the middle school, he is an unconventional wise-cracker and a bit of a slob, who also suffers from muscular dystrophy. Still he makes a connection with Nathan and the two become close. The pair travel to a math camp in Taiwan, where Nathan meets other mathematical-gifted kids, including another boy with autism, a girl who plays piano and introduces him to the links between music and math, and a Chinese girl, Zhang Mei (Jo Yang), under pressure to succeed by her family.

The film moves smoothly back and forth between comic and drama scenes, never becoming overly sentimental. The British cast is splendid, but Eddie Marsan nearly steals the show as Richard, the head of the British math team and a competition official, a sharp, funny fellow who cuts through a lot of distractions to get straight to the heart of the matter. Fine photography and the film’s nice pacing enhance the experience.

One does not have to have an interest in math to enjoy A BRILLIANT YOUNG MIND’s appealing, intelligent, informative story with a surprisingly realistic peek inside life raising an autistic child.

The film opens Friday, Sept. 25, at Plaza Frontenac Cinema

OVERALL RATING: 3 1/2 OUT OF 5 STARS

THE NEW GIRLFRIEND – The Review

Review by Stephen Jones

THE NEW GIRLFRIEND is the sort of middle-brow, forgettable movie you’d stumble upon while watching Showtime in the mid 90’s. It has what it views as a tantalizing hook, seems to know very little about it, but thinks that knowing about it at all is enough. With the movie’s particular hook, cross-dressing, that probably WOULD have been enough in the mid 90s. But that was 20 years ago.

I’m not really in a position to delve into a movie from the perspective of trans issues. It’s not an experience I know well enough to speak from. But the main characters agreeing that “gay is less embarrassing than tranny” even had me cringe a little. This isn’t a movie I’d throw under the “transphobic” label, because in the end it seems to be on the side of David/Virginia being alright after all, but it felt like it came to that conclusion in the same way as Michael Scott from “The Office.” I think its heart is in the right place, but it’s really dumb.

Not that it knows that. The whole time it felt like the movie didn’t realize that it was holding any risque ideas it had at arms length. It addresses cross dressing, transgender issues, homosexuality, pretty much every key frame on the LGBT spectrum. But it always feels like an upper middle class housewife getting a thrill by going into the part of town next to the seedy part of town. It could have worked. It fits the perspective of the main character, which isn’t invalid, but it never actually tackles any issues or conflict that might arise. Any resolution comes through the same sort of cheap melodrama that could come from any other movie, completely disconnected from who the characters are or what the movie has been about. And when they do try to connect it to the story, it’s done in the absolute stupidest way possible.

The movie needed to be either in much better hands or much worse. Someone along the lines of Michael Haneke could’ve made something genuinely interesting and thought provoking with the same material. On the opposite end, someone much less competent could have made a much more entertaining movie, sort of a contemporary “Glen or Glenda.” What director Francois Ozon has given us isn’t smartly written or artfully directed enough to be great, or even really good, but too competently made on all other fronts to be memorably or entertainingly bad. What’s left is a mediocre vapor of a movie about a decade and a half too late to have any lasting status. I’m already starting to forget it.

2 of 5 Stars

THE NEW GIRLFRIEND opens in St. Louis September 24th exclusively at Landmark’s The Tivoli Theater

A BRAVE HEART: THE LIZZIE VELASQUEZ STORY – The Review

Life is hard. Just speaking in general terms, the daily grind of modern life takes a toll on the human mind, body and spirit. Granted, we’ve done all this to ourselves, but still the drive to survive and succeed in life is a daunting endeavor. Now, consider you’re not “normal” by society’s standards? Consider the playing field is not level in your life, but rather has been shifted and upended to resemble something like a cruelly insane funhouse ride. Consider what it would be like to have an undiagnosed syndrome that, amongst other things, causes your body to look so abnormally different from everyone else as to be labeled a freak? How do you feel, right now?

A BRAVE HEART: THE LIZZIE VELASQUEZ STORY is a new documentary from director Sara Bordo that made waves and garnered immense support when it played at the SXSW Film Festival. As the title suggests, this is the story of Lizzie Velasquez, a young woman born with an unexpected, undiagnosed condition that has taken an enormous toll on her body and appearance. Lizzie endured incredible hardships growing up, awkward questions and unpleasant stares from other kids, from strangers on the street, as well as the often-inhuman cruelty that is dealt out in high school. All of this and more, yet Lizzie remains perhaps one of the most amazing, positive and compassionate human beings you’ll ever hope to have a chance to meet.

What is it that makes Lizzie tick? There is a strength we witness in watching A BRAVE HEART that shines like a beacon through all the ugliness and negativity we see in the world. Lizzie is the very best of human nature with pretty much all of the nasty crap cut out. She is just a good, honest, real, sincere, likable person. What Bordo does with the film is to unveil a portrait of what we all can be, what we all should strive to be, but rarely excel to become.

A BRAVE HEART introduces us to Lizzie, intentionally allowing us to dwell on her appearance at first, allowing us to run through our natural human emotions. Bordo allows us to get all the inevitable societal bullsh*t out of our systems before we delve into the heart of Lizzie’s story. We learn a little of her history, we hear the expected stories of growing up as a child that’s different, but the really cool thing that Bordo does is to spend far more time and focus on the positive experiences Lizzie has had growing up. She made friends, participated in extracurricular activities, including cheerleading, and was generally liked by her peers. It seemed, for a while, Lizzie had defeated the grotesque elephant in the room without even having to put up much of a fight… then social media happened.

I am as much a user and supporter of the Internet and social media as the next modern member of society, so I’m not saying it’s inherently bad. However, after seeing A BRAVE HEART, I am much more critical of how some people choose to use this amazing technology and how little use they choose to give their own lives in this world. Lizzie unwittingly discovers that someone has posted a short video clip of her on Youtube with the simple, straightforward title “The Ugliest Woman in the World.” This sup-standard human specimen – one which some would refer to as a “troll” (no, not the kind that lives under a bridge, that I am aware) – has garnered a small level of anonymous cyber-fame by way of shamelessly bullying another human being.

Within what surely seemed like microseconds, Lizzie’s world fell apart. The terribly, vile things being said about her on the Internet by people who do not know her or have ever even met her, going viral and spiraling endlessly into a 7-figure view count, this all came down on Lizzie like ten tons of lead bricks. For most of us, we’d crumble in the wake of the emotional weight, have a nervous breakdown or disappear and isolate ourselves from society altogether. But for Lizzle, this absolutely incredible young woman, it ends up being the key to shedding her inhibitions and triggers her true self to emerge and take control of her life.

Lizzie fights back. Not fire with fire. Not with violence and vengeance. Not with hatred, but with courage and compassion in the face of ignorant malevolence. Instead of hiding or making excuses or succumbing to the ridicule in some other way, Lizzie stands up tall and proud, faces her demons eye to eye – or as much as she can when those demons hide behind the anonymity of the Internet – and she speaks openly and intelligently from her heart, saying this is who I am. My thoughts, beliefs, dreams and desires are what define me, not what I look like. She makes the case that it’s what she chooses to do with her life that matters, and what she does truly matters.

A BRAVE HEART does touch briefly on another case of cyber-bullying that had headlines in the news, but this is ultimately to tie into Lizzie meeting and being a mutual, reciprocal inspiration for the other person. This is Lizzie’s story and she’s going to keep telling it, but not to benefit herself… it’s to benefit others and fulfill what she believes is her life’s calling.

I’ll admit, this review may sound more like a marketing plug than an unbiased critique. I’ll accept that for what it is and counter by stating this; A BRAVE HEART is a modern gem of inspirational documentary filmmaking. It’s a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and a testimony to having faith in the human race where it often seems a lost cause. See this film as adults, share this film with children of all ages, discuss and repeat. Help spread the seed that Lizzie is sowing and by God, help this young woman make a difference in this world.

A BRAVE HEART opens nationwide on Friday, September 25th, 2015

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

STONEWALL – The Review

Well, we’re past the Summer blockbusters and heading right into the serious, somber cinema season, that time when the studios dream of top ten lists and Oscar gold. What better way to make those award fantasies come true than to hop in the movie “way-back” time machine and witness a most historic birth. But we’re not looking back on the birth of a person, rather the birth of a movement, a concentrated effort to effect change for a minority. Almost a year ago, we saw the civil rights movement take root in the acclaimed SELMA. And in a few weeks, we’ll see the story of how the women’s equality movement began in SUFFRAGETTE. So, now the movies offer up a look at a true flash point in the struggle of the LGBT community for justice, specifically the 1969 riot at the NYC nightspot called STONEWALL. So, what director is tackling this controversial subject matter. Someone known for daring independent flicks? A firebrand just out of film school? Would you believe the director is a man behind some of the biggest action blockbusters? This tale arrives in cinemas courtesy of Mr. Roland Emmerich. Or should I say Mr. Roland (INDEPENDENCE DAY) Emmerich. Yes, he did make the Shakespeare-era bit of conjecture ANONYMOUS, but this movie really strays from the big epics. Well. lets’ flip the dial back to those “good ol’/bad ol’ days” and discover that peace and love weren’t so easily available to everybody.

The story begins with some stark, black and white images from the film’s later riot sequence accompanied by the layered period factoids concerning the treatment (really mistreatment) of homosexuals (barred from jobs, electro-shock therapy as a “cure”). Then we’re on Christopher Street in the big apple in the Spring of 1969 as eighteen year-old Danny Winters (Jeremy Irvine) arrives fresh off the bus from the midwest. He’s ready to start college classes soon at Columbia, but he needs a place to live. A group of gay street hustlers embrace him, especially the outspoken Ray (Jonny Beauchamp). Through flashbacks we learn that Danny was kicked out of his home by his stern, stoic father after he had been spotted having sex with his football teammate (and dad’s the coach!). Luckily Danny is still in contact with his adoring mother and spitfire kid sister Phoebe (Joey King). Later he’s taken by Ray and his pals to the seedy mob-run bar, the Stonewall Inn, where he attracts the attention of the co-owner Ed Murphy (Ron Perlman) and gay activist Trevor (Jonathon Ryhs Meyers). As Danny is introduced to the world of hooking along with constant police harassment and brutality, he begins a romance with Trevor. Meanwhile ambitious Police Deputy Pine decides to crack down on the Stonewall in order to root out corrupt cops. This comes to a boil on a hot Summer night as the bar’s patrons finally decide that they’ve had enough and become the catalyst for a world-wide fight against oppression and prejudice.

The younger members of the cast strain and sweat trying to push this leaden script, much to their credit. Irvine tries to breathe life into Danny, the bright-eyed audience surrogate. He mainly registers heartbreak and horror as the character becomes a “Perils of Pauline” serial hero escaping doom every other scene as the villains lustily pursue him. His quick adaptation to the big evil city never really rings true, but Irvine truly gives it his all. But his energy level can’t match Beauchamp’s Ray who seems to have been just shot out of a cannon into a pool of coffee (not decaf). Sporting heavy eyeliner, Ray is almost always in a state of panic or disgust as he tosses his feather boa like a bullwhip. King is shaping up to be quite a compelling young actress even as she works to make her stilted, way too adult dialogue believable. As for the screen vets, Rhys Meyers smolders on-screen as the very smooth and slick rabble-rouser and is quite a believable seducer. Perlman is all swarthy menace as the devious and deadly Murphy, seeming like one of Tony Soprano’s most brutal lieutenants. And Craven is convincing as the guy who appears to be the only good cop trying to rescue the kids from the cesspool of the city streets.

Emmerich directs with such passion that the personal intimate stories get steamrolled by the film’s strident message. Yes, yes things weren’t that groovy then, we get it. He’s trying for a gay rights version of SELMA with touches of DO THE RIGHT THING, but the whole story comes off as more clumsy than compelling. Mixing fictional characters with real people and events has worked in films from SAN FRANCISCO to RAGTIME to TITANIC, which made history truly come alive for modern audiences. But when it doesn’t work, the results can be deadly, and the impact of the event can be dulled. Danny’s story never really grabs us, particularly as it plays into many clichés. He’s first approached by a leering, overly made-up queen who seems to have been flown in from a pre-code early “talkie”. Then, much later in the flick, Danny is once again enduring the advances of a much older, husky “sugar daddy” who’s almost a clone of DUNE’s Baron Harkonnen. And his flashback scenes seem to play like Rockwell golden-lit Smallville outtakes from the first Richard Donner Superman flick. But the film is truly slowed down to a halt by the antics of Ray and his group of campy hustlers. On a scale of 1 to 10, their energy and volume always seem to be well past 20. They’re meant to be endearing but are mostly irritating and irresponsible. At one point “Queen Kong” hurls a brick through a window in order to scoop up a flower hat that struck his fancy. Because they’re mistreated, he should take anything he wants? What a rascal! A scamp! For the final scene we get a glimpse of the first parade for gay liberation that spots some truly unconvincing “keyed-in” period backdrops. This after a riot sequence that feels flat and squeezed in to fit onto a soundstaged Christopher street corner. There’s a good lesson to be learned from this cultural event, but good intentions don’t always inspire good movies. And the incredibly stilted, heavy-handed, maudlin STONEWALL proves it.

1.5 Out of 5

STONEWALL opens everywhere and screens exclusively in the St. Louis area at Landmark’s Tivoli theatre

THE INTERN – The Review

There’s a terrific performance by Robert DeNiro at the center of Nancy Meyer’s agreeably shallow office comedy THE INTERN in which he plays Ben Whittaker, a 70-year-old retired widower. It’s a sweet, melancholy turn that shows a kindhearted side to the actor that we rarely see. Too bad the rest of THE INTERN lacks the depth of DeNiro’s portrayal, but it’s still a breezy crowd-pleaser that goes down easy enough.

DeNiro’s costar in THE INTERN is Ann Hathaway as Jules Ostin, the owner of About The Fit, a NYC-based online fashion website so successful it employs 220 people and an office masseuse. She’s a workaholic who barely has time for her young daughter and stay-home-dad husband Matt (Anders Holm). DeNiro’s Ben is looking for something to do besides attend funerals and avoid the advances of his horny friend Patty (Linda Lavin). He decides to head back to the work force, this time as an unpaid intern at About The Fit and soon finds himself Jules’ personal assistant. Ben’s old-school wisdom makes him at first useful and then essential (turns out he spent his career working on the same building!). He spots Jules’ driver taking a slug from a wino bag, so becomes her personal chauffer, getting to know her family when he picks her up in the morning. He cheers her up when she’s down and encourages her to run her company the way she wants. The mutual respect that develops between the unlikely pair is predictable but convincing and sometimes moving. A comic sequence involving Ben taking his younger office mates to break in into Jules’ mother’s home to delete a nasty email she’d inadvertently sent seems from a broader comedy, but it gets a lot of laughs and there’s a nicely written sequence in a bar where Jules drunkenly compares the goofy hipsters from her office to the real man that she’s discovered in Ben.

THE INTERN is pat and predictable, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t enjoyable, which it is. Meyers’s previous films (IT’S COMPLICATED, SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE, THE HOLIDAY) have bored me because of scripts that rarely rise above the level of a television sitcom, but DeNiro and Hathaway have a nice chemistry which lifts THE INTERN and I think it’s Meyer’s best film. If Hathaway’s Jules drives the narrative, then DeNiro is the movie’s soul. He is especially good in this sincere and wholesome role and he clearly has fun in scenes where he dresses down his younger male co-workers. Less successful is Hathaway. We know that Jules is a tough, savvy, type-A, take-charge, glass-ceiling-buster because we’re told so many times, but it’s not what we’re shown. Hathaway is adorable and gorgeous but Jules is too soft and folds too early and easily. Starting her out more bitchy and egomaniacal may have added more drama to her character’s arc. She should have paid more attention to Meryl Streep when they were making THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA together. The few scenes in which DeNiro is absent focus on the relationship between Jules and her husband, complete with a third-act conflict involving infidelity. These scenes are the film’s weakest, not helped that charisma-challenged Anders Holm, with distracting facial hair, is a weak link as Matt. He drags Hathaway down with him especially in a reconciliation scene near the end that is remarkable in how poorly acted it is. Renee Russo is a sexy presence as Fiona, the aforementioned office masseuse and love interest for Ben, but it’s an underwritten and thankless role. She shows up in just three or four brief scenes, the first two featuring cheap visual gags about erections and oral sex. Linda Lavin as Patty is barely in the film in a role that seems trimmed while poor Mary Kay Place, listed in the credits as Jules’ mom, is never seen (we only hear her voice).

THE INTERN is well-directed by Meyer who keeps its 122 minutes whizzing along nicely and is aided by Theodore Shapiro’s catchy score. It’s all cookie-cutter warm and fuzzy, hard not to like, and while THE INTERN is not a great film, it is a good one and I do recommend it.

4 of 5 Stars

HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 2 – The Review

A worthy animated sequel, HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 2 has lively monster design, fangtastic visuals, great characters, gorgeous animation, and a top-notch voice cast. It’s a lot of fun and if you liked the first one, you won’t be disappointed with the follow-up. Drac (Adam Sandler) and his pack of classic Universal monsters are back and everything seems to be changing for the better at Hotel Transylvania. Dracula’s rigid monster-only hotel policy has relaxed, opening up its doors to human guests. But behind closed coffins, Drac is concerned that his red-headed half-human, half-vampire grandson, Dennis, isn’t showing signs of being a vampire. So while his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) is busy visiting her human in-laws (Megan Mullalley and Nick Offerman) with her husband Johnny (Andy Samburg), “Vampa” Drac enlists his monster friends Frank (enstein), Murray (the Mummy), Wayne (the Werewolf) and Griffin (the Invisible Man) to put Dennis through a “monster-in-training” boot camp. But Drac’s grumpy and very old, old-school dad Vlad pays a family visit to the hotel and when he finds out that his great-grandson is not a pure blood – and humans are now welcome at Hotel Transylvania – things get batty!

HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 2’s screenplay by Sandler and Robert Smigel isn’t strong, but the film’s big laughs, and there are a lot of them, come from the visual side of the equation. Director Genndy Tartakovsky is clearly a big fan of the animated works of Chuck Jones and Tex Avery, cartoon legends who knew that you could earn just as many guffaws from a silly walk, a smash cut, or a stylized facial expression as you could from a well-delivered ‘spoken’ joke. HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 2 is full of funny fast-flying gags and non-stop monster visual puns that would make Forry Ackerman proud. It’s a kid’s movie but since the talent behind both HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA films clearly has such affection and respect for the Universal movie monsters, older Monster Kids like myself will appreciate it as well. Adam Sandler, much more likable here than his recent live-action stuff, provides the voice for Count Dracula as sort of a cross between Lugosi and a Jewish grandma. Cee-Lo is not back as Murray the Mummy, a good thing since his excruciating auto-tune rap songs in the first one were a low point. David Spade returns as an invisible man who gets big laughs pretending to have an invisible girlfriend. Kevin James is back as Frankenstein but isn’t given much to do while Steve Busceli as Wayne the Wolfman is a scene-stealer again. There are some welcome new characters in the sequel. Megan Mullalley and deadpan Nick Offerman voice Johnny’s California human parents and Drac’s Uncle Vlad is voiced by comedy legend Mel Brooks. The sequel seems a notch less witty than its predecessor (someone yelling at Drac “I like your chocolate cereal!” may be the only line I laughed out loud at), and the focus is more on the zany, out of control gestures made by the characters instead of a genuinely substantial plot, but I still recommend HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 2.

3 1/2 of 5 Stars

WILDLIKE – The Review

She is a tiny little woman, a girl really, her eyes big and scared, she chews nervously on her sleeves, she looks at everyone with suspicion and maybe a bit of hope. She wears way too much eye makeup and her nail polish is always chipped and fading. She looks lost and alone in a waiting area of what may be a train station, airport or bus station. It is a waiting area for a ferry to Juneau, Alaska.

Her Mother is ill and Father deceased. Mother will be entering a hospital in Seattle, Washington, where they live, Mother can’t take care of her anymore. She is being sent to Juneau to stay with an Uncle, (known only as Uncle, played by Brian Geraghty). This is MacKenzie, the fragile but resourceful heroine of WILDLIKE.

At first her Uncle seems to have been sent from Heaven. She gets her own room in a nice home, a brand new phone, she gets to visit where Uncle works and seems to have dreams for a future of her own with maybe a job, boyfriend, a home. She is only 14.

And, as it must, reality comes crashing in. Uncle comes into her bed, several times. Later he will blame her for what occurs, naturally. She takes all the cash she can from Uncle and at the first opportunity runs off, leading to an adventure where we hope that she will not end up victimized further or worse.

She sleeps in unlocked cars, tries to scam backpackers staying in a nice hotel she cannot afford. She learns to use her own emerging womanhood to get what she needs.

Her goal is to get back to Seattle, she stumbles, more or less by chance into the company of Rene Bartlett (Bruce Greenwood) another back packer. His goal is to hike the trail through the Denali (used to be McKinley) National forest. The last thing he wants is an inexperienced, unprepared teenage tag along, but that is exactly what he gets.

As they must MacKenzie and Bartlett hike the trail together and learn much about each other and themselves. MacKenzie hit it lucky when she attached herself to Bartlett. He is a good and decent man and does the right thing. He even goes to Juneau and confronts Uncle, after he discovers what transpired, and does not do what we expect.

This is not a typical Hollywood movie with explosive behavior and dialog. This is the kind of character and story driven project that has a hard time getting into multiplex theaters, where the blockbuster mentality rules what gets exhibited.

All the actors are excellent but the movie belongs to Ella Purnell, who showed such promise in The Intruders and Kick Ass 2 and Maleficent. Here is a young actress rapidly coming into her own. Bruce Greenwood is also simply astonishing. A familiar presence from the Star Trek films he makes a good and decent man, (a type we don’t see much in movies anymore) into a believable and interesting character.

The Alaskan wilderness is a character unto itself. Movies seem to come in cycles, WILDLIKE is coming at the end of a cycle of films like Into The Wild, The Way, Wild and A Walk in the Woods where characters are isolated in wilderness settings, often taking a long hike on a well traveled path, and in the process learning about themselves.

WILDLIKE is a masterpiece of that type of story, we come to care very deeply about MacKenzie, and Bartlett, and hopefully something about ourselves in the process.

Five out of five stars

EVEREST – The Review

There’s a moment in most sports movies when you realize that you want the good guys to win. You want the heroes to beat the enemy. Take for instance the movie ROCKY. It doesn’t take long into the film, but you care for the title character enough to root for him no matter what happens. Try as it may, EVEREST never quite manages to make that same connection. Part of it might be because of the film and part of it might have to do with my own personal mental block, but I kept repeating the same thing to myself: these people are crazy. There is a certain level to crazy that you have inside of you to voluntarily climb a mountain in terrain and atmospheric conditions that are not meant for human life. There are moments throughout the film where we’re meant to connect with these “ordinary” people – one of them is a mailman, for goodness sake – but you can never gather enough energy to root for these crazy people that are willing to risk life and limb to climb a damn mountain. Most of the time you are left in awe of this stark mountain, waiting to see who the first will be to fall to its magnificence.

The year is 1996. Rob Hall (Jason Clarke) is a trained and experienced Mt. Everest tour guide. He’s an expert at training men and women to climb the mountain of all mountains. His new batch of climbers include, Doug (John Hawkes), Jon (Michael Kelly), Beck (Josh Brolin), and many others. Two other tour groups ascend the mountain at the same time, one of which is led by the laid-back and too cool for school Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal). Due in large part to the guidance and training from Rob, most of these men and women manage to reach the summit and stand victorious. However, a wave of storms suddenly hits the climbers creating a terrifying struggle between life and death as they make their descent down the mountain.

EVEREST is consistently breathtaking on IMAX screens and in 3D. It’s one thing to make you believe that the actors are going through these torrential and dangerous circumstances, but it’s quite another to pull the audience in. You often feel like you are right there with them -which actually says a lot considering that it really seems that these actors are suffering from hypothermia and frost bite. But that is actually part of the problem. Because the film feels so realistic, you are often left distracted and wondering how these well known actors survived these conditions, when you aren’t speculating if they are even going to survive the trip back down.

Director Baltasar Kormákur is an accomplished director (I really liked 2013’s 2 GUNS) and properly conveys the struggles inherent in the story. He gives Gyllenhaal, Brolin, and Clarke all room to create amiable characters. However, the story is transfixed with the idea of portraying these characters as just “normal” guys. It’s just that “normal” is not always engaging on-screen.

EVEREST is ultimately an endurance test not just for the characters in the film, but for the audience as well. By the end of the two hour runtime – 90 minutes of which is rather intense – I’d be shocked if you didn’t find yourself gasping for air. EVEREST is an exhilarating movie when you are caught in the moment. For thrill-seekers, there will be plenty to love. Still, I’m fascinated by those who seek out these adventures and risk their lives for a natural “high.” At the end of the day, my mind can’t quite admire the level of crazy that these individuals have to have in order to face almost certain death.

Overall rating: 3 out of 5

EVEREST opens in large format theaters Friday, September 18. It will then expand to regular theaters next week.

CAPTIVE – The Review

As bland as its title, CAPTIVE is an indifferent home invasion thriller in which a drug-addicted single mom is held hostage by a desperate man who’d just murdered four people. Hostage movies follow such age-old patterns that it’s rare to be surprised by one and CAPTIVE is no exception. Occasionally the genre will be transformed by brilliant filmmaking, as it was in something like THE DESPERATE HOURS or DOG DAY AFTERNOON. Not this time. The true subject should have been given energy but all I felt while watching CAPTIVE was a big yawn.

Taking place over a single day, CAPTIVE closely follows an event that took place in Atlanta in 2005. Brian Nichols (played by David Oyelowo) was on trial for rape when he overpowered and beat a female guard, then took her gun. He calmly walked into a courtroom and fatally shot a judge and a court reporter then another guard before escaping the facility. He became the subject of a city wide manhunt and killed a detective before finding his way to the apartment of 27-year old waitress Ashley Smith (Kate Mara), a complete stranger. A mess herself, Ashley had lost her husband to drug-related violence and was battling her own meth addiction. Her daughter Paige (Elle Graham) is staying with her aunt (Mimi Rogers) while she tries to get her act together. The movie mostly focuses on the 8 hours Ashley and Brian spend together. He threatens her and ties her up in the tub, but she’s never hurt. “Got any weed?” No, but she has some meth lying around so he smokes that (that’ll calm him down!). Ashley turns for guidance to Rick Warren’s inspirational best-seller The Purpose Driven Life, a book forced on her by a well-meaning co-worker that very day. She reads it aloud, hoping it will bring out some humanity in the killer. Meanwhile, Detective John Chestnut (Michael Kenneth Williams) is taking charge, barking orders at his underlings, though he has no clue where the fugitive is hiding.

CAPTIVE presents a basic movie situation and delivers it in an uninspired and pedestrian manner. It’s based on Ashley Smith’s book about the encounter, so knowing she’s the only hostage and that she survives diminishes any tension. Limiting much of the action to Ashley’s small apartment eliminates distractions and allows for a closer focus on these two characters but the story is inert and fails to excite. Much of the problem is the direction by 81-year old Jerry Jameson whose TV career goes all the way back to The Andy Griffith Show and Gomer Pyle. He sets an appropriately gloomy tone but his TV-level compositions and close-ups fill the space where motivation and character-building ought to be. He fails to exploit the claustrophobia of the premise while Lorne Balfe’s low-rent synthetic score adds a cheapness to the proceedings.

David Oyelowo is a powerful screen presence but underplays his role. Brian Nichols had just murdered four people, but by the time he arrives at Ashley Smith’s home, he seems much too calm and composed. He bounces off the walls perfunctorily when he smokes the meth, but you’d think the adrenaline from his crimes would have already put him at least halfway there. We’re told Brian is desperate to make contact with his newborn son but even the actor best known for playing Martin Luther King (in SELMA) makes it impossible to have a speck of sympathy for a character who’s introduced gunning down four innocents. Kate Mara is fine but does not make much of an impression. This may be a true story but the enterprise seems contrived–more like an actors’ workshop than a drama. The poster for CAPTIVE depicts Oyelowo running, gun in hand, like this in an action film. The producers of CAPTIVE (including Oyelowo) may have been wise to have played up the Christian angle (as some recent box-office surprises have proven). Preserving the original title of Ashley Smith’s book Unlikely Angel, would have been a good start instead of the generic CAPTIVE, and more emphasis on how The Purpose Driven Life affected this story may have helped but as is, neither the dramatic or religious details of Ashley Smith and Brian Nichol’s encounter ever come into satisfying focus.

1 1/2 of 5 Stars

Read my recent interview with actor David Oyelowo HERE

PAWN SACRIFICE – The Review

The kid faces the champion, loses, fights his way back, and takes the rematch. It’s a familiar sports trope and PAWN SACRIFICE, the biography of volatile chess champ Bobby Fischer, is as formulaic in its own way as ROCKY (or if you prefer, SEARCHING FOR BOBBY FISCHER). The good news is that it’s an intense and fascinating drama capable of involving those who know little about chess as well as avid players.

Raised by his single Jewish mother, Brooklyn native Fischer was born in 1943 and was proficient on the chess board by the age of six. A self-taught player, he continued mastering his game though his early teens, when he defeated star players. As an adult (played by Tobey Maguire) Fischer’s success at the game grows, but his mental state begins to unravel and he suspects the government is watching his every move. Two men enter Bobby’s life to help manage his career – attorney Paul Marshall (Michael Stuhlbarg) and Father Bill Lombardy (Peter Sarsgaard), a heavy-drinking ex-chess champ. Much of the second half of PAWN SACRIFICE focuses on Fischer famously winning the world title from defending champion Boris Spassy in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1972.

Fischer’s story seems a natural for a movie, yet it’s a tricky one. Tasked with the challenge of making a two-player strategy board game seem cinematic is Ed Zwick, director of big-scale epics like GLORY and THE LAST SAMURAI and he does a terrific job working on a smaller battlefield. If you’re expecting close-ups of pawns and rooks being shuffled about in slow motion while dramatic music plays, there is a little of that, but Zwick wisely saves it until the film’s final half hour. He makes other good choices, including having the first match between Fischer and Spassky take place off-screen. Screenwriter Steven Knight provides an insightful look at not only chess but serious mental illness, the psychology of competition, and a battle the film refers to as “World War Three on a chessboard” that would prove to be a major propaganda win for America during the Cold War. James Newton Howard’s score has the right combination of wonder and the hint of something sinister. Period details are impeccable – not just in the costuming and art design but in the vintage newscasts about the event that are perfectly chosen and incorporated along with references to Watergate and the Vietnam War.

PAWN SACRIFICE is anchored by the outstanding performance of Tobey Maguire as Fischer. Mercurial and highly-strung, his interpretation of this tortured genius is textured and complex. There may bit a bit too much focus on his paranoia (how many times do we have to see him dismantling his phone?), but Maguire makes Fischer’s journey from a swaggering “ego-crushing” genius to a shaken shell of a man believable. Liev Schreiber, 90% of whose part is spoken in Russian, is perfect as the arrogant, confident Spassky. Bobby Fischer eventually descended into madness, arrests, crazed outbursts and allegiance to a religious doomsday cult before his death at age 65 from kidney disease. The film addresses some of this in a brief addendum complete with startling archival footage. Fischer’s bizarre post-Spassky life might one day make for an interesting film of its own.

4 1/2 of 5 Stars

PAWN SACRIFICE opens in St. Louis Friday September 18th exclusively at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Theater

OVERALL RATING: 3 1/2 OUT OF 5 STARS

Share this:

Share this:

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Five out of five stars

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: