Nebraska Review

Coming off critical and commercial success with The Descendants in 2011, we’re unmistakably in Alexander Payne territory once more with Nebraska, a road trip story that marks a mature evolution in the director’s style. Combining various elements from Payne’s last few films, Nebraska is chiefly about family in all its complexities and absurdities. And as is always the case with Payne, he handles the subject with a grounded realism and effortless humor that never sinks down to overly melodramatic territory. After examining the hidden miseries of peoples' lives concealed behind the exotic sunny environs of Hawaii with The Descendants, Payne goes for a different taste of Americana in the very un-exotic setting of Billings, Montana.  

David (Forte) is a simple guy whose life is slowly drifting him by in a town where everything is slowly just drifting by. Working as a salesman at an electronics store and coming off a 2 year relationship with a woman he never felt sure about, David is a man caught in a lifelong rut. As an added distraction, David also has to deal with an increasingly senile father who has it in his head that an obviously misleading letter promising him winnings worth a million dollars is the real deal. Ignoring his son's repeated assertions that it's just a scam, Woody (Dern) is obsessed with going to Lincoln, Nebraska to claim his prize and is willing to walk the whole way there if he has to. And despite the endless nagging and complaining of David's plucky mother Kate (June Squibb in a great and hilarious performance), he finally gives in and decides to drive his father to Lincoln. But it is during a detour into Woody's old home town that the story of Nebraska is truly told.  

Nebraska explores the fabric of a worn down family suffering from the bitter effects of time and history that get to us all. Age-old themes are touched upon but the familiarity is welcome here rather than coming off as stale or rehashed. Within seconds of David's first interaction with his parents, we become instantly acquainted with the inner works of the family.  And through a series of deliberate and steadily paced scenes, the suffocating confines of David and Woody's world soon become apparent. Although they are very different men in many ways, we see many parallels between David and Woody throughout. Both men's proclivity for alcohol as a coping mechanism is hinted at and David's apprehensions about entering into a loveless marriage clearly has its roots in his parents' fractious relationship. And while David clearly loves his father, Woody is a difficult man who says very little and David can only deal with him with a frustrated bemusement of sorts. “What are you even going to do with that money?” A perplexed and slightly confounded David asks his father. But the road trip is a perfect opportunity for both characters to learn something and attain some perspective. Over the course of a few days, David realizes he never actually knew his father and never understood the loves and pains that turned him into the sad man he had become. Once they arrive at Woody’s old stomping ground of Hawthorne however, David begins to put together bits and pieces of his father’s life and discovers many a thing he didn't know about his old man, or perhaps, about himself.

In an artistic choice that works well for its purposes, Nebraska is filmed in its entirety in black and white. And while the stark imagery on screen is beautiful, it captures the beauty in a colorless world that conceals a hidden pain and drudgery that is always there somewhere in the periphery. Showcasing the austere open fields of the Midwestern landscape along with the derelict stillness and antiquity of the Midwest's small impoverished towns, the cinematography here is exceptional and definitely one of the highlights of the experience. 

The true highlight though is the great characters and cast at work here. Bruce Dern is excellent as he blurs any distinction between actor and character with a performance that fits his talents hand in glove. Will Forte is also perfectly cast and the simple easygoing quality that shines through even in his Saturday Night Live sketches makes for a perfect David. Surrounded by oddity and madness all around him, David is our window into the quirky world of Nebraska. The humor derived from this film is of the subtle variety and blends seamlessly in with the frequently depressingly sad story. This may sound like a difficult feat to accomplish but laughs come thick and fast from unexpected places and are earned with honest performances. Payne has always had a keen eye at finding the hilarity and absurdity abundant in everyday life and those moments resonate all the more because we’ve all been there at some point (some of the film's funniest scenes involve incredibly awkward family gatherings in front of the television). 

Verdict: While not quite as provocative or as memorable as some of Payne’s earlier work, Nebraska is an unexpectedly emotional and mature experience that allows its viewers to come to their own conclusions. And in what is perhaps an old cliché, the road trip to Lincoln, Nebraska isn't about the illusory destination full of false hope but about the journey of discovery the characters embark on to get there.

B+

Trailer:

Movie info:

Runtime: 115 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Cast: Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb, Stacy Keach

Director: Alexander Payne

Screenplay: Bob Nelson

Cinematography: Phedon Papamichael

Ender's Game Review

With another holiday season fast approaching and the “golden” age of movie adaptations/remakes still going strong, Hollywood’s contempt for original content continues with the release of Ender’s Game. In an attempt to replicate the enormous success that the first Hunger Games film enjoyed (with 400 million dollars box office in the US alone), the studios are scrambling to pick up anything remotely young-adult themed in the hopes that it can become the next billion dollar pop culture phenomenon. Case in point: the upcoming Divergent film is being heavily marketed and promoted before its March 2014 release, where it will most likely do some good business (although probably not as much business as Lionsgate is hoping for). But for every Hunger Games and every Divergent series hitting multiplexes, you will also find countless Ender’s Games floundering in their wake.  

Some time in a future where Earth has been invaded by an alien species of insect-like creatures called Formics, the surviving humans who successfully managed to repel the onslaught have turned to their most gifted children as the key to their survival. Observed and monitored from a very young age, select children with exceptional intelligence and capabilities are chosen to attend a special battle school in space and trained to eventually lead Earth's fleets into battle. And the most exceptional of these children might just be Andrew “Ender” Wiggin (Butterfield), a young boy who Colonel Hyram Graff (Ford) believes may be the “one” he’s searched for his entire life: a child capable of preventing humanity’s complete annihilation. Taken away from his home and his beloved sister, Ender is intentionally placed at Graff’s insistence in an isolated environment where he finds himself at odds with all the other gifted children at the battle school. Struggling to cope, Ender must overcome every obstacle thrown in his path if he is to succeed.  

Arriving a little over three weeks before the general release of the Hunger Games sequel, the idea may have been to fill a gap in the market and attract what would basically be the same target audience with a similar-themed film. The plan sounds good enough if it weren't for a couple of things it has working against it. First of all, while Hunger Games is universally known and has a large and young fan base already in place, Ender's Game is a 28 year old novel that, while not completely unheard of, definitely has nowhere near the same name recognition. Keeping that issue aside, the main problem is this: the plot/story of Ender’s Game doesn't work for the kind of movie that the filmmakers decided to make. While the storyline of a group of kids fighting to the death in a massive arena is tailor-made for conversion to film, the same cannot be said about Ender's Game's storyline. A more cerebral and character driven novel, the unwieldy results of its forced conversion are there for all to see. Film-makers always have to toe a careful line on how much to draw from the source material and how much should be taken in a new direction and writer-director Gavin Hood somehow manages to go too far in both directions. In Ender’s Game, the film-makers follow the step by step progression of the book’s storyline but very little of its interesting themes or social commentary survive the transition. There are many parallels with the current war on terror and the lengths people are willing to go to preserve their way of life in this story but they rarely crop up in a meaningful way in the film. Another problem: there isn’t much action in the novel and yet the film-makers still conceived it as an action movie. But those expecting thrilling scenes and epic adventure will undoubtedly be disappointed. Action sequences are brief and few and far between and generally take place in a simulated training environment where the risks are minimal and the thrills are poorly delivered. 

Regardless of the source, a movie should be held up on its own merit but Ender’s Game is too faithful to the book while also paradoxically betraying its spirit (see the recent adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s The Rum Diary for a perfect example of this). The plodding execution here leaves something to be desired as we persevere through flimsy attempts at sampling themes and ideas from the book while terms from the novel such as "ansible" and "hegemon" are mentioned but never explained. Putting it simply, “Ender’s Game: The Movie” comes off as the typical bad book to film adaptation. You can always tell if a movie adaptation is bad within the first 5 or so minutes because they typically have no clue how to start the story or how to introduce its elements in anything resembling a clear or cohesive manner. Instead, we are treated to awkwardly rushed scenes and clunky exposition while the intricacies of the characters’ world are barely touched upon and rarely brought up again. And even though it reportedly had a budget north of 100 million dollars, the movie surprisingly comes off as very small scale. We never truly become immersed in Ender’s world because we only get to see a small fraction of it (a flaw found in a few other recent big budget sci-fi films). In the elaborate battle school space station for example, the audience isn’t allowed to witness much; Ender's progression through the ranks feels too easy and straightforward and we never capture a sense of how arduous his coming of age story should have been.

But the problems don’t end there: Ender’s Game just doesn’t give its audience enough credit and is far too simplistic in its presentation. Relationships are superficial and mechanical; the characters are all only there to cynically serve the film’s purpose and progress the plot from point A to point B. You won’t find anything more complex in the characters’ relationships with each other beyond something along the lines of “Oh she’s nice so I like her” or “Oh he’s mean so I hate him”. And while we’re talking about the characters, another drawback for this film would definitely be the handling of the child actors involved. Asa Butterfield clearly has some talent as evidenced by his performances in Hugo and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas but much of that is wasted here. As Ender, a young genius saddled with incredible ability and placed under immense pressure, his performance is stilted, wooden and unconvincing. Ender’s character lacks a clear arc and we never experience the changes he supposedly goes through; everything can’t just be explained with background narration but this movie clearly disagrees. While the novel’s Ender is a complicated child wrestling with the fear of his own formidable capacity for destruction, the film fails to channel this effectively and Ender is portrayed in a much more safe and positive light. He’s basically the same character throughout and things just sort of get brushed over quickly as the movie goes through the checklist of what happens to him next. The rest of the child cast fare no better as they regurgitate memorized lines and fill their specifically designated roles. We have designated main nemesis, designated friend one, designated friend two, designated “girl” friend, and of course, you have to have one or two “designated enemies who eventually become friends because of how nice and good the main character is”. 

Verdict: With such great source material, Ender’s Game should be considered a wasted opportunity. As is often the case with big films designed to make as much money as possible, morally ambivalent themes and layered and complex characters are condensed and streamlined. It's a boring approach that doesn't challenge or provoke its audience and makes for what is an instantly disposable product ready to be consumed and forgotten before the next film of the week arrives and another 12 dollars is spent (not forgetting 15 dollars for a popcorn and large drink of course).

C

Trailer:

Movie info:

Runtime: 114 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Cast: Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Hailee Steinfeld, Abigail Breslin

Director: Gavin Hood

Screenplay: Gavin Hood

Cinematography: Donald McApline

Top Five: Coen Brothers Movies (Part III)

1. Barton Fink

The legend goes that the Coens were suffering from an acute case of writers’ block while penning the screenplay for Miller’s Crossing (which deserves an honorable mention), and what gushed forth from their minds in a matter of weeks was Barton Fink.  Winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s prestigious Palme d’Or back in 1991, the oft-maligned Barton Fink comes with a reputation of being intentionally ambiguous and confusing. While it could be argued that this reputation may be justified, the fact remains that, in this writer’s humble opinion, the Coens’  tale of a playwright who sells out for a shot at the big leagues and his subsequent descent into hell (literal or metaphorical, it’s all up for debate) may just be their greatest accomplishment to date.

Barton Fink is a successful 1940s playwright whose critical acclaim has gotten him the attention of Capitol Pictures, a big studio out west in Los Angeles. Surrounded by the flattery of the sycophantic elites of New York, the self-aggrandizing Barton is clearly conceited and full of himself, claiming to just be a humble writer who only seeks to shed light on the plight of “the common man”. A noble claim indeed, but as we soon shall see, the claim proves to as hollow as the man who makes it. Making the big move to Hollywood, he checks in to the strange and seemingly deserted Hotel Earle and after a bewildering meeting with the fast talking head of the studio, he gets assigned to write a new boxing picture featuring the big star of the time, Wallace Beery. In an unfamiliar setting and faced with the task of scribing a story he feels he possesses neither the motivation nor the knowledge to write about, Barton’s typewriter promptly falls silent.

In what is yet another indictment of Hollywood, this movie targets the cynical and artistically vacuous process of making movies just for the sake of making them. Barton faces a conflict and inner turmoil that the Coens themselves have encountered their whole careers: the desire to make great movies within the confines of a system that fixates on the pre-eminence of the all important bottom line. The Coens perfectly capture the agonizing and torturous process of writing and of creativity in general with this film. We become entrapped with Barton in the claustrophobic environs of his seedy and dilapidated hotel room as he becomes consumed by the utter isolation of his mind and soul. Everything suddenly turns into an excruciating distraction. Peeling wallpaper, an uncatchable mosquito on the ceiling, mysterious sounds of sobbing from next door; the minutiae of everyday life all appear to be working in tandem to thwart his efforts.

Now it’s unclear how much of what happens in the Hotel Earle is real or not and how much of it is just a manifestation of what is clearly a troubled mind. Besides the overeager concierge Chet (played by Steve Buscemi, who incidentally is in all of the top three films of this list), there doesn't seem to be many other people around the walls and corridors of the ethereal hotel. He also soon encounters Charlie Meadows (you guessed it, John Goodman makes yet another appearance), a lonely and clearly troubled insurance salesman who happens to be the source of the mysterious sobbing. And it’s their relationship (or lack thereof) that defines this film. Right under his nose, Barton finds a “common man” who might just be the key to solving his writers’ block but Barton is too caught up in himself and too lacking in empathy to see it. To complicate matters, Barton also becomes involved with Audrey, the secretary of the famous W.P. Mayhew, a drunken novelist and screenwriter who may be a bit of nasty foreshadowing of what working too long as a screenwriter does to you. And through it all, the plight of the common man is forgotten.

It’s hard to put into words exactly what makes this movie great but it grows on you the longer you watch and the more immersed in it you become. With deadlines approaching and pressure quickly mounting, the tension piling up on the helpless Barton soon becomes unbearable when events start to take a very dark and surreal turn. But even though Barton is an unlikeable man in many ways, the Coens still manage to imbue him with a decency that makes us unable to not still root for him. A flawed and cowardly character, you get a sense that his desire is genuine but his failure in sticking to the integrity he holds up so loftily may be his ultimate downfall. The Coens almost seem to be making the claim that Barton fears too much to be a truly great writer.  

Notorious for offering very little insight on their own films, the Coen brothers’ work here takes the cake. There are many layers to peel away and inspect here and the movie leaves many things unresolved but one question remains once it’s over that stands above all the others: what exactly is in that mysterious box? We can take a guess at the answer but in the end, perhaps the point is that we’re just not supposed to know.

Top Five: Coen Brothers Films (Part II)

3. The Big Lebowski

Falling in the middle of the Coen spectrum between ludicrous farce and serious drama, The Big Lebowski is quite simply the story of "The Dude", one of the greatest and unlikeliest anti-heroes ever to grace the silver screen. However, it should be noted that by the time the movie's over, we're not quite sure if the Dude could even be classified as an anti-hero or if he's just some buffoon who casually bumbles his way from one sticky situation to the next. A satire of Hollywood life and its bizarre detachment from reality, The Big Lebowski also plays as a stylized film noir turned upside down on its head. When two strangers break into the Dude's house demanding money and proceed to defile his rug, a rug that "really tied the room together", we embark on a journey so bizarre and so convoluted that it has to be seen to be believed. 

Featuring elaborate dream sequences, eccentric porn producers, feminist nude artists, German nihilist musicians, and an endless array of offbeat characters and peculiar situations, this is by far the Coen brothers' zaniest and most imaginative work, definitely their funniest, and perhaps their most entertaining.  Jeff Bridges plays the the iconic role of a lifetime with "The Dude", a bowling enthusiast who pays for 69 cent cartons of milk with a check. Lazy, ignorant, generally incompetent, and constantly high, all the Dude wants is to get a new rug and move on to the next round of the local bowling tournament. Instead, he finds himself prey to the advances and demands of countless other parties, including his crazy Vietnam war veteran sidekick Walter (played by Coen favorite John Goodman), who garners some of the movie's biggest laughs. One wonders how much of the Coen brothers' actual experiences in the jungle of Hollywood made it into this picture as we venture into what is truly a surreal world where anything can happen and we can only take comfort in one fact: The Dude abides. 

2. Fargo

Set in 1987 (Coen films tend to be set in a specific year), Fargo opens in an almost fairytale-like fashion as we are introduced to our setting of Fargo, North Dakota: a town where everyone talks funny and people are willing to do just about anything for a little bit of money. Jerry Lundegaard, a desperate down on his luck car salesman, hires two men to kidnap his own wife and force his frugal father-in-law to pay the ransom.  But a plan that seemed so simple and straightforward quickly falls apart. Nothing special so far but Fargo is the quintessential film to see the magic of the Coen Brothers at work. Where in other hands a film with such a set up would be a predictable and unremarkable by the numbers affair, the Coens’ version shines time and time again.  

The Coens take the farcical elements that are their calling card and throw them into a pitch black world full of betrayal, murder, and shocking indifference. None of the characters seem stale or overly familiar; they all have their unique idiosyncrasies and personalities.  Lundegaard, a meek and seemingly well-intentioned father and husband, deceives customers on a daily basis and risks destroying his family to get what he wants. And  in what is a great example of the Coens’ refusal to follow typical Hollywood conventions, the lead police officer investigating the kidnapping isn’t a grizzled alcoholic veteran or a dashing muscle-bound rookie, but a simple, folksy pregnant woman. Frances McDormand, Joel’s wife and yet another Coen regular, exudes an easygoing gentleness and studious decisiveness as Police Chief Marge Gunderson. And it’s Marge who grounds this film and gives proceedings their moral center. Her character’s journey parallels that of Sheriff Bell (No Country For Old Men) in many respects, and  her ability to separate the horrors she witnesses from her safe and tranquil home life is admirable and touching. A great film indeed, but only one film can be number one. 

 

Yet Again, To Be Continued...

Top Five: Coen Brothers Films (Part I)

In the landscape of modern American cinema, nowhere can we find a voice more unique and more stubbornly resistant to conformity than that of the Coen Brothers. Joel and Ethan Coen, who share writing, directing, and editing duties, bring their signature storytelling style to every movie and fill their worlds with quirky characters, eccentric villains, and layer upon layer of subtext. And although they've flirted with mainstream success at times, their films have always been a niche commodity that range in description from slapstick satire to violent and deeply existential. In spite of this varied range however, all their films share certain sensibilities, and as we shall soon see, recurring themes quickly begin to emerge (besides their propensity to cast John Goodman). And thus begins the countdown to end all countdowns:

5. A Serious Man

In what may be their most personal and autobiographical film to date, the Coens, in their own inimitable way, manage to meld together a satire of their upbringing in a small Jewish community in 1960s Minnesota with an existential quest to find the meaning of life. Inspired by the biblical story of the all-suffering Job and his trials and tribulations, "A Serious Man" focuses on piling endless misery on Larry Gopnik, a physics professor whose life inexplicably unravels before his very eyes. He faces a wife leaving him for an obnoxious man who may or may not be mailing damning letters that are endangering his chances at attaining tenure, self-involved children who couldn't care less about anyone else, an eccentric oddball of a cousin wanted by police for committing "sodomy", a disgruntled student blackmailing him for a better grade, and last but not least, a bill collector harassing him about an unpaid subscription to Santana's Abraxas album.

Ambiguous and full of potential meaning and interpretations, we journey with Gopnik as he desperately attempts to figure out how to live his life the right way. We've all been there before; misfortune hits us and we begin to question how much our actions influence our fate and how much of it is just blind chance and meaningless coincidence. And it's through Gopnik's eyes that we wonder if we should even bother thinking about the big picture at all or just go with the flow. Unanswerable questions all, but damn if it's not entertaining to watch Gopnik struggle to find the answers. Full of dreams, folk stories, and lurid fantasies, it is an absorbing film that delves into the machinations of who we are and how we keep going in our day-to-day life when we are so ignorant of the meaning behind it all.

4. No Country For Old Men

With what may ironically be one of their most oblique (second only to the confounding "The Man Who Wasn't There") and unconventional films, the Coen Brothers achieved unprecedented commercial and critical success with "No Country For Old Men". Adapted from the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name, the story is Coen-esque to the core. When a hunter by the name of Llewellyn Moss stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong and proceeds to take an unclaimed briefcase full of money, he unwittingly brings the devil to his door, personified by Anton Chigurh (played by Javier Bardem in an Oscar-winning performance). What ensues is a battle of wits and as close to high tension action and suspense as one can expect to find in a Coen brothers movie. One of the most cryptic and unique movie villains of all time, Chigurh relies on a coin toss to pass judgement on many who cross his path, and it soon becomes clear that his hell-bent pursuit of Moss is about something more elemental than mere dollar bills. 

Unapologetic in its presentation and structure, "No Country For Old Men" doesn't make anything easy for the audience and leaves a lot open to interpretation. Continuing a theme touched upon in "A Serious Man" and other Coen movies, this film considers the role fate and chance has on our simple mortal lives, and as is always the case with the Coens, it leaves the answer up in the air: we have the power to call the coin toss, but we're completely helpless in determining which side the coin lands on. One of the biggest misconceptions about "No Country for Old Men" is that Moss is the main character when in fact, it is Sheriff Bell (played by Tommy Lee Jones) who is the chief protagonist. Always arriving at a crime scene when it's too late and constantly trailing behind the other players in this story, Bell is an old man who just doesn't understand the world anymore and struggles to make sense of the violence and carnage he encounters. And it is Bell's sad realization of this and his desire to keep soldiering on anyway that is the one ray of light in what is by far the darkest film in the Coen brothers' ouevre. 

To Be Continued....

All Is Lost Review

Available now only in limited release, "All is Lost" is one of those little gems that deserves to be watched by a much wider audience than will actually end up going to see it and that fact is truly a shame. While audiences will watch the big blockbuster people-pleasers in droves, a more resonant and compelling story that exhibits both the visual power of cinema and the resilience of human spirit will remain unseen by many. 

Because it features a character cast adrift alone in the middle of the ocean, this movie will undoubtedly draw comparisons with last year's "Life of Pi", but they are very different experiences in many ways. What we have in "All is Lost" is a straightforward tale that focuses entirely on an unnamed man (Redford) and the sheer strength of his desire to survive. Billed as "Our Man" in the end credits, Redford inhabits his character with a deft ease that entrenches us completely in his struggle to beat the odds that continuously stack themselves against him. With a script by writer-director J.C. Chandor that numbers only 32 pages (the average screenplay is usually between 100-125 pages), the set up for this story is precise in its brevity, and exact in its delivery. There's zero dialogue and not a bit of the ponderous and meandering narration that afflicts many survival-type movies.

When Our Man suddenly awakens to find a gaping hole in the hull of his yacht caused by a stray cargo container that has lodged itself with his vessel, he doesn't panic; he handles the problem with a calm and collected confidence and efficiency. But in what is a dark portent of things to come, his dilemma doesn't end there as onrushing water from the hole manages to destroy his radio and all his electrical equipment. With each oncoming disaster and mounting calamity, Our Man resolutely draws on every ounce of know how and every tool he has at his disposal. A capable man who says very little throughout the film's runtime, his methodical resourcefulness sheds much about his character and displays a dignity that is tested but cannot be broken. There are no supernatural saviours or miraculous dramatic moments; all that Our Man can do is rely on blind luck, dogged determination, and the willingness to sacrifice everything for a chance at survival.

The most impressive thing that "All is Lost"  does is that, without you really noticing, the movie effortlessly conveys all that is happening and all that you need to know without any exposition whatsoever. The creativity and craft at work here is impressive and deceiving in its simplicity. We don't need an inner monologue to understand Our Man's fears and anxieties or feel his hopes being dashed and crushed. It's all right there on the screen for those paying enough attention. We become engrossed with the careful attention to the small facets and details of Our Man's attempts to avoid certain death. What would normally appear to be dull and mundane becomes fascinating. With his navigational equipment destroyed, we don't need to hear him explain to the audience what he's going to do next; we witness him pull out a sextant and watch him pore over a book of celestial navigation he happens to have and all is explained. Sounds simple enough but this movie does this time and time again and still succeeds at remaining engaging where others would become boring slogs. 

This accomplishment is made even more impressive with the fact that Chandor's first feature, 2011's "Margin Call", was an ensemble piece that almost exclusively relied on continuous dialogue and the complex interplay and conflict between all of the actors. This time, the conflict is entirely between one man and all the external and internal forces pitted against him. Piece by piece and little by little, Our Man is tested beyond belief. He faces intense dehydration, diminishing food supplies, unforgiving storms and unrelenting waves, and in the midst of it all, he just won't give up. Once we arrive at one of the movie's most heartbreaking moments, we realize how invested we have become in Our Man's predicament when his hopes are cruelly snatched away, and it's surprising how this connection just gradually sneaks up on you. It is a relationship between the viewer and the character that Chandor builds slowly and steadily until we are completely committed in the end. 

Verdict: Although not a special effects 3D bonanza, "All is Lost" is full of great visuals and creative action that would put other more high profile movies to shame. What at first glance seems to be a simplistic plot becomes so much more in the hands of a seasoned actor whose subtle and nuanced performance anchors this story and everything else easily falls into place. Simply a cinematic experience worth having. 

B+

Trailer:

Movie info:

Runtime: 106 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Cast: Robert Redford

Director: J.C. Chandor

Screenplay: J.C. Chandor

Cinematography: Frank G. DeMarco, Peter Zuccarini

Escape Plan Review

Starring two of the biggest action stars of the 80's and featuring a dated plotline from the 90's, Escape Plan arrived without much fanfare in a crowded October release schedule that was dominated by sci-fi thriller "Gravity". The clear antithesis to the high concept and ground-breaking Gravity, the pitch for Escape Plan is a pretty straightforward sell. Stallone. Schwarzenegger. Two legendary larger than life actors starring in the same film together for the first time (Schwarzenegger's brief cameos in the Expendables movies notwithstanding). Whether this pitch will find an audience willing to actually pay for a ticket is a completely different matter.

Stallone and Schwarzenegger had talked about starring in a movie together for decades without it coming to fruition but after the success (especially internationally) of the Expendables, they have finally brought the idea back to life. Stallone has achieved some mild success with the recent geriatric sequels of his two most popular and enduring franchises, Rambo and Rocky, and has managed to have a career resurgence of sorts in the past 7 years or so. Schwarzenegger himself has also recently embarked on a career revival after his foray into American politics, but his return has come with much less success. "The Last Stand", his earlier release this year, was a major disappointment and failed to attract much of an audience and it remains to be seen whether "Escape Plan" can escape a similar fate. Unfortunately, "The Last Stand" and "Escape Plan" both share the same problem: a poorly executed B-movie storyline starring ageing actors with starpower much diminished from what it was in their heyday. In fact, if in weren't for what is clearly a much larger budget, there would be very little to differentiate "Escape Plan" from dozens of other similarly themed action films you can find in bargain bins or in the deep dark recesses of Netflix. 

Ray Breslin (Stallone) is a man who specializes in escaping from any prison designed by man and offers his services to penal institutions seeking to improve their security. Highly successful and commanding a fee in the millions, Breslin is offered twice his rate by the CIA to infiltrate and attempt to escape a one of a kind state of the art prison designed to hold the world's most dangerous undesirables. But all is not what appears to be and he soon finds himself trapped, beaten, and tortured along with the other prisoners. And in what may be an unprecedented event, Schwarzenegger actually has some dialogue in his native tongue of German in this film and plays a character named Emil Rottmayer (instead of being assigned his usual hilariously generic-sounding American names such as Adam Gibson or John Kimble). Rottmayer, a prisoner with information that Warden Hobbes (Caviezel) is desperate to get his hands on, soon teams up with Breslin as they try to figure out how to escape from what, at first glances, seems to be the perfect prison. Wary and suspicious of each other initially, they both endure horrible abuse in a specially designed "hotbox" as well as routine beatings and threats from the warden. As the evil warden, Passion of the Christ's Jim Caviezel plays the big baddie that all action movies are required to have and his subtle approach is effective and a refreshing change from the kind of over the top villain you usually find in such a movie. Sam Neill also surprisingly pops up in a brief role as a prison doctor who struggles with the ethical dilemma of being involved in such a horrendous place. 

This film is an odd choice for Swedish director Mikael Hafstrom, who is perhaps most famous for directing the underrated Stephen King horror adaptation "1408", and horror dud "The Rite" (his 2003 Swedish film "Evil" definitely merits a recommendation however). Not much of Hafstrom's style or horror pedigree is evident here and the movie is best described as clean, precise and clinical in its approach. Everything done is very basic and straightforward; "Escape Plan" doesn't attempt anything new or interesting nor does it claim any ambitions to do so. And it subsequently follows all the old and worn action movie tropes: you have the good guys, the bad guy, the chief henchman...etc and you get to see plenty of the politically incorrect characters and gratuitous violence that are the signatures of both stars' films. Any character development is simplistic and very poorly tacked on although this film may ironically have some of the best (read: most bearable) acting of Schwarzenegger's career.

The strength of "Escape Plan" is in the concept but the execution really leaves you disappointed. The movie displays very little inventiveness and isn't as fun as it could have been nor as much fun as it thinks it is. However, it does have its share of campy moments and cheesy one liners that generates some laughs but one wishes the film-makers would have committed more fully to that style and avoided the pseudo-seriousness that also plagues Stallone's Expendables movies. Nothing really seems at stake and you know how it's all going to turn out in the end but that's part of the fun of these movies. They exist in a genre designed to be escapist and unrealistic in nature and in that respect, '"Escape Plan" may mildly entertain those seeking a simple diversion.

C

Trailer:

Movie info:

Runtime: 115 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Caviezel

Director: Mikael Hafstrom

Screenplay: Miles Chapman, Jason Keller

Cinematography: Brendan Galvin